people." Despite the yellow journalism of America everyone now knows that this is true. Practically the only excesses were committed by the imperial troops in the taking of Hankow, and by the revolted bands of northern soldiery later on. It was an entirely new experience to astonished Chinese farmer folk to find that a great brigade of revolutionary soldiers could pass through their towns and by their fields and leave them practically as before. I live in an inland prefectural city where wide spaces and crumbling ruins both within and without the city walls are yet eloquent of the ferocity of the Tai Pings who swept off twothirds of the innocent population of that region in the fifties. It is no wonder that the ill-informed people of that city remembering the horrors of that earlier rebellion, before it was clear whether there was to be a battle with the Keh Ming Dangs (revolutionaries) for the possession of the city or not, removed nine out of ten of all their women folks to quieter places among the mountains and country villages. But it was a needless fear. Their only foes were their own neighbors who might take such an occasion to pay off old grudges, Chinese fashion. History I think does not show a parallel when so tremendous an overturn took place with so brief and bloodless a contest. In all the battles of the revolution put together fewer men lost their lives than in any one battle of our great civil war. The revolutionaries were not after the blood of their enemies but after political control of the country. The post and telegraph service all through the south was left in undisturbed imperial administration long after complete military control had been established. In Foochow it did not seem to occur to the new authorities even to tinker with the names until more than a month after the two days' battle which put them in command. In many cases, as at Canton, the revolutionary leaders after recruiting their forces and amassing their supplies, had only to take deputies of the incredulous and astounded officials on a tour of inspection, to persuade those officials to sign over the surrender papers, pack their trunks hastily and depart. It was their reliance on pacific methods that led the southern forces at Wuchang and Hankow even when flushed with victory of arms to make the sorry strategic blunder of not severing the railroad connection from Peking. They could not conceive that those northern armies would actually fight their own brothers for the support of the detested Manchus. This quality of self control not rarely rose into real magnanimity. The banner men of the Tartar city in Foochow after the brief unequal struggle, and their disarmament and registration, actually had their old pensions paid to them out of the precarious income of their victors, until such time as they might be able to become self-supporting at trades and handicrafts. Contrast that with the extermination traditionally meted out to the vanquished in Chinese history. In the final adjustment with the abdicated throne, generous pensions were apportioned to all members of the ruling house, and the baby emperor was even allowed to retain his title. The greatest single instance of this magnanimity of spirit, one that will forever shine in the pages of modern history was of course the resignation of his high office by Sun Wen (the name by which Dr. Sun Yat Sen is known in China) when at the height of his popularity and successful endeavors, that the breach with the north might be healed and his loved country give itself without delay to the tremendous problems of reconstruction that faced it. His conduct during all these months since that notable event, when by becoming less he became truly great, his remarkable success in allaying suspicion and creating enthusiasm by his visit to Yuan Shi Kai at Peking during a period of momentous uncertainty, all his counsel to the people, all his leadership show him a man qualified to live up to a lasting world reputation. Turning now briefly to the other part of our subject what shall be said regarding these moral and spiritual elements in the outlook for the future? 1. First it is certain that the spread of enlightenment is to go on apace. All the railway, telegraph, and wireless communication schemes that are being strenuously pushed mean the linking up of the country into a great whole so that all shall know what concerns the welfare of any section. Newspapers and books in increasing numbers are having a wider and more eager public than ever before. It is a tremendous task that the country has undertaken, for only one in four hundred of her population is going to school at present; but the state and the provinces are giving themselves resolutely to the enterprize as of foremost importance. Here in education, in which missions now hold the lead, is the most strategic, most vital opportunity that the church has faced since the year 1. I hope that the addresses on education will not fail forcefully to impress this fact upon us. I could wish that that great mother of the churches, the oldest and most efficiently organized of them all, the Roman Catholic Church would enter this field more widely and practically than she has. She would find it much more rewarding than the political maneuvering that frequently mars and obstructs her spiritual advance. 