RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
China
tion to the Emperor K'ang Hsi, whose decision in their favor was flatly contradicted by a bull of Clement XI. (1704) absolutely forbidding the rites, and the use of the terms " Heaven " and " Shang Ti " for God. The Emperor K'ang Hsi was not the man to divide his rule with an Italian gentleman, and the result was that while missions were still patronized at court for scientific purposes, they were persecuted in the provinces with the connivance of the emperor. On the accession of his successor, Yung Cheng (1723-35), by various decrees the missionaries were banished and the Church extinguished. It is said that " more than 300 churches were destroyed or suppressed, and 300,000 Christians abandoned to the fury of the heathen."
Thus at the end of a century and a half of great prosperity the work of the past appeared to be again wholly undone; but the fortitude under bitter persecutions and the 3. The constancy of the Roman Catholic Christians during the succeeding cen-
Modern Period.
tury and a quarter till the practical toleration of the Treaty of Whampoa, and the fuller hberty of the treaties of 1858, afford the most convincing proof of the genuineness of their reUgion. During the last half-century the expansion of the Roman Catholic Church in all parts of the empire has been marked, but as it does not publish statistics, only estimates are possible. In a recent work by the vicar apostolic of the province of Chehkiang there are said to be twenty-seven bishops, and the number of Christians is estimated at three-quarters of a million, although figures twice as large are often met with. From the Protestant standpoint it is a capital defect of the Roman Catholic policy that practically no use is made of street chapel preaching, and that the Bible as a whole is not translated for the converts. The standard of admission to the Church is not high, and great harm is done to the cause by the too ready acceptance of many applicants whose obvious motive is the prosecution of lawsuits, and revenge.* It should be said that in
* On March 15, 1899, the Chinese government was induced to issue this decree, which is thus translated in President Hawks Pott's The Outbreak in China, pp. 107 sq. (New York, 1900): " Churches ot the Catholic religion, the propagation of which has been long since authorized by the Imperial Government, having been built at this time in all the provinces of China, we long to see the Christians and the people live in peace, and, in order to make their protection more easy, it has been agreed that local authorities shall exchange visits with missionaries under the conditions indicated in the following articles: 1. In the different degrees of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, bishops being in rank and dignity the equals of viceroys and governors, it is agreed to authorize them to demand to see viceroys and governors. Vicars-general and archdeacons will be au-
thorized to demand to see provincial treasurers and judges, and taotais. Other priests will be authorized to see prefects of the first and second class, independent prefects, subprefects, and other functionaries. 2. When a mission affair, grave or important, shall come up unexpectedly in any province, the bishops and the missionaries of the place should ask for the intervention of the minister or consuls of the power to which the pope has confided the protection of religion. These last will regulate or finish the matter, either with the Tsungli Yam6n or the local authorities. In order to avoid protracted proceedings, the bishop and the missionaries have equal right to address themselves at once
III.— 3
many cases the Roman Catholic converts showed the greatest firmness under the persecution of the Boxer period, unknown numbers enduring martyrdom for their faith.
3. Protestant Missions: Protestant missions to China owe their origin to a general revival of 1 The spiritual life at the end of the eight- First eenth century, which was naturally Period, manifested in greatly increased acto 1842. tivity both at home and abroad.
These missions in China are naturally divisible into four distinct periods, each terminated by a foreign war. In this vast field the London Missionary Society had the honor of being the pioneer, in the face of difficulties which can now be but imperfectly comprehended. Robert Morrison (q. V.) reached Canton by way of New York Sept. 7, 1807. The East India Company would not allow him passage on its ships, but later was glad to employ him as its interpreter, when it was evidently for its interest to command the services of so thorough a Chinese scholar. His labors were unintermittent and immense. He completed the translation of the entire Bible into Chinese in 1818, partly in collaboration with his associate, William Milne. In 1823 his great Chinese Dictionary was published by the East India Company at an expense of twelve thousand pounds sterling. Dr. Morrison died in 1834, when the relations between Great Britain and China were becoming every year more strained, the missionary outlook being then almost as unpromising as when he began his work. The impossibility of getting a foothold on Chinese soil led to the establishment of an Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca (subsequently transferred to the newly ceded island of Hongkong) in which Mr. Milne labored with diligence in teaching, and in preparing and printing Christian books. Walter Henry Medhurst, who came as a printer, spent many years at Batavia. The next society to begin work in China was the American Board, which sent out Rev. Elijah Coleman Bridgman, who reached Canton in Feb., 1830, together with Rev. David Abeel (q.v.), who soon after joined the mission. Three years later, Mr. Samuel Wells Williams, then a mere youth, went out as a printer. In the ensuing decade, before the opening of the war with Great Britain, three other American societies entered the field, the Protestant Episcopal, 1835, the Baptist Missionary Union, 1836, and the Presbyterians (North), 1838. Medical work in this period was begun in 1834 by Dr. Peter Parker, who opened a hospital in Canton Oct., 1835, where the successful treatments, especially in eye and surgical cases, were phenomenal and most influential in diminishing prejudice. Dr. Thomas Richardson Colledge, of the East India Company, opened a dispensary at his own expense in 1827.
to the local authorities, with whom they may negotiate the matter and finish it." President Pott adds: " The missions of the Anglican Communion and other Protestant Churches have unanimously refused to ask for any similar privileges, foreseeing clearly that, although the possession of such would vastly increase their power, yet this assumption would be attended with the gravest dangers, and could but make their cause unpopular in the eyes of the Chinese." S. M. J.
China