PART IV
The Missionary Force and the Chinese Church
XVIII
THE first definite knowledge of the true God appears to have come to China with some Jews who are said to have entered the Empire in the third century. Conjecture has long been busy with the circumstances of that ancient migration. That the colony became fairly numerous may be inferred from the fact that in 1329 and again in 1354, the Jews are mentioned in the Chinese records of the Mongol dynasty, while early in the seventeenth century Father Ricci claimed to have discovered a synagogue built in 1183. In 1866, the Rev. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, then President of the Tung-wen College at Peking, visited Kai-fung-fu, the centre of this Jewish colony, and on a monument he found an inscription which included the following passage:--
``With respect to the religion of Israel, we find that our first ancestor was Adam. The founder of the religion was Abraham; then came Moses who established the law, and handed down the sacred writings. During the dynasty of Han this religion entered China. In the second year of Hiao-tsung, of the Sung dynasty , a synagogue was erected in Kai-fung fu. Those who attempt to represent God by images or pictures do but vainly occupy themselves with empty forms. Those who honour and obey the sacred writings know the origin of all things. Eternal reason and the sacred writings mutually sustain each other in testifying whence men derived their being. All those who profess this religion aim at the practice of goodness and avoid the commission of vice.''
Dr. Martin writes that he inquired in the market-place:--
``Are there among you any of the family of Israel?'' ``I am one,'' responded a young man, whose face corroborated his assertion; and then another and another stepped forth until I saw before me representatives of six out of the seven families into which the colony is divided. They confessed with shame and grief that their holy and beautiful house had been demolished by their own hands. It had for a long time, they said, been in a ruinous condition; they had no money to make repairs; they had, moreover, lost all knowledge of the sacred tongue; the traditions of the fathers were no longer handed down and their ritual worship had ceased to be observed. In this state of things they had yielded to the pressure of necessity and disposed of the timbers and stones of that venerable edifice to obtain relief for their bodily wants. . . . Their number they estimated, though not very exactly, at from three to four hundred. . . . No bond of union remains, and they are in danger of being speedily absorbed by Mohammedanism or heathenism.''
There is something pathetic about that forlorn remnant of the Hebrew race. ``A rock rent from the side of Mount Zion by some great national catastrophe and projected into the central plain of China, it has stood there while the centuries rolled by, sublime in its antiquity and solitude.''
In his Life of Morrison, Townsend reminds us that the Christian Church early realized that it could not ignore so vast a nation, while its very exclusiveness attracted bold spirits. As far back as the first decade of the sixth century , Nestorian monks appear to have begun a mission in China. Romance and tragedy are suggested by the few known facts regarding that early movement. Partly impelled by conviction, partly driven by persecution, those faithful souls travelled beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire, and rested not till they had made the formidable journey across burning deserts and savage mountains to the land of Sinim. That some measure of success attended their effort is probable. Indeed there are hints in the ancient records of numerous churches and of the favour of the great Emperor Tai Tsung in 635. But however zealous the Nestorians may have been for a time, it is evident that they were finally submerged in the sea of Chinese superstition. A quaint monument, discovered in 1625 at Hsi-an-fu, the capital of Shen-si, on which is inscribed an outline of the Nestorian effort from the year 630 to 781, is the only trace that remains of what must have been an interesting and perhaps a thrilling missionary enterprise.
The Roman Catholic effort began in 1293, when John de Corvino succeeded in reaching Peking. Though he was elevated to an Archbishopric and reinforced by several priests, this effort, too, proved a failure and was abandoned.
Two and a-half centuries of silence followed, and then in 1552, the heroic Francis Xavier set his face towards China, only to be prostrated by fever on the Island of Sancian. As he despairingly realized that he would never be able to set his foot on that still impenetrable land, he moaned: ``Oh, Rock, Rock, when wilt thou open!'' and passed away.
