The Uplift of China

CHAPTER 1. A GENERAL VIEW OF CHINA

F the unknown people who at an unknown time from an unknown place of departure, but probably from the extreme west of Asia, started on their march to the extreme east, were consciously choosing their destiny, they could not have chosen better nor more wisely. The country which we call China, but for which the Chinese equivalent is Middle Kingdom (now more appropriately expanded into Central Empire), is one of the most favorably situated regions on the earth’s surface. Lofty mountains give rise to a magnificent river system; there is a coast-line of perhaps two thousand miles, a fertile soil, a temperate climate, and every variety of production. China lies wholly in what is known as “ the belt of power,” within which all the great races of mankind have had their origin and have worked out their destiny. The Chinese Empire* is composed of several divisions, known as China Proper, or the Eighteen Provinces, with the dependencies of Man-

1To maintain unity in customs and religions, the text of this book has been confined to China Proper.

i

Favorable Location of China

Divisions and Area

Population

churia, Mongolia, Tibet, and Chinese Turkestan. A large part of this territory has never been surveyed at all, so that varying estimates of the area are readily accounted for. The figures quoted are from a standard authority, but it must be understood that they are approximations only, and merely represent ‘the last guess at the case.’ China Proper comprises 1,532,420 square miles; Manchuria, 363,610; Mongolia, 1,367,600; Tibet, 463,200; Turkestan, 550,340; making a total of 4,277,170 square miles. With this may be compared the area of the United States, together with Alaska, and the Hawaiian Islands, which with both the land and the water area of the last two divisions, is given as 3,567,563 square miles. Manchuria is a little larger than the province of Quebec and three times the size of the British Isles.

The question of the population of China is one of the essentially insoluble riddles of contemporaneous history. In 1904 Mr. Rockhill,’ after a careful inquiry, came to the conclusion that all the official estimates made within the past one hundred and fifty years are far in excess of the truth, and that the number of the inhabitants of China Proper at the present time is probably less than 270,000,000. The figures usually quoted are those furnished by the Chinese government, as the result of an estimate made for the purpose

1 Statesman’s Year-Book, 1906. 2 American Minister to China, 1907.

of the apportionment of the indemnity of 1901. According to this, the population of the Eighteen Provinces is 407,253,030, or about five and onethird times as large as that of the United States at the census of 1900. The population of Manchuria was estimated by the same authority as 16,000,000; that of Tibet at 6,500;000; that of Mongolia at 2,600,000; and that of Turkestan as 1,200,000; making a grand total for the whole empire of 433,553,030. On the whole, one may as well assume the round number of 400,000,000 as a working hypothesis for the population of China, although in the opinion of many good judges the figures may be much too large. On the foregoing basis, the population per square mile would be 266, the most dense being that of Shan-tung, with 683 to the square mile, and the least dense that of Kuang-hsi, with 67.

There is far more uniformity of size in the eighteen provinces than in the States of the American Union. The largest is Ssti-ch‘uan,’ which has 218,480 square miles, which may be compared with Texas with its 262,290 square miles; but while Texas had in 1900 something over 3,000,000 people, Ssti-ch‘uan is supposed to have about 69 millions, and that province, with the neighboring one of Kuei-chou (next to the smallest in population of all the provinces) had a population larger than that of the whole United

1 For the pronunciation and location of geographical names, see Index.

Size of the Provinces

Scenery

States at the last census. The smallest of the provinces is Ché-chiang, which is a trifle larger than the State of Indiana, but which has a population nearly five times as great.

To the traveler who passes through beautiful Japan to northern China, with its unvarying levels, the view is distinctly disappointing. But the Chinese Empire is broad and has every variety of landscape, lofty mountains (although these are the exception), the sublime gorges of the Yang-tzu, and in the south-central and southern provinces a semi-tropical Juxuriance of vegetation most pleasing and attractive to the eye, In mountainous regions, especially, temples are located with great skill so as to command the most advantageous sites, combining a view of man’s industry with a secure retreat from the cares of dusty earth. The pagoda is one of the few benefits which Buddhism has conferred on China, a relic of a period when faith was active and vital, instead as at present a mere historical reminiscence. Many of the bridges over Chinese canals are extremely picturesque, while the suspension-bridges over the rivers of the southwest made of bamboo ropes have attracted the admiration of all travelers. In the southern portions of China, city walls are found mantled with ivy, although undue sentimentalism is perhaps checked by the pervasive presence in the canals below of boatloads of liquid manure.

China is cut through by many great rivers, of Yang-tzi

which the mighty Yang-tzt, and the Huang Ho, or Yellow River, are the chief. Each of these rises in the mountains of Tibet, and finds its way eastward to the sea. The Yang-tzii, which is 60 miles wide at its mouth, with its numerous tributaries is to China what the Mississippi and Amazon are to the United States and South America. It is navigable by large ocean steamers to Han-k‘ou, more than 600 miles from its mouth. Steam vessels run to I-ch‘ang, about 400 miles farther up. Beyond this the famous Yang-tzii gorges begin, and although steamers have made the ascent to Chung-ch‘ing, about 725 miles above, the rapids are so dangerous that the route is at present impracticable. Each of the “Four Streams,” which give their name to Ssich‘uan, is an important avenue of trade.

The Yellow River, on the contrary, which makes a vast circuit through the northwest of the empire, passing through regions of clay and sand, is not only for the most part useless for navigation, but richly deserves the name of “ China’s Sorrow,” on account of perpetual overflows, its frequent changes of channel, and the immense expense of guarding against the breaking of the artificial banks, which are generally composed merely of earth, reinforced by stalks of sorghum. In the year 1887, especially, when the Yellow River completely altered its course, find-

River

Yellow River

Artificial Waterways

Interior Navigation

6 The Uplift ef China

ing its way by devious routes southward to the sea, it was the occasion of terrible disaster, countless villages being suddenly swept away like ants under a rain spout.

The canals of China, largely found in the central provinces, are numerous, and date from a time when none such existed in Europe. The socalled Grand Canal extends from Hang-chou, the capital of Ché-chiang, crossing the Yang-tzti and Yellow Rivers, to Lin-ch‘ing in Shan-tung, there entering a river flowing to Tientsin. The canal was formerly a great artery for the transport of the imperial tribute grain, but upon the adoption of the sea route it became superflous for that purpose, for which it has not been used since 1900.

All but the mountainous provinces have rivers of considerable importance, and no people ever better understood the art of using navigable waters than the Chinese. Relatively insignificant streams like the Wei River, with which the Grand Canal unites, conyey a traffic beyond all proportion to their size. Chinese craft are modeled after the water-fowl, not after the fish, and can traverse very shallow water. Some varieties of specially constructed double-enders carry surprising loads, while drawing only a few inches of water. The sails of cotton or of matting hang loosely to huge masts, and being stiffened with bamboo poles appear cumbrous and clumsy, yet

with these the boatmen can sail very close to the wind, and in general they manage their boats with a skill elsewhere unsurpassed. With a few minutes’ work the mast may be removed and laid

Kes NAN Pe NES)

CODE N pics CRE

am ies see Vie:

a <5 (HUN A oi ek ; HS! feng y

2 0)

ae a ght MAP / ~\ INDO- Cities named have 50,000 or more population

yr | Principal Rivers ne jCHINA Grand Canal ———..

oy ] Railway lines, bui {hee

flat, as in case of head winds, to economize resistance, or in passing under bridges.

In striking contrast to the number and the im- Lakes portance of its rivers, are the fewness and the

The Great Plain

The Loess Soil

unimportance of China’s lakes, of which those best known are the P‘o-yang, and the Tung-t‘ing, each of them shallow, and each highly untrustworthy at certain stages of water.

The Great Plain extends from the Yang-tzu River to the mountains which divide Chih-li from Shan-hsi and Manchuria, and supports a population estimated at more than a hundred millions, reminding one in density of inhabitants of the province of Bengal. It is largely alluvial in its origin. In many wide regions incalculable harm has been done by the devastations of the rivers which the Chinese have not been able to control. Flooding is often followed by the appearance of a nitrous efflorescence, injurious, and often fatal to the growth of crops.

The loess soil occurs mainly in an extensive region of which the province of Shan-hsi is the center. It consists of a peculiar brownish earth penetrated with minute porous tubes running from above downward, which by capillary attraction, when there is sufficient water, draw up moisture from below. At other times drought and famine are synonymous terms. These deposits are now considered to have been formed by agelong dust-storms. The terraces of the loess country are one of the sights of China, as are the caves dug in this soil for dwellings, which, though damp, dark, and smoky, serve as homes for great numbers of the poor. This soil with adequate

A General View of China fe)

rain is naturally rich without fertilization. The loess deposits, owing to the frequent and immense fissures, are a great obstruction to travel, and are proving a difficult problem for the builders of railways,

The Japan Current, prevented by outlying islands from reaching the shore, has less effect upon China than has the Gulf Stream on North America. As Dr. Williams mentions, “ the average temperature of the whole empire is lower than that of any other country in the same latitude, and the coast is subject to the same extremes as the Atlantic States. Canton is the coldest place on the globe in its latitude, and the only place within the tropics where snow falls near the seashore.” While the climate is in general much more regular in its periodicity than that of the United States, it varies greatly in a series of years. At Peking the thermometer ranges from zero (Fahrenheit) to above 100 degrees, yet the cold is complained of as more penetrating than in much higher latitudes, although the winters are dry. In the warmer months, southern and central China are oppressively hot, and, as in India, the night often gives little relief, while, in the northern provinces, this is not usually the case. Sst-ch‘uan is largely damp and steamy in summer, the number of clear days being few when compared with the north. In northern China there are peculiar electrical conditions which af-

The Climate

Rainfall

Typhoons

Diseases

fect unfavorably the nervous system of many foreigners.

The so-called rainy season in China is to a considerable extent dependent upon the southwest monsoon. The amount of the rainfall varies from 70 inches in Canton, to 36 in Shanghai, and 16 in Chih-li, which are the averages of several annual observations, but the variations in successive years are marked. On the Great Plain three fourths of the rain generally falls during July and August. In that region the spring rains are generally scanty and often almost absent. That this is no new circumstance is indicated by the ancient adage that “ Rain in spring is as precious as oil.” Among the many reforms needed in China a redistribution of the rainfall is one of the most urgent—a much larger supply in spring and in the late autumn, and much less in summer.

The coast of China is liable to terrible typhoons, one of the most terrific of which occurred in September, 1906, in Hongkong, almost without warning, resulting in the loss of many thousand lives, in the wrecking of steam vessels of all sorts and sizes, ard involving a loss estimated at five million dollars, all in the space of less than two hours. The destructive land tornadoes so common in the United States, appear to be almost or quite unknown in China.

Epidemic diseases, while common in China, are much less fatal than in India. At intervals

A General View of China II

Asiatic cholera commits fearful ravages which are practically unchecked. Small-pox, diphtheria, and some other diseases may be said to be both endemic and epidemic, never wholly absent, and not infrequently recurring with extreme violence. The bubonic plague has firmly rooted itself in the southeastern part of China, and in Hongkong, and the percentage of mortality, largely although not exclusively among the Chinese, is in this time of enlightenment unprecedented. Tubercular affections are perhaps the most fatal ‘to the Chinese. Many of the foregoing diseases are entirely preventable, the high death-rate being due to the dense population, and to the equally dense ignorance of sanitary laws, as well as to complete indifference to them when pointed out. Yet foreigners in China are probably as healthful as in their native lands, with similar climatic conditions. It may be mentioned incidentally that in the early part of 1903 there were seven men still engaged in active missionary service in China who arrived in the ‘ fifties.’

The mineral resources of China appear to be practically inexhaustible, and are as yet virtually untouched. Coal and iron, twin pillars of modern industry, exist in quantities elsewhere unsurpassed. The coal-bearing areas alone have been estimated at 419,000 square miles, a territory larger by some 13,000 square miles than that of all New England, together with all the

Mineral Resources

states bordering on the Atlantic coast from New York to Florida. Every traveler through Shanhsi is struck with the evidence not only of overwhelming riches of coal and iron, but of many other minerals, including almost all which are of

COAL @® IRON

Sein

economic importance. It is a remarkable fact that instead of being limited as in the United States to a few favored districts, the coal measures of China are found all over the empire and in every province. Pure magnetic iron ore is produced

in the greatest abundance. Some of the mines furnish a grade of coal quite equal to the best Pennsylvania anthracite. ‘‘ The mineral wealth of Yun-nan alone is something enormous and almost inexhaustible. . . . Rubies and sapphires, garnets and topazes, amethysts and jade, abound in the western prefectures ; gold, silver, platinum, nickel,’ copper, tin, lead, zinc, iron, coal, and salt also abound. Copper is especially abundant; its ores are of excellent quality and have been worked for ages in over one thousand places.” ’” Gold has also been found in paying quantities in the sands and alluvial deposits of Mongolia. Salt has always been a government monopoly. It is produced not only by evaporation from seawater, but from natural deposits, and in Sstich‘uan from brine brought up from deep wells. That this vast potential wealth soon to be made available, has been hitherto useless, is chiefly due to three causes: profound ignorance of geology and of chemistry, invincible superstitions about geomancy, féng-shui,’ and official exactions especially in mining the precious metals.

China is perhaps the only country in the world which in the past has been entirely capable of

1Little, The Far East, 126.

2The belief held by the Chinese in relation to the spirits or genii that rule over winds and waters, especially running streams and subterranean waters. This doctrine is universal and inveterate among the Chinese, and, in great measure, prompts their hostility to railroads and telegraphs, since they believe that such structures anger the spirits of the air and waters, and consequently cause floods and typhoons.

Agriculture

Currency

supplying its own wants. Its inhabitants, originally pastoral, early became agricultural, and they devoted themselves to tillage with an assiduity and a success elsewhere unequaled. Their farming is frequently characterized rather as gardening. They area race of irrigators. They understand the rotation of crops, and in a crude way something of the qualities of soils. Ages ago they learned to apply fertilizers with a fidelity and a patience without which they would long since have been unable to support so great a population. The country is unusually fertile. The extensive province of Ssti-ch‘uan, for example, has a salubrious climate, ranging from the temperate to the subtropical. Its soil is rich and most products yield three or four crops annually. Wheat, barley, maize, millet, peas, and beans are cultivated in the north, while rice, sugar, indigo, cot- ~ ton, opium, tea, and silk are produced in the south.

The only currency of China until recently has been the brass cash with a square hole for stringing, the size varying from an American five cent silver piece up to a diameter of more than an inch. These last were for the most part issued one hundred or two hundred years ago. It is not uncommon to meet with coins in daily use which were minted in the T’ang dynasty, perhaps a thousand years ago. A single cash represents the smallest unit of value, ranging from one-fifteenth to one-twentieth of an American cent. Silver, in

the form of bullion weighing fifty ounces (taels), more or less, or in lumps of ten ounces or less, still forms the medium of the greater part of Chinese exchange, but there is a system of banks, by drafts on which money may be transferred from place to place. The tael is divided decimally, as are all Chinese weights and measures, with the exception of the catty (equal to one and one-third pounds), which as a rule contains 16 ounces, though the number varies up to 28 ounces.

The standards of weight are never the same in any two places (unless by accident), and the same place may have an indefinite number of silver or other weights, making the losses in buying and selling alike serious and inevitable. Within the past few years the various provincial mints have been pouring forth so-called “ten cash” pieces (worth in reality only from two and one half to six of the old cash) at the estimated rate of between one and two billions every year. The people would only take them on condition that they were available for the payment of taxes. When at a later period this was forbidden, a financial crisis ensued, prices rose, and much distress ensued. The central government is now taking over all the provincial mints, but there is still no assurance of a uniform copper or silver currency for the whole empire.

In view of its immense resources.the question is natural: Is China a rich country? It contains

Varying Standards

Wealth

almost illimitable possibilities, yet the people taken as a whole are poor. So fierce and so continuous is the struggle for mere existence that it is natural that whatever once for all puts an end to it, should be regarded as divine. In many parts of China the god of wealth is the most popular divinity. In the triad which sums up all that man can ask or hope for, wealth, official emoluments, and old age, the place of honor is given to the most important, without which the others would be barren. With the exception of the purchase of land, the supply of which is limited, there are few safe investments. In every business the risks are great. Interest on loans varies from 24 to 36 per cent. or even more.

Introduction —_Tn view of the wealth of China and the poverty

y

and Grazing of its inhabitants, the question naturally arises, what are the causes, and what improvements can be inaugurated to ameliorate conditions. The wasteful habits of the people, especially in the north of China, have resulted in the entire obliteration of the forests, so that the lack of wood not only for fuel but for economic purposes is severely felt. Deforestation of large areas has also reacted on the climate, causing long periods of drought. True to the instinct of economy among the people, they have not hesitated to grub the roots of plants and grass, as a substitute for firewood, and have in this manner denuded the soil, The surface of the soil thus deprived of

its natural protection is exposed to the duststorms which occur several times annually. One of these dust-storms it has been calculated bears out to sea several million tons of fine loess soil. By the introduction of scientific agriculture for soils and for seeds, the improvement of old plants and the introduction of new ones, the encouragement of cattle raising and the afforestation of barren mountains, the soil would be protected and the climate moderated so that vast sections would be reclaimed and China’s resources marvelously increased.

As has already been suggested, the floods along the Yellow River are frequent and are always fraught with widespread destruction. The weak attempts of the Chinese to curb the course of the rivers have availed nothing. This is due to a lack of engineering skill and the dishonest peculations of the mandarins supervising the work. While the Chinese are pioneers in irrigation and have extended their system, yet there is urgent need for the deepening and broadening of the countless artificial waterways, the employing of modern engineering methods to remove rapids and other obstructions to navigation, and the construction of reservoirs to control the flood waters of the great rivers. These and other innovations will make a new physical China, put an end to famines, and enable the country to sup-

Improved Engineering Methods

Industrial Progress

port much more than its present population with far less difficulty than is now felt. :

It is not at all improbable that China can double both her population and her products. - At any rate, the development of her immense natural resources has not as yet seriously been touched and “ commercial and industrial changes are but beginning. With only three thousand miles of Chinese railway, experience since 1900 has shown the most conservative Chinese that here is an Aladdin’s lamp which they have but to rub to produce a wealth beyond the dreams of even Oriental avarice. The line from Peking to Niu-ch‘uang is supposed, during the year 1905, to have netted the Chinese government between $300,000 and $400,000 (silver?) per month. Is it strange that Chinese geomancy (féng-shui) practically disappears as an inhibitory force, and that the dreaded earth-dragon crawls down a little deeper to be out of the way of the rumble of trains and the piercing of mining shafts? The new industrial China will involve one of the mightiest transformations in the history of mankind,—hundreds of millions of sturdy agriculturists metamorphosed into manufacturers. The great plain of China produces unlimited

1 This is the railway mileage in operation (1907); while the total,—in operation, under construction, and projected, including

the railroads built under the Manchurian concession,—approximates nine thousand miles.

?The Mexican silver dollar, used extensively in the Orient, and having a value of about fifty eents.

=

cotton. Its teeming population are all potential agents by which steam and electricity will revolutionize the empire of the East. The city of Hank‘ou, on the Yang-tzii River, is probably destined to become one of the greatest manufacturing centers of the world. Shanghai is rapidly becoming the commercial metropolis of the empire, much as is New York that of the United States. To control this unprecedented development, and to have a share in its potentialities, is the ambition of every trading country.” *

The theater of commercial and political activity in this century is the Pacific Ocean. Situated in closest proximity to one half of the world’s population, China is destined to play a leading part in the concert of the nations. With her two thousand miles of coast-line facing the Pacific; with a people equal to if not superior to the Anglo-Saxons in industry, economy, and perseverance; with millions of cheap laborers and almost unlimited raw material; with improved methods of agriculture and the introduction of modern machinery in mining and manufacturing; with the expansion of navigation and the

‘extension of roads and railroads; with the estab-

lishment of a staple monetary system and commercial confidence; with the peopling and development of the vast hinterland of Manchuria,

1 The Outlook, March 24, 1906, page 704.

Mastery of the Pacific

Opportunity of Christianity

Mongolia, Tibet, and Turkestan, is it not reasonable to suppose that when the strongest race in the Orient is awakened, the mastery of the Pacific commercially and politically will be in the hands of the Chinese?

China has long been a commercial field coveted by great powers. The greed of Western nations has by degrees thrust open her doors. China is open! But who shall enter,—Occidental civilization with her vices and materialism?—or the Church with her message of life and salvation? In this strategic period of transformation, shall not Christianity outstrip all other competitors in the uplift of China?

SUGGESTIONS FOR USING THE QUESTIONS.

Most of these questions are thought questions. That is, they require for their answers some original thinking. This form of question has been chosen for insertion in the text-book (1) because questions which constitute a mere memory test of the facts of the text can easily be constructed by any leader or member who makes an outline of the principal facts, and (2) because mere memory questions, although they have their uses, yield far less than thought questions either in mental development or in permanent impression. In some cases complete answers will be found in the text-book; usually statements that will serve as a basis for inference; but u few questions appeal solely to the general knowledge and common sense of the student. The greatest sources of inspiration and growth will be, not what the text-book adds to the student, but what the student adds to the text-book; the former is only a means to the latter.

In using these questions, therefore, let the leader first gather from the chapter or from previous chapters all that relates to the subject. It will be found profitable to jot down this material so that it will be all under the eye at once; then think, using freely all the knowledge, mental power, and reference books available. For the sake of definiteness, conclusions should be written out. It is not supposed that the average leader will be able to answer all these questions satisfactorily; otherwise, there would be little left for the class session. The main purpose of the session is to compare imperfect results and arrive at greate1 7sm~pleteness by comparison and discussion.

It is not supposed that the entire list of questions will be used in any one case, especially when the sessions last only an hour. The length of the session, the

maturity of the class, and the taste of the leade. will all influence the selection that will be mace. In many cases the greatest value of these questions will be to suggest others that will be better. Those marked * require more mature thought and should be made the basis of discussion.

There has been no attempt to follow the order of paragraphs in the text-book in more than a general way.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I

Aim: IN View oF HER RESOURCES AND PROBABLE FuTure, To DETERMINE THE IMPORTANCE OF CHINA’S EVANGELIZATION

I. The Natural Resources of China.

1. If you had to live in Asia, in what zone would you choose to live?

2, In which of the five zones of the earth are the present world powers located?

3. Has location anything to do with their prominence?

4. How does the latitude of China compare with that of the United States?

5. Could you choose in Asia a more favorable latitude than China possesses?

6. What is the advantage, especially in Asia, of having a position on the seacoast?

7. Of what advantage is it for a country to extend over several degrees of latitude?

8. Compare the area and population of Ssii-ch‘uan province wath that of France.

9. Compare the area and population of Shantung province with that of Illinois.

10. Compare the area and population of the eighteen provinces with that of the United States.

1G,

If.

12.

13.

14.

r

16.

tds

(8.

19. 20.

Construct a chart that shall present the vastness of the population of China in the most striking way possible.

How does the coast-line of China compare with that of the United States. (Consult map.)

What signs of appreciation of the value of China’s harbors have been shown by European powers?

What other waterways in the world compare in navigability with the Yang-tzu?

How do these compare in the extent of population which they serve?

For climatic reasons would you care to live farther north in Asia than the northern boundary of China?

Would you care to live farther south than the southern boundary ?

What quality of soil is usually found in great river basins?

What other soil in China is of special fertility? How do the mineral deposits of China compare witn those of any other country you know?

Hindrances to Econonuc Progress that say be Removed.

Why does not the mere possession of such a favorable location and such immense resources make China at present a rich country?

In what ways will the introduction of railroads affect the wealth of the country? Which population may safely become more dense, an agricultural or a manufacturing population?

WH.

4. What will be the effect on China of the introduction of manufactures?

s.* Examine carefully Chapter I to see what recommendations you should make if you were appointed forestry commissioner of China.

6.* What do you think could be accomplished bv energetic measures along this line?

7.* What should you recommend if you were commissioner of irrigation?

8.* What should you hope to accomplish by this?

9.* What effect would the evangelization of China have upon her economic condition?

China’s Probable Future.

1. How does China rank among the nations of the earth in potential resources?

2. Which will probably grow more rapidly in the next fifty years, the numbers of the population of the United States, or the general intelligence of the population of China?

3. Which population will be the more valuable economically at the end of that time?

4. What effect will the development of China’s natural resources have upon the standard of living and general intelligence of the people?

5. How will China rank among the nations of the earth when this material development is realized?

6. Is this development likely to be long delayed?

What will be China’s influence in the world if she remain unevangelized?

sy *

8. What is the greatest problem of the twentieth

century before the Church?

REFERENCES’ FOR ADVANCED STUDY—CHAPTER I

J. Agriculture.

NG

III.

IV.

Ball: Things Chinese, 13-26.

Bard: Chinese Life in Town and Country, XVII. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, to.

Denby: China and Her People, Vol. 1, X. Douglas: History of China, VI.

Gorst: China, VII.

Gray: China, XXIII, XXIV.

Mineral Resources.

Ball: Things Chinese, 307-312.

Bard: Chinese Life in Town and Country, 157, 158. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, ro. Colquhoun: China in Transformation, 58-68. Gorst: China, II.

Jernigan: China in Law and Commerce, 330, 337, 341, 356, 387, 391, 302.

Parker: China, 153-155.

Keltie: Statesman’s Year-Book (1906) 768.

Climate. Ball: Things Chinese, 173-177. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 9, 10. Brown: New Forces in Old China, 18, 84. Nevius: China and the Chinese, 28, 29.

Commerce.

Brown: New Forces in Old China, 40, 101, 109, 117, Zi 020 13018305.

Colquhoun: China in Transformation, VI. Denby: China and Her People, Vol. 2, II, III, IV.

1 The references at the end of each chapter have been selected as widely as possible to meet the needs of all classes. Those yecommended in the ‘‘ Suggestions to Leaders for the Class Session’’ are largely chosen from the books in the Special Reference Library on China.

Parker: China, VII. Wildman: China’s Open Door, XI.

The Future of China.

Brown: New Forces in Old China, VIII, IX, XIII. Denby:.China and Her People, Vol. 2, XVI, XVII. Millard: The New Far East, XV, XVI, XVII. Norman: The Peoples and Policies of the Far East, XVIII, KX.

Weale: The Reshaping of the Far East, Vol. 2, XXXV.

A GREAT RACE WITH A GREAT INHERITANCE

When Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness, Chinese laws and literature and Chinese religious knowledge excelled that of Egypt. A hundred years before the north wind rippled over the harp of David, Wung Wang, an emperor of China, composed classics which are committed to memory at this day by every advanced scholar of the empire. While Homer was composing and singing the Iliad, China’s blind minstrels were celebrating her ancient heroes, whose tombs had already been with them through nearly thirteen centuries. Her literature was fully developed before England was invaded by the Norman conquerors. The Chinese invented firearms as early as the reign of England’s first Edward, and the art of printing five hundred years before Caxton was born. They made paper A. D. 150, and gunpowder about the commencement of the Christian era. A thousand years ago the forefathers of the present Chinese sold silks to the Romans, and dressed in these fabrics when the inhabitants of the British Isles wore coats of blue paint and fished in willow canoes. Her great wall was built two hundred and twenty years before Christ was born at Bethlehem, and contains material enough to build a wall five or six feet high around the globe.

—J.T Gracey.

II

CHAPTER 2.

INHERITANCE

T is a popular Chinese proverb that antiquity and modern times are alike, and that Allunder-Heaven (China) are one family,—a saying which may be regarded as an epitome of her history. “No other nation,” says one of the most recent writers upon China, “ with which the world is acquainted has been so constantly true to itself; no other nation has preserved its type so unaltered; no other nation has developed a civilization so completely independent of any extraneous influences; no other nation has elaborated its own ideals in such absolute segregation from alien thought; no other nation has preserved the long stream of its literature so entirely free from foreign affluents; no other nation has ever reached a moral and national elevation comparatively so high above the heads of contemporary states.” * Chinese historians begin their legendary history at a period about thirty centuries before the Christian era, but where it ends and where solid

1 Brinkley, Oriental Series: Japan and China.

Onc Great Family

Length of History

Influence of Confucius

A Continuous Evolution

The First Emperor

footing begins is in the minds of Western scholars quite unsettled, some deciding upon 2300 to 2000 years B. C., others selecting’ the beginning of the Chou dynasty, 1122 B. C., and still others a later date. The important fact is that, thirtyfive, forty, or perhaps even forty-five centuries ago, the institutions of the Chinese people, their language, arts, government, and religion, had begun to develop on lines from which no departure has ever been made.

Confucius was born in the Chou dynasty, B. C. 551, and with his face set toward the even then immeasurable past, lamented the good old times of Yao and Shun, from fifteen hundred to two thousand years before him, and the Chinese people, following his lead, have continued lamenting them down to the present time.

For a student of the outline of China’s development to burden his memory with the names of monarchs and the dates of dynasties is wholly unnecessary. But it is essential to gain a distinct impression of the fact that, from mythical, semi-mythical, semi-historical, and historical times, the evolution of China and the Chinese has been continuous and uninterrupted.

Aside from her great sages, the name which perhaps most Occidentals are disposed to place first in importance is that of Shih Huang-ti, the self-styled First Emperor, who not only built the Great Wall, abolished feudalism, and unified

A Great Race and Inheritance 31

the empire, but out of vanity ordered the complete destruction of most of the literature of China, the more important parts of which were afterward recovered. Dr. Williams terms him “the Napoleon of China—one of those extraordinary men who turn the course of events and give an impress to subsequent ages,” but Chinese historians detest his name and his acts.

The Han dynasty (B. C. 202-A. D. 221) is of special interest because the northern Chinese still style themselves ‘Sons of Han,” because in it the competitive system of examinations had its rise, and because its emperors “ developed literature, commerce, arts, and good government to a degree unknown before anywhere in Asia.”

The T‘ang dynasty (618-907) marks another of the high-water periods of Chinese history, when China “was probably the most. civilized country on earth,’ an era of schools and literary examinations, of the cultivation of poetry, of the incorporation of the inhabitants of the southern coast (who still call themselves ‘ Sons of T‘ang’) into the main body of the people,

and of the extension of the empire to the banks’

of the Caspian Sea.

In the Sung dynasty (960-1127) lived the famous historian Ssti-ma Kuang, a great socialist minister of state named Wang An-shih (who anticipated many modern communistic theories and incidentally nearly ruined the empire), and

Han Dynasty

The T‘ang Dynasty

Sung Dynasty

Chu Hsi, the acute and profound commentator on the classics, whose interpretations have continued the standard of orthodoxy down to the present time.

Yisnaed In the Yiian, the first foreign (Mongol)

Dynasties dynasty (1280-1368), under the great Kublai Khan, Marco Polo made his memorable visit to Cathay. The Mongol dynasty was short-lived, and was replaced by the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368-1644), during which time European ships first visited Chinese waters, the empire being at last face to face with the: West.

Manchu From 1644 to the present time China has been ruled by a race of Manchus, invited in to assist one of the parties in internal disputes and judiciously deciding to remain and keep the empire for themselves. They have styled theirs the Great Pure, or Ta Ch‘ing dynasty.

