THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S
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whiile I was there this summer, taking with him, it is estimated, thirteen million dollars, of which he was able to fleece the helpless people in his short, disgraceful, infamous and bloody rule. Many think (many Chinese and many foreigners) that China was bet ter off, had greater liberty, greater prosperity, less burdensome taxation more opportunities for the masses of men and women to make a living, was better off in almost every way, un der the Manchu dynasty than under the Republic. I do not think so. The great mass of the wisest Chinese do not think so, and the great majority of China’s truest and most disinterested friends do not think so, but after much listening to and living right among the people, the masses of the people, I do not wonder that many do think so, and I have learned anew that just as “ all is not gold that glitters’’ (especially in China), so everything that is called a Republic or a Democracy is not really such. The people do not rule in China. They toil and slave and often starve, they are often plundered and op pressed, not merely, as some imagine, by the Japanese and others without, but by their own rulers, whose greed and general selfishness are what make Jap anese schemes of aggression possible. There seem to he few, very few, hon est governors in China. The Governor of Shansi is one of the tew shining ex ceptions and he has been a power for good in that fortunate Province for twelve years, or so. The recent Gov ernor of Shensi was another still more shining exception. Shensi had been one of the worst governed provinces in China for years. Shensi was recent ly one of the provinces in which a form er bandit and outlaw had risen to the governorship, and his rule was un speakably bad, and then last summer, while I was in China, China’s illustri ous Christian General, the commander of the most generally and most thor
oughly Christian army in the world to day, General Feng, was made Governor. I wish I had time to tell you about General Feng and his wonderful army. There was a great revival going on in that army when I was in China two years ago, and it has been going on ever since. An old time friend of mine. Dr. Jonathan Goforth, whose general expenses are paid by the Milton Stewart fund, baptized five hundred of General Feng’s army at one time, and has bap tized many more since. One of the leading Colonels in this army was plan ning to give his whole time to evangel istic work being backed in that work by the other officers in the army. Every man in this army is drilled in a won derful Christian catechism, that the General himself compiled, and is strictly disciplined in morals, as well as in military affairs. All the loose elements of society that generally fol low an army, and even more in the Orient than in the Occident, were com pletely banished two or three years ago, and songs of Christian praise instead of songs of ribaldry are heard on every hand. I was told that it was wonderful to hear a whole army sing, thousands of men led by a trained band and a choir of Chinese officers and men. And this great and good General Feng this last summer was sent to Shensi to su percede the unprincipled ruffian who had preceded him. Naturally, many hopes for great things for Shensi were awakened, and the happy people were glad of the great changes wrought in a short time, but General Feng found, after he had been a few months in power, that all the available revenues of Shensi had been mortgaged for five years to come, and that there was not a penny available to feed and support the army and to carry on the govern ment, and, of course, he did the only thing he could do, he resigned. Last Tuesday’s papers (November 1st) informed us that all China was
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