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 Successes and Opportunities 
 in Evangelizing the World 
 
 Korea 
 
 Rev. GEORGE HEBER JONES, Ph.D. 
 
 Chemulpo, Korea 
 
 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 RINDGE LITERATURE DEPARTMENT 
 150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/successesopportuOOjone 
 
Successes and Opportunities 
 in Korea. 
 
 Rev. GEORGE HEBER JONES, Ph.D. 
 Chemulpo, Korea 
 
 A Striking Country and People 
 
 The peninsula empire occupies about eighty-five 
 thousand square miles of mountainous and well- 
 watered territory. Here live ten millions of 
 Koreans, speaking one language and holding to the 
 same traditions and history and the same forms of 
 religion. There are but four large cities in the 
 land — Seoul, Songdo, Pyengyang, and Taiku — em- 
 bracing only one twentieth of the population, the 
 Korean people being altogether agricultural in 
 their occupations. We are laboring among a na- 
 tion of farmers. 
 
 These people hold to three general forms of re- 
 ligion: Confucianism, the state religion; Bud- 
 dhism, which shorn of its power and grandeur is 
 now fallen into decay; and Shamanism or spirit- 
 ualistic nature worship, the popular cult of the 
 common people, holding them in abject bondage to 
 dark superstitions, degrading practices, and insane 
 fears and fancies. 
 
 In character the Korean people are naturally 
 3 
 
friendly. To those who inspire them with respect 
 and confidence they are the soul of generous hos- 
 pitality. The Koreans are intellectually inclined; 
 the national ideal is the scholar. Whereas in China 
 the cast of mind is commercial, giving us a nation 
 of merchants, and in Japan it is military, giving us 
 a nation of warriors, in Korea it is literary, giving 
 us a nation of thinkers. The Koreans are conserva- 
 tive. Conservatism is characteristic of age, and the 
 Koreans are an old nation. At the time when our 
 ancestors were wild savages, wandering in the for- 
 ests of northern Europe clad in skins, practicing 
 rites, holding to superstitions and living amid con- 
 ditions far worse than those which prevail in 
 Korea to-day, Korea had its king and government 
 and had begun its existence as an independent peo- 
 ple. That was three thousand years ago. For 
 three thousand years they have walked those moun- 
 tain slopes and along the river banks; for three 
 thousand years they have toiled and struggled, 
 seeking, hoping, despairing of a coming day. But 
 there are bright spots of light and beauty in the 
 picture. Let us look at some of them. 
 
 Successes of Christian Missions in Korea 
 
 Twenty-five years ago Korea was an unknown 
 land. It had its place on the map, but its coasts 
 were unsurveyed, its rivers unexplored, and the 
 names of its cities unknown. No treaties with 
 Christian nations existed ; no commerce brought 
 wealth to the people; no travelers visited the coun- 
 try, and the outside world was equally unknown to 
 the Korean. He bad heard of the white man and 
 even seen a few specimens of that race, most of 
 whom he had promptly killed and thrown to the 
 dogs and ravens to eat. He had seen enough to 
 convince him that the white man was a wild, tbiev- 
 4 
 
ing savage, whose language sounded like the twit- 
 tering of sparrows and the chatterings of magpies, 
 whose customs and ideas were immoral and blas- 
 phemous. whose costume and appearance were dia- 
 bolical, and whose religion was the sum of all vil- 
 lainies. 
 
 Barriers Overcome 
 
 This was the Korean's idea of the white man, 
 written in his laws and literature and deep-grained 
 in his nature. Two short decades ago America 
 led the way in opening up Korea diplomatically, 
 Christian missions immediately followed to put an 
 end forever to such conditions as I have described, 
 and in the van, commanding one wing of the ad- 
 vance guard, was our own Methodist Church. 
 Missionaries were sent to found the work, and 
 what a task confronted them ! 
 
 They had to wrest from a pagan government and 
 an antagonistic populace the right to reside with- 
 in the borders of the land, to travel, study, teach, 
 and convert; they had to face the peril and danger 
 of the plague and pestilence, the sea, the moun- 
 tains, and lonely places, the mob, robbers, wild 
 beasts, and savage men. They bad to master a 
 barbarous tongue and make it the servitor of 
 Christ, a language so perverse that one has said he 
 doubted if a man could speak the truth with it. 
 They had to stand firm and unflinching amid the 
 loneliness and desolation of their situation. They 
 did it. They built over against the institutions of 
 heathenism the institutions of Christ. They set 
 up the altar of the true God in the midst of the 
 myriad altars of false gods; they cried forth into 
 the noise, confusion and babble of false ideas and 
 wild superstitions the eternal truth of God in 
 Christ Jesus: and in eighteen years the prejudices 
 and antagonism of ten millions of people three 
 5 
 
thousand years deep in their heathenism have been 
 conquered, and in their place friendly relations 
 established. I submit that were this all we had to 
 show it would be enough for the first eighteen 
 years of labor. 
 
