November 3, 1900.]
|
intelligence concerning the progress of events in the Far East; and which in addition, better informed than the intelligence departments of the various Governments concerned, gave timely warnings of what was in the air long in advance of actual danger. We do not desire to throw discredit on Sir ROBERT HART or his Service; it was doubtless part of the plot that they were to be lulled into unconsciousness, and we are quite pre- pared to testify to the effectiveness of the soporifics administered. There is generally a weak point in the most carefully laid plot, and in this instance the point forgotten was the foreign Press. Legations and services, including the Foreign Customs itself, were sent to sleep; but the Press was forgotten, and the Press saved the situation. It might have been otherwise, but so it was, and we may fairly claim the right of being heard. Had the China Press at any time gone into hysteries, or crossed the limits that separate wisdom from insanity, its advice might have been set aside as valueless. Even in this respect it can fairly challenge comparison with its would-be judges. In matters of fact it was scupulous to an extreme; and it is worthy of remark that the lying telegrams which were credulously | published by the newspapers of England and America found no acceptance from the better part of the foreign Press in China, which preferred waiting for evidence of their truth to accepting what it judged, and as it turned out correctly, were lying tales deliberately invented to complicate a situa- tion at the time sufficiently grave.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
that our present course, by alienating every interest in turn, is in a fair way to bring on that very war which we profess to depre- cate, and we have urged the despatch to China of the ablest administrator to be found.
All these things, in season and out of season, the China Press, with an unanimity that does it credit, has urged, but urged in vain, on a Government which bases its policy in China on the interested counsels of men like CHICHEN LO FENGLUH and Sir HALLIDAY MACARTNEY. This is the crime we have committed, and it is but natural that that section of the home Press which finds its inspiration in the like purlieus should be found to misrepresent the state- ments and advice of its contemporaries on the spot.
THE HALT IN MISSIONARY WORK.
343
rejected it. The Gospel had been offered to her in foreign dress, interwoven with Treaty obligations, and had brought not peace, but a sword. Events called a halt in missionary operations-a halt not to admit defeat, but to bring up overwhelming reinforcements. The plan of campaign might have to be revised. British Generals and soldiers had learned much in a year of war in South Africa. Were the armies of the Cross to learn and unlearn nothing by forty years' warfare in China? The word retreat" was now on the lips of many; but the Church of Christ could not, dare not, retire from the blood-drenched battle. fields of the Far East.
4
Mrs. BISHOP would have done better had she said that the plan of campaign must be revised. Of this there can be no question, if we mean to profit at last by the lessons which we have had such abundant opportu nities of learning. In the first place, of course, it must be recognised that the prose- (Daily Press, 30th October.)
lytising movement cannot stop. No force The name of Mrs. J. F. Bisиor is so well in the world can prevent those who feel it known throughout the East that it is need. their duty to preach Christianity in China less to say that any words of hers on from going to preach it there. No western Eastern subjects must receive consideration. Government would attempt to hold back At the recent meeting of the Church Con- these enthusiasts, for even were it desirable gress at Newcastle she read a paper on it is acknowledged impossible. But certainly Church Missions in the Far East, dealing the power which is called on to protect and especially with China, Japan, and Corea. often to avenge the missionaries has a right, With the question in the two latter countries and, as must ultimately be admitted, a duty, we are not now concerned; but it may be to restrain their action when it becomes noted that Mrs. BISHOP attributes the failure mischievous. Only those whose eyes are of Christianity in Japan to the neglect of blinded by too much zeal can deny that the opportunities in 1878, when there was for action of missionaries has often been very We have been led to make these remarks, various reasons a wide-spread interest in mischievous, and that not only in the case not from any desire to exalt our own virtues Christianity in Japan and a disposition to of one particular denomination. It would or boast of our own amazing perspicacity, welcome all the teachers who could be sent. indeed be a marvel if this were not the case, but that certain of the more fashionable They were not sent, however, and now considering the haphazard way in which papers have recently been making an Agnosticism carried all before it, The many of the proselytising bodies obtain attempt to decry the Press of China by growing manhood of the country, freed from their agents for work out here. The halt attributing to it a policy, and accusing it the teaching of Confucius, and not having which has been called in missionary enter. of designs