The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 143

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

143

in the sugar-beet fields, in the lumber camps, on
the railroads, — wherever there is demand for un-
skilled labor. What are we doing to save them to
themselves and to this nation? We send our mis-
sionaries elsewhere, why not to the Mexicans in
greater numbers? Ought we not to be as much in-
terested in the laboring man at our door as in the
one in China? We Americans are not awake to the
value of the new immigrant saved and developed
nor to the menace of those allowed to fall into the
hands of the enemies of law and order.
Rev. Dr. R. McL.

“Ren TS’en I I SHIN PU I FA,”’
Rom. 3, 28.

About ten years ago, when God blessed the
efforts of our China missionaries, He also heard
their prayers for a theological seminary in which
the thirty odd native mission-helpers (called evan-
gelists in China) should take up the intense and
systematic study of theology. Much preliminary
work was to be done before teaching could begin.
The curriculum and lectures had to be worked out
by the teachers, rooms had to be rented and fur-
nished, etc. Among the furnishings of a classroom
may well be counted the ever-present Chinese
scrolls, or mottoes, on the walls. We would place
Biblical mottoes before the eyes of our students.
However, a proper Chinese wall-motto must needs
be written in the classical, or “wen li,” style, 1. ¢.,
in the much-abbreviated and unspoken language of
ancient Chinese sages. There is hardly a foreign
missionary living in China, nor has there ever been
any foreigner, as far as the writer knows, who was
able to write a proper “wen li” style for a wall-
motto without the assistance of a native scholar.
At the time when the work of furnishing the semi-
nary classroom was to be taken up, a certain young
Chinese scholar by the name of Ue Wei came to
one of our chapels at Hankow and applied for
literary work. He was a baptized Christian of the
Finnish Lutheran mission in the Province of
Hunan. After studying at the middle or high
school of that mission, he was given a position as
a literary helper to Professor Shivonen, who held
a chair in the seminary at Shekow, near Hankow.
Here Mr. Ue gave way to Russian communistic
teachings, which had been freely propagated among
all Chinese students. He even became a believer
in the doctrine of free love, fell in love with a
theological student’s wife, fled to Shanghai, and

continued to bombard the object of his illicit love

with letters and telegrams. In Shanghai this well-

educated man became the leader of the Red radicals,

lowering himself to the level of a rickshaw coolie

in order that he might more effectively spread

Bolshevism among his fellow-coolies. But now his

life was threatened by other union leaders, and he

had to flee again. It was then that he came to one

of our chapels, where a native preacher lived who

was of his own province and spoke his dialect. He
wore the usual workingman’s clothes, including the
small cap with shield. The native preacher, or
“evangelist,” said to the foreign missionary: “If
you wish to engage a good scholar, this man is not
to be despised. He may not look the part, but he
knows very much Chinese.” The missionary, not
knowing the scholar’s past life and being sorely
in need of a good scholar in Chinese, engaged the
man. Having begun some work of translation to-
gether with his new helper, the missionary was more
than pleased with his quick thinking and with his
diligence in general. He certainly knew his Chi-
nese, be it ancient or modern, and, as is the case
with every Chinese student of to-day, he had a smat-
tering of English, too. Much headway was made
in preparing the lessons for the seminary which
were assigned the missionary. The man was asked
to take the Mandarin (simple official language for
the people (Bible, together with a “wen li” Bible,
and write a wall-motto, using the passage Rom.
3,28. In less than half a minute’s time the words
for the motto were written, but thoughtfully, as
you see it in the heading, and given in the following
again with the literal translation: “Ren (man)
Ts’en (pronounced) I (righteous) I (by, through)
Hsin (faith) Pu (not) I (by, through) Fa (Law).”
A scroll-writer was engaged for a small sum to
write out the motto on a large scroll; for Mr. Ue
wrote a miserable character. Then Mr. Ue said:
“No one can move those characters,” 1. ¢., improve
on them. All our teachers and scholars had to agree
with him silently, if not in words. And this Scrip-
ture motto, which was practically adopted as a semi-
nary motto, afterwards adorned the wall of our first
theological seminary in China and helped in a mea-
sure to impress upon the hearts and minds of our
students the principal Bible doctrine.

As to Mr. Ue’s life story, how he later became
demented while in the service of the missionary,
mainly because of his former acceptance of the doc-
trine of free love and because he imagined himself
constantly persecuted; what sad experiences he had
with his own wife and children; how he finally