ambulance class, which the Governor had requested him to undertake
in view of the troops being sent to fight in the struggle now going
on between North and South. In various parts of the country we found
missionaries being used by the authorities in this way. At the time that
China joined the Allies during the war they told the German missionaries
to leave the country, but exceptions were made in the case of many like
these, whose work was felt to justify their remaining.
The next town of importance that we reached was Shen Chowfu, where
there is quite a large group of American missionaries with hospitals,
schools, etc., whom we had been asked to visit. Their buildings stood up
conspicuously at both ends of the long river-front of the city. We were
told that the hospital had been built with indemnity money paid by the
Chinese Government on account of the murder of C.I.M. missionaries many
years ago, but which the C.I.M. declined to accept. It is a well-known
fact that such money never comes from the guilty parties, but is extorted
from the people, and consequently is always a source of ill-will. We
were told by some charming American ladies there, how bitter the feeling
had been against them, and that for years they were guarded by soldiery
and never left their houses unaccompanied by a guard. They had spacious
gardens, and the missionaries’ families lived there without ever going
into the streets. It seemed a strange kind of existence, and brought
home to us acutely the question of mission policy. There seem to me to
be two classes of American missionary ideals—roughly speaking—one of
which is responsible for some of the finest work possible in China and
which every one must heartily admire; such work may be seen at St. John’s
University, Shanghai, and in the American Board at Peking. But there
is another increasingly large class whose faith seems to be pinned on
a strange trinity—money, organization, and Americanization. The first
necessity for them is large and showy buildings, generally apart from
the busy city life, or at least on the outskirts of the city—this may be
all right in the case of boarding-schools, but for hospitals it renders
them practically useless. I have seen groups of residential premises
miles away from the work. The welfare of the missionaries is the foremost
consideration. The means of transport are slow, so that hours must be
spent every day by the workers getting to and from their work, and they
live a life wholly apart from the Chinese. The work is highly organized,
and they have much larger staffs than our missions provide, as they seem
to have unlimited means and men. Undoubtedly we err grievously in the
opposite direction: our missionaries have all far more work than they
can perform. Added to that, our missionaries have about one-third of the
holiday that the Americans do and less money to make the holiday a real
one. Our societies are all hard hit by the question of finance, but it
would be better to cut down our work rather than spoil its quality by
insufficient staffing and underpay.
The third point is Americanization. A large section of missionaries so
value their own culture that they believe they can do no better than try
and denationalize the Chinese, or Indians, or whatever other nations
they may be working amongst, and transform them into Americans. In the
case of China this seems to me a most disastrous policy, and founded on
serious error. The Chinese and British characteristic of reserve which we
consider a quality they consider a defect, and believe that familiarity
breeds not contempt but friendship. The breaking down of the reserve
in the Chinese character is only too frequently a breaking down also of
moral barriers—a disintegration of character, and opposed to the genius
of the race. The Chinese student returning from the United States is
often completely spoiled by having cast off the charming old-time manners
of his own country in favour of the hail-fellow-well-met manners of young
America. He cannot be accepted into a European or Chinese household on
his return without taking what seems to them unwarrantable liberties,
while he himself is sublimely unconscious of the effect produced. In the
same way in mission schools the students are encouraged to familiarity
with their teachers—as for instance in the case of mixed bathing in
summer resorts. The teacher and the taught are all put on the same level,
and the respect which we have been taught to consider due to age and
learning, ceases to exist. “Manners maketh man,” and the difference in
manners is one of the greatest bars to united work, which Christians of
all denominations are trying so hard to build up in China at the present
day.
To return to our brief stay at Shen Chow. It seemed an interesting
place with fine large shops, and we should like to have made closer
acquaintance with them. However, our boatman, who always wanted to
loiter where there was nothing to be seen, showed a sudden determination
that we should leave the town before sundown and reach a certain safe
spot to spend the night. As we were always urging him to hurry, we felt
obliged to give in, and reluctantly went on board. The Standard Oil
Co. is very energetic there, and has a large advertisement, happily in
Chinese characters, which are not aggressively ugly (like our Western
advertisements) all along the river-front, the last thing we saw as we
floated down stream.
Next day we shot the big rapid, and much incense and paper was burnt to
ensure our safety. Rain fell heavily in the evening, as it had so often
done during our journey. Before stopping for the night we came to a
custom-house, where our boat was thoroughly searched for opium. It meant
that at last we were come to a place where opium was strictly forbidden,
namely into the territory under General Feng’s jurisdiction. The Customs
officers, however, were most courteous, though thorough, and I believe
would have taken our word with regard to our personal belongings, but I
preferred that they should see we were quite willing to be examined.