But in 1581, another Jesuit, the learned and astute Matteo Ricci, entered Canton in the guise of a Buddhist priest. He managed to remain, and twenty years later he went to Peking in the dress of a literary gentleman. In him Roman Catholicism gained a permanent foothold in China, and although it was often fiercely persecuted and at times reduced to feebleness, it never became wholly extinct. Gradually it extended its influence until in 1672 the priests reported 300,000 baptized Chinese, including children. In the nineteenth century, the growth of the Roman Church was rapid. It is now strongly entrenched in all the provinces, and in most of the leading cities its power is great. There are twenty-seven bishops and about six hundred foreign priests. The number of communicants is variously estimated, but in 1897 the Vicar Apostolic of Che-kiang, though admitting that he could not secure accurate statistics, estimated the Roman Catholic population at 750,000.
It is not to the credit of Protestantism that it was centuries behind the Roman Church in the attempt to Christianize China. It was not till 1807, that the first Protestant missionary arrived. January 31st, of that year, Robert Morrison, then a youth of twenty-five, sailed alone from London under appointment of the London Missionary Society . As the hostile East India Company would not allow a missionary on any of its ships, Morrison had to go to New York in order to secure passage on an American vessel. As he paid his fare in the New York ship owner's office, the merchant said with a sneer: ``And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese Empire?'' ``No, sir,'' was the ringing reply, ``I expect God will.''
The ship Trident left New York about May 15th and did not reach Canton till September 8th. For two years Morrison had to live and study in Canton and the Portuguese settlement of Macao with the utmost secrecy, dreading constantly that he might be forced to leave. For a time, he never walked the streets by daylight for fear of attracting attention, but exercised by night. His own countrymen were hostile to his purpose and his Chinese language teachers were impatient and insolent. It was not till February 20, 1809, the date of his marriage to Miss Morton, that his employment as translator by the East India Company gave him a secure residence. Still, however, he could not do open missionary work, but was obliged to present Christianity behind locked doors to the few Chinese whom he dared to approach. In these circumstances, he naturally gave his energies largely to language study and translation, and in 1810 he had the joy of issuing a thousand copies of a Chinese version of the Book of Acts.
Seven weary, discouraging years passed before Morrison baptized his first convert, July 16, 1814, and even then he had to administer the sacrament at a lonely spot where unfriendly eyes could not look. At his death in 1834, there were only three Chinese Christians in the whole Empire. Successors carried on the effort, but the door was not yet open, and the work was done against many obstacles and chiefly in secret till the treaty of Nanking, in 1842, opened the five ports of Amoy, Canton, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai. Missionaries who had been waiting and watching in the neighbouring islands promptly entered these cities. Eagerly they looked to the great populations in the interior, but they were practically confined to the ports named till 1858, when the treaty of Tien-tsin opened other cities and officially conceded the rights of missionary residence and labour.
The work now spread more rapidly, not only because it was conducted in more centres and by a larger force of missionaries, but because it was carried into the interior regions by Chinese who had heard the gospel in the ports.
The Tai-ping Rebellion soon gave startling illustration of the perversion of the new force. Begun in 1850 by an alleged Christian convert who claimed to have a special revelation from heaven as a younger brother of Christ, it spread with amazing rapidity until in 1853 it had overrun almost all that part of China south of the Yang-tze-kiang, had occupied Nanking and Shanghai, and had made such rapid progress northward that it threatened the capital itself. It was the most stupendous revolution in history, shaking to its foundations a vast and ancient empire, involving the destruction of an almost inconceivable amount of property and, it is said, of the lives of twenty millions of human beings.
