l be smaller, because each
Mission finds its particular field reduced in size.

Another added difficulty is in an increased and deepened antagonism
on the part of the great mass of Chinese to real Christianity.
Multitudes have seen enough of the true light to reject it; and
having rejected, now to hate it. Oh, it drives one back to God in an
agony of mingled longing and despair to see this mighty multitude
that will not come and be saved, drifting along in darkness and
wretchedness through this life to the blackness of darkness beyond!
And this is intensified by the thought of the children now quite
numerous in our Chinese communities. We know to what the daughters
are destined. We know what it is that gives them, in this country, a
special money value; and as to the sons, one can scarcely conceive
circumstances more perilous than those in which they are placed.
Breathing our free American air, entering readily into the Young
America spirit, they will not brook the harsh discipline which, in
their native land, would have been submissively and perhaps with
profit accepted. At the same time, the parents ill understand that
discipline of love which adjusts itself to these new circumstances,
and when it can no longer compel, succeeds in wooing and winning and
molding aright the boyish heart. Demons incarnate, both American and
Chinese, tempt these boys, while they are unprotected by any
reverence either for the ancestors and idols of their own people or
for the American God whom Americans by their conduct so cruelly
belie.

And this suggests another added difficulty: the contrast which our
Chinese Christians cannot but observe between the precepts of the
Bible, the example of Christ, the exhortations of those who led them
to Jesus, and the practices of multitudes of American professors of
religion. And, too often, they are led to do as we do, and not as we
say. While at the same time the indifference of many professed
Christians to the salvation of this Chinese, and the attitude of many
churches toward those already converted, loads the problem down with
difficulties such as might well drive us to despair.

But, no; nothing shall drive us to despair. This problem must be
solved. This mountain mass of heathenism must be--not removed and
cast into the sea, but transformed into the mountain of the Lord's
house, and made an element--an element of untold value and
efficiency--in our American Zion. Let us have faith as the gr