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THE CHINESE 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 CliSRLES W. WASON.— Will you tell 
 me through your columns something 
 about Arthur^ J. Brov/n, author ol "The 
 Chinese Revolution," published by the 
 Students' Volunteer Movement for For- 
 eign Missions, New York, 1912? 
 
 ■ Arthur Judson Brown was bom at Hol- 
 listoh. Mass., Dec. 3, 1856. He was gjM|u- 
 ated from Lane Theological Seniimp^n 
 \ 1883, and received the degree^^KT D.' 
 ( , from Lake Forest University^^^B.. In 
 IStJS he married Jennie F^aj^^Bas of , 
 Fond du Lac, Wis. He has^eHM Pres- 
 byterian p.astor at Ripon, Wis.; Oak Park, 
 111., and Portland, Ore. Since 1895 he has 
 been Secretary of the Presbyterian Board 
 of Foreign Missions, whose offices are 
 In this city. He traveled in Asia and 
 other parts of the world in 1901-2 and 
 1009. He is the author of "The New 
 Fra in the Philippines," " New Forces in 
 Old China," " The Foreign Missionai-y," 
 " The Nearer and Farther, East," and 
 " The Why and How of Foreign Mis- 
 sions." He ho.s also been a contributor to 
 various periodicals. 
 
See Chapter VII 
 
 Yuan Shih Kai 
 
 J'"rom photograph presented to the author by His Excellency Yuan 
 Shih K,ai through his son, Yuan Yen Tai, in Peking in igog 
 
THE CHINESE 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "NEW FORCES IN OLD CHINA," "THE NEW ERA 
 
 IN THE PHILIPPINES," "THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY," 
 
 "THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS," 
 
 AND JOINT AUTHOR OF " THE NEARER 
 
 AND FARTHER EAST" 
 
 STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Q. 
 
Copyright, 1912, by 
 
 STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 
 
 FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 All rights resfrved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A new China is emerging. Whatever may be 
 the immediate developments, however short or 
 long the process of readjustment, we cannot doubt 
 the outcome. This book is not, of course, intended 
 to be a final account of either the process or the 
 result, but an aid to the study of the large out- 
 standing causes and of their operation thus far. 
 These causes are clear, and a knowledge of them 
 is indispensable to an understanding of the extra- 
 ordinary significance of the reconstruction which 
 is now taking place. I have used some parts of 
 my former and larger book, " New Forces in Old 
 China," which are applicable to present conditions 
 and the scope of this little book — ^the publishers. 
 The Fleming H. Revell Company, having given 
 their approval. This material, however, has been 
 readjusted, wherever necessary, and brought down 
 to date. Considerable new matter has been added, 
 so that this book is intended to be a separate one 
 representing the present situation. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 156 Fifth Ave., New York, 
 March 30, 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Outbreak and Background of the Revolution i 
 
 II 
 
 Transformations Wrought by Steam and Com- 
 merce 36 
 
 III 
 
 Diplomatic Relations and Growth of Political 
 
 Unrest 50 
 
 IV 
 
 Intellectual Awakening and Educational 
 Progress 71 
 
 V 
 
 Quickening and Constructive Influence of 
 
 Christianity 94 
 
 VI 
 
 Constitutional Development and Social Re- 
 form ... 126 
 
 VII 
 
 Leaders of the New China — Yuan Shih Kai 
 — Sun Yat Sen 157 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Future of the Republic and the Duty 
 
 OF THE Christian Churches of the West 182 
 vii 
 
FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Yuan Shih Kai .... Frontispiece 
 
 Tzu Hsi, The Empress Dowager 
 
 Provincial Assembly Building, under Serpent 
 Hill, Wu-Chang 
 
 Railway Station at Hankow . 
 
 Imperial Maxim Gun 
 
 Science Building, Nanking Christian Uni 
 versity 
 
 Iron Works at Han-Yang 
 
 Secretarial and Teaching Staff of Shanghai 
 Young Men's Christian Association 
 
 Paoting-Fu Martyrs' Memorial 
 
 New Government School, Canton 
 
 Chinese Students in the Universities and 
 Colleges of the United States 
 
 Track Team of a Preparatory School 
 
 Robert Morrison and his Chinese Teachers 96 
 
 Rev. Ding Li Mei and Family .... 106 
 
 Union Medical College, Peking . . . 116 
 
 Types of Educated Christian Women . .122 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 22 
 
 30 
 40 
 
 58 
 64 
 76 
 
 82 
 90 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 
 PAGE 
 
 E. A. K. HaCk£tt Medical College for 
 
 Women 128 
 
 Ancient Examination Halls, Nanking . .138 
 
 Celebrating the Suppression of Gambling in 
 
 Canton 150 
 
 Composing Room of a Mission Press, 
 
 Shanghai 160 
 
 Sun Yat Sen 178 
 
 The New Soldiery of China .... 190 
 
 Candidates for Christian Ministry, Shan- 
 tung Christian College .... 198 
 
 St. John's College, Shanghai . . . 202 
 
 Shi Ma-Li-A (Dr. Mary Stone) . . . 206 
 
 Map End of Book 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND OF THE 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 The Revolution in China is too recent to be de- 
 scribed in historic perspective, nor can we yet com- 
 prehend its full results. Its causes and character, 
 however, are apparent and its larger significance 
 can already be discerned. 
 
 The alleged cause was the attempt of the Gov- 
 ernment to nationalize the railways, which had 
 hitherto been controlled in the Provinces. Foreign 
 financiers had something to do with this decision 
 of the Government. Capital is always looking 
 for profitable investment and European and Amer- 
 ican bankers saw the rich possibilities of railway 
 development in a country of such enormous popu- 
 lation. They urged China to borrow money for 
 the purpose and they were not averse to having 
 the railways under centralized governmental con- 
 trol in order that their investments might be more 
 secure and their dealings limited to a few men. 
 Western governments, our own included, more or 
 
 I 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 less openly abetted the effort, for they were not 
 slow to discern the advantages which might accrue 
 to them if the thoroughfares of the nation were 
 controlled by a few officials in Peking who were 
 dependent upon foreign financing and accessible to 
 diplomatic influence. The persistent efforts of 
 mortgage loan companies in the United States to 
 persuade farmers to borrow money were repeated 
 on a colossal scale by Peking representatives of 
 German, British, French, and American capitalists. 
 The Provinces resented this program. This was 
 partly because the power of the central Govern- 
 ment has long been weak in China and " States' 
 Rights " sentiment is very strong; partly because 
 the construction of railways meant many oppor- 
 tunities for official " squeeze," and local officials 
 did not relish the transfer of those opportunities to 
 officials in Peking. Moreover, while new railways 
 were to be built by the Government from foreign 
 loans, the revenues of the Provinces were to be 
 pledged for security for the use of the loans, which 
 virtually meant that the Imperial Government was 
 to borrow vast sums which the Provinces were to 
 mortgage themselves to pay. Accordingly, when 
 Sheng Kung Pao, Minister of Imperial Posts and 
 Communications, undertook to carry out the new 
 program, a storm of protest arose. The crisis was 
 precipitated in the Province of Sze-chwan, where 
 most of the landed gentry had subscribed to a joint 
 
 2 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 Stock railway company with a capital of eight mil- 
 lions. The Government ordered the dissolution of 
 the company, took possession of its properties, and 
 paid the stockholders $5,350,000 in bonds, part 
 of which carried no guaranteed interest and most 
 of which the unhappy subscribers regarded as 
 worthless. The Government believed, no doubt 
 with reason, that the road was being built as New 
 York and Pennsylvania built their State Capitols, 
 and it was not disposed to refund that part of the 
 expenditures which corrupt officials and contractors 
 had pocketed. 
 
 The unrest of the people was intensified by aw- 
 ful calamities. An epidemic of pneumonic plague 
 swept the northern Manchurian Provinces, 50,000 
 dying in three months in the spring of 191 1. 
 Floods again devastated the central Provinces. 
 This is a common occurrence in the valleys of the 
 Yang-tze and Hwang-ho Rivers, but the floods of 
 1910-1911 were the worst in forty years. The 
 Yang-tze was forty miles wide 250 miles from the 
 sea and great areas in the Ngan-hwei, Kiang-su 
 and Hunan Provinces were also inundated. Mil- 
 lions of people were made homeless and the ruin 
 of their crops, in the two former Provinces for the 
 third time in five years, added the horrors of 
 famine and pestilence. The Provinces of Shantung, 
 Che-kiang, Kiang-si and Hupeh also suffered, some 
 from floods and some from droughts, so that in the 
 
 3 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 seven Provinces affected a total of 600,000 fam- 
 ilies, or 3,000,000 people, were actually starving 
 and dying. Men become blindly desperate in such 
 circumstances. Superstition suggests that the gods 
 are angry. The Government is blamed, especially 
 when its high officials are living in luxury, are do- 
 ing little to give help to the suffering people, and 
 are believed to be stealing some of the relief funds 
 sent by the charitable of other countries. Discon- 
 tent in such circumstances is easily swollen into a 
 rage of rebellion. 
 
 It is clear, however, that such reasons do not 
 adequately account for the stupendous upheaval 
 that has taken place. They were the occasions of 
 the Revolution, not its sufficient cause. 
 
 A larger cause lies in the fact that China has 
 not been governed by the Chinese, but by the alien 
 Manchus. The Manchus were originally one of the 
 wandering, half-civilized but warlike tribes who 
 roamed the extensive region north and northeast 
 of China and whose origin is lost in a haze of 
 mythical antiquity. In the twelfth century, one 
 of these tribes, the Mongols, developed a chieftain 
 of phenomenal force, one of the born leaders of 
 men, the celebrated Jenghiz Khan. He welded 
 the warlike tribes into a nation and hurled it with 
 such ferocity upon Asia that a large part of the 
 then known world fell under his sway. After his 
 death, his kingdom gradually disintegrated until 
 
 4 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 Mongolia and Manchuria were again broken up 
 into a confused number of independent tribes, 
 which were usually at war with one another or with 
 China, and which China finally overcame and 
 added to her dependencies. In the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, another conqueror arose among these war- 
 like peoples. This chieftain, Nurhachi, sprang 
 from a small Manchu tribe. Like Jenghiz Khan 
 several centuries earlier, he had the boldness and 
 skill to subdue some tribes and persuade others un- 
 til he brought all Manchuria under his sway. He 
 fought the Chinese until he won independence for 
 his people and founded a dynasty under the title 
 of Tien-ming. His son Tien-tsung continued his 
 father's fierce warfare against China, till a revolu- 
 tion broke out in China. The rebels succeeded in 
 capturing Peking in 1643. The timid and degen- 
 erate Emperor Hwai-tsung, the seventeenth ruler 
 of the Ming Dynasty, committed suicide, thus 
 bringing to an inglorious end the Chinese Dynasty 
 which had ruled since 1368. The commander of 
 the northern Imperial army, who had been sent 
 against the Manchus, refused to acknowledge the 
 usurping rebel leader and asked his enemy to make 
 common cause with him in putting down the revo- 
 lution. The Manchus eagerly accepted the invi- 
 tation. With their vigorous assistance, the revolu- 
 tion was speedily quelled, and as the deceased 
 Emperor had left no heir, the Manchu chieftain 
 
 5 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 took the throne for himself, though his sudden 
 death at this juncture, 1644, has led historians to 
 regard his son and successor, Shun-chi, as the first 
 Manchu Emperor of the Ta-tsing (Pure) Dy- 
 nasty of China. 
 
 The Manchus have held the Government ever 
 since. They were often domineering in their atti- 
 tude toward the Chinese. They segregated them- 
 selves as much as possible from their Chinese 
 neighbors. Wherever numerous enough, they dwelt 
 in separate walled cities or sections of cities. 
 Every Manchu had a Government pension, in re- 
 turn for which he was enrolled as a " Bannerman," 
 available for military service. Exempted from the 
 necessity of supporting themselves, with the Gov- 
 ernment in their hands so that they had the dispo- 
 sition of its vast revenues and could take the most 
 lucrative posts for themselves, or fill them with 
 Chinese who were subservient to them, the robust 
 warlike vigor of earlier days began to wane. 
 Power, ease and self-indulgence begat physical and 
 moral degeneration. There were some notable ex- 
 ceptions, some of them, like Tuan Fang, conspicu- 
 ous ones ; but the Manchus as a class are narrow, 
 corrupt reactionaries. It was inevitable that the 
 Chinese should become restive under the domina- 
 tion of this comparative handful of aliens. That 
 they endured it so long Is a marvel which becomes 
 even partially intelligible only when we remember 
 
 6 
 
Photograph, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. (See pages 8-g, 6$, 83, 
 
 i£9—i36, 162-164, 168—170) 
 
 Tzu Hsi 
 
 From 186 1 to 1 908 Tzu Hsi was Empress Dowager ; a woman of 
 extraordinary ability and force of character. She was the real ruler 
 of China for nearly half a century. 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 their temperament, their lack of national unity, 
 and the large measure of self-government which 
 the indolent Manchus left to local communities 
 which paid their taxes into the Imperial treasury. 
 However, a study of Chinese history shows that 
 the people did not acquiesce as meekly as the west- 
 ern world has supposed. China has long been 
 honeycombed with revolutionary societies. Rebel- 
 lions have repeatedly broken out. Some of them 
 were civil wars of the first magnitude. The Tai- 
 ping Rebellion lasted twelve years (185 2- 1864). 
 The carnage was so frightful that estimates of the 
 number of lives that were sacrificed range from 
 30,000,000 to 50,000,000, Dr. W. A. P. Martin, 
 former President of the Imperial University, Pe- 
 king, being authority for the latter figure, a number 
 equaling the entire population of the United States 
 at that time. The Rebellion would probably have 
 succeeded in overthrowing the Manchus if it had 
 not been for two foreigners. The first was Fred- 
 erick Ward, an American adventurer of consid- 
 erable military skill. He accepted a General's 
 commission under the Government and won a suc- 
 cession of brilliant victories. After his death, Gen. 
 Charles George Gordon, a British officer, came to 
 the help of the sorely beset Government. He 
 organized what came to be known as " The Ever- 
 Victorious Army," because under his generalship 
 it was never defeated. General Gordon was a man 
 
 7 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 of high Christian character and he doubtless felt 
 that he was doing humanity service. It may be 
 doubted, however, whether he rendered so great 
 a service as he imagined. However, the failure 
 of the revolt was not wholly due to Ward and 
 Gordon. The Tai-pings themselves, flushed with 
 victory, gave themselves up to riotous excesses. 
 Their leader professed to be Christian, but what- 
 ever may have been the original purity of his 
 motives, his later years were a sad travesty on 
 Christian teaching. Partly, therefore, because of 
 superior force without and partly because of dis- 
 sensions and degeneracy within, the Tai-pings were 
 finally subdued, though China was long in recov- 
 ering from the sorrows and desolations of that pro- 
 tracted and bloody strife. 
 
 The failure of the Tai-ping Rebellion continued 
 the Manchus in power; but they learned nothing 
 from their narrow escape. They became more ar- 
 rogant and oppressive than ever. That such con- 
 ditions could not permanently continue was clear. 
 The Manchus were saved for a time by the rise of 
 Tzu Hsi, the daughter of a poor but noble Man- 
 chu, who became a favorite concubine of the weak 
 Emperor Hsien Feng. 
 
 Hsien Feng's death in 1861, at the age of 
 thirty, brought to the Throne Tzu Hsi's five 
 year old nephew, Kuang Hsu. One of the first 
 acts of the Regents was to issue a decree in the 
 
 8 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 name of the Emperor conferring the rank of Em- 
 press Dowager upon both the widowed Empress 
 and the favorite concubine, Tzu Hsi. Regents 
 and widow had short shift of power before the 
 resolute Tzu Hsi. The Emperor, on attaining his 
 majority, proved to be a well-meaning but nerve- 
 less man, and for nearly half a century Tzu Hsi 
 was the real ruler of China. She was a woman 
 of extraordinary ability and force of character, 
 and under her iron domination the Manchus ob- 
 tained new lease of life. When the Boxer Upris- 
 ing against the Manchus occurred in 1900, the 
 wily Empress Dowager succeeded in diverting it 
 against foreigners, and although the allied armies 
 of Europe and America ultimately crushed the Up- 
 rising and compelled her to flee for a time, she 
 succeeded in keeping the reins of power. After 
 her death, November 15, 1908, a day after the 
 death of the puppet Emperor Kuang Hsu, Man- 
 chu power began to crumble. The Prince Regent, 
 Chun, governing in place of the baby successor to 
 the Throne, had neither the strength nor the wis- 
 dom to control the situation, as we shall note more 
 fully in a later chapter. Discontent grew apace 
 and the signs of coming tumult became ominous. 
 The revolutionary leaders, who had long been 
 secretly perfecting their plans, saw that the time 
 for action was at hand. They had intended to 
 postpone the uprising until 19 13 in order to com- 
 
 9 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 plete their effort to win over the army and navy. 
 But the spirit of rebellion was becoming too fierce 
 to be repressed. The trouble in Sze-chwan began 
 in September, 1911, when the Peking government 
 attempted to enforce central control of railways. 
 On October 9th, 191 1, the accidental explosion 
 of a bomb in Hankow drew the attention of the 
 police to a house in the Russian Settlement. A 
 search disclosed not only many bombs but revo- 
 lutionary documents which included lists of revo- 
 lutionists. The leaders, finding secrecy no longer 
 possible, promptly raised the standard of revolt 
 in the adjacent Provinces. The victorious revolu- 
 tionists marched upon the three contiguous cities 
 of Hankow, Wu-chang and Hanyang. The Impe- 
 rial forces made a determined stand for a while, 
 but in almost incredibly short time, the greater 
 part of central and southern China was ablaze. 
 
 But while these explanations may satisfy the 
 superficial observer, they do not satisfy the philo- 
 sophical student or the Christian. If the Revolu- 
 tion meant only a change of officials, our interest 
 in it would be languid. What matters it to us 
 whether the Manchu Chun or the Chinese Yuan 
 rules China, unless they stand for divergent poli- 
 cies which make the conflict between them of world 
 significance? This leads us to the real cause of 
 the Revolution. It is the cause which has pro- 
 duced an awakening, of many different nations. 
 
 10 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 The great ideas of brotherhood, of justice, of 
 liberty, and of righteousness, which Christianity 
 inculcates and which exerted their first reconstruc- 
 tive influence in Great Britain, Germany and 
 North America, have been promulgated through- 
 out the world and have begun to manifest their 
 inevitable transforming and uplifting power. Men 
 in non-Christian lands, who are not prepared to 
 give their personal allegiance to Christ, are being 
 swayed more or less consciously by the teachings 
 and the spirit of Jesus. They have become impa- 
 tient of conditions in which they formerly acqui- 
 esced either through indifference or a sense of help- 
 lessness. New ambitions have been stirred, new 
 wants created. A stern protest against misgovern- 
 ment and oppression has been engendered. A new 
 spirit is abroad, and with mighty power it is over- 
 turning and recasting ancient institutions and deep- 
 ly rooted customs. All India is seething with this 
 spirit, and the British Government finds itself con- 
 fronted by administrative difficulties of a more 
 formidable character than any which have arisen 
 since the Sepoy Rebellion. Changes have taken 
 place in Turkey and Persia, which would have 
 been deemed incredible a few years ago. Revolu- 
 tion in Mexico has ended the iron rule of President 
 Diaz, who. In spite of the fact that he ruled under 
 the forms of a republic, was a dictator of the most 
 autocratic type. Japan, which was the first of the 
 
 II 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 non-Christian nations to attempt a reorganization 
 of its institutions in harmony with the spirit of the 
 modern world, is facing both at home and in Korea 
 the special problems which grow out of that effort. 
 Our own country is confronting similar problems 
 in the Philippine Islands. And now, most stupen- 
 dous and most significant of all is the Revolution 
 in China. Christendom has been amazed by the 
 magnitude and also by the swiftness and decisive- 
 ness of this Revolution. The nation which has the 
 largest population within a compact area of any 
 nation in the world, whose people have hitherto 
 so lacked national spirit that they were not able 
 to act together, a people who have had such insuf- 
 ficient means for intercommunication that it was 
 difficult for one part of the Empire even to know 
 the conditions in another part of the Empire, a 
 people who have been proverbially conservative 
 and slow moving, have suddenly shown a unity of 
 movement and a solidarity and determination of 
 action which would have been inconceivable 
 a short time ago. It is clear that an enormous 
 upheaval and reconstruction are taking place 
 throughout great areas of the non-Christian world. 
 Where the ruling class identifies itself with this 
 movement and leads it, the revolution is peaceful 
 and glorious, as it was in England, Germany and 
 Japan. Where the ruling class blindly and an- 
 grily resists the movement, as it did in France and 
 
 12 
 
OUTBREAK AND . BACKGROUND 
 
 as It is now doing in Russia, the revolution is 
 characterized by tumult and bloodshed. China 
 has been no exception. Bigoted, fossilized con- 
 servatism would not yield without a struggle. And 
 so in China the new and old grappled once more in 
 titanic conflict. Western nations cannot but be 
 interested In such a struggle, for It is fraught with 
 far-reaching corlsequences not only to China but 
 to the world. 
 
 Such a revolution is not to be adequately de- 
 scribed by a mere cataloguing of its particular 
 events, an account of a battle here, the burning of 
 a city there, and a diplomatic negotiation yonder. 
 These, interesting and even appalling as they may 
 be in themselves, are after all but the concomitants 
 of the movement. The movement Itself can be 
 understood, not by picturing the details of the ad- 
 vance of the revolutionary army, as the news- 
 papers did from day to day, but by considering the 
 character of the Chinese people, their relation to 
 the world, and the forces which have been oper- 
 ating upon them to produce the present upheaval. 
 In the light of such a study, we shall discern the 
 true significance of the Revolution and foresee, in 
 part at least. Its certain result, however protracted 
 the period of readjustment may prove to be. 
 
 An Important element in the significance of the 
 Revolution lies in the magnitude of the nation 
 which it affects. Even a small country may influ- 
 
 13 
 
THE CHIKESE REVOLUTION 
 
 ence the world, as the history of Greece, Palestine 
 and the Netherlands, reminds us. Bulk does not 
 always mean proportionate power, as Africa illus- 
 trates. But when huge size and potential quality 
 are combined, and when the whole mighty mass 
 begins to move and to come into direct contact 
 with other and smaller or weaker peoples, and all 
 other peoples are smaller or weaker than the 
 Chinese, the possibilities of the situation are almost 
 overwhelming. If it be true that the proper study 
 of mankind is man, the study of China is the most 
 proper study of the world to-day. 
 
 The area of China proper, including Manchuria 
 and Mongolia, is 3,263,630 square miles. If we 
 add Tibet and Chinese Turkestan, which China 
 claims as dependencies, we have 1,013,540 square 
 miles more, or a total area of 4,277, 170. Such an 
 enormous figure conveys no intelligible Idea, and 
 the mind must resort to comparisons to compre- 
 hend it. We may therefore remember that China 
 is one-third larger than all Europe, and that if the 
 United States and Alaska could be laid upon it 
 there would be room left for several Great Brit- 
 ains. Extending from the eighteenth parallel of 
 latitude northward to the fifty-fourth, the Empire 
 has every variety of climate from Canadian cold 
 to Cuban heat. It is a land of vast forests, of 
 fertile soil, of rich minerals, of navigable rivers. 
 There are said to be 600,000,000 acres of arable 
 
 14 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 soil, and so thriftily is it cultivated that many parts 
 of the Empire are almost continuous gardens and 
 fields. Four hundred and nineteen thousand square 
 miles are believed to be underlaid with coal. Baron 
 von Richthofen thinks that 606,000,000,000 tons 
 of it are anthracite, and that the single Province 
 of Shen-si could supply the entire world for a thou- 
 sand years. When we add to this supply of coal 
 the apparently inexhaustible deposits of iron ore, 
 we have the two products on which material great- 
 ness largely depends. 
 
 Estimates of population differ widely, because 
 the provincial officials do not count individuals but 
 make a more or less perfunctory return of the num- 
 ber of families, which are then multiplied by five, 
 the assumed average size of a family. As Chinese 
 marry at an earlier age than Europeans, as men 
 who can afford them have concubines as well as 
 wives, as men and women alike are eager to 
 have as many sons as possible to preserve the con- 
 tinuity of the family, care for them in old age and 
 worship their tablets after death, and as childless- 
 ness is the direst of misfortunes to a Chinese, five 
 seems a conservative estimate for a family. Some- 
 thing depends, too, upon whether the population 
 of the eighteen Provinces is meant or that of all 
 the territory that the Chinese claim ; and something 
 also upon the fact that a local official had to send 
 taxes to his superiors on the basis of the popula- 
 
 15 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 tion under him, and as he usually pocketed what 
 he did not send, he had a personal interest in re- 
 porting on a very conservative basis. The census 
 of 1 9 ID gave 312,420,025, but it is not clear 
 whether this includes anything outside of the Prov- 
 inces. The Chinese, European and American Gov- 
 ernments agreed to apportion the Boxer Indemnity 
 on the basis of 407,453,029 for those Provinces 
 alone, and the Statesman's Year Book for 19 10 
 gives the total population of China and its de- 
 pendencies as 433.553,030, which is probably as 
 near the truth as we shall get until more exact 
 methods of census taking are adopted. 
 
 The population is comparatively spare in the 
 outlying regions, 2,580,000 in Mongolia, 6,430,- 
 020 in Tibet and 1,200,000 in Chinese Turkestan. 
 The scattered and usually nomadic inhabitants are 
 hardly half civilized and count themselves as only 
 nominally subject to China. Manchuria, however, 
 is far from being the barren country that so many 
 imagine it to be. It is, in many respects, like Can- 
 ada, and its 370,000 square miles include rich 
 agricultural and mineral resources. The popula- 
 tion, 8,500,000, is small for such a fertile region 
 but it is rapidly increasing. 
 
 Conditions in central and eastern China are very 
 different. Consider that the eighteen Provinces 
 alone, with an area about equal to that part of 
 the United States east of the Mississippi River, 
 
 16 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 have approximately eight times the population of 
 that part of our country. There is something 
 amazing in the number of the swarming myriads. 
 Great cities are surprisingly numerous, while large 
 towns and villages are almost innumerable. In 
 the Swatow region, within a territory a hundred 
 and fifty miles long and fifty miles wide, there are 
 no less than ten walled cities of from 40,000 to 
 250,000 inhabitants, besides hundreds of towns 
 and villages ranging from a few hundred to 25,- 
 000 or 30,000 people. Men never tire of writing 
 about the population adjacent to New York, Bos- 
 ton and Chicago. But in our five weeks' constant 
 journeying through the interior of the Shantung 
 Province, there was hardly an hour in which mul- 
 titudes were not in sight. There are no scattered 
 farm-houses as in America, but the people live in 
 villages and towns, the latter with stone walls and 
 even the former often having mud walls. As the 
 country is comparatively level, it was easy to count 
 them, and there were always a dozen or more in 
 plain view. I recall a memorable morning. We 
 had risen early, and by daylight we had break- 
 fasted and started our carts and litters. In our 
 enjoyment of *the cool, bracing morning air, we 
 walked for several miles. Just before the sun rose, 
 we crossed a low ridge and from its crest I counted 
 no less than thirty villages in front of us, while 
 behind there were about as many more, the aver- 
 
THE CHINfiSE REVOLUTION 
 
 age population being apparently about 500 each. 
 For days at a time, my road lay through the nar- 
 row, crowded streets of what seemed to be an al- 
 most continuous village, the intervening farming 
 land being often hardly more than a mile in width. 
 
 Imagine half the population of the United 
 States packed into the single state of Missouri and 
 an idea of the situation will be obtained, for with 
 an area almost equal to that of Missouri, Shantung 
 has no less than 38,247,900 inhabitants. It is the 
 most densely populated part of China. But the 
 Province of Yun-nan is as thickly settled as Bul- 
 garia and Shan-si as Hungary. Fo-kien and Hu- 
 peh have about as many inhabitants to the square 
 mile as England has. Chih-li, with the area of Illi- 
 nois, has 27,990,871 people. 
 
 Too much has been made of the peculiarities of 
 the Chinese, ignoring the fact that many customs 
 and traits that appear peculiar to us are simply 
 differences developed by environment. Eliza Scid- 
 more affirms that " no one knows or ever really 
 will know the Chinese, the most comprehensible, 
 inscrutable, contradictory, logical, illogical people 
 on earth." But a Chinese gentleman, who was 
 educated in the United States, justly retorts : " Be- 
 hold the American as he is, as I honestly found 
 him — great, small, good, bad, self-glorious, ego- 
 tistical, intellectual, supercilious, ignorant, super- 
 stitious, vain and bombastic. In truth so very re- 
 
 18 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 markable, so contradictory, so incongruous have I 
 found the American that I hesitate." It never oc- 
 curs to us to commit suicide in order to spite 
 another. But in China such suicides occur every 
 day, because it is believed that a death on the 
 premises is a lasting curse to the owner. And so 
 the Chinese drowns himself in an enemy's well or 
 takes poison on his door-step. A rich Chinese mur- 
 dered an employee in a British colony, and know- 
 ing that inexorable British law would not be satis- 
 fied until some one was punished, he hired a poor 
 Chinese named Sack Chum to confess to having 
 committed the murder and to permit himself to 
 be hung, the real murderer promising to give him 
 a good funeral and to care for his family. An 
 Englishman who thought this an incredible story 
 wrote a letter of inquiry to a Chinese merchant 
 of his acquaintance and received the following 
 quaintly worded reply : 
 
 Nothing strange to Chinamen. Sack Chum, old man, 
 no money, soon die. Every day in China such thing. 
 Chinaman not like white man — ^not afraid to die. 
 Suppose some one pay his funeral, take care his family. 
 " I die", he say. Chinaman know Sack Chum, we sup- 
 pose, sell himself to men who kill Ah Chee. Somebody 
 must die for them. Sack Chum say he do it. All right. 
 Police got him. What for they want more? 
 
 These things appear odd from our view-point 
 and there are many other peculiarities that are 
 
 19 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 equally strange to us. But it may be wholesome 
 for us to remember that some of our customs im- 
 press the Chinese no less oddly. The Frankfurter 
 Zeitung, Germany, prints the following from a 
 Chinese who had seen much of the Europeans and 
 Americans in Shanghai: 
 
 We are always told that the countries of the foreign 
 devils are grand and rich; but that cannot be true, else 
 what do they all come here for? They jump around and 
 kick balls as if they were paid to do it. Again you will 
 find them making long tramps into the country; but that 
 is probably a religious duty, for when they tramp they 
 wave sticks in the air, nobody knows why. They have 
 no sense of dignity, for they may be found walking with 
 women. Yet the women are to be pitied, too. On fes- 
 tive occasions they are dragged around a room to the 
 accompaniment of the most hellish music. 
 
 A Chinese gentleman who was making a tour 
 of Europe and America wrote to a relative in 
 China as follows : 
 
 You cannot civilize these foreign devils. They are 
 beyond redemption. They will live for weeks and months 
 without touching a mouthful of rice, but they eat the 
 flesh of bullocks and sheep in enormous quantities. That 
 is why they smell so badly; they smell like sheep them- 
 selves. Every day they take a bath to rid themselves of 
 their disagreeable odors, but they do not succeed. Nor 
 do they eat their meat cooked in small pieces. It is car- 
 ried into the room in large chunks, often half raw, and 
 they cut and slash and tear it apart. They eat with 
 knives and prongs. It makes a civilized being perfectly 
 
 20 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 nervous. One fancies himself in the presence of sword- 
 swallowers. They even sit down at the same table with 
 women, and the latter are served first, reversing the order 
 of nature. 
 
 It will be seen that mutual recriminations re- 
 garding national peculiarities are not likely to be 
 convincing to either party. Human nature is much 
 the same the world over. 
 
 I do not mean to give an exaggerated impres- 
 sion of the virtues of the Chinese. Undoubtedly 
 they have grave defects. Official corruption is 
 well-nigh universal. The North China Herald 
 reports a well-informed Chinese gentleman of the 
 Province of Chih-li as expressing the conviction 
 that one-half of the land tax never reaches the 
 Government. " But that is not all," said he. 
 " There are other sources of income for the hsien 
 official. Thus here in this country, thirty-five or 
 forty years ago, the Government imposed an extra 
 tax for the purpose of putting down the Tai-ping 
 Rebellion, and the officials have continued to col- 
 lect that tax ever since. Of course if the literati 
 should move in the matter and report to Paoting- 
 fu, the magistrate would be bounced at once; but 
 they are not likely to do so. The tax is a small 
 one, my own share not being more than five dollars 
 or so." 
 
 China's whole public service was rotten with cor- 
 ruption. Offices with merely nominal salaries or 
 
 21 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 none at all were usually bought by the payment of 
 a heavy bribe and held for a term of three years, 
 during which the incumbent sought not only to re- 
 coup himself but to make as large an additional 
 sum as possible. As the weakness of the Govern- 
 ment and the absence of a public sentiment that 
 cares left them free from restraint, China was the 
 paradise of embezzlers. " Any man who has had 
 the least occasion to deal with Chinese courts," says 
 Dr. C. H. Fenn of Peking, " knows that ' every 
 man has his price,' that not only every underling 
 can be bought, but that 999 out of every 1,000 
 officials, high or low, will favor the man who of- 
 fers the most money." Banks and commercial 
 firms may be depended upon to keep their con- 
 tracts and honor their paper; but personal " graft " 
 and untruthfulness are common characteristics. 
 
 Mr. Ng Poon Chew, editor of the leading 
 Chinese daily paper in America, the Chung Sai 
 Yat Po of San Francisco, visited his native land 
 last year and writes : 
 
 When I started for China I had a great deal of sym- 
 pathy with the existing Chinese Government, in spite of 
 the fact that my relations with Dr. Sun Yat Sen and 
 other present leaders of the revolutionary movement were 
 rather close. But when I saw conditions in Peking, how 
 the same crowd filled the offices and the same graft meth- 
 ods were in vogue, and that the Manchus were not mak- 
 ing any real reforms, I became as hot a revolutionist as 
 could be found in any part of the Empire. 
 
 22 
 
Railway Station at Hankow 
 
 Around which there was much fighting 
 
 Imperial Maxim Gun 
 
 One of a nu.nber uied in battles about Hankow 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 Many of the students who had spent from ten to fif- 
 teen years in this country refused to go to Peking when 
 they got back to China for the reason that it required 
 not only influence but actual cash for them to get the ear 
 of a Manchu prince. It was an open secret that to get 
 near one of them you had to pay at least 300 taels, con- 
 siderably over $200, to see his doorkeeper. This money 
 was supposed to be divided up among those on the inside, 
 even the prince getting a share. The higher the job you 
 were looking for the more you had to pay to see the door- 
 keeper. I was told in Peking that Prince Ching's income 
 from that sort of graft alone was $3,000,000 a year, and 
 Prince Su is about as big a rascal. Everything was being 
 done for show. The trip of Prince Tsai Toa and Prince 
 Tsai Hsun around the world was a grafting game. 
 They did nothing but accept entertainments on their way 
 around the world and when they got back they were de- 
 scribed as having made a thorough study of naval and 
 military affairs all over the world.^ 
 
 Gambling is openly indulged in by all classes. 
 As for immorality, the Rev. Dr. J. Campbell Gib- 
 son of Swatow says that " while the Chinese are 
 not a moral people, vice has never in China as in 
 India been made a branch of religion." But 
 Dr. C, H. Fenn of Peking declares " that every 
 village and town and city — it would not be a very 
 serious exaggeration to say every home, — fairly 
 reeks with impurity." The Chinese are, indeed, 
 less openly immoral than the Japanese, while their 
 venerated books abound with the praises of virtue. 
 
