Addresses, Public and Devotional; Including Dr. A. H. Smith's Centennial Survey, Bishop Moule's Centenary Sermon, REV. T.W. Pearce's Lecture on Robert Morrison, and Other Addresses Delivered in the Town Hall and at the Devotional Meetings in the Martyrs' M (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...of China, --but I can find no one who can speak with any confidence about the outlook for the future. If I ask my friends they shrug their shoulders and assure me it is impossible to forecast the future. There may be reaction, there may be a strong and general effort to check foreign influence; I have even been assured that within the next twenty years the position of the foreign missionaries in China may be practically untenable. One thing is patent to the dullest observer--an amazing change has taken place, and is taking place, which is little short of a silent yet sweeping revolution. I am myself conscious of the difference since I was last in China, twenty-four years ago. At that time education on Western lines was at a discount even among missionaries in China. Even in Hongkong under the British flag, I found the boys in the common schools memorizing the Trimetrical Classic in good old fashioned style. Such things as geography, history and other elementary branches of knowledge were still below the horizon of their vision. Our American friends were to the front then in their educational works here and in North China and in Canton. But among the missionary community generally there was a general disbelief in the idea of introducing Western education--not only so, but apparently the Chinese themselves despised it. How great is the contrast to-day many of you know better than I do. The change in regard to education is only one form of a change in many directions, which seems to point to a movement which is no mere modification of the old order but the evidence of a new spirit. This great race which has for so many centuries kept itself to itself, developing its own high civilization, cherishing its own high ethical standards of morality, wanting nothing fr..