s of responsibility? Are they ready for it?"

"No," said Rutledge, "they're not. But we must make them ready. You
haven't begun to see China yet, but already you can see that the
country could never be 'evangelized,' even in the narrowest use of that
word, by foreign missionaries. And it ought not to be."

"You mean that we Americans ought to consider our work in China as
temporary?" J.W. asked.

Rutledge answered, "Frankly, I do, if you let me put my own meaning into
'temporary,' We must start things. And much that must be done in the
long run has not yet been started. We must stay here beyond my life
expectation or yours. But China will be Christianized by the Chinese,
not by foreigners. As far ahead as we can see the work will have help
from outside, but I honestly want the time to come when we missionaries
will be looked upon as the foreign helpers of the Chinese Church; not,
as now, controlling the work ourselves and enlisting the services of
'native helpers.'"

"Then tell me another thing," J.W. persisted. "Is our Christianity, as
the Chinese get it, any advance on their own religion? Or is their
religion all right, if they would work it as we hope they may work the
Christian program?"

"That's two questions," said Rutledge, dryly, "but, after all, it is
only one. Our Christianity as the Chinese get it is far ahead of the
best they have, in ideals, in human values, everything, even if they
were more consistent in responding to its claims than Christians are.
The old religions--and China has several--are helpless. We are not
killing off the old faiths. If we should get out to-morrow these would
none the less die out in time, but then China would be left without any
religion at all. Instead, she's going to have the Christian faith in a
form that will accord with the genius of the Chinese mind. That's my
sure confidence, or I wouldn't be here."

It was necessary that J.W. should run down the coast to Foochow, the
base for his next operations in the hardware adventure. "I know I'm
green," he said to Rutledge, "and I may be thinking of impossibilities,
but do you suppose there'll be any chance for me to get up to Dr.
Carbrook's place from Foochow? I've told you about him and his wife, and
I'd rather see those two than anybody else in all the East."

"It's not impossible at all," Rutledge assured him. "Carbrook's post is
not so very far from Foochow, as distances go in China, and Ralph Bellew
at the college will