Y 
 
 HIE 
 
PRINCETON, N. J. ''^ 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 3415 .M52 1900 
 Michie, Alexander, 1833- 
 
 1902. 
 China and Christianity 
 
CHINA AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
CHINA AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 / 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER MICHIE 
 
 AUTHOR OF ''MISSIONARIES IN CHINA' 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 KNIGHT AND MILLET 
 
 1900 
 
Copyright^ igoo, 
 
 By Knight and Millet 
 
 F. H. Gilson Company 
 Printers and Bookbinders 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
Introduction* 
 
 A FEW words of introduction to this volume 
 may not be out of place, as the author and 
 his writings are little known to American 
 readers. Mr. Alexander Michie has been 
 for nearly twenty years the correspondent of 
 the London Times, resident in Peking. During 
 that period he has enjoyed such advantages 
 as come to the representative of so influential 
 a journal. He has been brought into contact 
 with not only the highest of Chinese official- 
 dom, but with the representatives of foreign 
 powers, many of whom have been prominent 
 figures in the game of Diplomacy so actively 
 played in the far East. 
 
 A careful observer, and a close student of 
 all questions bearing upon the Chinese problem. 
 
vi Introduction* 
 
 he knows whereof he writes, and in this 
 volume has discussed with rare calmness and 
 sobriety the many perplexing questions which 
 have culminated in the present deplorable 
 outbreak in China. 
 
 This volume was published a few years 
 since in Tien Tsin, reaching only a small 
 circle of readers among the English speaking 
 people of the East. Its merits entitle it to 
 a wider reading, and there can be no more 
 opportune occasion than the present to offer 
 it to American readers, as a helpful aid to 
 the formation of an enlightened public opinion 
 on one of the burning questions of the hour. 
 
 The Publishers. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A PUBLICATION which meets but qualified 
 approval from esteemed friends may be thought 
 to stand in need of an Apology. 
 
 There seems to be some fear that the ten- 
 dency of the following essay is to widen 
 rather than to heal the breach by fostering 
 Chinese prejudice against Christianity on the 
 one hand and displeasing an influential section 
 of the foreign public on the other. Beneath 
 this apprehension may possibly be a latent feel- 
 ing that as regards the institutions of Christen- 
 dom in the East, the rule for speakers and 
 writers should be nil nisi bonum. But such im- 
 plied immunity, if ever claimed in words, 
 would not be conceded by one section of the 
 Christian Church to another. 
 
 Fully recognizing that there is a time as well 
 as a place to speak and to be silent, the writer 
 
Vlll 
 
 Preface. 
 
 considers that the present is no time for reti- 
 cence respecting matters which keep the rela- 
 tions between Chinese and foreigners in a state 
 of dangerous tension, but that on the contrary 
 it is just the time for plain speaking on these 
 burning questions. We Western nations stand 
 in a position of peculiar moral responsibility 
 towards China. She has not sought us, but 
 we her. She does not press her religion or 
 her polity on us, but we press ours on her. 
 In such a relationship the onus of justification 
 necessarily rests on the stronger who imposes 
 his will on the weaker ; and where, as in the 
 present case, no competent neutral arbiter ex- 
 ists it becomes the duty of the aggressor him- 
 self, if he desires to be just, to assume, as far 
 as may be, the functions of such ideal referee, 
 and to give a patient consideration to all the 
 pleas, substantial or flimsy, advanced by, or on 
 behalf of, the weaker side. 
 
 This obligation, which has been understood 
 and loyally discharged in regard to such tangi- 
 ble matters as trade, carries tenfold weight 
 where moral relations are concerned; and those 
 who resolve to support religion, among an alien 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 people, by force, owe it to themselves to con- 
 sider well both what they do, and how they do 
 it. Errors in common affairs seldom sink so 
 deep or spread so wide as to be irremediable, 
 but mistakes in propagating and establishing 
 religion may quickly pass beyond remedy, and 
 bear consequences beyond calculation. For 
 its transcendency involves misconception and 
 misdirection ; its purity gives the measure of 
 its susceptibility to contamination ; while its 
 hold of the inner feelings of humanity diffuses 
 and renders indelible whatever taint it may 
 contract from its surroundings. Hence the 
 tenacity of opinions and observances, even of 
 a trivial character, which have once become in- 
 corporated with any religious cult. Hence 
 also the difficulty of religious reform as com- 
 pared with other kinds. 
 
 Obviously then an essence of such subtlety 
 demands the finest tact on the part of those 
 who have the handling of it, in whatever capa- 
 city. And though it is not possible, for want 
 of a competent and acknowledged authority, to 
 protect the Christianity as we guard the purity 
 of the vaccine lymph which is imported into 
 
X Preface* 
 
 the country, it ought not to be too much to 
 expect that the grosser elements of untruth, 
 injustice and vulgar strife should be, as far as 
 possible, eliminated alike from friendly and un- 
 friendly association with the introduction into 
 China of what is justly claimed to be the crown 
 and consummation of the world's religions. 
 
 To those, if there be any such, who think 
 the cause of religion may be served by hiding 
 any part of the record it would be difficult to 
 give an answer which is not already patent in 
 the exceeding frankness of both the Hebrew 
 and the Christian Scriptures. The fear of tell- 
 ing the Chinese too much would be in any case 
 an idle fear, seeing the books of history and of 
 observation lie wide open. Who, for example, 
 shall prevent them from discussing the episode 
 of Uganda ? The recent dictum of an African 
 missionary that " influence which is gained at 
 the price of keeping unpleasant truths in the 
 background is not worth having " has a wide 
 application. No lasting understanding is likely 
 to be attained between China and the Western 
 world without unreserved communications 
 touching matters of fact, and the dropping of 
 
Preface* xi 
 
 all hypocritical pretences on both sides. No 
 apology therefore ought to be necessary for 
 even a perfunctory effort to expose misunder- 
 standing, though it is at the same time devoutly 
 to be wished that some competent hand, say, a 
 missionary of light and leading, with experi- 
 mental knowledge for his guide, may take up 
 and develop the subject in a manner worthy of 
 the great interests involved. 
 
 The issue at stake, in the conception of the 
 writer, is nothing less than the mode in which 
 Christianity shall be introduced to the largest 
 population in the world ; whether it shall en- 
 ter in the gentleness of its true nature, like 
 showers on thirsty soil ; or with storm and 
 cataclysm, leaving legacies of hate to future 
 generations. Or rather such would have been 
 the issue had matters not already gone beyond 
 the bounds of so simple a formula. The ques- 
 tion is now practically reduced to this, — 
 whether the advance of Christianity shall 
 approximate more to the one or the other of 
 these alternative modes. Even in this atten- 
 uated form the subject is of serious import ; 
 for considering the flatness of the Chinese life 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 and the general poverty of its ideals the regen- 
 erating force of Christianity seems to be the 
 thing of which China stands most desperately 
 in need. " There is now in the world," says 
 Mr. Lilly in a recent work, " what we may 
 call the Christian temper, with all its charities 
 and courtesies, a temper of self-devotion to 
 some worthy cause, of self-effacement for some 
 high end, of fortitude and forgiveness, of 
 purity and pitifulness, of generosity and gentle- 
 ness." If to bring the Chinese within the in- 
 fluence of such a " temper " be an object 
 worthy of all sacrifice, it behoves those con- 
 cerned to see to it that the very considerable 
 sacrifices — in money and in precious lives, in 
 political principle and in international comity 
 — which are now being made be not operating 
 as hindrances to the desired process. 
 
 Needless to say it is beside the author's 
 purpose to discuss Christianity in any way 
 whatsoever. Only the vehicles and wrappage 
 of it are touched on, and these no further than 
 seemed necessary to clear the ground for the 
 political survey. The theme is not " China " 
 nor " Christianity," still less the two combined. 
 
Preface, 
 
 Xlll 
 
 but only the thin ragged line of actual or 
 potential contact between them, external to 
 both. So much, and no more of the colliding 
 surfaces is glanced at as was requisite for a 
 superficial diagnosis of the collision. It will 
 be for the courteous reader, who may deem it 
 worth while, to judge whether the prescribed 
 limit has been overstepped. 
 
 The motive of the essay is to draw atten- 
 tion to the breach of continuity between the 
 minds of the several high contracting parties 
 under whose combined authority the propa- 
 gation of Christianity is carried on in China, 
 and to suggest the want of a more harmonious 
 adjustment between the parts of a complex 
 politico-religious machine made up of hetero- 
 geneous elements. The present is a natural 
 sequel to the tract on "Missionaries in China" 
 published last year. In that essay the promi- 
 nence was given to the methods of the propa- 
 ganda ; in this the broader considerations 
 which affect the policy of governments and 
 administrative bodies are more particularly 
 dwelt upon. The subjects overlap to a cer- 
 tain extent, but repetitions have been as much 
 
XIV 
 
 Preface* 
 
 as possible avoided. The notes, somewhat 
 promiscuously thrown in while the sheets were 
 in the press, have been culled, with scarcely an 
 exception, from casual readings after the text 
 was written ; and they thus possess, for the 
 author at least, a certain corroborative and 
 corrective value. 
 
 No one can be more sensible than the 
 author of the lame and the almost negative 
 conclusion to which his meandering excursion 
 has inevitably led. The fiction of looking 
 through the glasses of a jin-de-sihle Chinese 
 politician is clumsy and halting, and perhaps 
 this attempt to "see ourselves as others see 
 us " attains no nearer to a true presentment of 
 the reality than those school-room diagrams 
 which profess to show how the Earth looks as 
 viewed from the Moon. But it possesses this 
 advantage over them that it can be tested and 
 
 its blemishes exposed. 
 
 A. M. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I'AGE 
 
 I. State Problems and the Chinese way of 
 
 SOLVING them . I 
 
 II. Foreign Relations 8 
 
 III. Foreign Religion 14 
 
 IV. Exoteric Christianity 25 
 
 V. Christianity in China 54 
 
 VI. The Sources of Chinese Opposition . 70 
 
 VII. The Taiping Rebellion 93 
 
 VIII. Anti-Christian Literature loi 
 
 IX. Christianity in Japan 108 
 
 X. Practical Considerations 112 
 
 XI. Relation of Christianity to People, 
 
 Literati, and Imperial Government . 138 
 
 XII. Administrative Machinery 152 
 
 XIII. Mutual Obligations 163 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 1 183 
 
 II 190 
 
 III 226 
 
 XV 
 
Qiina and Qiristianity. 
 
 ^ ft|W Jfl 
 
 I. 
 
 STATE PROBLEMS AND THE CHINESE WAY OF 
 SOLVING THEM. 
 
 In common with all other states China has 
 to grapple with the two problems of internal 
 polity and external relations; but she treats 
 them with a patience and a passiveness pecu- 
 liarly her own, which has constantly to be 
 borne in mind in estimating the motives of her 
 action in any given circumstances. Foreign 
 precedents have little or no weight with China, 
 and hers are for the most part as far removed 
 from European conventional ways as the East 
 is distant from the West. It is, however, the 
 misfortune of the Chinese Government and 
 people to be weighed in a balance which they 
 have never accepted ; and to have their short- 
 
2 China and Christianity* 
 
 comings, so ascertained, made the basis of re- 
 clamations of varying degrees of gravity. 
 Naturally, therefore, the bill of grievances from 
 time to time presented by foreign nations fails 
 to reach the conscience of China, just as the 
 unwearied criticisms from without on her ne- 
 glect of good government fall absolutely dead. 
 The want of the receptive faculty renders the 
 result of all such representations as blank as 
 a photograph on an unprepared plate. 
 
 In the case of her external relations, how- 
 ever, force may be and has been used to supply 
 the lack of reasoned conviction, and a me- 
 chanical compliance with Western practices, 
 within narrow limits, thereby more or less es- 
 tablished. But so far as it is against nature, 
 so far is such conformity liable to break down 
 unless the machinery which produced it is kept 
 in constant motion. 
 
 In their academical discussions foreigners 
 usually take the fullest cognizance of this state 
 of things, and those of them who do not come 
 into direct contact with the Chinese are per- 
 haps disposed to make even undue allowance 
 for the hardships of their position. Those, on 
 
State Problems* 3 
 
 the other hand, who are placed at the points 
 of international collision are in the habit of 
 insisting on the Chinese people and govern- 
 ment being measured absolutely by Western 
 standards as the only condition under which 
 working relations can be maintained. Indeed, 
 the pioneers of commerce and Christianity, 
 strung up to a high pitch of zeal for the suc- 
 cess of their respective schemes, require the 
 Chinese to submit, in strict accordance with 
 treaty of course, to demands which could not 
 even be named to any other sovereign State. 
 And they seem to expect not only immediate 
 compliance, but cheerful and hearty compliance. 
 Dr. Griffith John, for example, in his able 
 statements of the missionary case, makes a 
 special grievance of the want of alacrity which 
 the Chinese show in obeying the behests of 
 foreign powers. Though knowing full well 
 that he and his cause are only maintained in 
 China by external force overruling the settled 
 policy of the Government, based on the inter- 
 ests of the lettered class and the convictions 
 of the people, he nevertheless, in his commu- 
 nications to the papers in China and England, 
 
4 China and Christianity* 
 
 makes it a serious part of his accusation of the 
 Chinese Government that the foreign Ministers 
 had to complain of the great difficulty with 
 which they obtained the promulgation of the 
 Imperial Edict condemning the populace for 
 their attacks on missionaries in 1891. Let the 
 case be imagined of an alien propaganda in 
 Kazan or Kieff being set upon by a posse of 
 popes and ruffians, and then reflect on the kind 
 of " difficulty " a German or English Minister 
 would experience in obtaining the publication 
 of an Ukase condemning wholesale the assail- 
 ants and lauding the strangers as immaculate ! 
 Though China must be held to her engage- 
 ments, there always will be a difference be- 
 tween the manner of fulfilment of a voluntary 
 obligation and of compliance with one imposed 
 by force, especially if it runs counter to na- 
 tional feeling ; and there is wisdom in frankly 
 recognizing what cannot in any case be disputed 
 or altered.^ 
 
 1 The despatches of the British Minister pubhshed in the 
 Riots Blue Book, 1892, and the press criticisms thereon, are 
 pitched in the same tone of astonishment at the reluctance and 
 insincerity of the Chinese — as if these were quite new discov- 
 eries ! 
 
State Problems. 5 
 
 Perhaps, however, all these pioneers are 
 right, for life to each one of them is too short 
 to wait for the Chinese mind to be educated 
 up to the point of willing assent to their vari- 
 ous aggressive pretensions ; and too short for 
 them even to attempt to comprehend the 
 Chinese way of looking at things. Hence, 
 with them, " force," in its most direct form, 
 is the only " remedy " within reach. While, 
 however, admitting that such may be the only 
 safe and practical ground which the advanced 
 guards of foreigners can wisely take up, in the 
 actual circumstances, there is behind and around 
 them, though aloof from the heat and dust of 
 the struggle, a whole atmosphere of opinion 
 of varying density in which ideas are generated 
 as clouds are formed in the clefts of the moun- 
 tains, and where influences slowly gather which 
 eventually shape the ends of the toilers in the 
 valleys, rough hew them how they may. Such 
 phenomena, merely to take two current in- 
 stances, as the anti-opium and the Indian 
 factory labour agitations which are fermenting 
 in England, and seemingly gaining force, with- 
 out reference to the interests or opinions of the 
 
6 China and Christianity* 
 
 parties directly concerned, may serve to re- 
 mind all classes of men who are too much 
 absorbed in their own calling to give full 
 consideration to aught but the exigencies of 
 the day, that, independently of them, there 
 may be latent forces eventually capable of 
 over-ruling them in unforeseen ways, for good 
 or evil. 
 
 The principle on which the Government of 
 China regulates its national affairs, internal and 
 external, is, as has been hinted, that of mas- 
 terly inactivity. Chinese statesmen and place- 
 hunters do not find congenial occupation in 
 remodelling the constitution, as is the case in 
 some other countries, but rather acquiesce in the 
 distempers of the body politic like an easy-going 
 man who never seeks the aid of a physician. 
 Everything is left to nature, and when matters 
 go wrong they are usually allowed to right 
 themselves as best they may. Hence the 
 Chinese — for people and Government are the 
 same — are seen to suffer abuses of every kind 
 to consume their substance with the same fatal- 
 istic apathy with which they meet natural 
 calamities. They recoil from political experi- 
 
State Problems- 7 
 
 mentation, and oppose to all innovations an 
 immense silent resistance, especially in cases 
 where they cannot form a distinct concep- 
 tion of the real scope or tendency of the 
 change. 
 
8 China and Christianity* 
 
 II. 
 
 FOREIGN RELATIONS. 
 
 It is the same patient imperturbable spirit 
 which directs the foreign policy of China. She 
 makes no plunges, but advances, when forced, 
 by tentative and reluctant steps, with the skid 
 on every wheel. Her constitution, the out- 
 come of the empiricism of many ages, and her 
 natural temperament, of which it is the em- 
 bodied expression, combine in a harmony of 
 slow movements, and excessive deliberation. 
 So consistently, indeed, does this characteristic 
 dominate governmental action that the dilatory 
 precautions which are taken to meet impending 
 changes not only fail to overtake the object, 
 but through their untimeliness, actually create 
 new and gratuitous dangers. 
 
 It is only on some such theory as this that 
 the confused and irritating position of her 
 foreign relations seems explicable. The West- 
 ern nations did not give China the time neces- 
 
Foreign Relations* 9 
 
 sary for her to think, but rushed her into 
 action for which she was unprepared, which 
 she did not understand, and for which she has 
 to suffer whatever may be the consequences of 
 the blind bargain she was compelled to make. 
 Had the Government of China been fully 
 acquainted with the character of the Western 
 nations it would perhaps have run all risks to 
 exclude them from the territory, absolutely and 
 forever. Not even the modicum of a strangled 
 commerce such as that carried on at Macao and 
 Canton, nor the Russian prisoners entertained, 
 with their priests and teachers, for 200 years in 
 Peking, nor the coquetting with the Catholic 
 missionaries during the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth, and even the later centuries, would 
 have been permitted. Only by complete seclu- 
 sion could China hope to remain what she had 
 been, or even to secure her stability as a united 
 and homogeneous nation. But having small 
 conception of either the power or the spirit of 
 the Christian nations, and like statesmen all 
 over the world, dealing from hand to mouth 
 with the circumstances of the day, the rulers 
 of China admitted the foreigner in the North 
 
lo China and Christianity^ 
 
 and the South, in his threefold character — 
 political, commercial, and religious. 
 
 There are intuitions which precede knowl- 
 edge ; and as the instincts of certain animals 
 enable them, even without experience, to rec- 
 ognize the hereditary enemies of their race, so 
 the advent of foreigners seems to have inspired 
 the Chinese with a certain indefinable fear, 
 begotten perhaps of their traditional experience 
 in dealing with their territorial neighbours. 
 But the strangers were so insignificant and so 
 deferential that curiosity overcame caution, and 
 transitory obscured permanent interests, and so 
 it came about that instead of shutting them 
 out of the country the Emperors were content 
 to place the foreigners under close surveillance. 
 The fate of their empire was probably in a 
 certain sense as much sealed by those innocent 
 admissions as was that of the Ottoman empire 
 in Europe by the first capture of AzofF by the 
 Czar of Muscovy in 1696, though in both 
 cases the process of disintegration may be indefi- 
 nitely protracted. Only a small leak through 
 the reservoir, it is true, but a fissure ever widen- 
 ing, and with the pressure of incumbent water 
 
Foreign Relations* n 
 
 ever increasing, certain to end in bringing down 
 the whole flood on the valley below, either in 
 the form of devastating torrents or in safe and 
 beneficent streams, as fate and the nature of 
 the preparations for its reception may deter- 
 mine. The regulation of the inflow has hitherto 
 proved too much for the Chinese. Perceiving 
 the potency of the new force, they dreamed of 
 schemes of expulsion so ill conceived that each 
 step taken to repress the foreign invasion in- 
 variably resulted in opening new avenues for 
 its advance, every concession made to the 
 foreigner serving but to stimulate his appetite 
 for more. 
 
 The actual situation resulting from this des- 
 ultory contest is naturally regarded with differ- 
 ent eyes by the various parties concerned. 
 There are doubtless foreigners who would 
 anticipate even the break-up of the empire 
 with the kind of weird glee with which wanton 
 boys hail conflagrations, and some who, while 
 they would sincerely deplore such a catas- 
 trophe, would still think even that price not 
 too dear to pay for the progress and enlighten- 
 ment of the people who would survive the dis- 
 
12 China and Christianity. 
 
 solution of the empire, and who represent the 
 ultimate interests to be served. Among the 
 Chinese themselves, too, diversities of senti- 
 ment on the subject of imperial unity and per- 
 manence may easily be credited. But the 
 government, the governing classes, both pres- 
 ent and future, have the one burden laid upon 
 them, by the meanest as well as by the noblest 
 considerations that can rule the actions of men, 
 of preserving the empire, the dynasty, and the 
 existing polity intact as they have received 
 them ; and should that come to be visibly 
 hopeless, then at least to make as long a fight 
 in their defence as possible. Among patriotic 
 statesmen animated by this common aim, there 
 will of course still be divisions according to 
 mental calibre and natural temperament, quite 
 sufficient, under given conditions, to dislocate 
 the machinery of government and reduce it to 
 impotency. Some would resist not invasion 
 merely, but all innovation, as such, and would 
 defend the old regime in all its parts with their 
 last breath ; while others would encourage even 
 sweeping reforms in order thereby to gain 
 strength to resist effectually what may be found 
 
Foreign Relations* 13 
 
 resistible. By a miracle of regeneration, of 
 which, however, not the faintest symptom is yet 
 apparent, the threatening danger might be 
 averted, and a true reforming party in the 
 country might thus render to the State the 
 most essential service. 
 
 But whatever differences may divide them as 
 to their methods, all parties probably unite in 
 the aim of conserving the State from every 
 change imposed on it from without, whether 
 by the direct force of arms or by the spread of 
 the subtler though not less potent social forces. 
 It is incumbent, therefore, on those who are 
 responsible for the peace and honour of the 
 Chinese empire, before all things to acquaint 
 themselves accurately with the nature of the 
 complex foreign forces which are pressing on 
 it from every side. 
 
14 China and Christianity^ 
 
 III. 
 
 FOREIGN RELIGION. 
 
 Of all the elements of which the invading 
 force is made up none is more formidable than 
 the religious element, from which the ultimate 
 danger to the political fabric is the most likely to 
 arise. Already the religion of the foreigners 
 has shown itself fearlessly aggressive, and it 
 possesses faculties of expansion and intensity 
 which, if allowed free play, may in no long 
 time cause the religious to tower over all the 
 other foreign interests in the demands which it 
 will make on Chinese hospitality. The rela- 
 tions of the government to the foreign re- 
 ligion, or religions, are so far simplified that 
 there can henceforth be no question of exclud- 
 ing them, as they are already established in 
 fact, and protected in law, by treaty. What re- 
 mains for the Chinese government to consider 
 is how to deal with these religions so as to get 
 out of them the greatest amount of good, and 
 
Foreign Religion. 15 
 
 to minimize the evils incidental to their propa- 
 gation. For which purpose as careful a study- 
 as the circumstances permit should be made of 
 the religious system which is forcing itself with- 
 out ceremony wherever it can find an opening 
 throughout the empire. 
 
 The international credentials of Christianity, 
 as registered in the various treaties of 1858 on 
 which toleration was stipulated for its teachers 
 and followers, are simple in the extreme: it in- 
 culcated virtue and taught men to do as they 
 would be done by. But the Chinese had their 
 own experience of the inadequacy of this de- 
 scription, which, moreover, would be rejected 
 as insufficient by most Christians ; and it is 
 perhaps to be regretted that the foreign nego- 
 tiators, who were solely responsible for the 
 phraseology, should have condescended to 
 apologetic expressions, since the treaties were 
 made in their hour of victory. The partiality 
 of the description was not calculated to remove 
 prejudice from the Chinese mind as to the 
 merits of the religion, a prejudice which would 
 naturally operate with renewed force as soon as 
 the grip of the soldier was relaxed. Perhaps, 
 
1 6 China and Christianity. 
 
 however, this is of little importance now that 
 the statesmen of China are called upon to form 
 their opinion of the Christian religion from 
 fresh data, and to judge therefrom of the char- 
 acter of the protection to which it may be en- 
 titled. On one side the representatives of 
 Christianity challenge examination of what they 
 promulgate, and on the other the exigencies of 
 the State demand that the challenge be taken 
 up by the public men of China ; and they will 
 evade it at their own peril and that of the 
 common weal. 
 
 But what must be the embarrassment of a 
 Chinese statesman who approaches this inquiry 
 in a serious spirit? If he asks — what and 
 where is Christianity ? the first answer will be 
 a babel of conflicting, nay, mutually destructive 
 claims from a hundred different quarters, each 
 claimant calling aloud, Lo, it is here ! Close 
 attention to their utterances would show him 
 that a doctor of Christianity can hardly deliver 
 himself of an exegesis, however chiselled and 
 chastened, but some other teacher of equal 
 eminence will promptly assail it. It might 
 perhaps occur to a laborious-minded heathen 
 
Foreign Religion* 17 
 
 to try to discover Christianity by the exhaus- 
 tive process of placing the contradictions of its 
 rival exponents ^ over against each other, and 
 by cancelling out all the propositions which 
 were at variance, attain at last to the unchal- 
 lengeable quintessence. But the residuum, 
 though in reality vital, would, to the apprehen- 
 sion of such a man, be so intangible as to sug- 
 gest doubt of the accuracy of the analysis. If, 
 dazed by the discords of its miscellaneous 
 professors, he should think of harking back to 
 the fountain-head with the view of seeking to 
 understand Christianity by searching the rec- 
 
 1 u 
 
 How much harm has been done by the jealousy and en- 
 mity between Lutherans and Calvinists in the time of the 
 Reformation in Germany, between Episcopalians and Dissenters 
 in England, and in our mission work in China by the term-ques- 
 tion controversy, and the separation caused by it. Human pas- 
 sion and sin, sometimes misnamed ' conscience,' lies beneath all 
 these eruptions of human nature." — Dr. Faber. 
 
 " Protestantism is not only a veritable Babel but a horrible 
 theory, and an immoral practice which blasphemes God, degrades 
 man, and endangers Society." — Cardinal Cuesta's Cate- 
 chism (1872), cited by Prof. Schaff. 
 
 " Dr. Elder Gumming of Glasgow draws attention to the 
 great evils of the day, and especially to the prevalent indifference 
 to the growth of the Romish Q\i-\ixz\ir — Messe7tger, April, 
 1892. 
 
1 8 China and Christianity* 
 
 ords of its origin, still it is doubtful if complete 
 satisfaction would be attained, for he might 
 easily fail to discover such correspondence be- 
 tween the teachings of its Founder and the 
 practices of its modern professors as would 
 conclusively establish their identity ; and he 
 might argue therefrom that the thing which is 
 popularly called Christianity is something dif- 
 ferent from that which was revealed by Christ, 
 or his immediate successors. 
 
 It is assumed of course that the inquirer is 
 not endowed with the spiritual perception 
 which would enable him to penetrate the 
 barriers and uncover the divine spark which 
 the grossest forms have never been able wholly 
 to extinguish, though they have wofully ob- 
 scured it. Consequently he can only make an 
 objective study of the phenomena and their 
 outward effects which is, indeed, all that any 
 public man in any country is called on to 
 do. For, no matter what his private beliefs 
 or sympathies may be, they must, in every 
 loyal statesman, be strictly subordinated to the 
 mundane interests of the State, as a state. To 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Were a 
 
Foreign Religion* 19 
 
 responsible Chinese official even converted to 
 Christianity he would be bound in honour and 
 in fidelity to his trust to suppress his personal 
 feelings when legislating for, or administering 
 the laws respecting Christianity ; and he would 
 damage the cause of his creed itself were he 
 to transgress that rule. 
 
 So far as we have followed him, therefore, 
 negative results only have rewarded the search 
 of our Chinese inquirer. There still remain, 
 however, two wide fields of research open to 
 him. One is the external history of the growth 
 of Christianity ; and the other is the observa- 
 tion of modern Christendom ; both of which, 
 through the spread of general education, are 
 coming within the scope of Chinese scrutiny. 
 
 Whoever enters on such an inquiry soon 
 discovers that it is not Christianity that he has 
 to concern himself with, but Christians, a very 
 different matter ; and it is not even Christians, 
 as individual men or citizens, but the Church, 
 in its innumerable forms, with infinite powers 
 of reproduction. It is not in fact a religious 
 
20 China and Christianity* 
 
 problem in the true sense of the word that 
 presses on China, but a politico-eeclesiastical 
 question ; the alleged rights of societies of 
 men who, having adopted certain religious 
 tenets, base thereon their claim to special civil 
 privileges. That is a clear deduction alike 
 from historical records and contemporary ob- 
 servation. 
 
 It is not uncommon, and it is moreover 
 perfectly fair, for Christian propagandists to 
 claim modern Europe as voucher for the mer- 
 its of their religion ; although it may appear 
 to be bringing forward the strength and mag- 
 nificence of the kingdoms of the earth to attest 
 the power of the kingdom emphatically de- 
 clared to be " not of this world." It is, how- 
 ever, a plea better calculated to confirm the 
 allegiance of adherents than to carry complete 
 conviction to the mind of an unsympathetic 
 spectator. Our imaginary Chinese inquirer, 
 for example, might ask, as others have done, 
 whether blue eyes and red hair have not some- 
 what to do with the progress of Europe ; 
 whether Christianity be not in its full develop- 
 
Foreign Religion* 21 
 
 ment as much the consequence as the cause of 
 Western civilization, the two reacting on each 
 other. And he might even allege drawbacks 
 to the perfection of European society, as cer- 
 tain Chinese in fact have done, not without a 
 superficial show of success. The elevation of 
 women, to select the commonest item in the 
 Hst of the social triumphs of Christianity, — 
 ■which, however, it may be contended, is an 
 achievement not wholly Christian, but partly 
 Teutonic — while it has conferred immeasur- 
 able benefits on society, has not been obtained 
 without the payment of a price, as every news- 
 paper and novel of the day testify. 
 
 The morahty of trade suppHes a more gener- 
 ally intelligible — though in fact a quite falla- 
 cious — test, and on that ground we have it 
 on the authority of the manager of a great 
 Banking Corporation that the Chinese stand 
 well. In other departments of life they fall 
 decidedly short of at least the modern standards 
 of Christendom, as for instance in the bar- 
 barity of their practices in war, and in judicial 
 proceedings. 
 