 Vantage Points Gained 
 
 But not only have we secured for ourselves the 
 right to work, but a revolution has been established 
 in the thought and attitude of the people toward 
 Christ such as has taken centuries to produce in 
 other lands. Christianity has been vindicated from 
 the base calumnies with which it was slandered. 
 The laws in the penal code which denounce death 
 to all who embrace our religion have been rendered 
 a dead letter. From looking upon it as a religion 
 fit only for barbarians and savages the lordly Con- 
 fucianist cries out in amazement, “Your Christ is 
 as great as our Sage!” One of the most honored 
 and ablest statesmen of Korea said to me : “Go on 
 with your teaching; Christianity is destined 
 shortly to be Korea’s religion. For three hundred 
 years our land has not produced a really great ex- 
 pounder or exemplifier of the Confucian cult. We 
 possess only the shadow of it. We are a land with- 
 out religion, and Christianity must fee accepted 
 by us.” 
 
 It rests with us to say whether Christianity 
 when it is accepted by Korea shall be Roman and 
 sacramental or evangelical and biblical in form. 
 The attitude of the people has changed. Though 
 they persecute and oppose our converts, they do it 
 not because they think Christianity bad, but be- 
 cause they look upon our converts as traitors to 
 their ancestors. They know Christianity is good. 
 They expect its final triumph. Their attitude is 
 one of anticipation. 
 
 6 
 
The Church Founded 
 
 The foundations were laid when our Lord Christ 
 shed his blood on Calvary’s brow and opened to 
 Koreans the gates of life. They were laid when 
 God’s Spirit moved his servants in America to send 
 to Korea the banner of the world-conquering cross. 
 In the human and temporal sense they have been 
 deeply, solemnly laid during the past two decades. 
 From among that populace with many a Saul 
 breathing out threatenings and slaughter against 
 Christ there have come Pauls who have become 
 glorious workmen for Christ, building up his king- 
 dom throughout the Korean empire. Fifteen years 
 ago we reported our first membership — thirty-eight 
 converts. To-day a host of seven thousand Metho- 
 dists are enrolled in our churches, eager, earnest, 
 and consecrated, and at their head stand four or- 
 dained ministers of the Gospel. 
 
 The Bible and Prayer Have the Right of Way 
 
 The Korean Church is a Bible-loving Church. 
 Most of our male converts and a large per cent of 
 the women can read. I once met an old man who 
 had been converted at the age of seventy-two years. 
 The frequent services through the week did not 
 satisfy him. His heart was so full of love for 
 God’s word that he wished to read it for himself. 
 He was ignorant of letters, yet at that advanced 
 age this old man learned to read in order that he 
 might be able to see for himself the glories of God 
 in his word. Another old man named Mathew Yi 
 was known never to be without a copy of the Bible 
 in his hand, except when eating or sleeping. Our 
 people love the Bible. 
 
 Wherever in the world you find the Bible loved 
 7 
 
and honored, there you will find the family altar 
 also, and so it is with the Korean. As a heathen 
 he is. as Paul said of the Athenians, “too reli- 
 gious.” Before the light of Christ dispels his dark- 
 ness he peoples his home with specter demons. 
 They perch on the beams and nest in the ceiling 
 and walls ; they enshrine themselves in the parlor, 
 the kitchen, and the shed ; they hide in the floor 
 and the chimney. The Korean without Christ 
 spends his life amid these death-shadows. But the 
 Christian Korean erects in his home the family 
 altar, and the darkness and gloom vanish, the dead 
 shadows flee away, and in their train go many a 
 superstition, many a cruel practice. The family 
 altar stands for a Christian home, and a Christian 
 home means love, sympathy, and cooperation. It 
 means wife raised from the position of a servant 
 and toy to that of a helpmeet and a companion. It 
 means one wife and purity, not many wives and 
 debauchery. To-day in thousands of homes in the 
 valleys and on the hill-slopes of Korea there are 
 family altars where husband and wife and chil- 
 dren gather in daily prayer for divine grace and 
 guidance, and a heavenly Shekinah shines forth 
 and changes a mud hut into a temple to the only 
 living and eternal God. 
 
