XIX
IN considering the effects of the operation of this missionary force, we are at once confronted by the complaint of many Chinese that missionaries interfere on behalf of their converts in lawsuits. This complaint has been taken up and circulated by foreign critics until it has become one of the most formidable of the objections to missionary work. The difficulty will be understood when we remember that, though the Chinese are not a warlike people, they are litigious to an extraordinary degree. The struggle for existence in such a densely populated country often results in real or fancied entanglements of rights. So the Chinese are forever disputing about something, and the magistrates and village headmen are beset by clamorous hordes who demand a settlement of their alleged grievances. Naturally the Chinese Christians do not at once outgrow this national disposition. Whether they do or not, their profession of Christianity makes them an easy mark for the greedy and envious. Jealousy and dislike of the native who abandons the faith of his fathers and espouses ``the foreigner's religion'' frequently hale him into court on trumped-up charges and the notorious prejudice and corruption of the average magistrate often result in grievous persecution. The terrified Christian naturally implores the missionary to save him. It is hard to resist such an appeal. But the defendant is not always so innocent as he appears to be, and whether innocent or guilty, the interference of the foreigner irritates both magistrate and prosecutor, while it not infrequently arouses the resentment of the whole community by giving the idea that the Christians are a privileged class who are not amenable to the ordinary laws of the land. When, as sometimes happens, the Christians themselves get that idea and presume upon it, the difficulty becomes acute. Speaking of the Chinese talent for indirection, the Rev. Dr. Arthur H. Smith says:--
``It is this which makes it so difficult for the most conscientious and discreet missionary to be quite sure that he is in possession of all the needed data in any given case. The difficulty in getting at the bottom facts frequently is that there are no facts available, and, as the pilots say, `no bottom.' Every Protestant missionary is anxious to have his flock of Christians such as fear God and work righteousness, but in the effort to compass this end he not infrequently finds that when endeavouring to investigate the `facts' in any case he is chasing a school of cuttlefish through seas of ink.''
An illustration of this occurred during my visit in Ichou-fu. A magistrate who needed some wheelbarrows sent out his men to impress them. The rule in such cases is that only empty barrows can be seized. But the yamen underlings found the father of a mission helper with loaded barrows at an inn, stole his goods and forced him to pay them a sum of money for the privilege of keeping his barrows. The helper complained and Dr. C. F. Johnson yielded only so far as to write a guarded letter to the magistrate simply stating his confidence that if the magistrate found that injustice had been done, he would remedy it. But that letter brought the missionary into the case and he found himself forced to see it through or ``lose face'' with the Chinese Christians and especially the helper who was the son of the man robbed. He soon discovered, moreover, that the wronged man was telling contradictory stories about the value of goods stolen and the amount of money he had to pay to save his barrows. The situation speedily became embarrassing and the sorely-tried missionary, though he had acted from the best of motives and in the most conservative way, vowed that he would never interfere again in such disputes, as irritation and harm were almost certain to result.
I asked Sir Robert Hart whether in his opinion a missionary should seek to obtain justice for a persecuted man or should remain silent? He replied:--
``Intervention in matters litigated ought to be absolutely eschewed. Let the missionary content himself with making his disciples good men and good citizens, and let him leave it to the duly authorized officials to interpret and apply the law and administer their affairs in their own way. Individual Christianity has as many shades and degrees as men's faces. There are converts and converts, but even the most godly of them may give his neighbour just reason to take offense, and the most saintly among them may get involved in the meshes of the law. In such cases let the missionary stand aloof. There is, too, such a thing as hypocrisy, much better let the schemer get his deserts than hurt the church's character by following sentiment into interference. You ask what is to be done when there is persecution to be dealt with? First of all, I would advise the individual or the community to live it down, and, as a last resort, report the fact with appropriate detail and proof to the Legation in Peking for the assistance and advice of the minister. `Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.' ''
It is customary for the friends of Protestant missionaries to answer the critic's charge of interference in native lawsuits by stating that it does not justly lie against them, but only against the Roman Catholics, the rule of the Protestant missionaries being to avoid such interference save in rare and extreme cases. Mr. Alexander Michie, however, declares that Protestant missionaries are not entitled to such exemption, and that, while they may not interfere so frequently as the Catholics, they nevertheless interfere often enough to bring them under the same condemnation.
There are undoubtedly cases of imprudence, but after diligent inquiry, I am persuaded that the Protestant missionaries as a class are keenly alive to the risks of interference in native lawsuits and that they are increasingly careful in this respect. They feel with the Rev. J. C. Garritt of Hangchow that ``the most important form which prejudice has taken of late is the belief that foreigners aid or at least countenance their converts in the carrying of lawsuits through the yamens, or in the business of private settlement of disputes, and that if we can only practically demonstrate to the public that we are not in that business, we shall have overcome one very serious obstacle to our work.''
``The policy of the Chinese Government during the past few years has been to avoid trouble by letting the foreigner have his own way whenever possible. More than once the Chinese official has said in substance to non-Christian litigants: `You are right and your Christian accusers are wrong; but if I decide in your favour the foreigner will appeal the case to the Governor or to the Peking foreign office and I shall suffer.' Such things are charged, justly or unjustly, to the account of both Protestant and Romanist.''
A broad induction as to the facts has been made by the Rev. Dr. Paul D. Bergen, President of Shantung Protestant University. He wrote to a large number of missionaries representing all Protestant denominations as to their practice and convictions regarding this subject. Seventy-three answered and Dr. Bergen tabulated their replies. As to the results of the concrete cases of intervention cited, fifty-three are reported to have been beneficial, twenty-six are characterized as doubtful, four as mixed and sixty-seven as bad. This leaves the remaining cases ``suspended in the air,'' and Dr. Bergen conjectures that ``perhaps the missionary felt in such a confused mental state at their conclusion, that he was quite unable to work out the complicated equation of their results.''
``But surely the result that only fifty-three cases are reported to have been of unmistakable benefit, while sixty-seven are set down as resulting in evil, ought to give us thought. In short, in the yamen intercession in behalf of prosecuted Christians, it is the deliberate opinion of seventy-three missionaries that, as a matter of personal experience, sixty-seven cases have wrought only evil, while only fifty-three have been productive of good. The balance is on the wrong side. We must decide, in view of these replies, that there exists in general rather a pessimistic opinion as to the advantages of applying to the yamen in behalf of Christians.''
Summing up briefly the results of this inquiry, we note the following points, which will embody the views of a very large majority of the Protestant missionaries of experience in the Empire:--
``First,--That it is highly desirable to keep church troubles out of the yamen, but that there are times when we cannot do so without violating our sense of justice and our sense of duty towards an injured brother.
``Second,--Official assistance is to be sought in such troubles only when all other means of relief have been tried in vain. Always seek to settle these difficulties out of court.
``Third,--When official assistance is requested, our bearing should be friendly and courteous in the spirit, at least in the first instance, of asking a favour of the official, rather than demanding a right.... We should be extremely careful about trying to bring pressure to bear on an official.
``Fourth,--In the presence of the native Christian, and especially of those chiefly concerned, as well as in our own closets, we should cherish a deep sense of our absolute dependence on heavenly rather than on earthly protection, and remind the Christians that, as Dr. Taylor has so tersely put it, their duty is `to do good, suffer for it and take it patiently.'
``Fifth,--Only in grave cases should matters be pushed to the point of controversy or formal appeal.
``Sixth,--Christians and evangelists should be solemnly warned against betraying an arrogant spirit upon the successful termination of any trouble.
``Seventh,--Previous to the carrying of a case before the official, let the missionary be sure of his facts. Each case should be patiently, thoroughly and firmly examined. Receive individual testimony with judicious reserve. Be not easily blinded by appeals to the emotions. Be especially ready to receive any one from the opposition, and give his words due weight. Do not be too exclusively influenced by the judgment of any one man, however trusted.
``Eighth,--In the course of negotiation beware of insisting on monetary compensation for the injured Christian. In greatly aggravated cases this may occasionally be unavoidable. But should it be made a condition of settlement, see to it that the damages are under, rather than over, what might have been demanded. It is almost sure to cause subsequent trouble, both within and without, if a Christian receives money under such circumstances.
``Ninth,--When unhappily involved in a persecution case with the official, we should remember that we are not lawyers, and therefore make no stand on legal technicalities, nor allow ourselves to take a threatening attitude, although we may be subjected to provocation; we should be patient, dignified and strong in the truth, making it clear to the official that this is all that we seek in order that the ends of justice may be satisfied.
``Tenth,--It would be well on every fitting occasion to exhort those under our care to avoid frequenting yamens or cultivating intimacy with their inhabitants, unless, indeed, we feel assured that their motive is the same as that animating our Lord when He mingled with publicans and sinners.''
A widely representative conference of Protestant missionaries issued in 1903 the following manifesto and sent copies in Chinese to all officials throughout the Empire:
``Chinese Christians, though church-members, remain in every respect Chinese citizens, and are subject to the properly constituted Chinese authorities. The sacred Scriptures and the doctrines of the church teach obedience to all lawful authority and exhort to good citizenship; and these doctrines are preached in all Protestant churches. The relation of a missionary to his converts is thus that of a teacher to his disciples, and he does not desire to arrogate to himself the position or power of a magistrate.
``Unfortunately, it sometimes happens that unworthy men, by making insincere professions, enter the church and seek to use this connection to interfere with the ordinary course of law in China. We all agree that such conduct is entirely reprehensible, and we desire it to be known that we give no support to this unwarrantable practice
``On this account we desire to state that for the information of all that: The Protestant Church does not wish to interfere in law cases. All cases between Christians and non-Christians must be settled in the courts in the ordinary way. Officials are called upon to administer fearlessly and impartially justice to all within their jurisdiction. Native Christians are strictly forbidden to use the name of the church or its officers in the hope of strengthening their positions when they appear before magistrates. The native pastors and preachers are appointed for teaching and exhortation, and are chosen because of their worthy character to carry on this work. To prevent abuses in the future, all officials are respectfully requested to report to the missionary every case in which letters or cards using the name of the church or any of its officers are brought into court. Then proper inquiry will be made and the truth become clear.''
The policy of the British Government on this subject was clearly expressed by Earl Granville in his note of August 21, 1871, to the British Minister at Peking:
``The policy and practice of the Government of Great Britain have been unmistakable. They have uniformly declared, and now repeat, that they do not claim to afford any species of protection to Chinese Christians which may be construed as withdrawing them from their native allegiance, nor do they desire to secure to British missionaries any privileges or immunities beyond those granted by treaty to other British subjects. The Bishop of Victoria was requested to intimate this to the Protestant missionary societies in the letter addressed to him by Mr. Hammond by the Earl of Clarendon's direction on the 13th of November, 1869, and to point out that they would `do well to warn converts that although the Chinese Government may be bound by treaty not to persecute, on account of their conversion, Chinese subjects who may embrace Christianity, there is no provision in the treaty by which a claim can be made on behalf of converts for exemption from the obligations of their natural allegiance, and from the jurisdiction of the local authorities. Under the creed of their adoption, as under that of their birth, Chinese converts to Christianity still owe obedience to the law of China, and if they assume to set themselves above those laws, in reliance upon foreign protection, they must take the consequence of their own indiscretion, for no British authority, at all events, can interfere to save them.' ''
The policy of the United States Government was stated with equal clearness in a note of the Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at Peking, to the Tsung-li Yamen, dated March 20, 1871:
``The Government of the United States, while it claims to exercise, under and by virtue of the stipulations of treaty, the exclusive right of judging of the wrongful acts of its citizens resident in China, and of punishing them when found guilty according to its own laws, does not assume to claim or exercise any authority or control over the natives of China. This rule applies equally to merchants and missionaries, and, so far as I know, all foreign Governments having treaties with China adhere strictly to this rule. In case, however, missionaries see that native Christians are being persecuted by the local officials on account of their religious opinions, in violation of the letter and spirit of the twenty-ninth article of the treaty between the United States and China, it would be proper, and entirely in accordance with the principles of humanity and the teachings of their religion, to make respectful representation of the facts in such cases to the local authorities direct, or through their diplomatic representative to the foreign office; for it cannot be presumed that the Imperial Government would sanction any violation of treaty engagement, or that the local officials would allow persecutions for opinion's sake, when once the facts are made known to them. In doing this the missionaries should conform to Chinese custom and etiquette, so far as it can be done without assuming an attitude that would be humiliating and degrading to themselves.''
The question is one of the most difficult and delicate of all the questions with which the missionary must deal. On the one hand, every impulse of justice and humanity prompts him to befriend a good man who is being persecuted for righteousness' sake. But on the other hand, sore experience has taught him the necessity of caution. The pressure upon him is so frequent and trying that it becomes the bete noire of his life. The outsider may wisely hesitate before he adds to that pressure. The citations that have been given show that the missionaries themselves understand the question quite as well as any one else and that they are competent to deal with it.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
New Forces in Old China Beginnings Of The Missionary Enterprise-- The Tai-ping Rebellion And The Later Development
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.
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.
New Forces in Old China The Boxer Uprising
THE now famous Boxers were members of two of the secret societies which have long flourished in China. To the Chinese they are known as League of United Patriots, Great Sword Society, Righteous Harmony Fists' Association and kindred names. Originally, they were hostile to the foreign Manchu dynasty. When Germany made the murder of two Roman Catholic missionaries a pretext for pushing her political ambitions, the Boxers naturally arrayed themselves against them. As the champions of the national spirit against the foreigners, the membership rapidly increased. Supernatural power was claimed. Temples were converted into meeting-places, and soon excited men were drilling in every village.
The real ruler of China at this time, as all the world knows, was the Empress Dowager, who has been characterized as ``the only man in China.'' At any rate, she is a woman of extraordinary force of character. She was astute enough to encourage the Boxers, and thus turn one of the most troublesome foes of the Manchu throne against the common enemy, the foreigner. Under her influence, the depredations of the Boxers, which were at first confined to the Shantung Province, spread with the swiftness of a prairie fire, until in the spring of 1900 the most important provinces of the Empire were ablaze and the legations in Peking were closely besieged. In the heat of the conflict and under the agonizing strain of anxiety for imperilled loved ones, many hard things were said and written about the officials who allied themselves with the Boxers. But Sir Robert Hart, who personally knew them and who suffered as much as any one from their fury, candidly wrote after the siege: ``These men were eminent in their own country for their learning and services, were animated by patriotism, were enraged by foreign dictation, and had the courage of their convictions. We must do them the justice of allowing that they were actuated by high motives and love of country,'' though he adds, ``that does not always or necessarily mean political ability or highest wisdom.''
And so the irrepressible conflict broke out. It had to come, a conflict between conservatism and progress, between race prejudice and brotherhood, between superstition and Christianity, the tremendous conflict of ages which every nation has had to fight, and which in China was not different in kind, but only on a more colossal scale because there it involved half the human race at once. Of course it was impossible for so vast a nation permanently to segregate itself. The river of progress cannot be permanently stayed. It will gather force behind an obstacle until it is able to sweep it away. The Boxer uprising was the breaking up of this fossilized conservatism. It was such a tumultuous upheaval as the crusades caused in breaking up the stagnation of mediaeval Europe. As France opposed the new ideas, which in England were quietly accepted, only to have them surge over her in the frightful flood of the revolution, so China entered with the violence always inseparable from resistance the transition which Japan welcomed with a more open mind.
Though missionaries were not the real cause of the Boxer uprising, its horrors fell most heavily upon them. This was partly because many of them were living at exposed points in the interior while most other foreigners were assembled in the treaty ports where they were better protected; partly because the movement developed such hysterical frenzy that it attacked with blind, unreasoning fury every available foreigner, and partly because in most places the actual killing and pillaging were not done by the people who best knew the missionaries but by mobs from the slums, ruffians from other villages, or, as in Paoting-fu and Shan-si, in obedience to the direct orders of bigoted officials.
