Furloughs--Chong Dong Church--Romanists in Whang
Hai--Missionaries to the Rescue--Romanists Annoy and Hinder
the Judge--Results--Interview between Governor and Priest--The
Inspector’s Report--Women’s Work in Hai Ju--Deaths of Mr. and
Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Miller.
In 1901 we took another furlough, during which we were brought in touch
with American Christians in nearly every large city in the country, and
thus were able to make the church aware of God’s wonderful dealings
in Korea and to enlighten the public on the needs of this country. On
our return, we missed among the faces of dear old friends who came
to welcome us that of our work-fellow and beloved brother, Rev. H.
G. Appenzeller. Mr. Appenzeller, the first evangelistic worker of
his mission, had labored with my husband, heart and hand, for over
sixteen years, and they had taken their earliest itinerations to the
country in company. The loss fell heavily upon both native and foreign
community, and seems to grow, as we feel the need of the enthusiastic
and ready service everywhere. On our return our first attention was
given to our dear Chong Dong (city) church, the members of which have
from the first been marked as energetic, generous and full of faith.
With a membership, as has been said, of two hundred and nineteen,
they carry on five missions near the city, within a radius of five
miles. These are places where chapels have been built--but they have
also several other missions in districts where services are held in
private dwellings. The church members conduct and take charge of all
these services. They have contributed during the past year (1902-1903),
reckoned in gold dollars:
For their school $75.80
Church running expenses 75.40
Evangelistic work 45.82
Charity 20.66
Gifts of City Mission Society 50.50
-------
Total $268.18
This total, however, is not a complete report, not including the gifts
of the largest mission, that of Chandari, a (from a Korean standpoint)
prosperous little farming community outside the city. For the women and
girls, beside Sabbath services and regular prayer meetings, six weekly
Bible classes are held in different neighborhoods, all but two of which
are well attended. There are a number of these women well fitted for
Christian teaching, and one or another of them has repeatedly gone
off on a six-weeks’ trip, with some of the lady missionaries, asking
nothing more than her bare expenses. They often go away on evangelistic
trips quite at their own instance, visiting village after village,
distributing tracts which they themselves have bought for the purpose,
and teaching the country women who cannot read.
Very soon after our return to Korea my husband was requested by the
American minister and the members of our mission to visit Hai Ju, in
the province of Whang Hai, on a mission of very serious importance. We
were sent to Hai Ju in February, and since the preceding September,
it had come to be a matter of common report that the native Romanists
(of whom there are said to be twenty thousand in that province)
had, under the lead of the French priests, been robbing, torturing
and blackmailing the poor people of the province “for money to build
churches,” resisting with arms, maiming, beating and even imprisoning
officers of the law sent to stop them, and establishing a veritable
reign of terror through the whole district; so that the weaker
magistrates dared not lift a finger against any criminal favored by the
priests, or belonging to that church, and fairly trembled for fear of
them, obeying with the alertness of terror their slightest behest.
The state of affairs grew so bad at length that the governor sent a
manifesto to Seoul, saying he could no longer carry on the government
of the province in such a state of insurrection and anarchy. The
following is a translation, made for the Korea _Review_, of the
official copy of a part of the governor’s complaint:
“In the counties of Sin-ch’un, Cha-ryung, An-ak, Chang-yun, Pong-san,
Whang-ju, and Su-heung, disturbances created by the Roman Catholics are
many in number, and petitions and complaints are coming in from all
quarters.
“In some cases it is a question of building churches and collecting
funds from the villages about. If any refuse to pay, they are bound
and beaten and rendered helpless. When certain ones, in answer to
petition, have been ordered arrested, the police have been mobbed
and the officers of the law have been unable to resist it. While
investigating a case on behalf of the people, I sent police to arrest
Catholics in Cha-ryung. They raised a band of followers, beat off the
police, arrested them, and dismissed them with orders not to return.
Then I sent a secretary to remonstrate with them. At that the Sin-ch’un
Catholics, a score or more of them, armed with guns, arrested the
secretary, insulted him, etc.”
