The age-herald., 1900-07-25
CAUSE OF THEI
 CHINESE REVOLT

From the Philadelphia North American. ~
 Apropos of the present troubles in China,
 Rev. John Scully, rector of St. Josephs
 church. the weii-known Jesuit scholar and
 orator. yesterday gave the following state .
 ment to a representative of the North
 American. The views of Father Scully are
 said to be shared by majority of the
 Catholic clergy in this country. He said: : Just let me try to put ourselves in the
 place of the people of China. They are a very clever people, born traffickers, indus
 trious, frugal, home-loving, patriotic, and,
 depraved though they are, the purest in
 morals of all Eastern peoples Since 1920, the beginning of the Protestant missions in
 the Sandwich Islands, hundreds of thou sands of their countrymen have been there
 and have returned home with their ac- counts of the conduct of the Congregation alist ministers there; how they have seized on the land for their families and have de- stroyed the natives by the vices taught them by Europeans. At home they see the i lessons of the missionaries belied by the lives of Europeans Always and everywhere the presence and the example of the mer- cantile European class have been the 1 greatest obstacles to the progress of Chris | tanity. As rule they are either the re- | fuse of Europe and America or their ab- l sence from home and it's civilzing inffu- ences, and among pagans, with their low 1 morality and open immortality, has degred- | ed them.
 | What wonder then that many disbelieve 1 in the disnterestedness of the missionaries, | or that they believe the missionaries intend l to do with them what they have done with | the Sandwich Islands-Hawaii? The Chi
 nese Ministers at foreign courts, the mem- | bers of their embassies, their students at l our universities and the Chinese who re- I turn in great numbers every year, send or | bring word to their people of the outspoken l designs of so-caIled Christian nations to di- 1 vide their country among them of the l purpose of highway robbery planned by l the so-called partition of China" Was 1 anything so vile and taprincipled, ever l openly proclaimed? And then imagine the | effect of this on a proud and sensitive peo- l pie, on nation too, educated from child I hood to despise all other nations, in much I the same way (only more so) as our chil- I dren are now being taught to laud every I thing American, faults and all, and to de- | spise all other nations and governments l (yirtues and alb, and then the actual deeds I of the so-called Christian nations. not one l of which is Christian Two German mis- I sionaries are killed and the German Elm I peror seizes on part of their land as an fn- I demnity Does that go to the missions? Not a bit of it! Was it done to help the l missionaries? No, for those same mission \ aries are persecuted in Germany. It is \ pure land grabbing. Did the missionaries appeal to him for help? I don't believe I they did; it is not easy to see where is | their missionary spirit. It is more likely the merchant class saw their chance and l used their name. Hundreds of French mis- | sionaries have been killed, but they never l appealed to France to get a money or land | payment. Blessed Perboyre who has late | ly been raised to the honors of our altars, was a French citizen, but no blood money | was paid in the case of that martyr. This | defense of the missionaries by their re- l spective nations has made the Chinese sus- | picious, and why shouldn't it? And so
 they say: First the missionary, then the l Consul, then the General, until a vast out l break against the whole foreign element | rages throughout the land, and the decent | men and women suffer with the viler eie- | ment
 l Let the nations keep their hands off. The l Catholic missions in China have prospered
 enormously, and never so much as now Their converts among the hundreds of 1 thousands, their orphanages, old peoples l homes, hospitals, dispensaries, etc., are among the thousands. The Jesuits have
 their astronomical and meteorological ob- | servatories there, and this has all been | done without help from so-called Catholic governments or from the mercantile class. l The aims to support them have come
 from the Catholic people of all nations. 1 And they want and need no other help 1 And they have never sought to gain ground | by assisting rebellions among the Chinese. l Can this be said of Protestant mission l aries? However, the truth may be their l own co-religionists accuse the Protestant | missionaries of fomenting the Tae Ping rebellion. Thus the Rev. J. Edkins (cXv.,
 p. 269) says: There be no reasonable | doubt that this insurrection began in l strong religious impressions, derived from | reading the Scriptures and tracts published | by Protestant missionaries.'
 l We have no doubt says Charles Mac | farlane (the Chinese Revolution, Book II, | D. S2), that Gutzlaff Ca Protestant mission 1 ary) contributed to the movement" The | chief was long under the tuition of MT. | Roberts, and Rang Wang, the second in | command, a disciple of Dr. Medhurst, | says the London Times, of October 3, 1860 Dr. Hobson, an Angelican bishop wrote in | 1853 to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Mac- l farlanc, pp. 11S, 122): 'There is a strong guarantee for the Christian sincerity of the l leaders among the rebels,' and "the rebel chiefs profess to believe in Protestant | Christianity I do not say this to lessen
 one jot the sympathy all have, and I. as
 much as any, for the single minded men | and women among the Protestant mission l aries who are now in danger, but to show | how their forerunners sowed the wind while our missionaries, Hs we'll they, are
 now reaping the whirlwind. Prejudice and | fanaticism, like that of our A P. A, counts
 for much in causing this outbreak, but it l does not account for all of 1t.
 l HELEN GoULD's HANDsHAKE l From the Boston Post