And so it came to pass that the innocent suffered more than the guilty. Dr. A. H. Smith concluded after careful inquiry that ``the devastating Boxer cyclone cost the lives of 135 adult Protestant missionaries and fifty-three children and of thirty- five Roman Catholic Fathers and nine Sisters. The Protestants were in connection with ten different missions, one being unconnected. They were murdered in four provinces and in Mongolia, and belonged to Great Britain, the United States and Sweden. No such outbreak against Christianity has been seen in modern times. The destruction of property was on the same continental scale. Generally speaking, all mission stations north of the Yellow River, with all their dwelling-houses, chapels, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and buildings of every description were totally destroyed, though there were occasional exceptions, of which the village where these pages are written was one. The central and southern portions of the Empire were only partially affected by the anti-foreign madness, not because they were under different conditions, but mainly through the strong repressive measures of four men, Liu Kun Yi and Chang Chih-tung, Governors-General of the four great provinces in the Yang-tse Valley; Yuan Shih Kai in Shantung, and a Manchu, Tuan Fang, in Shen-si. The jurisdiction of this quartette made an impassable barrier across which the movement was unable to project itself in force, but much mischief in an isolated way was wrought in nearly every part of China not rigorously controlled.''
So many volumes have been written about the Boxer Uprising that it is not necessary to double the size of this book in order to recount the details. For the full narrative, the reader is referred to the books mentioned below. But I cannot for- bear some description of the scenes of massacre that I personally visited. I was unable to go to the remoter province of Shan-si where so many devoted men and women laid down their lives and where many who escaped death endured indescribable hardships. But in the province of Shantung, where the Boxer Uprising originated, I was witness to the ruin that was wrought in many places, though the iron hand of the great Governor, Yuan Shih Kai, prevented much bloodshed. Then I turned to the northern province of Chih-li where official hands, instead of restraining, actually guided and goaded the maddened rioters.
After a delightful voyage of eighteen hours from Chefoo over a smooth sea, we anchored outside the bar, nine miles from shore, the tide not permitting our steamer to cross with its heavy load. A tug took us off and entering the Pei-ho River, we passed the famous Taku forts to the railway wharf at Tong-ku. It was significant to find foreign flags flying over the Taku forts and also over the mud-walled villages near by. Scores of merchant steamers, transports and war vessels were lying off Taku as well as hundreds of junks. The river was full of smaller craft among which were several Japanese and American gunboats. The railroad station presented a motley appearance. A regiment of Japanese had just arrived and while we were waiting, three train-loads of British Sikhs and several cars of Austrian marines and British ``Tommy Atkins'' came in. The platform was thronged with officers and soldiers of various nationalities, including a few Russians.
Nothing could be more dreary than the mud flats that the traveller to the imperial city first sees. The greater part of the way from Taku to Peking, the soil is poor and little cultivated. But as we advanced, kao-liang fields were more frequent, though the growth was far behind that in Shantung at the same season. Small trees were numerous during the latter half of the trip. The soil being too thin for good crops, the people grow more fuel and fruit.
Evidences of the great catastrophe were seen long before reaching the capital. Burned villages and battered buildings lined the route. At Tien-tsin several of the foreign buildings had shell holes. One corrugated iron building near the railway station was pierced like a sieve and thousands of native houses were in ruins. The city wall had been razed to the ground and a highway made where it had stood--an unspeakable humiliation to the proud commercial metropolis. The Japanese soldiers teased the citizens by telling them that ``a city without a wall is like a woman without clothes,'' and the people keenly felt the shame implied in the taunt.
In Peking, the very fact that the railroad train on which we travelled rushed noisily through a ragged chasm in the wall of the Chinese city, and stopped at the entrance of the Temple of Heaven, was suggestive of the consequences of war. The city, as a whole, was not as badly injured as I had expected to find it, but the ravages of war were evident enough. Wrecked shops, crumbled houses, shot-torn walls were on every side, while the most sacred places to a Chinese and a Manchu had been profaned. At other times the Purple Forbidden City, the Winter and Summer Palaces, the Temple of Heaven and kindred imperial enclosures are inaccessible to the foreigner. But a pass from the military authorities opened to us every door. We walked freely through the extensive grounds and into all the famous buildings--including the throne rooms which the highest Chinese official can approach only upon his knees and with his face abjectly on the stone pavement--and the private apartments of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. I was impressed by the vastness of the Palace buildings and grounds, the carvings of stone and wood, and the number of articles of foreign manufacture. But thousands of Americans in moderate circumstances have more spacious and comfortable bedrooms than those of the Emperor and Empress Dowager of China. All the living apartments looked cheerless. The floors were of artificial stone or brick in squares of about 20 x 20 inches and of course everything was covered with dust. The far-famed Temple of Heaven is the most artistic building in China, a dream of beauty, colour and grace. For a generation before the siege of Peking, no foreigner except General Grant had entered that sacred enclosure, and the Chinese raised a furore because Li Hung Chang admitted even the distinguished American. As I freely walked about the place, photographed the Temple and stood on the circular altar that is supposed to be the centre of the earth and where the Emperor worships alone at the winter solstice, British Sikhs lounged under the trees, army mules munched the luxuriant grass and quartermasters' wagons stood in long rows near the sacred spot where a Chinese would prostrate himself in reverence and fear.
We rode past innumerable ruined buildings and through motley throngs of Manchus, Chinese, German, French, Italian, British and Japanese soldiers to the Presbyterian compound at Duck Lane, which, though narrow, is not so unimportant a street as its name implies. But where devoted missionaries had so long lived and toiled, we saw only shapeless heaps of broken bricks and a few tottering fragments of walls. At the Second Street compound there was even greater ruin, if that were possible. Silently we stood beside the great hole which had once been the hospital cistern and from which the Japanese soldiers, after the siege, had taken the bodies of a hundred murdered Chinese. Not all had been Christians, for in that carnival of blood, many who were merely suspected of being friendly to foreigners were killed, while foes took advantage of the tumult to pay off old scores of hate.
The first reports that had come to New York were that four- fifths of the Chinese Christians and three-fourths of the boys and girls in the boarding-schools had been killed or had died under the awful hardships of that fatal summer. But as the months passed, first one and then another and another were found. Husbands searched for wives, parents for children, brothers for sisters, until a considerable number of the missing ones had been found, though the number of the lost was still great.
About two hundred of these surviving Christians and their families were living together in native buildings adjoining the residence in which we were entertained. Their history was one of agony and bereavement. Including those who fell at Paoting-fu, 191 of their fellow Christians had received the crown of martyrdom, so that almost every survivor had lost father or mother, brother or sister or friend. The Chinese are supposed to be a phlegmatic people and not given to emotion. But never have I met a congregation more swiftly responsive than this one in Peking as I bore to them kindly messages from many friends in other lands.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral was immortalized by Bishop Favier's defense during the memorable siege. The mission buildings occupy a spacious and strongly-walled compound in the Manchu city. Hundreds of bullet and shell holes in the roofs and walls were suggestive evidences of the fury of the Boxer attack, while great pits marked the spots where mines had been exploded.
I called on the famous Bishop. He was, for he has since died, a burly, heavily-bearded Frenchman of about sixty-five apparently. He received us most cordially and readily talked of the siege. He said that of the eighty Europeans and 3,400 Christians with him in the siege, 2,700 were women and children. Four hundred were buried, of whom forty were killed by bullets, twenty-five by one explosion, eighty-one by another and one by another. Of the rest, some died of disease but the greater part of starvation. Twenty-one children were buried at one time in one grave. Beside these 400 who were killed or who died, many more were blown to pieces in explosions so that nothing could be found to bury. Fifty-one children disappeared in this way and not a fragment remained.
The first month of the siege, the food allowance was half a pound a day. The first half of the second month, it was reduced to four ounces, but for the second half only two ounces could be served and the people had to eat roots, bark and the leaves of trees and shrubs. Eighteen mules were eaten during the siege. The Bishop said that in the diocese outside of Peking, 6,000 Chinese Catholics, including three native priests, were killed by the Boxers. Only four European priests were killed, one in Peking and three outside. ``Not one foreign priest left the diocese during the troubles,'' a statement that is equally true of the Presbyterian missionaries and, so far as I know, of those of other churches.
Clouds lowered as we left Peking, July 6th, on the Peking and Hankow Railway for Paoting-fu, that city of sacred and painful interest to every American Christian. Soon rain began to fall, and it steadily continued while we rode over the vast level plain, through unending fields of kao-liang, interspersed with plots of beans, peanuts, melons and cucumbers, and mud and brick-walled villages whose squalid wretchedness was hidden by the abundant foliage of the trees, which are the only beauty of Chinese cities. At almost every railway station, roofless buildings, crumbling walls and broken water tanks bore painful witness to the rage of the Boxers. At Liang-hsiang-hsien the first foreign property was destroyed, and all along the line outrages were perpetrated on the inoffensive native Christians. Nowhere else in China was the hatred of the foreigner more violent, for here hereditary pride and bigoted conservatism, unusually intense even for China, were reinforced by Boxer chiefs from the neighbouring province of Shantung, and were particularly irritated by the aggressiveness of Roman Catholic priests and by the construction of the railroad. It is only 110 miles from Peking to Paoting-fu. But the schedule was slow and the stops long, so that we were six hours in making the journey. Arriving at the large, well-built brick station, we bumped and splashed in a Chinese cart through narrow, muddy streets to the residence of a wealthy Chinese family that had deemed a hasty departure expedient when the French and British forces entered the city, and whose house had been assigned by the magistrate as temporary quarters for the Presbyterian missionaries.
Protestant mission work at Paoting-fu was begun only about thirty years ago by the American Board. The station was never a large one, the total nominal force of missionaries up to the Boxer outbreak being two ordained married men, Ewing and Pitkin, one physician, Dr. Noble, and two single women, the Misses Morrill and Gould. In the whole station field including the out-stations, there were not more than 300 Christians and those were south of a line drawn through the centre of the city of Paoting-fu. There were two boarding-schools, one for boys and one for girls, both small, and a general hospital.
The China Inland Mission had no mission work at Paoting-fu, but as the city is at the head of navigation of the Paoting-fu River from Tien-tsin and was also at that time the terminus of the Peking and Hankow Railway, the Mission made it a point of trans-shipment and of formation of cart and shendza trains for its extensive work in the Shan-si and Shen-si provinces, and kept a forwarding agent there, Mr. Benjamin Bagnall.
The Presbyterian station was not opened till 1893, and the force at the time of the outbreak consisted of three ordained men, the Revs. J. Walter Lowrie, J. A. Miller, and F. E. Simcox, two medical men, George Yardley Taylor and C. V. R. Hodge, and one single woman, Dr. Maud A. Mackay. All of the men except Lowrie and Taylor were married, and the former had his mother, Mrs. Amelia P. Lowrie, with him. With the exception of a dispensary and street chapel in rented quarters in the city, the station plant was at the compound where, on a level tract 660 feet in length by 210 feet in width, there were four residences and a hospital and chapel combined, with, of course, the usual smaller outbuildings. The only educational work, beside one out-station day-school, was a small boarding-school for girls recently started and occupying a little building originally intended for a stable.
This was the situation up to the fateful month of June, 1900. Rumours of impending trouble were numerous, but missionaries in China become accustomed to threatening placards and slanderous reports. Though it was evident that the opposition was becoming more bitter, the missionaries did not feel that they would be justified in abandoning their work. Several, however, were temporarily absent for other reasons. Of the Congregational missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Pitkin were on furlough in America and Mr. and Mrs. Ewing were spending a few weeks at the seaside resort, Pei-tai-ho, so that Mr. Pitkin, Miss Morrill and Miss Gould were the only ones left at the station. Of the Presbyterian missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Miller were also at Pei-tai-ho, Mrs. Lowrie had sailed for America the 26th of May, and Mr. Lowrie, who had accompanied her to Shanghai, was at Tien-tsin on his way back to Paoting-fu. The missionaries remaining at the station were thus five,--Dr. Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Simcox and their three children, and Dr. and Mrs. Hodge. The China Inland forwarding agent, Mr. Bagnall, with his wife and little girl, was in his house south of the city wall near the American Board compound, and with him was the Rev. William Cooper, who was on his way to Shanghai after a visit to the Shan-si Mission and whose family was then at Chefoo.
It is impossible to ascertain all the details of the massacre. None of the foreigners live to tell the painful story. No other foreigners reached Paoting-fu until the arrival of the military expedition in October, three and a half months later. The Chinese who had participated in the massacre were then in hiding. Spectators were afraid to talk lest they, too, might be held guilty. Most of the Chinese Christians who had been with the missionaries were killed, while others were so panic- stricken that they could remember only the particular scenes with which they were directly connected. Moreover, in those three and a half months such battles and national commotions had occurred, including the capture of Peking and the flight of the Emperor, that the people of Paoting-fu had half forgotten the murder of a few missionaries in June.
In these circumstances, full information will probably never be obtained, though additional facts may yet turn up from time to time. But from all that can be learned, and from the piecing together of the scattered fragments of information carefully collected by Mr. Lowrie, who accompanied the expedition, it appears that Thursday, June 28th, several Chinese young men who had been studying medicine under Dr. Taylor came to him at the city dispensary, warned him of the impending danger and urged him to leave. When he refused they besought him to yield, and though several of them were not Christians, so strong was their attachment to their teacher that they shed tears.
Dr. Taylor placed the dispensary and its contents, together with the adjacent street chapel, in charge of the district magistrate and returned to the mission compound outside the city. That very afternoon startling proof was given that foreboding was not ill-founded, for the Rev. Meng Chi Hsien, the native pastor of the Congregational Church, was seized while in the city, his hands cut off, and the next morning he was beheaded.
The missionaries then decided to leave, drew their silver from the local bank and hired carts. But an official assured them that there would be no further trouble, and they concluded to remain. It is doubtful whether they could have escaped anyway, for the very next afternoon, Saturday, June 30th, a mob left the west gate of the city, and marching northward parallel to the railroad, turned eastward through a small village near the mission compound, which has always been the resort of bad characters, and attacked the mission between five and six o'clock.
The first report that all the missionaries were together in the house of Mr. Simcox is now believed to have been erroneous. The Hodges were there, but Dr. Taylor was in his own room in the second story of Mr. Lowrie's house. Seizing a magazine rifle belonging to Mr. Lowrie, he showed it to the mob and warned them not to come nearer. But the Boxers pressed furiously on, in the superstitious belief that the foreigner's bullet could not harm them. Then, being alone, and with the traditions of a Quaker ancestry strong within him, he chose rather to die himself than to inflict death upon the people he had come to save. The Boxers set fire to the house, and the beloved physician, throwing the rifle to the floor, disappeared amid the flame and smoke. But the body was not consumed, for a Chinese living in a neighbouring village said afterwards that he saw it lying in the ruins of the house several days later, and that he gave it decent burial in a field near by. But there are hundreds of unmarked mounds in that region, and when the foreign expedition arrived in October, he was unable to indicate the particular one which he had made for Dr. Taylor's remains. Mr. Lowrie made diligent search and opened a number of graves, but found nothing that could be identified.
In the Simcox house, however, the two men were charged with the defense of women and children, and to protect them if possible from unspeakable outrage, when they realized that persuasion was vain, they felt justified as a last desperate resort in using force. The testimony of natives is to the effect that at least two Boxers were killed in the attack, one of them the Boxer chief, Chu Tu Tze, who that very day had received the rank of the gilt button from the Provincial Judge as a recognition of his anti-foreign zeal and an encouragement to continue it. He was shot through the head while vociferously urging the assault from the top of a large grave mound near the compound wall.
