Missionary Massacres in China.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 129, 27 September 1895, Page 3

Missionary Massacres in China.

In a recent work on China written by the Hon G. N. Curzon, M.A., who was for some lime Under-Secretary of State for India, the author makes the following pregnant remarks on this aspect of the subject:—" The presence of the missionary bodies, as a whole, in the country is a constant source of anxiety to the Legations, by whom, in the last resort, their interests, resting a 3 tbey do upon treaties, must be defended; and is equally distasteful to the Chinese Government, which frequently finds itself called upon to reprimand a native official or punish a local community at the cost of great odium to itself. This is the explanation of the extreme reluctance exhibited, as a rule, by the central authority in bringing to justice the notorious authors of calumny or outrage." The misguided zeal of the missionaries blinds them to the fact that other people than Christians reverence the founders of their religion, and look upon those who belittle their belief in them as enemies and blasphemers. To wean a people like the Chinese from their belief in the religion founded by Confucius, nearly six hundred years before Christ was born, and which has grown stronger in the approbation of its followers as time rolled on is not an easy task, nor one that will be furthered by undue haste; especially in view of the fact that the Chinese do not claim for Confucius any divine origin, as they know his genealogy and life history thoroughly, and that he was like Moses, a man of the people, who by superior wisdom laid down laws for them which to this day have much to commend them. Confucius though evidently acknowledging a Supreme Being in his religion makes no mention of the Almighty, but relates chiefly to the necessity, of leading a moral life. -There are no miracles in hia writings nor any attempt to inculcate the doctrine of a future state of either happiness or misery. He laid down the law as being contained in the injunction "Do vnto others as you would have them do unto you." In this the two religions are entirely at oney and if their followers carried out the exhortation there would be no need for missionaries in either Europe or China, as the people in both parts of the world would be virtuous and enlightened. When Christian missionaries push their way into a country like China, where Europeans are not looked upon with favor, any more than are the Chinese themselves when they flock into civilised countries to compete with the already too numerous seekers after remunerative employment, they are courting disaster and exposing the lives of all the other Europeans in the vicinity to constant danger, as the local authorities are not unwilling to wink at their extermination, whilst the Foreign Consols are unable to protect them, and largely of opinion that they have unnecessary brought the trouble on their own heads". The increased employment of young girls as missionaries in Chinais another weak spot, as they are totally ignorant of the minds of the people they so ligbJy undertake to proselytise. Mr Carzon, in his "Problems of the Far East," thus remarks on the matter :—" Another source of the trouble is the constantly increasing employment of women, and particularly of unmarried women by the missionery bodies. A steamer rarely sails from the American shores for Yokohama without carrying a bevy of young girls, fresh from the schoolroom or seminary, who with the impulsive innocence of youth, are about to devote their young lives and energies to what they conceive to be the noblest of purposes in Japan or China. A scarcely inferior stream of female recruitment flows in from the United Kingdom and the colonies. In a country like China the institution of sisterhoods, planted alongside of male establishments, the spectacle of pnmarried persons of both sexes residing and working together, both in public and in private, and of girls making long journeys into the interior without responsible escorts, are sourses of misunderstanding at which the pure minded may afford to scoff, but which in many cases has more to do with anti-missionary feeling in China than any amount of national hostility or doctrinal antagonism. Only last year, at the remote island town of Kuei-hwa-cheng, a friend of mine encountered a missionary community consisting of one male and of twenty Swedish girls. The propaganda of the latter consisted in parading the streets and singing hymns to the strumming of tambourines and guitars. The society that had committed the outrage of sending out these innocent girls only allowed them two hundred dollars, or £27 10s a year apiece for board, lodging and clothing. As a consequence they were destitute of the smallest comforts of life, and could not even perform their toilette without the impertinent eyes of Chinamen being directed upon them through the paper screens. Can anything more futile than such an enterprise be conceived, or more culpable ? "