It I were sitting on that old bridge this morning—you may be sure that it is still there of more or less haphazard because it belongs to China—and Thad core precisely during the last 12 months what T had. done then, £ wonder what veal changes I should ce, One cannot cross this rear country entirely—un-observer:, of course. Even in those ays out felt causes at and today the apparently quite dangerous effects <£ some of those causes are flaunted afore the face of the foreign:. But we are too near ese to adjudge, much less re, what is passing. A jand of mine said to me a day er two ago that it would not be until all the last generation has passed that we would be able to Login ts perceive the effects of the changes that are undoubtedly coming yon this people very vapidly; all T fancy he is right.
If the reader can imagine him: self with some gigantic eye of sight, aod were able to sit Shangta: and, in one wide faroutstre: cising sweep could penetrate all over she face of China at one and tke same time, he would be in a position to offer an opinion worth Eaving. China is so vast that wile you tell the truth about sou lie about another, sequently generalization is But it is safe to say that we have begun to see, no matter how dimly, in places' far away fom the fringes of places "Tike Skarghai and the other treaty ports were foreign influence has made ize mark, deep causes steadily ar work. By the incoming of the Occidental to China—and in inland China too, for every phase of xe is traceable to the machinery of foreign influence—a ation is being wrought.
mnsformation is not the gradual evolutics things 6a: in biti growth of a natural che result of a propulsion It is a condition of by: artificial means, conflict with inherent inherited traditions, innate characteristics and genius. racial and individual. - If we took 50 Chinese to-day from 50 different parts of China, and were -t> ask them their truthful opinion (and, what is. more important, if they would give you their truthful opinion, which they would not, being Chinese dealing with foreigners), and these men to be all over 50 years of age, what would they say? Would. they give their opinion that these changes that bubble up all over the face of China are for China's good, or that old custom, the ticking out through the centuries of the legend of age and enduring things, is better? "I think unquestionably' the latter. These men of the old school would say that the in the habits of life infinitely old are working nothing and ruining: much. To them all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man.
Then take 50 young men from the same places, and treat them similarly. "Well, we all know that. they would think that the changes: are all for the better. Their optimism, as always in youth, would shine out, and they would all tell the same story that China is growing out of her senility and being rejuvenated, and that they' were the ones who are going to rejuvenate her—but they know not what they say. Nonetheless, in the course of nature these young men will some day stand Where! their older confreres are now, and it is to them alone that we must jok for whatever is to take place in China, 'Their responsibility is infinitely' greater than that of their forefathers, though possibly linked with greater opportunity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.