 •The New York Sun, February 3, 1912, 
 23 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 But medical missionaries could tell a dark story 
 of the extent to which immorality eats into the very 
 warp and woof of Chinese society. The five hun- 
 dred monks in the Lama Temple in Peking are 
 notorious not only for turbulence and robbery, 
 but for vice. The temple is in a spacious park and 
 includes many imposing buildings. The statue of 
 Buddha is said to be the largest in China — a gilded 
 figure about sixty feet high — colossal and rather 
 awe-inspiring in " the dim religious light." But 
 in one of the temple buildings, where the two 
 monks who accompanied us said that daily prayers 
 were chanted, I saw representations in brass and 
 gilt that were quite as obscene as anything that 
 I saw in India. There is immorality in lands that 
 are called Christian, but it is disavowed by Chris- 
 tianity, ostracized by decent people and under the 
 ban of civil law. But Buddhism puts immorality 
 in its temples and the Government supports it. 
 This particular temple has the yellow tiled roofs 
 permitted only on buildings which are associated 
 with the Court or which are under special Imperial 
 protection. Mr. E. H. Parker, after twenty years' 
 experience in China, wrote : " The Chinese are 
 undoubtedly a libidinous people, with a decided 
 inclination to be nasty about it. . . . Rich manda- 
 rins are the most profligate class. . . . Next come 
 the wealthy merchants. . . . The crapulous leis- 
 ured classes of Peking openly flaunt the worst of 
 
 24 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 vices. . . . Still, amongst all classes and ranks, 
 the moral sense is decidedly weak. . . . Offenses 
 which with us are regarded as almost capital — 
 in any case as infamous crimes — do not count for 
 as much as petty misdemeanors in China." * 
 
 More patent to the superficial observer is a 
 cruelty which appears to be callously indifferent to 
 suffering. This manifests itself not only in bar- 
 barous punishments but in many incidents of daily 
 life. The day I entered Chefoo, I saw a dying 
 man lying beside the road. Hundreds of Chinese 
 were passing on the crowded thoroughfare. But 
 none stopped to help or to pity, and the sufferer 
 passed through his last agony absolutely uncared 
 for and lay with glazing eyes and stiffening form, 
 unheeded by the careless throng. Twenty-four 
 hours afterwards, he was still lying there with his 
 dead face upturned to the silent sky, while the mul- 
 titude jostled past, buying, selling and laughing, 
 heedless of the tragedy of human life so near. And 
 when in Ching-chou-fu I stopped to see if I could 
 not give some relief to a woman who was writh- 
 ing in the street, I was hastily warned that if I 
 touched her unasked, the populace might hold me 
 responsible in the event of her death and perhaps 
 demand heavy damages, if indeed it did not mob 
 me on the spot. Undoubtedly the Chinese are 
 often deterred from aiding a sufferer because they 
 
 • " China," 272, 273. 
 
 25 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 fear that if death occurs, " bad luck " will follow 
 them, a horde of real or fictitious relatives will 
 clamor for damages, and perhaps a rapacious 
 magistrate will take advantage of the opportunity 
 to make a criminal charge which can be removed 
 only by a heavy bribe. And so the sick and poor 
 are often left to die in crowded streets, and drown- 
 ing children are allowed to sink within a few yards 
 of boats which might have rescued them. Every- 
 where in China, little attention is paid to suffer- 
 ing and many customs seem utterly heartless. 
 
 In spite, too, of the agnostic teachings of Con- 
 fucius and their own practical temperament, the 
 Chinese are a very superstitious people and live in 
 constant terror of evil spirits, while beyond any 
 other people known in the world they appear to 
 be spiritually dead, without the religious tempera- 
 ment of the Hindus and densely ignorant of those 
 higher levels of thought and life to which Chris- 
 tianity has raised whole classes in Europe and 
 America. 
 
 Still, at a time when the Chinese are being vocif- 
 erously abused, it is only fair that we should give 
 them credit for the good qualities which they do 
 possess. Americans do not wish to be judged by 
 their worst types, or even by the weaknesses and 
 foUies of their best people. It is unfair to com- 
 pare our highest classes with the lowest in China 
 and then complacently affirm our superiority. Let 
 
 26 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 US compare best with best and worst with 
 worst. 
 
 There has been too much of a disposition to 
 think of the Chinese as a mass, almost as we would 
 regard immense herds of cattle or shoals of fish. 
 Why not think of the Chinese as an individual, as 
 a man of like passions with ourselves? Physically, 
 mentally, and morally he differs from us only in de- 
 gree, not in kind. He has essentially the same hopes 
 and fears, the same joys and sorrows, the same sus- 
 ceptibility to pain and the same capacity for hap- 
 piness. Are we not told that God " hath made of 
 one blood all nations of men " ? We complacently 
 imagine that we are superior to the Chinese. But 
 discussing the question as to what constitutes in- 
 feriority of race, Benjamin Kidd declares that " we 
 shall have to set aside many of our old ideas on the 
 subject. Neither in respect alone of color, nor 
 of descent, nor even of the possession of high in- 
 tellectual capacity, can science give us any warrant 
 for speaking of one race as superior to another." 
 Real superiority is the result, not so much of any- 
 thing inherent in one race as distinguished from 
 another, as of the operation upon a race and with- 
 in it of certain uplifting forces. Any superiority 
 that white men now possess is due to the action 
 upon us of these forces. But they can be brought 
 to bear upon the Chinese as well as upon us. We 
 should avoid what George Eliot calls the popular 
 
 27 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 mistake of looking at the Chinese " as if they were 
 merely animals with a toilet, and never see the 
 great soul in a man's face." We need in this study 
 a true idea of the worth and dignity of man as 
 man, to grasp the great thought that the Chinese 
 is not only a man but our brother man, made like 
 ourselves in the image of God. We shall get 
 along best with the Chinese if we remember that 
 he is a human being like ourselves, responsive to 
 kindness, appreciative of justice, and capable of 
 moral transformation under the influence of the 
 Gospel. He differs from us not in the fundamen- 
 tal things that make for manhood, but only in the 
 superficial things that are the result of custom and 
 environment. From this view-point we may say 
 with Shakespeare 
 
 There is some sort of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out. 
 
 Those who refer so contemptuously to the 
 Chinese might profitably recall that when, in Dick- 
 ens' " Christmas Carol," the misanthropic Scrooge 
 says of the poor and suffering: " If he be like to 
 die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus 
 population," the Ghost sternly replies: "Man, if 
 man you be at heart, not adamant, forbear that 
 wicked cant until you have discovered what the 
 surplus is and where it is. Will you decide what 
 men shall live, what men shall die? It may be 
 
 28 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 that in the sight of heaven, you are more worthless 
 and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's 
 child. Ah, God ! to hear the insect on the leaf pro- 
 nouncing on the too much life among his hungry 
 brothers in the dust! " 
 
 There is much in the Chinese that is worthy of 
 our respectful recognition. Multitudes are indeed 
 stolid and ignorant; but multitudes, too, have 
 strong, intelligent features. Thousands of chil- 
 dren have faces as bright and winning as those of 
 American children. Europe and America have not 
 done justice to the character of the Chinese. I 
 do not refer to the bigoted and corrupt Manchu 
 officials, or to the lawless barbarians who, like the 
 " lewd fellows of the baser sort " in other lands, 
 are ever ready to follow the leadership of a dema- 
 gogue. But I refer to the Chinese people as a 
 whole. Their view-point is so radically different 
 from ours that we have often harshly misjudged 
 them, when the real trouble has lain in our failure^- 
 to understand them. Let us be fre e enough f rom) 
 prejudice and passion to respect Ta^ people whose 
 national existence has survived the mutations of a 
 definitely known historic period of thirty-seven 
 centuries and of an additional legendary period that 
 runs back, no man knows how far, into the haze 
 of a hoary antiquity; who are frugal, patient, in- 
 dustrious and respectful to parents, as Americans 
 are not; whose astronomers made accurate re- 
 
 29 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 corded observations 200 years before Abraham is 
 said to have left Ur; who used firearms at the be- 
 ginning of the Christian era; who first grew tea, 
 manufactured gunpowder, made pottery, glue and 
 gelatine; who wore silk and lived in houses when 
 our ancestors wore the undressed skins of wild ani- 
 mals and slept in caves ; who invented printing by 
 movable types 500 years before that art was known 
 in Europe; who discovered the principle of the 
 mariners' compass without which the oceans could 
 not be safely crossed; who conceived the idea of 
 artificial inland waterways and dug a canal 600 
 miles long; who made mountain roads which, when 
 new, in the opinion of Dr. S. Wells Williams, 
 probably equaled in engineering and construction 
 anything of the kind ever built by Romans; and 
 who invented the arch to which our modern archi- 
 tecture is so greatly indebted. Germans began 
 using paper in 11 90, but Sven Hedin found Chi- 
 nese paper 1,650 years old and there is evidence that 
 paper was in common use by the Chinese 150 
 years before Christ. European business was con- 
 ducted on the basis of coin or barter until a few 
 hundred years ago ; but long before that, the Chi- 
 nese had banks and issued bills of exchange. The 
 British Museum has a bank-note issued by Hong 
 y^ Emperor of China , in i.'^68 J 
 
 The Chinese exalt learning and, alone among 
 the nations of the earth, have made scholarship a 
 
 30 
 
I— I 
 
 en 
 
 > 
 S 
 
 < 
 
 H 
 en 
 1—1 
 PS 
 
 K 
 U 
 
 o 
 
 g 
 
 3 
 < 
 
 d 
 g 
 
 3 
 i-i 
 
 5 
 
 P9 
 o 
 
 H 
 O 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 test of fitness for official positions. True, that 
 scholarship until recently moved along narrow lines 
 of Confucian classics, but surely such knowledge 
 was a higher qualification for office than the brute 
 strength which for centuries gave precedence 
 among our a ncestors.! A Chinese writer explains 
 as follows the gradations in relative worth as 
 they are esteemed by his countrymen: " 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 essen- 
 tial 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 pro- 
 vides food; fourth, the tradesman, because, as 
 society increases and its wants are multiplied, men 
 to carry on exchange and barter become a neces- 
 sity and so the merchant comes into existence; his 
 occupation — 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 
 
 31 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 can benefit mankind; he is, perhaps, a necessary 
 evil." 1 
 
 While the Government of China was a paternal 
 despotism in form and while it was often weak and 
 always corrupt and tyrannical in practice, never- 
 theless there was a larger measu re of i ndividual 
 freedom than might be supposed. ^ ihere are no 
 passports, no restraints on liberty, no frontiers, no 
 caste prejudices, no food scruples, no sanitary 
 measures, no laws except popular customs and 
 criminal statutes. China is in many senses one vast 
 republic, in which personal restraints have no ex- 
 istence^^^ 
 
 Wemust not form our opinion from the Chinese 
 whom we see in the United States. True, most of 
 them are kindly, patient and industrious, while 
 some are highly intelligent. But, with compara- 
 tively few exceptions, they are Cantonese coolies, 
 from the lower classes of the single province of 
 Kwang-tung. The Chinese might as fairly form 
 their opinion of Americans from our lower classes. 
 But there are able men in the Celestial Empire. 
 Bishop Andrews returned from China to charac- 
 terize the Chinese as " a people of brains." After 
 General Grant's tour around the world, he told 
 Senator Stewart that the most astonishing thing 
 which he had seen was that wherever the Chinese 
 
 • Quoted by Beach, " Dawn on the Hills of T'ang," 45, 46. 
 »E.H. Parker, "China," 169. 
 
 32 
 
OUTBREAK AND BACKGROUND 
 
 had come into competition with the Jew, the Chi- 
 nese had driven out the Jew. We know the per- 
 sistence of the Jew, that he has held his own 
 against every other people. And yet this race, 
 which has so abundantly demonstrated its ability 
 to cope with the Greek, the Slav and the Teuton, 
 finds itself outreached in cunning, outworn in per- 
 sistence and overmatched in strength by the Chi- 
 nese. The canny Scotchman and the shrewd Yan- 
 kee are alike discomfited by the Chinese. Those 
 who do not believe it should ask the American and 
 European traders who are being crowded out of 
 Saigon, Shanghai, Bangkok, Singapore, Penang, 
 Batavia and Manila. In many of the ports of Asia 
 outside of China, the Chinese have shown them- 
 selves to be successful colonizers, able to meet all 
 competition, so that to-day they own the most valu- 
 able property and control the bulk of the trade. 
 It is true that the Chinese are inordinately con- 
 ceited; but shades of the Fourth of July orator, 
 screams of the American eagle ! it requires consid- 
 erable self-possession in a Yankee to criticize any 
 one else on the planet for conceit. The Chinese 
 have not, at least, padded a census to make the 
 world believe that they are greater than they really 
 are. A British consular ofllcial, who has spent 
 many years in China and who speaks the language, 
 declares that in his experience of the Chinese their 
 fidelity is extraordinary, their sense of responsi- 
 
 33 ' 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 bility in positions of trust very keen, and that they 
 have a very high standard of gratitude and honor. 
 " I cannot recall a case," he says, " where any 
 Chinese friend has left me in the lurch or played 
 me a dirty trick; and few of us can say the same 
 of our own colleagues and countrymen." 
 
 Many quote against the Chinese the familiar 
 
 for ways that are dark 
 
 And tricks that are vain, 
 The heathen Chinee is peculiar. 
 
 But whoever reads the whole poem will see the 
 force of the London Spectator's opinion that it is 
 a " satire of the American selfishness which is the 
 main strength of the cry against the cheap labor 
 of the Chinese," and that " it would not be easy 
 for a moderately intelligent man to avoid seeing 
 that Mr. Bret Harte wished to delineate the Yan- 
 kee as not at all disposed to take offense at the 
 ' cheap labor ' of his Oriental rival, until he has 
 discovered that he could not cheat the cheap laborer 
 half so completely as the cheap laborer could cheat 
 him." 
 
 It is common for people to praise the Japanese 
 and to sneer at the Chinese. All honor to the 
 Japanese for their splendid achievements. With 
 marvelous celerity they have adopted many mod- 
 ern ideas and inventions; they are worthy of the 
 respect they receive. But the Chinese unite to an 
 
 34 
 
OUTBREAK AiSID BACKGRotJND 
 
 intelligence equal to that of the Japanese, the plod- 
 ding persistence of the Germans ; and the old fable 
 of the tortoise and the hare is as true of nations as 
 it is of individuals. Unquestionably, the Chinese 
 are the most virile race in Asia. A quaint sign in 
 Shanghai unconsciously tells a world fact: "Fur- 
 naces and umbrellas mended, any mortal thing can 
 do." " Wherever a Chinese can get a foot of 
 ground and a quart of water he will make some- 
 thing grow." Colquhoun quotes von Richthofen 
 as saying that " among the various races of man- 
 kind, the Chinese is the only one which in all 
 climates, the hottest and the coldest, is capable of 
 great and lasting activity." And he states as his 
 own opinion: " She (China) has all the elements 
 to build up a great living force. One thing alone 
 is wanted — the will, the directing power. That 
 supplied, there are to be found in abundance in 
 China the capacity to carry out, the brains to plan, 
 the hands to work." 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TRANSFORMATIONS WROUGHT BY STEAM AND 
 COMMERCE 
 
 Upon this vast mass of isolated people, the 
 forces of the modern world began to operate. 
 Steam established new contacts with other nations. 
 Fifty years ago, China was so far away in time 
 that it had no appreciable effect upon American 
 life. News traveled slowly. Even the stupen- 
 dously frightful Tai-ping Rebellion was imperfect- 
 ly known by the American people and most of those 
 who did know of it were but languidly interested 
 in what they regarded as a remote event of small 
 concern to the world. Hunter Corbett and Calvin 
 Mateer, young missionaries who sailed for China 
 in 1863, were six months in reaching their destina- 
 tion in a sailing vessel of small tonnage, few con- 
 veniences and no comforts. 
 
 In our day, such vessels have given way to swift 
 steamers. The Trans-Siberian Railway brings Ber- 
 lin within thirteen days of Peking, and Dr. Cor- 
 bett has made a comfortable journey home in twen- 
 ty-one days. It is startlingly significant of the change 
 that has taken place that Russia and Japan, nations 
 
 36 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 7,000 miles apart by land and a still greater dis- 
 tance by water, were able in the opening years of 
 the twentieth century to wage war in a region 
 which one army could reach in four weeks and the 
 other in four days, and that all the rest of the 
 world could receive daily information as to the 
 progress of the conflict. A half century ago, Rus- 
 sia could no more have sent a large army to 
 Manchuria than to the moon. Jules Verne's story, 
 "Around the World in Eighty Days " was 'deemed 
 fantastic in 1873; but in 191 1, Andre Jager- 
 schmidt traveled around the world in thirty-eight 
 days. This means that China is nearer New York 
 than California once was. Can such a vast mass 
 of population, and one with such characteristics as 
 we have noted, come within a fortnight of our 
 Pacific Coast and three weeks of the Atlantic Coast 
 without affecting us? Clearly we must make the 
 Chinese better or they will make us worse. 
 
 This facility of intercommunication has also 
 brought Europe and America to China and re- 
 sulted in an inrush of western influences which 
 have exerted enormous revolutionary power. 
 
 Western manufacturers began to send to China 
 their locomotives, steam engines, electrical appa- 
 ratus, labor-saving machinery and other products 
 of American inventive genius. Missionaries had 
 a large part in the development of this trade, 
 though this was not their object and they reaped 
 
 37 
 
THE CHINESE RfiVOLUTlOU 
 
 no profit from it. When a Chinese gentleman saw 
 the missionary's watch, he wanted one, and the 
 watch and clock factories of the world responded. 
 Women saw the missionary's wife make her cloth- 
 ing with a sewing machine, and instantly they must 
 have machines. So great a demand has followed 
 that one company in America recently offered a 
 missionary a salary of $15,000 if he would take 
 its superintendency of sales in China. He declined 
 the offer, for he did not go to China to sell sew- 
 ing machines. The Chinese saw the missionary's 
 house lighted by kerosene oil, and straightway they 
 refused to be content with a burning rag in a dish 
 of vegetable oil which had given the dim and 
 smoky light of olden days. To-day, lamps may be 
 found in all houses of the better class and in myri- 
 ads of humble dwellings, and the five-gallon tins 
 of American oil companies are In every village of 
 the country, the exports to China in a recent year 
 amounting to $14,500,000 gold. Some years ago, 
 a firm in Portland, Oregon, sent an agent to Hong- 
 kong to introduce its flour. The rice-eating people 
 of the southern Provinces did not want it; but the 
 agent stayed, gave away samples, explained its use 
 and pushed his goods so persistently that after 
 years of labor and the expenditure of tens of thou- 
 sands of dollars, a market was created. Now that 
 firm sells in such quantities that its numerous mills 
 must run day and night to supply the demand and 
 
 38 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 the annual profits run Into six figures. The cotton 
 growers of the United States find their chief for- 
 eign market in China. The universal clothing of 
 all but the wealthy, who wear silk, is made of cot- 
 ton cloth, and American milling companies send 
 more of their output to China than to all the rest 
 of the outside world combined. 
 
 China has thus become one of the great markets 
 of western nations. Agents of European and 
 American manufacturers are in most of the lead- 
 ing cities and the products of the white man's fields 
 and factories may be seen in the remotest interior 
 towns. Everywhere articles of foreign manufac- 
 ture are in demand, and shrewd Chinese merchants 
 are stocking their shops with increasing quantities 
 of European and American goods. Vlhe Church 
 building at Wei-hsien typifies the elements that are 
 entering China, for it contains Chinese brick, Ore- 
 gon fir beams, German steel binding-plates and 
 rods, Belgian glass, Manchurian pine pews and 
 British cement. Foreign concessions in the treaty 
 ports are lighted by electricity and business blocks 
 are equipped with telephones, and as the Chinese 
 nobles and merchants see the brilliancy of the for- 
 mer and the convenience of the latter, they want 
 them too. At a banquet given to the foreign min- 
 isters by the late Emperor and Empress Dow- 
 ager, in the Summer Palace, the distinguished 
 guests cut York ham with Sheffield knives and 
 
 39 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 drank French wines out of German glasses. Peo- 
 ple of all ranks, who but a decade or two ago 
 were satisfied with the crudest appliances of primi- 
 tive life, are now learning to use steam and elec- 
 trical machinery, to like Oregon flour, Chicago 
 beef, Pittsburgh pickles and London jam, and to 
 see the utility of foreign wire, nails, cutlery, drugs, 
 paints and chemicals. 
 
 Nor are the Chinese contenting themselves with 
 importations of the foreigners' goods ; they are be- 
 ginning to manufacture for themselves. They are 
 establishing their own water, steam and electric 
 power plants and building mills of all kinds. Ar- 
 senals with modern machinery turn out rifles and 
 ammunition. The Han-yang Iron and Steel 
 Works, opposite Hankow, begun in 1894, now em- 
 ploy over 4,000 workmen and not only make iron 
 and steel for China's railways, bridges and war- 
 ships, but produce pig iron so much cheaper than 
 It can be produced in America that the company 
 can undersell the Carnegie Steel Works in New 
 York, and Mr. Charles M. Schwab, President of 
 the Bethlehem Steel Works, testified before the 
 Finance Committee of the United States Senate, 
 February 8, 19 12, that he found it cheaper to im- 
 port Chinese pig iron for his works in San Fran- 
 cisco than to ship it from his own plant in Pennsyl- 
 vania. The missionaries having convinced the 
 people that there are no demons in the ground to 
 
 40 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 be offended by digging, and foreign mining com- 
 panies having shown what rich deposits are avail- 
 able, the Chinese are forming oil and mining com- 
 panies of their own. The Government has offered 
 generous rewards for developing mineral resources 
 and has established an official bureau of surveying 
 and assaying, manned by Chinese graduates of the 
 best American engineering schools. 
 
 The era of commercial development in China has 
 now fairly begun and it is working vital social and 
 economic changes, just as the corresponding era did 
 in Europe and America. The effect is most visible 
 in cities. Peking, for example, now has well paved 
 streets, sidewalks, sewers, street cars, telephones, 
 electric lights and a uniformed police force. Scores 
 of other cities are undergoing like transformation. 
 Splendid carriage roads are no longer confined to 
 the foreign settlements in treaty ports; they may 
 be found in the native city of Tien-tsin and in Nan- 
 king, Tsinan-fu, Tsing-chou-fu and many other 
 cities. The transformation is almost startling to 
 one who saw the old China of even a dozen years 
 ago. The contrasts between my first and second 
 visits to China in 1901 and 1909 amazed me in 
 spite of all that I had read, and the development 
 since 1909 has been even more amazingj - — ^ 
 
 The extension of trade has naturally been ac- 
 companied not only by the increase of foreign 
 steamship lines to the ports of China, but by the 
 
 41 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 development of almost innumerable coastwise and 
 river vessels. Many of these are owned and op- 
 erated by the Chinese themselves; but as steamers 
 came with the foreigners and as they drove out the 
 native junks and brought beggary to their owners,, 
 the masses of the Chinese could not be expected to 
 feel kindly towards such competition, however de- 
 sirable the steamer may appear to be from the 
 view-point of a more disinterested observer. But 
 this interference with native customs has been far 
 less revolutionary than that of the railways. 
 
 The pressure of foreign commerce upon China 
 naturally resulted in demands for concessions to 
 build railways, in order that the country might be 
 opened up for traffic and the products of the in- 
 terior be more easily and quickly brought to the 
 coast. The first railroad in China was built by 
 British promoters in 1876. It ran from Shanghai 
 to Wu-sung, only fourteen miles. Great, was the 
 excitement of the populace, and no sooner was it 
 completed than the Government bought it, tore up 
 the roadbed, and dumped the engines into the 
 river. That ended railway-building till 1 8 8 1 , when, 
 largely through the influence of Wu Ting-fang, 
 late Chinese Minister to the United States, the 
 Chinese themselves, under the guidance of an Eng- 
 lish engineer, built a little line from the Kal-ping 
 coal mines to Taku, at the mouth of the Pai-ho 
 River and the ocean gateway to the capital. See- 
 
 42 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 ing the benefit of this road, the Chinese raised ad- 
 ditional funds, borrowed more from the English, 
 gradually extended it 144 miles to Shan-hai-kwan 
 on the north, and ran another line to Tien-tsin, 
 and thence onward seventy-nine miles to Peking. 
 This system forms the Imperial Railway and be- 
 longs to the Chinese Government, though bonds 
 are held by the English who loaned money for 
 construction, and English and American engineers 
 built and superintended the system. The local 
 staff, however, is Chinese. 
 
 No more concessions were granted to foreigners 
 until 1895, but then they were given so rapidly 
 that in 1899, when the Boxer Society began to at- 
 tract attention, there were not only 566 miles in 
 operation, but 6,000 miles were projected, and en- 
 gineers were surveying rights of way through 
 whole Provinces. Much of the completed work 
 was undone during the destructive madness of the 
 Boxer Uprising, but recons truction , began as soon 
 as the tumult was quelled. JNow there are 6,300 
 miles in operation and several thousand more are 
 projected. The Peking-Hankow Railway connects 
 with the line which is being rapidly pushed from 
 Canton to Hankow. Tien-tsin and Nanking are 
 the termini of another trunk line, while shorter 
 railways are in several other Provinces. The rail- 
 road, when once built. Is soon appreciated by the 
 thrifty Chinese, who swallow their prejudices and 
 
 43 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 patronize it in such enormous numbers, and ship 
 by it such quantities of their produce, that the 
 business speedily becomes remunerative, while the 
 population and the resources of the country are so 
 great as to afford almost unlimited opportunity 
 for the development of traific. 
 
 It would be difficult to describe in adequate 
 terms the far-reaching effect upon China and the 
 Chinese of this extension of modern railways. We 
 have had an illustration of its meaning in Amer- 
 ica, where the transcontinental railroads resulted 
 in the amazing development of our western plains 
 and the Pacific Coast. The effect of such a devel- 
 opment in China can hardly be overestimated, for 
 China has more than ten times the population of 
 the trans-Mississippi region and its territory is 
 vaster and equally rich in natural resources. As I 
 traveled through the land, it seemed to me that 
 almost the whole northern part of the Empire was 
 composed of illimitable fields of wheat and millet, 
 and that in the south the millions of paddy plots 
 formed a rice field of continental proportions. 
 Hidden away in China's mountains and underlying 
 her boundless plateaus are immense deposits of 
 coal and iron; while above any other country on 
 the globe, China has the labor for the development 
 of agriculture and manufacture. Think of the influ- 
 ence not only upon the Chinese but upon the whole 
 world when railroads not only carry the grain of 
 
 44 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 Hunan to the famine sufferers in Shantung, but 
 when they bring the coal, iron and other products 
 of Chinese soil and industry within reach of steam-J 
 ship lines running to Europe and AmericaJ To \ 
 make all these resources available to the rest of 
 the world, and in turn to introduce among the 
 teeming myriads of Chinese the products and in- 
 ventions of Europe and America, is to bring about 
 an economic transformation of stupendous pro- 
 portions. 
 
 Imagine, too, what changes in Chinese commu- 
 nities are involved in the substitution of the loco- 
 motive for the coolie as a motive power, the 
 freight car for the wheelbarrow in the shipment 
 of produce, and the passenger coach for the cart 
 and the mule-litter in the transportation of people. 
 Orientals, who for uncounted centuries plodded 
 along in perfect contentment, now find that the 
 whole order of living to which they and their 
 fathers had become adapted is being shaken to 
 its foundation by the iron horse of the foreigner. 
 Millions of coolies earned a living by carrying mer- 
 chandise in baskets or wheeling it in barrows at 
 five cents a day. A single railroad train does the 
 work of a thousand coolies, and thus deprives 
 them of their means of support. A locomotive 
 brings economic and physical benefits, the appli- 
 ances which mitigate the poverty and barrenness 
 of existence and increase the ability to provide for 
 
 45 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 the necessities and the comforts of life. In one 
 of our great locomotive works in America, I once 
 saw twelve engines in construction for China, and 
 my imagination kindled as I thought what a loco- 
 motive means amid that great swarm of human- 
 ity, how impossible it is that any village through 
 which it has once run should continue to be what 
 it was before, how its whistle puts to flight a 
 whole brood of superstitions and summons a long- 
 slumbering people to new life. Railways have in- 
 augurated in China a new era, and when a new 
 era is inaugurated for one-quarter of the human 
 race, the other three-quarters are certain to be 
 affected in many ways. 
 
 Many other illustrations of a changed condition 
 might be cited. Knowledge increases wants, and 
 the Chinese is acquiring knowledge. He demands 
 a hundred things to-day that his grandfather never 
 heard of, and when he goes to the shops to buy his 
 daily food, he finds that the new market for it 
 which the foreigner has opened has increased the 
 price. 
 
 This movement is, in some respects at least, 
 beneficial. It means a higher and broader scale of 
 life and such a life always costs more than a low 
 and narrow one. The economic revolution brings 
 not only higher prices but wider intellectual and 
 spiritual horizons and a general enlarging and up- 
 lifting of the whole range of human activity. There 
 
 46 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 are indeed some vicious influences accompanying 
 this movement. But surely it is for good and not 
 for evil that the farmers of Hunan can now ship 
 their peanuts to England and with the proceeds 
 vary the eternal monotony of a rice-diet; that all 
 China should discover the advantages of roads 
 over rutty, corkscrew paths, of sanitation over 
 heaps of putrid garbage, and of wooden floors 
 over filth-encrusted ground. Christianity inevi- 
 tably involves some of these things, and to some 
 extent the awakening of Asia to the need of them 
 is a part of the beneficent influence of a Gospel 
 which always and everywhere renders men dissat- 
 isfied with a narrow, squalid existence. 
 
 But these altered conditions have not yet 
 brought the ability to meet them. The cost of liv- 
 ing has increased faster than the resources of the 
 people. Europe and America are trying to force 
 their own manufactures on Asia and to take in 
 return only what they please. In time, this will 
 probably right itself, in part at least. While the 
 farmers of the Mississippi Valley find living much 
 more expensive than it was two generations ago, 
 they also find that they get more for their wheat 
 and that they eat better food, wear better clothes 
 and build better houses than did their grandfathers. 
 The era of railroads ended the days of cheap liv- 
 ing, but it ended as well days when the farmer had 
 to confine himself to a diet of corn-bread and salt 
 
 47 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 pork, when his home was destitute of comforts and 
 his children had little schooling and no books. 
 
 The same changes will doubtless take place in 
 China. That great country is capable of produc- 
 ing enormous quantities of food, minerals and both 
 raw and manufactured articles which the rest of 
 the world will sooner or later want. But only a 
 small part of the total population has thus far 
 profited largely by this wider market. Where one 
 man amasses wealth in this way, 100,000 men find 
 that aggressive foreign traders exploit their wares 
 by flooding the shops with tempting articles which 
 they can ill afford to buy. The difficulty is rapidly 
 becoming acute. 
 
 So the economic revolution in China is charac- 
 terized, as such revolutions usually are in Europe 
 and America, by wide-spread unrest and, in some 
 places, by violence. The oldest of nations is the 
 latest to undergo the throes of the stupendous 
 transformation from which the newest is slowly be- 
 ginning to emerge. The transition period in China 
 will be longer and perhaps more trying, as the 
 numbers involved are vaster and more conserva- 
 tive ; but the ultimate result cannot fail to be bene- 
 ficial both to China and to the whole world. 
 
 It is therefore too late to discuss the question 
 whether the character and religions of this na- 
 tion should be disturbed. They have already 
 been disturbed by the inrush of new life and by 
 
 4.8 
 
STEAM AND COMMERCE 
 
 the ways as well as by the products of the white 
 man. A crowd of Chinese recently went to one 
 of the most famous temples in Canton, hacked off 
 the heads of the idols and dragged them through 
 the streets amid the derisive laughter of the people. 
 That superstition, however, is consistent with 
 modern invention appears in the fact that a parade 
 in Tsing-tau, to placate the evil spirits that were 
 believed to be withholding rain, included as the 
 chief feature of the procession an image of a god 
 riding in an automobile and ostensibly driving it. 
 China has no more imperative need to-day than 
 the spiritualization of her secular life, the lifting of 
 her people above the sordid plane of material 
 things, the teaching that the new era calls for new 
 ideals as well as for railways and steamships. The 
 Christian men and women of the West have a con- 
 tribution to make which will mean far more for 
 China than mechanical appliances. Whether in- 
 creased commercial and economic facilities prove 
 a blessing or a curse depends upon the men who 
 use them; and China's profoundest need is for 
 more Christian workers who will concern them- 
 selves with men. A tobacco company has an- 
 nounced its determination to put its cigarettes into 
 the hands of every man, woman and child in China. 
 Brewers, distillers and gum manufacturers have 
 like ambitions. Will the readers of this book help 
 to bring a nobler force to bear? 
 
 49 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND GROWTH OF POLIT- 
 ICAL UNREST 
 
 The political ideas of the modern world have 
 also surged into China with all their revolutionary 
 force. As the vastness of the country and its re- 
 sources became better known, western nations 
 eagerly sought to extend their influence into this 
 attractive field. They deemed it necessary, also, to 
 protect the rich commercial interests described in 
 the preceding chapter. Trouble soon followed. 
 To understand China's reception of foreigners, the 
 following considerations must be borne in mind. 
 
 First, the conservative temperament of the Chi- 
 nese. It is true but misleading, to say that they 
 have " no word or written character for patriotism 
 but 150 ways of writing the characters for good 
 luck and long life." While the Chinese may have 
 little love for country, they have an intense devo- 
 tion to their own customs. For nearly 5,000 years, 
 while other empires had risen, flourished and 
 fallen, they had lived apart, sufficient unto them- 
 selves, cherishing their own ideals, plodding along 
 their well-worn paths, ignorant of or indifferent to 
 
 50 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 the progress of the western world, mechanically 
 memorizing dead classics, and standing compara- 
 tively still amid the tremendous onrush of modern 
 civilization. I say comparatively still, for if we 
 carefully study Chinese history, we shall find that 
 this vast nation has not been so inert as we have 
 long supposed. The very revolutions and internal 
 commotions of all kinds through which China has 
 passed would have prevented mere inertia. But 
 when we compare these movements and the 
 changes that they have wrought with the kaleido- 
 scopic transformations in Europe and America, 
 China appears to have been a stationary nation. 
 She has moved less in centuries than western peo- 
 ples have in decades. The restless Anglo-Saxon 
 is alternately irritated and awed by this massive 
 solidity, not to say stolidity. There is, after all, 
 something impressive about it, the impressiveness 
 of a mighty glacier which moves slowly and 
 majestically. So the duration of an ordinary 
 nation's life appears insignificant as compared with 
 the almost timeless majesty of the Chinese Empire. 
 Second, the vastness of China. Her territory 
 and population are so enormous that her people 
 found sufficient scope for their energies within 
 their own borders. They therefore felt indepen- 
 dent of outsiders. The typical European nation 
 is so limited in area and is so near to equally civ- 
 ilized and powerful nations that it could not if it 
 
 SI 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 would live unto Itself. The situation of most peo- 
 ples forces them into relations with others. But 
 China had a quarter of the human race and a tenth 
 of the habitable globe to herself, with no neighbors 
 who had anything that she really cared for. It 
 was inevitable, therefore, that a naturally conser- 
 vative people should become a self-centred and 
 self-satisfied people. 
 
 Third, the character of adjacent nations. None 
 of them was equal to the Chinese in civilization 
 and learning, while in territory and population 
 they were relatively insignificant. Even Japan has 
 only an eighth of China's population, while her re- 
 markable progress in intelligence and power is a 
 matter of a generation. Until recently, indeed, 
 Japan was as backward as China and was not 
 ashamed to receive many of her ideas from her 
 larger neighbor, as the number of Chinese char- 
 acters in the Japanese language plainly shows. As 
 for China's other neighbors, who were they? 
 Weak nations, which abjectly sent tribute by com- 
 missioners who groveled before the august Em- 
 peror of the Middle Kingdom, or barbarous tribes, 
 which the Chinese regarded about as Americans 
 regard the aboriginal Indians. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that when for- 
 eigners from the distant West sought to force their 
 way into China, the Chinese, knowing nothing of 
 the countries from which they came, should have 
 
 52 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 regarded them in accordance with their traditional 
 belief and policy regarding the inferiority of all 
 outsiders. 
 