which it has assiduously set its the teaching of CHRIST, was, indeed, a Yel-prise in China can be made of the utmost face against. It has been accused of low Peril, not only to England, but to the service, and if the opportunity is not utilised preaching a policy of revenge, and of seek whole Far East. Dazzling as the progress by the various Christian bodies themselves ing to bring about war. It has been exag of Japan had been, she was as much in the failure should not be passed over in gerating the differences between the Powers need of the Gospel and Christian teaching silence. Good work cannot be done with with the deliberate intention of increasing as Central Africa was, and possibly more. bad instruments, and half-educated and the political strain in Europe; and in China We cannot look on the comparison with wholly untrained men are not fitted for the has been urging the most extreme and sense- Central Africa as happy, but doubtless most difficult mission field in the world. less movements. Were we disposed to there is much for Japan to learn, as there There is no room for doubt, however the take up the policy of our accusers, we could is also for all other civilised nations. With fact has been glossed over, that much of the answer to all these with a tu quoque, for regard to China, Mrs. BISHOP gave a concise failure in Japan was due to the incom- these things are not the suggestions of the account of the histories of the various mis- petence, coupled with the internal dissen- China Press, but have one and all come to sions, supported by figures, and proceeded to sions, of the would-be converters, which did us from our half-informed contemporaries relate her own acquaintance with missionary not escape the notice of their intended at home. We would, however, prefer point- work. She related how in the course of two converts. No more success can be gained ing out what really the Press of China, for years she had travelled 8,000 miles in fuland in China except by a general improvement it is, we may say, unanimous on the subject, China, and passed beyond its Western in the abilities of the missionaries for their has put forward as the only policy worthy official frontier into the mountain region work. We say "general improvement," for of ourselves, or likely to have lasting effects. occupied by the attributary Mantze tribes- there is no doubt that many of those We have deprecated as far as pos- rigid Buddhists of the Tainaistic type--and already engaged in spending their labours sible war with China; and have secu in the course of these journeys visited 73 on the Chinese are admirably suited for the in the massacres of the foreigner only mission stations. In all, inen and women task. But many are not so suited, and the natural result of o'vn weak leading pure and exemplary lives, their fellows suffer by the association. acceptance of the party of disorder, striving under enormous difficulties to make What is wanted is more of the skilled when two years ago
had it Wo
in known the Gospel. And yet everywhere an medical missionary and loss of the mere our power by refusing to counten- increasing hostility to foreigners was appar- enthusiast, and none at all of the combined auce, to prevent the movement spreading ent, for which she gives the reasons with missionary-trader, whom we would willingly through the provinces: We have held that which are tolerably familiar now- think less common than we have reason to be- finding the provinces were desirous of pre- aggressions by foreign Powers, disturbance lieve he is With the improvement of the man serving the Empire intact, we should have of ancestral repose by the introduction of missionary there should come, as we have given them material help, and guaranteed railways, overturning by the Christian pro- urged before, but cannot urge too often, the the personal safety of those well disposed paganda of the long established social order. disappearance of the woman missionary, at viceroys, whose destruction is one of the She admitted øven (as we fear that Anglican least thoughout the interior in China. The professed aims of the insurgent party. We and Protestant mission-promoters are only largo proportion of women killed in the have held that with possession of the Yang- too ready to do) that certain of the mission recent massacres of missionaries is a terrible tzc river we were committing an act of aries, to wit the Roman Catholics, interfered indictment of the heedlessness and selfish- worse, folly in permitting money, men and arms too much in the non-religious concerns of ness of those who permitted or, to be sent across it under the bows of our their converts. In China's archaic and un- encouraged them to come defenceless among war vessels, to promote the cause of dis-reformed Orientalism, Mr. BISHOP Con- a people notorious for brutality when their order in the North. We have shows the tinued, the western leaven had fallen, for, passions are aroused. The case against absurdity of the proposed movements of the good or evil. Western civilisation, that bringing white women and children into ridiculously named “allied forces " after the | strongly-mingled cup of blessing and curs. such surroundings as they meet with in the capture of Peking. More, we have indicated ing, had been offered to her, and she interior of the Chinese Empire has been so
our
|
|
|
we
were
་ ་ ་