"Extreme indeed would be the danger if, popular indignation having been once aroused by this opposition to the authorities, the hatred of the whole population of China were excited like that of the people of Tientsin against foreigners, and orders, though issued by the Government, could not be for all that put in force. . . . Although the creeds of the various foreign countries differ in their origin and development from each other, the natives of China are unable to see the distinction between them. In their eyes all (teachers of religion) are 'missionaries from the West,' and directly they hear a lying story (about any of these missionaries), without making further and minute inquiry (into its truth), they rise in a body to molest him.''

As for Protestant missionaries, it would be useless to assert that every one of the 2,950 has always been blameless in this matter. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that there is a sense in which the gospel is a revolutionary force. Christ Himself said that He came not to send peace on earth but a sword, and to set a man at variance against his father. There is usually more or less of a protest in a heathen land when a man turns from the old faith to the new one. The refusal to contribute to the temple sacrifices and to worship the ancestral tablets is sure to be followed by a furious outcry. The convert is apt to be assailed as a traitor to the national custom and as having entered into league with the foreigner.

To the Chinese, moreover, all white men are "Christians'' and "foreign devils,'' and all alike stand for the effort to foreignize and despoil China. Except where personal acquaintance has taught certain communities that there is a difference between white men, the evil acts of one foreigner or of one aggressive foreign Government are charged against all the members of the race, just as in the pioneer days in the American colonies, a settler whose wife had been killed by an Indian took his revenge by indiscriminately shooting all the other Indians he could find. Any hatred that the Chinese may have against Christianity is due, not so much to its religious teachings, as to its identification with the foreign nations whose religion Christianity is supposed to be and whose aggressions the Chinese have so much reason to fear and to hate.

For this reason, the introduction of Buddhism and Mohammedanism is not parallel, and to base an argument against Christianity on the alleged fact that the other faiths easily succeeded in domesticating themselves in China is to confuse facts. Neither Buddhism nor Mohammedanism entered China as an aggressive propaganda by foreigners. The Chinese themselves brought in Buddhism, and it spread chiefly because it grafted into itself many Chinese superstitions and did not oppose Chinese vices, but rather assimilated them. Why should the people have opposed a religion which interfered with nothing that they valued and reenforced their darling prejudices? As for Islam, we have already seen[75] that it is the faith of early immigrants and their descendants, that its followers do not propagate it, that they live in separate communities, are disliked by the Chinese and are often at open war with them. Christianity, on the contrary, comes to China with foreigners who have no intention of settling down as permanent members of Chinese society, who are classed as representatives of nations which are regarded as more or less hostile and unjust, and who preach their religion as a vital spiritual faith which opposes all wrong, uproots all superstition and aims at the moral reconstruction of every man. Of course, therefore, Christianity must expect a reception different in some respects from that which was given to Buddhism and Mohammedanism.

[75] Chapter VI.

It is the shallowest of all objections to missions that Mr. Francis Nichols urged in the North American Review when he insisted that "the missionary is not engaged to be a reformer,'' but that "his mission is to preach the gospel— nothing more.''

"Is the gospel then simply a patent arrangement by which idolaters can get to heaven, without disturbing their idolatry or the vices associated with it? was not Christ a reformer? and Paul also, and his successors, who, by their preaching, gave the idols of Rome to the moles and the bats, and robbed the Coliseum of its gladiatorial shows? It is the glory of Christianity that on questions of truth and righteousness it makes no compromise. Its mission is to save the world by reforming it.... Who that understands the genius of Christianity can fail to see that China Christianized must be very different from China as it now is?''[76]

[76] The Rev. Dr. Calvin Mateer, Teng chou.

After making all due allowance for these things, however, the fact still remains that opposition of this sort in China is usually local and sporadic. It affects a greater or less number of individuals and families and occasionally a community, but it does not move a whole population to the frenzy of a national uprising. The anti-foreign hatred of the Boxers was fierce in thousands of cities and villages where there were no missionaries or Chinese Christians at all. In the sphere of religion proper, the Chinese are not an intolerant people. They are almost wholly devoid of sec- tarian spirit. The coming of another religion would not of itself excite serious opposition, for having become accustomed to the presence and intermingling of several religions, it would not antecedently occur to the Chinese that a fourth faith would involve the abandonment of the others. They would be more apt to infer that the new could be accepted in harmony with the old in the established way. So the worst foe that the Christian missionary has to encounter is not hostility but indifference.

As a rule, the Chinese have not strenuously objected to the Protestant missionaries as missionaries. It is the policy of the mission boards to avoid all unnecessary interference with native customs. So far from coveting official equality with Chinese magistrates, an overwhelming majority of the Protestant missionaries throughout the Empire expressly declined to avail themselves of the offer of the Chinese Government to give them the same privileges and official status that was accorded to the Roman Catholic priests and bishops in the Imperial decree of March 15, 1899.

"The very thing which missionaries seek to avoid is denationalizing their converts. So far as mission schools at the ports are concerned, it is not the missionary who is chiefly responsible for what foreignizing is done. The Chinese who patronize these schools want their children to learn foreign accomplishments. Such schools, however, form but a very small part of the extensive educational work done by American missionaries in China.''[77]

[77] The Rev. Dr. Calvin H. Mateer.

Many of the missionaries, especially in the interior stations, don Chinese clothing, shave their heads and wear a queue. Everywhere the missionaries learn the Chinese language, try to get into sympathy with the people, teach the young, heal the sick, comfort the dying, distribute relief in time of famine, preach the gospel of peace and good-will, and, in the opinion of unprejudiced judges, are upright, sensible and useful workers. Not only men but women travel far into the interior, the former frequently alone and unarmed. They go into the homes of the people, preach in village streets, sleep unprotected in Chinese houses, and receive much personal kindness from all classes.

The experience of the Presbyterian mission at Chining-chou is an illustration of what has occurred in scores of communities. When Dr. Stephen A. Hunter and the Rev. William Lane tried to open a station in 1890, they were mobbed and driven out, barely escaping with their lives. But in June, 1892, the Rev. J. A. Laughlin arrived and was permitted to buy property and, in September, to bring his family and begin permanent residence. There are hereditary bands of robbers in the neighbourhood, and more than once they attacked the mission compound. But gradually the peaceful purpose and the beneficent life of the missionaries became known and active opposition ceased. When the Boxer outbreak occurred, there were about 150 baptized adults, besides a considerable number of children and adherents. During the troubles, only two of the Christians recanted, the rest holding together and continuing regular services. The mission property was undisturbed during the whole period. It is true, the officials were friendly; but even Governor Yuan Shih Kai's influence could not prevent some loss in his own capital. In Chining-chou not a thing was touched, a striking testimony to the friendliness of the people towards the missionaries whom they had learned to love. As I approached the city with the returning missionaries, a group of thirty met us with beaming faces. For nearly a year, they had been without a missionary and their joy at seeing Mr. Laughlin was unmistakable. As we passed through the city to the mission-compound in the southeast suburb, people in almost every door and window smiled and bowed a welcome. Nor was this cordiality confined to the Christians; many of all classes being outspoken in their manifestations of respect and affection.

Nor is it true that the Chinese sense of propriety is so out- raged, as some critics would have us believe, by the coming of single-women missionaries. It is true that in a land where all women are supposed to marry at an early age and where their freedom of movement is rigidly circumscribed, the position of the unmarried woman, however discreet she may be, is sometimes embarrassingly misunderstood until the community becomes better acquainted with her mission and character. But the opposition of the Chinese on this account has been grossly exaggerated by those whose prior hostility to all missionary work predisposed them to make as much capital as possible out of the small gossip on this subject. Even if the misunderstanding were as general and as bitter as some allege, it would not follow that single women should be withdrawn, for such misunderstanding grows out of a false and vicious conception of the female sex and its relation to man and society, and it is just that conception which Christianity should and does correct. For that matter, the position of the single man is also misunderstood, while no other person in all China is more fiercely hated by the Chinese than the white traders in the treaty ports who are the chief source of the criticisms upon missionaries. The experience of every mission board operating in China has shown that a Chinese town soon learns that the single-woman missionary is a pure-minded, large-hearted and unselfish worker, who from the loftiest of motives devotes herself to the teaching of women and children and to self-sacrificing ministries to the sick and suffering. No other foreigners are more beloved by the people than the single-women missionaries.

