CHARACTER OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS.

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CHAPTER XXIV.

CHARACTER AND EXPERIENCES OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS AND INQUIRERS.

Comparative Absence of pungent Convictions of Sin in Chinese Converts, and a Reason for it.-The Apathy of the Chinese with Respect to Death is removed by a Knowledge of Christianity.-Experience of Teacher Du.-Disadvantages and Compensations in the Condition of Chinese Christians. Their Simplicity of Faith.-Their Views of Prayer.-Going up into a Mountain to pray.- Mercenary Inquirers.—“Stonyground" Hearers.-Disappointed Expectations.-The Buddhist Devotee of Tsi-hia.-The Case of one who was almost persuaded to be a Christian.-Temptations and Defections of Church Members.-Differences and Estrangements among Christians.-Temptations overruled for Good.-Experience of two Native Preachers.-Difference of Views with Reference to the Admission of Inquirers to full Church Membership.-Cases of Discipline, and their comparative Frequency.-Trials and Temptations of Native Christians.-Eating Food offered to Idols.— Complicity with Idol Worship in other Ways.-Difficulties connected with the strict Observance of the Sabbath.-Experience of Deo-vu Ahn.—Standard of Sabbath Observance in our Out-stations.-The History and Character of Jun-Kao.

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WHILE the Spirit of God, operating in and through His Word, always produces the same general results, the religious life and experience of Christians in China are marked by some characteristic features which naturally grow out of their peculiar condition and circumstances.

One of these peculiarities which was often brought before my mind during seven years of pastoral supervision and frequent examinations of candidates for baptism, occasioned me for a time some solicitude and doubt. This was the general absence of those pungent convictions of sin which so frequently, though not necessarily, are connected with conversions in our own country. I have accounted for this fact

satisfactorily to my own mind in the following manner. The Chinese, when enlightened by God's Spirit and made acquainted with their true moral character and relations to God, do not feel that they are sinners to the same extent and degree as we do, simply because they are not. They sin in a great measure through ignorance; we against light and knowledge. When a person of mature years in Christian lands is convinced "of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment," and looks back over perhaps a score or two of wasted years, memory brings up with appalling distinctness, time after time, when he has stifled the warnings of conscience; steeled his heart against convictions of duty; done despite unto the Spirit of grace; turned a deaf ear to the invitations of a preached Gospel; and perhaps to a mother's prayers and pleadings and tears; and trampled under foot the blood of the Son of God. These facts, when practically apprehended and felt, present an array of guilt from which the awakened conscience may well start back with dread and apprehension. Not so with the heathen Chinese. They wonder at their stupidity in having worshiped as gods the workmanship of their own hands, and been blind to the evidences which their senses and their consciousness furnish of the presence and universal providence of an unseen God; but they say, and say truly, in the matter of religious worship, "I did as I was taught from infancy, and had no knowledge of the true God and the better way." They soon learn, however, the lesson of the sinfulness of their nature, and their weakness and imperfections; and their humble confessions of sin and remissness in duty and illdesert show that, when once they become Christians, their religious experience runs parallel with that of others.

That the peculiarity above mentioned is due to circumstances and education, rather than to any difference of race or mental constitution, is evident from the effect of religious knowledge and training upon the mental exercises and religious feelings of the people. Young men trained in Christian schools, who become Christians in after life, present the same