At midday on the morrow we reached Changteh, and walked through wet
slippery streets a long way till we came to the C.I.M. house. Mr. and
Mrs. Bannan received us most cordially and invited us to be their guests,
as Mr. Locke (who had invited us when we were at Shanghai) had been
transferred to a school five miles down the river and was sure we should
prefer to be in the city. This was much more convenient, and we found a
week only far too short to see all the interesting things. We spent a
couple of nights at the school with Mr. and Mrs. Locke, and took part in
a Christian Endeavour meeting. This movement has proved very successful
in some parts of China, especially for training the women and girls to
take active part in evangelization. We went down the river in a minute
motor launch, which was very handy, especially as we had to leave at an
early hour to call on General Feng. I leave to another chapter an account
of him and the city, which so obviously bore his impress when we were
there. The level of Changteh is below the river-level sometimes to the
extent of fifteen feet; then the city gates have to be sandbagged to keep
the water out.
From Changteh we went by passenger boat to Changsha, and had two little
cabins which we converted into one for the voyage. The whole of the roof
was covered with third-class passengers and their belongings; at night
they spread their bedding, and in the daytime squatted about or wandered
round the very narrow gangway outside the cabins, a proceeding which left
us in a darkened condition. Yao managed to prepare us savoury meals in
some minute nook, having brought the necessary stores and a tiny stove
on which to cook them. The day after leaving Changteh we crossed the
wonderful lake of Tong Ting, a lake more than two thousand square miles
in extent during the summer, and non-existent in winter. This strange and
unique phenomenon is due to an overflow of the Yangtze, and in the summer
there is a regular steamship service across the lake, connecting Changsha
with Hankow, two hundred and twenty-two miles distant, by the river Siang
and a tributary of the Yangtze. Eventually they will be connected by a
railway, which is to run from Hankow to Canton, and of which the southern
part is already in existence—and also a short section from Changsha
to Chuchow; this is only thirty-eight miles and is mainly valuable on
account of its connexion with a branch line to the Ping Siang collieries.
Changsha is an important city, the capital of Hunan. It is large and
clean, the centre of considerable trade, and one of the newest treaty
ports, opened in 1904. The variety of its exports is interesting:
rice, tea, paper, tobacco, lacquer, cotton-cloth, hemp, paulownia oil,
earthenware, timber, coal, iron and antimony. I was anxious to buy some
of the beautiful grass cloth for which it is noted, and was taken by a
friend to some of the big shops, but found them busily packing up all
their goods, in case their shops should be looted by the approaching
Southern troops. Such doings are by no means uncommon, and all Americans
and Europeans seemed to take it as a matter of course. Arrangements were
being made to receive terrified refugees into mission premises, and the
Red Cross was extremely busy preparing for the wounded. The rumours as
to the Governor fleeing varied from hour to hour, and it soon became
plain that the city would be undefended. Our kind American hosts, Mr.
and Mrs. Lingle, were having little Red Cross flags made to put up as
signals on places of refuge, and he came in to tell us how the tailor who
was making them had just appealed to him for help: a retreating soldier
thought to make hay while the sun shone, and was taking possession of the
sewing-machine, demanding that it should be carried away for him by the
tailor’s assistant. Mr. Lingle also prevented another sewing-machine
being stolen: evidently they were in great request.
No more striking proof could be seen of the progress of Christianity in
China than the difference of attitude shown towards missions in time
of danger and difficulty. When I first visited China a mission station
was the most dangerous place to live in; now it is the place of safety
_par excellence_, to which all the Chinese flock when they are in
danger. An interesting illustration of this took place last year. In a
certain district in Shensi a notorious band of robbers came to a Baptist
Missionary and a Roman Catholic priest, and promised to save the town
where they were working if they would procure for them six rifles. They
succeeded in getting the rifles, and took them to the brigands. When they
attempted to use them, the brigands found they had been tampered with,
and decided to loot the town in consequence. They respected, however,
their promise to the men who had brought them, evidently believing in
their good faith, and said they would spare all the Christians. The
problem was how to recognize them, for at once there were a large number
who claimed to be Christians. The robbers decided by looking at them who
was genuine and who was not. In cases of uncertainty they appealed to the
missionaries, who assure us that they had proved quite accurate in their
judgment. Christianity _ought_ to mould the expression of a face.