An Unvarying The apparent monotony of Chinese history is mainly due to the fact that similar causes have always produced, with minor variations, similar results. The founders of dynasties were necessarily men of action and of force, who concentrated their power, returned to the old ways, abolished abuses, gradually tranquilizing and unifying the empire. After a certain (or rather an uncertain) period the original impulse, under degenerate descendants, was exhausted, abuses again multiplied, rebellions increased, and the decree of Heaven was held to have been lost.

A Great Race and Inheritance 33

Much paralyzing disorder ensuing, a new dynasty gradually got itself established, to repeat after a few score or a few hundred years the same process.

“The government of China is that of an absolute, despotic monarchy. The emperor rules by virtue of a divine right derived direct from Heaven, and he is styled ‘The Son of Heaven.’ This divine right he retains as long as he rules in conformity with the decrees of Heaven. When the dynasty falls into decay by the vices of its rulers, Heaven raises up another who, by force of arms, the virtue of bravery, and fitness for the post, wrests the scepter from the enfeebled grasp of him who is unfit to retain it any longer. This idea has exerted a beneficial effect on the sovereigns of China, who feel that on the one hand they are dependent upon high Heaven for the retention of their throne, and who humbly and publicly confess their shortcomings in times of floods and drought. On the other hand, though there is no House of Commons to exercise a check on the unrestrained power of the sovereign, there is the general public opinion of the people, who, being educated in the principles that underlie all true government, are ready to apply them to their rulers when they forget, or act grossly in opposition to, them. To see the system of patriarchal government carried out in its entirety, one must come to China. The em-

Government

The Teaching of the Sages

A Conception of Moral Order

peror stands in loco parentis to the common people, and his officers occupy a similar position. The principles which have formed the framework of government for millenniums among these ancient, stable, and peace-loving people, may be found in a study of the rule of the ancient kings, Yao and Shun, and their successors, and in the precepts inculcated by Confucius and Mencius.”*

Prominent among the inheritances from China’s past must be placed the teaching of her sages. This should be considered as one of the largest gifts ever bestowed by the Father of Lights upon any race of the children of men. The defects and the errors of this teaching are not to be blinked, but these do not alter the fact that a Power that makes for righteousness is recognized, that a lofty ideal of virtue is perpetually held up, and that wrong-doing is threatened with punishment.

A conception of moral order and a theory of human government singularly adapted to the people is one of the priceless assets of the Chinese which they have received from antiquity. The principles which underlie the Chinese system may be said to be in China undisputed, and indeed indisputable. Even the forms of political administration have their roots in the earliest of the Chinese classics. The numerous wars and rebellions of Chinese history are to be regarded,

1 Ball: Things Chinese, 319.

A Great Race and Inheritance 35

not as a protest against the ideals, but against the failure to carry them into execution. It was not the system which was thought to be at fault, but the men who had perverted it.

The only aristocracy in China has been the student class, and yet under their democratic system of education examinations have been open to men of every rank. Official position being the reward of success, the system has stimulated general participation and has undoubtedly elevated the standard of education. It has also attracted a superior class to public office, because only men of ability could qualify. As the classics studied have moral worth, they have improved the character of the people. Although not more than one in fifty has obtained official position, the unsuccessful have been influential in molding and controlling public opinion and have done much to maintain a stable, united, and peaceful China.

One of the greatest virtues among the Chinese is filial piety, while disobedience is one of the greatest crimes. From early childhood they are taught to obey their parents. While the duties of children to parents are exacting, they have nurtured a respect for parentage that children of the West would do well to emulate. The system also insists upon the proper care of the body, as it is received in perfect form from the parents. It has imposed upon the nation a sense

Educational System

Filial Piety

Absence of Caste

Gradations in Society

of obedience and subordination that has prevented revolt and anarchy. That filial piety has been in China a mighty unifying force, and that the days of the Chinese people have indeed been long in the land that the Lord has given them, are indisputable facts.

There is no caste in China and very little caste feeling. It is said that one of the T’ang dynasty emperors tried to introduce caste into China and failed. Any one, with few minor exceptions, may aspire to rise and many constantly do so, after starting from the humblest beginnings. A native writer thus describes the gradations in society :

“First the scholar: because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the intellect that distinguishes man above the lower orders of beings, and enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for other creatures. Second, the farmer: because the mind cannot act without the body, and the body cannot exist without food; so that farming is essential to the existence of man, especially in civilized society. Third, the mechanic: because, next to food, shelter is a necessity, and the man who builds a house comes next in honor to the man who provides food. Fourth, the tradesman: because, as society increases and its wants are multiplied, men to carry on exchange and barter become a necessity, and so the merchant comes into existence. His oc-

A Great Race and Inheritance a7

cupation—shaving both sides, the producer and consumer—tempts him to act dishonestly ; hence his low grade. Fifth, the soldier stands last and lowest in the list, because his business is to destroy and not to build up society. He consumes what others produce, but produces nothing himself that can benefit mankind. He is, perhaps, a necessary evil.” *

A complex group of race traits form an important part of the inheritance of the Chinese people, a few of which are here selected, not of course as a complete enumeration, but merely as illustrations.

The Chinese are a hearty people, fitted for any

climate from the subarctic to the torrid zones. |

Race Traits

| Physical | Vitality

|

The average Chinese birth-rate is unknown, but |

it may be doubted whether it is elsewhere exceeded. Infant mortality is enormously high, floods, famine, and pestilence annually destroy great numbers of adults, yet in a few years the waste appears to be repaired. Aged people, who everywhere abound, may often be seen engaged in heavy manual labor, occasionally working as masons and carpenters, and frequently in the fields, when past eighty years. Every dispensary and hospital in China contains records of a wide range of diseases and surgical cases often long neglected and chronic. Yet under skilful treatment even these frequently make the most sur-

1 Quoted by Beach, Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 45, 46.

Adaptiveness

prising recoveries. Almost all Chinese exhibit wonderful endurance of physical pain, constantly submitting to surgical operations without anesthetics and without wincing. As a people the Chinese have constitutions of singular flexibility and toughness, and upon occasion can bear hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and exposure, perhaps (with the exception of the Japanese), to a greater degree than any other race. From a physical point of view, there is no group of mankind now in existence, if indeed there ever has been any, better qualified to illustrate the survival of the fittest, than the Chinese.

While the Chinese are not an inventive race, they possess a phenomenal capacity for adaptation to their eiivironment. Having only the rudiments of natural science, they ages ago empiri cally made discoveries of the latent capacities of earth, air, and sea. Gunpowder, the mariners’ compass, and the art of printing from blocks were familiar to the Chinese ages before they were known in the West. Thorough fertilization of the land, the practise of terracing hills and cultivation of the slopes, systematic and general irrigation, rotation of crops, the use of leguminous plants as food and their cultivation for resting the soil, the care of the silkworm and the weaving of silk, the carving of wood and of

1The compounding of suaow dcr first by the Chinese is dis< puted by some writers.

A Great Race and Inheritance 39

ivory, the manufacture of lacquer, as well as a host of other industries, are all instances of this talent, and the list might be indefinitely extended. No people are more fertile in resource, more skilful in the application of mind to problems of matter, but when steam and electricity become universally available throughout the empire, the present high efficiency of the Chinese will be multiplied many fold.

This wonderful gift is exhibited on a vast scale 7)

in the perpetuation of the Chinese race from prehistoric times till now, without check from without, without essential decay from within. In classical times, as is shown by many warnings in ancient books, there was the greatest danger that strong drink would be their ruin, but by degrees that peril was surmounted. Within the past two centuries opium, by far the most deadly evil in their long history, has even more seriously threatened to transform the Chinese, as one of their leading statesmen expressed it, “ into satyrs and devils.” * In the year 1729 a drastic imperial edict was issued against the use of this poisonous drug, but the growing foreign commercial interest in its importation rendered the decree a dead letter. The determined effort of Commissioner Lin in 1839 to drive opium out of China, brought on war. In 1906, after a lapse of 177 years, the imperial prohibition is renewed, and an

1Chang Chih Tung: China’s Only Hope, 73.

The Talent r

Continuance

Absence of Nerves

apparently resolute effort is set on foot to put a stop to the smoking of opium and probably also to the cultivation of the poppy plant,—although the latter is still in the future tense. The Chinese, as we have seen, have twice * been overrun by other races, and in each instance by sheer superiority have eliminated or absorbed their conquerors, and the ancient regime has gone on essentially undisturbed. Were this test to be indefinitely repeated, the result would almost certainly be the same. By overwhelming physical power the Chinese might indeed be ‘ conquered,’ but without their help China could never be administered. For the compulsory assimilation of the Chinese people to other standards than their own, even geologic epochs would not suffice.

In this age of steam and electricity, Western civilization has developed a conspicuous nervous system. The twirling pencil, the twitching fingers, and anxious face, are daily reminders of taut nerves. The Occidental composure is easily shattered by delay and disappointment, while to the Chinese it matters not how long he is required to remain in one position; and he will stick steadily to his work from morning till night, plodding faithfully at the most monotonous task. Even the children display a capacity for keeping quiet that would drive a Western child insane.

1By Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century and by the Manchus in the seventeenth.

A Great Race and Inheritance 41

The Chinese cannot understand why an Occidental should participate in athletics without pay. Taking exercise is an unknown art among them. They are not subject to worries and anxieties. They have the ability to accept lawsuits, famine, and disaster calmly. Whatever the future impact of the Chinese with the Occidental, it is not unreasonable to assume that in the twentieth century in the race for world supremacy the most enduring will be the tireless and phlegmatic Chinese.

If the Chinese have any talent at all, they have and have always had a talent for work. If the physical empire which they have inherited be itself regarded as a talent, by laborious, patient, and intelligent development of their inheritance, they may be said to have gained ten other talents. They rise early and toil late. Farmers in particular toil ceaselessly. Artificers of all kinds ply their trades, not merely from dawn till dark, but often far into the night. In the early hours, long before daybreak, may be heard the dull thud of the tin-foil beaters of Canton or that of the rice hullers of Fu-chien. The stone-cutters of Chiang-hsi crawl up the steep mountain sides before sunrise, have their food sent up in buckets, themselves returning after sunset, while all day long through fog and even in the drizzling rain may be heard the steady click of their chisels. Merchants great and small ex-

Industry aod Economy

The Talent for Content

Talent for Organization

42 - The Uplift of China

hibit the same talent for toil, and yet more those peripatetic dealers, who with a carrying-pole on their shoulder, or a pack on their backs, transport bulky commodities to great distances, and for the most trifling profits. With the exception of the period just following the New Year, the holidays are infrequent.

The cheerful industry of the Chinese has always attracted the admiring attention of the discerning observer. The Chinese themselves understand far better than any outside critics can do the imperfections of the system under which they live, but they are profoundly aware that many of them are inevitable, and they are convinced that it is better to bear the ills they have than to fly to others that they know too well. Yet in despair and especially for revenge they will on very slight provocation commit suicide. Chinese contentedness is not at all inconsistent with an idealism which finds expression in the secret sects and societies. Their capacity for work, for adaptation, and for content, make the Chinese in every land where they have settled, excellent immigrants. Without their assistance, it is difficult to see what is to be done to develop the tropics. With their assistance, in due time the whole earth may be subdued.

The entire civilization of China is an illustration of this native gift. Perhaps no form of human government was ever more adroitly con-

/

A Great Race and Inheritance 43

trived to combine stability with flexibility, apparent absolutism and essential democracy. That the genius of the Chinese is fully equal to reshaping their institutions to accommodate modern needs, as a schooner may be fitted with auxiliary steam attachments, may be taken as certain, if only there were an adequate supply of the right kind of men. Scholars readily combine in solid phalanx against officials who invade their rights, while merchants by suspending all traffic, can force the hand of oppressive mandarins in resisting illegal exactions. The mercantile and trade guilds of China resemble those of Europe in the Middle Ages, but with a cohesion reminding one of a chemical union, against the action of which it is impossible to protest. Boats, carts, sedanchairs, and other modes of transportation are all managed by guilds which must always be reckoned with. All China is honeycombed with secret societies, political, semipolitical, and religious, all forbidden by the government, and frequently attacked with fury by the officials and dispersed. But while readily yielding to force, like mists on the mountain top, the constituent parts separate only to drift together elsewhere, perhaps under variant names and forms. Individual and class selfishness, together with that ingrained suspicion with which the Chinese, in common with other Orientals. regard one

another, serve as a check upon what would otherwise be an inordinate development of this talent. Intellectual But perhaps it is in intellectual tasks that the Endvrance , x 2 , P industry of the Chinese is most impressive. To commit to memory the works called classical is an alpine labor, but this is merely a beginning. On the old plan of examination essays, every scholar’s mind (literally ‘abdomen’) must be a warehouse of models of literature from which, according to arbitrary rules in competition with hundreds and perhaps thousands of others, he might make selections in the weaving of his own thesis or poem. Indefinite repetition of such examinations under conditions involving physical and intellectual exhaustion, with an utmost chance of success of scarcely two in a hundred, might qualify the successful contestant to become a candidate for some government appointment—when there should be a vacancy. Perhaps, after all, no men in China are so hardworked as the officials, who not infrequently break down under the strain. In all these and in many other ways the Chinese display a wonderful talent for work. Respectior With a theory of the universe which explains aoaunorel the relation between heaven, earth, and man as one of moral order, the Chinese have a profound respect for law, for reason, and for those principles of decorum and ceremony which are the outward expression of an inner fact. Once con-

A Great Race and Inheritance 45

vinced that anything is according to reason, they accept it as a part of the necessary system of things. Military force has always been recognized as necessary, but as a necessary evil. Military officers have always been far outranked by civil officers, and it is only now, that the Western civilization of force is becoming influential, that these two branches of the State’s service are to be put on an equality. Even the mere symbols of thought are regarded with the greatest respect. The gathering up and burning of written or printed paper (for which special furnaces are provided) is an act of merit. To study, to learn, is considered as at once the highest duty and the greatest privilege. The Chinese have always depended upon education as the true bulwark of society, and of the State. Perhaps into no people known to history have the principles of social and moral order been more uniformly and more thoroughly instilled. Government, law, and all their emblems are regarded with what appears to a Westerner an almost superstitious veneration, but as a result, when ruled upon lines to which they are accustomed, the Chinese are probably the most easily governed people in the world.

For their own immeasurable past the Chinese entertain the loftiest admiration. The universal memorizing of the most ancient classics, the allpervading theatricals for which they have a pas-

Reverence for the Past

Censervatism

sion, and the tea-shop, the peripatetic story-teller, the popular historical novel, all unite to render the period of say two millenniums ago, quite as real as the present, and of far more dignity, not to say of more importance. Yao and Shun, who stand at the outermost horizon of Chinese history, figure to-day in conversation, in examination essays, in editorials of the press, in antithetical couplets pasted on the doorways of palace or of hovel, as objective and influential realities. In a sense every Chinese may be regarded as a condensed epitome of the reigns of say 246 emperors in 26 dynasties.

He is not easily swerved from his uniform course, because from the beginning this has been the way of All-under-Heaven. Without this strong bond of conservatism China would like other empires have long since fallen in pieces. With it, the face of all the people being turned to the past, she has been practically immovable. But now, under new cunditions, impelled by fresh impulses, we behold the wonderful spectacle of the most ancient and the most populous of empires, with one hand clinging to that mighty past, while with the other groping for a perhaps still more mighty future. With this galaxy of race traits, not to speak of many others, the Chinese may be said to be outfitted for the future as no other now is, or perhaps ever has been.

A Great Race and Inheritance 47

Here then is the most numerous, most homogeneous, most peaceful, and most enduring race of all time. Its record antecedes the pyramids of Egypt. The reign of the Emperor Yu antedates the period of Moses eight centuries, and Confucius preceded Christ more than five hundred years. The history of Greece and Rome is modern compared with China. Of the peoples of ancient history, the Jews and Chinese alone survive, but the Jews have lost their country, language, and nationality, while to the Chinese these remain. Subjugated by Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century and by the Manchus in the seventeenth, they have maintained their language, government, religion, and customs, and absorbed their conquerors. To the world’s progress they have contributed their share. Books were produced in large numbers in China one thousand years before Gutenberg was born. The mariners’ compass, forerunner of steam and electricity, was used by the Chinese several centuries before it was used in the West. Gunpowder, which has revolutionized all military science, was first compounded by the Chinese, and they were pioneers in the manufacture of porcelain and silk. The Great Wall and the Grand Canal are striking evidences of the engineering skill and enterprise of the people. All these with its language, literature, philosophy, and powerful race traits, mark the Chinese as one of the most gifted divisions

A Race to be Reckoned With

of the human family. When it is remembered that all of these achievements were consummated, isolated by ocean, mountains, deserts, and their own exclusiveness, the conclusion cannot be avoided that this is a great race with a great inheritance worthy of the consecrated energies of the most capable manhood and womanhood of the Church. To capture this race for Christ means the early conquest of the whole world.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II

AIM. To REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF WINNING THF CHINESE RACE FOR CHRIST

I. Oualities of the Race Indicated by its Wonderful Past.

( 1.*) What physical causes have helped to preserve

“China in such isolation?

2. Compare the Chinese Empire in age with the Roman Empire, the Papacy, the English Monarchy, and the United States Government.

3. Compare the principles of governmental restraint in China with those of the other great empires before Christ.

4. What trace is left of those other empires at

present?

5.) In the days of Paul, which was the more

“ promising race, the Chinese or our AngloSaxon ancestors ?

6.* Compare the amount that each race has received, from without, since that time.

A Great Race and Inheritance 49

7. How should you feel toward principles of government that had preserved your country while others decayed?

8.* What are some of the advantages and what some of the disadvantages of having a golden age so far in the past?

9g. In what respects did the attitude of Confucius and Mencius differ from that of the Hebrew prophets?

1o.* Name all of the reasons you can why the Chinese system of government has endured so long.

11. How has fflial piety affected the stability of the government of China?

12. In what ways has the educational system been a bulwark to the government?

13.* What can you infer from a comparison of the

Chinese ranking of occupations with that of the _ order of castes in India? (14) On the basis of their past history, how would

y

~ you rank the Chinese among the races?

IJ. The Present Equipment of the Race and Its Pobable Future.

15. What physical hindrances has the race had to contend with? 16, What will be the effect on the Chinese of im_-~ proved sanitation and food supply? (7. Why are the Chinese desired as laborers, but “— “unpopular as immigrants? 18. What sort of troops do you think the Chinese

~—. would make? (19*)What are the advantages and what the disadvantages of the absence of nerves? 0. How will the Chinese be fitted to enter inta

/21.) Why do we speak of a yellow peril, but not of

I

27.

industrial competition when they possess ma-

chinery ?

f

‘ a brown peril or a black peril?

22.* What do you understand by the yellow peril?

ane

Chinese with those of the Anglo-Saxon.

24.* How will the races rank when they have freely

borrowed from each other?

25.* What traits that they lack do you think the

Chinese might acquire?

26.* What principles should you keep in mind in

introducing changes into China?

future of China?

28. How do you rank China among the mission

fields of the earth?

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.—CHAPTER II

History.

Ball: Things Chinese, 326-345. Gorst: China, IV.

Kidd: China, Section II. Parker: China, II.

Williams: A History of China, I,

Physical Powers of People.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 35. Henry: The Cross and the Dragon, 37-40. Smith: Chinese Characteristics, III, XI, XVI. Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 1, 41.

ompare the strong and weak points of the

In view of the natural resources of the country and traits of the race, what is the probable

101,

IV.

A Great Race and Inheritance 51

Mental Powers of People.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 36-39. Nevius: China and the Chinese, 279-282. Smith: Village Life in China, 102, 103.

Literature.

Ball: Things Chinese, 399-410.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 15-23. Douglas: History of China, XIX.

Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 1, XI, XII.

Government.

Ball: Things Chinese, 318-322.

Bard: Chinese Life in Town and Country, XII. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T’ang, 30, 31. Colquhoun: China in Transformation, XI. Giles: China and the Chinese, III.

Holcombe: The Real Chinaman, IJ, X. Nevius: China and the Chinese, V.

THE DEFECTS OF THE SOCIAL SYSTEM

But in speaking of the home, it must not be forgotten that it includes something more than the devotion of child to parent. There is a duty of parent to child, and in addition to this, there is an obligation existing between brothers and sisters. The Chinese home is built upon a philosophy which to us seems one-sided, much being said about the child’s duty to the parent, and the younger brothers’ duty to the eldest, but less about the mutuality of domestic relations. Do not the parents owe something to the child? The child enters life without his own volition; when he becomes conscious of existence, he finds himself environed by others, and certain relations fastened upon him. He is taught to address one person as father, another person as mother, a third as brother, and a fourth as sister. As he does not select the parent whom he is to revere, neither does he determine whether he shall be the elder brother or the ~ younger, or even how many brothers and sisters are to sutround him. Can it be that thus brought into the world, he is under greater obligation to his parents than his parents are to him?

—William Jennings Bryan.

Woman is made to serve in China, and the bondage is often a long and bitter one: a life of servitude to her parents; a life of submission to her parents-in-law at marriage; and the looking forward to a life of bondage to her husband in the next world; for she belongs to the same husband there, and is not allowed, by the senti-° ment of the people, to be properly married to another after his death.

—J. Dyer Bali.

Ill

CHAPTER 3. THE DEFECTS OF THE SOCIAL SYSTEM

i the preceding chapter has been presented the bright side of Chinese character. Manifestly it is a race with tremendous possibilities. Lacking some of the leading traits of the AngloSaxon, it has others which go far to compensate it, and which under conditions by no means improbable may even turn the scale in its favor.

But there is also a dark side to the picture. \ Sr iene Along with features that compel our admiration, |Christ Chinese society as a whole stands in sore need of Christianity. It would be alike unnecessary and undesirable to attempt to conform society in China to that of the Occident. Much as it owes to the spirit of Christ, Western civilization is not yet ready’ to pose as a model for nonChristian nations to copy in detail. But it confidently offers to every nation and kindred and tribe and tongue, the salt that has preserved all that is best in it from putrefaction.

Why does the Chinese social system especially BL need the influence of our religion? To answer Structure

this question, we must study the structure of the

Marriage Has Not Created a New Family

family in China and trace its consequences. In the history of social development in the West, we must go back for hundreds of years before we find ourselves in the patriarchal stage. Early Greek and Roman society was organized on this basis, and we confront many of its. features in the Old Testament. The scheme is a natural device for lending stability to the social order. The family becomes a close corporation, with authority concentrated in the father, its head. With its welfare that of the individual is not per: mitted to conflict.

In the West, when a son marries, he usually separates and becomes the head of a new family, which revolves henceforth in an orbit of its own. For the development of his own individuality and that of his wife, this is undoubtedly the wisest course. But in the East, the development of the individual is not taken into consideration; the maintenance of the family as a unit is alone of importance. Therefore, the son remains under the paternal roof and continues under his father’s authority, while his bride becomes a minor subordinate, whose relations with her former home have been severed, and whose duty it now is to serve the parents of her husband. Even her selection, which we regard as a sacred and inalienable right of the individual, subject to the woman’s free decision, is in China purely a concern of the family. The parents arrange

Defects of Social System 57

for the marriage through the medium of a professional match-maker, sometimes when the young people concerned are mere infants, and a man usually sees the face of his wife for the first time after the wedding ceremony has been performed.’

The typical Chinese household, then, consists of the parents, their sons, who probably have been married while still in their teens, the daughtersin-law, who have come without courtship or pretense of affection into their new home to be the servants of their mother-in-law, and their children. The daughters of the family, on arriving at marriageable age, have become members of other households and are seen only on occasional visits in a circle where they no longer have any rights. Property is held in common, though it is sometimes divided before the death of the father. The rights of the parents over their children are absolute. The father, and after his death, the mother, may chastise, sell, or even kill a son’ or daughter. As for the wife, from the moment she enters the house of her husband, “ she ceases to

i Archdeacon Gray tells of a wedding which he attended, where the bride turned out to be a leper. She was at once divorced, but the bridegroom was unable to recover more than part of the sum he had paid to her parents. Gray, China, Vol. 1, 188.

2In the North China Herald for June 11, 1903, is reported a case in which a worthless son who refused to reform was strangled by his own mother, with the approval of the clan.

Dr. Nevius mentions an opium smoker who sold his wife to procure opium, and his son to defray the expenses of being cured. Nevius, China and the Chinese, 253.

The Typical Household

The Wider Bonds

Influences Checking Progress

have a wish that he is legally bound to respect.” *

Even after the branches of the family separate into different households, the worship of their ancestors preserves a bond between them, and beyond this lies the constraint of the clan, the members of which live together in villages and have an ancestral temple in common.

What will be the practical effect of this state of affairs on social life and the development of individual character? It is evident, in the first place, that innovation will have a hard time of it in such an order. Large bodies proverbially move slowly. They must do so in order to hang together. To move an entire Chinese family at a brisk trot would imply an immense amount of initiative and decision in the character of its head. But the aforesaid heads are not apt to possess initiative in abounding quantities, even if the idea of progress in some explicable way should happen to enter their minds. They are old, and the impulses characteristic of youth are dried up within them. While in theory a Chinese becomes of age at sixteen, as a practical matter he is often not his own master until late in life. His father, his uncles, his elder brothers, all coerce him and control his actions, so that only natures of the strongest sort can hope to retain their independence of spirit. The average man becomes the head of his family with the powers

1 Jernigan, China in Law and Commerce, 120.

Defects of Social System 59

of personal judgment and _ initiative largely atrophied by disuse, and is little fitted to lead along new paths.

The mutual responsibility of the family also tends to check innovation as well as wrong-doing. The father is responsible for the son as long as they both live, and the son is held accountable for his father’s debts. In case of crime, other members of the family who have not had the slightest share in its commission may be punished. The clan, the neighbors, and those who have had the most distant relations with the culprit may also be involved. Archdeacon Gray cites a case in which a man flogged his mother, aided by his wife. In consequence, the pair were flayed alive; the granduncle, uncle, two elder brothers, and head of the clan to which the men belonged were executed ; the neighbors who lived on each side, the father of the woman and the head representative of the literary degree which the man held, were flogged and banished; the prefect and district ruler were for a time deprived of their rank; and the child of the offenders was given another name.’ Such mutual responsibility, if it be unavoidable, makes people watchful of each other, and especially makes the elders look with suspicious eye upon any aberration from the accustomed order on the part of their subordinates.

1 Gray, China, Vol. I, 237, 238.

Influence of Mutual Responsibility

Restraint of Clan Tradition

Filial Piety a Barrier

Even if the entire family should be united in its desire to adopt new ideas, it would be held in place by the traditions of the clan. The power of the clan elders, which extends in certain circumstances even to capital punishment, may surely be counted upon as on the side of wellseasoned precedent. The clan traditions, like those of the family, are not considered matters of mere convenience, but as possessing the sanctity of religion. In early society, custom and morals are identical, and from this attitude of mind China has not yet emerged. The worship of the family and clan ancestors has formed an effective barrier to change. Reverence for parents combines with fear of offending the spirits, in keeping the feet of the living in the paths which their fathers have trod. If a man should depart from the way approved by the past generation, he might bring a curse upon the whole community.

Filial piety in China has been developed and exalted as in no other nation under heaven. It includes not only the honor of parents while living, the imitation of their excellences after they are gone, but the holding up in general of the standards of propriety which they followed. Thus the constraints of one generation have been handed down unchanged to those following. It is recorded of the Emperor Ch‘ien Lung that “after ruling sixty years, he resigned for the

Defects of Social System 61

very Chinese reason that it would not be filial to outdo his grandfather,”* who had reigned for sixty-one years,

The officials in China have been for centuries chosen only from the ranks of those who succeed in passing the public civil service examinations. They and the host of others who continue their trials year after year are the only educated men in the empire and are the Jeaders of public opinion. But they have derived their ideas, not from the latest theories of political and social science, but from the classics which hold up as the ideal to be followed the golden age of Yao and Shun, usually dated in the third millennium B. C. Up to within a decade, Chinese education has gloried in the fact that the teaching which it furnished was absolutely free from all adulterations of modern spirit. It would be difficult for us to overestimate the influence, as a conservative force, of having the only men in the ~community who know anything, to know nothing else than the opinions of philosophers who lived more than a thousand years ago. If we should ordain as the sole condition and requirement for office holding the passing of severe examinations on the works of the medieval theologians, and could exclude from the education of the candidates all more recent influences, we yet should

1Smith, Rex Christus, 26.

Education a Strongly Conservative Force

Its Influence on Illiteracy

Patriotism Little Developed

probably have an administration more liberal in temper than that which China has enjoyed.

The character of the examinations has also an important bearing on the amount of practical illiteracy in the empire. Schools are numerous and are attended for a time at least by a large proportion of the male population. Their purpose, however, is not to fit men for the ordinary positions of life, but only to prepare the candidates for examination in the classics, and in consequence, those who never complete the preparation,—a very large majority of the whole,—treceive comparatively little benefit. In estimating the percentage of illiteracy, it must be borne in mind that many of those who are classed as readers are about as fluent as most of our college graduates of twenty years standing are in Greek and Latin. They are not altogether illiterate, but on the other hand, they cannot read with accuracy and fluency. The number of those whom we should consider readers probably does not exceed ten per cent., and has been estimated by competent judges even lower.

The patriarchal system has its drawbacks in government as well as in social life. The close union of the family and clan not only checks individual development on the one hand, but hinders a broad patriotism on the other. Each group thinks only of its own interests. Cliquishness always destroys public spirit. It is signifi-

Defects of Social System 63

cant that the recent signs of a national patriotism in China come mainly from students who have separated from their families to study in the provincial colleges and in Japan.

What the father is to the family, and the elder or headman to the clan or village, that is the local magistrate to his district, the governor to his province, and the emperor to the whole empire. Each official has authority over those below him, and is responsible to those above him for the general good behavior of his constituency. While in theory the government, like the oversight of the father, is for the welfare of the people, in actual practise the power granted to those in office is usually utilized for selfish ends. A great variety of civil and criminal functions are concentrated in the hands of one man, which gives him great opportunity for abuse. There is a system of checks and balances whereby oppression is kept within limits, but overtaxing, acceptance of bribes, minor extortion, and irregularities are the rule and not the exception. Professor Parker says: “I have myself seen enough with my own eyes, and had innumerable free-and-easy conversations with both magistrates and runners, to enable me to state with absolute certainty that a downright bad magistrate, succeeding to a post dominated by a nest of evil-minded runners with a long-established tyrannical habit ingrained in their hearts, and practising among a stupid,

Paternal Authority of Officials

Difficulty in Securing Rights

timid, or malignant population, can with impunity assassinate any one he likes in his own jail, accept any bribe, commit or condone any injustice, make his fortune, and even preserve his reputation in spite of all this. On the other hand, I have seen completely honest, simple-minded, benevolent magistrates, perfectly clean-handed (subject to custom), anxious to do right, loyal to their superiors, beloved of the people, and quite capable of restraining the police.”

