HE incidental criticisms that the missionaries have received during the recent mysterious imbroglio in China are far from just. When the Western world is finally enabled to get at the bottom of the present trouble, I am confident it will be discovered that the Christian missionary is not the cause. On the contrary, the causes of the unrest in China to-day can readily be traced to harsh economic conditions; to Chinese hatred of the present dynasty, easily effervescent under a loose and corrupt government, and to Russian diplomacy. Perhaps there is no country in the world where the right of rebellion is so clearly taught by tradition, and by sages whose words have received a religious sanction, as in China. From the fourth to the sixteenth century there were a dozen revolutions of government in China, and countless insurrections.

The missionaries have been charged with: (1) Interference with the religion of the country; (2) interference with the administration of justice; (3) insolent disregard of native customs; (4) luxurious and indolent lives; (5) small intellectual cultivation; (6) confusing heathen by the controversies of Christian sects. I will consider these criticisms briefly and in order.

(1) The Christian religion is permitted in China by treaty, and therefore officially cannot be looked upon as an aggressive or antagonistic religious faith. It would not have been granted standing room in the country if the Government had considered it to be hurtful to itself or to its subjects. On the contrary, the essential doctrine of Christianity in the eyes of the Chinese is the Golden Rule, and this rule, in a negative form, as we all know, is found among the sayings of Confuciuswas the sum of his teaching; accordingly, the Chinese complacently view the Christian religion as the embodiment of one side of the morality of their great sage.

Besides this, it is attributing altogether too much importance to Christian missionaries to suppose that so small a band of them as now exists in China could influ

ence such an immense population, even if the influence resulted in hostility to themselves. I doubt if there are two thousand Christian missionaries in China, including the Chinese Inland Mission; which would make one missionary to each two hundred thousand of the population. It is asserting the impossible to suppose that so small a proportion of the population of China could produce in ill will results adequate to the present disturbances.

It must be remembered that the prevailing religion in China, as we use the term religion, is Buddhism; that this is an imported faith, which came as a missionary teaching, and that it was not produced in China itself. There are only seven million Buddhists in the home of BuddhismIndia-and these are mostly in Burma and Ceylon. But there are over four hundred million Buddhists in China and Japan. Confucianism originated in the attempt of Confucius, who had the political welfare of the people of his province at heart, to devise a moral system that would engender nobler citizenship. Confucianism to-day is more a political faith than it is a religion. A Chinaman, for instance, can be both a follower of Confucius and a follower of Buddha without comment or reproach. It happens, therefore, that the Chinese have no objections to a religious faith which does not interfere with their political institutions-that is to say, with their form of government. The political complexion of the native religion of China is like that found in Japan, where Shintoism has become little more than a political creed incentive to loyalty. Shintoism is a form of nature-worship, without dogma or morality. Indeed, within two hundred years Shintoism has been upheld by its chief advocate because it was not a moral system. Morals, this Japanese sage, Moto-ori, claims, were invented by the Chinese as a discipline for an immoral people; this discipline the Japanese did not need. Shintoism is only a political formula. A Japanese can be at once a believer in Shinto and a Buddhist. To-day, while the Japanese Government is giving

especial honor to Shintoism as a pledge of loyalty, yet it no more fears the political results of Christianity than Victoria fears the revolutionary force of Methodism, a faith which does not recognize her as its religious head.

There is a sense in which Christian missionaries may be considered to have been hostile to existing forms of governments in the East. (a) In Japan, for instance, the Emperor is a fabled descendant of the Sun Goddess, the greatest of Shinto divinities. Any attack upon Shintoism used to be construed as, and was unwittingly, an attack upon the throne, because, theoretically at least, if the subjects of the Mikado changed their religion they had no longer their strongest incentive to loyalty. The persecution of Christians in Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was caused after this manner by fear for that form of government in Japan which was so essentially bound up with the religion of the country. (b) In China, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Roman Catholic missions became political agents. The missionary field was contested by the Jesuits, the Dominicans, and the Francis

cans.