 The radical difference, however, between the 
 
22 China and Christianity* 
 
 Christian and non-Christian people of zW 
 world shows itself rather in the progressive 
 vigour of the one as contrasted with the dull 
 and languorous resignation of the other ; and 
 this is a distinction which is visible at first 
 sight. A learned Oriental, not Chinese nor 
 Christian, once remarked to the writer that the 
 immense difference between Buddhism and 
 Christianity might be seen in the streets of 
 Peking as compared with those of Paris. Nor 
 is it on the mere passive virtues that any 
 advocate would rest the superiority of the 
 Christian over all other systems, but rather on 
 the energy of its positive philanthropy and 
 the principle of self-sacrifice which drives the 
 vast benevolent machinery of Christian coun- 
 tries, and to which there is nothing at all cor- 
 responding in the non-Christian world. This 
 could hardly escape any candid observer of 
 facts.^ 
 
 1 " More than once I have heard a patient say, ' There is 
 no such love as this in all China.' " — China Med. Journal. 
 
 Organized philanthropy all over the world is, for the most 
 part, directly connected with active Christianity; and in all 
 schemes of help for the Chinese, as in schools, hospitals, famine 
 relief, it is the Christian missionaries who prompt the movement 
 and who alone can be relied upon for any sustained effort. 
 
Foreign Religion^ 23 
 
 The manifest strength of the Western na- 
 tions is, however, calculated to make a deeper 
 impression on the mind of an average Oriental 
 than their moral superiority. And China, at 
 its wit^s end to find means of defending itself, 
 would doubtless accept Christianity with eager- 
 ness if it were but persuaded that strength was 
 a transferable commodity which would be im- 
 ported with the religion. But to import that 
 which nourishes strength is not necessarily to 
 acquire strength. Much depends on the powers 
 of assimilation which, until proved, must re- 
 main uncertain, and can, in this case, only be 
 proved by experiments which bar retreat. It 
 is with religion as with material civilization, the 
 form without the spirit would be a dead and 
 useless thing, of which the present condition of 
 the new Chinese navy may be cited as a case in 
 point. 
 
 But without accepting in full the proposition 
 sometimes offered, in good faith, to China that 
 she would become strong by becoming Chris- 
 tian, Chinese statesmen will nevertheless do 
 well to trace the steps by which the nations of 
 the West have attained to their present emi- 
 
24 China and Christianity^ 
 
 nence in arts and arms, and they will certainly 
 derive advantage from the study of the long 
 and sanguinary struggles by which the various 
 States have carved their way through barbarism 
 like African explorers cutting tracks through 
 the dark forest into the open light. 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 25 
 
 IV. 
 
 EXOTERIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The conditions under which Christianity 
 first made its way in the Western world natur- 
 ally suggest comparison with its present relations 
 to China. The analogy between the old em- 
 pire of Rome, and the existing Chinese empire 
 is, indeed, obvious, but the circumstances de- 
 termining the attitude of the respective States 
 towards the Christian system are so discrepant 
 that unless the qualification " exceptions ex- 
 cepted " be kept constantly in mind misleading 
 inferences may easily be drawn from it. Rome 
 made the acquaintance of Christianity as an in- 
 fant of unsuspected potentialities ; China en- 
 counters a full grown giant with a long dramatic 
 history. Such a contrast puts parallelism out 
 of the question ; while that decisive new factor, 
 the support of the modern propaganda by some 
 half-dozen of the greatest military powers, al- 
 most invalidates comparison between the con- 
 
i6 China and Christianity* 
 
 dition of the modern Church and that of the 
 friendless followers ofi Him whose kingdom 
 was not of this world. 
 
 The most definite impression which the 
 progress of Christianity in the early centuries 
 of its growth would be likely to make on a 
 quite disinterested mind would probably be 
 that of the radical strength of a movement 
 which, through the faith and fervour of its 
 adherents, had proved itself irresistible ; an 
 impression not altogether reassuring as to the 
 political fate of nations on whom such a heavy 
 stone might fall. The Christians, while yet a 
 feeble band, would be seen stretching out their 
 hands to grasp at power, and by sheer force of 
 will and cohesion actually obtaining it, and 
 gradually gaining control of the affairs of the 
 State. The Christian subjects of the empire 
 of the world would be observed indifferent to 
 its decline, and if not actively accelerating, at 
 least doing little to arrest its fall, and even- 
 tually entering on possession of the escheated 
 estate, being the only capable men. One prac- 
 tical deduction which a Chinaman might draw 
 from these events would be that the old bottles 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 27 
 
 were hardly good enough to hold such strong 
 wine ; and another, that if, at the end of 1 900 
 years, Christianity can boast of her social tri- 
 umphs, they have been gained at the cost of 
 the philosophies and civilization which previ- 
 ously existed.-^ Reflections of this kind may 
 well suffice to put the statesmen of an empire 
 as yet unchristianized on their guard in face of 
 so great a force, and to stir them to deep in- 
 quiry into its nature, aims, and methods. They 
 are not, however, called upon to weigh the re- 
 mote results of Christianity ; for the immedi- 
 ate present and the near future more than tax 
 the statesman's capacity for practical excogita- 
 tion ; nor has he any mission beyond his own 
 State. The ultimate good of the human race 
 is no concern of his ; and mankind at large will 
 do better without his gratuitous solicitude. 
 
 It would be interesting to know the musings 
 of a Chinese Emperor who could place him- 
 self in imagination in the shoes of one of 
 the Caesars of the first or second centuries. 
 
 ^ " The most serious trouble for Japan at present is the extinc- 
 tion which has necessarily befallen her old code of morals and 
 ethics in the presence of the new civilization." — Japan Mail. 
 
28 China and Christianity, 
 
 Could they have foreseen the future how would 
 they have demeaned themselves towards the 
 nascent religion ? It is permissible to suppose 
 that if the Antonines had really understood 
 Christianity they must have yielded personally 
 to its claims, and yet, had its future course 
 been revealed to them, they must, in duty to 
 the empire as an emperor would regard it, 
 have extinguished it as a society. Could a 
 sincere Christian then persecute the Christian 
 Church ? It would be a paradox, perhaps, but 
 scarcely a contradiction, for between personal 
 religion and the pretensions of an ambitious 
 corporation there is the clearest distinction. 
 And was not the history of the Church for 
 many centuries the unfolding of continuous 
 divergence from the precepts and the practices 
 of its Founder, who nevertheless in some 
 fashion or other retained and retains the alle- 
 giance of all sections of the universal Church P 
 Here in fact is the difficult question : how the 
 mixed bodies of self-styled Christians, such as 
 we see them in the world to-day, make good 
 their title to the name. 
 
 Between the spirituality of the religion of 
 
Exoteric Christianity. 29 
 
 Christ, its elevating, purifying, and vivifying 
 power over individual men — in other words, 
 between the personal piety of Christians — and 
 the assumptions of collective Christianity, there 
 is a gulf as wide as the world. Whether hap- 
 pily or unhappily, the two have been so joined 
 together that no man can now sunder them ; 
 and they must in practice be treated as one. 
 It is with Christians as with political and other 
 combinations : the individual character of the 
 members is subdued to the interests, or dog- 
 mas, or principles of the whole body. Taken 
 separately they may be modest, truthful, and 
 charitable, while collectively they may be con- 
 strained to approve actions of an opposite kind 
 such as individually they would condemn. 
 Though, therefore. Christians, like other men, 
 invariably — and quite naturally — put forward 
 their innocent side as their title to considera- 
 tion, it must be repeated that that is not the 
 only side which rulers of States have to take 
 account of. Personal piety, charity, and self- 
 sacrifice are in truth qualities too subtle to be 
 weighed in the coarse scales of the politician, 
 who can only, even in Christian — how much 
 
30 China and Christianity. 
 
 more in non-Christian — countries deal with 
 the external manifestations of Christian socie- 
 ties as they collide and interact with the other 
 elements of the body politic. It is with them 
 as with the dual character of the private citizen. 
 The law, or the State, deals with the several 
 members of society not according to their in- 
 nate worth or purity of motive, but strictly 
 according to their public record ; and the man 
 of exemplary life, the pious son, devoted hus- 
 band, and loving father who levies ship-money 
 or moves his neighbour's landmark is not 
 allowed to plead in defence the fine qualities 
 of his personal morahty. As Christian critics 
 of Mohammedanism usually brush away the 
 rehgious emotions which give it life, so must 
 politicians, as such, virtually set aside the ethe- 
 real principle which animates Christianity, 
 more especially politicians who are themselves 
 heathen. 
 
 The attention of an intelligent Chinese in- 
 quirer would naturally be drawn to the different 
 aspects which Christianity has assumed in the 
 successive stages of its growth, and throughout 
 the wide regions where it has taken root ; its 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 31 
 
 chronological and its ethnical developments. 
 The intangible abstraction, pure Christianity, 
 he could only hope to deduce from many and 
 various data^ as the ideal focus of some great 
 ellipse may be inferred from observations at 
 different points of its circumference. Every- 
 where he would see the characteristic products 
 of the human nature of the people compounded 
 with the forms of the religion which they have 
 severally adopted. Of extant Christianity the 
 mere geographical distribution will perhaps 
 suggest as much as is necessary respecting the 
 main features of these compounds, without elab- 
 orate description. Its manifestations in North- 
 ern and Southern Europe and America, in 
 Russia, Switzerland, and Abyssinia may serve 
 as types of generic varieties ; while that colos- 
 sal compendium, the Church of Rome, contains 
 within itself almost every colour which the 
 many-coloured mind of man has imparted to 
 his religion. 
 
 The observer of this vast panorama spread 
 out over the Western world is naturally 
 prompted to compare these diverse forms, and 
 to deduce, if it be possible, from the visible 
 
32 China and Christianity^ 
 
 results the causes of their differentiation, as 
 well as the secret of their harmony, so far as 
 harmony may be discoverable. The complex 
 influence of climate, soil, and worldly circum- 
 stances, modes of life, of race, of education, of 
 political history, of communications, of epochs, 
 of the personality of apostles, of authority, of 
 wars, of hardships, of luxury ; in a word of 
 the myriad formative agencies which combine 
 to build up the character of humanity — might 
 suggest to one who came fresh to the subject 
 the attempt to render some rational account of 
 the varied development of popular Christian- 
 ity, and to unravel the double mystery of its 
 catholicity and its narrowness. For him, how- 
 ever, who is only in quest of such light as will 
 guide him in the despatch of business within 
 his own province, such an exhaustive investi- 
 gation, probably impossible even for a Buckle, 
 would be quite out of place. He will have to 
 content himself with bold and rapid generaliza- 
 tions, fortunate if these may perchance help 
 him to forecast in some vague manner the 
 character which the religion of Christ might be 
 expected to assume, when transplanted to the 
 
Exoteric Chris tianity* 33 
 
 soil of China. For that is the real point on 
 which the interest of the inquest converges. 
 
 Inasmuch, however, as contemporary Chris- 
 tian nations are so far removed in race, tradi- 
 tions, and civilization from the actual con- 
 dition of the Chinese State, the comparative 
 study of these co-existing societies would yield, 
 at the best, results too speculative for use, and 
 it would be necessary, at the very least, to sup- 
 plement it by a chronological review of the 
 descent of modern Christianity, through its 
 many channels, from its origin. And this 
 would be the simpler undertaking of the two 
 in that the materials of such a review have 
 already been digested by historical students 
 who, if not impartial, are at least sufficiently 
 distant from the events they describe to form 
 a judgment clearer than it is possible for an 
 ordinary man to form with respect to the tran- 
 sactions of his own time. The modern world 
 indeed, whether social, political, or religious, 
 would be as unintelligible without some knowl- 
 edge of the successive agitations which have 
 produced it as words often are without their 
 etymology ; and on the other hand past events 
 
34 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 would be very imperfectly understood without 
 the retrospective light thrown on them by the 
 consummations to which they have in their 
 different ways led up. Every stage of its prog- 
 ress will reveal something of the true nature 
 of Christianity, fragmentary, however, like the 
 tesselae of a mosaic picture, and whosoever 
 would gain an approximately just idea of it 
 must take it in perspective, looking at the be- 
 ginning from the end, and at the end from, the 
 beginning. 
 
 From the time when the movement gathered 
 its new-born forces timidly and anxiously in 
 an upper room in Jerusalem to the ubiquitous 
 display, courageous and confident, of our own 
 day, the drama of Christianity has never 
 ceased to be crowded with incidents which 
 stand out and challenge investigation. Like a 
 stream from the mountains cutting its way im- 
 partially through all obstructions the new 
 religion burst through every class and condi- 
 tion of men : the remnants of the philosophers 
 of Greece, the soldiers and poHticians of Rome, 
 Arabs on one side and Goths on the other, 
 the commonest and rudest barbarians as well as 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 35 
 
 the most cultured scholars, reducing them all 
 to the common level of subjects of the Church; 
 and all the chords of human life were agitated 
 to the uttermost. 
 
 In its passage through so many strata the 
 stream was perhaps enriched rather than puri- 
 fied, for the debris of the different paganisms 
 which it undermined was borne on its bosom 
 and distributed over the new continent of un- 
 folding thought like the glacial boulders which 
 are strewn over Europe, far from the rock 
 bed whence they were detached. And even as 
 scientists speculate as to the origin of the one 
 so do metaphysicians find their ingenuity some- 
 times taxed to trace the genealogy of the 
 other. During its long and chequered course, 
 the Church has shown itself in depression 
 and in triumph, in the extremes of poverty 
 and of wealth, and almost in the extremes of 
 depravity and virtuous exaltation, and it has 
 shown how the principles of Christianity re-act 
 on many varieties of race and character and 
 many phases of human life. The history of 
 the Church is thus a museum of vital experi- 
 ments worked out but not yet fiilly classified. 
 
2 6 China and Christianity* 
 
 an open book from which no hungry mind, 
 whether learned or unlearned, need turn empty- 
 away. 
 
 The question then is : What leading im- 
 pressions of Christianity would a moderately 
 informed Chinese be likely to derive from such 
 a hurried survey of the past and present as is 
 above suggested, and what conception might 
 he form of the probable social results of its 
 inoculation into the actual life of China ? No 
 man not himself in contact with the magnetic 
 power of Christianity can hope to appreciate 
 its value in the regeneration of individual 
 character ; and it is scarcely necessary to repeat 
 that the spiritual or essential element which 
 has kept Christianity from breaking up is 
 necessarily left out of account, the superficial 
 or political aspect of it being alone here con- 
 sidered. , 
 
 With these importaht eliminations, then, 
 the salient features of Christianity most likely 
 to arrest the attention of the supposed inquirer 
 may be surmised to be something like the 
 following : 
 
 (i.) He would be impressed with the vital- 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 37 
 
 ity of a system which has succumbed neither 
 to external opposition nor to its own foUies 
 and crimes, though he would not fail at the 
 same time to note certain significant exceptions 
 to its success in the debased Christianity of 
 Africa, Arabia, and Syria, which disappeared 
 before the sweep of the more vigorous Islam. 
 Indeed, the struggle which was carried on 
 with fluctuating fortune for many centuries 
 between the low types of Christianity and the 
 virile creed and government of Mohammed 
 would not be the least interesting portion of 
 the survey, seeing that, as has happened in 
 India, China will have to accommodate both 
 competitors. 
 
 (2.) The next characteristic of Christianity 
 which would interest the inquirer would per- 
 haps be its undeviating progressiveness, its in- 
 tolerance,^ its love of power,^ and its tacit or 
 explicit assumption of infallibility. 
 
 1 A diplomatic Secretary of Pope Pius VII, declared that it 
 was " of the essence of the Catholic religion to be intolerant." 
 
 2 Not an ignoble desire. Ruskin says ^ propos of some 
 reflections of Dean Milman : *' You may observe, as an almost 
 unexceptional character in the ' sagacious wisdom ' of the Protes- 
 tant clerical mind, that it instinctively assumes the desire of 
 
38 China and Christianity* 
 
 In the infancy of the movement, when the 
 Christians had as yet scarce ventured to show 
 themselves out of doors, they would be seen 
 assuming authority over their neighbours. 
 And the spirit of governing so runs through 
 the veins of the Christian body, even to the 
 small capillaries, that there is hardly a village 
 in Christendom but those of its inhabitants who 
 appropriate to themselves in a special sense the 
 name of Christian would be found in one way 
 or another trying to rule their neighbours. 
 Strife being so natural to man it would be 
 absurd to charge Christianity with all the wars 
 which have convulsed Christendom. It is 
 nevertheless true that religion imparts an 
 energy to quarrels, whether on the great or 
 the small stage, such as commoner motives 
 fail to do; and also that a large proportion of 
 the great wars of Christendom have been 
 avowedly religious in their origin and aim. 
 Nor does dismemberment quench the spirit of 
 
 power and place not only to be universal in Priesthood, but to 
 be always purely selfish in the ground of it. The idea that power 
 might possibly be desired for the sake of its benevolent use, so 
 far as I remember, does not once occur in the pages of any 
 ecclesiastical historian of recent date." 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 39 
 
 the Church, for like the annelids which propa- 
 gate by fission, each offshoot reproduces in- 
 tegrally the attributes of the parent, and the 
 least of them is ready to stand up before the 
 world and defend, with whatever weapons ^ 
 happen to be available, its claim to rule by 
 divine right over its neighbours. Every sect 
 is thus in its nature a potential persecutor,^ 
 as indeed all religions are, and the long 
 struggles for "religious liberty" have usually 
 been for liberty to control others,^ fortunately 
 tempered in its action in modern days by the 
 superior efficiency of civil government. Per- 
 haps after all, this is no more than to say that 
 the Christian sects are full of life. 
 
 But what a paradoxical spirit it is ! Diffi- 
 dent in matters of daily experience ; puzzled 
 
 1 " Flog^ng, branding, and other agreeable forms of recrim- 
 ination were familiar enough as from Puritan to Quaker." — 
 Sattirday Review., 12th March, 1892. 
 
 2 " Even the reformers were as furious against contumacious 
 errors as they were loud in asserting the liberty of conscience. 
 . . . The Puritans in turn became persecutors when they got 
 the upper hand (1645)." — Justice Duncan, cited by Professor 
 
 SCHAFF. 
 
 3 " The cry for religious equality means the desire for irre- 
 ligious persecution." — Ibid., i6th January, 1892. 
 
40 China and Christianity* 
 
 by the commonest phenomena ; unable to 
 foresee the issue of the simplest combination ; 
 failing wherever their judgment can be brought 
 to any practical test; many professors of Chris- 
 tianity nevertheless, in matters which eye hath 
 not seen nor ear heard, "most ignorant of 
 what they're most assured/' assume a position 
 of certainty so absolute as to warrant them in 
 employing all the forces at their command to 
 compel other men to their opinion. And 
 whenever they find it feasible they aspire to 
 attach the civil government itself to their par- 
 ticular service. Governments everywhere have 
 as much as they can do to guard their ma- 
 chinery from being used by the sects for pur- 
 poses of coercion, the instinct for which seems 
 to be irrepressible. Nor indeed could it be 
 logically otherwise so long as each sect believes 
 from its heart that it is really entrusted with 
 the oracles of God. 
 
 It need not surprise the student that in the 
 origin of Christianity no countenance was given 
 to pretensions to domination,^ while the con- 
 
 1 " There is nothing whatever in the doings and teachings of 
 our Lord which could be used to justify reUgious intolerance 
 and persecution." — Dr. Faber. 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 41 
 
 trary principle was laid down as fundamental. 
 For no system, whether of religion or philos- 
 ophy, is able long to maintain its pristine 
 purity. All known religions have diverged 
 widely from the precepts and practices of their 
 founders, Islam perhaps the least of all. The 
 collective militant temper, however, is, fortu- 
 nately, not inconsistent with personal kindli- 
 ness, according to the law of human nature 
 before alluded to under which men are willing 
 to serve their corporations by means which 
 they would scruple to use for their personal 
 mterests. Hence the frequent observation that 
 certain persons are " better than their creed." 
 The rule applies also, conversely, to those 
 whose moral standards belong to an inferior 
 order, who seek their own advantage by means 
 which they would not resort to for the com- 
 mon good. 
 
 (3.)^ Growing naturally out of the preceding 
 conditions is the compact formation of " the 
 Church *' in its many varieties, whose solidarity 
 gives energy, and which is the immediate 
 cause of religious persecution, whether by 
 Christians or of Christians. 
 
42 China and Christianity* 
 
 It might have been supposed a priori that 
 essential Christianity, the devotion of individ- 
 uals to the person of Christ (to take a short 
 but inadequate definition), needed no such 
 formal combination of men, and that vital re- 
 ligion would even be overlain to extinction by 
 the pomp and circumstance, to say nothing of 
 the coarser matters, inseparable from large or- 
 ganizations. But as a common loyalty to 
 Christ implies the brotherhood of man, of 
 which the various Christian societies may be 
 taken as separate nuclei, destined eventually 
 to coalesce, the principle of association must be 
 recognized as fundamental v/ith them. When 
 the followers of Christ began to call them- 
 selves " brethren '* the Church was already 
 formed ; and there it stands to-day, the grain 
 of seed grown into a wide-spreading tree with 
 many branches, and its roots struck deep into 
 the soil of humanity ; the visible embodiment 
 of Christianity. 
 
 (4.) A necessary development of the cohe- 
 sive quality of the Church was its self-govern- 
 ing tendency, which declared itself in its 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 43 
 
 earliest days and has grown with the growth of 
 Christianity. 
 
 But a section of any national community 
 separated in aims, sympathy, and organization 
 from the rest must be a source of jealousy 
 even to strong governments, and an occasion 
 of alarm to weak ones. And even in cases 
 where the weakness of government may itself 
 be pleaded in justification of separate auton- 
 omies, which claim to fulfil, though in an 
 irregular manner, the functions of a national 
 government, that is the last plea likely to be 
 admitted by incapable rulers. The Roman 
 Emperors looked askance at all associations not 
 recognized by and subordinate to the public 
 law, and the Church of Rome, though itself 
 the sublimest example ever known of an im- 
 perium in imperio^ has never even to the pres- 
 ent day been able to extend its toleration to 
 the harmless mysteries of the Freemasons. 
 The Christian Church, indeed, has in all ages 
 been the most indigestible morsel in the form 
 of an empire within the empire that ever ex- 
 isted excepting where, as in Russia, it has been 
 incorporated whole into the scheme of State 
 
44 China and Christianity* 
 
 government ; for to its vigour and self-asser- 
 tion, and its claim to be a law to itself it added 
 the supernatural sanction of hell-fire, to which 
 all who opposed were unhesitatingly consigned. 
 In the ages when the Christian Church was 
 still more than half pagan this was a formidable 
 weapon to wield against recalcitrant sovereigns. 
 The secular quarrel between the religious 
 and the civil power springs eternal out of the 
 single claim of ecclesiastics to obey and admin- 
 ister a higher law than the law of the land, a 
 claim by no means restricted to popes and 
 bishops. And a compact body governed by 
 such a theory of its own authority must be a 
 serious element in any political State, be it 
 Oriental or Occidental, and it ought to be no 
 matter for wonder that an Eastern government 
 should treat with some reserve the introduc- 
 tion into its territory of any organization em- 
 bodying such principles. 
 
 (5.) Although the tenets^ of Christianity 
 do not fall directly within the scope of po- 
 
 1 Some of the Chinese Emperors, however, notably K'ang- 
 Hsi and his persecuting son, assumed or affected a great interest 
 in the doctrines of Christianity. 
 
Exoteric Christianity. 45 
 
 litical consideration, yet, inasmuch as the 
 species of moraHty which is inculcated among 
 the people must be coloured to some extent by 
 the doctrines which they are taught, and as the 
 morality of a nation can never be a matter of 
 indifference to any statesman,^ it follows that 
 even the dogmas of the Church may be by no 
 means devoid of interest for him. To China 
 in an especial sense would this observation 
 apply, seeing that the paternal rule of the em- 
 perors includes the functions of Pontiff and 
 public preceptor, which are continued down- 
 wards through every grade of the official hier- 
 archy. From this point of view the apology 
 attached to the toleration clauses in China's 
 foreign treaties cannot be said to be irrevelant, 
 however inadequate it may be. 
 
 Now, on this branch of the inquiry, the 
 bearing of ecclesiastical dogma, the drama of 
 Christianity will speak to the student in tones 
 varying greatly according to the ear with which 
 he listens to them. They will often appear 
 discordant, and not seldom contradictory. In 
 
 1 "The state can never be indifferent to the morals of the 
 people." — Prof. Schaff. 
 
46 China and Christianity* 
 
 the manifold divisions of the Christian mass he 
 will be apt to be bewildered at first, but cer- 
 tain lines of cleavage will gradually reveal 
 themselves. For example, he will find the 
 Church in successive ages unequally divided 
 between the ethical principles of Faith and 
 Works, or personal and vicarious merit. On 
 one side, creeds and ceremonial ; on the other, 
 virtue and charity appear in the ascendant ; a 
 moral antithesis sufficiently pronounced. At 
 certain epochs, indeed, he may find official 
 Christianity practically divorced from morals 
 and wedded to the fiercer passions. Other 
 planes of cleavage would bring into view other 
 great opposed principles which are grounded 
 in human nature and have their full develop- 
 ment in the Christian Church. The Stoic 
 ideal of duty, without compensation, and the 
 Epicurean ideal of pleasure, be it present or 
 posthumous, may be seen dividing between 
 them, though unequally, the field of Christian 
 ethics much as they did that of the pre-Chris- 
 tian time in the West, and do now that of the 
 philosophic schools of China.^ As it has fallen 
 
 1 " The Stoics much resemble the Conf ucianists of China, and 
 the Epicureans are represented philosophically by a sect of 
 
Exoteric Christianity* 47 
 
 to the lot of Christendom to ransack the 
 treasures of antiquity and to bring together 
 from every region of the earth the things 
 most worthy to be preserved, the student 
 will be able to recognize in its manifesta- 
 tions most of the time-worn psychological 
 ingredients, rearranged, like hewn stones from 
 ancient buildings fitted into modern edifices, 
 but with a distinction between the old and the 
 new which defies analysis ; such a difference 
 as that between the placid and reflective Lake 
 Leman and the impetuous Rhone, both formed 
 of the same waters. If Christianity repro- 
 duces the old philosophies it is with a new 
 inspiration, for Reason, the balancing power, 
 has yielded to Faith, the impelling power, — 
 which removes mountains. Nor is its efficacy 
 dependent on its formulas, since diverse forms 
 are seen to be equal in energy. It is a power 
 which lives through errors. It is not right- 
 eousness, though to the faithful it be counted 
 for righteousness. Through good report or 
 bad, therefore, the secret of the world that now 
 
 Taoists, and practically by the large majority of opulent people 
 in China." — Dr. Faber. 
 
48 China and Christianity* 
 
 is, and probably of that which is immediately 
 to follow, rests obviously with the Christians, 
 which is a lesson well worth pondering by 
 political students whether in the East or the 
 West. 
 
 The direction of men's higher aspirations is 
 indeed no trivial matter ; whether the goal of 
 life be, on the one hand, a Heaven which the 
 refined depict as a "beatific vision," and the 
 unrefined think of under more material images, 
 or whether, on the other, it be duty to God 
 and man, to be done even if the Heavens 
 should fall.^ Important questions, but scarce 
 expressible in terms fit to serve practically for 
 every day use, and at any rate outside the 
 province of empirical statesmanship. 
 
 It is a source of chronic misunderstanding 
 between the Church and the World that Chris- 
 tianity seems at no period to have appealed to 
 political bodies by its spiritual, but by its ma- 
 terial, or fighting qualities. Governments and 
 peoples, as such, do not therefore come into 
 
 1 " To be urged by the desire of heaven to the performance of 
 virtue cannot bear comparison with doing good for its own sake." 
 Confucian polemic. — Dr. Edkins. 
 
Exoteric Christianity^ 49 
 
 direct contact with those representatives of the 
 religion who, following the most closely in the 
 footsteps of their great Exemplar, are the most 
 gentle and patient, but with the trumpet 
 blowers of the force, described in the metaphor 
 of a Chinese Christian as the coarse rind which 
 hides the precious fruit. It is not Edward the 
 Confessor, but Defenders of the Faith Hke 
 Henry VIII. and Philip; not Fenelon or Pas- 
 cal, but Richelieu and Mazarin ; not St. 
 Francis, but Hildebrand and the Medici ; not 
 Thomas a Kempis, but Thomas a Beckett; not 
 Augustine, but Athanasius ; not Melanchthon 
 or Erasmus, but Luther and Calvin; not 
 George Wishart or George Herbert, but Knox 
 and Laud ; not Pedro de la Gasca and Las 
 Casas, but Pizarro and Cortez ; not Evelyn, 
 but Cromwell ; not Newman or Manning, but 
 Walsh and Croke ; or, to come nearer to our 
 Eastern home, not Sarthou, but Anzer; not 
 Crosset, but Griffith John that stand forth to 
 the world as the spokesmen and sponsors for 
 Christianity ; the impersonation, in short, of 
 the Church militant ; the hard buttresses of 
 Christianity, perhaps as necessary to its preser- 
 vation as the rough shell is to the mollusc. 
 
50 China and Christianity* 
 
 (6.) A deduction at once practical and ob- 
 vious would be that which lies on the surface 
 of every newspaper, that Christianity is the 
 ruling factor in the polity of the Western na- 
 tions, and exercises a controlling influence on 
 all governments. A religious question would 
 be seen to constitute a chronic obstacle to the 
 assimilation of British rule in Ireland ; the 
 Church would be seen to hold the balance of 
 power in Germany, compelling the strongest 
 parties to reckon with it ; nor in France, Italy, 
 and Spain is there any political force of equal 
 energy. The happy circumstances of the 
 United States, which profit by the long experi- 
 ence of old Europe without being fettered by 
 its traditions, enable that government to main- 
 tain perfect equilibrium among all divisions of 
 Christianity, and enable the Churches to elim- 
 inate the grosser political elements from their 
 religious life ; while among no people is the 
 religious principle properly so called more 
 efficient as a sociaP force. Were it ever pos- 
 sible for one nation to copy another, there is 
 
 1 " Christianity is the most powerful factor in our society." — 
 Prof. S CHAFF. 
 
Exoteric Christianity^ 51 
 
 perhaps no model which China would be s-afer 
 in following than the United States in her 
 dealing with Christian organization ; but the 
 peculiar difficulties of China, which are non- 
 existent in the Western Republic, render the 
 American example unavailing, except so far as 
 it may furnish the idea of religious toleration 
 on a sympathetic basis. 
 
 (7.) Perhaps the section of Christian history 
 which would come home most directly to a 
 Chinese politician — as it has in fact done — 
 would be the evolution of the protectorate of 
 the Christian inhabitants of non-Christian coun- 
 tries, against the civil government, by the forces 
 of Christian states. The necessity for repell- 
 ing Mohammedan invasion drove Christianity 
 into forming political and military leagues ; and 
 among the lasting results of the protracted 
 struggle for life between the two religions, the 
 assumed right of Christian States to interpose 
 between the Ottoman Government and its 
 Christian subjects, an assumption extended in 
 principle to all non-Christian countries, is one 
 which possesses for China a very practical sig- 
 nificance. 
 
