After sending out the May and June issues of the "Chinese Recorder" together, the editor succoeded in getting the July number out. a few days before the end of the month. He hopes that the August number will appear up to time now that more normal conditions prevail Kann the printing trade.
"The contents are of varied interest and varied worth, and the editor once again leaves us guessing what the policy of the magazine is. It is hard, for instance, to understand why a very scrappy article on "Labour Unions Canton" is included in "Journal of the Christian Movement in China."
An article on the "Building of a Rural Church" gives a very good summary of the principles which have been found essential in the development of churches in the rural districts in the United States. There is a bad error in the bibliography at the end of the article, for the title of Mr, Hsu's b.oklet is entirely omitted. We commend to those Christian leaders who are agitating for the handing over of grants sent by the Mission Boards of the West to the Chinese Churches, the very sabe conclusion which States, subsidy. from a Central Fund "may be given with various suitable conditions attached to it, and if the local: church does not wish to fulfil these limitations, it need not accept the grant." Surely the same rule should apply to all monies sent from the West to Chinese Churches for the reason given in the States:—"The central organization hes the final authority over its funds" With much that the article says about the failure of the Church to understand the needs of those who dwell in the villages we can agree, but one doubts when ther men like John Fredric Oberlin will be found in sufficient numbers either in the States or in China to make the programme outlined in the article feasible.
Space does not allow one even to summarize the information given about the effect of the progress of the Nationalist movement on Christian Colleges, but the facts given amply justify the strictures on the Nationalist Government recently made in the columns of the "North-
China Daily News" by Mr. Frederick Moore. A more hopeless ly short-sighted policy than that of' closing down important educational institutions just because they are pot being run by Chinese it would he difficult to conceive. And it somewhat amazing to find the editor referring to these lawless - attacks on missionary institutions very natural and inevitable disorganization, sometimes through students, sometimes through memo bers of the faculty, and sometimes through labour agitators and demands." When che penned that sentence the editor had surely forgotten the -tragic story which he includes elsewhere in this number of the "Chinese Recorder" of the closing down of the I Fang School at Changsha. In that.article one reads that "a school like I Fang appears to" have no place in the educational system of the National lats;" that "the" Hunan Students'
close a school with such a dangerous Union the Government to Principal," the danger lying in the facts that her forbears had served the Manchus, that she had been educated in England and that she was a Christian. Surely the phrases used in this article such-as "persecution" and "violence" are better than the editorial national and inevitable disorganization.' is certain that if the editor would of his magazine that the Nationalist Government is the foe of Christian education to have its proper weight in his mind, he would alter the tone of his articles.
The editorial pages are headed "Signals flashing through the For and after reading these pages with the utmost openness of mind tone comes to the conclusion that} the fog is very dense and that signals are very few. Without any wish to indulge in carping criticism one can commend the opening sentences to nautical readers as a gem of thought. "The China Christian ship is sailing through its rigging and porthol Tt is difficult to see why there should be a fog if there is a big blow, or why the portholes were not closed when the wind began to whistle, The editor must forgive the xeviewer if he cannot follow him as he deals with what he terms two dense fog-banks." The first is whether a Ohinese Christian should follow "Communistic" or "Kuomintang" principles, -and he escapes from this dilemma by saying that space and time do not permit him to deal with it. The matter can be decided for him in one sentence. A Christian, whether Chinese or foreign, cannot be a Communist of the Moscow type, because the Moscow type of Communist ie an atheist. The second is the question whether 'a mission as a body or a missionary fas an individual ought to claim indemnities. One really had no idea that the question of indemnities had yet been discussed, though the editor says that "its chilling eomplexity is felt by the Boards, the missionaries and the Chinese Christians." The Boards may be left to they will probably not pay much attention to what the "Chinese Recorder" thinks. The Chinese Christians have nothing to do with the matter in so far as the property of individual missionaries is concerned and really little' to do with it as far as mission properties are concerned. The majority of the Chinese Christians in the places where mission property has been lost threw in their allegiance with the Nationalist movement, and if the movement has worked out to the detriment of the church they must accept the inevitable, and carry on the work of the Church without the excellent plant which the Christians in the imperialistic lands have provided in days gone by. But one can see neither sense nor reason in the statement that many Chinese Christians have lost their all and "this makes their awareness of the fog-bank very keen." As far as your jewer can understand that cryptic remark, it means that since a Chinese Christian has lost his all because of a movement with which he agreed, therefore a foreign missionary who did not agree with the movement because-he saw its inevitable trend must not make any claim for compensation for his losses. This.is strange logic.
The mumber as a whole is very one-sided and full of unbalanced Judgments. It has been produced under somewhat abnormal conditions and mast be criticized lenient ly, but one cannot refrain from: ing that there was no need to include the three-pictures of "Workers in revolt" opposite page 429 and include them again wrong way ut opposite page 4511
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.