the immemorial Confucian type. Students went in great
numbers to Japan, Europe and America, and the old contempt
and hostility toward things Western gave place to respect and
friendliness. Early in the 19th century the missionaries had
not been able to do much by way of education, but the new
openings were seized with such power as was possible, and while
in 1876 there were 289 mission schools with 4909 pupils, in 1910
there were 3129 schools with 79,823 scholars. More significant
still is the way in which the foremost Chinese officials have
turned to missionaries like Timothy Richard and Griffith John
for assistance in guiding the new impulse. The universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, under the inspiration of Lord William
Cecil, were interesting themselves in 1910 in a scheme for
establishing a Christian university in China.
One of Morrison’s contemporaries hoped that after a century of mission work there might possibly be 2000 Christians in China. That number was reached in 1865, and in 1910 there was a Protestant community of 214,546 church members and baptized Christians. These numbers are more than double what they were in 1900. In addition there are more than as many adherents.[1] The excellence of the converts, upon the whole, is testified to by travellers who really know the case; particularly by Mrs Bishop, who speaks of the “raw material” out of which they are made as “the best stuff in Asia.” The total number of Protestant missionaries (including wives) in China in 1910 was 4175, one to about 1100 sq. m., or to more than 100,000 Chinese. There are over 12,000 Chinese evangelists, Bible-women, teachers, &c. The Roman Catholic returns give 902,478 members and 390,617 catechumens. The work is carried on by eleven societies or religious orders with over 40 bishops and 1000 European priests, mostly French. A large feature of the work is the baptism of children. An important concession was obtained in 1899 by the French minister at Peking, with a view to the more effective protection of the Roman missions. The bishops were declared “equal in rank to the viceroys and governors,” and the priests “to the prefects of the first and second class”; and their influence and authority were to correspond. The Anglican bishops agreed to decline these secular powers, as also did the heads of other Protestant missions. It is alleged by some that the exercise of the powers gained by the Roman hierarchy was one cause of the Boxer outbreaks. Certainly their native adherents had their full share of persecution and massacre.
The Anglican Church is not so strong in China as in some other fields; the American Episcopalians were first in the field in 1835, followed by the Church Missionary Society (in 1844), which has had stirring success in Fu-Kien, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1874. There are five dioceses, and in 1897 an episcopal conference was held in Shanghai. Since the Japanese War the Scottish and Irish Presbyterians have made wonderful progress in Manchuria; native evangelists do an increasing share of the work, and there is hardly any town or village without Christians. The London Mission has always been conspicuous for the contribution made by its agents to linguistic and literary knowledge, the name of James Legge being an outstanding example; it is now, in co-operation with other societies, earnestly taking up the new educational and medical openings. One of the most interesting features of missionary work in China is the comity that prevails among the workers of different societies and agencies. Thus in 1907 at the Centenary Conference in Shanghai, when many topics were discussed centring in the question of the native Chinese Church, a general declaration of faith and purpose was adopted, which, after setting out the things held in common, proceeded, “We frankly recognize that we differ as to methods of administration and of church government; that some among us differ from others as to the administration of baptism; and that there are some differences as to the statement of the doctrine of predestination, or the election of grace. But we unite in holding that these exceptions do not invalidate the assertion of our real unity in our common witness to the Gospel of the Grace of God.” The conference reported, “We have quite as much reason to be encouraged by the net result of the progress of Christianity in China during the 19th century as the early Christians had with the progress of the Gospel in the Roman Empire during the first century.”
Japan and Korea.—The Christian faith was brought to Japan by Portuguese traders in 1542, followed by Xavier in 1549. This great missionary was well received by the daimios (feudal lords), and though he remained only 212 years, with the help of a Japanese whom he had converted at Malacca he organized many congregations. In 1581 there were 200 churches and 150,000 Christians; ten years later the converts numbered 600,000, in 1594 a million and a half. Then came a time of repression and persecution under Iyeyasu, whose second edict in 1614 condemned every foreigner to death, forbade the entry of foreigners and the return of Japanese who had left the islands, and extinguished Christianity by fire and sword. The reopening of the country came in 1859, largely through American pressure, and in May of that year two agents of the Protestant Episcopal Church began work at Nagasaki. They were followed by others from the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, and by their great intellectual ability, patience and tact these pioneers (S. R. Brown, J. C. Hepburn and G. F. Verbeck), as the Marquis Ito said, contributed very largely to the progress and development of Japan in the days when she was first studying the outer world. They did an immense amount of preparatory work along evangelistic, medical and educational lines, and skilfully gathered the youths of the country around them. The accession of a new mikado in 1868 finally ended the old seclusion; financiers, engineers, artisans poured in from Western Europe, and from America came bands of teachers, largely under missionary influence. In 1869 the American Board (Congregational) sent its first band; in 1870 Verbeck was called on to organize a scheme for national education. In 1872 the first Japanese church was formed; in 1875 Joseph Neesima, who had been converted by a Russian missionary and then educated in America, founded a Christian Japanese College, the Doshisha, in the sacred city of Kyoto. Meanwhile the Christian calendar had been adopted and the old anti-Christian edicts removed. By 1889 there were 30,000 Protestant communicants. It was at this time that the nation, conscious of its new life, began to be restive under the supercilious attitude of foreign nations, and the feeling of irritation was shared by the native Christian communities. It showed itself in a desire to throw off the governance of the missionaries, in a criticism of Protestant creeds as not adapted to Japanese needs, and in a slackened growth numerically and intensively. After a period of stress and uncertainty, due very largely to the variety of denominational creed and polity, matters assumed an easier condition, the missionaries recognizing the national characteristics and aiming at guidance rather than control. The war with China in 1894 marked a new chapter and initiated a time of intense national activity; education and work for women went forward rapidly. Missionaries went through the island as never before, and their evangelistic work was built upon by Japanese ministers. In the war with Russia Japanese Christianity found a new opportunity; on the battlefield, in the camp, at home, Christian men were pre-eminent. In 1902 there were 50,000 church members; in 1910, 67,043; the total Protestant community in 1910 was about 100,000, and had an influence out of all proportion to its numbers; the Roman Church was estimated at 79,000, and the Orthodox Eastern Church (Russian) at 30,000.
No sketch, however brief, can omit a reference to the Anglican bishop of South Tōkyō, Edward Bickersteth (1850–1897), who from his appointment in 1886 guided the joint movement of English and American Episcopalians which issued in the Nippon Sei Kokwai or Holy Catholic Church of Japan, a national church with its own laws and its own missions in Formosa. In April 1907 the Conference of the World’s Student Christian Federation (700 students from 25 different countries) met in Tōkyō, and received a notable welcome from the national leaders in administration, education and religion.
In Korea, the “Hermit Nation,” or as the Koreans prefer to say, “The Land of the Morning Calm,” Christianity was introduced at the end of the 18th century by some members of the Korean legation at Pekin who had met Roman Catholic missionaries. It took root and spread in spite of opposition until 1864, when an anti-foreign outbreak exterminated it. The door was re-opened by the treaties of 1882–1886, and even before that
- ↑ See Contemporary Review (Feb. 1908), “Report on Christian Missions in China,” by Mr F. W. Fox, Professor Macalister and Sir Alex. Simpson.
