MISSIONARIES AND MISSIONARY 
 WORK, 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. T. R. JERNIGAN. 
 U. S. &a«»Sl*General 
 
 Shanghai. 
 
 Printed by the Yokohama Bunsha. 
 
 189 7 . 
 
MISSIONARIES AND MISSIONARY ‘ 
 WORK. 
 
 By Hon. T. R. Jernigan, 
 
 i 
 
 Consul-General at Shanghai , 
 China. 
 
 HE riots in China during the 
 
 X spring and summer of 1895, 
 elicited opinions wherever the chan¬ 
 nels of intelligence penetrated. The 
 efficiency of missionary work was 
 widely discussed, and from the 
 various arguments, various conclu¬ 
 sions were deduced. The discussions 
 appear to have been more energetic 
 than former discussions on kindred 
 subjects, and this may have been 
 due to the advanced state of mental 
 culture, which ever admits the in¬ 
 fluence of religious training as a 
 
potential agency in the progress of 
 civilization. 
 
 a When it became known that the 
 Christian mission at Cheng-tu had 
 been looted and burned, and that a 
 few weeks later, men, women and 
 children had been murdered at 
 Kucheng, because they had gone 
 there to teach Christianity, the feel¬ 
 ing of the civilized world grew in¬ 
 dignant and horrified by the outrage 
 and murder. Whatever opinions 
 were entertained as to the efficiency 
 of missionary work, no one in civil¬ 
 ized lands excused or palliated the 
 violence of the Chinese rioters, and 
 it should be written to the credit of 
 Americans in China that they w T ere 
 the first to convene jn public assem¬ 
 bly and to present to their Govern¬ 
 ment resolutions of condemnation. 
 And it is no less due to historic truth 
 to write that it was the Government 
 of the United States which took the 
 first step to impress upon China that 
 
— 3 - 
 
 in no part of her vast territory could 
 an American citizen be disturbed in 
 bis rights with impunity. 
 
 The excitement of the year 1895 
 has somewhat passed away. Fond 
 memory has erected a beautiful 
 memorial shaft as a final tribute to 
 the martyred dead of Kucheng, and 
 those who were driven from their 
 homes at Cheng-tu have returned 
 to their work of Christian love and 
 charity. The courier lines of Chris¬ 
 tian civilization have been advanced, 
 and their outposts are as loyally 
 sentineled as was the faith that was 
 first at the cross and last at the 
 grave. The time and the surround¬ 
 ings seem opportune for the subject 
 of this paper. 
 
 There are about eleven hundred 
 American missionaries in China rep¬ 
 resenting the Protestant Churches 
 of the United States and following 
 their respective callings in the dif¬ 
 ferent provinces of the Empire. 
 
— 4 — 
 
 Many of these missionaries I know 
 personally, and I have visited some 
 at their homes and attended the 
 services they conduct in their chap¬ 
 els. They need no witness to testify 
 in their behalf. Their work is not 
 done in a corner ; all can see it, and 
 those who go to learn the truth and 
 will speak and write it are the best 
 witnesses to the Christian character 
 of the missionary and the efficiency 
 of his work. 
 
 My experience as a United States 
 official in Japan and China covers a 
 period of six years, and during that 
 period no case has come before me 
 for advice or settlement, involving 
 directly or indirectly the interest of 
 the Christian churches, when it has 
 ever been made to appear that the 
 missionaries were not influenced in 
 their conduct by the highest princi¬ 
 ples of right and humanity. 
 
 There ought to be no patience 
 with the sentiment that goes out to 
 
the great outer world, which is sepa¬ 
 rated by the seas from this ancient 
 Empire, depreciating missionaries 
 and missionary work. It is a senti¬ 
 ment that does not commend those 
 who indulge in it, and cannot be 
 supported by evidence that would be 
 admissible in any court of justice. 
 Whatever may have been the social 
 and mental culture of the American 
 traveller in the interior of China, he 
 cannot be envied if when far from 
 the open ports and resting within 
 some walled city, he does not feel 
 new inspiration and relief as he hears 
 the morning and evening hells of 
 some American mission ringing out, 
 clear and distinct, against an idola¬ 
 trous sky, the notes which, on every 
 Sabbath morning, vocalize his na¬ 
 tive land with a hymn of praise to 
 the God who has favored that land 
 above all other lands. Wherever 
 an American mission chapel may be 
 found in China there the words of 
 
6 — 
 
 Christ are taught ; and around the 
 home altars of American mission¬ 
 aries, the Christian virtues are 
 practiced and the customs and teach¬ 
 ings of home inculcated. 
 
