The Background of China's Upheaval Condensed from The Independent (January, '27) W. Lock Wel HINA may be said to have awakened from her lethargy in the year 1895, at the end of her war with Japan, when the proud, self-complacent mistress of the East was so rudely humiliated. Her people began to realize the weakness of ner government; and a general outcry demanding political reforms rose from all parts of the country. Assisted by Kang Yu-wei, the Emperor Kwang Hsu issued a series of highsounding edicts, which were recorded in history under the category of the "Hundred Days of Reform." This period also marked the rise of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who was trained to believe in a "government of the peɔple, for the people, and by the people," and who maintained that no reform of permanency could be made until the Manchus were driven out. All schemes for reform made by the weak but well-intentioned emperor, however, were crushed when the empress dowager resumed regency. Kwang Hsu was captured and imprisoned, and Kang Yu-wei had to fly for his life. Disappointed at the empty promises of political reforms by the throne, the Chinese people suffered another severe setback. The foreign powers demanded and took away one territory after another from China. In 1898 she lost Kowloon, the Liaotung Peninsula, Kwangchow, Weihaiwei, and Kiaochow. These barbaric depredations infuriated the people, and they vented their feelings upon the Manchus, who were partly responsible. By a clever move on the part of the officials, the people's anger was turned on the foreigners. There followed the Boxer rebellion, and China's subsequent signing of the Peace Protocol of 1901 which robbed her of many of her attributes of a sovereign state. a In 1906 groups of representatives went to Peking demanding a constitutional government. Realizing the grim determination of the people, the Peking court promised to give reform of the laws, of the administrative systems and the public finance, and the reorganization of the army and the navy. In 1907 National was estabCouncil lished for the express purpose of attending to the political changes to be introduced. This council was made up of members who were directly or indirectly under the control of the throne. Realizing the hopelessness of the methods of the Manchus, the Chinese people turned their attention to the doctrine preached by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who had then a handsome reward on his head. The year 1908 marked the beginning of a most remarkable period in Chinese history. Tens of thousands of students were sent to every part of the world in This movesearch of knowledge. ment furnished Dr. Sun Yat-sen a fertile field in which to sow the seeds of his program to drive out the Manchus and build up a Chinese republic. It was not until Oct. 10, 1911, led by Li Yuan-hung at Wuchang, that realized their the revolutionists dream. They forced the Manchu boy emperor to abdicate, and the new regime, the Republic of China, was established. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was elected Provisional President. Soon this government went out of existence. It was evident that in order to avoid another war, Yuan Shihand kai, the powerful statesman warrior in control of the immense military machine, would have to be At first very litgiven the throne. tle to this movement opposition was raised, although the people were On very much against monarchy. Dec. 25, 1915, General Tsai Ao of 677 Yunnan raised the banner to defend the republic. He rallied the republican forces all over the country, and in less than four months Emperor Yuan's military machine was broken to pieces, the provisional constitution was reinstated, and Vice President Li Yuan-hung was elevated to the Presidency. In 1917, the remnant of the military machine lett behind by Yuan-Shih-kai, the tuchuns of the provinces, again rose in arms. The National Assembly was dissolved, President Li forced out, and Chang Hsun placed the boy emperor on the throne. This led to the declaration of independence of the southwestern provinces and the formation of the Canton Government to support the National Assembly and to defend the constitution. The boy emperor was again overthrown, and the country once more plunged into civil war. For a time the chief contention was between the north and the south; then the war lords of the various provinces joined in. Since then trouble has been unceasing. Thus, since 1911, the country has gone through three major revolutions and changed the form of government twice. Three parliaments have been elected, none of which met because the people could not agree on the proper division of power between the central and provincial governments and the executive and legislative departments. are It may be advisable, however, to point out that wars in China wars on the retail basis. They are apt to be long-drawn affairs; but people in many of the provinces seem to be able to carry on their daily routine peacefully without a government, and foreign trade between China and other countries seems still to flourish. The volume of import and export trade between the United States and China for the year 1925 was $263,100,000, which was an increase of $6,000,000 over the year 1924, and $200,000,000 over the average annual volume during the period between 1910 and 1914. The most important point to bear in mind is that China must be left free to work out her own salvation. The newspapers are full of tales of horror about foreigners; yet they are really much safer in China than the natives. The reason is that even the lawless war lords have learned the bitter lesson of the Boxer rebellionthat foreigners are only too ready to grasp any excuse to demand new territories from China, which is at the present time practically without a government. The Today the real source of trouble in China is the struggle between two theories of government. One party advocates that China be ruled by a strongly centralized government, with a powerful man at its head. other is of the conviction that the country being so