If this great rebellion had been wisely guided, it would undoubtedly have changed the history of China and perhaps, by this time, of the greater part of Asia, for it proposed to overthrow idolatry, to unseat the Manchu dynasty, and to found an empire on the principles of the Christian religion. So nearly indeed did it attain success that if it had not been opposed by European nations, it would probably have attained its object. But the weight of their influence was thrown in favour of the Government. The American Frederick T. Ward and the English Charles George Gordon organized and led the ``Ever Victorious Army'' of Chinese troops against the revolutionists. Most significant of all, the leaders of the rebellion itself, freed from the restraint which foreigners might perhaps have exerted, quickly discarded whatever Christian principles they had started with and rapidly demoralized the movement at its centre by giving themselves up to an arrogance, vice, and cruelty which were worse than those of the government they sought to overturn. Mr. McLane, then United States Minister, truly reported to Washington:--
``Whatever may have been the hopes of the enlightened and civilized nations of the earth, in regard to this movement, it is now apparent that they neither profess nor apprehend Christianity, and whatever may be the true judgment to form of their political power, it can no longer be doubted that intercourse cannot be established or maintained on terms of equality.''
The recapture of Nanking in 1864 marked the final turning of the tide, and in an incredibly short time the whole insurrection collapsed. The rebellion, vast as it was, is now after all but an episode in the history of the great Empire. But the fact that any man on such a platform could so quickly develop an insurrection of such appalling proportions significantly suggests the possibilities of change in China when new movements are rightly directed.
Freed from this gigantic travesty of its true character, the growth of Christianity in China became more rapid. The following table is eloquent:
1807 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 communicants 1814 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 `` 1834 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 `` 1842 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 `` 1853 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 `` 1857 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 `` 1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 `` 1876. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,515 `` 1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28,000 communicants 1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37,287 `` 1893 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55,093 `` 1887 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80,682 `` 1903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112,808 ``
The number of Protestant missionaries is 2,950, of whom 1,233 are men, 868 are wives and 849 are single women. Of the whole number, 1,483 are from Great Britain, 1,117 from America and 350 from continental Europe. Other interesting statistics are 5,000,000 adherents, 2,500 stations and out- stations, 6,388 Chinese pastors and helpers, 1,819 day-schools and 170 higher institutions of learning, twenty-three mission presses with an annual Output Of 107,149,738 pages, thirty-two periodicals, 124 hospitals and dispensaries treating in a single year 1,700,452 patients; while the asylums for the orphaned and blind and deaf number thirty-two.
It will thus be seen that Christian missions in China are being conducted upon a large scale. It would be difficult to overestimate the silent and yet mighty energy represented by such work, steadily continued through a long series of years, and representing the life labours of thousands of devoted men and women and an annual expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
True, the number of Christians is small in comparison with the population of the Empire, but the gospel has been aptly compared to a seed. It is indeed small, but seeds generally are. Lodged in a crevice of a rock, a seed will thrust its thread-like roots into fissures so tiny that they are hardly noticeable. Yet in time they will rend the rock asunder and firmly hold a stately tree. Now the seed of the gospel has been fairly lodged in the Chinese Empire. It is a seed of indestructible vitality and irresistible transforming power. It has taken root, and it is destined to produce mighty changes. It was not without reason that Christianity was spoken of as a force that ``turned the world upside down,'' though it only does this where the world was wrong side up. It is significant that the word translated ``power'' in Romans 1:16, ``The gospel is the power of God,'' is in the Greek the word that we have anglicized in common speech as ``dynamite.'' We might, therefore, literally translate Paul's statement: ``The gospel is the dynamite of God.'' That dynamite has been placed under the crust of China's conservatism, and the extraordinary transformations that are taking place in China are, in part at least, the results of its tremendous explosive force.