 The resultant difficulty was intensified by the in- 
 difference, to use no harsher term, of the foreigner 
 to the fact that the Chinese are a very ceremonious 
 people, extremely punctilious in all social relations 
 and disposed to regard a breach of etiquette as a 
 cardinal sin. " Face " is a national institution 
 which must be preserved at all hazards. No one 
 can get along with the Chinese who does not re- 
 spect it. " It is an integral part of both Chinese 
 theory and practice," says Dr. Arthur H. Smith, 
 " that realities are of much less importance than 
 appearances. If the latter can be saved, the for- 
 mer may be altogether surrendered. That is the 
 essence of that mysterious ' face ' of which we are 
 never done hearing in China. Pope's familiar line 
 might be the Chinese national motto : ' Act well 
 your part, there all the honor lies.' The preserva- 
 tion of ' face ' frequently requires that one should 
 behave in an arbitrary and violent manner merely 
 to emphasize his protests against the course of cur- 
 rent events. He must fly into a violent rage, he 
 must use reviling and perhaps imprecatory lan- 
 guage, else it will not be evident to spectators that 
 he is aware just what ought to be done by a person 
 in his precise situation ; and then he will have ' no 
 way to descend from the stage,' or in other words 
 
 S3 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 he will have lost ' face.' ... An American bawls 
 to a passer-by : ' Hello I is this the road to Bos- 
 ton ? ' Whereas a Chinese would say : ' Great 
 Elder Brother, may I borrow your light to inquire 
 whether this is the Imperial highway to Peking? ' 
 An American street-car conductor is hoarse from 
 incessantly shouting : ' Step lively, lady, step live- 
 ly ! ' We hear that under similar circumstances a 
 Japanese conductor quietly waits for every passen- 
 ger, and when an intersecting route is reached 
 politely inquires : ' Does any honored guest desire 
 a transfer to the Shimbashi line? ' " 
 
 In these circumstances, it was very important 
 that the relations of white men to China should be 
 characterized not only by justice but by tact and 
 respect for the feelings and customs of the people. 
 The chief cause of China's hostility to foreigners 
 undoubtedly lies in the notorious and often con- 
 temptuous disregard of these things by the major- 
 ity of the white men who entered China and by the 
 Governments which backed them. Nor did for- 
 eigners stop here. The early trading ships were 
 usually armed, and they did not hesitate to use 
 force in effecting their purpose. 
 
 But the nations of Europe, becoming convinced 
 of the magnitude of the Chinese ^market, pressed 
 resolutely on ; and with the hope of creating a bet- 
 ter understanding and of opening ports to trade, 
 they sent envoys to China. The arrival of these 
 
 54 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 envoys precipitated a new controversy, for the Chi- 
 nese Government from time immemorial consid- 
 ered itself the supreme Government of the world, 
 and, not being accustomed to receive the agents 
 of other nations except as inferiors, was not dis- 
 posed to accord the white man any different 
 treatment. The result was a series of collisions 
 followed by territorial aggressions that were nu- 
 merous enough to infuriate a more peaceably dis- 
 posed people than the Chinese, 
 
 A full account of the negotiations would require 
 a separate volume. For two generations, nation 
 after nation sought to protect its growing interests 
 in China and to secure recognition from the Chi- 
 nese Government, only to be met by opposition 
 that was sometimes courteous and sometimes sul- 
 len, but always inflexible until broken down by 
 force. Each envoy was politely informed that the 
 Chinese official concerned was extremely busy, that 
 to his deep regret it would not be possible to grant 
 an immediate conference, but that as soon as pos- 
 sible he would have pleasure in selecting a " felic- 
 itous day " on which they could hold a " pleasant 
 interview " ; and when the envoy, worn out by the 
 never-ending procrastination, finally gave up in dis- 
 gust and announced his intention of returning 
 home, the typical Chinese official blandly replied, 
 as the notorious Yeh did to United States Minister 
 Marshall in January, 1854: " I avail myself of the 
 
 55 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 occasion to present my compliments, and trust that, 
 of late, your blessings have been increasingly tran- 
 quil," 1 Scores of European and American diplo- 
 matic agents had substantially the same experience. 
 
 The treaty of 1858 gave some notable advan- 
 tages to foreigners, for it conceded the right of 
 other nations to send diplomatic representatives to 
 Peking, permission to foreigners to travel, trade, 
 and reside in an increasing number of places, and, 
 on the persistent initiative of the French envoy, 
 powerfully supported by the famous Dr. S. Wells 
 Williams, Christianity was especially recognized. 
 
 " The charge that the famous Toleration Clause 
 regarding Christian missions was smuggled into 
 the treaty of 1858 is far from the truth," writes 
 Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who aided Dr. Williams 
 in conducting the negotiations. An edict granting 
 toleration had been issued as early as 1845. This 
 had been followed by more than ten years of 
 missionary work at the newly opened ports, quite 
 sufficient to make them acquainted with the char- 
 acter of Protestant missions. Of Roman Catholic 
 missions prior to the edict, they had centuries of 
 experience. Moreover, during our negotiations at 
 Tien-tsin, they had ample time for a fresh study 
 of the subject, the draft for our treaty being under 
 daily discussion for more than a week before it 
 was signed. Nor was our draft the first to bring up 
 
 •Foster, "American Diplomacy in the Orient," 205, 213. 
 56 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 the question of toleration. The Russian Treaty 
 signed on June 13th (five days in advance of 
 ours) contained one explicit provision for the toler- 
 ation of Christianity under the form of the Greek 
 Church; but it made no reference to Protestant or 
 Roman Catholic. Not only was the American 
 Treaty the first to give these a legal status, it 
 gave the Chinese a sample of Christian teaching 
 in the Golden Rule, which Dr. Williams inserted 
 in the article expressly to show them what they 
 were agreeing to. Never were negotiations more 
 open and above board." 
 
 It was not until 1861, that legations were estab- 
 lished in Peking. But while this gave foreign na- 
 tions a foothold at the capital, it did not by any 
 means give them the recognition that they de- 
 manded, for their intercourse with the Court was 
 still hedged about with exactions and indignities. 
 The Chinese were slow in coming to full recogni- 
 tion of diplomatic intercourse. But western na- 
 tions steadily persisted. One by one new conces- 
 sions were wrung from the reluctant Chinese, and 
 finally China was forced to accept the new order 
 and to send her own ministers and consuls to the 
 capitals of Europe and America. A Foreign Of- 
 fice, or Department of State, as Americans would 
 call it, was established in Peking under the name 
 of Tsung-li Yamen. It was considered by the 
 Chinese, however, as rather a subordinate bureau 
 
 57 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 and it was so managed that it was characterized 
 by Dr. W. A. P. Martin as a micrometer screw 
 contrived to diminish motion, and by Lord Salis- 
 bury as merely a machine to register the amount 
 of pressure brought to bear upon it. 
 
 Diplomatic relations, once established, soon be- 
 gan to give the Chinese a better knowledge of 
 other peoples. Students, travelers, merchants and 
 coolies who had emigrated to America wrote back 
 descriptions of what they found. The schools and 
 colleges founded by Christian missionaries were 
 acquainting their pupils with geography, political 
 economy, the constitutions and governmental meth- 
 ods of modern nations. The Chinese began to 
 learn that their political structure was not neces- 
 sarily the best. Ere long, the great ideas of jus- 
 tice and the rights of the people, which underlie 
 modern progressive government, worked their way 
 among all classes of society, and impatience de- 
 veloped against abuses which had long been meek- 
 ly accepted as inevitable. 
 
 The United States is more favorably regarded 
 by the Chinese than most foreign nations, partly 
 because a larger proportion of Americans in China 
 are missionaries, so that the prevailing type is of 
 a higher and more sympathetic class than the pre- 
 vailing type of Europeans, who are more largely 
 of the commercial class, and partly because the 
 Chinese know that America has no territorial am- 
 
 58 
 
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 CO 
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 C/3 
 
 O 
 
 £ 
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 2 
 
 M 
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 M 
 C« 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 bitions in China. But America is far from being 
 loved, for the Chinese are greatly irritated by the 
 ill-treatment of their countrymen in the United 
 States. The Exclusion Law has been enforced in 
 a way that the American Government would not 
 tolerate if China were to adopt it against Amer- 
 icans. Injuries to the lives and property of Chinese 
 in the United States are far more common than 
 injuries to Americans in China, and the Chinese 
 get less redress. The Chinese Minister to Wash- 
 ington said in an address in Chicago a few years 
 ago: " More Chinese subjects have been murdered 
 by mobs in the United States during the last twen- 
 ty-five years than all the Americans who have been 
 murdered in China in similar riots. ... In every 
 instance where Americans have suffered from 
 mobs, the authorities have made reparation for the 
 losses, and rarely has the punishment of death 
 failed to be inflicted upon the guilty offenders. On 
 the other hand, I am sorry to say that I cannot 
 recall a single instance where the penalty of death 
 has been visited on any member of the mobs in the 
 United States guilty of the death of Chinese, and 
 in only two instances out of many has indemnity 
 been paid for the losses sustained by the Chinese."^ 
 It is not without significance that the white 
 man is generally designated in China as " the for- 
 eign devil." 
 
 ' Quoted by A. H. Smith, " China and America Today," 165. 
 
 59 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Not content with innumerable aggressions and 
 extorted treaty concessions, western nations boldly 
 discussed the dismemberment of China as certain 
 to come, and writers disputed as to which country 
 should possess the richest parts of the Empire 
 whose impotence to defend itself was taken for 
 granted. Chinese Legations in Europe and Amer- 
 ica reported these discussions to their superiors in 
 Peking. The English papers in China republished 
 some of the articles and added many of their own, 
 so that speedily all the better-informed Chinese 
 came to know that foreigners regarded China as 
 " the carcass of the East." 
 
 Nor was all this talk empty boasting. China 
 saw that France had absorbed Cambodia, Annam, 
 Tong-king, and had designs on Siam; that Great 
 Britain was lord of India, Egypt, and the Straits 
 Settlements ; that Germany was pressing her claims 
 in Asiatic Turkey; that Russia had absorbed Si- 
 beria and was striving to obtain control of Pales- 
 tine, Persia and Korea; and that Italy was trying 
 to take Abyssinia. Moreover the Chinese per- 
 ceived that of the numerous islands of the world, 
 France had the Loyalty, Society, Marquesas, New 
 Hebrides and New Caledonia groups, and claimed 
 the Taumotu or Low Archipelago; that Great 
 Britain had the Fiji, Cook, Gilbert, EUice, Phoe- 
 nix, Tokelau and New Zealand groups, northern 
 Borneo, Tasmania, and the whole of continental 
 
 60 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 Australia, besides a large assortment of miscel- 
 laneous islands scattered over the world wherever 
 they would do the most good; that Germany pos- 
 sessed the Marshall group, Northeast New Guinea, 
 and divided with England the Solomons; that 
 Spain had the Ladrones, the Carolines, the Philip- 
 pines, and some enormously valuable holdings in 
 the West Indies; that the Dutch ruled Java, Su- 
 matra, the greater part of Borneo, all of Celebes 
 and the hundreds of islands eastward to New 
 Guinea, half of which was under the Dutch flag; 
 that the new world power on the American con- 
 tinent took the Hawaiian Islands and in two swift 
 campaigns drove Spain out of the West Indies and 
 the Philippines, not to return them to their inhabi- 
 tants but to keep them herself; and that in the 
 Samoan and Friendly Islands, resident foreigners 
 owned about everything worth having and left to 
 the native chiefs only what the foreigners did not 
 want or could not agree upon. As for mighty 
 Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884 was the sig- 
 nal for a game of grab on so colossal a scale that 
 to-day out of Africa's 11,980,000 square miles, 
 France owns 3,074,000, Great Britain 2,818,000, 
 Turkey 1,672,000, Belgium 900,000, Portugal 
 834,000, Germany 864,000, Italy 596,000, and 
 Spain 263,000 — a total of 10,980,000, or ten- 
 elevenths of the whole continent ; and doubtless the 
 Powers will take the remaining eleventh whenever 
 
 61 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 they feel like it. " Gobbling the globe," this proc- 
 ess has been forcefully if inelegantly termed. No 
 wonder that the white race has been bitterly de- 
 scribed as " the most arrogant and rapacious, the 
 most exclusive and intolerant race in history." 
 
 We can understand, therefore, the alarm of the 
 Chinese as they saw the greedy foreigners descend 
 upon their own shores in such ways as to justify 
 the fear that what remained of the Celestial Em- 
 pire would be speedily reduced to vassalage. Rus- 
 sia took virtual possession of Manchuria ; Germany 
 seized Kiao-chou Bay in the Province of Shantung ; 
 England's fortified base at Hong-kong com- 
 manded the mouth of the Pearl River, the gate- 
 way to all South China ; France entrenched in Tong- 
 king was moving northward and was suspected of 
 having designs on Yun-nan and the island of Hai- 
 nan; while several European Powers ruled Shang- 
 hai, the key to the vast and populous Yang-tze 
 Valley. In all China's coast line of 3,000 miles, 
 she did not have a single harbor in which she 
 could mobilize her own ships without the consent 
 of the foreigner. A proud people were wounded 
 in their most sensitive feelings by the ruthless and 
 arrogant way in which foreigners broke down their 
 cherished wall of separation from the rest of the 
 world and trampled upon their venerated customs 
 and institutions. 
 
 Shall we pretend innocent surprise that the irri- 
 62 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 tation of the Chinese rapidly grew ? Suppose that 
 after the murder of the Chinese in Rock Springs, 
 Wyoming, some years ago, a Chinese fleet had 
 seized New York, Boston, Charleston, and New 
 Orleans. Would the American people have made 
 any protest? Would the lives of Chinese have 
 been safe on our streets? And was It an entirely 
 base Impulse that led the Chinese violently to op- 
 pose the forcible seizure of their country by aliens ? 
 The Empress Dowager declared in her now fa- 
 mous Edict: "The various Powers cast upon us 
 looks of tiger-like voracity, hustling each other in 
 their endeavors to be first to seize upon our inner- 
 most territories. They think that China, having 
 neither money nor troops, would never venture to 
 go to war with them. They fail to understand, 
 however, that there are certain things which this 
 Empire can never consent to, and that If hard 
 pressed, we have no alternative but to rely upon the 
 justice of our cause, the knowledge of which In our 
 breasts strengthens our resolves and steels us to 
 present a united front against our aggressors." 
 
 This would have been called patriotic If It had 
 emanated from the ruler of any other people. 
 
 The march of the allied armies upon Peking, 
 the capture of the city, the flight of the Emperor 
 and Empress Dowager, and the humiliating terms 
 of peace convinced the Chinese of their helpless- 
 ness before the modern equipment of western na- 
 
 63 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 tions and of the necessity of learning the methods of 
 the white man if they were ever to hold their own 
 against him. But defeat, while always hard to 
 bear, does not always embitter the conquered 
 against the conqueror. In considering, therefore, 
 the effect upon the Chinese, we must bear in mind 
 not so much the fact of defeat as the subsequent 
 treatment which they received. Captain Frank 
 Brinkley, editor of The Japan Mail, wrote: " It 
 sends a thrill of horror through every white man's 
 bosom to learn that forty missionary women and 
 twenty-five little children were butchered by the 
 Boxers. But in Tung-chou alone, a city where the 
 Chinese made no resistance and where there was no 
 fighting, 573 Chinese women of the upper classes 
 committed suicide rather than survive the indignities 
 they had suffered. Women of the lower classes 
 fared similarly at the hands of the soldiers, but 
 were not unwilling to survive their shame. With 
 what show of consistency is the Occident to de- 
 nounce the barbarity of the Chinese, when Occi- 
 dental soldiers go to China and perpetrate the very 
 acts which constitute the very basis of barbarity? " 
 In the pillaging of property, savages could not 
 have been more lawless than the white men from 
 " the highly civilized nations of the West." " It 
 is not literally true," said a resident of Peking, 
 " that every house in Peking was looted. There 
 were some places in obscure alleys and in many of 
 
 64 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 the innumerable and almost impenetrable cul-de- 
 sacs with which the capital abounds that escaped. 
 But persistent inquiry appears to leave no doubt 
 of the fact that practically every yamen in the city 
 has been rummaged, and practically there is noth- 
 ing left of the contents of any of them." Even 
 the places dedicated to science and religion were 
 not spared. The celebrated Astronomical Obser- 
 vatory had not an instrument left. Every one 
 was carried off by the orders of men high in au- 
 thority at the French and German Legations, and 
 the whole place was totally wrecked. What pos- 
 sible excuse could there have been for destroying 
 a place for studying the heavens? 
 
 It was, of course, inevitable that much havoc 
 should be wrought amid the tumult of war. It was 
 necessary that supplies for half-naked and fam- 
 ished besieged thousands should be taken from de- 
 serted grain and clothing-shops. It was expedient 
 that certain public buildings should be destroyed 
 as a warning for the future. But why were sol- 
 diers and thieves allowed to steal the bric-a-brac 
 and furniture and break the mirrors of the Em- 
 peror's personal apartments, wantonly shatter 
 beautiful columns, deface rare works of art, punch 
 holes in gilded statues, smash the heads of 
 exquisitely-carved figures, and wreck venerable 
 places associated with learning and art? The 
 world is poorer for some of this havoc, and it will 
 
 65 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 be a generation before it can be remedied, if in- 
 deed some of the edifices are ever restored to their 
 former beauty. Can we wonder that the Chinese 
 continue to hate and fear the foreigner ? The New 
 York Times declared that " every outrage perpe- 
 trated on foreigners in China has been repaid ten- 
 fold by the brutalities perpetrated by the allied 
 armies." " It is," added the editor, " simply mon- 
 strous that the armies of Christian nations, sent 
 out to punish barbarism and protect the rights of 
 foreigners in China, should themselves be guilty 
 of barbarism. Revenge has been accompanied by 
 mean and cruel and flagrant robbery. The story 
 is one to fill all rational minds with disgust and 
 shame." 
 
 The exasperation of the Chinese was not dimin- 
 ished by the virtual fortifications which the foreign 
 Powers have since erected in the Imperial capital. 
 Most of the Legations took advantage of the panic 
 and confusion which followed the raising of the 
 siege, to seize large tracts adjoining their former 
 compounds. Massive walls were built and cannon 
 mounted upon them. Over the water-gate in the 
 city wall, through which the allied troops entered 
 the city, the Powers cut a new gateway which they 
 hold and guard. They took possession of all that 
 part of the city wall which commands Legation 
 Street, constructed several barricades and built a 
 fort upon it opposite the German Legation. For- 
 
 66 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 eign soldiers patrol that wall night and day. On 
 the other side of the Legations, a wide space was 
 cleared by destroying hundreds of Chinese dwell- 
 ings and shops, and no trees or obstructions of any 
 kind are allowed on that space, which can thus be 
 swept by rifle and machine-gun fire in the event of 
 future trouble. Ample stores of arms, ammuni- 
 tion and food have been stored within the Lega- 
 tions, so that if another outbreak should occur, the 
 Legations will not be as weak as they were in the 
 memorable summer of 1900. 
 
 The Legations would be deemed lacking in ordi- 
 nary prudence if they did not guard against the 
 repetition of their grievous experiences during the 
 Boxer Uprising. But looking at the matter from 
 the view-point of the Chinese, can we marvel that 
 it is resented? Would not a European Government 
 be stung to the quick if other nations were to for- 
 tify themselves in that fashion at its capital? 
 Would Americans endure it at Washington? 
 
 The forcible re-establishment of politically 
 peaceful relations with western nations was fol- 
 lowed by a new vehemence of commercial exploita- 
 tion which was hardly less irritating to the Chinese. 
 The victory of Japan over Russia, which had been 
 regarded by the Chinese as the most powerful of 
 western nations, awakened new hope of successful 
 resistance. They, like the Japanese, are more and 
 more disposed to resent the leadership of foreign- 
 
 67 
 
fHE CHINESE iftEVOLUTlON 
 
 ers. They feel an irritation, which we should be 
 reasonable enough to understand, in realizing that 
 the new railway thoroughfares of the country are 
 largely in the hands of outsiders. Only 1,930 
 miles of the 6,300 in the Empire are under Chi- 
 nese control. Russians hold 1,077 miles, Belgians 
 903, Japanese 702, Germans 684, English 608, 
 and French 396. China is determined to put an 
 end to this, and the Government refuses to grant 
 any more railway concessions to foreigners. They 
 propose to manage their own railways, operate 
 their own mines and, in general, control their own 
 affairs. 
 
 " The movement of what you call the Young 
 China party," writes a Chinese gentleman in the 
 Shanghai News, " erratic perhaps now in many 
 ways, has its root in the intense feelings of the 
 Chinese people that they have not been fairly 
 treated by foreigners. The true aspiration at the 
 bottom of this movement which is claiming China 
 for the Chinese is to ask for a readjustment of our 
 relations with foreigners on a just basis. In a 
 word, the Chinese people want the foreigners in 
 China to reform by knocking out of their heads the 
 idea that God has created the three hundred odd 
 million Chinese for the British and other nations 
 to trade upon, to make a living out of them. The 
 only way to abate the fever and intensity of feel- 
 ing against foreigners is to begin the reform in 
 
 68 
 
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL UNREST 
 
 China at both ends, on the foreign side as well as 
 on the Chinese side." 
 
 The war between Italy and Turkey has strength- 
 ened this feeling. Whatever the provocation for 
 that war, the fact remains that the vernacular press 
 of Asia quite generally regarded it as another evi- 
 dence that the white man's ambitions in Asia and 
 Africa are typified by the machine-gun rather than 
 by the New Testament. The National Review 
 of China cynically remarks: 
 
 When we call to mind the great pressure that has 
 been brought to bear to get Turkey, Morocco, Persia and 
 China out of the ancient ways, and when we note the fate 
 that has awaited each of them at the hands of sympathetic 
 Europe, how Persia has been bullied almost to death and 
 Russian intriguers have supported her ex-Shah's attempt at 
 a counter-revolution, how Morocco has been the cockpit of 
 Europe for the past few months, how Turkey is now 
 being driven at the point of the sword to commit national 
 hara-kiri, and how China is alternately clubbed on the 
 head and stroked on the back by her dear friends in the 
 north or across the water, with the Powers of Europe ob- 
 serving a cynical neutrality, as they are doing at the mo- 
 ment in Europe, we are not in the least surprised that 
 these ancient nations just re-awakening are somewhat 
 slow to grasp the iron hand of friendship that is held out 
 to them. The price of all victory is humility, but it need 
 not involve humiliation deliberately heaped up by those 
 who count themselves to have attained. Yet that is what 
 too often the awakening nations of the East have to endure 
 in order to be permitted to take a place on a platform a 
 
 69 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 little lower than the angels of the West. Is it that Europe 
 fears Asia, now that Asia is waking up? 
 
 Truly, the Christianization of the contact of the 
 West and the East is one of the most solemn and 
 imperative of the necessities of this time of times. 
 This a problem of modern international relation- 
 ships which every Christian man and woman, at 
 home and abroad, can help to solve. 
 
 70 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATIONAL 
 PROGRESS 
 
 jA large reconstructive influence has been ex- 
 erted by the inrush of the intellectual ideas of the 
 West. The missionaries in China, like the Pil- 
 grim Fathers in New England, planted the church 
 and the schoolhouse side by side. The educational 
 work of missions in China has been developed 
 until it now includes 2,029 elementary schools and 
 1,116 academies, colleges and normal, medical, 
 theological and industrial schools. American mis- 
 sionary societies have been foremost in this edu- 
 cational work. Of the sixteen institutions of col- 
 lege grade in China, thirteen are American. Dr. 
 Arthur H. Smith says that seventy-five per cent 
 of the membership of the Educational Association 
 of China, a body of practical teachers meeting tri- 
 ennially for the discussion of educational problems 
 and for unity of action, is American ; that the only 
 institutions of college grade for Chinese women 
 are American ; and that the total number of Amer- 
 ican schools and colleges of all sorts is probably 
 considerably in excess of one thousand. 1 There are, 
 
 71 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 however, many institutions maintained by British 
 and Continental Societies, and more are projected, 
 including the Oxford-Cambridge University at 
 Hankow. 
 
 Mission schools have long exerted wide influ- 
 ence. They taught Chinese boys and girls, who 
 had always imagined that China was " The Mid- 
 dle Kingdom " surrounded by a fringe of semi- 
 barbarians, that there were great and powerful 
 nations which were considerably farther advanced 
 in education and civilization than the Chinese. A 
 people who had known nothing outside of their 
 own history now heard of the history, literature, 
 art, science and philosophy of other lands. A vast 
 realm of thought and experience was thus opened 
 to the astonished gaze of the Chinese. Naturally 
 studious, they were quick to discern the significance 
 of the new learning. All over China the tidings 
 flew. The books of Europe and America began to 
 be read, and presses had to be run at high pres- 
 sure to supply the demand. The Chinese method 
 of printing by blocks of wooden type gave way to 
 modem metal type. Missionary printing estab- 
 lishments enlarged their facilities many fold and 
 native presses sprang up in dozens of cities. Some 
 of them now do a very large business, notably The 
 Commercial Press in Shanghai, a great concern 
 controlled and operated by Christian Chinese. 
 
 The Chinese had long made extensive use of 
 72 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 placards and posters as a means of communicating 
 news; but prior to the Boxer Uprising, there was 
 no vernacular press, except a few small p ublican 
 tions in Peking and in one or two port cities. JOver 
 200 Chinese newspapers are now published, one 
 of them a woman's daily paper in Peking, and 
 their circulation is large and rapidly growing. The 
 official class, which at first paid little attention to 
 them, awakened to the influence which they were 
 exerting, and in 1909 a number of the more influ- 
 ential journals were bought up or subsidized by 
 men connected with the Provincial governments. 
 This did not promise to be a wholesome change, 
 for these journals were actively promulgating re- 
 form. But the new intellectual life of the nation 
 was beating too strongly to be repressed and the 
 demand for reform soon became more insistent 
 than ever. 
 
 Post-offices were also demanded by the new con- 
 ditions. One reason why the Chinese have been so 
 ignorant of the rest of the world and even of dis- 
 tant parts of their own country was the lack of 
 facilities for transmitting mail. Missionaries in 
 the interior had to get their mail by private mes- 
 sengers or a chance traveler. But now China has 
 a modern post-office system which is being rapidly 
 extended throughout the Empire. Beginning only 
 a dozen years ago under the superintendence of Sir 
 Robert Hart, by 1902 there were 446 post-offices. 
 
 73 
 
THE CHINJESE REVOLUTION 
 
 In 1907 the number had risen to 2,803, in 1908 to 
 3,493, in 1909 to 3,973, and it has now passed the 
 four thousand mark, one of the latest offices being 
 in Lhasa, the once inaccessible capital of Tibet. 
 The number of pieces handled has increased as fol- 
 lows: 1904,66,000,000; 1905,76,500,000; 1906, 
 113,000,000; 1907, 168,000,000; 1908, 252,- 
 000,000; 1909, 292,000,000. The postal routes 
 now in operation cover no less than 88,000 miles. 
 The Christian Literature Society of Shanghai used 
 these mail facilities to send out 277,000 posters ex- 
 plaining Halley's Comet to people who, but a few 
 years before, would have been frightened out of 
 their wits by it as a supernatural manifestation. 
 
 A dozen years ago, the telegraph service con- 
 nected only a few cities near the coast, and the tele- 
 phone was unknown. Now 40,000 miles of wire 
 reach all the principal centres of population, in- 
 cluding the 181 pfefectural cities, while hundreds 
 of yamens are equipped with telephones. 
 
 Mission schools were, for a long time, the only 
 institutions in the entire country which gave their 
 pupils a modern education. But within recent 
 years, the Chinese began to feel that the time had 
 come to do away with their antiquated schools 
 whose instruction was confined to memorizing 
 Confucian classics and writing rhetorical essays on 
 selected sentences. One of the most characteristic 
 features of old China was the examination essay 
 
 74 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 for literary degrees on some Chinese subject relat- 
 ing to a remote past. But Imperial Edicts of 1901 
 and 1905 abolished this time-honored custom 
 and directed that candidates for degrees and of- 
 fices should submit short essays on western science, 
 governments, laws and kindred subjects. Immedi- 
 ately there was a rush of eager students to the mis- 
 sion schools and the missionary teachers were 
 almost swamped with applicants. Chinese bought 
 western books as never before; examinations 
 could not be passed without them. Dr. Timothy 
 Richard of Shanghai reported that a quarter of a 
 million dollars' worth of text-books were sold in 
 that city in 1902, a single order, received by the 
 Presbyterian Press involving a bill of $328 for 
 postage alone, as the buyer insisted that the books 
 should be sent by mail. Never before had a stroke 
 of the Vermilion Pencil wrought such far-reaching 
 results. 
 
 A joint report to the Throne by Viceroy Chang 
 Chih-tung and Chang Pei-hsi, Chancellor of Pe- 
 king University, led to an Imperial decree which 
 ordered a new system of government education. 
 The plan calls for a university at the capital of 
 each Province, with auxiliary prefectural and dis- 
 trict colleges and schools, the whole system to 
 culminate in an Imperial University in Peking. In 
 all these institutions, western arts and sciences are 
 to be taught side by side with the old Confucian 
 
 75 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 classics. An Imperial Edict of 1908 reads: "All 
 boys over eight years of age must go to school, or 
 their parents or relatives will be punished. If they 
 have no relatives, the officials will be held respon- 
 sible for their education." " The Viceroys and 
 Governors of Provinces are commanded to order 
 their subordinates to hasten the establishment of 
 these schools. Let this decree be published 
 through the Empire." An Imperial Board of 
 Education was established in 1905. Engineering 
 courses are given at the following institutions : Im- 
 perial Polytechnic Institute at Shanghai; Imperial 
 University of Shan-si at Tai-yuan-fu ; Engineering 
 and Mining College at Tang-shan; and Imperial 
 Pei-yang University at Tien-tsin. There are 50 
 educational institutions in Mukden alone, in which 
 the total number of students is estimated to be 
 7,500. One law school has 700 students, and one 
 of the three normal schools is preparing to accom- 
 modate 1,000. 
 
 The number of government schools of all grades 
 now under the Imperial Bureau of Education is 
 42,000 with 64,000 instructors and 875,000 pu- 
 pils. The intention is to provide one elementary 
 school for every 400 families in the Empire within 
 five years and school accommodations for 45,000,- 
 000 children within ten years. The old examina- 
 tion halls are weed-grown ruins, while the new 
 educational system is represented by buildings 
 
 76 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 Stately in architecture and modern in appointments. 
 The Government University buildings in Canton 
 stand on the site of ii,6i6 cells of the old exam- 
 ination halls. I visited the high school of the eight 
 Manchu Banners in Peking and found American 
 text-books in the hands of sons of Manchu noble- 
 men. I examined several of the Government in- 
 stitutions and can testify to the elaborateness of 
 their equipment, although the educational work 
 is usually of poor quality. They are hampered by 
 lack of suitable teachers and text-books and by 
 political influences which give coveted positions to 
 mere office-holders rather than to competent edu- 
 cators; but however imperfect the system may be 
 at present, the significant thing is that the begin- 
 nings of a modern educational development have 
 been made. 
 
 The new conditions are undermining idolatry. 
 In a village near Pang Chuang, the Chinese 
 dumped the accumulated idols from their temple 
 into a hole dug in a field and delivered over the 
 temple for a new school so that their children 
 might learn to read and write. An old man near 
 Peking, who had laboriously saved up a few hun- 
 dred dollars to repair a ruined temple, was re- 
 buked by the local official for encouraging super- 
 stition instead of putting his money into schools; 
 and the Police Commissioner of Tien-tsin issued an 
 order prohibiting offerings to the dead on the an- 
 
 77 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 nual festival of AH Souls and advised the people 
 to put into the educational fund the money that 
 they had planned to spend on sacrifices. 
 
 Tens of thousands of Chinese are learning the 
 English language. Herbert Spencer, John Stuart 
 Mill and many other writers on philosophy and 
 political economy are diligently read. The Gov- 
 ernment, in 1 9 ID, issued an Edict authorizing the 
 use of English in scientific and technical instruc- 
 tion. Railway tickets and time-tables are usually 
 printed in both English and Chinese, and several 
 colleges, like St. John's in Shanghai and the Can- 
 ton Christian College in Canton, find that the 
 readiness of their students to acquire English is so 
 great that it is practicable to do class-room work 
 in English. 
 
 A number of ambitious youths, who had re- 
 ceived their early training in mission schools or 
 from contact with the new intellectual movement 
 which the missionaries had inaugurated, went to 
 Europe or America to complete their education in 
 the best western colleges and universities. In due 
 time, some of the Governors and Viceroys and 
 even the Imperial Government were led to send 
 selected young men abroad for this purpose. 
 When they returned to China, they were at first 
 received with suspicion and dislike, and some were 
 even imprisoned for alleged disloyalty. But grad- 
 ually their superior training began to tell and 
 
 78 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 they were placed in positions of influence] I have 
 a list of Chinese who were educated in the 
 United States who, before the outbreak of the Rev- 
 olution, were occupying or had occupied official 
 posts as Cabinet Ministers, Tao-tais, Ministers to 
 Great Britain, America, Germany, Mexico, Peru 
 and Spain, Secretaries of Legations and Consuls- 
 General in several different countries, Directors- 
 General of Customs, Presidents and Vice-Presi- 
 dents of Imperial Departments in Peking, Chief 
 Engineers, directors and builders of railways, 
 managers and assistant managers of Government 
 Telegraphs, Imperial Delegates to International 
 Opium Conferences, directors of docks and en- 
 gineering works, high posts in the army and navy, 
 and many other positions. President Taft stated 
 in an address in New Haven, Conn., in 1908, that 
 during his travels in China, he " had found Yale 
 men (Chinese) as governors, secretaries and ad- 
 visers of those forces which are struggling to make 
 more of the Chinese Empire." 
 
 The Japanese were eager to counsel the Chinese 
 in this formative period. For two or three years 
 after the Russia-Japan War, their prestige was 
 great, and China appeared to be willing to follow 
 the ambitious islanders. Japanese advisers were 
 influential in shaping Chinese military and political 
 affairs, and thousands of Chinese students flocked 
 to Japan for instruction. In 1907, the number had 
 
 79 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 risen to 15,000. But ere long the sentiment of the 
 Chinese began to change. They were offended by 
 the assumption of superiority which has character- 
 ized the Japanese since their victory over Russia. 
 For this reason, together with others, the num- 
 ber of Chinese students in Japan rapidly dwindled 
 to 3,000. It should be said that the larger num- 
 ber included many who rushed to Japan in the 
 first enthusiasm which followed the Russia-Japan 
 War, and that the smaller number was composed 
 of more earnest and intelligent men. But Japan- 
 ese agents who tried to influence China's policy 
 found themselves rebuffed. An educated Chinese 
 gentleman, with whom I discussed this subject, said 
 rather contemptuously: "Japan is too small and 
 too poor to help China, either in finance or in war, 
 and her people are so immoral that contact with 
 them would be harmful rather than helpful to the 
 Chinese. China wants the best there is in the 
 world, and as all nations are now open to her, she 
 can get the best. Why should we take ideas from 
 Japan when the difference between China and 
 Japan and China and Europe or America is only 
 the difference between six days and fourteen days? 
 What are eight days, especially when they mean 
 superior influences?" When a well-meaning for- 
 eigner proposed a memorial service in Shanghai 
 after the assassination of Prince Ito, Chinese who 
 were consulted opposed it so strongly that the proj- 
 
 80 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 ect had to be abandoned. They declared that they 
 saw no reason why Chinese should honor a Japan- 
 ese statesman, and particularly one who repre- 
 sented the Asiatic ambitions of Japan. 
 
 After the American Government returned to 
 .China the large part of the Boxer in demnity_ that 
 was not needed to meet actual losses, I the Chinese 
 Government decided, in consultation with our De- 
 partment of State, to apply some of it to send to 
 schools and colleges in the United States one hun- 
 dred young men annually for four years and then 
 fifty for twenty-nine years, each student to take a 
 course of seven years. In order that these youths 
 might be carefully selected and given the necessary 
 preparatory training, Ching Hua Academy was 
 established in Peking to which nominated youths 
 are sent from the various Provinces. There were 
 350 students in this school when the Revolution 
 broke out and the faculty was composed of wes- 
 tern trained teacher's. There are now about 700 
 Chinese students in the United States and an in- 
 creasing number of the leaders of the new China 
 are graduates of American institutions. 
 
 Most of the students of modern learning in 
 China were in sympathy with the Revolution. It 
 is estimated that at least ninety-five per cent of 
 those who received part of their education in other 
 lands became, on their return, leaders of revolu- 
 tionary thou ght. ) 
 
 81 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 The language of China is being adapted to the 
 changing conditions. A young missionary writes : 
 *' There are six of us studying Chinese together. 
 Our teachers tell us that we must pay more attention 
 than is usually given to the new words now coming 
 into use. I do not mean the host of scientific terms 
 being turned into Chinese; but the miscellaneous 
 phrases coined chiefly since 1 900 to meet the needs 
 of the new style of thought. These expressions 
 have gained currency mainly through the news- 
 papers, and so we go to the newspapers to find 
 them, rather than to the sinologues whose vocabu- 
 laries were acquired in ante-Boxer days. There is 
 one new word that everybody glibly recites to the 
 inquiring newcomer; it is the word for an ideal, 
 meaning literally, the thing you have your eye 
 on. A fit companion to this is a new way of 
 speaking of a man's purpose in life, his magnetic 
 needle points in such and such a direction. A 
 group of new expressions with the following mean- 
 ings: society, reform, the public good, constitu- 
 tional government, protection of life, taking the 
 initiative, removing obstructions, to volunteer one's 
 services, indicate the direction in which the winds 
 of thought are blowing in China. The newspapers 
 now have a word meaning ' rotten,' which they ap- 
 ply freely to mandarins, to the army, to schools 
 and to things in general. Freedom of religion is 
 another new phrase in Chinese ; so is a term mean- 
 
 82 
 
INTELLECTUAL AwAI^EKIKG And EbtJCATloM 
 
 ing to educate, as distinguihsed from to instruct. 
 The use of the latter was illustrated by a distin- 
 guished Chinese (not a Christian) when he de- 
 clared that a missionary school in Tien-tsin was 
 better than the Confucian schools, because it edu- 
 cates its pupils, developing them both in morals 
 and knowledge ; whereas the Chinese practice is to 
 hand out chunks of learning and ethical advice for 
 pupils to swallow or not as they choose." 
 