vast in size, so cumerous in population, so different in social and economic conditions among the provinces, cannot be gov erned by such a system. The first theory has been put into practice and has failed. Yuan Shih-kai's military machine has proved to be one of the most destructive and costly weapons known. The million men in uniform today consume about four-fifths of the country's revenues, and yet China is still in a state of chaos. A movement is now on foot to establish provincial constitutions among the independent provinces. Chekiang and Hunan have adopted such Constitutions. Both Though still in the background, young China is strongly in favor of the latter theory of government. The general opinion is that each province should be ruled by a governor, to be elected by the people for a fixed term of office, whose powers and duties should be clearly defined in the provincial constitution. The national government should enact laws for the whole nation, direct its foreign affairs, provide and maintain the means of national defense, build and control national systems of transportation, and provide for a national income. What Can We Believe Condensed from the Woman's Home Companion (February, '27) Bruce Barton "Editor, Woman's Home Companion: "I want to thank you for the clearer portrait of Jesus that has come to me through reading The Man Nobody Knows. For the first time in my life I can think of Jesus as a real person -happy, helpful, loving life. . . The newspapers are so full of controversy, all so bewildering, that I wish that Mr. Barton had written one more chapter-What Can We Believe? Please let us have it." T HERE are three things to be said before we turn directly to answering this letter. First, every period in history has been a time of religious crisis. The Middle Ages, outwardly so dominated by the church, were spiritually barren, soiled by greed and disgraced by intolerance. Even in the times of our great-grandparents the tide of religious interest ebbed and flowed. In the year 1800 for example there was only one professing Christian in the student body of Yale. That great thinker, Professor Rauschenbusch, was once delivering an address on the social aspects of Christianity., He was interrupted by a socialist who climbed onto a chair and, launched a bitter attack against the church. Professor Rauschenbusch waited patiently and spoke only a single sentence of comment. "Nobody kicks a dead horse," he said quietly and proceeded with his paper. He was right. Nobody takes the trouble to attack a man or an institution from which life has departed. The church is still very much alive. The second thing to remember is that discussion and even disagreement are inherent in the very nature of Christianity. Jesus was a layman, holding no priestly office and having no more bitter opponents than the highly organized and very pious church of his day. He cared little for forms or creeds. His whole message was an invitation to men to think for themselves. In the third place we can take great satisfaction in the steady growth of tolerance. This is a victory, and a Christian victory. That tolerant spirit which Jesus taught and the early disciples followed has been sadly missing from the world through a large part of the so-called Christian era. It is much more in evidence today. We should take satisfaction in its growth. And now for the letter. The best way to answer it, I think, is to tell in simple language the spiritual biography of a typical, thoughtful American -a woman between 35 and 40 years of age, who has passed through the various stages of religious doubt and has found a sure footing. She told me her story in full detail and it is, I am sure, the story of thousands. Her home was strict; her father was a country doctor and a deacon in the Methodist Church. At 17 the girl went away to the state university. her religicus beliefs had been down frankly at that time they would have read something like this: If set "God is a man, very powerful, who sits on a jeweled throne in a palace in heaven, which is a city with solid gold streets and high walls studded with diamonds and rubies. The gate of the city is tended by Saint Peter who shuts it sternly against nearly al! comers. The Recording Angel has a desk near the throne and looks down at the world continuously, noting every mistake which mortals make. "God is very stern and very much depressed by the wickedness of the world. He started the human race with Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden where they had every chance to lead perfect lives. But they sinned and this made God so angry that he condemned the whole race. Thus every child is born under the curse of Adam's sin and up to the time when Jesus came into the world every man, woman and child had been born only to be damned. Jesus was the Son, who, having a kinder heart, had persuaded God to give the human race one more chance. He had left his high place in heaven and consented to come down to earth for a few years, where he was unhappy and misunderstood and finally crucified. The anger of God was appeased by this great sacrifice. He accepted it as a vicarious offering on the part of all those who would confess the name of Jesus and be baptized. Such believers will inherit eternal life'; all others, even those dying in infancy, were still under the curse of Adam's fall." A pretty solemn and terrible creed. The girl would have been depressed by it if she had thought about it very much but college filled her life with new experiences. In the college church she heard famous preachers who talked very little about the fear of God and much about his love. She taught a class in the Sunday school of one of the town churches. All in all it was a wonderful first year. An occasional doubt crept into her mind. There was a professor on the faculty who was whispered to be an "agnostic." Every religion, according to his point of view, had some truth and was adapted to the spiritual needs of the people who embraced it. Americans would do better to stay at home and make their own land a true example of Christian