When the proclamation ordering the extermination of all foreigners and Christians was posted on the walls of Ching- chou-fu, a friendly official hinted that if the Chinese pastors would sign a document to the effect that they would ``no longer practice the foreign religion,'' he would accept it as sufficient on behalf of all their flocks, and not enforce the order. Warrants for the arrest of every Christian had already been written. Scoundrels were hurrying in from distant villages to join in the riot of plunder and lust. Two women had already been killed. What were the pastors to do? There was no missionary to guide them, for long before the consuls had ordered all foreigners out of the interior. The agonized pastors determined to sacrifice themselves for their innocent people, to go through the form of giving up the ``foreign'' religion. That word ``foreign'' must be emphasized to understand their temptation, for the Chinese Christians do not feel that Christianity is foreign, but that it is theirs as well as ours. Moreover, the pastors were made to understand that it was simply a legal fiction, not affecting the religion of their hearts, but only a temporary expedient that the friendly magistrate might have a pretext for giving his protection to the Christians. They were not asked to engage in any idolatrous rite or to make any public apostasy, but simply to sign a statement ``no longer to practice the foreign religion.'' ``So far from recanting,'' it was urged upon them, ``you are preventing recanting.''
Their decision may be best given in the words of Pastor Wu Chien Cheng: ``When I thought of these people,'' he said, his emotion being so great that the tears were running down his face, ``in most cases with children and aged parents dependent upon them, and thought of all that was involved for them if I refused to sign the paper—well, I couldn't help it. I decided to take on myself the shame and the sin.''
As the Rev. J. P. Bruce, of the English Baptist Mission, who told me of this incident, truly says: ``Who could listen to such a narrative—so sad and painful and yet not without much that was noble—without sympathy and tears?'' In this spirit of tenderness, so marked in the Lord's dealings with sinful Peter, the missionaries dealt with the recanting Christians. With the impostors, indeed, they had less mercy. The Rev. R. M. Mateer secured the arrest of two scapegraces who, under pretense of being Christians, had blackmailed innocent villagers. Very plainly, too, did the missionaries deal with Christians, who, like some people in the United States after a fire, placed an extravagant valuation upon what they had lost. But these were exceptional cases.
On the whole, Christians in Europe and America may well have stronger sympathy and respect for their fellow-Christians in China who have suffered so much for conscience' sake. Purified and chastened by the fearful holocaust through which they have passed, they are stronger spiritually than ever before. Like the apostles after Pentecost, they are giving ``with great power their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.'' ``The Chinese Church is not yet strong enough to stand entirely alone, but it is far stronger and more self-conscious of the eternal indwelling Spirit than ever before. It has learned the power of God to keep the soul in times of deadly peril, and to enable the weakest to give the strongest testimony. It has learned by humiliation and confession to put away its sins, and to gird itself for new conflicts and new victories…. Its ablest leaders are more trustworthy men than before their trials, and the body of believers has a unity and a cohesiveness which will certainly bear fruit in the not distant future.''[83]
[83] Smith, ``Rex Christus,'' p. 212.
THE economic revolution in Asia, discussed in a preceding chapter,[84] bears heavily on the Chinese Christians. So far as the pressure affects the rank and file of the membership, the mission boards cannot give adequate relief. Abroad as well as at home, it must remain the inexorable rule that a Christian must live within his income and buy new things only as he can pay for them. Any other policy would mean utter ruin. Here also, men must ``work out their own salvation''; and the missionary, while trying to lift men out of barbarous social conditions on the one hand, should on the other resolutely oppose the improvident eagerness which leads a blanketed Sioux Indian to buy on credit a rubber-tired surrey.
[84] Chapter IX.
But what about the native ministers and teachers, who find it impossible to live on the salaries of a decade ago? The problem of the ordinary helper is not so difficult. Springing from the common people, accustomed from childhood to a meagre scale of living, the small salaries which the people can pay either in full or in large part are usually equal to the income which they would have had if they had not become Christians. But some native ministers come from a higher social grade. They are men of education and refinement. They cannot live in a mud hut, go barefooted, wear a loin cloth and subsist on a few cents' worth of rice a day. They must not only have better houses and food and clothing, but they must have books and periodicals and the other apparatus of educated men. These things are not only necessary to their own maintenance, but they are essential to the work, for these men are the main reliance for influencing the upper classes in favour of Christianity. It is not a question of luxury or self-indulgence, but of bare respectability, of the simple decencies of life which are enjoyed by an American mechanic as distinguished from the poverty which, for a cultivated family, falls below the level of self-respect. But this requires a salary which, save in a very few places, cannot at present be paid by the churches. ``Our pastors,'' writes a missionary, ``are supposed to live as the middle-class of their people do, but of late years, with the great rise in prices, they are living below the middle-class.''
The consequences are not only pinching poverty but sometimes a feeling of wrong, and, in some cases, a yielding to temptation. One Chinese pastor, for example, who was trying to support a wife and five children on $10 Mex. ($5) a month, shipwrecked his influence by trying to supplement his scanty income by helping in lawsuits. Can we wonder that he felt obliged to do something, almost anything?
But who is to pay the higher salaries that are now so necessary? The first impulse is to look to the mission boards in Europe and America, and accordingly missionaries and Christians are importunately calling for increased appropriations. But whatever temporary and occasional relief may be given in this way, as a permanent remedy, it is plainly impossible. If the conditions were simply sporadic and local, the case might be different. But they are universal, or fast becoming so, and they will be permanent. It is quite visionary to suppose that the income of the mission boards will permit them to meet the whole or even the larger part of the increased cost of living among the myriads of ministers, teachers and helpers in the growing churches of China. American Christians cannot be reasonably expected to add such an enormous burden to the already large responsibilities which they are carrying in their varied forms of home work and the present scale of foreign missionary expenditure. Even if they could and would, it would be at the expense of all further enlargement of the work, and at the same time it would still further weaken an already weak sense of self-reliance among the native ministers and helpers of Asia.