 The new life that is stirring the people affects 
 women as well as men. Many schools for girls 
 have been established. The late Empress Dow- 
 ager ordered a large Lama convent to be turned 
 over to a school for girls and directed the Im- 
 perial High Commissioners who were sent in 1906 
 to study American institutions to give special at- 
 tention to the institutions for the education of 
 women. An order of the Imperial Board of Edu- 
 cation decreed that only girls whose feet were not 
 bound should be admitted to the schools under gov- 
 ernment supervision. 
 
 A writer in a Hong-kong journal says : " Not 
 the most optimistic revolutionary, who from the 
 view-point of twenty years ago looked forward to 
 the changes that then seemed impending, would 
 have dared to prophesy an overturning and re- 
 casting so complete as that which now meets the 
 gaze in certain aspects of social and political life 
 in China. Few things have been more rapid or 
 
 83 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 more startling than the emancipation of women, 
 and the acquiescence of officials and other respon- 
 sible leaders among the people in the position of 
 women as a leading factor in public life. The Ori- 
 entalized woman in the chief centres of intellectual 
 activity is a creature of the past. She is becoming 
 every year more Occidental in respect to the posi- 
 tion claimed by her, and accorded to her, as a 
 figure in the new world. National spirit in its 
 most potent forms, working for good or for evil, 
 is raised to the highest plane of effectiveness when 
 it dominates womanhood." 
 
 A remarkable meeting of women was held in 
 Canton in 1908. An Oriental correspondent de- 
 scribes the meeting thus : " The meeting, convened 
 in connection with the difficulty between China and 
 Japan, was a unique one. The proceedings were 
 conducted in a perfectly orderly manner, and stir- 
 ring addresses were made for four hours. The 
 weather conditions were wholly adverse; but not- 
 withstanding the drenching rain that fell continu- 
 ously, fully ten thousand women came together at 
 the place of meeting. For the first time in the his- 
 tory of this great commercial centre, the main 
 thoroughfares were kept open by properly ap- 
 pointed police, told off for the duty of regulating 
 the traffic in order to facilitate the progress of the 
 wives and daughters of its citizens to a meeting 
 in which they were to vindicate their claim to be 
 
 84 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 heard in indignant protest against national injus- 
 tice and wrong." One can only imagine what the 
 editor would have said if he had known that in 
 19 1 2 Chinese suffragettes would storm the Na- 
 tional Assembly in Nanking and smash windows in 
 the most approved London style. 
 
 Christian education has come into special prom- 
 inence. Missionary schools and colleges are far 
 superior in grade of work to the government insti- 
 tutions, and our schools are limited only by their 
 equipment and financial support. The superiority 
 of men trained in the mission schools is quickly ap- 
 parent. Mr, Robert F. Fitch says that when, in 
 1907, the Viceroy of Nanking sought five men to 
 become his advisers and offered a salary of four 
 hundred dollars a month, the men whom he se- 
 lected were all Christians, graduates of Christian 
 colleges in China, three having also studied in 
 America. Of the twelve men who received the 
 highest degrees at the Imperial examination in Pe- 
 king, the same year, one was a graduate of Cam- 
 bridge University and the other eleven were gradu- 
 ates of American (Christian) colleges in China 
 and in our own country. The strongest man, a fine 
 Christian, became the leading member of the 
 Board of Education for all China. Mr. Chang 
 Po Ling, Principal of the school in Tien-tsin 
 founded by the Imperial Minister of Edu- 
 cation, Dr. Yen, to be a model for all China, 
 
 .85 
 
tiiE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 is an active Christian and a man of great 
 influence. 
 
 Everywhere throughout that mighty mass of 
 population, the ideas of the West are working. 
 An intellectual awakening of stupendous propor- 
 tions is taking place. No longer is the ambitious 
 Asiatic content with the classics of Confucius; he 
 is studying the very things that Americans are 
 studying. Ambitious young men of China will get 
 a modern education, and they will get it either 
 from a Christian or a non-Christian. Has this 
 fact any message to the universities and colleges of 
 Europe and America ? 
 
 Unfortunately, the stream of educational and 
 other influences from the West has been contam- 
 inated by many of the vices which disgrace our 
 civilization. The average youth of a generation 
 ago simply had the temptations of his local com- 
 munity; the average youth of to-day has the 
 temptations of the world. The ethnic religions did 
 not have many restraints, and what they had are 
 disappearing. Everywhere I found thoughtful 
 men lamenting that the temptations of the new era 
 are worse than the temptations of the old. 
 
 It is lamentable that the effort of Christianity to 
 deal effectively with the situation in China is seri- 
 ously embarrassed by anti-Christian influences at 
 home. The extent to which the worst elements of 
 Europe and America are reinforcing the powers 
 
 86 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 of evil in Asia and Africa is one of our gravest 
 problems. The very knowledge of the world that 
 has helped to bring about such changes in China 
 has taught the Chinese that the so-called Chris- 
 tian nations are characterized by much that is 
 selfish and greedy and lustful. Religion to the 
 Asiatic is a national rather than an individual mat- 
 ter. He imagines that western nations are Chris- 
 tian nations, and when he sees them trying to 
 despoil his territory and sees that their relations 
 with his country are characterized by trickery and 
 deceit, he naturally concludes that he does not want 
 the religion of such a country. 
 
 The conduct of many foreigners in the Far East 
 has long been a cause of irritation to the Chinese 
 and one of the serious obstacles to missionary ef- 
 fort. It is small wonder that the average Oriental 
 distrusts and fears white men when he observes 
 what many of them are and what they do. The 
 history of the commercial and political relation- 
 ships of western nations with eastern nations is 
 not comfortable reading for those who seek to in- 
 culcate sentiments of mutual respect and good will. 
 " There are many humorous things in the world," 
 observes Mark Twain; "among them the white 
 man's notion that he is less savage than the other 
 savages." I found the following " Special No- 
 tice " conspicuously posted in a dozen places about 
 the Ming Tombs near Nanking: 
 
 87 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Owing to past acts of vandalism and defacement of 
 the Imperial tablets, monuments and ancient relics in the 
 vicinity of the Ming Tombs, palings have been erected by 
 order of His Excellency, Viceroy Tuan Fang, for the 
 preservation of same. Visitors are therefore hereby re- 
 quested to abstain from entering within the said palings 
 or doing anything that may be detrimental to the said 
 Imperial tablets, monuments and relics in this vicinity. 
 
 Wan, Tao-tai. 
 
 Liang-kiang, Bureau of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 Yang, Prefect of Kiang-ning. 
 
 This was printed in English, French, Russian, 
 German, Italian and Japanese, but not in Chinese 
 — that was not necessary. A glance at the arches, 
 monuments and buildings afforded humiliating evi- 
 dence not only of the necessity for the notice but 
 of the nationality of those for whom it was in- 
 tended. Objects sacred to the Chinese were grossly 
 disfigured by names and other marks scrawled and 
 cut upon the stone and woodwork, most of them 
 in English. Who can blame the Chinese for hat- 
 ing and despising foreigners who do such things? 
 
 The foreign communities in the ports of Asia 
 include a larger number of men and women of 
 high character than formerly. There are some 
 splendid people in those cities ; but the proportion 
 of the dissolute is still painfully great. When 
 Judge Wilfley went to Shanghai to open the first 
 United States Court in China, the term " Ameri- 
 
 88 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 can girl " was popularly understood to mean an 
 exceptionally attractive woman of ill-repute. He 
 drove out the prostitutes, but they returned after 
 he left and to-day, as in former years, every port 
 in the Far East swarms with bad characters of both 
 sexes from Europe and America. The worst men 
 in the Far East to-day are not Chinese or Japanese 
 or Koreans ; they are degenerate white men. Read 
 what Mr. Taft said in his official reports as Gov- 
 ernor-General of the Philippine Islands regarding 
 the personal character — or rather lack of personal 
 character — of many Americans in that region. 
 Read the article ^ of Mr. Robert Murray about 
 the moral cesspool in the American section of 
 Shanghai. I agree with the Hon, John Fowler, 
 American Consul at Chefoo, in the statement that 
 a Chinese who sincerely worships a stone image 
 is a better man to deal with and a more promising 
 man to convert than a white man who does not be- 
 lieve in anything. The former at least reveres 
 the best that he knows. The latter, knowing the 
 better, ignores it. The most hopeless individual 
 anywhere is the one who, understanding truth, re- 
 fuses to conform his life to it. Every Chinese is a 
 Confucian and a Buddhist, and he imagines that 
 every white man is a Christian. Christianity there- 
 fore has to bear the reproach of men from the 
 West who deliberately reject its teachings. The 
 
 ' The Cosmopolitan, October, 1908. 
 89 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 evil acts of one foreigner are charged against the 
 white race, as in pioneer days in the American col- 
 onies, a settler whose wife had been killed by an 
 Indian took his revenge by indiscriminately shoot- 
 ing all the Indians he could find. Any hatred that 
 the Chinese may have against Christianity is due, 
 not so much to its religious teachings as to its iden- 
 tification with the foreign nations whose religion 
 Christianity is supposed to be. 
 
 Most of the criticisms of missionaries which find 
 their way into newspapers emanate from these dis- 
 solute foreigners. The missionaries do not gam- 
 ble, drink whisky or keep mistresses, and so they 
 are sneered at as " canting hypocrites " and are be- 
 lieved to be doing " no good " by the critic who 
 has never visited a Chinese Christian church, 
 school or hospital in his life. The editor of The 
 Japan Mail justly remarks: "We do not sug- 
 gest that these newspapers which denounce the 
 missionaries so vehemently desire to be unjust or 
 have any suspicion that they are unjust. But we 
 do assert that they have manifestly taken on the 
 color of that section of every far eastern commu- 
 nity whose units, for some strange reason, enter- 
 tain an inveterate prejudice against the missionary 
 and his works. Were it possible for these persons 
 to give an intelligent explanation of the dislike 
 with which the missionary inspires them, their 
 opinions would command more respect. But they 
 
 90 
 
o 
 o 
 X 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 H 
 ai 
 
 O 
 
 < 
 
 H 
 
 o 
 
 ai 
 
 h 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 have never succeeded in making any logical pre- 
 sentment of their case, and no choice offers except 
 to regard them as the victims of an antipathy 
 which has no basis in reason or reflection. That a 
 man should be anti-Christian and should devote 
 his pen to propagating his views is strictly within 
 his right, and we must not be understood as sug- 
 gesting that the smallest reproach attaches to such 
 a person. But on the other hand, it is within the 
 right of the missionary to protest against being 
 arraigned before judges habitually hostile to him, 
 and it is within the right of the public to scrutinize 
 the pronouncements of such judges with much sus- 
 picion." 
 
 May we not justly insist that nations as well as 
 individuals shall abandon the methods of brutal- 
 ity and rapine? If we expect to influence the Chi- 
 nese for good, we must not preach one thing as a 
 Church and the opposite thing as a nation. It is 
 not true, as some have alleged, that the Chinese 
 cannot understand justice and magnanimity.. Even 
 if it were true, it would not follow that we should 
 be unjust and pitiless. Let us instruct them in 
 the higher things. But as a matter of fact, the 
 Chinese are as amenable to reason as any people 
 in the world. Their temperament, inertia and 
 long isolation from the remainder of mankind have 
 made them slow to grasp a new idea. But they 
 will get it if they are given reasonable time, and 
 
 91 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 when they do once get it, they will hold it. Fair- 
 ness and humanity in all dealings with the Chinese, 
 while not perhaps wholly preventing outbreaks of 
 hostility, will at least give less occasion for them. 
 
 It is painfully clear that unchristian white men 
 in China and the unchristian policies of western 
 nations help to undermine old foundations without 
 building new ones, and thus make conditions worse 
 than they were before. The Christian Register 
 well says, that " the more we open the world to 
 what we call civilization, and the more education 
 we give it of the kind we call scientific, the greater 
 are the dangers to modern society, unless in some 
 way we contrive to make all the world better. 
 Brigands armed with repeating rifles and supplied 
 with smokeless gunpowder are brigands still, but 
 ten times more dangerous than they were before. 
 The vast hordes of human beings in Asia and 
 Africa, so long as they are left in seclusion, arc 
 dangerous to their immediate neighbors ; but, when 
 they have railroads, steamboats, tariffs, and 
 machine-guns, while they retain their savage ideals 
 and barbarous customs, they become dangerous to 
 all the rest of the world." 
 
 An irreligious civilization is always and every- 
 where a curse rather than a blessing. From the 
 Garden of Eden down, the fall of man has resulted 
 in what George Adam Smith calls " the increase of 
 knowledge and of power unaccompanied by rever- 
 
 92 
 
INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING AND EDUCATION 
 
 ence. . . . No evolution is stable which neglects 
 the moral factor or seeks to shake itself free from 
 the eternal duties of obedience and of faith. . . . 
 The Song of Lamech echoes from a remote an- 
 tiquity the savage truth that ' the first results of 
 civilization are to equip hatred and render revenge 
 more deadly ... a savage exultation in the fresh 
 power of vengeance which all the novel instru- 
 ments have placed in their inventor's hands.' " 
 
 Unless our best Christian men and women go 
 to China to teach and exemplify a nobler faith, 
 the last state of the Chinese will be worse than 
 the first. 
 
 93 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 QUICKENING AND CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Fortunately, a nobler and more constructive in- 
 fluence has been operating in China, the most en- 
 lightening and quickening of all influences — the 
 Christian teachings which were brought by mis- 
 sionaries from the West. The story of Christian 
 Missions to the Chinese is one of extraordinary in- 
 terest, a story of toil and struggle, of privation and 
 danger, of large success and consequent responsi- 
 bility. As far back as the first decade of the sixth 
 century, Nestorian monks appear to have begun 
 a mission in China, Romance and tragedy are 
 suggested by the few known facts regarding that 
 early movement. Partly impelled by conviction, 
 partly driven by persecution, those faithful souls 
 traveled beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire 
 and rested not till they had made the formidable 
 journey across deserts and mountains to " the land 
 of Sinim." A quaint monument at Hsian-fu, the 
 capital of Shen-si, is the only remaining trace of 
 what must have been an interesting and perhaps 
 a thrilling missionary enterprise. 
 
 94. 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Roman Catholic effort began in 1293, when 
 John de Corvino succeeded in reaching Peking. 
 The failure of his effort was followed by two and 
 a half centuries of silence, and then, in 1552, the 
 heroic Francis Xavier set his face towards China, 
 only to be prostrated by fever on the Island of 
 Sancian. As he despairingly realized that he 
 would never be able to set his foot on that still im- 
 penetrable land, he moaned: "Oh, Rock, Rock, 
 when wilt thou open?" and passed away. In 
 158 1, another Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, entered Can- 
 ton in the guise of a Buddhist priest. He managed 
 to remain, and twenty years later he went to Pe- 
 king. In him Roman Catholicism gained a per- 
 manent foothold in China, and although it was 
 often fiercely persecuted and at times reduced to 
 feebleness, it never became wholly extinct. Grad- 
 ually it extended its Influence until, in 1672, the 
 priests reported 300,000 baptized Chinese, in- 
 cluding children. In the nineteenth century, the 
 growth of the Roman Church was rapid. It is 
 now strongly intrenched in all the Provinces, and 
 In most of the leading cities its power is great. 
 There are to-day 1,201 foreign priests, 550 Chi- 
 nese priests, 291 lay brothers, 3,846 sisters, 6,025 
 churches and chapels, 986,168 members, 426,480 
 catechumens, 5,621 schools and 514 charitable in- 
 stitutions.^ 
 
 • " World Atlas of Christian Missions." 
 
 95 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 It is not to the credit of Protestantism that it 
 was centuries behind the Roman Church in the at- 
 tempt to Christianize China. It was not till 1 807 
 that the first Protestant missionary arrived. On 
 January 31st of that year, Robert Morrison, 
 then a youth of twenty-five, sailed alone from 
 London under appointment by the London Mis- 
 sionary Society. The East India Company 
 would not allow a missionary on any of its ships, 
 and Morrison came to New York to see if he could 
 secure passage on an American vessel. Here he 
 met a Presbyterian elder with the formidable name 
 of David Washington Cincinnatus Olyphant. But 
 David Washington Cincinnatus Olyphant owned 
 a line of ships, and when he learned of young Mor- 
 rison's purpose he gave him free passage to China. 
 If, therefore, England deserves the credit for fur- 
 nishing the first Protestant missionary for China, 
 America deserves the credit of getting him there. 
 Everyone has heard of the remark in the ship- 
 owner's office : " And so, Mr. Morrison, you really 
 expect that you will make an impression on the 
 idolatry of the great Chinese Empire? " If Mr. 
 Olyphant was the questioner, the words could not 
 have been spoken in derision, as commonly sup- 
 posed. At any rate, Morrison's answer has be- 
 come historic : " No sir, I expect God will." 
 
 And so the young man sailed on the good 
 ship Trident the middle of May. When on the 
 
 96 
 
See page gj 
 
 Robert Morrison and His Chinese Teachers 
 
 Translating the Bible into Chinese 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 eighth day of September, that solitary, friendless 
 man landed upon the soil of China, a new era 
 dawned, for the mightiest reconstructive and up- 
 lifting force in the world — the preaching of the 
 open Bible — ^began to operate in that ancient 
 Empire. 
 
 He met suspicion and opposition. His own 
 countrymen were hostile to his purpose and his 
 Chinese language teachers were impatient and in- 
 solent. He was obliged to present Christianity 
 behind locked doors to the few Chinese whom he 
 dared approach. In these circumstances, he natu- 
 rally gave his energies largely to language study 
 and translation, and in 1810 he had the joy of 
 issuing a thousand copies of a Chinese version of 
 the Book of Acts. 
 
 Seven weary, discouraging years passed before 
 Morrison baptized his first convert, July 16, 18 14, 
 and even then he had to administer the sacrament 
 at a lonely spot where unfriendly eyes could not 
 see him. There is something inspiring in the 
 thought of that lonely young man, enduring and 
 toiling with fortitude undaunted, with resolution 
 superb, until he had attained splendid success. 
 Progress was slow. At his death in 1834, there 
 were only three Protestant Chinese Christians in 
 the whole Empire. Successors carried on the ef- 
 fort, but the door was not yet open, and the work 
 was done against many obstacles and chiefly in 
 
 97 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 secret till the treaty of Nanking, in 1842, opened 
 the five ports of Amoy, Canton, Foo-chow, Ning- 
 po and Shanghai. Missionaries who had been 
 waiting in the neighboring lands promptly en- 
 tered these cities. Eagerly they looked to the 
 great population in the interior, but they were 
 practically confined to the ports named till 1858, 
 wheii the treaty of Tien-tsin opened other cities 
 and officially conceded the rights of missionary 
 residence and labor. 
 
 The work now spread more rapidly, not only 
 because it was conducted in more centres and by a 
 larger force of missionaries, but because it was 
 carried into the interior regions by Chinese who 
 had heard the Gospel in the ports. The following 
 table is eloquent : 
 
 1807 O communicants 
 
 1814 I 
 
 1834 3 
 
 1843 6 
 
 1853 350 
 
 1857 1,000 " 
 
 1865 2,000 " 
 
 1876 13,515 
 
 1886 28,000 " 
 
 1889 37.287 
 
 1893 55.093 
 
 1897 80,682 
 
 1903 114,687 
 
 1910 278,628 
 
 98 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The present scale of Protestant missionary work 
 is indicated by the following statistics^ : 4,299 for- 
 eign missionaries, 11,661 Chinese ministers, teach- 
 ers and evangelists, 3,485 stations and out- 
 stations, 2,029 primary schools, 1,116 academies, 
 colleges, industrial, medical, nurses' and normal 
 schools, 170 hospitals, 14 orphanages, 16 leper 
 asylums, 3 homes for untainted children of lepers, 
 1 1 institutions for the blind and for deaf mutes, 5 
 rescue homes for fallen women, 100 opium ref- 
 uges, 2 industrial homes, i asylum for the in- 
 sane, 2,341 churches with 278,628 members, a 
 Christian community of 750,000, and property 
 valued at millions of dollars. The work has been 
 marvelously prospered, the net gain since the 
 Boxer Uprising of 1900 being nearly two hundred 
 per cent. The Bible has been translated and, with 
 the generous aid of the Bible Societies, 46,400,000 
 copies have been printed and distributed; while 
 myriads of scripture portions and Christian tracts 
 and books are pouring from mission presses. 
 
 It would be difficult to overestimate the silent 
 and yet mighty energy represented by such work, 
 steadily continued through a long series of years 
 and representing the life labors of thousands of 
 devoted men and women and an annual expen- 
 diture of hundreds of thousands of dollars. True, 
 the number of Christians is small in comparison 
 
 ' " World Atlas of Christian Missions." 
 
 99 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 with the population of the country, but the Gospel 
 has been aptly compared to a seed. Lodged in 
 the crevice of a rock, a seed will thrust its thread- 
 like roots into tiny fissures and in time they will 
 rend the rock asunder and firmly hold a stately 
 tree. The seed of the Gospel has been planted 
 in the Chinese nation. It is a seed of indestruc- 
 tible vitality and irresistible transforming power. 
 It has taken root, and the extraordinary transfor- 
 mations that are taking place in China are, in part 
 at least, the results of its tremendous expansive 
 force. 
 
 The National Review, a secular journal in 
 Shanghai, said editorially, November 12, 19 10, at 
 the time of the demand of the Chinese people for 
 a constitution and parliament: " It would be very 
 difficult indeed to say where and when the move- 
 ment for constitutional reform was born, but we 
 do not think we should be very far wrong if we 
 dated it in 1807 when Robert Morrison first set 
 foot in China. From that event dates the open- 
 ing, the very slow opening, of China's eyes to her 
 own defects and weaknesses, and it has been from 
 the successors of Morrison, in their thousands, that 
 the fuller enlightenment of China has come. It 
 has been the influence of these men, especially 
 through the literature that they have produced, 
 that has made possible the events of the past few 
 days." 
 
 100 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Mr. F. A. M'Kenzie, the famous newspaper 
 correspondent, now editor of the London Times, 
 wrote after his long journey through China: 
 " The missionaries are the men who began the 
 work of awakening China. . . . Their work is 
 not to be measured by their enrolled converts. 
 They have been the pioneers battering down preju- 
 dices and misunderstandings. They have shown 
 the people what western civilization means. They 
 brought modern medical knowledge to China and 
 China is now adopting it. They brought western 
 learning. They have been not only the teachers 
 of religion but the advance agents of civilization. 
 To me it seems that in the missionary movement 
 in China to-day we have, despite mistakes, misun- 
 derstandings, and a proportion of unsuitable men, 
 one of the most splendid exhibitions of Anglo- 
 Saxon altruism the world has ever seen." 
 
 Is Christianity then responsible for the Revolu- 
 tion? If by responsibility is meant either inciting 
 men to revolt or having anything to do with in- 
 surrections, the answer is an unequivocal No. It 
 is foolish to say that the missionary is responsible 
 for the prompt appearance of " the consul and the 
 gunboat." The true missionary goes forth with- 
 out either consul or gunboat. He devotes his life 
 to unselfish altruistic labor. He relies not upon 
 man, but upon God. But as soon as his work be- 
 gins to tell, the trader appears to buy and sell in 
 
 lOI 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 the new market. The statesman casts covetous 
 eyes on the opened territory. Then the consul is 
 sent, not because the missionary asks for him, but 
 because his Government chooses to send him. 
 Sooner or later some local trouble occurs, usually 
 precipitated by the business agent or the political 
 envoy, and the Government takes advantage of the 
 opportunity to further its territorial or commer- 
 cial ambitions. 
 
 As for changes within the non-Christian nation, 
 violence is not a part of the program of Jesus. 
 His law is love and its out-working in human soci- 
 ety is peaceful. But Christianity inculcates right- 
 eousness, justice, brotherhood and liberty. When 
 unrighteousness, injustice and despotism are in- 
 trenched and defiantly refuse to yield, trouble 
 becomes inevitable. The breaking out of such 
 trouble does not mean that righteousness should 
 not have been preached ; it does not mean that men 
 should have been left in oppression and ignorance 
 and superstition. It means that life everywhere 
 is the foe of death, that righteousness everywhere 
 is the foe of wrong, light the foe of darkness. 
 
 The scope of this book does not permit an ex- 
 tended account of the missionary movement in 
 China. It has been given in many volumes that 
 are easily accessible. Nearly all the Christian 
 Churches, European and American, are repre- 
 sented and their missionaries are teaching the 
 
 I02 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 young, healing the sick, translating the Word of 
 God, creating a wholesome literature, and preach- 
 ing everywhere and with a fidelity beyond all 
 praise the truths of the Christian religion. Self- 
 sacrificing devotion and patient persistence in well- 
 doing are written on eyery page of the history of 
 missions in China, while emergencies have devel- 
 oped deeds of the noblest heroism. 
 
 I visited China in 1901 and again in 1909. 
 The contrast was remarkable. In 1901, there 
 were less than 100,000 Protestant Christians in 
 China. Several station plants were in ruins, while 
 the buildings in a number of others had been 
 looted. The fires of the Boxer Uprising were still 
 smoldering, though the period of actual violence 
 had passed. The women of the northern and cen- 
 tral Missions were huddled in the treaty ports. 
 Some of the men had returned to the interior sta- 
 tions, but they were living in temporary quarters 
 and in much discomfort. Everyone was appalled 
 by the apparent ruin of the work and the massacre 
 of beloved associates. Many of the Chinese Chris- 
 tians had been murdered. Some of the survivors 
 were scattered no one knew where, and the few 
 that could be found were depressed and poverty- 
 stricken. It was pitiful to look into their faces and 
 heartrending to hear the stories of what they had 
 suffered. The allied armies of Europe and Amer- 
 ica had crushed the Boxer Uprising, but the people 
 
 103 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 were sullen and ugly. At home, too, there was a 
 renewed outbreak of criticism and of hostility to 
 all missionary effort. Many believed that the mis- 
 sionary enterprise in China had received a blow 
 from which it would never recover. No Chinese, 
 it was said, would ever again confess Christ. 
 
 How different the situation in 1909! The de- 
 stroyed stations had been rebuilt on a larger scale 
 than before, and they are now among the best 
 equipped plants. Every station that had to be 
 abandoned had been reoccupied, property that was 
 not destroyed had been put in order, new buildings 
 had been added, and the missionary force had 
 been increased. Missionaries traveled freely 
 through every part of the country, from which they 
 had been driven by the Boxers. More Chinese were 
 baptized during these eight years than in half a 
 century preceding the Boxer Uprising. The Rev. 
 J. Campbell Gibson, D.D., noted a wider contrast 
 at the Centenary Conference of 1907 : " The great 
 achievement of the first century of Protestant Mis- 
 sions in China has been the planting of the Chinese 
 Church. A vast amount of contributory work 
 has been done — evangelistic, pastoral, educational, 
 medical, literary, social — and a large experience 
 has been gained which should enable us to direct 
 all these with growing precision and force to the 
 attainment of their ends, A great multitude of 
 men, women and children have been led into light. 
 
 104 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 This body of Christians, with its equipment of 
 gathered spiritual experience, of Bible, hymnology 
 and Christian literature, its places of worship, its 
 churches, schools, colleges, hospitals and printing 
 presses, its ordinances of worship, its discipline of 
 prayer, and its habits of family and personal re- 
 ligion, with Its martyrology, and its gathered mem- 
 ories of gracious living and holy dying — this is 
 the wonderful fruit which one hundred years have 
 left In our hands." 
 
 The last three years have been marked by some 
 remarkable manifestations of spiritual power. 
 The revival In the Arts College of the Shantung 
 Christian University, at Wel-hsien in 1909, was 
 one of the most hopeful movements in the history 
 of missions. It began quietly and continued with- 
 out any artificial efforts to work up excitement. 
 Prof. H. W. Luce writes: 
 
 One of the graduates of the College, the Rev, Ding 
 Li Mei, began special services March 30th. The num- 
 ber of those deciding for the ministry increased to twenty 
 and then to thirty. There seemed to be no undue excite- 
 ment of any kind, no adequate outward manifestation of 
 emotion. The number increased to sixty and then to 
 eighty. Saturday night, Mr. Ding conducted a " witness 
 meeting " in which those who had decided for the ministry 
 gave their reasons. Only one man wept, and none broke 
 down. But all were conscious of a closeness of approach 
 of the Holy Spirit such as they had never known before. 
 This spirit continued through Sunday with unabated 
 
 105 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 strength, and it was found that ii6 had volunteered for 
 the ministry. The number of the students in the College 
 is 300 and in the Academy 80. It is a mighty challenge 
 to the young Church in Shantung, as indeed it is to the 
 Church at home, that they fail not in prayer and aid at 
 such a time as this. 
 
 The Arts College of the North China Union 
 Colleges at Tung-chou, near Peking, witnessed 
 similar scenes. Following the meetings held by 
 the Rev. Ding Li Mei, 81 of the 150 students de- 
 cided to study for the ministry and 50 others con- 
 secrated themselves to Christian work in other 
 professions. We have long been hoping and pray- 
 ing for the appearance of educated Chinese who 
 would give themselves to the ministry of Christ 
 among their own people. God has now answered 
 this prayer in a startling manner. 
 
 Many in the home Church are following with 
 sympathetic interest the remarkable career of the 
 Chinese minister referred to, the Rev. Ding Li 
 Mei. He has become, under God, a mighty spir- 
 itual force in China. He has held meetings in 
 many different parts of the country, and he 
 preaches the Gospel with such directness and power 
 and supports it by a life of such evident devotion 
 that the effect upon the Chinese is profound. No 
 other evangelist in all the world is being more won- 
 derfully used of God at this time than this conse- 
 crated Chinese. 
 
 106 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Much might also be said about the great awak- 
 ening in Manchuria in connection with the 
 preaching of the Rev. J. Goforth, of the Canadian 
 Presbyterian Church. The pamphlet, " Times of 
 Blessing in Manchuria," recounts stirring experi- 
 ences. During the year 19 lo, Mr. Goforth con- 
 ducted services in twenty-eight centres in different 
 sections of China. In Nanking, the meetings were 
 held in a tent which accommodated 1,200 people; 
 but the interest was so great that 1,400 and even 
 1,500 people were crowded into it. The usually 
 impassive Chinese broke down completely before the 
 marked presence of the Holy Spirit, and scenes 
 were witnessed which missionaries of a generation 
 ago would have deemed almost incredible. Con- 
 version was invariably accompanied by confession 
 of sin, and many instances of restitution proved 
 the sincerity of repentance. At Kai-ting, in the 
 far west of China, the meetings were characterized 
 by such spiritual power, and by such changes in 
 the lives of converts, that non-Christian Chi- 
 nese on the streets said to one another : " The 
 Christian's God has come down." In the Province 
 of Shan-si, waves of confession and prayer passed 
 over the congregations, and the very atmosphere 
 seemed charged with Pentecostal influence. One 
 man confessed that during the Boxer Uprising a 
 large sum of money was sent by the foreigners in 
 Ping Yang-fu to a missionary who afterwards 
 
 107 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 died. The money was hidden for safety in the 
 court-yard of a native Christian. He dug it up 
 and used it; and now after the lapse of years he 
 made full confession. As one of the humble hear- 
 ers said, " The Holy Spirit surely has come." 
 
 The Chinese Recorder describes a revival in 
 Hing-hwa in the Province of Fo-kien, which was 
 signalized by like power. Among the converts 
 were members of a firm of importers of morphine, 
 who brought their entire stock to the church and 
 turned it over to the pastor to be destroyed. The 
 church, which seats a thousand people, could not 
 accommodate the throngs that attended. The first 
 triennial meeting of the Evangelistic Association 
 of China, at Hankow, December 7-12, 19 10, was 
 attended by 77 foreign and 158 Chinese delegates 
 representing eleven Provinces, besides Manchuria 
 and Formosa, 26 Boards and 5 different nation- 
 alities. Nightly evangelistic meetings in the city 
 and in Wu-chang across the river were attended 
 by an average of 10,000 people, about 2,000 of 
 whom were students. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Hunter Corbett writes of another 
 revival : " The members, wishing to have the bless- 
 ing extended to other centres, invited pastors and 
 leading members of churches in all the surround- 
 ing country to come and receive a spiritual uplift 
 that they might return to their homes and help 
 others. The Church sending the invitations sub- 
 
 108 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 scribed liberally to pay for the entertainment of 
 the guests. The members of a Training School 
 for Bible Women requested that each might be 
 permitted to fast three times a week for a month, 
 and that the money saved be paid into the enter- 
 tainment fund. Later, in scores of places, pastors 
 began to pray, first for a revival in their own hearts 
 and then in the Church and community; and the 
 prayers were answered. One pastor wrote of the 
 revival in his Church that the voice of praise and 
 the cry of confession mingled together. Daily 
 meetings, twice a day for fifty days, had prepared 
 the large company to expect great things from 
 God. Thousands instead of hundreds, as had been 
 expected, were present. Saturday night a count was 
 made and 4,800 were found. Sunday night there 
 were four simultaneous meetings, aggregating be- 
 tween 6,000 and 7,000. At another centre, the 
 revival was preceded by more than a hundred 
 assembling for four days waiting upon the Lord." 
 The Rev. Charles E. Scott, of Tsing-tau, writes 
 as follows of a tour which he made in company 
 with three Chinese, a minister, a teacher and an 
 elder : 
 
 Three thousand people in the groups heard the Gospel 
 among the villages, and twice that number in the tent. 
 It mattered not that often the air was choking with dust; 
 the people listened. One afternoon when a Christian and 
 I were out in a village, a wind blew up fierce and hot; 
 
 109 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 but all the afternoon men crowded into that dirty, ill- 
 smelling room to hear the Gospel. When the wind slack- 
 ened, the entire village as it seemed — patriarchs, middle- 
 aged and youth — sat or stood around us in the dusty 
 main street to hear the Word. Each group of workers 
 reported the same experience of eager, willing listeners. 
 
 And still the work goes on. Letters from Ichou- 
 fu, Shantung, include the following: 
 
 It was almost with fear and trembling that we 
 looked forward to the coming of the Chinese evangelist. 
 Pastor Ding, in January. There seemed so many diffi- 
 culties in the way. The time was unseasonable, being the 
 last month of the Chinese calendar when the people are 
 busiest. The weather was very cold and the roads unusu- 
 ally bad owing to deep snow, and we feared that but few 
 of the country Christians whom we had invited would be 
 able to come. 
 
 However, on the very day of Pastor Ding's arrival, 
 surprises began. Day after day the number grew, until 
 they taxed the utmost capacity of our new church. On 
 the third day, opportunities were given to those who 
 wished to study the Gospel to come forward while their 
 names were recorded. Eighty-two responded ... the 
 number reached 865. After a few more days, the en- 
 rolment reached 1,000; and still the number grew until 
 it stood at over 1,400. 
 
 It would be easy to mention other revivals in 
 various parts of China. But surely enough has 
 been said to evoke profound thanksgiving and 
 gratitude to God and to make us feel that a new 
 
 no 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 day is dawning in China. A spiritual movement 
 which has manifested itself in such different parts 
 of the Empire as Fo-kien, Kiang-si, Shan-si, Shen- 
 si, Honan, Shantung and Che-kiang, which has 
 been characterized by the preaching of Chinese 
 ministers more than by that of missionaries, and 
 has been attended by large accessions and by the 
 enriched spiritual life of the Church, unmistakably 
 indicates a mighty trend toward the goals of God. 
 I would not give the impression that all China 
 is about to become Christian and that there is no 
 reason for anxiety. Side by side with these re- 
 markable manifestations of spiritual power, there' 
 are evidences of growing suspicion and even of hos- 
 tility. This might normally be expected. As long 
 as the work was small and obscure, there was no 
 special reason why the Chinese as a whole should 
 assume any particular attitude toward it. Multi- 
 tudes indeed knew nothing about it, and many 
 who did know regarded it with contemptuous in- 
 difference. As numbers grow and as congregations 
 become more influential, the Chinese people begin 
 to consider this new movement. Indifference 
 changes to curiosity, and this in turn develops 
 into either open sympathy or open opposition. 
 This is indicative not of failure, but of success. 
 Brighter lights always mean darker shadows. 
 Christianity in China has reached the point where 
 men are taking sides for or against it. 
 