The people are long-enduring by disposition and have a wholesome fear of the government. Unless an injustice is of so grievous a nature as to rouse a whole village or clan it is apt to be borne. The principal concern of a magistrate is therefore not to administer equal justice to every citizen, but to keep the more influential sections of the population sufficiently satisfied not to appeal against him. Even if they should do so, he may succeed in checking their appeal. “There is no way of sending a petition, a telegram, or any communication whatever, to any one in authority, without running the gauntlet of a great many persons who will thoroughly sift the message, and will do their best to suppress, or at least counteract, whatever runs counter to their views or interests. One of the reforms most needed in China is a speedy and certain way to get the ear of those in authority.”

Defects of Social System 65

It is probable that a magistrate has found it necessary to bestow a number of judicious “ presents’ to open the way to his appointment; it is quite certain that the amount he receives as salary will be altogether inadequate to defray his expenses. He is consequently practically driven to employ arbitrary means to recoup himself. If he overdoes the matter of exactions, he may get into trouble with his superiors; if he underdoes it, he will be out of pocket. The situation is far from ideal.

The unjust system of holding an official accountable for troubles he could not have foreseen or prevented leads many a man to suppress bad reports of his district, instead of investigating and righting the evil. It emphasizes the necessity of merely preserving appearances that will satisfy the inspection of those above him.

In such an atmosphere the people of China have lived in isolation for many centuries. The training they have received accounts for much of their wonderful homogeneity and for their respect for law and moral precepts. It accounts for their talent for combination, but it also accounts for China’s lack of progress during the last thousand years. It is probably largely responsible for the lack of originality so often thought to be a race trait. The system under which it has lived would certainly seem well calculated to discourage every impulse toward

Temptation to Corruption

Unjust Responsibility

Results of the System on Society in. General

variation that the race may possess. It may be that the Chinese will some day, when their faculties have been set free from the binding force of precedent, exhibit greater originality than we have ever given them credit for. coneretess It is also easy to understand their contempt for foreigners. It is a peculiarity of human nature that those most hidebound are among those most supercilious. It is not to be expected that they should regard those who violate so many of the ancient rules of propriety as we do otherwise than as barbarians. peustem We who have been so long time emancipated Even with US from the rule of custom should not overlook the fact that, in the maintenance of their traditions, some of the best instincts of the Chinese mind and conscience are enlisted. We have no right to approach their system as mere iconoclasts. Modern Anglo-Saxon society has been organized so as to open very wide limits, within which the individual is free to move. When any innovation,—a new breakfast food, or hair restorer,— lies within these limits, it has only individual conservatism to overcome in winning its way, No one is in the least lowering himself in the eyes of his fellows if he chooses to accept this sort of novelties. But there are things at which easygoing American society draws the line. Forms of the so-called ‘‘ rational ”’ costume for women, for instance, have not yet won the approval of

Defects of Social System 67

public opinion, and consequently they seem to the average person to be too ridiculous even to discuss. A woman would instinctively shrink from arraying against herself the sentiment of the entire community by adopting a style of dress it had agreed to condemn. Such an instance will help us to realize how hard it is to defy society as a whole even in a matter of mere convention.

Fortunately for us, the texture of our society is so loose, and its demands are comparatively so few, that we are hardly conscious of any constraint whatever. But in China, the man who undertakes to violate custom runs counter to his family, his clan, the whole force of public opinion, his feeling of reverence for his ancestors, and fear of their spirits, the only ethics he has ever been taught, the views of the most learned men he has ever known, and, last but not least, the most ingrained habits of his life. Change is coming in China. It will be well if it come not too rapidly to permit of the gradual preparation of the individual and the family to receive it. Otherwise, social and ethical chaos may be the result.

Let us next look at the relation of the patriarchal system to the individual. Surroundings of the kind that we have described are not apt to develop what we call individuality. The very conception of this implies the right of one individual to differ from another, of the present, if

Infinitely Stronger in China

Represses Individuality

Denies Privacy

need be, to differ from the past. It is not a gift which we inherit full-blown, but a potentiality which requires exercise and expression for its development. Precisely this expression is what the Chinese social system consciously and unconsciously represses. A youth is not encouraged to be himself, nor to express his own ideas. No one bears with his crudities and seeks to draw him out, in order to promote his mental growth. Instead of this, his elders control and snub him until the very idea of intellectual independence is starved within him. We are speaking of the average case; for in China, as everywhere else, there are natures which make some headway even against the most untoward conditions. It is easy to see that the average Chinese will be sadly lacking in those qualities of independence, initiative, and originality upon which Western society sets such a premium. And the case of the woman will be infinitely worse.

The Chinese is always under the public eye and under the constraint of public opinion. He knows almost nothing of privacy. He could not understand the lines of Lowell:

“Tf chosen souls could never be alone In deep ’mid silence open-doored to God,

No greatness ever had been dreamed or done. The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude.”

The separation of families in the West and the arrangement of houses insures to all but the

Defects of Social System 69

very poor a certain amount of privacy. This in turn has the tendency to cultivate self-reliance and independence of action. But not so in China. The way in which population swarms in his family court-yard, in his village, and along the whole daily path of the Chinese prevents him from knowing the culture that solitude offers. Hence he loses all taste for it, and endures without concern crowding that would set us distracted.

Oriental custom has never demanded more than external conformity. A man may hold what opinions he likes so long as they do not affect his behavior. The result of this has been to exalt appearance as all-sufficient. Among the sayings of Confucius and Mencius are praises of sincerity, which is reckoned as one of the five constant virtues. But it is easy to see that a training which from childhood merely represses is not fitted to develop this characteristic. A Chinese says of his own youth: “The boy attains to the ideal character only when he habitually checks his affectionate impulses, suppresses his emotions, and is uniformly respectful to his superiors and dignified with his inferiors. Therefore the child is early taught to walk respectfully behind his superiors, to sit only when he is bidden, to speak only when questions are asked him, and to salute his superiors by the correct designations. . . . If he is taken to task for any-

Exalts Appearanceat the Expense of Sincerity

Promotes

Sense of

“Face”

thing he has done, he must never contradict, never seek to explain . . . but suffer punishment in silence, although he may be conscious of no wrong-doing. . . . I lived the years of my childhood in a shrinking condition of mind. Like all youngsters, I wanted to shout, jump, run about, show my resentments, give my animal spirits and affectionate impulses full play. But... my tongue was bridled and my feet clogged by fear of my elders.” It would be a rare exception when one could grow sincere in such an atmosphere.

A phrase which of late is often quoted in our popular literature is “ to save face.” Of the feeling which this denotes the Chinese have no monopoly, but their social ideals have developed

/ it to an extraordinary degree. “Face” is the

sense of having fulfilled the demands of appearance. The same training which smothers sincerity, feeds the desire to be above all things “proper.” This desire has its good side. It holds people up to the performance of social duties which are too often repudiated in the West. A man would “ lose face ” if he neglected his parents or was backward in showing the customary hospitality. On the other hand, it fosters deceit, touchiness, and unwise extravagance. Falsehood is not permitted to stand in the way of face. Any violation of this false sense of

1Yan Phou Lee, When I Was a Boy aan China, 18, 20.

Defects of Social System 71

dignity will arouse instant resentment. The display at weddings and funerals demanded by “face”? may plunge a family into debt for a lifetime.

It is impossible for a community to regard truth lightly and yet to preserve a sense of mutual confidence. Those who are willing to resort to falsehood when under pressure themselves, have no reason to believe that others will be absolutely truthful under similar pressure. The result is that no one in China accepts the statements of another at their full face value. This lack of confidence is shown in public affairs by the absence of “trust” institutions and of opportunities for the investment of capital as compared with the West.

A number of influences combine in rendering Chinese social life somewhat conspicuous for the absence of sympathy. The extreme poverty of great masses of people, a poverty that requires millions of families to practise every possible economy to escape starvation, renders them callous to suffering and want which they are unable to alleviate. The absence of nerves tends in the same direction. As a race they must be regarded as cruel.

Superstition aids in repressing manifestations of sympathy. Misfortune is believed to result from the ill will of some demon, who may transfer his persecutions to any one that attempts to

Undermines Confidence

Other Influences Repress Sympathy

Superstition Represses

The Family System Also Responsible

Fails to Develop True SelfControl

thwart him. Cases of distress are also neglected for fear lest the government officials should hold the would-be rescuers responsible for the evil.

The family system only aggravates this tendency to withhold sympathy. Affection could hardly be expected to run far outside the family or clan, but, even inside, the conflicting claims of sons and their wives are a great source of bitterness. Brothers and sisters-in-law too often look upon one another as competitors for the largest share of the common property. But perhaps the main difficulty lies deeper yet. Whatever represses individuality, whatever exalts formality at the expense of sincerity, whatever emphasizes the inequalities of position and privilege, whatever makes it hard for persons to read each other’s thoughts,—these things tend to weaken the sense of sympathy.

While the Chinese is extremely sensitive and yielding to the force of public opinion, he has not had large opportunities to cultivate independent self-control. Hence we find him at once submissive and passionate, the latter especially when he thinks he has been subjected to a social slight. The man who has been denied the exercise of his manhood during so much of his life must expect to inherit streaks of childishness to his dying day, Dr. Gibson remarks on the anomalies of Chinese character: “Very slow to strike, though ever ready to curse and quarrel, capable of great self:

Defects of Social System 7a

constraint, patient, peaceable, law-abiding, industrious, observant of the rights of others; and at the same time vengeful, implacable, ‘ pigheaded,’ and obstinate, carried away, often on slight occasions, by passions of ungovernable fury.”

Are such individuals, with all their valuable race traits and economic virtues, well prepared, just as they are, to face an era which calls for the most highly developed individuality? Can they be expected to acquire the needful traits of character without introducing a new spirit into their social system?

Pet us consider, finally, the atmosphere of the Chinese home and its effect on womanhood and childhood. The ideas of propriety emphasize the duties of the inferior to the superior and say very little about the correlative duties of superiors to those beneath them. A Chinese woman enters the household of her husband’s family tagged with the double inferiority of sex and age, She is only a woman, and she is probably the youngest woman on the premises. She is expected to serve her mother-in-law and to defer to her older sisters-in-law. If these individuals were gifted with any instinctive sympathy with youth, or if they felt under any special obligation to be considerate and forbearing, the percentage of happy households would be greater.

1The East and the West, October, 1903, page 369.

The System Inadequate

Position of Woman in the Home

Her Lack of Legal Rights

But the young wife is inore apt to be greeted with the regard which sophomores and upper classmen entertain for freshmen, so that her life becomes a burden to her from the very start. Where property is held in common, her presence means so much less for the share of each of the others, and the feeling is not unnatural that she must be made to earn her way. In case of the quarrels which are practically unavoidable in such a situation, she may be without the sympathy even of her husband. Theory demands that he should side with his mother rather than with his wife, and he has no affection for the latter that would make him seek to comfort her. In many a househoid a young Chinese husband would be asharred to be seen even talking with his wife, while to show her any consideration would expose him to the ridicule of the entire family. It is no wonder that suicides of young Chinese wives are far from infrequent.

The wife has few legal rights. She may be put to death for infidelity, but has no right to complain of it in her husband. She may be divorced if she beats him, while he is free to chastise her in any way short of inflicting a wound. She is not even allowed to leave the house without his permission, and if she disobeys he may sell her as a concubine.’

1Mollendorf, Family Law of the Chinese, 30, 31.

Defects of Social System 75

The fact that a girl at her marriage becomes a member of another family discourages her parents from giving her an education. Especially in the south of China it is not uncommon for girls to receive some instruction, but those who proceed far enough to be able to read for profit or recreation are probably less than one per cent. of the whole; Dr. Martin, of Peking, estimates not more than one in ten thousand.

The unhappy practise of foot-binding has no necessary connection with the patriarchal form of the family, but it adds greatly to the disabilities under which Chinese women labor. Mrs. Archibald Little, whose position as president of the “ Natural Feet Society ” has given her special reason for investigation, says: “ During the first three years (of foot-binding) the girlhood of China presents a most melancholy spectacle. Instead of a hop, skip, and a jump, with rosy cheeks like the little girls of England, the poor little things are leaning heavily on a stick somewhat taller than themselves, or carried on a man’s back, or sitting sadly crying. They have great black lines under their eyes, and a special curious paleness that I have never seen except in connection with foot-binding. Their mothers mostly sleep with a big stick by the bedside, with which to get up and beat the little girl should she disturb the household by her wails; but not uncommonly she is put to sleep in an out-house. The

Her Lack of Education

The Evil or Foot-binding

only relief she gets is either from opium, or from hanging her feet over the edge of her wooden bedstead, so as to stop the circulation.” For a Chinese woman to confess that her feet gave her pain would be considered most indelicate, so that it is safe to say that there is much more of suffering than ever appears on the surface. In addition to this it is a great check upon freedom of movement.

The System + There are some happy marriages in China and affectionate husbands. The wife who becomes a mother is treated with more respect, which increases as she advances in years. It remains true, however, that the social system as a whole is terribly deficient in providing for the natural and divine rights of woman. That the present situation does not cause the same amount of unhappiness that it would if Chinese women had ever known anything better is no excuse for its continuance.

chile! The Chinese home in its present state does not Misses furnish an ideal environment for childhood. To begin with, the ignorance and disregard of sani-

tation is responsible for a large mortality rate,

and many of those who survive the unhealthy

diet and careless treatment they receive, prob-

ably carry enfeebled constitutions through life.

There is not the manifestation of sympathy be-

tween parents and children that means so much

Defects of Social System 7.9/4

in Western homes. A Chinese father who loves his children tenderly will yet consider it beneath his dignity to romp with them or enter into any of their games. <A Chinese.tells us that when a boy of twelve he left his mother to go to America, there was no embrace, although the mother’s eyes were wet. The little fellow gravely prostrated himself four times, and the parting was over. What would our own childhood and parenthood be, if we felt obliged to observe such a code of propriety?

Another thing we should miss in China is the family meal. This, as we know it, is an institution peculiar to Christendom. We could ill spare from our lives the memories of its social spirit and table-talk. In China men and women eat apart, and a child seldom sits at the table with both his father and mother. Nor has_ the Chinese child any knowledge of the books and magazines from which our children derive so much. The mental atmosphere of his home is far from stimulating. Even if he belongs to the small minority who learn to read with sufficient facility to enjoy it as a pastime, he is the rare exception, if he possesses anything suited to his comprehension. The quarreling between the women of the household, which he cannot help witnessing, aids in degrading his idea of home.

The evils we have mentioned may be consid-

2 Yan Phou Lee, When I Was a Boy in China, 96.

Atmosphere Not Elevating

A New Spirh Needed

ered as at least typical. Some of them may disappear with a development of China’s resources, and the consequent rise in the standard of living. The spread of an education fitted to the actual needs of life will do more. But the root of the difficulty lies deeper. The Chinese family needs a new spirit, which shall lay stress on the duties of superiors to inferiors, on the worth of each individual soul in the sight of a loving Father, on the sense of personal responsibility to him and not to custom. It needs to learn that a man should forsake his father and mother and cleave to his wife, to love her as his own flesh. It needs to learn that “ dignity is not one of the fruits of the Spirit.” It needs to experience the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free from the bondage of the past.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER III

Atm: To REALIzE THE NEED oF CHINESE SOCIETY FOR CHRISTIANITY

I. The Tendencies of Chinese Society.

1.* What are some of the more important things that you think Western society owes to Christianity ?

2. What incidents can you recall from the Old Testament that remind you of the Chinese family system?

3.* Think out in detail how your own family life would have been different from your birth till

II.

6.*

10.*

Amy

Defects of Social System 79

now, if Chinese customs had prevailed in this country.

How would this have affected your father and mother, uncles and aunts?

How should you feel toward the head of your family, if he had the rights which Chinese law allows?

How much initiative would your father probably have developed, if he had lived under the Chinese régime?

What in general are the good and bad sides of the theory of mutual responsibility ?

What important influences would never have come into your life, if you had felt compelled to conform to your family traditions?

How would it affect our progress, if no learn-. ing was regarded with respect but that of Greek and Latin?

What qualities that China will need for her future development does her system of government fail to foster?

What qualities ought officials to possess to make the system a beneficent one?

Its Effect on Individual Development.

2) 13. 14.

15.*

16.

If you wished a boy to develop initiative, what sort of training should you give him?

If you wished a girl to become perfectly sincere, what should you tell her to do?

How would the restrictions of Chinese family life hinder development along these two lines? Do you know any persons who lay great stress on appearances? How is their character affected by this trait?

What special good has come to you from hours that you have spent alone?

1008

17:

ites

19.*

20. zi.

Its 22.

23.

24*

25.7

26.

When a man is repressed by those above him, how is he apt to treat those below him? With what individuals do yeu share the deepest personal sympathy, and why?

How many of the conditions that foster this sympathy are present in the Chinese social system?

What is the relation of “ face” to sincerity? Would you care to send a son or daughter to a boarding-school where you knew that schoolopinion was all-powerful? Why not?

Influence on Woman.

If you were a Chinese girl, with what feelings would you look forward to marriage?

How would you feel to have your sister married to a man she had never seen?

What difference will there be in married life when there has been no winning of affection in the first place?

What effect will the provisions of Chinese family law have upon the character of the husband?

In view of the differing customs, what do you think would be the relative proportion of happy marriages in China as compared with the United States?

IV. Its Influence on Childhood.

27. 28.

29.*

For what influences of your childhood home life are you most grateful r

To what extent are these influences present in the average Chinese home?

In what ways does the Chinese home violate the principles of child training that you would advocate?

Defects of Social System 81

30.* What sort of a man would you expect your

son to be if he had lived from babyhood in a Chinese family?

31.* What sort of a woman would you expect your

daughter to be under the same circumstances?

The Need of Christianity.

32.* In what ways do you think you might influence

a Chinese home for the better, if you had made the acquaintance of the family? What would be your method of approach?

33.* How far do you think you could get without

the aid of Christianity?

34.* Give all the reasons you can why Christianity

will be indispensable in making the Chinese home what it ought to be.

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED Stupy.—CHAPTER III

I. Home and Family Life.

II.

III.

Bryan: Letters to a Chinese Official, VI. Bryson: Home Life in China, Part 1, II, VI. Douglas: Society in China, XI.

Gorst: China, VIII.

Holcombe: The Real Chinaman, IV.

Smith: Village Life in China, XXV, XXVI.

Village Life.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 40. Douglas: Society in China, V.

Hardy: John Chinaman at Home, VII. Smith: Village Life in China, I, VI, VII.

Educational System.

Douglas: Society in China, IX. Dukes: Every-day Life in China, IX.

8&2

IV.

Gorst: China, XII.

Hardy: John Chinaman at Home, XX.

Holcombe: The Real Chinese Question, III. Martin: The Lore of Cathay, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX. Smith: Village Life in China, X.

Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 1, IX.

Moral Deficiencies.

Bard: Chinese Life in Town and Country, II. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of Tang, 35, 36. Douglas: Society in China, XX, XXI.

Graves: Forty Years in China, VII, VIII.

Smith: Chinese Characteristics, VI, X, XXI, XXV.

THE STRENGTH. AND WEAKNESS OF THE RELIGIONS

China is popularly supposed to have three religions,— Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

The first is not, and never has been, a religion, being nothing more than a system of social and political morality; the second is indeed a religion, but an alien religion; only the last, and the least known, is of native growth.

—Herbert Allen Giles.

There is little hope for China, politically, morally, or religiously, until Taoism is swept from the face of the land. It is evil and only evil.

—H. C. Du Bose.

It [Buddhism] excites but little enthusiasm at the present day in China; its priests are ignorant, low, and immoral; addicted to opium; despised by the people; held up to contempt and ridicule; and the gibe and joke of the populace. The nuns likewise hold a very low position in the public estimation.

—J. Dyer Ball.

The higher class of Chinese should carefully consider the situation and should tolerate the Western Religion as they tolerate Buddhism and Taoism. - Why should it injure us? And because Confucianism, as now practised, is inadequate to lift us from the present plight, why retaliate by scoffing at other religions? Not only is such a procedure useless; it is dangerous.

—Chang Chih-iung.

IV

CHAPTER 4.

OF THE RELIGIONS

S Bae Chinese are not naturally a religious

people. Although to the superficial observer they appear very religious, yet on closer examination it is evident that most of their worship is empty formalism. While the Hindus are passionately fond of the metaphysical and speculative, the Chinese are practical and do not burden themselves with the mysteries of the invisible world. As in nearly all lands, the women are the most devout worshipers: many of the educated men are skeptics, making only an outward acknowledgment of forms of worship. However, there are some earnest souls, seeking satisfaction for their heart yearnings, in the various sects.

Minor Faiths

Before entering upon a discussion of the three great religions of China, brief mention must be made of two minor faiths. The Mohammedans are scattered through China, especially in the western and southwestern provinces, to the pos-

Not Naturally Religious

Mohammedansin China

Jews in China

Three Religions

sible number of twenty millions. They are more. lax in their practises than their co-religionists in India, but they do not intermarry with the Chinese, and keep up the forms of their faith, making, however, for the most part no effort to proselyte. As yet very few have become Christians, but there is no reason why there might not be a movement in this direction when larger efforts have been made on their behalf,—an enterprise which ought at once to be seriously undertaken. Their moolahs, or priests, are often more bitterly opposed to Christianity than those of the sects of Tao or Buddha.

There is in K‘ai-féng, the capital of Ho-nan, the remnant of an ancient colony of Jews, but their synagogue has long since been pulled down and its timbers, and the sacred books as well, sold. The melancholy history of this sect is of special interest, and a concrete instance of how one of the most unimpressible faiths known to history may, having lost its original impulse, be disintegrated by the slow corrosion of the mingled polytheism, pantheism, and atheism of Confucian civilization.”

Three forms of religion are recognized, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The two former are indigenous, while the last-named came from India. Dr. Martin discriminates the re-

_ 1 For a summary of what is known of the origin of the Jews in China, see Yule, Marco Polo (edited by Henri Cordier).

vee 4 a. ike fo

Strength and Weakness of Religions 87

ligions of China as ethical (Confucianism), physical (Taoism), metaphysical (Buddhism). Buddhism has adopted the deities and spirits of other religions. Taoism has imitated the trinity of Buddhism. Confucianism despises, rejects, and adopts both! Every Chinese is a Confucianist, but most of them are likewise Taoists and Buddhists. They practise all three on different occasions and for different purposes. Because these religions have been mingling so closely for centuries, it is really impossible to trace all the elements of Chinese religion to that which gave them birth,

Gibbon remarked of the Roman Empire that to the common people all religions were equally true, to the philosopher all were equally false, and to the statesman all were equally useful, an observation of which the student of Chinese religions will often be reminded. The definition of Religion in the Standard Dictionary is as follows: “A belief binding the spiritual nature of man to the supernatural being on whom he is conscious that he is dependent. Also the practise that springs out of the recognition of such relations.” There is, however, in the Chinese language no word which embodies this concept, its place being generally taken by a term denoting instruction, which contains quite a different idea. The phrase p‘ai shén, signifying “to

Idea of Religion

8&8 The Uplift of China

worship,” or to pay one’s respects to gods or spirits, is a vague substitute for a word which should mean religion.

Confucianism

Viewsigion Confucianism presents itself to the inquirer

partly as a system of political and social ethics and partly as a State religion, embodying the worship of nature, of the spirits of departed worthies, and of ancestors. From one point of view it is therefore a religion, while from another it is not. Confucianism does not conform to the idea of a religion which binds the spiritual nature of man to a supernatural being upon whom he is consciously dependent. It must also be remarked that the term Confucianism is at once vague, inaccurate, misleading and indispensable. It would naturally imply a system of thought to which Confucius is related in some such way as Gautama to Buddhism, or Mohammed to Islam, but this is by no means the case. rirconsivs’ Confucius was a Chinese philosopher and statesman who lived in the sixth century B. C. In the days of the weak Chou dynasty and at a time when China was divided into a great number of petty feudal states, owing only nominal fealty to the emperor, Confucius appeared, at once an officer and a teacher. In the former

2 Born 551, died 478, B. C.

Strength and Weakness of Religions 8g

capacity his services were never long continued, owing to the reluctance of the kings of the several states to be guided by his austere teachings. The great work of Confucius was in gathering about him a body of disciples to a reputed total of 3,000, many of whom were deeply impressed with his doctrines, some of them taking great pains to see that they were perpetuated.

Worship during the periods of Yao and Shun was possibly monotheistic, if Shang Ti, the supreme ruler of the universe, is regarded as a personal being. But nature and ancestral worship succeeded this monotheism. Confucius countenanced the existing worship of ancestors and of spirits, but laid almost exclusive emphasis on ethical relations. He never taught the duty of man to any higher power than the head of the State or family. The Emperor, being the Son of Heaven, exercises his authority under the direction of Heaven. Right government consists in directing the affairs of State in harmony with the Law of Heaven.

According to the Chinese ritual, Heaven is worshiped only by the emperor at the two solstices in the Temple of Heaven, in the southern city of Peking, where the Altar of Heaven is the spot at which the ruler of China’s millions, having by fasting and meditation prepared himself, with an elaborate and a solemn ceremonial pros-

Adoptions of Confucius

Heaven Worshiped by the Emperor

trates himself before Heaven as its agent, its servant; and sometimes, as in cases of rebellion,

_ flood, drought, and the like, as guilty of sins

Teachings on Government

How Good Government is to be Obtained

against Heaven which require confession. This was done by the Emperor Hsien Féng in 1853 when the T‘ai P‘ing rebellion was at its height, imploring on behalf of his suffering people the compassion of the Sovereign of the universe. ~ In this act the emperor recognizes that he rules by the authority of Heaven, to whom he is responsible for the use of his power. -

Confucius laid great stress upon the personal character of the ruler, and attributed to his example an efficiency which has never been illustrated in human history. The theory is that if the prince is virtuous and all that he ought to be, the people must likewise be virtuous and all that they ought to be. This assumption has been crystallized in the dictum of a Chinese philosopher who lived B. C. 200: “The prince is a dish, and the people are the water; if the dish is round the water will be round, if the dish is square the water will be square likewise.”

The teachings of Confucius, as to the means by which this good government is to be brought about, are fragmentary. What was needed, he thought, was a renewal of the old ways, and nothing else. “I am not,” he said, “an originator, but a transmitter.” His favorite disciple once in-

Strength and Weakness of Religions 91

quired how the government of the State should be administered, and Confucius replied: “ Follow the seasons of the Hsia dynasty; ride in the carriages of the Yin dynasty; wear the ceremonial cap of the Chou dynasty; let the music be the shao with its pantomimes. Banish the songs of the ch‘ing, and keep far from specious talkers.” Thus in his view the past was the golden age, to the restoration of which he gave all his energies and his life, yet he died with a lamentation upon his lips over his failure. His conception of the origin of government is embodied in a passage in the Book of History: “ Heaven protecting the inferior people has constituted for them rulers and teachers, who should be able to assist God, extending favor and producing tranquillity throughout all parts of the empire.” Accordingly, the most able and the most worthy ought to rule, and should they lose their character they would also lose the right to reign, and Heaven would bring about their downfall.

The admirable ethical system of Confucius expounds the “ Five Constant Virtues”: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity. As it is difficult for one to catch the exact interpretation of these words, a few qualifying clauses under each will give the general scope of their meaning. Benevolence implies an unselfish and active interest in public affairs, a charitable and forgiving spirit toward others,

Practical Ethics

y2 The Uplift of China

gratification of the wishes of parents, and the merciful treatment of the fatherless and widows. Righteousness, more fully defined, means manly courage, fraternal feeling toward elders and younger persons, justice, integrity, and modesty in all things. Propriety demands a respectful attitude toward all persons, preserves conjugal harmony, declines much, and accepts little. Wisdom means a thorough investigation of the past, knowledge of men and nature, and the constant practise of virtue. Sincerity urges a simple and uniform life, and such absolute purity in the inner life that the words of the inner chamber should bear repeating in the palace." While these are very commendable virtues, they have hopelessly failed among the Chinese, because the only help Confucius could offer for their realization was, “ When you fail, seek help in

yourself.” spears One of the characteristics of the teaching of Relations Confucius is its insistence upon social relations. The Five Social Relations are those of prince and minister, husband and wife, father and son, elder and younger brothers, and friend and friend. “Tn the above order of relations, with the exception of the last, the superior is set over against the inferior, with the result that the family and social life in China is largely dominated by a type of repressive formalism. Dignity, seniority, author-

2 Martin, The Lore of Cathay, 209.

Strength and Weakness of Religions 93

ity are correlated with subordination, dependence, servility; and the spirit of freedom, selfinitiative, and spontaneity find little scope for exercise,”

The existence of spirits is not denied, but much more depends, according to his view, upon men than upon spirits, who can interfere in the affairs of men only to execute nature’s behests. If one lives according to nature and lays up good deeds, he reaps the benefits in blessings, otherwise he is injured, perhaps destroyed, but it is his own doing. As the Book of Changes says: “He that complies with Heaven is preserved; he that rebels against Heaven is ruined.” To investigate the laws of the unknown and the unknowable spiritual world is vain. Confucius made man alone the subject of his study, and abstained from discoursing on wonders, brute force, rebellion, and spirits. On this topic he said that the art of rendering effective service to the people consists in keeping aloof from spirits, as well as in holding them in respect. “We have not yet performed our duties to men,” he says, “how can we perform our duties to spirits?” “ Not knowing life, how can we know about death?” “He who has sinned against Heaven has no place to pray.” The laws of nature, and of the spiritual world as well, lie beyond the comprehension of all men but those en-

1 Sheffield, in Religions of Mission Fields, 209.

Supernatural Problems Avoided

Condition after Death

Spiritual World

dowed by nature with the spirit of wisdom. To present before the people questions and problems that are incomprehensible and incapable of demonstration serves only to delude them by a crowd of misleading lights, and leads to error and confusion.

One of his disciples asked him the crucial question: “Do the dead have knowledge of the services we render, or are they without such knowledge?” The Master replied: “If 1 were to say that the dead have such knowledge, 1 am afraid that filial sons and dutiful grandsons would injure their substance in paying the last offices to the departed; and if I were to say that the dead had no such knowledge, I am afraid lest unfilial sons should leave their parents unburied. You need not wish to know whether the dead have knowledge or not. There is no present urgency about the point. Hereafter you will know it for yourself.” This, as Dr. Legge justly remarks, was scarcely the treatment of a profound subject which was to have been expected from a sage wko boasted that he had no concealments from his disciples.

Of the far-reaching influence of the negative and cautious attitude of their greatest philosopher and teacher toward the spiritual world, the Chinese are but dimly aware, until they have received enlightenment from a source higher than

Strength and Weakness of Religions — a5

his. The gradual but inevitable effect of such an illumination is to put in a clear light the defects of the teachings of the great Master, while yet emphasizing the many and important points in which his system coincides with the teachings of revelation.

