and prediction. Listen:

"The Chinese race and the American citizen, whether native-born or who
is eligible to our naturalization laws and becomes a citizen, are in a
state of antagonism. They cannot, nor will not, ever meet upon common
ground and occupy together the same so-called level. This is
impossible. The pagan and the Christian travel different paths. This
one believes in a living God; that one in the type of monsters and
worship of wood and stone. Thus in the religion of the two races of
men, they are as wide apart as the poles of the two hemispheres. They
cannot now, nor never [sic] will, approach the same religious altar.
The Christian will not recede to barbarism, nor will the Chinese
advance to the enlightened belt [wherever it is] of civilization.... He
cannot be converted to those modern ideas of religious worship which
have been accepted by Europe, and which crown the American system."

Christians used to believe that through their religion all the nations
of the earth were finally to be blest. In accordance with that belief
missionaries have been sent to every land, and untold wealth has been
expended for what has been called the spread of the gospel.

I am almost sure that I have read somewhere that "Christ died for all
men," and that "God is no respecter persons." It was once taught that
it was the duty of Christians to tell to all people the "tidings of
great joy." I have never believed these things myself, but have always
contended that an honest merchant was the best missionary. Commerce
makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, and the other
impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other
where falsehoods are believed. For myself, I have but little
confidence in any business, or enterprise, or investment, that promises
dividends only after the death of the stockholders.

But I am astonished that four Christian statesmen, four members of
Congress in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, who seriously
object to people on account of their religious convictions, should
still assert that the very religion in which they believe--and the only
religion established by the living God--head of the American system--is
not adapted to the spiritual needs of one-third of the human race. It
is amazing that these four gentlemen have, in the defense of the
Christian religion, announced the discovery that it is wholly
inadequate for the civilization of mank