 The Korean Church an Active Church 
 From the very first the convert is more than a 
 church member, he is a worker for Christ. He 
 may be only an ignorant, untutored, uncouth 
 farmer, but he knows and possesses something his 
 neighbors have not, and he presses it home on 
 them. There is an impulse within him to work 
 for Christ. His soul is energized with new and 
 glorious forces. He would not keep silent if he 
 could, and he could not if he would. His heathen 
 8 
 
neighbors will not permit him to remain inactive. 
 From the day he publicly renounces heathenism by 
 burning his fetiches and idols on the plot in front 
 of his house he is a marked man. His neighbors 
 attack him and his new beliefs, and he must de- 
 fend them and prove their truth or surrender at 
 discretion and go back to heathenism. He is 
 strengthened by this process, and bis testimony to 
 his neighbors backed up by a changed life is power- 
 ful, because he speaks in the language and ideas 
 with which they are familiar. Thus through this 
 one man Christianity obtains a foothold in some 
 heathen village; a few others join this first con- 
 vert; they grow in grace, knowledge, and num- 
 bers. The first convert is recognized by the mis- 
 sionary as the class reader. Some baptisms take 
 place. By the time their numbers reach twelve 
 or fifteen families they put up a building especially 
 for worship. It is not very beautiful in archi- 
 tecture or material. Like the houses of the be- 
 lievers, it may have mud walls and thatched roofs 
 and paper windows, but it is their church ! And I 
 will tell you one thing about it: It is always just 
 a little better than the houses of the converts. It 
 is consecrated to God. and here they worship, and 
 who shall say it is not as precious and beautiful 
 in the eyes of the all-seeing Father as the costliest 
 fane ever erected by the poured-out treasure of 
 Christendom? 
 
 From an Ox to a Chicken 
 And what is the result? Heathenism vanishes 
 away. Dr. Noble tells of a hamlet of sixty fami- 
 lies where we got a footing, and in the course of 
 a short time forty families became Christians. Pre- 
 viously they had a yearly sacrifice to the demons. 
 In which an ox was offered. But this year Cbris- 
 9 
 
tianity had made such inroads on the numbers of 
 the non-Christian populace that those who re- 
 mained contented themselves with offering a chick- 
 en to the gods! Ask me what is the result of our 
 work? That is the result — the sacrifices of hea- 
 thenism are dwindling from an ox to a chicken. 
 
 The work in these villages is built up and con- 
 served by the native converts. Ne% r er has there 
 been a time in the history of the work in Korea 
 w-hen there have been enough white men to prop- 
 erly shepherd God’s Church there. Our native 
 converts have done this as well as they could. 
 They have served without pay of any kind, work- 
 ing on their farms throughout the week like the 
 other Christians, but keeping the lamp of God 
 burning. 
 
 A Working Church a Spirit-Filled Church 
 
 Whence comes the power of these Korean farm- 
 ers to stand firm against all the forces that a 
 trained and intellectual paganism can bring to 
 bear upon them? Whence comes their power to 
 overcome the false ideas and debased practices in 
 their own hearts, their homes, and their hamlets? 
 Whence comes their power to meet and vanquish 
 the skilled intellectual forces of Confucianism? 
 Whence comes their power to stand unflinching and 
 triumphant amid the fierce furnace fires of perse- 
 cution? One answer alone there is: It is the 
 
 Spirit of God. 
 
 The Korean Church a Persecuted Church 
 
 There is not a man in our Church that has not 
 suffered in his body, his goods, or his soul because 
 of Christ. Some have been cast out in disgrace 
 by relatives; children have been disinherited by 
 parents, and parents abandoned by children; wives 
 have been divorced by husbands because of Christ. 
 
 10 
 
Some have lost property and temporal prosperity. 
 Others have met cruel beatings, even nigh unto 
 death for His sake. 
 
 The Korean Church a Self-supporting 
 Church 
 
 The Korean Church has made a magnificent 
 record in self-support. It was to be expected. A 
 Bible-loving, active, working, Spirit-filled, perse- 
 cuted Church must do its full limit in self-support. 
 For every paid helper we have there are fifty 
 volunteer workers. Chapels are built, all running 
 expenses paid, visitation to outlying classes main- 
 tained, and Christian literature bought and dis- 
 tributed out of the funds of the native Church. It 
 is a sight to see a worshiping congregation when 
 the collection is taken; rarely will a man allow 
 the plate to pass him without a gift. Beginning 
 in 1894, when we had 221 members, our Korean 
 Church has contributed 17,530 yen, or over $8,000, 
 for the work of the Lord. How much this sum 
 represents in God’s arithmetic I will not venture 
 to estimate. 
 
