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October 25, 1911 ] T H E I
THE POWER AND PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY
AMONG THE CHINESE.
REV. P. FRANK PRICE, D. D., NANKIN, CHINA.
Our Lord in two of his matchless parables tells
us how the kingdom of God is to spread throughout
the world. It is, he says, to grow from small
beginnings as the tiny mustard seed expands into
a large and beneficient tree, and it is to influence
society just as a little leaven leavens the whole
mass. This has always been the history of the
kingdom of heaven. "Wherever the gospel has
been preached, it has had both growth and influence,
or, in other words, increase within and influence
without. It is the purpose of this paper
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progress of Christianity in the great mission
j|| fields in China at the present time.
But in order to understand and measure the
power and progress of Protestant Christianity in
China during the past century, it is needful to
keep in mind three things; first, the bigness of
the undertaking; second, the smallness of the
force at work; and, third, the camparative shortness
of the time. Think of trying to move and
transform a mass of humanity composed of four
hundred and thirty-eight million units! Think
of this great people whose history reaches back
"to the time when the world was young." Think
of their deep-rooted customs, their triple-plated
superstitious. And this ancient people, being
homogenious, are bound together in superstition
and in belief of false gods. Not only are they
ignorant of what is true in spiritual things, but
their minds have for countless generations been
filled with the erroneous and the false. It is
not alone a mass of humanity with which you
must deal in China, but a solid, coherent apparently
immovable mass.?Humanly speaking, it is
impossible for the Chinese people to change from
the customs and traditions of four thousand
years. With us the unit is the individual. With
them the unit is not the individual but the family
and the community. The individual is a
mere cipher. Now the first demand that Christianity
makes is, that a man must assert his individuality.
He must stand apart from the majority
of his own people and claim the right
of conscience and private judgment. He can no
longer accept dictation in matters of conscience
but must if need be, endure ostracism and persecution,
casting in his lot with what is branded
an alien religion. Moreover the Chinese are to
themselves sufficient. As has been said: "They
have solved their own problems; observed their
own heaven and earth; made their own books;
thought out their own government; ordained
their own worship; reared and listened to their
own teachers; conquered all of their'neighbors
save Japan; not knowing or caring that there
were other governments and peoples and books
and truth outside their own mountains and
seas." On the human side it is a hopeless task to
move, much less transform, this great mass of
unsaved humanity.
Then too, the force at work is small. Count
ing missionaries and all native workers, there
is only one herald of the cross to some tens of
thousands. Counting all classes of missionaries,
men and women, there is only one to one hundred
thousand. Of ordained missionaries there is
only one to four hundred thousand. This
would make only two hundred and twentyfive
to a population equal to that of the whole
united states, mere is dui one unristian
School to 130,000 of population, and one missionary
physician to 1,200,000. Alas, what are
these among so many t
Then too, the time has been short. It was
103 years ago that Robert Morrison began his
hard and lonely task. For 35 years missionaries
'RESBYTERIAN OF THE 80
were coil fined within five border cities. And it
was only ubout 63 years ago that the way was
opened for them to go beyond these border
cities to the great interior of the Chinese Empire.
Now 63 years is a short time in God's
calendar. It took 300 years to partially Christianize
the Roman Empire and that was just
after the Apostolic era. Christianity has been
influencing the Anglo-Saxon people for something
over 1,500 years, and not everybody is converted
yet. Yet in the oldest and most populous
mission field that the world has ever known
Protestant Christianity has been in effective op
oration for only about 60 years. It is 4,000 years
of heathenism against six decades of a partial
proclamation of the Christian religion. Even
God takes time to do His work.
SPRINKLING.
BY REV. B. F. BEDINGER.
VI.
"But Christ was immersed and we ought to
follow him," my friend persisted. "Why should
John baptize him in a different way from all the
rest who came to him?" 1 asked. "The record
says "he went up straightway out of the water"
and Dr. Broaddus says in his tract on
baptism that John "introduced a 'novel rite'
among the Jews." This admits, as all must,
there were no immersions in the Jewish ritual.
How did that great and holy scholar know it was
a new thing John was introducing among the
Jews? There is not a syllable of explanation
given, nor of protest from them, that he did
things "contrary to Moses!" Is that conceivable?
Would they have so universally submitted
to it without "a sign from heaven" to show
his right to alter God's ordinance?the right of
purification? But "John did no miracle,"
John 19:41. He claimed no such right nor that
he was doing anything unusual. Dr. Broaddus
made his argument in this place solely from the
meaning of the word in the old heathen classics.
