As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home
General
As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs
Three different "healers" have appeared within a decade in America, each
by inference claiming to be the Christ and imitating his wanderings and
healing methods. All, even the last, grossest, and most impudent
impostor, who advertised himself in the daily press, the picture showing
him posing after one of the well-known pictures of Christ, had many
followers. I hoped to hear that this fellow had been "tarred and
feathered," a happy American remedy for gross things. This fellow, as
the Americans say, "went beyond the limit." I asked the senator how he
accounted for Americans, well educated as they are, taking up these
strange impostors. "Well," he replied, puffing on a big cigar, "between
you and me and the lamp-post it's on account of the kind of schooling
they get. I didn't get much myself--I'm an old-timer; but I accumulated
a lot of 'horse sense,' that has served me so well that I never have my
leg pulled, and I notice that all these 'suckers' are graduates from
something; but don't take this as gospel, as I'm always getting up
minority reports."
The religion of the Americans, as diffuse as it is, is one of the most
remarkable factors you meet in the country. Despite its peculiar phases
you can not fail to appreciate a people who make such stupendous
attempts to crush out evil and raise the morals of the masses. We may
differ from them. We may resent their assumption that we are pagans and
heathens, but this colossal series of movements, under the banner of the
Cross, is one of the marvels of the world. Surely it is disinterested.
It comes from the heart. I wish the Americans knew more of Confucius
and his code of morals; they would then see that we are not so "pagan"
as they suppose.
THE END
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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