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phases of religious experience which are generally known among us. An intellectual knowledge of Christianity produces a thorough change in the religious feelings even of those who are unwilling to embrace it. I have known several illustrations of this fact, one of which I will mention. The person whom I first employed in Ningpo to teach my wife and myself the vernacular of that place was a pleasing and interesting man of the family name Du, between whom and us there sprang up a strong attachment. He expressed his belief in the truths of Christianity; always spoke of the Christian religion with great respect, and could hardly read the story of our Saviour's sufferings and death without showing deep feeling. He felt, however, that it was impracticable and impossible for one in his circumstances, and with his associations in life, to become a Christian. When he had been with us a little more than a year, I heard on my return from an itinerating tour that he was very ill. Going to his house, I met his son at the door-a bright, intelligent lad of about nineteen, an earnest student, and ambitious of literary preferment. He seemed more surprised than pleased to see me; and told me that his father was alarmingly ill, and was not himself; that his mind wandered, and he talked incoherently. Entering his room, I soon found that the evidences (to the son's mind) of mental aberration were, as I had inferred from his statement, of such a character as to give occasion for rejoicing rather than sorrow. Those lips from which I had learned that language, almost as dear to me as my mother-tongue, were speaking for the first time the "language of Canaan.” He said to me, "This disease generally proves fatal, and I feel that it will be so in my case. I have been a great sinner. I ought long ago to have obeyed the commands and taken up the cross of Christ. During the last three days, while my family, contrary to my wishes, have been chanting Buddhist prayers, burning incense, and worshiping idol gods and evil spirits, I have constantly been praying to Jesus; and last night Jesus heard my prayer and sent me an answer in peace. He

knows me, and I know Him." His conversation was perfectly rational, but his feelings were entirely unintelligible to his heathen family and friends. The Chinese generally view death with apathy and stoical indifference. It is not uncommon for old people to profess to desire and long for it; saying that life has no attractions, and that it is time for them to die. They expect to go to the land of spirits, and after a time to return to inhabit another body; and they simply resign themselves to their fate and take their chances. If they are filled with alarm, it is from the conviction that they are suffering the inflictions of demons or evil spirits. It was the knowledge of God, to whose character belongs the attribute of inflexible justice as well as infinite love, and the knowledge of the fixed and unending state of the redeemed and the lost, which gave rise in Du's mind to those new and strange exercises and anxieties, and to those importunate cries to "the only name given under heaven whereby we must be saved." I can not but hope that those cries and prayers were answered, and that from that room, filled with the symbols of idolatry and superstition, a soul went up to join the company of the redeemed around the throne of God. I offered to bear all the expenses of the funeral if the family would consent to have Du buried with Christian rites, but the offer was refused. I could mention several other persons who have been employed by foreigners as teachers, whose death-beds were marked with the same anxieties and forebodings, but not with the same hope.

The circumstances under which native Christians are placed in China are attended with peculiar trials and privations, and also with their compensations. They are in a great measure without a Christian literature, but, for this very rea son, give more attention to the study of the pure Word of God. Scattered among a heathen population, they are drawn closer to each other in Christian sympathy and love. The trials, opposition, and persecution to which they are subject, have the effect of keeping false professors out of the Church,

INTERESTING TRAITS.

383 and developing and strengthening the character of true believers.

Their lives are often marked by a beautiful unquestioning faith. There are few doubting Christians; they have not yet reached the point of skeptical misgivings. To them there seems little room for doubt. They have set before them in

bold contrast the reasonable, consistent, and soul-satisfying doctrines of Christianity, and the confused, baseless, and irreconcilable teachings of idolatry. They feel and know that they have passed from darkness to light; "Old things are passed away, and all things are become new."

Their prayers have often a practical and child-like simplicity. I have frequently heard them relate remarkable instances of deliverances, and providential interferences, and recovery from serious sickness and disease, in direct answer to prayer. I have hardly ever known a Chinese Christian who has manifested any indisposition or inability to take a part in social prayer-meetings. These peculiarities are principally due, it is to be hoped, to genuine piety and simple faith, but they may also result in part from their old habits and associations. They have all been accustomed to worship idols in the presence of others without shame or hesitation; and shall they be ashamed or backward, when they know it is their privilege to do so, to worship the true God? They have been accustomed to include in their petitions to false gods a great variety of matters connected with their every-day life, some of them comparatively trivial; and shall they not bring before their omniscient, loving Heavenly Father all their cares and sorrows, when they are encouraged and commanded to do so?

A beautiful instance of faith and earnestness in prayer occurred not long since in the province of Shantung. During a season of great suffering from drought, when the people were everywhere thronging the temples and praying to various deities for relief, a few native Christians who had but recently been received into the Church, and lived in the country at a considerable distance from their foreign teacher, met