The anniversary of the Congregational Chinese School at San Diego, organized about six years ago, was held in the Congregational Church on Sunday evening, February 10th.  The church, capable of seating about five hundred and fifty, was filled to its utmost capacity.  There were about thirty Chinese scholars present.  The services were conducted by Rev. Dr. Pond, who had come down from San Francisco for the purpose of visiting the missions in Southern California.  The pastor of the church, Rev. J.B.  Silcox, assisted in the opening services.  The Chinese boys were catechized by Dr. Pond, and showed by their answers that they were being grounded in the fundamental truths of the Bible.  Lum Goon Kee recited the Twenty-third Psalm, and Chung Chong the Ten Commandments, and another “The Apostles’ Creed.”  The first and second commandments received a new meaning to us as we heard them recited by one who until recently bowed himself down to graven images of God and the devil in the Joss house.  They sang Christian hymns in Chinese and English.  Charley Nun gave an address in which he testified to the benefits in being “a Jesus boy.”  Hom Gee had written and read the story of his conversion to Jesus.  It was interesting to listen as they told how they were led out of darkness into light, and asked for the prayers of all good Christians.  The audience felt that human hearts are the same the world over, and that the Holy Ghost had been given unto them, “even as unto us.”  The address of Low Quong would convince the most skeptical of the power of the gospel to purify the heart, illumine the mind and elevate the life and character of the Chinamen as well as others.  He spoke in good English, and by his clear putting of the gospel truth, touched the hearts of all.  The service made many converts.  It convinced the hearers that the Chinaman was made in the image of God and is included in the “every creature,” to whom the gospel is to be preached.

There are about one thousand Christian Chinamen connected with the Congregational Churches of California and Oregon.  They contribute about $2,500 for home mission work and have organized a foreign missionary society, and with $1,400 as a starter, have sent two missionaries, one a Chinaman, back to China to do work there.

There is considerable opposition to Chinamen in this State.  It does not wholly arise from “sand lot” orators either.  These “little brown men” are industrious, patient, cheerful, obliging.  They make the best of servants.  But the average working man of America cannot compete with him in the labor market, and I would be sorry if he could.  I hope the day will never come when the working man of America will be reduced to such cramped conditions of home life as “The heathen Chinee” luxuriates in.  Paganism can live where Christianity cannot.  A hut will do for a pagan Zulu.  When he becomes a Christian, he wants a shirt and a house.  “Chinatown” in any California city, and especially in San Francisco,