The blending together of the East and the West {40} may be accomplished with the ease which the Chinaman expects--but not in the way in which he or anybody else could wish--it may be accomplished by the eradication of all that is good in either race, on the common ground of vice and sin and evil and cruelty; unless, indeed, the efforts of those who are now labouring to weave together that which is good in both civilisations are supported. The difficulty of preserving the good points and high qualities of Chinese thought is only equalled by the difficulty of introducing the splendid traditions of the West and grafting them on to the Chinese stock. What success has followed the efforts of those who are thus labouring is rather to be credited to the intensity of their efforts, to their single-hearted purpose, to their ready self-denial, than to the ease or simplicity of their task. No man of any feeling or any conscience could pass indifferently by a single individual eating the berries of a deadly plant, unconscious that they were poison. What shall be said, then, if we allow, not only one individual but a fourth of the population of the world, to eat of a deadly poison which must deprive them of all happiness and of life, which must condemn them by millions to the misery of the very blackest darkness, where the only motives known are selfishness, lust, pride, and cruelty, for this is what certainly will happen to China if she accepts the materialism of the West. Western thought is very powerful. The way it has dominated the forces of nature gives it a great {41} prestige. As the Chinaman learns about steam and electricity, about the telephone, the flying machine, radium, and a thousand more Western inventions, he cannot fail to be impressed, he must admit that these people have knowledge. Do not for a moment imagine that, after such an illumination, he will be able to go back to the works of Confucius and learn again the old maxims, many of which are antipathetic to Western thought--yes, even more incongruous to Western than they are to Christian thought. How will he, for instance, read Confucius' condemnation of war when the Japanese and Germans and Russians are shouting into his ears, "By war ye shall live and by war alone."