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Jonathan Swift - "A Modest Proposal"

Johann Wolfgang Goethe - "Italienische Reise Teil 1"

Charles Mackay - "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions"

Booker T. Washington - "An Autobiography"

New Forces in Old China

A >> ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN >> New Forces in Old China





[73] 720,540 Roman Catholics--compare p. 223 for Protestants.


Whatever may be said in favour of the Roman Catholics, it
is unquestionable that their methods are far more irritating to
the Chinese than the methods of the Protestants. Led by able
and energetic bishops, the priests acquire all possible business
property, demand large rentals, build imposing religious plants,
and baptize or enroll as catechumens all sorts of people. It is
notorious that the Roman Catholic priests quite generally
adopt the policy of interference on behalf of their converts.
Through the Minister of France at Peking they obtained an
Imperial Edict, dated March 15, 1899, granting them official
status, so that the local priest is on a footing of equality with
the local magistrate, and has the right of full access to him at
any time. Whether or not intended by the Roman Catholic
Church, the impression is almost universal in China among
natives and foreigners alike that, if a Chinese becomes a
Catholic, the Church will stand by him through thick and
thin, in time and in eternity. There are, indeed, exceptions.
Dr. Johnson, of Ichou-fu, told me of a Roman Catholic Christian
who, during the Boxer troubles, stealthily moved his goods
into Ichou-fu, burned his house, and then put in a claim for
indemnity. The heathen neighbours, when asked to pay, informed
the priest. He summoned the man, who confusedly
said that if he had not burned the house, the Boxers would have
done so, and he thought he had better do it at a convenient
time as it was sure to be burned anyway. The priest promptly
decided that he must suffer the loss himself. So the priests do
not always stand by their converts whether right or wrong.

No one, however, who is familiar with the general course of
the Roman Catholic Church in China, will deny that, as a
rule, the priests boldly champion the cause of their converts.
This is one secret of Rome's great and rapidly growing power
in China, and unquestionably, too, it is one of the chief causes
of Chinese hostility to missions. After many years of observation,
Dr. J. Campbell Gibson writes:--


``In the missions of the Church of Rome, they (treaty rights) are
systematically, and I am afraid one must say unscrupulously, used for the
gathering in of large numbers of nominal converts, whose only claim to
the Christian name is their registration in lists kept by native catechists,
in which they are entered on payment of a small fee, without regard to
their possession of any degree of Christian knowledge or character. In
the event of their being involved in any dispute or lawsuit, the native
catechists or priests, and even the foreign Roman Catholic missionaries,
take up their cause and press it upon the native magistrates. Not infrequently
a still worse course is pursued. Intimation is sent round the
villages in which there are large numbers of so-called Catholic converts
and these assemble under arms to support by force the feuds of their
co-religionists. The consequence is that the Catholic missions in southern
China, and I believe in the north also, are bitterly hated by the Chinese
people and by their magistrates. By terrorizing both magistrates and
people, they have secured in many places a large amount of apparent
popularity; but they are sowing the seeds of a harvest of hatred and bitterness
which may be reaped in deplorable forms in years to come.''[74]


[74] ``Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China,'' pp. 309,
310.


In my own interviews with Chinese officials, it was my custom
to lead the conversation towards the motives of those who had
attacked foreigners during the Boxer uprising, and without exception
the officials mentioned, among other causes, the interference
of Roman Catholic priests with the administration of
the law in cases affecting their converts. In several places in
the interior, this was the only reason assigned.