52 China and Christianity* 
 
 A Chinese who had the desire to follow up 
 the study of the natural history of Christi- 
 anity would find a wealth of inviting material 
 all round him in the libraries of the West. 
 But he might thus become familiar with the 
 great landmarks without discovering the fruit- 
 ful lands which lie between them — if the 
 metaphor may be stretched so far — for the 
 striking incidents of its outward career bear 
 much the same relation to essential Christianity 
 as the wars of a nation do to the common life 
 of the people. And as the secrets of nature 
 elude scientific research, so will the vital prin- 
 ciple of Christianity elude the scrutiny of any 
 objective critic.^ The mere political observer, 
 
 1 " The real history is underneath all this. The wandering 
 armies are, in the heart of them, only living hail, and thunder, 
 and fire along the ground. But the Suffering Life, the rooted 
 heart of native humanity, growing up in eternal gentleness, how- 
 ever wasted, forgotten, or spoiled, itself neither wasting, nor 
 wandering, nor slaying, but unconquerable by grief or death 
 became the seed ground of all love, that was to be bom in due 
 time; giving, then, to mortality, what hope, joy, or genius it 
 could receive ; and — if there be immortality — rendering out of 
 the grave to the Church her fostering Saints, and to Heaven her 
 helpful angels. Of this low-nestling, speechless, harmless, infi- 
 nitely submissive, infinitely serviceable order of being, no His- 
 torian ever takes the smallest notice, except when it is robbed, 
 or slain." — Ruskin. 
 
Exoteric Christianity. 53 
 
 however, would be short-sighted who failed to 
 take account of the moral achievements of 
 Christianity in disciplining the lower and culti- 
 vating the higher tendencies of humanity, for 
 without attempting any hypothetical recon- 
 struction of the world as it might have been 
 without Christianity, the myriad meliorating 
 agencies which draw their life blood from its 
 exhaustless stream are patent to common view. 
 The alleviation of distress, the raising of the 
 dejected, the purification of domestic life, the 
 humanizing of man and the ennobling of 
 woman appeal to all open minds, and the 
 chief credit of these things it would not be 
 easy to deny to Christianity. It would never- 
 theless be an error, as before said, to suppose 
 that a non-Christian Oriental would be im- 
 pressed by them in the same way as a Christian 
 is, for wide as may be their divergences in 
 practice the theories of morals in East and 
 West are not so disparate but that such ob- 
 served virtues of the West as approved them- 
 selves to an Oriental he would be inclined to 
 refer to the teachings of his own sages. 
 
54 China and Christianity^ 
 
 V. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. 
 
 Our supposititious Inquirer would naturally 
 be prompted as he went along to apply the 
 results of his observations of the West to the 
 circumstances of the Christian movement in 
 China. Nor could any exercise be more prac- 
 tical. For China is by no means inexperienced 
 in Western religions, and is not altogether de- 
 pendent on the knowledge of them derived 
 from abroad. She has indeed the unique 
 advantage of being able to judge them by the 
 comparative method, for besides having found 
 accommodation for the two incongruous for- 
 eign systems. Buddhism and Mohammedanism, 
 she is still struggling with the recrudescence of 
 Christianity, which had originally gained access 
 to the empire by the Western frontiers in the 
 seventh century, during the T'ang dynasty. 
 It is a fact which should interest students of 
 comparative religion, as well as propagandists. 
 
Christianity in China. SS 
 
 that the Nestorian Christianity introduced at 
 that early period into China, and received with 
 favour, was, according to the Chinese view, grad- 
 ually superseded by Mohammedanism, even 
 as the corrupt Churches in the West had been, 
 but apparently without violence, Islam holding 
 its ground to the present day. The Christian 
 missions in Asia would be an attractive study, 
 were it only for the heroism with which their 
 record is enriched. Two features common to 
 all these efforts — whether in India, Persia, 
 Tibet, among the Khanates of Central Asia, or 
 in China — seem deserving of special note. 
 First, that the Christian missionaries were 
 nearly always welcomed and protected by the 
 rulers of the various states, by those even who 
 were already devoted to other religions. And 
 secondly, the missions, prosperous at the outset, 
 experienced violent reactions, as if their after- 
 taste was found bitter. It would be easy to 
 give local and partial explanations of this uni- 
 versal experience ; as the awakened jealousy 
 of the Lamas in Tibet, the reversal of the con- 
 ciliatory attitude of the first missionaries to- 
 wards native customs and philosophies in 
 
S6 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 China, dynastic revolutions, and so forth. 
 But such particular reasons seem scarcely ade- 
 quate to explain the entire disappearance of 
 mediaeval Christianity and the subsequent 
 partition of Asia between Buddhism and 
 Mohammedanism. In China the Church 
 fared best, for there the Nestorians were still 
 vigorous enough, after six centuries, to be a 
 thorn in the side of the Catholic missionaries 
 who came to, and were well received at, the 
 Mongol Court in the reign of that model of 
 religious toleration, Kublai, who honoured 
 equally the four prophets, Jesus Christ, Mo- 
 hammed, Moses, and Buddha.-^ From the 
 accession of the Ming dynasty, however, com- 
 munication with the West being cut off, the 
 traces of Christianity were so completely lost 
 that there were none either to welcome or 
 oppose the apostles who 250 years later made 
 their way to China round the Cape of Storms, 
 and discovered that it was Cathay. 
 
 1 " In this empire there are men of all nations under the sun 
 and monks of all sects ; and as every one is permitted to live in 
 whatever belief he pleases, the opinion or rather the error, being 
 upheld that each one may effect his salvation in his own religion, 
 we are enabled to preach in perfect liberty and security." 
 Letter of Andre de Per ouse from Kai Tong, IJ26. — Hue. 
 
Christianity in China* 57 
 
 The entrance of the Itahan missionaries into 
 the empire and the capital towards the end of 
 the 1 6th century is described by the Chinese 
 — and it is their version we are concerned 
 with — as crafty and insidious. The mission- 
 aries, indeed, gave much the same account of 
 themselves, for they, by the most admirable 
 perseverance under almost insuperable difficul- 
 ties, contrived to enter the service of the Em- 
 perors while remaining strictly under the orders 
 of the Propaganda. They were from the first 
 opposed by Censors and high officers, but were 
 supported by the reigning Emperor of the 
 Ming dynasty (Wan Li, 1573), their passport 
 to the imperial favour being their astronomical 
 science, which enabled them to correct the cal- 
 endar, a task on which Hindu Buddhists had 
 been similarly employed seven centuries before, 
 and which seems still to have continued to 
 baffle the Astronomical Board of Peking. 
 Matteo Ricci, the first who gained entrance to 
 the Capital, had already been some years in 
 the Southern provinces, and there were already 
 more or less prosperous missions at Nanking 
 and several other places, described by the 
 
58 China and Christianity* 
 
 missionaries as " four light-houses " diffusing 
 the truth over the Chinese empire. Though 
 constantly denounced by Ministers and Cen- 
 sors they maintained their ground in the prov- 
 inces until the Emperor, at last yielding to 
 the official pressure, issued an order for them 
 to withdraw, which the missionaries were very 
 dilatory in obeying, and for a time they suffered 
 grievously in the provinces. In the mean- 
 while the religion had been spreading rapidly 
 throughout the empire, and counted among 
 its adherents men of rank and learning. 
 Adam Schaal, who had succeeded Matteo Ricci 
 in Peking as mathematician in the last years 
 of the Ming, and v/as impressed into taking 
 part in the military operations which ended in 
 its overthrow, was prompt to pay his court to 
 the Emperor Shun-Chih, the first of the Ta 
 Ts'ing dynasty, and he and his comrade Ver- 
 biest were by that monarch appointed Presi- 
 dent and Vice-president of the Astronomical 
 Board. 
 
 The position of these missionaries and their 
 followers was incessantly attacked by Chinese 
 officials, but during the long reign of K'ang 
 
Christianity in Qiina^ 59 
 
 Hsi (1662-1723) they were still upheld by the 
 Emperor, who highly valued their scientific 
 services. But the opening of churches in the 
 provinces had been definitely forbidden about 
 1670, though the missionaries in the imperial 
 service were still allowed to hold religious 
 worship in the capital, but for themselves alone, 
 the propaganda being interdicted. Both re- 
 strictions were, however, evaded, the imperial 
 edicts fell into desuetude, and the propaganda 
 continued active in the Southern provinces. 
 The official pressure on the Emperor was 
 strenuously renewed, and in the 56th year of 
 his reign (17 17) he was at last prevailed on to 
 revive the lapsed edict of 1670 and decree 
 the expulsion of all the foreigners, within six 
 months, due precautions being taken, however, 
 to protect them on their long journeys from 
 the districts in which they had settled to the 
 port of embarkation. Six years later the expul- 
 sion had still not been effected, and the Vice- 
 roy of Canton, Kung, then memorialized the 
 successor of K'ang Hsi near the beginning of 
 1725 to the effect that the numbers of the 
 foreigners were too great to be disposed of in 
 
6o China and Christianity^ 
 
 such a summary fashion, for the wharf at Macao 
 was too narrow and the available ships too few ! 
 He therefore petitioned that they should have 
 leave to reside in Canton in their own estab- 
 lishment, but not to teach their doctrines ; 
 and that the Chinese who had joined that sect 
 should be made to abandon it. The year after, 
 the same viceroy memorialized the Throne that 
 foreigners had been resident in Macao for 200 
 years, that their numbers had increased to 
 over 3,000, and he prayed His Majesty Yung- 
 cheng to issue an edict limiting the numbers 
 and ordering that the supernumeraries should 
 be made to leave the country, — to which the 
 Emperor assented. 
 
 Nevertheless, during the reign of K'ien- 
 Lung (173 6-1 796) the missionaries continued 
 their proselytizing efforts in the northern and 
 western provinces, though from the central 
 provinces of Hunan, Hupei, and Kiangsi they 
 had been hunted out and expelled. The Em- 
 peror was constrained to issue a forcible edict 
 ordering the searching out and prohibiting of 
 the sect, but always, like his predecessors, in- 
 clined to clemency, K'ien Lung in the fiftieth 
 
Christianity in China^ 6i 
 
 year of his age (1785) issued another edict 
 formally and in set terms confirming the pre- 
 vious one, which had again been secretly vio- 
 lated by the " preaching criminals, whose only 
 purpose was to propagate their doctrines, and 
 in no other way did they offend against the 
 law." Yet as they were ignorant of the law 
 of the empire he had pity on their sufferings 
 in prison, and would set them at liberty and 
 allow them to live in their own estabhshment 
 in the capital. 
 
 Attempts were made in 1794 by Lord Ma- 
 cartney, who was well received by K^en Lung, 
 and again in 1 8 1 6 by Lord Amherst, who was 
 not received by Kia K^ing because he refused 
 the k^ou-fou which he pretended was due to 
 the "Lord of Heaven " alone, to obtain more 
 favourable consideration for foreigners. " From 
 that time," says the narrative we have been 
 following, " began the dissatisfaction." 
 
 The Christians continued to violate the law, 
 evangelists went out secretly into every prov- 
 ince, and evil people under cover of their name 
 accomplished their evil purposes. The risings 
 during the Ming, and in the reigns of K'ien- 
 
6i China and Christianity* 
 
 Lung, and Kia-K4ng of the present dynasty- 
 are set down to the White Lily and other cor- 
 rupt sects, which are generally associated in 
 the public mind with the Christians. 
 
 Then, to crown all, the English forced them- 
 selves into China, bringing their "Jesus books," 
 scattering them among the people, who have 
 ever since been carrying on their wickedness 
 under this cover. The English treaty of Nan- 
 king in 1842 was followed by a French treaty 
 in 1844, which conceded protection to mis- 
 sionaries and other foreigners at the open ports, 
 but did not annul the prohibition against for- 
 eigners teaching in the interior ; and when the 
 French came a second time in 1846 to Canton 
 and urged the removal of the proscription, the 
 Emperor Tao-Kwang decreed that at the ports 
 they might erect Churches and the natives 
 might there receive instruction, " but they were 
 not to beguile women into vile practices nor 
 by deceit take out the eyes of sick persons." 
 
 After another war the treaties extorted from 
 China in 1858-60 granted a more general pro- 
 tection to evangelists and their converts in the 
 interior of the country, and provided more- 
 
Christianity in China^ 6^ 
 
 over for the restitution to the French Minister 
 of all the buildings and lands, the property of 
 the missions, which had been confiscated dur- 
 ing the persecutions. After these treaties, the 
 Chinese followers of the missionaries, trusting 
 in the foreigners for protection, insulted the 
 soldiers and people, and disregarded the offi- 
 cials, which provoked a decree from the Em- 
 peror, in which he says : " It appears from the 
 statement in the French treaty that the sect 
 exhort men to righteousness ; this has already 
 been published abroad. Now, recently in every 
 province the followers of this sect and their 
 opponents are constantly quarrelling and fight- 
 ing. Hereafter let the local magistrates in 
 every province diligently examine into the 
 origin of these troubles and use authority to 
 preserve the peace. If the Christians can quiet 
 their own, let them as a body be fully pro- 
 tected. But if any, relying upon his sect, does 
 evil and violates the law, then the magistrates 
 shall certainly, according to law, try and punish 
 his crime." 
 
 This cursory view of the advent of Christi- 
 anity into China is taken from a recent collec- 
 
64 China and Christianity* 
 
 tion of carefully edited Chinese State papers 
 called King-sz-wen, sometimes known as the 
 " Blue Books '' a section of which, translated 
 by Rev. D. L. Anderson, appears in the Chi- 
 nese Recorder y 1891. It presents the foreign 
 religion as seen with Chinese eyes, and consid- 
 ering the hostile feeling of the editor, the lan- 
 guage of this historical section is singularly 
 moderate in tone, though other parts of the 
 compilation contain grossly offensive matter. 
 As a narrative of the progress of Christian 
 missions it is bald, and defective even in histor- 
 ical symmetry. The famous quarrels between 
 the different orders of missionaries, which on 
 their own showing were more ruinous to their 
 cause than the hostility of the Chinese, their 
 reference of their disputes on abstruse theologi- 
 cal questions to the Emperor, and their ap- 
 peals to Rome on matters concerning Chinese 
 customs and doctrines, which are made much 
 of by foreign critics, are passed over in silence 
 by this official Chinese editor, although they 
 would apparently have furnished material use- 
 ful for his argument. And as a matter of 
 course the heroism of the Chinese as well as 
 
Christianity in China^ 65 
 
 foreign martyrs to the faith, the reports of 
 which drew from Pius VII. the exclamation: 
 "It is like a passage from the annals of the 
 primitive Church ! " is entirely ignored in 
 these publications. Necessarily, also, the hid- 
 den source of the Christians' fortitude and the 
 motive energy of their action were blank mys- 
 teries to those whose sympathies were with the 
 persecutors, and not with their victims. Nei- 
 ther have the devoted and disinterested lives 
 of the early missionaries such as Ricci and 
 Verbiest, which have drawn tributes of the 
 warmest admiration from candid Protestant 
 writers, made any noticeable impression on the 
 Chinese official world. That side of the ques- 
 tion, however, has received such full attention 
 from the missionary writers themselves, almost 
 to the entire exclusion of the Chinese official 
 and popular view of their case, that it would be 
 superfluous to reproduce here any portions of 
 their vivid descriptions. It is the pure Chi- 
 nese view of the mission question, with all its 
 defects and partialities, with which we are now 
 particularly concerned. 
 
 The opposition to the entrance of Christian- 
 
66 China and Christianity^ 
 
 ity is, by the above narrative, shown to have 
 been unwavering on the part of responsible 
 officials, who laboriously reasoned against it as 
 they also have never ceased to do against 
 Buddhism, on general as well as on doctrinal 
 grounds. To such attacks the missionaries 
 laid themselves open, more, perhaps, than was 
 absolutely necessary, for as if the Christian 
 dogmas proper did not present a large enough 
 mark for assailants, they cumbered their ship, as 
 the Buddhists had done theirs, with a deck- 
 load of perishable cosmogony, from which the 
 Church has never been able quite to disentan- 
 gle itself. The scholars and officials dwelt 
 forcibly also on the political danger of Chris- 
 tianity. But a succession of emperors of gen- 
 tle disposition who, suspecting no evil, treated 
 them in a hospitable manner, allowed the mis- 
 sionaries to gain a footing in the Palace under 
 the cover of teaching science, while all the 
 time " these foreigners had their minds fixed 
 on other unlawful things." And referring to 
 the reparation insisted on by France in 1858 
 for the death of Father Chapdelaine, the re- 
 porter says : " From that time the disciples of 
 
Christianity in China^ 67 
 
 the missionaries, though Chinese, have be- 
 come very bold, openly relying upon the 
 foreign Consuls to protect them, at the same 
 time looking with contempt upon their own 
 officials." ^ He also attributes various ris- 
 ings in the country in former times to the in- 
 fluence of divers sects, and says : " All these 
 troubles came about through the instrumen- 
 tality of unemployed evil men among our 
 people. These made use of those worship- 
 ping assemblies to collect money, and a 
 crowd having gathered, they plotted rebellion. 
 ... So from the days of Kai-K'ing to the 
 present, seditious plottings have been carried 
 out in every province. . . . Thus in all the 
 provinces there was no seditious sect that 
 did not pretend themselves to be a worship- 
 ping body." 
 
 These prohibitions of the teaching of Chris- 
 
 1 " The native priests are said to be quite overbearing in 
 claiming access to the mandarins. Nor has this been entirely- 
 confined to the Roman Catholics, but native preachers con- 
 nected with Protestant Missions are also charged with demand- 
 ing admission into the presence of the local officials and 
 presuming on their connection with foreigners to claim civil privi- 
 leges."— Rev, R. H. Graves, Recorder, 1884. See also Rev, 
 J. Ross, in Recorder, August, 1892. 
 
68 China and Christianity* 
 
 tianity, were extorted from the Emperors, evi- 
 dently against their better feeling, and, if one or 
 two short and sharp persecutions prompted by 
 personal pique be excepted, required nearly 
 loo years to get promulgated and 60 years 
 more to be put in full force, so deliberate are 
 the movements of the Chinese governing ma- 
 chine. They were partially rescinded by the 
 Treaties of 1842-4, and finally by those of 
 1858, both of which were imposed on China 
 by force of arms. But a military conqueror 
 has no power over opinion, and it is certain 
 that the spirit which dictated the continuous 
 remonstrances of the high officials of the em- 
 pire for two hundred years was in no way 
 changed because a Minister, trembling for his 
 head, signed the parchment placed before him 
 by the plenipotentiary of a victorious invader. 
 Neither was the feeling against Christianity 
 likely to be soothed because the propaganda, 
 against which they had waged unceasing war, was 
 forced thus suddenly upon the Chinese. These 
 circumstances render it dangerous for foreign 
 powers to permit the slightest relaxation of 
 treaty observance on the part of the Chinese. 
 
Qiristianity in China^ 69 
 
 But It would be unwise at the same time not 
 to take account of the actual predicament in 
 which their treaty obligations have placed that 
 people. 
 
70 China and Christianity^ 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE SOURCES OF CHINESE OPPOSITION. 
 
 It were much to the purpose to extract, if 
 possible, from the record of the various 
 Chinese persecutions the special features in 
 Christianity which render it so obnoxious to 
 the Chinese, but such an inquiry is somewhat 
 hindered by the reticence of both sides. The 
 missionaries* reports have been edited as yet 
 only in fragments, and their case has to be 
 largely inferred from the course of events. 
 And as to the Chinese, it is never safe to 
 accept too literally their statements because of 
 their constitutional habit of avoiding on all 
 questions a direct issue, and of economizing 
 truth by putting forward frivolous and irrele- 
 vant arguments rather than meet a case squarely 
 on its merits. The construction of the Chinese 
 mental apparatus, or the result of their social 
 education, seems to bar the direct ingress and 
 egress of thought, which consequently has to 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 71 
 
 be filtered through a labyrinth of convolutions 
 which arrest the solid particles and allow only 
 the more volatile a free passage. The real 
 conviction of a Chinese is scarcely to be 
 fathomed by his own brother, from whom 
 something is always held back, and is to be 
 ascertained by acts and inferences rather than 
 by direct affirmation, even on solemn occasions. 
 The obiter dicta of Chinese statesmen would, 
 if they could be gathered up and compared, be 
 a safer key to the secrets of their mind than 
 the more conscious mintage of their brain. 
 Unless this canon of interpretation be applied 
 to Chinese public documents, serious errors 
 will be unavoidable. 
 
 From the favour with which, notwithstand- 
 ing fierce academical and religious opposition 
 sustained through many centuries. Buddhism 
 was received by the government, the hospital- 
 ity accorded to the Nestorians and other West- 
 ern sects, and the tolerance subsequently ex- 
 tended to the Mohammedans, it may be 
 inferred that the particular species of antagon- 
 ism which has been evoked by modern Chris- 
 tianity was not felt towards those earlier 
 
72 China and Christianity. 
 
 religious importations. Buddhism no doubt 
 captivated the popular mind in China and 
 Japan by supplying the great void left by the 
 teachings of the sages — the promise of a future 
 life, and a scheme of retribution ; paradise, and 
 remission of sins. The entrance of Moham- 
 medanism may have been made easy by the 
 purity of its deism and simplicity of ritual 
 offering few points of attack. Nevertheless 
 these two religions were not less subversive of 
 the indigenous theocracy of China and her 
 traditional superstitions than is Christianity 
 itself, and their comparative immunity from 
 persecution therefore goes towards establishing 
 the fact that neither a new religion, as .such, 
 nor its foreign origin, would be sufficient of 
 itself to arouse the antagonism with which, in 
 modern times. Christian doctrine has been met 
 in China. The question is thus narrowed 
 down to such special characteristics or external 
 circumstances as may differentiate Christianity 
 from those other religious systems, and perhaps 
 modern Christianity from its older forms. 
 
 In the memorials of censors and statesmen 
 in the reigns of K'ang-Hsi and of Wan Li of 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 73 
 
 the Ming dynasty, it is not difficult to trace 
 the natural and inevitable jealousy of officials 
 who saw strangers, however meritorious, pro- 
 moted over their heads to honourable positions 
 in the imperial service. The case was not 
 altogether unlike that of the Hebrew captives 
 at the Babylonish Court, whose elevation by 
 successive Kings excited the envy of " the 
 presidents and satraps," who, diligently seeking 
 to compass the fall of the foreigners, were 
 driven to confess : " We shall not find any 
 occasion against this Daniel except we find it 
 against him concerning the law of his God." 
 And it is worth noting here that one of the 
 apologists of Buddhism in the T'ang dynasty, 
 Liu Tsing-yiian, in a tract translated by Mr. 
 Giles, lays stress on this, that " Buddhism 
 admits no envious rivalry for place or power." 
 One prominent assailant came into direct 
 personal conflict with the foreign missionaries, 
 about A.D. l66^, who succeeded in supplant- 
 ing Schaal and Verbiest for a time in the presi- 
 dency of the Astronomical Board, and was in 
 turn dislodged by them, disgraced and banished 
 for detected errors in astronomical calculations. 
 
74 Qiina and Christianity* 
 
 From such a man, therefore, in the bitterness 
 of his defeat, we might expect to hear the 
 worst that could be said against the foreign mis- 
 sionaries, put in the form most likely to impress 
 the Emperor and the leaders of opinion. Yang 
 Kwang-sien made a direct attack on their reli- 
 gion. Not in the capital only, but " through- 
 out the thirteen provinces '' their emissaries 
 had spread, and he says : " What is it they 
 have in mind to accomplish ? " In the books 
 which he wrote against the missionaries, assail- 
 ing with admirable energy their theological 
 tenets, and pointing out the social disinte- 
 gration which the system would work, Yang 
 uttered warnings of the sinister designs of the 
 propagators of these corrupt doctrines, and 
 appealed to posterity to attest the truth of his 
 predictions. He called loudly for the expulsion 
 of the foreigners on various technical grounds 
 also : " From ancient times to the present," he 
 says, " has any one every crossed our frontier 
 who has not been sent in by his State to bring 
 tribute ? Or did any of the subject States' 
 Ambassadors ever come with tribute who not 
 only did not return to his own country him- 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 75 
 
 self, but also called hither fellows of his own 
 sort to assist in corrupting our people ? " But 
 his chief argument was based on the disasters 
 which Christianity was sure to bring upon the 
 State : " After a while, when trouble comes, 
 will these converts contend against their fathers 
 and brothers, or will they help them ? . . . 
 According to my humble judgment it is 
 better that we should be without a good 
 calendar than that we should have foreign- 
 ers among us. . . . 1 fear that if we have 
 foreigners among us they will, by scatter- 
 ing their gold, gather up the hearts of the 
 people of our empire like as if one should carry 
 fire into a pile of straw fuel, and misfortune 
 will come speedily." In a word, the effect of 
 the doctrine, according to Yang, was to sub- 
 vert the relation of father and son, prince and 
 people, or, as certain earlier conservatives in 
 another part of the world expressed it, to " turn 
 the world upside down.*' Conscious that his 
 attacks would be set down to interested motives, 
 he declared he would gladly be misconstrued 
 by his contemporaries if only he could escape 
 being honoured by posterity as a true prophet 
 
76 China and Christianity. 
 
 of China's distress. From the prominence 
 given to his anti-Christian writings after a lapse 
 of 200 years, it would appear that posterity 
 really gives Yang the credit which he professed 
 himself so anxious to avoid. 
 
 The course of the anti-Christian agitation in 
 China has been a consistent and unbroken one, 
 gathering strength as the religion, or its pro- 
 fessors, became better known, and reaching its 
 culmination in our own day — though re- 
 pressed in overt action — under the double 
 stimulus of the spread of the sects, and of the 
 foreign treaties which protect them. From first 
 to last, with perhaps one exception, the Em- 
 perors have been more liberal or less appre- 
 hensive of danger than their Ministers, and 
 seemed always well pleased to command the 
 skilled service of the missionaries on easy 
 terms. The opposition, although fed from 
 divers sources, such as personal jealousy, phil- 
 osophical antipathy and religious sentiment, 
 seems to have centred itself on two principal 
 points : the dread of the political usurpation 
 and the popular aversion. For it was natural 
 that the people should feel at least a prelim- 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 77 
 
 inary repugnance to a sect which contravened 
 old customs, which kept aloof from local cele- 
 brations, which held quasi-secret meetings, and 
 aroused distrust by the alleged practice of arts 
 incomprehensible to the common people, and 
 associated with witchcraft even by the educated 
 classes. 
 
 The opposition of religionists as such, e,g,, 
 the Buddhist or Taoist sects, seems never to 
 have been very formidable ; and the implied 
 subversion of the root religion of the State — 
 the worship of the True God by the Emperor 
 — failed even to arouse the anger of the em- 
 perors themselves, the parties it might be sup- 
 posed most directly concerned in the mainte- 
 nance of the theocratic status. 
 
 Williams quotes, and paraphrases, the prin- 
 cipal causes of trouble between the converts 
 and their countrymen, as recorded by Mon- 
 seigneur Saint-Martin, who was Vicar- Apostolic 
 of Sechuan from 1772 to 1784: — 
 
 First. Christians are frequently confounded 
 with the members of the Triad Society, or of 
 the White Lily sect, both by their enemies 
 
7 8 China and Christianity. 
 
 and by persons belonging to those associa- 
 tions. 
 
 Second. The Christians refuse to contrib- 
 ute to the erection or repair of temples, etc. 
 
 Third. Betrothals are almost indissoluble 
 in China ; and whenever the Christians refuse 
 to ratify them by proceeding to a marriage 
 already commenced, they are regarded as law- 
 breakers and treated as such. 
 
 Fourth. All communications with Euro- 
 peans being interdicted, the magistrates seek 
 diligently for every evidence of their existence 
 in the country, by searching for the objects 
 used in worship, as crosses, breviaries, etc. 
 
 Fifth. The little respect the converts have 
 for their ancestors. 
 
 Sixth. The Converts are obliged to take 
 down the ancestral tablets in order to put up 
 those of their own religion, and they are seldom 
 forgiven for this. 
 
 Seventh. The indiscreet zeal of neophytes 
 in breaking the idols or insulting the objects 
 of public worship, is one of the commonest 
 causes of persecution. 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 79 
 
 Eighth. Disputes between the missionaries 
 themselves. 
 
 It is possible that the most constant source 
 of opposition to the Christian propaganda is 
 one that is never explicitly referred to in speech 
 or writing, the apprehension of loss of influ- 
 ence by the whole lettered and official classes. 
 In the patriarchal and theocratic system under 
 which the empire is administered, the magis- 
 trates of all ranks in their official capacity, and 
 the scholars as amateurs, not only rule but 
 aspire to regulate the people in their various 
 concerns, and as they must know by instinct 
 that the success of the propaganda would in- 
 volve the solution of their traditional tenure 
 of influence, their implacable hostility to Chris- 
 tianity may be inferred without reference to its 
 merits as a religion. And when to this provo- 
 cation is added the deposition of the whole 
 classical lore of China to a subordinate place — 
 which is one of the commonest of the Chris- 
 tian demands — the exasperation of the classes 
 which live in that literature needs no further 
 explanation. A parallel might be imagined if 
 
8o China and Christianity. 
 
 a foreign propaganda in Great Britain were to 
 insist, as a preliminary step, on the dethrone- 
 ment of the Bible and Shakespeare from their 
 supreme position as English classics. It is 
 right to say, however, that many, perhaps most, 
 of the modern missionaries are finding an hon- 
 ourable place in their school curricula for the 
 reading of Confucian classics.^ 
 
 Many of the expressions of the popular 
 feeling against Christianity in China resemble 
 those which were current in the regions where 
 the religion first spread. The affronts offered 
 to the national gods, abstention from public 
 ceremonies, the scandals of promiscuous meet- 
 ings, the resort to magical arts, the scooping 
 out of eyes, and other abominations read like 
 charges copied by the Chinese from the West- 
 ern pagans, their similarity going some way 
 
 ^ "The fundamental truth of Confucianism, that man should 
 strive to live in harmony with the will of Heaven, lies at the 
 basis of all true religion." — Rev. F. L. Hawks Pott, Chinese 
 Recorder^ July» 1892. 
 