Moreover, the average Christian giver in America is feeling the same strain himself. The so-called ``era of prosperity'' has given more steady employment to the mechanic, has given better markets to the producer, and has enormously increased the wealth of many who were already rich. But the men on fixed salaries find that ``prosperity'' has increased the prices of commodities without proportionately increasing earnings. Millions of American church members find it harder to give than they did ten years ago, for while their incomes are about the same, they must pay higher prices for meats, groceries and clothing. True, many salaries were cut down during the financial stringency of 1896-1897, but while some of them have been restored to their former figure, few have been raised above their original level, while others are still below it. Meantime official statistics show that the average cost of food is 10.9 per cent. higher than the average for the decade between 1890 and 1899, and that there has been an increase of 16.1 per cent. as compared with 1896, the year of lowest prices.[85] It is urged that the wages of workmen have increased in proportion. But however true this may be of organized labour, it is palpably untrue of the great middle-class who are neither capitalists nor members of labour unions. They form the bulk of the church membership and to them ``Mr. Wright's statement will carry no reassurance. It is they who have been hit hardest by the increased cost of living for their incomes have not kept pace with it. Indeed, they are actually worse off to-day than they were eight, ten or fifteen years ago.''[86] Dun's Review, an acknowledged authority, declares that not in twenty years has it cost so much to live as now, and that March 1, 1904, the average prices of breadstuffs were thirty per cent. higher than they were seven years ago.
[85] Report of the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labour, 1903
[86] The Youth's Companion, October 29, 1903.
In such circumstances, it is clearly out of the question for the Christians of the United States to meet these enlarged demands for the support of their own families and, in addition, meet them for the churches in China.
If then, the problem of the increased cost of living in Asia cannot be solved by increased gifts from America, what other solutions are possible? As an experienced missionary says:— ``To ask for more from America seems like a step backward; but to leave matters as they are is to see our churches seriously crippled.'' Four possible solutions may be mentioned.
First:—Stop all expansion of the work and use any increase in receipts to raise salaries. This is undoubtedly worthy of thoughtful consideration. To what extent is it right to open new fields and enlarge old ones when the workers now employed are inadequately paid? Plainly, the mission boards should carefully consider this aspect of the question. As a matter of fact, many of them have already considered it. The Presbyterian Board has repeatedly declined urgent requests to establish new stations on the ground that it could not do so in justice to its existing work. But as a practicable solution, this method is open to serious difficulties. A living work must grow, and the living forces which govern that growth are more or less beyond the control of the boards. The boards are amenable to their constituencies and those constituencies sometimes imperatively demand the occupation of a new field, as, for example, they did in the case of the Philippine Islands, some boards which at first decided not to enter the Philippines being afterwards forced into them by a pressure of denominational opinion that they could not ignore. Moreover, the missionaries themselves are equally insistent in their demands for enlargement. Some boards are literally deluged with such appeals. The missionaries who have most strenuously insisted on the policy of no further expansion till the existing work is better sustained have sometimes been the very ones who have strongly urged that an exception should be made in their particular fields, without realizing that the argument from ``exceptions'' is so often pressed that it is really the rule and not the exception at all. And the churches and missionaries are usually right. God is calling His people to go forward. His voice is frequently very plain, and the boards, with all their care and conservatism, are then obliged to expand.
Second:—Diminish the number of native pastors, helpers and teachers and increase their work. In some places, this might be done by grouping congregations and fields. But the places where this could be wisely effected are so few that the relief to the situation as a whole would not be appreciable, especially as the native Christians would not give so liberally under such an arrangement. Their sense of responsibility would be weakened if they had only a half or a quarter of a pastor's time instead of the whole of it. Besides, the native force is far too small now. Instead of being diminished it should be largely increased. The great work of the future must be done by native ministers. If China is ever to be evangelized, it must be to a large degree by Chinese evangelists. To adopt deliberately the policy of restricting the number of such evangelists and teachers would be suicidal. As a solution, therefore, this method is quite impracticable, as it would be a relief at the expense of efficiency.
Third:—Require native leaders to earn their own living either wholly or in part. There is Pauline example for this method. Some of the Presbyterian missionaries in Laos have adopted it by inducing the members of a congregation to secure a ricefield and a humble house for their minister. The Korea missionaries have very successfully worked this method by insisting that the leaders of groups shall continue in their former occupations and give their services to Christian work without pay, in some such way as Sunday-school superintendents and other unpaid workers do in America. This method is deserving of wider adoption. It would give considerable relief in many other fields. It was probably the way that the early church grew.
``Two opinions,'' says Dr. J. J. Lucas, ``have been held in regard to the basis on which the salaries of native agents should be fixed. One is that such a salary should be paid as would remove all excuse for engaging in secular work, demanding all the time of the pastor for spiritual work; another is, that acknowledging the salary to be insufficient, the pastors be expected to supplement it by what they can get from field and vineyard. If self-support is to be aimed at, at all cost, then the latter plan is the only feasible one, with the dangers of its abuse. There is no doubt, however, that a man who loves the gospel ministry and is devoted to it can, without the neglect of spiritual affairs, do enough outside to lessen materially the burden that would fall on the church in his support.''
But this method of itself would hardly solve the problem. However well adapted to the beginnings of mission work, it fails to provide a properly qualified native leadership. To do efficient work, a native pastor must give his whole time to it, and to that end he must have a salary that will make him ``free from worldly cares and avocations.'' We insist on this in the United States and the reasons for such a policy are as strong on the foreign field. The minister in Asia as well as the minister in America must have a salary. The labourer is worthy of his hire.
Fourth:—Insist upon a larger measure of self-support. The native churches must be led to a fuller responsibility in this matter. Grave as are the temporary embarrassments which the increased cost of living is forcing upon them and trying as is the permanent distress of some of them, yet as a whole the economic revolution will undoubtedly enlarge the earning capacity of the native Christians. Indeed, the new principles of life which the gospel brings should make them among the first to profit by the changed conditions, and as their wealth increases, their spirit of giving should, and under the wise lead- ership of the missionaries undoubtedly will, increase. For these reasons, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions took the following action July 2, 1900:—
``As having reference to the question of self-support of the native churches on the mission field, and in view of the fact that some of its missions are proposing to increase the salaries of native preachers and helpers on account of the increased cost of living, the Board is constrained to look with no little apprehension upon the prospect of continuing and increasing demands of foreign aid in proportion to the contributions made by the churches themselves. Increased intercourse of eastern nations with those of the west has led and will still further lead to a gradual assimilation to western ways and western prices, and unless the self-reliant spirit of the churches can be stimulated to a proportionate advance, there is a sure prospect that the drafts upon mission funds will be larger and larger in proportion to the amount of work accomplished. In view of these considerations, it was resolved that the missions in which such increase is proposed be earnestly requested to arouse the churches to the purpose and the endeavour to meet this increased expenditure instead of laying still larger burdens upon the resources of foreign funds. The Board deems this necessary not merely to the interest of its expanding work but to the self-reliant character, the future stability and self-propagating power of the churches themselves.''
