he enormous difficulty which the six hundred and eleven
missionaries, of the China Inland Mission, raise up against themselves,
the majority of whom are presumably in agreement with the teaching of
their director, Dr. Hudson Taylor. They tell the Chinese inquirer that
his unconverted father, who never heard the Gospel, has, like Confucius,
perished eternally. But the chief of all virtues in China is filial
piety; the strongest emotion that can move the heart of a Chinaman is
the supreme desire to follow in the footsteps of his father. Conversion
with him means not only eternal separation from the father who gave him
life, but the "immediate liberation of his ancestors to a life of
beggary, to inflict sickness and all manner of evil on the
neighbourhood."

I believe that it is now universally recognised that the most difficult
of all missionary fields--incomparably the most difficult--is China.
Difficulties assail the missionary at every step; and every honest man,
whether his views be broad or high or low, must sympathise with the
earnest efforts the missionaries are making for the good and advancement
of the Chinese.

Look for example at the difficulty there is in telling a Chinese, who
has been taught to regard the love of his parents as his chief duty, as
his forefathers have been taught for hundreds of generations before
him--the difficulty there is in explaining to him, in his own language,
the words of Christ, "If any man come to Me and hate not his father, he
cannot be My disciple. For I am come to set a man at variance against
his father."

In the patriarchal system of government which prevails in China, the
most awful crime that a son can commit, is to kill his parent, either
father or mother. And this is said to be, though the description is no
doubt abundantly exaggerated, the punishment of his crime. He is put to
death by the "_Ling chi_," or "degrading and slow process," and his
younger brothers are beheaded; his house is razed to the ground and the
earth under it dug up several feet deep; his neighbours are severely
punished; his principal teacher is decapitated; the district magistrate
is deprived of his office; and the higher officials of the province
degraded three degrees in rank.

Such is the enormity of the crime of parricide in China; yet it is to
the Chinese who approves of the severity of this punishment that the
missionary has to preach, "And the children shall rise up against their
parents