One of the priests, who is apparently most influential and has been
most notorious, whose Korean name is Hong, and who is known among
foreigners as Father Wilhelm, told my husband that the native Romanists
were not to be blamed for all this, for they had only obeyed his
orders. Mr. Underwood had had a slight acquaintance with this priest
for some years, meeting him occasionally and knowing little of his
life, but supposing he was doing an earnest if mistaken work of
self-sacrifice, he was unable to believe that the priest was cognizant
of all that was being done by his followers, until he had both written
and had a personal interview with him, when he was sorrowfully forced
to see that rumor had not misrepresented his conduct.
This sad condition of things might have gone on, no one knows how
long, but some of the people so robbed and tortured were Presbyterian
Christians, and there is something about Protestant Christianity that
resists oppression and favors a growth of sturdy independence and a
love of freedom and fair play. One of these men was a particularly
determined fellow who had been persistently seeking justice ever
since, and would not be discouraged or daunted. He first went to the
missionaries, who told him to take the matter to the Korean courts, but
as the provincial courts were quite helpless against such a giant evil,
he went up to the capital. The officials at the capital, probably in
awe of the French, dared not interfere. He and his companion, another
sturdy farmer like himself, went from one missionary to another in
Seoul, all of whom put them off, disliking to take up native quarrels,
and on principle opposed to using influence with Korean officials, and
none of them realizing to what threatening dimensions the affair had
grown.
These poor men were not eloquent, they could only tell a plain, simple
story, but they knew that they and thousands of others were deeply
wronged and were able to do one thing well, namely, to persist. Persist
they did with unwearied resolution.
Failing to obtain any help or satisfaction, they at length decided to
go directly to the French legation and seek justice and relief there.
They were received, attentively heard, carefully questioned, given
a promise of redress, and sent politely away. They waited long and
patiently, but no redress came, nor any sign of it. Again and again
they sought the fulfilment of the promises of the representative of
France, only to be put off repeatedly with fair words and indefinite
assurances.
So at length they published their whole story in the leading Korean
newspaper in Seoul. Then the French minister did indeed begin to act.
He immediately requested the Korean Foreign Office to have the men
beaten and imprisoned, _on the ground that conduct like theirs had
caused the Boxer trouble in China_.
When affairs came to this crisis, the Protestant missionaries awoke to
the situation. Rev. Mr. Gale and Mr. Underwood went to the office of
Foreign Affairs and pled for the men, and also laid the matter before
the American minister, Dr. Allen. He gave it his careful attention and
succeeded in having a commission appointed by the Korean government
to go to Hai Ju and investigate the charges. Dr. Moffett, of Pyeng
Yang, and Mr. Underwood were also requested to be present and attend
the trials. From the beginning to the end of this attempt to bring the
truth to light, the French priests by every art in their power tried to
block and delay the proceedings of the judge, to annoy and overawe him
in Hai Ju, and (we were informed) by letters, special messengers and
telegrams, to limit his power, hinder his plans, and undermine him in
Seoul.
[Illustration: CARRIERS WITH JIKAYS. PAGE 184]
[Illustration: WOMAN WITH BUNDLE OF WASHING ON HER HEAD. PAGE 246]
He was a sturdy, clear-headed, determined man, who had had long
intercourse with Europeans in his post in the Foreign Office, and held
his own with much self-possession and _sang-froid_. It was said of him
that he carried on the trials more fairly and more in accordance with
equity than had ever been seen before in Korea.
The priests arrested and tortured a policeman who had been sent to
bring some of the accused to the court, hanging him by his wrists. They
used all the influence they possessed in Seoul, through the French, to
force the Korean government to order the commission to yield to their
demands for the release of prisoners already in the hands of the law,
and for the remittance of punishment as they should dictate.
They induced the commissioner to promise that he would not try to
arrest any one for a week, on the solemn assurance that they would
themselves bring all the accused to court, and then, although they had
two of the most notorious malefactors in their house for several days
before the week expired, they allowed them to escape.
They forced themselves into the commissioner’s presence and with bluff
and reiterated demands wearied him into sending his resignation to
Seoul, which, however, the king refused to accept.
“Father Wilhelm’s” church is in a valley about ten miles from Hai Ju,
entirely surrounded by high hills. The entrance to the valley at that
time was guarded by sentinels, and the points of vantage on the hill
tops were occupied in the same way. When any one is seen approaching, a
signal is given, and the people (for the village is full of fugitives
from justice) flee into the church, which it will be seen serves the
triple purpose of a court with torture chamber, a citadel, and a place
of worship.