But this war of monastic orders was supported by great European powers. Portugal was the champion of the Jesuits, and France and Italy of the Franciscans and Dominicans. Politics intruded to such an extent that the great and friendly Emperor K'anghsi complained to the missionaries that their dissensions ruined the cause they had at heart. In fact, contrary to a recent statement of an "Ex-Attaché" in the New York "Tribune," the Christian missions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in China were so political that they went to pieces with the fall of the power of Portugal, and had come into the greatest discredit with the Chinese even before that time. (c) To-day the political pretensions of the Papacy have placed Catholic missions on a more political basis than are the missions of any other Church. The Protestant missions are non-political, except as the accidents of their life may be taken advantage of by ambitious governments in Europe, as was recently seen in the action of the German Emperor. (a) The education of the humblest members of society and the inculcation of the conception of their moral worth and inde

pendence must always threaten the power of an absolute ruler. Christianity is, therefore, uncongenial to an Oriental despotism, as upon analysis it will be found uncongenial in its true definition to any despotism. In the East, Christianity's largest triumph has been won among the poor and despised. In China the lame, halt, and blind, the very abject, have been most benefited by missionary labor. In India the outcasts, the very pariahs, neglected by the other castes, have even received the Gospel of Jesus as the word of an earthly Saviour and Liberator. In the sixteenth century the Catholic missionaries to Japan sought out and converted the slaves and lowest orders of a feudal State. Such enlightenment of the most abused of his subjects alarmed the Emperor, who saw in the extension of Christianity the subversion of the government of which he was the head.

(2) The great body of missionaries do not interfere with Chinese courts of justice. Such action is a matter of policy with them. With the Catholic clergy this is not the case. As a Protestant myself, I am willing to ask the question, Why should not a missionary try to protect a Christian convert accused of crime, or in litigation? In the first place, it cannot be true that the criminal classes seek membership in the Christian Church in order to secure protection against laws which they have broken. A most interesting phase of the Christian Church in the East is its similarity to the primitive Church in the early Christian centuries. A member is not admitted easily or hastily. He becomes a catechumen, and is under constant instruction extending over months and sometimes over years. The number of new converts at each mission station is small, and consequently a missionary has minute and prolonged observation of any native seeking membership in the Christian Church. He cannot easily be deceived. Certainly there can be no wholesale deception.

On the other hand, if we ask what sort of justice it is that the Christian convert receives in case he is accused of crime, we discover that Chinese justice does not deserve the name. The criminal must prove his innocence, and the court tries to secure a confession of guilt by means of torture. The judge in small towns is

often a person who comprises in himself the function of chief of police and of prosecuting attorney. From such a judge, it can be easily supposed, there is slight escape after arrest has once been made. It is needless to say that Chinese punishments are barbarously cruel. The day I visited Canton seven executions took place, with no stir or comment among the people of the city. A book I picked up there contained rice-paper pictures of Chinese punishments, all of them of a disgustingly cruel nature. Has not a Christian missionary, in the name of humanity, a right to interfere, if he decently can, with such farcical justice? More than this, it is well known that the court is in such collusion with the jailers that accused persons are often condemned and sent to prison merely in order that the jailer may release them or mitigate their punishment for a money consideration which he shares with the judge. Chinese justice is so topsyturvy and impossible that European and American merchants will have nothing to do with it. They are guaranteed the right of ex-territorial courts, where all cases of dispute between themselves and Chinamen can be decided by the laws and by the procedure of their own country.

(3) There is not an insolent disregard of native customs shown by Christian missionaries. On the contrary, many of the missionaries have adopted the queue, the costume and manners, of the Chinese. Some Protestants have gone so far as to marry Chinese wives in order to identify themselves with the people among whom they labor. Neither is there much chance of ignorant violation of Chinese customs. The missionaries who would be capable of that, the younger and less experienced men and women, are in all cases under the direction of older and more experienced missionaries, whose constant solicitude it is to be on good terms with the people among whom they live. The American Minister in Tokio told me he had never had a complaint against a native by a missionary or against a missionary by a native. Complaints lodged by natives and American merchants against each other were daily occurrences. Men who have pluck and resolution enough to exile themselves for life in a perpetual "yellow day" are not without the saving grace of common sense. The missionaries share

