The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-07-19
THE MISSIONARIES IN DANGER.

DR.. A ?. Harper, missionary who has
been forty-seven years III China, brings
rather alarming accounts of the uprising
against the foreign missionaries in that EN-
pire. After recounting a number of attacks
upon missions and their inmates, he states
that on the day he left the Viceroy of The
province OF kwangtung had called meet
ing of the foreign Consuls to warn them of
the necessity of combining for mutual pro-
lection; from which it may be inferred that
the Viceroy despaired of his own ability to
control the .anti-Christian mobs.
The venerable doctor ascrbeS the trouble
TO a desire on the part of the Chinese race
to get rid of the Tartar element in the Gov
ernment and imputes to the mobs q savage
hatred of foreigners, arising from belief
that foreigners tear out the eyes of children
to use them as medicines. 1t is not easy to
see how the ancient rivalry between Tartar
and Chinaman would lead to interference
with missions which have never sided with
either; nor will it be generally believed that
the old story about childrens eyes has OBJ
tanned general credence. Such decisions
can only be entertained by very small
classes of people. They are quickly refuted
by experience. They merely figure as pre-
texts to conceal race hatTeds and provoke
race conflicts. The danger in which mis-
siOnaries in China now stand must have a
more substantial cause than that.
The history OF missionary work in China
has been a chronicle of endless struggles TO
disseminate Christianity among people
who hated it, and who were only restrained
from extirTating its apostles by the exhibit
ton of force. Fox fifty years, al intervals
Of year or two, mobS have attacked the
missions, put the inmates in fear of their
| ives, and done their best to wipe them out,
until they were dispersed by troops either
foreign or native. A few of them were put
to death, and the Chinese Government paid
an indemnity for the outrage. The story
has become painfully monotonous. Yet
such has been the devotion of the clergy to
the cause of true religion that these dangers
have not diminished the supply of mission
aries. In the single province of Chih-li
fifty of them-all Americans-are now at
work; and in two procedures alone, the
Japan Gazette reports that sixty Chris
tian churches have been built, with con-
yenient paIsOnages and pleasant glehes. 1t
Dies not appear that the number of converts
corresponds with the number of mission
aries. A high Christian authority lately
gave the former as 100000 which is a small
the Middle Kingdom. But the zeal of the
missionaries has not been cooled by the
stubbOrnness of the heather, nor has there
been any slackness in the willingness of
church members to contribute to the support
of the miss ions.
The business has now reached a crisis
which may be grave. Any day the tele
gram may bring up word of the massacre of
party of American missionaries in China
by mob maddened by race prejudice and
boiling over with hatred of foreigners, W no
are endeavoring to overthrow their creed.
Should such an accident unhapply occur,
it would be impossible for the Government
to ignore it.
There are at this moment more than 1000
Americans, men and women, persons of
culture and education, who are carrying
their lives in their hand in their endeaY0r
TO convert the Chinese from Buddhism or
some other Oriental faith, to Christianity.
Fifty years experience proves that it is diff
fcut to reconcile the Chinese masses to
their presence in the empire. II they are to
stay, how are they TO be protected? 1t is a
perplexing problem.