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.