The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1900-11-22

ic mission with the japanese Government.
Ee is well educated and speaks English
perfectly. He has travelled in Europe and
| America, and knows something about
Western civilization.
Yu for years has had to do with all
sorts of questions in which the mission
aries are interested. / asked him to tell
me all about the missionary question as
he understood it.
ITO begin with" said Yu, "the mission
airy is great disturber in China not that
the missionary intended to do any wrong,
but in the nature of the situation it could
not be otherwise"
The missionary, he said, should not go
| into court using the power of his Gov
eminent for his convert against the Chi
naman who did not profess to be Chris
tan. Hundreds of such cases had come
under his observation as an official, and it
was one of the greatest troubles the Off
Gals had to contend with throughout
China He was sure the spirit of the
treaties for the protection of Christian
converts from among the natives contem-
plated no such thing as this petty inter
ference with the machinery of his Gov
eminent.
He said many Chinese were in the habit
of joining the missions for the protection
they would get from the foreign Govern
ments. Others who had quarres with the
|
inals, would seek the shelter of the mis-
sion, joining the one supposed TO have the
strongest Government back of it.
WORK AMONG THE LowLY.
The missionaries, said Yu, had worked
solely among the lower classes of the Chi
nese, and they had antagonized the Chi
| nese Provincial Governments as well as
the Imperial Government. They did not
mean to do so, but they had driven the
better classes farther away from them
than ever They had pursued destruct-
| i've policy instead of constructive policy
without aiming TO do so. The Churches
| had sent men and women ont, many of
whom were so Jealous in their work that
| they at once sought TO make great num-
bers of converts working on the principle
| that a poor coolies soul was worth as
much as anybody's. And said Iu. they
are right enough in the light of the Chris
tan teaching. but it wasn't good judG-
ment; it has been proven TO be very bad
| judgment.
In trying to teach our lower classes. =
continued Yu, they have told them that
all the Chinese officials We're beathen that
they surely would be lost, and in that way
have antagonized every tradition that the
Chinese people have stood upon for thou
sands of years.
| Il do not mean to say that the mission
airy might have accomplished more had he
| endeayOred TO work solely among the in
huential classes of the Chinese; but he
| could not have accomplished less i'll real
progress than he has. The missionary
will tell you that he has been wonderfully
successful.
There is an impossible gulf between
our higher classes and the lower; yet, il
the influential classes could have been in.
duced to give ear in any degree at all to
. the message the missionary was called t.
} China to deliver the work among the
masses would be easily established.
More than any other people on earth
, probably, the Chinese follow more tena
ciOusly the way blazed out for them by
their superiors.
Some OF the methods of the mission
aries have been very trying to our people
Think of how il would appear to an in
telligent Chinaman to see a missionary dor
the dress, the cap, the pipe and the queue
, of the Chinaman, yet walking about thu
, streets trying to teach a civilized religion
! while dressing as a heather. This is don,
right along by Christian missionaries. Ii
America or Europe you would call such ;
. thing humbug.
Il have discovered many lovable peopl
+ among the missionaries, but some of then
a in their zeal have gone beyond the limit
a where we look for sober, level-headcd mel
n and women.
$ WORK Numbered BY FOREIGN BUSHES
= MEN.
We cannot quite understand in Chin
i why it is that the bankers, merchants an
u all classes of the Europeans and Amer
cans who are really influential among Il
!, are so strongly anti missionary. They ar
u almost unanimously against the mission
, airy. They do not go to hear the mission
,, airy or anyone else preach on Sunday, an
+ / say ii with the kindliest feeling, the
~ seem to do pretty nearly all of the thing
=. the missionary says a Christian should II,
- do. / know the Chinese are called n que,
VI people, but this parodoxical situation
= amusing TO US.
Sc 81 think that some of the mi
3 sonaries have been unjust in the e.
orbitant claims they have filed wit
their Government for indemnitics for Il
:, destruction of personal property. Tai
~ the case of one member of the America
te Board of Missions, one of the besiege