It is simply foolish to say that the missionary is responsible for the prompt appearance of the consul and the gunboat. The true missionary goes forth without either consul or gunboat. He devotes his life to ameliorating the sad conditions which prevail in heathen communities. His reliance is not upon man, but upon God. But as soon as his work begins to tell, the trader appears to buy and sell in the new market. The statesman casts covetous eyes on the newly opened territory. Christianity civilizes, and civilization increases wants, stimulates trade and breaks down barriers. The conditions of modern civilization are developed. Then the consul is sent, not because the missionary asks for him, but because his government chooses to send him. Sooner or later some local trouble occurs, and the Government takes advantage of the opportunity to further its territorial or commercial ambitions. "Missionaries responsible, indeed!'' writes Dr. H. H. Jessup. "The diplomats of Europe know better. Had there been no grabbing of seaports and hinterlands, no forcing modern improvements and European goods down the throats of the Chinese, the missionaries would have been let alone now as in the past.''

It is the foreign idea that the Chinese dislikes, the interference with his cherished customs and traditions. A railroad alarms and angers him more than half a hundred missionaries. A plowshare cuts through more of his superstitions than a mission school. He does not want the methods of our western civilization, and he resents the attempt to push them upon him. If no other force had been at work than the foreign missionary, the anti-foreign agitation would never have started. It is significant that those who protest that we ought not to force our religion upon the Chinese do not appear to think that there is anything objectionable in forcing our trade upon them. The animosity of the Chinese has been primarily excited, not by the missionary, but by the trader and the politician, and the missionary suffers chiefly because he comes from the country of the trader and the politician and is identified with them as a member of the hated race of foreigners.

On this whole subject, I have been at some pains to collect the testimony of men whose positions are a guarantee not only of knowledge but of impartiality.

The Hon. George F. Seward, formerly United States Minister to Chipa, declares:—

"The people at large make too much of missionary work as an occasion for trouble. There are missionaries who are iconoclasts, but this is not their spirit. In great measure, they are men of education and judgment. They depend upon spiritual weapons and good works. For every enemy a missionary makes, he makes fifty friends. The one enemy may arouse an ignorant rabble to attack him. While I was in China, I always congratulated myself on the fact that the missionaries were there. There were good men and able men among the merchants and officials, but it was the missionary who exhibited the foreigner in benevolent work as having other aims than those which may justly be called selfish. The good done by missionaries in the way of education, of medical relief and of other charities cannot be overstated. If in China there were none other than missionary influences, the upbuilding of that great people would go forward securely. . . . I am not a church member, but I have the profoundest admiration for the missionary as I have known him in China. He is a power for good and for peace, not for evil.''

President James B. Angell, also formerly United States Minister to China, replies as follows to the question, "Are the Chinese averse to the introduction of the Christian religion'':—

"No, not in that broad sense. They do not seem to fear for the permanency of their own religion. It is not that they object to missionaries and the Christian religion as much as it is that the missionaries are foreigners. A more serious cause of the uprising is the wide-spread suspicion among the natives, since the Japanese war, that the foreigners are going to partition China. It is not strange that all these conditions cause friction and excitement. The Chinese want to be left to themselves and the one word 'foreigners' sums up the great cause of the present trouble.''

The Hon. Charles Denby, after thirteen years' experience as United States Minister to China, wrote:—

"I unqualifiedly, and in the strongest language that tongue can utter, give to these men and women who are living and dying in China and the Far East my full and unadulterated commendation. . . . No one can controvert the fact that the Chinese are enormously benefited by the labours of the missionaries. Foreign hospitals are a great boon to the sick. In the matter of education, the movement is immense. There are schools and colleges all over China taught by the missionaries. There are also many foreign asylums in various cities which take care of thousands of waifs. The missionaries translate into Chinese many scientific and philosophical works. There are various anti-opium hospitals where the victims of this vice are cured. There are industrial schools and workshops. There are many native Christian churches. The converts seem to be as devout as people of any other race. As far as my knowledge extends, I can and do say that the missionaries in China are self-sacrificing; that their lives are pure; that they are devoted to their work; that their influence is beneficial to the natives; that the arts and sciences and civilization are greatly spread by their efforts; that many useful western books are translated by them into Chinese; that they are the leaders in all charitable work, giving largely themselves and personally disbursing the funds with which they are intrusted; that they do make converts, and such converts are mentally benefited by conversion.'' And after the Boxer outbreak he added:—"I do not believe that the uprising in China was due to hatred of the missionaries or of the Christian religion. The Chinese are a philosophic people, and rarely act without reasoning upon the causes and results of their actions. They have seen their land disappearing and becoming the property of foreigners, and it was this that awakened hatred of foreigners and not the actions of the missionaries or the doctrines that they teach.''

The present United States Minister, the Hon. Edwin H. Conger, has repeatedly borne similar testimony, publicly assuring the missionaries of his "personal respect and profound gratitude for their noble conduct.''

The Hon. John W. Foster, ex-Secretary of State and counsel for the Chinese Government in the settlement with Japan, writes:—

"The opinion formed by me after careful inquiry and observation is that the mass of the population of China, particularly the common people, are not specially hostile to the missionaries and their work. Occasional riots have occurred, but they are almost invariably traced to the literati or prospective office-holders and the ruling classes. These are often bigoted and conceited to the highest degree, and regard the teachings of the missionaries as tending to overthrow the existing order of Government and society, which they look upon as a perfect system, and sanctified by great antiquity. . . . The Chinese, as a class, are not fanatics in religion and if other causes had not operated to awaken a national hostility to foreigners, the missionaries would have been left free to combat Buddhism and Taoism, and carry on their work of establishing schools and hospitals.''

Wu Ting-fang, Chinese Minister to Washington during the Boxer uprising, while frankly stating that "missionaries are placed in a very delicate situation,'' and that "we must not be blind to the fact that some, in their excessive zeal, have been indiscreet,'' nevertheless as frankly added:—

"It has been commonly supposed that missionaries are the sole cause of anti-foreign feeling in China. This charge is unfair. Missionaries have done a great deal of good in China. They have translated useful works into the Chinese language, published scientific and educational journals and established schools in the country. Medical missionaries especially have been remarkably successful in their philanthropic work.''

The Hon. Benjamin Harrison, late President of the United States, replied to my inquiry in the terse remark:—"If what Lord Salisbury says were true, the reflection would not be upon the missionaries, but upon the premiers.''

General James H. Wilson, of the United States Army, the second in command of the American forces in Peking, adds his testimony:—

"Our missionaries, after the earlier Jesuits, were almost the first in that wide field (China). They were generally men of great piety and learning, like Morrison, Brown, Martin and Williams, and did all in their power as genuine men of God to show the heathen that the stranger was not necessarily a public enemy, but might be an evangel of a higher and better civilization. These men and their co-labourers have established hospitals, schools and colleges in various cities and provinces of the Empire, which are everywhere recognized by intelligent Chinamen as centres of unmitigated blessing to the people. Millions of dollars have been spent in this beneficent work, and the result is slowly but surely spreading the conviction that foreign arts and sciences are superior to 'fung shuy' and native superstition.''

The Hon. John Goodnow, American Consul-General at Shanghai, emphatically declares:—"It is absurd to charge the missionaries with causing the Boxer War. They are simply hated by the Chinese as one part of a great foreign element that threatened to upset the national institutions.''

Viceroy Yuan Shih Kai when Governor of Shantung, in the spring of 1901, wrote to the Baptist and Presbyterian missionaries of the province as follows:

"You, reverend sirs, have been preaching in China for many years, and, without exception, exhort men concerning righteousness. Your church customs are strict and correct, and all your converts may well observe them. In establishing your customs you have been careful to see that Chinese law was observed. How, then, can it be said that there is disloyalty? To meet this sort of calumny, I have instructed that proclamations be put out. I purpose, hereafter, to have lasting peace. Church interests may then prosper and your idea of preaching righteousness I can promote. The present upheaval is of a most extraordinary character. It forced you, reverend sirs, by land and water to go long journeys, and subjected you to alarm and danger, causing me many qualms of conscience.''