When police were sent there with warrants of arrest for some of the
worst miscreants, Father Wilhelm met them at the door with a revolver,
demanding what they wanted. When told, he requested to see the
warrants, denied that any such persons were there, would not allow them
to enter, nor would he return the warrants, but with threats bade them
begone. On more than one occasion posses of armed men were sent by him
to rescue criminals who had been seized.
The cruelest forms of torture, such as are used only by Korean
officials in cases of murder and treason, were used by the priests
in their churches to force poor peasants to give over their money or
the deeds of their houses and farms. Mr. Underwood and Dr. Moffett
spent some weeks in Hai Ju, carefully studying these matters and in
close attendance at the trials. In addition to the above facts they
discovered that this was not a persecution waged upon Protestants by
Catholics, but a system of blackmail laid on the whole community, and
that the number of complaints brought in by non-Christian natives were,
compared to those from Christians, as twenty to one. Again, that the
French priests were (in the present instance, at least) demanding,
as in China, a right to sit with a judge in a court of justice and
modify sentences. We learned further that the people were tormented
to the verge of insurrection, and had planned to rise on a certain
day, when the news that a commission had been appointed, and that the
missionaries had come down to see fair play at the investigations,
calmed and decided them to await further developments.
The results of the trials were very unsatisfactory. With the small
force of men at his command, with the priests foiling every effort
to make arrests, few men were apprehended. Those who were brought to
trial, by their own admissions and self-contradictions, and by the
consistent and overwhelming testimony of many witnesses, were all
proved guilty of the charges laid against them. The priests, and by
far the majority of the miscreants, including the ringleaders, who
could not be caught, went scot free. The commissioner made a report to
the Korean government, asking for the deportation of the two priests,
Wilhelm and Le Gac, which the Korean government did not ask, but
which it would have been thought should hardly have been necessary.
Were not the Koreans long suffering to a remarkable degree, as well
as a feeble power, they would long since have risen and cast out all
foreigners from their desecrated shores. In the light of what we have
seen and heard here, the cause of the Boxer troubles in China is not
far to seek. Thus is national sentiment aroused against us; for long
persistence in conduct similar to this was foreign blood spilled like
water there, and for such reasons are the gates of Thibet barred to the
gospel.
The following official report of the interview between the priest and
the governor of Whang Hai province, in the presence of the inspector
sent by the king, will show what a state of affairs existed.
“Translation of the official report of the interview held between the
governor of Whang Hai Do and Father Wilhelm, in the presence of the
Inspector Yi Eung Ik. Eighth day 2d Moon Koang Mu.
“In the seventh year of Quang Mo in the second moon and eighth day, the
governor of Whang Hai Do, Yi Yung Chick, and the French teacher, Hong
Sok Ku (Mons. Wilhelm), conferred. Hong Sok Ku said, ‘The controversy
between the governor and myself arose from the governor’s not appeasing
my wrath by arresting Mr. Pak Chang Mou of Whang Ju, and punishing him.
This Pak, at night after dark, had thrown stones at the church of Han
Sinpu (a native Korean priest), and I therefore had spoken to the local
magistrate of Whang Ju and asked to have him arrested and imprisoned,
but Pak, through his local influence, had returned undisturbed to his
home, and as there seemed no other means of having him punished, I
wrote a letter to the governor, asking that he would have Pak brought
up to the provincial town of Hai Ju and severely punished. The governor
replied _that he could not have the people of local magistracies
brought up to Hai Ju_, and I therefore supposed that the governor had
no power to arrest the people of outside local magistracies, and when
I learned to my surprise that there was an order for the arrest of
some of the Christians (Romanist) of Shinampo by the governor, feeling
sure that it was a false order, I released by force all those whom the
police were arresting, and at once ordered all my Christians, if any
one came out to arrest them again, to resist it utterly.’”