 Within such homes, patriotic 
 sentiments are cultivated, and the 
 children learn from example to re¬ 
 vere the great names of our history 
 and the events recorded therein 
 which have made bright and happy 
 the future of American manhood. 
 Distance and time have in no sense 
 abated the love of home and country 
 in the breast of the American mis¬ 
 sionary, and the stars and stripes 
 waving over legations and consulates 
 in this distant laud, are as much 
 the cynosure of hope to him as when 
 seen floating from the dome of the 
 Capitol. Association and experience 
 have impressed upon me the truths 
 I have here written, and justice to 
 American citizenship demands that 
 they be stated. 
 

 The efficiency of missionary work 
 has other tests than the statistics 
 which show the number of the mis¬ 
 sion stations and converts. The 
 customs and prejudices of the coun¬ 
 try are agencies promotive or non- 
 „ promotive, and, when the latter, 
 prove of the most insuperable dif¬ 
 ficulty. Tested by this standard 
 no field was more uninviting than 
 China, for the customs and pre¬ 
 judices of the Chinese were entrench¬ 
 ed in centuries of superstition that 
 met the missionary at the border 
 with a wall of conservatism which 
 had withstood the intellectual as¬ 
 saults of all former ages. 
 
 Here is the most ancient Empire 
 of the world. As far back as bistory 
 has reached, China existed twenty- 
 two hundred years before Christ, 
 fifteen hundred before the founding 
 of Home, and seven hundred vears 
 before the date of the Exodus. And 
 as it existed when history first 
 
— 8 
 
 found it, so it has existed during all 
 the intervening centuries. The 
 ethics, the laws and the administra¬ 
 tion thereof have not changed. The 
 most industrious and far-reaching 
 research into antiquity records that 
 the Chinese were governed by the 
 same form of parental government 
 which has stood unshaken amid the 
 fall of surrounding Empires* and is 
 as influential in its life today. 
 
 Whatever pertains to the land or 
 the people of China carries with it 
 the idea of immensity. The Empire 
 includes five million square miles, 
 while the eighteen provinces which 
 divide China proper embrace an area 
 of one million, five hundred thou¬ 
 sand, with an average size of over 
 eighty thousand square miles, about 
 twice the size of Ohio or Virginia, 
 and an average population of sixteen 
 millions, though some of the pro¬ 
 vinces contain as many as thirty- 
 million inhabitants. 
 
9 
 
 One of the great plains of the 
 world is the plain through which 
 flow the Yellow and Yangtse rivers, 
 being two hundred and ten miles in 
 extent and supporting a population 
 of one hundred and seventy-five 
 millions, nearly three times as large 
 as the population of the United 
 States by the last census. The 
 sceptre of the Emperor of China 
 bears sway over one-tenth of the 
 habitable globe, and, according to 
 estimates, his subjects number four 
 hundred millions. In territory and 
 population, the reader has before 
 him the magnitude of the undertak¬ 
 ing to make an entry into either, 
 and can appreciate the difficulty on 
 this line encountered by the mission¬ 
 ary. The land and the people are 
 not only immense and overwhelm¬ 
 ing, but strange, unique and without 
 analogy. 
 
 But other difficulties, more in¬ 
 superable than the size of territory 
 
— 10 — 
 
 and the number of population, meet 
 the pioneer missionary at the thresh- 
 hold of his undertaking. He must 
 learn one of the most difficult of 
 languages, and one which appears 
 to have been fashioned to exclude 
 successful communication with other 
 nations. In the place of an alpha¬ 
 bet there are twenty-five thousand 
 hieroglyphics, or ideographic char¬ 
 acters, each constituting a word, and 
 out of which there is a language 
 exclusively for literary use, to be 
 seen, not heard ; to be read, not 
 spoken ; and with a branch some¬ 
 what easier and less stilted. Next 
 comes the language of the Man¬ 
 darins or court language, spoken in 
 the northern and central provinces, 
 and one which about ten per cent, 
 of the men and one per cent, of the 
 women who read it can understand. 
 And thus from such an alphabet, 
 as it were, three dissimilar languages 
 have been constructed, and these 
 
— 11 
 
 must be mastered by the missionary 
 before he can preach unaided to all 
 classes of Chinese. 
 
 Linguistic talent and application 
 will in time enable their possessor 
 to learn the Chinese language, but 
 after he does learn it a difficulty 
 still more insuperable confronts him, 
 for nothing is so difficult to over¬ 
 come as habits of religious thought 
 and conviction. Lessons of religious 
 duty taught around the fire side and 
 impressed by daily example become 
 imbedded in the inmost heart, and 
 grow with our growing. Such les¬ 
 sons shape life and are hallowed by 
 the memories of early association and 
 parental love ; and the Chinese like 
 other people, probably to an extent 
 not surpassed by any other people, 
 hold ancestral teachings and examples 
 in the most sacred memory, and it is 
 this principle of human nature that 
 is the basis of the opposition of the 
 Chinese to missionary work. 
 