There appears to be no alternative. And yet this policy, while adhered to, should be enforced with reasonable discretion and due regard to ``this present distress.'' How can Christians, who can barely live themselves and pay a half or two- thirds of their pastor's present support, suddenly meet this call for enlarged salaries? For reasons already given, it is harder for them to make ends meet now than it was in the old days of primitive simplicity, while in many places a profession of Christianity is followed by the loss of property and employment so that the Christian is impoverished by the loss of the income that he already had. In these circumstances, both boards and missions must simply do the best they can, and neither allow the emergency to sweep them into a mistaken charity that
would be fatal to the ultimate interests of the cause nor allow a valuable native worker to suffer for the necessaries of life.
``We need to bear in mind that the low salaries of China are not the product of Christianity, but of heathenism, and the ability to live on five or six Mexicans per month is not the result of a laudable economy unknown to Christian countries, so much as it is the result of a degradation of manhood to the level of beasts. The church is responsible for the knowledge of a better way of living. We have created the desire for a clean house, clean clothing, healthful food, and books, on the part of our educated young men. Shall we implant this desire for six or eight years and take the rest of the man's life in trying to squelch it? We have come as apostles of truth to a mighty empire, to the great and the small, to the rich and the poor, and if we had a native ministry which could appeal to a different class of men than most of them are now appealing to, would not the day of self-support be hastened beyond what we dare to hope? Is there not a feeling out for something better on the part of the well-to-do, the more intelligent, just as really as there is on the part of the lowest classes? Do not we have a mission to the man who can pay $100.00 a year to the church just as really as to the one who pays 100 cash? There is nothing so costly as cheap men. Let us have a higher grade of men and we shall have a higher grade of church-membership. Is it not true that nothing more stands in the way of self-support than some of our native clergy? We must not turn down better men because they must have a little more to live upon than poor men.''[87]
[87] Mr. F. S. Brockman, Address—``How to Retain to the Church the Services of English-Speaking Christians,'' Shanghai, 1904.
It is idle, however, to urge as a reason for increasing the salaries of Chinese ministers that a qualified Asiatic can earn more in commercial life than in the ministry. Such arguments often come to mission boards. But religious work cannot compete with business in financial inducements either at home or abroad. It is notorious that in America, ministers and church workers generally do not receive the compensation which they could command in secular employments or professions. The qualities that bring success in the ministry are, as a rule, far more liberally remunerated in secular life. The preacher who can command $6,000 or $8,000 in the pulpit could probably command three or four times that amount in the law or in business. Men who are as eminent in other professions and in the commercial world as the most eminent clergymen are in the ministry usually have incomes ranging from $20,000 to $100,000 a year and have no ``dead line'' of age either. As for others, the Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Ministerial Relief, is authority for the statement that the average salary of Presbyterian ministers is $700 and that for all denominations it does not equal the wages of the average mechanic. A missionary writes:—``Practically all our native pastors are underpaid.'' The same thing might be said of all the home missionaries and of most of the pastors of non-missionary churches at home, one-third of whom receive only $500 or less.
The churches of America cannot, or at any rate will not, do for the native ministers of Asia what they are not doing for their own ministers. The world over, the rewards of Christ's service are not financial. Those who seek that service must be content with modest support, sometimes even with poverty. This is not a reason for the home churches to be content with their present scale of missionary giving, nor does it mean that mission boards are disposed to refuse requests for appropriations. The boards are straining every nerve to secure a more generous support and they will gladly send all they can to the missions on the field. But it is a reason for impressing more strongly upon the young men in the churches of Asia that they should consecrate themselves to the Master's service from a higher motive than financial support and that while the boards will continue to give all the assistance that is in their power, yet that the permanent dependence of the ministers of China must be in increasing measure upon the Christians of China and not upon the Christians of America. Hundreds of native pastors are already realizing this and are manifesting a self-sacrificing courage and devotion that are beyond all praise. Said Mr. Fitch of Ningpo to a Chinese youth of fine education and exceptional ability:—``Suppose a business man should offer you $100.00 a month and at the same time you had the way opened to you to study for the ministry, and after entering it, to get from $20.00 to $30.00 a month, which would you take?'' And the youth answered—``I would enter the ministry.'' ``He is now teaching a mission school at $12.00 a month, though he could easily command $30.00 a month in a business position.'' The hope of the churches of China is in such men. Mr. F. S. Brockman declares:—
``There is a wide-spread conviction among missionaries that the allurements of wealth alone are keeping English-speaking young men from the ministry. The facts do not bear out this belief. . . . In order to hold them in the ministry we need not appeal to their love of money. It is death to the ministry when we do it; we have opened the vial of their fiercest passion; we are doing what Jesus Christ never did; we are working absolutely contrary to the fundamental laws of the kingdom of God. . . . We must teach prospective ministers to look upon their lives as an unselfish expenditure of God-given power. For once make the allurement of the ministry the allurement of comfort, ease, or wealth, and we have closed up every fountain of the minister's power.''
THE Hon. Charles Denby, then United States Minister at Peking, wrote in 1900:—
``With all due deference to the great missionary societie, who have these matters in charge, my judgment is that missionary work in China has been overdone. Take Peking as an example. There are located at Peking the following Protestant missions: American Boards American Presbyterian, American Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, International Y. M. C. A., London Missionary Society, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, International Institute, Mission for Chinese Blind, Scotch Bible Society, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge. To these must be added the Church of England Mission, the English Baptist Mission and the Swedish Mission. The above list shows that of American societies alone there are seven in Peking, not counting the Peking University, and that all western Powers taken collectively were represented by about twenty missions. A careful study of the situation would seem to suggest that no two American societies should occupy the same district.''[88]
[88] Missionary Review of the World, October, 1900.