All Chinese cities must be provided with temples to Confucius (but without priests), in which are included also tablets to other sages as well, and here the Master is officially worshiped with elaborate ceremonies, and with costly offerings of silk and other gifts." His tablet is placed in the schools throughout China, and he is worshiped as the patron of learning. On entering and departing from the schoolroom the students are required to make their bows to the tablet. The homage which is offered is real worship, and, as Dr. Legge says, could not be more complete were he Shang Ti himself. The widely spread clan of Confucius (the K‘ung family) have certain valuable privileges, and its head enjoys the title of the Holy Man, although he is

1“ The sacrificial animals, consisting of an ox and several pigs and sheep, are killed, dressed by scraping, and placed in kneeling posture upon the altars. All civil and military officers are required to attend the ceremony. In Peking the emperor himself officiates at the head of the worshipers; in the provinces this is done by the highest mandarin. The silks, among which there are fine brochades, are burned. It has been calculated that 27,000 pieces of silk, each ten feet long, are annually destroyed in the temples of the empire in honor of Confucius. The cost of one celebration amounts to $125, or about $500,000 annually for the whole empire, not counting the cost and repair of the temples.”” Dr. Faber, Problems of Practical Christianity in China, 22,

Confucian Temples and Worship

Nature Worship

Ancestral Worship

seventy-two generations distant from the ancestor who gave the family its fame. rom the foregoing sketch of some of the more prominent aspects of Confucianism, it may be perceived that many of the questions ordinarily arising in regard to a religion have in this connection little place. Confucius, as we have seen, is worshiped, and with him the early emperors Yao and Shun, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, and Duke Chou. Every magistrate is required to perform officially various idolatrous ceremonies at certain temples, especially those of the tutelary god of each city, and of the god of war, Kuan Ti.

There is also an extensive and complicated system of nature worship which has been adopted by Confucianism, such as the worship of the deities of the hills and the rivers, the gods of the wind and of the rain, those of the land and of the grain, and many others. Every one, officials and people alike, is more than willing to do reverence to whatever seems likely to be of service in an emergency.

The paramount cult among the Chinese is the worship of ancestors, which existed before the time of Confucius and was simply recognized by him. It is the Gibraltar of Chinese belief, underlies their religion, and is the guiding influence in their daily conduct. “Social customs, judicial decisions, appointments to the of-

dd Per, .

ey ee

Strength and Weakness of Religions 97

fice of prime minister and even successors to the throne are influenced by it.” The Chinese believe that a man possesses three souls, which after death enter respectively the ancestral tablet, the tomb, and Hades. As these souls have the same needs after death as before, the survivors, especially the eldest son, must minister to them by transmitting to the spirit world (by burning) clothing, household effects, paper money, and other articles. Food is set before the tablets on certain occasions in the belief that the spirits will enjoy the offerings. The food is afterward eaten, but pious Chinese believe that the flavor of the food has been abstracted. Similar offerings are also made at the tombs of the ancestors once a year. The motive for the worship arises out of the belief that ancestors favor everything that is good and frown upon every unworthy act. Success in worldly affairs depends upon the support given to the spirits in Hades. From the above it is very evident that fear is the spur to filial piety toward deceased ancestors, and that the offerings are not made altogether in the spirit that prompts us to decorate graves, adorn statues, or hold memorial services.

One of the direct benefits of this belief is the reverence that has been inculcated for parents and rulers. ‘It has also promoted industry and has cultivated habits of domestic care and thrift

1 Quoted by Ball, Things Chinese, 30.

Benefits and Evils of Ancestral Worship

An Unreligious Attitude

Relation to Christianity

os The Uplift of China

beyond all estimation.”* On the other hand, it has been said that not less than $150,000,000 is annually expended in ancestral worship out of the poverty of China. As it is necessary to be buried near the ancestral hall or among relatives, it prevents the colonization of the thinly populated sections of the country. It also concentrates love upon the home and thus precludes the development of patriotism. Furthermore, it destroys individual liberty, by imposing extreme parental authority, and most of all substitutes the worship of dead ancestry for the True and Living One.

As Confucius did not define man’s relation to a supreme being, but merely set forth an ethical system, it is evident that his teaching cannot be called a religion. Perhaps the words of Dr. Legge are a fairer statement: “He was unreligious rather than irreligious; yet by the coldness of his temperament and intellect in this. matter, his influence is unfavorable to the development of true religious feeling among the Chinese people generally, and he prepared the way for the speculations of the literati of medieval and modern times which have exposed them to the charge of atheism.”

In an elaborate essay read by Mr. Pung at the World’s Parliament of Religions he remarked that, to a Confucianist, Christianity in China is

1 Williams, The Middle Kingdom, Vol. II, 238.

Strength and Weakness of Religions 99

devoid of interest, although it is not obvious in what sense this can be the case. The late Li Hung-chang in speaking at a dinner given to him in New York, said that, having read the New Testament, he saw very little difference between its teachings and those of Confucianism, and this is probably the professed attitude of many Confucianists. Mr. P‘ung complains, as in view of its contrast to the minuteness of the Book of Rites he well might, that the New Testament directions for social conduct are very meager. Confucianism has been very carefully studied by Western scholars, and its excellences and its defects have been thoroughly presented. If at a former period there was an excess of antagonism to it on the part of some missionaries, there is now a tendency to a wholesome reaction, and it is regarded rather in the light of a preparation for Christianity. The point where there appears to be an irreconcilable opposition is in regard to the worship of ancestors. Confucianism is a wonderful systém of thought. Its strength lies in the inherent rectitude of its injunctions, which, if followed, would make the world a very different place from what it now is. But it altogether fails to recognize the essential inability of human nature to fulfil these high behests, and for this inability it has neither explanation nor remedy. In its worship

Strength and Weakness

of Confucius, and other worthies, its face is ever toward the past. Its worship of ancestors has at present no ethical value, and is quite destitute of any directive or restraining power. Confucianism fails to produce on any important scale the character which it commends. While it has unified and consolidated the Chinese people, it has not, as the Great Learning enjoins, renovated them, and it never can do so. What it can do for China, it has long since accomplished. It must be supplemented, and to some extent supplanted, by a faith which is higher, deeper, and more inclusive. Taoism

Origin’ Taoism, like Confucianism, is indigenous to China, owing its reputed beginning to Laotzu, ‘the Old Master, in distinction from Confucius who is the Master. The only work attributed to Lao-tzti is called the “ Canon of Reason and Virtue,” a treatise of but little more than 5,000, characters, remarkable alike for its brevity and its profundity.

Literature Taoist literature is vast in quantity, but with the exception of the classic mentioned is of little value, and is irreducible to a system.

cRclations to = According to tradition, Lao-tzii (who was fifty years the older) and Confucius. once met, but while the latter spoke of the former with respect, he did not repeat his visit. “The ‘ Book of

Strength and Weakness of Religions 101

Changes’ is the connecting link between Confucianists and Taoists, the fundamental canon of both.” Confucianism teaches attention to social duties and to etiquette. Taoism seeks for “the pill of immortality,” having altogether lost its original character and become blank materialism. Although the soul is more refined than the body, it is a material substance, and while liable to dissolution, may by proper discipline escape it. Even the body may become etherealized and be “wafted away to the abodes of the genii.”— ‘There are in—Taoist speech “ Hight Fairies,” often represented as aged men of venerable appearance leaning on a staff, or sitting under a gnarled old tree. They ride on clouds and at will mingle in human affairs. The influence of this conception on the Chinese mind has been very great.

While there has been keen rivalry between these religions in past ages, there is at present the peace of senility. The native religion is under extensive obligations to the Indian. “ The Sutras of Taoism in form, in matter, in style, in the incidents, in the narrative, in the invocations, in the prayers,—leaving out the Sanscrit,—are almost exact copies of Buddhist prayer books.’”

A being is worshiped haying the same name as Shang Ti, or Supreme Ruler of the Confucianists. But in practise he has delegated his

1Du Bose, in Religions of Mission Fields, 164.

Relations to Buddhism

Deities of Taoism

power to an inferior divinity called Pearly Emperor Supreme Ruler, who is regarded as a deification of a man named Chang, an ancestor of the present hierarch of the Taoist religion. The latter lives on a mountain in Chiang-hsi, where he enjoys great state, being in reality a spiritual emperor. He is styled by foreigners the “ Taoist Pope.” It is said that in his dwelling evil spirits are kept bottled up in large jars sealed with magical formule. Like the emperor he confers buttons denoting rank, and gives seals to those invested ‘with supernatural powers. He is the chief official on earth of the “ Pearly Emperor” in Heaven. His main function is the driving away of demons by charms and their expulsion by the magic sword, and is known as “Chang the Heavenly Teacher.”

Temples and = One of the most common temples is that of the “Three Rulers,” those namely of Heaven, Earth, and Sea, sometimes represented as brothers, denoting the three primordial powers of Taoist philosophy. But there are “ Three Pure Ones ” who stand at the head of Taoist gods, one of whom is generally regarded as a personification of Lao-tzt. One of the “ Eight Immortals” was a man named Lu (A. D. 755), now, strange

to say, the god of barbers!

Worship of

Dragon King LE ere is a Dragon King ruling floods, often

worshiped in the form of a serpent, either aquatic

Strength and Weakness of Religions 103

or otherwise. This ceremony was performed by the late Li Hung-chang, when Governor-General of the metropolitan province of Chih-li, and during the year 1906 by Ytian Shih-k‘ai, holding the same office. As no one can certainly know when a snake embodies the Dragon King it is not always safe to kill them promiscuously.

The spirit world is supposed to be in all reepects a duplication of the present one. Each city has a tutelary god in whose temple is a series of rooms depicting the horrors of the future life when the soul shall have passed the Taoist Styx and is tried for the crimes of this life. Here are pictures, or oftener images, of men and women climbing mountains of ice, only to fall back again; caught on spears and tossed yack and forth to executioners; ground between millstones or sliced up with sharp swords, with a little dog running about licking up the blood.

Each village generally has one or more temples to the local god, who stands to the city god in the relation of a constable to a sheriff. On occasion of a death the family go there at set times to wail. The original of the local god is considered to be a famous T‘ang dynasty scholar named Han Wen-k‘ung.

The Taoist mass for ferrying souls across the Styx is an important one. Other masses are said at certain times according to custom. Even

Spirit World

Village God

Chief Ceremonies

Confucianists of the most agnostic type feel obliged to have either Taoist or Buddhist priests, or both, read their sacred books at funerals, otherwise no one knows what might be the consequences.

Priests The priests are almost invariably uneducated and ignorant, acting in this capacity merely for a subsistence. Many of them were given away in their childhood by their parents on account of poverty, and know no other home than their temples. They are universally despised, but are considered as indispensable evils. Their functions are demon expulsion and devil worship. Taoism has a monopoly of the business of geomancy, which is interwoven with the entire life of the Chinese, and which has important relations to such innovations as telegraphs, railways, and mining. The hold of this superstition is to some slight extent relaxing.

corset = It is difficult to find in Taoism at the present of Taoism day a single redeeming feature. Its assumptions are wholly false, its materialism inevitably and hopelessly debasing. It encourages and involves

the most gross and abject superstitions, such as

animal worship of “ The Five Great Families,”

namely, the Fox, the Rat, the Weasel, the Snake,

and the Hedgehog. On the drum-tower at

- Tientsin it was common to see richly dressed merchants kneeling to an iron pot containing in-

Strength and Weakness of Religions 105

cense burned to “ His Excellency the Rat,’ and

the like.

The effect of a belief in Taoism is to bring the Weetctouene living Chinese into bondage to demons, and to Beliefs the innumerable spirits of the dead. Incredible sums are annually wasted in burning mockmoney (made of yellow or white tinsel paper in the shape of ingots) to ward off imaginary evils. Chinese demon possession, however explained, is a real and terrible evil. It is firmly believed that invisible agencies cut off cues, kidnap children, and do other bad deeds. From time to time large portions of the country are subject to serious panics in consequence, as in 1877, when there was a cue-cutting mania, and in 1897, when it was believed that children were kidnaped, in each case leading to the wildest and most uncontrollable excitement. The latent superstitions arising from Taoism are endless, and they are as dangerous to the Chinese themselves (and yet more to foreigners) as powder-mills and dynamite factories, which they actually are.

i The entire Boxer movement was a gigantic il' lustration of this truth, when all the laws of nature were apparently thought to have been suddenly repealed. Men who are positive that no sword was ever forged which can cut them, that no rifle bullet can penetrate their charmed K bodies, that no artillery can injure them, are in

Origin

Doctrines

the twentieth century perilous elements in any civilized land. China to-day is full of such men.

Buddhism

This faith was introduced into China in the first century of the Christian era, in consequence of an embassy sent to India by the Emperor Ming Ti, to procure the books of the new religion. At different periods it encountered great opposition both from the agnostic Confucianists, and the materialistic Taoists. By different monarchs it has been alternately patronized and repressed, although it was always able to reassert itself.

The Chinese, unlike the Hindus, are practical, and not contemplative. The creed of Nirvana’ and of annihilation could not get a fair hearing, hence Buddhism, which is able to transform itself in many ways, has allowed the craving for immortality to be expressed in the worship of Buddha under the name of O-mi-t‘o Fo (Amita Buddha), in allusion to a happy hereafter and an expected paradise. The indefinite repetition of this name will bring great felicity, hence the devout Mongols spend most of their spare time in uttering the mystic syllables. The Indian doctrine of the transmigration of souls came to China with Buddhism, and is almost universally

1The end of all personal existence.

Strength and Weakness of Religions 107

believed, leading to a wide range of superstitions. Animal and insect life thus becomes sacred, since no one can be sure that any particular lamb (or louse) is not another form of one’s grandmother. Matter is non-existent, the knowledge and the pity of Buddha are infinite. “ All evils are summed up in ignorance. To acquire knowledge of the emptiness of existing things is to be saved.”

The literature of Buddhism, like that of Taoism, is appallingly extensive, embracing a wilderness of translation from the Sanskrit, as well as transliterations of Sanskrit sounds in Chinese characters, of necessity quite unintelligible to the uninitiated. There are also innumerable original works in Chinese. Most Chinese scholars neither know nor care anything about these laborious productions; yet the popular tenets of Buddhism are deeply engraved on the heart of the Chinese people.

They have tended to make the Chinese more compassionate to the brute creation than they would else have been. It has introduced into China the graceful but costly pagoda, and the dagoba, or memorial tope over the ashes of dead priests. Buddhism has done little to relieve the sense of sin, and has long since degenerated into a mere form. Its priests, like those of Taoism, are for the most part idle, ignorant, vicious parasites on the body politic. The religion, like

Literature

Good and Evil Effects

Sume Changes for the Better

Temples

£08 The Uplift of China

many of its temples, is in a condition of hopeless collapse.

Here and there a Buddhist priest has embraced Christianity, giving up his precious bowl and beads, together with the mystic certificate of membership in the ranks of those who in any temple are entitled to support. Now and then with the willing consent of the people a temple has been turned into a Christian chapel. Under the exigencies of the present poverty of national resources, all Chinese temples not officially listed are liable to have their lands confiscated for the support of local schools and academies. This revolutionary move is sometimes accompanied with a prohibition of the further enlistment of young pupils, for whose support there would then be no provision. Were this regulation carried out generally, both Taoism and Buddhism would within the next fifty years have very little external expression, albeit the superstitions which they represent might perhaps remain latent but persistent.

The number of Buddhist temples is greatly in excess of those of Taoism. Many of the finest and most costly are scattered through deep and retired valleys, or situated on mountains accessible with difficulty, where, retired from earthly contamination, the priests may perpetually drone through their routine rituals.

Strength and Weakness of Religions 109

The most popular divinity is the goddess of mercy, Kuan Yin (sometimes represented as a man), who is able to save from evil and to bestow ultimate Nirvana. <A p‘u-sa is an inferior Buddha, of whom Kuan Yin is one, two other principal ones being Wen Shu, the god of wisdom, who rides on a lion (especially worshiped at Wu T‘ai Shan in Shan-hsi), and P‘u Hsien, the god of action, who mounts an elephant, the former typifying courage and eagerness, the latter caution, gentleness, and dignity. “The image of the Fo (Buddha) or that of the p‘u-sa is intended to combine in its appearance wisdom, benevolence, and victory; the wisdom of a philosopher, the benevolence of a redeemer, and the triumph of a hero.”

The power of Buddhism in China has arisen from the fatal weakness of Confucianism, which has nothing to say of the hereafter, or of retribution, whereas Buddhism teaches that “ Virtue has virtue’s reward, vice has the reward of vice; though you may go far and fly high you cannot escape.” The Recorder in one of the temples is represented with a book and a pen in his hand, over which is the legend, “ My pen cannot be evaded.” The insistence with which this teaching is emphasized has not been without its beneficial effect upon the Chinese conscience.

In the mind of the reader the question naturally arises what has been the result of this amal-

Deities

Strength and Influence

The Religions Inadequate

gamated triumvirate of religions that has swayed one-fourth of the world’s inhabitants for centuries. One of the best tests of any religious system is its effect upon the moral life of its devotees. ‘‘ By their fruits ye shall know them ” may be a trite expression, but it is an admirable challenge to the inefficacy of these Eastern cults. The moral precepts of Buddhism and , Confucianism elicit our praise, but their power~ lessness to uplift the people morally is evidenced by the prevalence of deceit, dishonesty, lying, mutual suspicion, and the total eclipse of sincerity. These lapses, the precariousness of female childhood, the inferior position of womanhood, and some unmentionable vices clearly show that some external force is needed to transform the moral life of the people. © Christianity will uplift these millions morally, invigorate the whole country, give them right relations to the Father, and provide salvation through Christ.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IV

Aim: To Reatize How Curistianrty Futrits Bots THE IDEALS AND NEEDS OF THE CHINESE

1. Which do you consider is most responsible for the non-religious character of the Chinese, their inherited nature or their surroundings and training?

Strength and Weakness of Religions 111

15.*

17%

18.

What does the condition of Islam in China indicate as to the prospects of other entering religions ?

What is there that you approve in the teaching of Confucius concerning government?

What is there that is lacking in this teaching? Have you any criticism for the five constant virtues ?

How do they compare with the fruits of the Spirit?

Do the five social relations cover everything that is necessary?

What is the advantage and what the disadvantage of laying such stress on these relationships?

Why do you think that Confucius took the attitude that he did toward the spiritual world? Is Confucianism better or worse for the deities that it worships?

Try to imagine yourself a Confucianist. What that Christianity now provides for you should you miss most?

What motive should you have for doing right? What do you think should be the attitude of a missionary toward ancestral worship?

If a convert brought you his ancestral tablets, how should you treat them?

What care should a missionary take in regard to social behavior?

Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to the missionary that the ethical teachings of Confucianism are so high?

If you were a missionary, how should you approach a sincere Confucianist?

With what spirit should you deal with him?

19. 20.*

2i.

22. 23: 24. 25.*

26.

Piphe

28. 20.

30.

Kis a2)

33. 34."

35.

How should you endeavor to overcome his prejudices?

How should you try to show him that Christianity met both his ideals and his needs?

Do you think that Taoism could possess the influence that it does, if it were built on no real need in human nature?

What need do you think it has endeavored to supply?

Do you agree that it has absolutely no redeeming features?

What sort of people have most to fear from the Taoist hells?

What to your mind are the most serious evils of the system?

Try to imagine yourself a sincere Taoist. Should you be glad or not to be able to believe that your superstitions were false?

How do you think that Christianity could be presented most attractively to a Taoist?

How should you deal with his superstitions? To what needs of human nature does the spread of Buddhism in China testify?

What do you consider the best features of Buddhism ?

Why is Kuan Yin the most popular deity? In what ways does Buddhism seem to you weakest ?

Which should you prefer to be, a sincere Confucianist or a sincere Buddhist?

How do you think that Christianity could be most attractively presented to a Buddhist?

If you could combine all the best points of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, what sort of a religion would you have?

Strength and Weakness of Religions 113

36. What would be the strongest motives in such a religion?

37. How would it compare with Christianity ?

38.* How would Christianity fulfil both the ideals and needs of such a religion?

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STuDY.—CHAPTER IV

H,

II.

UE.

IV.

Confucianism.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 60-67. Douglas: Confucianism and Taoism, I-VIII. Gibson: ‘Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China, III.

Nevius: China and the Chinese, III.

Sheffield: 71 Religions of Mission Fields, VII. Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, XVI. Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 2, 194-206.

Taoism.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 57-60. Douglas: Confucianism and Taoism, I-VIII. Du Bose: Jn Religions of Mission Fields, VI. Gibson: Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China, IV.

Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, XVII. Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 2, 206-217.

Buddhism.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 67-73. Beal: Buddhism in China.

Nevius: China and the Chinese, VII, VIII. Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, VIII. Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 2, 217-235.

Ancestral Worship. Bail: Things Chinese, 30-34. Bard: Chinese Life in Town and Country, VI.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 54-5,. Martin: The Lore of Cathay, XV. Williams: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. 2, 237-2309.

Superstitions.

Bard: Chinese Life in Town and Country, VIII. Denby: China and Her People, Vol. 1, 183-190. Douglas: History of China, XV.

Dukes: Every-day Life in China, VIII.

Hardy: John Chinaman at Home, XXVI. Holcombe: The Real Chinaman, VII.

Nevius: China and the Chinese, XII.

They climbed the steep ascent of heaven Through peril, toil, and pain: O God, to us may grace be given To follow in their train. —Bishop Reginald Heber.

Pioneering, in any line of life, involves difficulty, distress, discouragement, and especially is this the experience of a pioneer missionary’s early years. Nor is he generally dowered with buoyant hope above his fellows, though, happily for himself and his work, his call has shaken his soul to unwavering steadfastness, and enriched him with a calm trust, sufficient for triumph over obstacles that often, even to himself, seem insurmountable. The thought of the sublime faith and perseverance of that great man, Robert Morrison, and of those who followed him, is ever an inspiration to the successful, and a tonic to the depressed worker.

—W. E. Soothiil.

The missionaries have not sought for pecuniary gain at the hands of our people. They have not been secret emissaries of diplomatic schemes. Their labors have no political significance, and last, but not least, if I might be permitted to add, they have not interfered with or usurped the rights of territorial authorities. A man is composed of soul, intellect, and body. I highly appreciate that your eminent Boards (Foreign Missionary Boards of the United States) in your arduous and most esteemed work in China, have neglected none of the three.

—Li Hung-chang.

wi

CHAPTER 5. UPLIFTING LEADERS

Early Nestorian Work and Olopun

T is not perhaps strange that, although there Diecovsryo8 are traditions of the introduction of Christianity into China at a period not long after the time of the Apostles, all historical traces of such an event should have been lost in the dim mists of antiquity. But it is certainly singular that, after it had once gained a firm footing and even imperial favor, the Christian faith in the form of Nestorianism’ totally disappeared from the empire, so that its very existence was forgotten. Had it not been for the casual discovery in the year 1625 of a deeply buried black marble tablet near Hsi-an containing nearly 1,700 Chinese characters, and a long list of names of priests in Syriac, the fact that such a sect rooted itself in the Celestial Empire would never have been believed, as indeed after the tablet was unearthed it was for a long time discredited. Its date is 781 A. D., during the illustrious dynasty of 1An early sect of Christians, named after Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, in the fifth century A. D.

Tang. It records the arrival of a Syrian priest named Olopun, in the year 635 A. D., who was kindly received by the second emperor of that dynasty, whose title was T‘ai Tsung. The style of the inscription on the Nestorian tablet is florid and highly obscure, yet one who already knows what the Christian doctrines are, might readily identify them, though buried under Oriental imagery. patrensee The melancholy history of Nestorianism in a Weakness China is not encouraging to those disposed to rely upon the precarious favor of emperors, or officials, however exalted; nor to those who omit to evangelize the people, and who preach a Christ who is human rather than divine. The followers of this faith were no doubt bitterly antagonized by the aggressive Mohammedans who arrived in China later than they,—the Nestorians in turn persecuting the early Roman Catholic missionaries. Nota building which the Nestorians erected, not a page which they wrote in the Chinese language, has even by tradition been preserved, save only the Nestorian tablet.’ This is in itself a valuable and irrefragable certificate to Chinese

2 About the year 1725 there was discovered in the possession of a Mohammedan, the descendant of Christian or Jewish ancestors from the west of China, a Syriac manuscript in the same characters as that of the Nestorian tablet. It contained the Old Testament in part, from the beginning of the twentyfifth chapter of Isaiah to the end of that book, the twelve Minor Prophets, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Daniel, ineluding Bel and the Dragon, with the Psalms, two songs of Moses, the Song of the Three Children, and a selection of hymns. Wylie, Chinese Researches, 92.

Uplifting Leaders 11g

worshipers of antiquity that Christianity is an ancient and world-wide faith, which, more than twelve and a half centuries ago flourished in the central Flowery Empire.

Roman Catholic Efforts and Matteo Ricci

The missionary efforts of the Roman Catholic Church in seeking to win the Chinese belong to two periods, the first of which may be called the medieval attempt. This was undertaken in the thirteenth century, and the principal results were gained at the time when the Mongol, Kublai Khan, was in control of China. While there had been an earlier papal embassy, it was John called Monte Corvino who, having first visited India, joined a caravan to China in 1291 and was received by Kublai Khan in the same spirit in which the T‘ang emperor had welcomed the Nestorians. | Under Corvino’ leadership a church was built at Cambaluc (later called Peking), thousands were baptized, an orphan asylum was projected, and the New Testament and Psalms were translated into the Mongol language. But the mission was not followed up with adequate reinforcements, and after Corvino died at the age of eighty the movement quickly came to an end.

The Roman Catholic modern attempt was largely inspired by Francis Xavier and the Jesuit

The Medieval Attempt

The Modern Attempt

Matteo Ricci

Concession at his Death

Later Catholicism

influences which he set in motion, though he himself died at the threshold of China in 1552 without having been able to enter the empire. This was accomplished in 1580 by Michael Roger and young Matteo Ricci, both of the Jesuit order.

Ricci soon became the leader, was able to secure entrance to Peking in 1601, and met with a kind and even patronizing reception from the Emperor Wan Li. One of his most famous converts was a native of Shanghai, named Hsu, who took the name Paul. A part of his family estates near Shanghai still form the most unique and interesting center of Catholic influence to be found in China.

The death of Ricci in 1610, at the comparatively early age of fifty-eight, turned out, as he foresaw, greatly to the furtherance of his cause, in consequence of the reply to an elaborate memorial of Father Pantoja asking for a burial place for the distinguished Western scholar who had given his life to China. Not long after the imperial edict was issued, Ricci was buried with a splendid funeral, which was rather an exhibition of triumph at the favor shown than of grief for the death of the one whose fame had made it possible.

Several points in the subsequent history of Roman Catholicism in China should be mentioned. During the seventeenth century there were bitter controversies over the right attitude

Uplifting Leaders I2I

toward ancestral worship and the proper term to designate God. From 1724 to 1858, during which Christianity was under a ban, Roman Catholics suffered more or less of persecution. In the period from 1858 to the present, the tendency of the Church to seek and to wield political power has endangered the interests of all other missionaries and even of all foreign residents in China.

Robert Morrison

“T conceive it my duty to stand candidate for a station where laborers are most wanted.” So wrote Morrison in 1804, at the age of twenty-two, when offering himself for foreign service with the London Missionary Society; and when it became evident that China was to be his destination, he regarded the result as an answer to his prayer “that God would station him in that part of the missionary field where the difficulties were the greatest, and, to all human appearance, the most insurmountable.” *

The remarkable application of Morrison to reading, to study, and to the hardest of intellectual tasks redeemed any aspect of being dull that he may have had in his boyhood. As a young man, though engaged in manual labor

1 Memoirs of Robert Morrison, compiled by Mrs. Morrison, Vol. I, 54, 65.

The Hour and the Man

Strenuous Preparation

Providential Paths to the Language

from twelve to fourteen hours a day, he read and re-read such books as he could secure, had his Bible open before him during his hours of labor, and studied far into the night. A little later, to the extent of his opportunity, he pursued courses of study and preparation for his future work in the academies at Hoxton and Gosport. But more astonishing than his acquisition of mental training through these avenues was his utilizing to the utmost any means open to him in England of gaining a knowledge of the Chinese language. It was understood at the time that but one British subject had a knowledge of Chinese, Sir George Staunton, who was in China as president of the

Select Committee of the East India Company.

Most providentially for Morrison, a native of South China, Yong Sam-tak, was in London at this time. He proved to be irascible in temper, but even this was a source of discipline in patience, of which Morrison would need a limitless store in the trying situation awaiting him in the East. There were also found in the British Museum in London a manuscript copy of most of the New Testament in Chinese, translated by an unknown Catholic missionary, and a LatinChinese Lexicon in manuscript form. Taking in hand for the first time the camel’s-hair pencil and acquiring from his teacher a little familiarity in writing the Chinese characters, Morrison now began and in a few months completed copies of both

of the above-mentioned works.’ This is sufficient evidence of the unremitting diligence and determination by which throughout his active career he achieved marvelous literary labors.

As the ships of the East India Company denied to missionaries the privilege of a passage, Morrison embarked, January 31, 1807, for China by way of the United States; and as illustrating the gains of a century in navigation it may be noted that seventy-eight days elapsed before the harbor of New York was reached, the passage now requiring a little over five days.

His reception by the Christian workers, especially of New York and Philadelphia, was most hospitable and cordial, and when he sailed for his distant post, he was accompanied by the earnest wishes and prayers of a newly made circle of American friends. Without doubt, his brief sojourn in the United States had a direct bearing upon the subsequent enlistment of American missionary effort on behalf of China; and, as a part of the recompense for this influence, he bore a letter from James Madison, Secretary of State, to the American consul at Canton, and lived for a year after his arrival in the factory* of some New York merchants.

After a voyage of four months from New York, Morrison arrived at Canton, September 7,

1 Townsend, Robert Morrison, 32.

2The term “factory”? designates the building where the trade operations of a foreign company were conducted.

Difficulties of the Passage

In the United States

Firm Confidence

Friend and Native ‘Teacher

Marriage and Official Position

1807. Single-handed, as a representative of the religion of Christ he found himself face to face with the task of winning for his Master the world’s most populous empire. In New York the ship-owner in whose vessel he sailed, being skeptical concerning his purpose, had said sneeringly, “And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese empire?” “No sir,’ Morrison replied, “ I expect God will.” * In this same unshaken confidence he now began his work.

Having a letter of introduction to Sir George Staunton, he found in him a man of noble spirit, and the acquaintance thus begun ripened into a life-long and ardent friendship. In many ways this leader of British commercial enterprise in the East was helpful to the missionary, at once being of assistance to him in obtaining as teacher the services of Abel Yun, a Roman Catholic Chinese from Peking. Morrison’s first work was the more thorough study of the language, and in this he made astonishing progress.

His marriage to Miss Mary Morton, the daughter of a foreign resident at Macao, occurred February 20, 1809. It was also at this time that he received a request from the East India Company to become their official translator, a position which gave him the necessary security

1 Memoirs of Robert Morrison, compiled by Mrs. Morriscn, Vol, I, 3136.

for the prosecution of the great task for which he had been especially commissioned by the London Missionary Society,—the translation of the Scriptures into Chinese.

