In 1901 we took another furlough, during which we were brought in touch with American Christians in nearly every large city in the country, and thus were able to make the church aware of God’s wonderful dealings in Korea and to enlighten the public on the needs of this country. On our return, we missed among the faces of dear old friends who came to welcome us that of our work-fellow and beloved brother, Rev. H. G. Appenzeller. Mr. Appenzeller, the first evangelistic worker of his mission, had labored with my husband, heart and hand, for over sixteen years, and they had taken their earliest itinerations to the country in company. The loss fell heavily upon both native and foreign community, and seems to grow, as we feel the need of the enthusiastic and ready service everywhere. On our return our first attention was given to our dear Chong Dong (city) church, the members of which have from the first been marked as energetic, generous and full of faith. With a membership, as has been said, of two hundred and nineteen, they carry on five missions near the city, within a radius of five miles. These are places where chapels have been built—but they have also several other missions in districts where services are held in private dwellings. The church members conduct and take charge of all these services. They have contributed during the past year (1902-1903), reckoned in gold dollars:
| For their school | $75.80 |
| Church running expenses | 75.40 |
| Evangelistic work | 45.82 |
| Charity | 20.66 |
| Gifts of City Mission Society | 50.50 |
| Total | $268.18 |
This total, however, is not a complete report, not including the gifts of the largest mission, that of Chandari, a (from a Korean standpoint) prosperous little farming community outside the city. For the women and girls, beside Sabbath services and regular prayer meetings, six weekly Bible classes are held in different neighborhoods, all but two of which are well attended. There are a number of these women well fitted for Christian teaching, and one or another of them has repeatedly gone off on a six-weeks’ trip, with some of the lady missionaries, asking nothing more than her bare expenses. They often go away on evangelistic trips quite at their own instance, visiting village after village, distributing tracts which they themselves have bought for the purpose, and teaching the country women who cannot read.
Very soon after our return to Korea my husband was requested by the American minister and the members of our mission to visit Hai Ju, in the province of Whang Hai, on a mission of very serious importance. We were sent to Hai Ju in February, and since the preceding September, it had come to be a matter of common report that the native Romanists (of whom there are said to be twenty thousand in that province) had, under the lead of the French priests, been robbing, torturing and blackmailing the poor people of the province “for money to build churches,” resisting with arms, maiming, beating and even imprisoning officers of the law sent to stop them, and establishing a veritable reign of terror through the whole district; so that the weaker magistrates dared not lift a finger against any criminal favored by the priests, or belonging to that church, and fairly trembled for fear of them, obeying with the alertness of terror their slightest behest.
The state of affairs grew so bad at length that the governor sent a manifesto to Seoul, saying he could no longer carry on the government of the province in such a state of insurrection and anarchy. The following is a translation, made for the Korea Review, of the official copy of a part of the governor’s complaint:
“In the counties of Sin-ch’un, Cha-ryung, An-ak, Chang-yun, Pong-san, Whang-ju, and Su-heung, disturbances created by the Roman Catholics are many in number, and petitions and complaints are coming in from all quarters.
“In some cases it is a question of building churches and collecting funds from the villages about. If any refuse to pay, they are bound and beaten and rendered helpless. When certain ones, in answer to petition, have been ordered arrested, the police have been mobbed and the officers of the law have been unable to resist it. While investigating a case on behalf of the people, I sent police to arrest Catholics in Cha-ryung. They raised a band of followers, beat off the police, arrested them, and dismissed them with orders not to return. Then I sent a secretary to remonstrate with them. At that the Sin-ch’un Catholics, a score or more of them, armed with guns, arrested the secretary, insulted him, etc.”
One of the priests, who is apparently most influential and has been most notorious, whose Korean name is Hong, and who is known among foreigners as Father Wilhelm, told my husband that the native Romanists were not to be blamed for all this, for they had only obeyed his orders. Mr. Underwood had had a slight acquaintance with this priest for some years, meeting him occasionally and knowing little of his life, but supposing he was doing an earnest if mistaken work of self-sacrifice, he was unable to believe that the priest was cognizant of all that was being done by his followers, until he had both written and had a personal interview with him, when he was sorrowfully forced to see that rumor had not misrepresented his conduct.
This sad condition of things might have gone on, no one knows how long, but some of the people so robbed and tortured were Presbyterian Christians, and there is something about Protestant Christianity that resists oppression and favors a growth of sturdy independence and a love of freedom and fair play. One of these men was a particularly determined fellow who had been persistently seeking justice ever since, and would not be discouraged or daunted. He first went to the missionaries, who told him to take the matter to the Korean courts, but as the provincial courts were quite helpless against such a giant evil, he went up to the capital. The officials at the capital, probably in awe of the French, dared not interfere. He and his companion, another sturdy farmer like himself, went from one missionary to another in Seoul, all of whom put them off, disliking to take up native quarrels, and on principle opposed to using influence with Korean officials, and none of them realizing to what threatening dimensions the affair had grown.
These poor men were not eloquent, they could only tell a plain, simple story, but they knew that they and thousands of others were deeply wronged and were able to do one thing well, namely, to persist. Persist they did with unwearied resolution.