The story that little Paul and Francis Simcox, frightened by the heat and smoke, ran out of the house and were despatched by the crowd and their bodies thrown into a well now appears to be unfounded. All died together, Mr. and Mrs. Simcox and their three children, and Dr. and Mrs. Hodge; Mr. Simcox being last seen walking up and down holding the hand of one of his children.
It is at least some comfort that they were spared the outrages and mutilations inflicted on so many of the martyrs of that awful summer, for unless some were struck by bullets, death came by suffocation in burning houses--swiftly and mercifully. No Boxer hand touched them, living or dead, but within less than an hour from the beginning of the attack, the end came, and the flames did their work so completely that, save in the case of Dr. Taylor, nothing remained upon which fiendish hate could wreak itself. Husbands and wives died as they could have wished to die--together, and at the post of duty.
The next morning the Boxers, jubilant over their success of the night before, trooped out to the American Board compound in the south suburb. The two ladies took refuge in the chapel, while Mr. Pitkin remained outside to do what he could to keep back the mob. But he was speedily shot and then decapitated. His body, together with the bodies of several of the members of the Meng family, was thrown into a hastily-dug pit just outside the wall of the compound, but his head was borne in triumph to the Provincial Judge, who was the prime mover in the outbreak. He caused it to be fixed on the inside of the city wall, not far from the southeast corner and nearly opposite the temple in which the remaining missionaries were imprisoned. There, the Chinese say, it remained for two or three weeks, a ghastly evidence of the callous cruelty of a people many of whom must have known Mr. Pitkin and the good work done at the mission compound not far distant. When sorrowing friends arrived in October, the head could not be found, but it has since been recovered and buried with the bodies of the other martyrs.
The fate of the young women, Miss Morrill and Miss Gould, thus deprived of their only protector, was not long deferred. After the fall of Mr. Pitkin, they were seized, stripped of all their clothing except one upper and one lower garment, and led by the howling crowd along a path leading diagonally from the entrance of the compound to the road just east of it. Miss Gould did not die of fright as she was taken from the chapel, as was at first reported, but at the point where the path enters the road, a few hundred yards from the chapel, she fainted. Her ankles were then tied together, and another cord lashed her wrists in front of her body. A pole was thrust between legs and arms, and she was carried the rest of the way, while Miss Morrill walked, characteristically giving to a beggar the little money at her waist, talking to the people, and with extraordinary self- possession endeavouring to convince her persecutors of their folly. And so the procession of bloodthirsty men, exulting in the possession of two defenseless women one of them unconscious, wended its way northward to the river bank, westward to the stone bridge, over it and to a temple within the city, not far from the southeast corner of the wall.
Meantime, Mr. Cooper, Mr. and Mrs. Bagnall and their little daughter had begun the day in Mr. Bagnall's house, which was a short distance east of the American Board compound, and on the same road. Seeing the flames of the hospital, which was the first building fired by the Boxers, they fled eastward along the road to a Chinese military camp, about a quarter of a mile distant, whose commanding officer had been on friendly terms with Mr. Bagnall. But in the hour of need he arrested them, ruthlessly despoiled them of their valuables, and sent them under a guard to the arch conspirator, the Provincial Judge. It is pitiful to hear of the innocent child cling- ing in terror to her mother's dress. But there was no pity in the heart of the brutal judge, and the little party was sent to the temple where the Misses Morrill and Gould were already imprisoned.
All this was in the morning. A pretended trial was held, and about four in the afternoon of the same day, all were taken to a spot outside the southeast corner of the city wall, and there, before the graves of two Boxers, they were beheaded and their bodies thrown into a pit.
Months passed before any effort was made by the foreign armies in Peking to reach Paoting-fu. Shortly after the occupation of the capital, I wrote to the Secretary of State in Washington reminding him again of the American citizens who at last accounts were at Paoting-fu, and urging that the United States commander in Peking be instructed to send an expedition there, not to punish for I did not deem it my duty to discuss that phase of the question, but to ascertain whether any Americans were yet living and to make an investigation as to what had happened.
Secretary Hay promptly cabled Minister Conger, who soon wired back that all the Americans at Paoting-fu had been killed. The United States forces took no part in the punitive expeditions sent out by the European commanders, partly, no doubt, because our Government preferred to act on the theory that it would be wiser to give the Chinese Government an opportunity to punish the guilty, and partly because the Administration did not desire the United States to be identified with the expeditions which were reputed to equal the Boxers in the merciless barbarity of burning, pillaging, ravishing and killing.
Still, it is not pleasing to reflect that though there was an ample American force in Peking only 110 miles away, we were indebted to a British general for the opportunity to acquire any accurate information as to the fate of eleven Americans. An expedition of inquiry, at least, might have been sent. But as it was, it was not till October that three columns of Europeans left for Paoting-fu. One column was French, under General Baillard. The second was British and German under Generals Campbell and Von Ketteler, both of these columns starting from Tien-tsin. The third column left Peking and was composed of British and Italians led by General Gaselee. The plan was for the three columns to unite as they approached the city. But General Baillard made forced marches and reached Paoting-fu October 15th, so that when General Gaselee arrived on the 17th, he found, to his surprise and chagrin, that the French had already taken bloodless possession of the city. The British and German columns from Tien-tsin did not arrive till the 20th and 21st. With them came the Rev. J. Walter Lowrie, who had obtained permission to accompany it as an interpreter for the British.
The allied Generals immediately made stern inquisitions into the outrages that had been committed, which, of course, included those upon Roman Catholics as well as upon Protestants. Mr. Lowrie, as the only man who could speak Chinese, and the only one, too, who personally knew the Chinese, at once came into prominence. To the people, he appeared to have the power of life and death. All examinations had to be conducted through him. All accusations and evidence had to be sifted by him. The guilty tried to shift the blame upon the innocent, and enemies sought to pay off old scores of hatred upon their foes by charging them with complicity in the massacres. It would have accorded with Chinese custom if Mr. Lowrie had availed himself to the utmost of his opportunity to punish the antagonists of the missionaries, especially as his dearest friends had been remorselessly murdered and all of his personal property destroyed. It was not in human nature to be lenient in such circumstances, and the Chinese fully expected awful vengeance.
Great was their amazement when they saw the man whom they had so grievously wronged acting not only with modera- tion and strict justice, but in a kind and forgiving spirit. Every scrap of testimony was carefully analyzed in order that no innocent man might suffer. Instead of securing the execution of hundreds of smaller officials and common people, as is customary in China in such circumstances, Mr. Lowrie counselled the Generals to try Ting Jung, who at the time of the massacre was Provincial Judge but who had since been promoted to the post of Provincial Treasurer and acting Viceroy; Kwei Heng the commander of the Manchu garrison, and Weng Chan Kwei the colonel in command of the Chinese Imperial forces who had seized the escaping Bagnall party and sent them back to their doom. The evidence plainly showed that these high officials were the direct and responsible instigators of the uprising, that they had ordered every movement, and that the crowd of smaller officials, Boxers and common people had simply obeyed their orders. The three dignitaries were found guilty and condemned to death.
Was ever retributive justice more signally illustrated than in the place in which they were imprisoned pending Count von Waldersee's approval of the sentence? The military authorities selected the place, not with reference to its former uses, of which indeed they were ignorant, but simply because it was convenient, empty and clean. But it was the Presbyterian chapel and dispensary in which Mr. Lowrie had so often preached the gospel of peace and good will and the martyred Dr. Taylor had so often healed the sick in the name of Christ.
Not long afterwards, the three officials were led to a level, open space, just east of a little clump of trees not far from the southwest corner of the city wall, and as near as practicable to the place where the missionaries had been beheaded, and there, in the presence of all the foreign soldiers, they were themselves beheaded.
Nor was this all, for Chinese officials are never natives of the cities they govern, but are sent to them from other provinces. Moreover, they usually remain in one place only a few years. The people fear and obey them as long as they are officials, but often care little what becomes of them afterwards. They had not befriended them during their trial and they did not attend their execution. The Generals therefore felt that some punishment must be inflicted upon the city. A Chinese city is proud of the stately and ponderous towers which ornament the gates and corners of its massive wall and protect the inhabitants from foes, human and demoniac. All of these, but two comparatively small ones, were blown up by order of the foreign generals. The temples which the Boxers had used for their meetings, including the one in which the American Board and China Inland missionaries had been imprisoned, were also destroyed, while the splendid official temple of the city, dedicated to its patron deity, was utterly wrecked by dynamite.
Not till March 23d could memorial services be held. Then a party of missionaries and friends came down from Peking. The surviving Christians assembled. The new city officials erected a temporary pavilion on the site of the Presbyterian compound, writing over the entrance arch: ``They held the truth unto death.'' Within, potted flowers and decorated banners adorned the tables and walls. The scene was solemnly impressive. Mr. Lowrie, Dr. Wherry and Mr. Killie and others made appropriate addresses to an audience in which there were, besides themselves, fifteen missionaries representing four denominations, German and French army officers, Chinese officials and Chinese Christians. A German military band furnished appropriate music and two Roman Catholic priests of the city sent flowers and kind letters. The following day a similar service was held on the site of the American Board compound.
We sadly visited all these places. It was about the hour of the attack that we approached the Presbyterian compound. Of the once pleasant homes and mission buildings, not even ruins were left. A few hundred yards away, the site could not have been distinguished from the rest of the open fields if my companions had not pointed out marks mournfully intelligible to them but hardy recognizable by a stranger. The very foundations had been dug up by Chinese hunting for silver, and every scrap of material had been carried away. Even the trees and bushes had been removed by the roots and used for firewood. In front of the site of the Simcox house are a few unmarked mounds. All but one contain the fragments of the bodies of the Chinese helpers and Christians, and that one, the largest, holds the few pieces of bones which were all that could be found in the ruins of the house in which the missionaries perished. A few more may yet be found. We ourselves discovered five small pieces which Dr. Charles Lewis afterwards identified as human bones. But their charred and broken condition showed how completely the merciful fire had done its work of keeping the sacred remains from the hands of those who would have shamefully misused them. The American Board and China Inland Mission compounds were also in ruins, a chaos of desolation. But as the martyred missionaries and native Christians were beheaded and not burned, their bodies have been recovered and interred in a long row of twenty-three graves.
The negotiations of foreign Powers with the Chinese regarding the payment of indemnity were, as might be expected, protracted and full of difficulties. Some of the Powers favoured extreme demands which, if acceded to, would have ruined the Empire or resulted in its immediate partition, even if they did not cause a new and more bitter outbreak of hostilities. Other Powers, notably the United States, favoured moderate terms, holding that China should not be asked to pay sums that were clearly beyond her ability. After almost interminable disputes, the total sum to be paid by China was, by the final protocol signed September 7, 1901, fixed at 450,000,000 taels to be paid in thirty-nine annual installments with interest at four per cent. on the deferred payments and to be distributed as follows:
Country taels Germany 90,070,515 Austria-Hungary 4,003,920 Belgium 8,484,345 Spain 135,315 United States 32,939,055 France 70,878,240 Portugal 92,250 Great Britain 50,712,795 Italy 26,617,005 Japan 34,793,100 Netherlands 782,100 Russia 230,371,120
International 212,490 ------------ 450,000,000
The treaty was not calculated to make the Chinese think more kindly of their conquerors. Besides the payment of the heavy indemnity, the Powers exacted apologies to Germany for the murder of its minister and to Japan for the assassination of the chancellor of its legation, the erection of monuments in foreign cemeteries and the making of new commercial treaties. The Chinese were cut to the quick by being told, among other things, that they must not import firearms for two years; that no official examinations would be held for five years in the cities where foreigners had been attacked; that an important part of the imperial capital would be added to the already spacious grounds of the foreign legations and that the whole would be fortified and garrisoned by foreign guards; that the Taku forts which defended the entrance to Peking would be razed and the railway from the sea to the capital occupied by foreign troops; that members of anti-foreign societies were to be executed; that magistrates even though they were viceroys were to be summarily dismissed and disgraced if they did not prevent anti-foreign outbreaks and sternly punish their ring- leaders; that court ceremonies in relation to foreign ministers must be conformed to Western ideas; that the Tsung-li Yamen must be abolished and a new ministry of foreign affairs erected, the Wai-wu Pu, which must be regarded as the highest of the departments instead of the lowest. China's cup of humiliation was indeed full.
The real ruler of China at this time, as all the world knows, was the Empress Dowager, who has been characterized as ``the only man in China.'' At any rate, she is a woman of extraordinary force of character. She was astute enough to encourage the Boxers, and thus turn one of the most troublesome foes of the Manchu throne against the common enemy, the foreigner. Under her influence, the depredations of the Boxers, which were at first confined to the Shantung Province, spread with the swiftness of a prairie fire, until in the spring of 1900 the most important provinces of the Empire were ablaze and the legations in Peking were closely besieged. In the heat of the conflict and under the agonizing strain of anxiety for imperilled loved ones, many hard things were said and written about the officials who allied themselves with the Boxers. But Sir Robert Hart, who personally knew them and who suffered as much as any one from their fury, candidly wrote after the siege: ``These men were eminent in their own country for their learning and services, were animated by patriotism, were enraged by foreign dictation, and had the courage of their convictions. We must do them the justice of allowing that they were actuated by high motives and love of country,'' though he adds, ``that does not always or necessarily mean political ability or highest wisdom.''
And so the irrepressible conflict broke out. It had to come, a conflict between conservatism and progress, between race prejudice and brotherhood, between superstition and Christianity, the tremendous conflict of ages which every nation has had to fight, and which in China was not different in kind, but only on a more colossal scale because there it involved half the human race at once. Of course it was impossible for so vast a nation permanently to segregate itself. The river of progress cannot be permanently stayed. It will gather force behind an obstacle until it is able to sweep it away. The Boxer uprising was the breaking up of this fossilized conservatism. It was such a tumultuous upheaval as the crusades caused in breaking up the stagnation of mediaeval Europe. As France opposed the new ideas, which in England were quietly accepted, only to have them surge over her in the frightful flood of the revolution, so China entered with the violence always inseparable from resistance the transition which Japan welcomed with a more open mind.
Though missionaries were not the real cause of the Boxer uprising, its horrors fell most heavily upon them. This was partly because many of them were living at exposed points in the interior while most other foreigners were assembled in the treaty ports where they were better protected; partly because the movement developed such hysterical frenzy that it attacked with blind, unreasoning fury every available foreigner, and partly because in most places the actual killing and pillaging were not done by the people who best knew the missionaries but by mobs from the slums, ruffians from other villages, or, as in Paoting-fu and Shan-si, in obedience to the direct orders of bigoted officials.
And so it came to pass that the innocent suffered more than the guilty. Dr. A. H. Smith concluded after careful inquiry that ``the devastating Boxer cyclone cost the lives of 135 adult Protestant missionaries and fifty-three children and of thirty- five Roman Catholic Fathers and nine Sisters. The Protestants were in connection with ten different missions, one being unconnected. They were murdered in four provinces and in Mongolia, and belonged to Great Britain, the United States and Sweden. No such outbreak against Christianity has been seen in modern times. The destruction of property was on the same continental scale. Generally speaking, all mission stations north of the Yellow River, with all their dwelling-houses, chapels, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and buildings of every description were totally destroyed, though there were occasional exceptions, of which the village where these pages are written was one. The central and southern portions of the Empire were only partially affected by the anti-foreign madness, not because they were under different conditions, but mainly through the strong repressive measures of four men, Liu Kun Yi and Chang Chih-tung, Governors-General of the four great provinces in the Yang-tse Valley; Yuan Shih Kai in Shantung, and a Manchu, Tuan Fang, in Shen-si. The jurisdiction of this quartette made an impassable barrier across which the movement was unable to project itself in force, but much mischief in an isolated way was wrought in nearly every part of China not rigorously controlled.''
