Southern China
A STRANGE habit prevails in China, which is thus described in "The Bible Reporter." Some colporteurs arrived at a village, the wealthy chief of which had died. When they reached the door of the house they found that the Buddhist priests had been employed to make everything as comfortable for him in the other world as their religious system would allow.
A large room had been completely filled with paper imitations of every comfort and luxury that go to make the life of the wealthy man a happy one in this world. Huge boxes crammed with gold and silver, and menservants and maid-servants, and horses and sedan-chairs, and the most luxurious furniture, were arranged in it. Everything was made to resemble actual life as much as possible. Even the usual household dog lay near the door on guard against the beggars by day and thieves by night, and men were handing trays, some containing tea and others sweetmeats, to their master.
In a few days these paper counterfeits would all be burnt with suitable ceremonies, that the whole might appear in the other world, where the dead chief could carry on the same life he had been accustomed to here, only without the presence of his friends that still remained in life.
A number of men were at work in the courtyard, and when they saw the colporteurs one cried out, “See! here are some of the followers of Jesus, who neither worship idols nor reverence their ancestors." The latter part of the charge, viz., that they did not reverence their ancestors, is the most serious one the heathen bring against the Christians. It is everywhere flung in their teeth, and it is the propagation of it that cools many an anxious inquirer's ardor, and prevents many a man who is struck by the beauty of Christianity from taking the final step, and becoming an out-and-out believer in it.
The colporteurs were glad of the challenge that was thus thrown down to them. Advancing into the court) and they said: "Part of what you say is true, and part is not. We Christians are more filial to our ancestors than you are. After they are dead we remember them, and we try and carry out their wishes when they are gone. You consider, on the other hand, that if you worship at their tombs on the anniversary of their deaths, and then offer food that by and by you eat yourselves, you are exceedingly filial. Now, if the dead really accept the offerings you present, you should make them every day. You allow them to go hungry all the year round, and then you give them but a single meal. Is that being filial?"
After some further discussion, one of the working men ran in to tell the gentlemen of the family that there were men at the door who were selling such pretty books, and would they come out and buy.
At once a finely-dressed and refined looking man of about twenty-three came out, accompanied by a number of youths, who were being taught by a private tutor. The moment he saw the colporteurs he put on a very severe look, and, frowning upon them, said: "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for having abandoned the religion of your fathers and having adopted that of the despised barbarians. It is ours to teach, and for them to listen and be civilized by the doctrines of our sages; whereas you have condescended to become their pupils, and to be taught by men that are sitting in the outer darkness of the grossest ignorance. Why should you consent to demean yourselves thus?" and then he quoted a passage from Confucius that said, "The study of strange doctrines is injurious indeed."
I may here explain that the term "strange doctrines” is a phrase from which every orthodox Chinaman shrinks with dismay. Let only the stigma of these words be attached to any system of truths, and the universal voice of the people will at once condemn them. Of course, to the Chinese mind anything that runs counter to the teaching of Confucius must belong to the category of “strange doctrines."
Whilst he was talking the colporteurs stood by with respectful looks, and made no attempt to interrupt him. This was true Chinese etiquette, and besides they were determined that they would not give him an opportunity of the further reproach against their religion that it made them disrespectful to their superiors.
The crowd stood by whilst this severe lecture was being given—for by this time a considerable number of young men had flocked from the other houses—and the colporteurs saw with delight that an audience such as they wished for, was preparing for them when it was their turn to speak.
When he had finished speaking, one of them respectfully said: "Sir, you ought to be careful how you quote our great sage. You are a scholar, and you have studied his writings, and you know them every word by heart. You remember how he also said, ' Let a man's word be sincere and truthful, and his actions honorable and careful. Such conduct may be practiced by the barbarian tribes of the north and south. If his words be not sincere and truthful, and his actions not honorable and careful, will he with such conduct be appreciated even in his neighborhood?
"No I know that you are a disciple of Confucius, and you recognize him as a sage that all the empire should reverence, and yet I see in the house here signs of a religion that was never taught by him. These paper articles that are to be turned and sent to your father in the land of spirits, and these horses and domestics, are the invention of the Buddhists, and were never prescribed by any of the great teachers of our nation. Buddhism, with its rites and ceremonies, and priests and temples, comes from another land, and is therefore a foreign religion, and yet you censure me for believing in Jesus, the Savior of the world. In this are you quite consistent? "
The scholar was silent, and it seemed as though an instant revolution had taken place in his mind in favor of the colporteurs, for his manner towards them completely changed, and they were able to sell between fifty and sixty gospels, and by and by, when they left, it was with the goodwill and kindly good-byes of the whole party.
Work in Russia
Seldom a month passes without some encouraging sign that our colporteur work among these people is bearing fruit.
I would suppose that from our Kiev center our best work among the Jews is done. These wonderful people are here in large bodies—not capitalists, or sweaters, or well-to-do, but wretched thousands, many of them in a state of semi-starvation, squalid in their homes and in their ways, fighting a terribly uphill battle. They excite our pity rather than our aversion, and when, amidst all their trials, we see how tenaciously they cling to their old faith, how faithfully they conserve many of their grand old characteristics, we not only pity them, but we are constrained to admire a fortitude that is little short of heroism.
In Kiev one section of the Russian people is met with, in Charkov quite another. There are nine colporteurs and hawkers working from this center, and their work is so arranged that no part of their ' great field is left long unvisited. The manufacturing districts of Orel and Vitebsk, the purely agricultural regions of Poltava and Ekaterinoslav, the mining villages in the basin of the Donetz—all secure the services of our loyal Bible-bearers, and the weekly letters of these men, in which they narrate their experiences among so heterogeneous a population, are as interesting as a romance, and deserve a wider publicity than they receive.
Rostov is the business capital of the Don Cossack country. Five colporteurs labor here. One, a German, but a Russian subject, labors on the shores of the Azov and inland among the Mennonite settlers of the province of Ekaterinoslav; another confines his attention to the valley of the Don, accompanying the steamers plying on that river, calling at the numerous little picturesque Cossack settlements on its banks—doing excellent work; a third, a man of great experience, takes the valley of the Kuban, a fertile corn-growing country, but plagued with malaria. Our colporteur here and his family have been fighting bravely against the fever and ague so prevalent all over that region, and their sufferings and losses have been terrible. I do not think we realize enough the position of men like our colporteurs on the Kuban, men whose work it is day after day to plunge along the sludgy roads and visit the fever-stricken villages with their bag of Scriptures on their backs, their hearts all the time full of love and hope. In the government of Stavropol there is another colporteur. His field is really a part of Ciscaucasia, and here we begin to see traces of strange peoples and hear remote languages of which few of us know anything. It is only when Vladikavkaz is reached, where our fifth colporteur is stationed, that we know we are at last in the East.—Bible Society Reporter.