Last Sunday’s Examiner prints interviews with a number of San Francisco clergymen regarding the advent of Buddhist missionaries in California. They all agree that this country is no place for Oriental creeds and all
condemn the faith of Asia, for the general reason that it is not sufficiently enlightened for California. A faith of any kind which would not improve the moral tone of California must indeed have very little to commend it. Rev. Hemphill thinks the Buddhists will never make headway in California and uses the argument against its advance that “Westward the Star of Empire takes its way. One fails to see what particular figure this cuts in the discussion.
All agreed, however, that California was no place for the Oriental teachings. There is no disputing this fact. The Buddhists believe in strict probity between man and man. A man who agrees to meet a financial obligation on a certain day gives no note, nothing but his word. If he fails to meet the obligation he simply becomes an outcast and next day after he defaults in payment his own mother will not recognize him on the street. A man who once deceives another in ever so small a matter is no longer recognized among his neighbors and must move to some other locality. Merchants who give short weight are kicked out of the community. The believers of this particular faith look upon the persons of their wives and daughters as sacred. Yes, indeed, we can readily agree with the clergy of California, that the Asiatic religion will not be received in California, at least, not at present. It is rather too binding for that locality.
Morning Appeal, Carson City, NV, February 25, 1900