A charge which has been so completely demolished by such competent and unprejudiced witnesses can only be renewed at the expense of either intelligence or candour. Dr. Arthur H. Smith truly says that "amid the varied action of so many agents it is vain to deny that Christianity has sometimes been so presented as to be misrepresented, but on the whole there had for some time been a marked and a growing friendliness on the part of both people and officials. . . . The convulsion which shook China to its foundations was due to general causes, slow in their operations, but inevitable in their results. It was the impact of the Middle Ages with the developed Christian commercial civilization of the nineteenth century, albeit accompanied with many incidental elements which were neither Christian nor in the true sense civilized. If Christianity had never come to China at all, some such collision must have occurred.''[78]

[78] "Rex Christus,'' pp. 204-206.



XXII

THE CHINESE CHRISTIANS

THE real effect of the operation of the missionary force is to be seen in the Chinese who have accepted Christianity. As the commercial force is causing an economic revolution and as the political force resulted in the Boxer uprising, so the missionary force is developing a great spiritual movement which is crystallizing into a Chinese Church. Much has been said about the character of the Chinese Christians and doubts have been cast on the genuineness of their faith. It is admitted that they sometimes try the patience of the missionary. But is the home pastor never distressed by the conduct of his members? I am inclined to believe that the Christians in China would compare favourably with the same number selected at random in America. A Chinese laundryman posted on his door this significant notice to his foreign customers:—"Please help us to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy by bringing your clothes to the laundry before ten o'clock on Saturdays,'' while in another place a Chinese servant left the morning after a card party at which much money had changed hands, stating to his mistress in explanation, "Me Clistian; me no stay in heathen house!'' The Chinese Christian does not content himself with church attendance once a week when the weather is pleasant or an attractive theme is announced. He does not find himself in vigorous health for an evening entertainment, and with a bad headache on prayer-meeting night. There are of course exceptions, but as a rule, the Chinese Christians worship God with regularity in all kinds of weather. A missionary told me that the attendance at his mid-week meeting was as large as at his Sunday morning service, that every member of his church asked a blessing at the table, had family prayers and tried to bring his unconverted friends to Christ. If there is a pastor in America who can say that of his people, he has modestly refrained from making it public.

But such comparisons are, after all, unfair to the Chinese Christian for he should be compared, not with Europeans and Americans who have had far greater advantages, but with the people of his own country. "At home, you have the ripe fruits of a Christianity which was planted more than a thousand years ago. The Word of God has been among you all these Christian centuries. You have in every part of the country a highly trained ministry, a gifted and devoted eldership, and a whole army of Christian workers of all ranks. You work in the atmosphere of a Christian society, and under a settled Christian government. You have an immense and varied Christian literature, and notwithstanding all defects and drawbacks, you have on your side a weight of Christian tradition and a wealth of Christian example. Under such circumstances and in such an atmosphere, what are we not entitled to expect of those who bear the Christian name? What justice is there, or what reasonableness, in demanding as a test of genuineness the same degree of attainment on the part of Christian people, many of them uneducated, who are only just emerging from the deadness and insensibility of heathenism?''[79]

[79] Gibson, pp. 239, 240.

The real question is this:—Is the Christian Chinese a better man than the non-Christian Chinese—more moral, more truthful, more just, more reliable? The answer is so patent that no one who knows the facts can doubt it for a moment. The best men and women in China to-day are the Protestant Christians. This is not saying that all converts are good or that all non- Christian Chinese are bad. But it is saying that comparing the average Christian with the average heathen, the superiority of the former in those things which make character and conduct is immeasurable. "The conscience of those who have been born into a new life is not suddenly transformed, yet the change does take place and upon a larger scale. When once it has been accomplished, a new force has been introduced into the Chinese Empire, a salt to preserve, a leaven to pervade, a seed to bring forth after its kind in perpetually augmenting abundance and fertility.''[80]

[80] Smith, "Rex Christus,'' p. 107.

The character of the Chinese Christian will appear in still more striking relief if we consider the circumstances in which he hears the gospel and the difficulties which he has to overcome. On this subject the following remarkable passage from Dr. Gibson is worth quoting entire:—

"Out there the great issue is tried with all external helps removed. The gospel goes to China with no subsidiary aids. It is spoken to the people by the stammering lips of aliens. Those who accept it do so with no prospect of temporal gain. They go counter to all their own preconceptions, and to all the prejudices of their people. Try as we may to become all things to all men, we can but little accommodate our teaching to their thought. . . . Often and often have I looked into the faces of a crowd of non-Christian Chinese and felt keenly how many barriers lay between their minds and mine. Reasoning that seems to me conclusive makes no appeal to them. Even the words we use to convey religious ideas do not bear to their minds one-hundredth part of the meaning we wish to put into them. I have often thought that if I were to expend all my energies to persuade one Chinaman to change the cut of his coat, or to try some new experiment in agriculture, I should certainly plead in vain. And yet I stand up to beg him to change the habits of a lifetime, to break away from the whole accumulated outcome of heredity, to make himself a target for the scorn of the world in which he lives, to break off from the consolidated social system which has shaped his being, and on the bare word of an unknown stranger to plunge into the hazardous experiment of a new and untried life, to be lived on a moral plane still almost inconceivable to him, whose sanctions and rewards are higher than his thoughts as heaven is higher than earth. While I despair of inducing him by my reasonings to make the smallest change in the least of his habits, I ask him, not with a light heart, but with a hopeful one, to submit his whole being to a change that is for him the making of his whole world anew. 'Credo quia impossis- ble,' I believe it can be done because I know I cannot do it, and the smallest success is proof of the working of the divine power. The missionary must either confess himself helpless, or he must to the last fibre of his being believe in the Holy Ghost. I choose to believe, nay I am shut up to believe, by what my eyes have seen.

"I do not mean that one sees the results of preaching directly on the spot. In China at least one seldom does. But by the power of God the results come. We have seen unclean lives made pure, the broken-hearted made glad, the false and crooked made upright and true, the harsh and cruel made kindly and gentle. I have seen old women, seventy, eighty, eighty-five years of age, throwing away the superstitions of a lifetime, the accumulated merit of years of toilsome and expensive worship, and when almost on the brink of the grave, venturing all upon a new-preached faith and a new-found Saviour. We have seen the abandoned gambler become a faithful and zealous preacher of the gospel. We have seen the poor giving out of their poverty help to others, poorer still. We see many Chinese Christians who were once narrow and avaricious, giving out of their hard-earned month's wages, or more, yearly, to help the church's work. We see dull and uneducated people drinking in new ideas, mysteriously growing in their knowledge of Christian truth, and learning to shape their lives by its teachings. We have seen proud, passionate men, whose word was formerly law in their village, submit to injury, loss and insult, because of their Christian profession, until even their enemies were put to shame by their gentleness, and were made to be at peace with them. And the men and women and children who are passing through these experiences are gathering in others, and building up one by one a Christian community which is becoming a power on the side of all that is good in the non-Christian communities around them. . . . Everything is hostile to it. It is striking its roots in an uncongenial soil, and breathes a polluted air. It may justly claim for itself the beautiful emblem so happily seized, though so poorly justified, by Buddhism—the emblem of the lotus. It roots itself in rotten mud, thrusts up the spears of its leaves and blossoms through the foul and stagnant water, and lifts its spotless petals over all, holding them up pure, stainless and fragrant, in the face of a burning and pitiless sun. So it is with the Christian life in China Its existence there is a continuous miracle of life, of life more abundant.''[81]

[81] "Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China,'' pp. 29-31, 240.

Is it said that these Asiatics have become Christians for gain? Then how shall we account for the fact that out of their deep poverty they gave for church work last year $2.50 per capita, which is more in proportion to ability than Christians at home gave? The impoverished Tu-kon farmers rented a piece of land and worked it in common for the support of the Lord's work; the Peking school-girls went without their breakfasts to save money for their church, and eight graduates of Shantung College refused high salaries as teachers, and accepted low salaries as pastors of self-supporting churches. "Rice Christians?'' Doubtless in some instances, just as at home some people join American churches for business or social ends. But those Chinese Christians are receiving less and less from abroad and yet their number grows.

