PRESENT STATUS OF MISSIONS IN KOREA.
Present Status of Missions--Wonderful Progress--Education for
Girls--Medical Missions--Denominational Comity--Christianity
Spreading--Individuals at Work--Christian Heroes--Character
of Korean Christians--How the Work Grows--Christian
Influence--Training Classes--Circuit Work--Statistics--Rapid
Extension--Evangelistic Work--Joy and Triumph--The Nation being
Evangelized.
What has been previously written in this book regarding missions has
become ancient history already in the swift onward march of events in
Korea. Great political changes have occurred, referred to elsewhere,
and these have doubtless been used in the Providence of God to turn the
people toward the American teachers whom they have learned to trust.
They have been humiliated, afflicted, distressed and perplexed and in
their trouble and anxiety they have been eagerly searching on all sides
for some light on a dark problem. Their cry has been, “What shall we as
a nation do to be saved?” Some of their advisers have said, “Educate
your people;” others, “Make friends with English and Americans;” others
again have said, “Our old religions have never helped us. Perhaps this
doctrine taught by the missionaries is the truth. If so, we have for
centuries been offending the Almighty. He has permitted this curse to
fall upon us. Let us hasten to repent and obey and worship only Him
and perhaps He will be gracious and restore to our nation her ancient
place and name and deliver us.”
But whatever the remedy suggested, the relief seemed to lie, for
one cause or another, as was said in a previous chapter with the
missionaries, and so the people have been groping, reaching out
lame hands of faith towards what seemed to them the only hope, and
turning in increasing numbers to the missions, to those who are there
to “bind up the broken-hearted, to bid the oppressed go free, and
to publish the acceptable year of the Lord,” and those who come to
find help have found far more than they sought; for earthly freedom,
fellow-citizenship with the saints of the household of God; for their
ignorance they receive the wisdom that knows the love of Christ that
passeth knowledge; and instead of their poverty and emptiness, all the
fullness of God.
As we try to give some idea of the religious status of the people,
perhaps it would be as well to consider the field at first station
by station. Let us begin, then, with Seoul, the oldest station, the
largest city, and looked at from many points, the most difficult, and
also in some respects the most interesting.
It is most difficult because here for centuries have been the
headquarters of a corrupt government. Here reside numberless officials
with their retainers and sycophants, their concubines and dancing
girls, and round them seems to revolve most of the political, social,
religious and business life of the majority of the citizens. Graft
plays a large part in the life of Seoul. Multitudes of its people are
living in the hope of making money out of the government or some of its
officials, the idle and the wicked of all classes and both sexes seem
to gravitate naturally toward the capital and now it is crowded with
thousands of foreigners of the most depraved morality. Yet here the
first missionaries settled, perhaps as much because no other center was
then open as for any other reason.
Here the Presbyterians have now three flourishing churches, the
Northern Methodists have four, the Southern Methodists two, the English
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel have a Mission and the
Romanists also two or three churches. None of these churches would be
recognized to-day for those which were in existence five years ago.
They are all far too small for their congregations, though these are
divided, the men worshipping at one hour, the women at another. If
we are a little late in visiting them we shall not be able to enter,
for doors and windows are crowded and there is not an inch of space
anywhere within hearing of the speaker’s voice.
In this city the largest congregation is probably that of the Yun
Mot Kol church, which numbers eleven hundred people. The growth here
is remarkable because not four years ago this was the weakest of the
Presbyterian churches, not only numerically but in the character of
its people. They seemed jealous, quarrelsome and niggardly. They were
apparently unable to work in full harmony with the other Presbyterian
churches of the city and unwilling to give in proportion to their
numbers as the others gave, either for the support of their own work
or of the general work of the three carried on in city and country.
But now all is changed. This is now the largest church in the city and
what rejoices all hearts is that it is gathering in large numbers of
the nobility, most of whom live in that quarter. This class of people
we have almost despaired of reaching for many reasons. The habit of
keeping concubines is general among them and it is a terrible ordeal
to wrench away from a woman dearly loved as a wife, and her little
ones, for Koreans are exceedingly fond of their children and family
ties are strong. Again, the Korean noble feels more than the lower
classes, as a religious duty due to family and clan, the obligation
of ancestor worship, and he is cutting himself loose from his place
in social and family life when he abjures this. Still further, all
officials holding office or attending the court must bow before certain
royal tablets, and perform religious duties on certain national
holidays. If this is given up his office must also be resigned. So we
see that for a nobleman to become a Christian he must break the ties
of family, of social and of political life and sacrifice whatever
emoluments he is gaining thereby, and to some of these men it is all
their living. Yet during the last three years a large number of the
nobility have taken this step and their women, who have always been
bound by the custom of seclusion, go in their chairs or even on foot,
well veiled, to the Sabbath services.
The three Presbyterian churches, as has been said, work together as
one for the evangelization of the heathen population of the city and
surrounding country districts.
As for schools, both boys’ and girls’, they are all overcrowded; many
applicants must be sent away. The churches have their own parochial
primary schools for girls and boys which they, of course, support as
well as their own church work, and there are boarding schools more
advanced, corresponding to academies, connected with the different
missions, for the reception of pupils who graduate from the lower
schools and also for the children of Christians from the country.
A noted feature of the change in the spirit of the people is the way in
which all are demanding education for their girls. Twenty years ago
it was almost impossible to get any girls into our schools except the
friendless and sick, little homeless waifs and orphans whom no one else
cared for or wanted. It is interesting to see the way in which these
changes have taken place. Little by little the daughters of Christians
were allowed to attend if the Mission paid all expenses; then the
country Christians began paying for the board and clothing of their
daughters; then the unbelievers began to ask us to take in their girls
and now the nobility are insisting on schools for their young women
and are allowing some of them to mix with the lower caste girls in the
ordinary schools. Mrs. Campbell, in charge of the girls’ school of the
Southern Methodist Mission, who lives in a neighborhood where dwell a
great many of the upper classes, has been literally besieged by wealthy
and high caste ladies who beg her to establish a school for their
young women and girls. Two such schools have been established in the
city under non-Christian auspices and so determined are the people for
education that they will provide it for themselves in these ways if we
do not give them Christian schools. There are now three large mission
boarding-schools for girls in Seoul, which cannot accommodate half the
girls who are applying for admittance.
