It seems strange to us because the spirit of growth is the atmosphere of our western world, breathed in from infancy.  The one word that seems peculiarly to describe China is that word “stagnant.”  The people themselves are remarkable both for their mental power and their habits of industry.  The Chinese may well be called the Anglo-Saxons of the Orient, in latent power and mental character.

In our modesty we think the Anglo-Saxon, the English-speaking, the greatest of living peoples.  Certainly the leadership of the world is in Anglo-Saxon hands, and has been for centuries.  And the marvellous, unprecedented progress of the world has been under that leadership.

Well, when these Chinese wake up we are very likely to find the race getting a new leadership, and the history of the world a new chapter added.  What sort of leadership it will be morally, and what sort of a chapter, will depend on how much statesmanship there is in our praying and giving and missionary service.  But the need is enormously intensified by the unawakened power of these Chinese.

West by Way of the East.

Still moving east, we come to the newly awakened and very attractive island-nation of Japan, which, because of its geographical and territorial situation, has been called the Great Britain of the Orient.  Japan stands at present as the exception to the common stagnation of the heathen world.  It has made a record nothing less than phenomenal as a student of Western life.  It has absorbed, and imitated, and adapted to its own use, the Western knowledge and spirit with a wonderful power and intelligence.

Japan is both bright and ambitious to an almost abnormal degree, and as tricky in its dealings, and morally unclean in its life, as it is bright and ambitious.  They have been called the Frenchmen of the Orient, and that characterization fits remarkably in many respects.  Great progress has been made in giving the Gospel to Japan, but the present moral need is immensely intensified by the very aggressiveness of the Japanese spirit.

With Japan, the island-kingdom, it is easy to group the whole island-world lying to the east and south, though these are utterly different peoples.  This includes the great number of islands scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean.  The conditions are largely those of savagery except where affected by Christian civilization through the missionary enterprise.  The Gospel has done some wonderful feats of transformation here.  And there is plenty of room for more.  Australia, the “island continent,” is a British colony, and of course now reckoned among Christian lands; as is also the large island of New Zealand, also a British colony, which has been a leader in some of the most advanced steps of modern civilization.