The local difficulties do not appear to be serious. An English Baptist missionary frankly stated in an open conference of missionaries of various boards in Chefoo, that his mission, with the full knowledge of the home society, took the position that the Chinese Christians are not yet fit for congregational government, being, as a rule, comparatively ignorant farmers just out of heathenism; that it had been found necessary to select the best men in a local church and give them powers which, for all practical purposes, constituted them a session, and that the native church as a whole was being more and more directed by a body consisting of representatives from such sessions. An American Board missionary told me substantially the same thing regarding the churches of his mission. We should not infer too much from such admissions. Both Baptists and Congregationalists are loyally attached to their independent policy. Both referred, of course, to the temporary adaptions necessary in the present stage of mission work.

As for Presbyterians, their Board's Committee on Policy and Methods declared, March 6, 1899:--

''It is inexpedient to give formal organization to churches and Presbyteries after American models unless there is manifest need therefor, and such forms are shown to be best adapted to the people and circumstances.

In general, the ends of the work will be best attained by simple and flexible organizations adapted to the characteristic and real needs of the people and designed to develop and utilize spiritual power rather than merely or primarily to secure proper ecclesiastical procedure.''

As a matter of fact, neither the representative nor the independent forms of church government are yet in unmodified operation on any mission fields, except perhaps in Japan, for the simple reason that the typical foreign missionary has thus far necessarily exercised the functions of a superintendent or bishop of the native churches. Undoubtedly, however, the Asiatic churches are being educated to expect self-government as soon as they are competent to exercise it.

Doctrinal differences may present greater difficulties. And yet there is a remarkable unanimity of teaching among the missionaries of the various denominations in China. However widely they may differ among themselves, nearly all agree in preaching to the Chinese the great central truths of Christianity so that most of the native Christians know little of the sectarian distinctions that are so well-understood in America. Such differences as are necessary in China might be provided for by recognizing the liberty of the local church and the individual believer to hold whichever phase of the truth might be preferred.

The China Inland Mission has shown that this plan is feasible. It is composed of missionaries of all Protestant denominations, but they work in harmony and build up a Chinese church by recognizing the right of brethren to differ in the same organization.

Doubtless isolated cases of embarrassment would occur, but they would be insignificant in comparison with the embarrassments inherent in sectarian divisions. Denominational uniformity is bought at bitter cost when it separates Christians into rival camps. Unity in essentials and liberty in non-essentials are far better than a slavery to non-essentials which destroys that oneness of believers for which our Lord prayed.

In the presence of a vast heathen population, let Christians at least remember that their points of disagreement are less vital than their points of agreement, that Christianity should, as far as possible, present a solid front, and let them devoutly join the Conference of Protestant missionaries in Japan in the ringing proclamation:--''That all those who are one with Christ by faith are one body, and that all who love the Lord Jesus and His Church in sincerity and truth should pray and labour for the full realization of such a corporate oneness as the Master Himself prayed for in the night in which He was betrayed.''

It is true that an advanced position on comity sometimes operates to the disadvantage of the denomination that espouses it. But let us be true to our ideals even if some whom we might have reached do go to heaven by another route. Other churches are preaching the gospel and those who accept it at their hands will be saved. We are in Asia to preach Christ, to preach Him as we understand Him, but if any one else insists on preaching Him in a given place and will do so with equal fidelity to His divinity and atone- ment, let us cooperate with them, or federate with them, or combine with them, or give up the field to them, as the circumstances may require. The problem before us is not simply where we can do good, but where we can do the most good, how use to the best advantage the limited resources at our command. Givers at home have a right to demand this.

Many of their gifts involve self-sacrifice, and they should be used where a real need exists. ''There remains yet very much land to be possessed.'' I have seen enough of it to burden my heart as long as I live, toiling, sorrowing, sin-laden multitudes, who might be better Christians than we are if they had our chance, but who are scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.

And shall we multiply missionaries in places already occupied and dispute as to who shall preach in a given fields when these millions are dying without the gospel?

PART V The Future of China And Our Relation To It

XXV

IS THERE A YELLOW PERIL

WILL China ever be able to menace the nations of the West? This is the startling question that many sober-minded men are asking. Some writers, indeed, make light of the ''yellow peril,'' characterizing it ''a mere bugaboo of an excited imagination,'' because, as they allege, China has neither the organization nor the valour to fight Europe, and because, if it had, it could not transport its army and navy so vast a distance.

