Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea

by Lillias H. Underwood

CHAPTER XVII

Historical Review—Korean Characteristics—Football between Japan, China and Russia—Ill-advised Movements—Unrest and Excitement—Korea Allied to Japan—Japanese in Korea—Po an Whai—Kaiwha—Railroad Extension—Japanese Protectorate—Petition to President Roosevelt—Removal of American Legation—Education in Korea—Righteous Army—True Civilization.

Before making a brief review of events which have taken place during the five years that have elapsed since the previous chapters were written, let us look a little further at the character of the Korean people so that we may understand them perhaps somewhat better and judge them a little more fairly as we scan their actions in reference to the conditions that follow.[5]

[5] I have to thank Mr. Homer B. Hulbert for many of these facts and dates, having refreshed my memory by frequent reference to his “History of Korea” and “The Passing of Korea.”

Although through the influence of their progressive Queen the country had been opened to foreigners in 1882, and although missionaries had been there since 1884, the impression made upon the people as a whole was very slight, owing to the lack of newspapers and other means of appeal to the public, and though in the capital a few progressionists had begun to feel the need of reform, the nation as such was still in a kind of stupor under the baleful charm of the example of China, and the influence of her classics and her civilization. Shut up for long centuries in complete seclusion—even Japan had been open twenty years to the stimulating influences of the civilization of the West—still Korea in her belated “Morning Calm” slept on; while Japan had been up and catching her worms with the “Rising Sun,” and the first rude shock which startled her from this slumber and made her begin to look about was the defeat of China by her little neighbor.

Coincidentally with the rapid march of political events, the Gospel was making advances with constantly increasing momentum and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty of thought and action, and to-day, stung into life by the sharp lash of adversity, Korea is awake, wide awake, to sleep no more, for her Macbeth has effectually murdered sleep.

The Koreans have been frequently spoken and written of as listless, dull, stupid, lazy, an inferior race; but I submit this has been said mainly by travellers who did not know them, or by those who were their enemies and had an object in making the world think them worthless, or by those who had contented themselves with looking merely on the surface and had not studied them with a wish to know them at their best. There is a certain excuse for these views, if one observes only the rough coolies in the ports or the idle worthless “boulevardiers” who lounge about the streets of Seoul, or live by sponging on the generosity of some relative better off than themselves. But such a class can be found almost anywhere, even among the most advanced European nations.

To the writer it seems that there is a close parallel between the Irishman and the Korean. Both are happy-go-lucky, improvident, impulsive, warm-hearted, hospitable, generous. Take either in the midst of his native bogs, untutored, without incentive—he is thoughtless, careless, dirty; drinking, smoking and gambling away his time with apparently little ambition for anything better. Remove this same man, be he Irishman of Great Britain, or Irishman of the East—Korea—place him in a stimulating environment, educate him, instil the principles of Protestant Christianity, give him a chance to make a good living, and a certainty that he may keep his own earnings, and you will not find a better citizen, a more brilliant scholar, a finer Christian. Look at the men of North Ireland and tell me if this is not so? Look at the Christian Korean, self-supporting, independent, sober, faithful, industrious, eager to study. Hear the testimony of the missionaries of all denominations.

Hear the testimony even of the foreign mining companies, who avow the Koreans are the best workmen of any nationality they have employed.

Hear the testimony of the American planters in Hawaii, who say that the Koreans are the best workmen, the most sober, well-behaved, cleanly, domestic, peaceful and thrifty they have ever used, far superior to the Japanese, who are quarrelsome and unstable—or even the Chinese.

Witness the young Koreans who have graduated from our American colleges and medical schools side by side with Americans, often carrying away the honors.

Let us keep these facts in mind and remember that if Korea has been caught in the toils and has allowed her country to be usurped, she was caught napping. The whole nation was still in the bogs, and twenty-five years behind the rest of the world, in a time when a thousand years is as one day and one day as a thousand years. When China, the Titan, found herself helpless in the hands of the new régime, what could be expected of little Korea when she suddenly awoke to find herself shut in a trap with a foreign army in her capital and foreign guns at her palace gates?

The most brilliant speaker at the great international conference in Tokio two years ago was unanimously by Japanese newspapers conceded to be a Korean, and an American told the writer that the grandest sermon he had ever listened to—and he had heard John Hall and the great Western divines—was preached in Korea by another Korean. The writer also recalls at this moment still two others who are capable of carrying any audience along enraptured, and whom she would not hesitate to rank with the best, most inspiring public speakers she has ever listened to.

We know many Koreans who have been given opportunity, environment, advantage, who have ability, energy, initiative and resource equal to that of the foremost Americans and Europeans. They are not, perhaps, par excellence, fighters like the Japanese or merchants like the Chinese. They have not the volatility and headlong impulsiveness of the one nor the stolid conservatism of the other, but they are the equals if not the superiors of either. Which of the three evolved an alphabet and a constitutional form of government?

This is the conscientious opinion of one who has known them for twenty years, closely, in every-day contact, through all sorts of circumstances, in city and country, and it is an opinion almost the opposite of that which was formed during the first years of acquaintance with them. It is the result of the developments of character seen in individuals and the nation. That they are friendly, hospitable, long-suffering, patient, any one who studies them without prejudice for a short time will admit, but those of us who know them best know that they have brilliant gifts and a high grade of intellectuality. The old simile of the rough diamond is a good one to apply to Koreans who seem perhaps worthless stones to the ignorant careless observer, but, when polished, they shine as brilliant jewels for the Redeemer’s crown.

Considerable space has been given to this question of Korean ability because much has been made of the other side, as an excuse for what might be thought otherwise inexcusable, and because it is right that the public should know they are not unworthy of its sympathy and interest. Nor should they be called cowardly because taken unaware by the rapid succession of cataclysmic political events which have whirled them along during the last few years. The “Morning Calm” is forever gone.

Korea has for many years been in a diplomatic way a sort of football between Japan, China and Russia, and in 1903 affairs were rapidly culminating toward the Russo-Japanese war. Yi Yong Ik, the Korean prime minister, who had then lately returned from Port Arthur and was zealously pro-Russian, like most of the court and officials, now began a series of attacks on Japanese interests.

Koreans had always regarded their neighbors on the East with the distrust which their not infrequent invasions warranted, and they believed that Russia, while she might invade, would not seek to Russianize; while she might plunder, would not colonize, or interfere at least more than incidentally or occasionally with personal right or private concerns as the others were almost certain to do.

Whenever trouble seemed brewing between Japan and other powers, whatever may have been the reason, the Korean government at least almost invariably went with the other side, and at this time Korea and her royal family counted a long score of injuries and wrongs from Japan.

The murder of their Queen, the cutting of the top-knots, and the hard and burdensome laws enacted at that time, the indignities the Emperor had suffered in practical confinement and the insults heaped upon the dead Queen could not be forgotten. On the other hand Russia had sheltered and protected the King on his escape, had favored his complete freedom of action even while he resided in her Legation, and when patriotic Koreans had complained that Russian influence was becoming too great, had withdrawn all the causes of complaint, removed her bank, and the obnoxious officials, favored the departure of the King to his own palace and left everything in the hands of the Koreans.

Such conduct, whatever its motive, could not but excite gratitude, and add to this the degree of certitude with which nearly the whole East awaited the speedy defeat of the Japanese by mighty, all-powerful Russia, it is not hard to see why the Korean government were so strongly pro-Russian.

This, then, by way of partial explanation of the attitude of Yi Yong Ik and the Korean court and government and in fact of a great many of the Korean people, though just here it may be said that multitudes of the Koreans with all the Americans and Europeans, except perhaps the French, were pro-Japanese, believing that they would prove the saviors of Korea from all-absorbing Russia, that reform and progress, good government and order would follow in their train, and warm were our good wishes and hearty the delight with which we witnessed Japanese successes at the opening of the war.

This attitude of the Korean government continued without change from the beginning to the end of the war, and now was the time when they might venture to show their real feeling and attempt some reprisals upon Japan.

First of all, then, the minister took the ill-advised measure of forbidding the use of the notes of the Japanese bank in Seoul, causing a run which came very near wrecking it. As the Japanese were in a position to retaliate, this resulted in apologies and withdrawals by the native government, but left a debt uncancelled for the Japanese to remember by and by.

The Russians were next given a concession to cut timber along the Yalu and soon after, on their asking the privilege of the use of the port of Yengampo in using this concession, it was granted.

As is well known, Japan and the foreign powers now urged the opening of this port to all foreign trade, Russia opposing, and the Korean government steadily refused. When, in addition, they soon after refused also to open Wi Ju in accordance with the objections of Russia, it became quite evident that war alone would ever make Russia retire from Korean soil.

In October, Japanese merchants in Korea began calling in outstanding moneys and from this time on the Koreans were in daily, hourly suspense, awaiting the war which could bring, in any event, nothing but disaster and loss, the only thing which they might hope for, being a degree less of distress, humiliation and misery, in one case than the other. Their country was to be the spoil of war, as well as its probable seat, and devastation, rapine and bloodshed loomed darkly before them. The action of the Korean pawnbrokers, refusing to lend money at this time, added to the general distress, for many of the poor are obliged to pawn some of their belongings in the fall, in order to provide fuel and clothing for the winter, and it was now feared that an uprising against all foreigners would take place, so great was the excitement and discontent. Guards were called to the different Legations to protect their countrymen, and missionaries and others were warned to come in from the country. “There was a great deal of disaffection among the poorly paid Korean troops in Seoul. The Peddlers’ Guild were threatening and capable of any excess and the unfriendly attitude of Yi Yong Ik toward western foreigners except French and Russians was quite sufficient reason for these precautionary measures.”[6]

[6] Hulbert’s “History of Korea.”

It was at this time that an American vessel was sent to a northern port with a message from the Legation to the missionaries to come to Seoul, but while a few, for various very good reasons, did this, most of these devoted men and women decided to remain and brave what war might bring in order to encourage, help and comfort the native Christians.

The same unrest and excitement which were evident in Seoul, were felt in the country and a serious movement began in two southern provinces where it was reported that a formidable insurrection was brewing. Reports came from the north as well of the banding together of the disaffected, and many wealthy natives in Seoul began removing their valuables and families to the country.