So many volumes have been written about the Boxer Uprising that it is not necessary to double the size of this book in order to recount the details. For the full narrative, the reader is referred to the books mentioned below. But I cannot for- bear some description of the scenes of massacre that I personally visited. I was unable to go to the remoter province of Shan-si where so many devoted men and women laid down their lives and where many who escaped death endured indescribable hardships. But in the province of Shantung, where the Boxer Uprising originated, I was witness to the ruin that was wrought in many places, though the iron hand of the great Governor, Yuan Shih Kai, prevented much bloodshed. Then I turned to the northern province of Chih-li where official hands, instead of restraining, actually guided and goaded the maddened rioters.
After a delightful voyage of eighteen hours from Chefoo over a smooth sea, we anchored outside the bar, nine miles from shore, the tide not permitting our steamer to cross with its heavy load. A tug took us off and entering the Pei-ho River, we passed the famous Taku forts to the railway wharf at Tong-ku. It was significant to find foreign flags flying over the Taku forts and also over the mud-walled villages near by. Scores of merchant steamers, transports and war vessels were lying off Taku as well as hundreds of junks. The river was full of smaller craft among which were several Japanese and American gunboats. The railroad station presented a motley appearance. A regiment of Japanese had just arrived and while we were waiting, three train-loads of British Sikhs and several cars of Austrian marines and British ``Tommy Atkins'' came in. The platform was thronged with officers and soldiers of various nationalities, including a few Russians.
Nothing could be more dreary than the mud flats that the traveller to the imperial city first sees. The greater part of the way from Taku to Peking, the soil is poor and little cultivated. But as we advanced, kao-liang fields were more frequent, though the growth was far behind that in Shantung at the same season. Small trees were numerous during the latter half of the trip. The soil being too thin for good crops, the people grow more fuel and fruit.
Evidences of the great catastrophe were seen long before reaching the capital. Burned villages and battered buildings lined the route. At Tien-tsin several of the foreign buildings had shell holes. One corrugated iron building near the railway station was pierced like a sieve and thousands of native houses were in ruins. The city wall had been razed to the ground and a highway made where it had stood--an unspeakable humiliation to the proud commercial metropolis. The Japanese soldiers teased the citizens by telling them that ``a city without a wall is like a woman without clothes,'' and the people keenly felt the shame implied in the taunt.
In Peking, the very fact that the railroad train on which we travelled rushed noisily through a ragged chasm in the wall of the Chinese city, and stopped at the entrance of the Temple of Heaven, was suggestive of the consequences of war. The city, as a whole, was not as badly injured as I had expected to find it, but the ravages of war were evident enough. Wrecked shops, crumbled houses, shot-torn walls were on every side, while the most sacred places to a Chinese and a Manchu had been profaned. At other times the Purple Forbidden City, the Winter and Summer Palaces, the Temple of Heaven and kindred imperial enclosures are inaccessible to the foreigner. But a pass from the military authorities opened to us every door. We walked freely through the extensive grounds and into all the famous buildings--including the throne rooms which the highest Chinese official can approach only upon his knees and with his face abjectly on the stone pavement--and the private apartments of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. I was impressed by the vastness of the Palace buildings and grounds, the carvings of stone and wood, and the number of articles of foreign manufacture. But thousands of Americans in moderate circumstances have more spacious and comfortable bedrooms than those of the Emperor and Empress Dowager of China. All the living apartments looked cheerless. The floors were of artificial stone or brick in squares of about 20 x 20 inches and of course everything was covered with dust. The far-famed Temple of Heaven is the most artistic building in China, a dream of beauty, colour and grace. For a generation before the siege of Peking, no foreigner except General Grant had entered that sacred enclosure, and the Chinese raised a furore because Li Hung Chang admitted even the distinguished American. As I freely walked about the place, photographed the Temple and stood on the circular altar that is supposed to be the centre of the earth and where the Emperor worships alone at the winter solstice, British Sikhs lounged under the trees, army mules munched the luxuriant grass and quartermasters' wagons stood in long rows near the sacred spot where a Chinese would prostrate himself in reverence and fear.
We rode past innumerable ruined buildings and through motley throngs of Manchus, Chinese, German, French, Italian, British and Japanese soldiers to the Presbyterian compound at Duck Lane, which, though narrow, is not so unimportant a street as its name implies. But where devoted missionaries had so long lived and toiled, we saw only shapeless heaps of broken bricks and a few tottering fragments of walls. At the Second Street compound there was even greater ruin, if that were possible. Silently we stood beside the great hole which had once been the hospital cistern and from which the Japanese soldiers, after the siege, had taken the bodies of a hundred murdered Chinese. Not all had been Christians, for in that carnival of blood, many who were merely suspected of being friendly to foreigners were killed, while foes took advantage of the tumult to pay off old scores of hate.
The first reports that had come to New York were that four- fifths of the Chinese Christians and three-fourths of the boys and girls in the boarding-schools had been killed or had died under the awful hardships of that fatal summer. But as the months passed, first one and then another and another were found. Husbands searched for wives, parents for children, brothers for sisters, until a considerable number of the missing ones had been found, though the number of the lost was still great.
About two hundred of these surviving Christians and their families were living together in native buildings adjoining the residence in which we were entertained. Their history was one of agony and bereavement. Including those who fell at Paoting-fu, 191 of their fellow Christians had received the crown of martyrdom, so that almost every survivor had lost father or mother, brother or sister or friend. The Chinese are supposed to be a phlegmatic people and not given to emotion. But never have I met a congregation more swiftly responsive than this one in Peking as I bore to them kindly messages from many friends in other lands.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral was immortalized by Bishop Favier's defense during the memorable siege. The mission buildings occupy a spacious and strongly-walled compound in the Manchu city. Hundreds of bullet and shell holes in the roofs and walls were suggestive evidences of the fury of the Boxer attack, while great pits marked the spots where mines had been exploded.
I called on the famous Bishop. He was, for he has since died, a burly, heavily-bearded Frenchman of about sixty-five apparently. He received us most cordially and readily talked of the siege. He said that of the eighty Europeans and 3,400 Christians with him in the siege, 2,700 were women and children. Four hundred were buried, of whom forty were killed by bullets, twenty-five by one explosion, eighty-one by another and one by another. Of the rest, some died of disease but the greater part of starvation. Twenty-one children were buried at one time in one grave. Beside these 400 who were killed or who died, many more were blown to pieces in explosions so that nothing could be found to bury. Fifty-one children disappeared in this way and not a fragment remained.
The first month of the siege, the food allowance was half a pound a day. The first half of the second month, it was reduced to four ounces, but for the second half only two ounces could be served and the people had to eat roots, bark and the leaves of trees and shrubs. Eighteen mules were eaten during the siege. The Bishop said that in the diocese outside of Peking, 6,000 Chinese Catholics, including three native priests, were killed by the Boxers. Only four European priests were killed, one in Peking and three outside. ``Not one foreign priest left the diocese during the troubles,'' a statement that is equally true of the Presbyterian missionaries and, so far as I know, of those of other churches.
Clouds lowered as we left Peking, July 6th, on the Peking and Hankow Railway for Paoting-fu, that city of sacred and painful interest to every American Christian. Soon rain began to fall, and it steadily continued while we rode over the vast level plain, through unending fields of kao-liang, interspersed with plots of beans, peanuts, melons and cucumbers, and mud and brick-walled villages whose squalid wretchedness was hidden by the abundant foliage of the trees, which are the only beauty of Chinese cities. At almost every railway station, roofless buildings, crumbling walls and broken water tanks bore painful witness to the rage of the Boxers. At Liang-hsiang-hsien the first foreign property was destroyed, and all along the line outrages were perpetrated on the inoffensive native Christians. Nowhere else in China was the hatred of the foreigner more violent, for here hereditary pride and bigoted conservatism, unusually intense even for China, were reinforced by Boxer chiefs from the neighbouring province of Shantung, and were particularly irritated by the aggressiveness of Roman Catholic priests and by the construction of the railroad. It is only 110 miles from Peking to Paoting-fu. But the schedule was slow and the stops long, so that we were six hours in making the journey. Arriving at the large, well-built brick station, we bumped and splashed in a Chinese cart through narrow, muddy streets to the residence of a wealthy Chinese family that had deemed a hasty departure expedient when the French and British forces entered the city, and whose house had been assigned by the magistrate as temporary quarters for the Presbyterian missionaries.
Protestant mission work at Paoting-fu was begun only about thirty years ago by the American Board. The station was never a large one, the total nominal force of missionaries up to the Boxer outbreak being two ordained married men, Ewing and Pitkin, one physician, Dr. Noble, and two single women, the Misses Morrill and Gould. In the whole station field including the out-stations, there were not more than 300 Christians and those were south of a line drawn through the centre of the city of Paoting-fu. There were two boarding-schools, one for boys and one for girls, both small, and a general hospital.
The China Inland Mission had no mission work at Paoting-fu, but as the city is at the head of navigation of the Paoting-fu River from Tien-tsin and was also at that time the terminus of the Peking and Hankow Railway, the Mission made it a point of trans-shipment and of formation of cart and shendza trains for its extensive work in the Shan-si and Shen-si provinces, and kept a forwarding agent there, Mr. Benjamin Bagnall.
The Presbyterian station was not opened till 1893, and the force at the time of the outbreak consisted of three ordained men, the Revs. J. Walter Lowrie, J. A. Miller, and F. E. Simcox, two medical men, George Yardley Taylor and C. V. R. Hodge, and one single woman, Dr. Maud A. Mackay. All of the men except Lowrie and Taylor were married, and the former had his mother, Mrs. Amelia P. Lowrie, with him. With the exception of a dispensary and street chapel in rented quarters in the city, the station plant was at the compound where, on a level tract 660 feet in length by 210 feet in width, there were four residences and a hospital and chapel combined, with, of course, the usual smaller outbuildings. The only educational work, beside one out-station day-school, was a small boarding-school for girls recently started and occupying a little building originally intended for a stable.
This was the situation up to the fateful month of June, 1900. Rumours of impending trouble were numerous, but missionaries in China become accustomed to threatening placards and slanderous reports. Though it was evident that the opposition was becoming more bitter, the missionaries did not feel that they would be justified in abandoning their work. Several, however, were temporarily absent for other reasons. Of the Congregational missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Pitkin were on furlough in America and Mr. and Mrs. Ewing were spending a few weeks at the seaside resort, Pei-tai-ho, so that Mr. Pitkin, Miss Morrill and Miss Gould were the only ones left at the station. Of the Presbyterian missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Miller were also at Pei-tai-ho, Mrs. Lowrie had sailed for America the 26th of May, and Mr. Lowrie, who had accompanied her to Shanghai, was at Tien-tsin on his way back to Paoting-fu. The missionaries remaining at the station were thus five,--Dr. Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Simcox and their three children, and Dr. and Mrs. Hodge. The China Inland forwarding agent, Mr. Bagnall, with his wife and little girl, was in his house south of the city wall near the American Board compound, and with him was the Rev. William Cooper, who was on his way to Shanghai after a visit to the Shan-si Mission and whose family was then at Chefoo.
It is impossible to ascertain all the details of the massacre. None of the foreigners live to tell the painful story. No other foreigners reached Paoting-fu until the arrival of the military expedition in October, three and a half months later. The Chinese who had participated in the massacre were then in hiding. Spectators were afraid to talk lest they, too, might be held guilty. Most of the Chinese Christians who had been with the missionaries were killed, while others were so panic- stricken that they could remember only the particular scenes with which they were directly connected. Moreover, in those three and a half months such battles and national commotions had occurred, including the capture of Peking and the flight of the Emperor, that the people of Paoting-fu had half forgotten the murder of a few missionaries in June.
In these circumstances, full information will probably never be obtained, though additional facts may yet turn up from time to time. But from all that can be learned, and from the piecing together of the scattered fragments of information carefully collected by Mr. Lowrie, who accompanied the expedition, it appears that Thursday, June 28th, several Chinese young men who had been studying medicine under Dr. Taylor came to him at the city dispensary, warned him of the impending danger and urged him to leave. When he refused they besought him to yield, and though several of them were not Christians, so strong was their attachment to their teacher that they shed tears.
Dr. Taylor placed the dispensary and its contents, together with the adjacent street chapel, in charge of the district magistrate and returned to the mission compound outside the city. That very afternoon startling proof was given that foreboding was not ill-founded, for the Rev. Meng Chi Hsien, the native pastor of the Congregational Church, was seized while in the city, his hands cut off, and the next morning he was beheaded.
The missionaries then decided to leave, drew their silver from the local bank and hired carts. But an official assured them that there would be no further trouble, and they concluded to remain. It is doubtful whether they could have escaped anyway, for the very next afternoon, Saturday, June 30th, a mob left the west gate of the city, and marching northward parallel to the railroad, turned eastward through a small village near the mission compound, which has always been the resort of bad characters, and attacked the mission between five and six o'clock.
The first report that all the missionaries were together in the house of Mr. Simcox is now believed to have been erroneous. The Hodges were there, but Dr. Taylor was in his own room in the second story of Mr. Lowrie's house. Seizing a magazine rifle belonging to Mr. Lowrie, he showed it to the mob and warned them not to come nearer. But the Boxers pressed furiously on, in the superstitious belief that the foreigner's bullet could not harm them. Then, being alone, and with the traditions of a Quaker ancestry strong within him, he chose rather to die himself than to inflict death upon the people he had come to save. The Boxers set fire to the house, and the beloved physician, throwing the rifle to the floor, disappeared amid the flame and smoke. But the body was not consumed, for a Chinese living in a neighbouring village said afterwards that he saw it lying in the ruins of the house several days later, and that he gave it decent burial in a field near by. But there are hundreds of unmarked mounds in that region, and when the foreign expedition arrived in October, he was unable to indicate the particular one which he had made for Dr. Taylor's remains. Mr. Lowrie made diligent search and opened a number of graves, but found nothing that could be identified.
In the Simcox house, however, the two men were charged with the defense of women and children, and to protect them if possible from unspeakable outrage, when they realized that persuasion was vain, they felt justified as a last desperate resort in using force. The testimony of natives is to the effect that at least two Boxers were killed in the attack, one of them the Boxer chief, Chu Tu Tze, who that very day had received the rank of the gilt button from the Provincial Judge as a recognition of his anti-foreign zeal and an encouragement to continue it. He was shot through the head while vociferously urging the assault from the top of a large grave mound near the compound wall.
The story that little Paul and Francis Simcox, frightened by the heat and smoke, ran out of the house and were despatched by the crowd and their bodies thrown into a well now appears to be unfounded. All died together, Mr. and Mrs. Simcox and their three children, and Dr. and Mrs. Hodge; Mr. Simcox being last seen walking up and down holding the hand of one of his children.
It is at least some comfort that they were spared the outrages and mutilations inflicted on so many of the martyrs of that awful summer, for unless some were struck by bullets, death came by suffocation in burning houses--swiftly and mercifully. No Boxer hand touched them, living or dead, but within less than an hour from the beginning of the attack, the end came, and the flames did their work so completely that, save in the case of Dr. Taylor, nothing remained upon which fiendish hate could wreak itself. Husbands and wives died as they could have wished to die--together, and at the post of duty.
The next morning the Boxers, jubilant over their success of the night before, trooped out to the American Board compound in the south suburb. The two ladies took refuge in the chapel, while Mr. Pitkin remained outside to do what he could to keep back the mob. But he was speedily shot and then decapitated. His body, together with the bodies of several of the members of the Meng family, was thrown into a hastily-dug pit just outside the wall of the compound, but his head was borne in triumph to the Provincial Judge, who was the prime mover in the outbreak. He caused it to be fixed on the inside of the city wall, not far from the southeast corner and nearly opposite the temple in which the remaining missionaries were imprisoned. There, the Chinese say, it remained for two or three weeks, a ghastly evidence of the callous cruelty of a people many of whom must have known Mr. Pitkin and the good work done at the mission compound not far distant. When sorrowing friends arrived in October, the head could not be found, but it has since been recovered and buried with the bodies of the other martyrs.
