The heart of missions is a genuine regard for the highest welfare of the non-christian, a real interest in the lives of others.  Now interest is the act of being caught and held by something.  It is also temporary, as well as permanent.  This depends wholly on how much one is caught and held.  This fact is as true in boyhood as in manhood.  Further, interests are matters of association—­one interest is the path to another.  Perhaps, then, the boy’s play may widen to embrace China.

A group of boys, some time ago, were playing games in a church basement, and the time began to lag just a little.  A young man, who happened to be present, was appealed to for a new game, and he taught them to “skin the snake.”  It “caught on” immediately, and the group of boys grew hilarious in their enjoyment.  After a while, however, they stopped to rest, and one of the boys turned to the man who had taught the game, and said, “Where did you get that dandy stunt?” The reply was, “Oh, that’s one of the games that the fellows play over in China.”  There was silence for a moment or two, and then one of the older fellows said, “Gee, do the Chinks over there know enough to play a game like that?” Questions followed thick and fast for a little while about the boys of China, and the admiration of the boys increased with their knowledge.  The boys of China are a little closer, too, to the American boys of this particular group whenever “skin the snake” is played.  It is altogether too bad that the play-life of the adolescent in non-christian lands is so meager, for here in physical prowess is a real contact for the American boy.  The bigness of life is the sum of its contacts.

A boy between sixteen and twenty years is essentially social in his interests.  It is then that the call of the community, business life, vocation, etc., to say nothing of the sex and the home voice—­make their big appeal.  It is his own personal relation to these that makes them real, and the closer his relation the deeper is his interest.  The social appeal stirs his thought and leads him to investigation.  The similarity of problems at home and abroad gives him contact with other lands, and makes for him “all the world akin.”  The best approach to China’s need is the need of the homeland.  Good government here is a link of Manchuria and Mongolia.  The underpaid woman in the shop, store and factory of America is the introduction to the limitations of the womanhood of India and the Orient.  The problem of Africa is real only through the economic, social and moral demands of Pennsylvania, Illinois, or California.  The value of all of these in his thought is the relation which he holds individually to any one.  The circle of his interests grows by the widening of his knowledge.  The law of his being is to accept nothing on hearsay.  He must prove all things and cleave only to that which he finds true.  This, however, is the path to missionary and all other interests.