And now the distraught and corrupt government took another step at the bidding of Russia, and quite in keeping with the traditions of the East and the self-defensive, evasive diplomacy of the weak. They announced a neutrality which seemed from subsequent developments to have been a mere pretense in order to keep Japan out. While this neutrality was being insisted upon the Japanese announced the arrest of Koreans at different times, said to be carrying messages from the Korean Emperor and his government to Russia, asking for aid in the form of troops and ammunition of war. This is not at all unlikely, yet such are the dark ways and devious devices of the East, that it would have been quite as possible for those who wished to make an excuse to prove that the neutrality was a mere pretense, to have made it, if necessary. There is nothing more certain, however, than that at that time the Korean government was at heart wholly pro-Russian, of whatever overt acts she may or may not have been guilty in breaking her neutrality. Whatever were the facts, a most laudable excuse for the direct invasion of her neighbors’ soil was now presented to Japan.

The beginning of 1904 was marked by the making of Japanese military stations every fifteen miles between Fusan and Seoul and the sending of a well-known Japanese general to Seoul as military attaché to the Japanese Legation. Notices were posted in the city assuring Koreans that their property and personal rights would be respected, promising immediate justice if any complaint were made, and from this time on Chemulpo harbor was blocked. Korean students had previously been recalled from Japan and now the Japanese began rapidly landing troops in two southern ports of Korea. After the battle of Chemulpo, which soon took place, the Japanese landed all their troops further north and work was rapidly pushed on the Seoul-Fusan railway and also begun on the road to Wi Ju.

On February 23d a protocol was signed by Japan and Korea, by virtue of which Korea practically allied herself with Japan. She granted the latter the right to use her territory as a road to Manchuria and engaged to give them every possible facility for prosecuting the war. On the other hand, Japan guaranteed the independence of Korea and the safety of her imperial family. It was, of course, on Korea’s side a case of necessity, though many Koreans really accepted the Japanese as their friends and believed they would preserve their independence. However, willy-nilly, there was nothing to do under the circumstances but to acquiesce for the time being, though the government and court were still assured that Russia would undoubtedly be the ultimate victor and the Russians were continually making use of corrupt Korean officials who served only to complicate affairs with Japan.

It is more than doubtful whether this protocol, backed by arms, wrung out of the unwilling Koreans, was ever worth the paper on which it was written, even to keep up appearances to a people so unsophisticated at that time as the Koreans. The Japanese were ready at almost any moment during the war to enforce it and punish its violation, and the native government were very likely quite as ready to avail themselves of every opportunity which might offer to break it openly, could either Russia or China have been depended on to assist. But let us not forget that these were the acts of a corrupt government and not of the people, and that their sprightly neighbor had long odds, thanks to the almost forcible opening of their country thirty years earlier.

Mr. Hulbert says, “The Japanese handled the situation in Korea with great circumspection,” which they certainly did. The expected punishment did not fall on the pro-Russian officials. The perturbation of the court was quieted and Marquis Ito was sent with friendly messages to the Emperor. The northern ports of Wi Ju and Yonganpo were opened and soon Yi Yong Ik who was a large factor in the conspiracies against Japan was invited to visit that country. The Japanese soldiers were remarkably orderly and well behaved, a great contrast in this respect to the Cossacks and Russian guard who had been at the Legation, who conducted themselves most outrageously, so that they won the hate and fear of the whole native community, and the disgust and horror of all western foreigners.

The Japanese soldiers, we are told by Mr. Hulbert, all belong to the upper middle classes. “No low class man can stand in the ranks,” and this being the fact, the wide difference between their behavior and that of the colonists can be well understood. Suffice it to say that in the main they did great credit to their country and their conduct reassured the Koreans and won for them as a rule tolerance and often real good will.

However, the reforms which the pro-Japanese had so hopefully expected did not come. The monetary affairs about which the Japanese had complained as being so bad were not altered when they came into power, and in addition they now began to demand all sorts of privileges which became no small hardship to the Koreans. In Fusan the Japanese Board of Trade asked their government to secure the maritime customs service, permission for extra territorial privileges, the establishment of Japanese agricultural stations, etc.

In the meanwhile the tide of Japanese immigration was daily rising higher and higher as to quantity, but the friends of Japan would certainly like to think that the people who came could have represented only her worst classes. This is not the place, nor are missionaries the people to animadvert upon them or their conduct; nor perhaps did it seem possible with the war on their hands at first, and a hostile native people to keep in check later, for the few Japanese officials to look into the cases brought before them, and deal out justice to their own offending countrymen. But I do say that had they been able to do so, their task in Korea would be an easier one to-day, for Koreans are a long-suffering people. Moreover, when loud complaints concerning the Koreans’ unwillingness to yield to “legally constituted authority” (?) are heard, let the reader bear in mind that this same “legally constituted authority” seldom, if ever, so far as the writer is aware, has protected the Korean in his rights, or made him safe and inviolate in his home, when a home was left to him. We are not accusing the Japanese. They have undertaken a difficult task, in which older and more civilized, more Christian nations have failed, and when we look at Poland and elsewhere, we do not see that they are more to be blamed than the illustrious examples they have followed, but we do say, “Do not judge the Korean too hardly if he rises in self defense to do what he can to make reprisals on invaders and to defend his own rights.”

In connection with the laying of the railroads, large tracts of some of the best land in the country were practically confiscated, and in Seoul large blocks of the most valuable property in the city were taken at a merely nominal price, and hundreds of people lost practically all they had in the world. In the north, where soldiers were quartered on Koreans, many of the women, whose custom it is never to be seen by strangers, fled to the mountain recesses at a most inclement season and incurred untold suffering. Still the Koreans bore all these trials with remarkable patience and few complaints.

Many, however, of the malcontents and those who had suffered loss joined the robbers, and large bands made frequent and destructive raids upon the smaller towns and villages, adding to the general distress of the poor people who actually had no one to look to but the missionaries and Americans whom they regarded as their only friends, who could do little enough, alas, to help, but who could point them to God who pities the helpless, and bid them hope in Him.

Although many of the best Koreans who had trusted in the Japanese had been disappointed to see none of the promised reforms, great was their added anger and alarm when on the seventeenth of June the Japanese authorities made the suggestion “that all uncultivated land in the Peninsula as well as all other national resources should be open to the Japanese. The Koreans now indeed raised a storm of protest. The time was unpropitious. Koreans recognized that the carrying out of this would result in a Japanese protectorate, though the latter had probably not believed the Koreans capable of following out the logic of this.”[7]

[7] Hulbert’s “History of Korea.”

They however, not being prepared at that time to carry matters to extremes, after repeated attempts at a compromise, at length temporarily dropped it.

The Koreans, in order to oppose the encroachments of the Japanese, had organized a society “for the promotion of peace and safety” (Po an Whai) and many exciting discussions took place as to how to defeat the purposes of the Japanese, while continually a stream of memorials poured in to the Emperor, beseeching him not to yield to the demands of the invaders. The latter, therefore, forcibly broke in on one of the meetings and carried leading members to the police station, and at other times raided the meeting-place, arrested other members and confiscated their papers. They further warned the Korean government that these doings must be firmly put down, and insisted that those who kept on sending memorials against the Japanese must be arrested and punished. The position of the Emperor at that time, as ever since, was certainly not an enviable one, and then if ever was it true that “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Indeed the poor Korean Emperor’s crown was sitting very loosely just then and there seemed no way in sight to keep it from rolling quite away.

Japanese troops in Seoul were increased at this time to six thousand. The members of the Po an Whai, on the other hand, sent circular letters throughout the country. News spreads in a marvellous way in Korea, faster than by mail, almost as by telegraph the human wireless flies from mouth to mouth, from hand to hand, and thousands of members were enrolled in every province.

In August Japanese military authorities asked for six thousand coolies to work on the railroad at handsome wages, but the report got out that these men were to be on the fighting line. Perhaps they distrusted their employers, but, whatever the reason, only two thousand men could be obtained and there were frequent bloody fights in the villages when the effort was made to force men to work.

The tide of public opinion was now running high against them on account of the waste land measure and the violation of the right of free speech, which had hitherto rarely been interfered with by their own government in spite of all its faults.

The Po an Whai still continued to carry on its propaganda, so the Japanese started another, called the Il Chin society, protected by Japanese police and having only such members as were properly accredited by them; and following this another society was organized as the Kuk Min or National People’s Club. Although their plans were good, having no means whereby to carry them out they were laughed at by some, but nevertheless they served to strengthen and unify patriotic feeling, develop progressive ideas, and sow broadcast through the land a general desire for advance and reform; to bid the people awake to the dangers threatening them and to stir up a general spirit of inquiry as to the best method to strengthen their country and finally deliver her. Perhaps not much wisdom was wasted here. The members were all more or less ignorant of such things, of almost anything, in fact, but Chinese classics, but nevertheless a beginning must always be made, and this was at least something.

And now in connection with the societies and the universal cry of “Kaiwha”—progress—one began to see everywhere a distressing admixture of foreign and native dress. Koreans had been for some time cutting their hair. Now hundreds were wearing foreign caps and shoes which with their own long white coats gave the painfully ridiculous appearance of some one going abroad in night attire, having stopped only for foot and head gear. Some wore no coats at all but very gaily colored foreign vests, with their baggy white trousers below. The transition stage in the dress of eastern peoples is sad to a degree to the foreigner who loves them and holds their dignity and respectability dear as his own. The more he cares for the people the more bitterly does he resent the harrowing and pitiful variety of incongruities evolved by the natives in their zealous efforts to imitate the foreigner.

Thus progress and pro-Japanese societies—names by some considered synonymous—multiplied, but the poor common people were as sheep without a shepherd, a prey to the wolves and robbers on all hands.

During that summer the Japanese made their first suggestions that Korea should recall her foreign representatives and that all Korean diplomatic business be transacted through the Japanese Legation. This was not, however, pushed at this time, but was simply a forecast of what was in store.