It may be well to examine this criticism, partly because it was made by an able man of known sympathy with mission work, and partly because it relates to the city where, if anywhere, in China, overcrowding exists. In considering Peking, therefore, we are really considering the broad question of the practicability of withdrawing some missionary agencies in the interest of comity and efficiency. The Presbyterian missionaries themselves opened the way for the discussion of the question by proposing to the Congregational missionaries, after the Boxer uprising had been quelled, ``an exchange of all work and fields of our Presbyterian Church in the province of Chih-li in return for the work and fields of the American Board in the province of Shantung, subject to the approval of our respective Boards.'' The Mission added:—
``It means no little sacrifice to sever attachments made in long years of service in fields and among a people whom God has enabled us to lead to Christ, but we feel that a high spirit of loyalty to Christ and His cause, inspiring all concerned, will lead us to set aside personal preferences and attachments, if thereby the greater interests of His Church in China can be conserved.''
The whole question was thoroughly discussed during my visit in Peking. Much time was spent traversing the entire ground. Then a meeting was called of the leading missionaries of all the Protestant agencies represented in Peking.
The result of all these conferences was the unanimous and emphatic judgment of the missionaries of all the boards concerned that there is not ``a congestion of missionary societies in Peking,'' and that no one board could be spared without serious injury to the cause. In reply to the proposal of the Presbyterian missionaries, the North China Mission of the American Board wrote—
``After considering the matter in all its bearings we are constrained to say that we contemplate with regret any plan which looks to the withdrawal of the Presbyterian Mission from the field which they have so long occupied in northern Chih-li. We think that instead of illustrating comity this would appear as if comity was not to be attained without a violent dislocation from long-established foundations, and that in this particular there would be a definite loss all around. . . . We further deprecate the proposed step because there is now an excellent opportunity for the adoption or actual measures of cooperation between our respective missions. . . . We are ready to readjust boundaries in such a way as to remedy the waste of effort in the crossing of one another's territory. . . . We are confident that the ultimate outcome could not fail to be a greater benefit than the sudden rupture of long-existing relations for the sake of mere geographical contiguity of the work of missions like yours and ours, each keeping its own district, careful not to encroach upon the other. In the higher unity here suggested we should expect to realize larger results in the promotion of comity not only, but also in the best interests of that kingdom of God for which we are each labouring. ``ARTHUR H. SMITH, ``D. Z. SHEFFIELD, ``Committee.''
Moreover, several of the agencies enumerated by Colonel Denby, such as the Y. M. C. A., the International Institute, the Mission to the Blind, the various Bible Societies, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge, are not competing missionary agencies at all, but are doing a special work along such separate lines that it is unfair to take them into consideration. As a matter of fact, with the exception of a comparatively small work by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the real missionary work in Peking is being done by only four Boards,—The American, Methodist, London, and Presbyterian. This is not a disproportionate number, considering the fact that Peking is one of the great cities of the world and the capital of the Empire. It is of the utmost importance that a strong Christian influence should be exerted in such a centre. Indeed, if there is any place in all China where this influence ought to be intensified, it is Peking. It is granted that Christian work is more difficult in a great city, that it is harder to convert a man there than in a country village. But, on the other hand, he is more influential when he is converted. Peking is the heart of China. Alone of all its cities, it is visited sooner or later by every ambitious scholar and prominent official. The examinations for the higher degrees bring to it myriads of the brightest young men of the country. The moral effect of a strong Christian Church in Peking will be felt in every province. If Christianity is to be a positive regenerative force in China it cannot afford to weaken its hold in the very citadel of China's power.
It should be borne in mind that the work of the missionaries stationed at Peking is not confined to the city, but that Peking is a base from which they work out on the east and south till they reach the boundaries of the Tien-tsin and Paoting-fu station fields, while on the north and west a vast and populous region for an indefinite distance is wholly dependent upon them for Christian teaching. Extensive and densely inhabited areas of the province are not being worked by any board. The Rev. Dr. John Wherry, who has lived there for a generation, says that there are a hundred times as many people in the Peking region as are now being reached, and that there are 20,000,000 in the province who have never yet heard of Christ. For this enormous field the missionary agencies now at work are really few. Hundreds of American cities of half a million inhabitants have a greater number of ordained workers than this entire province of Chih-li with a population nearly half as large as that of the United States. Indeed there is room for a great extension of the work without overcrowding.
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?''
Premature and impracticable efforts should indeed be avoided. The deeply rooted differences of centuries are not to be eradicated in a day. We must feel our way along with caution and wisdom. To attempt too much at first would be to accomplish nothing. Work abroad is necessarily a projection of the work at home and it will be more or less hampered by our American divisions. A prominent clergyman told me that he doubted the wisdom of a union of the Asiatic churches as he feared that such a union would weaken the sense of responsibility of the home churches. He thought that a denomination in America would take a deeper interest in a comparatively small native church wholly dependent upon it than it would in an indeterminate part of a larger church. Must the unity of the foreign church be sacrificed to the divisions of the home church? Perhaps there is some ground for anticipating such objections from home. But if they are found to exist, we should not cease seeking union in Asia, but begin preaching juster views in America.
I must not be understood as depreciating the historic differences of Christendom. I am aware that each of the great religious bodies stands for some cardinal principle that is not emphasized to the same degree by others. The freedom of any given number of believers to witness to a specific truth should not be and need not be limited by union. The contention here is that the differences of the West should not be forced upon the East but that the churches of Asia should be given a fair chance to develop a unity large enough to comprehend these various forms. If they must be divided, let them separate later along their own lines of cleavage, not on lines extended from western nations. In one place, I met a swarthy Asiatic who knew just enough English to be able to tell me that he was a Scotch Presbyterian. Are we then to have a Scotch Presbyterian Church in Asia, and a Canadian Presbyterian Church, and an Australian Presbyterian Church? Is the American Civil War forever to divide communities of Chinese believers into American Northern Presbyterians and American Southern Presbyterians? Why should we force our unhappy quarrel of a generation ago upon them? The American Presbyterian Board has truly declared that ``the object of the foreign missionary enterprise is not to perpetuate on the mission field the denominational distinctions of Christendom but to build up on Scriptural lines and according to Scriptural principles and methods the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ.'' It has advised all its missions that ``we encourage as far as practicable the formation of union churches in which the results of the mission work of all allied evangelical churches should be gathered, and that they (the missions) observe everywhere the most generous principles of missionary comity.'' The specific approval of this declaration, by the General Assembly of 1900, makes this the authoritative policy of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
In harmony with this general position, several significant efforts towards union are being made. The first movements, naturally, are towards a union of communions that are substantially alike in polity and doctrine. Already all the Presbyterian and Reformed Boards operating in Japan, Korea, Mexico and India have joined in the support of a united native church in those lands, and similar movements are in progress in other lands and in several churches, notably the Protestant Episcopal and the Methodist Episcopal. In China, the representatives of the eight Presbyterian denominations of Europe and America have met in loving conference and planned to unite all the native Christians connected with their respective missions into one magnificent and commanding Church.
