May.
Tue May issue of the "Chinese Recorder" contains a paper _read by the Rev. R. H. Graves, M.D., D.D., before the Canton Missionary Conference on "The Missionary as a Citizen and as an Ambassador of God." It is a very clear, cogent, conimon-sense statement of the double status of the missionary in China, who is, as Dr. Graves points out, "a citizen with his rights, as well as an ambassador who beseeches men to be reconciled to God." It is well worth reading by laymen in China as well as by those for whose consideration it is more special intended, who, " themselves mission aries, have taken the ground chat no notice should be taken of" the recent "atrocities either by way of punishment of the criminals or claims for the loss of property." God, Dr. Graves explains, acts in government as well as in grace. He is a just sovereign as well as a loving Father. "Man without his bony frame would bea mere mollusk, so men by weakly dwelling only on the fatherhood of God pull Him down from His just and awful throne as Ruler of the universes." So the missionary besides being a priest of God is a citizen of his native land, and if he has rights and immunities has also duties and responsibilities. His Government makes him register his name at his consulate and take out a passport. "While on the one hand the missionary has no exceptional rights and privileges above those of any other citizen, on the other, the fact that he is a missionary does not deprive him of any right or privilege that any other citizen may enjoy. Exceptional privileges may be given to either class of citizens by treaty only. A merchant has the same right to travel that a missionary has, and a missionary has no more right to trade and make money outside an opel port in China than a merchant has. This is a thoroughly common-sense view of the status of the missionary, and a view that must commend itself to the statesmen of a country like China where religious tolerance exists to the fullest extent.
"Since our Governments have undertaken to give us treaty rights," says Dr. Graves, "and to promise us refection, it is for them to say what penalty they will require from those who violate these treaties But we must remember several things. Furst, that Governments are always responsible for the lawless acts of their subjects. Then in China society is organised with the clan and not the individual as the unit. Very little lawlessness occurs without the permission or connivance of the elders and gentry of theclan. Again, these leaders of the people usually take their cue from the officials.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.