culture rather than seek to change the faith of other lands. These were shocking views to the girl yet when she was invited to a Sunday evening at the professor's house where his wife played good muBic and he talked about books she thought she had never seen a finer It seemed terrible to the home life. girl that such a family should be damned. Her course in biology was a shock. Under the microscope she saw cells divide and multiply themselves. In lectures illustrated by specimens and charts she heard the thrilling story of the unfolding of creation, the painful struggle upward through ever higher forms of life. She could not reconcile it with what she had been taught. There were no Adam and Eve in this story of creation. Man could not have "fallen" because he had never been up, but was only now on his way up. And if man had never fallen, then the curse of Adam's sin was not on the race. In astronomy she learned that our world is not the center of the universe but only one tiny speck in endless space where there are hundreds and perhaps millions of universes. Each star, she learned, is a sun-many of them far larger than our sun; and around many are dark planets like our world. Millions of worlds, all traveling their appointed circuits in space. Her professor of astronomy ventured the belief that many of these worlds were inhabited, some of them, perhaps, by beings of higher intelligence and greater powers than we. It seemed to the girl entirely possible. She could hardly believe that God would build a great hotel of millions of rooms and have only one room occupied. If the other worlds were inhabited, were their inhabitants also God's children? And if so had they sinned like ourselves and had it been necessary for Jesus to visit each separate world and there be crucified for its sins? She was shocked by the question. It nibbled away at the foundations of all her beliefs. She began to be doubtful of everything. There was a very wise and kindly old professor in the university who had a daughter about her own age. She looked on him as a sort of resi dent father, and when her doubts were fiercest she went to him and poured them out. "I understand," he said to her. "I have been through it all myself. Let us start and build anew. Are there any foundations of which we can be sure? Is there anything that we know?" The two worked together, and gradually there grew up in the mind of the girl a few very simple convictions. They are not an elaborate creed; they leave many points unsettled; they commit to the realm of trust many subjects about which finite minds can never be sure. But they are unshakable and, through an active and useful lifetime, they have satisfied her heart. Let us set them down as she passed them on to me: Somewhere and somehow back of this vast universe there is an Intelligence, a God. She simply could not conceive of a universe that just happened; it seemed to her far more incredible than a universe that was planned. "Suppose somebody hands you a watch," she said: "you open the back and see the ingenious and wonderfully delicate arrangement of the works. 'Who made it?' you ask and the person who handed it to you answers, 'Nobody made it. The parts were simply tossed onto a desk and there they gathered themselves together, wound themselves up and started themselves to keeping time.' You pass a great cathedral and inquire the name of the builder. "There was no builder,' your guide replies. "The bricks and steel and mortar, the glass and marble were dumped here on this open lot. They lifted themselves up into the structure that you Against such absurdities your intelligence revolts. But is it any less revolting to the intelligence to stand out under the stars and believe that they gathered themselves together out of the vapors, that they determined their courses, settled the cycle of the seasons and are spinning away in space without plan or purpose-a senseless merry-go-round of motion, doomed at last to destruction? see.' "To me it is more reasonable to believe than not to believe to assume a Creator than to suppose that such a creation could have been undesigned. Furthermore, if there is no Intelli gence behind the universe, then the universe has created something greater than itself. For it has created us and we are intelligent. To say that the less can create the greater violates all reason. I cannot accept such an idea. There is an Intelligence behind the universe; there is a purpose and a plan. I will call the Intelligence God. "What sort of God is he? He must be at least as good as I am for he has created me. I do not like to see people suffer. I do not punish children for mistakes which they make unwittingly. It gives me pleasure to see men and women happy, and if I had power and wealth I would like nothing so much as to share them with the weak and poor. God has infinite power and wealth. Surely his pleasure in human happiness must be as keen as that of any of his creatures; surely Jesus was right in telling us that he is not a cruel judge and punisher, but a loving Father. The То "If there is a God and if he is a loving God then there must be some sort of life beyond the grave? Immortality is a necessary complement of the existence and nature of God. whole spectacle of human experience seems meaningless without it. what end is all the struggle and suffering and self-sacrifice? To produce a nobler race, a finer character? And for what? In order to blot it all out at the end? Where is the justice in such a plan? Would you, if you were God, plant in men's hearts the conviction that there is a meaning in life only to leave that conviction meaningless? "I believe in Jesus. I believe that he was divine in that he was nearer to God than any being who has ever walked the earth, and that the conception of God which he gave is the noblest and truest which mankind will ever have. There are many facts about his life which do not seem to Men have fought me very important. and died over the question of the virgin birth, but Jesus never mentioned it; two of the Gospels do not mention it; Paul did not mention it. Over 681 |