And now unions of wholly different denominations are being discussed. The American Board missionaries intimated to the Presbyterian Mission in 1901 that there might be ``no inherent difficulty in uniting the membership of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Chih-li in one common body.'' A similar question is being informally discussed by the American Presbyterian missionaries and those of the English Baptist Mission in Shantung. The fellowship between the two bodies there, as between Presbyterians and Congregationalists in Chih-li, is close.
The local difficulties do not appear to be serious. An English Baptist missionary frankly stated in an open conference of missionaries of various boards in Chefoo, that his mission, with the full knowledge of the home society, took the position that the Chinese Christians are not yet fit for congregational government, being, as a rule, comparatively ignorant farmers just out of heathenism; that it had been found necessary to select the best men in a local church and give them powers which, for all practical purposes, constituted them a session, and that the native church as a whole was being more and more directed by a body consisting of representatives from such sessions. An American Board missionary told me substantially the same thing regarding the churches of his mission. We should not infer too much from such admissions. Both Baptists and Congregationalists are loyally attached to their independent policy. Both referred, of course, to the temporary adaptions necessary in the present stage of mission work. As for Presbyterians, their Board's Committee on Policy and Methods declared, March 6, 1899:—
``It is inexpedient to give formal organization to churches and Presbyteries after American models unless there is manifest need therefor, and such forms are shown to be best adapted to the people and circumstances. In general, the ends of the work will be best attained by simple and flexible organizations adapted to the characteristic and real needs of the people and designed to develop and utilize spiritual power rather than merely or primarily to secure proper ecclesiastical procedure.''
As a matter of fact, neither the representative nor the independent forms of church government are yet in unmodified operation on any mission fields, except perhaps in Japan, for the simple reason that the typical foreign missionary has thus far necessarily exercised the functions of a superintendent or bishop of the native churches. Undoubtedly, however, the Asiatic churches are being educated to expect self-government as soon as they are competent to exercise it.
Doctrinal differences may present greater difficulties. And yet there is a remarkable unanimity of teaching among the missionaries of the various denominations in China. However widely they may differ among themselves, nearly all agree in preaching to the Chinese the great central truths of Christianity so that most of the native Christians know little of the sectarian distinctions that are so well-understood in America. Such differences as are necessary in China might be provided for by recognizing the liberty of the local church and the individual believer to hold whichever phase of the truth might be preferred. The China Inland Mission has shown that this plan is feasible. It is composed of missionaries of all Protestant denominations, but they work in harmony and build up a Chinese church by recognizing the right of brethren to differ in the same organization.
Doubtless isolated cases of embarrassment would occur, but they would be insignificant in comparison with the embarrassments inherent in sectarian divisions. Denominational uniformity is bought at bitter cost when it separates Christians into rival camps. Unity in essentials and liberty in non-essentials are far better than a slavery to non-essentials which destroys that oneness of believers for which our Lord prayed. In the presence of a vast heathen population, let Christians at least remember that their points of disagreement are less vital than their points of agreement, that Christianity should, as far as possible, present a solid front, and let them devoutly join the Conference of Protestant missionaries in Japan in the ringing proclamation:—``That all those who are one with Christ by faith are one body, and that all who love the Lord Jesus and His Church in sincerity and truth should pray and labour for the full realization of such a corporate oneness as the Master Himself prayed for in the night in which He was betrayed.''
It is true that an advanced position on comity sometimes operates to the disadvantage of the denomination that espouses it. But let us be true to our ideals even if some whom we might have reached do go to heaven by another route. Other churches are preaching the gospel and those who accept it at their hands will be saved. We are in Asia to preach Christ, to preach Him as we understand Him, but if any one else insists on preaching Him in a given place and will do so with equal fidelity to His divinity and atone- ment, let us cooperate with them, or federate with them, or combine with them, or give up the field to them, as the circumstances may require. The problem before us is not simply where we can do good, but where we can do the most good, how use to the best advantage the limited resources at our command. Givers at home have a right to demand this. Many of their gifts involve self-sacrifice, and they should be used where a real need exists. ``There remains yet very much land to be possessed.'' I have seen enough of it to burden my heart as long as I live, toiling, sorrowing, sin-laden multitudes, who might be better Christians than we are if they had our chance, but who are scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. And shall we multiply missionaries in places already occupied and dispute as to who shall preach in a given fields when these millions are dying without the gospel?
WILL China ever be able to menace the nations of the West? This is the startling question that many sober-minded men are asking. Some writers, indeed, make light of the ``yellow peril,'' characterizing it ``a mere bugaboo of an excited imagination,'' because, as they allege, China has neither the organization nor the valour to fight Europe, and because, if it had, it could not transport its army and navy so vast a distance.
But surely organization and valour can be acquired by the Chinese as well as by any other people. Their present helplessness before the aggressive foreigner is rapidly teaching them the necessity for the former. As for the latter, it is well known that the most dangerous fighter is the strong but peaceably- disposed man who has been goaded to desperation by long- continued insult and injustice. Americans may discreetly remember that they themselves were once sneeringly described as ``a nation of shopkeepers who wouldn't and couldn't fight.''
