Whatever may be said in favour of the Roman Catholics, it is unquestionable that their methods are far more irritating to the Chinese than the methods of the Protestants. Led by able and energetic bishops, the priests acquire all possible business property, demand large rentals, build imposing religious plants, and baptize or enroll as catechumens all sorts of people. It is notorious that the Roman Catholic priests quite generally adopt the policy of interference on behalf of their converts. Through the Minister of France at Peking they obtained an Imperial Edict, dated March 15, 1899, granting them official status, so that the local priest is on a footing of equality with the local magistrate, and has the right of full access to him at any time. Whether or not intended by the Roman Catholic Church, the impression is almost universal in China among natives and foreigners alike that, if a Chinese becomes a Catholic, the Church will stand by him through thick and thin, in time and in eternity. There are, indeed, exceptions. Dr. Johnson, of Ichou-fu, told me of a Roman Catholic Christian who, during the Boxer troubles, stealthily moved his goods into Ichou-fu, burned his house, and then put in a claim for indemnity. The heathen neighbours, when asked to pay, informed the priest. He summoned the man, who confusedly said that if he had not burned the house, the Boxers would have done so, and he thought he had better do it at a convenient time as it was sure to be burned anyway. The priest promptly decided that he must suffer the loss himself. So the priests do not always stand by their converts whether right or wrong.
No one, however, who is familiar with the general course of the Roman Catholic Church in China, will deny that, as a rule, the priests boldly champion the cause of their converts. This is one secret of Rome's great and rapidly growing power in China, and unquestionably, too, it is one of the chief causes of Chinese hostility to missions. After many years of observation, Dr. J. Campbell Gibson writes:—
``In the missions of the Church of Rome, they (treaty rights) are systematically, and I am afraid one must say unscrupulously, used for the gathering in of large numbers of nominal converts, whose only claim to the Christian name is their registration in lists kept by native catechists, in which they are entered on payment of a small fee, without regard to their possession of any degree of Christian knowledge or character. In the event of their being involved in any dispute or lawsuit, the native catechists or priests, and even the foreign Roman Catholic missionaries, take up their cause and press it upon the native magistrates. Not infrequently a still worse course is pursued. Intimation is sent round the villages in which there are large numbers of so-called Catholic converts and these assemble under arms to support by force the feuds of their co-religionists. The consequence is that the Catholic missions in southern China, and I believe in the north also, are bitterly hated by the Chinese people and by their magistrates. By terrorizing both magistrates and people, they have secured in many places a large amount of apparent popularity; but they are sowing the seeds of a harvest of hatred and bitterness which may be reaped in deplorable forms in years to come.''[74]
[74] ``Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China,'' pp. 309, 310.
In my own interviews with Chinese officials, it was my custom to lead the conversation towards the motives of those who had attacked foreigners during the Boxer uprising, and without exception the officials mentioned, among other causes, the interference of Roman Catholic priests with the administration of the law in cases affecting their converts. In several places in the interior, this was the only reason assigned.
Said an intelligent Chinese official in Shantung: ``The whole trouble is not with the Protestants but with the Catholics. Protestant Christians do not go to law so often, and when they do, the Protestant missionary does not, as a rule, interfere unless he is sure they are right. But the Catholic Christians are constantly involved in lawsuits, and the priests invariably stand by them right or wrong. The priests seem to think that their converts cannot be wrong. The result is that many Chinese join the Roman Catholic Church to get the help of the priests in the innumerable lawsuits that the Chinese are always waging. And it is not surprising in such circumstances that Catholic Christians are a bad lot.'' When I asked the magistrate of Paoting-fu why the people had killed such kindly and helpful neighbours as the Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries, he replied:—``The people were angered by the interference of the Roman Catholics in their lawsuits. They felt that they could not obtain justice against them, and in their frenzy they did not distinguish between Catholics and Protestants.'' The Roman Catholic Mission in the prefecture of Paoting-fu, it should be remembered, is about two centuries old, and the Catholic population is about 12,000, so that the few hundreds of converts who have been gathered in the recent work of the Protestants are very small in comparison, while the splendid cathedral of the Roman Church, the spectacular character of its services and the official status and aggressiveness of its priests intensify the disproportion. The term Christian, therefore, to the average man of Paoting-fu naturally means a Roman Catholic rather than a Protestant.
Perhaps we should make some allowance for Oriental forms of statement to one who was known to be a Protestant. The politeness of an Oriental host to a guest is not always limited by veracity, and it is possible that to Roman Catholics the officials may blame the Protestants. But such unanimity of testimony among so many independent and widely separated officials must surely count for something, especially when the grounds for it are so notorious. Undoubtedly, there are many sincere Christians among the Roman Catholic Chinese, but judging from the almost universal testimony that I heard in China, the Roman Church is a veritable cave of Adullam for unscrupulous and revengeful Chinese.
The evidence does not rest upon the testimony of Protestants alone. If any one will take the trouble to look up the diplomatic correspondence on this subject, he will find ample and convincing testimony. February 9, 1871, the Tsung-li Yamen addressed to the Foreign Legations at Peking a memorandum together with eight propositions, the whole embodying the complaints and objections of the Chinese Government to missionaries and their work in China, and suggesting certain regulations for the future. This memorandum included the following paragraph:—
``The missionary question affects the whole question of pacific relations with foreign powers—the whole question of their trade. As the Minister addressed cannot but be well aware, wherever missionaries of the Romish profession appear, ill-feeling begins between them and the people, and for years past, in one case or another, points of all kinds on which they are at issue have been presenting themselves. In earlier times when the Romish missionaries first came to China, styled, as they were, `Si Ju,' the Scholars of the West, their converts no doubt for the most part were persons of good character; but since the change of ratifications in 1860, the converts have in general not been of a moral class. The result has been that the religion that professes to exhort men to virtue has come to be lightly thought of; it is in consequence, unpopular, and its unpopularity is greatly increased by the conduct of the converts who, relying on the influence of the missionaries, oppress and take advantage of the common people (the non-Christians): and yet more by the conduct of the missionaries themselves, who, when collisions between Christians and the people occur, and the authorities are engaged in dealing with them, take part with the Christians, and uphold them in their opposition to the authorities. This undiscriminating enlistment of proselytes has gone so far that rebels and criminals of China, pettifoggers and mischief-makers, and such like, take refuge in the profession of Christianity, and covered by this position, create disorder. This has deeply dissatisfied the people, and their dissatisfaction long felt grows into animosity, and their animosity into deadly hostility. The populations of different localities are not aware that Protestantism and Romanism are distinct. They include both under the latter denomination. They do not know that there is any distinction between the nations of the West. They include them all under one denomination of foreigners, and thus any serious collision that occurs equally compromises all foreigners in China. Even in the provinces not concerned, doubt and misgiving are certain to be largely generated.''
The memorandum and its attached propositions are interesting reading as showing the impression which the Chinese Government had of Roman Catholic missionary work. The third proposition included the following statement:—