But surely organization and valour can be acquired by the Chinese as well as by any other people. Their present helplessness before the aggressive foreigner is rapidly teaching them the necessity for the former. As for the latter, it is well known that the most dangerous fighter is the strong but peaceably- disposed man who has been goaded to desperation by long- continued insult and injustice. Americans may discreetly remember that they themselves were once sneeringly described as ''a nation of shopkeepers who wouldn't and couldn't fight.''

It is easy to be deceived by the result of the China-Japan War of 1894. The Japanese were successful, not because they are abler, but because they had more swiftly responded to the touch of the modern world and had organized their government, their army and their navy in accordance with scientific methods. More bulky and phlegmatic China was caught napping by her enterprising enemy. Despising the profession of arms, China gave her energies to scholarship and commerce, and filled her regiments and ships with paupers, criminals and opium fiends, who were as destitute of courage, intelligence and patriotism as the darky who explained his flight from the battle-field by saying that he would rather be a live coward than a dead hero. As for the men above them, a Chinese officer admitted to a friend of mine that at the outbreak of the war with Japan, the army contractors bought a lot of old rifles in Germany, which had long before been discarded as worthless by the German army, paying two ounces of silver for each gun, and thriftily charging the Government nine ounces. Then they bought a cargo of cartridges that did not fit the guns and that had been lying in damp cellars for twenty years, and put the whole equipment into the hands of raw recruits commanded by opium-smokers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Chinese were worsted before the onset of the wide-awake Japanese, and that the unorganized mobs with which they blindly tried to drive out foreigners in 1900 were easily crushed by the armies of the West. But it would be folly to imagine that this is the end.

It takes a nation of 426,000,000 phlegmatic people longer to get under way than a nation of 43,000,000 nervous people, but when they do get started, their momentum is proportionately greater. China has plenty of men who can fight, and when they are well commanded, they make as good soldiers as there are in the world, as ''Chinese Gordon'' showed. Was not his force called the ''Ever Victorious Army,'' because it was never defeated? Did not Lord Charles Beresford, of the English navy, say, after personal inspection of many of the troops of China:--''I am convinced that properly armed, disciplined and led, there could be no better material than the Chinese soldiers''? Did not Admiral Dewey report that the fifty Chinese who served under him in the battle of Manila Bay fought so magnificently that they proved themselves equal in courage to American sailors and that they should be made American citizens by special enactment? During my tour of Asia, I saw the soldiers of England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Russia, America and Japan. But the Chinese cavalrymen of Governor Yuan Shih Kai, whom I have described elsewhere,[89] were as fine troops as I saw anywhere.

They would be a foe not to be despised. When Bishop Potter returned from his tour of Asia, he declared that ''when Japan has taught China the art of war, neither England nor Russia nor Germany will decide the fate of the East.''

[89] Chapter VII.

It is odd that any intelligent person should suppose that distance is an effectual barrier against an aroused and organized Asia. It is no farther from China to Europe than from Europe to China, and Europe has not found the distance a barrier to its designs on China. England, Germany, France, Russia, and even little Holland and Portugal, have all managed to send ships and troops to the Far East, to seize territory and to subjugate the inhabitants. Why should it be deemed impossible for China, which alone is larger than all these nations combined, to do what they have done?

The absorption of China by Russia or any other single European power is not possible for the reason that the attempt would be resisted by all the other Powers, including the United States and Japan. The world will never permit one of its nations to make China what Great Britain has made India. A half dozen Powers are determined to have a share if the break up comes.

The real partition of the Empire, however, is hardly probable as the case stands to-day. The Powers dread the task of administering a population that is not only huge but of such a stubborn character that enormous military expenditures might be required to prevent constant rebellions. A still more potent reason lies in the fact that the European nations that covet portions of China could not agree among themselves as to the division of the spoil. There is, indeed, apparent acquiescence in Russian influence in Manchuria, German in Shantung, British in the valleys of the Yang-tze and the Pearl, and French in Tonquin. But no one nation is quite satisfied with this division. Each has thus far taken what it could get; but Germany, France and Russia are far from pleased to see Great Britain take the lion's share that she has marked out for herself.

Moreover, there are important provinces that are now common ground, like the imperial province of Chih-li, or unappropriated, like several of the interior provinces. Actual partition would mean a scramble that would precipitate a general war, and such a war would involve so many uncertainties not only as to the result in China but as to possible readjustments in Europe itself, that the Powers wisely shrink from it.