It is easy to be deceived by the result of the China-Japan War of 1894. The Japanese were successful, not because they are abler, but because they had more swiftly responded to the touch of the modern world and had organized their government, their army and their navy in accordance with scientific methods. More bulky and phlegmatic China was caught napping by her enterprising enemy. Despising the profession of arms, China gave her energies to scholarship and commerce, and filled her regiments and ships with paupers, criminals and opium fiends, who were as destitute of courage, intelligence and patriotism as the darky who explained his flight from the battle-field by saying that he would rather be a live coward than a dead hero. As for the men above them, a Chinese officer admitted to a friend of mine that at the outbreak of the war with Japan, the army contractors bought a lot of old rifles in Germany, which had long before been discarded as worthless by the German army, paying two ounces of silver for each gun, and thriftily charging the Government nine ounces. Then they bought a cargo of cartridges that did not fit the guns and that had been lying in damp cellars for twenty years, and put the whole equipment into the hands of raw recruits commanded by opium-smokers.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Chinese were worsted before the onset of the wide-awake Japanese, and that the unorganized mobs with which they blindly tried to drive out foreigners in 1900 were easily crushed by the armies of the West. But it would be folly to imagine that this is the end. It takes a nation of 426,000,000 phlegmatic people longer to get under way than a nation of 43,000,000 nervous people, but when they do get started, their momentum is proportionately greater. China has plenty of men who can fight, and when they are well commanded, they make as good soldiers as there are in the world, as ``Chinese Gordon'' showed. Was not his force called the ``Ever Victorious Army,'' because it was never defeated? Did not Lord Charles Beresford, of the English navy, say, after personal inspection of many of the troops of China:—``I am convinced that properly armed, disciplined and led, there could be no better material than the Chinese soldiers''? Did not Admiral Dewey report that the fifty Chinese who served under him in the battle of Manila Bay fought so magnificently that they proved themselves equal in courage to American sailors and that they should be made American citizens by special enactment? During my tour of Asia, I saw the soldiers of England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Russia, America and Japan. But the Chinese cavalrymen of Governor Yuan Shih Kai, whom I have described elsewhere,[89] were as fine troops as I saw anywhere. They would be a foe not to be despised. When Bishop Potter returned from his tour of Asia, he declared that ``when Japan has taught China the art of war, neither England nor Russia nor Germany will decide the fate of the East.''
[89] Chapter VII.
It is odd that any intelligent person should suppose that distance is an effectual barrier against an aroused and organized Asia. It is no farther from China to Europe than from Europe to China, and Europe has not found the distance a barrier to its designs on China. England, Germany, France, Russia, and even little Holland and Portugal, have all managed to send ships and troops to the Far East, to seize territory and to subjugate the inhabitants. Why should it be deemed impossible for China, which alone is larger than all these nations combined, to do what they have done?
The absorption of China by Russia or any other single European power is not possible for the reason that the attempt would be resisted by all the other Powers, including the United States and Japan. The world will never permit one of its nations to make China what Great Britain has made India. A half dozen Powers are determined to have a share if the break up comes.
The real partition of the Empire, however, is hardly probable as the case stands to-day. The Powers dread the task of administering a population that is not only huge but of such a stubborn character that enormous military expenditures might be required to prevent constant rebellions. A still more potent reason lies in the fact that the European nations that covet portions of China could not agree among themselves as to the division of the spoil. There is, indeed, apparent acquiescence in Russian influence in Manchuria, German in Shantung, British in the valleys of the Yang-tze and the Pearl, and French in Tonquin. But no one nation is quite satisfied with this division. Each has thus far taken what it could get; but Germany, France and Russia are far from pleased to see Great Britain take the lion's share that she has marked out for herself. Moreover, there are important provinces that are now common ground, like the imperial province of Chih-li, or unappropriated, like several of the interior provinces. Actual partition would mean a scramble that would precipitate a general war, and such a war would involve so many uncertainties not only as to the result in China but as to possible readjustments in Europe itself, that the Powers wisely shrink from it. So they prefer for the present, at least, the policy of ``spheres of influence'' as giving them a commercial foothold and political influence with less risk of trouble.
Besides, Great Britain, the United States and Japan are all opposed to partition. England's chief interest in China is commercial, and it quite naturally prefers to trade with the whole of China rather than be confined to a particular section of it, for it knows that there would be little trade with any parts of China that Russia, France and Germany absolutely controlled. So England insists on the integrity of China and the open door.''
The United States has the same commercial interest in this respect as Great Britain, with the added motive that partition would give her nothing at all in China; while Japan feels the most strongly of all for she has both the reasons that actuate the United States and also the vital one of self-preservation. The Hon. Chester Holcombe says that several years ago, in an interview with an influential member of the Japanese Cabinet in Tokio, the conversation turned upon the aggressions of European Powers and the weakness of Korea, which had recently declared its independence.
``The Japanese Minister was greatly disturbed at the prospect for the future. He insisted that the action taken by Korea, under the guidance of China, would not save that little kingdom from attack and absorption. Holding up one hand, and separating the first and second fingers as widely as possible from the third and fourth, he said:—`Here is the situation. Those four fingers represent the four great European Powers, Great Britain, Germany, France and Russia. In the open space between them lie Japan, China and Korea.' Then, with really dramatic force, he added: `Like the jaws of a huge vise, those fingers are slowly closing, and unless some supreme effort is made, they will certainly crush the national life out of all three.' ''
So Japan must be reckoned with in any plans which the western nations may make for China, and that Japan is a factor not to be despised, the Russians have learned to their sorrow. Japan believes that she has found the way to make her opposition so formidable that all Europe cannot overcome it. Beyond any other people in the world, the Chinese furnish the raw materials for a world power. All they need is capable leadership. This is the gigantic task to which Japan has set herself. The alert and enterprising Islanders have entered upon a career of national aggrandizement. They realize that with their limited territory and population, they can hardly hope to become a power of the first class and make headway against the tremendous forces of western nations unless they can ally themselves with their larger continental neighbour. They clearly see their own superiority in organization, discipline and modern spirit, and they see also the stupendous power of China if it can be aroused and effectively directed. The Japanese have never been accused of undue modesty and they firmly believe that they are just the people to do this work. This is not simply because they are ambitious, but because they see that unless Asia can be thus solidified against Europe, the whole mighty continent will fall under the control of the white men who already dominate so large a part of it. Accordingly the Japanese have entered upon the definite policy of not only absorbing Korea, but of cultivating the closest possible alliance with their former foe.
The Hon. Augustin Heard, formerly United States Minister to Korea, represents Japan as whispering to the sorely beset Celestials:—
``Why shouldn't we work together? I hate the foreigner as much as you do, and should be as glad to get rid of him. Together we can do great things; separate we are feeble. I am too small, and you are, so to speak, too big. You are unorganized. Let us join hands and I will do what I can to help you get ready; and when we are ready we will drive these insolent fellows into the sea. I have a big army and navy and I have learned all the foreigners have to teach. This knowledge I will pass on to you. We have great advantages over them. In the first place they are a long way from their supplies, and every move they make costs a great deal of money. Our men can fight as well as theirs, if they are shown how, and there are a great many more of them. They can march as well, will require to carry almost no baggage, and do not cost half as much to feed. Our wounded men, too, in their own country and climate will get well, while theirs will die.''
