Inaugural Session:
The Primacy of the Chinese Church: Making It "Great as Well as One"
At 3.15 p.m, on Tuesday Bishop Graves called the first meeting of the National Christian Conference to order by announcing the hymn, "All Hail the power of Jesus' Name." There were over 1,000 delegates present and after a somewhat ragged first verse, the singing was most inspire ing, led by Mr. Tewkesbury at the piano, Mr. Yen conducted. The Rev. C. Y. Ch'eng, v.v., led in prayer, Bishop Graves, speaking in English, which was translated sentence by sentence into Mandarin, had been entrusted by the comreittee of arrangements (of which he has been chairman) with the pleasant duty of welcoming the delegate.
After a warm word of comment dation for the hard work done by his colleagues on the committee, he referred to the fact that this is the first conference for all China in which delegates of the Chinese Church were present. Reference was made to the marked _differences which were so manifest it such an audience—differences of nationality and denomination, but all welded into one by the one aim of bringing China to Christ.
Bishop Graves was followed by the Rev. Z. T. Kaung, the vice-chairman of the meeting, who spoke—somewhat too rapidly for such a large building—in Mandarin. The dominant note of this address was the Chinese Church. The thanks to: the Western missionaries were given from a full heart and the rejoicing was great that the result of the work was a Chinese church. In the plainest language the claim was made that the Chinese Church must be the Church of the Chinese people and in equally plain language it was shown that no such thought as that the Western workers should now cease their work was implied. The help of the Western delegates was needed and the delegates were welcomed to the work of making the Church great as well as one. Mr. Karng himself read from his own manusoripp a resume of his very eloquent Chinese address, Mr. ©. F. Hsu, Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, gave a message of welcome to the delegates on behalf of the Tuchun of Nanking and of himself. Although not himself a Christian, he had studio ed in a Christian school. From his school days for some 30 years, Mr. Hsu had been in the Foreign Office and had had much intercourse with foreign friends. The speaker paid a tribute to the way in which the Christian movement had surmounted the difficulties of the past. He congratulated the men of to-day that many of these difficulties no longer existed; and remarked that the time had come to acknowledge the Christian Church as not a "foreign'' institution, but one that was really world-wide. 3
U. S. Consut-Generat's WELCOME.
Mr. E. S. Cunningham, welcome ing the delegates on behalf of the foreign' consulates in- Shanghai whose countries are represented in the Protestant mission field, said that the gathering was ' noteworthy because it represented Christianity m the sense of the brotherhood of man. The brother-+ hood of man transcended national and geographical limitations. In the Christiaz: church, passports for the moment should be locked up. Missionary work in China had been a success. The missionary did a great work in bringing together divergent civilizations which have been separated in the past by superstition and distrust, and the physical inability of different peoples who commune with one another.
The missionary through his conscientious work, his knowledge of the language and his sympathies for the people, was able to secure the confidence of his people, and to have a keen sense of their aspirations. The missionary had been a great! success. His work in Chita had not been an easy task, but through constant perseverance, sacrifice and_strict adherence to the highest ideals, he had succeeded beyond the dreams of the early pioneers, who sowed in China what they to-day were reaping.
"China trusts the missionaries," said Mr. Cunningham," as_ they trust no other foreigners because they come here rather to give than to take away."
There was another quality of the missionary which was sometimes lost sight of, but which was extremely important. That was that he is, in the minds of those with whom he works, the representative of the Western world and, as such, to those not familiar with other parts of the world than China, he was the standard by which the materi he represented was recogniz-
It. therefore behaved him so to live that his personal life would be an inspiration to the community which he was and would reflect credit upon the civilization which he exemplified. That the foreiga missionaries had done this in China was certain, because of the influence that they enjoyed in the country.
The foreign missionary brought to China, apart from spiritual education, general education. He devoted much of his energies to philanthropy.
Missionaries had established preparatory schools, middle schools, colleges and universities- These were turning out annually a large number of graduates whose influence in China would be for good., The conference was epoch-making. It closed the period of sowing and transferred much of the missionary work to those who had been carefully nurtured by the faithful of other lands. It marked the reaping, the gathering of the harvest, the acknowledgement of success. This responsibility of winning China to Christ now rested upon those Christian converts who composed the Christian Church in China. It was understood that the Chinese organizations were to accept this responsibility. That spoke volumes for them. It meant that they were to assume not only the executive management of many important missionary undertakings. but also that they were to contribute to the support of these organizations m @ manner which would relieve those of other parts of the world to a very great extent.
"Mr. Cunningham said in conclusion that he wished the conference the greatest success. Their deliberations would be marked with a sense of the great work they were doing. The Gospel, would lead them to see the truth that, not creeds and denominations are be continued, but the souls of men and women were to be elevated, and the Spiritual life of a great country preserved.
Mr. C. C. Nich, Chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, speaking in Chinese, welcomed the conference on behalf of the Chinese community. Mr. Nieh spoke with the authentic note of a Christ-lan.
After singing the hymn, "Oh God our help in ages past," the Rev. A. N. Rowland extended a welcome on behalf of the foreign com-
The Rev. T. E. Shen, speaking at first in English (and explaining that his dialect was a local speech that was a cross between that of Ningpo and Shanghai), welcomed the delegates on behalf of the Chinese churches of Shanghai.
The message included a letter from Dr. W. W. Yen, the Foreign Secretary and from Gen. Feng Yiihsiang, who asked the conference tv emphasize four points: (1) to send more preachers to Shensi (2) the need of schools of industry for the youth of the Church, so as to provide a means of independence for themselves, and a source of self-support for the Church (3) the need of true spiritual power in the Church and its activities and (4) the need of some united action by the whole of the Church in China.
A cable of greeting from the conference to secretaries of the missionary societies of Great Britain and Ireland was read.
The meeting closed with the singing of "The Church's One Foundation" and the benediction by Dr. Ch'en Wei-ping.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.