Each denomination occupies a large and distinct geographical field in this province. For example, all that portion of the city and suburbs of Peking north of the line of the Forbidden City, with a population of about 200,000, is considered Presbyterian territory. No other missionaries are located in that part of Peking. In the country, the counties of San-ho, Huai-jou, Pao-ti, to the north and east of Peking, are also understood to be distinctively Presbyterian ground. San-ho County alone is said to have 1,200 towns and villages, while the other counties are also very populous. No other Protestant denomination is working in any of these counties. At Paoting-fu, the Congregationalists and Presbyterians have made a division of the field, the former taking everything south of a line drawn through the centre of the city and the latter everything north of that line. Each denomination thus has wholly to itself half the city of Paoting-fu and about a dozen outlying counties.
The missionaries of the three other boards concerned plainly stated that, in the event of the withdrawal of the Presbyterians, they would not be able to care for the work that would be left. They declared that they were not able adequately to sustain the work they already had and that there was not the slightest reason to hope that their home boards would find it possible to give them the reinforcements in men and money which would be required if their present responsibilities were to be increased. The large district now occupied by any given board would simply be vacated if its missionaries were transferred to other regions. The ties formed with the Chinese Christians and people in more than a generation of continuous missionary work would be broken and the influence acquired by faithful missionaries in long years of toil would be lost.
In these circumstances, would it be right for any one of these four boards to withdraw? There will, indeed, come a time when it will be the duty of the missionary to leave the Chinese church to itself. But is this the time to go, when the native church, instead of being strong and able to care for itself, is torn and bleeding after frightful persecution? These Christians look to the missionaries, who have hitherto led them, as spiritual fathers who will guide them in the future. They feel that the time has come for a new consecration to the task of evangelizing all their people. As directed by the missionaries, they may become a great influence for the conversion of their countrymen. Should they be left when other missionaries expressly state that they cannot care for them?
The question of closer cooperation, however, is worthy of careful consideration. At a conference of representatives of foreign mission boards of the United States and Canada having work in China, held in New York, September 21, 1900, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:
``It is the judgment of this conference that the resumption of mission work in those parts of China where it has been interrupted would afford a favourable opportunity for putting into practice some of the principles of mission comity which have been approved by a general concensus of opinion among missionaries and boards, especially in regard to the over lapping of fields and such work as printing and publishing, higher education and hospital work, and the conference would commend the subject to the favourable consideration and action of the various boards and their missionaries.''
Christian America, which ought to set the example of comity, is distractingly divided. Should it not learn something from its experience at home and, as far as possible, organize its work abroad in such a way as to avoid perpetuating unnecessary divisions? Should it not at least carefully consider whether a limited force cannot be used to better advantage for China and for Christ? I admire the ingenuity of those at home who can find good reasons for having half a dozen denominations in a town of a few thousand inhabitants. But on the foreign field, we should adopt a different policy. In the large cities—the Londons, and Berlins, and New Yorks, and Chicagos, of Asia, it is conceded that more than one Board may properly work. But with such exceptions, it should be the rule not to enter fields where other evangelical bodies are already established. Indeed it is already the rule. The Shanghai Conference of 1900 voted that missionary agencies should not be multiplied in small places, though that cities of prefectural rank should not be considered the exclusive territory of any one board. The American Presbyterian Board declared in 1900, and its action was specifically approved by the General Assembly of that year:—``The time has come for a larger union and cooperation in mission work, and where church union cannot be attained, the Board and the missions will seek such divisions of territory as will leave as large districts as possible to the exclusive care and development of separate agencies.''
In several places, boards and missions are moving actively in this direction. In 1902, the American and Presbyterian Boards entered into a union in educational work in the province of Chih-li by which the Presbyterians conduct a union boarding- school for girls in Paoting-fu and for boys in Peking, while the Congregationalists educate the boys of both denominations in Paoting-fu and the girls in Peking. A medical college in Peking was agreed upon in 1903, to be supported and taught jointly by the London, American and Presbyterian missions. In the province of Shantung, a notable union in both educational and medical work was effected in 1903 between English Baptists and American Presbyterians. Instead of developing duplicate institutions with all the large expenditure of men and money that would be involved, the boards and missions concerned are uniting in the development of the Shantung Protestant University with the Arts College on the Presbyterian compound at Wei-hsien and the Theological and Normal School on the Baptist compound at Ching-chou-fu. The medical class will be taught alternately at the Baptist and Presbyterian stations until funds warrant the erection of suitable buildings, probably at Chinan-fu, the capital of the province. In Shanghai, the Northern and Southern Methodists established a union publishing house in 1902, and in several other parts of China, plans for union of various kinds are being discussed.
All these enterprises met with opposition at first. There was, indeed, little objection to union in medical education, for few questions of a denominational character are involved in the training of medical students. But it was urged by some that it would not be expedient to press consolidation in educational work, as the chief object of such work was held to be the training of a native ministry and each mission could best educate its own helpers and should do so in the interest of self- preservation. The example of the Meiji Gakuin in Tokio, Japan, which is supported by the Presbyterian and Reformed Boards, was not deemed determinative as in Japan but one native church is involved, so that the cases are not parallel. Moreover, it was thought that in a large school there would not be as good an opportunity for that close personal contact between missionary and pupil which is so desirable.
These difficulties, however, are believed by many of the mis- sionaries to be more theoretical than practical, or, at any rate, not sufficiently formidable to prevent a more effective cooperation. No plan will be free from all objections and a good effort should not be abandoned because they are found to confront it. The defects in union are less grave than those that experience has shown to be inherent in the old method of numerous weak and struggling institutions whose support requires a ruinous proportion of the mission force and the mission funds that might otherwise be available, in part at least, for the enlargement of the evangelistic work. ``It certainly seems unnecessary that two missions should maintain distinct high schools looking towards a college grade side by side, when the whole number of pupils in both could be instructed more economically and perhaps more efficiently in one institution.''
Nor is this all, for, wherever practicable, union of allied churches is being sought. I know we are told that Christ's words do not call for this. But when I hear the laboured arguments which defend the splitting of American Presbyterianism into more than a dozen sects, I sympathize with the child who, after a sermon in which the minister had eloquently urged that the unity for which the Lord prayed was consistent with separation, said: ``Mamma, if Christ didn't mean what He said, why didn't He say what He meant?''