ur churches to a crucial test, and, where that test is endured, to give
to his servants a prompt reward and an unanswerable confirmation of his
promises and of their faith.

These strange little men from "the land of Sinim," mysterious, silent,
capable, incredibly industrious, money-making, with their pig-tails and
their felt shoes, their "pidgin English" and their unintelligible
"turkey tracks," their wooden countenance and their "bias eyes," their
opium, and their "ways that are dark," who, in spite of restrictive laws
and brutal personal treatment, are filtering in everywhere, until they
may be seen crouched in the corner of any street car, and are a familiar
object in the village street--why are they here? here just now and here
so persistently? It is no mighty immigration of men, such as De
Tocqueville liked to dwell upon. It is no conquering host, no familiar
immigration. Whatever may once have been the attractive force of the
California gold fields, washing soiled linen can hardly be regarded as
satisfying a national instinct, or thumping through the long hours of
the night upon an ironing table a soul-filling amusement. Much may be
said of "the golden fleece," but these are no modern Argonauts. They are
money-making as our friends the Jews, but no "high emprise" or "grand
endeavor" fires their calm pulse, and much as has been written of the
coolie system and the "Six Companies," nothing has been adduced which
seems adequate to explain the movement.

The fact is, God is in it. He is crowding these heathen upon our
churches in these missionary days of an opening world, first of all to
prove our Christianity. Do we believe that all men are brothers? Do we
believe that the Holy Ghost who renewed our hearts can renew these? Do
we believe that the Lord who died for us, died for the world? Do we
believe--not that the world--but that this particular heathen as he
stands before us in his blue blouse, or sits at our side with his
reading-book, is as dear to our heavenly Father as you and I are? Do we
believe that we are to go to him with the gospel to find a way for the
truth into his heart, to bear his burdens, to win him by love, and that
without him we ourselves can not be made perfect? Do we believe, in
short, that God has brought him here to our door that we might learn
that if we have not a religion that will save, and will make us eager to
have it save a Chinaman, we have not a religion that will save
ourselves?