And it costs something to be a Christian in China. All hope of official preferment must be abandoned, for the duties of every magistrate include temple ceremonies that no Christian could conduct. For the average Christian, loss of business, social ostracism, bitter hatred, are the common price. Near Peking, a young man was thrice beaten and denied the use of the village well, mill and field insurance, because he became a Christian. A widow was dragged through the streets with a rope about her neck and beaten with iron rods which cut her body to the bone, while her fiendish persecutors yelled:— "You will follow the foreign devils, will you!'' And that Chinese saint replied that she was not following foreigners but Jesus Christ and that she would not deny Him!

And so on every hand there are evidences of fidelity in service, of tribulation joyfully borne, of systematic giving out of scanty resources. While sapient critics are telling us that the heathen cannot be converted, the heathen are not only being converted but are manifesting a consecration and self-denial which should shame many in Christian lands. At a Presbyterial meeting in north China, the native ministers held a two- hours' prayer-meeting before daylight. Such prayer-meetings are not common in America. Is it surprising that in that little North China Presbytery 292 baptisms were recorded that year?

Nor is this a solitary instance. Every Sunday the little congregations gather. Every day the native helpers tell the Bible-story to their listening countrymen.

The history of missions in China has shown that it requires more time to convert a Chinese to Christianity than some other heathen, but that he can be converted and that when he is converted, he holds to his new faith with a tenacity and fortitude which the most awful persecution seldom shakes. The behaviour of the Chinese Christians under the baptism of blood and fire to which they were subjected in the Boxer uprising eloquently testified to the genuineness of their faith. That some should have fallen away was to be expected. Not every Christian, even in the United States, can "endure hardness.'' Let a hundred men anywhere be told that if they do not abandon their faith, their homes will be burned, their business ruined, their wives ravished, their children brained, and they themselves scourged and beheaded, and a proportion of them will flinch.

It was to be expected, too, that when, after the uprising, the Christians found their supporters triumphing over a prostrate foe, some of them should unduly exult and take advantage of the opportunity to punish their enemies or to collect money from them as the price of protection. The spirit of retaliation is strong in human nature in China as well as in America. When the armies of the Allies, led by educated and experienced officers, and controlled by diplomats from old-established Christian countries, gave way under the provocation of the time to unmeasured greed and vindictive cruelty, it is not surprising that some of the Chinese Christians, only just emerged from heathenism, should betray a revengeful spirit towards men who had destroyed their property, slaughtered their wives and children, and hunted the survivors with the ferocity of wild beasts. In some places, the missionaries had a hard task in restraining this spirit. It was inevitable, also, that in the confusion which followed the victory of the foreigners, some "wolves'' should put on "sheep's clothing,'' and, under the pretense of being Christians, extort money from the terror- stricken villagers, or try to deceive the foreigner with false claims for indemnity.

But as I visited the scenes of disaster, saw the frightful ruin, heard the stories of Christians and missionaries, faced the little companies of survivors and learned more of the awful ordeal through which they had passed, I marvelled, not that some yielded, but that so many stood steadfast. Edicts were issued commanding them to recant on pain of dire punishment, but promising protection to those who obeyed. The following proclamation posted on the wall of the yamen at Ching-chou-fu is a sample of hundreds:—

"The Taku forts have been retaken by the Chinese. Gen. Tung Fu Shiang has led the Boxers and the goddesses, and has destroyed twenty foreign men-of-war, killing 6,000 foreign soldiers. The seven devilish countries' consuls came to beg for peace. General Tung now has killed all the foreign soldiers. The secondary devils (the native Christians) must die. General Tung has ordered the Boxers to go to the foreign countries and bring out their devil emperors from their holes. One foreigner must not be allowed to live. All who are not Chinese must be destroyed.''

It requires no large knowledge of Chinese character to calculate the effect of such official utterances on the minds of lawless men.

Word sped from a Chinese city that on a certain day all Christians who had not recanted could be pillaged. From every quarter, the lawless streamed in, eager for the shambles. Ruffians pointed out the women they intended to take. And there was no foreigner to protect, no regiment or battleship for the Chinese Christian.

Those poor people, hardly out of their spiritual infancy, stood in that awful emergency absolutely alone. Could an American congregation have endured such a strain without flinching? Let those who can safely worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences be thankful that the genuineness of their faith has never been subjected to that supreme test.

Those were grievous days for the Christians of China. Two graduates of Teng-chou College remained for weary weeks in a filthy dungeon when they might have purchased freedom at any moment by renouncing Christianity. Pastor Meng of Paoting-fu, a direct descendant of Mencius, was 120 miles from home when the outbreak occurred. He was safe where he was, but he hurried back to die with his flock. He was stabbed, his arm twisted out of joint and his back scorched with burning candles in the effort to make him recant. But he steadfastly refused to compromise either himself or his people and was finally beheaded.

The uneducated peasant was no whit behind his cultivated countrymen in devotion to duty. A poor cook was seized and beaten, his ears were cut off, his mouth and cheeks gashed with a sword and other unspeakable mutilations inflicted. Yet he stood as firmly as any martyr of the early Church.

One of the Chinese preachers, on refusing to apostatize, received a hundred blows upon his bare back, and then the bleeding sufferer was told to choose between obedience and another hundred blows. What would we have answered? Let us, who have never been called on to suffer for Him, be modest in saying what we would have done. But that mangled, half- dead Chinese gasped:—"I value Jesus Christ more than life, and I will never deny Him.'' Before all of the second hundred blows could be inflicted, unconsciousness came and he was left for dead. But a friend took him away by night, bathed his wounds and secretly nursed him to recovery. I saw him, when I was in China, and I looked reverently upon the back that was seamed and scarred with "the marks of the Lord Jesus.'' Of the hundreds of Christians who were taken inside the legation grounds in Peking, not one proved false to their benefactors. "In the midday heat, in the drenching night rains, under storms of shot and shell, they fought, filled sand-bags, built barricades, dug trenches, sang hymns and offered prayers to the God whom the foreigner had taught them to love.'' Even the children were faithful. During the scream of deadly bullets, and the roar of burning buildings, the voices of the Junior Christian Endeavour Society were heard singing:—

"There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes.''

Such instances could be multiplied almost indefinitely from the experiences of Chinese Christians during the Boxer uprising. Indeed the fortitude of the persecuted Christians was so remarkable that in many cases the Boxers cut out the hearts of their victims to find the secret of such sublime faith, declaring: "They have eaten the foreigner's medicine.'' In those humble Chinese the world has again seen a vital faith, again seen that the age of heroism has not passed, again seen that men and women are willing to die for Christ. Multitudes withstood a persecution as frightful as that of the early disciples in the gardens and arenas of Nero. If they were hypocrites why did they not recant? As Dr. Maltbie Babcock truly said:— "One-tenth of the hypocrisy with which they were charged would have saved them from martyrdom.'' But thousands of them died rather than abjure their faith, and thousands more "had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated; wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth.''

Col. Charles Denby, late United States Minister to China, declared:—"Not two per cent. of the Chinese Christians proved recreant to their faith and many meet death as martyrs. Let us not call them 'Rice Christians' any more. Their conduct at the British Legation and the Peitang is deserving of all praise.''[82] Beyond question, the Chinese Christians as a body stood the test of fire and blood quite as well as an equal number of American Christians would have stood it.

[82] Letter, April 28, 1902.

One of the most trying experiences of the missionaries has been the dealing with those who did recant. Some of the cases were pitiful. Poor, ignorant men, confessed their sin with streaming eyes, saying that they did not mean to deny their Lord, but that they could not see their wives outraged and their babies' heads crushed against stone walls. Others admitted that, though they stood firm while one hundred blows were rained upon their bare backs, yet after that they became confused and were only dimly conscious of what they said to escape further agony than flesh and blood could endure. Still others made a distinction, unfamiliar to us, but quite in harmony with Oriental hereditary notions, between the convictions of the heart and the profession of the lips, so that they externally and temporarily bowed their heads to the storm without feeling that they were thereby renouncing their faith. One of the best Chinese ministers in Shantung, after 200 lashes, which pounded his back into a pulp, feebly muttered an affirmative to the question: "Will you leave the devils' church?'' But he explained afterwards that while he promised to leave "the devils' church,'' he did not promise to leave Christ's Church. The deception was not as apparent to him as it is to us whose moral perceptions have been sharpened by centuries of Christian nurture which have been denied to the Chinese.

