Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1910-02-11

make peremptoly ruling that mis-
sionaries must not NEEDLE with law
cases. so that they could make this
answer when appealed to. Certainly
1t is the conclusion of all impartial
observers that it is gravely unwise for
missionaries to attempt to influence
the course of Chinese civil and Grim
lnaf administration, even when these
are unjust.
So strongly do most missionaries
now feel upon the subject that they
refuse under any condition to touch
yamen cases. One young missionary,
born and reared in China and on close
terms with leading Chinese, was one
day notified that a certain man under
arrest had claimed exemption from
punishment on the plea of belonging
to this missionary church What
shall | do?" asked the magistrate.
Give him ten extra lashes for trying
to deceive you and for attempting to
drag the church into a civil case"
promptly replied the young mission
any The general practice of the
American missionaries, with only rare
exceptions is to permit their mem
bers to suffer injustice, rather than
to incur the greater evil of bringing
reproach upon the church's name, and
OF hindering the state from exercising
its sovereign rights. Nevertheless,
have learned from consuls and from
missionaries of some cases wherein
American missionaries have appealed
to the mandarins or to the consuls on
behalf of natives
Robbing Mandarins of "Face."
Fhe preeminent Importance Of
face" in China makes this sort of
thing harder for Chinese Official to
swallow than it would be for an Anglo
Saxon, although the endurance of it
on the part of the latter is an impos
Asible hypothesis. Magistrates are
thereby shorn of prestige and power
by the meddlesome foreigners. The
procedures which pass for judicial
processes in China are knocked sky
high. Thus, although most officials
with whom l have talked clearly dis
tinguiSh between French and Ameri-
can missionaries, there is undoubtedly
a widespread hostility against all mis-
sionaries on the part of the official
class. They associate, and not with
out reason, the loss of much of their
territory with the missionaryS pres
ence and activity in civil affairs. EN-
bodied Ia every missionary, to the
Chinese mind, is the ever present pos
sibility of complications with foreign
powers. Small wonder the throne has
recently been memorialized by the
progressives for a retrocession of ex.
tra-territorial rights.
Some courageous Chinese magis-
trates, it should be said, show their
resentment against foreign interfer-
ence by deciding against the mis-
sionary's side, even though he be in
the right A spirited young mandarin
told me how, when he was sitting at
Mukden, litigant brought in his card
reading, "A member of the Christian
church." (And, in passing, it may be
mentioned that every missionary
keeps his personal cards carefully
locked up, for a Chinese can work
wonders with the prestige of for
eigner's card) 1 said to him, Are
you a Chinese subject or a British
subject? If you are a Chinese sub
ject l do not care anything about
your religion And before l was
no lAarpn6
that it does not pay to try to hide be-
hind the foreigners church in some
Chinese courts.
In an endeavor to be perfectly fair
| may have given undue prominence
to the fact, frequently denied at
home, that some American and Brit
ish missionaries do occasionally inter
fere with Chinese civil and criminal
cases, although apparently, judging
from the interviews which follow,
they do so in minor ways which do
not reach Picking. My pronounced
conviction is that they should not do
so, under any circumstances, even to
save their converts from persecution.
1t is only just to add, however, that
the entire missionary body is suffer
ing from the odium of this sort OF
thing chiefly because of the monstrous
behavior of the French and German
priests.
Minister RockWelI's Views.
The American minister at Picking,
William Rockwell has vigorous Opin-
ions about missionaries. What about
the. missionary question:" l casually
remarked at the end of rather ex-
tended interview. What missionary
question? There is no missionary