The story of the boys’ school is much the same. The English
Episcopalians as well as the Presbyterians and Methodists have
established boys’ schools, although the former are near the river, and
there are also government native schools and Japanese schools of a
non-Christian character. It has been and still is the hope that these
schools of the Methodists and Presbyterians may in the future be united
and thus effect a considerable saving in money, time and effort.
There is little doubt that in the future the strategic point for our
largest colleges and academies must be in or near Seoul, which is
geographically, politically and socially the center of the peninsula,
and with great fields of mission work north, south and east of it, and
of easy access from all parts of Korea both by rail and water way.
The medical mission work centers in the Severance Hospital, just
outside the South Gate. This is a modern hospital, fitted up in every
way according to the usages of modern medical and surgical science.
There is a corps of nurses and assistants under the care of an American
trained nurse. Young men are being prepared to practice medicine under
the instruction of our doctors and the hospital and dispensary are
crowded with patients, most of whom pay something for their medicine.
Here again we see the change in the attitude of the people; for whereas
at first people were not often willing to pay anything, and the women
of high class not only would not visit the male physicians, but would
not see them in their own homes except in the direst straits, now
most of them are willing to see the doctors, many of them will go
to the hospital, and gentlemen of high rank are willing to go there
for treatment or operations, take private rooms, pay well for their
care and often express themselves with overflowing gratitude for the
kindness shown them, sending handsome presents, in addition, to their
physicians and nurses, but what is far more important, go away either
converted men or strongly favoring Christianity and the mission work.
The woman’s hospital and dispensary under the care of the ladies
of the Methodist Mission has been just as flourishing, only it has
not been favored by having so generous a patron as the Severance
Hospital, but it is doing a good work and is known far and wide. The
devoted women in charge of it are heart and soul in favor of union and
undenominational mission work and they and we hope that all the medical
work in Korea may be united under one medical committee and carried
on in harmony with one plan, for the better economy of time, money
and effort, and for the better and happier spirit, the avoidance of
small jealousies and frictions, the uplift that comes to those who are
working together as one, according to our Lord’s will and command.
For the same reasons, until the happy time when there shall be in
all Korea but one united church of Jesus, the various missions have
gradually been coming to a certain degree of agreement as to division
of territory in Korea.
“Beginning from the south, we find the provinces of North and South
Chulla, together with a few counties in the southern part of Chung
Chong assigned exclusively to the Southern Presbyterians. The Southern
province of Kyeng Keui is divided by counties between the Australian
and American Northern Presbyterians, but North Kyeng Keui is left
exclusively to the Northern Presbyterians. The provinces of North and
South Chung Chong fall jointly to the American Northern Presbyterians
and Methodists and a careful division of the territory by counties
is under consideration. Kang Won is divided between the Southern
Methodists and Northern Presbyterians and the Church of England, but
even here there are mutual arrangements to prevent overlapping. The
provinces of North and South Ham Kyeng have been left almost entirely
to the care of the Canadian Presbyterian Church, while the other
three provinces of Whang Hai and North and South Pyeng An are jointly
worked by the American Northern Presbyterian and Methodist churches, a
division according to counties having been arranged for most of this
section and under advisement for the balance.”[13]
[13] From “Call of Korea” by H. G. Underwood.
We find then that Seoul is the center for a very large and important
country work, divided between the missions of the Northern and Southern
Methodists and the Northern Presbyterians and includes parts of the
Southern province of Kyeng Keui with all of Kyeng Keui North and South
Chung Chong and Kang Won, giving a population of considerably over
three million people, that assigned to the Presbyterians of Seoul
alone having 1,500,000 inhabitants, and consists of a belt practically
covering the whole width of the peninsula, comprising an area slightly
less than that of West Virginia and about the same latitude. The
Presbyterians have 123 self-supporting churches, 178 places of regular
meeting, 1612 communicants, of which 315 were added last year, and
7500 adherents, and in 44 schools, they have an enrolment of over
750 scholars. For the care and oversight of all this they have eight
clerical men, two doctors and four single ladies, but it must be
remembered that three men must give the most of their time to Bible
translation and literary work and Seoul being in a way the center for
the whole field no small amount of technical business and committee
work of the Mission devolves on these men, as well as the Mission
schools. The Tract Society and Young Men’s Christian Associations and
the Bible Societies have their agencies here and all these societies
must claim a good deal of the time of Seoul missionaries, so that we
may say that not more than five men are able to look after the needs of
the great Bishopric of over 1,500,000 souls, the share of the Northern
Presbyterians.
Chong Ju, though as yet considered part of Seoul station and its
reports of work given there, will be in the near future a separate
station and is now occupied by two clerical missionaries, one of whom
is married. The work there is increasingly promising and the new
station is in a very populous district. Mr. F. S. Miller writes, “The
year has been one of lengthening cords, so that instead of 26 groups
and meeting places we have now 44, instead of 46 communicants there
are now 102, instead of 68 catechumens there are now 260, instead of
five church buildings there are now fourteen, instead of $264.10 gold
contributions there are $408.63. The work now extends eighty miles
north, sixty miles south, seventy miles west and thirty-three miles
east. We have groups and meeting places in twelve of the seventeen
counties of the northern province and are working in twenty counties of
the southern province. It takes two months of solid itineration to make
_the round of the established work alone_. The Christians received much
benefit from the revivals which the Spirit worked first in the city
church and then in a succession of country classes till even the most
conservative helper found himself in charge of a revival where he saw
such conviction of sin as he had not thought possible before.”