To this suggestion China listens and ponders:—
``What are the objections? There is, first, the contempt which our people feel for them; but that is rapidly dying out. The Japanese showed in our last war that small men can fight as well as big ones; and a rifle in the hands of the small man will carry as far and as true as in the hands of a larger one. Then, when we have once got rid of the foreigner will Japan not try to keep the leadership and supremacy? Very likely but then we shall be armed and organized; we have as able men as they and with our overwhelming numbers shall we not be capable of holding our own—nay, if we wish, of taking possession of her?''[90]
[90] Article in The New York Tribune, September 7, 1903.
Undoubtedly this imaginary conversation voices the ambition of the Japanese and the inclination of an increasing number of Chinese. At any rate, the possibilities which such an alliance suggests are almost overwhelming. Japan undoubtedly has the intelligence and the executive ability to organize as no other power could the vast latent forces of China. If any one doubts her fitness to discipline and lead, he might obtain some heartfelt information from the Russians. Says Mr. George Lynch in the Nineteenth Century:—
``I know of no movement more pregnant with possibilities than this now in progress which makes towards the Japanization of China. There will be great changes in the government and life of that great Empire just as soon as the Empress Dowager dies, and she is now an old woman. In the upheaval of change, if the industrious, persistent, far-sighted efforts of her neighbours bear fruit, we may witness quite a rapid transformation in the life of the Empire. That clever conspirator, Sen Yat Sen, said to me that, once the Chinese made up their minds to change, they would effect in fifteen years as much as it has taken Japan thirty to accomplish. There are some men in the East who affect to regard this rapprochement between Japan and China with alarm, as carrying in its development the menace of a really genuine `yellow peril.' ''
It certainly needs no argument to prove that if the 426,000,000 Chinese are once fairly committed to the skillful leadership of the Japanese, a force will be set in motion which could be withstood only by the united efforts of all the rest of the world.
The task to which Japan has set herself, however, will not be easily achieved. To say nothing of other nations, the Russians are not at all disposed to sit quietly by while their foes cajole the Chinese. Russia has some designs of her own on China. Half Asiatic and semi-barbarous herself, past master in all the arts of Oriental diplomacy, patient, stubborn and untroubled by scruples, she is a formidable competitor for the leadership of China. In Persia, the Russian political policy works largely through the missionaries of the Greek Church, whose propaganda is political as well as religious. The same tactics are now being employed in China. The Chih-li correspondent of the North China Herald reports that the Holy Russian branch of the Greek Church is becoming suspiciously active in North China.
``Their work is spreading, and the methods adopted are such as to attract all the worst characters of the districts in which they operate. In a little town near the Great Wall, where in June there were about a dozen converts to the Greek Church, there are now over eighty. Any and all are welcome. Their families no less than the men themselves are reck- oned as belonging to the Church. The priest has made a round of several towns, and, though he speaks no Chinese, by unhesitatingly giving protection and assistance in any case of dispute or litigation, he has made it clearly evident that for any man in any way under a cloud there is nothing better than to join the Greek Church…. The impression among European onlookers is that Russia is preparing to extend her arms over Chih-li, and is beginning to smooth her way by gaining over the people in the eastern marches of the province. It is a significant fact that the Greek Church is known among the people as a `Kuo Chiao' (National Church), a charge from which the Protestants are considered to be entirely, and the Roman Catholics partially, free.''
China, moreover, will be slow to respond to the overtures of Japan, partly because her bulk and phlegmatic disposition and lack of public spirit make it difficult for her to act quickly and unitedly in anything, partly because Chinese pride and prejudice will not easily yield to the leadership of the haughty little island whose people as well as whose territory have long been contemptuously regarded as dwarfish and inferior.
But the shrewd Japanese are making more progress than is commonly supposed. Not only have they already obtained the great island of Formosa, but they have for years been quietly making their commercial interests paramount in Korea. Their first move in the war with Russia was to occupy that strategic peninsula with a large military force and to secure a treaty with the Emperor which gives Japan a virtual protectorate over the Land of the Morning Calm. The promise to respect the independence of Korea of course deceives no one. It is probably sincere, as diplomatic promises go; but he is innocent indeed who imagines that Korea will be free to do anything that Japan disapproves. The freedom will doubtless be of the kind that Cuba enjoys—a freedom which gives large liberty in matters of internal administration, which relieves the protecting country of any trouble or responsibility that it may deem inconvenient, but which does not permit any alliance with a third nation, and which, for all important international purposes, especially of a military character, regards the ``independent'' nation as really dependent. It is quite safe to predict that no European power will be unsophisticated enough to assume that Korea is ``a free and independent nation.'' The arrangement will be in every way to the advantage of the Koreans, who have suffered grievously from the pulling and hauling of contending powers and from many evils from which the abler and wiser Japanese will, in a measure at least, protect them.
For a long time, too, the Japanese have been strengthening the ties which bind them to China. The brainy Japanese can be seen to-day in almost all the leading cities of the Middle Kingdom. There is a Japanese colony of 200 souls in Chefoo and of 1,400 in Tien-tsin. Already the Japanese are advising China's government, reorganizing her army, drafting her laws and teaching in her university. Even more distant countries are not beyond the range of their ambition. The leaders of India, restive under British rule, are beginning to look with eager sympathy to Japan as the rising Asiatic power. Even the Grand Vizier of Persia has paid a state visit to Japan. Any hopes of India and Persia are likely to be vain, for Britain has a hold upon the former and Russia upon the latter which it would be Quixotic in the Japanese to attempt to break. The Islanders are not fools. But the Siamese, helplessly exasperated by the encroachments of the French, would doubtless be glad enough to enter into an alliance with Japan and China. In 1902, the Crown Prince of Siam visited Japan, where he was most graciously welcomed, and increasing numbers of Japanese who know what they are about are obtaining increasing influence in the Land of the White Elephant.