Said an intelligent Chinese official in Shantung: ``The
whole trouble is not with the Protestants but with the Catholics.
Protestant Christians do not go to law so often, and when they
do, the Protestant missionary does not, as a rule, interfere unless
he is sure they are right. But the Catholic Christians are
constantly involved in lawsuits, and the priests invariably stand
by them right or wrong. The priests seem to think that their
converts cannot be wrong. The result is that many Chinese
join the Roman Catholic Church to get the help of the priests
in the innumerable lawsuits that the Chinese are always waging.
And it is not surprising in such circumstances that Catholic
Christians are a bad lot.'' When I asked the magistrate of
Paoting-fu why the people had killed such kindly and helpful
neighbours as the Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries,
he replied:--``The people were angered by the interference
of the Roman Catholics in their lawsuits. They felt
that they could not obtain justice against them, and in their
frenzy they did not distinguish between Catholics and Protestants.''
The Roman Catholic Mission in the prefecture of
Paoting-fu, it should be remembered, is about two centuries
old, and the Catholic population is about 12,000, so that the
few hundreds of converts who have been gathered in the recent
work of the Protestants are very small in comparison, while the
splendid cathedral of the Roman Church, the spectacular character
of its services and the official status and aggressiveness
of its priests intensify the disproportion. The term Christian,
therefore, to the average man of Paoting-fu naturally means a
Roman Catholic rather than a Protestant.

Perhaps we should make some allowance for Oriental forms
of statement to one who was known to be a Protestant. The
politeness of an Oriental host to a guest is not always limited
by veracity, and it is possible that to Roman Catholics the
officials may blame the Protestants. But such unanimity of
testimony among so many independent and widely separated
officials must surely count for something, especially when the
grounds for it are so notorious. Undoubtedly, there are many
sincere Christians among the Roman Catholic Chinese, but
judging from the almost universal testimony that I heard in
China, the Roman Church is a veritable cave of Adullam for
unscrupulous and revengeful Chinese.

The evidence does not rest upon the testimony of Protestants
alone. If any one will take the trouble to look up the diplomatic
correspondence on this subject, he will find ample and
convincing testimony. February 9, 1871, the Tsung-li Yamen
addressed to the Foreign Legations at Peking a memorandum
together with eight propositions, the whole embodying the
complaints and objections of the Chinese Government to missionaries
and their work in China, and suggesting certain regulations
for the future. This memorandum included the following
paragraph:--


``The missionary question affects the whole question of pacific relations
with foreign powers--the whole question of their trade. As the Minister
addressed cannot but be well aware, wherever missionaries of the Romish
profession appear, ill-feeling begins between them and the people, and for
years past, in one case or another, points of all kinds on which they are
at issue have been presenting themselves. In earlier times when the
Romish missionaries first came to China, styled, as they were, `Si Ju,'
the Scholars of the West, their converts no doubt for the most part were
persons of good character; but since the change of ratifications in 1860,
the converts have in general not been of a moral class. The result has
been that the religion that professes to exhort men to virtue has come to
be lightly thought of; it is in consequence, unpopular, and its unpopularity
is greatly increased by the conduct of the converts who, relying on the
influence of the missionaries, oppress and take advantage of the common
people (the non-Christians): and yet more by the conduct of the missionaries
themselves, who, when collisions between Christians and the people
occur, and the authorities are engaged in dealing with them, take part
with the Christians, and uphold them in their opposition to the authorities.
This undiscriminating enlistment of proselytes has gone so far that
rebels and criminals of China, pettifoggers and mischief-makers, and such
like, take refuge in the profession of Christianity, and covered by this
position, create disorder. This has deeply dissatisfied the people, and
their dissatisfaction long felt grows into animosity, and their animosity
into deadly hostility. The populations of different localities are not aware
that Protestantism and Romanism are distinct. They include both under
the latter denomination. They do not know that there is any distinction
between the nations of the West. They include them all under one denomination
of foreigners, and thus any serious collision that occurs equally
compromises all foreigners in China. Even in the provinces not concerned,
doubt and misgiving are certain to be largely generated.''


