04 IN THE STREET CHAPEL

Chapter 4 IN THE STREET CHAPEL The offer of Christ to sinful men wherever they can be found is not the offer of an alternative religion to them, in the sense in which Hinduism and Taoism and Confucianism are religions. It is the offer to men of the secret of life, of something that will cleanse them from all that hinders and defeats their spiritual natures, of something that will enable them to realise their true selves, and become men in the true and full sense of the word. --Ascent through Christ.

WE will suppose that the missionary has acquired a sufficient knowledge of the language to enable him to preach a little. Preaching in China is not quite the same, how ever, as preaching at home. The missionary does not shut himself up in his study for the best part of the week preparing two elaborate and cultured discourses to be read on Sunday to the congregation. He has to preach to Christians on the Lord’s day, it is true, but he has also to evangelize the heathen during the other days of the week. This is carried on, for the most part, in the street-preaching chapels. These chapels are open for a few hours every afternoon. They are situated in main thoroughfares to attract passers-by, and are generally large enough to accommodate from fifty to a hundred people. The buildings are quite unpretentious; not in the least ecclesiastical. Any old shop or store with sufficient air-space and a few forms is all that is required. They are only distinguishable from the other buildings around by a glance at the sign-board "Jesus Religion Chapel." On entering the building the most noticeable features are the characters inscribed upon the walls; sayings from the classics, such as: " He who offends against Heaven has no place where he can pray," are found side by side with the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Lord s Prayer, or, " The time is fulfilled, repent and believe the gospel." Not seldom I have seen a map of the world adorning the walls. Adjoining the chapel is frequently a book-shop, where books of various kinds dealing with Christianity can be found, but especially the Scriptures in the vernacular of the people.

Let us go to one of these chapels and spend the afternoon. Two native evangelists live on the premises behind the chapel, and are in charge of all the arrangements. During the former part of each day they are busy receiving visitors, making calls, or studying, for they are students as well as evangelists, and have examinations to pass. These evangelists are, as a rule, the pick of our converts ; young men of bright intelligence, ready utterance, and love for souls. About four o clock the door opens. We commence by singing a hymn : " There is a gate that stands ajar," or other popular air. The singing attracts the passers - by on the street. They begin to drop into the chapel in twos and threes, till, at the close of the hymn, from twenty to thirty people have gathered together. These, be it observed, are all men. Women do not attend the street chapel. Chinese etiquette does not sanction mixed audiences, and indeed women are seldom to be seen on the streets at all. The men seat themselves on the forms provided, light their pipes if they choose, and quietly listen. The whole meeting is of a free-and- easy character. They go out and in at will. Only there is no conversation -- a law, however, which is sometimes honored in the breach, as it is almost impossible for the irrepressible Chinaman to sit still and hold his tongue. The range of topics upon which one may speak to such an audience is fairly wide, so long as we treat our subjects in such a way as to show that they have some affinity with the circle of ideas already familiar to the Chinese mind. It will not do to choose a text and preach a sermon, even though that be directed to the unconverted. The probability is it would not be understood. We have to be careful even in the language we employ, for Christianity gives a new and deeper meaning to a wide vocabulary of words which the heathen mind can only fully understand after they have entered the Church, and grown up to an appreciation of Christian ideas. You need not be surprised if, when you are addressing your audience as sinners, you are informed by a respectable Chinaman that he, at least, is nothing of the kind. It is the fault of the language, for tsui ren connotes to his mind nothing more nor less than a criminal. He knows nothing of that inward sense of pollution in the sight of an all-holy God which we read into the word. The Chinese have two expressions which describe very well what we mean by preaching. The first is "explain the book " (chiang shu), and the second is " spread the doctrine " (chuan tao). The character of our preaching to the heathen consists largely in explanation, which results in spreading the knowledge of the gospel. If the foreign pastor is present when the chapel opens, he invariably leads off, and is followed by the native evangelists. Not unfrequently some church-members drop in, and close with a few words of testimony or exhortation. The foreign pastor may begin somewhat in this style :