When the proclamation ordering the extermination of all foreigners and Christians was posted on the walls of Ching- chou-fu, a friendly official hinted that if the Chinese pastors would sign a document to the effect that they would "no longer practice the foreign religion,'' he would accept it as sufficient on behalf of all their flocks, and not enforce the order. Warrants for the arrest of every Christian had already been written. Scoundrels were hurrying in from distant villages to join in the riot of plunder and lust. Two women had already been killed. What were the pastors to do? There was no missionary to guide them, for long before the consuls had ordered all foreigners out of the interior. The agonized pastors determined to sacrifice themselves for their innocent people, to go through the form of giving up the "foreign'' religion. That word "foreign'' must be emphasized to understand their temptation, for the Chinese Christians do not feel that Christianity is foreign, but that it is theirs as well as ours. Moreover, the pastors were made to understand that it was simply a legal fiction, not affecting the religion of their hearts, but only a temporary expedient that the friendly magistrate might have a pretext for giving his protection to the Christians. They were not asked to engage in any idolatrous rite or to make any public apostasy, but simply to sign a statement "no longer to practice the foreign religion.'' "So far from recanting,'' it was urged upon them, "you are preventing recanting.''

Their decision may be best given in the words of Pastor Wu Chien Cheng: "When I thought of these people,'' he said, his emotion being so great that the tears were running down his face, "in most cases with children and aged parents dependent upon them, and thought of all that was involved for them if I refused to sign the paper—well, I couldn't help it. I decided to take on myself the shame and the sin.''

As the Rev. J. P. Bruce, of the English Baptist Mission, who told me of this incident, truly says: "Who could listen to such a narrative—so sad and painful and yet not without much that was noble—without sympathy and tears?'' In this spirit of tenderness, so marked in the Lord's dealings with sinful Peter, the missionaries dealt with the recanting Christians. With the impostors, indeed, they had less mercy. The Rev. R. M. Mateer secured the arrest of two scapegraces who, under pretense of being Christians, had blackmailed innocent villagers. Very plainly, too, did the missionaries deal with Christians, who, like some people in the United States after a fire, placed an extravagant valuation upon what they had lost. But these were exceptional cases.

On the whole, Christians in Europe and America may well have stronger sympathy and respect for their fellow-Christians in China who have suffered so much for conscience' sake. Purified and chastened by the fearful holocaust through which they have passed, they are stronger spiritually than ever before. Like the apostles after Pentecost, they are giving "with great power their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.'' "The Chinese Church is not yet strong enough to stand entirely alone, but it is far stronger and more self-conscious of the eternal indwelling Spirit than ever before. It has learned the power of God to keep the soul in times of deadly peril, and to enable the weakest to give the strongest testimony. It has learned by humiliation and confession to put away its sins, and to gird itself for new conflicts and new victories.... Its ablest leaders are more trustworthy men than before their trials, and the body of believers has a unity and a cohesiveness which will certainly bear fruit in the not distant future.''[83]

[83] Smith, "Rex Christus,'' p. 212.



XXIII

THE STRAIN OF READJUSTMENT TO CHANGED ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

THE economic revolution in Asia, discussed in a preceding chapter,[84] bears heavily on the Chinese Christians. So far as the pressure affects the rank and file of the membership, the mission boards cannot give adequate relief. Abroad as well as at home, it must remain the inexorable rule that a Christian must live within his income and buy new things only as he can pay for them. Any other policy would mean utter ruin. Here also, men must "work out their own salvation''; and the missionary, while trying to lift men out of barbarous social conditions on the one hand, should on the other resolutely oppose the improvident eagerness which leads a blanketed Sioux Indian to buy on credit a rubber-tired surrey.

[84] Chapter IX.

But what about the native ministers and teachers, who find it impossible to live on the salaries of a decade ago? The problem of the ordinary helper is not so difficult. Springing from the common people, accustomed from childhood to a meagre scale of living, the small salaries which the people can pay either in full or in large part are usually equal to the income which they would have had if they had not become Christians. But some native ministers come from a higher social grade. They are men of education and refinement. They cannot live in a mud hut, go barefooted, wear a loin cloth and subsist on a few cents' worth of rice a day. They must not only have better houses and food and clothing, but they must have books and periodicals and the other apparatus of educated men. These things are not only necessary to their own maintenance, but they are essential to the work, for these men are the main reliance for influencing the upper classes in favour of Christianity. It is not a question of luxury or self-indulgence, but of bare respectability, of the simple decencies of life which are enjoyed by an American mechanic as distinguished from the poverty which, for a cultivated family, falls below the level of self-respect. But this requires a salary which, save in a very few places, cannot at present be paid by the churches. "Our pastors,'' writes a missionary, "are supposed to live as the middle-class of their people do, but of late years, with the great rise in prices, they are living below the middle-class.''

The consequences are not only pinching poverty but sometimes a feeling of wrong, and, in some cases, a yielding to temptation. One Chinese pastor, for example, who was trying to support a wife and five children on $10 Mex. ($5) a month, shipwrecked his influence by trying to supplement his scanty income by helping in lawsuits. Can we wonder that he felt obliged to do something, almost anything?

But who is to pay the higher salaries that are now so necessary? The first impulse is to look to the mission boards in Europe and America, and accordingly missionaries and Christians are importunately calling for increased appropriations. But whatever temporary and occasional relief may be given in this way, as a permanent remedy, it is plainly impossible. If the conditions were simply sporadic and local, the case might be different. But they are universal, or fast becoming so, and they will be permanent. It is quite visionary to suppose that the income of the mission boards will permit them to meet the whole or even the larger part of the increased cost of living among the myriads of ministers, teachers and helpers in the growing churches of China. American Christians cannot be reasonably expected to add such an enormous burden to the already large responsibilities which they are carrying in their varied forms of home work and the present scale of foreign missionary expenditure. Even if they could and would, it would be at the expense of all further enlargement of the work, and at the same time it would still further weaken an already weak sense of self-reliance among the native ministers and helpers of Asia.

Moreover, the average Christian giver in America is feeling the same strain himself. The so-called "era of prosperity'' has given more steady employment to the mechanic, has given better markets to the producer, and has enormously increased the wealth of many who were already rich. But the men on fixed salaries find that "prosperity'' has increased the prices of commodities without proportionately increasing earnings. Millions of American church members find it harder to give than they did ten years ago, for while their incomes are about the same, they must pay higher prices for meats, groceries and clothing. True, many salaries were cut down during the financial stringency of 1896-1897, but while some of them have been restored to their former figure, few have been raised above their original level, while others are still below it. Meantime official statistics show that the average cost of food is 10.9 per cent. higher than the average for the decade between 1890 and 1899, and that there has been an increase of 16.1 per cent. as compared with 1896, the year of lowest prices.[85] It is urged that the wages of workmen have increased in proportion. But however true this may be of organized labour, it is palpably untrue of the great middle-class who are neither capitalists nor members of labour unions. They form the bulk of the church membership and to them "Mr. Wright's statement will carry no reassurance. It is they who have been hit hardest by the increased cost of living for their incomes have not kept pace with it. Indeed, they are actually worse off to-day than they were eight, ten or fifteen years ago.''[86] Dun's Review, an acknowledged authority, declares that not in twenty years has it cost so much to live as now, and that March 1, 1904, the average prices of breadstuffs were thirty per cent. higher than they were seven years ago.

[85] Report of the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labour, 1903

[86] The Youth's Companion, October 29, 1903.

In such circumstances, it is clearly out of the question for the Christians of the United States to meet these enlarged demands for the support of their own families and, in addition, meet them for the churches in China.

If then, the problem of the increased cost of living in Asia cannot be solved by increased gifts from America, what other solutions are possible? As an experienced missionary says:— "To ask for more from America seems like a step backward; but to leave matters as they are is to see our churches seriously crippled.'' Four possible solutions may be mentioned.