A little later a Mr. Stevens,[8] an American citizen, was nominated by them as adviser to the Korean foreign office. This was a move of great discernment, for Americans have always been particularly favored by the Korean court and people from the Emperor to the coolie, and the advice of an American would meet a far readier hearing at that time than that of a Japanese. This man, being the Japanese appointee and dischargeable only by them, was more than likely, as it chanced, to advise Koreans according to the wishes of the Japanese, indeed, for what other purpose could his patrons have placed him there?

[8] On March 23, 1908, a Korean member of the Religious Army attempted to assassinate Mr. Stevens at San Francisco, wounding him so seriously that he died a few days later.

In accordance with this advice the Korean Emperor disbanded and dismissed most of the fifty thousand troops he then had under arms, as he was reminded they were a needless expense. The Japanese had assured Korea’s independence and a small body-guard was all that was needed.

About this time, partly in response to the fast growing feeling of the Koreans themselves that one of their heaviest drawbacks was a lack of knowledge of Western sciences, a number of foreigners, including nearly all the missionaries, formed an educational association of Korea, their object being to prepare text-books for Korean schools. A little later a large number of Koreans also founded an educational society which did not attempt to do with politics but gathered together those who believed education must be one of the important factors in putting Korea on her feet.

In September, 1904, the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Protestant Missions was celebrated.

The Seoul-Fusan Railroad was completed during this year and the Seoul-Wi Ju Railroad well under way, and although they were put through in the interests of the Japanese, missionaries cannot but believe that unconsciously they were the agents of the Almighty making straight paths for His own kingdom. The missionaries of the Cross were, with the Japanese troops, the first people to use these roads while they were still in construction.

As the year advanced Japanese kept at work gathering the material resources of the country. The offices of the high Japanese officials were said to be literally besieged by their insistent countrymen who had no doubt come to Korea to make a great fortune one and all under the ægis of their own victorious troops and there is little doubt that the task of these officials, between their own rapacious nationals on the one hand and the Koreans who must be kept quiet for a time at least, till the army had done with Russia, was not too easy. Fishing rights along the whole coast were demanded and given, and next trading and riparian rights were seized.

The signing of the treaty of peace with Russia was the signal for a still more active policy in Korea, and then immediate steps were taken for the establishment of a protectorate.

It is a well understood and by a certain class of politicians well practised proverb that “To the victor belong the spoils,” and had Japan simply seized Korea at this time, it would neither have surprised nor greatly shocked the world at large, or the readers of universal history. But the somewhat clumsy attempt to place the Koreans in the position of suing for this, was on the part of the usually astute Japanese a strange proceeding. It seems as incredible that they could have expected to hoodwink the world as it was unnecessary. They may have wished to produce a certain impression, to create a given effect on the large party among their own best people who desired the practical independence of Korea to be preserved and faith kept with them. Whatever their reasons, the sheep’s clothing was inadequate, and the grim fact was only too patent to those who were concerned to know about the matter.

Early in the autumn of 1905 the Emperor had been approached with the suggestion of a protectorate. He was willing to recognize Japanese predominance in Korea, even acquiesced in Japanese advisorships, but when it came to turning the whole country over he refused. He knew that if he remained firm it could not be done without arousing indignation and perhaps some interference in his favor. He determined to lodge a protest at Washington, turning naturally, as all Koreans do, first to America and England, but England’s treaties with Japan were so sweeping that he knew it would be useless to look there. America’s treaty, however, has the following clause, “That if either of the contracting parties is injured by a third party, the other shall interfere with her good offices to effect an amiable settlement.” This could not be done through the regular channel of the Foreign Office, as the before mentioned American agent of the Japanese was in charge there. A personal and private letter was therefore sent direct to the President, asking him to investigate and help. This message was carried by an American resident, but the Japanese, probably surmising what was being done, hurried on the completion of their plans. Marquis Ito was sent to Seoul with definite instructions. Korea was to be induced or forced to sign away her existence “voluntarily” (?).

Though many conferences with the Cabinet took place, there was no result. The Koreans stood fast for the treaty of 1904 in which Japan guaranteed independence. Not a member of the Cabinet consented. It is unnecessary to go into all the painful details, but at last by surrounding the Cabinet and the palace with soldiers, by having previously secured the consent of two or three men who were venal, after repeated efforts and long discussions, show of armed force and having forcibly removed Han Kyu Sul, the strong Prime Minister (without whose signature no measure can be legally passed) they managed to gain a majority of one, and the seal being illegally fixed by the envoy, the fact was declared accomplished and the authorities immediately announced in Washington that Korea had voluntarily entered into an agreement granting Japan a protectorate. The American government almost immediately recognized Japan’s claim and removed the Legation from Seoul. The petition of the Emperor arrived in Washington before action had been taken, but though its arrival was announced to the President, it was not received till too late.

“For twenty-five years American representatives and residents had been reiterating that we stood for right against mere brute force, and Korea had a right to regard our government as the one above all others to demur at any encroachment on her independence. But when the time of difficulty approached we deserted her with such celerity, such cold-heartedness and such refinement of contempt, that the blood of every decent American citizen boiled with indignation. While the most loyal, patriotic, cultured of Korean nobility were committing suicide one after another, because they would not survive the death of their country, the American Minister (Mr. Morgan) was toasting the perpetrators in bumpers of champagne, utterly indifferent to the death throes of an empire which had treated American citizens with a courtesy and consideration they had enjoyed in no other Oriental country.”[9]

[9] Hulbert’s “Passing of Korea.”

News of this action was carried that night to the editors of one of the Korean dailies. They worked all night, well knowing that the result of their action would be confiscation of their presses and imprisonment at least, but thousands of copies of the paper containing a detailed report of all that had happened were in the hands of the people scattered broadcast beyond possibility of recall before the Japanese were aware. Every effort was made to destroy this publication and to prevent the spread of this story to other countries but it was too late. Members of the Cabinet and Court told the story to Americans, and though there existed a rigid censorship of telegraph lines and mails, it was carried by foreigners to China, so that even in the minds of those who lend the most willing ear to the story told by the Japanese, there must always remain at least a moiety of doubt.

When, as soon as the fact of the protectorate was announced, the American Legation was so suddenly removed, there went up as it were a great cry from the heart of the people, “Et tu, Brute.” It seemed the seal of their misfortunes, the certainty that their best friend remorselessly and with hopeless finality had deserted them.

Strong men were sobbing, moaning, crying like women or little children. Many committed suicide. Shops were closed with emblems of mourning. A nation was in sackcloth and ashes, on its face in the dust. It was a bitter hour for Korea and for the humiliated Americans who for once were not proud of their government so far as its policy in Korea was concerned. Well was it for the cowards who had signed the agreement that when they ventured through the streets it was with a strong guard of Japanese, for the people would have torn them to pieces, and as it was, numerous attempts were made on their lives. One of them attempted or pretended to attempt suicide, and to this step they were all advised by their compatriots. Japanese troops and artillery were paraded through the capital, with great show of power. Heavy guards were stationed at various points, though no attempt at resistance was made by the unarmed, unorganized, uncaptained mass of the citizens, against the victorious conquerors of Russia. Pro-Japanese societies and clubs suddenly collapsed. The party that had believed all along that Japan would keep her treaty and help Korea maintain her independence, was now disillusioned, horror-struck and indignant. The missionaries unanimously did all in their power to quiet the unhappy people, to prevent useless uprisings and bloodshed, and to comfort them in their sore distress. Some of them were inclined to resent these efforts to prevent revolt and to think and say that these missionaries were false friends who did not care for the welfare of the nation. Who could blame them for casting such a reproach upon us, when our own government had deserted them without even a word of commiseration or regret?

To add to the distress an epidemic of malarial fevers with typhus and typhoid, took place, on account of the way in which the city drains had been closed. The city had always been drained by open ditches which empty into a large drain flowing out under the walls. These small ditches were, in addition, periodically cleaned out by men who gather fertilizers; and, purified by sun and air, and washed out by the rains, they were not so great a source of evil as they looked. But the new-comers, by way of reform, and with the inevitable eye to appearances, ordered all these ditches covered. A protest, private and public, went up from every physician in Seoul. Appeals were made, but in vain. The ditches were covered with boards and sod and left to ferment and breed countless colonies of germs, with the result just mentioned.

Japanese colonists were still pouring into the country by thousands[10] and the class who came, and came as conquerors, was such (as has been noted) as to entail inevitable hardships on the natives. There is an impression abroad that all Japanese are now civilized. This is a great mistake. While in the cities there are large schools and universities of Western learning, it must be remembered there are forty million of people, most of whom live in the country and are very poor, who have never been touched by the wave of civilization that has swept over Tokio, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagasaki and the great cities. They are little if any different from their grandfathers as Commodore Perry found them, and their customs of dress, their ideas as to the seclusion of women, their morals, their habits of thought, their animus is in every way diametrically opposite to that of the Koreans. Easier would it be to mix oil and water than these peoples.

[10] There are now over 100,000 Japanese in Korea and they are coming at the rate of 50 to 100 a day (1908).

Some Japanese schools were started by the protectors but the Koreans were hardly prepared to profit by these, as the teaching was in Japanese, a language they could not understand, and yet it has been said that the Koreans did not care for education and were not willing or fit to make use of the advantages offered them.

But every little village has its schools, and among the Christians nearly every little group has its self-supporting parochial school, where the elements of Western learning are taught and the people are eagerly begging American missionaries for colleges and high schools which, as fast as provided, are thronged with students and could be easily thronged were the capacity doubled. The attitude of the people toward Christianity is stated in another chapter. Let it suffice to say that now is the accepted time to push forward with the standard of the Cross in Korea.

A young woman graduate of one of our largest American women’s colleges wrote, “Of one thing I am certain, that Christianity is the force for good and for enlightenment in Korea, in spite of all that may be said concerning Japanese reforms, governmental, educational, social.”

Another writes from Korea: “The whole country is ripe for the picking. The direful political conditions have turned the people toward the missionaries and their message is the only succor in sight. The leaders are openly declaring that in Christianity alone is to be found the political and social salvation of the nation. In their extremity the Koreans are ready to turn to the living God. It may not be so two years hence. Conditions of which I dare not write are changing the character of Korea.[11] If the Christian Church has any conception of strategy and appreciation of opportunity, any sense of relative values, she will act at once—not next year, but now.”

