``The very thing which missionaries seek to avoid is denationalizing their converts. So far as mission schools at the ports are concerned, it is not the missionary who is chiefly responsible for what foreignizing is done. The Chinese who patronize these schools want their children to learn foreign accomplishments. Such schools, however, form but a very small part of the extensive educational work done by American missionaries in China.''[77]
[77] The Rev. Dr. Calvin H. Mateer.
Many of the missionaries, especially in the interior stations, don Chinese clothing, shave their heads and wear a queue. Everywhere the missionaries learn the Chinese language, try to get into sympathy with the people, teach the young, heal the sick, comfort the dying, distribute relief in time of famine, preach the gospel of peace and good-will, and, in the opinion of unprejudiced judges, are upright, sensible and useful workers. Not only men but women travel far into the interior, the former frequently alone and unarmed. They go into the homes of the people, preach in village streets, sleep unprotected in Chinese houses, and receive much personal kindness from all classes.
The experience of the Presbyterian mission at Chining-chou is an illustration of what has occurred in scores of communities. When Dr. Stephen A. Hunter and the Rev. William Lane tried to open a station in 1890, they were mobbed and driven out, barely escaping with their lives. But in June, 1892, the Rev. J. A. Laughlin arrived and was permitted to buy property and, in September, to bring his family and begin permanent residence. There are hereditary bands of robbers in the neighbourhood, and more than once they attacked the mission compound. But gradually the peaceful purpose and the beneficent life of the missionaries became known and active opposition ceased. When the Boxer outbreak occurred, there were about 150 baptized adults, besides a considerable number of children and adherents. During the troubles, only two of the Christians recanted, the rest holding together and continuing regular services. The mission property was undisturbed during the whole period. It is true, the officials were friendly; but even Governor Yuan Shih Kai's influence could not prevent some loss in his own capital. In Chining-chou not a thing was touched, a striking testimony to the friendliness of the people towards the missionaries whom they had learned to love. As I approached the city with the returning missionaries, a group of thirty met us with beaming faces. For nearly a year, they had been without a missionary and their joy at seeing Mr. Laughlin was unmistakable. As we passed through the city to the mission-compound in the southeast suburb, people in almost every door and window smiled and bowed a welcome. Nor was this cordiality confined to the Christians; many of all classes being outspoken in their manifestations of respect and affection.
Nor is it true that the Chinese sense of propriety is so out- raged, as some critics would have us believe, by the coming of single-women missionaries. It is true that in a land where all women are supposed to marry at an early age and where their freedom of movement is rigidly circumscribed, the position of the unmarried woman, however discreet she may be, is sometimes embarrassingly misunderstood until the community becomes better acquainted with her mission and character. But the opposition of the Chinese on this account has been grossly exaggerated by those whose prior hostility to all missionary work predisposed them to make as much capital as possible out of the small gossip on this subject. Even if the misunderstanding were as general and as bitter as some allege, it would not follow that single women should be withdrawn, for such misunderstanding grows out of a false and vicious conception of the female sex and its relation to man and society, and it is just that conception which Christianity should and does correct. For that matter, the position of the single man is also misunderstood, while no other person in all China is more fiercely hated by the Chinese than the white traders in the treaty ports who are the chief source of the criticisms upon missionaries. The experience of every mission board operating in China has shown that a Chinese town soon learns that the single-woman missionary is a pure-minded, large-hearted and unselfish worker, who from the loftiest of motives devotes herself to the teaching of women and children and to self-sacrificing ministries to the sick and suffering. No other foreigners are more beloved by the people than the single-women missionaries.
It is simply foolish to say that the missionary is responsible for the prompt appearance of the consul and the gunboat. The true missionary goes forth without either consul or gunboat. He devotes his life to ameliorating the sad conditions which prevail in heathen communities. His reliance is not upon man, but upon God. But as soon as his work begins to tell, the trader appears to buy and sell in the new market. The statesman casts covetous eyes on the newly opened territory. Christianity civilizes, and civilization increases wants, stimulates trade and breaks down barriers. The conditions of modern civilization are developed. Then the consul is sent, not because the missionary asks for him, but because his government chooses to send him. Sooner or later some local trouble occurs, and the Government takes advantage of the opportunity to further its territorial or commercial ambitions. ``Missionaries responsible, indeed!'' writes Dr. H. H. Jessup. ``The diplomats of Europe know better. Had there been no grabbing of seaports and hinterlands, no forcing modern improvements and European goods down the throats of the Chinese, the missionaries would have been let alone now as in the past.''
It is the foreign idea that the Chinese dislikes, the interference with his cherished customs and traditions. A railroad alarms and angers him more than half a hundred missionaries. A plowshare cuts through more of his superstitions than a mission school. He does not want the methods of our western civilization, and he resents the attempt to push them upon him. If no other force had been at work than the foreign missionary, the anti-foreign agitation would never have started. It is significant that those who protest that we ought not to force our religion upon the Chinese do not appear to think that there is anything objectionable in forcing our trade upon them. The animosity of the Chinese has been primarily excited, not by the missionary, but by the trader and the politician, and the missionary suffers chiefly because he comes from the country of the trader and the politician and is identified with them as a member of the hated race of foreigners.
On this whole subject, I have been at some pains to collect the testimony of men whose positions are a guarantee not only of knowledge but of impartiality.
The Hon. George F. Seward, formerly United States
Minister to Chipa, declares:—
``The people at large make too much of missionary work as an occasion for trouble. There are missionaries who are iconoclasts, but this is not their spirit. In great measure, they are men of education and judgment. They depend upon spiritual weapons and good works. For every enemy a missionary makes, he makes fifty friends. The one enemy may arouse an ignorant rabble to attack him. While I was in China, I always congratulated myself on the fact that the missionaries were there. There were good men and able men among the merchants and officials, but it was the missionary who exhibited the foreigner in benevolent work as having other aims than those which may justly be called selfish. The good done by missionaries in the way of education, of medical relief and of other charities cannot be overstated. If in China there were none other than missionary influences, the upbuilding of that great people would go forward securely. . . . I am not a church member, but I have the profoundest admiration for the missionary as I have known him in China. He is a power for good and for peace, not for evil.''