 " I have found the classics of incomparable value, both in 
 convicting of sin, in the inculcation of duty, in upsetting idolatry, 
 and in establishing our Christian ideas regarding the omnipres- 
 ence, the almighty power, and the universal care of the one 
 living God." — Rev. J. Ross, Chinese Recorder, August, 1892. 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 8i 
 
 towards corroborating the bona fides of both. 
 Behefs and sentiments, however irrational, which 
 thus well up spontaneously at such distant 
 periods of time and among peoples so unknown 
 to each other, are evidently too firmly planted 
 in human nature to be eradicated either by 
 argument or rougher measures. To the pres- 
 ent day there are communities in Europe who 
 believe in abominations being practised by 
 Jews on Christian children, and the cruelties 
 to which that persecuted race have been sub- 
 jected in every country where they have settled 
 constitute a standing proof of the endurance of 
 racial and religious prejudice. Gradually, under 
 the solvent influences of time and enlighten- 
 ment, such notions will doubtless die the slow 
 death of superstitions, but the strong hand 
 indiscreetly applied to them is apt to harden 
 prejudices which will yield only to invincible 
 forbearance.^ 
 
 ^ Of course the true root of the aversion lies deeper than all 
 that. Dr. Faber points at it {Messenger, July, 1892) : " The 
 Chinese have learned from the Roman Catholics and from their 
 hundred years of struggle against Christianity to fully reaUze 
 that the propagation of this religion concerns nothing short of 
 the very existence of the Chinese pecteliar theory of life in its en- 
 
82 China and Christianity* 
 
 The practical statesman, on either side, will 
 therefore most profitably concentrate his atten- 
 tion on the one point of the assumption of 
 political power — whether intended or not 
 intended — by the teachers and converts to 
 Christianity, which is the most obvious source 
 of anxiety to the Chinese government.-^ 
 
 There is not, of course, an individual mis- 
 sionary, nor any one of the sects into which the 
 force is divided, who would not warmly repu- 
 diate any design of interference with the inter- 
 nal administration, and in most cases with the 
 purest sincerity. But protestations have, un- 
 fortunately, no influence whatever on the 
 course of events, for it is not by the malice 
 prepense of individuals that dangers to the 
 State are set up, but by the natural evolution of 
 
 tirety^ Perhaps the word " theory " even puts too formal a 
 limitation on the Chinese feeling, for something more vital and 
 more diffusive than a mere " theory of life " seems required to 
 account for such infinite variety and intensity of expression, and 
 to prompt such spontaneous action, where the propagation of 
 Christianity is concerned. 
 
 1 " As far as religion is concerned the Chinese are not only 
 reasonable, but extremely tolerant, till the professed religion as- 
 sume, or is believed to assume, a political aspect." — Rev. J. 
 Ross, Chinese Recorder, August, 1892. 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 83 
 
 their principles. Not that in this connection 
 individuals are always free from blame, for 
 many could be named who really have arro- 
 gated authority, given themselves official rank, 
 or who have at least exacted the deference and 
 assumed the state belonging to such rank,^ 
 who have in some cases even levied military 
 forces, — to be used in aid of law and order, 
 be it admitted, — and some who have dabbled 
 in palace intrigues of a worldly character. And 
 although hundreds more could be pointed out 
 who bear themselves with perfect humility 
 among their neighbours, their influence, within 
 the purview of state government, is almost un- 
 appreciable. It has been a long standing 
 
 1 The often quoted observation of Father Ripa, quoted because 
 of its obvious candour, is to the following effect : 
 
 " If our European missionaries in China would conduct them- 
 selves with less ostentation and accommodate their manners to 
 persons of aU ranks and conditions, the number of converts 
 would be immensely increased, for the Chinese possess excellent 
 natural abilities, and are both prudent and docile. But they have 
 adopted the lofty and pompous mannei known in China by the 
 appellation of ' Ti-mien.' Their garments are made of the 
 richest materials ; they go nowhere on foot, but always in sedans, 
 on horseback, or in boats, and with numerous attendants follow- 
 ing them. With a few honourable exceptions, all the mission- 
 aries live in this manner." 
 
84 China and Christianity* 
 
 grievance of the government that the foreign 
 priest trains his flock to look to him for protec- 
 tion instead of to the constituted authorities. 
 
 The simple fact of any considerable number 
 of the inhabitants separating themselves from 
 the general population must be a source of un- 
 easiness to rulers, and the whole stream of offi- 
 cial records proves that the secret sects are the 
 chronic bugbear of the government of China. 
 Christianity is not only reckoned as one of the 
 sectSj but it is the most difficult to manage be- 
 cause the autonomy to which it tacitly aspires 
 is always, in these days, liable to be backed by 
 foreign force. Hence the terror with which 
 some, and the aversion with which others, of 
 the local officials regard communities of Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 In Protestant journals the question is some- 
 times discussed whether, and how far, it is judi- 
 cious for the foreign missionaries to plead the 
 cause of their converts before local magistrates 
 in cases where the secular interests of the 
 Christians are involved ; and it is assumed that 
 the native converts sometimes abuse the advan- 
 tage they derive from the support of their for- 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 85 
 
 eign pastors with " the Consul *' behind them, 
 to claim privileges which on their merits as 
 mere Chinese they •would not dare to do.-^ 
 Whatever conclusion may be eventually ar- 
 rived at in these literary discussions, the fact of 
 the subject being so treated at all goes far to 
 justify the whole contention of the Govern- 
 ment. In many parts of the country clan 
 fights are provoked by the Christians presum- 
 ing on their missionary protection. The very 
 latest persecution, that in Pakow, in Mongo- 
 
 1 " A missionary receives a report from one of his Church 
 members that his heathen neighbour is persecuting him. He ap- 
 plies to the mandarin, who refuses to see him. Then he goes to 
 his Consul. His Consul reluctantly refers it to the higher Chi- 
 nese authorities. They send down a win shu ordering the local 
 mandarin to stop persecution. The native convert has never ap- 
 pealed on his own account to the mandarin. On examination it 
 may or may not turn out a bogus concern altogether. Ten to 
 one it is an insignificant affair. , . . But the remoter con- 
 sequences are not insignificant. The Christian has been taught 
 to lean upon a protection he is not entitled to ; the heathen feels 
 that he is being tyrannised over by the hated foreigner, who, ac- 
 cording to his notions, has no business to be in the country. The 
 mandarin has been snubbed for no fault of his own ; the higher 
 officials feel that in admitting the missionary they pulled down a 
 house over their heads, and the Consul wishes the missionary 
 and his peddling concerns far enough." — Rev. G. T. Candlin, 
 in Manchester Guardian^ 21st December, 1891. 
 
86 China and Christianity* 
 
 lia, in November last, was but the eruption of 
 one of those smouldering feuds. The Chris- 
 tians there being numerous' and compact had in- 
 curred the enmity of their heathen neighbours, 
 particularly of the 'Tsai-Ii, or Abstinence Sect, 
 to whom, it is said, they gave much provoca- 
 tion. In law suits, the magistrate, intimidated 
 by the presence of the foreign priest, and ap- 
 prehensive of censure from Peking if he should 
 furnish any pretext to the foreigner to appeal 
 to his Minister, favoured the Christian liti- 
 gants so openly as to excite mutiny in the 
 neighbourhood, which resulted in a massacre 
 of the Christians. If the records of the em- 
 pire were fully searched, such cases, though 
 not all so grave, would probably be found 
 common enough to account for a general re- 
 sentment against a perennial source of trouble 
 and personal risk to the officials throughout 
 the country. 
 
 Such military exploits as those of Mon- 
 seigneur Faure in Kueichow, and Monseigneur 
 Delaplace in Chekiang, although serving the 
 cause of the government in a crisis that threat- 
 ened danger to its existence, could not but open 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 87 
 
 the eyes of Chinese statesmen to possibil- 
 ities of a different kind. These two prelates 
 were loyal men, of whom one died in Kwei-fu 
 in 1 871, and the other lived to enjoy the con- 
 fidence of the Chinese government as Vicar- 
 Apostolic in Peking. But who would stand 
 sponsor for their successors, who in some simi- 
 lar emergency might wield similar power, but 
 employ it to a different end? Indeed, certain 
 defiant expressions of Monseigneur Deflesche 
 in Sechuan, during the troubles there about 
 1870, intimated to the French Government 
 that the Church in that province had confi- 
 dence in its own means of self-protection. A 
 nation would hardly be in a satisfactory posi- 
 tion which was liable to have to treat with an 
 alien in its midst at the head of troops of his 
 own raising, whether in the capacity — so easily 
 interchangeable — of ally or enemy. Her ex- 
 perience of her Mohammedan subjects would 
 alone render China suspicious and irritable in 
 face of separate communities in either guise. 
 For though in that religion itself there is 
 nothing inimical to the government any more 
 than there is in Christianity, yet the circum- 
 
88 China and Christianity^ 
 
 stance of a numerous body of co-religionists 
 thrown together by their alienation from the 
 people round them is a skeleton always in the 
 cupboard. The nucleated body must ever be 
 harder than the mass in which it is imbedded, 
 as was illustrated with costly vividness in the 
 two great Mohammedan rebellions in Yiiman 
 and in Kashgar, which arose and were quelled 
 within the present generation, after sacrifices 
 which taxed the resources of the empire to the 
 uttermost. 
 
 Her standing warfare with the sects and 
 secret societies, therefore ; the many insurrec- 
 tions these have raised in the past ; the devas- 
 tations of Taipings, Panthays, and Dunganis, 
 and the waste of life and property incidental to 
 their overthrow ; would seem to justify the 
 fears of China in regard to the advance of any 
 foreign religion ; and of all the sects and soci- 
 eties which have yet appeared Christianity is 
 certainly not the one that has in general 
 proved to be the most docile. If, indeed, the 
 government officials were willing, or were in a 
 position, to observe the gentler fruits of Chris- 
 tian teaching, their political apprehensions 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 89 
 
 might be somewhat allayed; for they would 
 see in many rural villages throughout the 
 country the leaven of the new faith working its 
 way in the silent manner in which the eternal 
 forces always do work ; and they would see, if 
 they had eyes for such things, evidences of 
 ameHoration in the life of the people, cleanli- 
 ness and kindliness spreading, intelligence 
 awakened, the desire for knowledge implanted, 
 reading taking the place of gambling in the 
 cottages, and the conditions of existence sweet- 
 ened, brightened, and elevated for many a 
 poor family. Equally in Catholic and Protes- 
 tant mission stations might such peaceful 
 progress be witnessed, not as the result of 
 either Catholic or Protestant polemics, or of 
 exciting literature, but of the personal magnet- 
 ism of men and women whose lives reflect the 
 light of love. Unfortunately, however, but 
 inevitably, the features of Christianity which 
 challenge the attention of the outer world, and 
 especially of rulers, do not belong to that class, 
 but to those which are associated with aggres- 
 siveness. It is for such phases of the religion 
 alone that state regulations are required, just 
 
90 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 as the ordinary laws of a country have the ap- 
 pearance of ignoring its orderly citizens and are 
 ostensibly concerned only with the minority 
 who violate the social order. 
 
 Nor is it reasonable to expect the Chinese 
 government to be more Christian than the 
 Christians themselves ; and whatever may be 
 the intrinsic merits of the religion as expressed 
 in the lives of saints and the death of martyrs, 
 the most eloquent apology could not speak to 
 a heathen government in such cogent language 
 as the acts of the representatives of Christian 
 governments with whom it has daily inter- 
 course. The Chinese may be lacking in spir- 
 itual perception, but they cannot be denied the 
 quality of common shrewdness, which enables 
 them to take a fairly correct gauge of the 
 foreigners of all classes with whom they come 
 in contact, and of their motives of action. 
 What, then, are they to think of the sacred- 
 ness of a religion of which they see foreign 
 powers competing for the championship merely 
 in order that they may make political capital 
 out of it to vex China ; or, baser still, in order 
 that they may make common merchandise of 
 the Christian Church ? 
 
The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 91 
 
 It seems superfluous again to repeat, that 
 China has not alone, indeed scarcely at all, to 
 weigh the inner character of Christianity ; but 
 to contemplate the Church in alliance with 
 powerful nations who, whether treating religious 
 affairs as ancillary to their own ambitions, or 
 being goaded by the Church to action against 
 their will, in either case make her cause their 
 own. China has had memorable experience of 
 such, to her, ill-omened aUiances. It was the 
 death of a Catholic priest, whose residence in 
 the interior at the time was illegal, that fur- 
 nished Napoleon III. the pretext for invading 
 China and sacking the Palace. It was alleged 
 persecutions in Cochin-China that furnished, 
 at the same convenient juncture, the pretext to 
 France to take possession of that territory, and 
 was the not very remote cause of the Tong- 
 king war which lately cost China 60 million 
 taels, besides the loss of the protectorate. Thus 
 the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of 
 foreign colonial empire, of whose aggrandize- 
 ment China has had to pay the cost. 
 
 The experience of China, so far as it has yet 
 gone, therefore, is not out of keeping with the 
 
92 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 record of Christianity elsewhere. And traits 
 now exhibited in China, which are found to 
 correspond with those observed in remote 
 times and places, may not unfairly be taken 
 as practically inseparable from the only forms 
 of Christianity which have been able to assert 
 themselves amid the strife of nations, however 
 much these characters may seem at variance 
 with the principles enunciated by its Founder. 
 
The Taiping Rebellion* 93 
 
 vir 
 
 THE TAIPING REBELLION. 
 
 Beyond these general and more or less cal- 
 culable risks connected with Christianity, China 
 has had a special and perhaps unique experi- 
 ence of an incalculable danger of the most seri- 
 ous character, which calls for some notice here. 
 The Taiping rebellion, which wasted the richest 
 provinces of the empire during a space of 
 fifteen years (reducing populous cities to rub- 
 bish heaps and fertile lands to deserts), and 
 which has been estimated by some to have re- 
 duced the population one way and another by 
 50 million souls, or according to Dr. Wells 
 Williams, 20 millions, was the direct outcome 
 of Christian teaching. Dr. Edkins calls it 
 " the Christian insurrection." Few nations 
 have had to endure the like, and a State that 
 has recently passed through such a life-and- 
 death struggle may be pardoned a little cool- 
 
94 China and Christianity. 
 
 ness towards the propagation of the doctrines 
 with which the movement was associated. 
 
 The Protestant missionaries then in China 
 were elated at the outburst of the great Rebel- 
 Hon, not because they cherished enmity to the 
 government which apparently was about to be 
 overthrown, but because of the demonstrated 
 success of their teaching. It was not their 
 fault that the country was being desolated ; 
 that was one of the incidents of warfare, and 
 the imperialists were at least as ruthless as the 
 rebels ; but certain sacred names were blazoned 
 in the Rebel proclamations, and in their books 
 and tracts. Such is fanaticism. Let Heaven 
 and Earth perish,^ so that our scheme of ver- 
 bal theology may triumph. For eight years, 
 and perhaps longer, the Protestant missionaries 
 continued to be partisans of the Rebels,^ and 
 one of the most experienced of them, at the 
 
 1 "Among Christians there is, we are sorry to say, too large a 
 party that would rather allow heaven and earth to go to pieces 
 than confess a mistake on their part." — Dr. Faber. 
 
 2 They had also the contemporary (1856) sympathy of the 
 too-soon forgotten Thomas Taylor Meadows, whose valuable 
 work on China stands on the shelves of a certain circulating 
 library these many years, uncut. 
 
The Taiping Rebellion* 9S 
 
 head-quarters of the chief, was enthusiastic 
 over the orthodoxy of the junior leaders whom 
 he personally cross-examined in the presence 
 of, among others, the present writer, as late as 
 1 86 1. The tide eventually turned, and in 
 view of the decidedly polygamous proclivities 
 of the Wang himself, and some rather serious 
 aberrations in doctrine, the missions ^ gradually 
 withdrew their sympathy, washed their hands 
 of the new Christians — Dr. Williams calls 
 them "these misguided men" — and passed 
 by on the other side. 
 
 This was very well for the foreign evangel- 
 ists, but what of the Chinese government ? It 
 could not blow hot and cold, but had to make 
 up its mind and meet the calamity, whether in 
 its quasi-orthodox character, as it appeared 
 when viewed from a distance, or in its more 
 heretical aspect when seen at closer quarters. 
 And what of the fifty, twenty, or were it even 
 but ten, millions of victims ? Their ghosts as- 
 suredly would be little solaced by the news 
 that after all certain flaws had been found in 
 
 1 The Catholic missions were adverse to the rebellion con- 
 sistently from first to last. 
 
g6 China and Christianity* 
 
 the orthodoxy of the Rebels. It was obvi- 
 ously the same thing to people and govern- 
 ment whether these scourges of theirs were 
 sound on the Fi/ioque, or not. 
 
 In his work on " Religion in China/' third 
 edition, 1884, Dr. Edkins gives an interesting 
 though brief account of the genesis of the 
 Taiping rebellion, which, republished thirty 
 years after the final suppression of the rising, 
 may be taken as the verdict by which the 
 Protestant missionaries are, on the whole, will- 
 ing to abide. " The insurrection," he says, 
 " began in strong religious impressions de- 
 rived from reading the Scriptures and tracts 
 
 published by Protestant Missionaries 
 
 We see in this movement the effect of the dis- 
 tribution of Bibles and Christian tracts 
 
 They felt the power of Christian truth . . . 
 but they were without guidance in com- 
 prehending the use of the Old Testament in 
 Christian times." In plainer language the 
 Wang drew his inspiration from the Hexa- 
 teuch, and other parts of Scripture, and with 
 his Oriental aptitude for visions, convinced 
 himself that he was divinely commissioned to 
 
The Taiping Rebellion^ 97 
 
 slay his idolatrous countrymen, and to com- 
 bine in his own person the missions of Joshua 
 and King David. ^ The Bible, without note 
 or comment, working on a half-educated, 
 brooding, and unprepared mind ! 
 
 "The Christian insurgents in China never 
 had the confidence of any part of the nation," 
 says Dr. Edkins. The missionaries have 
 nevertheless been much encouraged by the 
 Taipings, whose conversion they deemed an 
 earnest of the evangelization of China ; while 
 the political aims and deplorable excesses of the 
 rebels were attributed to, if not excused by, the 
 absence of personal instruction by foreign mis- 
 sionaries, a wholly insufficient account of the 
 matter. 
 
 To the Chinese government and people, 
 however, there was no extenuating circum- 
 stance in the movement, which they always 
 speak of with unmitigated horror. The impe- 
 rial rescript on the report of the death of the 
 
 1 " Supposing Clovis had in any degree ' searched the scrip- 
 tures ' as presented to the Western world by St. Jerome, he was 
 Ukely, as a soldier-king, to have thought more of the mission of 
 Joshua and Jehu than of the patience of Christ, whose sufferings 
 he thought rather of avenging than imitating." — RusKiN. 
 
98 China and Christianity. 
 
 Chief said with a pathos rarely found in State 
 papers : "Words cannot convey any idea of 
 the misery and desolation he caused ; the meas- 
 ure of his iniquity was full, and the wrath of 
 both gods and men was roused against him/' 
 
 It is no Chimaera, therefore, that the Chinese 
 dread in Christianity but a proved national 
 peril, their vague intuitions of this having 
 ripened suddenly into a terrible experience. 
 Perhaps the gravest feature in the Taiping out- 
 break, considered as an episode of Christian 
 development, was that, although unforeseen, it 
 was a not unnatural result of the fermentation 
 of Hebrew theology and theocracy undiluted, in 
 minds fretting at the hardness of the problems 
 of life. Regarded in the light of religious 
 history the great Christian insurrection was not 
 more extravagant in its combination of ferocity 
 with fervour than other moral hurricanes which 
 have swept over mankind, though the uncon- 
 scious blasphemy of its creed may perhaps put 
 it in a class by itself. 
 
 There is here no question as to the intrinsic 
 merits of the Taiping insurrection, or the true 
 
The Taiping Rebellion* 99 
 
 character of its head. Whether it would have 
 been better in the long run for the Chinese, or 
 for the human race, that the movement should 
 have succeeded, or whether the leader was a hero 
 or an impostor, are speculations which have an 
 interest of their own, but are out of place here, 
 our concern being only with the phenomena of 
 the rising, and with the estimate formed of it 
 by the Chinese government and people, who 
 have the pre-eminent right to judge. 
 
 The practical question is, what security have 
 the Chinese against a repetition of this, or some 
 other form of calamity? The depths of fanati- 
 cism have not yet been sounded, nor the pos- 
 sible vagaries of the human heart exhausted. 
 Much the same evangelizing proceedings, 
 which incited the Taiping rebels, at least so far 
 as the Chinese Government can be expected to 
 distinguish, are being carried on without inter- 
 mission over a vastly wider field ; and the mis- 
 sionaries to-day know perhaps as little of the 
 ferments which they may have set up in thou- 
 sands of minds,^ as they did of the incubation 
 
 1 '* The Chinese — both converts and heathen — know the mis- 
 sionary better than the missionary knows them. The fact . . . 
 
loo China and Christianity* 
 
 of Talpingdom. They disseminate among 
 unknown millions the most stimulating litera- 
 ture ever penned, apparently without misgivings 
 as to the results. 
 
 would seem to imply a strange inability on the part of the for- 
 eigner to reach that mysterious realm, the celestial mind." — 
 Chinese Recorder,, August, 1892. 
 
Anti-Christian Literature^ loi 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ANTI-CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Dr. Wells Williams devotes a paragraph 
 or two of that standard repository of what is 
 known about China, The Middle Kingdom, to 
 the discussion of the efficacy of propagandism 
 by means of the printing press. " Fifty thou- 
 sand books were scattered on the coast " in cer- 
 tain voyages of a semi-missionary character in 
 1836 and 1837, "and more than double that 
 number about Canton, Macao and their vicin- 
 ity. " " No one supposed that the desire to re- 
 ceive books was an index of the abiHty of the 
 people to understand them ... if the plan 
 offered a reasonable probability of effecting 
 some good, it certainly could do almost no 
 harmy What kind of harm might be in the 
 mind of the learned author is not explained, 
 the worst fate suggested in the context for the 
 harmless literature itself being to " be cut up 
 
I02 China and Christianity* 
 
 for wrapping medicine and fruit, which the 
 shopman would not do with the worst of his 
 own books." A generation later, one mission 
 press in Shanghai was pouring out thirty 
 million pages annually, an amount which was 
 more than doubled by the other mission 
 presses ; and Dr. Williams, in recording this 
 gigantic feat,^ adds : " The effects of this litera- 
 ture upon the native mind which these agencies 
 are scattering wider every year will be apparent 
 in the near future.** No doubt ; but what are 
 the fruits already apparent ? One crop ripened 
 and garnered, as we have seen, was the Taiping 
 rebellion. Another copious harvest is being 
 now gathered in ; the notorious Hunan publi- 
 cations. Vile and unmannerly though these 
 be, they yet constitute a reply to the pressing 
 appeal of the missionaries to the Chinese 
 literati, and it is not the challenger who has 
 the choice of weapons.^ Of all the provinces 
 
 1 " We want quality, not quantity. . . . We have an associa- 
 tion Secretary who repeats ad nauseam the word millions, and 
 whose cry is perpetually for ?noney. You never hear this cry 
 from Apostles." — Rev. R. H. Cobbold, in Messenger, April, 
 1892. 
 
 2 " The famous and infamous placards of the last eighteen 
 
Anti-Christian Literature* 103 
 
 Hunan is the one which has been inundated 
 with what claims to be Christian literature, 
 and thereby, Hunan has been provoked to 
 return samples of its own. Missionaries, espe- 
 cially of the Protestant sects, have in generous 
 emulation during fifty years been doing with 
 all their might what their Founder expressly 
 warned them not to do (Matt. vii. 6^), and 
 now they stand horrified at the consequences 
 which he foretold as precisely as if this particu- 
 lar case had been in his mind. 
 
 It is not, perhaps, the holy things so much 
 as the needlessly irritating, possibly insulting, 
 and really unedifying and unintelligible things 
 sometimes contained in the " Christian " litera- 
 
 months are avowedly a counterblast of the Society's tracts. If 
 the truth is to conquer the foulness of error. ... we must be 
 ready to stem the issuing stream by an inflow of pure literature." 
 — Hankow Religious Tract Society's Appeal. Chinese Recorder, 
 March, 1892. 
 
 1 " In pursuing the course described above [the reckless circu- 
 lation of Christian literature] we have sometimes acted in direct 
 opposition to the spirit if not the letter of our Saviour's com- 
 mand ' Give not that which is holy, etc' . . . Our faiUng to fol- 
 low the instructions of our Lord in this respect may perhaps 
 account for the meagre and disappointing results which have fol- 
 lowed the very extensive distribution of books for the last 40 or 
 50 years." — Rev. Dr. Nevius, Recorder, 1884. 
 
I04 China and Christianity* 
 
 ture which are the most answerable for the 
 filthy abuse which has been lavished on the 
 missionaries and their faith. It is not of course 
 to be doubted that the editing ^ and circulation 
 of tracts and scriptures is carried out as effi- 
 ciently as the stupendous mass of matter dealt 
 with allows,^ but until some competent and 
 independent sinologue assumes the task of 
 sifting the productions of the mission presses 
 the world cannot know what incentives may 
 have been offered unwittingly to these Chinese 
 revilers. It is by no means impossible that 
 even the foulest of their epithets might be 
 traced to some unhappy expressions in original, 
 or translated compositions by foreign mission- 
 aries impatient to try their hand ^ before acquir- 
 
 1 " Most of these books, as also the greater number of articles 
 in the newspapers put in the hands of the Christians, contain in- 
 digestible stones instead of bread." — Dr. Faber. But what of 
 the no7i- Christian population of Hunan, and elsewhere? Would 
 not " stones of offence " be in their case a more descriptive 
 term? 
 
 2 The Hankow Tract Society issues one million tracts every 
 year. 
 
 3 " Perhaps nothing has been more hurtful to missionaries in 
 preparing books, than haste, . . . the desire to huriy it through 
 the press lest some of the readers of China should die without 
 
Anti-Christian Literature^ 105 
 
 ing sufficient command of that double-edged 
 weapon, the Chinese language ; or of others 
 carried away by an inflexible conviction that 
 what is good in season and in appropriate cir- 
 cumstances must be good absolutely and 
 always. Dr. Chalmers, of Hongkong, once 
 heard a Chinese crowd laughing at the preach- 
 ing of a foreigner who was incessantly repeat- 
 ing the Chinese name for God, Tien-chu. But 
 his manner of pronouncing the words conveyed 
 the sense of " mad pig " at every utterance of 
 which the audience broke out into peals of 
 laughter. Ex uno disce omnes. What could 
 missionaries themselves not say on such topics 
 would they testify ? The incident is truly full 
 of grave suggestiveness.^ 
 
 Let it be granted that the Christian literature 
 with which Hunan has been flooded is for the 
 most part wholesome and void of offence. 
 The Chinese literati, however, with their strong 
 
 seeing it 1 In a great majority of instances unprejudiced judges 
 will be of the opinion that the world can afford to wait a little." 
 — Rev. Dr. Nevius, Recorder, 1884. 
 
 1 The bestial expressions complained of in the Hunan pam- 
 phlets are stated by the latest authorities to be exactly such plays 
 on words as are indicated in the text. 
 
io6 China and Christianity* 
 
 prejudices and their foregone conclusion, natu- 
 rally select the parts most suitable for their 
 controversial purposes just as the Christian 
 missionaries perhaps hold up the worst of the 
 Chinese tracts for execration. But could any 
 thing be more untoward than the connection 
 of the methods of propagandism with this ava- 
 lanche of bad literature which issues continu- 
 ously from Hunan ? ^ 
 
 So far, however, are the zealous missionaries 
 of Hankow and Wuchang from seeing the 
 matter in this light that they make urgent ap- 
 peals for increased means of carrying on their 
 duel with the Hunan pamphleteers, only claim- 
 ing that their adversary be muzzled while they 
 redouble their efforts to silence him. 
 
 1 " To oppose enmity is to increase it. . . . There is much 
 slang and obscene language in the streets which we, in most cases, 
 cannot comprehend, but may see the effects of it on the faces of 
 the by-standers. To go on with a religious discourse under such 
 circumstances would show a want of good taste and judgment on 
 the part of the preacher. . . . When an audience shows signs of 
 profanity or indifference, then, a dignified silence is the best ora- 
 tion. The Jews not only opposed the apostle, but they blas- 
 phemed. This made any further preaching among them hope- 
 less." — Dr. Faber. 
 
Anti-Christian Literature. 107 
 
 With two such, and so widely different 
 answers to their message to China before them 
 it might seem reasonable for the propaganda to 
 pause and consider what form the next answer 
 may possibly take, whether in the near, or the 
 distant future. But it is remarkable that the 
 missionaries, so far at least as they may be con- 
 sidered to be represented by the two learned 
 gentlemen above cited, seem scarcely conscious 
 of the possibility of evil resulting from this 
 prodigious mass of what may be called dy- 
 namic literature. 
 
io8 China and Christianity* 
 
 IX. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN. 
 
 Some readers who have followed the theme 
 thus far may possibly wonder that while frequent 
 reference has been made to other countries 
 there has been no allusion to the remarkable 
 history of Christianity in Japan. But the cir- 
 cumstances of that country and its people are 
 so different from those of China that it might 
 be misleading to make any comparison, except 
 as a matter of curiosity. Japan is a State which 
 may be said to have always known its own 
 mind, and acted out its opinion. When she 
 admitted Christianity she did so heartily ; when 
 she suppressed it she did so relentlessly, but 
 not without valid reason ; and when she read- 
 mitted the religion it was as part and parcel of 
 the general civilization of the Western nations 
 to which by deliberate choice Japan opened 
 wide her arms. By the promptitude of her 
 
Christianity in Japan* 109 
 
 decision Japan avoided all appearance of coer- 
 cion by foreign powers. (What, by the way, 
 does Mr. Bosworth Smith mean by his repeated 
 references to the criminality of Great Britain's 
 wars with Japan?) And her treaties contain 
 no toleration clauses, nor any that are deroga- 
 tory to her dignity, although an idea has been 
 kindled in recent years that the extra-territorial 
 stipulations do belong to that category. There 
 is consequently no true analogy between the 
 respective relations of China and Japan towards 
 foreign nations, foreign religions and foreign 
 life. The geographical proximity of the two 
 countries does no doubt suggest to the Western 
 world a similarity in their circumstances which, 
 however, is only superficial ; and if their oppor- 
 tunities of observing each other prompt some 
 mutual emulation, that also is scarcely less 
 superficial. Ships and guns, miHtary drill, and 
 material appliances may be copied, but what 
 makes for the peace and prosperity of a nation 
 is too deep for imitation, it must be a growth 
 from within, nourished though it may be by 
 atmospheric influences from without. Japan 
 seems to be receiving Christianity in its most 
 
no China and Christianity 
 
 innocuous and enduring form, for the people 
 are receiving it, and the pyramid is being built 
 on the widest base. Of the many pleasing 
 spectacles which a visit to that tourist's paradise 
 always affords, perhaps none leaves a more 
 agreeable impression than the decorous worship 
 of large Japanese congregations conducted en- 
 tirely by natives. And the vernacular religious 
 press is now a recognized factor in the social 
 system. The government there has no fears 
 about its Christian subjects, whom it knows 
 only as exemplary citizens ; and it winks at the 
 pious frauds of the foreign missionaries who 
 take out passports to travel for their health or 
 in the pursuit of science, because it recognizes 
 that it has the propaganda well in hand. The 
 establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in 
 Japan affords the most substantial proof that 
 the government of that country has adopted a 
 policy of benevolent toleration towards Chris- 
 tianity, based on the conviction that it will 
 never have to account to foreign powers for its 
 attitude towards either the religion or its fol- 
 lowers. Added to which, the Japanese people 
 are peculiarly sensitive to all foreign influences. 
 
