Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-04-10
BIBLE SOCIETY
INTERESTING REPORT ON THE
BOXER TROUBLES.
MANY MISSIONARIES KILLED.
Brave Work of Two Chinese Ministers
Saved Many Lives-But They
Lost 1iieir Own.


port of the American Bible society rel
ative to the situation in China will
contain the following interesting state
ment from it's agent in China, the Rev.
John r. Hyde. ID. D.:
There was a deep and cunninsly laid
plot under imperial sanction, to extir-
pate christianity, eXpel all foreigners and
destroy all foreign interests. No one di-
vined the full extent of the iniquity
which was deliberately contemplated.
I'm all, 1873 Protestant missionaries,
including 60 men, IS women and As chill
dren, have been massacred.
with the exception of the massacres
at ku Choo in Chekiang, in which II
persons were killed. and at Heng Choo
in HUI Nan. all of these deaths occurred
in the northern provinces.
The question has been raised at home
to whether the Boxer uprising was
anti -foregn or anti missionary in it's
character.
No doubt exists in the mind Of any
we'll informed person in China. The
movement was undoubtedly against for
| eigners. as such, and the crusade was
| directed against everything foreign
| Christianity, of course. included Hsu
| Ching Cheng and Yuen c hang. two min
listers of the foreign office, would not
transmit the awful edct which reiter-
ated the order to painfully eXtirpate all
| foreigners but changed it so as to read
protect all foreigners and then sent
it flying over the wires to the remotest
/ provinces. They were sentenced to be
cut in two Missionaries were the class
that benefited by this act of heroism. The
| fact that every missionary escaped from
| IA out of the Is provinces would indi-
cate that the crusade was not specially
anti missionary.
In the provinces of Chilli and Shansi
every school, hospital, chapel and dwell
! ing was looted and burned by the Box
ers and imperial troops, the only excep-
ton being the property In the foreign
| settlement at Tien Tsin. So complete
| was the demolition Of property by the
same made fanatics that not vestige
was left to mark the site: even the foun-
dations We're dug up and carried away.
There was also destruction Of mission
property in the provinces of Shansi, Ho-
tan. Human, Hupeh. Kiang ST. Chekiang
and kwangtung. The native Christians
| have been the worst sufferers. Those
who escaped the general slaughter in
the northern provinces lost absolutely
everything and many of them are per-
ishng from cold and starvation.
THE scriptures destroyed will aggre-
gate not less than one hundred thousand
volumes: and the actual loss to the So
ciety will not be less than eight or ten
thousand gold dollars including the nee
essary expense Of getting workers to
places of safety and back again to their
stations. Although our foreign superin-
tendents We're saved, they have to mourn
the loss of many noble and devoted ma
tive workers. They We're warned of the
risk they We're running but not man Of
the noble band of eighteen fiinched. Their
reply was We go on a colportage tour.
Gods will be done. Only four of the
eighteen returned from that journey. The
homes of these martyrs We're looted and
> burned and their families exterminated
Those who survived escaped to the noun
tains where they suffered terrible priva-
tons and managed to get back to Pekin
after it was captured by the allied armies.
OF the colporteurs under missianry sup
ervision have not heard of one who es-
capped. In some other parts of China
= colporteurs endured terrible persecution
and some of them are only now venturing
out of hiding.
More than 10000 native converts (in-
| cluulIlS fSOlldu SdtHOllcSJ Inel UodIn VIII II
a heroism worthy Of the pest age of the
! church.
While the total number of volumes OF
the Scriptures published is 37,700 less
than the previous year, the number OF
pages is slightly in excess. The number
1 of pages printed in 1899 was 1892, 200:
]: this year it was 77,646,7O or about three
: quarters of million more. This is the
I largest number of pages ever printed IN
, one year by the China agency, and will
: give some idea of the proportions t.
l which the work had grown, when in
+ common with all other forms of Chris
E, tan work, it was suddenly interrup,c
!. by the events of the past year.
e 1.-THE number of mandarin Bibles
manufactured is worthy of special NJ
tice. There were received from the
printers no less than $500 complete
Bibles and 5000 copies were in press or
december Ten years ago an edit or
of 1000 copies was thought sufficient f
meet the demand for several years. Thi.
indicates the growth of the natl ,
: church during this period. for it is fro
native Christians that the demand t
T these Bibles come"