Religion: A President is Baptized

The Temple of Earth is square and yellow. The Temple of Heaven is round and beautifully blue. Moldering, these majestic edifices stand in ancient Peking. When China was an empire, and that was but 19 years ago, the “Son of Heaven” alone was privileged to offer sacrifice to Heaven, Earth and the Great Ancestors. The bulk of the Chinese rabble scarcely had a religion. What they believed was that by tricks and spells one could ward off devils, and that it was dangerous not to respect one’s omnipresent ancestors. Thus had Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism deteriorated. But Christianity had appeared to “revive” these lowly Chinese. Last week the most exalted man in China, General Chiang Kaishek, president of the Nationalist government, became and was baptized a Christian; to be exact, a Methodist.

Chiang is as much a Conqueror as was Constantine I (288-337 A.D.), the Roman general who espoused Christianity when convinced that by the Sign of the Cross he would conquer, and who did conquer Rome itself, became emperor. Two years ago, when still a Buddhist, General Chiang, with his Christian wife praying for him, conquered all of China proper (TIME, June 21, 1928 et ante). He has just been through a long summer of battles to consolidate his conquest. Last week there was no apparent reason, except sincere conviction, why the president should have gone to his mother-in-law’s house in Shanghai, sent for the Rev. Z. T. Kaung, Methodist Episcopal Church South, and said: “I feel the need of a God such as Jesus Christ.”

No white man or woman was present when China’s president was sprinkled with baptismal drops. The trend throughout China today is toward displacing the white cleric or teacher by a yellow person. In certain interior provinces there have even been killings, recently, of Chinese Christian missionaries by their pagan brothers. Two such killings were reported last week in Kiangsi province. The slogan of the hour is “China for the Chinese!” And some Chinese consider Christianity un-Chinese. With these facts in mind Pastor Kaung said last week of his presidential convert: “At this time, when anti-Christian agitation is particularly rife, General Chiang’s act required the highest moral courage!”