The Northern Methodists connected with Seoul station have oversight of
nearly 100 churches with 4283 members and some 2851 seekers. More than
one million people inhabit the territory of this Mission around Seoul
and for the care of all these together with charge of their publishing
house, which undertakes work for the whole country, and for the schools
and Women’s Hospital, they have only six men and seven single ladies.
At Seoul the Southern Methodists have four ordained men and four
single ladies. The last statistics of this Mission show 181 churches
with 89 church buildings, 4998 members. Before turning to some of the
other large centers of Mission work we must not forget to mention the
Methodist Mission Press, which is the only mission press in Korea
except a small one in Pyeng Yang, and the Y. M. C. A., which is
accomplishing great things for the large numbers of young men of wealth
and rank as well as for those of poorer families. Early in the history
of the work we began to realize the need of some means of reaching
the very large class of young men who would not go to the churches
or the schools, to provide a pleasant and attractive gathering place
where they could find simple and innocent amusement and instruction,
to make it all sufficiently attractive to be a means of reaching these
young men with the gospel. This of course was its first, last and only
_raison d’être_. Forthwith the Y. M. C. A. in America were approached.
Shortly after an agent was sent and from the first this association
has been an untold blessing and a great success. Hundreds of young men
belong; thousands attend and receive the gospel; the Koreans themselves
have given thousands of dollars towards its support. One Korean
gentleman from whom we wished to purchase land made a present of it to
the Association and last year so great was the number attending one of
the meetings that even the new temporary building was insufficient and
the great throng were obliged to meet under a tent temporarily put up
for the purpose.
It must be remembered that Koreans have no theatres, concerts, operas,
lectures, or any other evening entertainments. They haven’t even any
attractive saloons or gambling places. They gamble and drink, it is
only too true, but in their own homes, so that an attractive place
for evening entertainments like the Y. M. C. A. met one of the very
most crying needs of the public. There are classes here for the study
of music, English and Japanese, and other branches of learning. There
are games, newspapers, books and frequent entertainments, musical and
literary, and so this institution is reaching out widely among the best
families of the land, winning a place and a hearing for the missionary
and the gospel he proclaims, reclaiming lost young men, yes, whole
families, and bringing them into the true fold. Whether it may or may
not be the best thing elsewhere, it is certainly a necessity in Seoul,
and it has had so long and far a start of Satan’s man-traps that we
believe they will never be able to overtake it in the race. And now
let me give a few quotations from the letters of some of the Seoul
missionaries before turning to another part of the field.
A Methodist missionary from Seoul writes to “The Korea Field” of 1907.
“In the early spring of 1899 I itinerated through the southeastern
section of the Kyeng Keui province and baptized a man and two of his
family. It was like putting a match to dry prairie grass. Thereafter
until the present day it has been a constant hustle to gather in the
groups of believers springing up all over the territory and organize
them into churches. Before I left on furlough in 1905 the number of
believers had already reached into the thousands; since my return last
fall it has been a continual struggle to organize the work and man it
with efficient leaders and get it ready for a grand rally all over the
district. The little group composed of a man and his family baptized
in an obscure village was the first of a mighty host, for the work
begun there has spread into five provinces and now, as it stands on
our rolls, numbers 298 groups, besides a number of those that are not
yet counted, enrolling 16,202 believers. Daily new groups are coming
into existence and _pleading for guidance and instruction_. Chapels
have been built all over the district by earnest believers _who never
think of asking for foreign aid_ (in money). School buildings have been
secured and schools are being conducted on a modern plan. In this short
while I cannot tell all the wonders that His grace has wrought in this
part of the field, when I think of all the things that I have seen
during the last six months, my heart grows warm and glad within me. For
the best part of it is that people are being saved and are entering
into a live experience of redeeming grace.” This district has a second
time within two years been deprived of the care of its missionary, the
one who wrote this letter having been laid low by violent sunstroke,
and now this great district is in the hands of a new young missionary
who has not yet learned the language.
Here are a few extracts from the letter of one of the Presbyterian
missionaries at Seoul, written to “The Korea Field” of July, 1907.
His district is in North Kyeng Keui. “The first place visited was a
village twenty miles south of Seoul where _no missionary has ever been
before. I found a group of over fifty believers_, all an outgrowth of
the work of native Christians. I was further surprised to find a chapel
almost completed. * * * From morning till late in the evening we spent
examining men, women and children for admission as catechumens and
accepted most of them.”
He continues, “Ten miles north is my Soti group, noted for its
missionary zeal. Only a year ago the people built a fine big church
with a room adjoining it especially for the use of the foreign
missionary on his visits. During the past year, through the efforts
of the four leading men and chiefly of deacon Paik three groups of
Christians have grown up within a radius of three miles. One of these
groups numbers about twenty-five and has already purchased a house to
be used for worship. Another group was just started and consists of
eighteen adherents, while about forty men and women make up the third
group that will soon have a church building of their own. Every Sunday
one or two men are detailed from Soti for each of these three groups
to lead the morning and afternoon services.” The leading man, deacon
Paik, is of untiring missionary zeal and great earnestness. He has
been blessed with a big, strong body and does not hesitate to use it
for the church. To carry heavy loads of lumber for miles on his back
and to spend days in making mortar and plastering when the church was
being built, to walk forty miles in the winter to Seoul for the sake of
getting material for preparing the church, to start out ahead of me to
the next group, ten miles away, to prepare them for my visit, to carry
my heavy country boxes himself when no coolie could be found--all these
tasks are looked upon by him not as burdensome duties but a pleasant
privilege.”