" In your Three-Character-Classic there is a saying to this effect: Man’s nature was originally virtuous. " (As this is one of the ABC books in every Chinese school, all present understand the allusion and know the text by heart from which you wish to speak. Moreover, they are pleased to hear the foreigner quote their classical books: it places him en rapport with his audience at once.) Then he proceeds: " Our Western books (the Bible) say the same thing in another way. They say: In the beginning God created man in His own image. Originally man’s nature was pure and virtuous like the nature of a little child. But as a matter of fact, are the men and women around you virtuous? Do they not lie and squeeze and curse? (Illustrations of this from their daily life can readily be given.)

" Chu Hsi, one of your own sages, says it is like this: You plant a young tree in the earth, expecting to see it grow up tall and straight in your garden. But just as it begins to show itself above the ground, an enemy comes and places a large stone on the top of it. It does not cease to grow, but it grows twisted under neath the stone. Now the young tree is like our nature, but the stone is human sin. Sin is a heavy weight; it twists and embitters our nature and prevents us from growing virtuous and upright as God originally intended.

" Go to the Yamen Gate and you will see men wearing a heavy piece of wood on their shoulders, their heads thrust through a hole in the middle of it. It is locked, and they cannot get free. When they lie down to sleep it prevents them from resting ; when they awake it is still there. Day and night they have to carry the burden. That is a punishment for having broken the law of the Emperor. But there is a higher law than the law of the land.

It is God s law. We have all broken that, and are carrying invisible burdens in consequence. Now I have come to China to tell you that God has sent His Son into the world to take that burden off your shoulders. He alone can remove the stone of sin from your hearts. When Jesus was crucified He took it upon His own, for He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He alone never broke God’s law. He was without sin; perfectly virtuous. Read His life as you find it in the Gospels, and you will see what virtue means. Confucius tells you that it is enough to observe the five relations: The minister must be loyal to the Emperor, the wife love her husband, the child obey his parents, the younger brother be submissive to the elder, and friend be faithful to friend. But all that says nothing about our relation to God. Jesus says: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. " This talk will last for twenty minutes or half an hour. Meantime the little chapel is gradually becoming full of people. Some are listening attentively; some, on the other hand, are gazing around with vacant stare: "Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, vainly contented with the show of things." The native preachers succeed the foreigner and take up the theme. Ideas and illustrations have suggested themselves to their minds while he has been speaking, and they are able to enforce and apply the message to the consciences of the hearers in a manner he could not do.

After two or three hours the service ends. The bulk betake themselves home, where they talk over what they have heard in the chapels. Some few remain in conversation with the preachers. They are invited to the rooms behind the chapel to talk over their difficulties, and are encouraged to inquire further into the "Jesus doctrine" by the reading of a book; and so the work goes on every day. The street-preaching chapel is the nexus between the Christian and the heathen world; the lever by means of which the people are being raised out of their heathen ism into the Kingdom of God ; the feeder of the Church.

Evening falls and members and inquirers gather themselves together for worship. The senior preacher gives a short exposition of some passage and leads their devotions. After worship they spend some time together learning new hymns, examining inquirers, and in social intercourse, and thus the day closes. In Moukden city there were seven such chapels, two of which belonged to the Irish Mission, and five to the Scotch. Over the whole Moukden centre there were between forty and fifty, and there must have been nearly three or four hundred such chapels spread all over Manchuria. These held the strategic points of the field. An elder and two deacons were associated with each of the city chapels. They held a monthly business meeting. Some members had got into trouble and needed help; some brother had grown lax in attendance, and must be visited; some may have lapsed into heathen practices after the death of a member of the family where the unconverted portion insisted on the observance of heathen rites, and these must be disciplined; the contributions to the central funds of the church had to be made up and sent in. This meeting took general oversight of all the affairs of the chapel connected with that district, and the elder reported at the monthly meeting of Session on all matters affecting the spiritual welfare of the little community.