(By the " Mail" Special Commissioner.)
"And what do you think of our Hull today?" asked the Special Commissioner of the "Mail" of the Rev. C. E. Darwent, M.A., the one-time minister of the old Congregational Church in Fish-street. "You find it vastly changed?"
"Changed!" exclaimed Mr. Darwent. "That is a very mild term. Say completely transformed. I had been for al-rerations; having had sundry postcards sent to me in Shanghai, but I never expected to seo such a remarkable metamorphosis as met my eyo when I came' out of Paragon station, T felt inclined to seize hold of my friend Townsley's coat-tails to prevent myself from getting lost. It seemed almost incredible that I could be in Hull."
"When did you go away?"
"T left Hull in 1898, in December. I never thought that the doing away with the old Fish-street Church was to be the forerunner of such a sweeping rearrange-meet of the streets I knew so well. When I left, the plans for leaving the old church were all made; indeed the foundation-stones of the new Memorial Church bad been laid. The development in the city has been as-rounding. I felt like a blind man being led by a dog as I walked through the streets and tried to locate houses and shops. I could not have believed that any town could have had the enterprise or the time in five years to make plans and to execute them, and to got the new streets to look as if they had been there all the time. They have quite a comfortable and settled down' sort look. I shall have something to tell Pople when I get back to China."
Mow they speak of Hull.
"Why, who talks of Hull in China?"
"Now and again I come across people who know Hull—ship captains, and such like. Often enough I have listened to their disparagements of Hull as a sleepy old town, without a spark of enterprise. Now I can tell any such tnat the Hull they knew of old has passed away, and that there has risen up in its place a city worthy to be counted among the really great and beautiful cities of England. Its emergence from the old state has been as marked as that of Sheffield, which I knew many years ago as a wilderness. I shall tell people in Shanghai who knew Hull years ago that w is worth while making a special journey so that they may correct their impression "Let us fly from Hull to Shanghai," said the writer. "Tell me something of your Shanghai life.""
"Well," said Mr. Darwent, "you must understand first of all that I am not engaged in missionary work. I am in charge of a church called the Union Church."
"Why 'Union'?
"Because it is not a denominational church. It is a Nonconformist church, made up of a great many different denominations—Congregationalists, Baptists, Methoaists of almost every kind, English, Canadian, and. American, Presbyterians, German Lutherans, and some Scandinavians.""
"Which denomination predominates?"
"The Presbyterians, certainly," replied Mr. Darwent, "for Shanghai somehow or other has been very largely colonized by Scotch people."
"You must have to preach a very broad Christianity, then?"
What is needed of the Church.
"We are all agreed as to fundamentals and matters of church policy we never touch. In regard to the Bible, I hat nothing to do with the Higher Criticism. We take it as it is, and a proof of the inspire tion of it we find in the fact that it inspires. I think this principle applies to preaching in England as well as to my church in Shanghai—that people don't want theorist in the pulpit. They want something is applicable to modern human life, which will teach, inspire, and elevate. Logical straw is not the kind of food to put before them. Logical and critical questions, if they are to be discussed at all, should be dealt with in the class. "I find in my church that I must adapt myself to the needs and the peculiarities of the people, and so I have to do more than pray for the King. It must be for all rulers,' in view of the varied nationalities of my people. We have a membership of 200."
"And as to Shanghai itself—what avent its people? In what proportion do the British stand to the general population?"
"Shanghai has a population of some 400,000, and out of that number something, like 3,000 are British born; there will be another 1,100 British subjects, but not British born. There are about 800 Uermans, 500 Americans, a good number of Seyndinavians, and some Tiaians." streets of Shanghai will see but fow English "Then anyone walking through the
people, for instance,"
Life in Shanghai.
"An Englishman might walk through Shanghai and find'no one in the streets of whom he could ask a question. The Britishers, the men, are all engaged in busi ness pursuits, and the women and children are at home. Yet the streets are alwi crowded with foot passengers, and very pi turesque ther look in their native costumes. All is life and motion. All the carrying is done by the men. It seams strange at first to seo the men doing what we at hom: would call the donkey work.' Th is a qu sight, these carriers pulling with might a main at carts which ought to have hors harnessed to them. Shanghai has got' a bad name somehow. The Duke of Somerset called it a sink of iniquity, and the name nas stuck. But I don't know that it's such a bad plac for an Englishman—morally. after all. In Shanghai everybody knows everybody else—thut is, of course, amoy the foreigners, and I should say it is less easy to go wrong than where a man is not known. If men come to Shanghai, rad go wrong, they are the men who would Lave gone wrong, most likely, if they had stayed zt home."
And as to your climate?"
On the whole I say it is splendid. Cne-third of the year it is tropically hot, and the other two-thirds temperate. Four months of the year the climate is like that of Italy. In the winter it is severg—often enough from ten to fifteen degrees of frost. There is a curious thing about our winters, though. Severe though the frosts are, freezing the ground so that it is like iron for several months, we never get any skating. The sun shines brilliantly all the day tong, so that the water gets no chanco of remaining frozen. I am very proud of Shanghai," added Mr. Darwent, "and I think it isa thousand pities the British Government never took it up when they had the chance, One can see now what a splendid thing it would have been for British trade if the Government had only done what Gordon wanted them to do. What a position we should have been in now!"
Mr. Darwent, has brought home with him a portfolio full of water-colour drawings of Chinese and Japanese landscape executed by himself. A glance at the many and varied (to say nothing about the admirably done) pictures gives an excellent idea of the characteristics of Shanghai architecturally, as well as of the country from the point of view of landscape. Painting in water-colour in Shanghai, Mr. Darwent remarks, is very dificult owing to the excessive heat, and another drawback to the execution of an entirely satisfactory picture is absence of shadows, owing to the perpendicularity of the sun. The writer remarked upon. the peculiar construction of the Chinese bridges. "The fact is," said Mr. Darwent, "with all his ingenuity, the idea of the keystone hus never occarréd to the Chinaman. When they build the arch of " bridge all the segments must Be cut into perfect shape, so that they may fit, and keep together."
Mr. Darwent, it may be added, hai a six months' holiday from China—threo months of which he will spend in England.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.