Chapter 18

THE RELIGIONS OF THE AMERICANS

Thomas J. Geary, the former congressman, is an avowed enemy of the Chinese and the author of the famous Geary bill, but I condone all he has said against us for one profound utterance made in a published address or article, in which he said: "As to the missionaries (in China), it wouldn't be a national loss if they were required to return home. If the American missionary would only look about him in the large cities of the Union he would find enough of misery, enough of suffering, enough people falling away from the Christian churches, enough of darkness, enough of vice in all its conditions and all its grades, to furnish him work for years to come." This is a sentiment Americans may well think of; but there are "none so blind as those who will not see." There will always be women and men willing to spend their time in picturesque China at the expense of foreign missions. China has never attempted to convert the Americans to her religion, believing she has all she can do to keep her people within bounds at home.

In my search for information in America I have had some singular experiences. I have made an examination of the many religions of the Americans, and they have been remarkably prolific in this respect. While we are satisfied with Taoism, Buddhism, but mostly with Confucianism, I have observed the following sects in America: Baptists of two kinds, Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers of three kinds, Catholics, Unitarians, Universalists, Presbyterians, Swedenborgians, Spiritualists, Christian Scientists (healers), Episcopalians (high and low), Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists, and many more. Nearly all are Christians, as we are nearly all Confucians. Unitarians, Universalists, Jews, and several others believe in the moral teachings of Christ, but hold that he was not of divine origin. America was first settled to supply room for religious liberty, which perhaps explains the remarkable number of religions. They are constantly increasing. Nearly all of these denominations hold that their own belief is the right one. Much proselyting is going on among them, with which one would take no exception if there was no denouncing of one another. Our religion, founded in the faith of Confucius, seems satisfying to us. Some of us believe that at least we are not savages.

Some American friends once invited me to go to a negro church in Washington. Upon arriving we were given a seat well down in front. The pastor was a "visiting evangelist," and in a short time had these excitable and ignorant people in a frenzy, several being carried out of the church in a semicataleptic condition. Suddenly the minister began to pray for the strangers, and especially "for the heathen in our midst," for the unsaved from pagan lands, that they might be saved; and I could not but wonder at the conceit and ignorance that would ask a believer in the splendid philosophy of