12 — 
 
 The missionary when he comes to 
 China finds three religions dwell¬ 
 ing harmoniously side by side. The 
 writings of Confucius are the source 
 from which the rulers and literati 
 derive their theories of government 
 and social duties, and the ethics of 
 this Chinese writer pervade and in¬ 
 fluence every phase of Chinese life. 
 The doctrines taught by Confucius 
 are cited as the infallible criterion of 
 uprightness in public and private 
 life, and were disseminated centuries 
 before the coming of Christ. Then 
 there is Taoism, a second form of 
 religious faith and practice, originat¬ 
 ing with Laotse in the century the 
 Jews returned from Babylon. And 
 it is recorded that the Emperor who 
 reigned in the year 65 A. D., being- 
 dissatisfied with the conclusions of 
 either or both of the philosophers 
 named, sent an embassy to India in 
 search of something better, and as 
 the result Buddhism made its advent 
 
13 — 
 
 into China. The three religions in¬ 
 dicated were peacefully taught in 
 China when Mohammedanism arose 
 and its adherents entered the Empire 
 and have increased their number, 
 principally in the Western provinces, 
 to thirty millions. These facts are 
 presented as evidence that to lead 
 China into new religious paths will 
 require the most patient persever¬ 
 ance and a faith that never falters. 
 
 The first attempt to introduce the 
 Gospel into China was made by the 
 Nestorians in the sixth century. 
 From the published accounts, they 
 entered the west of the Empire and 
 resolutely pushed across the vast 
 space of desert and mountain ranges 
 of that geographical section. Details 
 are wanting to show the full extent 
 of their work, but there is little 
 doubt that they made multitudes of 
 disciples, and that afterwards they 
 lost their influence. The famous 
 tablet at Sing-an in Shan-si, bearing 
 
_ 14 — 
 
 date 781 A. D., and in Chinese and 
 Syriac characters, telling something 
 of the triumph of the cross, is the 
 oidy visible trace of the Nestorian 
 effort to plant firmly the cross in 
 China. Very recently I saw some 
 of the Nestorian sect in Shanghai, and 
 when they requested a small contri¬ 
 bution to aid in some religious work, 
 I asked about the history of their 
 sect, and was pointed to the tablet 
 at Sing-an as proof of their first at¬ 
 tempt to teach Christianity in China. 
 
 The failure of the Nestorians did 
 not discourage other Christian de¬ 
 nominations from attempting to 
 Christianize China, and in the 13th 
 century the Catholics entered the 
 Empire also from the West. They 
 were at first successful, when the 
 decline of Catholic influence was 
 arrested by the zeal of Xavier, 
 whose plans of evangelization were 
 conceived with the fervent energy 
 and comprehensiveness which have 
 
15 
 
 brought so many triumphs to the 
 Catholic Church, and the realization 
 of which in this case death alone 
 prevented. In 1580, Vaglignani, 
 the Superior of Jesuit missions in the 
 far East, selected Matteo Ricci and 
 others, and sent them to Macao to 
 push their way into the interior, 
 and for a hundred and fifty years 
 from 1580, great activity was dis¬ 
 played, and many converts were 
 made, and after an effort of twenty- 
 one years a Catholic Mission was 
 erected at Peking. Success now 
 seemed assured, hut the Benedictines 
 and the Franciscans and Jesuits 
 who bad moved in solid line until a 
 lodgment had been made in Peking, 
 no sooner planted the cross than 
 dissensions arose among themselves, 
 when the constant appeals to the Pope 
 caused confidence to be shaken in their 
 professions, and resulted in the edict 
 of 1736 for their expulsion. Then a 
 long period of persecution followed. 
 
If the Churches of Christ could 
 marshal their influences and centre 
 them in China by a united effort, 
 the exclamation of Vaglignani, cent¬ 
 uries ago, “ 0 Rock, Rock, when 
 wilt thou open?” may have been 
 sooner answered, and affirmatively. 
 
 But the cause of missionary work 
 in China received an immense ad¬ 
 vantage when the successful naviga¬ 
 tor, Yasco de Gama, doubled the 
 Cape of Good Hope. This daring 
 feat of navigation pointed out a new 
 route for commerce, and introduced 
 Europeans to Asiatics. Thus it is 
 that Christianity and commerce 
 have ever been the pioneer agents of 
 the larger civilization that follows, 
 potentially aiding, one the other, in 
 extending the domain of Christian 
 culture, and the refinement of human 
 wants. 
 