At Tang Mok Kol for several years past there had been but one
Christian. Every Sunday he went three miles to the nearest church to
worship. A year ago three more men became believers and last winter the
gospel began to spread very rapidly among the villages. One of the new
converts was especially impressed with the necessity of getting a place
large enough to accommodate all the worshippers. Rather than wait until
the new converts would be able to build a church he sold his big fine
working bull (a bull is a farmer’s chief dependence and most valuable
possession) and purchased with the proceeds a meeting place. When I
asked him what he would do when farming time came, he told me he had
a young animal and by its aid he hoped to manage his work. What would
we think of a farmer who would sell all his working teams for the sake
of buying a church? And yet no one among the Koreans thought this act
very wonderful, even though the giver had been professing Christianity
only a few months and was not even a catechumen. The self-sacrifice of
this man produced the natural result and when shortly after my winter’s
visit the church became too small, the people at once obtained the
necessary timber and with their own hands enlarged the building. On
this visit I found a house seating sixty people and comfortably filled.”
Mr. Pieters continues, “In another village composed largely of inns a
group was formed and shortly after a building purchased for a church.
One of the Christians worked so enthusiastically that their numbers
grew rapidly. People who had all their lives been making their living
by selling whiskey gave up this means of livelihood and turned to
farming. Further on, deep in the hills, is an isolated village where a
number of men have been led to Christ by a boy. The latter had heard
the gospel in one of our churches and by his own words as well as by
the aid of Christian books he led his parents to believe. Then he began
to invite people to their house, talked and read his books to them
until one by one the neighbors accepted Christ.
“All last winter these converts went down every Sunday to the church
where the boy had been converted ten miles away but since this spring
one of the church members has been sent up there to conduct the Sunday
services there. It is quite unusual in Korea for a boy to take the
lead, for the Confucian ethics require a boy in the presence of older
people to be silently respectful. Thus came true the prophet’s words,
‘A little child shall lead them.’ In my next church there were a year
ago only a few believers. The need of a school for their children was
felt most keenly and I recommended as the teacher an earnest Christian,
an old man. He went for a very meagre salary, but spent his spare time
preaching to the people and teaching a number of people to read. The
group grew by last winter to about fifty men and women. Most of the
winter they met for their services in two rooms and on the open porch
of the house of one of the Christians. _When the freezing weather
came, it became trying to sit for an hour and a half in the open air
during the services_, and the people decided to build a church. By
buying trees in the hills and cutting them and carrying them down, by
collecting loose stones, by preparing other materials and doing all
the work with their own hands and by other very strenuous efforts,
the people succeeded in putting up a fine church that will seat 120
persons. One part was partitioned off and fitted for a school, but it
can be thrown open during the services. Four boys of this school, each
less than ten years old, came every day a distance of three miles to
study. Last winter I met one day the four little figures trudging along
the muddy road carrying in their mittless hands bowls of cold rice for
their dinner. They were cheerful and seemingly quite content to walk
the six miles every day since it gave them the opportunity of study
that so many boys did not have.
“The average earning capacity of the majority of families that make up
the Christian constituency of this district is about thirty dollars a
year for a whole family. Keeping these facts in mind, we can easily
see,” says Mr. Pieters, “how a contribution of two dollars, which
is quite common here when a church is being built, gives forty-fold
measured by standards of values in America. In addition, none of these
have been professing Christianity more than two years and none of them
are yet baptized. These are the catechumens and adherents.”
But we must turn away from these incidents illustrating so thrillingly
as they do the wonderful work of God among the people and the kind of
Christians He is calling into His fold there. Their liberality, their
consecration, their zeal, their faith, all proclaim them preeminently
the work of the Spirit, and these particular provinces do not abound
more in these examples, than others of which every missionary can tell.
These, in fact, have never been considered so hopeful and progressive
as those in the North.
Time and space will not suffice to describe as carefully the work of
every station as of the larger centers and we must hasten on. Fusan
Station was started next after Seoul, but a series of deaths and
removals from one unavoidable cause after another almost seemed to
indicate that the will of God was that the station itself should be
removed to some other place. But houses and a fine hospital having
been built, the brave missionaries have endured discouragement and
disappointment, not in the natives, but in the constant depletion of
their forces, and to-day as everywhere in Korea the work is rapidly
growing and spreading. The Presbyterian Hospital here, built by some
generous Christians in America, is absolutely up-to-date, and the
physicians’ work is an immense factor in spreading the knowledge of the
love of Christ through all the surrounding country. During the year
there have been added to this comparatively small church an increase
of almost fifty per cent. The territory of this station comprises
the Province of South Kyeng Seng and considering the Australians who
share the work, there are left to be evangelized by the American
Presbyterian Mission here 750,000 people. There are 47 self-supporting
churches, 520 communicant members, with 2017 adherents. All this work
is under the care of two clerical workers and the assistance of an
overworked doctor who sees thousands of patients and performs hundreds
of serious operations with no assistants but Koreans. The Australian
Presbyterian Mission who share this work here have a good local church
and girls’ school at Fusan and have started a new station at Chin Ju.
They have three clerical missionaries, one of whom is a doctor, and
three single ladies.
After Fusan, Pyeng Yang was the next station to be established in
Korea. Its history in the early times has been already given in
another chapter. Perhaps because of the many trials its people have
had to endure in the course of the two Japanese wars and subsequent
colonization by aliens, perhaps because from the earliest times,
first from Manchuria and then from Seoul the gospel seeds were most
persistently and continuously sown here, perhaps because the people
of the north are more ready and receptive, we know not, but the work
during the last fifteen years has multiplied and spread with far more
amazing rapidity in the north than in the middle and southern portions
of Korea.
The same can hardly be said much longer. Witness Mr. Swearer’s letter,
just quoted, and the wonderful percentage of growth in other places.
The south has at last taken fire, too, but nevertheless, even to-day,
the greatest fruits of mission efforts are being gathered in our
northern stations.
This station was started in 1893 and has under its care the province
of South Pyeng Yang which, though small, is thickly populated, and
a portion of North Whang Hai, including about 800,000 people to be
evangelized. There are seven ordained Presbyterian ministers on whose
shoulders in addition to this evangelistic work rests a large share
of theological instruction, two large educational institutions, the
preparation of school text-books and books of all kinds as well as the
care and direction of eleemosynary institutions such as a school for
the blind and home for the friendless.
