the direct influence of the missionary and his native colaborers. This is not to say that there are no Christians whose lives are inconsistent with their professions, or that the Christians have risen entirely superior to the ethical standards they have inherited and which prevail about them. This statement, too, would not hold of many who pose as Christians upon the strength of a shorter or a longer term in a Christian school, but it is true of the great mass of the real Christians. In many countries, the Christians are not only ahead of the other members of the same classes but they are the most progressive section in the community. This is the more noteworthy because often, notably in India, the missionary has worked largely among the lower and more ignorant and degraded classes. The Christian community in India is growing so much faster than the population, that if the present rate could be maintained permanently-which, of course, is highly improbable, the law of diminishing returns holding even in missionary work-India would within a comparatively short time be Christian, and it includes a fair proportion of high-caste men. The remarkable fact, however, is that, within one or two generations, the force of Christianity has raised many outcasts so that in point of education they are equal or even superior to the Brahmin. The public girls' schools in India have had a large proportion of Christian teachers because the Christian community contained by far the highest percentage of educated women. In China, their higher degree of intelligence and honor makes it difficult to retain in mission employ the graduates of Christian schools, who are in demand for positions in the industrial world and in government schools. In Japan, the Christians have been in the very forefront of all movements of philanthropy and reform.

These Christian communities are not the beneficiaries of the missionary but are increasingly self-reliant. They are generous in the support of Christian work. For instance, it does not sound like pauperization to be told that the native Christians connected with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions contribute to the work more than one-third as much as is given by Americans through that mission board, that this means

a per capita gift by these oriental Christians of three and onehalf times that of their helpers in America, and that, if allowance were made for the difference in wages and the purchasing power of money, such a contribution would be equivalent in terms of days' work or of sacrifice to a per capita gift more than forty times that of the American contributors to this work.

Turning to the indirect results, we are confronted by the impossibility of differentiating accurately the effect of the missionary's influence and that of other western influence. It is not too much to assert, however, that nearly every one of the reforms which has done so much for the social welfare of the Orient received at least its initial impulse from the missionary. This is true in India of the abolition of the cruelties of sati, of the improved treatment of widows, especially of child widows, of the agitation against caste, and of the purifying of the religious ceremonial by the elimination of the grossest practices. It is true in China of the anti-foot-binding movement, and the anti-opium movement has always had missionary support. It has been true in Japan, although the direction of such movements there has so long since passed into Japanese hands that the origin of the initial impulse has been almost if not quite forgotten.

Whatever the origin, it is undeniably true that the effect of western influence has been to change the whole atmosphere of the more intelligent sections of the oriental communities. Moslem and Hindu leaders in India are striving to interpret their scriptures into harmony with western thought. Buddhism in Ceylon and in Japan has been quickened into a life of new activity and helpfulness. As has already been explained, the whole atmosphere and ethical background of Japanese literature has ceased to be Buddhistic and has become western. A new type of manhood and womanhood is being evolved, new standards have been set up, and the future of oriental social development is full of promise; but this is on one condition, namely, that the material development does not outstrip the moral, and the race for industrial supremacy is restrained by the Christian standards of the worth of the individual and of the true value of the ethical. It is chiefly through the missionary and other Christian

workers that this aspect of western influence is exerted; and, if I may be permitted to express my personal conviction, only Christianity, by transforming the dominant purpose from one of self-aggrandizement into one of service, can furnish the necessary dynamic for a social evolution that shall be along the lines of the highest helpfulness. These are weighty reasons why the work of the missionary should be supported. Whether or not we believe firmly in the religious work of the missionary, he it is who is furnishing an essential element to oriental social progress, an element without which the effect of western influence can be only a mixture of a blessing and a curse. Hon. Seth Low is reported to have said that he went to the great World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh last June believing that missions were a pious undertaking; he came away convinced that they are a world-force. That is the conclusion to which an impartial study of present movements in the Orient leads, and hence it is of profound significance, not only to the student of religious phenomena, but to the investigator of oriental social conditions, that we are now witnessing a great revival of interest in the work of foreign missions, which are enlisting the support of substantial men of affairs, of journalists, of diplomats, and of government officials. In this lies one great ground for a hopeful confidence in the future.

DISCUSSION

S. H. WAINRIGHT, PRESIDING ELDER, ST. LOUIS DISTRICT, M.E. CHURCH, SOUTH

Like the Ten Commandments in our part of the world, the Five Relationships have the mold in which the social life of the Far East has been cast. As moral tenets they have been handed down from the sages and as Heaven does not change so they have never changed. The observance of them, according to Chinese ideas, has ever marked the sage and it is because of them that China is called the "Middle Kingdom," for these tenets neither fall short of nor go beyond what is right.