[11] Morphine is being introduced with fearful success by Japanese, hundreds of immoral characters are plying their trade and the character of the people seriously changed. L. H. U.

Just before the meeting of The Hague the Emperor decided to send an appeal thither for Korea. He was warned that if he did so it would result in his death or abdication, but he held firm. He replied that he knew that would be the case but that the appeal must be made. This was done and the abdication followed as predicted. Since then the rebellious among the people, many of those who have sore grievances, who have lost their homes, perhaps their all, and have been driven to desperation, have joined hands with the bandits, and form large companies of insurrectionists, called the Righteous Army, who keep up a kind of guerrilla warfare, giving the Japanese no rest.

A newspaper correspondent writes “The whole country is ablaze with eui-pyung (righteous soldiers.) Their professed object is to protest against Japanese rule and free the land from it.... As I take up to-day’s paper it reads ‘Modol (twenty miles west of Seoul) Dec. 7. Company fifty-one of the Japanese fought with one hundred and fifty rebels (eui-pyung) and drove them off. Su Won (twenty miles south of Seoul) Dec. 2. Eui-pyung entered the town, robbed, plundered and made off toward Namyang. Idong (twenty-five miles southeast of Seoul) Dec. 4. Eui-pyung entered and carried off the two chief men. Puk-chung (three hundred and seventy miles north of Seoul) Dec. 4. After much effort on the part of government (Japanese) troops, the eui-pyung have been dispersed. Chechun (one hundred miles south of Seoul) Dec. 2. Three hundred eui-pyung were followed, brought to a fight and thirteen killed. Changyim (seventy miles north of Seoul) Dec. 1. Fifty eui-pyung were encountered and in the fight six were killed. Eumsung (thirty miles southeast of Seoul) Dec. 4. An attack was made on the eui-pyung, two were killed and five wounded,’ etc.”

“All the while every Japanese wayfarer is marked, followed and done to death. The eui-pyung are everywhere. In the twinkling of an eye they gather, they separate. To-day five hundred are here. To-morrow no one knows where they have been spirited away to. Seoul and the larger cities alone are safe from their attack.... The task before the government grows daily more formidable.”

It has been reported that along the line of some of the railways the Japanese have been obliged to establish a continuous line of fortified posts with resident troops to prevent the constant destruction of the bridges and road bed by the eui-pyung, but in these reports coming from the government we are not told the numbers of their troops killed and wounded in these encounters, presumably too small to be worth mentioning. It is nevertheless evident that there is in the minds of a large number of Koreans objection to the present order which they are taking this means of recording.

As for the large body of Christians, they remain the most orderly, reliable and peaceable of the whole native population. The missionaries, one and all, whether from a wish to uphold Japanese rule, or a desire to save useless bloodshed, are unanimous in using all their influence to quiet the Christians and to induce them to prevent uprisings and revolts, and after the abdication the Christians in Pyeng Yang went through the streets counselling forbearance and patience.

These Christians are, however, no less patriotic than their more demonstrative compatriots. They are eager for progress, for education, for uplift, because they believe and openly declare that in Christian education and Christianity alone is to be found the political and social salvation of the country.

They are seeking “Kaiwha” more diligently than ever, and they are learning that progress and civilization do not consist in altering the cut and color of a man’s coat or the length of his hair; that it is not a matter of tramways, wide streets, tall houses, gunboats, well drilled armies, factories, arts, luxuries, hideous European clothes, etc. Most Eastern countries have all or many or some of these things, but even where they are in greatest profusion one feels that something is wanting. It is as like true civilization as a graphophone is like the true voice of a friend. There is a hollow, brassy ring about it. It does not come from a warm, living heart but is only a poor caricature out of an empty shell. They are learning that true civilization is not a veneer; it is the solid ringed growth of centuries reaching its leaves and blossoms unto Heaven. Some of its outgrowths are the things these people copy so marvellously in paper and wax that we can scarcely tell the difference.

At a great fête given in an Eastern city they built most cunningly out of boards and canvas a grand old tree; they painted it with wonderful skill and crowned it with paper leaves and blossoms. It was a marvel whereat the world stood open mouthed for a day, but the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon the tree and it fell for it had no roots.

The Korean Christians are learning fast, we hope, that better civilization of which our dictionaries give but one or two definitions: “The humanization of man in society; the satisfaction for him in society of the true law of human nature,” and “The lifting up of men mentally, morally and socially.”

This never was, never will be done by tramways and new clothes. It can never be brought about by armies and men of war. It will not follow in the train of art and of luxuries, though they follow it. Men, however well dressed and well informed, may be after all no better than the manufactured tree, without the vital principle of life that is in Christianity to “lift them up mentally, morally and socially” above the material and sensual and hold them there unshakenly rooted in the rock.

They are learning that all that is best in Western civilization, the motor power that stirs the energies of men and brings out the choicest results is Christian faith and love. Christian principle, and that where this principle is implanted, this spirit breathed, there is a civilization made or making, for the choice things of which heathenism has often not even a word whereby they may be expressed. Test them by such words as God, Heaven, Home, Love, Faith or Sin—where do they stand?

This is the reason that to-day Korean statesmen are saying that in Christianity is the only hope for Korea’s national salvation.

And here let me quote Dr. J. D. Davis of Kyoto who says, “If this work of Christianity can go on unchecked and unchilled Korea will be rapidly evangelized and filled with millions of happy, enlightened Christian homes and this little kingdom, despised though it has been, will give to the world a priceless example of the way and the only way that the Gospel can be carried to the whole world during the present generation.”

Again Mrs. Curtis, another American missionary to the Japanese, writes, “By God’s blessing, within the next ten years, if the Church in America will do its part, this whole nation (Korea) may be reached with the Gospel. Korea is fast becoming Christian, and, if Japan does not soon respond to God’s call to her, there is the prospect of a Christian people, producing the first-fruits of true life, brought under the sway of a nation yet dead, who have appropriated the fruits of centuries of Christian growth, but who refuse to share the life which alone can make those fruits sweet and wholesome and bring them to perfection. A Christian nation ruled by another whose real God is National Glory! It will be laid to the charge of the Christian Church if this becomes a fact. Every man and woman who is ‘looking for the kingdom of God’ and faithfully seeking to hasten its coming ought to consider this.”[12]

[12] Missionary review, March 1908.

Books which may be relied upon to give trustworthy accounts of conditions in Korea during the period above referred to are: Hulbert’s “Passing of Korea,” Doubleday, Page & Co.; McKenzie’s “Unveiled East,” Hutchinson & Co.; Story’s “To-morrow in the Far East,” Chapman & Hull, H. G. Underwood’s “The Call of Korea,” Revell (Mission study book); Hulbert’s “History of Korea.”

---

CHAPTER XVIII
PRESENT STATUS OF MISSIONS IN KOREA.

Present Status of Missions—Wonderful Progress—Education for Girls—Medical Missions—Denominational Comity—Christianity Spreading—Individuals at Work—Christian Heroes—Character of Korean Christians—How the Work Grows—Christian Influence—Training Classes—Circuit Work—Statistics—Rapid Extension—Evangelistic Work—Joy and Triumph—The Nation being Evangelized.

What has been previously written in this book regarding missions has become ancient history already in the swift onward march of events in Korea. Great political changes have occurred, referred to elsewhere, and these have doubtless been used in the Providence of God to turn the people toward the American teachers whom they have learned to trust. They have been humiliated, afflicted, distressed and perplexed and in their trouble and anxiety they have been eagerly searching on all sides for some light on a dark problem. Their cry has been, “What shall we as a nation do to be saved?” Some of their advisers have said, “Educate your people;” others, “Make friends with English and Americans;” others again have said, “Our old religions have never helped us. Perhaps this doctrine taught by the missionaries is the truth. If so, we have for centuries been offending the Almighty. He has permitted this curse to fall upon us. Let us hasten to repent and obey and worship only Him and perhaps He will be gracious and restore to our nation her ancient place and name and deliver us.”

But whatever the remedy suggested, the relief seemed to lie, for one cause or another, as was said in a previous chapter with the missionaries, and so the people have been groping, reaching out lame hands of faith towards what seemed to them the only hope, and turning in increasing numbers to the missions, to those who are there to “bind up the broken-hearted, to bid the oppressed go free, and to publish the acceptable year of the Lord,” and those who come to find help have found far more than they sought; for earthly freedom, fellow-citizenship with the saints of the household of God; for their ignorance they receive the wisdom that knows the love of Christ that passeth knowledge; and instead of their poverty and emptiness, all the fullness of God.

As we try to give some idea of the religious status of the people, perhaps it would be as well to consider the field at first station by station. Let us begin, then, with Seoul, the oldest station, the largest city, and looked at from many points, the most difficult, and also in some respects the most interesting.

It is most difficult because here for centuries have been the headquarters of a corrupt government. Here reside numberless officials with their retainers and sycophants, their concubines and dancing girls, and round them seems to revolve most of the political, social, religious and business life of the majority of the citizens. Graft plays a large part in the life of Seoul. Multitudes of its people are living in the hope of making money out of the government or some of its officials, the idle and the wicked of all classes and both sexes seem to gravitate naturally toward the capital and now it is crowded with thousands of foreigners of the most depraved morality. Yet here the first missionaries settled, perhaps as much because no other center was then open as for any other reason.

Here the Presbyterians have now three flourishing churches, the Northern Methodists have four, the Southern Methodists two, the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel have a Mission and the Romanists also two or three churches. None of these churches would be recognized to-day for those which were in existence five years ago. They are all far too small for their congregations, though these are divided, the men worshipping at one hour, the women at another. If we are a little late in visiting them we shall not be able to enter, for doors and windows are crowded and there is not an inch of space anywhere within hearing of the speaker’s voice.