Perhaps the work of no other missionary translator has been so far-reaching and profound in its influence as has that of Morrison. The tremendous difficulties that had to be overcome before the whole Bible could be put into Chinese are to be considered. It does not detract from the essential honor that belongs to Morrison to say that he had the aid in the New Testament of the version by the unknown Catholic translator, and of the assistance in the Old Testament of Dr. Milne. Thirty-nine of the sixty-six books were his own translation. Nor does it make his achievement materially less to recognize that it was not entirely successful in its terms for certain spiritual ideas, like that of the word for God, and that it has been superseded by later translations. These are disadvantages incidental to almost every pioneer version. None the less it served as the basis from which others could work out higher results.

It was with peculiar joy that Dr. Morrison was able, November 25, 1819, to write to the directors of the London Missionary Society, 1nforming them that the Bible had been translated into Chinese. He at once received the earnest and enthusiastic congratulations of missionary

A Great Transiator

First Milestone of Success

and Bible societies throughout the world, and everywhere the announcement was an inspiration to enlarged endeavor.

The Anglo The next goal of his translation and literary

Dictionary efforts was the completion in 1823 of his AngloChinese Dictionary, upon which he had been engaged for sixteen years. It was issued by the East India Company at a cost of sixty thousand dollars, and contained forty thousand words expressed by the Chinese characters, filling six large quarto volumes. The work is almost as much an encyclopedia as a dictionary, and abounds in biographies, histories, and descriptions of national customs, ceremonies, and systems.

Some Kesults. As the missiofiary service of Dr. Motrison came to a close by his death, August 1, 1834, it covered but twenty-seven years, yet in view of the circumstances, and the difficulties of the time his achievements are almost incredible. One of his latest biographers’ sums them up as follows: “Any ordinary man would have considered the production of the gigantic English-Chinese dictionary a more than full fifteen years’ work. But Morrison had _ single-handed translated most of the Bible into Chinese. He had sent forth tracts, pamphlets, catechisms; he had founded a dispensary; he had established an Anglo-Chinese college; he had superintended the formation of the various branches of the

1 Rev. Sylvester Horne.

Ultra-Ganges Mission; and he had done all this in addition to discharging the heavy and respousible duties of translator to the East India Company, and preaching and teaching every day of his life. No wonder he had achieved a reputation almost world-wide for his prodigious labors on behalf of the kingdom of God.”

Peter Parker

If Morrison was able to show in a provisional manner the advantages which would arise from the use of the healing art as an aid to missionary endeavor, it was left to Peter Parker, throughout his long and splendid career, to demonstrate that medical missions form one of the essential agencies of completely developed mission work.

Born at Framingham, Massachusetts, June 18, 1804, he united with the Church at sixteen, and became a teacher in the Sunday-school at nineteen,—a most unusual advancement in service in those days for one so young. Interested friends gave material aid in his education, which was secured at Wrentham Academy, and Amherst and Yale Colleges.

It was at Yale that he decided to devote his life to the foreign field, and when his preparation was complete, it included courses in both medicine and divinity. He went out, therefore, both as an ordained and a medical missionary, under the American Board. And so providentially had

Founder of Medical Missions

Early Life ana Education

Enlistment for China

Opening of His Work

Marvelous Labors and Cures

his call and years of study been timed, that not three months elapsed between the death of Dr. Morrison at Canton, August 1, 1834, and the arrival there of Dr. Parker, October 26, of the same year.

A part of the first year was spent at Singapore, but on the 4th of November, 1835, he opened his Ophthalmic Hospital in Canton,” and it quickly grew into a general hospital and dispensary. Soon thousands were seeking admission. The remarkable cures awakened toward this founder of medical missions, feelings of wonder, admiration, gratitude, trust, and deep devotion. Morning by morning the approaches were crowded with patients coming for aid, some in their eagerness rising at midnight, others spreading their mats the previous evening and sleeping by the threshold, that they might be the more certain of early admission.

Dr. Parker was successful in performing some of the most delicate and difficult surgical operations, so that the blind were made to see and the lame to walk. His cures were pronounced miraculous, and the news of such wonderful results carried through the eighteen provinces drew still wider circles of the afflicted to Canton for treatment. On many days this devoted servant or Christ, walking in the footsteps of the Great Physician, dealt with more than a hundred cases,

1Stevens, Life of Peter Parker, 118.

till by night he was so weak and exhausted that he was in fear of falling or fainting, but the next day he would again be at his post.

While Dr. Parker was seeking to restore the body, he was no less eager to bring to the soul a knowledge of Christ’s power to save, and he found his grateful patients receptive to his gospel teachings both collectively and individually. Thus it happened that in three months the successful cures from his hospital did more to remove the frowning wall of Chinese prejudice and restrictive policy than could have been accomplished by years of customary missionary work. To use Dr. Parker’s favorite expression, He was “ opening China at the point of the lancet.”

The interest in the work inaugurated by Dr. Parker now became widespread; friends were gained of every rank from near and distant provinces; some of the brightest native young men began acquiring a knowledge of English, with a view to studying medicine, while others applied for situations in the hospital. In order to make the work more secure financially and to provide for its development, there was established in 1838 the Medical Missionary Society in China. As it was the first society organized for the purpose of combining the healing of disease with the teaching of the gospel, it marks an era in the growth of modern missions, and not long afterward the hos-

1Stevens, Life of Peter Parker, 129.

Spiritual Purpose

A Leavening Force

Visit tothe Occident and Marriage

Secretary to American Legation

pital which Dr. Parker had started was placed under the patronage of this new society. It encouraged physicians to come and practise among the Chinese; and from its influence the hospitals now found in the empire, with their equipment, their trained physicians, assistants, and nurses, and the education of native youths in medicine and surgery have largely come.

The bitter feeling kindled by the Opium War between Great Britain and China made it necessary for Dr. Parker to close his hospital for a time and he used the opportunity to return to the United States after seven years of intense labor. Here he told of China’s medical uplift. At Washington he enlisted the government in an effort to establish friendly relations with China. In Great Britian and France he powerfully presented the cause of medical missions. Before he left the home land on his second voyage to the East, he was married to Miss Harriet Webster, a relative of Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate, and they arrived at Canton November 5, 1842. Amid fearful conflagrations and fresh forms of opposition, he resumed and prosecuted his work with remarkable effectiveness.

The time had now come when the United States could enter into terms of intercourse with China, and Caleb Cushing was sent as Commissioner to negotiate a treaty between the two nations. As a result, Dr. Parker was appointed

by President Tyler, secretary and Chinese interpreter to the legation in China.

Having planted so firmly the medical movement for China that he could safely entrust it in a measure to other hands, though scarcely abating at all his own medical and missionary labors, Dr. Parker gave increasing attention to the development of right international relations with the empire. In 1855, worn out with the struggle to bring China’s leaders to adopt the right attitude, he sought respite in America, but was so strongly importuned that he at once returned as United States Commissioner to China, so continuing till 1857, and having as his reward the ratification of the treaty of 1858. In the years from 1857 to the time of his death in 1888, Dr. Parker

_resided at Washington, active till the end of his eighty-three years of life for the Christian advancement of China, America, and the world.

Wiliam C. Burns

As the life-story of William C. Burns is unfolded, it is seen that more fully than with the other missionary pioneers of China his work is that of a sincere, self-forgetting, intense evangelist.

He was born in the parish of Dun, in Angus, Scotland, in 1815, and was the son of a minister, who had the calm dignity of the oldtime pastor.

Closing International Labors

An Intense Evangelist

Contrasted Parental Qualities

Surprising Evangelistic Scenes

Devotion to China

The mother presented the complementary qualities of blithesome activity and joyousness. In the presence of her elastic good cheer and courage, labor became light and duty pleasant. These contrasted characteristics of the father and mother were in large measure combined in the son, in whose nature there was always a deep seriousness but at the same time a peculiar winsomeness and attraction that drew his hearers to him and melted them into submission to Christ his Master.

It was at Kilsith, the scene of his boyhood home, where his father had become pastor, that at a communion service in July, 1839, while young Burns was preaching, the Holy Spirit came upon the people, and a remarkable revival began. The same work was witnessed at Dundee, where Mr. Burns was serving in the absence of the pastor for a few months, and hundreds were converted and added to the churches in these parishes. This wonderful work changed the plan of Mr. Burns of going at once to the foreign field, and he continued without cessation

.in evangelistic services throughout Scotland, Ire-

land, and: Canada, from 1839 till near the close of 1846.

In the spring of 1847 Mr. Burns accepted the call of the English Presbyterian Church, and sailed as their first missionary to China, and with surprising success mastered the language during

the first year or two of residence at Hongkong and Canton. It is said of him that he ‘“ spoke Chinese, wrote Chinese, read Chinese, heard Chinese, sang in Chinese, and prayed in Chinese.” It was this entire absorption in the very spirit of the language that enabled him to acquire such a command of it that he could go from one part of China to another and yet always remain an evangelistic preacher to the people. It also gave him a preparation to translate the Pilgrim’s Progress into both the Amoy and the Peking dialects, as well as many hymns into colloquial Chinese, some of which are still in use.

Scarcely was he started in learning the language when he went to the prison at Hongkong, seeking to talk and pray with three Chinese condemned to death. Like his divine Master it was ever his delight to care first of all and most of all for those whom others overlooked, to leave the ninety and nine that were in safety and go after the utterly lost in the heathen wilderness. He already began to move forth among the masses of the people and to win the friendly reception and good humor with which a Chinese crowd seems ready to greet the man of genial sympathy, of quiet self-possession, and of quick and apt response to their questions.

His first preaching tour outside of Hongkong is characteristic. He left his assistants to direct

Beginnings af Hongkong

Evangelizing the Villages

the boat to any point they thought best on the long-extended coast, while he went through the villages and towns, making the gospel known by tracts and addresses. As soon as he reached a village, he would begin reading his Bible aloud, perhaps under the shade of a tree. Soon the people would gather, and he would explain to them the nature and purpose of the gospel. Usually some one would ask him at meal-time where he was to eat, and he would accept the hospitality of the friendly villager, and go on trusting in the same manner for his night’s shelter, thus often preaching the Word from week to week, and lacking nothing.

an Cas ape 3 Four hundred miles northeast of Hongkong is the teeming hive of human life made up of Amoy and more than a hundred towns and villages, and in 1851 this became the field of Mr. Burns’ labors. In March, 1852, he crossed over to the mainland from Amoy, which is located upon an island, and in the course of seven days made a circuit of thirty villages, everywhere sowing abundantly the precious seed. The next year he reached Chang-chou, thirty miles distant, with its population of about half a million, and he says: “ I do not think, upon the whole, that I have spent so interesting a season, or enjoyed so fine an opportunity of preaching the Word of Life since I came to China, as during these nine

days.” The fire thus kindled at Chang-chou was never wholly extinguished.

The results of Mr. Burns’ earnest evangelistic work now began to appear especially at Pechuia and one or two other towns, not far from Amoy. There was a movement of quickening and conversion running through many of the families of these communities. The preaching place was crowded to a late hour night after night, idols and ancestral tablets were destroyed, and some shops were closed on the Sabbath, even when it fell on market days. “ What I see here,” wrote Mr. Burns, “ makes me call to mind former days of the Lord’s power in my native Jand.”

There now came a brief visit to Great Britain, and on his return to the East the aggressive missionary evangelist sought, from Shanghai as a base, to penetrate even into the lines of operation that marked the contact of the imperial and insurgent forces in the T“ai-p‘ing rebellion. Going up the Yang-tzt' River as far as he could possibly induce his boatmen to venture, he entered the Grand Canal, and at one point such was the eagerness of the men to get the Christian books that he was distributing, that they would swim to his boat from the bank of the canal, fasten the books to their heads by their cues, and swim back again! Again, as they passed through Suchou, many reached forth from their doors and

1 Memoir of Rev. William C. Burns, by his brother, 251.

Revival Days

Aggressive Tours from Shanghai

windows with bamboo basket-hooks, with which they received Scripture portions and tracts. Thus living most of the time in his boat, for some months he followed the course of the canals and rivers which spread like a network over the whole country to the west and south of Skanghai, carrying far and wide the quickening gospel leaven. Closing == The closing period of his career may be said to date from the spring of 1856, when he began work first in the region of Swatau, a hundred and twenty miles southwest of Amoy. Here he ventured to make a missionary visit to Ch‘aochou, but was arrested as a foreigner, and after inquiry had been made into the case, was taken to the British consul at Canton. After his liberation it was not deemed prudent to return to Swatau, so he revisited the scenes of his revival labors at Pechuia, confirming the hearts of the Christian disciples, reorganizing the churches, and even at that very early date making a beginning in self-support. Next, Fu-chou was for a time the scene of his activities. That he might secure governmental protection of some of the native Christians who had been despoiled of their goods, he went to Peking. Here occurred his translation of the Pilgrim’s Progress into Pekingese. Then came the final choice for this intrepid pioneer and breaker of new ground whether he would go to Shan-tung or to Manchuria. But his knowledge of the needs of the

more northern field led him to go in that direction. Soon after reaching Niu-ch‘uang in Manchuria he was taken ill with a cold and fever from which he died, April 4, 1868.

Thus closed the life so fervent and consistent in its devotion to Christ as to leave an indelible mark on two hemispheres, three continents, and many countries. “His grave stands on the borders of the great kingdom of Manchuria, the advanced post of Christian conquests, beyond the northern limits of China. The little mound casts its shadow over many lands, for where is not Burns loved and mourned? But his life is the Church’s legacy, and his indomitable spirit beckons us to the field of conflict and of victory.”

James Addison Ingle

In the autumn of 1890 Archdeacon Thomson, a veteran of thirty years’ service in China, came to the seminary at Alexandria, Virginia, told of the difficulties and blessings of the work and asked for volunteers. He then put the closing question: “ Gentlemen, must I go back alone?”

In his audience was one whose ability and consecrated life had earned from his classmates the title of ‘ Bishop.’ He was the senior student, who had charge of the chapel for colored people near the seminary buildings; a man of large

4Rev. James Johnston, quoted in Memoir of William C, Burns, 359.

A Here’s Grave

His Call

His Response

Quick Respensibility

ideals, who was also thoughtfut of little things, He had begun to make a path through the soft ground between the seminary and his chapel by using the ashes from his stove each day. A fellow student asked him, “ Why do you bother with the path, Bishop; you won’t be in the seminary long enough to enjoy it?” “ No,” was the reply, “ but it will always be here for the other fellows.” The pathmaker was James Addison Ingle, and as he listened to the old missionary, he saw the opportunity for a pathmaker in the Orient. He applied for appointment to China at a time when the Board of Managers felt unable to increase its financial responsibilities ; and in order to carry out his purpose raised his own traveling expenses and a year’s salary. Shortly after his arrival at Shanghai, in 1891, there arose a pressing need for a foreign worker at Han-k‘ou. He went to this post six hundred miles up the Yang-tzi River, looked over the situation, and decided to undertake the work. Within a year and a half his senior worker retired permanently from the mission, leaving Mr. Ingle in charge. He had been in China less than two years, and had devoted himself zealously to the study of the people and their language, but still he was lacking in much of the practical experience, which is so large a part of the missionary’s capital and so important an element in the missionary’s influence. In spite of these disadvantages,

he was left as the only Anierican representative of his Church in the great heathen city in central China.

The condition of the mission was critical. A large number of Chinese had been brought into the Church and needed supervision and instruction. Mr. Ingle was convinced from the very beginning that a church must be self-maintaining, self-disciplining, self-propagating, and began to apply these principles. Self-extension was his first care. Local growth made it impossible for him to wait for a sufficient number of Chinese clergy; and he gathered a few laymen close to him, worked into the very fiber of their lives the story and the motive of the Christ, led them from the old darkness to the new light, and so trained them to become catechists and evangelists to their people. As these men went to live in towns near Han-k‘ou and repeated this process among their brethren, Mr. Ingle went from point to point, meeting the groups of men he had interested. He examined them as to what they had learned, received as candidates for baptism those who had been instructed, explained difficulties, and, when they had been tested and taught for another six months, baptized them.

Extracts from his letters at this time are characteristic of the man: “Ona recent trip to Hanch‘uan,” he wrote, “I had the same sort of weather that we have had almost continuously

Using Laymen

Visitation

Firmness Justified

Carefui Discipline

since Christmas——-steady and heavy rain—but the trip was a pleasant and successful one for all that.” Then follows an account of his rapid journey, with frequent stops to hold services, examine candidates, to discipline some and to encourage others, and to stimulate and guide the native catechists and evangelists. The examination of catechumens and even of applicants for admission to their number was no mere formality.

At one station, the wealthiest man in the city and a former military commander of high rank, wished to become a catechumen. He passed his examination, but had two wives and was an opium smoker. He promised to give up and provide financially for his concubine and also to discontinue the use of opium and asked to be admitted at the same time as the others, since the whole city knew of his connection with the Church and he would ‘lose face’ if he were rejected. Mr. Ingle held to the principle involved and refused the request. His decision was justified. The distinguished applicant stood throughout the service where his own servant was publicly admitted ; his courtesy as Mr. Ingle’s host was undiminished, and afterwards he fulfilled his promise of amendment and was then admitted into the Church.

Despite every care, modern China, like ancient Corinth, showed that, where new converts are taken directly from heathenism, self-discipline be-

comes a necessary part of the growing Church. Mr. Ingle followed the New Testament practise, and the offender whose sin had brought public shame on the Church was required to make public confession of his sin in the congregation, all the reparation possible, and submit to being deprived of Church privileges. He was obliged to attend the services as before, but must occupy the bench assigned to penitents. In addition, his name, the nature of the offense, and of the discipline imposed was written out and posted in the ‘ guest room’,—the room in the mission open to and frequented by the public. When the offender had served his probation and proved the sincerity of his repentance, the sign was removed and he was publicly declared forgiven and restored. This system was begun and carried out in a loving spirit and with the approval of the native clergy.

The principle of self-maintenance was urged from the beginning. In the new stations the Church services were ir the upper room of some Christian’s house. Rude benches, Chinese wall scrolls, with Chinese inscriptions, a Chinese table for an altar, and the simplest cross alone marked the room as achurch. Mr. Ingle was not afraid to withhold or withdraw financial aid in the interests of seif-support. And under him the missions met New Testament conditions and attained a genuine Christian reality.

Cultivating Self-Support

Developing His consistent attitude toward the humblest catechist is summed up in the following advice to his fellow missionaries: “When you have chosen your men, keep an eye on them. Let them see that you are watching them and do not intend to allow any one to fall asleep at his post. Keep a list of the converts that they have brought in, and now and then call the workers to account for them. It will make them more careful. Don’t merely scold them through the deacon, but talk to them face to face. And, above all, teach them. Don’t suppose that, because they have been in the Church for years, they know everything. The best of them know little and read less. Meet them regularly in classes; give them lessons to prepare. I believe that the best way to train all workers is by meeting them regularly and intimately out of the pulpit, in classes, best held, I think, in our own houses, where we can act the host as well as the pastor.”

Gospet In the midst of many details, Mr. Ingle placed Emphasis . S ’ the emphasis on the heart of the gospel in his dealings with those under him. One of them writes: “A fellow worker and I had so greatly differed and each so firmly believed himself in

the right that it seemed to be a hopeless block to

our cooperative work. I told Bishop Ingle of the

affair, for I wanted his help in the matter, and I expected him to ask minutely of the rights and wrongs thereof. But not so, nothing was further

from his thoughts. All he said was, ‘ Doctor, if we foreign workers cannot manage to live together in Christian love, how can we hope to teach the Chinese to live so? Our many differences and eccentricities are for discipline, and Serve as our finest opportunities of showing the natives how Christians live together in peace.’ And the conversation ended right there. By such methods and with such a spirit, in ten years he built up in central China a strong native Church, well-ordered congregations, with its own native clergy, catechists, teachers, Bible women, and other helpers.”

When a new missionary district was created, in 1901, he was made its first bishop. The pleasure of his associates at his election and their abiding affection and loyalty speak well for him and the character of his work. He had just returned from a year’s furlough in the United States, during which time he had been traveling and making addresses almost constantly in the interests of his work, and returned to China in no condition to stand the strain of a bishop’s life. Ill health was almost constant, but he insisted on keeping at his task of making modern equipment adequate to unprecedented opportunities. He kept his work in mind to the last and the day before he died he sent this message to the Chinese Christians and clergy: “Tell them that as I have tried to serve them in Christ’s name while

SelfSacrificing Leadership

Dying N by

living, so if God please to take me away from this world, I pray that even my death may be a blessing to them and help them to grow in the faith and love of Christ. May they be pure in heart, loving Christ for his own sake, and steadfastly follow the dictates of conscience uninfluenced by sordid ambitions or selfishness of any kind.” The next day when the end came, he gathered about him the members of his own family and a few of the mission staff, and began to pray in the same clear and rich voice all knew so well. He asked God to look with mercy on the past and to use to his glory all efforts put forth in his name. He prayed for his family, committing them to the care of the Father; for the members of the staff that they might be strong, brave, and united, never fearful or halting in the work committed to them. He prayed for the Church in China and for the Church at home, especially asking that God would stir His people in America to support the work more loyally and generously, giving more men and better men, men rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, to proclaim his gospel and establish his Church in China. When the sad day of burial came, St. Paul’s Church in Han-k‘ou, where less than two years before the young bishop had been consecrated, was twice crowded, one with a reverent congregation of Chinese Christians, and again with the members of the foreign community.

Out from his church they carried him to the foreign cemetery where his body was to be laid to rest, through streets lined with Chinese, many of them weeping as they realized that no more should they see in this life their friend and bishop.

His influence reached out far beyond his immediate work in China; his statesmanlike ability and his consecration had begun to be felt among the leaders of his Church in the United States, and in China there were many in other missions who recognized his wisdom and efficiency. Dr. Griffith John, of Han-k‘ou, who has been half a century in central China as the representative of the London Missionary Society, expressed the conviction of many others when he said that he was sure that if God had seen fit to spare Bishop Ingle’s life for twenty or thirty years, he would have become one of the greatest missionaries of modern times.

Reinforcements in China’s Uplift

It will be found most convenient in this rapid survey, to divide China’s century of missions into three periods: the first, of thirty-five years, from 1807 to 1842, the close of the Opium War; the second, of thirty-five years, from 1842 to 1877, the date of the first Missionary Conference; and the third, from 1877 to 1907.

Undying Influence

Three Periods

First Period Milne and Bridgman

Second Period, Workers Chiefly at Canton

In the first period, aside from the leaders already sketched, perhaps the only names that call for emphatic mention are those of the Rev. William Milne, Morrison’s able and active associate from 1813 to 1822, and of Dr. Elijah C. Bridgman, the pioneer American missionary. In addition to Milne’s notable achievements as educator, translator, and printer, he is to be remembered as an author of exceptional fertility,—one of his smaller productions, “The Two Friends,” being still popular and effective throughout China. Dr. Bridgman’s enduring monument is made up of the volumes of the Chinese Repository, which he founded and most ably edited from 1832 to 1851, his Chrestomathy, and his other literary and educational work.

In the second period, while the work of Dr. S. Wells Williams reaches back to 1833, it falls mainly in the second period. He followed Dr. Bridgman as editor of the Chinese Repository in 1851, was secretary of the United States legation, and produced The Middle Kingdom, which will probably always remain the standard authority on the Chinese Empire. Dr. Karl Gutzlaff, closing in 1851, at the early age of forty-eight, a life of intense activity and surprising erudition, has as his noblest memorials the Basel and the Rhenish Missionary Societies, formed largely because of inspiration which he gave. As successors of Dr. Morrison in the work of the

London Missionary Society, Dr. Hobson represented the union of medical and evangelistic work, Dr. James Legge made Chinese thought and the Chinese classics comprehensible to English readers, and with him must be linked Dr. John Chalmers.

Alexander and John Stronach, arriving in Amoy in 1844, gave themselves with great earnestness to street preaching, and the latter did much to fix the style of the Bible translation known as the Delegates’ version.

Stephen Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Peet, and Justus Doolittle carried forward the work of the American Board at Fu-chou from 1847; and during the same year Judson D. Collins and Moses C, White began in the same city the mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which has since spread so largely over the whole of China Proper. Dr. Stephen L. Baldwin and wife, and the Misses Beulah and Sarah Woolston entered the field in 1857, reinforcing the work of the founders. Virgil C. Hart and wife arriving at Fu-chou in 1866, the next year began at Chiu-chiang the development which is sending its radiance into the three provinces of An-hui, Chiang-hsi, and Hu-pei. Twenty years later they were called to go far up the Yang-tzii valley to reopen the West China Mission, after persecution had driven out the early founders in the wonderful field of Sstt-ch‘uan. Finally when re-

Founders at Amov

Beginners at Fu-chow

Pioneers at Ning-po

Workers of Power at Shanghai

covering from broken health, Dr. Hart led, into the heart of Ssti-ch‘uan, the mission of the Methodist Church in Canada.

With the coming of 1842 there was a marked opening of the gateway into China, and the Rev. Walter M. Lowrie, sent out by the American Presbyterian Board, entered Canton in that year. In June, 1844, Dr. D. B. McCartee, of this society, began work at Ning-po, and displayed in his development of the field unusual ability and knowledge of China. Dr. Lowrie also soon arrived at Ning-po, and Dr. A. J. Happer, Mr. French, and Dr. J. G. Kerr were later reinforcements. In 1843, Dr. J. D. Macgowan, representing medical work, began in this center the mission of the American Baptist Missionary Union, which spread widely into the surrounding territory and established a hospital. The Church Missionary Society of Great Britain had here as pioneers the names of Cobbold, Russell, and Burdon.

A brilliant group of printer-scholars are conspicuous among the uplifting workers of China, and not least for splendid and beneficent acquirements shine the names of Medhurst and Muirhead, Lockhart and Wylie, at Shanghai, the last reviewing in his Notes on Chinese Literature over two thousand treatises, and Dr. Lockhart being the first to begin medical work at Peking. Episcopal Mission operations at Shanghai, for

Great Britain and America date from 1844 and 1845, Bishop Boone being the American pioneer. At Shanghai also was built up the great printing and publishing establishment of the American Presbyterian Church, and in this marvelously growing center of eastern China the work of the American Southern Baptist Mission was commenced in 1847, and the year following that of the Southern Methodists.

The survey: closes with the third period, from 1877 to the present. Though Dr, Nevius and his courageous wife began service as early as 1853, the most suggestive developments of his work, such as station-propagation, self-support, and training of converts, appeared after 1877. Likewise, the missionary career of J. Hudson Taylor, having its quiet and unnoticed beginnings in 1853, culminated in the amazing breadth and sweep of the China Inland Mission, until at life’s close he laid down its leadership in 1905. Dr. J. Kenneth Mackenzie left the influence of his life and rare devotion in the years from 1876 tc 1888. John Van Nest Talmage, the faithful, unheralded worker, built the energy of a lifetime into the mission of the American Reformed Church at Amoy. Griffith John has completed a golden half-century of ideal missionary development, until his name is not only supreme in the great mid-China field, having its center at Han-k‘ou, but loved and honored the world

Third Period

Wonderful Providential Pioneers and Successors

IkO The Uplift of China

atound; while Dr. William Ashmore, of the American Baptist Missionary Union, by more than fifty years of remarkably fruitful service, has indissolubly linked his name with the difficult field of Swatau.

Reviewing in detail the life and the achievements of these pioneers, it is well-nigh inevitable to conclude that they have been men of phenomenal type, especially raised up by God to do the preliminary work. Consider the educational, the literary, the medical, and the evangelistic work actually accomplished by Morrison, Milne, Bridgman, Allen, and Martin; by Williams, Medhurst, and Legge; by Parker, Lockhart, and Kerr; and by Burns, Nevius, Taylor, Baldwin, Talmage, Ingle, Jobn, and Ashmore! The workers die, but the work goes on. A long roll-call of native leaders, like Liang A-fa, enlisted by Milne, and a host of kindred souls in after times, might find here fitting memorial. The representatives of the women’s organizations of the home churches, now penetrating co all parts of the empire, are deserving of widest commemoration. The great army of martyrs, both of missionaries and of native Christians, bearing witness by their blood. in the face of sword and fire and cruel death, have forever consecrated our faith in the eyes of China’s millions. Let us learn, therefore. from this brief survey, what vast results are accomplished by even a few exponents of God’s

‘outreaching love, and from a contemplation of

the yet

greater tasks remaining, what a trumpet-

call is sounding for men and women of like spirit with those who have gone before to enter inte and complete their labors,

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER V

Aim: To APPRECIATE THE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WoRK oF SOME OF THE LEADING MISSIONARIES TO CHINA

AI

iO.

ad.

Why have modern Protestant missions 4 greater right to expect to survive than had the Nestorians ?

What does the success of Corvino and Ricci indicate as to Chinese character?

Was there as much need at home in 1807 as to-day?

Compare the discouragements at home which faced Morrison with those of missionary volunteers to-day.

What right had Morrison to expect results? Compare the difficulties that faced him on the foreign field with those of to-day.

Compare our encouragements with his.

What sort of preparation should you make for translating the Bible for the first time into the language of a non-Christian people?

Ought the first translation to be aimed at the taste of the literary class or that of the common people?

Should you think it justifiable to have several different versions of the Scriptures?

How should you translate 1 Corinthians IX, 24 fer a nation that does not run races?

12.*

13.

Lal ait

17.

19. 20. 20.5

22.

2a"

24.

25.*

26.*

What precaution should you take to make sure that your translation was thoroughly intelligible?

Should you trust non-Christian helpers to give you words for Christian experiences?

Name several sorts of literature that you think pioneer missionaries ought to create.

What are to you the impressive lessons of Morrison’s life?

What advantages has medical work over all other missionary agencies?

What illustrations should you use in presenting the gospel to those who had come for medical treatment?

Do you think a medical missionary ought to undertake an operation that seemed likely to be unsuccessful ?

What do you think was the relative value of Parker’s medical aad diplomatic work? What were Burns’ special qualifications as an evangelist ?

What things should you keep in mind in trying to master the language for evangelistic work? What are the relative advantages of widespread itineration and work in a single place? Which method do you consider more effective for spreading the gospel, that of Burns or of Bishop Ingle?

How were their methods affected by the different circumstances under which they worked ?

What sort of questions should you ask of candidates for baptism?

Do you think that Bishop Ingle was justified in so strict a standard of discipline? Give reasons for your view.

: Uplifting Leaders 153

27. How large a proportion of your time should you give to the time of training native helpers?

28.* What are the arguments for and against giving them responsibility ?

29.* What advantages has the native helper over the missionary as a Christian worker?

30. What principles should you follow in your relations with fellow missionaries in China?

31. What lesson has Bishop Ingle’s life for you?

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.—CHAPTER V

I. Preparation for Misstonary Work. Bryson: John Kenneth Mackenzie, I, II. Burns: Memoir of the Rev. William C. Burns, WHI IW, se. Lovett: James Gilmour of Mongolia, I. Mackay: From Far Formosa, I, IJ, I1. Stevens: The Life of Peter Parker, II, Ili, IV. Thompson: Griffith John, I. Townsend: Robert Morrison, III.