The institutional work for women is largely under the care of two
ladies and the evangelistic work for women is ably undertaken by the
wives of the missionaries who all devote to it a great deal of time and
faithful work.
“One part of the province of Whang Hai, at first coming under the care
of Pyeng Yang station, about two years ago was set off with a part of
that belonging to Seoul station to form the new station of Chai Ryong,
and a part of Northern Pyeng An province which also was at first a part
of Pyeng Yang territory, was set aside to form the Syen Chun station
as the work grew too heavy and was too distant to receive the careful
constant oversight needed from Pyeng Yang city. The territory and work
in this province is shared with the Northern Methodists. A division
according to counties has been arranged between these two denominations
for most of this section and a similar division is now under advisement
for the balance. The Methodists have at present only three ordained
clerical missionaries and one physician to care for their share of
the evangelistic work in this district which includes the province
of South Pyeng An with the entire province of Whang Hai, making this
mission’s share of the population in the neighborhood of one million,
for whom there are only four ordained men, one of whom must give his
entire time to educational work. As with the Presbyterians, the wives
of the missionaries take a full and active part in the evangelistic
work. In 1893, when these two denominations planted their stations
and organized their two churches neither could have counted more than
twenty baptized members--not seventy-five baptized persons in the whole
province, not four chapels in the extent of their district. Now, 1907,
the Presbyterians have 164 self-supporting churches with 258 regular
meeting places, 6089 communicants of whom 1106 were added during the
year and 20414 adherents. For the instruction of the children in those
churches there are 111 parochial schools of which 110 are entirely
self-supporting, with an attendance of 3075 pupils. In the city are
four churches, Central, South, North and East, with another church to
be set off in the West almost at once. Although three other churches
have already been set off from the Central Church it is still too small
and they are compelled to hold two services for the accommodation of
the one congregation, packing the building first with men, later with
women. “It is here that the great prayer-meetings of between eleven and
twelve hundred are held, while on the same night similar meetings are
held in the other churches, giving some three or four thousand people
for the week night services. This has also become an institutional
church, with its church house in the center of the city with recreation
and reading rooms, night schools and classes for educational training
and a large book shop for the dissemination of the printed Word.”[14]
[14] “Korea’s Challenge,” by H. G. Underwood.
To a large extent the better class of the people of the city have
been reached and to-day the whole city feels the effect of Christian
influence. A Christian sentiment rules and the actions of church
members have a reflex influence on the whole community. Not only
is this the case within the city walls but this influence reaches
far into the country. Its own evangelists sometimes paid by the
native church, sometimes voluntarily at their own expense, go freely
everywhere, preaching, establishing groups of Christians, which become
self-supporting churches, and holding Bible classes. Most of these
groups have their schools and in their turn as they gain strength send
out evangelists and workers, thus multiplying the influence of the
gospel and everywhere that this influence prevails saloons are closed,
the Sabbath is kept holy, gambling and vice of every kind is suppressed
and first of all idolatry is abolished. Let me here quote a few lines
from the letter of an American young lady who visited some of the
services held in Pyeng Yang.
“We visited eight Sunday Schools--Sunday Schools of small boys and
small girls, of big boys and older girls, of married women and of
married men, varying from one to three hundred pupils respectively.
Every room was flooded with sunlight and crowded with white, spotless
linen-dressed men or women, though nothing had been said to them on
the subject of their appearance or their dress; the Christians have
all adopted the custom of making valiant efforts, no matter how poor
they are, to appear in clean clothes each Sunday. You can imagine what
this means for women who toil all day every day but Sunday, and who
wear voluminous white dresses and white handkerchiefs tied around their
heads like Dutch caps. The effect is wonderful. Their faces shone like
the morning, their clothes glistened like white satin. There were six
hundred gathered in one church for special women’s service at eleven
o’clock. Seated close together on the floor, facing me (I was at the
organ on the platform), with their black hair securely tied back under
their handkerchiefs, their dark eyes full of expression, their white
teeth glistening as they smiled at me or the speaker--they were truly
beautiful.”
The country work is divided into seven circuits and in both local and
city work those whose assignment is educational or medical assist also.
One of these city churches will accommodate about fifteen hundred. In
the others about eight hundred to one thousand can be received.
The Methodists have two large city churches, one of which is the First
Church of Pyeng Yang and the other the Drew-Appenzeller Memorial
Church. They have four country circuits with a total membership of 4958
to which we must add 5308 seekers. They have 43 primary schools with
1405 pupils.
In medical work the Presbyterians in charge of the Caroline A. Ladd
hospital and the Methodists have almost complete union, and the
evangelistic opportunities of these hospitals and dispensaries can
scarcely be overestimated. Thousands of patients are treated here every
year. Mrs. R. S. Hall, M.D., Methodist, has charge of the Hall Memorial
Hospital for women. Women’s work is carried on by the Methodists
through their married ladies and four single lady missionaries, one of
whom is a native Korean, educated in America and having received the
degree of M.D. in an American university. These ladies are constantly
engaged in giving Biblical and secular teaching both in the city and in
the country districts.
In both the Presbyterian and Methodist missions one of the strongest
features here as indeed all through Korea, is the system of training
classes “which are similar to a Bible Institute in America and range
from those who are just learning to read to those who have studied
their Bibles for years. In the Presbyterian Mission the class for 1907
from the country districts of Pyeng An, meeting in Pyeng Yang City,
reached an enrolment of about 1000, the classes for the men of the city
about 800 hundred, that for country women 560, that for city women 300.
In addition to these classes which in the case of the men was mainly
for leaders, 182 classes were held in central places in the country,
the women missionaries having charge of ten with an enrolment of 685
men, making altogether 192 of these classes with an enrolment of 9650.