The fate of the young women, Miss Morrill and Miss Gould, thus deprived of their only protector, was not long deferred. After the fall of Mr. Pitkin, they were seized, stripped of all their clothing except one upper and one lower garment, and led by the howling crowd along a path leading diagonally from the entrance of the compound to the road just east of it. Miss Gould did not die of fright as she was taken from the chapel, as was at first reported, but at the point where the path enters the road, a few hundred yards from the chapel, she fainted. Her ankles were then tied together, and another cord lashed her wrists in front of her body. A pole was thrust between legs and arms, and she was carried the rest of the way, while Miss Morrill walked, characteristically giving to a beggar the little money at her waist, talking to the people, and with extraordinary self- possession endeavouring to convince her persecutors of their folly. And so the procession of bloodthirsty men, exulting in the possession of two defenseless women one of them unconscious, wended its way northward to the river bank, westward to the stone bridge, over it and to a temple within the city, not far from the southeast corner of the wall.
Meantime, Mr. Cooper, Mr. and Mrs. Bagnall and their little daughter had begun the day in Mr. Bagnall's house, which was a short distance east of the American Board compound, and on the same road. Seeing the flames of the hospital, which was the first building fired by the Boxers, they fled eastward along the road to a Chinese military camp, about a quarter of a mile distant, whose commanding officer had been on friendly terms with Mr. Bagnall. But in the hour of need he arrested them, ruthlessly despoiled them of their valuables, and sent them under a guard to the arch conspirator, the Provincial Judge. It is pitiful to hear of the innocent child cling- ing in terror to her mother's dress. But there was no pity in the heart of the brutal judge, and the little party was sent to the temple where the Misses Morrill and Gould were already imprisoned.
All this was in the morning. A pretended trial was held, and about four in the afternoon of the same day, all were taken to a spot outside the southeast corner of the city wall, and there, before the graves of two Boxers, they were beheaded and their bodies thrown into a pit.
Months passed before any effort was made by the foreign armies in Peking to reach Paoting-fu. Shortly after the occupation of the capital, I wrote to the Secretary of State in Washington reminding him again of the American citizens who at last accounts were at Paoting-fu, and urging that the United States commander in Peking be instructed to send an expedition there, not to punish for I did not deem it my duty to discuss that phase of the question, but to ascertain whether any Americans were yet living and to make an investigation as to what had happened.
Secretary Hay promptly cabled Minister Conger, who soon wired back that all the Americans at Paoting-fu had been killed. The United States forces took no part in the punitive expeditions sent out by the European commanders, partly, no doubt, because our Government preferred to act on the theory that it would be wiser to give the Chinese Government an opportunity to punish the guilty, and partly because the Administration did not desire the United States to be identified with the expeditions which were reputed to equal the Boxers in the merciless barbarity of burning, pillaging, ravishing and killing.
Still, it is not pleasing to reflect that though there was an ample American force in Peking only 110 miles away, we were indebted to a British general for the opportunity to acquire any accurate information as to the fate of eleven Americans. An expedition of inquiry, at least, might have been sent. But as it was, it was not till October that three columns of Europeans left for Paoting-fu. One column was French, under General Baillard. The second was British and German under Generals Campbell and Von Ketteler, both of these columns starting from Tien-tsin. The third column left Peking and was composed of British and Italians led by General Gaselee. The plan was for the three columns to unite as they approached the city. But General Baillard made forced marches and reached Paoting-fu October 15th, so that when General Gaselee arrived on the 17th, he found, to his surprise and chagrin, that the French had already taken bloodless possession of the city. The British and German columns from Tien-tsin did not arrive till the 20th and 21st. With them came the Rev. J. Walter Lowrie, who had obtained permission to accompany it as an interpreter for the British.
The allied Generals immediately made stern inquisitions into the outrages that had been committed, which, of course, included those upon Roman Catholics as well as upon Protestants. Mr. Lowrie, as the only man who could speak Chinese, and the only one, too, who personally knew the Chinese, at once came into prominence. To the people, he appeared to have the power of life and death. All examinations had to be conducted through him. All accusations and evidence had to be sifted by him. The guilty tried to shift the blame upon the innocent, and enemies sought to pay off old scores of hatred upon their foes by charging them with complicity in the massacres. It would have accorded with Chinese custom if Mr. Lowrie had availed himself to the utmost of his opportunity to punish the antagonists of the missionaries, especially as his dearest friends had been remorselessly murdered and all of his personal property destroyed. It was not in human nature to be lenient in such circumstances, and the Chinese fully expected awful vengeance.
Great was their amazement when they saw the man whom they had so grievously wronged acting not only with modera- tion and strict justice, but in a kind and forgiving spirit. Every scrap of testimony was carefully analyzed in order that no innocent man might suffer. Instead of securing the execution of hundreds of smaller officials and common people, as is customary in China in such circumstances, Mr. Lowrie counselled the Generals to try Ting Jung, who at the time of the massacre was Provincial Judge but who had since been promoted to the post of Provincial Treasurer and acting Viceroy; Kwei Heng the commander of the Manchu garrison, and Weng Chan Kwei the colonel in command of the Chinese Imperial forces who had seized the escaping Bagnall party and sent them back to their doom. The evidence plainly showed that these high officials were the direct and responsible instigators of the uprising, that they had ordered every movement, and that the crowd of smaller officials, Boxers and common people had simply obeyed their orders. The three dignitaries were found guilty and condemned to death.
Was ever retributive justice more signally illustrated than in the place in which they were imprisoned pending Count von Waldersee's approval of the sentence? The military authorities selected the place, not with reference to its former uses, of which indeed they were ignorant, but simply because it was convenient, empty and clean. But it was the Presbyterian chapel and dispensary in which Mr. Lowrie had so often preached the gospel of peace and good will and the martyred Dr. Taylor had so often healed the sick in the name of Christ.
Not long afterwards, the three officials were led to a level, open space, just east of a little clump of trees not far from the southwest corner of the city wall, and as near as practicable to the place where the missionaries had been beheaded, and there, in the presence of all the foreign soldiers, they were themselves beheaded.
Nor was this all, for Chinese officials are never natives of the cities they govern, but are sent to them from other provinces. Moreover, they usually remain in one place only a few years. The people fear and obey them as long as they are officials, but often care little what becomes of them afterwards. They had not befriended them during their trial and they did not attend their execution. The Generals therefore felt that some punishment must be inflicted upon the city. A Chinese city is proud of the stately and ponderous towers which ornament the gates and corners of its massive wall and protect the inhabitants from foes, human and demoniac. All of these, but two comparatively small ones, were blown up by order of the foreign generals. The temples which the Boxers had used for their meetings, including the one in which the American Board and China Inland missionaries had been imprisoned, were also destroyed, while the splendid official temple of the city, dedicated to its patron deity, was utterly wrecked by dynamite.
Not till March 23d could memorial services be held. Then a party of missionaries and friends came down from Peking. The surviving Christians assembled. The new city officials erected a temporary pavilion on the site of the Presbyterian compound, writing over the entrance arch: ``They held the truth unto death.'' Within, potted flowers and decorated banners adorned the tables and walls. The scene was solemnly impressive. Mr. Lowrie, Dr. Wherry and Mr. Killie and others made appropriate addresses to an audience in which there were, besides themselves, fifteen missionaries representing four denominations, German and French army officers, Chinese officials and Chinese Christians. A German military band furnished appropriate music and two Roman Catholic priests of the city sent flowers and kind letters. The following day a similar service was held on the site of the American Board compound.
We sadly visited all these places. It was about the hour of the attack that we approached the Presbyterian compound. Of the once pleasant homes and mission buildings, not even ruins were left. A few hundred yards away, the site could not have been distinguished from the rest of the open fields if my companions had not pointed out marks mournfully intelligible to them but hardy recognizable by a stranger. The very foundations had been dug up by Chinese hunting for silver, and every scrap of material had been carried away. Even the trees and bushes had been removed by the roots and used for firewood. In front of the site of the Simcox house are a few unmarked mounds. All but one contain the fragments of the bodies of the Chinese helpers and Christians, and that one, the largest, holds the few pieces of bones which were all that could be found in the ruins of the house in which the missionaries perished. A few more may yet be found. We ourselves discovered five small pieces which Dr. Charles Lewis afterwards identified as human bones. But their charred and broken condition showed how completely the merciful fire had done its work of keeping the sacred remains from the hands of those who would have shamefully misused them. The American Board and China Inland Mission compounds were also in ruins, a chaos of desolation. But as the martyred missionaries and native Christians were beheaded and not burned, their bodies have been recovered and interred in a long row of twenty-three graves.
The negotiations of foreign Powers with the Chinese regarding the payment of indemnity were, as might be expected, protracted and full of difficulties. Some of the Powers favoured extreme demands which, if acceded to, would have ruined the Empire or resulted in its immediate partition, even if they did not cause a new and more bitter outbreak of hostilities. Other Powers, notably the United States, favoured moderate terms, holding that China should not be asked to pay sums that were clearly beyond her ability. After almost interminable disputes, the total sum to be paid by China was, by the final protocol signed September 7, 1901, fixed at 450,000,000 taels to be paid in thirty-nine annual installments with interest at four per cent. on the deferred payments and to be distributed as follows:
Country taels Germany 90,070,515 Austria-Hungary 4,003,920 Belgium 8,484,345 Spain 135,315 United States 32,939,055 France 70,878,240 Portugal 92,250 Great Britain 50,712,795 Italy 26,617,005 Japan 34,793,100 Netherlands 782,100 Russia 230,371,120
International 212,490 ------------ 450,000,000
The treaty was not calculated to make the Chinese think more kindly of their conquerors. Besides the payment of the heavy indemnity, the Powers exacted apologies to Germany for the murder of its minister and to Japan for the assassination of the chancellor of its legation, the erection of monuments in foreign cemeteries and the making of new commercial treaties. The Chinese were cut to the quick by being told, among other things, that they must not import firearms for two years; that no official examinations would be held for five years in the cities where foreigners had been attacked; that an important part of the imperial capital would be added to the already spacious grounds of the foreign legations and that the whole would be fortified and garrisoned by foreign guards; that the Taku forts which defended the entrance to Peking would be razed and the railway from the sea to the capital occupied by foreign troops; that members of anti-foreign societies were to be executed; that magistrates even though they were viceroys were to be summarily dismissed and disgraced if they did not prevent anti-foreign outbreaks and sternly punish their ring- leaders; that court ceremonies in relation to foreign ministers must be conformed to Western ideas; that the Tsung-li Yamen must be abolished and a new ministry of foreign affairs erected, the Wai-wu Pu, which must be regarded as the highest of the departments instead of the lowest. China's cup of humiliation was indeed full.
New Forces in Old China Hopeful Signs
THE future is not necessarily so doubtful as the facts and opinions cited in the preceding chapter might in themselves seem to indicate. It is true that the daily press often contains accounts of tumults and revolutions in China. But an Empire a third larger than all Europe, with an enormous population, a weak central Government, corrupt local officials, few railroads and frequent floods, famines and epidemics, is certain to have uprisings somewhere most of the time. A European reading in the daily despatches from the United States of strikes, riots, martial law, the burning of negroes, the mobbing of Chinese and the corruption of cities, might with equal justice get the impression that our own country is in continual turmoil. The Imperial Government in China pays little attention to what is going on in other parts of the country.
``Each province has its own army, navy, and system of taxation. . . . So long as the provincial government sends its Peking supplies, administers a reasonable sop to its clamorous provincial duns, quells incipient insurrections, gives employment to its army of expectants, staves off foreign demands, avoids rows of all kinds, and, in a word, keeps up a decent external surface of respectability, no questions are asked; all reports and promotions are passed; the Viceroy and his colleagues `enjoy happiness,' and every one makes his `pile.' The Peking Government makes no new laws, does nothing of any kind for any class of persons, leaves each province to its own devices, and, like the general staff of an army organization, both absorbs successful men, and gives out needy or able men to go forth and do likewise.''
In these circumstances, the governors of provinces have considerable independent power in internal affairs, and a rebellion even of formidable proportions is often ignored by the Imperial Government in Peking as a purely local matter to be dealt with by the provincial authorities, much as the United States Government leaves riots and mobs to the State officials.
Moreover, to a greater extent than any other people, the Chinese are led by their officials, and some of the highest officials in Peking and the coast provinces have learned that massacres of foreigners result in the coming of more foreigners, in the capture and destruction of cities, in humiliating terms of peace, in heavy indemnities, in large losses of territory and in the degradation and perhaps the execution of the magistrates within whose jurisdiction the troubles occur.
There are, moreover, unmistakable indications of a new movement among the Chinese. One reason why they have been so ignorant of the rest of the world and even of distant parts of their own country was the lack of any facilities for transmitting mail. The only way that the missionaries in the interior could get their letters was by employing private messengers or availing themselves of a chance traveller. But now a modern post-office system, superintended by Sir Robert Hart, already includes 500 of the principal cities of the Empire and is being rapidly extended to others.
Teu years ago, there were practically no newspapers in China except those published by foreigners in the ports, all of which were in English save one which was in the German language. The only periodicals in Chinese were a few issued by the missionaries with, of course, a very limited circulation, chiefly among the Christians. There was no such thing as a Chinese press in the proper sense of the term. Now, besides a French, a Russian and a second German paper, there are nearly a hundred Chinese newspapers, many of them edited by the Chinese themselves and others by Japanese, and all, aided by the railway, the telegraph and the post-office, bringing new ideas to multitudes. On the basis of a joint report to the Throne by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung and Chang Pei-hsi, chancellor of the Peking University, an imperial decree has ordered the inauguration of a new system of education. The plan is to have a university in the capital of each province, with auxiliary prefectural and district colleges and schools and the whole system to culminate in the Imperial University in Peking. In all these institutions western arts and sciences are to be taught side by side with the old Confucian classics. ``The Viceroys and Governors of provinces are commanded to order their subordinates to hasten the establishment of these schools. Let this decree be published through the Empire.''
Nor have the new imperial decrees stopped here. A few decades ago, ambitious Chinese youths who sought an education abroad at their own expense were imprisoned on their return to their native land. One whom I met in Shantung gave me a vivid account of his arrest and incarceration in a filthy dungeon as if he had been a common criminal. But a recent edict of the Emperor directs the provincial Governors to select young men of ability and send them to Europe for special training with a view to their occupying high posts on their return.
One of the most firmly rooted customs of old China was the examination essay for literary degrees on some purely Chinese subject relating to a remote past. But August 29, 1901, to the amazement of the literati, an imperial edict abolished that time-honoured custom and directed that in the future candidates for degrees as well as for office should submit short essays on such modern topics as Western science, governments, laws, and kindred subjects. The following extracts from the examination questions for the Chu Jen degree in 1903 will indicate the extraordinary character of this change.
Honen-- ``What improvements are to be derived from the study of foreign agriculture, commerce, and postal systems?
Kwang-sg and An-huei--``What are the chief ideas underlying Austrian and German prosperity? How do foreigners regulate the press, post-office, commerce, railways, banks, bank-notes, commercial schools, taxation--and how do they get faithful men? Where is the Caucasus and how does Russia rule it?
Kiang-si--``How many sciences theoretical and practical are there? In what order should they be studied? Explain free trade and protection. What are the military services of the world? What is the bearing of the Congress of Vienna, the Treaty of Berlin and the Monroe Doctrine on the Far East? Wherein lies the naval supremacy of Great Britain? What is the bearing of the Siberian Railway and Nicaragua Canal on China?