The memorandum and its attached propositions are interesting
reading as showing the impression which the Chinese Government
had of Roman Catholic missionary work. The third
proposition included the following statement:--


``They (Roman Catholic converts) even go so far as to coerce the authorities
and cheat and oppress the people. And the foreign missionaries,
without inquiring into facts, conceal in every case the Christian evil-doer,
and refuse to surrender him to the authorities for punishment. It has
even occurred that malefactors who have been guilty of the gravest
crimes have thrown themselves into the profession of Christianity, and
have been at once accepted and screened (from justice). In every province
do the foreign missionaries interfere at the offices of the local authorities
in lawsuits in which native Christians are concerned. For example
in a case that occurred in Sze-chuen in which some native Christian
women defrauded certain persons (non-Christians) of the rent owing to
them, and actually had these persons wounded and killed, the French
Bishop took on himself to write in official form (to the authorities) pleading
in their favour. None of these women were sentenced to forfeit life
for life taken, and the resentment of the people of Sze-chuen in consequence
remains unabated.''


Mr. Wade, the British Minister at Peking, in reporting this
memorandum and its appended propositions to Earl Granville,
June 8, 1871, said:


``The promiscuous enlistment of evil men as well as good by the
Romish missionaries, and their advocacy of the claims advanced by these
ill-conditioned converts, has made Romanism most unpopular; and the
people at large do not distinguish between Romanist and Protestant, nor
between foreigner and foreigner; not that Government has made no effort
to instruct the people, but China is a large Empire.... Three-
fourths of the Romish missionaries in China, in all, between 400 and 500
persons, are French; and Romanism in the mouths of non-Christian
Chinese is as popularly termed the religion of the French as the religion
of the Lord of Heaven.''


June 27th of that year, Earl Granville wrote to Lord Lyons
that he had said to the French Charge d'Affaires:--


``I told M. Gavard that I could not pretend to think that the conduct
of the French missionaries, stimulated by the highest and most laudable
object, had been prudent in the interest of Christianity itself, and that the
support which had been given by the representatives of France to their
pretensions was dangerous to the future relations of Europe with China.''


The Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at
Peking, in communicating that memorandum and the attached
propositions to the State Department in Washington, March
20, 1871, said:--


``A careful reading of the Memorandum clearly proves that the great,
if not only, cause of complaint against the missionaries comes from the
action of the Roman Catholic priests and the native Christians of that
faith.... Had they (the Chinese Goverment) stated their complaints
in brief, without circumlocution, and stripped of all useless verbiage,
they would have charged that the Roman Catholic missionaries,
when residing away from the open ports, claim to occupy a semi-official
position, which places them on an equality with the provincial officer;
that they deny the authority of the Chinese officials over native Christians,
which practically removes this class from the jurisdiction of their own
rulers; that their action in this regard shields the native Christians from
the penalties of the law, and thus holds out inducements for the lawless
to join the Catholic Church, which is largely taken advantage of; that
orphan asylums are filled with children, by the use of improper means,
against the will of the people; and when parents, guardians, and friends
visit these institutions for the purpose of reclaiming children, their requests
for examination and restitution are denied, and lastly, that the French
Government, while it does not claim for its missionaries any rights of this
nature by virtue of treaty, its agents and representatives wink at these
unlawful acts, and secretly uphold the missionaries. . . . I do not
believe, and, therefore I cannot affirm, that all the complaints made
against Catholic missionaries are founded in truth, reason, or justice; at
the same time, I believe that there is foundation for some of their charges.
My opinions, as expressed in former despatches touching this matter, are
confirmed by further investigation. . . .''


On the same date, Minister Low wrote to the Tsung-li
Yamen:--


``It is a noticeable fact, that among all the cases cited there does not
appear to be one in which Protestant missionaries are charged with violating
treaty, law or custom. So far as I can ascertain, your complaints
are chiefly against the action and attitude of the missionaries of the
Roman Catholic faith; and, as these are under the exclusive protection
and control of the Government of France, I might with great propriety
decline to discuss a matter with which the Government of the United
States has no direct interest or concern, for the reason that none of its
citizens are charged with violating treaty or local law, and thus causing
trouble.''


This tendency of the Chinese to confuse Roman Catholics
and Protestants is further illustrated by the note addressed by
Minister Wen Hsiang to Sir R. Alcock:--


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


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

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

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


[75] Chapter VI.


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


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


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


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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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