We are sorry not to be able to give the figures of similar classes held
by the Methodists. We thus have a complete system of Bible instruction
which is illustrated by the following simple diagram.
[Illustration]
The large spots at the end of the radii represent the country centers
and to these the people from the little villages round, represented by
the small dots, gather to the country classes, while the leaders from
all these places, large and small, and many laymen, go up to Pyeng Yang
once a year to the leaders’ Bible training classes.
In this station is the theological seminary for all the Presbyterian
missions working in Korea. Here students carefully selected from all
over the country are in regular attendance three months of each year,
the rest of their time being spent in active evangelistic work. The
instructors here are missionaries from all the stations and from each
Presbyterian Mission, but those residing in Pyeng Yang do a greater
portion of this work than others. A much more extended and complete
union in educational work between Methodists and Presbyterians has been
attained in Pyeng Yang than elsewhere. In the college and academic work
of this section there has been a tentative union, but those engaged
in this believe it will soon be a fixed arrangement. This educational
work is under the especial charge of the Presbyterian missionaries
assisted by other members of the station and by one of the Methodist
missionaries. The growth during the last year, especially, has been
very great.
Two single ladies have charge of the institutional work of the
Presbyterians. There are girls’ schools and women’s Bible classes in
both city and country districts.
A letter very recently received, February, 1908, giving a few reports
from the country circuits, will show something of the present progress
of missions there. Mr. Swallen, reporting for his itinerating work from
October to December, 1907, says in substance, “During a trip in which I
visited every point except one or two of the smallest ones I found the
work exceedingly encouraging. Especially through the central west all
the churches are growing rapidly. I made one visit to Pastor Seng’s,
holding a circuit class--Bible--in the latter section attended by two
hundred men and a leaders’ meeting with an attendance of nearly one
hundred. The work of the circuit is so great that it has been divided
and hereafter there will be two leaders’ meetings and two circuit
classes. Last year the district supported eleven helpers at a cost of
twelve hundred nyang each, thirteen nyang more than this sum being in
the Treasurer’s hands at the end of the year. Since then two of the
helpers have become pastors and are receiving thirty-six hundred nyang,
but in addition to this the people propose to support ten helpers and
have increased the salaries of all who are helpers of experience. Still
more, they have given enough money to send a helper to the new mission
field in the island of Quel Part, the mission field of Chu Chu. I
feel strongly the need of instruction for the multitudes coming in. I
preached every day and night but what is that when the need is so great
and much of my preaching is special instruction at the commemoration
of the Lord’s Supper. Even the helpers cannot spend much time in
instruction; there are so many places to visit they can scarcely know
all the people. There must be lay instruction and I feel very strongly
that _we must do something at once in the matter of teaching those
who are to give it_. At one class twenty of the leaders and deacons
alone expressed their desire to study for a month in Pyeng Yang in
preparation for this work. During the three months I have baptized
500 adults and 14 children and have received 799 catechumens. Thirty
women’s classes have been arranged for aside from the circuits in
charge of the two pastors, and during the first two weeks of the Korean
New Year forty-four classes for men will be held in the district.”
These classes are from a week to ten days’ duration. The same letter
goes on to say that “Mr. Bernheisel during fifty-five days in the
country travelled about 650 miles, visiting 43 groups of Christians....
There are now five helpers in this district. 164 adults were received
in baptism and 277 catechumens. In October Mr. Lee baptized 57 adults
in his Whang Chu circuit and found great advance in educational lines.
There are now eleven boys’ schools and one academy, seven night schools
and four schools for girls. The church in Whang Chu purchased for three
thousand nyang a fine tiled building, formerly a Roman Catholic church
to be used as their school.
“Early in November Mr. Moffett made his first visit to his Eastern
circuit in company with the newly ordained Pastor Han, they together
receiving in baptism 73 adults in three churches. In their district
four classes for women had an aggregate attendance of 123.”
Tai Ku, being the third largest city in Korea, in the midst of a very
densely populated province, that of North Kyeng Seng, of which it is
the capital, a station was opened here, in 1899. The missionaries
had taken their residence there in 1897. This province is said to
contain 1,750,000 people and is left entirely to our mission and here
in this city is a fairly well equipped hospital, a church with an
average attendance of between seven and eight hundred and an academy
which it is expected will meet the needs of Tai Ku and Fusan for some
years to come. “It is still pioneering work in this district. The
work is divided into that of the city and four country districts.
In the latter they have 85 entirely self-supporting churches with
564 communicants--of whom 280 were added during the year--and
6145 adherents. These churches have 49 schools, 46 being entirely
self-supporting, with an enrolment of 433 pupils. The numbers of
applicants and baptized have been nearly doubling themselves in this
station yearly for the past three or four years. All this work with the
responsibility for nearly two millions souls is on the shoulders of
four ordained men and one physician, their wives and one single woman.
“The responsibility,” I said, humanly speaking, for could they not cast
this burden on the Lord it would certainly crush them, but in addition
to the knowledge, the inspiring knowledge that they are workers
together with Him, they also realize that they have the earnest prayers
of brother missionaries and of Christians in home lands.
The members of the Southern Presbyterian Mission arrived in 1893 and
have always worked in harmony with the Northern church. They assisted
the Northern Mission for a few years while studying the language and
finally started their first station in Chun Ju, the adjacent territory
for which they are responsible having a population of five hundred
thousand. There are 60 out stations, 386 communicants, 4000 adherents
and there are ten schools of which nine are self-supporting. There is
only one missionary and his wife to work this territory. Kun Son is
really the port of Chun Ju and with its surrounding population has a
territory inhabited by five hundred thousand people with four clerical
men, one of whom is married, to care for them. They report 27 out
stations, 381 communicants, 1150 adherents, six schools and 125 pupils.
