CHAPTER XVIII
PRESENT STATUS OF MISSIONS IN KOREA.
Present Status of Missions—Wonderful Progress—Education for Girls—Medical Missions—Denominational Comity—Christianity Spreading—Individuals at Work—Christian Heroes—Character of Korean Christians—How the Work Grows—Christian Influence—Training Classes—Circuit Work—Statistics—Rapid Extension—Evangelistic Work—Joy and Triumph—The Nation being Evangelized.
What has been previously written in this book regarding missions has become ancient history already in the swift onward march of events in Korea. Great political changes have occurred, referred to elsewhere, and these have doubtless been used in the Providence of God to turn the people toward the American teachers whom they have learned to trust. They have been humiliated, afflicted, distressed and perplexed and in their trouble and anxiety they have been eagerly searching on all sides for some light on a dark problem. Their cry has been, “What shall we as a nation do to be saved?” Some of their advisers have said, “Educate your people;” others, “Make friends with English and Americans;” others again have said, “Our old religions have never helped us. Perhaps this doctrine taught by the missionaries is the truth. If so, we have for centuries been offending the Almighty. He has permitted this curse to fall upon us. Let us hasten to repent and obey and worship only Him and perhaps He will be gracious and restore to our nation her ancient place and name and deliver us.”
But whatever the remedy suggested, the relief seemed to lie, for one cause or another, as was said in a previous chapter with the missionaries, and so the people have been groping, reaching out lame hands of faith towards what seemed to them the only hope, and turning in increasing numbers to the missions, to those who are there to “bind up the broken-hearted, to bid the oppressed go free, and to publish the acceptable year of the Lord,” and those who come to find help have found far more than they sought; for earthly freedom, fellow-citizenship with the saints of the household of God; for their ignorance they receive the wisdom that knows the love of Christ that passeth knowledge; and instead of their poverty and emptiness, all the fullness of God.
As we try to give some idea of the religious status of the people, perhaps it would be as well to consider the field at first station by station. Let us begin, then, with Seoul, the oldest station, the largest city, and looked at from many points, the most difficult, and also in some respects the most interesting.
It is most difficult because here for centuries have been the headquarters of a corrupt government. Here reside numberless officials with their retainers and sycophants, their concubines and dancing girls, and round them seems to revolve most of the political, social, religious and business life of the majority of the citizens. Graft plays a large part in the life of Seoul. Multitudes of its people are living in the hope of making money out of the government or some of its officials, the idle and the wicked of all classes and both sexes seem to gravitate naturally toward the capital and now it is crowded with thousands of foreigners of the most depraved morality. Yet here the first missionaries settled, perhaps as much because no other center was then open as for any other reason.
Here the Presbyterians have now three flourishing churches, the Northern Methodists have four, the Southern Methodists two, the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel have a Mission and the Romanists also two or three churches. None of these churches would be recognized to-day for those which were in existence five years ago. They are all far too small for their congregations, though these are divided, the men worshipping at one hour, the women at another. If we are a little late in visiting them we shall not be able to enter, for doors and windows are crowded and there is not an inch of space anywhere within hearing of the speaker’s voice.
In this city the largest congregation is probably that of the Yun Mot Kol church, which numbers eleven hundred people. The growth here is remarkable because not four years ago this was the weakest of the Presbyterian churches, not only numerically but in the character of its people. They seemed jealous, quarrelsome and niggardly. They were apparently unable to work in full harmony with the other Presbyterian churches of the city and unwilling to give in proportion to their numbers as the others gave, either for the support of their own work or of the general work of the three carried on in city and country. But now all is changed. This is now the largest church in the city and what rejoices all hearts is that it is gathering in large numbers of the nobility, most of whom live in that quarter. This class of people we have almost despaired of reaching for many reasons. The habit of keeping concubines is general among them and it is a terrible ordeal to wrench away from a woman dearly loved as a wife, and her little ones, for Koreans are exceedingly fond of their children and family ties are strong. Again, the Korean noble feels more than the lower classes, as a religious duty due to family and clan, the obligation of ancestor worship, and he is cutting himself loose from his place in social and family life when he abjures this. Still further, all officials holding office or attending the court must bow before certain royal tablets, and perform religious duties on certain national holidays. If this is given up his office must also be resigned. So we see that for a nobleman to become a Christian he must break the ties of family, of social and of political life and sacrifice whatever emoluments he is gaining thereby, and to some of these men it is all their living. Yet during the last three years a large number of the nobility have taken this step and their women, who have always been bound by the custom of seclusion, go in their chairs or even on foot, well veiled, to the Sabbath services.
The three Presbyterian churches, as has been said, work together as one for the evangelization of the heathen population of the city and surrounding country districts.
As for schools, both boys’ and girls’, they are all overcrowded; many applicants must be sent away. The churches have their own parochial primary schools for girls and boys which they, of course, support as well as their own church work, and there are boarding schools more advanced, corresponding to academies, connected with the different missions, for the reception of pupils who graduate from the lower schools and also for the children of Christians from the country.