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XX

MISSIONARIES AND THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS

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HE relation of the missionary to the consular and diplomatic representatives of his own government is another topic of perennial criticism. Some European Governments have persistently and notoriously sought to advance their national interest through their missionaries. France and Russia have been particularly active in this way, the former claiming large rights by virtue of its position as "the protector of Catholic missions. The result is that the average Chinese official regards all missionaries as political agents who are to be watched and feared. Dr. L. J. Davies, a Presbyterian missionary, says that he has been repeatedly asked his rank as "an American official," whether he "reported in person" to his "emperor on his return to his native land, how much salary his government allowed him, and many other questions the import of which was manifest.

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The typical consul and minister, moreover, find that no small part of their business relates to matters that are brought to their attention by missionaries. Sometimes they manifest impatience on this account. One consul profanely complained to me that three-fourths of his business related to the missionary question. He forgot, however, that nine-tenths of the nationals under his jurisdiction were missionaries, so that in proportion to their numbers, the missionaries gave him less trouble than the non-missionary Americans. In answer to an inquiry by the Rev. Dr. Paul D. Bergen, of the Presbyterian Mission, seventythree missionaries, of from five to thirty years' experience, and representing most of the Protestant boards, reported a total of only fifty-two applications through consul or minister. The

Hon. John Barrett, formerly Minister of the United States to Siam, writes: "Let us be fair in judging the missionaries. Let the complaining merchant, traveller or clubman take the beam from his own eye before he demands that the mote be taken from the missionary's eye. In my diplomatic experience in Siam, 150 missionaries gave me less trouble in five years than fifteen merchants gave me in five months."

Doubtless some diplomats would be glad to have the missionaries expatriate themselves. In the United States Senate the Hon. John Sherman is reported to have said that "if our citizens go to a far-distant country, semi-civilized and bitterly opposed to their movements, we cannot follow them there and protect them. They ought to come home." Is, then, the missionary's business less legitimate than the trader's? Is a man entitled to the protection of his country if he goes to the Orient to sell whiskey and rifles, but does he forfeit that protection if he goes there to preach the gospel of temperance and peace?

Critics may be reminded that missionaries are American citizens; that when gamblers and drunkards and adventurers and distillery agents in China claim the rights of citizenship, the missionary does not forfeit his rights by a residence in China for the purpose of teaching the young, healing the sick, distributing the Bible and preaching the gospel of Christ, particularly when treaties expressly guarantee him protection in the exercise of these very privileges. It is odd to find some people insisting that a dissolute trader should be allowed to go wherever he pleases and raising a tremendous hubbub if a hair of his head is injured, while at the same time they appear to deem it an unwarranted thing for a decent man to go to China on a mission of peace and good-will.

While the individual missionary is, of course, free to renounce his claim to the protection of home citizenship, such renunciation is neither necessary nor expedient. There is not the slightest probability that our Government will require

it, and if it should, the public sentiment of the United States would not tolerate such an order for a week. No self-respecting nation can expatriate its citizens who go abroad to do good. The policy of the United States was indicated in the note of the Hon. J. C. B. Davis, acting Secretary of State, to the United States Minister at Peking, October 19, 1871.

"The rights of citizens of the United States in China are well defined by treaty. So long as they attend peaceably to their affairs they are to be placed on a common footing of amity and good-will with subjects of China, and are to receive and enjoy for themselves, and everything appertaining to them, protection and defense from all insults and injuries. They have the right to reside at any of the ports open to foreign commerce, to rent houses and places of business, or to build such upon sites which they have the right to hire. They have secured to them the right to build churches and cemeteries, and they may teach or worship in those churches without being harassed, persecuted, interfered with, or molested. These are some of the rights which are expressly and in terms granted to the United States, for their citizens, by the Treaty of 1858. If I rightly apprehend the spirit of the note of the Foreign Office, and of the regulations which accompany it, there is, to state it in the least objectionable form, an apprehension in the yamen that it may become necessary to curtail some of these rights, in consequence of the alleged conduct of French missionaries. This idea cannot be entertained for one moment by the United States."

This position was given new emphasis by the note sent by Secretary of State John Hay to the Hon. Horace Porter, United States Ambassador to France, in response to a communication from the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris in 1903. In this note Mr. Hay said:

"The Government holds that every citizen sojourning or travelling abroad in pursuit of his lawful affairs is entitled to a passport, and the duration of such sojourn the department does not arrogate to itself the right to limit or prescribe."

The governments of continental Europe have repeatedly shown themselves quick to resent an infringement upon the

treaty rights of their subjects who are in China as missionaries. The Hon. Thomas Francis Wade, British Minister at Peking, wrote to Minister Wen Hsiang in June, 1871 :-"The British Government draws no distinction between the missionaries and any other of its non-official subjects." This sentiment was emphatically reiterated by Earl Granville in a note from the foreign office in London to Mr. Wade dated August 21, 1871:

"Her Majesty's Government cannot allow the claim that the missionaries residing in China must conform to the laws and customs of China to pass unchallenged. It is the duty of a missionary, as of every other British subject, to avoid giving offense as far as possible to the Chinese authorities or people, but he does not forfeit the rights to which he is entitled under the treaty as a British subject because of his missionary character."

But while this is the only possible policy for a government, it is surely reasonable to expect that the persons concerned will exercise moderation and prudence in their demands. The China Island Mission does not permit its missionaries to appeal to their Government officials without special permission from headquarters. Many missionaries of other societies would probably resent such a limitation of their liberty as citizens. But as the act of the individual often involves others, it might be well to make the approval of the station necessary, and, wherever practicable, of the mission. Nine-tenths of the missionaries do not and will not unnecessarily write or telegraph for the intervention of minister or consul. But the tenth man may be benefited by the counsel of his colleagues who know or who may be easily acquainted with the facts. The American Presbyterian Board in a formal action has expressed the wise judgment that "appeals to the secular arm should always and everywhere be as few as possible." It is not in the civil or military power of a country to give the missionary success. In the crude condition of heathen society, the temptation is sometimes strong to appeal for aid to "the secular arm" of the home government. Occasions may

possibly arise in which it will be necessary to insist upon rights. Nevertheless, as a rule, it will be well to remember that "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God," and that "the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men." The argument of the sword is Mohammedan, not Christian. The veteran Rev. J. Hudson Taylor holds that in the long run appeals to home governments do nothing but harm. He says he has known of many riots that have never been reported and of much suffering endured in silence which have "fallen out rather to the furtherance of the gospel," and that "if we leave God to vindicate our cause, the issue is sure to prove marvellous in spirituality."

The critics have vociferously charged that after the suppression of the Boxer uprising, the missionaries greatly embarrassed their goverments by demanding bloody vengeance upon the Chinese. It may indeed be true that among the thousands of Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries in China, some temporarily lost their self-control and gave way to anger under the awful provocation of ruined work, burned homes, outraged women and butchered Chinese Christians. How many at home would or could have remained calm in such circumstances? But it is grossly unjust to treat such excited utterances as representative of the great body of missionary opinion. The missionaries went to China and they propose to stay there because they love and believe in the Chinese, and it is very far from their thought to demand undue punishment for those who oppose them. They sensibly expected a certain amount of opposition from tradition, heathenism, superstition and corruption, and they are not disposed to call for unmanly or unchristian measures when that trouble falls upon them which fell in even greater measure on the Master Himself.

It is true that some of the missionaries felt that the ringleaders of the Boxers, including those in high official position who more or less secretly incited them to violence, should be

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