Transcript

CHINA MISSION. The Chinese Empire embraces within its boundaries not only China proper, but the dependencies of Manchuria, Mongolia and Thibet. The area of China proper is about 1,348,878 square miles, but that is not more than one-half of the great empire.

As early as 1849 the authorities of the Church had China in mind as a possible missionary field. But it was not until a special conference held in Great Salt Lake City August 2, 1852 (when missionaries were called to many different parts of the world) that L. D. S. Elders were specially designated to open the gospel door in China. At this conference Hosea Stout, James Lewis and Chapman Duncan were called to China as missionaries, and with other Elders bound for foreign lands they left Great Salt Lake City Oct. 20, 1852. After reaching the Pacific Coast, Elders Stout, Lewis and Duncan sailed from San Francisco March 8, 1853, and landed at Hong Kong, China, April 27, 1853. As they met with very little success, they remained only a short time and then returned to America. Two more missionaries were called to China in April, 1853, viz., Edward B. Wade and Cyrus Canfield, but hearing later that Elder Stout and his companions had already returned from their unfruitful field of labor, Elders Wade and Canfield did not go to China. Hosea Stout and his fellow missionaries when they returned reported that they found China entirely the reverse of what they had expected from information they had obtained in California. They found about 250 Europeans in Hongkong, all engaged in commercial pursuits and having no time to devote to religion. There were also about a thousand British soldiers, most of whom the Elders found to be a vicious set of men. The balance of the population was made up of four or five grades of Chinese ranging from merchants to coolies, Negroes, Malays, Parsees, Tartars, and others, none of them seemingly interested in the message of the humble Elders who were looked upon with suspicion and whose lives were more or less in danger. It is not known that the L. D. S. Elders made a single convert in China at that time.

In January, 1921, Apostle David O. McKay and Elder Hugh J. Cannon visited China, on which occasion Elder McKay dedicated that land for the preaching of the gospel.