So they prefer for the present, at least, the policy of ''spheres of influence'' as giving them a commercial foothold and political influence with less risk of trouble.

Besides, Great Britain, the United States and Japan are all opposed to partition. England's chief interest in China is commercial, and it quite naturally prefers to trade with the whole of China rather than be confined to a particular section of it, for it knows that there would be little trade with any parts of China that Russia, France and Germany absolutely controlled. So England insists on the integrity of China and the open door.''

The United States has the same commercial interest in this respect as Great Britain, with the added motive that partition would give her nothing at all in China; while Japan feels the most strongly of all for she has both the reasons that actuate the United States and also the vital one of self-preservation.

The Hon. Chester Holcombe says that several years ago, in an interview with an influential member of the Japanese Cabinet in Tokio, the conversation turned upon the aggressions of European Powers and the weakness of Korea, which had recently declared its independence.

''The Japanese Minister was greatly disturbed at the prospect for the future. He insisted that the action taken by Korea, under the guidance of China, would not save that little kingdom from attack and absorption.

Holding up one hand, and separating the first and second fingers as widely as possible from the third and fourth, he said:--'Here is the situation.

Those four fingers represent the four great European Powers, Great Britain, Germany, France and Russia. In the open space between them lie Japan, China and Korea.' Then, with really dramatic force, he added: 'Like the jaws of a huge vise, those fingers are slowly closing, and unless some supreme effort is made, they will certainly crush the national life out of all three.' ''

So Japan must be reckoned with in any plans which the western nations may make for China, and that Japan is a factor not to be despised, the Russians have learned to their sorrow. Japan believes that she has found the way to make her opposition so formidable that all Europe cannot overcome it.

Beyond any other people in the world, the Chinese furnish the raw materials for a world power. All they need is capable leadership. This is the gigantic task to which Japan has set herself. The alert and enterprising Islanders have entered upon a career of national aggrandizement. They realize that with their limited territory and population, they can hardly hope to become a power of the first class and make headway against the tremendous forces of western nations unless they can ally themselves with their larger continental neighbour. They clearly see their own superiority in organization, discipline and modern spirit, and they see also the stupendous power of China if it can be aroused and effectively directed. The Japanese have never been accused of undue modesty and they firmly believe that they are just the people to do this work. This is not simply because they are ambitious, but because they see that unless Asia can be thus solidified against Europe, the whole mighty continent will fall under the control of the white men who already dominate so large a part of it. Accordingly the Japanese have entered upon the definite policy of not only absorbing Korea, but of cultivating the closest possible alliance with their former foe.

The Hon. Augustin Heard, formerly United States Minister to Korea, represents Japan as whispering to the sorely beset Celestials:--

''Why shouldn't we work together? I hate the foreigner as much as you do, and should be as glad to get rid of him. Together we can do great things; separate we are feeble. I am too small, and you are, so to speak, too big. You are unorganized. Let us join hands and I will do what I can to help you get ready; and when we are ready we will drive these insolent fellows into the sea. I have a big army and navy and I have learned all the foreigners have to teach. This knowledge I will pass on to you. We have great advantages over them. In the first place they are a long way from their supplies, and every move they make costs a great deal of money. Our men can fight as well as theirs, if they are shown how, and there are a great many more of them. They can march as well, will require to carry almost no baggage, and do not cost half as much to feed. Our wounded men, too, in their own country and climate will get well, while theirs will die.''

To this suggestion China listens and ponders:--

''What are the objections? There is, first, the contempt which our people feel for them; but that is rapidly dying out. The Japanese showed in our last war that small men can fight as well as big ones; and a rifle in the hands of the small man will carry as far and as true as in the hands of a larger one. Then, when we have once got rid of the foreigner will Japan not try to keep the leadership and supremacy? Very likely but then we shall be armed and organized; we have as able men as they and with our overwhelming numbers shall we not be capable of holding our own--nay, if we wish, of taking possession of her?''[90]

[90] Article in The New York Tribune, September 7, 1903.