In this city the largest congregation is probably that of the Yun Mot Kol church, which numbers eleven hundred people. The growth here is remarkable because not four years ago this was the weakest of the Presbyterian churches, not only numerically but in the character of its people. They seemed jealous, quarrelsome and niggardly. They were apparently unable to work in full harmony with the other Presbyterian churches of the city and unwilling to give in proportion to their numbers as the others gave, either for the support of their own work or of the general work of the three carried on in city and country. But now all is changed. This is now the largest church in the city and what rejoices all hearts is that it is gathering in large numbers of the nobility, most of whom live in that quarter. This class of people we have almost despaired of reaching for many reasons. The habit of keeping concubines is general among them and it is a terrible ordeal to wrench away from a woman dearly loved as a wife, and her little ones, for Koreans are exceedingly fond of their children and family ties are strong. Again, the Korean noble feels more than the lower classes, as a religious duty due to family and clan, the obligation of ancestor worship, and he is cutting himself loose from his place in social and family life when he abjures this. Still further, all officials holding office or attending the court must bow before certain royal tablets, and perform religious duties on certain national holidays. If this is given up his office must also be resigned. So we see that for a nobleman to become a Christian he must break the ties of family, of social and of political life and sacrifice whatever emoluments he is gaining thereby, and to some of these men it is all their living. Yet during the last three years a large number of the nobility have taken this step and their women, who have always been bound by the custom of seclusion, go in their chairs or even on foot, well veiled, to the Sabbath services.

The three Presbyterian churches, as has been said, work together as one for the evangelization of the heathen population of the city and surrounding country districts.

As for schools, both boys’ and girls’, they are all overcrowded; many applicants must be sent away. The churches have their own parochial primary schools for girls and boys which they, of course, support as well as their own church work, and there are boarding schools more advanced, corresponding to academies, connected with the different missions, for the reception of pupils who graduate from the lower schools and also for the children of Christians from the country.

A noted feature of the change in the spirit of the people is the way in which all are demanding education for their girls. Twenty years ago it was almost impossible to get any girls into our schools except the friendless and sick, little homeless waifs and orphans whom no one else cared for or wanted. It is interesting to see the way in which these changes have taken place. Little by little the daughters of Christians were allowed to attend if the Mission paid all expenses; then the country Christians began paying for the board and clothing of their daughters; then the unbelievers began to ask us to take in their girls and now the nobility are insisting on schools for their young women and are allowing some of them to mix with the lower caste girls in the ordinary schools. Mrs. Campbell, in charge of the girls’ school of the Southern Methodist Mission, who lives in a neighborhood where dwell a great many of the upper classes, has been literally besieged by wealthy and high caste ladies who beg her to establish a school for their young women and girls. Two such schools have been established in the city under non-Christian auspices and so determined are the people for education that they will provide it for themselves in these ways if we do not give them Christian schools. There are now three large mission boarding-schools for girls in Seoul, which cannot accommodate half the girls who are applying for admittance.

The story of the boys’ school is much the same. The English Episcopalians as well as the Presbyterians and Methodists have established boys’ schools, although the former are near the river, and there are also government native schools and Japanese schools of a non-Christian character. It has been and still is the hope that these schools of the Methodists and Presbyterians may in the future be united and thus effect a considerable saving in money, time and effort.

There is little doubt that in the future the strategic point for our largest colleges and academies must be in or near Seoul, which is geographically, politically and socially the center of the peninsula, and with great fields of mission work north, south and east of it, and of easy access from all parts of Korea both by rail and water way.

The medical mission work centers in the Severance Hospital, just outside the South Gate. This is a modern hospital, fitted up in every way according to the usages of modern medical and surgical science. There is a corps of nurses and assistants under the care of an American trained nurse. Young men are being prepared to practice medicine under the instruction of our doctors and the hospital and dispensary are crowded with patients, most of whom pay something for their medicine. Here again we see the change in the attitude of the people; for whereas at first people were not often willing to pay anything, and the women of high class not only would not visit the male physicians, but would not see them in their own homes except in the direst straits, now most of them are willing to see the doctors, many of them will go to the hospital, and gentlemen of high rank are willing to go there for treatment or operations, take private rooms, pay well for their care and often express themselves with overflowing gratitude for the kindness shown them, sending handsome presents, in addition, to their physicians and nurses, but what is far more important, go away either converted men or strongly favoring Christianity and the mission work.

The woman’s hospital and dispensary under the care of the ladies of the Methodist Mission has been just as flourishing, only it has not been favored by having so generous a patron as the Severance Hospital, but it is doing a good work and is known far and wide. The devoted women in charge of it are heart and soul in favor of union and undenominational mission work and they and we hope that all the medical work in Korea may be united under one medical committee and carried on in harmony with one plan, for the better economy of time, money and effort, and for the better and happier spirit, the avoidance of small jealousies and frictions, the uplift that comes to those who are working together as one, according to our Lord’s will and command.

For the same reasons, until the happy time when there shall be in all Korea but one united church of Jesus, the various missions have gradually been coming to a certain degree of agreement as to division of territory in Korea.

“Beginning from the south, we find the provinces of North and South Chulla, together with a few counties in the southern part of Chung Chong assigned exclusively to the Southern Presbyterians. The Southern province of Kyeng Keui is divided by counties between the Australian and American Northern Presbyterians, but North Kyeng Keui is left exclusively to the Northern Presbyterians. The provinces of North and South Chung Chong fall jointly to the American Northern Presbyterians and Methodists and a careful division of the territory by counties is under consideration. Kang Won is divided between the Southern Methodists and Northern Presbyterians and the Church of England, but even here there are mutual arrangements to prevent overlapping. The provinces of North and South Ham Kyeng have been left almost entirely to the care of the Canadian Presbyterian Church, while the other three provinces of Whang Hai and North and South Pyeng An are jointly worked by the American Northern Presbyterian and Methodist churches, a division according to counties having been arranged for most of this section and under advisement for the balance.”[13]

[13] From “Call of Korea” by H. G. Underwood.

We find then that Seoul is the center for a very large and important country work, divided between the missions of the Northern and Southern Methodists and the Northern Presbyterians and includes parts of the Southern province of Kyeng Keui with all of Kyeng Keui North and South Chung Chong and Kang Won, giving a population of considerably over three million people, that assigned to the Presbyterians of Seoul alone having 1,500,000 inhabitants, and consists of a belt practically covering the whole width of the peninsula, comprising an area slightly less than that of West Virginia and about the same latitude. The Presbyterians have 123 self-supporting churches, 178 places of regular meeting, 1612 communicants, of which 315 were added last year, and 7500 adherents, and in 44 schools, they have an enrolment of over 750 scholars. For the care and oversight of all this they have eight clerical men, two doctors and four single ladies, but it must be remembered that three men must give the most of their time to Bible translation and literary work and Seoul being in a way the center for the whole field no small amount of technical business and committee work of the Mission devolves on these men, as well as the Mission schools. The Tract Society and Young Men’s Christian Associations and the Bible Societies have their agencies here and all these societies must claim a good deal of the time of Seoul missionaries, so that we may say that not more than five men are able to look after the needs of the great Bishopric of over 1,500,000 souls, the share of the Northern Presbyterians.

Chong Ju, though as yet considered part of Seoul station and its reports of work given there, will be in the near future a separate station and is now occupied by two clerical missionaries, one of whom is married. The work there is increasingly promising and the new station is in a very populous district. Mr. F. S. Miller writes, “The year has been one of lengthening cords, so that instead of 26 groups and meeting places we have now 44, instead of 46 communicants there are now 102, instead of 68 catechumens there are now 260, instead of five church buildings there are now fourteen, instead of $264.10 gold contributions there are $408.63. The work now extends eighty miles north, sixty miles south, seventy miles west and thirty-three miles east. We have groups and meeting places in twelve of the seventeen counties of the northern province and are working in twenty counties of the southern province. It takes two months of solid itineration to make the round of the established work alone. The Christians received much benefit from the revivals which the Spirit worked first in the city church and then in a succession of country classes till even the most conservative helper found himself in charge of a revival where he saw such conviction of sin as he had not thought possible before.”

The Northern Methodists connected with Seoul station have oversight of nearly 100 churches with 4283 members and some 2851 seekers. More than one million people inhabit the territory of this Mission around Seoul and for the care of all these together with charge of their publishing house, which undertakes work for the whole country, and for the schools and Women’s Hospital, they have only six men and seven single ladies.

At Seoul the Southern Methodists have four ordained men and four single ladies. The last statistics of this Mission show 181 churches with 89 church buildings, 4998 members. Before turning to some of the other large centers of Mission work we must not forget to mention the Methodist Mission Press, which is the only mission press in Korea except a small one in Pyeng Yang, and the Y. M. C. A., which is accomplishing great things for the large numbers of young men of wealth and rank as well as for those of poorer families. Early in the history of the work we began to realize the need of some means of reaching the very large class of young men who would not go to the churches or the schools, to provide a pleasant and attractive gathering place where they could find simple and innocent amusement and instruction, to make it all sufficiently attractive to be a means of reaching these young men with the gospel. This of course was its first, last and only raison d’être. Forthwith the Y. M. C. A. in America were approached. Shortly after an agent was sent and from the first this association has been an untold blessing and a great success. Hundreds of young men belong; thousands attend and receive the gospel; the Koreans themselves have given thousands of dollars towards its support. One Korean gentleman from whom we wished to purchase land made a present of it to the Association and last year so great was the number attending one of the meetings that even the new temporary building was insufficient and the great throng were obliged to meet under a tent temporarily put up for the purpose.

It must be remembered that Koreans have no theatres, concerts, operas, lectures, or any other evening entertainments. They haven’t even any attractive saloons or gambling places. They gamble and drink, it is only too true, but in their own homes, so that an attractive place for evening entertainments like the Y. M. C. A. met one of the very most crying needs of the public. There are classes here for the study of music, English and Japanese, and other branches of learning. There are games, newspapers, books and frequent entertainments, musical and literary, and so this institution is reaching out widely among the best families of the land, winning a place and a hearing for the missionary and the gospel he proclaims, reclaiming lost young men, yes, whole families, and bringing them into the true fold. Whether it may or may not be the best thing elsewhere, it is certainly a necessity in Seoul, and it has had so long and far a start of Satan’s man-traps that we believe they will never be able to overtake it in the race. And now let me give a few quotations from the letters of some of the Seoul missionaries before turning to another part of the field.

