The Hawaiian gazette., 1901-04-23

rh, trouble vhiIh urt w Amrhf
rH ntu m china mlnHt have br.n
avoided NJ tNr Wlfh Hf .HnHf, 1iIIH
and tsiY nerDaaHf ard proper HUfb
81 vaa- IHd been dome lr suIdIofH Hf
other onicIaI PERSONS nrd r0i by private
!. rfnucmtn l,Hfi ~ 1Il VS. misai0nBrlHa
% is far lam usual mud o. hardly over
beet tu pntrH ru.h delicate nri ro.
fronsibi0 duties il unofficial civilians
nrd me civilian De- fnaH who accepts
them Tho thing fHr Minister 'onror t1
have done. ln tie Irhi 1f subsequent
events. was to aci nWriply himself 0r
Through gonor1l rH1Fno USING ihn
mlpsiouatlrs N no pleased ne an ndvie-
ury council, not t1 have sent them out
under "a rowing commission 20 pick up
silks. worries curi1s and the like With
which 90 make good tho losses Of their
converts Tho absence NJ an somblauco
~ judicial procedure ~ 90 be deplorcd
II started stories which Or Amont and
his friends are now compelled 20 make
long Journeys To rcfute. what f. worse,
II enabled the legion ~ Chinese who
fear or abhor or hate the missionaries
to incltc their countrymcn against
them. II was hard enough for the
Christian teachers 10 overcome the ef-
feet OF the weird story that they We're
in the habit of removing the oyeballs
OF little children II viii be harder yet
to dlsabuse the Chinese mind OF the
idea that they are thieves. That mind
makes no fine distinctions between
Ionting and connscation; It win not
know that Minister ConTer was behind
the missionaries, nor particularly care
as he for all the ChinaSuan knows,
might be another looter. Had soldiers
done the confscatory work that would
have been vastly better; for then the
civilians and missionaries would not
only have escaped odium but the Idea OF
punishment by the authorized arm for
misdends committed must have i'm
pressed itself in salutary way upon
the Chinese populace.
We suppose that the President OF
Dartmouth. when he spoke of the way
the progress of Christianity In China
had been stopped by the Missionary
Conflscation Board took this view of
the situation rather than the extreme
one held by the correspondents and by
Mark Twain. The latter jumped at
conclusions Just as the Chinese will.
The New York Sun, which has acted
towards the stories of missionary loot
ing in a judicial spirit has the follow
ing to say editorially:
! In the days when the MAY Anniver-
saries'' of the various societies of these
i denominations used to be notable fea-
J ture of every spring season in New York,
/ home missions excited feeble interest as
compared with that bestowed on foreign
J missions. Visits of missionaries to this
country were so timed that some of these
propagators of Christianity in Asia, more
/ ,f,,I,t hn To toll nf
these meetings of the progress of their
undertakings and their trials in pushing
them forward; and great audiences al |
ways listened with almost GREATNESS at
tention to the relation of their expert |
ences. In no other religious gatherings
was the enthusiasm SO high and perva- |
sive, and from it often came the impulse |
to fervid religious REVEALS at home. The |
test of the vital warmth of the religious |
faith of a Church was the intensity of !
its zeal to spread to men benighted' the |
story of salvation by these missionary |
agencies
1t is for that reason that for very self |
preservation the societies for missionary |
evangelization must remove the painful |
impression produced on the religious |
mind by the events ond proceedings of
which the Rev. DIR. Ament, a mission |
airy in China, has made the very unsat-
isfactory defence examined by us yester-
day. The association or CHRISTIAN ms |
sionaries for the collection of pecunary
indemnity from Chinese communities and
for the imposition of penalties upon them
without warrant of civilized law and In /
defiance of the spirit and precepts OF /
Christianity is opposed so radically to the |
religious conception of the proper limi-
tation of evangelizing efforts that enthu-
siasm for Christian missions has been
chilled by it as never before In their
history.
This may be a fact unpleasant to re-
cord, but the missionary societies, for
their own welfare, need to be told 1t ex-
actly as it is.
The trouble. as the Advertiser said
the other day seems to have been due
to the fact that the missionaries per-
formed duty which should have been
undertaken by the military police. 1t
was not their business to collect in
demnity. but to assist in its proper dis
tribution, If, asked to do so, after it
had been gathered by the military
authorities