THE HOMILETIC REVIEW An International Monthly Magazine of Current Religious Thought, VOL. LVI. From July to December 1908 PUBLISHERS: FUNK AND WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMVIII Published by Funk & Wagnalls Company, 44-60 E. 23d St., N.Y. Issac K. Funk, Pres., A. W. Wagnalls, Vice-Pres. and Treas., Rob't Scott, Sec. JULY, 1908 EDITORIAL COMMENT Every idea is a force, and therefore a commencement of an action." No. 1 THE Conflicting forces and the changed attitude of the peoples of the Far East are attracting the attention of all who study the signs of the times. The world has become a unit; men live closer together and are united into The brotherhood by the ties of the iron rail, the greyhound fleets, and Awaken- the cables that bridge oceans and continents. In the words of ing Joseph Cook, "The nineteenth century has made the whole world a Orient neighborhood; the twentieth century will make the whole world a brotherhood." It is daybreak everywhere. Ten years ago two young men went from Shanghai to study in Japan. They were the first from that empire. In the autumn of 1906, the Japan Mail stated that there were then fully thirteen thousand Chinese students in Japan, representatives from every one of the eighteen provinces. No less than six hundred of them came from the westernmost province at the very gates of Tibet. Surely in all the history of the world there has been no such extensive migration of students from one land to another to leap over a period of centuries in their desire for intellectual advancement! We are told that Japan, to-day, is at heart more Christian than the Roman empire was when the emperor Constantine first set up the banner of the Cross over his legions. The influence of Christianity has gone much deeper and touches a much wider circle than the reports of the missionary societies would indicate. China with its four hundred millions is not awakening, but is awake. Commercially, socially, politically, and spiritually, this giant empire is struggling to free itself from the grave-clothes of the past. Ten years ago China had one short railroad; now four thousand miles of railway are completed and nine thousand miles are in building. One can now go from Peking to Hong-kong in thirty-six hours; four years ago it took thirty-six days. Shanghai and Hong-kong, which once were a fishing-village and a barren rock, have become the Manchester and the Liverpool of the Orient. Milne, one of the pioneer missionaries in China, prophesied that possibly after one hundred years there might be a thousand Christians in China; and his was a heroic faith if one thinks of the gates of brass and the walls of iron that then guarded the empire. The time for this prophecy has not yet expired, and we find to-day nearly two hundred thousand native Christians in China. Korea, instead of being "The Land of the Morning Calm," is the land of such a social, moral, and spiritual upheaval as the world has never seen. This will be the first land of the East to be Christianized if the Church fulfils in any measure the present call of opportunity from this dead-ripe harvest field. In North Korea, where fifteen years ago there was no Christian, there are now one thousand churches and preaching-places. India, divided by caste lines and by two hundred languages or dialects, by mountains and rivers, by religious prejudice and age-long hatreds, has become |