The governor replied: “As for the business of Pak of Whang Ju, since
he had been already arrested and imprisoned in Whang Ju, and there was
therefore no reason why he should be brought up to Hai Ju, I did not
do so as you had asked, and as for my reply in my former letter, that
I could not arrest him, it was in accordance with the _Chibang Cheido_
(Book of Laws) in regard to local and provincial jurisdiction, and the
reason why, _after my people have appealed_, I can order them arrested
to try the case, is in accordance with the _Chaipan Chang Chung_, or
book of rules for courts of justice, and if you had any doubts about
the earlier or later affair, while it would not have been out of the
way to have asked a question, is it right with your followers to gather
a crowd and organize a band to arrest and carry off policemen, to
release and set free those who have broken the laws, and to order your
followers to resist authority, so making your people fall into sin,
and making it impossible for the appointed authorities to administer
justice?
“Desirous of instructing these ignorant people, I sent one of
the Chusas (high official next to the governor) attached to this
governorship, but you sent out a company of men with firearms, twelve
miles, and after dark seized and carried off this official. A Chusa is
a national government officer, military arms are outrageous things;
leaning upon what authority did you do such things as these, and
by whose authority do you arrest and carry off Koreans and try to
administer justice?”
Mons. Wilhelm replied: “I myself know that these things are not right,
and did them purposely. As far as the book _Chaipan Chang Chung_ is
concerned, I know nothing about it, but I simply relied upon the
previous letter which you had sent. I desired to understand the matter,
and sent you another letter, and because you sent my letter back to me
I still feel very angry.”
The governor replied: “But your saying that you only recognized my
first letter shows you simply know one thing and cannot know two; as
for your letter and my returning it without an answer, it was because,
after the arrest of my Chusa, I had sent by special messenger a letter
to you, and you had given no answer and sent the man back emptyhanded,
I was indignant. As I had no reply to my letter to you in regard to the
Chang Yung affair, why should I only answer letters? Because I thought
it would be wrong for me to keep your letter that I did not answer, I
returned it.”
Father Wilhelm replied: “Because in the governor’s last letter on the
envelope he had written _Saham_ I did not answer the letter.” _Saham_
is written outside of letters which are replies from one slightly
superior in rank.
The governor replied: “Is it right to allow questions to go
unanswered; is it because you have nothing to say that you fail to
answer all these questions?”
Father Wilhelm replied: “When Pak Chang Mou’s wrong-doings had not yet
been punished, is it right that he should have been made one of the
tax collectors? When you have arrested and brought him to Hai Ju and
severely punished him, then only will my wrath be appeased.”
The governor then said: “In the eighth moon of last year when I went to
Whang Ju, I looked carefully into this affair of Pak’s. _Although it
was stated that he had thrown stones, there was no sure proof, and yet
he had been locked up in the local jail and had been punished, during
the investigation_, how, then, can you say that he has gone unpunished?
How can you claim that giving him a petty office several months later
is an injustice? Then, too, you took this man to your church and there
beat him, and still claim that your wrath has not been appeased.
Would you have me arrest him, bring him here and make him and the
complainants face each other?”
Père Wilhelm answered: “Although I did have him beaten with ten
strokes, it was not a punishment for his main crime, but because when
his magistrate sent Pak to confess his sins he was on the contrary
impudent, and therefore I punished him, but his former offence still
existed.”
The governor replied: “When you are not a Korean official, is it right
that you should arrest and beat Koreans?”
Father Wilhelm said: “It is because if I did not beat them I could not
hold my position as superior that I do it.”
The governor answered: “You, a private citizen, arresting and beating
Koreans and doing wrong, and your written orders to your people, have
caused them to break the laws in eight different ways. They resist the
authority of the government, beat the underlings, and refuse to pay
their taxes.
“In addition, at their churches and meeting places they establish
courts of justice.
“Still further, without order, in companies they rush into the presence
of magistrates to terrify them.
“Still again, of their own accord they arrest, beat and imprison the
people.
“Again, calling it money for the building of churches, they extort
contributions by force from the people.
“Furthermore, at their own desire they cut down trees used for Korean
spirit worship, they organize bands to forcibly bury the dead and move
graves; and still further, they force people, who have no desire to do
so, to enter their church.”
Father Wilhelm replied: “I will with great care stop these eight
offences and will not allow them to do as before; have no fear.”
