converts of Chaotong. He is a bright-faced lad of seventeen, as ardent
an evangelist as heart of missionary could desire, but a native preacher
can never be so successful as the foreign missionary. The Chinese listen
to him with complacency, "You eat Jesus's rice and of course you speak
his words," they say. The attitude of the Chinese in Tongchuan towards
the Christian missionary is one of perfect friendliness towards the
missionary, combined with perfect apathy towards his religion. Like any
other trader, the missionary has a perfect right to offer his goods,
but he must not be surprised, the Chinese thinks, if he finds difficulty
in securing a purchaser for wares as much inferior to the home
production as is the foreign barbarian to the subject of the Son of
Heaven.

There is a Catholic Mission in Tongchuan, but the priest does not
associate with the Protestant. How indeed can the two associate when
they worship different Gods!

The difficulty is one which cannot be easily overcome while there exists
in China that bone of contention among missionaries which is known as
the "Term Question."

The Chinese recognise a supreme God, or are believed by some to
recognise a supreme God--"High Heaven's ruler" (_Shangtien hou_), who is
"probably intended," says Williams, "for the true God." The Mohammedans,
when they entered China, could not recognise this god as identical with
the only one God, to whom they accordingly gave the Chinese name of
"true Lord" (_Chen Chu_). The Jesuits, when they entered China, could
not recognise either of these gods as identical with the God of the
Hebrews, whom they accordingly represented in Chinese first by the
characters for "Supreme Ruler" (_Shang ti_), and subsequently by the
characters for "Lord of Heaven" (_Tien Chu_). The Protestants naturally
could not be identified with the Catholics, and invented another Chinese
name, or other Chinese names, for the true God; while the Americans,
superior to all other considerations, discovered a different name still
for the true God to whom they assigned the Chinese characters for "the
true Spirit" (_Chen Shen_), thereby suggesting by implication, as Little
observes, that the other spirits were false. But, as if such divergent
terms were not sufficiently confusing for the Chinese, the Protestants
themselves have still more varied the Chinese characters for God. Thus,
in the first translation of the Bible, the term for God used is the
Chinese cha