 Ill 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Much has been said about the character of the 
 Chinese Christians and doubts have been ignorantly 
 cast on the genuineness of their faith. They do 
 sometimes try the patience of the missionary; but 
 is the home pastor never distressed by the con- 
 duct of his people? The real question is this: Is 
 the Christian Chinese a better man than the non- 
 Christian Chinese, more moral, more truthful, 
 more just, more reliable ? The answer is so patent 
 that no one who knows the facts can doubt it for 
 a moment. The best men and women in China 
 to-day are Christians. This is not saying that 
 all church members are good or that all non- 
 Christian Chinese are bad; but it is saying that 
 comparing the average Christian with the average 
 non-Christian, the superiority of the former in 
 those things which make for character and conduct 
 is immeasurable. 
 
 Is it said that the Chinese have become Chris- 
 tians for gain? Then how shall we account for 
 the fact that out of their deep poverty they give 
 more for church work in proportion to their abil- 
 ity than Christians at home? Some Americans 
 join American Churches for business or social ends 
 and probably some Chinese have professed conver- 
 sion in the hope of securing employment; but the 
 average Chinese incurs financial loss rather than 
 gain if he becomes a Christian. Self-support of the 
 Church has been so vigorously pushed that Chinese 
 
 112 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Christians know that they will probably receive 
 less and less from abroad. But the number grows 
 with remarkable rapidity. Missionary correspond- 
 ence indicates evidences of fidelity in service, of 
 tribulation joyfully borne, of systematic giving out 
 of scanty resources. While sapient critics are tell- 
 ing us that the Chinese cannot be converted, they 
 are not only being converted but are manifesting 
 a consecration and self-denial which should shame 
 many in Christian lands. 
 
 The history of missions in China has shown that 
 it requires more time to convert a Chinese to Chris- 
 tianity than some other Asiatics, but that when he 
 is converted, he holds to his new faith with a tenac- 
 ity and fortitude which the most awful persecution 
 seldom shakes. The behavior of the Chinese 
 Christians under the baptism of blood and fire to 
 which they were subjected in the Boxer Uprising 
 eloquently testified to the genuineness of their 
 faith. That some should have fallen away was 
 to be expected. Not every Christian, even in the 
 United States, can " endure hardness." Let a hun- 
 dred men anywhere be told that if they do not 
 abandon their faith, their homes will be burned, 
 their business ruined, their wives ravished, their 
 children brained, and they themselves scourged 
 and beheaded, and a proportion of them will flinch. 
 
 But as I visited the scenes of disaster in 1901, 
 saw the frightful ruin, heard the stories of Chris- 
 
 113 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 tians and missionaries, faced the little companies 
 of survivors and learned more of the awful ordeal 
 through which they had passed, I marveled, not 
 that some had yielded, but that so many stood 
 steadfast. The uneducated peasant was no whit 
 behind his cultivated countrymen in devotion to 
 duty. A poor cook was seized and beaten, his 
 ears were cut off, his mouth and. cheeks gashed with 
 a sword and other unspeakable mutilations in- 
 flicted. Yet he stood as firmly as any martyr of 
 the early Church. 
 
 One of the Chinese preachers, on refusing to 
 apostatize, received a hundred blows upon his bare 
 back, and then the bleeding sufferer was told to 
 choose between obedience and another hundred 
 blows. What would we have answered? Let us, 
 who have never been called on to suffer for Christ, 
 be modest in saying what we would have done. 
 But that mangled, half -dead Chinese gasped: " I 
 value Jesus Christ more than life and I will never 
 deny Him ! " Before all of the second hundred 
 blows could be inflicted, unconsciousness came and 
 he was left for dead. A friend took him away by 
 night, bathed his wounds, and secretly nursed him 
 to recovery. I saw him and looked reverently 
 upon the flesh that was seamed and scarred with 
 " the marks of the Lord Jesus." Of the hundreds 
 of Christians who were taken inside the British 
 legation camps in Peking, not one proved false 
 
 114 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OP CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to their benefactors. Even the children were faith- 
 ful. During the tumult of bursting shells and the 
 roar of burning buildings, the voices of the Junior 
 Christian Endeavor Society were heard singing: 
 
 There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes. 
 
 Such instances could be multiplied almost in- 
 definitely from the experiences of Chinese Chris- 
 tians during the Boxer Uprising. Indeed the 
 fortitude of the persecuted Christians was so re- 
 markable that in many cases the Boxers cut out the 
 hearts of their victims to find the secret of such 
 sublime faith, declaring, " They have eaten the 
 foreigner's medicine." In those humble Chinese 
 the world has again seen a vital faith, again seen 
 that the age of heroism has not passed, again seen 
 that men and women are willing to die for Christ. 
 Multitudes withstood a persecution as frightful as 
 that of the early disciples in the arenas of Nero. 
 If they were hypocrites, why did they not recant? 
 " One-tenth of the hypocrisy with which they were 
 charged would have saved them from martyrdom," 
 But thousands died rather than abjure their faith, 
 and thousands more " had trial of mockings and 
 scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprison- 
 ment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, 
 they were tempted, they were slain with the sword ; 
 they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being 
 destitute, afflicted, evil entreated; . . . wandering 
 
 115 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes 
 of the earth." And of them as of the saints of 
 old we may say, " of whom the world was not 
 worthy." 
 
 The attitude of the Chinese people as a whole 
 toward missionaries is not so much anti-Christian 
 as anti-foreign. As missionaries become better 
 known, they are, as a rule, more popular with the 
 Chinese than other foreigners, or at any rate less 
 disliked; for they get into closer touch with the 
 people, speak their language, are more careful to 
 respect native customs, and show lives of unselfish 
 devotion. At first, indeed, officials in particular re- 
 garded missionaries with a suspicion which in- 
 cluded an element of contempt. They did not 
 understand why missionaries came. The idea that 
 white men would incur so much trouble and ex- 
 pense from disinterested motives seemed prepos- 
 terous. Ulterior designs were invariably suspected, 
 and these designs were ordinarily believed to be 
 of a political character. This belief was strength- 
 ened by the close relations of Roman Catholic mis- 
 sionaries with the political ambitions of France; 
 while the number of times that British, German 
 and American diplomatic and consular officials 
 pressed questions affecting Protestant missionaries 
 and their property sometimes brought the latter 
 under the same suspicion. Native officials seldom 
 un4erstood the difference between Roman Catholic 
 
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 ►J 
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 3 
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 5 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OP CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and Protestant missionaries. They simply knew 
 that missionaries were at work; and when com- 
 plaints were sent in, the reports usually failed to 
 specify the affiliations of the alleged offenders. 
 The consequence was that Protestant missionaries 
 generally shared in the odium which the policy of 
 the Roman Catholic missionaries developed. 
 
 I am not criticizing the Roman Catholic Church; 
 I am simply referring to the well-known historical 
 fact that the policy of that Church in Asia is more 
 aggressive in property matters and in support of 
 converts who are involved in law-suits than the 
 policy of Protestant Societies. The result is that 
 Roman Catholics have stirred up antagonisms 
 which Protestant missionaries usually avoid. The 
 Imperial Edict of March 15, 1899, which gave of- 
 ficial rank to Roman Catholic priests and bishops 
 and which was a source of great irritation to the 
 Chinese, was rescinded in 1908. The forty bish- 
 ops and 1,201 priests in China now have the same 
 relation to the Government as Protestant mission- 
 aries ; or rather, Roman Catholics, like Protestants, 
 have no official relation to the Government at all. 
 Time has thus vindicated the wisdom of Protestant 
 missionaries in declining the official status which 
 was offered to them as well as to Roman Catholics 
 when the French Minister at Peking extorted the 
 privilege from the Government in 1899. 
 
 The position of Protestant missionaries is now 
 117 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 beginning to be better understood. Instances of 
 personal friendship are more numerous. Prefects, 
 tao-tais, governors and viceroys have visited 
 mission schools and hospitals and manifested keen 
 interest. In the fall of 1907, twenty-five mission- 
 aries representing various Boards were in confer- 
 ence at Tsinan-fu, the capital of Shantung, and 
 inquired whether the Governor would receive a 
 committee to pay respects in behalf of the confer- 
 ence. He replied that he would be glad to have 
 the missionaries call in a body. When they did so, 
 they were received with every mark of cordiality. 
 The Governor returned the call the following day, 
 accompanied by a number of high officials and a 
 military escort, and invited all the missionaries to 
 a feast at his yamen the same evening. There he 
 again received the missionaries with every honor. 
 The feast was served in foreign style and would 
 have done credit to any hotel in the home land. 
 The Governor made an address, in which he spoke 
 in high terms of the work of the missionaries and 
 the help which they were giving in many ways to 
 his people. This was the official who, while hold- 
 ing a high position in the Province of Shan-si 
 during the Boxer Uprising, was commanded by his 
 Governor, Yu Hsien, notorious for the murder of 
 seventy missionaries, to kill all the missionaries re- 
 siding in his district. He promptly assembled forty 
 missionaries, but sent them under military escort 
 
 118 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to a place of safety, saying that he could not kill 
 good and law-abiding men and women. 
 
 On a steamer off the coast of China, I noticed 
 that a fellow passenger was a Chinese official whose 
 dress and retinue indicated rank. As soon as he 
 learned that I was from New York and connected 
 with Presbyterian mission work, he eagerly in- 
 quired whether I knew a Miss Rogers. When I 
 replied that I did, he expressed gratification, ex- 
 plaining that many years ago, when he was con- 
 nected with the consular service, he had studied 
 English in New York under Miss Rogers. He 
 spoke of her with marked respect and gratitude, 
 and asked me to take her his card and a message 
 of remembrance. He was not a Christian, but his 
 conversation indicated that he had received from 
 Miss Rogers an Impression of missionary charac- 
 ter and purpose which made him sympathetic, and 
 he freely admitted the resultant influence upon his 
 own life. 
 
 It was arranged that I should meet the Vice- 
 President of the Irnperlal Board of Edticatlon in 
 Peking. At the appointed time, I drove to his of- 
 ficial residence, in company with the Rev. J. Wal- 
 ter Lowrle, D.D., and the Rev. William Gleysteen. 
 No sooner had we entered, than the Vice-President 
 recognized Dr. Lowrle with evident pleasure, In- 
 quired about the health of his mother, expressed 
 deep sympathy when he learned that she was dead, 
 
 119 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 and asked many questions regarding Dr. Lowrie 
 and his friends in Paoting-fu. It appeared that 
 many years ago, when this Chinese gentleman, who 
 is a Hanlin scholar of the highest rank, visited a 
 friend in Paoting-fu, he was suddenly taken ill, 
 and that he was treated for several months by the 
 missionary physician at that time, Dr. George 
 .Yardley Taylor. It would be unfair to represent 
 the Vice-President as a Christian or as expressing 
 any interest in Christianity ; but I was impressed by 
 the fact that he had come into such personal con- 
 tact with the missionaries at Paoting-fu that he 
 had formed a favorable opinion of their character 
 and worth. 
 
 It would be easy to cite instances of sym- 
 pathetic comprehension of Christian missionaries 
 and their work. But there are two sides to almost 
 every question in China. Taking the official class 
 throughout the Empire, it must be admitted that, 
 prior to the Revolution, it was suspicious and re- 
 sentful. The suspicion was not so often mingled 
 with contempt as it was forrtierly; it was more 
 often mingled with fear. Official China believed 
 that the success of the missionary enterprise would 
 be subversive of some of the most sacred and time- 
 honored customs of the Empire, particularly of 
 ancestral worship and that reverence for Confucius 
 and his teachings to which China clings as 
 tenaciously as ever. These officials were not blind 
 
 I20 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to the growing numbers and power of the Mis- 
 sions and the Chinese Churches, and they were be- 
 ginning to be apprehensive lest the Christian move- 
 ment might attain larger proportions than they 
 had at first deemed possible. 
 
 The exclusion of Chinese graduates of mission 
 schools from the new Provincial Assemblies was a 
 disquieting sign of this. There has been much 
 speculation as to the cause of this action ; but some 
 reasons are apparent. To the average Chinese 
 official, Christianity was still the foreigner's reli- 
 gion. He saw that the mission schools were con- 
 trolled by foreigners, and he suspected that Chinese 
 who had been trained In them had been educated 
 away from things Chinese and had allied them- 
 selves with aliens who were trying to overthrow the 
 worship of Confucius and to subvert national cus- 
 toms. He therefore naturally hesitated to permit 
 Chinese of this alleged type to make laws for 
 China and to advise the Government in political 
 matters. This consideration was Intensified, in 
 some places at least, by the fact that some gradu- 
 ates of mission schools were men of such superior 
 capacity that they would probably exert dispropor- 
 tionate influence In the Provincial Assemblies. 
 
 The Revolution has done much to change this 
 attitude. This was partly because the position and 
 course of the missionaries during the Revolution 
 exerted a most mollifying influence on many who 
 
 121 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 had formerly opposed or ignored them. When 
 the strife divided communities into rival parties 
 and men on each side feared ruin and death from 
 men on the other side, the mission compounds 
 were, as a rule, the only neutral places. In these 
 circumstances, not only merchants, but magistrates, 
 and even army officers besought the missionaries to 
 shelter their families. At Yeung-kong, the com- 
 manding General sent his wife and children for 
 protection to the mission compound, and the next 
 morning the Chief of Police asked the missionaries 
 to receive the Chief Magistrate of the county and 
 his family. This experience of the missionaries 
 was repeated at scores of stations. Proud Man- 
 chus in Peking, who a few months before would 
 have contemptuously repelled any advance from 
 missionaries, now implored them to open their 
 homes to them and their families. In many stations, 
 the throng of women and children, sometimes of 
 Imperialists, sometimes of Revolutionists, was so 
 great as to crowd the Station enclosure. Where there 
 was fighting, as at Hankow and Nanking, nearly all 
 the Red Cross work of caring for the wounded of 
 both armies was done by missionaries. Mission sur- 
 geons and nurses worked night and day; while in 
 the final struggle in Nanking, missionaries brought 
 the Generals of the contending forces together and 
 arranged the terms of capitulation. 
 
 The leaders of the revolutionary party are dis^ 
 
 122 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 tinctly more favorable to Christianity than the re- 
 actionary Manchus and their Chinese sympathizers 
 of the old regime. Indeed some of the new lead- 
 ers are themselves Christians. Dr. Sun Yat Sen, 
 Provisional President of the Republic, General Li 
 Yuan Heng, Commander-in-Chief of the revolu- 
 tionary army and later Provisional Vice-President 
 of the Republic, Wang Chong Wei, Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, C. T. Wang, who was named by 
 the Provisional Republic as Minister to the United 
 States, and Fay Chi Ho, Sun Yat Sen's private 
 secretary and a graduate of Oberlin College, are 
 all Christian men. Wang Chong Wei is the son 
 of a Congregational Chinese clergyman in Canton 
 and one of his two brothers is the President of the 
 China Merchants' Steamship Company and the 
 other is President of the Han-yang Iron Works; 
 all three being earnest Christians. Seven of the 
 members of the Cabinet of the Provisional Re- 
 public are graduates of American colleges. When 
 Fo-kien Province went over to the Revolutionists, 
 November 9, 19 11, it vested the government in 
 eight Commissions. The Presidents of four were 
 Christians. One of them, Nong Nai Siong, Presi- 
 dent of Posts and Communications, has been an 
 active Christian for thirty years and a frequent 
 preacher in the churches. Another, Ding Neng 
 Guong, President of Foreign Affairs, is also an ac- 
 tive Christian worker and a graduate of a mission 
 
 123 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 college. The Vice-President of this Board, Ling 
 Ding Ming, who was one of the two representa- 
 tives of the Province in the constitutional conven- 
 tion in Shanghai, is also a Christian. Miss Harriet 
 Noyes, of Canton, says that the report is current 
 there that seventy-five per cent of the leaders of 
 the Revolution are either Christians or are favor- 
 ably disposed toward Christianity. Men who have 
 had a modern education either in mission schools 
 or in foreign lands are not likely to become perse- 
 cutors of Christianity, although they may not be- 
 come Christians themselves. 
 
 One of the first fruits of the Revolution was the 
 development of a movement among Chinese Chris- 
 tians to have an article guaranteeing religious lib- 
 erty incorporated in the new constitution which, it 
 was assumed, the Repubhc would adopt. Sun Yat 
 Sen openly declared that the Republic would give 
 such liberty, and one of the early pronouncements 
 of Yuan Shih Kai, after his election to the Presi- 
 dency, was a declaration favorable to religious 
 freedom. Heretofore the measure of freedom 
 which Christianity had was that of more or less 
 reluctant toleration covered by treaties with west- 
 ern nations. If, as now appears probable, Chris- 
 tianity is given positive instead of negative rights, 
 if its status is not a concession to a foreigner's re- 
 quest but that of a religion which the Chinese 
 themselves voluntarily recognize, the gain will be 
 
 124 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 great and far-reaching. In any event, it appears 
 certain that the prestige of the missionary and of 
 his work in China have been enormously increased, 
 and that whether religious liberty is written into the 
 letter of the Constitution or not, the new era will 
 be more free for Christian work than was the old. 
 Emphasis should be given to the fact that the 
 missionary enterprise is absolutely neutral on ques- 
 tions that are purely political. Missionaries and 
 Chinese Christians were against the Manchu Dy- 
 nasty, not because it was a monarchy, but because 
 it was corrupt and was the enemy of liberty and 
 progress. When the Dynasty was overturned, mis- 
 sionaries and Chinese Christians were divided in 
 opinion, like other men in and out of China, as to 
 whether a republic or a constitutional monarchy was 
 better for China, and they would have been faith- 
 ful citizens under either one. Christians in other 
 lands show the same differences in political matters. 
 They are republicans in France and America, and 
 loyal monarchists in England, Germany, Japan 
 and Siam. Any form of government that is ad- 
 ministered in the spirit of justice, humanity and 
 enlightenment has nothing to fear from Christian- 
 ity; but a government that is characterized by 
 fraud and greed and oppression has everything to 
 fear from it, whether it be that of a Manchu 
 Emperor in China or of a republican jpolitical 
 " boss " in the United States. 
 
 125 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL 
 REFORM 
 
 Some of the Chinese began to realize that 
 changes were inevitable, and a Reform Party de- 
 veloped. It was not large, but it included some 
 influential men, though their zeal was not always 
 tempered by discretion. The war with Japan in 
 1894 powerfully aided them. True, many of the 
 Chinese did not know that there was such a war, 
 for news traveled slowly in a land which then had 
 few railways, telegraphs and newspapers, and 
 whose average inhabitant had never been twenty 
 miles from the village in which he was born. But 
 those who did know realized that Japan had won 
 by western methods. An eagerness to acquire 
 these methods resulted. M issionaries were besieged 
 by Chinese who wished to learn English, Modern 
 books were given a wide circulation. Several of 
 the influential advisers of the Emperor became 
 students of Occidental science and political econ- 
 omy. In five years, 1 893-1 898, the book sales 
 of The Christian Literature Society rose from 
 
 126 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 $817 to $18,457, 3.nd every mission press in the 
 country was run to its utmost capacity to supply 
 the new demands. 
 
 A powerful exponent of the new ideas appeared 
 in the great Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung. He wrote 
 a book, entitled " China's Only Hope," exposing 
 the causes of China's weakness and advocating 
 radical reforms. The book was printed by the 
 Tsung-li Yamen and copies were sent by royal com- 
 mand to the high officials of the Empire. Big yel- 
 low posters advertised it from the walls of leading 
 cities, and in a short time a million copies were 
 sold. It has been said, and without exaggeration, 
 that " this book made more history in a shorter 
 time than any other modern piece of literature, that 
 it astonished a kingdom, convulsed an empire, and 
 brought on a war." 
 
 The Reform Party urged the young Emperor to 
 use the Imperial power for the advancement of his 
 people. He yielded to the pressure and became 
 an eager student of western learning. In the open- 
 ing months of 1898, he bought no less than 129 
 foreign books, including a Bible and several scien- 
 tific works, besides maps, globes, and wind and cur- 
 rent charts. With the ardor of a new convert he 
 issued reform edicts, which, if they could have 
 been carried into effect, would have uprooted many 
 abuses and opened all China to the modern world. 
 
 But it is disastrous to try to " hustle the East." 
 127 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 The nation was not then ready for such a pro- 
 gram, and it had no confidence in a Manchu leader. 
 A host of scholars and officials, who saw their 
 hopes and position jeopardized by the new tests, 
 protested with the virulence of the silversmiths of 
 Ephesus, and all the conservatism of China ral- 
 lied to their support. On September 22nd, 1898, 
 the Emperor was made a prisoner in one of his own 
 palaces and the reactionary Empress Dowager 
 took full control of the Government and proceeded 
 to make waste paper of the reform edicts. 
 
 Meantime, the Yellow River, aptly named 
 " China's Sorrow," again overflowed its banks, dev- 
 astating a region a hundred miles long and from 
 twenty-five to fifty miles wide. Three hundred 
 villages were swept away and a million people 
 made homeless. Famine and pestilence speedily 
 followed, so that the whole catastrophe assumed 
 appalling proportions. Even American communi- 
 ties are apt to become reckless and riotous in time 
 of calamity, and in China this tendency of human 
 nature was intensified by a superstition which led 
 the people to believe that the gods were angry be- 
 cause the traditions of the fathers were being dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 The popular excitement and alarm found ex- 
 pression in the sudden uprising of two of the 
 revolutionary societies which had long flourished 
 among the people, the members of which now be- 
 
 128 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 came popularly known as " The Boxers." The 
 astute Empress Dowager, who headed the protest 
 against the headlong progressiveness of the young 
 Emperor, encouraged them and thus turned one of 
 the most troublesome foes of the Manchu throne 
 against the common enemy, the foreigner. Under 
 her influence, the depredations of the Boxers 
 spread with the swiftness of a prairie fire, until in 
 the spring of 1900 the most important Provinces 
 of the Empire were ablaze and the Legations in 
 Peking were closely besieged. 
 
 And so the irrepressible conflict broke out. It 
 had to come, a conflict between conservatism and 
 progress, between race prejudice and brotherhood, 
 between superstition and Christianity, the tremen- 
 dous conflict of ages which every nation has had 
 to fight, and which in China was not different in 
 kind but only on a more colossal scale, because 
 there it involved such a vast population at a crisis 
 of new world relationships. 
 
 Though missionaries were not the real cause of 
 the Boxer Uprising, its calamities fell heavily upon 
 them. This was partly because many of them 
 were living at exposed points in the interior, while 
 most other foreigners were assembled in the treaty 
 ports where they were better protected; partly be- 
 cause the movement developed such hysterical 
 frenzy that it attacked with blind fury every ac- 
 cessible foreigner; and partly because in most 
 
 129 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 places the actual killing and pillaging were not 
 done by the people who best knew the missionaries 
 but by mobs from the slums, ruffians from other 
 villages, or, as in Paoting-fu and Shan-si, in obe- 
 dience to the direct orders of bigoted officials. 
 
 The allied armies of Europe and America 
 finally crushed the uprising. Bitter was the hu- 
 miliation of the Government and people. The 
 proud Empress Dowager became a fugitive. The 
 Imperial city was captured and alien soldiers 
 camped in the sacred enclosure of the Temple of 
 Heaven and looted the royal palaces. The Gov- 
 ernments of the West, too, imposed terms of peace 
 which were grievous to the Chinese : an extortion- 
 ate indemnity of 450,000,000 taels, apologies to 
 Germany for the murder of its Minister and to 
 Japan for the assassination of the Chancellor of 
 its Legation, the erection of monuments in ceme- 
 teries, and the making of new commercial treaties. 
 The Chinese were cut to the quick by being told, 
 among other things, that they must not import 
 firearms for two years; that no official examina- 
 tions could be held for five years in the cities where 
 foreigners had been attacked; that an important 
 part of the Imperial capital would be added to the 
 already spacious grounds of the foreign Legations 
 and that they would be fortified and garrisoned by 
 foreign guards; that the Taku forts, which de- 
 fended the sea entrance to Peking, would be razed, 
 
 130 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 and the railway to the capital occupied by foreign 
 troops ; that members of anti-foreign societies were 
 to be executed ; that officials, even though they were 
 Viceroys, were to be summarily dismissed and dis- 
 graced if they did not prevent further anti-foreign 
 outbreaks; that court ceremonies in relation to 
 foreign ministers must conform to western ideas; 
 and that the Tsung-li Yamen (Foreign Office) 
 must be abolished and a new ministry of foreign 
 affairs erected, the Wai-wu Pu, which must be re- 
 garded as the highest of the departments instead 
 of the lowest. China's cup of humiliation was in- 
 deed full. 
 
 The failure of the Boxer Uprising taught the 
 Chinese the futility of the attempt to maintain the 
 isolation of former ages. The new ideas surged 
 into the country in increasing volume and the more 
 intelligent of the people began to accept the in- 
 evitable and to adapt themselves to the conditions 
 of the new era. Even the Manchu Government 
 found itself obliged to recognize the rising popu- 
 lar demand. In 1906, Imperial High Commis- 
 sions were sent to Europe and America to study 
 western institutions and report what there was in 
 them that China might wisely imitate. These 
 Commissions did their work as well as could have 
 been expected under the circumstances. Viceroy 
 Tuan Fang, who headed the Commission to the 
 United States, was undoubtedly the most progres- 
 
 131 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 sive of the Manchus and he made an excellent 
 impression in America. Both Cqmmissions pre- 
 sented many far-reaching recommendations on 
 their return to Peking, and reform edicts of a 
 remarkable character soon followed. 
 
 How much real earnestness these edicts repre- 
 sented it would be difficult to tell. The graciously 
 worded edict was a favorite expedient of the 
 Imperial Government in China. It so freely praised 
 everything that reformers were conciliated and op- 
 position was disarmed ; but most of the edicts were 
 never carried out and were never intended to be 
 carried out. Still, It was not wholly without signifi- 
 cance that in 1907 an Imperial Edict announced a 
 nine years' program for the development of consti- 
 tutional government. On September 20th an Im- 
 perial Edict provided for the establishment of a 
 National Assembly at Peking to consider questions 
 affecting the interests of the State. Ten days later, 
 another Edict ordered the appointment of town 
 councils and local representatives; and on October 
 1 8th, a third Edict directed the establishment of 
 Provincial Assemblies. China thus provided for 
 a graded system of representative bodies from 
 town councils to Provincial and National Assem- 
 blies. The qualifications for membership were 
 partly property and partly educational. Any male 
 who had property amounting to 5,000 taels, or 
 who held a degree under the old examination sys- 
 
 132 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 tern, or who had been graduated from a Govern- 
 ment middle or high school, might be chosen. 
 
 The nine years' program referred to included 
 the following: 
 
 First Year: opening of local self-government councils, 
 enactment of self-government regulations, adjust- 
 ment of finances, and taking of a census ; 
 
 Second Year: putting in force of local self-government 
 electoral law, announcement of regulations for par- 
 liamentary representation, investigation of provincial 
 revenues, organization of courts of justice; 
 
 Third Year: convocation of parliamentary representation 
 councils, promulgation of new criminal law, experi- 
 mental government budget, regulations for official 
 recommendations and fees; 
 
 Fourth Year: promulgation of local court laws; 
 
 Fifth Year: issue of new regulations for taxation and an- 
 nouncement of new government organizations; 
 
 Sixth Year: commencement of administrative justice, 
 adoption of budget; 
 
 Seventh Year: preparation of accounts of government 
 revenues and expenditure; 
 
 Eighth Year: fixing of Imperial Household expenditure, 
 establishment of judicial bureau, and issue of sta- 
 tistics; 
 
 Ninth Year: announcement of the Imperial Constitution 
 and the Imperial Household law, promulgation of 
 election law. 
 
 As signs of the coming storm became more 
 ominous, the Manchu rulers began to make fur- 
 
 133 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 ther concessions. In 1907, the members of the 
 Grand Council and the Presidents of the Minis- 
 tries of State submitted memorials to the Throne 
 advising the abolition of useless Manchu garri- 
 sons; appointment of both Manchus and Chinese 
 to all posts throughout the Empire without favor; 
 alteration of dress by Manchu women and girls as 
 far as possible ; allowing Manchus to become mer- 
 chants and do business in the same way as Chinese 
 so that they might support their families without 
 depending upon their military pay which should 
 be gradually abolished during the next ten years; 
 encouragement of intermarriage between Manchu 
 and Chinese officials; enlistment of both Manchus 
 and Chinese for military service without distinc- 
 tion; and infliction of severe penalties upon Man- 
 chu or Chinese authorities who attempted to create 
 barriers between the two races. Most of these 
 recommendations were later promulgated in Im- 
 perial decrees; but the Chinese were now becom- 
 ing conscious of their power and refused to be 
 placated by half-way measures. 
 
 The deaths of the Emperor and the Empress 
 Dowager, on November 14th and 15th, 1908, has- 
 tened the inevitable Revolution. The former had 
 long ceased to be an important factor in the nation's 
 life, but the Empress Dowager was a ruler of iron 
 will and extraordinary ability. The capture of 
 her capital by the allied armies in 1900 had con- 
 
 134 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 vinced her that China's age-long policy of isola- 
 tion and resistance to outside influences could no 
 longer be maintained, and she had amazed her sub- 
 jects by commanding some of the very reforms 
 which she had punished the progressive young Em- 
 peror for encouraging in 1898. How much she 
 really desired the new era is a disputed question; 
 but at any rate she was shrewd enough to direct 
 what she could not quell. Her death therefore 
 caused considerable uncertainty as to the future. 
 Would the progressives or the reactionaries domi- 
 nate the new Government? 
 
 Many people questioned whether the passing of 
 the Emperor was due to natural causes. The Em- 
 press Dowager had surrounded herself with high 
 officials who were loyal to her and whom the help- 
 less Emperor did not love. It was plain that the 
 atmosphere of Peking would not be conducive to 
 the longevity of these officials if the Empress Dow- 
 ager's death were to leave the Emperor in a posi- 
 tion to wreak his vengeance on those who had 
 deeply humiliated him. His health had long been 
 frail and his death at the age of thirty-seven, the 
 day before the Empress Dowager became " A 
 Guest on High," may have been a normal one. 
 No one can prove that it was not, for palace secrets 
 are closely guarded in China ; but few believe that 
 so opportune a demise was a mere coincidence. 
 
 The successor to the throne, by the ante-mortem 
 
 135 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 decree of the Empress Dowager, was Pu Yi, the 
 baby son of Prince Chun, a brother of the Em- 
 peror ; the Prince himself becoming Prince Regent. 
 The latter was a young man who was credited with 
 good intentions. He had enjoyed a better oppor- 
 tunity than his predecessors to see the rest of the 
 world; for he had been sent to Germany in 1901 
 as Imperial Commissioner to apologize for the 
 murder of the German Minister in Peking in June, 
 1900. Many stories became current about the 
 energy and democratic tendencies of the Prince 
 Regent. He showed little evidence, however, of 
 the masterful leadership which China needed at a 
 transition period. The widow of the late Emperor, 
 and therefore the new Empress Dowager, was a 
 baleful influence in his councils as she was a wom- 
 an of narrow partisanship and intense hatred of 
 the enemies of her clan. Instead, therefore, of 
 conciliating the rapidly growing feeling of the 
 Chinese that they ought to have a larger voice 
 in the management of their national affairs, the 
 Prince Regent more openly concentrated powei- in 
 the hands of the Manchus, bestowing the highest 
 positions in the army, navy and civil service upon 
 his relatives and friends, some of whom were weak 
 and dissolute. 
 
 One of the Regent's first acts was the summary 
 dismissal of Yuan Shih Kai, then a Grand Coun- 
 cillor of the Empire. This was not unexpected, 
 
 136 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 for reasons which I shall explain in a later chapter. 
 But it deprived China of the statesman who was 
 best fitted to counsel the new Government at this 
 critical period. Some relief was felt when it was 
 learned that his successor was the broad-minded 
 head of the Imperial Chinese Commission which 
 visited America in 1906, Viceroy Tuan Fang. As 
 he was a Manchu, it was supposed that his official 
 life would be more secure, and much was hoped 
 from his progressive leadership. His removal in 
 October, 1909, deepened the anxiety of all true 
 friends of China as to the future course of the Em- 
 pire. The ostensible reason for his dismissal was 
 that he permitted subordinates to take photographs 
 of the Empress Dowager's funeral procession and 
 to fasten telegraph wires upon a few trees near her 
 tomb; but enemies in the Palace were the real 
 reason. What could be expected of a Government 
 which disgraced its best and strongest guides at the 
 behest of intriguing women and eunuchs? 
 
 Another serious loss was the death of the vet- 
 eran Chang Chih-tung, on October 4th, 1909. He 
 also was a Grand Councillor of the Empire, and 
 had long shared with Yuan Shih Kai the reputa- 
 tion of being the wisest and ablest of China's pro- 
 gressive statesmen. It was an evil day for China 
 when it was deprived of such leadership, and there 
 was faint reason for believing that men of equal 
 grade were likely to be found. 
 
 137 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 The consequence was that, politically, China fell 
 into confusion. No one was in control. The local 
 Governors and Viceroys became less amenable 
 than ever to the central authority at Peking. The 
 younger men who had gained a smattering of west- 
 ern learning were voluble and headstrong. The 
 common people grew more restless. With all the 
 changes that were taking place in the thought and 
 life of the nation as the result of the inrush of new 
 ideas, it was a serious thing to have the central 
 Government weakened. Not for a long time had 
 the opportunity for successful revolt been so good. 
 
 Meantime, the constitutional movement was 
 sweeping on. October 14, 1909, was a memorable 
 day in the history of China, for it signalized the 
 opening of the first of the Provincial Assemblies, 
 twenty-one in number. All of the vernacular 
 papers gave the event large space, and two ap- 
 peared with their first pages printed in vermilion 
 to commemorate the auspicious occasion. Hand- 
 some modern buildings for these Assemblies were 
 erected in a number of the provincial capitals, some 
 of them on the ruins of the old examination 
 halls. 
 
 The Assemblies were of varying qualities. It 
 would not have been reasonable to expect that the 
 first popular bodies in an ancient monarchy would 
 be characterized by eminent wisdom or unity. Some 
 did little that was of value. Others addressed 
 
 ij8 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 themselves seriously to the task before them, and 
 in many there were individual members who 
 showed ability and courage. Bold words were 
 spoken about national affairs and the central Gov- 
 ernment was rather freely told what it ought to 
 do. It professed to welcome the advice, but it 
 paid little attention to it. The provincial leaders 
 resented the neglect of their recommendations, and 
 the strain between the Provinces and the Imperial 
 Government was increased. 
 
 The National Assembly had less freedom than 
 the Provincial Assemblies. It was not satisfactorily 
 representative. One hundred of its 200 members 
 were indeed to be nominated by the Provincial As- 
 semblies, but the ruling class was quite as able 
 to see that " safe " men were chosen as the " boss- 
 es " in the United States are to control the election 
 of Senators. The other 100, however, were 
 chosen by the Imperial Government and were 
 made up of Manchu princes, nobles and clansmen 
 and such Chinese officials as the Court considered 
 " trustworthy." Such a body could hardly be ex- 
 pected to disturb " the established order." To 
 make assurance doubly sure, its powers were care- 
 fully limited. It was announced as " An Assembly 
 for the assistance of the Government," but the 
 Government could dissolve it at pleasure. Pre- 
 dictions were freely made that the Assembly could 
 do nothing of value. Even such a student of far 
 
 139 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 eastern affairs as Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu declared 
 that " the Chinese Parliament is in all likelihood 
 going the way of the Turkish Assembly." 
 
 But the new spirit of the nation found unex- 
 pected expression when the Assembly convened on 
 October 3d, 19 10. Enough of the members broke 
 through the restraints of the situation to make the 
 session a surprising manifestation of independence 
 and energy. Some foolish things were said and 
 done, as they are in an American Congress; but 
 considering the circumstances, the Assembly, for a 
 beginning in constitutional government, was far 
 from a failure. It manifested an intelligence and 
 independence which could hardly have been ex- 
 pected of officials meeting under the very shadow 
 of the Imperial Palace. The original program of 
 the Government had fixed the year 19 15 as the 
 time for the assembling of an Imperial Parliament. 
 The progressive party wished to have an earlier 
 date set. The reactionary party, which had vainly 
 opposed the issuing of the reform decrees, vehe- 
 mently pressed for a postponement of " several 
 years," which in China means indefinitely. But 
 the demands of the National and Provincial As- 
 semblies became so resolute that the Government 
 was forced to yield and an Edict was Issued ad- 
 vancing the time to 19 13. 
 