Read his commentary on Matthew and you find
he makes no argument from the preposition
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to make that mistake. But he did follow all
other immersionists in first going out of the Bible
to get a meaning for the word rather than taking
its Bible meaning?the meaning as shown by the
use the writers of the New Testament make of
it. But let us follow then a moment outside of
the Book. All the lexicons we have ever seen
(some fifteen or more) give "to plunge or sink"
as one of its meanings, but they also give the
words, "to wash." "to tinge," "to dye," "to
cleanse" as among its evident meanings in the
places cited from the classic writers. Thus, a
shin was said to he hantized when, overwhelmed
with waves, it sank to rise no more. A shore was
baptized with the tide coming up over it. But
not one place has ever been shown where it
necessarily meant to put into and take out again.
On the other hand there are some instances of its
use where it could not possibly have meant immerse
or plunge or sink. Thus Homer in a description
of a battle between "Frogs and Mice"
says of a wounded mouse:?'' He, breathless,
fell and the lake was baptized with his blood."
Of course the lake was not immersed in the blood
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tinged or stained with it. All must agree the
word baptize did not mean immerse in that place.
Hut to return. Our contention is we must decide
what the word means in the Hible by its use
there. "We must not adopt any conclusion thai
plainly contradicts other parts of the Word of
God (since truth is always consistent with itself).
As we are not told how John baptized Jesus we
must find out by a careful study of all the cir
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cumstances attending it. Certainly it is plain
lhat going into the water and eoming out of it
does not necessarily mean going under it. "But
vliy should he go into the water if it was to be
sprinkled upon him?" Certainly all must admit
it was not necessary, unless John was in a boat,
or on a rock out in the water. On one occasion
the Lord Jesus (Luke 5:13) was so crowded that
he got into a boat and "thrust out a little frnm
the land," so that many more of the multitude
could see and hear him as he taught. John was
teaching and preaching near the river because
the law required "running water" to be sprinkled
upon the penitent. What more natural than
that he should so place himself (in a boat or on a
rock) that his audience could hear and see better,
and so he could easily reach the water with
the hyssop branch to sprinkle upon the successive
groups, or individuals, that came confessing
their sins? Wearing the loose robe that came
only to the knees and being without shoes they
wouldn't mind stepping into the water any more
than a barefooted boy. Who has not seen a boy
disdain the foot-log, or bridge, and wade the
stream because it was pleasant to his hot dusty
feet? The supposition violates no truth, contradicts
no other Scripture, but is a natural consistent
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be sprinkled by John. That he went in to be immersed
does not contradict all the law God gave
the Jews and the usage of fifteen hundred years.
Tt is simply inconceivable that it should have
been so. Jesus was baptized by sprinkling.
SOME SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS.
*' 1c arc my witnesses."
It was not by eloquent words, nor by much
teaching that my mother convinced me of the
beauty of holiness,?it was by the eloquence of
her simple, earnest, happy life of service, and she
*' being dead yet speaketh.''
It siione in her happy face, it drew people to
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cool. Nobody could doubt that she was a Christian,
and a happy Christian at that. She could
speak when occasion offered, but always she lived
her religion, and she "being dead yet speaketh."
A religion of cheerful service and of willing
self-sacrifice recommends itself.
Those who have not yet obeyed Christ's command:
"Follow Me," if they think about this
matter of personal religion at all, watch the lives
of those who profess to be Christians,?and far
more closely than the watched suspect.
That is quite natural. No good business man
makes an investment without finding out from
those about him how it pays, and the man or
woman who begins to feel the need of trup hanni
ness, looks at those who have invested in the
Great Bank of Heaven, to see what dividends it
yields in their lives.
Oh, fellow Christians,?His witnesses,?we are
watched! Let us see to it that we testify as becomes
His followers.
It is for us, as his witnesses to prove that of all
the investments for happiness in this world, nothing
yields such sure dividends as the simple life
of loving obedience and service.
THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER.
The permission to pray to God at all times is
the greatest honor ever conferred on a human be
ing, because it is a part of that great love which
gave His only begotten Son to die for us. Do
we realize this? If we do how boldly, but with
what reverence and godly fear we come,?confident
that he means what he says, "Casting not
away our confidence which hath great recompense
of reward," yet having need of patience that
after we have done the will of God we might receive
the promise." 0. D.