Christianity in Japan. iii 
 
 and do not present that mass of stolid resistance 
 which innovations encounter in China. The 
 circumstances attending the introduction of 
 Christianity into the respective countries, there- 
 fore, present scarcely anything but sharp con- 
 trasts, and probably no lesson for China can be 
 drawn from Japan excepting such as could only 
 be applied by reversing the wheel of history 
 for fifty years, and undoing the chapter of evo- 
 lution by which the new Japan itself has 
 emerged from its secular isolation. 
 
112 China and Christianity* 
 
 X. 
 
 PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 Reverting to the proposition with which 
 we set out, China has been compelled by na- 
 tions stronger than herself to admit their re- 
 ligion, which, after full deliberation, she had 
 decided to reject, and for reasons which, 
 whether good or bad, were at least not unintel- 
 ligible. Nor has any option been left to her 
 as to which of the different forms of Christi- 
 anity she would prefer ; she is forced to tol- 
 erate the propagation of all indiscriminately, 
 which is more than the nations which coerce 
 her themselves do. In the irksome and anx- 
 ious position into which they have been 
 thrust, the leaders of the Chinese State have, 
 so far, derived little support from either foreign 
 statesmen or the leaders of the Propaganda. 
 Dr. Williams himself, so long familiar to the 
 government as Charge d^ Affaires for the 
 
Practical Considerations* 113 
 
 United States, in which capacity he must have 
 been largely occupied with mission affairs, had 
 no clearer or more practical counsel to be- 
 queath to China than that : " The progress 
 of pure Christianity" — so easy to write! — 
 " will be the only adequate means to save the 
 conflicting elements . . . from destroying 
 each other.'* 
 
 The Chinese opposition to Christianity dur- 
 ing the last three hundred years has undoubt- 
 edly taken arbitrary, harsh and cruel forms, 
 yet considering that during nearly the whole of 
 that period the sovereignty of China was under 
 no foreign constraint, the forbearance with 
 which she has treated recalcitrant missionaries, 
 even during state persecutions, will compare 
 not unfavourably with the record of similar 
 persecutions elsewhere. 
 
 Compelled by foreign powers suddenly to 
 reverse the engines of state policy which had 
 been gathering momentum in one direction for 
 some centuries, the Chinese government has 
 met the new conditions in as accommodating 
 a spirit as could perhaps, under the circum- 
 stances, have been expected. At the same 
 
114 China and Christianity. 
 
 time it is plain to be seen, and ought to have 
 been foreseen, that an act of state was not effi- 
 cacious to change, as by a magician's touch, the 
 hearts of a nation and of a numerous official 
 hierarchy. 
 
 Whether the Western governments were 
 well or ill-advised in this exercise of their 
 power is now of little practical significance. 
 The historical transaction cannot be undone, 
 nor the status quo ante in any manner restored. 
 It remains only to be considered, what is 
 China to do with regard to this force, — in- 
 scrutable, indomitable, inflexible, yet, on its 
 own conditions, passionately benevolent ? 
 
 She cannot exclude or repress it, any more 
 than she can exclude Influenza or the Mon- 
 soon. She must receive it. She has already 
 done so indeed, but with a bad grace — as was 
 natural — and grudgingly ; a most dangerous 
 half-measure. For she has by her treaties 
 given to foreign powers at least the semblance 
 of the legal right to call her to account if she 
 fails to protect Christian missionaries, while by 
 her furtive and wavering action she allows offi- 
 cials and people to furnish the foreign powers 
 
Practical Considerations. 115 
 
 with constant pretexts for exercising that right. 
 No position could be more hazardous for 
 China, as many of her public men, who know 
 something of the Western world, must be well 
 aware. The pressure of Christianity will never 
 abate ; it will on the contrary augment, and if 
 it is difficult now to maintain an erect position 
 in its presence it may be impossible to do so 
 hereafter when the foreign religion has con- 
 solidated its strength. In short, unless some 
 other agency anticipates its slower action, Chris- 
 tianity may be the force destined eventually to 
 dissolve the Chinese, as it did the Western 
 empire, and to destroy the present fabric of 
 its society.^ 
 
 To announce danger is easy ; not so the 
 task of concerting measures to avert it. The 
 difficulty of an effective co-ordination of the 
 component forces of the Chinese State being 
 formidable, the temptation to temporize is 
 strong, for there is no man living, however 
 pessimistic, but may expect the status quo to 
 last at least his time, if not a good while beyond 
 it. Few there be who dare to face the unpopu- 
 
 1 See Note p. 37. 
 
ii6 China and Christianity^ 
 
 larity which a judicious regulation of Christian 
 affairs would entail in a country where there is 
 so much to lose, so little to gain, by the active 
 display of public spirit. The parallel between 
 the China of to-day and the Rome of 1800 
 years since, though imperfect and in many 
 respects invalid, yet in certain features runs so 
 close, that an imaginative Chinese might almost 
 read the destiny of his own country in the 
 events of that remote time. The Caesars were 
 tolerant of the new religion, thinking it, might 
 mingle harmlessly with the numerous existing 
 systems which, like it, had come mostly from 
 the East. Though in theory it violated the 
 laws, the Emperors were reluctant to put the 
 laws in force ; and though without sympathy 
 for the sect, they, like Kien-lung, could find 
 no real fault in it, and were always recom- 
 mending the Christians to mercy. Nor was 
 the deference paid by the Caesars to popular 
 sentiment very unlike that now shown by 
 the Chinese Emperors to provincial opinion. 
 Then, as now, the rulers were willing to pro- 
 tect Christians alike from popular violence and 
 official animosity, and though even Marcus 
 
Practical Considerations* 117 
 
 Aurelius, a man saturated with ethics, allowed 
 himself to be constrained to issue severe edicts 
 against the Christians, like K^ang-hsi 1500 
 years after him, yet as Mr. Lecky records, 
 " the atrocious details of the persecutions in 
 his reign were due to the ferocity of the popu- 
 lace and the weakness of the governors of dis- 
 tant provinces," a not inapt description of some 
 of the anti-Christian outrages in modern China. 
 Unfortunately the experience of Rome fur- 
 nishes no lessons for China except in the way 
 of warning, and neither the ages of tumult 
 during which the present Europe was being 
 evolved, nor the actual position of these West- 
 ern countries afford her any positive guidance; 
 for none of them can be said to have dealt 
 successfully with the religious problem. The 
 United States of America, indeed, though not 
 without a struggle, enjoy the supreme happi- 
 ness of religious and political equilibrium, but 
 that is the result of a situation absolutely 
 unique, which cannot be imitated. The adjust- 
 ment of the relations of Christianity to the 
 Chinese State therefore can only be evolved, 
 without direct aid from precedent, from the 
 
ii8 China and Christianity* 
 
 action of general principles which may be 
 deduced from a diversity of experience. Re- 
 ligious enthusiasm is a contingent factor, on 
 which the Taiping episode sheds but a dim 
 light ; and as to the form which Christianity 
 will assume when eventually acclimatized in 
 China, all that may safely be predicted is that 
 the new amalgam will be unlike anything that 
 has yet appeared in the world. Its main char- 
 acteristics, however, will probably be to an in- 
 definite extent determined by the circumstances 
 of its mode of introduction. Which is a vital 
 question for Chinese Statesmen and imperial 
 counsellors to consider, could they but per- 
 ceive its urgency. 
 
 The problem is necessarily abstruse where 
 unknown psychological factors are concerned ; 
 and assuredly no solution of it will be attempted 
 here. Nor is it perhaps within the competence 
 of any man to work out an equation containing 
 so many unknown qualities. What may be 
 done, however, is to indicate one or two primary 
 canons which should govern legislative and 
 administrative dealings with the subject, canons 
 based on ascertained and unalterable facts. For 
 
Practical Considerations* 119 
 
 though the end of a journey may be hidden in 
 mist one may advance in confidence if only 
 the first steps be in the right direction, trusting 
 that the- way may become clear as successive 
 stages are reached. 
 
 I. The first canon by which the relations 
 of Christianity should be regulated may be 
 stated without hesitation. It is the complete 
 fulfilment of existing obligations. China has 
 undertaken by treaty to protect missionaries 
 and to tolerate Christianity, and she must pro- 
 tect and tolerate accordingly, without equivo- 
 cation or reserve. No matter if the obligation 
 was imposed by force, the nation and the gov- 
 ernment stand bound to it in law, and therefore 
 in honour, at least until they find themselves 
 strong enough to make a fresh appeal to the 
 tribunal under which the foreign treaties were 
 imposed. To protect nominally, and yet se- 
 cretly persecute, or connive at persecution, is 
 not only a device unworthy of a civilized gov- 
 ernment and of a body of highly educated men 
 like the Chinese ofiicial class, but it is also the 
 road to ruin. Unless therefore the ministers 
 
I20 China and Christianity^ 
 
 who are responsible for the welfare of the State 
 can nerve themselves to the required resolution 
 it will be futile to discuss or manoeuvre at all 
 in this matter, for whatever they do will be 
 vain so long as the fundarqental condition of 
 success is not complied with. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of the Chinese 
 government so fulfilling its obligations to for- 
 eigners are partially understood, and sympa- 
 thized with by foreigners. But that feeling 
 does not diminish by a feather's weight the 
 gravity of the duty. The Imperial govern- 
 ment is naturally, and properly, reluctant to 
 humiliate its Viceroys to please foreigners, who 
 are the objects of common aversion. The 
 Viceroys have still stronger temptations to 
 evade their duty to foreigners whenever it re- 
 quires them to reprove their own subordinates, 
 or still worse, bring under the discipline of the 
 law men of influence who are detached from 
 the regular service of the State. Yet nothing 
 less than this is imperatively required of all 
 who occupy posts of trust in the government. 
 It is a duty, however, which, Hke many others, 
 may be harder in anticipation than in execu- 
 
Practical Considerations. 121 
 
 tion, and one which might evolve the needed 
 strength by the action itself. A firm resolu- 
 tion on the part of the Central government to 
 tolerate no evasions from either high or low 
 would of itself more than half accomplish the 
 object, and one or two conspicuous examples 
 made of contumacious officials might achieve 
 it altogether. When men are sincere they are 
 usually taken at their word, and the rulers of 
 China would find their word would pass as 
 good current coin of the realm as soon as they 
 gave clear proof to their servants that they in- 
 tended to make it so. 
 
 Reduced to practice this canon would make 
 short work of anti-Christian rioters and of the 
 authors and publishers of calumnious attacks 
 on Christians, as such. The men who have 
 long been screened by powerful influences 
 from the consequences of their shameless 
 deeds would be punished like common male- 
 factors, and the government would not wait to 
 be stirred to action by foreign officials or pub- 
 lic demonstrations, but would in all cases be 
 beforehand with them, and thus leave abso- 
 lutely no ground of complaint. 
 
122 China and Christianity* 
 
 How far the Chinese government and rul- 
 ing classes are at present from the attainment 
 of such a standard of national duty need not 
 be said. But it cannot be too strongly re- 
 iterated that it is only in the full realization of 
 the administrative ideal thus indicated that the 
 government can hope to find salvation. 
 
 II. The relations between the civil author- 
 ities and the Christians should be settled and 
 defined. 
 
 It is too late in the day perhaps to regret 
 that there should ever have arisen any question 
 of special treatment of converts to Christianity. 
 It is the wisdom of China, as of other states, 
 to make all her people equal before the law ; 
 and it is the foreign powers which are, prima- 
 rily, answerable for forcing her government to 
 deal with native Christians as if they really 
 constituted a State within the State. But Chi- 
 nese provincial officials have fallen easily into 
 this way of regarding them ; notwithstanding 
 that it was opposed to the declared policy of 
 the empire. (See Appendix I.) It would in- 
 deed be hard to say which of the two parties 
 
Practical Considerations* 123 
 
 — the Christian or the anti-Christian — has 
 evinced the greatest eagerness to effect the 
 complete isolation of Christians from the body 
 of the Chinese people. The questions deserve 
 to be calmly weighed : — whether the segre- 
 gating process shall be allowed to extend ; 
 whether it shall be arrested at the point which 
 it has now reached; or whether even a retro- 
 grade movement towards obliteration of the 
 legal distinction between Christian and Hea- 
 then shall be inaugurated. 
 
 The holding of property away from the 
 commercial ports by missionaries, under the 
 French treaties of 1858-60, seemed to neces- 
 sitate the official recognition of the Mission 
 as a corporation, since individuals could not 
 by the rules of their Orders acquire sites or 
 erect Churches in their own right, and so the 
 missions naturally became identified with the 
 congregations. But sound property legisla- 
 tion is one of the chief pivots on which the 
 peace and order of communities turn ; and 
 from the Chinese political point of view it 
 was probably a misfortune that the missions 
 in their collective character ever obtained so 
 
124 China and Christianity. 
 
 much necessary consideration from the local 
 authorities as to have buildings and ground 
 officially registered in their name.-^ 
 
 The sequel is still an unwritten chapter of 
 history, but hints are given from so many 
 quarters, native and foreign, as to leave little 
 doubt of the fact that congregations of Chris- 
 tians in the interior are prone to club together 
 for the common defence, and to abuse the 
 protection which their foreign pastors, under 
 the aegis of foreign treaties, are able to give 
 them. It is the same spirit that prompts the 
 native servants of Europeans at the treaty 
 ports to rely on the prestige of their employ- 
 ers to screen them from the consequences of 
 their insolence to their countrymen. Experi- 
 enced missionaries have to be constantly on 
 their guard against plausible complaints of 
 injustice made to them by their converts, but 
 younger and more eager men, and those who 
 are constitutionally disposed towards partisan- 
 ship " rush in " where the more wary " fear to 
 
 1 The Chinese government found it necessary during the 
 Ming dynasty, to limit the landed possessions of Buddhist mon- 
 asteries to 60 mu, or 10 acres. 
 
Practical Considerations* 125 
 
 tread ; " and take part in village-law suits 
 which they are able to conduct with greater 
 ability and force than natives working on their 
 unaided resources. It may be admitted that 
 the habitual laxity and dilatoriness which char- 
 acterize Oriental procedure offer constant 
 temptation to impatient outsiders to intervene 
 in order to accelerate the despatch of business. 
 Nothing but injury to the Christian name, 
 however, can result from such illegitimate 
 interferences, while it is not Christianity that 
 is really at fault, but the cupidity of men, who 
 may have entered the Christian community 
 solely from these secondary motives.^ 
 
 It would seem to be a very fair thing for 
 the Chinese government to appeal to the con- 
 sideration of Western governments in this 
 matter, and if it could but come into court 
 with clean hands, that is to say, having scru- 
 pulously fulfilled its own obligations under 
 treaty, the Western governments could 
 scarcely help listening to the plaint. 
 
 1 " Whole villages have offered to turn Christians " to gain 
 " the powerful influences of foreigners on their side in some liti- 
 gation." — Rev. R. H. Graves, in Chinese Recorder. 
 
126 China and Christianity* 
 
 All foreigners residing or travelling in the 
 interior under passport should be strictly for- 
 bidden by their own authorities from med- 
 dliTig in any dispute between Chinese, whether 
 Christians or not. Such prohibition need not 
 in the least impair the influence of private 
 counsel in promoting goodwill, but as there is 
 no judgment in the common affairs of life 
 more fallible than that of the average ecclesi- 
 astic, of any communion, such an interdict 
 could not but have a salutary effect on the 
 peace of Chinese communities. 
 
 That some Christian pastors would vehe- 
 mently resist any legislation tending to disinte- 
 grate their Christian communities is highly 
 probable ; and, from their point of view, they 
 would have valid reasons on their side. There 
 is doubtless this real difficulty in the way, that, 
 as the Chinese Christian by breaking away 
 from the traditions of his family and neigh- 
 bours generally forfeits his status as a member 
 of the clan or village-community, it is natural 
 that he should strive to regain the lost position 
 through the creation of a new caste, or social 
 
Practical Considerations* 127 
 
 unit, — the Christian commune, with its offi- 
 cers corresponding to village elders, and enjoy- 
 ing equal legal recognition with the villages 
 themselves. Dr. Faber, whose logical mind 
 cannot rest in equivocations, claims these privi- 
 leges in the clearest terms, on the broad, if 
 somewhat ingenious, ground, that the Chris- 
 tians, having by the foreign treaties been 
 absolved in certain matters from the law of 
 the land, obey the paramount Divine Law, 
 which gives them the right to toleration, and 
 toleration means privileges. It may be as 
 much the duty of the Christians, as such, to 
 prefer these claims as it is of the government 
 to deny them ; but there is here in fact the 
 germ ^ of the secular trouble between the 
 religious and the civil power. A Christian 
 body capable of unlimited expansion, follow- 
 ing a divine law which is above the law of the 
 land, with the Christians themselves as its sole 
 interpreters, is precisely that kind of social 
 
 1 The germ of that phase of the development of Europe 
 which is thus epigrammatically summed up by Ranke : " Eccle- 
 siastical estates were no longer described as situated in certain 
 counties, but these counties were described as situated in the 
 bishoprics." 
 
128 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 organism which any civil government may jus- 
 tifiably treat with reserve/ But how, then, 
 it may be asked, is the adjustment between 
 the parties to be effected, and a modus vivendi 
 to be established. The government might 
 reply that, as it is the Christians who have 
 created the difficulty, it is for them either to 
 find a solution or to bear the inconvenience 
 of waiting until one is found ; but that the 
 government meanwhile has the duty to dis- 
 charge of preventing any Christian or other 
 body from getting the upper hand of the civil 
 magistrate. 
 
 In practice, no doubt, the danger to the 
 Chinese government from the political aspira- 
 tions of Christians is much diminished by the 
 miscellaneous character of the Christian bodies. 
 They have divided themselves, and may be 
 
 ^ " To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines 
 of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect 
 to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Govern- 
 ment could exist only in name under such circumstances." — 
 Judgment of Chief-Justice Morrison R. Waite, in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. — ScHAFF. 
 
 " If government commands us to act against conscience and 
 right, disobedience becomes a necessity and a duty." — Ibid. 
 
Practical Considerations* 129 
 
 more easily ruled than if they were compact ; 
 and so a state of things which is to be deplored 
 from the point of view of Christian progress 
 serves conveniently to lighten somewhat the 
 burden of the government. 
 
 III. A third canon would provide for the 
 preservation of peace, and the prevention of 
 wanton provocations between different religion- 
 ists. Rival sects should, by virtue of the 
 power inherent in every civilized state to main- 
 tain order among its people, be compelled to 
 keep their feelings under discipline in all as- 
 semblies and public places. The objects and 
 the rites of Christian worship are not infre- 
 quently reviled or mocked, and the anger of 
 the worshippers thereby provoked ; and, on 
 the other hand, it is far from uncommon for 
 converts, and even for missionaries themselves, 
 to inveigh against the native customs and the 
 native gods ; both practices tending to breaches 
 of the peace, which ought therefore to be made 
 amenable to the law.^ Sometimes the attacks 
 
 1 " If any person shall abuse or deride any other for his or 
 her different persuasion and practice in a matter of religion he 
 shall be looked upon as a disturber of the peace and be punished 
 accordingly." — Laws of Pennsylvania. — SCHAFF. 
 
ijo China and Christianity* 
 
 on idolatry are made in mere mockery, ex- 
 amples of which find their way into foreign 
 journals, and are presumably common in the 
 preaching of evangelists.^ This is, to say the 
 least, bad taste; but it is more, it is an offence 
 against decency to cast ridicule on the honest, 
 however mistaken, devotions of a fellow-mor- 
 tal ; ^ and it is an offence both against good 
 order and the laws of hospitality when it is 
 done by an alien.^ The first Apostles of 
 
 1 "Anybody acquainted with Chinese will soon find, if he 
 attends the foreign street chapels a few times, that the hostile 
 attitude of many missionaries towards the most cherished beliefs 
 and feelings of the Chinese is frequently expressed in a most 
 offensive manner. As for the books ... let those interested 
 read some of the elementary catechisms or some of the books 
 deahng with ancestral worship, idolatry or other superstitions of 
 the Chinese, and he will find these things discoursed on in any- 
 thing but a kindly spirit. Chinese hear offensive statements in 
 the chapels, get angry, and denounce the missionary to their 
 friends. They read the books . . . and determine to pay out 
 the hated barbarian at the first opportunity." — "A Sincere 
 Friend to Both Parties." — N. C. Herald, 26th February, 1892. 
 
 ^ " To revile vath. malicious and blasphemous contempt the 
 religion professed by almost the whole community is an abuse of 
 that right" [the right of "free and decent discussion."] — Chief 
 Justice Kent in Supreme Court of New York, 1811. — Schaff. 
 
 ^ The foreign missionaries sometimes applaud the courage 
 of their converts in openly reviling the false gods, and sometimes 
 they deplore the indiscretion of such sallies, according to circum- 
 stances and individual temperament. 
 
Practical Considerations. 131 
 
 Christianity were particularly tender with the 
 religious susceptibilities of the people among 
 whom they moved, so that the sensible magis- 
 trate, the town-clerk of Ephesus, in his address 
 to the rioters, was able to testify that these 
 early missionaries " were not blasphemers of 
 our goddess.'* Their successors in the next 
 two or three centuries were not so considerate ; 
 iconoclasm becoming rampant with the corrup- 
 tion and the triumph — almost synonymous 
 terms — of the Church, when the great Am- 
 brose allowed himself to scoff even at the 
 virginity of the poor Vestals. It were a good 
 and laudable thing if all blaspheming of each 
 other's gods could be rigorously suppressed by 
 the civil power. This is also a matter on 
 which Western governments might be ap- 
 proached, and solicited to frame appropriate 
 rules for the governance of their nationals. 
 Then a foreign missionary affronting native 
 religion in any public manner might first be 
 warned by the local authority, and, if recalci- 
 trant, conducted to the nearest consul for de- 
 portation, while condign punishment would be 
 equally meted out to any Chinese who should 
 
132 China and Christianity. 
 
 vituperate Christianity. Complete reciprocity 
 in this matter should be insisted upon, and 
 each party made to do as he would be done by.^ 
 
 Two drawbacks to any such procedure will 
 readily suggest themselves : the laxity and 
 irregularity of Chinese official practice ; and 
 the scarcely avoidable abuses by underlings. 
 The most difficult attainment for a Chinese 
 official is to maintain a just measure in the per- 
 formance of his functions, — to be firm without 
 being harsh ; and the difficulty of furnishing 
 foreign governments with adequate guarantees 
 for moderation would probably prove fatal to 
 any arrangement whereby new powers over 
 foreigners would be placed in Chinese hands. 
 
 Meagre and superficial though these sugges- 
 tions be, and perhaps not judiciously selected 
 from the heap of desiderata, they are yet so far 
 in advance of what is proximately realizable 
 
 1 As for the sectarian quarrels of Christians inter se, prob- 
 ably no regulations could be framed to check them; but the 
 spectacle of two foreign missionaries meeting in a Chinese thor- 
 oughfare, one warning the people against the religion of Henry 
 VIII., and the other against the worship of a mere woman, can 
 hardly, one would think, advance either of the divisions of Chris- 
 tianity, or be approved by any reasonable man. 
 
Practical Considerations* 133 
 
 that it would serve no purpose of interest or 
 utility, at this stage, to pursue that part of the 
 subject into greater detail. 
 
 Nevertheless the procedure here recom- 
 mended involves no theoretical innovation, for 
 the principles are only those which have been ex- 
 phcitly and repeatedly laid down by the highest 
 authority in the land, and are, moreover, based 
 on the religious toleration which was worked 
 out centuries ago, and became the settled 
 national policy not later than the Sung dynasty, 
 A.D. 960-1280. The Edicts of Tao Kwang 
 may be taken as a convenient starting point for 
 the new departure in Christian toleration (see 
 Appendix I.), and all the State papers which 
 have been issued during the past fifty years 
 have been in harmony therewith. The Gov- 
 ernor Shen Pao-chen, in 1862, developed the 
 doctrine of toleration with a breadth of charity 
 towards Christians which left little to be desired, 
 and what gave the highest value to his memo- 
 rials is that his expositions were not theoretical, 
 but were suggested by specific occurrences within 
 his official jurisdiction to which he fearlessly 
 applied the principles deduced from his obser- 
 
134 China and Christianity* 
 
 vation of facts and his knowledge of the impe- 
 rial policy. The same official, when Viceroy 
 of Kiangnan in 1876, had occasion once more 
 to discuss the rules which should govern the 
 relations between foreign missionaries and the 
 Chinese people, when he pushed his former 
 arguments into still greater detail ; his de- 
 spatches convinced Dr. Edkins that Shen Pao- 
 chen " anticipated the spread of Christianity in 
 China to proceed in the same way as was the 
 case with Buddhism and Taoism in former 
 centuries." And Dr. Edkins takes Shen Pao- 
 chen as the mouth-piece of his government. 
 
 Tseng Kuo-fan, than whom no more authori- 
 tative exponent of the permanent policy of 
 China has been known in this century, in a 
 memorial which was never intended for publi- 
 city, also lays down the same law of toleration, 
 for " while other religions rise and fall from age 
 to age the doctrines of Confucius survive un- 
 impaired throughout all ages." And so all 
 other authentic public documents. 
 
 What is needed, therefore, is to give practi- 
 cal effect to the declared will of the government, 
 and had this been done sooner, overt violence 
 
Practical Considerations* 135 
 
 towards the missionaries might possibly have 
 been avoided, however far the people might 
 have been from receiving their teaching. 
 
 Before, however, practically considering any 
 general regulations for mutual toleration, there 
 is one preliminary duty incumbent on the 
 Chinese government in order to qualify it for 
 entering on the discussion. It must deal de- 
 cisively with obnoxious publications such as 
 those which are regularly issued from Hunan. 
 By these productions the literature of China is 
 stamped with indelible disgrace, for since their 
 offensiveness has provoked foreigners to repub- 
 lish them they will henceforth expose to all the 
 world the ignorance, vulgarity, and intellectual 
 prostitution of Chinese scholars, as well as their 
 contemptible attainments in the graphic art. 
 In this guise will the writers of the Ta-tsing 
 dynasty enjoy an immortality of infamy in all 
 Western lands, for these choice specimens of 
 their works will be preserved, like flies in amber, 
 in every Hbrary in Europe and America. The 
 Hunan scholars will be known in future genera- 
 tions as those who in order to injure foreigners 
 
136 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 did not scruple to debauch the minds of their 
 countrymen with ideas as filthy as they are 
 false. These disgusting books are acknowl- 
 edged to be the efficient cause of the riots 
 which bring humiliation on the government 
 and penalties on the people. The names of 
 their authors are well known, thanks chiefly to 
 the pertinacious investigations of Dr. Griffith 
 John, who has done admirable service in the 
 elucidation of the history of these matters ; but 
 because they are literary graduates enjoying 
 the protection of high personages ^ the authors 
 have been allowed to escape the penalty of their 
 disloyal acts. If the government be not will- 
 ing to extinguish this source of conflagration 
 then it is evading its obligations under the 
 foreign treaties and making itself a participator 
 in the crime, thus exposing itself to reprisals at 
 the hands of foreign powers whenever it may 
 suit their convenience to enforce their rights. 
 If, on the other hand, the government be not 
 
 1 " He (Chou Han) knows well that he is looked upon as a 
 philanthropist, that he has the real sympathies of the officials on 
 his side," — Dr. Griffith John in N. C. Daily News, 19th 
 April, 1892. 
 
Practical Considerations. 137 
 
 able to suppress this infamous literature, then 
 it is not the Emperor who rules, but the authors 
 and pubHshers of these pamphlets. In either 
 case these publications, so long as they are in 
 circulation, constitute a standing inculpation of 
 the government, which will warrant foreign 
 powers in assuming its guilt in any given case, 
 without further inquiry. 
 
 What is, perhaps, more serious still is that 
 the same or similar shocking calumnies against 
 Christians are repeated in the King-sz-wen, the 
 collection of State papers, treaties, memorials, 
 etc., before cited, the latest edition of which, 
 pubHshed in 1888, came out under the auspices 
 of Chinese officials occupying the highest posi- 
 tion in the State. 
 
138 China and Christianity* 
 
 XL 
 
 RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO PEOPLE, LITE- 
 RATI, AND IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Let it be assumed, however, that a working 
 scheme for the treatment of Christianity based 
 on such general principles as have been sug- 
 gested shall have been elaborated and carried 
 into effect — a very large assumption indeed — 
 still the end of the Christian troubles would by 
 no means have been reached. The hostility 
 of the literary and official classes, though out- 
 wardly suppressed, would suffer no real abate- 
 ment, but would smoulder, like a subterranean 
 fire, ready to break forth whenever the repres- 
 sion was relaxed. 
 
 The popular suspicions also would persist 
 virtually intact ; the dread of witchcraft, the 
 belief in secret abominations, the mutilations 
 of the sick or dead, and all the rest, still would 
 remain to be lived down slowly. Substituting 
 
Relation of Christianity^ 139 
 
 impiety towards ancestors for atheism these 
 imputations are substantially identical with 
 those made against the primitive Christians in 
 the West, where they survived through several 
 centuries of Christian progress. The pulses of 
 China do not beat faster than those of the 
 Western races, nor is the intelligence of the 
 common people more advanced. And if it 
 should take a century or two for the Chinese 
 Christians to clear their characters from these 
 odious suspicions there is no help for it, and 
 the Christians must even learn to bear it, until 
 they can convert their present minority into a 
 majority,^ when the charges would vanish into 
 air. Possibly the censorious eyes of neigh- 
 bours may even be a salutary discipline, keep- 
 ing the converts on their good behaviour. 
 The finer qualities of Christianity shine bright- 
 est in adversity, and the Church would be in 
 evil case were all men to speak well of it. 
 This reflection might even be stretched to 
 cover persecution in general as being condu- 
 
 1 " We have patiently to wait till a powerful minority, if not 
 a majority, of the Chinese people is Christianized." — Dr. 
 Faber. 
 
140 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 cive to the healthy growth of Christianity ; for 
 to what extravagances might an unopposed 
 Chinese Church not run ! ^ Woe, indeed, be 
 to him by whom the offence comes, but still, 
 to apply a phrase coined for a very different 
 occasion, to the opposition to Christianity in 
 China, si elle n exist ait pas ilfaudrait Vinventer. 
 In one respect the Chinese Christians have 
 the advantage over their Western prototypes. 
 They do not themselves give countenance to 
 the calumnies, whereas the early Christians did 
 not scruple to throw at the heads of heretics 
 the vile accusations brought by the heathen 
 against themselves. Nor is it certain that such 
 inter-Christian amenities have entirely disap- 
 peared even yet from contemporary history in 
 the West.^ 
 
 1 " Rome is best when competing with Protestant rivals — in 
 the midst of hostile criticism and alien institutions ; worst w^hen 
 she has it all her own way." — R. H. Hutton. 
 
