The Chinese Veil
/ ' ^ H I NA in turmoil undoubtedly presents a challenge ^^-^ to Christian missionary effort. This does not mean that the value of the work is in question, or that there is any danger of its...
...It is constantly interested in marshaling the native Oriental under the red banner which is also the flag of war against European civilization—a civilization that has organized and supported those aspects of capitalistic enterprise from which all colonies suffer more or less...
...On the other hand, he will see clearly—when his eyes are freed of blinding resentment— that the missionary of the Church comes as a "servant of servants," anxious that the tree of Christ should be planted deep on the spiritual soil amassed by centuries, willing to understand in all charity, and desirous of taking away with him nothing except the fruits of mystical victory...
...Our old systems of colonization are, as everybody admits, dead and buried...
...Why should an Oriental in the least conscious of an old and distinguished tradition, concede the "superiority" of scores of little drummer jackanapes who nauseate decent Europeans...
...This does not mean that the value of the work is in question, or that there is any danger of its ceasing so long as pioneers of the Faith are at all able to carry it on...
...If Europe, either through ignorance or sloth, does not make the effort which its own interests themselves dictate, then the drama of Asia will move toward a crisis...
...We must learn to offer our civilization as we do our other goods, on the basis of local rates of exchange...
...Undoubtedly science, in the sense of ethnology and kindred branches, can here be of the greatest assistance to Christian progress...
...Oriental peoples," he declared in a famous interview with Frederic Lefevre, "are the heirs of a long past, rich in culture, of which they have not entirely lost consciousness and in the spirit of which they might perhaps continue to live and work...
...The Russian revolution has introduced into this confusion a redoubtable factor...
...Even the new formula of mandates, which is quite without intrinsic merit, indicates the wlde-spre,ad conviction that we must break with the imperialistic past...
...It is here that science, which Is a form of life and the instrument of political action, must be relied upon to unveil native civilizations and native life so that their hidden springs will be clearly visible—so that, to be more explicit, Europel can cooperate in a great development rather than continue to choke progress for selfish reasons...
...We have believed, quite honestly too, that we could give them a higher standard of living, but we have not stopped to consider whether this implied greater happiness...
...And generally speaking, wherever the European has intervened in the Orient, the native has seen, with a kind of despair truly poignant, the decline rather than the increase of his store of well-being, in the moral order even more than in the material order...
...We Europeans have assumed the responsibility of interfering in their development — sometimes without consulting them, sometimes at their request...
...This deception is being transformed Into hatred throughout the Orient, and hatred is interested only in a propitious moment to strike...
...Here she is guided by conclusions so like those stated not long ago from the point of view of Orientalists by Sylvain Levi, the eminent Paris authority, that we cannot refrain from quoting him here...
...These are strong words but they carry conviction...
...At present, therefore, the Church is relying upon the aid of scholarship to an extent perhaps unparalleled in her history...
...We claim, rightly or wrongly, to represent a superior civilization, and on the basis of that superiority, which we have announced with such assurance that native Orientals dared not presume to doubt it, we have undermined all their traditions...
...The point is rather that a better way must be found to tap those sources of spiritual energy and moral conduct which characterize the peoples of the Orient...
...The foundations of lifei upon which his people built crumble, and the pillars of gold upon which he hoped to erect a new order look like gilded stage sets...
...Let us collaborate, knowing with whom we are dealing and what goals we have in view...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 6