Shuntung--``What is Herbert Spencer's philosophy of sociology? Define the relations of land, labour and capital. State how best to develop the resources of China by mines and railway? How best to modify our civil and criminal laws to regain authority over those now under extra-territoriality privileges? How best to guard land and sea frontiers from the advance of foreign Powers?
Fukien--``Which Western nations have paid most attention to education and what is the result? State the leading features of the military systems of Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and France. Which are the best colonizers? How should tea and silk be properly cultivated? What is the government, industries and education of Switzerland which, though small, is independent of surrounding great powers?
Kwang-tung----``What should be our best coinage, gold, silver and copper like other Western countries, or what? How could the workhouse system be started throughout China? How to fortify Kwang-tung province? How to get funds and professors for the new education? How to pro- mote Chinese international commerce, new industries and savings-banks, versus the gambling houses of China?
Hunan--``What is the policy of Japan--only following other nations or what? How to choose competent diplomatic men? Why does China feel its small national debt so heavy, while England and France with far greater debts do not feel it?
Hupch--``State the educational systems of Sparta and Athens. What are the naval strategic points of Great Britain and which should be those of China? Which nation has the best system of stamp duty? State briefly the geological ages of the earth, and the bronze and iron ages. Trace the origin of Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese writings.''
The result of these edicts is that the Chinese are buying Western books as never before. Examinations cannot be passed without them. The mission presses, though run to their full capacity, cannot keep up with the demand for their publications. Dr. Timothy Richard of Shanghai reports that a quarter of a million dollars' worth of text-books were sold in that city in 1902, a single order received by the Presbyterian Press involving a bill of $328 for postage alone, as the buyer insisted that the books should be sent by mail. Mission schools that teach the English language are thronged with students, many of them from the higher classes, and every foreigner who is willing to teach Western learning finds his services eagerly sought.
China cannot be reformed by paper edicts even though they are written by an Emperor. Many reforms have been solemnly proclaimed in former years that accomplished little except to ``save face'' for the Government. We need not therefore imagine that the millennium is to come in China this year. But it is impossible to doubt that the reform decrees that have been issued since the Boxer uprising mean something more and are achieving something more than any other reform movements that China ever saw before. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, who knows China and the Chinese as thoroughly as any other living man, writes:--
``We behold the kernel of the reforms ordered by His Majesty, Kuang Hsum in 1898, and which led to his dethronement and imprisonment, substantially adopted less than three years later by the Empress Dowager and her advisers. . . . The bare notation of the tenor of these far-reaching edicts gives to the Occidental reader but a vague notion of the tremendous intellectual revolution which they connote. Never before was there such an order from any government involving the reconstruction of the views of so many millions, by the study of the methods of government in other nations. . . . It is obvious to one who knows anything of the Chinese educational system of the past millennium that the introduction of the new methods will involve its radical reconstruction from top to bottom. Western geography, mathematics, science, history, and philosophy will be everywhere studied. The result cannot fail to be an expansion of the intellectual horizon of the Chinese race comparable to that which in Europe followed the Crusades. This will be a long process and a slow one, but it is a certain one. . . . All signs indicate that China is open as never before.''
Undoubtedly the most powerful present factor in the policy of the Empire, and at the same time one of the best types of the educated Chinese, is Yuan Shih Kai, Viceroy of Chih-li and Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese army. He is not a Manchu, like many of the high officials of China, but a pure Chinese like Li Hung Chang. Born in the Province of Honan, he quickly developed unusual abilities. After a brilliant record for a young man in his native land, he was sent to Korea as the representative of the Emperor of China and for nine years he was a conspicuous member of the diplomatic corps of the Korean capital. Returning to China in 1895, he was made commander of a division of the ``New Imperial Army''--a post in which he manifested high military and administrative qualities. He organized and equipped his troops after the best foreign models and they speedily became so effective that, if they had been more numerous and if he had been given a free hand in using them in Peking, the history of 1900 might have been different. I have had occasion elsewhere to give some account of the soldiers who escorted me through the interior. December, 1900, he was appointed Governor of the great province of Shantung. It was here that I met him, residing at Chinan-fu, the capital of the province. As soon as possible after my arrival, I sent my card and letters of introduction to the famous Governor, and he promptly replied that he would receive me at one o'clock the following day. At the appointed hour, we called. With true courtesy, he met us at the entrance of the palace grounds and escorted us into his private room, which was neatly but very plainly furnished. He impressed me as a remarkable man. He was then forty-one years of age, of medium height, rather stout, with a strong face, a clear, frank eye, and a most engaging manner. He would be considered a man of striking appearance anywhere.
He was very cordial, and we had a long and interesting conversation. He surprised me by his familiarity with America, especially as he spoke no English and had never been out of Asia.
Partly at this interview and partly from other sources, I heard more of his plan to start a daily newspaper, a Military Academy and a Literary College. His idea was to have in each institution two students from each of the 108 counties in the province, and thus train a body of men who would be able to carry ``light and learning'' into their respective districts. He appeared to feel that the only hope of averting such catastrophes as the Boxer uprising lay in enlightening the people. In answer to a question as to the teaching of foreign languages, he said that English, French and German would be taught, but that German would probably be the most useful of the foreign tongues on account of the number of Germans in the eastern part of the province.
The Governor had shown the breadth of his intelligence, and at the same time his appreciation of the high character of Protestant missionaries, by inviting one of them, the Rev. Dr. Watson M. Hayes, then President of the Presbyterian Mission College at Teng-chou, to become the President of the Literary College. I may anticipate so far as to state that Dr. Hayes accepted the invitation and began his work with every promise of large success. But unfortunately the rigid requirement of the Government that each student should worship the tablet of Confucius at stated intervals and the refusal of Yuan Shih Kai's successor to exempt Christian students made Dr. Hayes feel that he had no alternative but to resign. Whether Yuan Shih Kai, if he had remained in Shantung, would have been more lenient, it is, of course, impossible to say. I cherish the hope that he would have been, for he is a large-minded man and he discerns the signs of the times more clearly than many of his countrymen. But he is nevertheless a loyal disciple of Confucius and he might also have felt that questions of state policy were involved. It is suggestive, however, that in the spring of 1898 Yuan Shih Kai had selected a Protestant minister, the Rev. Herbert E. House, D. D., as the tutor of his own son, Yuen Yen Tai. Dr. House says, by the way, that he found the youth ``wonderfully pure in his thought, high in his ambition and intense in his passion for knowledge--the most patient and diligent student I ever knew.''
But to return to the interview with Yuan Shih Kai. The only other Chinese present was Tang Hsiao-chuan, a man of about thirty-five, who was in charge of the Provincial Foreign Office with the rank of Tao-tai. He had spent two years at Columbia University in New York City, spoke English fluently and impressed me as a fine man. Like the Governor, his manners were courtly and refined. He appeared to be a man of the diplomatic type and worthy of the promotion that he will doubtless receive.
Early the next morning Captain Wang came on behalf of the Governor to return our visit. He was the translator of the Foreign Office and the tutor of one of the Governor's sons whom he was teaching English grammar, arithmetic, geography and history. I was interested to find that he had spent eight years at Philips Academy, Massachusetts, and that he spoke English with the grace of a cultured gentleman.
The policy of Yuan Shih Kai during the Boxer troubles indicated the wisdom and the courage of the man. Disturbances had already begun when he assumed office. It was not far southwest of Chinan-fu that Brooks, the devoted English missionary, was murdered by the Boxers. Yu Hsien was then Governor of Shantung but about that time was transferred to Shan-si, Yuan Shih Kai taking his place. If the notorious foreign-hating Yu Hsien had remained in Shantung, probably he would have massacred the Shantung missionaries as he did those of Shan-si, where he invited them all to his yamen, and then began the butchery by killing three missionaries with his own hand. But Yuan Shih Kai foresaw the inevitable result of such barbarity and determined to restrain the Boxers and protect foreigners. He succeeded with the foreigners, not one being killed after he took control, and all being helped as far as possible to escape. As soon as the storm had passed, he officially wrote to the missionaries who had taken refuge at the ports:--
``Everything is now quiet. If you, reverend sirs, wish to return to the interior, I would beg you first give me word that I may most certainly order the military everywhere most carefully to protect and escort.''
This apparently pro-foreign policy brought upon the Governor, for a time, no small obloquy from the fiercely-fanatical conservatives who wanted to murder every foreigner within reach. Indeed the fury of the populace was so great that he was bitterly reviled as ``a secondary devil,'' and his life was repeatedly threatened. But despite the clamour of the mob and the opposition of his associates in the government of the province, he maintained his position with iron inflexibility. Afterwards, however, the people as well as his official subordinates realized that he had saved them from the awful punishment that was inflicted upon the neighbouring province of Chih-li, and his power and prestige became greater than ever.
During my visit in Chining-chou, in the remote southwestern part of the province, an incident occurred which illustrated at once the power of Yuan Shih Kai's name and the heroic devotion of the missionaries. The day after our arrival, a friendly Chinese official brought word that Governor Yuan Shih Kai's mother had died the day before. Chinese custom in such circumstances required him to resign his office and go into retirement for three years. Now Consul Fowler and all the foreigners whom I had met in the ports had declared that the safety of foreigners in Shantung depended on the Governor, that as long as he was in power white men were safe, but that his death or removal might bring another tumult of anti-foreign fury. On the strength of his known friendship, mission work was being resumed and the missionaries were returning to the interior.
Now this man, on whose continuance in office so much depended, was apparently to retire and the future made all uncertain again. The Empress Dowager might give the post to a foreign-hater. An indifferent or even a weak pro-foreign Governor would be little better, for a strong man was needed to hold the population of Shantung in hand. The Chinese quickly take their cue from a high official and even a suspicion that he would not interfere might again loose the dogs of war. True, we had seen no signs of enmity, but appearances are deceptive in Asia. The smile of the mighty Governor meant a smile from every one. But what fires were smouldering beneath no one could know. Even in America, there are lawless men who would mob Chinese in a minute if they knew that the police were weak or indifferent.
I did not fear for myself, for my plans compelled me to journey on to Ichou-fu anyway. But I did not like to leave Mr. Laughlin and Dr. Lyon, who had come with the intention of remaining to reopen the mission work at Chining-chou. But with the true missionary spirit, they bravely decided to stay. A week later, they learned that in view of the importance of the province and his confidence in the great Governor, the Emperor had by a special dispensation shortened the period of official mourning from three years to one hundred days. During that time, the Fan-tai would be the nominal head of the province, though it was quietly understood that even then the Governor would be the ``power behind the throne.'' But as this was not known when the decision to remain was made, the heroism of the missionaries was none the less striking.
The attitude of Yuan Shih Kai is fairly indicated in the regulations which he caused to be widely published after the Boxer outbreak. Some of these were as follows:--
``In order to protect foreigners from violence and all mission property from burning and other destruction, all civil and military officials with all their subordinates , must use their utmost endeavours to insure their protection. Persons refusing to submit to officials in these matters may be instantly executed without further reference to the Governor, and any one who rescues foreigners from violence will be amply rewarded.
``Any persons having been found guilty of destroying mission property or using violence to foreigners shall be severely dealt with according to the laws which refer to highway robbers, and in addition to this their goods and property shall be confiscated for the public use.
``If injury to missionaries or destruction of property occurs in any district whatever, both civil and military officials of said district shall be degraded and reported to the Throne.
``The elders, constables, et al., of every village shall do their utmost to protect missionaries and their property. If in the future there occurs in any village destruction of property or violence to a missionary, the headmen of such village shall be dealt with according to the edict issued during the twenty-second year of the present Emperor. And, in addition to this they shall be required to present themselves to the yamen and make good all losses. The constables of such villages shall be severely dealt with and expelled from office forever.
``All civil and military officials in whose districts none of these offenses named above occur in one year shall be rewarded with the third degree of merit, and three years of such freedom shall entitle the same officials to promotion.
``Rewards will also be given to village elders and constables in whose district no disturbance occurs.''
These are rather remarkable words from a high Chinese official. Now their author occupies a position of even greater authority, for after the death of Li Hung Chang, he was appointed to succeed him as Viceroy of Chih-li in November, 1901. Chih-li is not only one of the greatest provinces of the Empire with a population of 20,937,000, but it includes the imperial city of Peking and the ports of Tong-ku and Tien- tsin, the gateways to the capital. The Viceroy thus controls all avenues of approach to the Throne and is, in a sense, charged with the protection of the royal family. He has free access at all times to the Emperor and the Empress Dowager with whom he is a prime favourite. It was this position of high vantage which enabled Li Hung Chang to become well-nigh omnipotent in China. Yuan Shih Kai is not such a wily schemer as his distinguished predecessor and he is not likely to use his position for self-aggrandizement to the extent that Li Hung Chang did. But he is quite as able a man and more frank and reliable. He has enemies, as every public man has, especially in Asia. Some can never forgive him for his supposed part in the virtual dethronement of the Emperor several years ago. It is alleged that the Emperor counted on the army of Yuan Shih Kai to support him in his reform policy, but that Yuan consulted with Jung Lu, who was then the Viceroy of Chih-li, and that that worthy promptly laid the whole matter before the Empress Dowager; the result being that the young Emperor awoke one morning to find himself practically stripped of his imperial power. Yuan has been freely charged with treachery in this coup d'etat. Others hold that he did not intend treachery but only consultation with his superior officer as to what ought to be done in a grave crisis which was in itself revolutionary in character. Yuan was far from being a reactionary, but he was wise enough to see that China could not be suddenly transformed, and he naturally hesitated to lend himself to an enterprise which he believed to be premature and to be destined to result in certain failure. The soundness of his judgment is now generally recognized, and the Emperor himself is said to be almost as friendly towards him as the Empress Dowager, who counts him one of her ablest supporters.
In the present critical condition of far eastern politics, much depends upon the policy of Yuan Shih Kai. With exalted rank, the ear of the Empress Dowager and the command of the only real soldiers that China possesses, he can do more than any other man to influence the course of the Empire. Of course, one official, however powerful, cannot absolutely control national conditions. The forces at work both within and without the Empire are too vast and too complicated. Nevertheless, the fact that such an able and far-seeing man as Yuan Shih Kai is now the most influential Viceroy in China, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and the trusted adviser of the Empress Dowager may be fairly included among the hopeful signs for the future.
Most significant of all is the development of missionary work since the Boxer outbreak. Not only have all the destroyed churches and chapels been rebuilt, but they are, as a rule, crowded with worshippers. In the Wei-hsien station field in Shantung, where every missionary was driven out and all the mission property destroyed, 569 Chinese were baptized last year. In Peking, the large new Presbyterian church, though erected near that great cistern in which nearly 100 bodies were found after the siege, is filled at almost every service and the churches of other denominations are also largely attended. At a single service, Dr. Pentecost preached to 800 attentive Chinese young men. Even in Paoting-fu, where every remaining missionary and scores of Chinese Christians were killed, and where one might suppose that no Chinese would ever dare to confess Christ, even in bloodstained Paoting-fu, the missionaries are preaching daily to throngs of attentive Chinese in the city, while at the spacious new compounds outside the walls the schools and hospitals and churches are taxed to care for the hundreds who go to them. In the Canton field, long known for its anti-foreign feeling, 1,564 Chinese were baptized last year by the Presbyterians alone and the missionaries are importunately calling for reinforcements to enable them to meet the multiplied demands upon them. Even the province of Hunan, which a decade ago was almost as inhospitable to foreigners as Thibet, now has half a hundred Protestant and Catholic missionaries developing a prosperous work. Bishop Graves, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, returned recently from an episcopal visitation with this inspiring message:--
``The condition and outlook of the Church's work in the province of Kiang-su are more encouraging than ever before. Hitherto we have had to persuade people to be taught. Now they come to us themselves, not one by one, but in numbers. . . . That there is a strong movement towards Christianity setting in is evident.''
