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China and her people. It is important to note that Legge's seminal text on Chinese Religions published in 1880 further illustrates this Christian influence, even for the casual reader. More subtle analysis can show that the criteria of judgement employed by Legge parallel themes found in the Scottish Shorter Catechism (1648) which he had memorized as a child. His ethical studies, summarized most cogently in the tract, "Christianity And Confucianism Compared in Their Teaching On The Whole Duty Of Man," reflect both his Christian commitments, strong Aristotelian leanings, and his unwavering concern for the spiritual enlightenment of the Chinese. Finally, Legge took great pains to pursue information about and present a critical study of the Xi'an (西安) stele often referred to as the Nestorian monument. Published in 1886, this work reflects the desire Legge still had to use his academic credentials and scholarly awareness to reassert the historical importance of the Protestant role in bringing Christianity to China.

Being for many years the senior London Missionary Society administrator in Hong Kong, Dr. Legge was also responsible for dealing with the more difficult realities faced by both missionaries and the Chinese people with whom they worked. In particular, this meant being with the dying in their last moments, encouraging them, witnessing their last testimony as believers, and reporting these matters to the officers of the Society in London. The reality of the missionary duty is nowhere more clearly evident than in these documents, for they included not just the recording of the fate of missionaries and Chinese believers, but often also a description of their last hours, their struggle with fatal diseases, and the persistence of Legge as missionary in supporting them and seeking their last confession of faith. Numerous letters which passed between Legge and London spoke of the sicknesses and deaths of missionaries and their family members. When Pastor Ho Jinshan (何進善) died, the Chinese colleague with whom Dr. Legge shared the whole of his missionary career from Malacca to Hong Kong, Legge wrote a deeply reflective memorial which was later published by the Society in London. Easily the most emotionally engaging of these testimonies from Legge's experiences came in a letter written to his father-in-law regarding the death of Mary Isabella, his first wife, during a complicated birth. In other reflections, he spoke of the final testimonies of Chinese Christians in Hong Kong, including two very memorable ones involving an elderly woman and a former Taoist priest.61

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Promises were made that other colporteurs would continue to stop by Poklo, and so Ch'ea left his Hong Kong connections to return to an uncertain future.

PART THREE: Darkness outside, light within: Chinese cultural rejections of Ch'ea's Christian way

No further contact with Ch'ea occurred for nearly a year after he left for Poklo, partly because of changing circumstances in Hong Kong that prevented any more aggressive strategies from taking shape. Legge himself had already been living as a widower since October 1852, his wife Mary Isabella (1817-1852) succumbing to what was probably advancing tuberculosis during a burdensome delivery of a stillborn child.34 Longing to see his children who had been receiving their education in Scotland since 1853, but also anxious to show the first fruits of his plans for the Chinese Classics to the London Missionary Society Directors, Legge was predisposed to staying close to Hong Kong and not taking trips into the nearby mainland. The Arrow Lorcha affair in October 1856 heightened the political tensions over supposed conflicts in treaty provisions between the Qing and British empires, lending just enough reason for British officials to initiate full-scale war in December. Whatever plans there were for "nurturing" and "supporting" Ch'ea, the declaration of war made travel inside China for foreigners literally impossible.

35

In the meantime, Ch'ea had to make his own way. Soon after he returned to Poklo he officially gave up his "employment in the sacred temple [of Master Kong]" and apparently devoted his free time to reading the books brought with him from Hong Kong. Family members charged him with following a foreigner's religion, suggesting that he had given up his allegiance to the Manchurian empire. Neighbours and others considered him either to be mad or possessed, the latter group throwing water on him (blessed in one of the Daoist temples?) to cast out the demons. What is significant, and may not be fully understood at first notice, is that these reactions occurred months before any outright military hostilities had begun (the so-called Second Opium War). "Following
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any rate habitually did not, and those who did, is one of the most significant within the literate realm, perhaps as important as the distinction between those who did and did not have full access to the literary tradition.

The fact that Ch'a later had others write down what he dictated about his experiences suggests that he was one of these people in the middle: able to read, but not yet able to write well. See the further discussion in David Johnson's article, "Communication, Class, and Consciousness in Late Imperial China”, in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, pp. 34-72, here p. 38.

30. EMMC/MM 20 (October 1856), p. 215.

31. EMMC/MM 20 (October 1856), p. 215.

32. This story is part of the collection of vignettes in a typed manuscript entitled Reminiscences (pp. 15-18, quotation from p. 15) held in the Bodleian Library (Ms. Eng. misc. c. 812). Many of these stories show signs of an aging man not remembering particular details of dates and places, but there appears to be no good reason to doubt the authenticity of this encounter between Legge and Ch'ëa itself. It appears nowhere else in Legge's writings, and serves as one of the basic texts for Helen Edith Legge's typescript, "Che'a Kin-Kwang.”

33. Rambo refers to this as a further motif in conversion initially identified by John Lofland and Rodney Stark. It involves the "direct, personal experience of being loved, nurtured, and affirmed by a group and its leaders" (Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, p. 15).

34. For a helpful summary of Mary Isabella Legge's life see the section related to "Mary Isabella Morison" in Wong Man-kong, "Hidden in History: London Missionary Society Missionary Wives in Nineteenth Century China (1807-1877)”, in Lí Hànjī, ed., Dú shĩ cúngão (Reading History: Extant Documents) (Hong Kong: Xuéfeng wénhuà Co., 1998), esp. pages 156-160.

35. The timing of Ch'ea's leaving his post at the Poklo temple was not certain in an earlier letter, but Ch'ea himself dictates this fact in a letter translated into English for overseas readers. See EMMC/MM (September 1857), p.207. The following descriptions come from this and another translated statement (pp. 207-209) prepared by another convert led back to Hong Kong by Ch'ea, as will be described below.

36. This is the intent of the seventh of the sixteen edicts, translated by Legge as "Discountenance and put away strange principles, in order to exalt the correct doctrine” (chủ viduàn vì chống zhèng xuê). Among the “strange principles” regarded as unacceptable were Buddhist and Daoist extremities, rebellious groups like the secret societies of the White Lotus, and the Catholic religion. Legge makes clear that the condemnation of Catholicism "must be understood simply of Christianity" as a whole. See James Legge, "Imperial Confucianism" (Lecture II), China Review, 6:4 (October 1877), pp. 232-235.

37. In a similar way Hong Xiùquán was seen as "mad" by his family and neighbours, but had experienced a physical breakdown after repeated failures in the civil examinations during the time he began having visions. The experience of Ch'ea on this score is quite different, in that he apparently maintained a relative engagement with his local lifeworld until he returned from Hong Kong in the summer of 1856. Compare Hamberg's account taken down from Hong Réngan's
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