Thus ends the report of this unique interview between the governor of
one of the most populous provinces of Korea and the French missionary.
It is to be regretted, however, that his ready promise in regard to
nearly all the eight offenses was repeatedly broken within a very short
time after it was made. I will add one or two other transcriptions from
the official documents, which came directly from the commissioner’s
office to our hands, and which translations appeared in the Korea
_Review_, March, 1903. The first report of the imperial inspector to
the government:
“I have looked carefully into the disturbances among the people in the
different counties, and the various crimes up to this date noted in
the public records are only one or two in hundreds. Outside of two or
three counties, all the magistrates have been under this oppression,
and with folded hands, are unable to stir. The poor helpless people
sit waiting for doom to overtake them. Receiving imperial orders to
look into the matter, I have undertaken the task, and daily crowds with
petitions fill the court. There are no words to express the sights one
sees, the stories one hears. Depending on the influence of foreigners
(French), the Catholics’ issuing of orders to arrest is of daily
occurrence; their runners are fiercer than leopards, and the torture
they inflict is that reserved for only thieves and robbers; life is
ground out of the people, goods and livelihood are gone. Unless this
kind of thing is put down with strong hand, thousands of lives will be
lost in the end.
“A French priest by the name of Wilhelm, living in Chang-ke-dong in
Sin-ch-un, a retired spot among the hills, has gathered about him a
mob of lawless people. Their houses number several hundred. Many of
them carry foreign guns, so that country people are afraid, and dare
not take action. A number of those already arrested have been set free
by this priest. Most of those who have slipped the net have escaped
there, and now form a band of robbers. There is no knowing where
trouble will next arise, and it is a time of special anxiety. Those who
assemble there at the ‘call of the whistle’ (bandit) are outlaws, and
must be arrested. They may, however, make use of dangerous weapons, so
we cannot do otherwise than be prepared for them. This is my report.
Look carefully into it. Send word to the office of generals. Wire me
permission to use soldiers, and as occasion offers lend me a helping
hand.”
While this painful business was on, and my husband was daily attending
the trials and listening to the harrowing tales of the poor, tortured
and robbed people, and seeing heartrending evidences of the cruelties
inflicted upon them, I was holding meetings with the Christian women
who came every morning to study the Bible. One visit only was made to a
small village a short distance outside the city, where there were quite
a number of Christian families.
All the Christian women quickly assembled at the house of my hostess,
a wholesome farmer’s wife, who came out to the road to welcome me,
took both my hands in hers with a long gentle pressure, and a look of
gladness as bright as if I had been a radiant angel from heaven, or a
returned apostle. Her small rooms were soon filled with Christians and
others, who listened while we held a service and talked of the things
concerning the kingdom.
Then they, with bounteous hospitality, brought in a store of the
best their homes contained of dainties. They feasted my two native
companions and myself and all the visitors, both Christians and mere
sightseers, and even my chair coolies were given as much as they could
eat, which is no mean amount.
One woman said that her eldest son had just returned from Sorai and was
urging his father to sell his good farm and home and move there with
his family, so that he and his brothers might attend that school and
church and learn more about God and his will.
The work in this hamlet all started through the instrumentality of a
young girl in Hai Ju, not seventeen years old, who, having formerly
lived here, after her marriage into a Christian household in the city,
and after her conversion, often returned to her old home and begged her
family to believe and accept Christ.
Though they scoffed and reviled at first, after a while they began to
listen, and finally one, then another, yielded their hearts. After the
manner of Korean Christians, they “passed on the word,” and so at
length seven families were trusting Christ.
After seven weeks in Hai Ju we returned to Seoul, having done all that
was possible in the matters we had been sent there to look after, and
having made it plain that Americans would not stand by and see the
natives persecuted and wronged without a strong protest; for while
we try not to interfere between them and their rulers (and this is
at times extremely difficult), we do not feel the same obligation in
the case of French priests. Our hope now is that these outrages will
henceforth be somewhat restricted and that Protestants will at least
remain unmolested, as the mere advertisement and bringing to the light
of the evil would do much to prevent its repetition, the children of
darkness having an ancient dislike of the light.
Before we returned from Hai Ju we learned of the death by smallpox of
our dear brother, Mr. W. V. Johnson, who had arrived early in February
of that year, his consecrated young wife having died on the way to the
field, in Kobe, Japan.