Nor is it simply by sending Japanese to neighbouring countries that Japan is extending her power. She is encouraging Chinese students to come to her shores. Dr. David S. Spencer of Japan declares that 300 Chinese are studying the art of war in Japanese barracks. Dr. Sydney L. Gulick says that 5,000 Chinese are being trained in the schools of Japan for positions of future power in their own country. It is significant that Viceroy Yuan Shih Kai, the ablest and most far-seeing statesman in China, is reported in the telegraphic despatches of February 5, 1904, as having memorialized the Throne in favour of an offensive and defensive alliance with Japan to regain Manchuria from the Russians, while the North China Daily News represents Prince Su, Prince Ching, Na Tung, President of the Wai-wu-pu, and Tieh Liang as in favour of the same policy. Mr. Holcombe is of the opinion that ``the brightest spot in the outlook for China is in the increasing probability of alliance and affiliation with Japan. . . . Together these two great nations of the Far East may, and it is confidently hoped will, safely confront those Governments whose schemes are hostile to both, and prove their right to manage their own affairs and determine their own destinies.''[91]
[91] Article in The Outlook, February 13, 1904.
But whatever the immediate future may be, it is not probable that so huge and virile a population as the Chinese will be permanently led by a foreign nation. Even if partition should come, it would only hasten the development of those teeming millions of people, for foreign domination would mean more railway, telegraph and steamship lines. It would mean the opening of mines, the development of the press, the complete ascendency of Western ideas. Though China as a political organism might be divided, the Chinese people would remain— the most virile, industrious, untiring people of Asia, and perhaps, after due tutelage, a coming power of the world. China's assimilative power is enormous. The black man may be dominated by the white and the Hindu by the English, but China is neither Africa nor India. It is true that the present dynasty is Manchu, but the Manchus are more akin to the Chinese than either the Russians or the Japanese. Moreover the Manchus have not tried to rule China from the outside, but have permanently settled in China, and while they have succeeded as a rule in maintaining a separate name, they have not made the Chinese Manchus, but instead they have themselves been prac- tically merged into the engulfing mass of China. ``Those who imagine that the vast population of the Empire will submit quietly to the partition of their country, or that any military force of moderate size could force it to acquiesce in such a scheme, know but little of the Chinese character, of their intense love of country, or of their unconquerable tenacity of purpose.''[92] The foreign nation that gets the Chinese, or even any considerable portion of them, will probably find that it has assumed a burden in comparison with which the Egyptian trouble with the Israelites was insignificant, and it is not improbable that the conqueror will some day find himself conquered.
[92] Chester Holcombe, article in The Outlook, February 13, 1904.
At any rate, portentous possibilities are conjured up by the contemplation of this mighty nation! There are upheavals compared with which our revolutions are but spasms. There are religions whose adherents outnumber ours two to one. There is a civilization which was old before ours was born. Are we to believe that these swarming legions were created for no purpose? Are their generations to appear and fall and rot unnoticed, like the leaves of the forest? Degraded, superstitious, many of them still are. But they need only to be organized and directed to do untold mischief. More than once already has a similar catastrophe occurred. Some prodigy of skill and genius has seized such enormous forces, given them discipline and coherency and hurled them like a thunderbolt upon Christendom. Sometimes the shock has been frightful, and before it the proudest of empires and the stateliest of institutions have reeled and fallen. This was the Titan-like achievement of Alaric, of Genseric, of Attila, and of Mohammed. Yet Goths and Vandals, Huns and Mohammedans, combined, had not half the numbers upon which we now look. Give the 426,000,000 Chinese the results of modern discovery and invention, and imagination falters. They have the territory. They have the resources. They have the population and they are now acquiring the knowledge. China will fight no more like the barbarians of old with spears and bows and arrows, for despite the treaty of 1900 prohibiting the importation of arms, the Chinese are buying repeating rifles and Maxim guns, while in their own arsenals they are turning out vast quantities of munitions of war. The American consul at Leipsic, Germany, reports to the State Department that an Austrian company has just received an order for so large a number of small arms for the Chinese Government that it will take several years to fill it, even with additional forces of men to whom it has given employment. This is only one of many reports received in Washington within recent months that the factories of both Germany and Austria are busy supplying the Chinese with modern arms and ammunition. The armies of China will soon be as well equipped as the armies of Europe.
Incredible as it may seem, up to the year 1901, promotion in the army was often determined by trials of strength with stone weights, dexterity in sword exercises and skill in the use of the bow and arrow. But in that year, an Imperial Decree declared that such tests ``have no relation to strategy and to that military science which is indispensable for military officers,'' commanded that they be abolished and that military academies should be established in the provincial capitals in which the science of modern war should be diligently studied. Not content with this, forty young men were sent to Europe in 1903 for the express purpose of studying the latest military and naval methods of the white man. And now Sir Robert Hart proposes not only a reorganization of China's civil service but the building of a first-class navy of thirty battleships and cruisers, and he thinks that the enormous sum of $200,000,000 a year can be obtained for this purpose by an increase in the land tax. Then, he declares, China will be enabled ``not only to make her voice heard, but to take an effective share in the settlement of questions in the Far East.'' The London Times rather contemptuously asserts that ``the entire project in its present shape is visionary from beginning to end.'' But Sir Robert Hart has spent fifty years in China, having entered the British consular service in 1854 and become Inspector-General of Maritime Customs in 1863. During the greater part of this long period, he has been an adviser of the Chinese Government and the most influential foreigner in the Empire. The recommendation of such a man is not to be lightly dismissed as ``visionary,'' especially when it is made to a people who have been taught by bitter experience that a modern armament is their only hope of defense against the foreigner. As late as the beginning of the year 1904, Russia ridiculed the idea that Japan could do anything against a western power, and all the rest of Europe as well as America, while admiring the pluck of the Japanese, confidently expected them to be crushed by the Slav. Wise men will think twice in the future before they sneer at the yellow race. If Japan in half a century could go from junks and cloisonne to battleships and magazine rifles, and to the handling of them, too, more scientifically and effectively than they were ever handled by a white man, why should it be deemed chimerical that China, with equal ability and greater resources and certainly no less provocation, should in time achieve even vaster results, particularly as Japan is not only willing but eager to teach her? ``We do not lack either men of intellect or brilliant talents, capable of learning and doing anything they please; but their movements have hitherto been hampered by old prejudices,'' said the Emperor Kuang Hsii. Precisely, and the stern, relentless pressure of necessity is now shattering some of those ``old prejudices.'' ``You urge us to move faster,'' said a Chinese magistrate to a foreigner. ``We are slow to respond for we are a conservative people; but if you force us to start, we may move faster and farther than you like.''