The scope of this book does not permit an extended account of the missionary movement in China. It has been given in many volumes that are easily accessible.'' Nearly all of the Protestant churches, European and American, are represented and their missionaries are teaching the young, healing the sick, translating the Word of God, creating a wholesome literature, and preaching everywhere and with a fidelity beyond all praise the truths of the Christian religion. Self-sacrificing devotion and patient persistence in well-doing are written on every page of the history of missions in China, while emergencies have developed deeds of magnificent heroism. Men and women have repeatedly endured persecution of the most virulent kind rather than forsake their converts, and a number ``of whom the world was not worthy'' have laid down their lives for conscience' sake. There are few places in all the world that are more depressing to a white man than a Chinese city. The dreary monotony and squalor of its life are simply indescribable. Chefoo is usually considered one of the most attractive cities in China, and the missionaries who reside there are regarded as fortunate above their brethren. But even a brief stay will convince the most sceptical that nothing but the strongest considerations of duty could induce one who has freedom of choice to remain any longer than is absolutely necessary. Yet for forty-two years, missionaries have lived and toiled amid these unattractive surroundings, their houses on Temple Hill in the midst of the innumerable graves which occupy almost every possible space not actually covered by the mission buildings and grounds. But steadily the missionaries have toiled on, with faith and courage and love, and they are slowly but surely effecting marked changes. One by one, the Chinese are being led to loftier views of life and while the old city still continues to live in the ancient way, hundreds of Chinese families, amid the numerous population outside of the walls and in the outlying villages, have begun to conform themselves to the new and higher conditions of life represented by the Christian missionaries.
Several schools, a handsome church, a hospital, the only institution for deaf mutes in China and a wide-reaching itinerating work, are features of the mission enterprise in Chefoo. The visitor will be particularly interested in Dr. Hunter Corbett's street chapel and museum. The building is situated opposite the Chinese theatre and is well adapted to its purpose. Dr. Corbett and a helper stand at the door and invite passers-by, while a blind boy plays on a baby organ and sings. The chapel, which holds about sixty or seventy, is soon filled. Dr. Corbett preaches to the people for half an hour and then ad- mits them to the museum which occupies several rooms in the rear. It is a wonderful place to the Chinese who never weary of watching the stuffed tiger, the model railway and the scores of interesting objects and specimens that Dr. Corbett has collected from various lands. Then the people leave by a door opening on the back street, another service being held with them in the last room. Several audiences a day are thus handled. It is hard work, for the men as a rule are from many outlying villages, unaccustomed to listening and knowing nothing of Christianity. But Dr. Corbett speaks with such animation and eloquence that not an eye is taken from him. Few are converted in the chapel, but friendships are gained, doors of opportunity opened, tracts distributed, men led to think, and on country tours Dr. Corbett invariably meets people who have been to the museum and who cordially welcome him to their homes. He declares that after thirty years' experience, he thoroughly believes in such work when followed up by faithful itineration. Seventy-two thousand attended the chapel and museum in the year 1900 in spite of the Boxer troubles. The chapel is open every day, except that the museum is closed on Sundays, and the attendance is now larger than ever.
After dinner, we strolled down to Dr. Nevius' famous orchard. It is a beautiful spot. Here the great missionary found his recreation after his arduous labours. Yet even in his hours of rest, he was eminently practical. Seeing that the Chinese had very little good fruit and believing that he might show them how to secure it, he brought from America seeds and cuttings, carefully cultivated them and, when they were grown, freely distributed the new seeds and cuttings to the Chinese, explaining to them the methods of cultivation. Today, as the result of his forethought and generosity, several foreign fruits have become common throughout North China. But the orchard is deteriorating as the Chinese will not prune the trees. They are so greedy for returns that they do not like to diminish the number of apples or plums in the interest of quality.
At sunset, I made a pilgrimage with Mrs. Nevius to the cemetery, where, after forty years of herculean toil, the mighty missionary sleeps. We sat for a long time beside the grave, and the aged widow, speaking of her own end, which she appeared to feel could not be far distant, said that she wished to be buried beside her husband and that for this reason she did not want to go to the United States, preferring to remain in Chefoo until her summons came.
The scene was very beautiful as the sun set and the moon rose above the quiet sea. Standing beside the grave of the honoured dead and under the solemn pines, the traveller gains a new sense of the beneficence and dignity of the missionary force that is operating through such consecrated lives of the living and the dead.
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