in the heart of an active, stirring, prosperous, great American city with its Christian civilisation and its Christian Churches and its Christian homes, we cannot but ask ourselves what would have been the history of the Pacific States, of California with its nearly eight hundred miles of coast, if the Chinese had settled here centuries ago?  If they had been navigators and colonizers like the Phoenicians of old, like the Greeks and Romans, if they had had a Columbus, a Balboa, a Cabrillo, a Drake, the whole history of the country west of the Rocky Mountains might have been totally different.  Millions of Chinamen instead of thousands might now be in possession of that great region of our land, and great cities like Canton and Fuchau, Pekin and Tientsin, might rise up on the view instead of San Diego and Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco, with their idolatry and peculiar life and customs.  Another question may be asked here by way of speculation.  What would have been the effect of Chinese occupation of the Pacific coast on the Indians of all the region west of the Rocky Mountains?  Would the followers of Confucius have incorporated them into their nationality, supplanted them, or caused them to vanish out of sight?  What problems these for the ethnologist!  Doubtless there would have been intermarriages of the races with new generations of commingled blood.  And what would have been the result of this?  There is a story which I have read somewhere, that long years ago a Chinese junk was driven by the winds to the shores of California, and that a Chinese merchant on board took an Indian maiden to wife and bore her home to the Flowery Kingdom, and that from this marriage was descended the famous statesman Li Hung Chang.  But whatever the fortunes of the Indians, or the Chinese in their appropriation of the Pacific coast, it would not have been so advantageous to civilisation, to the progress of humanity.  It would have been loss, and a hindrance to the Anglo-Saxon race destined now to rule the world and to break down every barrier and to set up the standard of the Cross everywhere for the glory of the true God.  His hand is apparent in it all.  He directs the great movements of history for the welfare of mankind, and He controls the destinies of nations for the advancement of His Kingdom!

CHAPTER XI

THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF 1901

First Services—­Drake’s Chaplain—­Flavel Scott Mines—­Bishop Kip—­Growth of the Church in California—­The General Convention in San Francisco—­A Western Sermon—­Personnel of the Convention—­Distinguished Names—­Subjects Debated—­Missions of the Church—­Apportionment Plan—­The Woman’s Auxiliary—­The United Offering—­Missionary Meeting in Mechanics’ Pavilion—­College Reunions—­Zealous Men—­A Dramatic Scene—­Closing Service—­Object Lesson—­A Revelation to California—­Examples of the Church’s Training—­Mrs. Twing—­John I. Thompson—­Golden Gate of Paradise.