A Methodist missionary from Seoul writes to “The Korea Field” of 1907. “In the early spring of 1899 I itinerated through the southeastern section of the Kyeng Keui province and baptized a man and two of his family. It was like putting a match to dry prairie grass. Thereafter until the present day it has been a constant hustle to gather in the groups of believers springing up all over the territory and organize them into churches. Before I left on furlough in 1905 the number of believers had already reached into the thousands; since my return last fall it has been a continual struggle to organize the work and man it with efficient leaders and get it ready for a grand rally all over the district. The little group composed of a man and his family baptized in an obscure village was the first of a mighty host, for the work begun there has spread into five provinces and now, as it stands on our rolls, numbers 298 groups, besides a number of those that are not yet counted, enrolling 16,202 believers. Daily new groups are coming into existence and pleading for guidance and instruction. Chapels have been built all over the district by earnest believers who never think of asking for foreign aid (in money). School buildings have been secured and schools are being conducted on a modern plan. In this short while I cannot tell all the wonders that His grace has wrought in this part of the field, when I think of all the things that I have seen during the last six months, my heart grows warm and glad within me. For the best part of it is that people are being saved and are entering into a live experience of redeeming grace.” This district has a second time within two years been deprived of the care of its missionary, the one who wrote this letter having been laid low by violent sunstroke, and now this great district is in the hands of a new young missionary who has not yet learned the language.

Here are a few extracts from the letter of one of the Presbyterian missionaries at Seoul, written to “The Korea Field” of July, 1907. His district is in North Kyeng Keui. “The first place visited was a village twenty miles south of Seoul where no missionary has ever been before. I found a group of over fifty believers, all an outgrowth of the work of native Christians. I was further surprised to find a chapel almost completed. * * * From morning till late in the evening we spent examining men, women and children for admission as catechumens and accepted most of them.”

He continues, “Ten miles north is my Soti group, noted for its missionary zeal. Only a year ago the people built a fine big church with a room adjoining it especially for the use of the foreign missionary on his visits. During the past year, through the efforts of the four leading men and chiefly of deacon Paik three groups of Christians have grown up within a radius of three miles. One of these groups numbers about twenty-five and has already purchased a house to be used for worship. Another group was just started and consists of eighteen adherents, while about forty men and women make up the third group that will soon have a church building of their own. Every Sunday one or two men are detailed from Soti for each of these three groups to lead the morning and afternoon services.” The leading man, deacon Paik, is of untiring missionary zeal and great earnestness. He has been blessed with a big, strong body and does not hesitate to use it for the church. To carry heavy loads of lumber for miles on his back and to spend days in making mortar and plastering when the church was being built, to walk forty miles in the winter to Seoul for the sake of getting material for preparing the church, to start out ahead of me to the next group, ten miles away, to prepare them for my visit, to carry my heavy country boxes himself when no coolie could be found—all these tasks are looked upon by him not as burdensome duties but a pleasant privilege.”

At Tang Mok Kol for several years past there had been but one Christian. Every Sunday he went three miles to the nearest church to worship. A year ago three more men became believers and last winter the gospel began to spread very rapidly among the villages. One of the new converts was especially impressed with the necessity of getting a place large enough to accommodate all the worshippers. Rather than wait until the new converts would be able to build a church he sold his big fine working bull (a bull is a farmer’s chief dependence and most valuable possession) and purchased with the proceeds a meeting place. When I asked him what he would do when farming time came, he told me he had a young animal and by its aid he hoped to manage his work. What would we think of a farmer who would sell all his working teams for the sake of buying a church? And yet no one among the Koreans thought this act very wonderful, even though the giver had been professing Christianity only a few months and was not even a catechumen. The self-sacrifice of this man produced the natural result and when shortly after my winter’s visit the church became too small, the people at once obtained the necessary timber and with their own hands enlarged the building. On this visit I found a house seating sixty people and comfortably filled.”

Mr. Pieters continues, “In another village composed largely of inns a group was formed and shortly after a building purchased for a church. One of the Christians worked so enthusiastically that their numbers grew rapidly. People who had all their lives been making their living by selling whiskey gave up this means of livelihood and turned to farming. Further on, deep in the hills, is an isolated village where a number of men have been led to Christ by a boy. The latter had heard the gospel in one of our churches and by his own words as well as by the aid of Christian books he led his parents to believe. Then he began to invite people to their house, talked and read his books to them until one by one the neighbors accepted Christ.

“All last winter these converts went down every Sunday to the church where the boy had been converted ten miles away but since this spring one of the church members has been sent up there to conduct the Sunday services there. It is quite unusual in Korea for a boy to take the lead, for the Confucian ethics require a boy in the presence of older people to be silently respectful. Thus came true the prophet’s words, ‘A little child shall lead them.’ In my next church there were a year ago only a few believers. The need of a school for their children was felt most keenly and I recommended as the teacher an earnest Christian, an old man. He went for a very meagre salary, but spent his spare time preaching to the people and teaching a number of people to read. The group grew by last winter to about fifty men and women. Most of the winter they met for their services in two rooms and on the open porch of the house of one of the Christians. When the freezing weather came, it became trying to sit for an hour and a half in the open air during the services, and the people decided to build a church. By buying trees in the hills and cutting them and carrying them down, by collecting loose stones, by preparing other materials and doing all the work with their own hands and by other very strenuous efforts, the people succeeded in putting up a fine church that will seat 120 persons. One part was partitioned off and fitted for a school, but it can be thrown open during the services. Four boys of this school, each less than ten years old, came every day a distance of three miles to study. Last winter I met one day the four little figures trudging along the muddy road carrying in their mittless hands bowls of cold rice for their dinner. They were cheerful and seemingly quite content to walk the six miles every day since it gave them the opportunity of study that so many boys did not have.

“The average earning capacity of the majority of families that make up the Christian constituency of this district is about thirty dollars a year for a whole family. Keeping these facts in mind, we can easily see,” says Mr. Pieters, “how a contribution of two dollars, which is quite common here when a church is being built, gives forty-fold measured by standards of values in America. In addition, none of these have been professing Christianity more than two years and none of them are yet baptized. These are the catechumens and adherents.”

But we must turn away from these incidents illustrating so thrillingly as they do the wonderful work of God among the people and the kind of Christians He is calling into His fold there. Their liberality, their consecration, their zeal, their faith, all proclaim them preeminently the work of the Spirit, and these particular provinces do not abound more in these examples, than others of which every missionary can tell. These, in fact, have never been considered so hopeful and progressive as those in the North.

Time and space will not suffice to describe as carefully the work of every station as of the larger centers and we must hasten on. Fusan Station was started next after Seoul, but a series of deaths and removals from one unavoidable cause after another almost seemed to indicate that the will of God was that the station itself should be removed to some other place. But houses and a fine hospital having been built, the brave missionaries have endured discouragement and disappointment, not in the natives, but in the constant depletion of their forces, and to-day as everywhere in Korea the work is rapidly growing and spreading. The Presbyterian Hospital here, built by some generous Christians in America, is absolutely up-to-date, and the physicians’ work is an immense factor in spreading the knowledge of the love of Christ through all the surrounding country. During the year there have been added to this comparatively small church an increase of almost fifty per cent. The territory of this station comprises the Province of South Kyeng Seng and considering the Australians who share the work, there are left to be evangelized by the American Presbyterian Mission here 750,000 people. There are 47 self-supporting churches, 520 communicant members, with 2017 adherents. All this work is under the care of two clerical workers and the assistance of an overworked doctor who sees thousands of patients and performs hundreds of serious operations with no assistants but Koreans. The Australian Presbyterian Mission who share this work here have a good local church and girls’ school at Fusan and have started a new station at Chin Ju. They have three clerical missionaries, one of whom is a doctor, and three single ladies.

After Fusan, Pyeng Yang was the next station to be established in Korea. Its history in the early times has been already given in another chapter. Perhaps because of the many trials its people have had to endure in the course of the two Japanese wars and subsequent colonization by aliens, perhaps because from the earliest times, first from Manchuria and then from Seoul the gospel seeds were most persistently and continuously sown here, perhaps because the people of the north are more ready and receptive, we know not, but the work during the last fifteen years has multiplied and spread with far more amazing rapidity in the north than in the middle and southern portions of Korea.

The same can hardly be said much longer. Witness Mr. Swearer’s letter, just quoted, and the wonderful percentage of growth in other places. The south has at last taken fire, too, but nevertheless, even to-day, the greatest fruits of mission efforts are being gathered in our northern stations.

This station was started in 1893 and has under its care the province of South Pyeng Yang which, though small, is thickly populated, and a portion of North Whang Hai, including about 800,000 people to be evangelized. There are seven ordained Presbyterian ministers on whose shoulders in addition to this evangelistic work rests a large share of theological instruction, two large educational institutions, the preparation of school text-books and books of all kinds as well as the care and direction of eleemosynary institutions such as a school for the blind and home for the friendless.

The institutional work for women is largely under the care of two ladies and the evangelistic work for women is ably undertaken by the wives of the missionaries who all devote to it a great deal of time and faithful work.

“One part of the province of Whang Hai, at first coming under the care of Pyeng Yang station, about two years ago was set off with a part of that belonging to Seoul station to form the new station of Chai Ryong, and a part of Northern Pyeng An province which also was at first a part of Pyeng Yang territory, was set aside to form the Syen Chun station as the work grew too heavy and was too distant to receive the careful constant oversight needed from Pyeng Yang city. The territory and work in this province is shared with the Northern Methodists. A division according to counties has been arranged between these two denominations for most of this section and a similar division is now under advisement for the balance. The Methodists have at present only three ordained clerical missionaries and one physician to care for their share of the evangelistic work in this district which includes the province of South Pyeng An with the entire province of Whang Hai, making this mission’s share of the population in the neighborhood of one million, for whom there are only four ordained men, one of whom must give his entire time to educational work. As with the Presbyterians, the wives of the missionaries take a full and active part in the evangelistic work. In 1893, when these two denominations planted their stations and organized their two churches neither could have counted more than twenty baptized members—not seventy-five baptized persons in the whole province, not four chapels in the extent of their district. Now, 1907, the Presbyterians have 164 self-supporting churches with 258 regular meeting places, 6089 communicants of whom 1106 were added during the year and 20414 adherents. For the instruction of the children in those churches there are 111 parochial schools of which 110 are entirely self-supporting, with an attendance of 3075 pupils. In the city are four churches, Central, South, North and East, with another church to be set off in the West almost at once. Although three other churches have already been set off from the Central Church it is still too small and they are compelled to hold two services for the accommodation of the one congregation, packing the building first with men, later with women. ‘It is here that the great prayer-meetings of between eleven and twelve hundred are held, while on the same night similar meetings are held in the other churches, giving some three or four thousand people for the week night services. This has also become an institutional church, with its church house in the center of the city with recreation and reading rooms, night schools and classes for educational training and a large book shop for the dissemination of the printed Word.’”[14]

[14] “Korea’s Challenge,” by H. G. Underwood.

