King's Business - 1947-07

EXTRA-CURRICULAR

forces in China?” “Isn’t the new birth the same as transmigration of the soul?” “Will you please explain to me how I should believe on Je­ sus?” In this large provincial capital, nineteen such schools are being reached at least once a week in a similar manner; 10,000 students are ready to hear whatever one has to offer them. On Sunday mornings the Hunan Bible Institute chapel is taxed to capacity as the writer holds his nine o’clock Bible class. We sing choruses such as “Safe am I” and “God So Loved the World,” followed by a slow reading of the chapter of John's Gospel appointed for the day. A direct message in simple English follows and again there is rapt at­ tention. No missionary can face a group of Chinese boys and girls like these, knowing they represent m il­ lions of youth throughout the land who have unhesitatingly cast away the superstitions of the past, and are now eagerly looking into the fu­ ture for some new thing which they feel must be theirs, without realizing he is faced with the greatest chal­ lenge ever presented to the church in any age. This Is no trivial oppor­ tunity. The faith and message must be positive, and any wavering or insincerity in its presentation, will be detected immediately. The young after-the-war Oriental is in no mood for byplays or pious platitudes. The mysticism of his ancestors is no longer satisfactory; modern science and a devastating war have shat­ tered his confidence in the past. He is tolerant; he is willing to learn; but he will have no bogus declara­ tions which cannot be supported in factual demonstration. Today he is listening to you as a friend; tomor­ row his attitude may be entirely reversed. Now is the day of China’s salvation. Recently Miss Chen Shu Nan left Changsha for a city in the southern part of Hunan to enter a normal school to train for a teacher. For weeks she had been a regular attend­ ant of the Wednesday Bible class held in our small living-dining room. Each week she had faithfully pre­ pared her Bible lesson. One after­ noon it was noted that in neat script she had signed her name at the bot­ tom of a declaration of faith in her little New Testament. Mrs. Roberts asked her, "Do you mean that?” Quietly she replied, “ Yes, I do.” Then, probing a little deeper and going over the declaration of faith carefully, the question was again asked and earnestly came the reply, "Yes, I do understand what it means: that is why I signed my name there.” She became a convert simply through reading the Word itself! May her number increase in this dark land! T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S

By Charles A. Roberts, D. D. Supt. of Biola-in-China

A Report from the Hunan Bible Institute of Changsha, China

A TALL, SLENDER, wasp-waist- ed lad, twenty - two years L old, waited courteously out­ side of my door. He is the seventh of eight sons and two daughters born to the Rev. Yang Hsi Shao, the first Changsha convert of Dr. Frank A. Keller. An older brother and an older sister are now practicing physicians and Christians. This lad is a student in the University of Changsha. Soft­ ly he spoke alternately in Chinese and English—“Missionary, perhaps, you do not recognize me?” I nodded assent. He smiled and introduced himself. “You knew my father—I am a student at Hu Ta (Hunan Provin­ cial University), and we have a small Christian Fellowship there. I would like you to come and speak to us. There are over 2,600 students enrolled. Our Fellowship is indeed a very small one, but there are many more who know a little about the Christian faith and would like to study, but we have no Bibles. Have you any Testaments you could let us have?” Hu Ta is one of many Chinese uni­ versities, and,» like the schools at home, is crowded with students. Lo­ cated at the foot of the Yuehlo hills, splendidly situated among the azal­ eas, the pines and the orange blos­ soms, the campus faces the City of the Long Sand (Changsha) on the west bank of the river Siang. Here are gathered more than two thou­ sand and six hundred students, less than one per cent of whom have any PAGE FOURTEEN

idea of the true meaning of the Christian faith. Since the beginning of Protestant Missions in China, no greater challenge has presented it­ self. Ten minutes walk from the Bible Institute is the large Hengsiang high school. The writer goes to this school each Thursday afternoon to give a lecture to a student body of over six hundred. An old school with its scholastic roots deep in the past, no foreign missionary has ever been allowed to grace its doorways until now. Today, its buildings dilapi­ dated and its equipment practically gone as a result of the war, the compound is a mere shambles com­ pared to any school in the United States. There is no Assembly Hall. We meet for our weekly lecture in a shed, open on all sides. A rough square table used at mealtimes is the platform. The lads gather around the table in a semicircle. The story of the Christian faith and of Jesus Christ, the Saviour, is listened to at­ tentively. Then come the questions: “If Jesus loves the poor, why, after all these years since He came, are there so many?” “If you people from the West believe that Jesus is the Saviour, why have we had two world wars in this century?” “Europe has had Christianity for 2,000 years; we are a larger continent and as a peo­ ple more united than they. Why should we accept Christianity?” "Why does the United States, a Christian country, keep armed

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