Il. Missionary Call. Bridgman: The Missionary Pioneer, II. Burns: Memoir of the Rev. William C. Burns, XI. Gibson: Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China, 312-321. Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, 13-15. Talmage: Forty Years in China, II. Thompson: Griffith John, II.

Ill. Learning the Language. Lovett: James Gilmour of Mongolia, 327-332. Martin: A Cycle of Cathay, III. Nevius: John Livingston Nevius, 128-130. Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, 27-32

IV. Prayer and Missions. Bryson: John Kenneth Mackenzie, IX. Guinness: Story of the China Inland Mission, Parton Pare sl Vi Vey ie Hu Yong Mi: XV, XVI. Mateer: Siege Days, XIII. Mott: The Pastor and Modern Missions, V. Speer: Missionary Principles and Practice, XLI, Taylors: Pastor fisi. XL XI

FORMS OF MISSIONARY WORK

‘and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness.

—Matthew ix. 35.

Missionary effort in China is organized—as is successful missionary work in all lands—in the departments of medicine, evangelistic, literary, and educational work. It is carried on with the purpose of giving every person in the Chinese Empire a knowledge of the gospel as speedily as possible, of leading men and women to a personal union with Christ, of building them up in Christian character, and of creating as rapidly as possible a self-supporting native church.

—J. W. Bashford.

Let us bear in mind that the best methods cannot do away with the difficulties in our work, which come from the world, the flesh, and the devil; but bad methods may multiply and intensify them. For unavoidable difficulties we are not responsible; for those which arise from disregard of the teachings of Scripture and experience we are. Let us also remember that, while in undertaking the momentous task committed to us, we should, by the study of the Scriptures, prayer for divine guidance, and comparison of our varied views and experiences, seek to know what is the best method of work, still the best method without the presence of our Master and the Spirit of all truth will be unavailing.

—John Livingston Nevius.

VI

CHAPTER 6. FORMS OF MISSIONARY WORK

T is too often forgotten that the words apostle,

and missionary, although one of them is derived from the Greek and the other from the Latin, are in meaning identical. The Book of Acts shows how apostolic missionary work was done in the first century A. D., and in the twentieth century its essence remains the same.

The process by which entrance was obtained into new regions in China was everywhere substantially the same. ‘The first stage was that of wide and incessant tours of exploration, by means of which a fuller knowledge was gained of the different provinces, and, what was of scarcely less importance, the people became accustomed to the sight of foreigners. The temporary headquarters of the travelers was a boat or aninn. When it was intended to attempt a lodgment, the visits grew more and more frequent and were more protracted. At last the opportunity would come to rent a place of some one hard pressed for money (a class of which China is full), and then trouble would begin. The literati would complain to the magistrate, who would overtly, or

Apostle and Missionary

The volution of Mission

Persistence, Patience, Tact and

Faith

more frequently covertly, encourage opposition until not improbably the bargain had to be annulled.

Sometimes this unequal contest lasted for months, sometimes for many weary years, but in the end the persistence, patience, tact, and unfailing faith of the missionaries always won, even though their open and secret enemies were innumerable and of the highest rank. In one instance of this sort, where an American mission had been again and again mobbed in a provincial capital,—the leader of their opponents being an ex-governor of a neighboring province,—and where it appeared that nothing could be done for them in Peking, the American minister did the foreign office (Tsung Li Yamen) a good turn in regard to a Continential Power, and the Chinese ministers gratefully offering to make some return were requested to settle up all outstanding cases,—and suitable premises were speedily secured. The men and the women who did this pioneering in the face of howling mobs, often with scarcely a moment of assured respite, are certainly worthy of as much honor as those who first subdued the primeval wilderness of America in the face of hostile Indians. In some instances, however, especially following in the wake of relief in time of famine, mission stations seemed to be opened with very little outward ob-

Forms of Missionary Work 159

struction. Yet it was always true that prejudice and passive resistance had to be lived down.

In the early stages of a mission it is almost impossible to trust any one, for one soon learns the accuracy of the generalization in the schoolboy’s composition, that “Man is composed of water and of avaricious tissue.” By degrees a little corporal’s guard of inquirers gathers about, of whose motives it is, however, impossible to be sure, and it may be a decade before the first converts are baptized.

All Protestant missions make large use of street chapels to which everybody is welcome, where maps and pictures are hung, explanations being constantly given of essential Christian truths. By Roman Catholics, however, so far as we know, this agency is nowhere employed. Sometimes a mob collects and loots or destroys the chapel, which sooner or later is rebuilt. After a time it becomes an old story and is then _ neglected.

Visits to other cities and towns, perhaps originating in invitations from the curious, the impecunious, those having “an ax to grind,” or the genuinely interested, gradually lead to the opening of new centers. Colporteurs are sent out with books to be explained and sold, or perhaps loaned, and with tracts to be sold, or in exceptional cases given away. The country is so vast and the population so dense, that to this form of

Care inthe Early Stages

Use of Street Chapels

Itineration

work there is literally no end. Some one must oversee the budding churches at a distance, and thus a system of itinerancy grows up. Meanwhile, the handful of baptized Christians, the inquirers, and the adherents will not improbably be persecuted, at first perhaps in small ways and then often with bitterness, being expelled from the clan, denied the use of the village well, and otherwise boycotted. Such persons must be looked after, advised, and encouraged. Thus there is evolved the work of a missionary bishop or superintendent.

Station At times the colporteurs and some of the more receptive inquirers are gathered into classes and given fuller instruction, forming the germ of a theological seminary, into which it sometimes develops. Here and there one more intelligent than the rest acts as a volunteer preacher, perhaps forsaking, or it may be retaining his former occupation.

Workfor | Work for women by women is an integral part

Women s Seba : : Q . of an effective mission station in China—or indeed anywhere. This is begun and carried on under even greater hindrances and disabilities than other forms of work, because in China there is no precedent for the traveling about of unmarried women, whose position at first inevitably exposes them to misunderstanding if not to insult. Yet in the northeastern part of the Chiang-hsi province there is a whole chain of China Inland

Forms of Missionary Work 161

Mission stations “ manned ” altogether by ladies, and this in cities where at the time no man could have got a foothold, and when there were none available. Native pastors superintend the flock, which is visited at certain times by the provincial superintendent. In another instance, where ladies had begun a work in a far western province, the local magistrate when asked to drive them out replied, “ What does it matter? They are only women!” But at last through a brokendown opium smoker, a class to whom missionaries owe much, a shabby place was secured. Amid great discomfort, with a total absence of privacy, and with constant swarms of curious and unsympathetic spectators, the next stage of the struggle was entered upon. When foreign ladies dress in Chinese costume some of the incidental disadvantages are diminished, but the all-prevalent Chinese suspicion is difficult to allay. <A Chinese woman once remarked of some missionary ladies whom she had come to know a little, that they seemed to be very good people indeed, with only one defect,—they did not worship any gods!

Chinese women can be effectively reached only by women. ‘The instruction of the converts is most essential, yet owing to their poverty, the pressure of domestic cares, the servitude to oldtime custom, and the demands of their parents, husbands, children, and relatives, it becomes an

Station Classes for Women

162 _The Uplift of China

exceedingly difficult task. Women’s classes even if held for but a short period afford valuable opportunities for instruction, the development of Christian character, and particularly for that social fellowship of which the lives of most Chinese women are painfully destitute. Many firm friendships are thus formed, and in these modest processes of Christian culture much admirable talent is often developed.

cules anne of the distinct benefits which mission

ofHome work brings to China is the object-lesson (all the more impressive because incidental and inconspicuous) of a Christian home, and Christian training and education of children. The second and third generation of converts have in this way received an impulse to introduce a new domestic life, the value of which is beyond estimation. The touring of women in the interior, though at first difficult and sometimes, dangerous, is often an important part of their work, as soon as little companies of Christians begin to be collected in

outstations.

Medical A well-equipped mission station will have a

dispensary and a hospital, the resort of thousands from near and from far. Multitudes refuse to come until their sufferings are intolerable and often incurable. Some come only to die, which in the earlier stages of the work may cause trouble—perhaps even riots. Medical tours furnish large opportunities for the promotion of

Forms of Missionary Work 163

friendly feeling, and for extending the missionary sphere of influence. Nowhere is the missionary more in harmony with the command and the example of the Master than when, as he goes, he preaches and heals the sick. Asa means of dissipating prejudice, the great advantage of the medical work is that it is a permanent agency (the sick, like the poor, we have always with us) ; that those who come, do so of their own accord, and for an object; that they are influenced at a most susceptible time; that a single patient may not improbably communicate his good impressions to many others while under treatment, and to a much larger number after he is discharged. The constant observation of the unselfish and unwearying fidelity of the Christian physician cannot fail to attract even the most unimpressionable Chinese, for he has never in his life either seen or heard of anything like it. Countless outstations have been opened through the direct and the indirect result of medical work. The opportunities of the evangelistic missionary physician and of the hospital chaplain are unexcelled.

In addition to other medical work, special attention is often paid to the opium habit. Opium smokers are the most hopeless class to be found in China, because, not only has their physical vitality been undermined, but their moral power as well, leading at last to a complete paralysis of

Opium Refuges

Medical Work for Women

Kindergartens

the will. Opium, unquestionably the greatest curse of the Chinese race, has probably done more to destroy it than war, famine, and pestilence combined. In the province of Shan-hsi it is a common saying of the Chinese that “ eleven out of every ten” are smokers, even women using it, and their infant children being lulled to sleep with the noxious drug. Yet even there some of the best Christian workers have been reclaimed from a condition apparently hopeless.

The woes of Chinese medical treatment bear with special hardship on Chinese women. Their physical miseries are beyond estimate. The presence of an educated Christian medical woman in the sick-room, wise and winning, strong and sweet, is one of God’s best gifts to China. It is ail interesting circumstance that, in the city where Protestant missionary work was first attempted, after the lapse of almost a century (1903), the first woman’s medical college in the empire was opened, under the care of Drs. Mary Fulton and Mary Niles, with a class of thirteen, and more applications than could be received. The career open to the medically educated

Chinese young woman is one of great promise

and vast possibilities.

The kindergarten has made its appearance late in China, but it has come to stay. It is as yet seen at its best in Fu-chou. It is encouraging that the Chinese themselves, with the assistance

forms of Missionary Work 165

of Japanese teachers, have adopted and are more and more introducing the system. As a means of utilizing a period of child life which the Chinese have for the most part allowed to run abdsolutely to waste, and as a means of attracting immediate attention and commendation on the part of uninterested and perhaps semi-hostile outsiders, the kindergarten has perhaps no rival.

In the mission station there will usually be established at an early stage a school for boys. The first pupils are any who can be got, but at a later period they will be mainly or wholly from Christian families, studying under a Christian teacher Christian books, as well as the Chinese classics. These rudimentary beginnings will probably develop into a well-graded system of instruction, terminating in a thoroughly equipped college. In one station a Manchu lad, virtually a beggar, was picked up by a kind-hearted lady and educated, becoming a teacher and a preacher, the little school meanwhile passing through the evolutionary process just mentioned.

Parallel with the education of the boys, but until lately at a great distance to the rear, runs the education of Chinese girls, without which there can be no true balance in the Church or in the home. The beginnings were generally small and often most discouraging, yet when the notion is once grasped that girls have as good minds as boys, and especially when it is comprehended

Schools for Boys

Education of Chinese Girls

Training Schools for Women

that even money-wise, it is in the end a good investment to teach them, the most conservative Chinese begin to give way. The recent change of front in the most advanced parts of China in regard to the education of women has brought the Christian girls’ schools and colleges into a prominence which a few years ago would have been considered impossible. They are an essential factor in the coming Christian regeneration of China.

One of the most interesting and hopeful forms of work for Chinese women is the training school, into which the pupils—for the most part married | women—are taken for a series of years, and, as in other schools, with fixed terms and vacations. Their studies result not only in a general familiarity with the Old and New Testaments, with special reference to imparting their knowledge, but perhaps also involve an acquaintance with outline geography, and the fundamental rules of arithmetic. They are thus enabled to keep their own accounts, and they readily command the respect of those with whom they come in contact. It is often a part of the plan to send these future Bible-women out into actual work for a year, with an experienced companion, to test their adaptedness to their new responsibilities, the like of which have never before been seen in China. These training schools have as yet been more fully developed in the Fu-chien province than

Forms of Missionary Work 167

elsewhere, but in time they must become universal. China will never be profoundly affected until its women have been profoundly affected. For the achievement of this end, perhaps no agency more important than training schools for Christian women has ever been devised.

In a country with such highly skilled artificers as China, industrial education is conducted under much greater difficulties than elsewhere, particularly in the case of boys. Ina few places these difficulties have been partly overcome by the introduction of improved looms for weaving, and also by other industries such as carpentering, basket-making and the like. Pupils in girls’ schools sew, spin, weave, make drawn-work, lace, embroidery, and a large variety of articles knit with wool. The Roman Catholics, who as a rule are excellent practical managers, have always made a specialty of industrial work in varied forms. Protestants might learn much from them in all these directions.

The doubts which have sometimes been entertained, as to the wisdom of laying so much stress upon education as most American missions have always done, may be said to have passed away. The development of colleges rounded out the educational system of American missions at a time when the very conception of such institutions was alien to Chinese thought. Now that the government is opening them on a large scale,

Industrial’ Schools

Importance of Educational Work

Bible Societies

they become more than ever a necessity for Christians. The oldest missionary society in China,

‘long reluctant to do so, has recently begun to

establish advanced schools. Christian youth who hold fast to their faith, equipped with a knowledge of what China has inherited from the past, as well as with the best which the West has to bestow, are indispensable for the renovation of China. In their education there are great dangers and immense possibilities.

Every missionary in every land is under obligations to the Bible societies which provide for the translation, the publication, and the distribution of the Scriptures. The British and Foreign Bible Society, which was founded in 1804, at once directed its attention to China, but its plan to publish a translation of a part of the New Testament found in the British Museum (the one used by Robert Morrison) was relinquished when it was ascertained that it would cost ten dollars a copy, and that no means existed of circulating it among the Chinese. In 1810 the society printed a translation of the Acts, by Mr. Morrison, and from that time to the present its activity has never ceased. It has published many versions in the literary style, in the mandarin, as well as in thirteen distinct local dialects, four of them printed in roman letters, as well as in the Chinese characters, while in two dialects editions have been prepared for the blind. It has

PEKING UNIVERSITY _

Se a ee fo Lee GE ee er ee nie eed = a ee :

. : =

Forms of Missionary Work 169

also issued the Bible in Mongolian (two versions), in Kalmuc, and in Tibetan.

The system of agencies, sub-agencies, colporteurs, and Bible-women (of whom for ten years the average number has been thirty) constitutes a vast business enterprise, covering every part of China. ‘The total circulation of Bibles, Testaments, and portions, from the beginning of the society’s work to the end of 1905, was 13,246,263 copies, and it is worthy of notice that the increase in the last decade (5,200,908) was but little short of the total circulation for the first eighty years. This fact suggests the immense influence which this single instrumentality has exerted and is now yet more exerting for the regeneration of China.

The American Bible Society appeared in China soon after the first American missionaries (1834), and like its companion has been active in providing the Scriptures for the Chinese, and in circulating them widely. Its direct issues for 1905 were the largest of any year since it began work in China, amounting to 625,852 volumes, more than 98,000 in excess of any previous year. The Scotch Bible Society, organized much later tnan the others, is more free than either of its colleagues in allowing its colporteurs to sell Gospels and tracts together, and in circulating editions of the former with copious and much needed annotations.

Great Gains in Circulatioa

American and Scotch Societies

Tract

Bocieties

The Christian Literature Society

The work of the Bible societies is fitly supplemented and complemented by that of the numerous tract societies, the principal ones having their roots in and receiving their nourishment from the great Religious Tract Society of London and the American Tract Society. The organizations having this work in hand are centered in Shanghai, Han-k‘ou, Fu-chou, and other ports, as well as in Peking, and in remote Ssti-ch‘uan. The field of the larger of these societies is not merely China itself, vast as it is, but the whole world, wherever the Chinese have emigrated. The proportional increase in the book circulation of some of these societies is quite equal to the growth of that of the Bible societies just mentioned, while the Christian periodicals which they publish are essential to the healthy development of the native Church.

The Christian Literature Society, at first called by a different name, was the outgrowth of the work of an able and a far-sighted Scotchman, Dr. Alexander Williamson, a man of broad gage, and wide influence, who prepared many valuable books. At his untimely death in 1891, Mr. Timothy Richard took the helm of the organization, which aimed to reach and to influence the intellect of China by translating the best books available, and also by the issue of an influential high-grade monthly magazine called The Review of the Times. edited by Dr. Young J. Allen. Both

Forms of Missionary Work i7f /

Dr. Richard and Dr. Allen have produced a large number of important works which have been read in every part of the empire. The Society publishes also a monthly magazine for Christian readers, as well as a weekly paper, started by the Rev. Wm. A. Cornaby. The range of topics included in its book translations is wide,—religious, historical, biographical, scientific, anthropological, with works on comparative religions, and Bloch’s Future of War. In the absence of a copyright law Chinese publishers have paid the society the sincere compliment of pirating its works as soon as they appear, and upon a large scale, a practise which, while interfering with the financial receipts, unquestionably helps to carry out the object of the society to diffuse knowledge and light.

The great streams of Christian literature could not have been circulated without the aid of many mission presses, of which the largest is under the American Presbyterian mission at Shanghai. It has been furnishing Scriptures and Christian literature for the Chinese at home, as well .as for Chinese scattered all over the world. This great institution has poured forth Bibles, Gospels, books, tracts, and magazines, sometimes at the rate of 90,000,000 pages per annum. ‘The consolidated mission press of the American Methodists is also in Shanghai, and others are to be found in various parts of China, many of them

Mission Presses

The Educational Association

overworked and all of them busy. By their aid, the romanization of the dialects of China has been made effective in bringing to millions who can never learn to read the complicated characters, knowledge which else would have been unattainable. The same plan is now adopted with the widely spread mandarin, although under special difficulties and as yet with but partial success. It isa remarkable fact to which the Chinese are not as yet awake, that practically all the labor expended to make their language more serviceable to the needs of the people owes its origin to foreigners.’

The first missionary conference appointed a committee to prepare text-books for schools. At the second conference further steps were taken which resulted in the formation of the Educational Association of China. This has been an important agency in unifying the action of those engaged in educational work, both by its publications, of which it has a considerable list, and by the discussions and action at its triennial meetings, of which the fifth was held in Shanghai in May, 1905. It is important in the present condition of education in China that this Association should have a permanent secretary and greatly extend the scope of its activities.

1 Within the last two years, however, a system of initials and finals represented by arbitrary characters has been invented by a Chinese scholar, and by its aid many have learned ta read in a wonderfully brief period.

Forms of Missionary Work 173

The new conditions in China have opened to missionaries many avenues of influence heretofore closed. Public addresses on subjects now of general interest have become widely popular from Shanghai to Sst-ch‘uan, and from Canton to Peking. In the latter city a chapel of the American Board has for some time been used as a lecture hall, at which, on different days, both men and women have been instructed in current events, and many other topics, such as history, geography, hygiene, coal, and _ education. Princesses have attended these lectures, and one of them, the wife of a Mongol prince, gave an account of her tribulations in trying to introduce the education of girls among the Mongols, illustrating her success by exhibiting several of her pupils. A Manchu duke, a nephew of the empress dowager, gave an address on filial piety. The editor of a Peking daily and the editor of a Chinese woman’s journal, herself deeply interested in the subject, have given lectures, and have commended the plan in their papers. As an opportunity to reach the hitherto inaccessible but now intellectually alert higher classes, these openings are invaluable.

A cognate but more permanent form of influence is that of museums combined with lectures. Probably the best example of this is found in the work of the English Baptist Mission in Shan-tung. Nearly twenty years ago

Lectures

Museums

this was begun in Ch‘ing-chou, and more recently on a far larger scale in Chi-nan, the capital. The buildings are throughout Chinese in style. <A model of a foreign cemetery affords opportunity to explain Western ideas as to regard for the dead, without attacking (or even mentioning) ancestral worship. Models of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Capitol at Washington, and other famous structures convey a realistic notion of Occidental architecture. Stuffed birds, animals, mounted fishes, huge globes, orreries, electrical machines, model railways, and dredging machines silently dispel darkness and prejudice. Large colored charts, showing for different countries their relative railway mileage, tonnage of merchant vessels, the output of gold, silver, iron, coal, and other products, in all of which China is represented only by a thin yellow line at the bottom, convince as arguments could never do. A young ‘Confucianist, who came to scoff, retired after a protracted visit to remark to his uncle (an official): “Why, the only thing that China is ahead in is population!’ This important insti‘tution, which from its inception has been under ‘the charge of the Rev. J. S. Whitewright, has in ‘the course of twenty years received more than a million visits, of which 247,000 were made during 1906. No better way of attracting educated and official China has ever been devised.

CHI- NAN FU

MISSION PRESS SHANGHAI

Forms of Missionary Work 175

The great famine, which in the years 1877-78 overspread all the northern provinces of China, proved to be a, wonderful opening through which to pierce the rough and forbidding exterior of Chinese prejudice. A large staff of missionaries, with a few from the customs service, personally administered the funds in the distressed districts. Four missionaries died of fever and overwork, one of whom was honored by the governor of Shan-hsi with a public funeral. In the famine of 1907, which affected about 4,000,000 persons, missionaries again rendered heroic service. Famine relief unostentatiously and wisely conducted proves a golden key to unlock many closed doors.

Asylums or villages for lepers have been established in five different provinces, where excellent work has been done. There are eight orphanages (one of them in Hongkong, but conducted by missionaries to the Chinese) caring for a great number of children—mostly girls. Eleven schools or asylums for the blind—the best known being that of Mr. Murray in Peking—are working what the Chinese justly regard as daily miracles, rescuing from uselessness and worse a class hitherto quite hopeless. <A school for deaf-mutes conducted by Mrs. Mills in Chefoo, is an object-lesson in what may be done in that wide field. An asylum for the insane begun under great difficulties by the late Dr. J. G.

Famine Relic:

Special Benevolent Asylums

Kerr at Canton is likewise a pioneer in caring for a numerous but hitherto neglected class. Pet the plan of organizing the young people has Societies heen adopted by nearly every mission in China. It is recognized as a most useful method of training new converts to become strong and aggres: sive Christians. For large conventions the Chinese have an especial aptitude. As an evidence to the world of the earnestness and the enthusiasm of the body of young Christians and as a stimulus to the spirit of unity, great gatherings are quite as impressive as in the United States and Canada and much more valuable. Young Men’s —_ In response to invitations representing the misAssociation sionary body, the Young Men’s Christian Association entered China in 1895. Since its inception it has made rapid progress both among the young men in the cities and among the students in the institutions of learning. In the larger Chinese cities the Young Men’s Christian Association has a peculiar value as a middleground between Christians and influential nonChristian Chinese, who are often quite ready to become associate members, assisting with friendly counsel and with financial backing. In Christian schools the association combines Christian students into a compact organization with wide affiliations. It affords an opportunity for the expression of the personal Christian life of the student, and gives scope and training for aggres-

Forms of Missionary Work 177

sive work. It organizes and stimulates Bible study, and brings to every individual the call to service for others. In wholly non-Christian institutions where no other avowedly Christian influence could penetrate at all, the Young Men’s Christian Assocation has sometimes been welcomed as soon as it was understood, for its social and its moral advantages. In these directions it has in China an unlimited field for usefulness.

In view of the completion of a century of Protestant missions, the Canton Missionary Alliance has undertaken to collect funds to the amount of $100,000 for the erection of a building which is to be under the charge of the Young Men’s Christian Association of the port in which Protestant mission work was first begun. There are at present 27 foreign and 15 Chinese secretaries engaged in the China work.

At the urgent invitation of the National Committee of Japan, work was begun by the secretaries of the Chinese Young Men’s Christian Association (and others) among the 16,000 or more Chinese students in that country under somewhat abnormal and morally perilous conditions. This has been conducted by relays of workers from China, both Chinese and foreign, developing with great rapidity and with many signs of promise of large and permanent usefulness, since these students must eventually occupy influential positions in their own land. Many

Memorial to Morrison

Among China’s Young Men in Japan

The Young Womens Caristian

Association

Christianity Indispensable

hundreds of them have attended the classes, and not a few have openly avowed their determination to live a Christian life.

The Young Women’s Christian Association has but recently reached China, and has at present three representatives. The first of these (Miss Martha Berninger) began work among the women and girls employed in the numerous steam-mills in and about Shanghai. The number of such operatives is estimated at more than 30,000, and, including those working in match factories, and other trades, may reach 40,000. Several Young Women’s Christian Associations already exist in schools for girls, which will be developed upon lines similar to those of the Young Men’s Christian Association.

A variety of religious organizations have passed the pioneering stage, and are now firmly established. Notwithstanding the reform movements, Christianity still remains the indispensable agent for the adequate mental, physical, social, moral, and spiritual renovation of China, touching the nation at every vital point. Diplomacy and commerce have limited fields and nartowness of purpose; while Christianity, being many-sided, has unlimited scope for its multiplied activities, and has for its objective the strengthening of every weak spot in the equipment of the Chinese.

Forms of Missionary Work 179

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VI

Aim: To REALIZE THE CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH TO MAKeE THE Most oF THE AGENCIES THAT HAVE BEEN CREATED

ie

2.

10,

it.

12.

Has the work of foreign missions fulfilled its duty to a Chinese when it has proclaimed the gospel to him?

To what extent is it responsible for influencing his attitude?

If your brother were not a Christian, should you consider your duty to him discharged when you had once plainly stated to him the way of salvation?

Have foreign missions fulfilled their duty to a Chinese when he has professed conversion? When is the work of foreign missions considered to be complete in any country?

By what persons do you expect the bulk of the Chinese race ultimately to be led to Christ? How ought this expectation to affect our methods of work?

Why are results so small in the first stages of missionary work in any country?

In your opinion, what agencies exert in Christian lands the greatest power in developing Christian growth?

How many of these agencies were present in the first period of mission work in China? What do you estimate as the relative amounts of Christian influences then in circulation in China and in Christian America?

Describe the methods that the evangelistic missionary uses to present the gospel to the people directly.

13.* 14.*

15.*

2i.

22.*

23%

24. 28.

26.*

Sum up the principal obstacles that he has te encounter at first.

How should you begin your address to a curious crowd in a street chapel?

How should you treat those who professed interest ?

What is the special value of training schools for women?

Arrange the agencies for overcoming prejudice in what you consider the order of their importance.*

What general rules should the evangelist follow in order to overcome popular prejudice? What is the special value of schools for the blind?

Are foreign mission boards justified in maintaining such institutions as asylums for the insane?

Arrange in what you consider the order of their effectiveness the agencies for presenting the gospel.

What are the relative advantages of itineration, hospitals, and boarding schools, as agencies for presenting the gospel?

How should you conduct a hospital and dispensary to make it of the greatest spiritual value?

Which three agencies do you think contribute most to the edification of converts?

Which three count for most in training workers?

Which agencies will help the native church most in the matter of self-extension?

1To answer such questions to the best advantage a list of the agencies should be written out, so that they can be all under the eye at once.

Forms of Missionary Work 18I

27.* Which most in the matter of self-government?

28.* Which most in the matter of self-support?

29. Does the multiplication of methods of work that we have in Christian countries seem to you to be necessary?

30 Have we all the methods whish you think we ought to have?

31. If this variety of method is necessary at home, ought we to expect ¢9 build up a strong Christian Church in non-Christian lands without it?

32. How ought we to expect the results of missionary work before these agencies have been created to compare with results afterwards?

33. What responsibility does this lay upon us to see that the agencies are maintained in effective operation?

34.* If you had $10,000 to invest in some one form of mission work in China, where should you place it at present to secure the greatest good?

35.* If an all-round man just graduating from college should ask you how he could be of most use in China, what should you tell him to do?

36.* What should you tell an all-round woman under similar circumstances?

37. How much money and how many volunteers do you think could be profitably used in China just now?

38. What call does the variety of present opportunities for service in China bring to you?

REFERENCES FoR ADVANCED STUDY.—CHAPTER VI

I. Educational. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of Tang, ry2-115. Graves: Forty Years in China, XIII. Ross: Mission Methods in Manchuria, X,

Il.

INE

Ve

Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, XII. Speer: Missionary Principles and Practice, XIX. Wallace: The Heart of Sz-chuan, VII.

Medical.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T’ang, 110, 111. Bryson: John Kenneth Mackenzie, 396-404. Graves: Forty Years in China, XIV.

Mackay: From Far Farmosa, XXXIII. Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, X. Stevens: The Life of Peter Parker, VU, VIII. Wallace: The Heart of Sz-chuan, VI.

Evangelistic. Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T’ang, 117-120. Gibson: Mission Problems and Mission Methods

_ in South China, VI.

Ross: Mission Methods in Manchuria, III, IV. Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, III. Wallace: The Heart of Sz-chuan, V.

Literary.

Beach: Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang, 116, 117. Graves: Forty Years in China, XV.

Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, XIII. Thompson: Griffith John, XIII, XVII.

Work for Women.

Henry: The Cross and the Dragon, XV. McNabb: The Women of the Middle Kingdom, VII, VIII.

Soothill: A Typical Mission in China, IX. Wallace: The Heart of Sz-chuan, VIII.

1838

Will the Republic endure? Who can tell? Thoughtful observers are not yet sure that the American Republic will endure. The mob and “the man on horseback” are always in the background of every republic. China is far better fitted for republican institutions than the Philippine Islands or the Mexican, Central American, and South American Republics. Her people are more stable, peaceable, and law-abiding in temperament, their respect for constituted authority is greater, and the government of their local communities has long been more largely democratic in character.

Nevertheless, the diffusion of those fundamental ideas of education and religion upon which popular government must rest has been a matter of only a few decades in China. Vast numbers of the people have as yet been but slightly touched by them. Multitudes who have received the external forms of Western civilization and government have not yet adopted the Christian basis of morals which guarantees the wise use of wider opportunity. The spirit of loyalty as against other nations is strong, but the sense of unity between the widely separated parts of the country is

still weak. —Arthur J. Brown.

The whole world is agreed in recognizing in the transformation of China one of the greatest movements in human history. Whether we consider the immensity of the population affected, the character of the change that is taking place, the magnitude of the interests which are involved, the comparative peacefulness of the crisis, or the significance of the act. that a great and ancient race is undergoing in the period of a decade a radical intellectual and spiritual readjustment, it is evident that it is given to us to witness and have part in a vast movement whose consequences will affect the whole world and be unending.

—Robert E. Speer.