To a large extent the better class of the people of the city have been reached and to-day the whole city feels the effect of Christian influence. A Christian sentiment rules and the actions of church members have a reflex influence on the whole community. Not only is this the case within the city walls but this influence reaches far into the country. Its own evangelists sometimes paid by the native church, sometimes voluntarily at their own expense, go freely everywhere, preaching, establishing groups of Christians, which become self-supporting churches, and holding Bible classes. Most of these groups have their schools and in their turn as they gain strength send out evangelists and workers, thus multiplying the influence of the gospel and everywhere that this influence prevails saloons are closed, the Sabbath is kept holy, gambling and vice of every kind is suppressed and first of all idolatry is abolished. Let me here quote a few lines from the letter of an American young lady who visited some of the services held in Pyeng Yang.

“We visited eight Sunday Schools—Sunday Schools of small boys and small girls, of big boys and older girls, of married women and of married men, varying from one to three hundred pupils respectively. Every room was flooded with sunlight and crowded with white, spotless linen-dressed men or women, though nothing had been said to them on the subject of their appearance or their dress; the Christians have all adopted the custom of making valiant efforts, no matter how poor they are, to appear in clean clothes each Sunday. You can imagine what this means for women who toil all day every day but Sunday, and who wear voluminous white dresses and white handkerchiefs tied around their heads like Dutch caps. The effect is wonderful. Their faces shone like the morning, their clothes glistened like white satin. There were six hundred gathered in one church for special women’s service at eleven o’clock. Seated close together on the floor, facing me (I was at the organ on the platform), with their black hair securely tied back under their handkerchiefs, their dark eyes full of expression, their white teeth glistening as they smiled at me or the speaker—they were truly beautiful.”

The country work is divided into seven circuits and in both local and city work those whose assignment is educational or medical assist also. One of these city churches will accommodate about fifteen hundred. In the others about eight hundred to one thousand can be received.

The Methodists have two large city churches, one of which is the First Church of Pyeng Yang and the other the Drew-Appenzeller Memorial Church. They have four country circuits with a total membership of 4958 to which we must add 5308 seekers. They have 43 primary schools with 1405 pupils.

In medical work the Presbyterians in charge of the Caroline A. Ladd hospital and the Methodists have almost complete union, and the evangelistic opportunities of these hospitals and dispensaries can scarcely be overestimated. Thousands of patients are treated here every year. Mrs. R. S. Hall, M.D., Methodist, has charge of the Hall Memorial Hospital for women. Women’s work is carried on by the Methodists through their married ladies and four single lady missionaries, one of whom is a native Korean, educated in America and having received the degree of M.D. in an American university. These ladies are constantly engaged in giving Biblical and secular teaching both in the city and in the country districts.

In both the Presbyterian and Methodist missions one of the strongest features here as indeed all through Korea, is the system of training classes which are similar to a Bible Institute in America and range from those who are just learning to read to those who have studied their Bibles for years. In the Presbyterian Mission the class for 1907 from the country districts of Pyeng An, meeting in Pyeng Yang City, reached an enrolment of about 1000, the classes for the men of the city about 800 hundred, that for country women 560, that for city women 300. In addition to these classes which in the case of the men was mainly for leaders, 182 classes were held in central places in the country, the women missionaries having charge of ten with an enrolment of 685 men, making altogether 192 of these classes with an enrolment of 9650. We are sorry not to be able to give the figures of similar classes held by the Methodists. We thus have a complete system of Bible instruction which is illustrated by the following simple diagram.

The large spots at the end of the radii represent the country centers and to these the people from the little villages round, represented by the small dots, gather to the country classes, while the leaders from all these places, large and small, and many laymen, go up to Pyeng Yang once a year to the leaders’ Bible training classes.

In this station is the theological seminary for all the Presbyterian missions working in Korea. Here students carefully selected from all over the country are in regular attendance three months of each year, the rest of their time being spent in active evangelistic work. The instructors here are missionaries from all the stations and from each Presbyterian Mission, but those residing in Pyeng Yang do a greater portion of this work than others. A much more extended and complete union in educational work between Methodists and Presbyterians has been attained in Pyeng Yang than elsewhere. In the college and academic work of this section there has been a tentative union, but those engaged in this believe it will soon be a fixed arrangement. This educational work is under the especial charge of the Presbyterian missionaries assisted by other members of the station and by one of the Methodist missionaries. The growth during the last year, especially, has been very great.

Two single ladies have charge of the institutional work of the Presbyterians. There are girls’ schools and women’s Bible classes in both city and country districts.

A letter very recently received, February, 1908, giving a few reports from the country circuits, will show something of the present progress of missions there. Mr. Swallen, reporting for his itinerating work from October to December, 1907, says in substance, “During a trip in which I visited every point except one or two of the smallest ones I found the work exceedingly encouraging. Especially through the central west all the churches are growing rapidly. I made one visit to Pastor Seng’s, holding a circuit class—Bible—in the latter section attended by two hundred men and a leaders’ meeting with an attendance of nearly one hundred. The work of the circuit is so great that it has been divided and hereafter there will be two leaders’ meetings and two circuit classes. Last year the district supported eleven helpers at a cost of twelve hundred nyang each, thirteen nyang more than this sum being in the Treasurer’s hands at the end of the year. Since then two of the helpers have become pastors and are receiving thirty-six hundred nyang, but in addition to this the people propose to support ten helpers and have increased the salaries of all who are helpers of experience. Still more, they have given enough money to send a helper to the new mission field in the island of Quel Part, the mission field of Chu Chu. I feel strongly the need of instruction for the multitudes coming in. I preached every day and night but what is that when the need is so great and much of my preaching is special instruction at the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper. Even the helpers cannot spend much time in instruction; there are so many places to visit they can scarcely know all the people. There must be lay instruction and I feel very strongly that we must do something at once in the matter of teaching those who are to give it. At one class twenty of the leaders and deacons alone expressed their desire to study for a month in Pyeng Yang in preparation for this work. During the three months I have baptized 500 adults and 14 children and have received 799 catechumens. Thirty women’s classes have been arranged for aside from the circuits in charge of the two pastors, and during the first two weeks of the Korean New Year forty-four classes for men will be held in the district.” These classes are from a week to ten days’ duration. The same letter goes on to say that “Mr. Bernheisel during fifty-five days in the country travelled about 650 miles, visiting 43 groups of Christians.... There are now five helpers in this district. 164 adults were received in baptism and 277 catechumens. In October Mr. Lee baptized 57 adults in his Whang Chu circuit and found great advance in educational lines. There are now eleven boys’ schools and one academy, seven night schools and four schools for girls. The church in Whang Chu purchased for three thousand nyang a fine tiled building, formerly a Roman Catholic church to be used as their school.

“Early in November Mr. Moffett made his first visit to his Eastern circuit in company with the newly ordained Pastor Han, they together receiving in baptism 73 adults in three churches. In their district four classes for women had an aggregate attendance of 123.”

Tai Ku, being the third largest city in Korea, in the midst of a very densely populated province, that of North Kyeng Seng, of which it is the capital, a station was opened here, in 1899. The missionaries had taken their residence there in 1897. This province is said to contain 1,750,000 people and is left entirely to our mission and here in this city is a fairly well equipped hospital, a church with an average attendance of between seven and eight hundred and an academy which it is expected will meet the needs of Tai Ku and Fusan for some years to come. It is still pioneering work in this district. The work is divided into that of the city and four country districts. In the latter they have 85 entirely self-supporting churches with 564 communicants—of whom 280 were added during the year—and 6145 adherents. These churches have 49 schools, 46 being entirely self-supporting, with an enrolment of 433 pupils. The numbers of applicants and baptized have been nearly doubling themselves in this station yearly for the past three or four years. All this work with the responsibility for nearly two millions souls is on the shoulders of four ordained men and one physician, their wives and one single woman. “The responsibility,” I said, humanly speaking, for could they not cast this burden on the Lord it would certainly crush them, but in addition to the knowledge, the inspiring knowledge that they are workers together with Him, they also realize that they have the earnest prayers of brother missionaries and of Christians in home lands.

The members of the Southern Presbyterian Mission arrived in 1893 and have always worked in harmony with the Northern church. They assisted the Northern Mission for a few years while studying the language and finally started their first station in Chun Ju, the adjacent territory for which they are responsible having a population of five hundred thousand. There are 60 out stations, 386 communicants, 4000 adherents and there are ten schools of which nine are self-supporting. There is only one missionary and his wife to work this territory. Kun Son is really the port of Chun Ju and with its surrounding population has a territory inhabited by five hundred thousand people with four clerical men, one of whom is married, to care for them. They report 27 out stations, 381 communicants, 1150 adherents, six schools and 125 pupils.

Mok Po and Quang Ju should be considered as one station, the one being the port, the other the capital of this southern province and this station has entire charge of the province of South Chulla Chulla, with a population something over one million. Here are four missionaries, three of whom are married and one single lady. They report 53 out stations, 284 communicants, 3260 adherents and carry on three schools with 66 pupils. Two million people are here left to be evangelized by eight missionaries. Says the Rev. Mr. Preston, “The number of recognized stations on my circuit has grown from seven to fourteen. A chain of stations within easy distance of each other has been effected. The growth has been very gratifying. I examined in all 331 people of whom 74 received baptism and 193 were received as catechumens. The total number in these groups is 120 baptized and 188 catechumens, as against 49 baptized and 75 catechumens last September. It seems hard to realize that only a year and a half ago this work consisted of Mok Po with 27 baptized and 17 catechumens, Soo Yung with six catechumens and Sadong with none. Mok Po is in a flourishing condition, the growth having been more than fifty per cent in the last nine months. This, too, is in the south, where it was said by some only a few years ago that the people were so different from those in the north we could never expect similar results among them.”

