Religion: Long Voyage Home

All last week the Marine Lynx waited at a San Francisco dock to take aboard her cargo: 408 missionaries, including wives & children, bound for China and the Philippines to pick up where most of them left off five years ago. For those who had forgotten that Americans were pioneers, their faces were a reminder. Now those faces were set toward a frontier of Christendom. Seldom had travelers been so impatient to get under way. But Harry Lundeberg, boss of the strike-ridden Embarcadero, would make no exceptions. “We can’t give ’em any relief,” said he.

It’s impossible. What the hell! They can save a few souls here while they wait.” As sailing day came & went, a few missionaries went to look wistfully at the Marine Lynx, still in the battle grey of a wartime transport. Others hopefully kept their bags packed, swapped rumors at the church teas and receptions given for them. The bon voyage mass meeting at San Francisco’s Opera House ran off as scheduled; 3,700 turned out to hear Mayor Roger D. Lapham and TIME’S Editor Henry R. Luce wish them well in the Christian task ahead.

Almost all the 408 (who represented 29 denominations) were old China hands who talked about “going home.” One such was William Carlaw Chapman, 66, who was returning with his wife to their ruined church at Pengshui and the 3¼ million impoverished Chinese in that area of west central China. Like most of his colleagues, he expected to find changes. “Once our white faces and ‘high noses’ were enough,” he said. “Now we will have to be known for what we are.” Said Willi C. Newbern, 46, who first went to China in 1925: “I expect there will be a certain disillusionment with Christianity. Missionaries are not perfect, but we tried to live model Christian lives. Some of the American pilots . . . well, it was probably a reaction to the experiences they had undergone.”

But by & large, the men & women who anxiously watched their mounting hotel bills last week had more old-fashioned equipment to take with them: deep faith, high hope and abounding love, to share with their fellow man.