Mok Po and Quang Ju should be considered as one station, the one being
the port, the other the capital of this southern province and this
station has entire charge of the province of South Chulla Chulla, with
a population something over one million. Here are four missionaries,
three of whom are married and one single lady. They report 53 out
stations, 284 communicants, 3260 adherents and carry on three schools
with 66 pupils. Two million people are here left to be evangelized
by eight missionaries. Says the Rev. Mr. Preston, “The number of
recognized stations on my circuit has grown from seven to fourteen. A
chain of stations within easy distance of each other has been effected.
The growth has been very gratifying. I examined in all 331 people of
whom 74 received baptism and 193 were received as catechumens. The
total number in these groups is 120 baptized and 188 catechumens, as
against 49 baptized and 75 catechumens last September. It seems hard
to realize that only a year and a half ago this work consisted of Mok
Po with 27 baptized and 17 catechumens, Soo Yung with six catechumens
and Sadong with none. Mok Po is in a flourishing condition, the _growth
having been more than fifty per cent in the last nine months_. This,
too, is in the south, where it was said by some only a few years ago
that the people were so different from those in the north we could
never expect similar results among them.”
The Canadian Presbyterians, arriving in 1898, have by mutual agreement
been assigned the northern province of Ham Kyeng and have stations
at Won San, Ham Eung and one point still further north. They have at
present six clerical workers, one male physician, one lady doctor and
one other single woman. They have 62 self-supporting churches with
814 members, adherents 3830, who gave last year $2,573.34. Almost the
entire population of this province is left to their care.
Syen Chun was set aside as a station in 1901, when the work in North
Pyeng Yang was growing so rapidly that it was impossible to care
for it from the old center. The territory is about three hundred
miles long by one hundred and fifty wide and includes a population
of about eight hundred thousand, of whom fully five hundred thousand
are the Presbyterian allotment, for the Methodists located at Yeng
Byen have divided this with them. When this station was opened, the
enrolled membership including catechumens was 1800. There are now in
charge three married clerical missionaries, one doctor and his wife
and two single women. A new church to accommodate fifteen hundred
people has just been erected in this town which, with a men’s Sunday
School numbering eight hundred and a women’s numbering seven hundred
thirty-three, is only a part of the results since the station was
established.
The country work is divided into twenty-one circuits and during the
year twenty-four new groups have been started. Included in this
territory is the Kang Kei district to the north east. Here there are
three circuits with three helpers, thirteen school teachers, three home
missionaries and two colporteurs, all entirely supported by the native
church.
The difficulty of access and the great distance make it imperative
that a new station should be started here at Kang Kei as the people
are eager, intelligent and among the most responsive and progressive
in the province. For this new station at least two ordained men and a
physician will be necessary.
During the past year, 1906-7, this station reports 102 churches, all
self-supporting, with 4,639 communicants, of whom 1085 were added
last year and a total of adherents of 15,348. These churches support
103 schools with an enrolment of 2,290 pupils. The rapidly increasing
number of graduates from primary schools who demanded further
instruction and the insistence of their parents have made it necessary
to open temporary academies in various parts of the province but these
will be now united at Syen Chun, the necessary funds having been
generously given by a Christian woman in New York.
The two single ladies with the missionaries’ wives have women’s work in
charge which includes women’s training classes, girls’ schools and two
girls’ academies to be opened for a part of the year.
Chai Ryong station was started like Syen Chun because the rapidly
increasing work made it seem necessary to place resident missionaries
in their midst, so this station was opened in 1905-6 with three
married clerical men and one doctor and his wife. In this city the
natives have built and paid for a new church with a seating capacity
of one thousand. The missionaries report 98 self-supporting churches,
2,255 communicants, of whom 417 were added during the year and 7,420
adherents. These churches carry on 45 parochial schools with 771
pupils. It was this district with regard to which much that has been
written in previous chapters of this book had reference and here are
some of the oldest of the Christian communities.
A summary of the missions of the Northern Presbyterian Church in
Korea shows that she is solely responsible for six million seven
hundred thousand people and in carrying out this work she has one
embryo theological seminary, one college, three academies, three
hundred thirty-nine primary schools for girls and boys, and here we
are speaking rather of teachers and scholars than of buildings and
equipment.
They have 619 self-supporting churches, carrying on meetings in 767
places, have enrolled 15,079 communicants, of whom 3,421 were admitted
last year, giving a total of adherents of 59,787. (The others, making
about eighty thousand, belong to the other Presbyterian Church.) The
Southern Presbyterian Church has six hospitals and asks for two more at
once and an immediate reinforcement of missionaries.
As has been said, all the different missions of the Presbyterians
working in Korea form one united native church of Jesus and work
in every way as one mission, having a Council of Missions meeting
annually. With the consent of the governing bodies of these missions
an advance was made in 1907, when a Presbytery was organized to take
oversight of all the Presbyterian churches and was constituted with
Dr. S. A. Moffett in the chair at the city of Pyeng Yang on the
seventeenth of September, 1907. He writes, “The Presbytery had as
its representatives elders from thirty-six fully organized churches,
at least two other churches with elders not being represented. The
Presbytery then elected its officers and as its first work began
the examination of the seven men who had finished the theological
course of five years and proceeded to their ordination. At the night
meeting, in a very impressive service, the seven men were ordained. The
Presbytery consisted, after the ordination, of these men, of thirty-two
foreign missionaries and forty Korean ministers and elders. It has
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a church with 17,890 communicants,
21,482 catechumens, 38 fully organized churches, 984 churches not fully
organized, adherents numbering 69,098, and day schools 402 with 8,611
pupils. This church contributed last year for all purposes $47,113.50.
The ordained men were appointed as pastors or copastors over groups of
churches except two, one of whom was called by the Central Church of
Pyeng Yang, and one was sent as a missionary to Quel Part, the whole
church to provide the money to send with him one or more helpers. Thus
the infant church, needing sorely more helpers at home, sends its first
foreign missionary abroad.