Undoubtedly this imaginary conversation voices the ambition of the Japanese and the inclination of an increasing number of Chinese. At any rate, the possibilities which such an alliance suggests are almost overwhelming. Japan undoubtedly has the intelligence and the executive ability to organize as no other power could the vast latent forces of China. If any one doubts her fitness to discipline and lead, he might obtain some heartfelt information from the Russians. Says Mr. George Lynch in the Nineteenth Century:--

''I know of no movement more pregnant with possibilities than this now in progress which makes towards the Japanization of China. There will be great changes in the government and life of that great Empire just as soon as the Empress Dowager dies, and she is now an old woman. In the upheaval of change, if the industrious, persistent, far-sighted efforts of her neighbours bear fruit, we may witness quite a rapid transformation in the life of the Empire. That clever conspirator, Sen Yat Sen, said to me that, once the Chinese made up their minds to change, they would effect in fifteen years as much as it has taken Japan thirty to accomplish. There are some men in the East who affect to regard this rapprochement between Japan and China with alarm, as carrying in its development the menace of a really genuine 'yellow peril.' ''

It certainly needs no argument to prove that if the 426,000,000 Chinese are once fairly committed to the skillful leadership of the Japanese, a force will be set in motion which could be withstood only by the united efforts of all the rest of the world.

The task to which Japan has set herself, however, will not be easily achieved. To say nothing of other nations, the Russians are not at all disposed to sit quietly by while their foes cajole the Chinese. Russia has some designs of her own on China.

Half Asiatic and semi-barbarous herself, past master in all the arts of Oriental diplomacy, patient, stubborn and untroubled by scruples, she is a formidable competitor for the leadership of China. In Persia, the Russian political policy works largely through the missionaries of the Greek Church, whose propaganda is political as well as religious. The same tactics are now being employed in China. The Chih-li correspondent of the North China Herald reports that the Holy Russian branch of the Greek Church is becoming suspiciously active in North China.

''Their work is spreading, and the methods adopted are such as to attract all the worst characters of the districts in which they operate. In a little town near the Great Wall, where in June there were about a dozen converts to the Greek Church, there are now over eighty. Any and all are welcome. Their families no less than the men themselves are reck- oned as belonging to the Church. The priest has made a round of several towns, and, though he speaks no Chinese, by unhesitatingly giving protection and assistance in any case of dispute or litigation, he has made it clearly evident that for any man in any way under a cloud there is nothing better than to join the Greek Church.... The impression among European onlookers is that Russia is preparing to extend her arms over Chih-li, and is beginning to smooth her way by gaining over the people in the eastern marches of the province. It is a significant fact that the Greek Church is known among the people as a 'Kuo Chiao' (National Church), a charge from which the Protestants are considered to be entirely, and the Roman Catholics partially, free.''

China, moreover, will be slow to respond to the overtures of Japan, partly because her bulk and phlegmatic disposition and lack of public spirit make it difficult for her to act quickly and unitedly in anything, partly because Chinese pride and prejudice will not easily yield to the leadership of the haughty little island whose people as well as whose territory have long been contemptuously regarded as dwarfish and inferior.

But the shrewd Japanese are making more progress than is commonly supposed. Not only have they already obtained the great island of Formosa, but they have for years been quietly making their commercial interests paramount in Korea. Their first move in the war with Russia was to occupy that strategic peninsula with a large military force and to secure a treaty with the Emperor which gives Japan a virtual protectorate over the Land of the Morning Calm. The promise to respect the independence of Korea of course deceives no one. It is probably sincere, as diplomatic promises go; but he is innocent indeed who imagines that Korea will be free to do anything that Japan disapproves. The freedom will doubtless be of the kind that Cuba enjoys--a freedom which gives large liberty in matters of internal administration, which relieves the protecting country of any trouble or responsibility that it may deem inconvenient, but which does not permit any alliance with a third nation, and which, for all important international purposes, especially of a military character, regards the ''independent''

nation as really dependent. It is quite safe to predict that no European power will be unsophisticated enough to assume that Korea is ''a free and independent nation.'' The arrangement will be in every way to the advantage of the Koreans, who have suffered grievously from the pulling and hauling of contending powers and from many evils from which the abler and wiser Japanese will, in a measure at least, protect them.

For a long time, too, the Japanese have been strengthening the ties which bind them to China. The brainy Japanese can be seen to-day in almost all the leading cities of the Middle Kingdom. There is a Japanese colony of 200 souls in Chefoo and of 1,400 in Tien-tsin. Already the Japanese are advising China's government, reorganizing her army, drafting her laws and teaching in her university. Even more distant countries are not beyond the range of their ambition. The leaders of India, restive under British rule, are beginning to look with eager sympathy to Japan as the rising Asiatic power.