First:—Stop all expansion of the work and use any increase in receipts to raise salaries. This is undoubtedly worthy of thoughtful consideration. To what extent is it right to open new fields and enlarge old ones when the workers now employed are inadequately paid? Plainly, the mission boards should carefully consider this aspect of the question. As a matter of fact, many of them have already considered it. The Presbyterian Board has repeatedly declined urgent requests to establish new stations on the ground that it could not do so in justice to its existing work. But as a practicable solution, this method is open to serious difficulties. A living work must grow, and the living forces which govern that growth are more or less beyond the control of the boards. The boards are amenable to their constituencies and those constituencies sometimes imperatively demand the occupation of a new field, as, for example, they did in the case of the Philippine Islands, some boards which at first decided not to enter the Philippines being afterwards forced into them by a pressure of denominational opinion that they could not ignore. Moreover, the missionaries themselves are equally insistent in their demands for enlargement. Some boards are literally deluged with such appeals. The missionaries who have most strenuously insisted on the policy of no further expansion till the existing work is better sustained have sometimes been the very ones who have strongly urged that an exception should be made in their particular fields, without realizing that the argument from "exceptions'' is so often pressed that it is really the rule and not the exception at all. And the churches and missionaries are usually right. God is calling His people to go forward. His voice is frequently very plain, and the boards, with all their care and conservatism, are then obliged to expand.

Second:—Diminish the number of native pastors, helpers and teachers and increase their work. In some places, this might be done by grouping congregations and fields. But the places where this could be wisely effected are so few that the relief to the situation as a whole would not be appreciable, especially as the native Christians would not give so liberally under such an arrangement. Their sense of responsibility would be weakened if they had only a half or a quarter of a pastor's time instead of the whole of it. Besides, the native force is far too small now. Instead of being diminished it should be largely increased. The great work of the future must be done by native ministers. If China is ever to be evangelized, it must be to a large degree by Chinese evangelists. To adopt deliberately the policy of restricting the number of such evangelists and teachers would be suicidal. As a solution, therefore, this method is quite impracticable, as it would be a relief at the expense of efficiency.

Third:—Require native leaders to earn their own living either wholly or in part. There is Pauline example for this method. Some of the Presbyterian missionaries in Laos have adopted it by inducing the members of a congregation to secure a ricefield and a humble house for their minister. The Korea missionaries have very successfully worked this method by insisting that the leaders of groups shall continue in their former occupations and give their services to Christian work without pay, in some such way as Sunday-school superintendents and other unpaid workers do in America. This method is deserving of wider adoption. It would give considerable relief in many other fields. It was probably the way that the early church grew.

"Two opinions,'' says Dr. J. J. Lucas, "have been held in regard to the basis on which the salaries of native agents should be fixed. One is that such a salary should be paid as would remove all excuse for engaging in secular work, demanding all the time of the pastor for spiritual work; another is, that acknowledging the salary to be insufficient, the pastors be expected to supplement it by what they can get from field and vineyard. If self-support is to be aimed at, at all cost, then the latter plan is the only feasible one, with the dangers of its abuse. There is no doubt, however, that a man who loves the gospel ministry and is devoted to it can, without the neglect of spiritual affairs, do enough outside to lessen materially the burden that would fall on the church in his support.''

But this method of itself would hardly solve the problem. However well adapted to the beginnings of mission work, it fails to provide a properly qualified native leadership. To do efficient work, a native pastor must give his whole time to it, and to that end he must have a salary that will make him "free from worldly cares and avocations.'' We insist on this in the United States and the reasons for such a policy are as strong on the foreign field. The minister in Asia as well as the minister in America must have a salary. The labourer is worthy of his hire.

Fourth:—Insist upon a larger measure of self-support. The native churches must be led to a fuller responsibility in this matter. Grave as are the temporary embarrassments which the increased cost of living is forcing upon them and trying as is the permanent distress of some of them, yet as a whole the economic revolution will undoubtedly enlarge the earning capacity of the native Christians. Indeed, the new principles of life which the gospel brings should make them among the first to profit by the changed conditions, and as their wealth increases, their spirit of giving should, and under the wise lead- ership of the missionaries undoubtedly will, increase. For these reasons, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions took the following action July 2, 1900:—

"As having reference to the question of self-support of the native churches on the mission field, and in view of the fact that some of its missions are proposing to increase the salaries of native preachers and helpers on account of the increased cost of living, the Board is constrained to look with no little apprehension upon the prospect of continuing and increasing demands of foreign aid in proportion to the contributions made by the churches themselves. Increased intercourse of eastern nations with those of the west has led and will still further lead to a gradual assimilation to western ways and western prices, and unless the self-reliant spirit of the churches can be stimulated to a proportionate advance, there is a sure prospect that the drafts upon mission funds will be larger and larger in proportion to the amount of work accomplished. In view of these considerations, it was resolved that the missions in which such increase is proposed be earnestly requested to arouse the churches to the purpose and the endeavour to meet this increased expenditure instead of laying still larger burdens upon the resources of foreign funds. The Board deems this necessary not merely to the interest of its expanding work but to the self-reliant character, the future stability and self-propagating power of the churches themselves.''

There appears to be no alternative. And yet this policy, while adhered to, should be enforced with reasonable discretion and due regard to "this present distress.'' How can Christians, who can barely live themselves and pay a half or two- thirds of their pastor's present support, suddenly meet this call for enlarged salaries? For reasons already given, it is harder for them to make ends meet now than it was in the old days of primitive simplicity, while in many places a profession of Christianity is followed by the loss of property and employment so that the Christian is impoverished by the loss of the income that he already had. In these circumstances, both boards and missions must simply do the best they can, and neither allow the emergency to sweep them into a mistaken charity that

would be fatal to the ultimate interests of the cause nor allow a valuable native worker to suffer for the necessaries of life.

"We need to bear in mind that the low salaries of China are not the product of Christianity, but of heathenism, and the ability to live on five or six Mexicans per month is not the result of a laudable economy unknown to Christian countries, so much as it is the result of a degradation of manhood to the level of beasts. The church is responsible for the knowledge of a better way of living. We have created the desire for a clean house, clean clothing, healthful food, and books, on the part of our educated young men. Shall we implant this desire for six or eight years and take the rest of the man's life in trying to squelch it? We have come as apostles of truth to a mighty empire, to the great and the small, to the rich and the poor, and if we had a native ministry which could appeal to a different class of men than most of them are now appealing to, would not the day of self-support be hastened beyond what we dare to hope? Is there not a feeling out for something better on the part of the well-to-do, the more intelligent, just as really as there is on the part of the lowest classes? Do not we have a mission to the man who can pay $100.00 a year to the church just as really as to the one who pays 100 cash? There is nothing so costly as cheap men. Let us have a higher grade of men and we shall have a higher grade of church-membership. Is it not true that nothing more stands in the way of self-support than some of our native clergy? We must not turn down better men because they must have a little more to live upon than poor men.''[87]

[87] Mr. F. S. Brockman, Address—"How to Retain to the Church the Services of English-Speaking Christians,'' Shanghai, 1904.

It is idle, however, to urge as a reason for increasing the salaries of Chinese ministers that a qualified Asiatic can earn more in commercial life than in the ministry. Such arguments often come to mission boards. But religious work cannot compete with business in financial inducements either at home or abroad. It is notorious that in America, ministers and church workers generally do not receive the compensation which they could command in secular employments or professions. The qualities that bring success in the ministry are, as a rule, far more liberally remunerated in secular life. The preacher who can command $6,000 or $8,000 in the pulpit could probably command three or four times that amount in the law or in business. Men who are as eminent in other professions and in the commercial world as the most eminent clergymen are in the ministry usually have incomes ranging from $20,000 to $100,000 a year and have no "dead line'' of age either. As for others, the Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Ministerial Relief, is authority for the statement that the average salary of Presbyterian ministers is $700 and that for all denominations it does not equal the wages of the average mechanic. A missionary writes:—"Practically all our native pastors are underpaid.'' The same thing might be said of all the home missionaries and of most of the pastors of non-missionary churches at home, one-third of whom receive only $500 or less.

