MISSIONARIES IN CHINA.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—With reference to the letter of Mr. Shi-Chao Chang in your last issue on the work of Christian missionaries in China, I should like to call attention to the fact that the difficulty of comprehending the inner and the higher life of the Chinese is paralleled by the same difficulty in Japan and in India. Since 1900 missionaries in many parts of China, notably the larger ports, and in Peking, have enjoyed oppor- tunities of intercourse with educated Chinese and with officials previously unattainable. The result has unquestion- ably been a greatly improved understanding. In this effort the labours of the numerous organisations of the Y.M.C.A. have had, and are likely to have, an important part. Several influential Chinese have recently joined the Christian Church, such as Mr. Chang Po-ling, of Tientsin, an educator of great prominence and wide reputation, and Mr. Ou-Yang, a wealthy merchant of Honan, who has just given the sum of twenty thousand taels (ounces) of silver to help the Tientsin Y.M.C.A. to purchase new premises, though not at the time a Christian, although he has since become one. What China needs is not criticism but sympathy, and this the missionaries of all denominations are endeavouring to give. I may add that any one who will take the trouble to study the different Reports of the eight " Commissions" of the late Edinburgh Conference, founded exclusively upon information furnished
by missionaries from all parts of the Empire, will perceive that there was never such a comPebdium of authentic information about the religious life of the Chinese as now, and never such a general movement towards imparting to a great Oriental nation the beat which the West has itself received from Christianity.—I am, Sir, &c.,
7 Bruce Grove, Tottenham, N. ARTHUR H. SMITH.
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