The Methodist Church has centered its work for North Pyeng An in the
city of Yeng Byen and has divided it into six circuits. The territory
is about three hundred miles long by one hundred fifty wide and has a
population of about eight hundred thousand, and of these at least three
hundred thousand are the Methodist allotment.
There are at the present time 551 members with 405 seekers. They have
nine primary schools with 185 pupils and for the care of all this work
only one man and his wife have been assigned.
The whole allotment, then, according to division of territory, of
the Methodist mission in Korea is about three million people to be
reached. There are several hospitals and dispensaries but not enough.
The Methodist Churches North and South have united along educational
lines in establishing the Biblical Institute of Korea for theological
instruction. The Northern Church unites with the Presbyterian in Pyeng
Yang in college and academic work, and it has established a college at
Seoul and has a large number of primary schools that center in a normal
institute meeting annually at the capital.
In the development of her evangelistic work there are 23,455 members
and probationers, 16,158 seekers and 113 schools with 4,267 pupils.
The Southern Methodist mission have already been frequently
referred to but their work at Song Do and Won Son has not yet been
mentioned, because it has been the desire to speak of the work of
all denominations as far as possible together, to show the force and
the strength of the whole church of Christ in these sections where
more than one mission was at work. But, as has already been said, the
Southern Methodists have a compact piece of territory, triangular in
shape, with Song Do, Seoul and Won Son at each apex, and Seoul being
the only place where they have work with other missions, Won Son and
Song Do have not yet been mentioned.
Song Do was the objective point of this mission at the start and there
they contemplate having their largest plant. There are two married men
and one single man for evangelistic work and two clergymen, one of
whom is a Korean gentleman educated in America, for their educational
institutions, and two doctors and three single ladies. They intend to
make this city the seat of large educational institutions for girls
and boys. They have in Song Do at present in their advanced school one
hundred and fifty students. At Won Son, the most northeasterly point of
their territory, they have two evangelistic workers, one educational,
one medical worker and three single ladies. They have here one city
church with a large number of country churches, a day school for boys,
a boarding school for girls and a dispensary. The last statistics of
the mission show 181 organizations with 89 churches or chapels, and
4,998 members, who gave last year $2,380.26.
The English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has already
been mentioned. Besides their work in Seoul they have evangelistic
and medical missions at Chemulpo and Kang Wha and a substation at Su
Won. Their workers are fine, earnest and efficient people and we only
regret that they are so few and that we have not been able to get their
statistics in time for these chapters. We hope that although our forms
of worship are so different they and we may at no distant date be able
to enter into the same union in which we believe every true church of
our blessed Lord must come.
A few incidents have been related to show the attitude and
characteristics of the native Christians, and the manner in which the
gospel is being carried among the Koreans. One point which is very
marked is that they consider the work their own. They do not depend
on missionaries or leaders alone to preach and spread it abroad, but
each man, woman and child feels that it is his or her business as far
as possible to “pass on the Word.” While some of these people are
ignorant, some are well educated and some are brilliant young men
who have refused various inducements to accept high positions in the
political and mercantile world and who are devoting their best strength
and much or all of their time at tremendous sacrifice to serve their
Saviour.
The attitude of the Christians everywhere is that of joy and triumph.
Purified in the cleansing fires of the Holy Spirit during the great
revivals of a year ago, they are going forward with new enthusiasm,
devotion, consecration, aroused faith, as one man, to win and save
all their countrymen. The missionaries, too, were never so much one
in heart, thought and action, never so fully aroused and alert, never
so full of assurance and gratitude. Not a man or woman but thanks God
that they are privileged to live at this day and work with Him in this
place and see the glorious things that He is doing. Not one but feels
certain God has far greater things in store in the future than in the
past. Not one but believes more than ever in the power of prayer, but
believes that through prayer Korea may be, shall be won for Christ in
the near future. Pulses are quickening, blood is tingling with the
wonder and the glory of it and we ask ourselves how it is that we, _we_
are permitted to see and hear these things. “For the wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice and
blossom as the rose.”
In the days of Moses God led His people out of Egypt and through the
desert with a series of awful judgments and wonderful miracles, and
established them in Canaan, under His own divine laws, as an object
lesson to the age of His mighty power and of His ideal of a nation,
a symbol and example to His Church. And it looks altogether possible
and probable that now, when faith seems to be growing cold, when
sceptics are so openly questioning the power of God’s pure Gospel, He
is intending to use one of the weakest and most despised of the peoples
to illustrate what the Gospel pure and simple can do to evangelize a
whole nation. One of the men of the New Theology asked me anxiously
whether we “were teaching the Koreans a theology that would soon
need revising.” Thank God the theology the Koreans are being taught
is not man made or man revised. Thank God He is vindicating the “old
time religion,” the old time theology, the old time Bible, as good
enough for Korea, powerful to the pulling down of heathen strongholds,
powerful to change wicked men into good men, heathen communities into
righteous, pure and good ones. Unto Higher Critics--a stumbling block,
unto liberal New Theologians--foolishness, but to those who take Him
simply as little children and His Word--the power of God and the wisdom
of God unto salvation, because the foolishness of God is wiser than
men, the weakness of God is stronger than men, and He is choosing the
foolish things of the world to confound the wise; He is choosing the
weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty, and He
is saying to the men who stand as the Jews and Greeks of our Western
Churches, “Here is base, despised Korea. Behold what the old Bible, the
old Gospel, with the teaching of the Spirit, received and believed, can
do for her.”
It is in this way the finger of God is pointing, it is in this way He
is leading, and we are following after, if we may apprehend that for
which we were apprehended by Christ Jesus; reaching forth, we press
toward the mark _for the prize of the high calling of God for the whole
nation of Korea_ in Christ Jesus.[15]
[15] All the facts and statistics given in this chapter are taken
from “The Call of Korea,” by H. G. Underwood, “The Korea Field,” and
personal letters, and recollections and Mission Official Reports.