Arthur H. Smith Quotes
China can never be reformed from within. The manifold needs of China will be met permanently, completely, only by Christian civilization. .
Arthur H. Smith, 1845–1932, American Missionary in China, American Board of Missionaries, Quoted in James Bradley, The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia, 2015
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In China, the religious activities of the Missionaries never really lead to the many troubles between the missionaries and the Chinese. It was their activities in the non-religious arenas articulated here by Denby.
One of Ferguson’s theses is that historical change often happens very rapidly.
Tragically, the world paid a terrible price for the German upheaval before the better world finally emerged.
10 centuries ago was a time when the Arabs were far more advanced and modern than other cultures including the Christian West that was in the Dark Ages. However, in the 12th century there was a “closing”—a narrowing of allowable Islamic thinking, and since then, Islamic people have had great difficulty with change or modernity. Not all Muslim nations are equally rigid but the Arabs are at the extreme among Islamic counties.
This was a very prescient prediction. Russia and China as well as lesser communist states have followed his prediction.
Arthur Henderson Smith (Chinese name: 明恩溥; pinyin: Ming Enpu) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions noted for spending 54 years as a missionary in China and writing books which presented China to foreign readers. These books include Chinese Characteristics, Village Life in China and The Uplift of China. In the 1920s, Chinese Characteristics was still the most widely read book on China among foreign residents there. However, it has been noted by later scholars, including Timothy Cheek in his book The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History, that Smith’s work exemplified the ‘thinly disguised racism’ contained in the writings of many Protestant missionaries in China at that time.