 2 A recent occurrence in Europe illustrates the vitality of 
 these odious superstitions. In the town of Xanten, in Rhenish 
 Prussia, a boy was found in a shed dead from a wound in his 
 throat. Suspicion fastened at once on a Jewish butcher named 
 Buschoff, owing to the popular belief that the Jews require blood 
 at certain seasons for their religious rites, and the artistic cut in 
 the boy's neck being held to betray the practised hand of the 
 carnifex. The Christian people became so infuriated against 
 
Relation of Christianity* 141 
 
 While waiting, however, for the populace to 
 get their minds purged from these degrading 
 notions something may and ought to be done 
 by the officials and literati to uncover the real 
 truth in regard to Christian practices. They 
 have at once the means and the intelligence to 
 sift the facts and to prove or disprove what 
 has been alleged.^ It is true that even officials 
 and scholars are credulous enough to beheve 
 many of the slanders which are circulated 
 about foreign missionaries. The Emperor Tao 
 
 the Jew that, to save him from being lynched more Americano, 
 the authorities took him in charge and put him on his trial. The 
 testimony of the witnesses was vociferous and overwhelming, 
 the gentry corroborating the populace; but when subjected to 
 the cool analysis of the lawyers the evidence was shown to be 
 only crystallised gossip, the offspring of an inveterate general 
 belief in the occult practices of the Jews. But had not the 
 accused conclusively established an alibi it might still have gone 
 hard with him. So great, indeed, was the excitement that the 
 official responsible for the trial at first demanded a battalion of 
 soldiers to keep order, the burgomaster declining to be answer- 
 able for the peace of the town. Eventually the dignity of the 
 legal tribunal was maintained without the resort to military force. 
 These things took place in the best educated country in Europe 
 in the summer of 1892. 
 
 ^ See the emphatic contradiction of the false reports of a 
 magistrate given in Li Hung-chang's memorial published in the 
 Peking Gazette of i6-i7th February. 
 
14^ China and Christianity* 
 
 Kwang himself, when issuing an Edict of tol- 
 eration/ as we have seen, could not help 
 encouraging the belief that the Christians really 
 picked out the eyes of the sick. But with all 
 mission establishments and practices thrown 
 open to the inspection of Government officials 
 — a thing which is gradually coming to be 
 thought necessary — there would be no excuse 
 for these officials continuing in their present 
 state of dangerous ignorance. And when they 
 shall have once satisfied their own minds they 
 can the better clear away the doubts of the 
 common people by disseminating truthful re- 
 ports. If the literates of Hunan are willing 
 to expend their time and money in printing 
 and publishing calumnies which befoul the 
 paper they are written on, it would be a small 
 thing for the officers of the government to 
 give the pubHc the benefit of their discoveries 
 in the region of ascertained fact. And this 
 would be no more than a tardy reparation for 
 the injury done to the reputation of the Chris- 
 tians and for the debauching of the imagina- 
 tions of the illiterate masses. 
 
 1 Appendix I. 
 
Relation of Christianity^ 143 
 
 Were a modus vivendi ever established with 
 the populace and the literati the relation of 
 Christianity to the Supreme government itself 
 would probably present fev/ difficulties. From 
 the earliest appearance of foreign religions in 
 the country the sovereign has been, as a rule, 
 favourably disposed towards each of them in 
 succession ; and, except in the few instances 
 where devotion to one creed biassed them 
 against others, the Chinese Emperors have been 
 the defenders of the struggling religion against 
 the attacks of the official hierarchy. With such 
 a record before them the hope of Christianity 
 being one day established as the national faith 
 may easily assume a concrete shape in the 
 minds of the foreign missionaries. Perhaps it 
 is the dream of some and the ambition of 
 others that Christianity may once again secure a 
 footing in the Imperial palace. One emperor, 
 indeed, of the present dynasty has already tan- 
 talized the propaganda with delusive hopes, 
 standing near the baptismal font, but intending 
 only to deceive the missionaries. Members 
 of his family were actually converted, and in 
 the persecution which ensued on the death of 
 
144 China and Christianity^ 
 
 Kang-hsi the first and greatest victim^ were 
 the princes and princesses of the imperial 
 house. One was said, indeed, to have stood 
 very near the throne, perhaps too near, for 
 Oriental autocrats do not relish in their sight 
 too many eligible successors, and it is not 
 altogether incredible that the virulence with 
 which Yung-cheng pursued the Christians was 
 inspired by the jealousy which he naturally 
 felt of his own brothers and their conversion 
 was perhaps the only pretext under which 
 he could lay hands on them/ A century 
 before the reign of Yung-cheng, a Chinese 
 Constantine and an Empress Helena were 
 baptized, the forlorn hope of the Mings in 
 Kwangsi. The time may come when an actual 
 occupant of the Dragon Throne may take the 
 plunge. But in the interest alike of Christian 
 progress and national peace it is to be hoped 
 the consummation of such hopes may be de- 
 ferred, long enough at least to allow Chris- 
 tianity to have first rooted itself in the country 
 
 1 " The Jesuits in Peking joined a plot to supplant this 
 emperor by a younger brother." — Rev. J. Ross, Chijiese Re- 
 corder, August, 1892. 
 
Relation of Christianity^ 145 
 
 by the force of its own principles.^ A Christian 
 Emperor would be a doubtful blessing whether 
 he were a mere political convert Hke Constan- 
 tine, or a religious Fury like Saint Louis, or 
 some Taiping Wang with a passion for putting 
 nonconformists to the sword. In any of the 
 cases that can be conceived, the consequences 
 almost certainly would be what they have 
 always been, the fanatics and the quacks, even 
 though in a small minority, ruling the Church, 
 importing into their administration of it all the 
 time-worn abuses, each section serving its own 
 turn by abetting the schemes of the others.^ 
 The fanatics, from the moment of their obtain- 
 
 1 " In the Christianizing of Britain the work uniformly began 
 with the King and nobles, and from them worked down to the 
 lower classes, instead of leavening first the people and finally 
 reaching the King. . . . This explains the ease with which the 
 profession of Christianity could be made or unmade at the 
 pleasure of the ruling sovereign, and explains also how the gross- 
 est heathenism could linger long after the leaders of the nation 
 had been baptized." — Rev. H. Kingman, in Chinese Recorder, 
 September, 1892. 
 
 2 " To all movements, wise or foolish, flock the two classes 
 of follower, the sincerely convinced and the insincerely affiliated ; 
 those who think they are establishing the law of righteousness 
 on this earth, and those who see nothing but their own advan- 
 tage." — Mrs. Lynn Linton, Nineteenth Century, March, 1882. 
 
146 China and Christianity. 
 
 ing the power, would turn on those sects which 
 they might deem heretical and crush them by 
 the aid of the politicians, who would care for 
 none of these things. And like the persecu- 
 tion of dissidents and unbelievers in Europe 
 and Western Asia the oppression of Chinese 
 by Chinese under an orthodox empire might 
 even exceed that inflicted under a heathen 
 regime. A nation thus rent by religious fac- 
 tion, or dominated by a religious party would 
 be a sorry result of Christian effort. Yet even 
 that is one of the conceivable dangers ahead, 
 remote as it may now appear. 
 
 Such gruesome speculations may evoke pro- 
 tests, and the pure principles of modern Chris- 
 tianity combined with the refinement of the 
 twentieth century may be appealed to as guar- 
 anty of a reign of peace and charity under any 
 possible Christian rule. But there is no sort 
 of ground for beheving that China will begin 
 her Christian development just at the point 
 which Europe has reached after 1900 years of 
 conflict; and the principles of modern Christi- 
 anity are not purer than those of the primitive 
 Church, which no sooner combined with the 
 
Relation of Christianity^ 147 
 
 passions of men than disturbances resulted 
 which have never entirely subsided. The re- 
 ligion has to assimilate in China, as elsewhere, 
 the local worship, mythologies, popular super- 
 stitions, — modifying them perhaps out of 
 recognition. It has to absorb, and eventually 
 to transmute, dormant passions of an order 
 low, but of torrential force when excited, as we 
 have seen, the ultimate resultant being beyond 
 human calculation. Organisms which have 
 maintained a measured and regulated life in 
 regions where they have been long accli- 
 matized are apt to develop unsuspected en- 
 ergies when transplanted to new situations. So 
 perhaps it may be with the Christianity which 
 is hereafter to cover China ; no one can foresee 
 how it will modify and be modified by its en- 
 vironment, nor toward which of the existing 
 forms it may approximate. Until therefore 
 the religion has established itself in the com- 
 mon life of the people^ its professors may well 
 deprecate its adoption by the State. Converts 
 are not often made to Christianity in the ab- 
 
 1 " The gospel should first strike root in the hearts of simple- 
 minded persons who receive it for what it is." — Dr. Faber. 
 
148 China and Christianity^ 
 
 stract/ but to some branch or section of the 
 Church. Which ? let them ask themselves 
 who may be tempted to pray for an imperial 
 proselyte, and a national Church. 
 
 There remains a present and practical point 
 of contact between the Imperial Throne and 
 the propagation of Christianity, which is some- 
 times alluded to by the foreign press. In 
 the Sacred Edict, or series of Homilies insti- 
 tuted by the Emperor K^ang-hsi and amplified 
 by his successors, and appointed to be pub- 
 licly read twice a month in all the cities of the 
 empire (in imitation, it is supposed, of the 
 preaching of the early missionaries) there is an 
 article which animadverts on the tenets of 
 Christianity and warns the people against that 
 religion. With a superficial show of reason, 
 this is claimed by some foreign missionaries to 
 be in contradiction to the toleration clauses in 
 the various foreign treaties. But the point is 
 of dubious validity. In the first place a doc- 
 trinal admonition is not an incentive to vio- 
 lence ; nor is the toleration of Christianity 
 
 1 President Lincoln, a profoundly religious man, attached 
 himself to no Church. 
 
Relation of Christianity. 149 
 
 inconsistent with opposing it by argument. 
 In the second place the passage in the Sacred 
 Edict should be taken in its practical rather 
 than in its theoretical bearing. For an Em- 
 peror dehberately to rescind the solemn enact- 
 ment of a revered ancestor would be a very 
 extreme measure ; to expunge even a section 
 would be a serious matter. It is in fact never 
 done. The Chinese Emperors are as careful 
 not to run counter to the public acts of their 
 predecessors ^ as the Popes are to maintain at 
 least apparent harmony in their successive 
 Bulls ; and in cases where a reversal of policy 
 may become a State necessity, the most con- 
 summate skill in the manipulation of phrases, 
 with a view to keeping up the semblance of 
 consistency, is called into play, as well in 
 Peking as in Rome. It appears however the 
 officials of their own accord discovered a via 
 media by which the susceptibilities of the for- 
 eigner were spared, for as Dr. Edkins relates 
 in his work on "Religion in China,'' the 
 
 1 This is fully recognized in the temperate letter from the 
 Evangelical Alliance in Shanghai to H. E. Mr. Von Brandt, 
 Doyen of the Diplomatic body. — Messenger, April, 1892. 
 
150 China and Christianity* 
 
 Town-Clerk of Shanghai, as probably in other 
 places where there were foreigners, simply 
 omitted the objectionable clause in his fort- 
 nightly reading. Like the Commination ser- 
 vice and the Athanasian Creed in many 
 English churches, it was treated as an anach- 
 ronism, and allowed quietly to drop. 
 
 The animus of the Edict becomes further 
 attenuated when the reference to Christianity 
 is taken in connection with similar reflections 
 on Taoism and Buddhism, the idolatrous prac- 
 tices of which are held up to the people as 
 matters to be shunned. For the emperor who 
 propounded the Edict himself openly patron- 
 ized the Buddhists, as his successors have done 
 on several marked public occasions. Indeed 
 the Lama government of Tibet which the 
 Emperors had no choice but to support, pro- 
 viding large establishments for the worship and 
 residence of the priests within and without the 
 walls of Peking itself, would have made any 
 real opposition to Buddhism on the part of the 
 Emperors somewhat ridiculous. 
 
 It has been shown, however, by Dr. Griffith 
 John that the article in the Sacred Edict is 
 
Relation of Christianity^ 151 
 
 appropriated by the Hunan pamphleteers as a 
 base for their calumnies, and as the justification 
 of the outrages to which they incite the people. 
 And he therefore claims the rescission of the 
 passage in chapter seven of the Skeng-yu which 
 has been so used. " The expunging of this 
 one passage . . . would do more than any- 
 thing else," etc. 
 
 This is not, however, the first time in reli- 
 gious history that atrocities have been justified 
 by the misuse of sacred texts, yet it has never 
 been proposed that the passages so used should 
 be forthwith expunged from the Canon. The 
 condemnation of those who had dared so to 
 pervert the sense of the Sacred Edict ^ would 
 probably have been in this case a more feasible 
 thing to demand and a simpler thing for the 
 government to grant. 
 
 1 "It is not the first time that superstitious and rancorous 
 fanaticism has quoted respectable, and even really sacred writings 
 in its favor ... I hope it is not too late to plead that the grave, 
 and on the whole reasonable edict may not be associated by any 
 but the Hunan criminals with their foul productions." — Bishop 
 Moule. 
 
152 China and Christianity* 
 
 XII, 
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINERY. 
 
 The Reformatory proposals of this charac- 
 ter which are freely thrown out by foreigners 
 on all sides for the guidance of the Chinese 
 government, seem to be after all quite anoma- 
 lous. The whole practice of foreign agents 
 tinkering at details of internal administration 
 needs reconsidering. The circumstances of 
 China and the passive temper of the govern- 
 ment have admitted far more of this kind of 
 interference than would be tolerated in any 
 other country, but the results have scarcely 
 justified the departure from orthodox usage, 
 and some more effective remedy should, if 
 possible, be devised. 
 
 Treaties were forced on the empire engaging 
 it to new and unknown obligations. As 
 regards one class of these, the commercial 
 stipulations, much care was taken on both 
 
Administrative Machinery* 153 
 
 sides to provide machinery whereby the treaty 
 provisions could be put in force smoothly, and 
 a body of " Trade Regulations " far more 
 elaborate than the treaties themselves, and of 
 equal authority, were drawn up by competent 
 officials. If such precautions were necessary 
 with regard to a matter so clear and intelligible 
 as commerce, how much more was it necessary 
 to provide for the operations of religious prop- 
 agandism respecting which it was quite certain 
 that there was no common intelligence between 
 the parties ! Yet the sweeping clause grant- 
 ing religious toleration once inserted in the 
 treaties, the negotiators seem to have given no 
 further thought to the matter, leaving the prac- 
 tical solution of the question to be the sport 
 of accident. The Rev. G. T. Candhn, in a 
 letter to the Manchester Guardian, has pointed 
 out this defect in a very lucid manner, and he 
 attributes much of the missionary troubles to 
 that very cause. No consideration whatever 
 was shown to the Chinese government which, 
 ignorant of the plans by which the propaganda 
 intended to fulfil this part of the treaty, was 
 left to discover them gradually by the collis- 
 
154 China and Christianity* 
 
 ions between the evangelists and the officials 
 and people. It was as if the British Parlia- 
 ment were to vote Home Rule for Ireland, 
 and leave Orangemen and Catholics to work 
 out the details in the streets. 
 
 Take for illustration the single item of the 
 acquisition of sites and construction of build- 
 ings, the acknowledged source of three-fourths 
 of all the missionary disturbances in China. 
 At the Treaty ports where foreign consular 
 agencies are maintained in effective activity, the 
 most minute precautions are prescribed by 
 authority with a view to the prevention of 
 friction between foreigners and natives. The 
 Consul has to be a party to negotiations for the 
 purchase of ground, has to approve of every 
 step, and to investigate if there be any secret 
 impediments to the transfer to the foreign 
 buyer. After completion of the transaction 
 the title deeds issued by the local Chinese 
 authority have to be deposited with the Con- 
 sul who retains control of all subsequent trans- 
 fers. Every safeguard is thus provided against 
 disputes in places where communities of for- 
 eigners and natives have learned through the 
 
Administrative Machinery. i^S 
 
 daily intercourse of life to tolerate each other, 
 and where therefore the dangers arising from 
 misunderstandings are but slight. 
 
 But in the interior of the country, several 
 weeks' journey from any consul, where there 
 is nothing but raw inflammable material on 
 one side and zealous men, perhaps undisci- 
 plined in the common affairs of life, on the 
 other, not only are no proper regulations pro- 
 vided for the aquisition of property, but even 
 the legal rights of the missionaries are left 
 without any authoritative definition. One 
 half of them in fact proceed on one theory of 
 their legal status under treaty, and the other 
 on another, with none to guide them in their 
 interpretation of state documents which may 
 be inconsistent with each other ; and they are 
 left to discover, perhaps by the light of their 
 burning houses, those hidden flaws in the 
 tenure of ground which at a treaty port would 
 have been ascertained for them by their Con- 
 sul before the consummation of the purchase. 
 
 Chinese of^cials, perplexed by the uncer- 
 tainties of these proceedings, are sometimes 
 tempted to seek an illegitimate remedy by 
 
156 China and Christianity. 
 
 making in particular localitLes rules which are 
 one-sided and unworkable. Foreign critics, 
 perceiving the offence more clearly than the 
 provocation, denounce such tentative regula- 
 tions as subtle devices to hinder missionary 
 work. And though no doubt such would be 
 in many cases their effect, it would be fairer to 
 consider them as in their inception a protest 
 against certain defects in the international 
 arrangements, for which the foreign treaty 
 powers are chiefly responsible. 
 
 And even when explosions have occurred 
 the foreign governments instead of taking the 
 whole question seriously in hand and endeav- 
 ouring to concert with the Chinese govern- 
 ment a working scheme whereby missionaries 
 and people might co-exist in peace have been 
 content with spasms of recriminations and 
 occasional interferences with the administration. 
 There was a specific always ready for each 
 new outbreak, and simply by forcing such and 
 such a measure on the Chinese the foreign 
 ministers flattered themselves that they were 
 laying the ghost of missionary trouble. At 
 one time it might be some proclamation or the 
 
Administrative Machinery^ 157 
 
 placarding of treaties that was to have the 
 magic effect of settling everything ; at another 
 an Edict was insisted on ; and yet, again, the 
 partial abrogation of some older Edict ; or the 
 arrest and punishment of an individual man, 
 or the personal visitation of foreign officials to 
 the scene. On one special occasion — un- 
 connected, however, with Christian troubles — 
 the government was superseded in its func- 
 tions by an itinerant judicial commission com- 
 posed of the nominees of a foreign Minister 
 who imagined he could thereby elicit informa- 
 tion in the remote interior which official 
 efforts combined to conceal from him. All 
 such devices imposed by foreigners were of 
 course easily rendered nugatory by the ostensi- 
 ble compliance but secret frustration of the 
 government.^ In a country, too, where false 
 
 1 " In the proclamations put out under foreign pressure the 
 animus was perceptible to all who could read between the lines. 
 ... So evident was it that the proclamation of August 30th [in 
 Canton] had caused the riots that one of the Consuls at least, 
 plainly told the Viceroy so, and the Chinese generally admit that 
 the issuing of this paper was a grave mistake." — Rev. R. H. 
 Graves. 
 
 " Such a proclamation would have had no more effect in 
 
158 China and Christianity^ 
 
 accusation has been elaborated into a fine art 
 it were futile to rely on the text of official 
 papers for protection. All the Christians in 
 China might be persecuted to death without a 
 single allegation against them respecting their 
 religion. The memorial of Kiying in 1844, 
 which heralded the new era of toleration, is 
 based on the alleged continuity of the imperial 
 policy, which had never interdicted the Chris- 
 tian religion, though it had punished persons 
 accused of criminal practices, who happened to 
 be Christians.^ A Chinese official who is 
 degraded, and deserves it, is rarely charged 
 with the real offence, but some other, often 
 far-fetched, delinquencies are trumped up 
 
 Macedonia than so many dozens of them have had in China." — 
 Dr. Faber, Paul. 
 
 " It is a common custom for the Court of Peking to issue 
 double sets of instructions for the provincial governors. One set, 
 appearing in the Gazette, is intended for the eye of the foreign 
 ministers . . , but it is the other set which represents the real 
 policy of the government." — Shanghai a?td Hankow Committee 
 of Evangelical Alliance, 1885, 
 
 1 The systematic duplicity is well exposed in a publication by 
 the late Peng Yu-lin, which has recently been translated under 
 the title of *' Indulgent Treatment of Foreigners," and issued from 
 the office of the Shanghai Mercury . It is a most important con- 
 tribution to the elucidation of these questions. 
 
Administrative Machinery. 159 
 
 against him. No doubt there may be valid 
 reasons for this oblique manner of proceeding, 
 as, for instance, that the real charge might 
 implicate third parties whom it was not desired 
 to censure ; but at any rate the practice is con- 
 secrated by immemorial usage, and the Chris- 
 tians have no ground for expecting immunity 
 from its operation. None of these empirical 
 remedies in fact ever have had the desired 
 effect on the relations between the people and 
 the missionaries, and the suggestive faculties 
 of the foreign officials have been exhausted 
 without result. 
 
 The problem was in truth much too deep to 
 be solved in any such perfunctory manner, and 
 obviously the foreign ministers ought either to 
 have dug down to the roots of the question, 
 or treated it in quite another fashion, for their 
 fitful interferences and nerveless discussions 
 have only served to relieve the Chinese gov- 
 ernment of much of its moral responsibility 
 for the execution of the treaties. The Treaty 
 Powers ought in fact still to make good their 
 great omission, and in concert with China, 
 draw up " Missionary Regulations " as they 
 did Trade Regulations thirty-four years ago. 
 
i6o China and Christianity* 
 
 But what would have been easy if done at the 
 proper time would not be so now, owing to the 
 accumulated difficulties which invariably close 
 in over neglected opportunities.^ A combina- 
 tion of the foreign powers would seem to 
 be essential to the drafting of any general 
 scheme, but unfortunately there is no agree- 
 ment among them, and as far as present 
 appearances indicate there is no near prospect of 
 any. When the treaties were made there was 
 practical harmony between the only powers then 
 represented, and whatever they might have 
 established would have bound all subsequent 
 treaty-makers.^ Then, the thirty-four years 
 
 1 On the other hand, however, the thirty years' experience of 
 legalized missionary work has furnished data for practical rules of 
 intercourse which could hardly have been anticipated by the 
 original negotiators of treaties. The conditions of travel and 
 residence might now be more intelligently defined, and the pass- 
 port system — to specify one item — so far modified as to confer 
 the status of permanent resident on missionaries who are now 
 officially recognized only as travellers in the country. 
 
 2 It should be remembered, to the credit of the statesmanship 
 of Lord Elgin, that when negotiating the English Treaty he re- 
 strained himself from extorting concessions from China which in 
 time to come might be taken undue advantage of, under their 
 most-favoured-nation clauses, by Powers which having taken no 
 part in the opening of the country, might be less sensible of re- 
 sponsibility than the original Treaty powers. 
 
Administrative Machinery. i6i 
 
 years which have elapsed since Christianity 
 was legalized and left to pursue its way in 
 China, while they have been fruitful in valu- 
 able experience have also given time for the 
 growth of such irritation among officials and 
 people as to embitter intercourse between them 
 and the foreign and native Christians. The 
 situation has consequently become so compli- 
 cated that a bold initiative seems to be required 
 from one quarter or another to restore a work- 
 ing equilibrium. The foreign powers, how- 
 ever, not only abstain from taking such initia- 
 tive, but give a freezing reception to tentative 
 proposals emanating from the Chinese govern- 
 ment. The Memorandum of 1871 ^ remains, 
 with all its faults, the only attempt as yet made 
 to bring about an amicable agreement, and the 
 Powers to whom it was addressed have neither 
 discussed it nor made any counter-proposals of 
 their own. 
 
 If, however, the foreign governments, from 
 whatever cause, refuse to assist in the elabora- 
 tion of a scheme of missionary relations, their 
 
 1 As this state paper is often referred to and is not always 
 accessible, it is given in extenso, as Appendix II. 
 
1 62 China and Christianity* 
 
 safest alternative would be to leave the details 
 of internal administration alone, and simply to 
 insist on every Treaty engagement being ful- 
 filled to the letter, letting the Chinese find for 
 themselves the modus operandi. It is a recog- 
 nized principle in international affairs that 
 domestic legislation is overruled by Treaty 
 obligations, and where there is inconsistency 
 between the two, it rests with the government 
 in fault to accommodate its internal machinery 
 to its external engagements in the way most 
 convenient to itself. The other party merely 
 holds to the Treaty and requires its fulfil- 
 ment, refusing to discuss the mechanism of ad- 
 ministrative economy, which it could never in 
 any case understand. 
 
Mutual Obligations* 163 
 
 XIII 
 
 MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS. 
 
 The government and the literary classes of 
 China are, as we have seen, engaged in a con- 
 test, sometimes secret, sometimes open, with a 
 spiritual force whose true nature they under- 
 stand less than they do the nature of electri- 
 city ; a force which would gladly live on good 
 terms with them, but which, in any case, will 
 live with, and probably after, them. 
 
 Their objections to the Western religion, 
 whether well or ill-founded, can in no wise be 
 allowed, for Christianity will not be denied en- 
 trance, no matter what obstacles be opposed 
 to it. 
 
 The Western governments, on the other 
 hand, which broke down the Chinese wall and, 
 by right of conquest, compelled the nation to 
 receive foreign missionaries, were, and are, 
 morally bound to assist the government of 
 
164 China and Christianity* 
 
 China to devise means whereby the unwelcome 
 reHgion may be admitted with the minimum of 
 friction ; but they evade the obHgation. Nei- 
 ther, indeed, could they fulfil it if they would, 
 without such union among themselves as, un- 
 der existing circumstances, seems unattainable. 
 For a moment's reflection on the respective 
 positions of the Great Powers is sufficient to 
 show the unlikelihood of any steady concerted 
 action among them. Though in national 
 concerns nice scruples have to give way to im- 
 perious interests, there still exists something in 
 the nature of a public conscience to whose re- 
 quirements the most powerful states pay at 
 least a formal deference. More than one of 
 the Powers having relations with China would 
 find their hands somewhat tied by considera- 
 tions of this kind. What sincerity, for exam- 
 ple, might Russia be expected to throw into 
 any scheme of forcible protection of a propa- 
 ganda in China, which at home she utterly 
 prohibits ? Anti-clerical France, which subor- 
 dinates her interest, even in the Catholic mis- 
 sions, to her other ends could never be relied 
 on to support in China those Protestant mis- 
 
Mutual Obligations. 165 
 
 sions which she expels from her African do- 
 minions. How, again, could the United 
 States join in pressing China to receive and 
 protect either American or other missionaries 
 while, in the face of treaty engagements, they 
 refuse standing room for Chinese on their 
 wide territory ? And Spain — what figure 
 would she make as the Defender of the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society ? There would re- 
 main of course Great Britain, Germany, and 
 Italy, catholic and comparatively clean-handed, 
 who might act together with a tolerably easy 
 conscience. But is it quite sure that such 
 a triple alliance would be allowed by the ab- 
 stinents a free hand to protect Christianity in 
 China ? Experience seems rather against such 
 a supposition. The concert of the Powers, 
 therefore, appears to be little more than a 
 diplomatic platitude, and viewed in this light, 
 the armed forces of Christendom have con- 
 ferred on Christianity in China only a compro- 
 mising alliance while leaving it, in the stress of 
 conflict, to the mercy of exasperated foes, yet 
 ready nevertheless to step in, in the last resort, 
 to avenge some ideal atrocity. 
 
1 66 China and Christianity^ 
 
 Common action therefore seems out of the 
 question, and without common action on the 
 part of foreign powers no ordinances of 
 the Chinese could take effect, because the 
 missions belong to various nationalities, and 
 none of them would respect rules not sanc- 
 tioned by their own representatives, while 
 separate rules for each would be entirely un- 
 workable. 
 
 The Powers may, of course, cut the Gordian 
 knot with the sword, as has been done more 
 than once ; and if they, or even any one of 
 them, would but consistently apply this method 
 the question might soon be solved and set at 
 rest. For the officials, scholars, and people, 
 once compelled to respect and protect Christians 
 without chance of evasion, would become ha- 
 bituated to the forms of toleration, and might 
 in time learn to practise voluntarily what they 
 had been trained to do by force. But enforced 
 toleration — almost a contradiction in terms — 
 to be effective would admit of no exceptions 
 and no wavering. Conciliation may be good, 
 and compulsion may be good ; but the oscilla- 
 tion between the two is nearly certain to fail, 
 
Mutual Obligations* 167 
 
 because, for one thing, the alternating phases 
 would be pretty certain to be exhibited at the 
 least appropriate times. 
 
 Faihng, then, assistance from foreign govern- 
 ments or their representatives, the Chinese 
 rulers are thrown back on their own resources 
 to discover a modus vivendi between their 
 people and the promiscuous elements, foreign 
 and native, which make up the Propaganda. 
 These resources are inadequate to the task: 
 first, because of the inexperience of Chinese 
 statesmen and their non-comprehension of the 
 character of Christianity; and secondly, on 
 account of their preconceived antipathy, latent 
 and active by turns, to the religion, and their re- 
 pugnance to all candid examination of it. This 
 characteristic must paralyze, by tainting with 
 insincerity, any unaided efforts of Government 
 to devise a basis of agreement with the propa- 
 ganda. Notwithstanding these disqualifica- 
 tions, however, the Chinese government cannot 
 escape the necessity of dealing with this grave 
 question, though its action in regard to it 
 seems, by the very nature of the case, fore- 
 
i68 China and Christianity ♦ 
 
 doomed to barrenness. For the evasive policy 
 of the government opposed to the more con- 
 sistent tactics of the propaganda must produce 
 continuous friction, generating heat, and lead- 
 ing, not seldom, to explosions. 
 
 It would almost appear, therefore, that the 
 conflict, like a biological ferment, must run its 
 course without any intelligent direction from 
 the parties principally concerned ; and, if the 
 history of the invasion of Buddhism may be 
 taken as a precedent, centuries of strife may 
 have to be waded through before the struggle 
 can issue in settled peace. 
 
 But as in the most desperate condition of 
 any State there are still individuals " who do 
 not despair of the republic," but are animated 
 with courage even to resist fate, so there may 
 not be wanting in China statesmen who, in 
 spite of adverse circumstances, will do their 
 best to smooth the way for the accommodation 
 of Christianity in this country, some from 
 motives of temporary expediency, and some, 
 perhaps, from an awakening conviction of the 
 blessings which the religion, notwithstanding 
 the faults of its propagators, has to offer them. 
 
Mutual Obligations. 169 
 
 The light cannot for ever be excluded, how- 
 ever resolutely men may close their eyes 
 against it ; and in time one and another, even 
 of the Chinese literati^ many of whom are now 
 seriously inquiring into its merits, mast be 
 able, as in the days gone by, to appreciate 
 Christianity. To suppose otherwise indeed 
 were to concede it to be the imposture 
 which the literati as a body now affect to 
 regard it. 
 