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER 7. MISSIONARY PROBLEMS

4 fete has always been more or less misconception in regard to the degree of toleration accorded by the Chinese government to foreign religions. It is, of course, true that a peaceful and pragmatic people like the Chinese have not the instinct of persecution, but it is also true, as Dr. De Groot has shown by copious translations from a wide range of Chinese documents, that whenever the government has feared that Confucianism was endangered, persecution bitter and relentless has been the rule and not the exception. Of this fact the whole history of Christianity in China is itself an evidence, for it has been felt that Christianity and Confucianism were in some points, especially that of ancestorworship, contradictories, and ancestor-worship may be said to be the real religion of the Chinese people. An impression has prevailed among foreigners

1The present revision (March, ror2) of this chapter has the disadvantage of being written at a distance from China and at a time of such rapid transition that it is difficult to determine along just what line the chief future problems of mission work in China are to lie. The object is not to give a general survey of all those problems, but rather to fix attention upon a few of the more salient ones which are especially characteristic of the new China.

How Far China Is Tolerant

Anticipated Growth of Religious Liberty

The Revolution Brings an Immediate Result

View Based on Recent Events

Protestant Representatives Received by the

President

familiar with China that in the coming general progress of the Empire religious liberty would probably by small increments come to be conceded eventually, mainly for the reason that the Chinese have become increasingly sensitive to any apparent inferiority as compared with Western nations, among many of which religious liberty has long been domesticated.

But the sudden success of the Chinese Revolution has completely altered the outlook. The hopes and the prayers of three generations of Protestant missionaries and of many centuries of those of the Roman Catholic Church are about to be fulfilled. We are on the threshold of religious liberty for China!

The following narrative of recent events in the capital of China will give the warrant for this prediction. It is taken from a dispatch sent to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston from one of its missionaries in Peking.

Shortly after the edict of abdication was announced, the native pastors of the Protestant churches of Peking conceived the idea of holding a union thanksgiving service. To this service they wished to invite the President of the new republic. When invited, President Yiian met them more than half way, saying that he was desirous of an interview with them. Accordingly, four Chinese pastors, representing the Presbyterian,

Methodist, and Congregational missions, carried in person their invitation. They were received with all the honors accorded the highest representatives of foreign powers, the soldiers saluting them as they would the minister of the United States or Great Britain.

They were escorted into a large hall with foreign furnishings. Here the President met them with assurances of his pleasure in receiving them. He told them repeatedly that under the new regime they might expect perfect freedom of worship. He intimated that so far as he understood the principles of Christianity they were what he was striving for in the new government. He requested them to pass on his word regarding religious liberty to the pastors and Christians in the country, and to explain to them the principles of the republic. Although he could not accept their invitation in person, he promised to send a representative to carry his ‘message to the Church.

The thanksgiving service was held in the largest church in the city on the afternoon of February 26. Although admission was by ticket, long before the hour set for the meeting the church was crowded with a company of intelligent men and women, eager and enthusiastic, and this in Peking, which but a few days ago was the seat of Manchu authority. One of the Christian pastors who led in praise of the republic is

Verbal Statement of uan

Features of Thanksgiving Service

Message of the President

Conveyed by Dr. Yen

himself a Manchu. The church was resplendent in flags and bunting and mottoes, the striped flag of the new government holding the conspicuous place. The Chinese band of Sir Robert Bredon, of the Chinese customs service, enlivened the occasion with stirring music. The climax was the message of the new President. This was read both in English and Chinese by Dr. Yen, a member of the Wai Wu Pu (Board of Foreign Control). Dr. Yen is a graduate of the University of Virginia, a member of the Hanlin Academy, and for a time was president of the North China American College Club, and is a Christian. As a special tribute of respect to his Christian subjects, Yiian telegraphed Dr. Yen to come from Tientsin, that one of his Christian officials might convey his message to the Christian Church.

The message of President Yiian to his Christian subjects was as follows:

“The Chinese Christians of the Protestant churches in Peking hold to-day a union meeting to celebrate the establishment of a republican form of government in China and to thank God that North China has been delivered from the horrors of war. You have courteously invited President Yiian Shih-k‘ai to attend the meeting, an invitation which he highly appreciates. But at the present moment, when the old government machinery is being replaced by the new, there

are a thousand and one things which occupy the time of the President, who has few moments at his own disposal. He is unable to come to-day, and has commanded me to represent him at this meeting and to make a few remarks on his behalf.

“Protestant Christianity entered the Orient from the Occident over a century ago. The progress of the Church has been slow and difficult, partly because China was conservative in the olden days and regarded anything new with distrust and suspicion, and partly because the missionaries speaking a foreign language could not make their cause clearly understood. In the past few years the spirit of reform prevailed among our scholars, who devoted their attention to Western learning, as well as to Western religions. Thus gradually the objects and policy of Christians became known.

“Moreover, the different missions have achieved much success both in works of charity and in educational institutions. On the one hand they have conferred many favors on the poor and the destitute, and on the other they have carefully trained up many talented young men. For doing -both they have won golden opinions from all classes of society. The reputation of Christian missions is growing every day, and the prejudice and the misunderstanding which formerly existed between the Christian and the

Progress of Protestant Christianity for a Century

Success of Missions in Philanthropy and Education

Prospective Changein Arrangements

Forthcoming Article on Religious

Liberty

non-Christian has gradually disappeared, which will surely prove to be for the good of China.

“On account of the fact that Christian missions form a subject of treaty arrangement, they often take on a diplomatic aspect. It is not necessary to discuss here whether such arrangements were in former days indispensable or not, but it is evident that they must change in order to suit present conditions. Many Chinese Christians, realizing the modification of circumstances and desiring to remove every vestige of difference between Christians and non-Christians, have advocated the independence of the Church, so as to divest it of all political significance. We must admit that they are far-seeing and they suggest a proper basis for the future of Christian missions. They are prompted by love of Church as well as of country.

“So long, however, as the constitution of the country has not been promulgated and the article guaranteeing religious freedom has not been formally published, it would hardly be wise or proper to contemplate a revision of the articles relating to Christian missions. By the grace of heaven, the Republic of China is an accomplished fact, and in the articles of favorable treatment the Manchus, Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans have been assured of their religious liberty, establishing for the first time in Chinese history a precedent for religious liberty. When

Missionary Problems IQI

the National Assembly meets and the new constitution is drawn up, we can be assured that such an article will be embodied, to include the other great religions of the world. Thenceforth all obstacles to the liberty of conscience will have been removed from the Republic of China; the five peoples of China will enjoy the blessings of republican institutions, and the distinction between Christians and non-Christians will disappear forever. Members of one great family, with one heart and one soul, we shall all exert ourselves to promote the strength and prosperity and the happiness of the Republic of China.” In former editions of this book the first missionary problem discussed was the treaty rights of Chinese Christians, which have always been to missionaries a source of more or less perplexity and anxiety. The time is now approaching when the Chinese people will repeat the experience of the Japanese in demanding and in obtaining the recession of the right of extraterritoriality which has sheltered both foreigners and their interests, to some extent including the Christian Church. In view of the many delicate interests involved, this recession cannot, of course, take place until the Chinese have demonstrated their ability honestly and impartially to administer justice. If that time has seemed to be remote and out of all relation to practical politics, so also did the ejection of the Manchu,

New Treaty Regulations Expected

Independent Chinese Church to be Tested

Strength and Weakness of Independent

Church

which is already accomplished, and the one achievement is the forerunner of the other.

In advance of the meeting of the National Assembly by which this important subject and a multitude of others must be considered and acted upon, it is vain to hazard conjectures. But one thing is clear. The position of the Christian Churches in China will be radically different from that heretofore occupied. In this “thaumatrope,” or whirl of wonders, it is evident that the Chinese Church is to be put to a test before unknown. Can it suddenly adapt itself to its new privileges and opportunities without losing its spiritual character and without becoming on the one hand merely or mainly a patriotic society with an honorable history, and on the other an organization of prestige and influence which may be “worked” for ends largely secular and selfish? That such adaptation is quite possible we are assured. Yet the temptations and the perils of the new status are sufficiently evident. In the address just quoted, delivered by Dr. Yen in the name of Yiian, the President of the republic, cordial reference is made to the independent Chinese Church, which has now for some years been the goal to which many Christians in China have been moving.

In several different centers such churches have already appeared, and with the growing national consciousness they have become increas-

ingly popular. Their advantages and their dangers are obvious. They will form strong and important centers of union, developing along lines of least resistance. Their “independence” may become simply independence of foreign control, with a possible leaning toward some other strong support to replace the one which has been given up. Will the independent Chinese Church have sufficient anchorage in a deep Christian experience and a sufficient grasp of the essentials of divine truth to enable it to resist the sudden and probably enervating change of climate which seems imminent? Can the Church be transplanted from sub-arctic to sub-tropic regions without losing its vitality ?

A general loosening of religious conviction among the Chinese people has been a prominent characteristic of the last decade in China. How far can this process go without dissolving the foundations of Chinese social order?

It is not impossible that before many years there may be in China considerable mass movements toward nominal Christianity. Phenomena of this sort have been very common in India. It is true that, unlike India, China has in form no system of caste, but the large and at present quite unassimilated bodies of the various Miao tribes scattered so widely and so numerously through southwestern China, stand in much the same relation to the Chinese population as the

Loosening of Religious Conviction

Mass Movements Likely to Occur

Needs of Mohammedan Population

Problem of Leadership

Problem of Education

lower caste in India do to the higher caste. If such mass movement toward Christianity should occur, what will be its effect upon the Chinese themselves, and upon the many millions of aboriginal tribes? That the consequences from a political and sociological point of view would be most serious there can be no doubt.

According to the very moderate estimates of Mr. Marshall Broomhall’s Islam in China, the Mohammedan population cannot be less than ten million and may be much greater. What is to be their future? As yet scarcely any work has been undertaken in their behalf. What duties toward them do the Chinese Christians owe? And what are the responsibilities toward them of Christians in the lands from which Christianity has come to China?

How can Jeaders of the Christian Church in China be raised up in numbers at all adequate to the need? How can the little band of ordained Chinese pastors be multiplied? Unless these great problems can in some way be met the Christian Church cannot lead among an educated people like the Chinese.

A further problem is that of education. The new departure of the Chinese government in educational lines put an end to the practical monopoly of Western learning on the part of mission schools. Free tuition and sometimes the payment of most or all of the other expenses

by the state would seem to make competition hopeless; but from the absence of true normal schools and from many other causes the teaching standards of the former must remain for some time below the standards of the latter.

The whole government school system of China has been suffering from ambitiousness of plan .and meagerness of suitable material with which to carry it out. Too much has been attempted. The number of teachers has been at times abnormally small and not infrequently they have been without pedagogical knowledge or experience, and at times positively unqualified or disqualified. Though the superintendents of education have sometimes been able and zealous men, yet they have been hampered by official routine and red tape, their best efforts being largely without adequate result. On the other hand, high educational positions have been often abused to enrich the incumbent, regardless of consequences, thus bringing the new learning into undeserved disrepute. At times totally incompetent men have been placed in the office of general superintendent or educational commissioner.

These and many other evils have led to great dissatisfaction on the part of foreign expert

Evilsof Government School System

Lack of Organization and Discipline

teachers, engaged at high salaries, who have *

found themselves assigned to rudimentary tasks or sometimes left without any occupation at all.

For this reason many such teachers have resigned their positions. In general there has been an unwillingness and often an incapacity to enforce discipline upon students who have at times demanded as a right light tasks and high marks. They have boycotted and driven away teachers against whom they had a prejudice. They have gone out on “sympathetic strikes” so that many schools have been temporarily and some permanently broken up. In some instances the scholars have behaved with ostentatious rudeness and defiance in the presence of the highest officials of the provincial government. Because some of these students were connected with official families they seem as a rule to have been left to do as they pleased. Not all government schools have been on this level, yet there is evidence that in all parts of China many schools have been so. We must assume that under the new order of things all this is to be gradually but radically changed.

Missionas, in the meantime the problem of missionary

Education education in China becomes at every step graver and more complicated. Some of the evils already mentioned in government schools have been met with in missionary schools also. It is more and more obvious that the government standard of education, whatever it may be, is one below which mission schools must not fall, that it is desirable to approximate as nearly as practicable

to the government curriculum and for convenience in securing attendance at conventions, conferences, and the like, the terms and the vacations of mission schools should coincide with those of government schools. With the adoption of the Western calendar by the Chinese government this ought not to be difficult of arrangement.

The government schools have behind them the revenues of an imperial republic, ambitious to do its best to reform the countless evils of the past and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world. The mission schools on the contrary have behind them only such appropriations as may be made from missionary treasuries subject to high and to low tides—more especially the latter. Their principal assets are their graduates, their extended experience, a corps of selfdenying men and women intent only upon benefiting China by their teaching, and the good-will of the people among whom they have been long established.

The only way in which mission schools in China of whatever grade from the kindergarten to the university can hope to compete with government institutions is by doing better work than they do, and this result must be so conspicuously true as to be obvious to discerning Chinese, who when unprejudiced are excellent judges of fact.

Assets ofthe Two Systems

Results are the Decisive Factor

Educational —=_ Tt has long been evident to the missionary body in China that such a result can be achieved in no other way than by an effective educational union of missionary forces. In the reconstruction following the Boxer cataclysm there began in and about Peking such a drawing together of missionary forces as resulted in a comparatively short time in the formation of the North China Educational Union. This originated in a deliberate and definite codperation between the four leading Protestant missions in Peking—the London Mission, the American Board, the American Presbyterian, and the American Methcdist, joined to some extent at a later time by the Church of England Mission. As the result of this alliance there are now six distinct union institutions codperated in by two, three, four, or more missions as follows:

1. Union Arts College at Tung-chou (12 miles east of Peking). 2. A Union Women’s College at Peking.

. Union Theological College at Peking.

. Union Medical College at Peking.

. Union Woman’s Medical College at Peking.

. Union Academy for Girls in Pao-ting fu. Great Examples This organic union, achieved not without difficulty, is so obviously in the interests of efficiency that no one would for a moment consider a return to the old ways. The complete wreck of every kind of mission plant in 1900 was in the

Nw & Ww

providence of God the means of bringing about this important result, which exemplifies and on a large scale proves the essential unity of the Christian Church in spite of its differences. In the great province of Ssti-ch‘uan on the other hand, the minimum estimate of the population of which is forty-five millions, and the maximum estimate from seventy to eighty millions, a different and more extended type of union was accomplished as an incident of normal growth. Mission work in that province was interrupted by a riot in the middle eighties, by the war with Japan in 1894-5, and again five years later by the Boxer cyclone. These calamities drew all the missions together in a fellowship of suffering which resulted in the formation of the West China Educational Union, embracing all the Protestant societies working in the three great provinces of Ssti-ch‘uan, Yun-nan, Kuei-chou. There is a delimitation of territory, an efficient advisory board, and a common curriculum and common examinations for all the schools from the primary up to an impending university. This instance can be commended as a fit example to be studied in detail, as exhibiting common sense applied to all forms of mission work in a new field.

Other cases of union in academies, arts colleges, theological colleges, and medical colleges are now to be found scattered all over the provinces

Further Cases of Union

Successive Christian Invasions Mutually Hostile

of China, and they have become so numerous as to be recognized as the normal trend in educational development. The great and rapidly expanding Young Men’s Christian Association and Young Women’s Christian Association, whose work is of the utmost value in the evolution of the new China, are of themselves convincing examples of the benefit of interdenominational and international codperation.

When in the sixth century of our era the Nestorians came into China from the West, they met a singularly favorable reception at the hands of the emperors of the Tang dynasty, at a time when China was the most civilized country in the world. It is remarkable that we know so little of their doctrines, their methods, or their success. The famous Nestorian tablet, accidently unearthed in Hsi-an fu, in the year 1625, still remains the only tangible memorial of their presence in China. But we do know that when the early Roman Catholic missionaries came to China in the Yiian dynasty (thirteenth century) they were persecuted by the Nestorians who are mentioned by Marco Polo. The Jesuits, who had come into China in the sixteenth century, in their turn persecuted the Protestant pioneer Robert Morrison and his successors. In the eyes of the world the divisions of Christianity, whatever justification they may have had or may still have, have always been its reproach.

The century or more of Protestant missions has been characterized by a period of hostility between them and the Roman Catholics and of neutrality among the different denominations toward one another, which, as we have seen, is gradually being replaced by more or less cooperation. The different branches of the Protestant Church carried on their work upon the plan of mental neutrality for the better part of a century. The time has now arrived when this is no longer possible. The stupendous magnitude of the task before us is slowly dawning upon the consciousness of an awakening Church in the presence of an awakening world. The very nature of existing conditions impels to unity of action, and unity of action is already emerging upon an ever-enlarging scale. Bishop Westcott long since pointed out that the effective impulse to the reunion of Christendom was to come from the mission field. So it has proved and is proving. The great Edinburgh Conference of I9g10 offered to many who attended it almost the first clear vision of that far-off event. There are increasing indications that all branches of the Christian Church are now more sensitive to the evils of their unhappy division than ever before. The remedy is rightly sought in united action. On this subject missionaries are usually in advance of their boards, and boards in advance of the membership of the Church at large.

Unity Instead of Neutrality

Increasing Demand for Union

The first example of missionary union in China was that between the English Presbyterian and the American Reformed Churches in Amoy, which was accomplished with very great difficulty in face of the resolute opposition of one of the home boards. Dr. Talmage was wont to say that in his early missionary life he discovered that the official name of this society was “The Reformed Dutch Church of North America in China.” Upon mature deliberation he became convinced that there was in that title far too much geography and far too little religion. Our differences, as Dr. John R. Mott reminds us, are largely Occidental and accidental and without meaning to Orientals. One of the China delegates to the Edinburgh Conference in a memorable sevenminute speech made a point which is engraved on the memory of many who heard it: “Denominational distinctions do not interest us Chinese.” The West China Missionary Conference was held in Ch‘eng-tu, the capital of Sstt-ch‘uan, in January, 1908. It was a body of very mixed composition, embracing the Church Missionary Society, the international and interdenominational China Inland Mission, English Friends (Quaker), American and Canadian Methodists, American Baptists, North, the British and Foreign and the American Bible Societies, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and others, comprising 150 missionaries from the provinces of

Sst-ch‘uan, Yun-nan, Kuei-chou. This body, after full and earnest discussion, voted with unanimity that :their ideal was “one united Church for West China.”

At a conference under the auspices of the Committee of Reference and Council of the Conference of Foreign Mission Boards of North America, held in New York on February 29, 1912, the following resolutions were adopted as

an unofficial expression of its opinion:

1. This Conference desires to assure the Missions in the strongest possible manner of its unreserved approval of the effort to accomplish the union of the Christian Church in China, and promises the Missions that they will have in such efforts the hearty support of the members of this Conference.

2. The Conference approves of the fullest possible measure not only of codperation but of union in all forms of mission work, such as education, preparation and publication of literature, hospitals, and philanthropic work.

3. With deep satisfaction at the establishment of the Church of Christ in China, and recognizing the supreme place which the Chinese Church must occupy in the evangelization of the nation, this Conference expresses its sympathy with every purpose of the Church itself to unite in the interests of increased strength and economy and of the effective propagation of the gospel of Christ.

To illustrate further the spirit of the Conference, another quotation is made from the section on “The Message of the Conference”:

We rejoice in the measure of unity already attained

Union in China Approved by Home Church

Joy Over

Chine

e se Outlook

Prospective Chinese Autonomy

by the Christian forces in China and in their ability in this hour, without waste or discord, to present to the Chinese people the one faith which we all hold and the one Lord whom we all follow. We rejoice that so many of the men who have wrought for China in this time of national need have been Christian men who have borne their great responsibilities with Christian fidelity and sought to serve their country with Christian unselfishness. With a Christian Church united in its mission and with Christian men serving the State in patriotic and religious devotion, we believe that the prayers of many hearts will be answered that, on the one hand, a pure and unconfused gospel may be preached to the nation, and that, on the other hand, the Christian spirit, unmixed with secular misunderstanding or personal ambition, may control the minds of the men who are to bear rule and authority in the new day.

In the effort to which the Christian forces of the nation will now give themselves with a new zeal, to carry the gospel far and wide over China and deep into the life of the people, we desire to assure them of the sympathy and support of the Church of the West, and we now make appeal to the Home Church to meet the emergency with unceasing prayer and unwithholding consecration.

The Chinese Christian Church is ready to take charge of its own affairs, as the Church among all other nations where Christianity has been naturalized has done. Nothing can prevent this, nothing ought to prevent it. “Denominational distinctions do not interest us Chinese.” When once the Chinese Christian Church has taken complete charge, the unity of the Church will

proceed mainly along Chinese and not along Occidental lines. Shall we not anticipate that time by earnest effort to remove stumbling-blocks out of the way? This is perhaps the most important phase of the problem of the future Chinese Church.

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VII

Aim: To REALIZE THE CALL OF THE PROBLEMS AT PresENT AWAITING SOLUTION IN CHINA

1%

7*

10.

Il,

12.

1335

What are the possible advantages to the Christian Church of persecution?

What are the disadvantages?

What are the main benefits of the proclamation of religious liberty promised by President Yuan?

Are there any dangers connected with it, under the circumstances, for religion in general? What would be the advantages of the suggested independence from foreign connections of the Chinese Church?

What would be the dangers of such a separation?

What should be the present policy of Christian missions in China in view of the possibility of independence?

If you were a missionary, how would you act towards a native Christian community that was beginning to be restive under your oversight and yet seemed to need it?

What place would be left for missionary activity if all Chinese Christians united in an independent Chinese Church?

What would be the advantages and disadvantages of the sudden popularity of Christianity in China?

What special responsibilities does such a prospect lay upon the Christian Church?

What are the main arguments for extensive and for intensive missionary work at the present time?

Why cannot the Chinese Church continue

I,

under foreign missionaries rather than native leaders?

14. Do you think any American Church could profitably\ continue to choose its leaders from non-Americans?

15.* What are the principal problems created for missionary education by the development of the government system of education?

16. Should missionary schools withdraw after the government schools have become efficient educationally ?

17. How does the argument for denominational schools in this country compare with that for missionary schools in China?

18.* What recommendations would you. make as to missionary educational policy, in view of the present situation?

19.* What are the arguments for union in higher education? How far should such union extend?

20.* What are the arguments for union in other lines of missionary work? How complete should such union be?

21. How do the arguments for a union of Chinese Christians compare with those for a union of Christians in America?

22. Why are missionaries usually more strongly in favor of union than Christians at home?

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED Stupy—Cuapter VII

Educational Union.

China Mission Year Book, 1gio, V.

Cecil: Changing China, XXV, XXVI.

Burton: Education of Women in China, XI.

World Missionary Conference Report, Edinburgh, Vol. III, 104-121.

IU,

TO,

Independent Chinese Church.

China Mission Year Book, 1910, VIII.

Shanghai Conference Report, 1-34, 409-442.

World Missionary Conference Report, Edinburgh, Vol. II, 266-268.

Comity and Union.

China Mission Year Book, ror0, XVII.

Shanghai Conference Report, 311-334, 689-721.

World Missionary Conference Report, Edinburgh, Vol. VIII, 164-173.

TRANSFORMATION, CONDITION, APPEAL,

The work of reform upon which China has entered is a herculean one. Many well-informed foreign observers predict that the movement will break down and the reaction will bring the country back to its ancient conservative ways. There are no doubt many obstacles in the way of success. The Chinese are attempting ‘to bring about in government and society in a very few years what it required centuries for the AngloSaxon and other European races to achieve.

—John W. Foster.

China’s new system of education shows the danger of adopting modern methods without Christian principles. It virtually debars Christians from the faculties and student body. Infidelity, however, has free entrance as long as it adheres to the external forms imposed by the state. An edict of January, 1907, placed the veneration of Confucius upon the same level as the worship of Heaven and Earth and made homage to the tablet of Confucius compulsory upon all officials and teachers and pupils in the government’ schools. Some writers have construed this as an effort on the part of the government to avoid the difficulty which has existed in the case of Christian students who have conscientious scruples about the worship of Confucits, since Heaven and Earth are worshiped only by the Emperor. But many missionaries do not place this construction upon the edict. They regard it rather as an attempted defense against the growing power of Christianity. Christ, the Son of God, must be matched in the popular mind by another Divine Man, Confucius, who must be regarded henceforth as more than a holy man and sage. At any rate, the government schools are far from being comfortable places for consistent Christians.

—Arthur J. Brown.

CHAPTER VIIEL

CHAPTER 8.

ee HAT

pete most ancient and the greatest of Em-

pires by the most spectacular change of modern times, perhaps of all time, has suddenly become a Republic. An absolute and patriarchal government has been thus transformed, not as was to have been expected by slow and somewhat violent stages, but, as it were, over night and at a bound.

On the 1oth day of October, 1911, a mutiny of a few regiments of government troops occurred at Wuchang, the capital of the provinces of Hu-nan and Hu-pei. The foreign press in China had no premonition of what was coming, and did not comprehend it when it happened. It was generally supposed that the rising would easily be quelled and that things would soon resume their normal course. There was fighting and massacre at Wuchang, and across the Yang-

1The present revision (March, 1912) of this chapter is merely intended to present a general outline of existing conditions and the steps by which they have been reached. In the universal confusion prevailing in China at a time when almost anything may be sent to the melting-pot, it is quite out of the question to speak with precision either of what is or what is to be. To Christians with a vision, the greatness of the missionary opportunity in China and the urgency of the cry for help from without China are the most Outstanding facts.

Quick Change from Empire to Republic

First Steps of the Revolution

tzii River in Han-k‘ou and Han-yang fighting, pillage, and arson occurred on a large scale. Eaevemest Nanking, the capital of a group of provinces Southward further down the Yang-tzu, was fiercely attacked and was captured with more arson, plundering, and massacre. Events somewhat similar took place in Fu-chou, in Canton, and in many other cities. There were still other cities, such as Shanghai, the great gateway of China, where the loss of life was but trifling, the whole population going over to the revolutionists without disturbance of any kind. To an unprejudiced observer, it seemed that China had entered upon one of those tempestuous epochs when, for decades or for an entire generation, social order is suspended, while a dynasty is slowly dying and a new one is in process of retarded evolution. Manchu But a new and a mighty force had entered the

Abdication y : and Choice of celestial empire. The first revolutionary step,

President

as we have already seen, was taken October Io. After a full month of vacillation on the part of the Manchu court and the Manchu clan the irrevocable imperial decree of abdication was issued February 12, 1912, four months and two days from the initial revolt. His excellency Yutian Shih-k‘ai took the oath as President of the Chinese Republic on March 10, five months to a day from the inception of the movement for a change of rule.

Preparatory ° : WorkofPatriots “Just as conflagrations light up the whole

afl ed me He Fe a = et Shs, . ae

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 213

city,’ says Victor Hugo, “revolutions light up the whole race,’ and we may well agree with the Chinese student in America who makes this quotation when he follows it with the observation: “Of no revolution recorded in the world’s history can this be said with a greater degree of truth than of the present revolution in China.” It has become generally known that this stupendous change has been long in preparation, and that it was for the most part brought about by groups of men who have either been educated abroad or at home had come under strong Western influences. Of these the leader was Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whose romantic story has not yet been fully told. It was his steady and unflagging patriotism in preparing the way which made the revolution possible. It was his self-denying act in retiring from the Presidency that a man of more experience might navigate the ship of state through troubled waters that gave the best evidence that a new patriotism has appeared in China. It is an interesting and a suggestive fact that Dr. Sun and several of his Provisional Cabinet are baptized Christians.

A few words should be devoted to replying to a question and an objection which have often been raised. “How is it,” we are asked, “that China alone has seemed to be an exception to the universal law of progress, apparently never advancing, yet despite the grossest maladministra-

China Has Progressed

Things Which Have Marked

Her Development

Abnormally Slow Evolution

214 The Uplift of China ©

tion of government, never decaying?” The true answer to the seeming paradox we must believe to be that the Chinese do not constitute and have never constituted an exception to the universal law of human progress. Owing to their isola~ tion from other branches of the human family, to their relative superiority to their environment, and to their contentment with their own ideas and ideals, they, more than any other people in history, have appeared to be unchangeable.

But the earliest traditions of the Chinese refer back to a time when they emerged from barbarism, learned to build dwellings, to use fire, to celebrate marriage, to keep count of time, and in general to lay broad the foundation of their civilization. Silk, cotton, paper, written characters, printing, the compass, gunpowder, the whole range of invention and discovery have come into that civilization gradually and at wide intervals of time. We know that Indian corn (maize) and tobacco were introduced during the recent Manchu dynasty, while such plants as the sweet potato and the peanut, now so widely cultivated, have in some parts of the empire been known only in recent years.

The distinction between Chinese and Western \

nations is not that the latter have advanced while China has remained stationary, but that the rate of China’s evolution has been abnormally slow.

To go back to the beginning of the causes which :

{

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 215

have led to China’s decisive change of front, we must take account of the nearly four centuries of intercourse with the West, more especially to the events of the last seventy-eight years since the abolition in 1834 of the British East India Company’s monopoly in China. This was followed by half a decade of skirmishing between Great Britain and China over trade matters, more particularly opium. The inevitable collision occurred in 1839, when China was hopelessly defeated. The treaty of Nanking followed in 1842, by which China was “opened,” and the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fu-chou, Ning-po, and Shanghai were made accessible to foreign trade.

Fourteen years of unquiet peace followed, when another war with Great Britain took place, during which Canton was again captured; but. nothing was really settled until still another conflict had taken place between China on the one part and Great Britain and France on the other, when, October, 1860, Peking was captured, the treaty of Tientsin (signed in 1858, but the next year repudiated by the government) was ratified, and China was once more “open.” That important event took place only fifty-one and a half years ago, and it is unquestionably during this period that the most efficient causes of the present uprising have been in operation. The great T‘ai Ping rebellion, which for half a generation

Wars which Quickened Development

devastated China, was largely abetted by the weakness of the Manchu dynasty in its first trial of strength with Great Britain, and but for the aid of foreigners that rebellion could never have been put down. The struggle with the French of the middle eighties (which ended in a drawn game) was of value in giving the Chinese a new military self-confidence, but it was the decisive defeat of China at the hands of Japan in 1894-5 which opened the eyes of China as a whole, albeit slowly and with the greatest difficulty, to her condition of helpless weakness. Reco e tienede 4f 1898 the first intelligent reforms in China Steps for many reigns were projected by the late Emperor Kuang Hsu, but they were cut short by his aunt, the late Grand Empress Dowager, who, virtually deposing the Emperor, resumed the reins of government, retaining them till her death, ten years later (November, 1908). In the interim occurred the great Boxer uprising, in which not merely multitudes of living Chinese, but the spirits of myriads of millions of their military ancestors, were pitted against the world, in the Taoist belief that they could render their worshipers invulnerable and invincible. The court and the Manchu officials were for the most part completely captivated by this Boxer delusion, which was both infectious and contagious, swiftly sweeping over large parts of the empire. It was directed against foreigners

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 217

whose aggressions, political and commercial, were becoming more and more intolerable. But it was felt that such a mighty force might readily be turned against the unpopular Manchu dynasty. Its only security then was in patronizing the Boxers to save the throne.