With their corresponding virtues these orders of relationships are: between father and son, filial piety; between sovereign and minister, loyalty; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions; between elder and younger, a proper order; and between friend and friend, fidelity. The conception of these relationships collectively and singly is undergoing change, especially in Japan, while the diversities of powers set in

operation by industrialism and commerce, and increasing opportunities, have called for new relationships not included in the traditional scheme.

The one-sided character of the relations, as conceived by the sages, is being overcome. On the side of sovereign, parent, and husband, a new accent is placed upon duty; while on the side of minister, child, and wife, a consciousness of rights is being experienced never recognized before. Instead of the virtue of dependence which has expressed the relationship hitherto, thoughtful men are casting about for a virtue more expressive of the relationship of equality, a virtue which they find in our conception of justice. Freedom has been confined to those who are superior in the social relationship and was the freedom which all tyrants possess. There has been a broadening so as to include inferiors as well as superiors in the common society of freely acting personalities; there has been rather a movement in this direction. Social movement in the East is the very reverse in direction of tendencies in the West. I speak of the present time. There, the movement is away from the social to the individual, and, here, from the individual to the social. There, they are seeking to free the individual from the limitations of social relations, while here, we are seeking to restrain the individual by greater imposition of social relations. There, the tendency of society is in the direction of a wider and more intense competition, while here, we are disposed to turn away from competition in the direction of a social co-operation. There, the desire is to secure rights, while here, we feel the need of greater emphasis upon duties. There, the social virtues which constitute the minor harmonies of collective life are giving place to a universal principle, the absence of which has been a serious defect in eastern ethics; while here, we are seeking to discover the application of the universal principle of justice in the minor harmonies that should exist in an ideal social order. One other tendency may be mentioned: the drift is away from the moral ideal to self-interest or utility, the pursuit of which has been condemned by the Confucianists. Mencius said to the Prince who came to learn something that would be of utility to him, "Why speak of utility? There is nothing but righteousness and benevolence." Shall I say that a reverse tendency can be discerned in our national life and that there is a recoil from the utilitarianism dominant in the past half-century? In regard to this last tendency it may be of interest to state that the missionaries have a better appreciation of the Confucian ideals than the present generation of Japanese, who are turning to utilitarianism. In truth, Confucianism will have no future except that which Christianity will give to it.

Considering the order of relationships singly, there has been a marked change in that between parent and child. A generation of children enlightened through a study of western education does not yield as cheerful obedience as the Confucian ideal demands to parents who belong to the old order of things. The effect of the new influence is seen upon the custom

of early abdication practiced by the father as head of the house. The early retirement of the parents from active life has shifted their burden to the younger members of the family. Professor Ross has spoken of the pressure of population as the outstanding sociological fact in the Far East. One of the causes of this pressure, in addition to those mentioned by him, has been the limited area hitherto of the producing population. This has been due in part to Buddhist influence. Confucianism favors production. The Great Learning says: "Let the producers be many, the consumers few." The Doctrine of the Mean says: "Bring out the valuable things from the mighty mountains." The Book of Ceremonies says: "A man is to be despised who deliberately throws aside precious materials." Not so with Buddhism. It encourages abdication, retirement, meditation, other-worldliness. It has drawn off a large portion of the population from productive pursuits. There is at the present time, however, an increasing number in Japan who extend the years of active effort far beyond the age of forty, the time when they began to think of retirement. Generally speaking, the pressure of population, even in the densely settled Far East, is not due so much to over-population as to under-production.

"Giri," literally translated "duty," is a type of filial devotion unknown in the West. The most common example is the selling of themselves into slavery, by the daughters of the family, in order that with their earnings they may support their parents. Strange to say those who have thus bartered away their womanhood have called forth the highest praise for their deeds. The selling of virtue has been regarded as almost the highest virtue. Fortunately such an excessive interpretation of the obligation of child to parent is yielding to the influence of Christianity and the daughters are learning of an obedience to parents more in accord with the rights of their own personality.

Another example of the assertion of independence on the part of the children is the prevalence of courtship in the great centers, a thing unknown until recent times. The matches prearranged by parents are set aside by those who seek the marriage relationship on the basis of personal affection.

As regards the relation between husband and wife, a marked change is taking place, shown in the rapid decline of the practice of concubinage, the legal right of the wife to divorce, as well as the husband, under the new law codes, the application of the word chastity to the one as well as to the other, and, in the custom becoming more prevalent, of the husband and wife appearing together on public occasions.

The bearing of modern ideas upon the relation between sovereign and minister is shown by the emphatic statement of Chang Chi Tung when he said, "Know, then, that the obligation of subject to sovereign is incompatible with republicanism." If so, we shall see what will become of the traditional idea of this relationship, and of the sovereign as the fountain of all political authority as constitutional government advances. Government in