 At the beginning of the present 
 century the Chinese were no more 
 favorably disposed to mission work 
 
— 17 
 
 than previously, but the earnest zeal 
 of the missionary was inspired by a 
 brighter hope. The discovery of 
 Vasco de Gama had opened new 
 ports, and the London {Society was 
 the first Anglo Saxon missionary 
 society to move China-ward, and 
 Bobert Morrison was selected to be 
 the pioneer. The East India Com¬ 
 pany at the time enjoyed a mo¬ 
 nopoly of the China carrying trade, 
 but when Mr. Morrison applied for 
 passage to China on one of the Com¬ 
 pany’s vessels he was refused, and 
 it was necessary for him to voyage 
 to New York, and from there sail 
 for China on an American vessel. 
 He was iiine months in reaching 
 Macao, and at Macao the first reg¬ 
 ular Anglo-Saxon missionary laid 
 his plans for missionary work in 
 China. 
 
 What has been subsequently ac¬ 
 complished is told in the reports of 
 the Missionary Societies in China, 
 
18 — 
 
 every figure telling a volume of 
 sacrifice and struggle, and the ag¬ 
 gregate of the statistical tables pre¬ 
 senting results that should be con¬ 
 vincing to the most cynical. 
 
 The Catholic Church has twenty- 
 five bishoprics, and claims a member¬ 
 ship of1,000,000, not including Thibet, 
 Mongolia and Manchuria, and en¬ 
 couraged by such success, its restless 
 energy is directed to the alleviation 
 of bodily as well as spiritual suf¬ 
 fering, and its churches, hospitals 
 and schools attest continued success. 
 
 At the great Protestant Mission¬ 
 ary Conference, at Shanghai, in 1890, 
 the statistics showed that forty so¬ 
 cieties were represented* by one 
 thousand, two hundred and ninety- 
 six workers, and that there were two 
 hundred and eleven ordained, and 
 one thousand, two hundred and six¬ 
 ty-six unordained Chinese rendering 
 efficient service. The entire mission¬ 
 ary force was reported at 2,953, or 
 
— 19 
 
 1,266 Europeans and 1,657 natives, 
 and of the 522 organized churches 
 ninety-four were fully self-support¬ 
 ing. The membership was 37,287, 
 and the contributions of the native 
 Christians for the preceding year 
 were $36,885. Later statistics* in¬ 
 crease the number of the missionary 
 force to 1,650, and the membership 
 of the churches to 50,000, and esti¬ 
 mate that there are about 100,000 
 who have put themeselves within 
 the influence of the Gospel. 
 
 In the department of mission 
 education, success has been no less 
 assuring. There are now 1,645 
 foreign and native teachers and 21,- 
 353 scholars, many of the latter 
 studying the English language, who 
 in the near future will prove the 
 medium of spreading it to all parts 
 of the Empire. What an agency 
 in the furtherance of commerce! 
 
 * Now, missionaries, 2,700 ; converts, 70,000. 
 
— 20 — 
 
 Bat it is the mission hospitals that 
 would appear to impress the Chinese 
 most with the efficiency of mission 
 work, and called forth the remark 
 from the great Viceroy, Li Hung 
 Chang : “ We Chinese think we can 
 take care of our souls well enough, 
 but evidently you can take care of 
 our bodies better than we, so send 
 us medical missionaries in abun¬ 
 dance.” The cures made in the 
 hospitals, the Chinese see. They 
 may not understand how they are 
 made, but they know they are made. 
 There are seventy-four mission 
 hospitals, and in 1893, there were 
 18,898 patients. 
 
 The figures given prove, compara¬ 
 tively, that in religion, education and 
 medicine the missionaries have made, 
 decided progress, and merit the en¬ 
 couragement of public sentiment. 
 If considered from a commercial 
 point of view, missionary work has 
 accomplished advantages to trade 
 
21 
 
 which the present awakening of 
 China will soon evidence to be of 
 great practical value. China can 
 no longer sleep. The agencies of 
 a civilization whose progress knows 
 no receding ebb, are busily at work 
 Within the Empire. Civil engineers 
 are now mapping the vast territory 
 of China and tracing lines for con¬ 
 templated railways, aided by the 
 information furnished by the mis¬ 
 sionary, and closely following his 
 tracks across plains and mountains, 
 and by these tracks the business 
 man pilots his ventures to the far 
 interior marts. In the absence of 
 the information furnished by the 
 missionary, many of the trade marts 
 of China would be still unfamiliar 
 to the merchant, and demands for 
 his merchandise confined to much 
 narrower limits. It should be re¬ 
 membered that the ensign of com¬ 
 merce follows close in the wake of 
 the banner of the cross, and he who 
 
22 
 
 would strike down the h'and that 
 carries the latter injures the interest 
 of the- former. Whatever comforts 
 are enjoyed by the missionary are 
 deserved by the nature and far- 
 reaching results of bis work; and a 
 just public sentiment should he 
 ready to add to, but never diminish 
 them .—Christian Observer. 
 
* yy • .• . .. >