with all pioneers in the possession of practical wisdom. At St. John's College, Shanghai, at a beautiful chapel service, I saw the older girls of the Girls' School screened so that they could not be seen by the other worshipers, who were the college students, professors, visitors, etc. Upon asking why they were screened, I was told that it was to conform to the Chinese custom, which made it indecorous for them to be seen by young men in a public place. I noticed a middle-aged Chinese woman in constant attendance at the side of the lady principal of the Girls' School. I asked who this fine-faced Chinese woman was, and was told that she was an attendant, employed because the Chinese do not regard it proper for a woman to appear alone in public. The American lady prin

cipal was protected from comment by her presence. In fact, wherever you turn in a missionary compound, you discover some recognition in the usages of the missionaries of the peculiar customs of the country. Indeed, what would be gained by failing to fall in with the peculiarities of a foreign land? Nothing. On the contrary, unfriendly feeling would be incited against those objects for which the missionaries are giving their lives. Can we suppose them so obtuse or obstinate as senselessly to endanger their work? There is more sympathy between natives and missionaries than between natives and any other class of foreigners. In Japan missionaries have urged treaty revision by which the Japanese are allowed jurisdiction over foreigners in the courts. Their prophecies of the success of revision have proved true. In China missionaries have been chosen by the Government to distribute relief in time of flood in preference to Chinese officials.

(4) A missionary cannot live luxuriously or indolently on a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars a year, especially if he has a wife and children. The Chinese are a very poor people. Agriculture, as at present practiced there, will not adequately support the population. There is potential wealth in mines; there is cheap labor for industrial development; but to-day the Chinese are exceedingly poor. Their houses are unsubstantial and mean. It is only by way of comparison with the poor Chinese and their flimsy dwellings that a missionary can be

considered to dwell at ease. With their usual egotism, the Chinese have always regarded Europeans as representatives of poor races, because foreigners came to China to make money. Consequently, the Chinese considered themselves superior in wealth to the rest of the world. It would be wise, then, if all diplomatic, mercantile, and even Christian institutions of the East could be substantially housed to teach the Chinese an object-lesson. The missionary would gain nothing, and very likely would lose his life, by trying to live under the squalid and unsanitary conditions to which the great mass of Chinese are accustomed. Even to live in a native quarter is dangerous to health.

There are two ways in which a missionary's money accomplishes more for him. than if he were at home. For instance, American gold is worth double its face value in Chinese silver. The banks in Asia keep their accounts in silver. If you deposit gold, you are credited with silver in China, at about double the amount of your gold deposit. If the next day you wanted gold, you would have to draw silver and buy gold. A missionary's salary there, if he keeps a bank account, stands in his name for about twice what it would in America. Then, again, labor is very cheap. As the missionary's house is usually provided for him, it can be seen that he is able to live, in terms of food and service, better in China than he could in America. But this is true of European bank clerks and other business agents in the East, and is the result of the same At best he is an exile.

causes.

It is needless to say that the missionary is not indolent in Japan and China. To master the language requires the young missionary to study five or six hours a day for as many years. Most of this study is done with a teacher, and therefore is not of a wool-gathering sort, but is intense application. These studies are so arduous that young missionaries often break down. In Japan this mental collapse is called "head." An eminent American physician in Yokohama, of thirty years' residence, told me that these breakdowns were frequent, and among the saddest things in his experience. Besides his study, the young missionary is given his share of duties, which extend through the rest of his day, and generally through

out the evening. I should say the missionaries give more hours to their work than the foreign mercantile agents, who, while hard-working, do not ordinarily have to learn the language, whose business is confined to definite hours, and who have the recreation of excellent clubs, with plenty of English sports, even including racing.

(5) The statement that the missionaries are deficient in mental cultivation is certainly untrue. Naturally, among a body of persons made up of different nationalities, from different social classes, and representing different religious bodies, there must be a difference in training and cultivation. The service performed at the mission stations is not all learned disputation. There is much nursing, Biblereading, primary teaching, and there are services of a humbler sort, requiring devotion, character, and health. On the other hand, the missionary field has produced too many distinguished scholars to need defense. Personally, I was surprised at the high character of the different missionaries I encountered, either on steamers or at their stations, representing several Protestant denominations.