Not only has the old work been resumed with vigour but much new work has been opened. Within a year and a quarter after the relief of the Legations by the Allies, twenty-five new mission stations had been opened and 373 new missionaries had entered China, and each succeeding year has seen considerable additions to the number. The Rev. Dr. George F. Pentecost, who visited China in 1903, writes--
``The outlook seems to me most encouraging. I find the more thoughtful missionaries enthusiastic in their forecast for the future. My own judgment is that the cause of missions, so far as foundation work and increased power for work, has been advanced at least twenty-five years by the massacres of 1900. I think the common people are thoroughly convinced that missions cannot be destroyed, and I am equally convinced that the authorities are also convinced that it is vain for them to rage and set themselves against Christianity. The one thing which an Asiatic recognizes is power and facts accomplished, and in the rebuilding of our missions and the awakening already begun and the reinforcement of the missions in men and material means they see and recognize power. Their own temples are falling into decay and ruin and our new buildings are rising in prominence and beauty. Their ignorant priesthood is sinking deeper and deeper into degradation, while our missionaries are every where known and recognized as men of `light and learning.' . . . It seems to me from all I can learn that there is no fear of another anti- foreign outbreak.''
And these are but a few of the many illustrations that could be given. Everywhere, the doors are open and Chinese are now being baptized by Protestant missionaries at the rate of about 15,000 a year, while a far larger number are enrolled as inquirers or catechumens. The interdenominational conference of missionaries at Kuling, August 7, 1903, declared:--
``It is now a fact that there is not one of the more than nineteen hundred counties of China and Manchuria from which we are shut out, and before the hundredth year of our work begins, we can say that if the gospel is not preached to every creature in China, the reason must be sought outside China. The opportunities of work are varied in their kind, vast in their extent. Never before have men crowded to hear the gospel as they are crowding now in the open air and indoors; in our chapels and in our guest-rooms we have opportunities to preach Christ such as can scarcely be found outside China. Never before has there been such an eager desire for education as there is now; our schools, both of elementary and of higher grades, are full, and everywhere applicants have to be refused. Never before has there been such a demand for Christian literature as there is now; our tract societies and all engaged in supplying converts and inquirers with reading material are doing their utmost, but are not able to overtake the demand; and the demand is certain to increase, for it comes from the largest number of people in the world reading one language. The medical work has from the first found an entrance into hearts that were closed against other forms of work. Its sphere of influence grows ever wider and is practically unlimited. Unique opportunities of service are afforded us by the large number of blind people, by lepers, and those suffering from incurable diseases; by the deaf and dumb, the insane and other afflicted people. In China the poor are always with us, and whensoever we will we may do them good.''
Not least among the hopeful signs for the future is the new treaty between the United States and China which was signed at Shanghai, October 8, 1903, and unanimously ratified by the United States Senate December 18, 1903. It not only secured an ``open door'' in China for Americans, but, if the veteran ``most favoured nation'' clause is again pressed into service, a priceless benefit to the whole civilized world as well as to China herself. For this treaty abolished the exasperating ``likin'' ; confirmed the right of American citizens to trade, reside, travel, and own property in China; extended to China the United States' copyright laws; gained a promise from the Chinese Government to establish a patent office in which the inventions of United States' citizens may be protected; and made valuable regulations regarding trade-marks, mining concessions, judicial tribunals for the hearing of complaints, diplomatic intercourse, and several other matters which, though sanctioned by custom, were often abridged or violated.
The treaty, moreover, called for the opening of two additional treaty ports, one of which is at Feng-tien-fu, more generally known as Mukden, important not only as a city of 200,000 inhabitants but as the capital of Manchuria and with both rail and river connection with the Gulf of Pe-chi-li and the imperial province of Chih-li. The other is at An-tung, which is important because of its situation on the Yalu River opposite the Korean frontier. Of course, the Russia-Japan War has post- poned the opening of these ports, but the recognition of China's right to open them by treaty with the United States is none the less significant.
Most important of all, the treaty removes, so far as any such enactment can remove, the last barrier to the extension of Christianity throughout China. In Article XIII of the English treaty with China, September 5, 1902, Great Britain agreed to join in a commission to secure peaceable relationships between converts and non-converts in China. But the American treaty goes much farther, as the following extract will show:--
``The principles of the Christian religion, as professed by the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, are recognized as teaching men to do good and to do to others as they would have others do to them. Those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall not be harassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, according to these tenets, peaceably teaches and practices the principles of Christianity shall in no case be interfered with or molested therefor. No restrictions shall be placed on Chinese joining Christian churches. Converts and non-converts, being Chinese subjects, shall alike conform to the laws of China, and shall pay due respect to those in authority, living together in peace and amity; and the fact of being converts shall not protect them from the consequences of any offense they may have committed before or may commit after their admission into the church, or exempt them from paying legal taxes levied on Chinese subjects generally, except taxes levied and contributions for the support of religious customs and practices contrary to their religion. Missionaries shall not interfere with the exercise by the native authorities of their jurisdiction over Chinese subjects; nor shall the native authorities make any distinction between converts and non-converts, but shall administer the laws without partiality, so that both classes can live together in peace.
``Missionary societies of the United States shall be permitted to rent and to lease in perpetuity as the property of such societies, buildings or lands in all parts of the Empire for missionary purposes and, after the title-deeds have been found in order and duly stamped by the local authorities, to erect such suitable buildings as may be required for carrying on their good work.''
This gives new prestige to American missionary effort and legally confirms the opening of the Empire from end to end to missionary residence, activity and toleration. All that France harshly obtained for Roman Catholic missions by the Berthemy convention of 1865 and by the haughty ultimatum of M. Gerard at the close of the war with Japan, the United States has now peacefully secured with the apparent good-will of the Chinese Government.
``Each province has its own army, navy, and system of taxation. . . . So long as the provincial government sends its Peking supplies, administers a reasonable sop to its clamorous provincial duns, quells incipient insurrections, gives employment to its army of expectants, staves off foreign demands, avoids rows of all kinds, and, in a word, keeps up a decent external surface of respectability, no questions are asked; all reports and promotions are passed; the Viceroy and his colleagues `enjoy happiness,' and every one makes his `pile.' The Peking Government makes no new laws, does nothing of any kind for any class of persons, leaves each province to its own devices, and, like the general staff of an army organization, both absorbs successful men, and gives out needy or able men to go forth and do likewise.''
In these circumstances, the governors of provinces have considerable independent power in internal affairs, and a rebellion even of formidable proportions is often ignored by the Imperial Government in Peking as a purely local matter to be dealt with by the provincial authorities, much as the United States Government leaves riots and mobs to the State officials.
Moreover, to a greater extent than any other people, the Chinese are led by their officials, and some of the highest officials in Peking and the coast provinces have learned that massacres of foreigners result in the coming of more foreigners, in the capture and destruction of cities, in humiliating terms of peace, in heavy indemnities, in large losses of territory and in the degradation and perhaps the execution of the magistrates within whose jurisdiction the troubles occur.
There are, moreover, unmistakable indications of a new movement among the Chinese. One reason why they have been so ignorant of the rest of the world and even of distant parts of their own country was the lack of any facilities for transmitting mail. The only way that the missionaries in the interior could get their letters was by employing private messengers or availing themselves of a chance traveller. But now a modern post-office system, superintended by Sir Robert Hart, already includes 500 of the principal cities of the Empire and is being rapidly extended to others.
Teu years ago, there were practically no newspapers in China except those published by foreigners in the ports, all of which were in English save one which was in the German language. The only periodicals in Chinese were a few issued by the missionaries with, of course, a very limited circulation, chiefly among the Christians. There was no such thing as a Chinese press in the proper sense of the term. Now, besides a French, a Russian and a second German paper, there are nearly a hundred Chinese newspapers, many of them edited by the Chinese themselves and others by Japanese, and all, aided by the railway, the telegraph and the post-office, bringing new ideas to multitudes. On the basis of a joint report to the Throne by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung and Chang Pei-hsi, chancellor of the Peking University, an imperial decree has ordered the inauguration of a new system of education. The plan is to have a university in the capital of each province, with auxiliary prefectural and district colleges and schools and the whole system to culminate in the Imperial University in Peking. In all these institutions western arts and sciences are to be taught side by side with the old Confucian classics. ``The Viceroys and Governors of provinces are commanded to order their subordinates to hasten the establishment of these schools. Let this decree be published through the Empire.''
Nor have the new imperial decrees stopped here. A few decades ago, ambitious Chinese youths who sought an education abroad at their own expense were imprisoned on their return to their native land. One whom I met in Shantung gave me a vivid account of his arrest and incarceration in a filthy dungeon as if he had been a common criminal. But a recent edict of the Emperor directs the provincial Governors to select young men of ability and send them to Europe for special training with a view to their occupying high posts on their return.
One of the most firmly rooted customs of old China was the examination essay for literary degrees on some purely Chinese subject relating to a remote past. But August 29, 1901, to the amazement of the literati, an imperial edict abolished that time-honoured custom and directed that in the future candidates for degrees as well as for office should submit short essays on such modern topics as Western science, governments, laws, and kindred subjects. The following extracts from the examination questions for the Chu Jen degree in 1903 will indicate the extraordinary character of this change.
Honen-- ``What improvements are to be derived from the study of foreign agriculture, commerce, and postal systems?
Kwang-sg and An-huei--``What are the chief ideas underlying Austrian and German prosperity? How do foreigners regulate the press, post-office, commerce, railways, banks, bank-notes, commercial schools, taxation--and how do they get faithful men? Where is the Caucasus and how does Russia rule it?
Kiang-si--``How many sciences theoretical and practical are there? In what order should they be studied? Explain free trade and protection. What are the military services of the world? What is the bearing of the Congress of Vienna, the Treaty of Berlin and the Monroe Doctrine on the Far East? Wherein lies the naval supremacy of Great Britain? What is the bearing of the Siberian Railway and Nicaragua Canal on China?
Shuntung--``What is Herbert Spencer's philosophy of sociology? Define the relations of land, labour and capital. State how best to develop the resources of China by mines and railway? How best to modify our civil and criminal laws to regain authority over those now under extra-territoriality privileges? How best to guard land and sea frontiers from the advance of foreign Powers?
Fukien--``Which Western nations have paid most attention to education and what is the result? State the leading features of the military systems of Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and France. Which are the best colonizers? How should tea and silk be properly cultivated? What is the government, industries and education of Switzerland which, though small, is independent of surrounding great powers?
Kwang-tung----``What should be our best coinage, gold, silver and copper like other Western countries, or what? How could the workhouse system be started throughout China? How to fortify Kwang-tung province? How to get funds and professors for the new education? How to pro- mote Chinese international commerce, new industries and savings-banks, versus the gambling houses of China?
Hunan--``What is the policy of Japan--only following other nations or what? How to choose competent diplomatic men? Why does China feel its small national debt so heavy, while England and France with far greater debts do not feel it?
Hupch--``State the educational systems of Sparta and Athens. What are the naval strategic points of Great Britain and which should be those of China? Which nation has the best system of stamp duty? State briefly the geological ages of the earth, and the bronze and iron ages. Trace the origin of Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese writings.''
The result of these edicts is that the Chinese are buying Western books as never before. Examinations cannot be passed without them. The mission presses, though run to their full capacity, cannot keep up with the demand for their publications. Dr. Timothy Richard of Shanghai reports that a quarter of a million dollars' worth of text-books were sold in that city in 1902, a single order received by the Presbyterian Press involving a bill of $328 for postage alone, as the buyer insisted that the books should be sent by mail. Mission schools that teach the English language are thronged with students, many of them from the higher classes, and every foreigner who is willing to teach Western learning finds his services eagerly sought.
China cannot be reformed by paper edicts even though they are written by an Emperor. Many reforms have been solemnly proclaimed in former years that accomplished little except to ``save face'' for the Government. We need not therefore imagine that the millennium is to come in China this year. But it is impossible to doubt that the reform decrees that have been issued since the Boxer uprising mean something more and are achieving something more than any other reform movements that China ever saw before. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, who knows China and the Chinese as thoroughly as any other living man, writes:--
``We behold the kernel of the reforms ordered by His Majesty, Kuang Hsum in 1898, and which led to his dethronement and imprisonment, substantially adopted less than three years later by the Empress Dowager and her advisers. . . . The bare notation of the tenor of these far-reaching edicts gives to the Occidental reader but a vague notion of the tremendous intellectual revolution which they connote. Never before was there such an order from any government involving the reconstruction of the views of so many millions, by the study of the methods of government in other nations. . . . It is obvious to one who knows anything of the Chinese educational system of the past millennium that the introduction of the new methods will involve its radical reconstruction from top to bottom. Western geography, mathematics, science, history, and philosophy will be everywhere studied. The result cannot fail to be an expansion of the intellectual horizon of the Chinese race comparable to that which in Europe followed the Crusades. This will be a long process and a slow one, but it is a certain one. . . . All signs indicate that China is open as never before.''
Undoubtedly the most powerful present factor in the policy of the Empire, and at the same time one of the best types of the educated Chinese, is Yuan Shih Kai, Viceroy of Chih-li and Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese army. He is not a Manchu, like many of the high officials of China, but a pure Chinese like Li Hung Chang. Born in the Province of Honan, he quickly developed unusual abilities. After a brilliant record for a young man in his native land, he was sent to Korea as the representative of the Emperor of China and for nine years he was a conspicuous member of the diplomatic corps of the Korean capital. Returning to China in 1895, he was made commander of a division of the ``New Imperial Army''--a post in which he manifested high military and administrative qualities. He organized and equipped his troops after the best foreign models and they speedily became so effective that, if they had been more numerous and if he had been given a free hand in using them in Peking, the history of 1900 might have been different. I have had occasion elsewhere to give some account of the soldiers who escorted me through the interior. December, 1900, he was appointed Governor of the great province of Shantung. It was here that I met him, residing at Chinan-fu, the capital of the province. As soon as possible after my arrival, I sent my card and letters of introduction to the famous Governor, and he promptly replied that he would receive me at one o'clock the following day. At the appointed hour, we called. With true courtesy, he met us at the entrance of the palace grounds and escorted us into his private room, which was neatly but very plainly furnished. He impressed me as a remarkable man. He was then forty-one years of age, of medium height, rather stout, with a strong face, a clear, frank eye, and a most engaging manner. He would be considered a man of striking appearance anywhere.
He was very cordial, and we had a long and interesting conversation. He surprised me by his familiarity with America, especially as he spoke no English and had never been out of Asia.
Partly at this interview and partly from other sources, I heard more of his plan to start a daily newspaper, a Military Academy and a Literary College. His idea was to have in each institution two students from each of the 108 counties in the province, and thus train a body of men who would be able to carry ``light and learning'' into their respective districts. He appeared to feel that the only hope of averting such catastrophes as the Boxer uprising lay in enlightening the people. In answer to a question as to the teaching of foreign languages, he said that English, French and German would be taught, but that German would probably be the most useful of the foreign tongues on account of the number of Germans in the eastern part of the province.
