Читать книгу China's Revolution, 1911-1912: A Historical and Political Record of the Civil War онлайн

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But no matter how many the rivals, I should think that no two nations have better prospects for the securing of China's new trade than Great Britain and the United States. It needs alertness, however.

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With the opening of China as a Republic the progress to be made in education will undoubtedly be stupendous. Missionaries will probably find an ever-increasing field. Missionaries and educationists will have a freer hand and be everywhere more greatly respected. They will play more than ever an increasing part in uplifting the people. Lord William Gascoign-Cecil has pointed out that if the West is to be saved she must illuminate China, and he says unless that vast country has attained the same standard as ourselves we must undergo a process of degradation. Our civilisation grew up, like our old towns, under the shadow of the Church; you will see in any country in Christendom the village clustering round the church, the town round the cathedral. Of late years big factory chimneys have been covered with the smoke of industry; still, they have left their mark as much on our civilisation as on our landscapes. But now a country which knows nothing of church or cathedral is entering into that civilisation, and the church and the cathedral become things of archæological interest and nothing more, unless, indeed, the Church will take the opportunity and conquer the industrial China that threatens the West.