countries that naturally group with it. And here are gathered fully a
fifth of the people of the earth. These are really in large part our
blood-brothers. Their fathers away back were brothers to our fathers. And
so missionary work here ought to be reckoned largely as a family affair.
British rule has had an immense humanizing influence here. Missionary
activity has been carried on aggressively for years, and great and blessed
progress has been made.

Yet it is merely a preparation for the work now so sorely needed. These
years of faithful seed-sowing have made the soil dead ripe for a harvest
in our day. A strange religiousness utterly lacking both in religion and
in morality, abominably repugnant in its gross immorality, honey-combs the
life of these people. The cry of need here is deep and pathetic.

Pushing on still to the east, the great land of China with its
dependencies, looms up in all its huge giant size. Roughly speaking,
almost a third of the world's people are grouped here. There are
practically almost as many in what is reckoned Chinese territory as in all
Christian lands. Here is found the oldest and best civilization of the
non-Christian sort. The old common religion of Confucius is practically
not a religion at all, but a code of maxims and rules, and utterly lacking
in moral uplift or power.

The peculiarly impressive thing about China, as indeed about nearly all
of the heathen world, is the spirit of stagnation. There is a deadness,
or sort of stupor, over everything. It is as if a blight had spread over
the land, checking all progress. Habits, customs, and institutions remain
apparently as they were a thousand years ago. This stands out in sharp
contrast with the spirit of growth that marks Christian lands.