 But whatever the defects of the new Assemblies, 
 their moral influence was great. The principle of 
 
 140 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 representative government was recognized in a 
 sphere where formerly Governors, Viceroys and 
 the Emperor had been autocratic. The right of the 
 people to have a voice in making laws and regu- 
 lating government, heretofore limited to local com- 
 munities, was now to be openly exercised in provin- 
 cial and national affairs. That principle, once 
 established, could never be abrogated, no matter 
 how much its operation might be restricted for a 
 time. 
 
 The portents of trouble now multiplied and the 
 alarm of the Government became more manifest. 
 On May 8th, 1 911, an Imperial Edict abolished the 
 Grand Council of five members and substituted a 
 constitutional Cabinet composed of the Prime Min- 
 ister, Prince Ching, and the heads of the ten execu- 
 tive departments. Prince Ching issued during the 
 summer what became known as the " Too Late " 
 statement of his policy. This rather remarkable 
 state paper included the following: 
 
 With the revision of the official system comes the 
 organization of the Cabinet which is intended as the 
 foundation of a responsible government and the guide to 
 the constitutional preparations. ... It is gratifying to 
 note that the late Empress Dowager and Emperor were 
 aware of the critical period the country was passing 
 through and ordered the introduction of a Constitution 
 as the only means to make the country strong. Their 
 wishes are closely observed by Emperor Hsuan Tung. 
 Heeding the demand of his people, he has also shortened 
 
 141 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTIOTSI 
 
 the period for the adoption of a constitutional govern- 
 ment. This change calls for hastening efforts. 
 
 As the time of isolation is substituted by that of 
 world wide intercourse, our conservative policy should be 
 substituted by a progressive one. Our country's finance, 
 interior affairs, education, industry, communication, judi- 
 cature, military defence, dependency affairs, international 
 affairs and other matters all demand reform, and none 
 can be neglected. 
 
 This was indeed " too late," even if the decadent 
 Manchu clique could have carried out such a pol- 
 icy, which no one believes. The demands of the 
 new spirit in China could not be met by a corrupt, 
 reactionary and inefficient ruling class, which, save 
 for an occasional individual exception, conceded 
 only what it was forced to concede and could not 
 be depended upon to go a step further than fear 
 drove it. The time was ripe for the long expected 
 Revolution, and the events which have already 
 been described precipitated the inevitable conflict. 
 As its formidable character became apparent, the 
 panic-stricken Prince Regent issued edict after 
 edict abjectly promising anything and everything 
 he could think of that might placate the wrath of 
 an outraged people. Late in October, he pub- 
 lished a pitiful Edict in which, true to the traditions 
 of Chinese " face," the five-year-old Emperor was 
 represented as saying that the troubles of the Em- 
 pire were " all my fault." This was an instance 
 
 142 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 of " face " in which pathos and grotesqueness 
 were curiously mingled. 
 
 The National Assembly again convened in Pe- 
 king and at once took an aggressive attitude. The 
 one hundred princes, nobles and other Manchu ap- 
 pointees of the Imperial Government, were so in- 
 timidated by half a hundred Radicals that they 
 hardly dared to open their mouths and even the 
 Moderates were often jeered into silence when they 
 attempted to speak. Nineteen bases of a new Con- 
 stitution were drafted in a single sitting. They 
 were considerably more advanced than the consti- 
 tutional program which had been promulgated in 
 1907, as they left the Throne only the semblance 
 of power and made the people the real rulers un- 
 der a strictly limited constitutional government. 
 On November 3d, the Prince Regent issued an 
 Edict accepting these nineteen bases and pledging 
 himself to " arrange a day to swear before our 
 ancestors in the temple and to issue the Constitution 
 to the whole Empire on yellow papers." 
 
 Meantime, the tide of war was sweeping on. 
 Shanghai was taken without bloodshed on Novem- 
 ber 3d, thus giving the Revolutionists the enormous 
 strategic advantage of access to the sea and the 
 control of customs' receipts which assured large 
 financial support. Nanking, the ancient Chinese 
 capital, had to be fought for, as it was held by a 
 stubborn Imperialist General; but when it fell on 
 
 J43 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 December 3d, nothing remained but a few sporadic 
 struggles by Imperial Generals who still com- 
 manded some troops that had not deserted, and 
 the settlement of terms with the Goyernment. 
 
 On December 6th, 19 11, the Prince Regent suc- 
 cumbed to the hopelessness of the situation and re- 
 signed. His regency of three years began in pomp 
 and glory and ended in humiliation and ruin. The 
 troubles of his reign were not primarily his fault. 
 He simply happened to be in power when the long- 
 gathering storm broke and he was not wise enough 
 or strong enough to breast the tumult successfully. 
 
 Two provisional Regents, a Manchu and a Chi- 
 nese, were designated, but Yuan Shih Kai, who had 
 been summoned back to office, became the real 
 ruler in the north. The Revolutionists in central 
 China set up a Republic in Nanking in December 
 and elected Sun Yat Sen President. On December 
 29th, he formally entered upon the duties of his 
 high office. On February 3d, 1912, formal procla- 
 mation was made that the official name of the 
 nation was hereafter to be " The Great Ching-hwa 
 (Chinese) Republic," the word " Great " implying 
 that the new Government claimed Manchuria, 
 Mongolia, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan. On 
 February 1 2th, three simultaneous proclamations 
 announced the abdication of the Dynasty, the 
 Throne's acquiescence in the Republic, its uncon- 
 ditional acceptance of all the terms imposed by 
 
 I44i 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 Yuan Shih Kai, and its desire that the Viceroys 
 and Provincial Governors should loyally conform 
 to the new order. 
 
 The end came with such startling swiftness as 
 to show at once the rottenness of the foundations 
 upon which Manchu rule rested and the dig- 
 nity and orderliness of the Chinese people. Never 
 was so vast a Revolution so quickly and peaceably 
 consummated. There was serious fighting at only 
 a few places, and even that was far less sanguinary 
 than sensational newspaper dispatches led the 
 western world to believe. Comparatively small 
 bodies of troops were engaged. There were not as 
 many men killed and wounded in the entire Revolu- 
 tion as in any one of several battles of the Amer- 
 ican Civil War or the Russia- Japan War. In most 
 places, the revolutionary sentiment was so over- 
 whelming that the Imperial officials yielded with- 
 out opposition. Within five months from the out- 
 break in Sze-chwan and three months from the 
 attack on Hankow, fifteen of the eighteen Prov- 
 inces had gone over to the Revolutionists, and the 
 tide of victorious revolt had swept down the Yang- 
 tze to the sea. To-day, the Ta-ching Manchu 
 Dynasty, whose haughty Emperors had ruled "The 
 Middle Kingdom " as " Sons of Heaven " for 
 nearly three hundred years, has passed off the 
 stage ; and a Chinese, whom the Manchus had con- 
 temptuously sent into the obscurity of private life, 
 
 145. 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 now wears the robes of power as President of the 
 Great Ching-hwa Republic. 
 
 The manifestations of the new forces which are 
 transforming China are varied in character. I 
 have referred to several of those manifestations — 
 political, commercial and intellectual. Let me now 
 add something regarding social reforms, a subject 
 which deserves more space than can here be given 
 to it. 
 
 Most notable of these refofms is the anti-opium 
 crusade. The opium habit has long been the 
 curse of China. The part that western nations 
 have had in the development of this evil traffic 
 is one of the most shameful chapters in history. 
 It would be difficult to condemn too strongly the 
 unrighteous greed and cruelty which have charac- 
 terized the efforts of vicious white men to reap 
 financial profit from the helplessness of the Chi- 
 nese people, and the story is made more shameful 
 by the acquiescence and, in some instances, the 
 open support of western governments. 
 
 One of the most encouraging evidences of the 
 growth of the Christian spirit is the fact that pub- 
 lic conscience has now been aroused to the enor- 
 mity of this evil. There have always been men 
 and women who have protested against the in- 
 iquity of the traffic; but for a long time their pro- 
 tests fell on deaf ears. The power of avarice and 
 of corrupt politics was too strong. Now, how- 
 
 146 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 ever, the power of righteousness has waxed 
 mightier. A spirit is abroad which is not so tol- 
 erant of abuses, and that spirit has now become 
 so pervasive and imperious that governments have 
 been forced to heed it. 
 
 Missionaries abroad as well as Christians at home 
 have had a large influence in the development of this 
 spirit. As it was the missionary who first stirred 
 the moral indignation of the world over the traffic 
 in intoxicants in the South Sea Islands, the mission- 
 ary who did more than all others combined to 
 awaken the conscience of the world to the demor- 
 alization which was resulting from the liquor traf- 
 fic in Africa, the missionary who led the movement 
 to abate the opium evil in the Philippine Islands, 
 the missionary who has inaugurated every moral 
 reform in China for a hundred years, so it was 
 the missionary who from, the beginning voiced op- 
 position to the export of opium from India to 
 China and who induced the Government of China 
 to inaugurate the opium reform which has now 
 reached such splendid proportions. The memo- 
 rial of 1,200 Protestant missionaries, presented 
 through a friendly Viceroy to the Throne in 1906, 
 resulted in the now famous Imperial Edicts of Sep- 
 tember, 1906, May and June, 1907, and March, 
 1908. 
 
 Those who know how often Chinese edicts have 
 been simply high-sounding declarations which were 
 
 147 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 never carried out naturally were skeptical about 
 the eifect of this one; especially as it dealt with the 
 favorite indulgence of many millions of Chinese, 
 as thousands of the officials who would have to en- 
 force it locally were themselves victims of the 
 habit, and as the vice itself, once fairly established 
 in a man's life, creates pathological conditions 
 which make its cure extremely difficult. Great were 
 the surprise and gratification, therefore, when 
 China set itself to the task with a vigor and success 
 which left no doubt as to its sincerity. It is true 
 that some officials are indifferent or hostile to the 
 reform; but when evidence of their failure to en- 
 force the law is presented in high quarters, punish- 
 ment is swift and drastic. On September 27th, 19 10, 
 a sweeping Edict commanded the Censorate to in- 
 vestigate and punish adequately the Viceroys and 
 Governors of Chih-li, Honan, Shen-si, Heilung- 
 kiang, Fo-kien, Kuang-si, Yun-nan and Hsin-kiang, 
 " on the ground that, while suppressing the traffic 
 in and cultivation of opium, they were guilty of 
 carelessness about smoking and also its suppres- 
 sion." The suspension from office of two Princes 
 convinced lesser magistrates throughout the Em- 
 pire that no mercy would be shown to them. 
 
 Thousands of acres, which were formerly de- 
 voted to the cultivation of the poppy, now grow 
 grain and vegetables. Innumerable opium dens 
 have been closed. Enormous quantities of para- 
 
 148 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 phemalia have been burned, 5,000 pipes being 
 publicly consumed in Hang-chou at one time. Sir 
 John Jordan, British Minister to China, wrote to 
 his Government some time ago: " China has not 
 hesitated to deal with a question which a European 
 nation, with all the modern machinery of govern- 
 ment and the power of enforcing its decision, 
 would probably have been unwilling to face." 
 Forty millions in revenue were lost on account of 
 the reform, " a far more serious question," says 
 Sir John Jordan, " in the present state of the Chi- 
 nese national exchequer, than the similar problem 
 with which the Indian Government will have to 
 deal in sacrificing the opium revenue." 
 
 Our sympathies go out to the people of China 
 who have been making such a determined effort to 
 extirpate an evil which was doing so much to weaken 
 the national fibre and emasculate the national char- 
 acter. Never before in all the history of the world 
 has any non-Christian nation conducted so resolute 
 and successful a warfare against a vicious indul- 
 gence. It is impossible to doubt that the Chinese 
 nation has become thoroughly aroused regarding 
 the evils of opium and that it is making a magnifi- 
 cent struggle to abate them, a struggle in which it 
 ought to have all possible support from the Chris- 
 tian nations of the world. 
 
 " The general awakening of the country to the 
 seriousness of the opium evil has been fruitful in 
 
 149 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Other directions also. A general awakening of the 
 moral sense seems to have taken place and so, con- 
 temporaneous with the opium campaign, there has 
 been an attack on another of the traditional in- 
 dulgences of the people, namely, the gambling evil. 
 In some Provinces, notably in Kwang-tung, the 
 authorities have not scrupled to make this national 
 proclivity for games of chance a source of income, 
 and for many years licensed gambling houses have 
 contributed no small sum to the provincial rev- 
 enues. In other Provinces the same habit has been 
 utilized in other ways, especially as at Hankow, 
 in the shape df lotteries. During the last two 
 years, the people of Canton, led by the younger 
 officials and the advanced section of the educated 
 class, have sought to get rid of the gambling evil 
 and have chosen as their first point of attack the 
 licensed houses. The late Viceroy, unable to find 
 a source of revenue to take the place of the threat- 
 ened gambling licenses, temporized and learned 
 the truth of the proverb that he who hesitates is 
 lost, for eventually he was removed from office 
 largely because of his attitude on this question."' 
 Anti-foot-binding societies were formed years 
 ago by missionaries and every effort was made to 
 induce Christian women not to bind the feet of 
 their girls and to unbind those that had already 
 been bound. Many mission schools will not re- 
 
 * The National Review, Shanghai, May 6, 191 1. 
 150 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 ceive pupils with bound feet. It is the aim of mis- 
 sionaries not to interfere with social customs unless 
 they are inherently wrong, but foot-binding so 
 vitally affects the usefulness and position of women 
 that they felt justified in opposing it as far as 
 they could tactfully do so. They succeeded in en- 
 listing the support of women in high position and 
 finally, through sympathetic and influential friends, 
 of the late Empress Dowager. The Manchu women 
 did not bind their feet and the custom never had 
 the approval of the Imperial Court, although the 
 Manchus manifested no interest in the Chinese 
 practice until the missionaries had developed con- 
 siderable sentiment on the subject. In 1906, an 
 Imperial Edict advised parents not to bind the 
 feet of their daughters. The movement has made 
 rapid headway the last few years. Feminine fash- 
 ions are not easily changed in any land and espe- 
 cially among a conservative people who have been 
 accustomed for centuries to regard the natural foot 
 as evidence of the lack of social position. But it 
 now appears probable that the women of the new 
 China will ere long stand and walk upon their 
 feet, instead of hobbling painfully on crushed toes 
 and heels. 
 
 Another reform of far-reaching significance was 
 the reorganization of judicial procedure and the 
 penal code. The Chinese were impelled toward 
 this reform not only by the new spirit of the coun- 
 
 151 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 try but by the humiliating fact that other nations 
 regarded their laws and courts as so antiquated 
 and faulty that they insisted on extra-territorial 
 rights for all their nationals. This meant that, 
 although a Chinese who committed a crime in the 
 United States was tried and punished by an Amer- 
 ican court, an American who committed a crime in 
 China was not amenable to Chinese law and could 
 be tried and punished only by his own Consul. 
 This not only wounded Chinese pride at a sensi- 
 tive point, but it was a prolific source of irritation 
 and sometimes of positive injustice and wrong. 
 Moreover, the Chinese courts were accustomed to 
 employ torture as a means of extorting confessions 
 from accused persons, and to inflict punishment, in 
 case of guilt, in most barbarous forms. The death 
 sentence was pronounced upon a large number of 
 crimes besides murder. Execution was frequently 
 by dismembering the body, or by tying the crim- 
 inal to a stake and gradually slicing his body so as 
 to prolong his sufiering as much as possible. 
 Other forms of punishment were branding by red- 
 hot irons the face or the body and beating the feet 
 or bare back with bamboo rods until the flesh was 
 pounded to a pulp. Jails were filthy dungeons — 
 dark, cold, unsanitary and vermin-infested. Judges 
 were, as a rule, so mercenary that the litigant who 
 paid the heavier bribe was practically certain to get 
 a verdict in his favor. It is no wonder that western 
 
 152 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 nations were not willing to subject their nationals 
 to the tender mercies of Chinese courts. 
 
 On April 24th, 1905, an Imperial Edict, issued 
 in response to a memorial of a Commission, headed 
 by Wu Ting-fang, decreed a revision of the crim- 
 inal code, abolishing " the three forms of punish- 
 ment known as dismemberment, exposure of the 
 head, and beheading the corpse," and providing 
 that capital punishment should be inflicted by 
 " immediate decapitation," or " immediate stran- 
 gling." The next day another Edict forbade the 
 use of torture to secure evidence, commanded due 
 investigation in the case of persons accused of 
 crime and closed with these interesting words: 
 
 Although the very best laws may be enacted, they 
 cannot execute themselves. What is required is that all 
 the officials, both high and low, shall conscientiously dis- 
 charge their duties and exert themselves to get rid of evil 
 practices, so that to some extent we may have a just gov- 
 ernment and the settlement of litigation by clear and 
 well defined principles, and thus get rid of long-standing 
 abuses. WE constantly hear from the various Provinces 
 that the department and district Magistrates either tyran- 
 nically and following their own caprice employ torture 
 in examination or get a lot of persons implicated in a case 
 and summon them to court, but do not make prompt in- 
 vestigation, allowing the yamen underlings to confuse the 
 case so that they may illicitly profit by it, implicating in- 
 nocent persons whom they detain and oppress in a hun- 
 dred ways, all of which practices are most abominable. 
 Now since WE have approved the Regulations submitted 
 
 ^S3 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 in the Memorial above-mentioned, let them be published 
 abroad and let all observe them. WE repeat the an- 
 nouncement and warning that OUR desire is to show 
 compassion upon all who are imprisoned, that justice 
 shall be shown and the sentiments of the people satisfied. 
 Let all the Viceroys and Governors concerned issue strict 
 orders to their subordinates conscientiously and with due 
 regard to all the circumstances to exert themselves to 
 carry this Edict into efifect and from time to time to make 
 careful investigation. Should any be found who, while 
 outwardly observing, are secretly disobeying the Edict, 
 treading the old path of malpractice, let them be at once 
 impeached. There must be no shielding of them nor any 
 attempt to save their faces. Let each be diligent in seek- 
 ing the welfare of the people, and give earnest attention 
 to the settlement of litigation, and so fulfil the purpose of 
 the Throne to have compassion upon the lowly and to 
 lighten their punishments. Let this Edict be published 
 for the information of all. 
 
 The queue has long been the national badge of 
 the Chinese. It was not the queue but the shaving 
 of the head that was enforced by the Manchu con- 
 querors. The early Chinese wore their hair long 
 and tied it in a top-knot, as the Koreans have done 
 until recently. The queue and the shaven head 
 became universal after the Manchu conquest in 
 1644, and as late as a half-dozen years ago a Chi- 
 nese could not have cut off his queue without im- 
 mediately losing caste. Chinese in other lands fre- 
 quently cut off their queues, but were careful to 
 grow them when they went back to China. Gradu- 
 
 154 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 ally many Chinese became sensitive to the ridicule 
 to which the practice exposed them, and gradually 
 also they came to regard the queue as unsanitary 
 and Inconvenient. In I909, some men in high of- 
 ficial position ventured to memorialize the Prince 
 Regent on the subject; but he feared that the na- 
 tion was hardly ready for such a drastic measure 
 and he rejected the proposal. 
 
 When the Revolution broke out, the queue was 
 one of the first of the old customs to be discarded. 
 Practically all of the Revolutionists cut off their 
 queues, so that when Imperialist troops captured 
 a city they killed every man they found without 
 a queue. The triumph of the Revolution prob- 
 ably means the end of the custom. Yuan Shih Kai 
 continued to wear his queue, out of respect to the 
 Imperial family, until the abdication, but one of 
 his first acts after that was to have his own queue 
 removed. To-day, thousands of Chinese barbers 
 all over the country are doing a rushing business, 
 and vast quantities of Chinese hair are being ex- 
 ported to be made into rats and switches for Euro- 
 pean and American ladies. 
 
 It would be Interesting, if space permitted, to 
 discuss other Edicts, as for example the one of Feb- 
 ruary 27, 1910, against domestic slavery. But 
 perhaps those that have been cited may serve for 
 illustrations of the spirit of reform that is at work. 
 Edicts in China are not always enforced, but 
 
 15s 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 surely there is large significance in the fact that 
 such decrees as these and others that might be 
 cited have been issued within recent years. Some 
 American laws are dead letters, and while a larger 
 proportion of Chinese Edicts have had little effect, 
 some of them, as in the case of the opium Edicts, 
 have been carried out with a zeal and efficiency 
 which Americans might well wish their Gov- 
 ernment would apply to the liquor traffic. If 
 Edicts of this kind had emanated from a govern- 
 ment in whose honesty and efficiency the people 
 had confidence, the Revolution might have as- 
 sumed a different character. 
 
 156 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA YUAN SHIH KAI 
 
 SUN YAT SEN 
 
 China's most serious lack for a period of transi- 
 tion and reconstruction was generally believed to 
 be the lack of competent leadership. Numerous 
 magazine articles lamented this as the most hope- 
 less element in the situation. " There are no 
 statesmen capable of guiding the country; good 
 will there is in plenty, but one sees nowhere the 
 necessary combination of insight, ability, experi- 
 ence and influence." These words of an eminent 
 writer on Far Eastern affairs represented the com- 
 mon opinion of the civilized world. But great 
 emergencies have developed great men in China 
 as they'have in other countries. Some of the lead- 
 ers of the new China had already won fame under 
 the old regime, others suddenly rose from obscur- 
 ity, and they proved that the widely accepted view 
 of China's lack of capable men was unfounded. 
 
 I regret that the limits of this little book do not 
 permit adequate sketches of such men as Liang 
 Tun Yen, a graduate of Yale University who has 
 been Vice-President and President of the Wai-wu 
 Pu, Customs Tao-tai at Hankow and Tien-tsin, 
 
 157 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Minister to the United States, Mexico, Cuba and 
 Peru, and Director-General of Customs; Tang 
 Shao Yi, who has been President of the Ministry 
 of Posts and Communications, Customs Tao-tai at 
 Tien-tsin, Vice-President of the Wai-wu Pu, Com- 
 missioner for the revision of the Tibetan Treaty, 
 Governor of Feng-tien and special Ambassador to 
 the United States; Chentung Liang-cheng, who has 
 been Minister to Germany, the United States, 
 Spain, Peru, Cuba and Mexico; Lew Yuk Lin, 
 who has been Minister to Great Britain, Consul- 
 General at Johannesburg and Singapore, and Dep- 
 uty Vice-President of the Wai-wu Pu; Wu Ting- 
 fang, educated at Oxford University, who was 
 twice Minister to the United States; General 
 Ts'en, son of the famous general of that name 
 who quelled the Mohammedan Revolution, who 
 'was Viceroy of Sze-chwan in 190 1-2, where he 
 showed special kindness to missionaries; General 
 Li Yuan Heng, commander of the revolutionary 
 army at Hankow ; Wang Chong Wei and his two 
 brothers; C. T. Wang, and several others who 
 might be mentioned if space permitted. But we 
 must look more particularly to the two outstand- 
 ing Chinese of the Revolution period, Yuan Shih 
 Kai and Sun Yat Sen. 
 
 pYuan Shih Kai had long been one of the most 
 powerful officials of the Empire and he is un- 
 doubtedly the ablest living Chinese. Bom in 1858 
 
 158 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 in the Province of Honan, he quickly developed 
 unusual abilities. He early attracted the attention 
 of the great Viceroy Li Hung Chang, who in 1884 
 caused him to be sent to Korea as Resident Envoy. 
 Although only twenty-six years old, his force of 
 character soon made him a power in that stormy 
 capital, and for nine years he was a conspicuous 
 member of its diplomatic corps. He has been 
 charged with arrogance and arbitrariness in this 
 position, and it has been said that his course pre- 
 cipitated the China- Japan War which resulted so 
 disastrously for China. But on his return to China 
 in 1893, he was made commander of a division 
 of the " New Imperial Army " at Tien-tsin, a post 
 in which he manifested high military and admin- 
 istrative qualities. He organized and equipped 
 his troops on the best foreign models and they 
 speedily became an effective modern force. In 
 1894, he was Chief of the Military Secretariat in 
 Manchuria, in 1895 Civil Commandant of the 
 German drilled forces and Director-General of 
 Trade and International Relations, in 1897 Ju- 
 dicial Commissioner of the Imperial Province of 
 Chih-li, in 1899 Junior Vice-President of the 
 Board of Works, in December of the same year 
 Acting Governor of the Province of Shantung, and 
 in March, 1900, he was confirmed as Governor of 
 that great Province. Here his capacity for admin- 
 istration had large scope. " He had assumed 
 
 IS9 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 charge at a time when chaos and disorder through- 
 out the Province were most prevalent. His very 
 first struggle was made in opposition to the numer- 
 ous banks which sprang up like mushrooms during 
 the regime of the Provisional Government. These 
 were organized in most cases without capital, busi- 
 ness being done on the deposits and on promises 
 to pay. Foreseeing that serious results must fol- 
 low, His Excellency took these banks in hand, 
 suppressed their indiscriminate issue of notes, regu- 
 lated their credit systems, and for a time ruled, 
 necessarily, with a rod of iron. Naturally, resist- 
 ance resulted and dire ruin and financial disaster 
 seemed most imminent. Gradually, however, the 
 weaker banks failed, or were crushed out of ex- 
 istence, while the stronger were forced to adopt 
 honest methods, and the honor and credit of the 
 city were saved. Thieves and plunderers had or- 
 ganized systematically and were busily engaged in 
 committing crimes of every conceivable nature. To 
 combat these. His Excellency organized a police 
 force, and the villains were arrested, imprisoned 
 and, in aggravated cases, beheaded. In a very 
 short time, order was brought out of chaos, peace 
 and confidence were restored throughout the Prov- 
 ince, and the wheels of progress set in motion and 
 the interests of all the people were conserved." ^ 
 
 ' Report of the American Consul-General at Tien-tsin to the State 
 Department, October 26, 1907. 
 
 160 
 
X. Setting Chinese type 
 
 £. Setting English type 
 
 CoMPOsiisTG Room of a Mission Press, Shanghai 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 I met him in Tsinan-fu, his capital, in the sum- 
 mer of 1 90 1. I had sent my card and letters of in- 
 troduction, and he had promptly set a time for my 
 call. With true courtesy, he met us at the entrance 
 of the palace grounds and led us into his private 
 office. He impressed me at once as a remarkable 
 man. He was then forty-two years of age, of 
 medium height, rather stout, with a strong face, 
 a clear frank eye, and a most engaging manner. 
 He would be considered a man of striking appear- 
 ance anywhere. He was very cordial and we had 
 a long and interesting conversation which was car- 
 ried on through his Chinese interpreter, who, by 
 the way, had spent two years in Columbia Univer- 
 sity, New York. He surprised me by his familiar- 
 ity with America, especially as he spoke no Eng- 
 lish and had never been out of Asia. He discussed 
 plans that he had made to start a daily newspaper, 
 a military academy and a literary college. His 
 idea was to have in each institution two students 
 from each of the 108 counties in the Province, and 
 thus to train a body of men who would be able to 
 carry "light and learning" into their respective 
 districts. He appeared to be desirous of doing 
 everything in his power to enlighten the 38,000,- 
 000 people whom he ruled. In answer to a ques- 
 tion as to the teaching of foreign languages, he 
 said that English, French and German would be 
 taught, but that German would probably be the 
 
 161 
 
THE CHINESE RE^VOLUTION 
 
 most useful of the foreign tongues on account of 
 the number of Germans in the eastern part of the 
 Province. 
 
 The policy of Yuan Shih Kai during the Boxer 
 troubles indicated the wisdom and courage of the 
 man. Disturbances had already begun when he 
 assumed office. It was not far southwest of Tsinan- 
 fu that Mr. Brooks, the English missionary, was 
 murdered by the Boxers. Yu Hsien was then 
 Governor of Shantung, but shortly afterward was 
 transferred to Shan-si, Yuan Shih Kai taking his 
 place. If the notorious, foreign-hating Yu Hsien 
 had remained in Shantung, he would probably have 
 massacred the missionaries there as he did those 
 of Shan-si, where he invited them all to his yamen 
 and then began the butchery by killing three mis- 
 sionaries with his own hand. But Yuan Shih Kai 
 foresaw the inevitable result of such barbarity, and 
 determined to restrain the Boxers and protect 
 the foreigners. He succeeded in the latter, not 
 one foreigner being killed after he took control 
 and all being helped as far as possible to escape. 
 
 This apparently pro-foreign policy brought up- 
 on the Governor the displeasure of the Empress 
 Dowager, who was then encouraging the Boxers 
 and upon whom his position and his hopes of future 
 preferrnent appeared to depend. He was the ob- 
 ject too, of no small obloquy from the fiercely 
 fanatical conservatives who wanted to murder 
 
 162 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 every foreigner within reach. Indeed the fury of 
 the populace was so great that he was bitterly 
 reviled as a " secondary devil " and his life was 
 repeatedly threatened. But despite the clamor of 
 the mob, the opposition of his associates in the 
 government of the Province, and the displeasure of 
 the all-powerful Empress Dowager, he maintained 
 his position with stern inflexibility. On one occa- 
 sion, a deputation of prominent Boxers waited up- 
 on him, told him of the rising tide of anti-foreign 
 feeling, and urged him to place himself at the head 
 of the movement and free his country once for all 
 from the obnoxious western influences. Yuan Shih 
 Kai was too intelligent to imagine that foreigners 
 could be permanently driven out of China. He 
 knew that the day for that had passed, and he told 
 his callers of the certain defeat that awaited them. 
 They replied that victory was absolutely sure be- 
 cause the Boxer warriors were protected by magic 
 which made them immune from the foreigners' 
 bullets. He grimly responded that his soldiers had 
 some of those bullets and he suggested that the 
 deputation give him an exhibition of their im- 
 munity in their own persons. They demurred, but 
 he was inexorable, and after he had hospitably en- 
 tertained them at a feast, he commanded them to 
 line up against the wall of the palace enclosure, and 
 then, deaf to their frightened appeals, had a firing 
 squad shoot them down to a man. That ended the 
 
 163 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Boxer Uprising in Shantung and prevented its 
 spread southward. Afterwards, the people real- 
 ized that their iron Governor had saved them from 
 the awful punishment that was inflicted upon the 
 neighboring Province of Chih-li, and his power and 
 prestige became greater than ever. 
 
 In November, 1 901, he was elevated to the Vice- 
 royalty of Chih-li. As Chih-li is not only one of 
 the greatest Provinces of the Empire, but includes 
 the Imperial city of Peking, and the ports of Tong- 
 ku and Tien-tsin, the gateways to the capital, its 
 Viceroy controlled the avenues of approach to the 
 Throne and was charged with the protection of the 
 Royal Family. Here he had free access to the 
 Emperor and Empress Dowager. It was this po- 
 sition of high vantage which enabled Li Hung 
 Chang to become well-nigh omnipotent in China. 
 Yuan Shih Kai is not such a wily schemer as his 
 distinguished predecessor was and he did not use 
 his position to amass such a huge personal fortune 
 as Li Hung Chang accumulated. But he is quite 
 as able a man and more frank and reliable. He 
 made a profound impression upon the Empress 
 Dowager, who was a keen judge of men and who 
 so quickly forgave him for his course in the Boxer 
 troubles that, on her return to Peking, he was made 
 Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent and given 
 the high honor of the Yellow Jacket. In 1902, he 
 was made Administrator-General of the North 
 
 164 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 China Railways, then consulting member of the 
 Reform Council and Army Organization Council, 
 Junior President of the Board of Foreign Affairs, 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and finally 
 Grand Councillor of the Empire. Surely few liv- 
 ing men have had a more varied experience in ad- 
 ministrative pubhc positions. 
 
 Yuan Shih Kai, while not an extremist, is a 
 progressive Chinese fully recognizing the necessity 
 of adopting modern methods. He it was who had 
 his soldiers throw away their bows and arrows, 
 engaged German army officers, and gave China a 
 small but effective army, provided with modern 
 rifles and disciplined as no Chinese troops had ever 
 been before. He built well-equipped hospitals for 
 them and enforced the most approved sanitary 
 measures. He was a leader not only in the new 
 military science but in education, founding schools 
 and making broad plans for the diffusion of intelli- 
 gence among the people. 
 
 When in 1904, there was an attempt to revive 
 the Boxer movement. Yuan Shih Kai promptly is- 
 sued a proclamation beginning with these peremp- 
 tory words : " Anyone creating wild rumors calcu- 
 lated to alarm or produce doubt in the people's 
 mind will be beheaded I Anyone teaching or learn- 
 ing mystic practices, like Boxer measures and red- 
 lantern doctrines, will be beheaded 1 " That proc- 
 lamation of the iron Viceroy dampened the ardor 
 
 1 65, 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 of the anti-foreign agitators, for they had no liking 
 for the fate of the Boxer leaders of Shantung 
 under his Governorship. 
 
 The American Consul General at Tien-tsin, in 
 his report to the State Department, October 26, 
 1907, from which I have already quoted, also said: 
 " Of the many acts of progress accomplished by 
 His Excellency only a few are herein mentioned, 
 viz.: simplified language in Chinese schools; the 
 establishment of a self-government office; the es- 
 tablishment of a preparatory civil school; schools 
 for the training of the officials ; the introduction of 
 constitutional government; the establishment of a 
 civil normal school for teachers; the organization 
 of savings banks for the people ; the establishment 
 of a school of politics and law; a system of com- 
 petitive examination of applicants for the customs 
 service ; a school for the study and discussion of all 
 affairs in connection with the adoption of the pro- 
 posed constitutional and parliamentary government 
 for China; a form of civil government for the 
 city of Tien-tsin; a system of election of officials 
 for the city, the first and only popular election ever 
 held in China being that of July 24, 1907. In 
 addition, we might mention that mints have been 
 established for the coinage of copper, silver and 
 gold coins; military and normal schools have also 
 been built; and, in addition, large buildings for 
 reform, industrial, and training schools have been 
 
 166: 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 built, as well as cotton and paper mills, all of these 
 institutions being in good working order. Fine 
 buildings, macadamized roads, and splendid steel 
 and iron bridges have been constructed, and steam 
 rollers are to be seen daily at work on streets in 
 the native city. A splendid sanitary department 
 has been organized, and, under its guiding hand, 
 the health of the native city has been very ma- 
 terially improved. He has established the best of 
 relations with the foreigners, and by sturdy, honest 
 efforts has won the good will of the natives as 
 well. He is far-seeing and his advice has been con- 
 stantly sought by the Government at Peking, the 
 best Edicts being the result of his suggestions, 
 notably the promised efforts towards constitutional 
 government and the suppression of the opium 
 traffic." 
 
 He is a Confucianist ; but he showed the breadth 
 of his intelligence and his appreciation of the high 
 character of Protestant missionaries by selecting, 
 in 1898, a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Dr. 
 Herbert E. House, as the tutor of his son, Yuan 
 Yen Tai, and in 1900, by inviting the Rev. Dr. 
 Watson M. Hayes, then President of the Pres- 
 byterian Mission College at Teng-chou, to become 
 President of the Literary College which Yuan 
 Shih Kai had established at Tsinan-fu. His opinion 
 of idols was indicated in 1906, when during a visit 
 to Paoting-fu, he told the elders of the Tu-ti 
 
 167 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 temples to the local divinities, where report is al- 
 ways made of the death of any individual in that 
 district, that he wanted the temples for police 
 stations, and he had all the idols gathered up, and 
 thrown into the river. The missionaries went to 
 see how the people would take the order, and 
 found thousands lining the river banks and laugh- 
 ing over it as a great joke, saying, " The gods are 
 getting a bath." 
 