We all felt the sweet devoted spirit of the earnest young brother, and
knew that these two valuable lives were not given in vain, but that God
has accepted their sacrifice as if they had done all they planned, and
has chosen to call them to reward a little earlier, because they will
better so fulfil his purpose, for, through and in them. Again, only a
few months later, we were all called to part with a dear sister, Mrs.
F. S. Miller, whose loving sympathy and patient endurance of sickness
and pain had endeared her to missionaries and native Christians alike.
Not a month before her own death, her hands prepared the casket for
the cold little form of one of the dear little missionary babies, of
whom so many are now in heaven. And so, as was said at the time of her
release, “Korea seems a gate to heaven.” Sure it is good to go from
service to the vision of the King.
This little chain of reminiscences is now at an end. Its object has
simply been to interest Christian people in this most interesting
country, and to show what God is working here.
It has been necessarily limited, mainly to the experience of one pair
of missionaries, because the writer has neither the knowledge nor the
liberty to speak freely of the lives and work of all, and neither the
ability nor the space to write a complete history of mission work in
Korea. It is hoped that although so restricted, as to be a mere glimpse
of a small fraction of what is being done, it will serve to make plain
what grand opportunities are theirs (_at present_) who would lead a
nation out of bondage into liberty, the only liberty worth calling the
name, or that sinful mortals can use, “the liberty of Christ.”
Korea, lying as she does so close to China (whose future is fraught
with such mighty possibilities of good or evil to the whole world),
with such close affinities and wide sympathies for that people, is, we
hope, to be a polished shaft in God’s quiver in conquering that great
nation for his kingdom. But whatever his eternal purpose may be, there
is no doubt as to our present privilege and “power to the last particle
is duty.”
If in these pages you have seen much that leads you to think the land
is a difficult one in which to live, if you have read of political
unrest, bad government, riots, robbers and plagues; if you have learned
that missionaries have died of typhus fever, smallpox, dysentery and
other violent forms of disease, this will only serve to remind you that
the more valuable the prize to be won, the greater the difficulty and
cost. If you desire to share in the joy of this great harvest, and are
worthy, you will fear no danger, shrink from no obstacles, either for
yourselves or for your loved ones, whom you are asked to give to the
work.
God placed an angel with a flaming sword which turned every way at the
gate of paradise. Is the kingdom still thus guarded? Must we all who
would enter follow him who was made perfect through suffering? What
was our Lord’s meaning when he said, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, _and the violent take it by force_.” Some of us are ready
to pray that God would place another such flaming sword at the gate
of our mission fields, so that no man or woman who could or would
not brave such baptism of fire should enter. There is no more place
on the mission field for the fearful and unbelieving than in heaven
itself. Like Gideon’s army, let the applicants be reduced till only the
resolute, the consecrated, those who believe in God, the people and
themselves, are accepted for this mighty privilege, this high calling.
Let it only be remembered by all who would enter the Lord’s army to
wrest the kingdom of heaven from the rulers of darkness, that he, whose
we are, and whom we serve, he who never faltered on the thorny road
that led to Calvary, who trod the wine press alone, who came with dyed
garments through the conflict to victory, has bidden those who profess
to love him, as one of his last commands, thrice repeated, feed his
sheep.
“Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.”
“Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.”
“Lovest thou me? Feed my lambs.”
I.
Oh, never swear thou lovest me,
Who lovest not my sheep;
For he who would my servant be
My treasured flock will keep.
II.
Oh, never vow thou lovest me,
As follower leal and true,
Who shrinkest in my paths to be,
Or fearest my will to do.
III.
Oh, never weep thou lovest me,
My lambs who feedest not;
Who wouldst my crowning glory see,
But hast the cross forgot?
IV.
Nay, if thou lovest, feed my sheep,
On desert moors astray;
The charge I gave thee surely keep,
Until the final day.
V.
Yea, if thou lovest me, thy Lord,
My feeble lambs feed thou;
They wander o’er the world abroad,
Many lie fainting now.
VI.
Then never swear thou lovest me,
Who loves not these of mine;
Who would my true disciple be,
Shall prove his love divine.