med, "I shall never forget an
experience I had in China. My wealthy and ultra-aristocratic
congregation decided that I needed rest, and so sent me on a world
tour. It was a member of that same congregation, by the way, a stuffy
old dame whose wealth footed up to millions, who once remarked to me
in all confidence that she had no doubt the aristocracy of heaven was
composed of Presbyterians. Poor, old, empty-headed prig! What could I
do but assure her that I held the same comforting conviction! Well,
through influential friends in Pekin I was introduced to the eminent
Chinese statesman, Wang Fo, of delightful memory. Our conversation
turned on religion, and then I made the most inexcusable _faux pas_
that a blithering Yankee could make, that of expressing regret that he
was not of our faith. Good heavens! But he was the most gracious
gentleman in the world, and his biting rebuke was couched in tones of
silken softness.

"'What is it that you offer me?' he said mildly. 'Blind opinion?
Undemonstrated and undemonstrable theory? Why, may I ask, do you
come over here to convert us heathen, when your own Christian land
is rife with evil, with sedition, with religious hatred of man for
man, with bloodshed and greed? If your religious belief is true,
then you can demonstrate it--prove it beyond doubt. Do you say
that the wonderful material progress which your great country
manifests is due to Christianity? I answer you, no. It is due to
the unfettering of the human mind, to the laying off of much of
the mediaeval superstition which in the past ages has blighted
mankind. It is due largely to the abandonment of much of what you
are still pleased to call Christianity. The liberated human mind
has expanded to a degree never before seen in the world. We Chinese
are still mentally fettered by our stubborn resistance to change,
to progression. Your great inventors and your great men of finance
are but little hampered by religious superstition. Hence the
mental flights which they so boldly undertake, and the stupendous
achievements they attain. Is it not so?'

"What could I say? He had me. But he hadn't finished me quite.

"'I once devoted much time to the study of Chemistry,' he went on
blandly, 'and when I tell you that there is a law to the effect that
the volume of a gas is a function of its pressure I do so with the
full knowledge that I can furnish you indisputable proof therefor. But
when you come to me with your religious th