From the militant nature of their calling they cannot avoid interesting themselves in the lives and customs of the natives, and that their message to the heathen, inviting them to forsake the gods of their fathers and embrace the only true faith, arouses hostility in the most conservative people on earth, is in no sense to be wondered at.
Of medical missionaries who found hospitals and heal the sick, as well as of those who devote their lives to teaching the blind to read and the dumb to speak, adverse comment by anyone speaking with sincerity and briefest knowledge of the facts would be impossible. These missions of mercy shine as great beacons of Christianity through the gloom of heathen darkness.
Buddhist Priest and Acolyte holding Book.
To face page 228.[ToList]
The greatest fault brought home to several missions is, in my opinion, their interference in legal quarrels between native Christians and their unconverted fellow-citizens. This interference has undoubtedly frequently occurred and with marked success, thereby causing extreme irritation to the Chinese officials, who dread possible complications with foreign consuls, and arousing the bitter resentment of the populace, not only against all Christians, but also against all foreigners.
Indiscretion and want of tact are usually the fruit of enthusiastic inexperience, for veteran missionaries have generally tempered zeal with both suavity and cautiousness.
That young, unmarried women, brought up in the pure atmosphere of Western homes and unaccustomed to the nauseous sights and insanitary surroundings of Eastern cities, should be allowed to ruin their healths, risk death by indescribable tortures, and in Chinese eyes to forfeit their reputations, for the sake of doing a very problematical amount of good is, I cannot help feeling, a great mistake and too heavy a price to pay. If there must be missionaries, at least let them be men, and it would be far better and much more in accordance with the divine will if these girls settled in some one of our many colonies, married, and gave sons to the world, who then in due time might take up the cross of missionary endeavour.
On the whole, I should say that while missionaries are greatly over-condemned by Europeans residing in China, the good they do is over-estimated by people at home.