Let us rise to a higher region, to the life of the mind, to intellectual life. Is that equally abundant? In trying to decide ibis question we have to remember, that it is very difficult to compare things so different. We have also to remember that the higher we rise in the world of life, the greater difficulty is there in developing it and bringing it to a high level of perfection. We cannot expect the greatest genius to have great thoughts as freely as the codfish lays eggs. Mental life is a much more complicated thing than physical life. It is subject to greater dangers and to more irreparable injury. Most animals are physically perfect, human minds are not. But still, in spite of all that the superior people say, God has ordained that the mental life of man shall show a marvellous energy and ability. It is common to run down the average man. That is entirely wrong. It is wonderful how high the mental ability of the race keeps up, even in conditions that one would think would damp out all mental energy. Take the case of savages. Missionaries have gone to them, preached the Gospel to them, and opened schools for them and for their children.
You might naturally think that, with generations of ignorance and debasing superstitions behind them, they would be utterly unable to take in the truths of the Gospel, and that their children would find the utmost difficulty in learning, and that it would take generations for them to be able to learn to read and figure. But I have never heard that it is so. They seem to take to learning almost as well as white children, The mind of these races has retained its vitality in spite of all the handicaps of savagery. One wonders what becomes of the docts rine of heredity. I have read a' volume of pulpit illustrations used by a Samoan Christian pastor that, would be an improvement to any sermons Ihave ever heard of preached. Yet this man's father was a cannibal. O, how God has gifted our race! Man seems to try to ruin his, but cannot. Take this country of China. There is the Chinese "'small-boy." What a bright little chap he is! When I first came out, a leading Shanghai merchant said to me, "The small-boy runs this empire." It sometimes looks as if the bricklayers just watched the small-boy lay the bricks. Certainly, if the small-boy were to run this country, it could not be much worse run than it is by his elders. Think, that in all these mission schools in China, there must be children who come of families in which there has hardly been a reading ancestor. Yet there seems no difficulty in teaching these children. Truly, "the spirit of man is the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.