A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions — John Shaqi
A Tour of the Missions: Observations and ConclusionsStrong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
East Asia -- Description and travel; Missions
When we reached Singapore, we found ourselves in one of the world's
greatest ports of entry. It is also one of the keys to the Orient, as
Sir Thomas Raffles perceived more than a century ago. Its splendid
government buildings and its strong fortifications show that the British
propose to hold it to the end. The recent incipient revolt, which was
fortunately nipped in the bud when it seemed to the conspirators on the
verge of success, and which was punished by the summary execution of
thirty or forty rebels without the news of it getting into the papers,
showed that Germany had much to hope for and Britain much to fear from
the unrest of these heterogeneous populations. I had a vivid reminder of
all this at the Methodist Episcopal Mission, where I found over sixteen
hundred scholars in attendance, and where I addressed five hundred of
them at their morning prayers. One of the chief difficulties of
Christian work in Singapore is the aggregation and mixture of races.
Seven different nationalities are represented in the schools. The
Tamil, the Malay, and the Chinese are the most numerous, and of these
the Chinese take the lead. Fifty thousand Chinese immigrants enter the
port of Singapore every year, mainly because there is employment for
them in the rubber plantations of the Straits Settlements. The
congestion of population in China drives them southward to Singapore,
and from Singapore they swarm northward to Burma, southward to Java, and
westward to India.
This mixing up of the many different nationalities makes it impossible
for the missions in Singapore to teach their pupils in any other
language than the English. This requisition of English seems to some of
the people a slur upon their own tongue, and a sign of British
ascendency. They are jealous of the English, even while they perceive
their own dependence upon them. Only British justice and watchfulness
can keep in check the disposition to revolt on the part of some classes
with which the government has to deal, especially when these classes are
stirred up by German spies and German money. Thus far all seditious
attempts have been put down, and the traveler learns to bless the wisdom
of British administration, and to rest secure and confident under the
folds of the Union Jack.
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