The Governor had shown the breadth of his intelligence, and at the same time his appreciation of the high character of Protestant missionaries, by inviting one of them, the Rev. Dr. Watson M. Hayes, then President of the Presbyterian Mission College at Teng-chou, to become the President of the Literary College. I may anticipate so far as to state that Dr. Hayes accepted the invitation and began his work with every promise of large success. But unfortunately the rigid requirement of the Government that each student should worship the tablet of Confucius at stated intervals and the refusal of Yuan Shih Kai's successor to exempt Christian students made Dr. Hayes feel that he had no alternative but to resign. Whether Yuan Shih Kai, if he had remained in Shantung, would have been more lenient, it is, of course, impossible to say. I cherish the hope that he would have been, for he is a large-minded man and he discerns the signs of the times more clearly than many of his countrymen. But he is nevertheless a loyal disciple of Confucius and he might also have felt that questions of state policy were involved. It is suggestive, however, that in the spring of 1898 Yuan Shih Kai had selected a Protestant minister, the Rev. Herbert E. House, D. D., as the tutor of his own son, Yuen Yen Tai. Dr. House says, by the way, that he found the youth ``wonderfully pure in his thought, high in his ambition and intense in his passion for knowledge--the most patient and diligent student I ever knew.''
But to return to the interview with Yuan Shih Kai. The only other Chinese present was Tang Hsiao-chuan, a man of about thirty-five, who was in charge of the Provincial Foreign Office with the rank of Tao-tai. He had spent two years at Columbia University in New York City, spoke English fluently and impressed me as a fine man. Like the Governor, his manners were courtly and refined. He appeared to be a man of the diplomatic type and worthy of the promotion that he will doubtless receive.
Early the next morning Captain Wang came on behalf of the Governor to return our visit. He was the translator of the Foreign Office and the tutor of one of the Governor's sons whom he was teaching English grammar, arithmetic, geography and history. I was interested to find that he had spent eight years at Philips Academy, Massachusetts, and that he spoke English with the grace of a cultured gentleman.
The policy of Yuan Shih Kai during the Boxer troubles indicated the wisdom and the courage of the man. Disturbances had already begun when he assumed office. It was not far southwest of Chinan-fu that Brooks, the devoted English missionary, was murdered by the Boxers. Yu Hsien was then Governor of Shantung but about that time was transferred to Shan-si, Yuan Shih Kai taking his place. If the notorious foreign-hating Yu Hsien had remained in Shantung, probably he would have massacred the Shantung missionaries as he did those of Shan-si, where he invited them all to his yamen, and then began the butchery by killing three missionaries with his own hand. But Yuan Shih Kai foresaw the inevitable result of such barbarity and determined to restrain the Boxers and protect foreigners. He succeeded with the foreigners, not one being killed after he took control, and all being helped as far as possible to escape. As soon as the storm had passed, he officially wrote to the missionaries who had taken refuge at the ports:--
``Everything is now quiet. If you, reverend sirs, wish to return to the interior, I would beg you first give me word that I may most certainly order the military everywhere most carefully to protect and escort.''
This apparently pro-foreign policy brought upon the Governor, for a time, no small obloquy from the fiercely-fanatical conservatives who wanted to murder every foreigner within reach. Indeed the fury of the populace was so great that he was bitterly reviled as ``a secondary devil,'' and his life was repeatedly threatened. But despite the clamour of the mob and the opposition of his associates in the government of the province, he maintained his position with iron inflexibility. Afterwards, however, the people as well as his official subordinates realized that he had saved them from the awful punishment that was inflicted upon the neighbouring province of Chih-li, and his power and prestige became greater than ever.
During my visit in Chining-chou, in the remote southwestern part of the province, an incident occurred which illustrated at once the power of Yuan Shih Kai's name and the heroic devotion of the missionaries. The day after our arrival, a friendly Chinese official brought word that Governor Yuan Shih Kai's mother had died the day before. Chinese custom in such circumstances required him to resign his office and go into retirement for three years. Now Consul Fowler and all the foreigners whom I had met in the ports had declared that the safety of foreigners in Shantung depended on the Governor, that as long as he was in power white men were safe, but that his death or removal might bring another tumult of anti-foreign fury. On the strength of his known friendship, mission work was being resumed and the missionaries were returning to the interior.
Now this man, on whose continuance in office so much depended, was apparently to retire and the future made all uncertain again. The Empress Dowager might give the post to a foreign-hater. An indifferent or even a weak pro-foreign Governor would be little better, for a strong man was needed to hold the population of Shantung in hand. The Chinese quickly take their cue from a high official and even a suspicion that he would not interfere might again loose the dogs of war. True, we had seen no signs of enmity, but appearances are deceptive in Asia. The smile of the mighty Governor meant a smile from every one. But what fires were smouldering beneath no one could know. Even in America, there are lawless men who would mob Chinese in a minute if they knew that the police were weak or indifferent.
I did not fear for myself, for my plans compelled me to journey on to Ichou-fu anyway. But I did not like to leave Mr. Laughlin and Dr. Lyon, who had come with the intention of remaining to reopen the mission work at Chining-chou. But with the true missionary spirit, they bravely decided to stay. A week later, they learned that in view of the importance of the province and his confidence in the great Governor, the Emperor had by a special dispensation shortened the period of official mourning from three years to one hundred days. During that time, the Fan-tai would be the nominal head of the province, though it was quietly understood that even then the Governor would be the ``power behind the throne.'' But as this was not known when the decision to remain was made, the heroism of the missionaries was none the less striking.
The attitude of Yuan Shih Kai is fairly indicated in the regulations which he caused to be widely published after the Boxer outbreak. Some of these were as follows:--
``In order to protect foreigners from violence and all mission property from burning and other destruction, all civil and military officials with all their subordinates , must use their utmost endeavours to insure their protection. Persons refusing to submit to officials in these matters may be instantly executed without further reference to the Governor, and any one who rescues foreigners from violence will be amply rewarded.
``Any persons having been found guilty of destroying mission property or using violence to foreigners shall be severely dealt with according to the laws which refer to highway robbers, and in addition to this their goods and property shall be confiscated for the public use.
``If injury to missionaries or destruction of property occurs in any district whatever, both civil and military officials of said district shall be degraded and reported to the Throne.
``The elders, constables, et al., of every village shall do their utmost to protect missionaries and their property. If in the future there occurs in any village destruction of property or violence to a missionary, the headmen of such village shall be dealt with according to the edict issued during the twenty-second year of the present Emperor. And, in addition to this they shall be required to present themselves to the yamen and make good all losses. The constables of such villages shall be severely dealt with and expelled from office forever.
``All civil and military officials in whose districts none of these offenses named above occur in one year shall be rewarded with the third degree of merit, and three years of such freedom shall entitle the same officials to promotion.
``Rewards will also be given to village elders and constables in whose district no disturbance occurs.''
These are rather remarkable words from a high Chinese official. Now their author occupies a position of even greater authority, for after the death of Li Hung Chang, he was appointed to succeed him as Viceroy of Chih-li in November, 1901. Chih-li is not only one of the greatest provinces of the Empire with a population of 20,937,000, but it includes the imperial city of Peking and the ports of Tong-ku and Tien- tsin, the gateways to the capital. The Viceroy thus controls all avenues of approach to the Throne and is, in a sense, charged with the protection of the royal family. He has free access at all times to the Emperor and the Empress Dowager with whom he is a prime favourite. It was this position of high vantage which enabled Li Hung Chang to become well-nigh omnipotent in China. Yuan Shih Kai is not such a wily schemer as his distinguished predecessor and he is not likely to use his position for self-aggrandizement to the extent that Li Hung Chang did. But he is quite as able a man and more frank and reliable. He has enemies, as every public man has, especially in Asia. Some can never forgive him for his supposed part in the virtual dethronement of the Emperor several years ago. It is alleged that the Emperor counted on the army of Yuan Shih Kai to support him in his reform policy, but that Yuan consulted with Jung Lu, who was then the Viceroy of Chih-li, and that that worthy promptly laid the whole matter before the Empress Dowager; the result being that the young Emperor awoke one morning to find himself practically stripped of his imperial power. Yuan has been freely charged with treachery in this coup d'etat. Others hold that he did not intend treachery but only consultation with his superior officer as to what ought to be done in a grave crisis which was in itself revolutionary in character. Yuan was far from being a reactionary, but he was wise enough to see that China could not be suddenly transformed, and he naturally hesitated to lend himself to an enterprise which he believed to be premature and to be destined to result in certain failure. The soundness of his judgment is now generally recognized, and the Emperor himself is said to be almost as friendly towards him as the Empress Dowager, who counts him one of her ablest supporters.
In the present critical condition of far eastern politics, much depends upon the policy of Yuan Shih Kai. With exalted rank, the ear of the Empress Dowager and the command of the only real soldiers that China possesses, he can do more than any other man to influence the course of the Empire. Of course, one official, however powerful, cannot absolutely control national conditions. The forces at work both within and without the Empire are too vast and too complicated. Nevertheless, the fact that such an able and far-seeing man as Yuan Shih Kai is now the most influential Viceroy in China, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and the trusted adviser of the Empress Dowager may be fairly included among the hopeful signs for the future.
Most significant of all is the development of missionary work since the Boxer outbreak. Not only have all the destroyed churches and chapels been rebuilt, but they are, as a rule, crowded with worshippers. In the Wei-hsien station field in Shantung, where every missionary was driven out and all the mission property destroyed, 569 Chinese were baptized last year. In Peking, the large new Presbyterian church, though erected near that great cistern in which nearly 100 bodies were found after the siege, is filled at almost every service and the churches of other denominations are also largely attended. At a single service, Dr. Pentecost preached to 800 attentive Chinese young men. Even in Paoting-fu, where every remaining missionary and scores of Chinese Christians were killed, and where one might suppose that no Chinese would ever dare to confess Christ, even in bloodstained Paoting-fu, the missionaries are preaching daily to throngs of attentive Chinese in the city, while at the spacious new compounds outside the walls the schools and hospitals and churches are taxed to care for the hundreds who go to them. In the Canton field, long known for its anti-foreign feeling, 1,564 Chinese were baptized last year by the Presbyterians alone and the missionaries are importunately calling for reinforcements to enable them to meet the multiplied demands upon them. Even the province of Hunan, which a decade ago was almost as inhospitable to foreigners as Thibet, now has half a hundred Protestant and Catholic missionaries developing a prosperous work. Bishop Graves, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, returned recently from an episcopal visitation with this inspiring message:--
``The condition and outlook of the Church's work in the province of Kiang-su are more encouraging than ever before. Hitherto we have had to persuade people to be taught. Now they come to us themselves, not one by one, but in numbers. . . . That there is a strong movement towards Christianity setting in is evident.''
Not only has the old work been resumed with vigour but much new work has been opened. Within a year and a quarter after the relief of the Legations by the Allies, twenty-five new mission stations had been opened and 373 new missionaries had entered China, and each succeeding year has seen considerable additions to the number. The Rev. Dr. George F. Pentecost, who visited China in 1903, writes--
``The outlook seems to me most encouraging. I find the more thoughtful missionaries enthusiastic in their forecast for the future. My own judgment is that the cause of missions, so far as foundation work and increased power for work, has been advanced at least twenty-five years by the massacres of 1900. I think the common people are thoroughly convinced that missions cannot be destroyed, and I am equally convinced that the authorities are also convinced that it is vain for them to rage and set themselves against Christianity. The one thing which an Asiatic recognizes is power and facts accomplished, and in the rebuilding of our missions and the awakening already begun and the reinforcement of the missions in men and material means they see and recognize power. Their own temples are falling into decay and ruin and our new buildings are rising in prominence and beauty. Their ignorant priesthood is sinking deeper and deeper into degradation, while our missionaries are every where known and recognized as men of `light and learning.' . . . It seems to me from all I can learn that there is no fear of another anti- foreign outbreak.''
And these are but a few of the many illustrations that could be given. Everywhere, the doors are open and Chinese are now being baptized by Protestant missionaries at the rate of about 15,000 a year, while a far larger number are enrolled as inquirers or catechumens. The interdenominational conference of missionaries at Kuling, August 7, 1903, declared:--
``It is now a fact that there is not one of the more than nineteen hundred counties of China and Manchuria from which we are shut out, and before the hundredth year of our work begins, we can say that if the gospel is not preached to every creature in China, the reason must be sought outside China. The opportunities of work are varied in their kind, vast in their extent. Never before have men crowded to hear the gospel as they are crowding now in the open air and indoors; in our chapels and in our guest-rooms we have opportunities to preach Christ such as can scarcely be found outside China. Never before has there been such an eager desire for education as there is now; our schools, both of elementary and of higher grades, are full, and everywhere applicants have to be refused. Never before has there been such a demand for Christian literature as there is now; our tract societies and all engaged in supplying converts and inquirers with reading material are doing their utmost, but are not able to overtake the demand; and the demand is certain to increase, for it comes from the largest number of people in the world reading one language. The medical work has from the first found an entrance into hearts that were closed against other forms of work. Its sphere of influence grows ever wider and is practically unlimited. Unique opportunities of service are afforded us by the large number of blind people, by lepers, and those suffering from incurable diseases; by the deaf and dumb, the insane and other afflicted people. In China the poor are always with us, and whensoever we will we may do them good.''
Not least among the hopeful signs for the future is the new treaty between the United States and China which was signed at Shanghai, October 8, 1903, and unanimously ratified by the United States Senate December 18, 1903. It not only secured an ``open door'' in China for Americans, but, if the veteran ``most favoured nation'' clause is again pressed into service, a priceless benefit to the whole civilized world as well as to China herself. For this treaty abolished the exasperating ``likin'' ; confirmed the right of American citizens to trade, reside, travel, and own property in China; extended to China the United States' copyright laws; gained a promise from the Chinese Government to establish a patent office in which the inventions of United States' citizens may be protected; and made valuable regulations regarding trade-marks, mining concessions, judicial tribunals for the hearing of complaints, diplomatic intercourse, and several other matters which, though sanctioned by custom, were often abridged or violated.
The treaty, moreover, called for the opening of two additional treaty ports, one of which is at Feng-tien-fu, more generally known as Mukden, important not only as a city of 200,000 inhabitants but as the capital of Manchuria and with both rail and river connection with the Gulf of Pe-chi-li and the imperial province of Chih-li. The other is at An-tung, which is important because of its situation on the Yalu River opposite the Korean frontier. Of course, the Russia-Japan War has post- poned the opening of these ports, but the recognition of China's right to open them by treaty with the United States is none the less significant.
Most important of all, the treaty removes, so far as any such enactment can remove, the last barrier to the extension of Christianity throughout China. In Article XIII of the English treaty with China, September 5, 1902, Great Britain agreed to join in a commission to secure peaceable relationships between converts and non-converts in China. But the American treaty goes much farther, as the following extract will show:--
``The principles of the Christian religion, as professed by the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, are recognized as teaching men to do good and to do to others as they would have others do to them. Those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall not be harassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, according to these tenets, peaceably teaches and practices the principles of Christianity shall in no case be interfered with or molested therefor. No restrictions shall be placed on Chinese joining Christian churches. Converts and non-converts, being Chinese subjects, shall alike conform to the laws of China, and shall pay due respect to those in authority, living together in peace and amity; and the fact of being converts shall not protect them from the consequences of any offense they may have committed before or may commit after their admission into the church, or exempt them from paying legal taxes levied on Chinese subjects generally, except taxes levied and contributions for the support of religious customs and practices contrary to their religion. Missionaries shall not interfere with the exercise by the native authorities of their jurisdiction over Chinese subjects; nor shall the native authorities make any distinction between converts and non-converts, but shall administer the laws without partiality, so that both classes can live together in peace.
``Missionary societies of the United States shall be permitted to rent and to lease in perpetuity as the property of such societies, buildings or lands in all parts of the Empire for missionary purposes and, after the title-deeds have been found in order and duly stamped by the local authorities, to erect such suitable buildings as may be required for carrying on their good work.''
This gives new prestige to American missionary effort and legally confirms the opening of the Empire from end to end to missionary residence, activity and toleration. All that France harshly obtained for Roman Catholic missions by the Berthemy convention of 1865 and by the haughty ultimatum of M. Gerard at the close of the war with Japan, the United States has now peacefully secured with the apparent good-will of the Chinese Government.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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