The churches of America cannot, or at any rate will not, do for the native ministers of Asia what they are not doing for their own ministers. The world over, the rewards of Christ's service are not financial. Those who seek that service must be content with modest support, sometimes even with poverty. This is not a reason for the home churches to be content with their present scale of missionary giving, nor does it mean that mission boards are disposed to refuse requests for appropriations. The boards are straining every nerve to secure a more generous support and they will gladly send all they can to the missions on the field. But it is a reason for impressing more strongly upon the young men in the churches of Asia that they should consecrate themselves to the Master's service from a higher motive than financial support and that while the boards will continue to give all the assistance that is in their power, yet that the permanent dependence of the ministers of China must be in increasing measure upon the Christians of China and not upon the Christians of America. Hundreds of native pastors are already realizing this and are manifesting a self-sacrificing courage and devotion that are beyond all praise. Said Mr. Fitch of Ningpo to a Chinese youth of fine education and exceptional ability:—"Suppose a business man should offer you $100.00 a month and at the same time you had the way opened to you to study for the ministry, and after entering it, to get from $20.00 to $30.00 a month, which would you take?'' And the youth answered—"I would enter the ministry.'' "He is now teaching a mission school at $12.00 a month, though he could easily command $30.00 a month in a business position.'' The hope of the churches of China is in such men. Mr. F. S. Brockman declares:—

"There is a wide-spread conviction among missionaries that the allurements of wealth alone are keeping English-speaking young men from the ministry. The facts do not bear out this belief. . . . In order to hold them in the ministry we need not appeal to their love of money. It is death to the ministry when we do it; we have opened the vial of their fiercest passion; we are doing what Jesus Christ never did; we are working absolutely contrary to the fundamental laws of the kingdom of God. . . . We must teach prospective ministers to look upon their lives as an unselfish expenditure of God-given power. For once make the allurement of the ministry the allurement of comfort, ease, or wealth, and we have closed up every fountain of the minister's power.''



XXIV

COMITY AND COOPERATION

THE Hon. Charles Denby, then United States Minister at Peking, wrote in 1900:—

"With all due deference to the great missionary societie, who have these matters in charge, my judgment is that missionary work in China has been overdone. Take Peking as an example. There are located at Peking the following Protestant missions: American Boards American Presbyterian, American Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, International Y. M. C. A., London Missionary Society, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, International Institute, Mission for Chinese Blind, Scotch Bible Society, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge. To these must be added the Church of England Mission, the English Baptist Mission and the Swedish Mission. The above list shows that of American societies alone there are seven in Peking, not counting the Peking University, and that all western Powers taken collectively were represented by about twenty missions. A careful study of the situation would seem to suggest that no two American societies should occupy the same district.''[88]

[88] Missionary Review of the World, October, 1900.

It may be well to examine this criticism, partly because it was made by an able man of known sympathy with mission work, and partly because it relates to the city where, if anywhere, in China, overcrowding exists. In considering Peking, therefore, we are really considering the broad question of the practicability of withdrawing some missionary agencies in the interest of comity and efficiency. The Presbyterian missionaries themselves opened the way for the discussion of the question by proposing to the Congregational missionaries, after the Boxer uprising had been quelled, "an exchange of all work and fields of our Presbyterian Church in the province of Chih-li in return for the work and fields of the American Board in the province of Shantung, subject to the approval of our respective Boards.'' The Mission added:—

"It means no little sacrifice to sever attachments made in long years of service in fields and among a people whom God has enabled us to lead to Christ, but we feel that a high spirit of loyalty to Christ and His cause, inspiring all concerned, will lead us to set aside personal preferences and attachments, if thereby the greater interests of His Church in China can be conserved.''

The whole question was thoroughly discussed during my visit in Peking. Much time was spent traversing the entire ground. Then a meeting was called of the leading missionaries of all the Protestant agencies represented in Peking.

The result of all these conferences was the unanimous and emphatic judgment of the missionaries of all the boards concerned that there is not "a congestion of missionary societies in Peking,'' and that no one board could be spared without serious injury to the cause. In reply to the proposal of the Presbyterian missionaries, the North China Mission of the American Board wrote—

"After considering the matter in all its bearings we are constrained to say that we contemplate with regret any plan which looks to the withdrawal of the Presbyterian Mission from the field which they have so long occupied in northern Chih-li. We think that instead of illustrating comity this would appear as if comity was not to be attained without a violent dislocation from long-established foundations, and that in this particular there would be a definite loss all around. . . . We further deprecate the proposed step because there is now an excellent opportunity for the adoption or actual measures of cooperation between our respective missions. . . . We are ready to readjust boundaries in such a way as to remedy the waste of effort in the crossing of one another's territory. . . . We are confident that the ultimate outcome could not fail to be a greater benefit than the sudden rupture of long-existing relations for the sake of mere geographical contiguity of the work of missions like yours and ours, each keeping its own district, careful not to encroach upon the other. In the higher unity here suggested we should expect to realize larger results in the promotion of comity not only, but also in the best interests of that kingdom of God for which we are each labouring. "ARTHUR H. SMITH, "D. Z. SHEFFIELD, "Committee.''

Moreover, several of the agencies enumerated by Colonel Denby, such as the Y. M. C. A., the International Institute, the Mission to the Blind, the various Bible Societies, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge, are not competing missionary agencies at all, but are doing a special work along such separate lines that it is unfair to take them into consideration. As a matter of fact, with the exception of a comparatively small work by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the real missionary work in Peking is being done by only four Boards,—The American, Methodist, London, and Presbyterian. This is not a disproportionate number, considering the fact that Peking is one of the great cities of the world and the capital of the Empire. It is of the utmost importance that a strong Christian influence should be exerted in such a centre. Indeed, if there is any place in all China where this influence ought to be intensified, it is Peking. It is granted that Christian work is more difficult in a great city, that it is harder to convert a man there than in a country village. But, on the other hand, he is more influential when he is converted. Peking is the heart of China. Alone of all its cities, it is visited sooner or later by every ambitious scholar and prominent official. The examinations for the higher degrees bring to it myriads of the brightest young men of the country. The moral effect of a strong Christian Church in Peking will be felt in every province. If Christianity is to be a positive regenerative force in China it cannot afford to weaken its hold in the very citadel of China's power.

It should be borne in mind that the work of the missionaries stationed at Peking is not confined to the city, but that Peking is a base from which they work out on the east and south till they reach the boundaries of the Tien-tsin and Paoting-fu station fields, while on the north and west a vast and populous region for an indefinite distance is wholly dependent upon them for Christian teaching. Extensive and densely inhabited areas of the province are not being worked by any board. The Rev. Dr. John Wherry, who has lived there for a generation, says that there are a hundred times as many people in the Peking region as are now being reached, and that there are 20,000,000 in the province who have never yet heard of Christ. For this enormous field the missionary agencies now at work are really few. Hundreds of American cities of half a million inhabitants have a greater number of ordained workers than this entire province of Chih-li with a population nearly half as large as that of the United States. Indeed there is room for a great extension of the work without overcrowding.

Each denomination occupies a large and distinct geographical field in this province. For example, all that portion of the city and suburbs of Peking north of the line of the Forbidden City, with a population of about 200,000, is considered Presbyterian territory. No other missionaries are located in that part of Peking. In the country, the counties of San-ho, Huai-jou, Pao-ti, to the north and east of Peking, are also understood to be distinctively Presbyterian ground. San-ho County alone is said to have 1,200 towns and villages, while the other counties are also very populous. No other Protestant denomination is working in any of these counties. At Paoting-fu, the Congregationalists and Presbyterians have made a division of the field, the former taking everything south of a line drawn through the centre of the city and the latter everything north of that line. Each denomination thus has wholly to itself half the city of Paoting-fu and about a dozen outlying counties.

The missionaries of the three other boards concerned plainly stated that, in the event of the withdrawal of the Presbyterians, they would not be able to care for the work that would be left. They declared that they were not able adequately to sustain the work they already had and that there was not the slightest reason to hope that their home boards would find it possible to give them the reinforcements in men and money which would be required if their present responsibilities were to be increased. The large district now occupied by any given board would simply be vacated if its missionaries were transferred to other regions. The ties formed with the Chinese Christians and people in more than a generation of continuous missionary work would be broken and the influence acquired by faithful missionaries in long years of toil would be lost.