 But while the Western governments stand 
 paralysed by disunion and conflicting interests, 
 and the Chinese government and governing 
 classes are floundering in the dark, there is an 
 important third party, the propaganda itself, 
 which being endued with light as well as heat, 
 ought to play an eflFective part in the solution 
 of the religious question in China. Being 
 primd facie responsible for the existence of the 
 trouble the onus rests peculiarly on the mis- 
 sions to send a peaceful issue out of the imbro- 
 glio, and to find some broader ground to stand 
 on than that of mere contention for the utter- 
 most rights conferred on them by the letter of 
 
170 China and Christianity. 
 
 the treaties/ The case is not uncommon in 
 the Western hemisphere where laws made in 
 advance of the opinion of the community ^ can- 
 not be enforced without violence, and where 
 the beneficiaries, realizing this, submit to the 
 waiving of rights which have been definitively 
 secured to them by statute. 
 
 The pretensions of foreign missions in China 
 are of such a nature as to entail upon them an 
 exceptional degree of moral responsibility for 
 the consequences of their action ; and from 
 which shelter is not to be found within the four 
 corners of any legal instrument whatsoever. 
 For they assume authority, without appeal, 
 over the minds and consciences of millions of 
 human beings ; they claim absolute superiority 
 over the long line of teachers and moralists 
 who have preceded them in China : they exer- 
 
 1 " Such forcing, based on treaty rights, maintained by much 
 disagreeable correspondence between foreign consuls and Chinese 
 high mandarins, has done a great deal to shut up the hearts of 
 the people against the Gospel." — Dr. Faber. 
 
 2 " You cannot have that steady, firm, consistent administra- 
 tion of the law permanently established until you have brought 
 the provisions of the law and the sympathies of the people into 
 harmony." — Mr. Gladstone in House of Commons, August 
 9th, 1892. 
 
Mutual Obligations^ 171 
 
 cise, without reserve, the prerogative of eradi- 
 cation of all customs, religions, and worships 
 which they disapprove, under a divine mandate 
 attested by themselves. From such an order 
 of men it were surely not unreasonable to look 
 for some with capacity to manage this perplex- 
 ing question without constant explosions and 
 appeals to brute force. Force implies failure 
 in almost all the circumstances of life where 
 resort to it is necessary ; and the Christian 
 mission bodies owe it to their own cause and 
 character to show that they are at least not ob- 
 livious of the high qualities which their self- 
 assumed position requires of them. 
 
 Christian societies in sending out missionaries 
 do not thereby discharge, but incur, obligations 
 of the gravest character. The evangelization 
 of China is not the simple numerical problem 
 it is often assumed to be, and long lists of 
 missionaries and columns of subscriptions are 
 of themselves no true cause for gratulation. 
 If the parent bodies weighed their own respon- 
 sibilities conscientiously they would rank the 
 quality of mere fervour somewhat low, and 
 would choose their agents rather for their 
 
172 China and Christianity. 
 
 liberality of education and temperament, their 
 catholic human sympathies, their common sense, 
 their aptitude to learn from observation and 
 experience, and their freedom from dogmatic 
 assurance. The office of missionary to a people 
 like the Chinese demands exceptional gifts, and 
 the ranks cannot be filled from the waifs and 
 strays of religious life without endangering the 
 whole enterprise. One man of the right stamp 
 is worth a thousand impatient zealots, who 
 accomplish no permanent good themselves, and 
 by their indiscretions destroy the influence of 
 those who work on a sounder basis. 
 
 Happily this sense of responsibility seems 
 to be spreading in missionary circles. There 
 have been, and are, serious men in the various 
 missions who cannot shut their eyes to the 
 light of the world, and there are some who, 
 especially in their declining years, question 
 themselves deeply concerning the manner and 
 results of their life's labours, and cast about 
 earnestly for some more excellent way, if by 
 any means discoverable. Such an one, it may 
 now be said without impropriety, was the late 
 Dr. Williamson who sunk to rest only two 
 
Mutual Obligations* 173 
 
 years ago. And there is probably an increas- 
 ing number who instinctively look first for 
 faults on their own side, whose feelings towards 
 the shortcomings of the Chinese are something 
 more humane than pity and more Christian 
 than contempt. Since the foregoing pages 
 were written there has appeared an essay by a 
 worthy follower of Dr. Williamson, the Rev. 
 G. Candhn, reprinted in Chinese Recorder for 
 March, 1892, in which the tactics of provoca- 
 tion and mere destructive attack on native be- 
 liefs and institutions is shown to be by no 
 means the most effective way of transforming 
 them. The welcome of such a candid deliver- 
 ance by the editors of a mission organ proves 
 that the reasonable school is gaining courage, 
 and seems like the dawn of a brighter day. 
 From the extension of such a school there would 
 be much to hope, both for the progress of 
 Christianity itself, and also for its peaceful con- 
 tact with the official and lettered classes.^ 
 
 The whole history of missions testifies that 
 there is no personal sacrifice or bodily risk 
 
 1 See also a courageous and straightforward paper by the 
 Rev. J. Ross, of Moukden, in Chinese Recorder^ August, 1892. 
 
174 China and Christianity^ 
 
 which Christian teachers would not incur for 
 the sake of the propagation of their faith. In 
 order to free their cause from its political asso- 
 ciations many would willingly forego the pro- 
 tection of their own governments ; some would 
 go further, and divesting themselves of their 
 birthright, would cheerfully accept the full con- 
 ditions of Chinese nationality. Such ideas of 
 course can never be more than pious aspira- 
 tions, for the protection extended by civilized 
 states to their citizens, being based on the 
 interest of the whole community, cannot be 
 switched on and off, like an electric light, by 
 individual caprice. Still less is it within the 
 competence of any one to exempt himself by a 
 private resolution from the obligations inherent 
 in his nationality. As his government w^ould 
 remain responsible for him he would still be 
 answerable to his government. And were 
 even the detachment from country and kin- 
 dred legally effected the missionary would still 
 not have attained his object, for no metempsy- 
 chosis could undo his origin and lineage. He 
 would remain essentially the alien, though 
 stripped of the privileges and abjuring the pre- 
 
Mutual Obligations* 175 
 
 tensions appertaining to an extra-territorialized 
 foreigner. And ten-to-one but the Chinese 
 would see in his renunciation only a more un- 
 fathomable depth of cunning. 
 
 But if wiUing to do the "great thing** 
 which is not required of them, the mission 
 leaders should also be, as no doubt they are, 
 ready to promote less heroic measures for the 
 improvement of the situation. Were it pos- 
 sible to bring the parties together on some 
 neutral platform where a dispassionate inter- 
 change of views might take place between 
 moderate and reasonable men selected from 
 both sides, such a conference would not per- 
 haps be wholly barren of result. Assuming 
 that there is no radical incapacity on either side 
 for appreciating the position of the other, and 
 presuming peace to be the common object, an 
 earnest effort to secure it, even if but partially 
 successful in its specific aim, could hardly fail 
 to achieve something in the direction of a 
 mutual understanding. And any rapproche- 
 ment which would admit of the Christian pro- 
 paganda being carried on with fewer of those 
 violent concussions which have hitherto marked 
 
176 China and Christianity* 
 
 its advance would be an object well worthy of 
 such efforts. 
 
 The obstacles in the way of organizing any 
 kind of deliberative concourse are formidable 
 and obvious. For the Chinese it would be a 
 revolutionary innovation on their traditional 
 methods of procedure ; and for a mixed body 
 composed of numerous independent members 
 like the foreign Missions it would not be a 
 very simple matter to concentrate effective 
 authority on any selected representatives. 
 The difficulty of arriving at such an under- 
 standing is naturally greatly diminished in the 
 case of the Catholic section of the propaganda, 
 where the representative apparatus already ex- 
 ists in a highly organized form. Other hope 
 failing, therefore, it seems to be after all to the 
 Vatican and its disciplined agents that the 
 Christian world will have to look, if anywhere, 
 for extrication from its dilemma in China ; for, 
 having been repulsed elsewhere, it is to that 
 quarter that the Imperial government would 
 naturally address itself, if the personal and 
 national schemes of foreign diplomatists would 
 but permit it so much liberty of action. 
 
Mutual Obligations^ 177 
 
 To discuss the terms of a possible Concor- 
 dat, whether partial or general, while as yet the 
 steps prehminary to any agreement whatever 
 cannot be marked out would be altogether pre- 
 mature. Much ground has to be gone over, 
 even under the most favourable circumstances, 
 before the desired composition of differences 
 can be brought within the sphere of practical 
 politics. 
 
 Should it eventually be demonstrated that 
 reconciliation between the parties is unattain- 
 able it would nevertheless be a real gain even 
 to ascertain that much, so that the air might 
 be cleared of distracting illusions. The Chris- 
 tian propaganda would then be able to con- 
 tinue the contest with China on definite con- 
 ditions, and China would know better what it 
 had to deal with. It may be that the actual 
 struggle for existence is as essential an element 
 in the evolution of religious systems as it is in 
 that of other forms of life, and that all attempts 
 to evade its hard conditions are but amiable 
 weaknesses ? Left alone with its Pagan an- 
 tagonists Christianity would no doubt in the 
 end fight its way to victory ; although the re- 
 
1 78 China and Christianity. 
 
 markable collapse of the missions in High 
 Asia, after a fierce conflict sustained for many 
 centuries by an energy which can never be 
 surpassed, and the extinction of mediaeval 
 Christianity in China proper by religions much 
 inferior to itself, stand as warnings to the propa- 
 ganda that ultimate triumph, though sure, may 
 have to be purchased dearly, and may be long 
 deferred. 
 
 As for the Chinese government, its neglect- 
 ing the opportunity of " agreeing with its ad- 
 versary ** would be only too much in keeping 
 with its general laissez-faire policy, which per- 
 mits destructive inundations, famines, insur- 
 rections to devastate the country, without 
 prevision or precaution on any adequate scale, 
 and which conducts its external relations in 
 such a negligent manner as continually to in- 
 vite territorial aggression. 
 
 In conclusion, let not the inadequacy of the 
 treatment obscure the greatness of the subject. 
 For, above all the local friction, ephemeral 
 disputation and political veering and hauling ; 
 above the shiftiness of some and the intensity 
 of others, above the fret and fuss of the day's 
 
Mutual Obligations. 179 
 
 work, we really stand in the presence of one 
 of those grand cosmic conjunctures which shape 
 human destinies. It is one half of the world 
 which is challenging the other half; all Chris- 
 tendom gathering its strength to subdue all 
 Paganism. Each of them is strong by what 
 there is in it of truth and nobleness, while our 
 judgment is bewildered by the error and pre- 
 judice which cling to them both ; and if the 
 very term we are compelled by the infirmity of 
 our language to employ to mark their antithesis 
 seems to beg the question as to their relative 
 merits, it is but a nickname which may be 
 balanced by the coinage of some equally dis- 
 paraging term on the other side. Both forces 
 are majestic in their wide and enduring sway 
 over the hearts of men, in their impulse to 
 virtue, in sustaining the human spirit in its 
 struggle for light. None of the historic con- 
 flicts of the race, though carried on with clamour 
 and bloodshed, have been laden with vaster 
 issues ; for this, in its true essence, is a contest 
 of mind against mind. The whole life and 
 growth and morality, linked together through- 
 out long ages, of the largest human society the 
 
i8o China and Christianity. 
 
 Sun ever looked upon, actually circulating in 
 the blood of the living men of to-day, — this 
 entity which we call China — is invited, nay, 
 summoned, to surrender much that, in its own 
 opinion, has immortalized the nation. View 
 it how we may, and with all possible deduc- 
 tions, the grandeur of a people who have come 
 through the stages of human development not 
 only intact, but expanding and unified, who 
 have made magnificent attempts to solve the 
 mystery of the Unseen, and who have dis- 
 tilled out of their philosophical speculations a 
 system of practical ethics which has served 
 them, without revision, for more than two 
 thousand years — must command the homage 
 of civilized men. 
 
 On the other hand, the forces opposed to it 
 have also their history and their rich experi- 
 ences. The leaven which has worked in the 
 Western races, inspiring their greatest achieve- 
 ments and imbuing them with the principle of 
 extension and advancement works still with 
 unabated energy. It is that vital principle 
 which after many centuries of effort, has at 
 length brought the forces of Christendom to 
 
Mutual Obligations^ i8i 
 
 the gates of the East, where, with or without 
 ceremony, they demand admittance. With all 
 reasonable qualifications, Christendom is prob- 
 ably not too arrogant in claiming for itself pre- 
 eminence among the families of man. 
 
 We who live near the very meeting points 
 of the two powers can only by a mental effort 
 dimly conceive the magnitude of the issues 
 which are being worked out under our eyes. 
 Where is the man who can understand the 
 epoch, blend the opposing currents into whole- 
 some and vital union, guide them into safe and 
 fruitful channels ; and from the blackening sky 
 conduct the storm-fluid innocuously to earth ? 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 MEMORIAL OF IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER 
 KIYING, 1844. 
 
 KiYiNG, imperial commissioner, minister of 
 State, and governor-general of Kwangtung and 
 Kwangsi, respectfully addresses the throne by 
 memorial. 
 
 On examination it appears that the religion 
 of the Lord of Heaven is that professed by 
 all the nations of the West; that its main 
 object is to encourage the good and suppress 
 the wicked ; that since its introduction to 
 China during the Ming dynasty it has never 
 been interdicted ; that subsequently, when 
 Chinese, practising this religion, often made it 
 a covert for wickedness, even to the seducing 
 of wives and daughters, and to the deceitful 
 extraction of the pupils from the eyes of the 
 sick, government made investigation and in- 
 183 
 
184 Appendix L 
 
 flicted punishment, as is on record ; and that 
 in the reign of Kiaking special clauses were 
 first laid down for the punishment of the 
 guilty. The prohibition, therefore, was di- 
 rected against evil-doing under the covert of 
 religion, and not against the religion professed 
 by the western foreign nations. 
 
 Now the request of the French ambassador, 
 Lagren6, that those Chinese who, doing well, 
 practise this religion, be exempt from crimi- 
 naUty, seems feasible. It is right, therefore, 
 to make the request, and earnestly to crave 
 celestial favour to grant that, henceforth, all 
 natives and foreigners without distinction, 
 who learn and practice the religion of the 
 Lord of Heaven, and do not excite trouble 
 by improper conduct, be exempted from crim- 
 inality. If there be any who seduce wives 
 and daughters, or deceitfully take the pupils 
 from the eyes of the sick, walking in their 
 former paths, or are otherwise guilty of crimi- 
 nal acts, let them be dealt with according to 
 the old laws. As to those of the French and 
 other foreign nations who practise the religion, 
 let them only be permitted to build churches 
 
Appendix L 185 
 
 at the five ports opened for commercial inter- 
 course. They must not presume to enter the 
 country to propagate religion. Should any act 
 in opposition, turn their backs upon the trea- 
 ties, and rashly overstep the boundaries, the 
 local officers will at once seize and deliver 
 them to their respective consuls for restraint 
 and correction. Capital punishment is not to 
 be rashly inflicted, in order that the exercise of 
 gentleness must be displayed. Thus, perad- 
 venture, the good and the profligate will not 
 be blended, while the equity of mild laws will 
 be exhibited. 
 
 This request, that well-doers practising the 
 religion may be exempt from criminality, I 
 (the commissioner), in accordance with reason 
 and bounden duty, respectfully lay before the 
 throne, earnestly praying the august Emperor 
 graciously to grant that it may be carried into 
 eff^ect. A respectful memorial. 
 
 Taukwang, 24th year, nth month, 19th 
 day (December 28, 1844), was received the 
 vermilion reply : " Let it be according to the 
 counsel [of Kiying]." This is from the Em- 
 peror. 
 
1 86 Appendix L 
 
 Second Memorial of Kiying, 1845. 
 
 Now I find that, in the first place, when 
 the regulations for free trade were agreed upon, 
 there was an article allowing the erection of 
 churches at the five ports. This same privi- 
 lege was to extend to all nations ; there were 
 to be no distinctions. Subsequently the com- 
 missioner Lagrene requested that the Chinese 
 who, acting well, practised this religion, should 
 equally be held blameless. Accordingly, I 
 made a representation of the case to the 
 throne, by memorial, and received the impe- 
 rial consent thereto. After this, however, 
 local magistrates having made improper seiz- 
 ures, taking and destroying crosses, pictures, 
 and images, further deliberations were held, 
 and it was agreed that these [crosses, etc.] 
 might be reverenced. Originally I did not 
 know that there were, among the nations, these 
 differences in their religious practices. Now 
 with regard to the religion of the Lord of 
 Heaven — no matter whether the crosses, pic- 
 tures, and images be reverenced or be not 
 
Appendix L 187 
 
 reverenced — all who, acting well, practise it, 
 ought to be held blameless. All the great 
 western nations being placed on an equal foot- 
 ing, only let them be acting well, practise their 
 religion, and China will in no way prohibit or 
 impede their so doing. Whether their cus- 
 toms be alike or unlike, certainly it is right 
 and there should be no distinction and no 
 obstruction. — December 11^ 1845. 
 
 Imperial Rescript on Above. 
 
 On a former occasion Kiying and others laid 
 before Us a memorial, requesting immunity 
 from punishment for those who doing well 
 profess the religion of Heaven's Lord ; and 
 that those who erect churches, assemble to- 
 gether for worship, venerate the cross and pic- 
 tures and images, read and explain sacred books, 
 be not prohibited from so doing. This was 
 granted. The religion of the Lord of Heaven, 
 instructing and guiding men in well-doing, 
 differs widely from the heterodox and illicit 
 sects ; and the toleration thereof has already 
 been allowed. That which has been requested 
 
1 88 Appendix L 
 
 on a subsequent occasion, it is right in like 
 manner to grant. 
 
 Let all the ancient houses throughout the 
 provinces, which were built in the reign of 
 Kanghi, and have been preserved to the pres- 
 ent time, and which, on personal examination 
 by proper authorities, are clearly found to be 
 their bona fide possessions, be restored to the 
 professors of this religion in their respective 
 places, excepting only those churches which 
 have been converted into temples and dwelling- 
 houses for the people. 
 
 If, after the promulgation of this decree 
 throughout the provinces, the local officers ir- 
 regularly prosecute and seize any of the pro- 
 fessors of the religion of the Lord of Heaven, 
 who are not bandits, upon all such the just 
 penalties of the law shall be meted out. 
 
 If any, under a profession of this religion, 
 do evil, or congregate people from distant 
 towns, seducing and binding them together ; or 
 if any other sect or bandits, borrowing the 
 name of the religion of the Lord of Heaven, 
 create disturbances, transgress the laws, or ex- 
 cite rebellion, they shall be punished according 
 
Appendix L 189 
 
 to their respective crimes, each being dealt 
 with as the existing statutes of the Empire 
 direct. 
 
 Also, in order to make apparent the proper 
 distinctions, foreigners of every nation are, in 
 accordance with existing regulations, prohibited 
 from going into the country to propagate 
 religion. 
 
 For these purposes this decree is given. 
 Cause it to be made known. From the 
 Emperor. 
 
APPENDIX 11. 
 %M 
 
 CIRCULAR OF THE CHINESE GOVERN- 
 MENT, 1871. 
 
 (communicated by the FRENCH CHARGE D'AFFAIRES.) 
 
 Tf'anslation. 
 
 The object which the Powers and China had 
 before them originally in signing the treaties 
 was to establish a permanent situation which 
 should ensure them reciprocal advantages and 
 remove abuses. However, the experience of 
 the last few years has demonstrated that not 
 only do these Treaties not attain this desired 
 end of permanency, but also that, up to the 
 present time, they are difficult to carry into 
 execution. Trade has in no degree occasioned 
 differences between China and the Powers. 
 The same cannot be said of the missions, 
 which engender ever increasing abuses. Al- 
 
 190 
 
Appendix !!♦ 191 
 
 though in the first instance it may have been 
 declared that the primary object of the missions 
 was to exhort men to virtue, CathoHcism in 
 causing vexation to the people, has produced 
 a contrary effect in China. (This regrettable 
 result) is solely attributable to the inefficacy of 
 the plan of action (followed in this matter). 
 It is, therefore, urgent that steps should be 
 taken to remedy this evil, and to search for a 
 satisfactory solution of the difficulty. In fact, 
 this question is one bearing upon those which 
 influence the leading interests of the peace of 
 nations, as well those of their trade, which are 
 equally considerable. Wherever the Catholic 
 missionaries have appeared, they have drawn 
 upon themselves the animadversion of the 
 people, and your Excellency is not ignorant 
 that cases which have arisen during the course 
 of several years embraced points of disagree- 
 ment of every kind. 
 
 The first Catholic Missionaries who estab- 
 lished themselves in China were called "lite- 
 rates " of the West. The greater part of the 
 conversions took place at that time among 
 respectable people. On the other hand, since 
 
192 Appendix E. 
 
 the conclusion of the Treaties took place 
 (i860) the majority of the converts are persons 
 without virtue ; so that religion, whose object 
 is to exhort men to virtue, no longer enjoys 
 any consideration. From that moment con- 
 sciences have become a prey to uneasiness. 
 The Christians have none the less continued, 
 under the shadow of missionary influence, to 
 mislead and oppress the people : thence arose 
 renewed uneasiness, then quarrels between 
 Christians and non-Christians, and, at last, 
 disturbances. The authorities proceed to in- 
 vestigate the affair; the missionaries make 
 common cause with the Christians, and sup- 
 port them in their insubordination against the 
 same authorities. Thereupon the feeling of 
 disquiet which pervades the people assumes 
 greater proportions. Yet more : veteran 
 rebels, beyond the pale of the law, amateurs 
 in intrigue, seek a refuge in the Church, and 
 lean upon her influence in order to commit 
 disorders. At this moment the animosity of 
 the people, already deep, degenerates gradually 
 into a hate which, at length, reaches its par- 
 oxysm. The people in general, unaware of 
 
Appendix 11. 193 
 
 the difference which exists between Protestan- 
 tism and Catholicism, confound these two 
 religions under this latter denomination. 
 They do not grasp the distinction which should 
 be made between the different nations of which 
 Europe is composed, and give to Europeans 
 the generic name of " men from without ; " 
 so that, when troubles break out, foreigners 
 residing in China are all exposed to the same 
 dangers. Even in the provinces where con- 
 flicts have not yet taken place uneasiness and 
 suspicion will certainly appear among the 
 people. Is not such a state of things of a 
 nature to occasion a lively feeling of irritation, 
 and, as a result, grave disorders ^ The differ- 
 ence which exists between the religions and the 
 nationalities are truths which are still beyond 
 the comprehension of the masses, in spite of 
 constant efforts which have been exerted in 
 order to make them appreciate their nature. 
 The Prince and the members of the Yamen, 
 during the ten years in which they have been 
 at the head of affairs, have been a prey to 
 incessant anxiety. These precautions have 
 been justified by the events at Tientsin, the 
 
194 Appendix II. 
 
 suddenness of which was overwhelming. The 
 proceeding against the functionaries (compro- 
 mised) have been begun, the murderers have 
 suffered capital punishment, an indemnity- 
 has been paid, and relief given ; but, al- 
 though the affair may to-day be almost 
 settled, the Prince and the members of the 
 Yamen cannot throw off the uneasiness which 
 they feel. In fact, if this policy is the only 
 one on which one can rely (to settle) the differ- 
 ences between Christians and non-Christians, 
 it will become more precarious in proportion 
 to the necessity there will be to recur to it 
 oftener, and disorders like those of Tientsin will 
 be repeated more terribly each time. If the 
 matter is looked at under its present aspect, the 
 question is, how is it possible to be on good 
 terms and to live on either side in peace ? It 
 is not only to the hatred engendered by the 
 suppressed animosities of the people, but de- 
 cidedly also to the provocations of the Chris- 
 tians, that the conflicts on the missionary ques- 
 tion which arise in these provinces must be 
 attributed. If, on one side, these conflicts may 
 have been brought about by the relative in- 
 
Appendix !!♦ 195 
 
 capacity of the local administration, they can 
 certainly also be attributed to the conduct of 
 the high Chinese and European functionaries 
 charged with the direction of affairs (affecting 
 the two countries), who, knowing the want of 
 conciliation in the attitude of the missionaries 
 and Christians, show no good will in seeking 
 for the means of remedying the evil. 
 
 With regard to the Europeans, they only 
 aim at getting rid of the difficulties of the mo- 
 ment, without troubling themselves whether 
 by so doing consciences are disturbed ; to em- 
 ploy coercion is all that is thought of On the 
 other hand, the local authorities have only one 
 object, that of bringing the matter to a close. 
 Care for the future goes for nothing in this 
 short-sighted policy. But if we seek, in con- 
 cert with the Europeans, to secure by effica- 
 cious means a really lasting understanding, we 
 do not find among these latter the desire to 
 found the discussion on equitable bases. 
 When this discussion arises, they place before 
 us unacceptable means which they wish to im- 
 pose on us by force, in order to be able to put 
 a stop to the matter. That is, in truth, not the 
 
196 Appendix 11. 
 
 good and true way to take care of the interests 
 of the two countries. Anxious about the whole 
 matter, and sincerely desirous that concord and 
 peace should reign forever between China and 
 Europe, the Prince and the members of the 
 Yamen are bound to seek the best means to 
 secure this result. Their belief is, that there 
 are ecclesiastics everywhere in Europe, and that 
 their presence abroad is therefore without dan- 
 ger to good harmony. The maintenance of 
 this happy state of things is, doubtless, due to 
 the employment of certain means, and to the 
 fact that ecclesiastics and Christians abstain 
 from provoking conflicts. The Prince and 
 members of the Yamen have heard that these 
 same ecclesiastics, to whatever nationality they 
 might belong, respected the law and customs 
 of the country where they dwelt ; that they 
 were not allowed to constitute in them a kind 
 of exceptional independence for themselves ; 
 and that the faults of every kind, such as con- 
 traventions of the law, insubordination towards 
 the authority of functionaries, abuses and usur- 
 pations of powers, acts prejudicial to the repu- 
 tation of the people, and oppressive towards 
 
Appendix !!♦ 197 
 
 the people, which provoke its suspicions and 
 its resentment, are there severely repressed. If 
 the missionaries, before constructing the reli- 
 gious establishments in China and preaching 
 their doctrine there, avoided making themselves 
 odious to the principal men and people, the 
 suspicions would disappear, to give place to a 
 mutual confidence; concord would be perma- 
 nent ; one would not see churches destroyed, 
 and religions attacked. If these same mission- 
 aries, in pursuit of their work, could inspire in 
 the masses the conviction that their acts are 
 not opposed to their teaching ; if, remaining 
 deaf to the instigations of the Christians, they 
 avoided by denying themselves all interference 
 in the local administration, giving the support 
 of their influence to arbitrary and oppressive 
 acts which engender hatred among the notables 
 and the people, they might live in perfect har- 
 mony with the people, and the functionaries 
 would be in a position to protect them. Far 
 different is the conduct of the persons who 
 now come to China to propagate therein the 
 Christian religion. From the information 
 which the Prince and the Yamen have gathered 
 
198 Appendix !!♦ 
 
 (respecting the duties imposed on them by 
 their priesthood), these persons found as it 
 were among us an undetermined number of 
 States within the State. How, under these 
 conditions, can we hope that a durable under- 
 standing should be established, and to prevent 
 the governors and the governed uniting against 
 them in common hostility? 
 
 The Prince and the members of the Yamen 
 are impressed with a desire to ward off from 
 henceforth eventualities so menacing. In fact, 
 they fear in all sincerity lest, after the arrange- 
 ment of the Tientsin affair, the animosity of 
 the ignorant Christians of the Empire should 
 take a more decided tone of insolent bluster, 
 that the bitterness of the popular resentment 
 should increase, and that so much accumulated 
 bad feeling, causing a sudden explosion, should 
 bring about a catastrophe. It would then be 
 no longer possible for the local authorities, nor 
 for the high provincial functionaries, nor even 
 for the Tsung-li Yamen, to assert their author- 
 ity. In -the event of a general rising in China, 
 the Emperor will be able to appoint high dig- 
 nitaries to order them to assemble everywhere 
 
Appendix !!• i99 
 
 Imposing forces ; but the greatest rigour does 
 not reach the masses, and where their anger 
 manifests itself, there are persons who refuse to 
 yield their heads to the executioner. Then, 
 when the evil becomes irremediable, and when 
 the wish we all have to preserve so great inter- 
 ests will no longer be effectual, the men who 
 direct the international affairs of China and of 
 Europe will not be suffered to decline the re- 
 sponsibility which falls on them. In short, 
 in the direction of affairs, the important point 
 in China as in Europe, is to satisfy opinion. 
 If failing in this duty, oppression and violence 
 are employed, a general rising will at last take 
 place. There are moments when the supreme 
 authority is disregarded. If the high function- 
 aries of China and the Europeans on whom 
 rests the responsibility of the affairs which now 
 form the object of our anxiety, remaining un- 
 moved spectators of a situation which threatens 
 the greatest danger to the Chinese people, as 
 well as to strangers, traders and individuals,, 
 make no effort to find a solution which may 
 effectually remedy the evil, it will follow that 
 it will be out of their power to deal in a satis- 
 
200 Appendix U, 
 
 factory manner with the matters which interest 
 the pubUc. Consequently with the view of 
 protecting the great interests of general peace, 
 and of remedying the abuses above pointed 
 out, the Prince and the Members of the Yamen 
 have the honor to submit for your Excellency's 
 examination, a plan of Regulation in eight Ar- 
 ticles, which has also been communicated to 
 the Representatives of other Powers. 
 
 Draft of Regulations. 
 
 article i. 
 
 The Christians when they found an Orphan- 
 age give no notice to the authorities, and appear 
 to act with mystery : hence the suspicions and 
 hatred of the people. In ceasing to receive 
 children, the evil rumours which are now in cir- 
 culation would at the same time disappear. 
 If, however, there is a wish to continue this 
 work, only the children of necessitous Chris- 
 tians must be received, and then the authorities 
 ought to be informed, who would note the day 
 on which the child entered, the name of its 
 parents, and the day on which it left. It would 
 
Appendix II* 201 
 
 also be necessary that power should be given 
 to strangers to adopt these children, and then 
 a good result would be arrived at. Lastly, 
 when it is a question of non-Christian children, 
 the high officials ought to give orders to the 
 local authorities, who should select proper 
 agents who could take all the measures which 
 appeared suitable to them. 
 
 In China the laws which regulate orphanages 
 are : that on the entrance and on the departure 
 of the children note is made of the person who 
 leaves them, or of the person who adopts them, 
 of the declaration made to the authorities, and 
 of the permission given to the parents to visit 
 their children. When they have become bigger, 
 they may be adopted by someone having no 
 children, or taken back by the parents them- 
 selves, and then no matter in what religion they 
 have been brought up, they return to the reli- 
 gions of their fathers. The child ought in 
 everything also to be treated well. In exercis- 
 ing this work of charity, it becomes a most 
 worthy work. 
 
