THE FRUIT OF CHRISTIANITY

A Missionary Life:
Rev. J. Wesley Day
China, Malaysia, Indonesia

The Fruit of Christianity
A sermon preached at Wesley Methodist Church, Teluk Anson, October 19, 1952

Out of the Christian movement through the years have sprung many movements for the betterment of the lives of people.

In America a hundred years ago today there was slavery over almost one half the nation. Within the church arose a movement which said -- it is wrong for one human being to be the slave of another.

They preached, they agitated against slavery until the conscience of the nation was aroused. An awful civil war was fought, but slavery was ended. Here and there, almost a hundred years later, people think that God loves some people more than others. But the vast majority now accept the Christian proposition that God is no respecter of persons, or of races.

When the Christian movement went to China, two things caught the attention of the first missionary Christians-- one was that opium was eating away the heart and life of the people People were becoming slaves again -- slaves to the opium habit. War was declared on this evil. Under Christian leadership, all the moral forces of the community were organized against it. The evil of opium was finally being limited, when we left China.

Another ancient custom the Christians found was footbinding. They ruled that no person should be a Christian and bind his girl's feet. It was hard at first. One missionary told me that her little girl said one day, "Mama, I want my feet bound." Horrified, the missionary mother said, "Oh, no, honey, that's bad -- you don't want to have your feet bound." "But, mama, how will I get a husband when I grow up if I don't bind my feet?"

In North China, for a while, only slave girls and Christians left their feet unbound. But now that evil is gone -- we hope forever, from the earth.

The First World War was called in the States, "The War to End Wars" -- a beautiful name-- and represented just what we wanted -- the fulfillment of the dream of the prophet Isaiah (11:6):

And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them."

An awful war it was, and Wilson dreamed of a new world, when it should be over, and he wrote his "14 Points," an outline of what that world should be.

But his own country never joined the League of Nations he founded, and the victors in the war, in the peace treaty, got all they could out of the losers--which is no Christian way -- and which sowed the seeds for the next war.

Wilson lost in his dream for a peaceful world--but not entirely. One young man read his 14 points, and promptly became a Christian. He must have said, "That's what Chistianity believes in and that's what I want."

.......

People have made countless efforts to bring this into being ---

Mr. Sun in Peiping -- took orphan boys, tained the to make a living by making rungs. They did good work -- made very nice rugs--the rug in our living room is one of them. They did not ask $2 for a $1 rug. They were taught to do good work, so they could earn a living, even though they were orphans And the man who taught them was a Christian. I think he worshipped with the boys.

Mr. Wang in Ch'ai Kou Pu -- poor old fellow, not all the orphans lived -- and he didn't have much education -- but he had the love of Christ -- when the Japanese came there were many orphans , and there were none to help, but Mr. Wang pitied them, took them in, begged the conquerors for a little food for them. They might have killed him to get rid of them, but he had risked his life for the orphans and he won. They honored the kind old maqn with food for his handful of orphans. As they grew up he taught them the love of Christ, and how to knit stockings for a living.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Feng Yu Hsiang, the "Christian General" prayed, "Thy kingdom come" and while he was under the influence of the Christian faith and besides having his soldiers sing Christian songs, he reformed his government, putting in a government where trains ran on time, the governmen was oneset, the main streetws were wide, and he built something which people cmaqe to see for many miles around -- a model jail.

In the model jail people were trained to make an honest living at various trades -- a new idea in those days. One of them was rug making. I am often reminded of hte honeste work of these jailbirds by three small rugs I had made to order in 1933, by people who were crooks. until somebody prayed, "Thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven" -- and then did something about it.

Why have I given all these instances -- from the man who could hardly read or write but who took a handful of orphans into his house and begged the Japanese for food tofeed them, to the United Nations, which is stgudying and trying to do something about the great problems of poverty and ignorance, to say nothing of war and aggreswsion?

I have given them because they are some of the fruits of the Christian faith.

The fruits are good. The world needs them. In fact if it does not get them it will die in its own corruption. Where democracy has failed -- as it has failed in many countries -- it failed because the people were not honest, because the people cared not for others, because the rich ate up the poor, every man was out for himself, and none cared for others.

If such fruits as these are to be had, the tree that bears them must have good roots -- well nourished, in cultivated ground -- in which the good roots grow.

The Christian faith -- and the Christian way of life -- are the roots from which these things can grow. We must have the roots to grow the fruits, and as we pick and enjoy these good fruits, let us take care for the roots of our lives, that they may be well grounded, in Christian faith and discipline, all watered by the Holy Spirit.