of them which indicated that he was not profoundly
interested. I was in their meeting last Sunday, and I told them about
Sui Chung. Most of these Chinese can read. Some of them are very
fluent talkers, and some are very intelligent. I suppose we have a
thousand or fifteen hundred in this city, and a very large proportion
of them, they tell me, can read the Chinese Bible.
Now, I have great respect for this people, if for nothing more than for
their history. We have a petty hundred years of history. How many
hundred have they? Any nation that can hold itself together for 4,000
years--or shall I say for more?--and that to-day constitutes nearly
one-quarter of the population of the earth, certainly deserves our
respect. Any people that can take our own handicrafts and beat us at
them--and they will do it in a good many directions, and make money,
even though you may disapprove of their way of living--deserve our
respect. Any people that can furnish diplomates fitted to stand side by
side with Bismarck and Gladstone, and our own embassadors say that they
can, certainly deserve our respect.
One thing more they desire of the Christian church, if it were only a
debt to be paid. I insist upon it, brethren, that at least Christian
England and Christian America ought to pay back to them in missionary
moneys at least an amount equal to that of which we have robbed them by
the infamous opium traffic, and to-day it is people from Christian
lands, more than anything else, who are furnishing the difficulties in
the way of the introduction of the gospel abroad.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ALBERT SALISBURY.
There are values even in this world for which we have no expression, for
which we have no definite standard, and of which we have no very clear
comprehension. They are values, none the less. But there is one standard
of value of which I think it may be safely said the American people have
come into a very clear comprehension, that is, of the weight of the
working power of a dollar.
Most of us know it by pretty thorough experience. We know what a dollar
costs, how hard it is to get, how hard it is to keep, how little we are
liable to receive for it when it goes. And, let me say it, I believe
there are no people on this Western Continent who have any more exact,
definite, clearly defined comprehension of what a dollar is, what it
will do, and what it will not do, than the managers of our mi
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