Too Aggressive

Yes, these Jehovah Witness people are just too aggressive. Those horribly brainwashed people keep coming to our house and pounding on our door and leaving their garbage for us to throw in the garbage can. We all know that everything done by the Jehovah Witness cult is just wrong wrong wrong. They have nothing to teach me and I don't want those people messing with my head. They can never do anything right until they find out who Jesus really is. Until then I do not want to hear one word from fat ugly pig Libby Penders and her stupid Jehovah Witness crew.

Anomalies

Genealogical anomalies seem to abound in the historical record regarding missionaries to China. How is it that Bertha Dixon, in her book "Romance of Faith," says that she and her husband William T. Dixon departed from San Francisco in December 1909 and that their return to the United States was occasioned by the death of their two children in 1911? The 1910 census taken in April of 1910 lists Bertha and family present and accounted for at the Training School for Christian Workers in California. How then can the Dixons be in China and California at the same time? I am not sure how this can be. And why is it that no passenger lists appear proving that Bertha and family ever returned to California by sea? Can it be that they never did to go China and that the "Romance" described in her book is all a careful construction of chitter chatter and gossip and things heard of? And why would Azusa Pacific University, which that school later became, list biographical information about her if her book did not have something of value to say? Yes, all these matters for trivial pursuit are everywhere. And if Philip Barth died in China in 1911 how can he be buried in that Los Angeles cemetery?  I like the game of Trivial Pursuit but not as a full-time job. I cannot afford to sit around nibbling on these little clues when I have a job to do. Obviously someone has already solved these little puzzles anyway so I do not need to reinvent the wheel. My services are not needed and I have better things to do anyway. Like my Dad always said, I must use my head for more than just a hatrack.

Dogs

Speaking of dogs, is there some reason I should care at all about what Jeanie Barton Lewis is yapping about over there wherever she is. I don't remember ever having a single class with her in high school so she must have been an All-Dummies student, not that I would know anything about her. She is obviously not related to me so she would not have a clue about my genealogy. I don't appreciate being patched over to Malta and those distant cousins who lived on Southern plantations. Yes, they were so much nicer to black people in their kind and patronizing way, according to the plantation landlord way of thinking. Yes, I am sure that if I had been to the plantation born maybe I would have been nice to my slaves, too. However, I would also be just as sick as your are, and you are sick sick sick. The plantation system is broke so let's not rebuild it either way around.

Streaking

Oh, that was Roy Smeya who told the story about streaking which was a phenomenon of American culture in the 1970s, not that I would know anything about that. I only remember hearing the story about the streaker. When missionaries tell these stories we are supposed to laugh and think this is funny but it really is scary to think that American culture dipped that low over the past century. Fortunately streaking is no longer in vogue and you will probably go to jail if you try to make a statement that way, as the cops have said.

Playing Along

Yes, I am not really the person who originally complained about Italians but this is the role assigned to me so I suppose I might as well say a bunch of stuff about how annoying Italians can be, as if it were all about them. No, last time I checked there are many kinds of people, not just Italians. Just because your parents were Italian, that does not entitle you to "special" treatment for being an IK.

The Chinese Opposition

In 1925 we learn that the New Thought Movement is posing a serious challenge to Christianity in China. "Many who have been abroad have come back having seen the worst side of Christendom. The foundations of faith have been shaken," says our guide, Mr. Zia, describing the organized opposition to Christianity in China. Yes, there are plenty of so-called Christians who don't have a clue. A poem titled "Amen" published in the Weekly Review is no trite devotional. Written by Mr. Tai Tien Chou, it calls for the abolition of the Christian Church and of Christianity. The "Vanguard" magazine has published the manifesto of the Anti-Christian Student Federation, including the names of its constituent organizations. The Federation argues that (1) science and Christianity are incompatible and (2) that Christianity as a tool of imperialism and capitalism is a means of oppressing weaker nations.

Yes, we are not unaware of these challenges to our faith. China's unsaved masses are not unique in opposing the true faith which is the Christian faith. But like so many others foes of the cross throughout the course of human history your resistance is meaningless. There is a way that seems right to a man but the end thereof is death. You can oppose the cross but you will be sorry later. If you embrace the cross now then you will be with us in heaven but if you will not accept Christ as the only hope of salvation then, well, we can't promise you anything in terms of riches and wealth. Basically, you may well have a very good life as a mother of lots of children here on earth and yet roast later because we are not talking about earthly things. Silver and gold have I none, to quote the apostle. But such as we have we give to you. We are talking about spiritual things that you cannot understand without spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear.

You can't squeeze a whole lot of spiritual truth from a peculiar cultural artifact such as the China yearbook, the product as it is of a certain time and set of circumstances. You have to look to the true source of this Christian hope of which we speak. This is found only in the pages of the Bible. Here is how the Apostle Paul explains the human dilemma in the New Testament, Romans 7:

• 14. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
• 15. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
• 16. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
• 17. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
• 18. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
• 19. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.
• 20. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
• 21. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
• 22. For in my inner being I delight in God's law;
• 23. but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
• 24. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
• 25. Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
  

Yearbook

Yes, leafing through the yearbook, suddenly my classmates look so Chinese. I had not remembered them with such slanted eyes and yellowish complexions. And anyway, where did all those Oriental names come from, all those Kondo, Liu, Takeda, etc.? I am not sure why but every yearbook seems to begin with a General Survey of conditions in China, not that I would know much about that. Says that eminent old "China hand" Arthur H. Smith: "The currents and the cross currents mingle confusedly, but they are beneath the surface, and often the only evidence of their existence to the outsider is the emergence of new sandbars, the opening of new and intricate channels, and the partial or complete closing of those which have been long in use." Yes, the constant struggle of the ying and yang perhaps? I am not sure what he means except that China is making progress. Dr. Smith is not shy about expressing his opinion in matters of Chinese government and dissing various Chinese leaders as he sees fit. For example:

• "The aged Sun Chia-nai was a man of weight and importance in his way, but he belonged to an age which had never comprehended the new era in which he could not be classed as a leading figure."
• "Yang Shih-hsiang, Governor-General of the Chihli province, was not a man of great abilities, but a substantial and a useful official."

Dr. Smith reports in 1910 that the talk in China is about the proposal to introduce a constitution. Provincial assemblies have been called to develop this document. Dr. Smith confidently asserts that the provincial assemblies will immediately want to know why the people are being so heavily taxed. "The next step will be an impeachment of the inordinately large number of thoroughly inefficient officials against whom there has hitherto been practically no redress."

Yes, now there's an idea. Let's impeach all these government officials who are so heavily taxing us to pay for all this stuff. Yeah, sure. I hope the lawmakers in D.C. are shaking in their boots. Uhuh!

Yes, clearly the constitution will solve all of China's problems, although Dr. Smith has some trepidations about how it is going to work. "By what processes are these innumerable millions to learn the meaning of that mighty and mystic term, to distinguish between liberty and license, to be schooled in that self-restraint which involves cooperation, the subordination of the present to the future, and especially that of the individual to the community?"

Nevertheless, that will be a glorious day for China when a constitution is finally adopted and ratified.

When that day comes district magistrates will be obliged to give prompt attention to suits-at-law, to decide with some measure of fairness, and the rudiments of a writ of habeas corpus act will emerge, preventing the indiscriminate detention of both guilty and innocent for months and years until all track of the original case has been lost to the public. Whether the reformed code of Chinese law which is promised at an early day is to take cognizance of matters like these, no one seems able as yet to say with certainty, but whether it does or does not, the old tyrannies and disregard of individual right are doomed.

  Yes, that will be a great day indeed.