 He has had many enemies, as every strong man 
 has, especially in Asia. He had added the late 
 Emperor to this list in connection with the Coup 
 d'fitat of 1898. The Emperor counted on Yuan 
 Shih Kai, then forty years of age and Judicial 
 Commissioner of Chih-H, to support his reform 
 policies. He summoned him to private audiences, 
 revealed his plans, explained that Jung Lu, then 
 the powerful Manchu Viceroy of Chih-li, was the 
 chief obstacle to his efforts, assigned to Yuan 
 Shih Kai a high command in the army, and ordered 
 him to proceed at once to Tien-tsin, put Jung Lu 
 to death, and at the head of his troops march to 
 Peking and imprison the Empress Dowager. 
 Yuan Shih Kai was a personal friend of Jung Lu, 
 but he received these instructions with apparent 
 humility and obedience and hurried to Tien-tsin. 
 But instead of decapitating Jung Lu, he told him 
 of his orders and gave him an opportunity to save 
 himself. Jung Lu sped to Peking on a special 
 
 168 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 train and revealed the plot to the Empress Dow- 
 ager, who had been his warm friend for many 
 years and, it was generally believed, something 
 more than a friend. She acted with characteristic 
 vigor. Trusty soldiers were summoned to relieve 
 the Emperor's guards ; the Palace was secretly sur- 
 rounded; and the next morning the Emperor was 
 seized, locked up in a palace on an island in the 
 small lake within the royal enclosure, and an Im- 
 perial Edict announced that the Emperor " had 
 besought Her Majesty to condescend once more to 
 administer the Government." The Emperor re- 
 mained a virtual prisoner of State until his death 
 in 1908. The last night of his life, he painfully 
 wrote a message which included these words : "For 
 our misery of the last ten years Yuan Shih Kai is 
 responsible. — ^When the time comes, I desire that 
 Yuan be summarily beheaded." 
 
 Yuan has been bitterly arraigned for treachery 
 to the Emperor in this affair. His friends hold 
 that he did not intend treachery but only consulta- 
 tion with his superior officer as to what ought to be 
 done in a grave crisis where the carrying out of the 
 Imperial command would have resulted in certain 
 disaster to the country. Yuan was far from being 
 a reactionary, but he was wise enough to see that 
 the weak and impulsive Emperor could not sud- 
 denly transform China in that way, and he natu- 
 rally hesitated to lend himself to an enterprise 
 
 169 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 which he believed to be premature and to be 
 destined to certain failure. The soundness of his 
 judgment is now generally recognized, whatever/ 
 may be thought of his loyalty to the Emperor/^ 
 When, in 1908, the death of the Emperor and| 
 the Empress Dowager brought to the Throne the f 
 infant son of the brother of the late Emperor, and ^ 
 the brother became Prince Regent and the widow 
 Empress Dowager, it was a foregone conclusion 
 that Yuan Shih Kai's official career would come to 
 an abrupt end. The embittered Prince Regent and 
 Empress Dowager would have beheaded him if 
 they had dared; but Yuan Shih Kal was too power- 
 ful to be dealt with In that way, and the Ministers 
 of several European Powers Intimated that such 
 a punishment would create an Impression that 
 would be " highly unfavorable " to the administra- 
 tion. The Prince Regent was therefore forced to 
 content himself with removing Yuan Shih Kal 
 from office. He did this In accordance with the 
 most exquisite traditions of Oriental " face." The 
 order expressed the profound solicitude of the 
 Prince Regent that so valued and distinguished an 
 official was grievously suffering from rheumatism 
 in his leg, and that heavy as was the sorrow of the 
 Throne and the loss to the State, common sym- 
 pathy and humanity required that Yuan Shih Kai 
 should be relieved from the onerous burdens that 
 he was bearing and be permitted to seek the rest 
 
 170 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 that his malady imperatively required. Yuan Shih 
 Kai, who was in perfect health, at once retired to 
 his private estate near Shunte-fu, where he lived 
 quietly as a private citizen. This was in 1908. 
 When I was in Peking a year later, the Rev. Dr. 
 W. A. P. Martin, who was close to the family, told 
 me that neither Yuan Shih Kai nor his son had 
 any expectation that he would be restored to office 
 as long as the Prince Regent and the Empress 
 Dowager were in power, and their overthrow did 
 not appear to be imminent at that time. It was a 
 sudden fall, and from the highest position which 
 a subject could attain, for Yuan Shih Kai was 
 Grand Councillor when he was dismissed. Cardinal 
 Wolsey did not fall farther or more suddenly. It 
 looked like the disastrous ending of a great career, 
 and that too, in the prime of life. Yuan Shih Kai 
 bore himself in misfortune with the dignity of a 
 noble soul. His power and prestige were so great 
 that he could probably have overthrown the Prince 
 Regent if he had been disposed to disobey the 
 command to retire from office. The best soldiers 
 in the Empire had been raised and disciplined by 
 him and he was popular with Chinese and foreign- 
 ers alike. Western nations would doubtless have 
 supported him if he treated the Prince Regent as 
 the former Empress Dowager had treated the late 
 Emperor in the Coup d'fitat of 1898. But Yuan 
 Shih Kai was a wise and patriotic as well as 
 
 171 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 resolute man and he was unwilling that revolution 
 should be precipitated on his personal account. 
 
 He had his revenge in full measure. When the 
 Throne began to totter, the frightened Prince 
 Regent and Empress Dowager were forced to yield 
 to the overwhelming general opinion that the 
 Manchu Dynasty was doomed unless Yuan Shih 
 Kai could be persuaded to save it, and they ab- 
 jectly besought him to come to their relief. He 
 showed that he was not destitute of a sense of 
 humor by respectfully replying that he was deeply 
 sensible of the honor that was shown him, and that 
 his humble services were always at the disposal of 
 his country, but that unhappily the rheumatism in 
 his leg still incapacitated him from active duty! 
 He waited for several months before giving a final 
 acceptance, every day making clearer that he alone 
 was the man for the crisis. It is probable that he 
 was all the time in secret correspondence with the 
 Generals of the Revolution and that he was using 
 his influence with them to save his country from 
 prolonged internecine strife. Indeed when the se- 
 cret history of the Revolution shall become known, 
 it may be found that Yuan Shih Kai had, from the 
 beginning, a larger relation to the whole move- 
 ment than is commonly supposed ; although he may 
 not have approved of all that the southern leaders 
 did. 
 
 When at last he emerged from retirement and 
 172 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 entered Peking in state, he immediately became the 
 object of universal attention and the virtual dictator 
 of the Empire. Foreigners openly expressed their 
 relief that he was again at the helm. Punch has 
 suggested that all foreigners in China believe that 
 Yuan is the man of the hour because his is the only 
 Chinese name that they can pronounce ; but he is a 
 masterful leader who inspires confidence in all who 
 know him. I 
 
 His'position was one of extraordinary difficulty 
 and he manifested qualities quite as extraordinary. 
 He stood between the Imperialists and the Revolu- 
 tionists, trying to moderate the demands of both 
 and to guide affairs to a peaceable conclusion. It 
 was clear that the Chinese were henceforth to gov- 
 ern themselves, but there was dispute whether they 
 should do so under the forms of a republic after the 
 Ahierican model, or of a limited constitutional 
 monarchy after the British model. The Revolu- 
 tionists insisted upon the former. Yuan Shih Kai, 
 in common with most of the foreign friends of 
 China, doubted whether it was prudent to break so 
 suddenly with immemorial monarchical traditions, 
 and whether the masses of the Chinese people had 
 yet acquired sufficient education and developed 
 adequate national consciousness and unity to afford 
 stable basis for a republican form of government. 
 A limited constitutional monarchy, with an elected 
 parliament and a cabinet and prime minister re- 
 
 173 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Sponsible to it, would, he believed, best conserve 
 the common interest and lessen the danger of civil 
 wars and foreign intervention. 
 
 The Republicans would not have it this way and 
 became vehement in their demands. When Yuan 
 Shih Kai would not yield, they proceeded to set 
 up a Republic without him, established their capital 
 at Nanking, and elected Sun Yat Sen President. 
 It appeared for a time as if the Chinese had over- 
 thrown the Manchus only to fight among them- 
 selves, or else to split the country into two rival 
 nations — a northern kingdom and a southern 
 republic. If Yuan Shih Kai could have negotiated 
 a foreign loan to equip and maintain an army, he 
 might have fought it out. A syndicate of foreign 
 bankers was reported to be ready to lend him 
 money, but Great Britain objected. Her interests 
 were in central and southern China where the 
 Revolutionists were in full control, and she had no 
 mind to bring their wrath upon her by helping to 
 finance their enemies. Moreover, the Revolution- 
 ists announced that, while they would respect all 
 foreign treaties and obligations which had been in 
 existence prior to the proclamation of the Republic, 
 they would repudiate any that were made after that 
 date. Yuan Shih Kai compelled the rich Manchu 
 princes to disgorge some of their ill-gotten wealth ; 
 but though this gave him several millions, it did 
 not furnish enough for a successful war. Perhaps 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 there was a better secret understanding between 
 Yuan Shih Kai and the Republicans than appeared 
 on the surface, and perhaps he used the ostensible 
 demands of the Republicans as a club to bring 
 the Manchus into submission. At any rate, the 
 Republicans were inexorable, and it soon became 
 clear that the bulk of the nation was with them. 
 They recognized and admired Yuan Shih Kai's 
 ability and prestige and declared their readiness to 
 receive him as President of a republic, but not as 
 Prime Minister of a Manchu Emperor, even 
 though the latter had only the shadow of a throne. 
 Here again Yuan Shih Kai showed that he pos- 
 sessed wisdom, forbearance and patience as well as 
 ability and force. He might now have deposed 
 and expelled the Manchu rulers. But he knew 
 that this would make them bitter enemies, that they 
 might retire to Mongolia and enter into alliance 
 with Russia, or to Manchuria and enter into alli- 
 ance with Japan, and, in either case, make serious 
 trouble for the new Government and perhaps keep 
 up a struggle which might end in foreign interven- 
 tion. So he bent all his tact and skill to persuade 
 the Manchus peaceably and voluntarily to abdicate. 
 It was a long and wearisome task. Some of the 
 princes and dukes thought it better to yield than 
 to run the risk of expulsion and ruin; but others 
 stubbornly held on. There were stormy confer- 
 ences within the precincts of the Forbidden City. 
 
 175 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 The Empress Dowager wept and wrung her hands 
 and several times fainted. The Revolutionists 
 became more impatient and peremptory. Yuan 
 Shih Kai grew haggard and worn. His enemies 
 multiplied. As he was returning from a trying 
 interview at the Palace, January i6, 1912, a fanatic 
 threw a bomb at him. Fortunately, it exploded 
 twenty feet behind the Premier's carriage so that 
 he was uninjured; but four men and six horses 
 were killed and nineteen men were wounded. Yuan 
 Shih Kai, however, held to his course with un- 
 flinching persistence and undismayed fortitude. 
 
 Finally, he succeeded in convincing the recal- 
 citrant Manchus that he was their friend in 
 advising them that abdication was the least of the 
 ills to which they were exposed, and on February 
 1 2 th, the long suspense was ended by an Imperial 
 Edict announcing the abdication of the Imperial 
 Family. Three days later, February 1 5th, Sun Yat 
 Sen resigned the Presidency of the Republic and 
 the National Assembly at Nanking elected Yuan 
 Shih Kai to the Presidency of the now united 
 Republic. An election to such an exalted post, by 
 such a people, in such circumstances, by a unani- 
 mous vote, was surely a high tribute both to Yuan 
 Shih Kai and to the men who elected him. On 
 March loth, amid impressive ceremonies, he was 
 formally inaugurated President of the mighty na- 
 tion in which, only a few months before, he had 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 been a private cirizen under the Imperial ban. Few 
 other men in history have had such kaleidoscopic 
 changes of fortune, and few others have possessed 
 the transcendent abilities that lift one so high 
 above the common crowd. One does not wonder 
 that the celebrated Dutch painter, Hubert Vos, 
 several years ago chose Yuan Shih Kai as one of 
 the men whose portraits he was painting for a col- 
 lection of world notables for a Paris Exposition, 
 and that when Admiral Lord Charles Beresford of 
 the British Navy returned from a tour of Asia, 
 he said, " I have met one man in China, and that 
 man is Yuan Shih Kai." 
 
 \~Sun Yat Sen's part in the Revolution and in 
 subsequent occurrences deserves high praise. This 
 remarkable man is the son of a humble Cantonese 
 who emigrated to the Hawaiian Islands, and after- 
 wards returned to Canton, where he was converted 
 and became a worker in the mission of the London 
 Missionary Society. Sun Yat Sen was not born in 
 the Hawaiian Islands, as popularly reported, but 
 he himself declares that he was born in China.^ 
 His friend, the Rev. Huie Kin, of New York, says 
 that the place was Houng Sun, in the Province of 
 Kwang-tung, His boyhood was spent in Hono- 
 lulu, where he began his education in an Episcopal 
 school. Returning to China, he completed his 
 education in mission schools in Hong-kong and 
 ' " My Reminiscences," article in The Strand Magazine, April, 1912. 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Canton, learning English and studying medicine 
 under the famous John G. Kerr, M.D., of the 
 Presbyterian Mission in Canton. He became a 
 Christian, was baptized in Hong-kong by the Rev. 
 Dr. C. R. Hager, a Congregational missionary, 
 and is to-day a consistent member of the Congre- 
 gational Church. He married and his wife and 
 two sons were, at last accounts, living with his 
 widowed mother in Hong-kong. 
 
 Sun Yat Sen early identified himself with the 
 revolutionary movement. The premature dis- 
 covery of a plot to capture Canton compelled him 
 to leave the country, and for years he was an exile 
 and a wanderer with a price upon his head. In 
 these circumstances, he devoted himself to promot- 
 ing revolutionary sentiment among the various 
 Chinese colonies in the ports of Asia outside of 
 China, and in Europe and America, and to 
 correspondence with the revolutionary leaders in 
 China. He journeyed and labored indefatigably 
 to advance the cause to which he had consecrated 
 his life and which he firmly believed to be the cause 
 of patriotism. The Government made repeated 
 efforts to arrest him, and once he was inveigled 
 into the Chinese Legation in London and held a 
 prisoner. But before he could be deported, British 
 law liberated him. It speaks much for the skill 
 and magnetism of this apparently obscure adven- 
 turer, who was without official rank or influence, 
 
 178 
 
See pages 177-181 
 
 Sun Yat Sen 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 who was hounded as an outlaw by the Imperial 
 Government, and whose assassination would have 
 brought to the murderer a handsome fortune, 
 that he seemed to live a charmed life, to be pro- 
 tected by his countrymen wherever he went, to 
 collect great sums from them, and to induce shrewd 
 foreign capitalists to make considerable loans to 
 the revolutionary movement. He frequently vis- 
 ited San Francisco and New York, conferring with 
 financiers and influential Chinese merchants and 
 lecturing to crowded audiences of Chinese. 
 
 He was a man of quiet demeanor and he lived 
 unostentatiously when in New York. Those who 
 visited him there little dreamed that he was one of 
 the master minds of a revolutionary movement of 
 unprecedentedly colossal proportions. 
 
 He hastened back to his native land when the 
 Revolution broke out and was promptly hailed as 
 its civil leader, in spite of the fact that he had 
 been out of the country for fifteen years. There 
 were many misgivings among the foreign friends 
 of China when he accepted the Presidency of the 
 Republic, December 29, 191 1. Did his election 
 represent the real judgment of the people or the 
 hasty action of a rump Assembly? Was he, with 
 all due recognition of his worth, a sufficiently com- 
 manding personality for a situation which needed 
 a combination of Oliver Cromwell and George 
 Washington? Could the great Yuan Shih Kai, 
 
 179 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 tvho had long been the most powerful man in 
 China, who had held the exalted rank of Gover- 
 nor, Viceroy, Commander-in-Chief of the Army 
 md Grand Councillor of the Empire, and who was 
 now in actual possession of the Government in 
 Peking, be reasonably expected to make way for 
 this comparatively unknown man of forty-six years, 
 who had never held an office in his life and was 
 therefore without official rank and administrative 
 Experience? Sun Yat Sen promptly allayed these 
 misgivings by publicly declaring that he considered 
 [limself merely a Provisional President in order to 
 give civil existence and unity to the Revolution and 
 that he was ready to lay down his high office as 
 soon as a permanent republican Government could 
 be established, especially if Yuan Shih Kai would 
 accept the Presidency. This sounded well; but 
 when a man had tasted the sweets of rank and 
 power after weary years as a hunted exile, would it 
 be human nature for him to carry out his promise? 
 He fulfilled his promise. As soon as the abdica- 
 tion of the Manchus was announced and he was 
 assured of the loyal adherence of Yuan Shih Kai 
 to the Republic, Sun Yat Sen resigned the Presi- 
 dency in an address of mingled modesty and 
 dignity worthy of the finest traditions of patriotism 
 in any land. It was a scene of historic impressive- 
 ness when the National Assembly, in accepting 
 his resignation and electing Yuan Shih Kai, justly 
 
 1 80 
 
LEADERS OF THE NEW CHINA 
 
 declared that Sun Yat Sen had afforded the world 
 " an example of purity of purpose and self-sacrifice 
 unparalleled in history."] Breadth of mind to con- 
 ceive vast plans, skill in persuading large numbers 
 of men to accept them, courage to brave powerful 
 foes, fortitude and determination which no dis- 
 couragement could shake, force of character so to 
 impress his countrymen that, on his return after 
 an absence of fifteen years, ambitious revolutionary 
 leaders instantly acknowledged his supremacy, 
 wisdom and modesty to see that he ought to make 
 way for another, and moral grandeur to carry out 
 this self-effacing purpose — such a combination of 
 high qualities the world has seldom seen. And in 
 and through all. Sun Yat Sen has a Christian faith 
 which opposition of relatives could not prevent him 
 from openly confessing, which he never concealed 
 from his non-Christian revolutionary associates, 
 and which led him to say of his darkest hours as 
 a prisoner in the Chinese Legation in London: 
 " My despair was complete, and only by prayer to 
 God could I gain any comfort. ... I shall never 
 forget the feeling that seemed to take possession of 
 me as I rose from my knees on the morning of 
 Friday, October i6th — a feeling of calmness, 
 hopefulness and confidence, that assured me my 
 prayer was heard and filled me with hope that all 
 would yet be well." — ^With such men as these, the 
 new China deserves the respect of mankind. 
 
 i8i 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE DUTY 
 OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES OF THE WEST 
 
 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 back- 
 ground 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 peo- 
 ple 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 
 
 182 
 
THE FUTURE OP THE REPUBLIC 
 
 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. Whether the 
 people are expecting the new Government instantly 
 to right all wrongs, remedy all abuses, and usher 
 in an era of unexampled prosperity, and whether, 
 when they find that the millennium does not at 
 once come, they will become restive, remains to 
 be seen. It remains to be seen also whether the 
 Provinces will submit to governmental measures 
 which do not please them. Revolutions start 
 easily among such an enormous population, spread 
 over a vast territory in which there are yet so few 
 railroads that distant provinces are difficult to 
 reach. Mongolia is likely to become a Cave of 
 AduUam. Manchus, too few to fight, are numer- 
 ous enough to fan embers of discontent and in- 
 trigue with foreign foes. Flood and famine may 
 again make millions desperate. The army is a 
 precarious dependence, as Yuan Shih Kai found 
 to his sorrow when he faced a mutiny after his elec- 
 tion to the Presidency. Americans who remember 
 the guerrilla warfare which followed the war be- 
 tween the States will be slow to take pessimistic 
 views of an outbreak of ignorant Chinese soldiers, 
 whose pay was in arrears, who feared that they 
 were to be disbanded without their just dues, and 
 whose cupidity was excited by the hoarded riches 
 of wealthy nobles and merchants. When society 
 
 183 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 has been so upheaved as Chinese society has been, 
 time is required for the subsidence of tumult and 
 the establishment of a new order. 
 
 There is, too, the possibility of complications 
 with foreign nations. As we have seen in a for- 
 mer chapter, European powers have long greedily 
 watched this vast and comparatively helpless coun- 
 try. Russia is eager to strengthen her interests in 
 Mongolia and northern Manchuria. Japan is in- 
 terested in southern Manchuria, Germany in Shan- 
 tung, England in the valleys of the Yang-tze and 
 Pearl Rivers, and France in Hai-nan and Yun-nan. 
 Not only territorial ambitions but large financial 
 interests are involved, for China owes other na- 
 tions $625,000,000 gold. The heavy interest 
 charges were kept up with difficulty in the face of 
 a deficit in the national treasury, and if the inter- 
 est now falls behind and the principal is thought 
 to be jeopardized, there will be a pretext for inter- 
 ference by Powers that are always looking for one. 
 Payments due on account of the Boxer indemnity 
 have already been interrupted by the Revolution, 
 and while the new Government will undoubtedly 
 resume them in the near future, this obligation is 
 a constant source of irritation to the Chinese. 
 Western nations will doubtless be cautious about 
 overt acts of interference, but they may make their 
 sinister influence felt in fomenting internal troubles 
 and in secretly encouraging the embittered Man- 
 
 184 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 chus and any ambitious Chinese officials who may 
 become aggrieved by their failure to receive what 
 they deem due recognition from Yuan Shih Kai. 
 The fact that China's new Government is repub- 
 lican does not add to the joy of Kings and Kaisers. 
 They will not, of course, publicly admit this; but 
 their real opinion can be readily understood. 
 Every throne in the world is weaker because the 
 Chinese people have unseated a sovereign and set 
 up a Republic, and monarchical Japan and Europe 
 will not be sorry if the experiment does not prove 
 successful. The partition of China by the Powers, 
 however, is hardly probable. No one nation would 
 be permitted by other nations to make China 
 either a tributary or a protectorate. A half-dozen 
 Powers are determined to have a share if the break- 
 up comes; but they could not agree among them- 
 selves as to division of the spoil. Each has thus 
 far taken what it could get, and is far from pleased 
 to see what its rivals are getting. Actual partition 
 would mean a scramble that would precipitate a 
 general war; and such a war would involve so 
 many uncertainties not only as to the result in 
 China, but as to possible readjustments in Europe 
 itself, that the Powers wisely shrink from it. So 
 they prefer, for the present at least, the policy of 
 " spheres of influence," as giving them a com- 
 mercial foothold and political influence with less 
 risk of trouble. 
 
 i8S 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 But in spite of the difficulties that beset the new 
 Republic, there is large hope for the future. The 
 mightiest currents of modern life are sweeping to- 
 ward " government of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people." The Chinese have undertaken 
 a gigantic task, but they have shown earnestness, 
 intelligence, and resolution in the steps that they 
 have thus far taken. However trying the period 
 of transition may be, the issue is not doubtful. 
 Progress invariably wins the victory over blind 
 conservatism. The higher idea is sure to conquer 
 the lower. With all their admixture of selfishness 
 and violence, the fact remains that the forces oper- 
 ating in China to-day include the vital elements for 
 the regenerating of human society. 
 
 Will the new China be a menace to the nations 
 of the West? Not if they treat it decently. The 
 temperament of the Chinese does not incline them 
 to foreign aggression. But the spirit of new China 
 is less meek under injustice than was that of old 
 China. A significant illustration of this was given 
 when President Sun Yat Sen, before the Republic 
 was firmly established, gave the Dutch in Batavia 
 one week to make reparation for the murder of 
 several Chinese and ordered three cruisers to hold 
 themselves in readiness to shell the Dutch city if 
 his ultimatum was not complied with. 
 
 Much has been written about the " Yellow 
 Peril.'" Some have made light of it, as " a mere 
 
 i86 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 bugaboo of an excited imagination," because, as 
 they allege, China has neither the organization 
 nor the valor to fight Europe, and if it had, could 
 not transport its army and navy so vast a distance. 
 But surely organization and valor can be acquired 
 by the Chinese as well as by other peoples. Their 
 present helplessness before the aggressive for- 
 eigner is rapidly teaching them the necessity for 
 the former. As for the latter, it is well known that 
 the most dangerous fighter is the strong but peace- 
 ably disposed man who has been goaded to despera- 
 tion by long-continued insult and injustice. Amer- 
 icans may discreetly remember that they them- 
 selves were once sneeringly described as " a nation 
 of shopkeepers who wouldn't and couldn't fight." 
 China has plenty of men who can fight, and 
 when they are well commanded, they make as good 
 soldiers as there are in the world, as " Chinese 
 Gordon " showed. Was not his force called the 
 " Ever Victorious Army," because it was never 
 defeated? Lord Charles Beresford, of the Eng- 
 lish Navy, said, after personal inspection of many 
 of the troops of China, " I am convinced that 
 properly armed, disciplined and led, there could 
 be no better material than the Chinese soldier." 
 Admiral Dewey reported that the fifty Chinese 
 who served under him in the battle of Manila 
 Bay fought so magnificently that they proved them- 
 selves equal in courage to American sailors, and 
 
 187 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 recommended that they should be made American 
 citizens by special enactment. 
 
 China's humiliations at the hands of foreign 
 countries, which she regarded as inferior but which 
 had more effective armies, have taught her the bit- 
 ter lesson that she must change her military meth- 
 ods, put a higher class of men into her regiments, 
 give them better pay and equipment, secure a higher 
 grade of officers, remove the stigma that has here- 
 tofore rested upon the profession of arms and 
 accord officers a status which will make military 
 service more attractive to educated men. Under 
 the energetic leadership of the two most enlight- 
 ened Viceroys, Yuan Shih Kai and Chang Chih- 
 tung, army corps aggregating 150,000 men had 
 been developed by 1906 and foreign military at- 
 taches who witnessed their autumn manoeuvres " re- 
 ported with surprise that they had seen a formida- 
 ble modern army and a display momentous and 
 epoch-making in the history of the Far East." 
 When Lieutenant General MacArthur, of the 
 United States Army, inspected the 10,000 troops 
 at the military post at Tsinan-fu in 19 10, he said 
 to the missionary who accompanied him : " Why, 
 this is intensely interesting. Look at those bar- 
 racks built of Oregon pine and lit with electricity I 
 They are as good as our western armies have. 
 Then the drill! There is no army with which I 
 am acquainted which has learned in more soldierly 
 
 188 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 fashion this first lesson in the alphabet of war. 
 And the significant thing is that the Chinese are 
 doing it themselves — not a Japanese or German in 
 sight." This camp was but one of six in north 
 China and north China was but one of the four 
 military districts of the Empire. 
 
 It is odd that any intelligent person should sup- 
 pose that distance is an effectual barrier against 
 an aroused and organized Asia. It is no farther 
 from China to Europe than from Europe to China, 
 and Europe has not found the distance a barrier to 
 its designs on China. England, Germany, France, 
 Russia, and even the Netherlands and Portugal, 
 have all managed to send battleships and troops 
 to the Far East, to seize territory and to subjugate 
 the inhabitants. Why should it be deemed im- 
 possible for China, which is as large as these na- 
 tions combined, to do what they have done ? As 
 late as the beginning of 1904, Russia ridiculed the 
 idea that Japan could do anything against a west- 
 ern power, and all Europe and America, while 
 admiring the pluck of the Japanese, confidently 
 expected them to be crushed by the Slav. Wise 
 men will think twice in the future before they 
 sneer at the yellow race. If Japan in half a century 
 could go from junks and cloisonne to battleships 
 and magazine rifles, and to handling them, too, 
 more scientifically and effectively than they were 
 ever handled by white men, why should it be 
 
 189 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 deemed chimerical that China, with equal ability, 
 greater resources and certainly no less provocation, 
 should in time achieve even vaster results? " You 
 urge us to move faster," said a Mandarin to a 
 foreigner. " We are slow to respond, for we are 
 a conservative people ; but if you force us to start, 
 we may move faster and farther than you like." 
 
 It would be unwise to underestimate the gravity 
 of the situation, or to assume that the most numer- 
 ous and conservative nation on the globe has been 
 suddenly and completely transformed in character. 
 The movement toward better conditions may be 
 attended by mistakes and manifestations of human 
 infirmity. Inflamed passions may be slow in sub- 
 siding. Men who are identified with the old era 
 will not give up without a struggle. Many of the 
 Revolutionists may be intoxicated by their sudden 
 success and advocate all sorts of vagaries. In 
 spite of the national spirit of sobriety and conserv- 
 atism, there is a good deal of the heady, rhetor- 
 ical sophomore in some of the younger Chinese. 
 
 But let us not be deceived by the disturbances 
 incident to a period of transition during which 
 good and evil are struggling together for the mas- 
 tery, and during which also mixed motives appear 
 among those who are being used, perhaps un- 
 consciously to themselves, for the inauguration of 
 a better day. It took five hundred years to bring 
 Europe only part of the way from paganism to 
 
 190 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Christianity ; and China is larger by far and is more 
 conservative than Europe. The world moves 
 faster now, and the change-producing forces of 
 the present exceed those of former centuries as a 
 modern steam hammer exceeds a wooden sledge. 
 But China is ponderous, and a few decades are 
 short for so gigantic a transformation. Whatever 
 may be the blunders and crimes of the changing 
 order, however uncertain progress may be here 
 and there, whatever backward steps may be taken 
 for a time, it is clear that conditions can never 
 revert to their former state. The old order has 
 been broken up once for all. That dam has burst. 
 We must be large-minded enough and have enough 
 of the Christian altruistic spirit to discern the good 
 that will surely follow. The Crusades were fright- 
 ful tragedies and attended by horrors over which 
 the world still shudders; but they broke up the 
 stagnation of the Middle Ages. They liberated 
 men's minds from iron-bound traditions. They 
 gave new knowledge of other peoples. They 
 awakened new aspirations, and they so changed 
 the conditions which had hitherto repressed truth 
 and liberty that they made possible a better era. 
 May we not believe that the present upheaval in 
 China may, in the providence of God, serve a sim- 
 ilar purpose, and that even as a new Europe fol- 
 lowed the chaos of the Crusades, so a new Asia 
 will follow the chaos of the present Revolution? 
 
 191 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 But our late Secretary of State, John Hay, would 
 have added reason now to repeat the warning 
 which he uttered not long before his death: " The 
 political storm-centre of the world has shifted 
 steadily eastward from the Balkans, from Con- 
 stantinople, from the Persian Gulf, from India, 
 to China; and whoever understands that Empire 
 and its people has a key to world-politics for the 
 next five centuries." 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without reiterating 
 my conviction that the individual Chinese is one 
 of the most virile, industrious and self-reliant men 
 in the world. Unaided, he overcomes obstacles 
 and makes his way where many other men fail. 
 He has lacked heretofore national spirit; he has 
 not been willing to make sacrifices for the common 
 good. China, therefore, has been weak and help- 
 less in international affairs, as compared with the 
 compact and united Japanese and with western 
 governments which are able to mass their na- 
 tional resources for aggressive purposes. But if 
 these individual Chinese are inspired with a na- 
 tional spirit, if they realize that in union is strength, 
 then, with the weapons of modern warfare in 
 their hands, and moving, not as individuals, but 
 as a united country of 433,000,000 people, they 
 will become one of the mightiest powers that the 
 world has seen. This inspiration with a national 
 spirit, this fusing of individualism into the unity 
 
 192 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of a majestic nation, is now taking place. Rail- 
 ways and telegraphs are bringing the widely sep- 
 arated parts of the Empire together. Aggressions 
 of outside nations are awakening irritation and be- 
 getting knowledge that union is necessary to pres- 
 ervation. Modern education is kindling new am- 
 bitions. Contact with other peoples is widening 
 horizons. Newspapers are proclaiming reform. 
 The Gospel of Christ is exalting ideals, creating 
 Christian character and strengthening moral pur- 
 poses. Chinese individuals are being welded in 
 the fires of modern life into a Chinese nation. 
 Old China memorized Confucian classics; new 
 China studies modern science. Old China was a 
 loose aggregation of individuals ; new China is de- 
 veloping national unity. Old China was helpless 
 in international affairs; new China is becoming a 
 world power. It has been well said that the Re- 
 vival oi Learning, the religious Reformation, the 
 rise of constitutional government, the development 
 of scientific knowledge, the introduction of labor- 
 saving machinery, and the new spirit of human 
 brotherhood, which in Europe and America were 
 scattered over several different countries and cen- 
 turies so that the white race could, in a measure 
 at least, adjust itself to them by degrees one at 
 a time, have in China occurred in a single country 
 all at once. The stupendous magnitude of this 
 transformation dwarfs every other movement. 
 
 193 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 Our duty is not to resist it, not to drill armies and 
 build navies for an era of conflict, but to treat the 
 new China justly and to aid in inspiring it with 
 noble resolve. 
 
 The most solemn responsibility rests upon the 
 Christian Churches and upon their missionaries at 
 such a time as this. They need to a remarkable 
 degree a combination of wisdom, of patience, of 
 fortitude, of courage, and of firmness. Having 
 been led by an imperative sense of duty to preach 
 Christian truths to China, having declared those 
 truths which always and everywhere awaken the 
 minds of men, they must continue their work. 
 They cannot set in motion such vast reconstructive 
 forces and then abandon their efforts when the old 
 walls begin to crumble and the air is filled with 
 flying debris and clouds of dust. The overshadow- 
 ing question to-day is whether the people of God 
 will be equal to the new emergency. If we think 
 of the answer to this question from the view-point 
 of the Divine purpose and power, we shall, of 
 course, unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative. 
 But we are to consider the question from the view- 
 point of the human, as well as the Divine. God 
 has chosen to work through His people, and will 
 His people in Europe and America respond to His 
 call ? Will they see that the missionary enterprise, 
 which stands for the purifying and regenerative 
 influences of the world, is so sustained that it will 
 
 194 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 be adequate to the colossal needs of the new era ? 
 It would be a calamity to the whole world if 
 the dominant nation of Asia should be anti-Chris- 
 tian or even non-Christian. If it is not to be, 
 immediate and herculean efforts must be made to 
 regenerate it. Sir Robert Hart declared that the 
 only hope of averting " the yellow peril " lay 
 either in partition among the great Powers, which 
 he regarded as so difficult as to be impracticable, 
 or in a miraculous spread of Christianity which 
 would transform the national character. 
 
 China's new system of education shows the 
 danger of adopting modern methods without Chris- 
 tian principles. It virtually debars Christians from 
 the faculties and student body. Infidelity, how- 
 ever, 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 wor- 
 ship of Heaven and Earth and made homage to 
 the tablet of Confucius compulsory upon all of- 
 ficials 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 Chris- 
 tian students who had conscientious scruples about 
 the worship of Confucius, since Heaven and Earth 
 are worshipped only by the Emperor. But many 
 missionaries do not place this construction upon 
 
 195 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 the Edict. They regard it rather as an attempted 
 defence against the growing power of Christian- 
 ity. Christ, the Son of God, must be matched in 
 the popular mind by another Divine Man, Con- 
 fucius, who must be regarded henceforth as more 
 than a holy man and sage. At any rate, the Gov- 
 ernment schools are far from being comfortable 
 places for consistent Christians. A conference of 
 the Manchurian Missions of the Irish Presbyterian 
 Church and the United Free Church of Scotland, 
 September, 1910, sent an appeal on this subject to 
 their respective Boards, from which I make the 
 following extracts: "The key of the religious sit- 
 uation in China at present is in the hands of her 
 students. In no country of the world do educated 
 young men hold such a position of influence as in 
 this Empire. New schools and colleges of all 
 grades are in existence and education is free, though 
 not yet compulsory. The outlook of this vast body 
 of young men is less skeptical and materialistic 
 than formerly. But while Japanese influence and 
 modes of thought have ready access to their minds, 
 it is very different with Christianity." " Anti- 
 conservative but anti-Christian," the educational 
 movement has been characterized by Dr. Wat- 
 son M. Hayes. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, formerly 
 President of the Imperial University, declares 
 that " if Christians at home only knew what a 
 determined effort is being made to exclude Chris- 
 
 196 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tian teachers and Christian text-books from Chi- 
 nese Government schools, they would exert them- 
 selves to give a Christian education to the youth 
 of China." A single mission institution, with 
 its union of the best educational methods and 
 the highest ideals of Christian character, will do 
 more for the real enlightenment of China than 
 a dozen provincial colleges where gambling and 
 irreligion are freely tolerated, and a failure to 
 worship the tablet of Confucius is deemed the only 
 cardinal sin. 
 
 The Christian people of the West are not try- 
 ing to give China a " civilization." They have 
 no wish to interfere with native customs which 
 have no moral bearing, or with those political 
 questions which each nation has a right to de- 
 cide for itself. It is true that some changes in 
 individual and community life invariably follow 
 the acceptance of Christianity; but these changes 
 relate to those things that are inherently right 
 or wrong irrespective of the government to which 
 they appear to belong. The Gospel will do 
 in China what it does everywhere — fight vice, 
 cleanse foulness, dispel superstition, purify society, 
 promote intelligence, transform life, elevate wom- 
 an, and give fitness for the wise and beneficent use 
 of power. 
 
