Now I believe this:  That, so far as the facts go, there is just as large a percentage of results to be shown for work among the Chinese as for work anywhere.  Take it in our city, among some of the Chinese schools; take it in San Francisco, take it in China itself.  I received on Saturday last a letter from Mr. Gray, of Hong-Kong, speaking of a young man who had gone out from our church as his assistant in the work there.  Said he to me:  “He is one of the most valuable helpers I could have.  He not only stands fast by his work, but he also seems to have spiritual discernment to meet the peculiar difficulties we have to encounter, and there are plenty of them.  Here is a man, for instance, who says he would whip his wife to death if he should hear of her accepting Christ.  There is another, a mother, who would let her child starve if she thought it was being taught the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But among this people there is no more successful laborer that I know of than Sui Chung.”  I knew him well.  He came into our Chinese Sunday-school, which is held every Sunday afternoon.  I remember him distinctly, as giving, so far as I could see, clear evidence of being born of the Spirit.  And I bear testimony to these young men now in my church—­there are ten or a dozen of them—­that, so far as I know them and so far as I have been able to talk with them in imperfect English or through Chinese interpreters, their Christian experience is as satisfactory as that of any others.  Nay, I will say more than that.  I will venture to say that the Chinese brethren in my church are more earnest.  They sustain a Chinese prayer-meeting regularly every Sunday of their own accord in their own language, and have kept it up ever since there were enough of them to be united together.  I frequently look in and talk with them; and there is one thing about these Chinese that I greatly respect—­I never saw them pull out their watches while I was speaking to them.  I never saw any of them going to sleep; I never saw a look in the face of one of them which indicated that he was not profoundly interested.  I was in their meeting last Sunday, and I told them about Sui Chung.  Most of these Chinese can read.  Some of them are very fluent talkers, and some are very intelligent.  I suppose we have a thousand or fifteen hundred in this city, and a very large proportion of them, they tell me, can read the Chinese Bible.

Now, I have great respect for this people, if for nothing more than for their history.  We have a petty hundred years of history.  How many hundred have they?  Any nation that can hold itself together for 4,000 years—­or shall I say for more?—­and that to-day constitutes nearly one-quarter of the population of the earth, certainly deserves our respect.  Any people that can take our own handicrafts and beat us at them—­and they will do it in a good many directions, and make money, even though you may disapprove of their way of living—­deserve our respect.  Any people that can furnish diplomates fitted to stand side by side with Bismarck and Gladstone, and our own embassadors say that they can, certainly deserve our respect.