Source/Author: By Madame Chiang Kai-Shek

(EDITOR'S NOTE : This is the text of an address made by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, China's "first lady," before a group of American and British missionaries in Hankow on April 6, announcing the repeal of government restrictions of Christian teaching in schools.)

I am speaking to you this afternoon personally. I want to bring you a message from the Generalissimo. You may take it to be a personal tribute to your courage, your undaunted valour, and your selfsacrificing spirit in helping our people in this war.

You all know what has happened in Shanghai, in Nanking, in Hangchow, in Wuhu and in other places in the fighting area. And you know how missionaries have succored the wounded, have helped our refugees, and have faced the bayonets, cannons and bombs, and the unbridled lust of the Japanese troops on our soil, and how they have stood their ground.

The Generalissimo and I feel that no words which we could speak could sufficiently express our debt of gratitude to the missionary body all over China who have been a help to the distressed and the best of friends to the hundreds of thousands of refugees.

You may remember a few years ago it was the fashion to decry missionary efforts. There was even a commission sent from America to investigate mission work because there was a general feeling that missionary efforts had been a failure. There were also people who asked where were the successors of Livingstone, Morrison and Young Allen, “Is the missionary spirit dead?”.

If we are really impartial and look around us at what has happened in the last nine months, I would say their successors are right here. Every one of the missionaries possesses the same valour and the same undaunted spirit that the missionaries of old had.

I would go a step further. When we picture old Dr. Morrison in a sampan with his Chinese teacher working under the heat of the tropic sun on the translation of the Bible into Chinese, while edicts had been issued by the Emperor for his arrest, we think of that as being very heroic. But when we think of what the missionaries have done during the last nine months, I would say that missionaries have not been one with less heroic.

You have asked me to come to tell you how you can co-operate to help us in this national crisis. My answer is, “Continue your efforts in the same direction in which you have been working.”

What do I mean by this? One day one of the cabinet ministers in the Government, a man who is a non-Christian, remarked that he was studying the Bible. Someone asked him, “Are you a Christian?”.

“No,” he replied, “but I see that the people in the country who are most self-sacrificing are the Christians; therefore, there must be something in Christianity.”

There was another high official who said that the spirit to defend our soil, to defend our fellow men, and to defend our women is exactly the same spirit which actuated Jesus Christ when he went to face the Cross in the Garden of Gethsemane. There are non-Christians, yet they feel that way.

When I was last week at the front with the Generalissimo, I heard the story of a woman missionary at her station thirty miles away, alone in a village in a bandit-infested region. She was the only foreigner in the district. Fifty miles from the place where I was there was another woman carrying on alone in her station. Another story told of two women going up the Yellow River in a sampan. When they arrived at a certain place, they found the Chinese soldiers destroying all the available boats so that the Japanese could not cross the river. These missionaries willingly gave up their sampan to be demolished, one of them remaining to work with the people in that village. I could go on giving one after another of such instances.

One could make a long list of what missionaries have done in the past along educational, medical, social and agricultural lines. The best fruits we get in China are the Chefoo apples and grapes—the result of missionary efforts. Shantung peanuts, which run into millions of dollars worth of trade in China, are also the result of missionary effort. Cross-stitch and filet lace, Swatow drawn work hair nets—who started all these industries? Missionaries! They have brought us both material and spiritual help!

It was the missionaries who foresaw the need of Refugees Zones which have saved hundreds of thousands of people, men, women and children. Here in Hankow you have started refugee camps, and your International Red Cross Committee has organized help for our wounded soldiers. In Kaifeng they have well organized plans for establishing a Refugee Zone whenever the need arises. From all over China come reports of work like this.

It may be said that Christians, because they have not been faithful enough to the spirit and teachings of Christ, are responsible for the present war. But there is also this other side of the question. Those of you who are here now have done much for our people. We do appreciate it.

But, noteworthy as your work has been, I want to add one thing. The most effective and worthwhile contribution you have made to my country is not so much in the work itself as in the spirit in which you have worked. Why do I say this? A few years ago our own Chinese people were very much against Christianity and the Government promulgated a law whereby religion was forbidden to be made a compulsory study in any school. Many of you felt that policy to be unfair, and contrary to the principles of missionary effort. Many of our colleagues wrote to me and asked to have the law rescinded. Even if I could have had it rescinded, which I could not, I did not think it was wise to make a move in that direction, because unless a rule has the general consent of those ruled, that rule will only be obeyed in the letter and not in the spirit.

I sympathized with your point of view. My sister, Madame Kung, went one step further, and I agreed with her. We said not only should this law be amended, but all institutions of higher learning should have the Bible put into their course of study, so that our students could have a chance to find out what Christianity means, and also what other religions mean. There should be study of comparative religions in our schools. We can let Christianity stand on its own feet. We feel that Christianity has something to offer which no other religion has. Let it speak for itself.

I am very glad to tell you that those who criticized you and criticized Christianity in years past are the ones who are articulate now in their praise of Christianity. You have won these men over by the work you have done and by the spirit in which you have done it. When the missionaries wrote to me, I said that God works in mysterious and inscrutable ways, and let us pray that God’s will may be made known to the Government and that action may be taken in God’s good time.

It gives me great pleasure to tell you that because our people and the Government have come to appreciate the results of your efforts and the spirit that underlies your work, the Generalissimo has now found it possible to have the law amended so that now the Bible can be taught in registered mission schools. You have all had a leading share in making this change in the law possible, because you have shown what true, practical Christianity means in its widest sense.

The Malaysia Message
Vol. 48 No. 7
July 1938