Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 56:223 (Jul 1899)
Article: The Hour Of China And The United States
Author: Henry William Rankin

BSac 56:223 (July 1899) p. 561

The Hour Of China And The United States

Henry William Rankin

“We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another word for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of Divine Providence in behalf of the human race; and a literal, slavish following of precedents, as by a justice of the peace, is not for those who at this hour lead the destinies of this people.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson.1

The longest regular steamer route that has to be traveled wholly without sight of land is that between San Francisco and Japan, a distance of about five thousand miles. This is the widest separation of continents in the world, and represents the extreme limits of the Old World and the New. Here through all the centuries of human history the Orient and Occident have faced each other; but each, until recently, has for the most part held aloof. It is probable that the early races of America came hither by some way from Eastern Asia. Between the indigenous races of Northeastern Asia and Northwestern America there seems to be a blending and close approximation of-cranial, physiognomical, and other characteristics; and within two years there have been reported in Mexico rock-graven inscriptions in Chinese that are centuries old.

But whatever may be the fact regarding the original settlement of the western hemisphere, and the sporadic and accidental immigrations which have followed that, it is obvious that for most of the time covered by human tradition this hemisphere has been practically isolated from the

BSac 56:223 (July 1899) p. 562

other. The discovery of gold in California in 1848, and occupation of that coast by the United States, marked a new era for the Pacific Ocean. Trade and intercourse between America and Asia immediately assumed a new and very great importance. Then began the extraordinary influx of Chinese to our shores, to meet the demands of labor and the opportunity of fortune. And now this most ancient, most conservative race, which has retained for at least three thousand years its wholly unique and truly marvelous national coherence, despite the corruptions and blindness of a pagan civilization, always by us regarded as effete, has exhibited in the face of the nineteenth century a degree of physical, intellectual, commercial, and even moral, vitality, which excites the continual amazement of those who are best acquainted with that people, and which still remains to be accounted for.

Not only did the Chinese pour into California until, in the interest of peace, it became necessary to place a stringent check upon their immigration, but from Alaska to Patagonia the entire Pacific coast of the w...