Untitled

"""4 14 CHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.One means of reaching the men in Tokyo is byteaching English. In our evening classes, during thefall term of 1908, we had a total of 446 students,representing every province of China. The class roomaffords opportunities of gaining the respect of the men,and such a vantage ground, followed up by getting theminto our distinctively social and religious meetings,forms a lever of influence. The statistics of 1908 showsa total of 203 members of the Young Men s ChristianAssociation active and associate." Some of thesehave returned to China, some remained with us. Notevery member becomes an earnest pro-Young Men sChristian Association advocate, nor a sincere Christian,but the point to be emphasized is that we gained atleast 200 fewer anti-Christian individuals. This negative aspect is important and weighty.The fact that the students of China, who havealways opposed progress in every form, should go abroadin such vast numbers, was an open admission that Chinamust change. In the spring of 1906 the fact that anew door of great promise had been opened for Christian work, was realized, and the Young Men s ChristianAssociation was asked by the missionary body of Shanghai to undertake this work. In the spring of 1907,there were enough students connected with the YoungMen s Christian Association to make possible the establishment of a church.A little later, at the Centenary Conference, it wasdecided to select some one church to represent all theChristian churches in China, so that the ideal of Christian unity represented by the Young Men s ChristianAssociation should not be broken. A committee wasappointed to decide the matter, and they chose the Rev.Mark Liu, the pastor of the Methodist Church in Tientsin, to become the pastor of this representative church.Ever since his inaugural at this post he has been mostearnest and energetic in winning students to become realdisciples of Christ.