2. Of the distinctively moral elements in the present outlook it is more difficult to speak incisively. Of course it is a different thing to rouse moral enthusiasm against the faults of others than patiently take one's self in hand; and the republicans are finding that the Ethiopian does not change his skin nor the leopard his spots. It is all a question whether there are honest, selfsacrificing, efficient men in sufficient numbers to carry the day. I believe that there are. They are to be found from top to bottom of the new régime, and they are not unaware of what faces them. Premier Lu, who speaks both English and French fluently is described in a recent letter from Peking as "returning with the fixed determination to sacrifice himself for his country." The assembly man who represents my prefecture in the Fukien provincial assembly, a Christian and a scholar, is fighting with likeminded spirits to give real effectiveness to the early assurance of the new government of absolute religious liberty; for in Fukien it is proposed to disqualify for the franchise all heads of religious orders, in the hotheaded enthusiasm to have done with all the superstitions and benightedness of Taoism and Buddhism. Think of untried Chinese Christian statesmen having to fight their forces at Wuchang and Hankow even when flushed with victory of arms to make the sorry strategic blunder of not severing the railroad connection from Peking. They could not conceive that those northern armies would actually fight their own brothers for the support of the detested Manchus. This quality of self control not rarely rose into real magnanimity. The banner men of the Tartar city in Foochow after the brief unequal struggle, and their disarmament and registration, actually had their old pensions paid to them out of the precarious income of their victors, until such time as they might be able to become self-supporting at trades and handicrafts. Contrast that with the extermination traditionally meted out to the vanquished in Chinese history. In the final adjustment with the abdicated throne, generous pensions were apportioned to all members of the ruling house, and the baby emperor was even allowed to retain his title. The greatest single instance of this magnanimity of spirit, one that will forever shine in the pages of modern history was of course the resignation of his high office by Sun Wen (the name by which Dr. Sun Yat Sen is known in China) when at the height of his popularity and successful endeavors, that the breach with the north might be healed and his loved country give itself without delay to the tremendous problems of reconstruction that faced it. His conduct during all these months since that notable event, when by becoming less he became truly great, his remarkable success in allaying suspicion and creating enthusiasm by his visit to Yuan Shi Kai at Peking during a period of momentous uncertainty, all his counsel to the people, all his leadership show him a man qualified to live up to a lasting world reputation. Turning now briefly to the other part of our subject what shall be said regarding these moral and spiritual elements in the outlook for the future? 1. First it is certain that the spread of enlightenment is to go on apace. All the railway, telegraph, and wireless communication schemes that are being strenuously pushed mean the linking up of the country into a great whole so that all shall know what concerns the welfare of any section. Newspapers and books in increasing numbers are having a wider and more eager public than ever before. It is a tremendous task that the country has undertaken, for only one in four hundred of her population is going to school at present; but the state and the provinces are giving themselves resolutely to the enterprize as of foremost importance. Here in education, in which missions now hold the lead, is the most strategic, most vital opportunity that the church has faced since the year 1. I hope that the addresses on education will not fail forcefully to impress this fact upon us. I could wish that that great mother of the churches, the oldest and most efficiently organized of them all, the Roman Catholic Church would enter this field more widely and practically than she has. She would find it much more rewarding than the political maneuvering that frequently mars and obstructs her spiritual advance. 2. Of the distinctively moral elements in the present outlook it is more difficult to speak incisively. Of course it is a different thing to rouse moral enthusiasm against the faults of others than patiently take one's self in hand; and the republicans are finding that the Ethiopian does not change his skin nor the leopard his spots. It is all a question whether there are honest, selfsacrificing, efficient men in sufficient numbers to carry the day. I believe that there are. They are to be found from top to bottom of the new régime, and they are not unaware of what faces them. Premier Lu, who speaks both English and French fluently is described in a recent letter from Peking as “returning with the fixed determination to sacrifice himself for his country. The assembly man who represents my prefecture in the Fukien provincial assembly, a Christian and a scholar, is fighting with likeminded spirits to give real effectiveness to the early assurance of the new government of absolute religious liberty; for in Fukien it is proposed to disqualify for the franchise all heads of religious orders, in the hotheaded enthusiasm to have done with all the superstitions and benightedness of Taoism and Buddhism. Think of untried Chinese Christian statesmen having to fight their |