 We have heard it said that in every country 
 matters are conducted in this respect very 
 
202 Appendix II» 
 
 nearly as in China. How does it happen that, 
 once arrived in our country, foreigners no longer 
 follow these customs ? They take no note of 
 the family to which the child belongs, and they 
 do not give notice to the authorities. Once 
 the child has entered the house other persons 
 are not allowed to adopt it, nor are the parents 
 permitted to take it back again, nor even to 
 visit it. All this nourishes suspicions and ex- 
 cites the hatred of the people, and by degrees 
 a case like that of Tientsin is arrived at. Al- 
 though we have denied in a report all those 
 rumours of the tearing out of eyes and hearts, 
 the people, however, still preserve doubts on 
 the subject, and even if we succeed In closing 
 their lips we cannot drive away these doubts 
 from their minds. It is this kind of uneasiness 
 which gives rise to terrible events. It would 
 be a good thing to abolish the foreign orphan- 
 ages, and to transport them to Europe, where 
 they could practise their charity at their ease : 
 it would then belong to the Chinese to come 
 to the aid of these children. Besides, in every 
 province we have numerous orphanages, and 
 yet the foreigners wish to lend us at any price 
 
Appendix 11. 203 
 
 an assistance of which we have not the slightest 
 need. It is certainly with good intentions they 
 thus act, but it is not the less true that their 
 conduct produces suspicion and excites anger. 
 It would be far preferable if each one exercised 
 his charity in his own country, and then no 
 lamentable event could arise. 
 
 ARTICLE 2. 
 
 Women ought no longer to enter the 
 churches, nor should sisters of charity live in 
 China to teach religion. This measure will 
 only render the Christians more respectable, 
 and will result in silencing evil rumours. 
 
 In China good reputation and modesty are 
 most important matters : men and women are 
 not even allowed to shake hands, nor to live 
 together : there ought to be a kind of line of 
 separation that cannot be overstepped. After 
 the treaty full liberty was given to the Chris- 
 tians, and then men and women went together 
 to church : hence rumours among the pubhc. 
 There are some places even where men and 
 women are together not only at church but also 
 in the interior of the house. The public look- 
 
204 Appendix !!♦ 
 
 ing at this in a light manner harbours suspicions, 
 and thinks that things contrary to propriety 
 take place. 
 
 ARTICLE 3. 
 
 The missionaries residing in China must 
 conform to the laws and customs of China. 
 They are not permitted to place themselves in 
 a kind of exceptional independence, to show 
 themselves recalcitrant to the authority of the 
 Government and of the officials, to attribute 
 to themselves powers which do not belong to 
 them, to injure the reputation of men, to 
 oppress the people, to asperse the doctrine of 
 Confucius, by which they give ground for the 
 suspicions, the resentments and the indignation 
 of the masses. The missionaries must submit 
 themselves, like everybody, to the authority 
 of the local officials ; and the Christian Chinese 
 must, in every case, be treated according to 
 the common law ; with the exception of the 
 expenses of theatrical solemnities and of the 
 worship of local protecting divinities from 
 which they are dispensed from contributing to, 
 the Christians cannot escape the requisitions 
 
Appendix H* 205 
 
 and forced labour, and are constrained to 
 accept, like everybody else, the charges im- 
 posed by the local administration. With 
 stronger reason they cannot refuse to pay, in 
 their integrity, the land taxes and the rents, 
 nor can the missionaries advise them and sup- 
 port them in infringing the common law. 
 Cases for litigation between Christians and 
 non-Christians are under the equitable jurisdic- 
 tion of the authorities, and cannot be left to 
 the patronage of the missionaries. The latter 
 cannot keep away from the courts. Christians, 
 prosecutors or defendants, which, in a trial, 
 leads to delays and prejudices the parties in- 
 terested. In the cases in which missionaries 
 allow themselves to be mixed up in affairs 
 beyond their province, the local authorities 
 ought to send their verbal or written communi- 
 cations to the high provincial functionaries, 
 who will refer them in their turn to the Tsung- 
 li Yamen, in order that a decision may be 
 eventually taken as to the repatriation of these 
 same missionaries. In the cases where Chris- 
 tians in suits respecting matrimonial alliances 
 or property in land plume themselves on their 
 
2o6 Appendix H. 
 
 position of Christians to invoke the interven- 
 tion of the missionaries, they will be severely 
 punished by the authorities. 
 
 China honours the religion of Confucius ; 
 that of Buddha and of Tao, as well as the 
 doctrine of the Lamas is also professed there. 
 Therefore it is contrary to usage that the latter, 
 although they may not be Chinese, should 
 ignore the decisions of the Chinese authorities, 
 by approving or blaming them. We hear it 
 said that the missionaries in foreign countries 
 are subject to the legislation of the country in 
 which they live, and that they are forbidden to 
 make themselves independent, to contravene 
 the law, to usurp authority, to attack the 
 character of people, or to prejudice them, or 
 to arouse the suspicion and resentment of the 
 people. Similarly the missionaries, who teach 
 their religion in China, ought to submit them- 
 selves to the authority of the magistrates of 
 this country ; nevertheless they are vauntingly 
 independent and do not recognise the authority 
 of the officials. Do they not thus place them- 
 selves without the pale of the law ? The 
 Christians in China remain Chinese subjects. 
 
Appendix H* 207 
 
 and are only the more constrained to remain 
 faithful to their duties. In no case can indiffer- 
 ence be estabHshed between them and the rest 
 of the nation. The Christians in the towns 
 and in the country ought to Hve in good 
 harmony with their fellow countrymen. Yet, 
 in matters affecting the public when popular 
 subscriptions are opened or forced labour re- 
 quired, they put forward their position as 
 Christians to escape these burdens. They 
 themselves create an exception (in their favour). 
 How avoid that the rest of the nation accept 
 this exception (against them) ? Yet more, 
 they refuse the taxes and forced labour, they 
 intimidate the officials, they oppress those who 
 do not belong to their religion. The foreign 
 missionaries do not fully understand the situa- 
 tion : not only do they give an asylum to 
 Christians who are guilty of crimes and refuse 
 to deliver them up to justice, but they also 
 consent to protect unjustly those who have 
 only become converts because they have com- 
 mitted some crime. In the provinces the 
 Missionaries make themselves the advocates be- 
 fore the local authorities of the Christians who 
 
2o8 Appendix !!• 
 
 have suits. Witness that Christian woman of 
 Sze-chuen who exacted from her tenants pay- 
 ments of a nature which were not due to her, 
 and ultimately committed a murder. A French 
 bishop took upon himself to address a despatch 
 to the authorities in order to plead for this 
 woman and procured her acquittal. This deed 
 aroused animosities among the people of Sze- 
 chuen which have lasted to this day. In 
 Kwei-chow, Christians who go to law style 
 themselves Christians in the charge sheet 
 (" acte d'accusation ") with the sole view of 
 gaining their cause. This is a well-known 
 abuse. It happens also that two families being 
 united by matrimonial ties, one is converted 
 to Christianity, then compels the other who is 
 not converted to break off the alliance. 
 Among people of the same blood one has 
 seen fathers and older brothers, after having 
 been converted lay an accusation for non-ful- 
 filment of family duties against their children 
 and younger brothers, for the sole reason that 
 these latter had refused to be converted. These 
 acts are encouraged by the missionaries. Are 
 not such practices of a nature to excite to the 
 highest degree the popular indignation ? 
 
Appendix !!♦ 209 
 
 ARTICLE 4. 
 
 Chinese and foreigners living together ought 
 to be governed by the same laws. For example, 
 if a man kills another, he ought to be punished, 
 if a Chinaman, according to the Chinese law ; 
 if he is a foreigner, according to the law of his 
 country. In thus acting, order will reign ; it 
 matters little the manner in which the Chinese 
 or foreigners treat the case ; a punishment is 
 all that is necessary. But that punishment 
 once inflicted, they must not come and claim 
 indemnities, and abov« all they must not seek 
 the soi-disant abettor of the crime to exact 
 from him a certain sum. It belongs to the 
 local authorities to adjudicate on the differences 
 which may arise between the Christians and 
 the people. If it is a Pagan who has com- 
 mitted wrongs against a Christian, he ought to 
 be punished more or less severely, according 
 to the gravity of the fault ; similarly if it is a 
 question of a Christian accused by a Pagan. 
 The official ought to adjudicate with the most 
 perfect justice, and the greatest impartiality. 
 If a Christian conducts himself altogether 
 
2IO Appendix !!♦ 
 
 contrary to the laws, the local authority takes 
 evidence ; and if some one accuses this Chris- 
 tian, the latter is seized and judged. But the 
 missionaries must not then come forward to 
 defend him, and to exculpate him. If the 
 case arises of a missionary preventing a Chris- 
 tian giving himself up to the commands of the 
 authority, the Christian alone ought not to be 
 punished, but also the missionary, or at least 
 he ought to be sent back to his own country. 
 
 In the sixth year of the reign of T'ung Chih, 
 a missionary, M. Mabileau, was killed in Sze- 
 chuen. The murderer, named Yang Lao-wu, 
 was arrested and condemned to death. But 
 besides that, Mr. Mihieres accused a man who 
 formed part of the class of literates of having 
 been the instigator of that murder, in order to 
 exact from him an indemnity of 80,000 taels. 
 
 The individuals who commit disorders ordi- 
 narily belong to the lowest classes of the 
 people. -When they are guilty of some crime, 
 they are seized and punished ; but accusations 
 ought not to be brought against the literates 
 to exact from them large indemnities. Such 
 conduct excites hatred. 
 
Appendix !!♦ 211 
 
 In the eighth year of the reign of T^ung 
 Chih, a missionary, Mr. Rigaud, was killed in 
 Sze-chuen ; the cause of the murder was an 
 alliance between two families, which fell through. 
 The Tartar General Ch'^ung and the Governor 
 General Li judged this case. They caused the 
 murderer of Mr. Rigaud to be arrested, a man 
 named Ho-tsai, and the murderer of a Chris- 
 tian named Liang-fu, both belonging to the 
 lowest class. One was condemned to have his 
 head cut off, the other to be hanged. The 
 Christians further killed some of the people ; 
 every year there were conflicts between credi- 
 tors and debtors, rapes ana fires. 
 
 The instigators of all this were Wang Hsiao- 
 ting, Ch'^ang Tien-hsing, and others. It was 
 desired to seize and punish them, but they did 
 not surrender themselves to the commands of 
 the authority. Further, the Christians again, 
 under the leadership of a priest named Tan 
 Fu-ch'en, killed Chao Yung-lin, and 200 other 
 persons. The surrender of this missionary was 
 demanded ; but the Abbe Mihi^res said that 
 he had left for Europe ; and that there was no 
 means of arranging this case. Hence great 
 anger among the inhabitants of Sze-chuen. 
 
212 Appendix 11* 
 
 ARTICLE 
 
 The passports given to the (French) mis- 
 sionaries who penetrate into the interior ought 
 clearly to bear mention of the province and of 
 the prefecture where they intend to repair. 
 The names and titles of the bearer, and these 
 conditions, that he will not be able clandestinely 
 to betake himself to another province and that 
 the passport is personal, will be equally com- 
 prised in this document. The missionary 
 ought not to pass through the Custom House 
 and toll-bar contraband articles of merchan- 
 dize which are liable to duty. On his arrival 
 at a destination other than that designated in 
 the passport, or if this document has been 
 handed over to a Christian Chinaman with the 
 object of making him pass himself off as a mis- 
 sionary, the said passport shall be cancelled. 
 On the other hand, if it be ascertained that the 
 bearer has gained possession of it by pecuniary 
 payment, or that he has committed some other 
 serious breach of the law, the individual who 
 shall have thus falsely assumed the position of 
 a missionary shall be punished, and the real 
 
Appendix H* 213 
 
 missionary shall be sent back to his own 
 country. In order that the control may be 
 exercised everywhere, the name of the mis- 
 sionary shall be inserted in the passport, in 
 Chinese characters, which will be taken as 
 proof. The passport shall be cancelled in 
 cases where the titulary should have gone back 
 to his own country, should have died, or 
 should have abandoned missionary work. 
 Passports will not be granted in the provinces 
 where there are rebels, nor even hereafter for 
 those where the Imperial army is operating, — 
 with the evident object of securing loyally the 
 safeguard of the missionaries. 
 
 In support of the above scheme the Yamen 
 will recall a missionary case which occurred in 
 Kwei-chow where a certain Chao acted as mis- 
 sionary, albeit his name had no place in the 
 passport register. The Yamen received a 
 letter on this subject from Mr. Interpreter 
 Deveria, in which the latter showed how, ac- 
 cording to an old French register, the mur- 
 dered missionary Chao had received a pass- 
 port, dated the 2nd day of the 6th month of 
 the 4th year of T'ung-chih, in which he was 
 
214 Appendix 11. 
 
 called Jui-Lo-ssij ; that his name of Chao was 
 erroneous ; that the victim was really the said 
 Jui-Lo-ssu ; that, on the other hand, the same 
 Jui-Lo-ssii was inserted under number 325 as 
 going to Sze-chuen and thence to Kwei-chow. 
 However, the Yamen was able to convince it- 
 self that neither this name of Chao nor that of 
 Jui-Lo-ssu figured on its passport register. 
 There was, therefore, a double mistake in the 
 name of the missionary and in that of his resi- 
 dence. How, then, could one establish an 
 identity and secure to the party interested 
 efficacious protection ? 
 
 There was also an affair of murder com- 
 mitted by the missionary Splingaert on the 
 person of a Russian. This Splingaert was first 
 of all a missionary, then entered the Prussian 
 Legation as constable. He none the less re- 
 tained his passport, so that he handed it over 
 to some one else, or lost it, so that not only 
 an abuse, in passing as a missionary, occurred, 
 but grave inconveniences to public affairs might 
 have arisen in case the said passport had fallen 
 into the hands of rebels. On the other hand, 
 the dignity of missionaries seems to us to be 
 seriously injured by such irregularities. 
 
Appendix !!♦ 215 
 
 ARTICLE 6. 
 
 The aim of the missionaries being to exhort 
 men to virtue, it is befitting that before admit- 
 ting an individual to the privileges of religion, 
 he should be examined as to whether he has 
 undergone any sentence or committed any 
 crime. If this examination be in his favour 
 he may become a Christian ; if the contrary he 
 should not be allowed to become one. One 
 ought, moreover, to act as the ministers of our 
 religion do, who give notice to the inspectors 
 of ten families, and cause the name of the per- 
 son to be entered in the register with this pur- 
 pose. In the same way the missionaries ought 
 to give notice to the authorities, who will take 
 note of the day of the month and of the year 
 of admittance, of the country, and of the 
 station in life of the individual, and will ascer- 
 tain if he has ever undergone any sentence, or 
 if he has ever changed his name. By acting 
 thus all confusion will be avoided. If a Chris- 
 tian should be sent on a mission, and he should 
 die on the way, notice should be given to the 
 proper authority. If, after being converted, a 
 
21 6 Appendix !!♦ 
 
 person commits some crime, he should be dis- 
 missed, and no longer regarded as belonging to 
 the religion. Every month, or at least every 
 three months, the authorities ought to be in- 
 formed of the number of conversions. The 
 authorities also should act as they do in regard 
 to our temples, that is to say, they should go 
 every month, or at least every three months, 
 to inspect the missions. This course will do 
 no harm to religion, but, on the contrary, will 
 ensure tranquillity. 
 
 In the ninth year of the reign of T'ung Chih, 
 the Government of Kwei-chow gave notice to 
 the Yamen that at Kwei-'ting-hsien some peo- 
 ple, who were formerly nothing better than 
 thieves, were forming a part of a militia of 
 which the Christians, Yuan Yu-hsiang and 
 Hsia Chen-hsing, were the leaders. Passing 
 themselves off as Christians, these men were 
 highly thought of; however, they committed 
 all sorts of disturbances, killed Wang Chiang- 
 pao and Tso Yin-shu, seriously wounded three 
 other persons, and carried off from the houses 
 not only money, but also all the objects which 
 they contained, even down to the very cattle. 
 
Appendix !!♦ 217 
 
 In the eighth year of the reign of T'ung Chih 
 the Governor of Kwei-chow again warned our 
 Yamen that at Tsun Yi-hsien a petition had 
 been addressed, with the object of declaring 
 that some rebels, of whom the leaders were 
 Sun Yu-shan, T'ang Shen-hsien, T'ang Yuan- 
 shuai, Chien Yuen-shuai, had embraced the 
 Catholic religion, and that they still continued 
 within and without the town to stir up inde- 
 scribable and countless disturbances and trou- 
 bles. In the same place, also, some people 
 named Yang Hsi-po, Liu Kai-wen, Ching 
 Hsiao-ming, Ho Wen-chiu, Chao Wen-an had 
 embraced the Catholic religion, and were even 
 employed in the interior of the mission. How- 
 ever, outside they practised all sorts of exac- 
 tions upon the orphans, and intimidated those 
 who were poor in spirit. They were perpetu- 
 ally to the Yamen, and undertook to regulate 
 the trials. In an affair between a Christian and 
 a countryman, if the mandarin administered 
 justice to the latter, they collected the Chris- 
 tians, invaded the Yamen, and forced the au- 
 thorities to reverse the sentences. If, in spite 
 of that, the mandarin would not give the 
 
21 8 Appendix !!♦ 
 
 Christian up to them, they returned with the 
 card of a missionary, and claimed on his behalf 
 the liberty of their friend. 
 
 Besides, they committed all sorts of attempts 
 upon persons and properties; if resistance was 
 offered them, they struck blows and did not 
 even fear to kill, and were guilty besides of 
 many other crimes. 
 
 ARTICLE 7. 
 
 The missionaries ought to observe Chinese 
 customs, and to deviate from them in no re- 
 spect ; for instance, they ought not to make 
 use of seals, the use of which is reserved for 
 functionaries alone. It is not allowed them to 
 send despatches to a Yamen, whatever may be 
 their importance. If, however, for an urgent 
 matter it should be absolutely necessary to 
 write, they may do it ; but taking good care 
 not to speak of matters beyond the subject, 
 and making use like people belonging to the 
 class of literates, of the Ping-tieh (petition). 
 When the missionaries visit a great mandarin, 
 they must observe the same ceremonies as 
 those exacted from the literates ; if they visit a 
 
Appendix IL 219 
 
 mandarin of inferior rank, they must also con- 
 form to the customary ceremonies. They 
 must not unceremoniously go into the Yamens 
 and bring disorder and confusion into the 
 affair. 
 
 In the sixth year of the reign of T'ung Chih 
 the Governor of Sze-chuen wrote to us that 
 the French Bishop, Monseigneur Pinchon, 
 had, in a letter which he sent to the authorities, 
 made use of an official seal manufactured by 
 himself. 
 
 In the seventh year of the reign of T^ung 
 Chih, Monseigneur Faurie,^ Bishop of Kwei- 
 chow, handed to the officer charged with the 
 remission of the letters of the Government, a 
 despatch to the address of the Yamen to ask 
 that marks of distinction should be accorded to 
 a Taoutae called To Wen, and to other per- 
 sons besides. 
 
 In Shan-tung a missionary passed himself 
 off as Hsiun-fu (Provincial Governor). 
 
 In Sze-chuen and Kwei-chow missionaries 
 took upon themselves to demand the recall of 
 mandarins who had not arranged their affairs to 
 1 Mentioned as Faure, p. 86. 
 
220 Appendix K 
 
 their satisfaction. So it is not only the author- 
 ity of simple functionaries that they assume ; 
 they claim, further, a power which the Sover- 
 eign alone possesses. After such acts how 
 could general indignation fail to be aroused? 
 
 ARTICLE 8. 
 
 Missionaries shall not be allowed to claim, 
 as belonging to the church, the property which 
 it may please them to designate; in this way no 
 difficulty will arise. If the missionaries wish to 
 buy a portion of land on which to build a 
 church, or hire a house in which to take up 
 their residence, they must, before concluding 
 the bargain, go with the real proprietor and 
 make a declaration to the local authority who 
 will examine whether the Feng-shui presents 
 any obstacle. If the official decides that no 
 inconvenience arises from the Feng-shui, it will 
 then be necessary to ask the consent of the in- 
 habitants of the place. These two formalities 
 fulfilled, it will be necessary besides, in the 
 text of the contract, to follow the ruling pub- 
 lished in the fourth year of the reign of T'ung- 
 chih, that is to say, to declare that the land 
 
Appendix !!♦ 221 
 
 belongs with full rights to Chinese Christians. 
 It will not be allowed in the purchase of prop- 
 erties to make a transfer making use of another 
 name than that of the real purchaser ; it will 
 also be forbidden to make this transfer in man- 
 ner contrary to law, following the advice of 
 dishonest people. 
 
 The missionaries residing constantly in 
 China must strive to inspire confidence, so as 
 not to excite the discontent and aversion of the 
 people ; but on the contrary to live on good 
 terms with them without ever exciting suspi- 
 cion. At this moment there is almost always 
 discord between the two parties, and the cause 
 of it is the conduct of the Christians. So as 
 regards the property of the church, there have 
 been claims during these last years in all the 
 provinces, and the missionaries exact the res- 
 titution, without troubling themselves as to 
 whether it wounds the susceptibility of the 
 people or is injurious to their interests. Be- 
 sides there are fine houses belonging to the 
 literates that they claim, and expel the pro- 
 prietor from them at the shortest notice. But 
 what is worst, and what wounds the dignity of 
 
222 Appendix II* 
 
 the people, is that they often claim as their 
 property Yamens, places of assembly, temples 
 held in high respect by the literates and the 
 inhabitants of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Certainly, in each province are houses which 
 formerly belonged to the Church; but note 
 must be taken of the number of years which 
 have passed since, and it must be remem- 
 bered that Christians sold these houses, and 
 that they have, perhaps, passed through 
 the hands of several proprietors. It must 
 also be remembered that the house was, per- 
 haps, old and dilapidated when sold, and that 
 the purchaser has, perhaps, incurred great 
 expense in repairs, or has even built a new 
 one. The missionaries take no account of 
 all this, they exact a restitution, and do not 
 even offer the least indemnity. Sometimes 
 they even ask for repairs to be made, or if not, 
 for a sum of money. Such conduct excites 
 the indignation of the people, who look with 
 no favourable eye on the missionaries. Such 
 being the case no friendship can exist. 
 
 The facts that are stated in this Memoran- 
 dum have been chosen as examples among 
 
Appendix II* 223 
 
 many others to demonstrate what is irregular 
 in the acts of the missionaries, and to prove 
 the impossibihty of Christians and non-Chris- 
 tians Hving harmoniously. 
 
 It is urgent, therefore, to seek a remedy for 
 the evil ; both one and the other will find it to 
 their advantage, and it will obviate this sole 
 question of the missions becoming fatal to the 
 great interests of peace between China and the 
 West. 
 
 We do not attempt to enumerate the many 
 matters which are agitating in the provinces. 
 The object is to separate the tares from the 
 good grain, to punish the wicked in the inter- 
 est of the good. With respect to commerce, 
 for instance, merchants guilty of dishonesty 
 are severely punished in order to protect the 
 honour of commerce in general. From the 
 time that the missionaries admit every one, 
 without taking care to distinguish between the 
 good and the bad, these last pour into the 
 Christian community, and relying on the sup- 
 port of the missionaries molest people of 
 property and despise the authority of the 
 magistrates. Under these conditions the re- 
 
224 Appendix U* 
 
 sentment of the multitude grows deep. If 
 the entire Chinese people should, hke the 
 inhabitants of Tientsin, come to detest for- 
 eigners, the supreme authority itself could no 
 longer be able to interpose efficaciously. Such 
 are the dangers which the present situation 
 implies. 
 
 The rules which we now propose are the 
 last expression of our firm will to protect the 
 missionaries, and have nothing in their import 
 hostile to them. If they sincerely endeavour 
 to conform themselves to them, good harmony 
 might be maintained ; if, on the other hand, 
 the missionaries consider these same rules in 
 the light of attempts upon their independence, 
 or contrary to their rites, they may cease to 
 preach their religion in China. The Chinese 
 government treats its Christian and its non- 
 Christian subjects on a footing of perfect 
 equality ; that is the evident proof that it is 
 not opposed to the work of the missions. In 
 return, the missionaries, allowing themselves 
 to be duped by the Christians, do not adhere 
 faithfully to their duties. From this state of 
 things a hatred of the masses must result. 
 
Appendix II* 225 
 
 which it will be very difficult to combat, and 
 a general overthrow of order, which will make 
 all protection an impossibility. It would be 
 far better from henceforth to speak the truth 
 frankfully. 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 fM 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE CHING-SHIH-WEN- 
 SHU-PIENS OR "BLUE BOOKS." 
 
 RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDISM : ONE OF THE MOST 
 
 IMPORTANT POINTS AS REGARDS INTERCOURSE WITH 
 
 FOREIGNERS. 
 
 Bj' LI PENG-YUAN. 
 
 It is our opinion that foreign missionaries 
 are in very truth the source whence springs all 
 trouble in China. Foreigners come to China 
 from a distance of several ten thousands of 
 miles and from about ten different countries 
 with only two objects in view, namely trade and 
 religious propagandism. With the former they 
 intend to gradually deprive China of her wealth, 
 and with the latter they likewise seek to steal 
 away the hearts of her people. The ostensible 
 
 1 This is the work referred to on pp. 64 and 137, as "^King- 
 sz-wen." 
 
 226 
 
Appendix III* 227 
 
 pretext they put forward is the cultivation of 
 friendly relations ; what their hidden purpose 
 is, is unfathomable, but the fact remains that 
 trouble between Christian converts and the 
 common people is for ever cropping up. 
 
 Originally the nations of the West had only 
 one religion, that of Christ ; but this one reli- 
 gion has now divided itself into three ; that of 
 Jesus (Protestants), that of the Lord of Heaven 
 (Roman Catholics), and that known as "Hsila" 
 (Hellenic or Greek Church). The character- 
 istic to these religions of theirs is that whether 
 united or divided, whether in prosperity or in 
 adversity, their missionaries must go abroad 
 throughout the world and endeavour to con- 
 vert men to their religion and lead them to fol- 
 low in their path. Now that China has given 
 permission to foreigners to proclaim their doc- 
 trines she must according to treaty extend them 
 her protection, but wherever missionaries go 
 they ought to be subject to the local authori- 
 ties and not mix themselves up with public 
 affairs. It is unfortunately the case that evilly 
 disposed natives of China constantly rely on 
 the protection which their conversion to the 
 
228 Appendix HI* 
 
 foreign religion affords them, and on the 
 strength thereof they commit every kind of 
 base and illegal action. They impose on the 
 more simple minded of their fellow villagers, 
 they insult and oppress the orphans and the 
 weak, they forcibly abduct the wives of others, 
 they take violent possession of land which is 
 not their own, they make difficulties about pay- 
 ing rent due to their landlord, they defiantly 
 decline in open court to contribute their pro- 
 portion of legal taxes, they raise a quarrel about 
 some public matter and then seek to throw the 
 blame on others, and on account of some pri- 
 vate disagreement they go even to the length 
 of beating and murdering peaceable citizens. 
 Every sort of crime can be laid to their charge, 
 and it would be difficult to draw up a complete 
 list of their transgressions. The missionaries 
 without sufficient knowledge of the real facts 
 of the case, and deceived by their ex parte state- 
 ments, are in the habit of coming forward as 
 their protectors and openly assisting them. It 
 often happens that they hide away the defend- 
 ant in a suit in order that he may not appear 
 in court, and in certain instances when the guilt 
 
Appendix III* 229 
 
 of an offender has been conclusively proved 
 and his punishment decided on, they in the 
 most public manner have connived at his get- 
 ting away to a foreign country, with the result 
 that he is not to be had and the case remains 
 in abeyance. 
 
 Many officials, moreover, induced by a dread 
 of complications, act from the beginning with 
 too excreme caution, and in ignorance of for- 
 eign laws are glad to compromise a case any- 
 how. The result is that justice is never done, 
 and the people always have a grievance. Nat- 
 urally, as causes for complaint accumulate, the 
 spirit of resentment waxes stronger day by day, 
 and a desire for revenge is created, which cul- 
 minates in the destruction of Chapels and the 
 ill-treatment of missionaries, and feuds be- 
 tween missionary converts and their neighbours 
 go on increasing. Although of course the 
 high authorities concerned take steps to arrange 
 these matters, they are for the greater part far 
 removed from the scene of action, and but im- 
 perfectly acquainted with the hidden details ; 
 and as it often happens that their respective 
 laws differ, each holds firmly to his own opin- 
 
230 Appendix HI* 
 
 ion, and the settlement of the case becomes 
 more complicated and protracted. They {i.e.;, 
 the foreigners), however, are in the habit of 
 resorting to force, and using all manner of in- 
 timidation, press their point, so that even 
 after the principal offenders have been pun- 
 ished, they claim compensation for the de- 
 stroyed property, and even after the officials 
 have lost their posts they, on the strength of 
 these occurrences, clamour for the opening of 
 more ports — proceedings contrary to all prin- 
 ciples of right and justice, and utterly opposed 
 to treaty stipulations. 
 
 The nature of the situation calls for the 
 adoption of some satisfactory agreement to be 
 observed by both sides which will conduce 
 towards the maintenance of peaceful relations 
 for the future. 
 
 Now, no Chinese subject at all cognizant of 
 right and justice or in any way imbued with a 
 spirit of virtue would allow himself to be led 
 away by these doctrines of theirs. Those who 
 do become converts are either so actuated by 
 mercenary motives that they have lost all self- 
 respect, or are labouring under some hallucina- 
 
Appendix III* 231 
 
 tion which they have not been able to throw 
 off; they are either evilly disposed persons 
 who want influence on their side or criminals 
 who seek to escape justice. They must in the 
 first instance have a contempt for law and 
 order ere they would dare to rebel thus against 
 reason and true principles. 
 
 Again, although the missionaries are foreign- 
 ers, their converts still remain Chinese subjects, 
 and a large enough concession forsooth has 
 been made to the spirit of friendliness and 
 toleration in allowing the missionaries to carry 
 on religious propagandism at all, without up- 
 holding their converts against the rest of the 
 people. Surely it is not our wish to first force 
 the whole nation to embrace their doctrines 
 and then clap our hand for joy ! Such a 
 calamity would be too deep for words. 
 
 For the future the name of every convert 
 should be entered on a list held by the local 
 authorities and communicated to the Consul 
 concerned ; and each convert should have the 
 two characters " Chiao-min " inserted on his 
 " men-p'ai," (i.e., the slip of paper on each 
 house door describing the inmates). There 
 
232 Appendix HI* 
 
 should also be some distinction of dress, and 
 if any dispute arise it ought to be decided 
 according to Chinese law by the local authori- 
 ties, the Consul sitting as assessor. The 
 missionary ought not to be allowed to protect 
 the criminal in any way. Should the defendant 
 prior to his being arraigned not have his name 
 on the list above mentioned he is not to be 
 considered a convert, and will be dealt with by 
 the local authorities as they see fit, the mission- 
 ary of course in such a case having less than 
 ever to do with the proceedings. 
 
 Should any missionary mix himself up with 
 any public matter or resort to intimidation in 
 any way some severe punishment must be 
 meted out to him, and his Minister be imme- 
 diately requested to have him sent back to his 
 own country ^^ four encourager les autres" 
 

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