 This is some little part of the story of success 
 in Korea. I will not speak of the wide-spreading 
 influence of our Church on the national life and 
 character, or of the indirect successes of Chris- 
 tianity in the world of Korean thought, but enough 
 has been said to show that opposing conditions 
 have been met and conquered, obstacles sur- 
 mounted, and problems solved. The Church of 
 Christ has been established, with its foundation in 
 the bed rock of national character. We are weath- 
 ering all storms of persecution and forging slowly 
 ahead, in spite of the fiercest gales blowing from 
 the pit. Our story is an uninterrupted tale of 
 progress and success. 
 
 11 
 
The Opportunities of Christian Missions in 
 Korea 
 
 Light begins to stream in on Korea’s darkness. 
 The Eastern horizon is breaking into smiles with 
 the glory of a new day. Christ has come, and 
 Christ is the Light of the world. Fair indeed is 
 the vision as we look out upon Christ’s triumphs 
 in Korea. But what a prospect greets us as we 
 catch a glimpse of the golden day of opportunity 
 in Korea. 
 
 Territorially Korea lies at our feet. It has been 
 visited, explored, and mapped out in its length and 
 breadth. Every province and the larger portion of 
 the three hundred and thirty-two prefectures which 
 constitute the empire have been visited and sown 
 with Christian literature, and in many of these 
 prefectures Christian converts reside and work for 
 the Master. The distribution and location of 
 Christ’s forces in Korea constitute an opportunity 
 of the first order. 
 
 There is an utter absence of many things which 
 serve in other lands as serious competitors with 
 Christianity. In Korea Christianity is the only 
 thing in sight. No new political life, calling the 
 people to consider questions of communal and 
 national welfare, with the excitement incidental 
 to local and other elections, breaks in on the mo- 
 notony of their life. No expanding military and 
 naval development appeals to their national pride. 
 No public school system, with its multitudes of 
 children and youth preparing themselves to take 
 a worthy part in the affairs of life, gives hope for 
 the future. No large industrial and commercial 
 enterprises under native control promise relief to 
 the widespread poverty of the Korean people. 
 
 12 
 
And last, and most important of all, the black 
 curse of a skeptical, infidel, impure literature 
 has not yet found expression in the Korean lan- 
 guage. As far as the life of the populace is con- 
 cerned, it remains unchanged and undisturbed. The 
 only new thing that breaks in on Korean quietude 
 is Christianity. It alone speaks of a promise of 
 improvement in communal and national conditions; 
 it alone affords a hope of safety and security to 
 the nation ; it alone has an organized school sys- 
 tem. The two secular newspapers published under 
 native auspices are favorable to Christianity. The 
 only weekly published in the land is the organ of 
 the Presbyterian Church. The only magazine pub- 
 lished is the organ of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. The only literature to-day is that which 
 comes forth from Christian sources. The two best 
 selling books in Korea are the Christian Bible and 
 hymn book. Therefore, I repeat it, Christianity is 
 the only thing in sight. From the vantage point 
 of this opportunity we can reach and influence the 
 nation with exceptional power. IIow long this 
 will continue to be the case we cannot say, for 
 the devil is not yet dead. But while the oppor- 
 tunity lasts it should be improved to its utmost. 
 
 The Conditions Among the People at Large 
 an Opportunity 
 
 Tourists tell us that two things in Korea strike 
 them very forcibly: The pitiable condition to 
 
 which the people have been reduced, and the 
 amazing success of Christian missions. Korea’s 
 need, nor man, nor angel, nor seraph can ade- 
 quately describe. Only the heart of the Eternal 
 who, from the depths of his holiness measures so 
 accurately all moral conditions, can know the depth 
 of Korea’s ruin and desolation. Oppression is 
 13 
 
there in “cruel man-destroying power, that ravages 
 kingdoms and lays empires waste and in pitiless 
 wantonness thins states of half their people and 
 gives up the rest to want.” Oppression blights 
 every budding promise of good. Vice is there para- 
 lyzing and destroying the life of the people. The 
 typical Korean looks out on the world with the 
 sense that the best things are gone. Purity and in- 
 nocence, hope, life, and God are gone ; and gone are 
 those things which make for righteousness and 
 truth, that in Christian lands are enjoyed in such 
 lavish bounty that many ignore and even trample 
 them under feet. Unknown are those priceless 
 privileges of the Christian Church and her services 
 and influences that pervade the air we breathe, 
 that follow us from cradle to grave. The Korean 
 stands and searches far and wide over the desolate 
 gloomy wastes of his civilization for all these 
 things, but they are gone. 
 
