Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1901-04-11
DEEP LAID PLOT
OF HEATHEN CHINESE
10 Extirpate Christianity
and Expel Foreigners.
HAD IMPERIAL APPROVAL

More Than 10000 Native Christian
Converts aughtered-Heroic Con-
duct of Officials of Chinese Foreign
Office, Who Prevented Massacre.
NEW YORK, April lO.-The annual re.
port of the American Bible society rela-
tive to the situation in China contains
the following interesting statements
from its agent in China, the Rev. John
r. Hykes, ID:
"There was deep and cunningly
LAID plot, under imperial sanction, to
extirpate Christianity, expel all foreign
ers and destroy all foreign interests. Nc
one OWNED the full extent of the ini.
guilty which was deliberately contem-
plated.
"ln all, JS3 Protestant missionaries,
Including IS men, IS women and 4S
children, have been massacred.
"With the exception of the massacres
at Ku Choo, in Chinese Khan. where II
persons were killed, and at Heng Ohoo,
in Hu Nan, all of the deaths occurred
In northern provinces.
as to whether the Boxer uprising was
anti-fOreign or tt-missionary in its
character. No doubt exists in the mind
ofany well informed person nChina that
the movement was undoubtedly against
foreigners as such; and the crusade was
directed against everything foreign,
Christianity, of course, included
Two Heroic Officials.
"Hsu Ching Chen and Yuen Chang,
two ministers of the foreign office.
would not transmit the awful edict
which reiterated the order to painfully
extirpate all foreigners, but changed it
so as to protect all foreigners, and then
sent it flying over the wires to the re-
motest provinces. They were sentenced
to be cut in two. Missionaries were the
class that benefited by this act of hero
ism. The fact that every missionary
escaped from "A out of the 18 provinces
would indicate that the crusade was not
specially anti-missionary.
In the province of Chih Ii and
Shan ST every school, hospital, chapel
and dwelling was looted and burned by
the Boxers and imperial troops, the only
exception being the property in the
foreign settlement at Tien Tsin. So
complete was the demolition of property
by these mad fanatics that not a YES
tige was left to mark the site; even the
foundations were dug and carried away.
There was also destruction of mission
property in the provinces of Shen ST.,
Ho Tan, Hu Mad, Hupe Chang ST., Che
Kiang and Kwan Tung Relative
Christians have been the worst suffer
ers Those who escaped the general
oil
absolutely everything and many of
them are perishing from cold and star
walton.
1.-The Scriptures destroyed will aggre-
gate not less than 10000 volumes and
the actual loss to the society will not be
less than $4,000 or $4,000 in gold, in
Guiding the necessary expense of get
ting workers to places of safety and
back again to their stations.
Noble Native Martyrs.
"All of our foreign superintendent
were saved. We have to mourn the
loss of many noble and devoted native
workers. They were warned of the
risks they were running, but not man
of the noble band of 18 f1inched. Their
reply was: we go on q colport-
age tour. Gods will be done Only
four of the IS men returned from
that journey. The homes of these mar
tyrs were looted and burned and their
families exterminated. Those who sur.
vived escaped to the mountains, where
they suffered terrible privations and
managed to get back to Peking after it
was captured by the allied armies.
OF the colporteurs under missionary su-
pervision, have not heard of one that
escaped. Some other parts of China
complain bitterly of the same treatment.
''More than 40, 900 native converts
Gncluding Roman Catholics) met death
in heroism worthy of the best age OF
the church.