 The question is not whether the Chinese desire 
 Christ, but whether they need Him. A man's 
 
 197 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 answer to that question largely depends upon his 
 own relation to Christ. If we need Him, the 
 Chinese do. If He has done anything for us, if 
 He has brought any dignity, power and peace into 
 our lives, He can do as much for the Chinese. 
 The objection that the Chinese have religions of 
 their own is wholly misleading. Confucianism is 
 not a religion in a proper sense of the term, but 
 at its best an agnostic code of human relations 
 and at its worst a superstitious worship of the 
 spirits of ancestors. Practical Buddhism and 
 Taoism, as they exist in China to-day, are a maze 
 of degrading superstitions which are utterly desti- 
 tute of moral vigor and of which their founders 
 would be heartily ashamed if they could return to 
 earth. The difference between such systems and 
 Christianity is one not of degree, but of kind, the 
 difference between light and ■ darkness. If any 
 American imagines that such so-called religions are 
 " good enough for the Chinese," ask him whether 
 they are good enough for him. I have scant 
 respect for the Pharisaism which holds that the 
 white man needs the best religion, but that any 
 ignorant, distorted conceptions of God will do for 
 pur brother man in China. 
 
 That multitudes of Chinese outside of the 
 Churches are beginning to have a better under- 
 standing of Christianity and are showing greater 
 readiness to receive it, recent events clearly prove. 
 
 198 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Missionaries in widely separated parts of the 
 country write glowingly of the remarkable change 
 in public sentiment. Bishop James W. Bashford 
 wrote from Peking, December 22, 1911 : " What- 
 ever may be before us in the immediate future, I 
 am confident that the greatest opportunity which 
 ever confronted Christianity is before us in China. 
 The Foo-chow Methodist Conference received 
 General Sung (the new military Governor of Fo- 
 kien Province) and his Cabinet in a reception dur- 
 ing the Conference week, exactly as it had received 
 representatives of the Manchu Government on 
 similar occasions in previous years. The most 
 dramatic incident in this reception was a request 
 by the President of the Board of Posts and Com- 
 munications for prayers for the Cabinet and for 
 General Sung and the promptness with which Gen- 
 eral Sung leaped to his feet and bowed his head 
 the moment the request was made. I offered a 
 brief prayer at the close of my remarks, while all 
 stood. The Rev. Huong Pau Seng says that if 
 our Church were prepared with suitable places of 
 worship, we could receive hundreds of thousands 
 of people into these churches and teach them the 
 Christian doctrine within the next few months. 
 I have been meeting surprises ever since I came 
 to China, but have never been more surprised than 
 at the longing with which the Chinese turn to us 
 for help and instruction in regard to the true God 
 
 199 
 
The CHINESE IREVOLUTION 
 
 and the true way of life in the crisis which is 
 upon them." 
 
 This is the need to which the Churches of Europe 
 and America are addressing themselves through 
 the Boards of Foreign Missions. These Boards 
 are the channels through which the highest type of 
 Christian teaching is communicated to non-Chris- 
 tian peoples, the agencies which gather up the 
 noblest forces in our modern life and faith and 
 concentrate them upon the conditions of China. 
 Foreign Missions is therefore not only a question of 
 religion, but a problem of statesmanship which is 
 of concern for the whole world. As such, it merits 
 the sympathy and cooperation of every intelligent 
 and broad-minded man, irrespective of his relig- 
 ious affiliations. Its spiritual aims are supremely 
 sufficient for every true disciple of Christ, but 
 its moral, social and educational value justly 
 claims the Interest and support of all. It founds 
 schools and colleges for the training of the young ; 
 establishes hospitals for the care of the sick; 
 operates printing-presses for the dissemination of 
 the Bible and a Christian literature; maintains 
 churches for the worship of God; and in and 
 through all it preaches the transforming and up- 
 lifting Gospel of Him who alone can "speak 
 peace " to the strifes of men. 
 
 Effort to minimize the significance of missionr 
 ary work in China will be made only by those who, 
 
 200 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 destitute of vital religious faith themselves, natu- 
 rally see no reason for communicating it to others, 
 or by those who are strangely blind and deaf to the 
 real significance of the time. In the words of 
 Benjamin Kidd, " it is not improbable that, to a 
 future observer, one of the most curious features 
 of our time will appear to be the prevailing un- 
 consciousness of the real nature of the issues in 
 the midst of which we are living." " No more," 
 observes Lecky, " did the statesmen and the phi- 
 losophers of Rome understand the character and 
 issues of that greatest movement of all history, of 
 which their literature takes so little notice. That 
 the greatest religious change in the history of man- 
 kind should have taken place under the eyes of 
 a brilliant galaxy of philosophers and historians 
 who were profoundly conscious of decomposition 
 around them; that all these writers should have 
 utterly failed to predict the issue of the movement 
 they were then observing; and that during the 
 space of three centuries they should have treated 
 as simply contemptible an agency which all men 
 must now admit to have been, for good or evil, the 
 most powerful moral lever that has ever been ap- 
 plied to the affairs of men, are facts well worthy 
 of meditation in every period of religious transi- 
 tion." » 
 
 The missionaries, through whom this great 
 
 » "History of European Morab," Vol. I, 3S9- 
 20 1 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 work is done in China, are highly educated, care- 
 fully selected men and women, the best types of 
 western Christian character, culture, and wisdom. 
 They are not perfect, no one is, not even the critic 
 of the missionary enterprise ; but they come nearer 
 to perfection than any other class that I know 
 either at home or abroad. They average very high 
 in those qualities which fit men and women to per- 
 form a noble duty at a time and place of strategic 
 world significance. During all the trying and 
 sometimes dangerous period of flood, famine, pes- 
 tilence and revolution, their position was one of 
 extraordinary difficulty — ^myriads of starving Chi- 
 nese looking to them for provisions and employ- 
 ment, throngs of the sick and injured daily brought 
 for treatment, Chinese and foreigners alike ex- 
 pecting them to perform the herculean task of pur- 
 chasing and distributing food, their compounds 
 sometimes exposed to mob violence, frequently 
 sheltering refugees now from one side and now 
 from the other, and, in some places, meeting calls 
 to mediate between the contending parties. But 
 they bore themselves with a discretion, a dignity 
 and a fidelity which were worthy of all praise. 
 
 I have elsewhere cited a number of instances of 
 the recognition which the Chinese themselves are 
 giving to the worth of the Christian enterprise, 
 and I may add here another which bears more 
 particularly upon the point now under discussion. 
 
 202 
 
< 
 
 o 
 
 < 
 X 
 
 CO 
 H 
 
 a 
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 > 
 
 X 
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 c« 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Dr. Timothy Richard of Shanghai reports that 
 at a meeting where representatives of Confucian- 
 ism, Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, and 
 Christianity met in 191 1 in Shanghai, one Man- 
 darin said, " When I go to the country and see 
 a good school or college, and ask, ' Who put it 
 up?' The answer is, 'The Christians.' When I 
 see a good hospital where many patients are at- 
 tended to daily, and ask, ' Who does this ? ' I am 
 told it is the Christians. When I look over the 
 names on the Famine Relief Committee, I find 
 that those who are taking a leading part both in 
 the raising of funds and in the very dangerous 
 work of distribution of relief are Christians." 
 
 When the new building of the George Yardley 
 Taylor Memorial Hospital was opened at Paoting- 
 fu, Dr. Charles Lewis invited all the high officials 
 in the city to the dedication service. In showing 
 the Provincial Treasurer the church, he pointed to 
 certain seats, saying, " That is where the soldiers 
 sit." "Soldiers I what soldiers?" replied the of- 
 ficial. " Chinese soldiers from the camp over 
 there," said the Doctor. " Why, do our Chinese 
 soldiers come here to church ? " said the Treasurer. 
 "Yes," replied the Doctor, "lots of them," 
 " Well," answered the official, pointing to the Ten 
 Commandments hanging on the wall, "if you can 
 get that teaching into their minds, they will be 
 good soldiers." Afterwards he said: " I see now 
 
 203 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 one decided difference between Christianity and 
 Confucianism, the motive and incentive of the two 
 systems are not alike. Christianity seems to have 
 the power to go out from one's self to others; 
 it is not self-centred, but works for others. Con- 
 fucianism doesn't do that. Where do you find 
 Confucianism building hospitals and schools for 
 poor people and strangers ! Quite different ! " 
 The people in thirteen small villages near by in- 
 dicated their opinion by clubbing together and pre- 
 senting the hospital with a large red silk banner 
 on which was inscribed in characters of gold the 
 following sentence : " This place bestows grace on 
 the Chinese people." 
 
 How soon and how adequately will the Chris- 
 tian Churches of the West meet the extraordinary 
 opportunity which China now offers ? It produces 
 a feeling of impatience when one is told that all 
 missionary plans for China must be contingent 
 upon " the settlement of political negotiations," 
 " the continuance in power of Yuan Shih Kai," 
 " the maintenance of a strong foreign military and 
 naval force in China," " the thwarting of Rus- 
 sia's plans for supremacy," and several other 
 things. We cannot, indeed, be indifferent to the 
 course of political events or to their bearing upon 
 the missionary problem. But neither can we make 
 our obedience to Christ and our duty to our fellow 
 men dependent upon political considerations. For 
 
 204 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Christian men to wait until China is pacified, or 
 " until she is enlightened by the dissemination of 
 truer conceptions of the western world," would 
 be to abdicate their responsibility as the chief fac- 
 tor in bringing about a better state of affairs. Is 
 the Church prepared to abandon the field to the 
 diplomat, the soldier, the trader? How soon is 
 China likely to be pacified by them, judging from 
 their past acts? The Gospel is the primary need 
 of China to-day. The period of unrest is not the 
 time for the messenger of Christ to hold his peace, 
 but to declare with new zeal and fidelity his min- 
 istry of reconciliation. 
 
 The force is now painfully inadequate. To say 
 that there are 4,299 Protestant foreign mission- 
 aries in China is apt to mislead, unless one remem- 
 bers the immensity of the population. Station 
 fields with half a million people, and in some in- 
 stances several millions, are comparatively well- 
 manned if they average four missionary families 
 and a couple of single women. There is only one 
 missionary to 100,000 souls. But this counts the 
 sick, the aged, recruits learning the language, 
 wives whose time Is absorbed by household cares, 
 and men who are absent on furlough. The actual 
 working force, therefore, is far smaller than the 
 statistics suggest. 
 
 Of China as a whole, it is said that " some of 
 the missionaries and some of the converts are to 
 
 205, 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 be found in every one of the Provinces. But of 
 the 1,900 odd counties into which the Provinces 
 are divided, each with one important town and a 
 large part of them with more than one, at least 
 four-fifths are almost entirely unprovided with 
 the means of hearing the Gospel." Grant that the 
 work of direct evangelization must be done chiefly 
 by Chinese Christians, there is still much for the 
 missionary to do. Allowing for those who, on ac- 
 count of illness, furlough or other duties, are tem- 
 porarily non-effective, 10,000 missionaries for 
 China would not give a working average of one 
 for every 50,000 of the population. 
 
 I do not profess to predict what the immediate 
 future has in store. There are encouraging and 
 discouraging factors. " Men ask us for the bot- 
 tom facts," exclaims Dr. Arthur H. Smith, of 
 Peking. " They can't have them, because there 
 is no bottom and there are no facts." 
 
 We must not underestimate the difficulties of 
 the situation. The hindrances to the progress of 
 the Gospel were at first suspicion, dense supersti- 
 tion, the inertia of centuries of stagnation, fear 
 and dislike of anything associated with white men, 
 and powerful, established non-Christian faiths. 
 These hindrances still exist in varying degrees of 
 intensity. Some are showing unmistakable signs 
 of disintegration. New hindrances, however, are 
 developing. Knowledge of western nations is 
 
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 Shi Ma-Li-A 
 
 Shi Ma— Li— A ic knov.n to her English friends as Dr. Mary 
 Stone. She was born of Christian parents in Kiu— kiang. Through 
 a missionary she was given an opportunity to secure a medical 
 education in the United States. She received her M.D. from the 
 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1896. During the year 
 1910, Dr. Stone treated 15,941 patients in the hospital, dispensary, 
 and homes of her native town. In addition to her work as a doctor, 
 she directs a large training school for women and superintends 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 bringing new temptations. Some Chinese have 
 thrown off the old conservatism to become as vola- 
 tile as the Athenians who eagerly sought " some 
 new thing," and social and religious vagaries of 
 the West are finding virgin soil for a rank growth 
 of fantastic " isms." It is easier to change political 
 institutions than to change character so that institu- 
 tions which are theoretically better will be prac- 
 tically operative. There is to be a new China, but 
 whether it is to be better or worse than the old 
 depends largely upon whether the Christian men 
 of the West will strengthen the forces which make 
 for righteousness. 
 
 There is immense opportunity for missionary 
 work in China, but it must be done amid new so- 
 cial and political complications, the upheaval of 
 Chinese society, the surging currents and counter- 
 currents of a new era, the increasing anti-foreign 
 spirit, and the stubborn feeling of multitudes in 
 China that Christianity is not only identified with 
 foreign ideas but is subversive of ancestral worship, 
 to which the Chinese tenaciously cling. 
 
 But there is another side. It would not be 
 fair, as it would not be Christian, to consider the 
 difficulties of the future apart from the influence 
 which the Gospel of Christ has in modifying those 
 difficulties. It is true that forces of evil and de- 
 moralization are at work. It is true also that the 
 constructive force of the Gospel is at work, and 
 
 207 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 that it is the mightiest force of all. The Gospel 
 has shown its overcoming power in other lands 
 and times, and it will show it again in China. 
 A recent traveler declares that it will take 500 
 years to convert China. Well, Christianity has 
 been operating upon the Anglo-Saxon race for 
 1,500 years, and neither Great Britain nor 
 America is converted yet. No other cities in the 
 world have had the pure Gospel preached to them 
 for a longer period than London, Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow; but the Christians in those cities confess 
 that they are appalled by the wickedness in them. 
 Even if it does take 500 years to convert China, 
 which has nearly three times as many people as 
 Great Britain and America combined, it would 
 not be a reason for withholding from the Chinese 
 the truths which transform every man who accepts 
 them. We do not refuse to give China our med- 
 ical science because diseases still prevail in Amer- 
 ica, and no more should we refuse to give Chris- 
 tian teaching because some at home still ignore 
 or reject it. 
 
 Grant that the evangelization of China is a 
 big task, and it certainly is, we may be cheered 
 by the great progress that is being made, by the 
 evidence that Christianity has taken root so that 
 there is a Church which is well established 
 and certain to grow. We may be encouraged, 
 too, by the fact that the Churches contain a larger 
 
 208 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 number of Christians of the second and third 
 generation, and are attracting men of intelligence 
 who are fitted for leadership. The Christian 
 movement is gaining strength and momentum, and 
 the larger faith and sounder character of men who 
 are at a farther remove from original heathenism. 
 The first converts find it very difficult to emancipate 
 themselves from inherited superstitions and wrong 
 practices; but these superstitions and practices are 
 weaker in the second generation, and still weaker 
 in the third, while the Christian convictions and 
 standards are proportionately stronger. There is 
 a limit to this line of argument, for the oldest 
 Church in time is not always the best in char- 
 acter; but broadly speaking, children who have 
 grown up in a believing household, accustomed 
 from their earliest recollections to prayer and the 
 Word of God, and who are led to Christ before 
 idolatry and vice gain a hold, are apt to be better 
 Christians than those who grow up in heathenism 
 and become Christians later in life. It is, there- 
 fore, a distinct encouragement that we now have 
 a considerable and rapidly increasing number of 
 such Christians. Everywhere I went, I asked not 
 only missionaries, but Chinese pastors, elders and 
 evangelists what they thought of the future, and 
 without exception I found their attitude hopeful 
 to the point of enthusiasm. They felt absolutely 
 confident that the cause of Christ is firmly es- 
 
 209 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 tablished in China and that great days are to 
 come. As I journeyed through that great land, 
 asking questions, making investigations regarding 
 the conditions and perplexities of the work, and 
 noting the changes that had taken place since 
 my former visit, I found myself repeatedly ut- 
 tering the words, "What hath God wrought!" 
 I close this study of the new China oppressed 
 by the magnitude of the task which we have under- 
 taken, feeling keenly its difficulties, not under- 
 estimating the formidable opposition which we 
 encounter. But I am inspired by a stronger con- 
 fidence in the vitality of the Gospel, a more 
 assured conviction that amid all the tumult of a 
 changing order, the purpose of the omnipotent and 
 ever-living God is being steadily developed. I 
 am impressed by the fidelity and enthusiasm of the 
 missionaries and cheered by the example of 
 Chinese Christians who, amid toil and poverty and 
 sometimes persecution, are serving their Lord with 
 gladness of heart. " A growing Church among 
 a strong people burdened by a decadent Empire — 
 the spirit of life working against the forces of 
 death and decay in the one great pagan Empire 
 which the wrecks of millenniums have left on the 
 earth — surely there is a call to service that might 
 fire the spirit of the dullest of us." If this was 
 true when Dr. Gibson wrote it a few years ago, 
 how much more is it true now, when the burden 
 
 2IO 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of that decadent pagan Empire has been suddenly 
 cast off and the mighty spirit of life given freer and 
 more majestic scope. When, in all the history of 
 the world, has such a summons come to the men 
 of a generation? 
 
 And it comes to the women as well as the men. 
 More than half of the missionaries in China are 
 women, and hundreds more are needed. Evange- 
 listic, educational and medical work for women and 
 girls must be conducted by women missionaries 
 from the West. The character of the homes and 
 the new position of woman in Chinese society will 
 be largely determined by them. No nation rises 
 above the moral level of its wives and mothers, 
 and all our plans for the regeneration of China 
 must fail unless the women of Europe and America 
 respond with prompt and unselfish service. 
 
 It is surely time for the Christian Churches 
 of Europe and America to understand that 
 their greatest work in the twentieth century is 
 to plan this movement on a scale gigantic in com- 
 parison with anything they have yet done, and to 
 meet intelligently, generously and prayerfully, 
 the splendid opportunity to give new China the 
 principles of a new life. The obstacles are for- 
 midable, but we can say with Gladstone : " Time 
 is on our side. The great social forces which 
 move onward in their might and majesty and which 
 the tumults of these strifes do not for a moment 
 
 211 
 
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 
 
 impede or disturb, those forces are marshalled in 
 our support. And the banner which we now carry 
 in the fight, though perhaps at some moment of 
 the struggle it may droop over our sinking hearts, 
 yet will float again in the eye of Heaven and will 
 be borne, perhaps not to an easy, but to a certain 
 and to a not distant victory." * 
 
 " Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars," 
 our Lord calmly said to His disciples. " See that 
 ye be not troubled; for these things must needs 
 come to pass." " This Gospel of the kingdom 
 shall be preached in the whole world for a testi- 
 mony unto all the nations." ^ " Now is come the 
 salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our 
 God, and the authority of His Christ." ^ 
 
 "And who knoweth whether thou art not come 
 to the kingdom for such a time as this ? " * 
 
 ' Speech on the Reform Bill. ' Matt, rxiv: 6, 14. 
 ' Rev. zii: 10. ' Esther iv: 14. 
 
 212 
 
INDEX 
 
 Africa, 6i. 
 
 Agriculture, 14, is, 16, 31, 44-4S, 48. 
 
 America, 11, 14, 44, s8-S9, 61, 63, 8i, 
 
 86-87, 130, 194 ff- ; Chinese in, 32 ; 
 
 Americans, 1-2, 18-20, 26, 32-33, 
 
 37, 39, SI. S4. 71. 
 Anti-foreign feeling, SO-SS. 60-63, 
 
 87-91, 116-117, I20-I2I, 128-129, 
 
 206-207. 
 Arch, 30. 
 Anny, Chinese, S. 7. 10, IS9,"l6S, 187 
 
 -189. 
 Assemblies, Provincial, 121, 132, 13S- 
 
 141; National, 132, 139-141, 143. 
 Astronomers, Chinese, 29. 
 
 Bankers, foreign, 1-2, 43. 
 
 Banks and banking, 22, 30-31, 160, 
 
 166. 
 Bannermen, 6. 
 
 Bashford, Bishop J. W., 199. 
 Berlin Conference, 61. 
 Bible, 127; translation of, 97, 99- 
 Blind, 99. 
 Boxer Uprising, 9, 16, 43, 64, 81, 103, 
 
 113-11S, Il8, 128-131, 162-163. 
 
 i6s, 184. 
 Bribery, 22-23, IS2- 
 Brinkley, Frank, 64. 
 Buddhism, 24, 89, 19S. 
 
 Cabinet, 141. 
 
 Canals, 30. 
 
 Canton, 43, 49, 77, 78, 84, 150. 
 
 Capital.lforeign, 1-3, 43. I74i I79, 
 
 184. 
 Census, 15-16. 
 Chang Chih-timg, Viceroy, 7S. 127, 
 
 137, 188. 
 Chang Po Ling, 85. 
 
 Charitable institutions, gs, 99. 
 
 Chih-li, 18, 164. 
 
 Children, is, 26, 29. 
 
 China, area, 12-18, SI-S2; popula- 
 tion, 12, 1S-18, 52; resources, 14- 
 IS, 16, 31, 36, 41, 44-48. 
 
 Chinese, character and customs, Z2- 
 13, I8-3S, SO-SI, S3-S4! language, 
 82 ; in America, 32, 58, 59, 63; 
 religions of, 23-24, 48-49, 87, 91, 
 182, 192-193; see also, religions. 
 
 Ching, Prince, 23, 141. 
 
 Christianity, 11, 47, 49, S6-S7, 86, 89, 
 94 fE., loi. III, 193, 19S-208. 
 
 Christians, Chinese, 9s, 97-99, 103- 
 iio, H2-II7, 209. 
 
 Chun, Prince Regent, g, 10, 136, 142- 
 144, 169-172. 
 
 Church, Chinese, 199, 203, 209-210; 
 Greek, 57; Roman Cathohc, 56-S7, 
 95, 116-I17; western, duty of, 194- 
 212. 
 
 Cities, 17, 41. 
 
 Civilization, Chinese and western, 
 30-31, 92-93, 197. 
 
 Commissions, Imperial, to Europe and 
 America, 23, 131. 
 
 Classics, Confucian, 31, 74-73, 
 
 Clocks, 38. 
 
 Coal, IS, 44-45. 
 
 Coinage, 166. 
 
 CoUeges, 71. 75-77. 85. lOS, 106. 
 
 Colonizing. 33, 35. 
 
 Commerce, 30, 31, 33. 36-47. 
 
 Compass, 30. 
 
 Concessions, foreign, 43. 
 
 Concubines, 8-9, 15. 
 
 Confucius and Confucianism, 26, 3it 
 74-75. 195-196. 198, 204. 
 
 213 
 
INDEX 
 
 Constitution, S8, lOO, 126-156, 166. 
 
 Consuls, I0I-I02. 
 
 Corruption, official, 3-3, 4, 6, 15-16, 
 
 21-23, 26, 152. 
 Cotton, 39. 
 Courts, 22, 151-154; U. S., In China, 
 
 89. 
 Crusades, 191. 
 
 Deaf and dumb, 99, 
 
 Death, 19, 25-26. 
 
 Debt, national, 184; see also, loans. 
 
 Degrees, 75, 85, 132. 
 
 Democracy in China, 32. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 28. 
 
 Ding Li Mei, 105-106, no. 
 
 Diplomatic relations, 50-70. 
 
 Drought, 3-4. 
 
 Dynasties, s-6, 144-145. 
 
 Edicts, Imperial, S6, 75-76, 78, 117, 
 127, 132, 140, 141, 142-144, 147- 
 148, isi, 153-156, 167, 195-196. 
 
 Education, 71, 74, 94; Confucian, 31; 
 Christian, 78, 85, 197 ; government, 
 75-78, 161, 165-167, 195-197 J Im- 
 perial Board of, 76, 83, 119-120; 
 Educational Association of China, 
 71- 
 
 Electricity and electrical apparatus, 
 37. 39. 41. 74. 166, 193. 
 
 Emperor, Hong Wu, 30 ; Hsien Feng, 
 8; Hwai Tsung, 5; Kuang Hsu, 8-9, 
 127, 134, 168-170; Pu Yi (Hsuan 
 Tung), 136, 142, 168-170; Shun 
 Chi, 6; Tien-tsung, 5-6. 
 
 Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, 8-9, 63, 
 128-136, 162, 164, 168-170. 
 
 Engineering courses, 76. 
 
 England and English, 2, 11, 12, 14, 
 60-62, 68, 174, 184; language, 78. 
 
 Epidemics, 3-4, 128. 
 
 Europe and Europeans, 1-2, 11-12, 
 14. 30. 37. 39. 51. 58. 87, 130, 185, 
 189-191, 194-195. 
 
 Evangelistic Association of China, 
 108. 
 
 Examinations, 74-75, 77, 8$. 
 Exclusion Law, U. S., 59. 
 Extra-territorial rights, 152. 
 
 "Pace," 53-54. 170-171. 
 
 Family, 15. 
 
 Famine, 3-4, 45, 128, famine re- 
 lief, 203. 
 
 Floods, 3-4, 128. 
 
 Flour, 38, 40. 
 
 Fo-kien, 18, 108, 123. 
 
 Foot-binding, 83, 150-151. 
 
 Foreigners in China, 37 S., 50, 68, 87- 
 91. 130. 
 
 France and the French, 2, ii, 60-62, 
 65, 68, 184. 
 
 Gambling, 23, 150. 
 
 Germany and Germans, J, 11-12, 30, 
 60-62, 65, 68, 130. 
 
 Gibson, J. Campbell, 23, 104, 210. 
 
 Girls, 83, 150-151. 
 
 Giving, 112-113. 
 
 Gladstone, Wm. E., 211. 
 
 Gordon, General George, 7-8. 
 
 Govenmients, 166, 173; constitu- 
 tional, 126-156; Manchu, 1-3, 6 ft., 
 32, 55, 134 S., 145, 195; revolu- 
 tionary, 173 S., 182 S.; western, 
 1-2, 58, 101-102. 
 
 Grant, General, 32. 
 
 Greek Church, 57. 
 
 Hai-nan, 62. 
 
 Hankow, 10, 43, 108. 
 
 Han-yang, 10, 40, 123. 
 
 Hart, Sir Robert, 73, 195. 
 
 Harte, Bret, 34. 
 
 Hay, John, 192. 
 
 Hayes, Watson M., 167, 196. 
 
 Hong-kong, 62. 
 
 Hospitals, 99, 165. 
 
 Hunan, 3-4, 45, 47. 
 
 Hupeh, 3-4, 18. 
 
 Hwang-ho River,'-3-4, 128. 
 
 Idols and Idolatry, 77, 167. 
 Immorality, 23-25, 86-9X. 
 
 .214 
 
INDEX 
 
 India, ii, 24, 60. 
 Indemnity, 16, 81, 130, 184. 
 Insane, gg. 
 
 Intellectual awakening, 71-93. 
 Iron, IS, 40, 44-4S, 123. 
 Islands, 60-61. 
 Italian-Turkish War, 69. 
 
 Jagerschmidt, Andr^, 37. 
 
 Jails, 152-154. 
 
 Japan and Japanese, 11-12, 23, 34- 
 
 35. S2, 54. 68, 79-81, 184, 189. 
 Jenghiz Khan, 4-5. 
 Jews, 33. 
 
 Jordan, Sir John, 149. 
 Jung Lu, Viceroy, 168-169. 
 
 Kiang-si, 3-4. 
 
 Kiang-su, 3-4. 
 
 Kidd, Benjamin, 27, 201. 
 
 Korea, 12, 60, 159. 
 
 Kuang Hsu, Emperor, 8-9, 127, 134, 
 
 168-1 70. 
 Kwang-tung, 32. 
 
 Language, Chinese, 82. 
 
 Learning, 78-80; Confucian, 31; 
 
 western, 58, 72, 74 fl. 
 Lecky, 201. 
 
 Legations, 57, 60, 66-67. 
 Leper asylums, 99. 
 Liberty, religious, 124, 195-196. 
 Li Hung Chang, Viceroy, 159, 164. 
 Living, cost of, 47-48. 
 Li Yuan Heng, General, 123, 158. 
 Loans. 1-3, 43, 174. I79. 184. 
 Looting, 64-66, 160, 183. 
 Lowrie, J. Walter, 119. 
 Luce, H. W., 105. 
 
 MacArthur, General, 188. 
 
 Machinery, 37 £E. 
 
 Manchuria, 3, 4-5, 14, 16, 37. 61, 107, 
 
 183-184. 
 Manchus, origin of, 4-sj seize throne 
 
 of China, 5-6; character of rule, 
 
 6 ff., 21-23, 133-136, 144-14S. ISIp 
 
 174 ff. 
 
 Manufactures, 30, 37 S., 40, 44-45, 
 123, 167. 
 
 Marriage, IS, 134- 
 
 Martin, W. A. P., 7, 56, 58, 171, 196. 
 
 Minerals, 15, 40. 44-4S i mining, 41, 76. 
 
 Ming Dynasty, 5. 
 
 Mints, 166. 
 
 Missionaries and missions, 36-40, 58, 
 71-74. 78, 85, 90-91. 94-104, 116- 
 122, 129, 147, isi, 167. 194-20S, 
 210, 2zi; statistics of, 95, 99, 205. 
 
 M'Kenzie, F. A., zoi. 
 
 Mobs, 59, 129-130, 163, 182. 
 
 Mongolia and Mongols, 4-5, 14, 16, 
 183-184. 
 
 Morrison, Robert, 96-97, 100. 
 
 Murray, Robert, 89. 
 
 Nanking, 41, 43, 87, 98. 107, 122, 143. 
 
 Nations, western, 1-2, so £E., 87, 91- 
 92, 101-102, 146, 184, 186, 188. 
 
 Nestorians, 94. 
 
 Newspapers, 60, 73, 82, 161, 193. 
 
 Ngan-hwei, 3-4. 
 
 Ng Poon Chew, 22-23. 
 
 Nurhachi, 5. 
 
 Officials, 2-3, 4, 6, 1S-16, 21-23, 2S- 
 26, 73. 79. 116 ff., 152-154, 203; 
 republican, 199. 
 
 Oil, 38. 
 
 Opium, 99, 146-149. 
 
 Orphanages, 99. 
 
 Palace, Imperial, 39, 65-66, 140, 169; 
 
 176, 
 Pang Shao Yi, 158. 
 Paper, 30. 
 
 Parliament, 100; see also, assemblies. 
 Partition, 185. 
 Patriotism, 50. 
 Pearl River, 184. 
 Peculation, official, 2-3, 4, 6, IS-16, 
 
 21-23, 26. 
 Peking, 2, 5, 23-25, 41-42. 63-64. 81, 
 
 130. 
 Penal code. 2S, IS1-IS4- 
 People, Chinese, 182, 187. 192-193 i 
 
 see also, Chinese. 
 
 215 
 
INDEX 
 
 Persecution of Christians, 113-117. 
 
 Persia, II, 60, 69. 
 
 Philippines, 12, 61. 
 
 Pillage, 64-66, 160, 183. 
 
 Police, 41, 84, 16S. 
 
 Political inSuences, So-70. 
 
 Population of China, 12, 15-18, 51. 
 
 Ports, 88, 90, 98. 
 
 Post-offices, 73-74. 
 
 Poverty, 47-48. 
 
 Powder, 30. 
 
 Press and printing, 30, 72, 75, 99, 
 
 126-127. 
 Protestants in China, 205; see also, 
 
 missions. 
 Provinces, 1-4, IS-I7, 183. 
 Punishments, 25, 151-154. 
 
 Queue, IS4-ISS. 
 
 Railways, 1-3, 36, 42 ff., 68, 193. 
 
 Reforms, 126-131; social, 146-156; 
 of Yuan Shih Kai, 160, 165-167. 
 
 Regent, 8-10, 136, 142-144, 169-172. 
 
 Religions, Chinese, 23-24, 26, 4S-49, 
 86-89, 198; freedom of, 56-57. 82, 
 124, 195-196. 
 
 Republic, Chinese, 144, 173, 182-211; 
 republicans, 174-175. 
 
 Resources of China, 14-16, 31, 36, 41, 
 44-48. 
 
 Revivals, 105-III. 
 
 Revolutions, former Chinese, 5, 7-8, 
 51; of 1911-1912, 1-13, 36-49, SO- 
 70, 71-93. 143-146; Christianity 
 and, 101-102, 121-125; Tai-ping, 
 7-8, 36. 
 
 Rice, 44, 47. 
 
 Richtofen, Baron von, 15, 35. 
 
 Rivers, 3, 4, 14, 42, 128, 184. 
 
 Roads, 41, 47, 167. 
 
 Roman Catholics, S6-S7, 95. 116-117. 
 
 Russia, 13, 36-37, 60, 62, 68, 184, 189. 
 
 Russia-Japan War, 36-37, 67, 79. 
 
 Sanitation, 41, 47, 167. 
 
 Schools, girls', 83; govenwnent, 75- 
 
 78, 81, 83, 121, 133. 161, 16S-167, 
 
 195-197; mission, 74 ff-. 83-8S. 95, 
 
 99. 121; normal, 166. 
 Sewing machines, 38. 
 Shanghai, 42, 62, 88. 
 Shan-si, 18, 107. 
 Shantung, 3-4, 17-18, 45, 62, 159- 
 
 162. 
 Shen-si, 15, 94. 
 Siberian R. R., 36. 
 Silk, 30. 
 Slavery, 155. 
 Smith, Arthur H., S3, 7i. 
 Smith, George Adam, 92. 
 Social Reforms, 146-156. 
 Society, gradations of, 31. 
 Societies, missionary, 71-72, 
 Soldiers, 31, 171, 183, 187-189. 
 Soldiers, Chinese, 163, 165, 183, 203; 
 
 western, 64-66. 
 Steam and steamships, 36-48. 
 Steel, 40, 123. 
 Street cars, 41. 
 Students, 31, 78-80; government, 76, 
 
 195-197; Chinese in U. S., 81-82, 
 
 8s; Christian. 105-106; students 
 
 and the Revolution, 81. 
 Su, Prince, 23. 
 
 Suffering, indifference to, 25-26. 
 Suicide, 19. 
 Sun Yat Sen, 123, 124, 144-145, 176- 
 
 181, 186. 
 Superstition, 4, 26, 46, 49. 
 Sze-chwan, Zy 10. 
 
 Taft, President, 79, 89. 
 Tai-pings, 7-8, 36. 
 Ta-tsing Dynasty, 6. 
 Taxes, 7, is, 21. 
 Tea, 30. 
 
 Teachers, 71, 75, 77, 166-167. 
 Telegraph, 74. i93- 
 Telephones, 41, 74. 
 Temples. 24, 49, 77. 
 Tibet, 14, j6. 
 Tien-ming, dynasty of, 5. 
 Tien-tsin, 41, 42, 43, 159, 166. 
 
 216 
 
INDEX 
 
 Tien-tsung, Emperor, S-6. 
 Tobacco, 49- 
 Torture, 152-154. 
 Trade, 36 ff., S4. 101-102. 
 Travel, 36 S. 
 Treaties, s6-S7. 98. 
 Tsinan-fu, 41, 118, 161, 167, 188. 
 Tsung-li Yamen, 57-58, 131. 
 Toan Fang, Viceroy, 6, 88, 131, I37. 
 Turkestan, 14, 16. 
 Turkey, 11, 69. 
 Twain, Mark, 87. 
 
 Tzn Hsi, Empress Dowager, 8-9, 63, 
 83, 128-136, 162-164, 168-170. 
 
 Vices, 23-25. 86-91. 
 Verne, Jules, 37. 
 Villages, 17-18. 
 
 Wai-wu Pa, 131. 
 
 Wang Chong Wei, 123. IS8. 
 
 War, 65; China-Japan, IS9; Italian- 
 Turkish, 69; Russia- Japan, 36-37. 
 67, 79- 
 
 Ward, Frederick, 7-8. 
 
 Watches, 38. 
 
 Wheat, 44. 
 
 Wheelbarrows, 45. 
 
 Wilfley, Judge, 88. 
 
 Williams, S. Wells, 30, s6-S7. 
 
 Women, 71, 73, 83-85. 109. 134; 
 150-151, 2ir. 
 
 Wu-chang, 10, 108. 
 
 Wu Ting-fang, 42, 153, 158. 
 
 Xavier, Francis, 95. 
 
 Yang-tze River, 3, 62, 184. 
 "Yellow Peril," 186-190, I9S- 
 "Young China Party," 68. 
 Yun-nan, 18, 62. 
 Yuan Shih Kai, 10, 124, 136-137. i44i 
 
 ISS, 158-177, 179-181, 188. 
 Ya Hsien, Governor, 118, 162. 
 
 217