(6) It is a mistake to suppose that the Orientals are perplexed by the sectarian cut of the Christianity the missionaries bring to them. Denominationalism is a gentler thing in the missionary field than at home. Basil H. Chamberlain particularly commends the Protestant missionaries in Japan for their freedom from sectarian strife. Modern Protestant missions in the East have caused no scandal by bickerings and jealousies. On the other hand, sectarianism itself (the assertion by antagonistic sides of a religion that each is the only true faith) has not been a source of confusion. The Asiatics are used to sectarianism. Hinduism and Buddhism are riddled with sects, and even Mohammedanism has sectaries. Sir Ernest Sartow told me that the Christian sects were no bar to the propagation of Christianity in Japan. Even in the early days of Christian missions in Japan, toward the end of the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi, the great usurper, is said to have tolerated Christianity for a time, because among so many religions as then existed in Japan one more or less could, in his opinion, make no difference.

This would seem to be a sufficient answer to any writer who declares that the Japanese are confused by Christian sects.

I may be allowed, perhaps, a reference to a recent criticism of Christian missions by a writer upon Japan. Mr. Stafford Ransome claims that in Japan the Christian missions were at first welcomed, then opposed, and are now treated with indifference. This statement is very misleading, because it implies that the resulting indifference has been caused by the action of the Christian converts, who have tried Christianity, have found it wanting, and are now neglecting it. There has been among Japanese converts to Christianity no disappointment and failure after a season of enthusiastic hope. The present status of Christian missions in Japan is the result, not of spiritual experiences, but of political development in the Japanese government. It cannot be said that Christian missions in this century were welcomed in Japan. They got a footing with difficulty. But the result of their labors was to awaken a thirst for European civilization. After the revolution of 1868, Christian missionaries were popular because they helped to Europeanize Japan. An American missionary, at the invitation of the Emperor, remodeled the whole educational system of the country. Everywhere the missionary was in evidence as representative, not only of the Christian religion, but of the learning and institutions of Europe. As the new spirit grew, however, while it continued to be imitative, it nevertheless developed an insular and patriotic attitude toward its Occidental teachers. Europe and America treated Japan like a child. They would not give the native government jurisdiction over foreigners. The child in turn grew surly, and threw away some of the gifts it had received from Western civilization, and undertook to return to a more strictly Japanese manner of life by putting on once more the national costumes, by using once again old customs, and by worshiping at the shrines of Shinto and Buddha. An in. tense race-consciousness, self-confidence, and pride superseded the former willing tutelage. While Western civilization was in fashion in Japan, from 1878 to 1888, Christianity was much sought after by the Japanese. For the last ten years or

so it has received the indifferent attention that all things coming from "abroad" have been vouchsafed. The Japanese are rationalistic and utilitarian, consequently Christianity does not easily appeal to them. But the work of Christian missions is progressing. It produces most excellent results on Japanese character, and the social and domestic weaknesses of Japanese life are peculiarly susceptible to the influences of Christianity. The phrase "Christian home denotes relationships so pure and delightful and new to the Japanese that it has been adopted into the language as practically descriptive of something which the Japanese had neither known nor been able to express.

The European and American merchants whom I met in the East spoke well of missionaries. The United States Minister to Japan went to Tokio hostile to missionaries; now he is an enthusiastic defender of them, as a result of his observation.

There is, however, one condition of foreign residence in China that rather separates the merchant from the missionary. The merchant relies to such an extent upon the consular courts, and consequently feels so independent of the natives, that a somewhat supercilious attitude is easily developed in the foreign business population toward the people in whose country they reside. The final result of this spirit is mutual suspicion and some ill will. This antagonism between the foreign business community and the natives existed in Japan until a year ago, when treaty revision abolished ex-territorial courts. In India a very serious outbreak took place against the then Viceroy when it was proposed to try Europeans before a native court. The missionaries, on the contrary, trust the natives and are trusted by them.

To tell the truth, as far as I can see, the missionaries are contributing more to the advancement and enlightenment of the Far East than all other agencies combined. The diplomats are so much concerned with national rivalries that they have no especial gift to the people or to the government except the letting of light into China through the opening of the treaty ports, and the example of splendid and honorable service seen in such personalities as Sir Robert Hart. The Western merchants do not like protracted residence in the