 A short time ago I was walking with a young 
 Korean man, a patriot concerned for the welfare of 
 his people. He said to me : “We look out into the 
 future and see no ray of light. The night about 
 us is deep and dark and cold. The hearts of my 
 people are frost-bitten.” Aye ! that is it, frost- 
 bitten by the dark, Arctic night of heathenism ! 
 Into conditions like these come the story of the 
 Gospel with its promise of help, of better things, 
 of a brighter day. Christ has seen the opportunity 
 these conditions offer and he is there in Korea 
 to-day. Sometimes beside the lonely missionary, 
 cheering and strengthening him ; sometimes with a 
 persecuted Christian in his home, in prison, or in 
 the death cell, even as he was present with his 
 saints of old in the seven times heated fiery fur- 
 nace; again, in the depths of the conflict with the 
 forces of sin and darkness. We behold his form, 
 14 
 
we see his pierced hand as it beckons us on to 
 higher endeavor and nobler achievement. Shall we 
 lag behind? God forbid it. 
 
 Opportunities in the Native Church 
 
 Equal with these opportunities that promise such 
 large reward is the opportunity which lies before 
 us in the native Church. Here we have a compact, 
 enthusiastic, earnest body of men. Soldiers they 
 are in their frame of mind where the forces of sin 
 are concerned, filled with the Spirit of God, puri- 
 fied by persecution, and armed with divine truth. 
 They ask, first of all, that we shall give to them 
 in its entirety that sacred body of truth which has 
 come down to us from our fathers, and which we 
 are proud to pass on to other nations and coming 
 generations. The Korean Christians desire to be 
 more than Christians in name ; they call for and 
 demand the substance of Christianity. They desire 
 to be saved from the fate that overtook Coptic and 
 Abyssinian Christianity. The supreme obligation, 
 the great task which confronts us to-day, recog- 
 nized no less fully by the native Church than by the 
 missionaries, is the great need of indoctrination. 
 These men who have come from the rice swamps 
 and barley fields, from the merchant’s thorough- 
 fares, and the teacher’s mat demand that we should 
 teach them, drill them, give them Christianity in 
 its entirety. 
 
 And they ask us for leadership. In our native 
 Church race prejudice has not as yet lifted its ugly 
 head. The native Christians respect and honor 
 their white brothers. They look upon them as car- 
 rying in themselves the highest attainments and the 
 largest amount of force possible from Christian 
 experience. They believe in them as captains and 
 leaders, and for this generation and the generation 
 15 
 
to come they turn their eyes and their hearts lov- 
 ingly and expectingly to the overflowing camps of 
 Christendom in search for that consecrated leader- 
 ship which shall guide them to final and complete 
 triumph in their land. They are full of courage ; 
 there is no intrenchment of the foe they will hesi- 
 tate to storm ; there is no point in the conflict so 
 perilous but they will gladly thrust themselves into 
 it in order to pluck victory for Jesus Christ. Give 
 them, then, what they need in this their day of 
 desire, realizing that upon our action at this time 
 hangs the whole future of the Church of Korea. 
 
 Plea for a Strong Advance 
 
 The golden day of God’s opportunity is upon us 
 in Korea. Let us not sin it away in idleness. 
 
 The busy world shoves angrily aside 
 The man who stands with arms akimbo set, 
 Until occasion tell him what to do. 
 
 And he who waits to have his task marked out 
 Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. 
 
 I plead on behalf of ten millions of souls now 
 slowly beginning to turn their eyes to “the Light 
 of the World.” I plead on behalf of a youthful 
 Church, eager, anxious, ready for the fray, and 
 only asking for sufficient and efficient leadership. 
 I plead that our great Church may begin seriously, 
 and in a manner commensurate with her vast re- 
 sources, the work of evangelizing Korea. For I 
 dare affirm that, moving forward from the van- 
 tage grounds of past success along the lines of our 
 magnificent opportunities, the end is already loom- 
 ing in sight on the far horizon of Korea. 
 
 75 Cents per 100 Copies 
 
 Series of 1904 
 
 16