The Canadian Presbyterians, arriving in 1898, have by mutual agreement been assigned the northern province of Ham Kyeng and have stations at Won San, Ham Eung and one point still further north. They have at present six clerical workers, one male physician, one lady doctor and one other single woman. They have 62 self-supporting churches with 814 members, adherents 3830, who gave last year $2,573.34. Almost the entire population of this province is left to their care.

Syen Chun was set aside as a station in 1901, when the work in North Pyeng Yang was growing so rapidly that it was impossible to care for it from the old center. The territory is about three hundred miles long by one hundred and fifty wide and includes a population of about eight hundred thousand, of whom fully five hundred thousand are the Presbyterian allotment, for the Methodists located at Yeng Byen have divided this with them. When this station was opened, the enrolled membership including catechumens was 1800. There are now in charge three married clerical missionaries, one doctor and his wife and two single women. A new church to accommodate fifteen hundred people has just been erected in this town which, with a men’s Sunday School numbering eight hundred and a women’s numbering seven hundred thirty-three, is only a part of the results since the station was established.

The country work is divided into twenty-one circuits and during the year twenty-four new groups have been started. Included in this territory is the Kang Kei district to the north east. Here there are three circuits with three helpers, thirteen school teachers, three home missionaries and two colporteurs, all entirely supported by the native church.

The difficulty of access and the great distance make it imperative that a new station should be started here at Kang Kei as the people are eager, intelligent and among the most responsive and progressive in the province. For this new station at least two ordained men and a physician will be necessary.

During the past year, 1906-7, this station reports 102 churches, all self-supporting, with 4,639 communicants, of whom 1085 were added last year and a total of adherents of 15,348. These churches support 103 schools with an enrolment of 2,290 pupils. The rapidly increasing number of graduates from primary schools who demanded further instruction and the insistence of their parents have made it necessary to open temporary academies in various parts of the province but these will be now united at Syen Chun, the necessary funds having been generously given by a Christian woman in New York.

The two single ladies with the missionaries’ wives have women’s work in charge which includes women’s training classes, girls’ schools and two girls’ academies to be opened for a part of the year.

Chai Ryong station was started like Syen Chun because the rapidly increasing work made it seem necessary to place resident missionaries in their midst, so this station was opened in 1905-6 with three married clerical men and one doctor and his wife. In this city the natives have built and paid for a new church with a seating capacity of one thousand. The missionaries report 98 self-supporting churches, 2,255 communicants, of whom 417 were added during the year and 7,420 adherents. These churches carry on 45 parochial schools with 771 pupils. It was this district with regard to which much that has been written in previous chapters of this book had reference and here are some of the oldest of the Christian communities.

A summary of the missions of the Northern Presbyterian Church in Korea shows that she is solely responsible for six million seven hundred thousand people and in carrying out this work she has one embryo theological seminary, one college, three academies, three hundred thirty-nine primary schools for girls and boys, and here we are speaking rather of teachers and scholars than of buildings and equipment.

They have 619 self-supporting churches, carrying on meetings in 767 places, have enrolled 15,079 communicants, of whom 3,421 were admitted last year, giving a total of adherents of 59,787. (The others, making about eighty thousand, belong to the other Presbyterian Church.) The Southern Presbyterian Church has six hospitals and asks for two more at once and an immediate reinforcement of missionaries.

As has been said, all the different missions of the Presbyterians working in Korea form one united native church of Jesus and work in every way as one mission, having a Council of Missions meeting annually. With the consent of the governing bodies of these missions an advance was made in 1907, when a Presbytery was organized to take oversight of all the Presbyterian churches and was constituted with Dr. S. A. Moffett in the chair at the city of Pyeng Yang on the seventeenth of September, 1907. He writes, “The Presbytery had as its representatives elders from thirty-six fully organized churches, at least two other churches with elders not being represented. The Presbytery then elected its officers and as its first work began the examination of the seven men who had finished the theological course of five years and proceeded to their ordination. At the night meeting, in a very impressive service, the seven men were ordained. The Presbytery consisted, after the ordination, of these men, of thirty-two foreign missionaries and forty Korean ministers and elders. It has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a church with 17,890 communicants, 21,482 catechumens, 38 fully organized churches, 984 churches not fully organized, adherents numbering 69,098, and day schools 402 with 8,611 pupils. This church contributed last year for all purposes $47,113.50.”

The ordained men were appointed as pastors or copastors over groups of churches except two, one of whom was called by the Central Church of Pyeng Yang, and one was sent as a missionary to Quel Part, the whole church to provide the money to send with him one or more helpers. Thus the infant church, needing sorely more helpers at home, sends its first foreign missionary abroad.

The Methodist Church has centered its work for North Pyeng An in the city of Yeng Byen and has divided it into six circuits. The territory is about three hundred miles long by one hundred fifty wide and has a population of about eight hundred thousand, and of these at least three hundred thousand are the Methodist allotment.

There are at the present time 551 members with 405 seekers. They have nine primary schools with 185 pupils and for the care of all this work only one man and his wife have been assigned.

The whole allotment, then, according to division of territory, of the Methodist mission in Korea is about three million people to be reached. There are several hospitals and dispensaries but not enough. The Methodist Churches North and South have united along educational lines in establishing the Biblical Institute of Korea for theological instruction. The Northern Church unites with the Presbyterian in Pyeng Yang in college and academic work, and it has established a college at Seoul and has a large number of primary schools that center in a normal institute meeting annually at the capital.

In the development of her evangelistic work there are 23,455 members and probationers, 16,158 seekers and 113 schools with 4,267 pupils.

The Southern Methodist mission have already been frequently referred to but their work at Song Do and Won Son has not yet been mentioned, because it has been the desire to speak of the work of all denominations as far as possible together, to show the force and the strength of the whole church of Christ in these sections where more than one mission was at work. But, as has already been said, the Southern Methodists have a compact piece of territory, triangular in shape, with Song Do, Seoul and Won Son at each apex, and Seoul being the only place where they have work with other missions, Won Son and Song Do have not yet been mentioned.

Song Do was the objective point of this mission at the start and there they contemplate having their largest plant. There are two married men and one single man for evangelistic work and two clergymen, one of whom is a Korean gentleman educated in America, for their educational institutions, and two doctors and three single ladies. They intend to make this city the seat of large educational institutions for girls and boys. They have in Song Do at present in their advanced school one hundred and fifty students. At Won Son, the most northeasterly point of their territory, they have two evangelistic workers, one educational, one medical worker and three single ladies. They have here one city church with a large number of country churches, a day school for boys, a boarding school for girls and a dispensary. The last statistics of the mission show 181 organizations with 89 churches or chapels, and 4,998 members, who gave last year $2,380.26.

The English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has already been mentioned. Besides their work in Seoul they have evangelistic and medical missions at Chemulpo and Kang Wha and a substation at Su Won. Their workers are fine, earnest and efficient people and we only regret that they are so few and that we have not been able to get their statistics in time for these chapters. We hope that although our forms of worship are so different they and we may at no distant date be able to enter into the same union in which we believe every true church of our blessed Lord must come.

A few incidents have been related to show the attitude and characteristics of the native Christians, and the manner in which the gospel is being carried among the Koreans. One point which is very marked is that they consider the work their own. They do not depend on missionaries or leaders alone to preach and spread it abroad, but each man, woman and child feels that it is his or her business as far as possible to “pass on the Word.” While some of these people are ignorant, some are well educated and some are brilliant young men who have refused various inducements to accept high positions in the political and mercantile world and who are devoting their best strength and much or all of their time at tremendous sacrifice to serve their Saviour.

The attitude of the Christians everywhere is that of joy and triumph. Purified in the cleansing fires of the Holy Spirit during the great revivals of a year ago, they are going forward with new enthusiasm, devotion, consecration, aroused faith, as one man, to win and save all their countrymen. The missionaries, too, were never so much one in heart, thought and action, never so fully aroused and alert, never so full of assurance and gratitude. Not a man or woman but thanks God that they are privileged to live at this day and work with Him in this place and see the glorious things that He is doing. Not one but feels certain God has far greater things in store in the future than in the past. Not one but believes more than ever in the power of prayer, but believes that through prayer Korea may be, shall be won for Christ in the near future. Pulses are quickening, blood is tingling with the wonder and the glory of it and we ask ourselves how it is that we, we are permitted to see and hear these things. “For the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”

In the days of Moses God led His people out of Egypt and through the desert with a series of awful judgments and wonderful miracles, and established them in Canaan, under His own divine laws, as an object lesson to the age of His mighty power and of His ideal of a nation, a symbol and example to His Church. And it looks altogether possible and probable that now, when faith seems to be growing cold, when sceptics are so openly questioning the power of God’s pure Gospel, He is intending to use one of the weakest and most despised of the peoples to illustrate what the Gospel pure and simple can do to evangelize a whole nation. One of the men of the New Theology asked me anxiously whether we “were teaching the Koreans a theology that would soon need revising.” Thank God the theology the Koreans are being taught is not man made or man revised. Thank God He is vindicating the “old time religion,” the old time theology, the old time Bible, as good enough for Korea, powerful to the pulling down of heathen strongholds, powerful to change wicked men into good men, heathen communities into righteous, pure and good ones. Unto Higher Critics—a stumbling block, unto liberal New Theologians—foolishness, but to those who take Him simply as little children and His Word—the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, the weakness of God is stronger than men, and He is choosing the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; He is choosing the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty, and He is saying to the men who stand as the Jews and Greeks of our Western Churches, “Here is base, despised Korea. Behold what the old Bible, the old Gospel, with the teaching of the Spirit, received and believed, can do for her.”

It is in this way the finger of God is pointing, it is in this way He is leading, and we are following after, if we may apprehend that for which we were apprehended by Christ Jesus; reaching forth, we press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God for the whole nation of Korea in Christ Jesus.[15]

[15] All the facts and statistics given in this chapter are taken from “The Call of Korea,” by H. G. Underwood, “The Korea Field,” and personal letters, and recollections and Mission Official Reports.

---