In these circumstances, would it be right for any one of these four boards to withdraw? There will, indeed, come a time when it will be the duty of the missionary to leave the Chinese church to itself. But is this the time to go, when the native church, instead of being strong and able to care for itself, is torn and bleeding after frightful persecution? These Christians look to the missionaries, who have hitherto led them, as spiritual fathers who will guide them in the future. They feel that the time has come for a new consecration to the task of evangelizing all their people. As directed by the missionaries, they may become a great influence for the conversion of their countrymen. Should they be left when other missionaries expressly state that they cannot care for them?

The question of closer cooperation, however, is worthy of careful consideration. At a conference of representatives of foreign mission boards of the United States and Canada having work in China, held in New York, September 21, 1900, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

"It is the judgment of this conference that the resumption of mission work in those parts of China where it has been interrupted would afford a favourable opportunity for putting into practice some of the principles of mission comity which have been approved by a general concensus of opinion among missionaries and boards, especially in regard to the over lapping of fields and such work as printing and publishing, higher education and hospital work, and the conference would commend the subject to the favourable consideration and action of the various boards and their missionaries.''

Christian America, which ought to set the example of comity, is distractingly divided. Should it not learn something from its experience at home and, as far as possible, organize its work abroad in such a way as to avoid perpetuating unnecessary divisions? Should it not at least carefully consider whether a limited force cannot be used to better advantage for China and for Christ? I admire the ingenuity of those at home who can find good reasons for having half a dozen denominations in a town of a few thousand inhabitants. But on the foreign field, we should adopt a different policy. In the large cities—the Londons, and Berlins, and New Yorks, and Chicagos, of Asia, it is conceded that more than one Board may properly work. But with such exceptions, it should be the rule not to enter fields where other evangelical bodies are already established. Indeed it is already the rule. The Shanghai Conference of 1900 voted that missionary agencies should not be multiplied in small places, though that cities of prefectural rank should not be considered the exclusive territory of any one board. The American Presbyterian Board declared in 1900, and its action was specifically approved by the General Assembly of that year:—"The time has come for a larger union and cooperation in mission work, and where church union cannot be attained, the Board and the missions will seek such divisions of territory as will leave as large districts as possible to the exclusive care and development of separate agencies.''

In several places, boards and missions are moving actively in this direction. In 1902, the American and Presbyterian Boards entered into a union in educational work in the province of Chih-li by which the Presbyterians conduct a union boarding- school for girls in Paoting-fu and for boys in Peking, while the Congregationalists educate the boys of both denominations in Paoting-fu and the girls in Peking. A medical college in Peking was agreed upon in 1903, to be supported and taught jointly by the London, American and Presbyterian missions. In the province of Shantung, a notable union in both educational and medical work was effected in 1903 between English Baptists and American Presbyterians. Instead of developing duplicate institutions with all the large expenditure of men and money that would be involved, the boards and missions concerned are uniting in the development of the Shantung Protestant University with the Arts College on the Presbyterian compound at Wei-hsien and the Theological and Normal School on the Baptist compound at Ching-chou-fu. The medical class will be taught alternately at the Baptist and Presbyterian stations until funds warrant the erection of suitable buildings, probably at Chinan-fu, the capital of the province. In Shanghai, the Northern and Southern Methodists established a union publishing house in 1902, and in several other parts of China, plans for union of various kinds are being discussed.

All these enterprises met with opposition at first. There was, indeed, little objection to union in medical education, for few questions of a denominational character are involved in the training of medical students. But it was urged by some that it would not be expedient to press consolidation in educational work, as the chief object of such work was held to be the training of a native ministry and each mission could best educate its own helpers and should do so in the interest of self- preservation. The example of the Meiji Gakuin in Tokio, Japan, which is supported by the Presbyterian and Reformed Boards, was not deemed determinative as in Japan but one native church is involved, so that the cases are not parallel. Moreover, it was thought that in a large school there would not be as good an opportunity for that close personal contact between missionary and pupil which is so desirable.

These difficulties, however, are believed by many of the mis- sionaries to be more theoretical than practical, or, at any rate, not sufficiently formidable to prevent a more effective cooperation. No plan will be free from all objections and a good effort should not be abandoned because they are found to confront it. The defects in union are less grave than those that experience has shown to be inherent in the old method of numerous weak and struggling institutions whose support requires a ruinous proportion of the mission force and the mission funds that might otherwise be available, in part at least, for the enlargement of the evangelistic work. "It certainly seems unnecessary that two missions should maintain distinct high schools looking towards a college grade side by side, when the whole number of pupils in both could be instructed more economically and perhaps more efficiently in one institution.''

Nor is this all, for, wherever practicable, union of allied churches is being sought. I know we are told that Christ's words do not call for this. But when I hear the laboured arguments which defend the splitting of American Presbyterianism into more than a dozen sects, I sympathize with the child who, after a sermon in which the minister had eloquently urged that the unity for which the Lord prayed was consistent with separation, said: "Mamma, if Christ didn't mean what He said, why didn't He say what He meant?''

Premature and impracticable efforts should indeed be avoided. The deeply rooted differences of centuries are not to be eradicated in a day. We must feel our way along with caution and wisdom. To attempt too much at first would be to accomplish nothing. Work abroad is necessarily a projection of the work at home and it will be more or less hampered by our American divisions. A prominent clergyman told me that he doubted the wisdom of a union of the Asiatic churches as he feared that such a union would weaken the sense of responsibility of the home churches. He thought that a denomination in America would take a deeper interest in a comparatively small native church wholly dependent upon it than it would in an indeterminate part of a larger church. Must the unity of the foreign church be sacrificed to the divisions of the home church? Perhaps there is some ground for anticipating such objections from home. But if they are found to exist, we should not cease seeking union in Asia, but begin preaching juster views in America.

I must not be understood as depreciating the historic differences of Christendom. I am aware that each of the great religious bodies stands for some cardinal principle that is not emphasized to the same degree by others. The freedom of any given number of believers to witness to a specific truth should not be and need not be limited by union. The contention here is that the differences of the West should not be forced upon the East but that the churches of Asia should be given a fair chance to develop a unity large enough to comprehend these various forms. If they must be divided, let them separate later along their own lines of cleavage, not on lines extended from western nations. In one place, I met a swarthy Asiatic who knew just enough English to be able to tell me that he was a Scotch Presbyterian. Are we then to have a Scotch Presbyterian Church in Asia, and a Canadian Presbyterian Church, and an Australian Presbyterian Church? Is the American Civil War forever to divide communities of Chinese believers into American Northern Presbyterians and American Southern Presbyterians? Why should we force our unhappy quarrel of a generation ago upon them? The American Presbyterian Board has truly declared that "the object of the foreign missionary enterprise is not to perpetuate on the mission field the denominational distinctions of Christendom but to build up on Scriptural lines and according to Scriptural principles and methods the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ.'' It has advised all its missions that "we encourage as far as practicable the formation of union churches in which the results of the mission work of all allied evangelical churches should be gathered, and that they (the missions) observe everywhere the most generous principles of missionary comity.'' The specific approval of this declaration, by the General Assembly of 1900, makes this the authoritative policy of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

In harmony with this general position, several significant efforts towards union are being made. The first movements, naturally, are towards a union of communions that are substantially alike in polity and doctrine. Already all the Presbyterian and Reformed Boards operating in Japan, Korea, Mexico and India have joined in the support of a united native church in those lands, and similar movements are in progress in other lands and in several churches, notably the Protestant Episcopal and the Methodist Episcopal. In China, the representatives of the eight Presbyterian denominations of Europe and America have met in loving conference and planned to unite all the native Christians connected with their respective missions into one magnificent and commanding Church.

And now unions of wholly different denominations are being discussed. The American Board missionaries intimated to the Presbyterian Mission in 1901 that there might be "no inherent difficulty in uniting the membership of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Chih-li in one common body.'' A similar question is being informally discussed by the American Presbyterian missionaries and those of the English Baptist Mission in Shantung. The fellowship between the two bodies there, as between Presbyterians and Congregationalists in Chih-li, is close.