The outcome of this erroneous policy was the siege of all the legations as well as other foreigners in Peking, for fifty-six days, from June 20 to August 14, 1900. The relief of Peking by the allied forces was at once followed by the flight of the Empress Dowager, with the Emperor and part of the court, to the city of Hsi-an fu, in Shen-si, an ancient capital of the empire.

There they remained remote from Peking, yet in telegraphic communication with it, but returned in January, 1902, when the court in triumph reentered that city. The past seemed to have been almost completely obliterated in the bright promise of the future. Many foreigners in China, however, felt a not unnatural anxiety at the return of the Empress Dowager to full power with no inquiry into the past and no substantial guaranty for the future other than the exaction of a punitive indemnity of 450,000,000 taels (ounces) of silver, the payment to be distributed over about forty years.

The real motives which actuated the Empress Dowager in introducing the numerous reforms which were plentifully sprinkled through the

Failure of the Boxer Movement

Return of the Court to Peking

Progressive Action of Empress Dowager

Abolition of Old-style Examination

Other Educational Features

seven closing years of her reign will probably never be certainly known. She must have clearly perceived the necessity of some of them, while we may suppose that others, especially the promise of “constitutional government” for China, were largely due to a fixed purpose to throw more than one tub to the whale of popular clamor. Southeastern China in particular, which in the seventeenth century had stoutly resisted the incoming Manchus, was filled with active and aggressive animosity to the Tartar rule. This hostility it was hoped to propitiate by the promise of reforms a long time in advance.

The greatest of them all was the abolition of the old-style civil service examination, which, having its root in the Han dynasty nearly eighteen centuries ago, was developed in the T’ang dynasty and in the Sung from the sixth to the eleventh centuries of our era. The epoch-making decree announcing this momentous change was issued September 20, 1905. Whether we consider the millions of scholars concerned or the consequences of the step, it may justly be regarded as the most comprehensive intellectual revolution in the history of mankind.

Two years later this was followed by another decree, scarcely less sweeping, which extended the benefit of the new education to the uncounted millions of Chinese women, who, by their bound feet, intellectual ignorance, and spiritual dark-

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 219

ness, have been most literally all their age-long corporate lifetime subject to bondage. It was late in 1905 that two parties of high Manchu and Chinese officials left Peking—to the sinister accompaniment of bomb-throwing at the railway station—commissioned to visit Western countries to study “constitutional government.” So far as these magnates themselves were concerned, this was but a belated instalment of their public education, but as they were accompanied by a large force of officials of lesser rank, many of them educated abroad, and by numerous interpreters, the deputation must have absorbed many new ideas. As a result of their report in the following year, additional steps in reform were taken, until at the time of the death of the Empress Dowager and the Emperor in 1908, almost every one of his former proposals had been adopted either in fact or in principle. The Chinese have always been accustomed to be led, so that by these numerous and somewhat stunning innovations the people at large were awed into astonishment or benumbed into indifference. The sociological effect of the educational changes was overwhelming, but they were lost in the general confusion of an age of rapid and permanent transformation.

Next in importance to the overturning of the Chinese system of civil service examinations was the introduction of Provincial Councils,

Provincial Councils and National Assembly

which were intended merely as advisory bodies with restricted rights of discussion and without power of legislation. These councils were a necessary step in the introduction of the promised “constitutional government” in China. They were held in the provincial capitals, and many fine buildings for their accommodation have been erected upon the ruins of the old examination cells. Twenty-one of these councils were open for a session of forty days on October 14, 1909. The franchise for the choice of members was wisely limited to officials, to scholars, and to large property holders. Although no such deliberative bodies have ever before gathered in China, yet the discussions were conducted with remarkable dignity and intelligence, giving promise that it would not be long before the functions of these assemblies would be greatly enlarged. The government had thus, more or less unwittingly, uncorked the fateful bottle, and the genius of democracy, after age-long suppression, was now liberated once and for all. The National Assembly, which was intended as the organism out of which, after seventeen years should have elapsed, the National Parliament was to develop, met in Peking in October, 1910, a year later than the Provincial Councils. It was composed of two hundred members, one half of whom were directly appointed by the government, from a wide variety of incongruous sources, racial, tribal,

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 221

official. The other half were appointed by the governors of provinces from nomination by the Provincial Councils, double in number to the appointments.

Notwithstanding the apparently fatal bar that the National Assembly was in no sense representative and was presided over by an imperial prince, it immediately developed democratic tendencies, and at once demanded the shortening of the period before the National Parliament should meet. In response to their request the time was then limited to three years. Success in this contention led to an attack upon the hitherto untouchable Grand Council, resulting in the replacing of that body a few months later by a so-called Cabinet with theoretical responsibility on the part of its ministers. The “budget,” a luxury new to China, was criticized in detail, involving a novel controversy between the Assembly and the Board of Revenue, in which the National Assembly seemed to have the best of it. The Assembly had thus early in its career succeeded in establishing its right to inquire into the actions of the throne, to control supplies, and to initiate legislation. To the friends of democracy this surprisingly rapid evolution of a capacity for government by deliberative bodies in China was extremely gratifying, and will be a most important factor in the development of the new republic.

Democratic Initiative cf the National Assembly

These Bodies For the first time in the immemorial history of China there was now a legally constituted and recognized body between the people and the throne, a body able to assert itself with success and certain to grow in power and in favor, not with the rulers, indeed, but with the ruled. The Provincial Councils, young as they are, and the National Assembly, still younger, are now essential factors in the evolution of a stable government for China.

Anti-Opium In the year 1906 a memorial was prepared by the officers of the Anti-Opium League and signed by 1,333 missionaries of all nationalities and bound in a volume with yellow silk, and sent to the governor-genernal of the three lower provinces on the Yang-tzu River. It reached him on the 19th of August and was by him forwarded to Peking. The imperial edict, ordering the discontinuance of the use of opium and of the growth of the poppy plant, each under specified conditions, was issued a month later. The avowed object was “to make China strong,” but before long not only a patriotic element but a truly moral one likewise was injected into the movement, which was taken up with great earnestness and zeal alike by officials and people, and especially by students. No such note of social reform had ever before been struck in China. In many cities, and in some cities repeatedly, valuable opium-pipes were brought out,

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 223

neatly piled up, and after being saturated with kerosense oil were destroyed by fire in the presence of applauding multitudes. The foreign press in China, always skeptical of Chinese sincerity, ridiculed the decree and denied the possibility of its enforcement. But when, the following year, active steps were taken for such enforcement, so much progress was made even in the most discouraging parts of the empire that no doubt remained of the fixed purpose of the government or of the general codperation of the people, varied by occasional riots and insurrections on the part of the opium growers. The International Opium Conference, held at Shanghai in 1909, revealed in its reports from every land a state of things which made worldwide restriction absolutely necessary in the interests of civilization. The British government and the government of India have now come to an understanding with China by which, at the expiration of a short term of years, the trade in opium shall automatically cease.

Prevention of the introduction of morphia and other drugs into China will prove much more difficult. In the meantime China is being inundated with opium from other sources than India, as well as with foreign liquors. The cigarette habit is becoming fixed upon the Chinese people, largely through the expenditure of a million or two dollars each year by the British and Ameri-

Introduction of New Evils

Unquestioned Strength of the Reform

Action Against Other Evils

Extension of Railways

can Tobacco Company, which has one or two hundred agents scattered over China to promote that habit and to hasten sales.

It is a regrettable incident of the revolution that in the general relaxation of all authority, the poppy plant is reappearing, for in some places opium has risen to twenty times its former price, thus making the temptation to illicit commerce and illegal cultivation of the poppy practically irresistible; but with the resumption of stable government there will no doubt be a return to rigid prohibition. In any case it may rightly be claimed that China made more progress with its Anti-Opium campaign in three years than was made by any Western nation in a like reform against intoxicating liquors in an entire generation.

In 1910 the Provincial Council of Canton or Kuang-tung Province instituted an attack upon the strongly entrenched licensed gambling, which had for years been a government monopoly farmed out to the highest bidder, and against great odds the attack was successful. These instances, together with the edict designed to abolish slavery which still exists in China, show a moral virility of good omen for a country just entering upon self-government.

During the past decade the railway mileage’ of China has been greatly increased, but many

1There are 6,300 miles in operation.

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 225

important lines have been left unfinished, as that between Yu-ch‘ang and Canton; the recently undertaken line between I-ch‘ang on the upper Yang-tzu and the province of Sstt-ch‘uan, and many others. One important road, that between Peking and Kalgan, about one hundred and thirty miles in length, was built entirely by Chinese labor, directed by Mr. Jeme Tien-yow, a Chinese engineer, educated in America.

The postal system in China has had a phenomenally rapid development, showing its adaptation to the necessities of the people. Its parcelpost facilities especially are far in advance of anything in the United States or Canada, while the rate of letter postage (for each half ounce only) is only half that of the former country. In the confused conditions prevailing throughout large parts of China, the postal couriers have often been obliged to suspend operations.

The commissioners of the imperial maritime customs, the income of which has been pledged as a security for foreign loans, have, during the revolution, maintained an interesting and somewhat unique neutrality between revolutionists and imperialists, each side dreading that foreign intervention which might destroy the plans of both. It is antagonism to foreign nations, compelling a unity between parts of the Chinese empire which could by no possibility be otherwise achieved, that is the hope of China. It is

Postal System

Phases of Neutrality

Probable Period of Disturbance

Assured Character and Seriousness of

the Change

to the fear of intervention also, and not to any regard to the foreigner as such, that we owe the marvelous protection extended (with some conspicuous and unhappy exceptions) to thousands of men and women of every nationality scattered over the great empire, many of them quite unable to escape, since travel would involve. still greater risk than any to which they were exposed at home. When the experiences of foreigners in China in this revolution are compared with those of the foreign residents of China in the year 1900, the wonderful difference is readily appreciated.

That it is so often supposed that a revolution of this magnitude can sweep over a country like China, and calm down as suddenly as it appeared, shows a lack of historic imagination. Those who recall the after effects of the English revolution of the seventeenth century or of the French revolution of the eighteenth, not to speak of others of more recent date, will cherish no such illusion. Decades may elapse before political equilibrium is completely restored, but this is only what China has experienced in earlier stages of its development times without number. Yet even here there may be great surprises in store for us all.

It is essential to take note of the unquestionable fact that the old order has forever gone. We are to have politically, financially, economic-

‘Transformation, Condition, Appeal 227

ally, commercially, industrially, a new China that in every aspect is to be reckoned with. A century ago Napoleon, always an astute observer of world events, is said to have remarked that China was a sleeping giant and should be allowed to slumber, for when China moved she would move the world. One of the distinguished Manchu statesmen of the middle of the last century also gave utterance to a remarkable prophecy: “You complain,” he said, “that China moves too slowly. The time may come when you will cry that China is moving too fast.” That time is already here.

In bringing about this condition we rightly recognize the mighty effect of Western civilization upon the civilization of the East. In this, as we have seen, commerce, diplomacy, and war have all had their share of influence. The establishment of foreign legations in Peking in 1860, and of consulates at all the open ports; the persuasive object-lesson of an honestly administered Chinese imperial maritime customs service, the illumination imparted by the many thousand Occidentals domiciled in China, and an able and intelligent foreign press; the constant visits of Chinese to foreign lands, and above

all the return of Chinese who had been educated |

abroad—all these have been factors in the awakening of China. It is to be remembered also that by foreign intercourse dark shadows

Forces Working toward the New Era

Intimate -

Work of /

Missions /

have been thrown, but upon these in this connection it is unnecessary to dwell. To what extent and to what degree this great awakening has been due to Christian missions must be left to the impartial estimate of the future. Nor will it indeed ever be possible to disentangle the complicated web of causes and effects so as to determine with certainty their interaction. It is certain that missions have been one among forces which have been efficiently working in the celestial empire. But many of the other influences which have been mentioned could be felt through here and there an exceptional man. All of them combined touched only the outer fringe of the country, or the banks of its chief river. Many men other than missionaries have greatly contributed to our knowledge of China and its people, but probably the number of those who have permanently influenced the people of China is small. Nearly all of them have lived beside the Chinese, and not among them, and for this reason their acquaintance with the real life of the people was of necessity partial and limited.

Missionaries, on the other hand, have pene-

| trated to every part of China and lived every-

_ where—in the large cities, in market-towns, and

in hamlets. They speak every dialect. They \ have been a constant force, an always growing \force, an increasingly aggressive force. For

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 229

many years it was an unintelligent criticism that 4

their labors were devoid of result. In 1900 the same critics charged them with having turned the world upside down and brought on the Boxer earthquake. In the providence of God, Protestant missions had been established for two full generations before the great transformation of China began, in order that the seeds sown beside all waters might have time to germinate. So little impression did decades of the most laborious effort appear to produce on China, that it was not inaptly likened to an attempt to melt a glacier by holding up to it a tallow dip.

What may it be soberly claimed that Christian missions in China have accomplished? First and chiefest, they have brought to China a new idea of God. If the Chinese ever had the idea \

of God at all, it had ages ago disappeared like

an inscription on a worn coin. The monotheistic concept outtops all other thoughts. In the absence of it, the Chinese have worshiped real or

Missions Have Given Chinaa New Idea of God

|

| }

imaginary heroes, and have been under an in- |

tolerable bondage to the spirits of the dead and | to demons. Confucian morality with all its excellences fatally lacks the sanction of a personal God of righteousness, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. To any people there can be no greater gift than the knowledge of God as a Father, loving, caring for, and teaching his children. Without the unity of God there is no necessary

uniformity of nature, to the comprehension of which the Chinese have never had a key, their discoveries being apparently the result of happy accidents, and not due to induction from perceived laws.

Man Impacted Christianity has bestowed upon the Chinese an altogether new idea of man, as by creation and by redemption the child of God. The Fatherhood of God involves the brotherhood of man through Jesus Christ, and thus for the first time the classic dictum that “within the four seas all are brethren” has become vitalized with meaning, and the relation between God and man has been established. In China, as in all Oriental lands, the individual is of comparatively little consequence; the family, the clan, society, are everything. Woman is unhonored. At precisely the points where Chinese social and family life is weakest, the immeasurable blessings of Christianity are most convincingly evident. It dignifies and ennobles man by revealing his individual accountability to God. It elevates woman, sanctions the relation between husband and wife, and glorifies alike motherhood and

__ childhood.

Tra Character Christianity proves its divine mission to China by its transformation of character, not in isolated instances only, but upon a large scale and with lasting effects. Gamblers, heavy opium-smokers like some who in 1900 sealed with their lives the

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 231

testimony to their reformation, proud scholars, the most hopelessly ignorant old women, multitudes mainly, but not exclusively, from the middle and the lower middle classes of society, have been recreated in the temper and the spirit of their minds and have begun to live a new life. In China as elsewhere many of the regions most difficult to open, as the Fu-chien Province, have yielded the largest fruit. The people of Manchuria, on the other hand, where the mass of the population are immigrants separated from their ancient homes and from their ancestral graves, have accepted Christianity upon a scale elsewhere unexampled.

It was once thought that the unemotional Chinese nature was unfavorable to strong religious impressions; but it is now a frequent observation that the Chinese are not only as susceptible to spiritual truth as are Occidentals, but often much more so, for the reason that they have not frittered away their moral strength by resistance to repeated appeal. The wonderful phenomena connected with evangelistic work in churches and schools in widely separated parts of China, as well as among Chinese wholly outside of Christian influence, are of great interest and value as evidencing a great force hitherto wholly unknown. It is not merely by missionaries of an evangelistic temper and training that these great movements have been conducted.

Spiritual Truth Now Becoming Effectual

Individual Lives Transformed

Chinese evangelists, tactful, consecrated, and of deep spiritual power—among them Chinese women—are more and more appearing, whose influence among their own people will be increasingly felt. Among these may fitly be mentioned Pastor Ting Li-mei of Shan-tung, whose remarkable work among the students in his own province in Chih-li and in Manchuria will never be forgotten. As a tangible result, within a few months, several hundred pupils in schools and colleges gave up their burning ambition for wealth, power, and fame and pledged themselves to live as active Christians, while many of them promised to devote their lives to the spiritual regeneration of their own country.

Here is the human side of the energy which is to transform China. The oral proclamation of the gospel, with a view to the regeneration of individuals, has always been the key-note of Protestant missionary work. Amid great discouragements, fiery trials, bitter disappointments, this enterprise has been steadily prosecuted, until much of China is dotted with nearly 5,000 twinkling points of light, each representing a mission planted in the cold and loveless Oriental atmosphere—a dynamo tirelessly giving out in all directions light and heat. Sometimes, in the midst of much apparent success, a glacial epoch has set in. But lives of blameless self-sacrifice eventually overcome prejudice and suspicion,

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 233

and in an ever-increasing ratio there is progress. The quest for results is more or less vain. Without ignoring or depreciating tables of statistics, true mission work in China may be said to be indefinitely beyond and above them. While they record merely external phenomena, missions are introducing a Christian sociology—a new moral and spiritual climate,

It is by the indefatigably persistent diffusion of its literature that Christianity has largely prepared the way for the new era in China. Much of the country has been sown with books and tracts, and although multitudes of them seem to accomplish nothing, yet this is in appearance only, for books penetrate where the living voice can never be heard. A work like the late Dr. Faber’s Civilization East and West has been an invaluable handbook to progressive Chinese, official and non-official, by showing upon what lines China should be reformed. The Review of the Times, with its constant essays upon China and her neighbors, and indeed upon all themes of importance, has been a light shining in a dark land. Dr. Allen’s history of the ChineseJapanese war, Dr. Richard’s History of the Nineteenth Century, countless books and periodicals, have added each its silent quota of influence. The aggregate effect of this vast total is beyond computation. The ideas emanating from literature of this description have for many years

Diffusion of Christian Literature

+

Medical Service

Campaign against the Pneumonic

Plague

been diffused throughout China, as aqueous vapor pervades the atmosphere. Without the fertilization of the Chinese mind by this literature, it may well be doubted whether the recent revolution would have been possible either in conception or in execution.

As we have seen, toward breaking down the initial walls of prejudice, no agency can compete with the hospital and dispensary, which, though ~ at first often bitterly antagonized, eventually win their way to the favor of peasant and of prince. Here also statistics are merely the stuffing of the dried skin of truth, but what must be the value of 388 fully qualified foreign phySicians with their native assistants, treating in IQII in 321 hospitals and dispensaries 1,333,482 patients. The inevitable trend toward union medical colleges in all the great centers of China will enable missionary medical education to keep pace and more than keep pace with anything that the Chinese government is likely to do in this line for a long time to come.

The Lockhart Union Medical College in Peking graduated its first class in ro11, just in time to take an active and an efficient part in fighting the dreadful pneumonic plague, which in the spring of that year made its appearance in southern Siberia and in northern Manchuria. Its terrible mortality was one hundred per cent, for it was reported that no case recovered. Yet

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 235

it was ascertained that by due precaution the disease could be isolated and thus extinguished. It was not until this plague had been ignored and allowed to spread by returning laborers through Manchuria into Chih-li and Shan-tung that the government was at last aroused to the imperative necessity of taking active steps to deal with it. During that time many tens of thousands of lives were lost, including those of several skilled and devoted foreign physicians; but the plague was stayed, and, still better, China was definitely and for all time committed to the adoption of Western medical science.

The Harvard Medical College in Shanghai is to comprise not only all that is expected of such an institution in the Occident, but in addition it will become a great organ of medical research, and a training-school not merely for physicians and surgeons—of whom China will need an unlimited supply—but of sanitary engineers, inspectors, and other officials, for whom during some millenniums China has been patiently, albeit unconsciously, waiting. No larger field for such a work can be found anywhere in the world. Every orphanage, every school for the blind, every leper refuge—all reaching down to the defective and dependent classes—is a testimony to a new spirit introduced from without, which is not only making itself felt but is winning for itself a sincere tribute of imitation.

Medical Research and Training Work

Educational The educational activity of missions in China has been incessant. Of the fourteen institutions of college grade in China, twelve are American, exhibiting the emphasis which Americans almost invariably place upon this agency. The total number of pupils at present under instruction in missionary colleges and schools in China is 102,533. From the days of Dr. S. R. Brown, whose early beginnings in Macao and Hongkong produced a few men who became leaders in China, down to the present day, the potency of this instrument upon which the perpetuation and extension of the Church in China depend has been recognized.

Advance in The education of Chinese girls in mission

Education schools was but yesterday regarded by nearly all Chinese with amusement tinged with ridicule. Yet so great was the change that, almost before the fully developed women’s colleges can be acclimated in China, they have become the ideal of the Chinese also. It was at the especial command of the Empress Dowager that the imperial commissioners visited Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, to witness for themselves what had been done by and for American women, and to learn what might be done in China. There are already signs that the impending education and elevation of the more than one hundred and fifty millions of Chinese women will impart to the national development such an impetus as

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 237

has never before been known; and, humanly speaking, it will have been largely brought about by the work and influence of Christian women in China.

But a short time ago it would not have been too much to affirm that the export of Chinese young women to foreign countries for an education was totally impossible—almost indeed inconceivable—yet in the statistics of I9QII it appears that of the six hundred and fifty Chinese students then in the United States fifty-two were women. The number is sure to increase steadily. The women of China are indeed China’s greatest, as well as her most neglected, asset. There can certainly be no more important question than what the Christian women of America can do for the women of China.

Missionaries in China have studied the country, the people, and the language. They have examined Chinese literature and have made compendious dictionaries of the language and of nearly every important dialect. They have carefully investigated its religions in all their aspects, and the results of all these labors have been freely given to China and to all the world. But their great task has been to preach Christ and to explain Christianity. The knowledge which they have imparted has penetrated to the palace of the imperial household, to the yamens of the highest officials, and to the dwellings of the poor.

Chinese Women Students in the United States

General Diffusion of Christianity

‘Remarkable Effect on Chinese Thought

This is evidenced by the allusions to Christian teachings, met with in the native press. Articles have been frequently published in the influential secular Chinese dailies, showing the follies of Chinese superstitions, and proving, with a wealth of illustration and a fulness of knowledge to which no foreigner could aspire, that China has at present no religion at all but is vitally in need of one.

Utterances like these are the reverberating echoes, far louder and fuller than the original tones, of the countless sermons, chapel talks, leaflets, tracts, and books with which, as we have seen, China has been inundated—a remarkable instance of bread cast upon the waters, that is, seed widely sown upon soil covered by water, which, retiring, leaves the seed to germinate and to bear abundant harvest. Entire volumes concerning other than Chinese religions are now and again put forth by those occupying the highest official positions. Some of these works exhibit a surprising familiarity not only with the Bible but with Church history, and a friendliness of tone which ten years ago would never have been shown. The uncounted lives of Chinese Christians sacrificed in the convulsion of 1900,

the many missionary martyrs, consecrated men,

heroic women, and tender children, “have not been, and will not be, without result in the future regeneration of the empire. Without as yet ac-

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 239

cepting Christianity, China is now learning from Christian lands, and having entered upon this course, must of necessity do so more and more. The four thousand six hundred and twenty-| eight men and women in the Protestant foreign| mission ranks in China might all be gathered into a single modern auditorium. Scattered through the empire, they are the chief of staff, the captains and the generals, of a mighty army. Collectively they represent an accumulation of

knowledge and experience concerning China and the Far East not elsewhere to be matched. They are, in an important sense, interpreters of the West to the East, and of the East to the West. They constitute an intelligent, a sympathetic, and a permanent body of mediators between the two.

China has always been the targest, and, in view of its present unexampled transition, must be considered to be the most important mission field in the world. In such a time of national awakening old things readily pass away and all things become new. There has long been in China an unconscious sense of dissatisfaction with China’s past, but this feeling has now become acute and all-pervasive. There is everywhere a readiness to listen to preaching and to teaching upon almost any subject, such as was formerly unknown. Difficult and puzzling questions, too, are often propounded by auditors, relating es-

Missionaries are Interpreters of the West to the East

China’s Great Need

pecially to the conduct of Christian nations and to the mysteries of the Christian faith. The present fluid condition of Chinese society cannot last. Therefore full advantage of it should be taken while it does last. There is deep need of the influence of the Spirit of God all over the land, upon the preachers as well as the hearers of the gospel, upon the makers no less than upon the readers of Christian books. China is recon,structing her civilization, not out of the ruins, / but out of the materials of the old. She needs | guidance and help upon every point and in every place. Much of this help must come from abroad and much more must be developed from within. The profoundest need of the Christian \Church in China is such an infilling of God’s Spirit as shall fit it for the great task of evangelizing the entire Chinese race. The Church has already among its leaders many noble men and women, but as yet they are relatively few. CallfortheBest ‘T'o train the coming race of Chinese civil and mining engineers, electricians, railway builders, and managers has required and will long require experts from Western lands. It is not less so in the far deeper mining and higher building of the Church of God in China. There is not now a general summons to “all sorts and conditions of men” to enter China, but only to the best, physically, intellectually, spiritually. The call is for men and women of an evangelistic

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 241

temper and spirit to do among the growing churches of China the work which was done by the leaders mentioned in the book of Acts, a work of inspiration and of uplift. Long before they know enough of the language to enter upon it, such men and such women will have found their field.

Then there is the call for consecrated and thoroughly qualified teachers, professors, and Christian Association secretaries, for the schools and colleges already existing, as well as for the great union colleges which are yet to be, perhaps one in every province. At present the drift among the young students is overwhelmingly toward the dazzling opportunities afforded by the new China. The need of a strong personal influence upon them, by wise men and winning women from Christian lands, is one of the most imperative anywhere ta be found. There is an unceasing demand for skilful physicians, men and women, not to conduct hospitals and dispensaries merely, but to introduce into China the new medicine with Christian accessories, one of the wisest, sanest, most hopeful of enterprises. There is urgent need for men and women called of the Lord to help prepare the new Christian and general literature for the illumination of hundreds of millions of minds and hearts. As yet, not one half of one per cent. of the books which ought to be provided has been produced.

Teachers, Authors, Guides Demanded

Enlistment of Self-supporting Missionaries

Is there elsewhere any call like this? In every part of the vast field there is a demand for strong and wise all-round missionary statesmen, to advise, control, and guide in the difficult emergencies always arising. Such men must indeed be trained, but with the right material under right conditions they will be developed. In every mission there is great need of able and experienced business men to promote efficiency and to eliminate waste.

How is it that American missions have relatively so few self-supporting missionaries working, not independently, but coordinately with others? In each department of activity their numbers should be greatly increased. The young men and young women who are needed are those who have first been infilled by the Spirit of God.

‘They must know their Bibles tlat they may be

able to wield the sword of the Spirit. They must know how to pray and must have unlimited faith in this mightiest of weapons. They must be men and women of vision—“visionaries” they will be termed—of the pattern of those who in 1806 knelt under the Williamstown haystack, undaunted by the indolent torpor of the Church or the alert hostility of the world. They must have at least some assimilated and funded knowledge of what has been done toward establishing tthe kingdom of God on earth, and of the vast work which yet remains undone and not begun.

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 243

Two generations ago such knowledge was exceptional, now, thanks to the mission study classes, it is common. They should be men and women who are not anxious lest they be not prominent, or even lest they be altogether unknown. They should be willing to subordinate the insubordinate personal element, to esteem others better than themselves, and even, if need be, to work under others. They should know men and how to approach and win them. They should have had actual experience of some form of actual work before venturing to spread their unfledged wings in Oriental gales. Having once for all faced the question of a life-work, and having decided it intelligently and conscientiously in the light of the Word of God, the call of God, and by the Spirit of God, they will be in no danger of abandoning it without as clear a call to leave as they had to enter it. They should have good health and be able to pass the examination of any life insurance company. They should be active in mind, versatile and adaptable.

“There are very few such young people,’ some will say. There are unlimited numbers of them —or, if not, there should be. In other lines of enterprise the demand creates the supply. The man that could do great things at home, in strong competition with hosts of others, may do much greater things abroad where there 1s no competition at all. Not until the best young men

Qualifications Required

Ground for Expecting a Supply

Dedication of Highest Powers to Mightiest Task

and women of the Christian Church recognize the magnitude and the urgency of the work, to do which the Church was by her Master set apart, but which she is visibly not doing, will the anemic life of that Church be replaced by the glow of returning health.

In all the varied departments already noted there is indefinite scope for young men and young women of tact, skill, and consecration. No one is wise enough to forecast the future, yet it is altogether probable that the door of opportunity may not always be open. It is not a call to sacrifice, but to privilege; to the most permanently productive investment of influence, and to the dedication of the highest powers to the mightiest task yet remaining to the Christian Church. Unless to every reader it be a call to earnest prayer for the regeneration of China this book will have failed of its purpose. “And the teachers that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 245

oF

Io.

1G

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VIII

If visitors should arrive in this country from Mars, with ideas far in advance of our own, describe what you think would be the effect.

How would the results compare with those in a country as deficient in facilities for communication and transportation as was China fifty years ago?

Sum up all the reasons that might lead you to hesitate in adopting the ideas of visitors from Mars.

Compare these with the reasons that have retarded the development of China?

What have been the lessons for China of the wars of the last fifty years?

Arrange the recent changes in what seems to you the order of their missionary importance, and give reasons for your view.

Compare the present educational system in China with those of America and Europe a hundred years ago.

For what reasons may we expect that the educational developments in China will be more rapid than in the countries just mentioned?

What will be some of the effects on the nation of the new education? Of the development of the railway and postal systems? Of the anti-opium campaign?

Have changes of such importance ever before affected so vast a population in so brief a time? Will the material changes strengthen or weaken the social and moral forces already existing?

12.* How will the entrance of Western industrial methods affect them?

13.* What sort of moral forces will be needed in Chinese society under the new conditions?

14. Through what agencies do you think the needed moral forces can be best introduced into Chinese society?

15. What is the special value of Christian literature at the present time? Of medical work? Of educational work?

16.* Why is a time of rapid change of special importance in the life of a nation?

17. Why are precedents then set harder to change afterward ?

18.* Compare the call of China with other calls now before the Christian Church.

19.* State as impressively as you can the opportunity of the present in China.

20. What claim has this opportunity on your money and prayer and life?

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED Stupy—CHapPTER VIII

uf

II.

Recent Political Changes.

China Mission Year Book, 1gro, II.

China Mission Year Book, 1o11, II, III.

Brown, Chinese Revolution, III, VI.

Reinsch: Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East, VI.

Reform.

China Mission Year Book, 1911, XXXI.

Ross: The Changing Chinese, VI, VII.

Cecil: Changing China, IX, X.

Reinsch: Intelléctual and Political Currents in the Far East, IV.

Blakeslee: China and the Far East, IX.

III.

Ly.

Transformation, Condition, Appeal 247

New Education.

China Mission Year Book, t1o10, III.

China Mission Year Book, ig11, V.

Brown: The Chinese Revolution, IV.

Ross: The Changing Chinese, X.

Cecil: Changing China, XXI-XXIV.

Reinsch: Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East, V.

Colquhoun: China in Transformation, VI.

Burton: The Education of Women in China, V-X.

Blakeslee: China and the Far East, XIII, XV.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1912, 83-096.

Communication.

Brown: Chinese Revolution, IT.

Colquhoun: China in Transformation, XI, and