Sept. 30.
Those who believe that the age of miracles has past are recommended to read the address given by the Rev. G. W. Gibb, the director-general of the China Inland Mission, at a valedictory meeting in London held for a number of workers returning to the mission feld in China. Mr. Gibb has only recently succeeded to the director~ generalship of the mission, but for some years before being appointed to the highest controlling position in the mission, he acted as China director. For' many' years before! that, he was actively engaged in the work of propagating the gospel in the interior, and his knowledge of the Chinese people, their customs, beliefs and superstitions, puts him in the rank of those' who are authorities upon developments. in this country, The China Inland Mission has a custom of convening valedictory meetings for candidates for mission work when they first leave the home countries, and those returning from furlough, and a feature of these meetings is usually that individual testimony of the! candidates on what inspired them to volunteer for a missionary field! which has little positively to re~ commend it from the point of view of the person who prefers an easy life, and has much to make it a dangerous adventure even to the most ardent lover of excitement. The China Inland Mission is probably unique among missionary organizations in that it does not rely upon funds in trust or in investments. Its members depend entirely upon voluntary contribu~ tions, which are not used to build up reserves but which are expended immediately for the purpose for which they were subscribed: that to say for the spreading of Christi-amity among the Chinese, Its mis sionaries live like the Chinese and face the rough and tumble of life in exactly the same way as the people they are here to. work: amongst. The simplicity of their boliefs—they are fundamentalists—may be a matter of wonder to dliatecticians, but the zeal with which they propagate them beyond dispute. The success which they have achieved among a people who seem to be chiefly inspired by material considerations is noteworthy, Mr. Gibb, in his address, dia not ila the pill, He yave 'a frank exposition of the difficulties. the veluming missionaries would have to face—the dangers from civil war, banditry, the Communists, and even the honour of martyrdom for the cause to which they had pledged themselves, During the past ten years, he said, there had been ten marlyrdoms among members of the mission, The ten years had, perhhaps, been among the most difieutt of the mission's existence. This statement is worthy of note, in view of the perilous and ghastly time the mission passed through during the Boxer uprising. 'Then, missionaries' lives were not worth the purchase. The Shansi massacres stil. live as a horrible memory, while the marvellous escapes of workers in the far interior of this country, as recounted in. various hooks, make reading as thrilling as anything the most imaginative: waller of fiction could have evolved.
But, according to Mr. Gibb, the Ta ten' years have, perhaps, bee worse. The pried includes the wave of anti-foreignism and anti-Christian. agitation which swept over the country with the arrival the Nationalist armies from Canton and which coincided with the domination of the Communists over the Nationalist.movement in this country. Churches were desecrated, used as stables and barracks by the troops moving northward, mission houses were looted, their' inhabit~ ants, where they remained, insulted and sometimes assaulted, and robbed of everything: they possessed, The: opponents of Christianity, in their diabolical inspiration from Moscow, even went to the ridiculous extreme. of printing and circulating anti-Christmas cards, so great was their hatred of a doctrine that preached goodwill and forbearance! There were hardly any extremes to which the more rabid elements among the advancing Nationalists were not prepared to go. With the stabilization of national affairs after the conquest of north China the situation somewhat eased. But there arose shortly afterwards the menace of Communism as opposed to the Central Government—a force over which the authorities could exercise no control and who deliberately "made the Govern ment's relations with—foreign Powers more difficult by molesting, and taking captive all foreigners, who happened to fall into their hands.
The menace still exists, in spite of the excellent work done by the Central Government troops under General Chiang Kai-shek in chasing the Reds out of Kiangsi, through Hunan and Kweichow, up part of Yunnan, and into Szechuen, Sikang, and Kansu. In these fatter parts of the country they are still 2 santee of anxiety to the Chinese Government and to the mission authorities who have many members distributed over the area being threatened. All this history, however, Is only the background for the miraculous happenings in the mission field during the last few years. Mr, Gibb's own recital what happened during the troubles of 1926 and 1927 can be quoted as am example. In the account of the valedictory meeting given by the London correspondent of the "North-China Daily News," which can be read in full on " another page, it is stated:
Mr. Gibb took as the theme of his address "The Faithfulness of God" in the provision of needs and help. He illustrated this by quoting_an incident which occurred on April 3, 1927, when they received instructions to withdraw all missionaries from the field, This meant a large expenditure of money and they had less than £50. They waited upon God and what happened. Two days afterwards they received a loiter that hadebeen written three weeks previously tolling them they were at liberty to use a sum of money that had formerly been given for the build ing of some premises in China. It was given by a missionary who had returned home and become quite wealthy and he placed that money at their disposal just at that time, They withdrew their mis sionaries and 200 elected to remain in their stations. The evoe tion cost a large sum. The money was always at hand, In the light of such an experience, who can say that the age of miracles is no more? And if the Yemarkable deliverances of Mr. A.
Hayman and Mr. R. A. Bosshardt from the hands of the Communists after nearly a year arid a halt of captivity in the most trying circumstances, and the many other tales of narrow escapes, oxtraord~ mary rescues—as in the ease of the Stam baby—are not enough to support the thesis that there are more things in this world than are dreamt of in the average Horatio's philosophy, then what more is there to be said?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.