There are many missions of various nationalities at Changsha, and
all seemed extremely prosperous, most of them in large and handsome
buildings. The girls’ school, of which our hostess was the head, stood
in spacious grounds outside the city wall, and near it is the imposing
pile of the Yale mission buildings. The mission started in 1905 when
Dr. Gaze began the medical work, a hospital was opened in 1908, and the
first students graduated in 1912: it is essentially a medical school,
and differs from others as regards the staff in having short course men
sent out from Yale University as volunteers. They are not necessarily
missionaries. There are fine laboratories for research work, a large
new building for science students, splendid up-to-date equipment in
all branches of medical and surgical work, schools for male and female
nurses, beautiful houses for the large staff of professors, library, a
really beautiful chapel, lecture rooms, dormitories, playing grounds,
tennis courts; in fact everything that can be desired on the most lavish
scale, the greatest conceivable contrast to every other mission I have
seen in China. There is a special ward for Europeans. The new Rockefeller
hospital in Peking is to outshine it in beauty, I believe, but will find
it difficult to equal it in all-round equipment, and of course will lack
the acreage, which makes many things possible in Changsha which are
impossible in Peking. “The Hunan Provincial Government has met all the
local expenses of the College of Medicine and the Hospital for the last
six years.” The Rockefeller Foundation has provided funds for salaries of
additional medical staff, and Yale Foreign Missionary Society academic
teachers and a few of the medical staff. The fees of the patients cover
about half the running expenses of the hospital. “The campus of Yale in
China in the north suburb is on rising ground between the railroad and
the river, where its buildings are conspicuous to travellers arriving
by either train or steamer” (_see_ _Yale College in China_). The only
drawback seems to be lack of patients.
One of the finest pieces of mission work I saw was Dr. Keller’s Bible
School, which is supported by a Society in Los Angeles: it is for the
training of Chinese evangelists for all missionary societies, and they
divide the time of training between study and practical work. They looked
a fine body of men, and have been greatly appreciated by the missionaries
for whom they have worked. Application for their help is made to the
school, and they do not go unasked into any district occupied by a
society. When asked to conduct a mission, a band of men is sent, and
their _modus operandi_ is as follows: they make a map of the district,
taking an area of about three square miles—and after a day spent in
prayer the men visit systematically every house in that area and try
to get on friendly terms with old and young, giving them some portion
of Scripture and inviting them to an evening meeting. As soon as the
people have become interested, evening classes are started respectively
for men, women, boys and girls. The children are taught to sing, as they
very quickly learn hymns and like to practise the new art both early and
late. The special feature of their work is that they go as _Friends_ to
the people, and as their own race; and it is to Chinese only that many
Chinese will listen. The character of many a village has been changed,
the missionaries say, by these national messengers, where they themselves
have been utterly unable to get a hearing. This is an important feature
of present-day missionary enterprise, and is the link between the Past
Phase of _foreign_ evangelization and the Future Phase of _home_ Chinese
mission work. Changsha is full of foreign workers of many nationalities,
but mainly American.
Dr. Keller’s work has been greatly strengthened in the eyes of the
Chinese by the noble example of his mother, whose spirit has impressed
them far more than any words could have done. When her son was home for
his last furlough, he felt that he could not leave her alone, an old lady
of eighty, recently widowed, and he decided to give up his mission work
for the time being. She would not agree to this, but decided to go out
with him and make her home in China for the remainder of her life. Who
can gauge the sacrifice of giving up home and friends at such a time of
life and going to an unknown land where men spoke an unknown tongue? She
had to undergo very great hardships at first, and now after four years
the solitude presses heavily on her. At first she was able to read a
great deal and lived in her books; but she told us that now her sight is
failing the time seems very long.
We visited a Danish mission of some size, Norwegian Y.M.C.A. workers, and
a Russian lady in charge of a little blind school. She had had no word
from home for the last two years, but was pluckily sticking to her task.
The London Missionary Society has withdrawn from work in Hunan, but the
Wesleyan Mission has a high reputation under the charge of Dr. Warren. He
is one of the men who takes a special interest in the political side of
Chinese life, and gave me much valuable information about the different
parties. Just now the changes going on are so rapid that anything one put
down would be out of date before it could be printed. The secret forces
at work keeping up hostility between North and South were everywhere
attributed to Japanese militarism: but it is only too obvious that the
present Government is not strong or patriotic enough to deal with the
situation. It is hard enough to carry on good government in so small
and stable a country as our own, so need we wonder at the inability to
transform the whole political and social system of the vastest country in
the world.
Meanwhile the civil war is a very curious one, and happily does not cause
the bloodshed one would expect, considering the forces engaged. We had
some talk with our British Consul about the dangers of the road, as we
wanted to go south to visit the sacred mountain of Hengshan and thence to
cross fine mountain passes into the neighbouring province of Kwangshi.
Mr. Giles told us that it would be hopeless to attempt it, as an English
steamer had been fired on the day before in the very direction we must
take. The Northern and Southern troops were in active fighting, and every
day they were coming nearer to Changsha. The Governor would probably
desert the city when the Southern army had driven back the Northern, and
no one could say what would happen! After so discouraging a report it
may seem strange that Mr. Giles said there was to be a reception at the
Consulate next day, in honour of the King’s birthday, to which he invited
us.
War seemed infinitely remote from the charming gathering, where all the
foreign community met in the sunny garden on the river-bank. English
hospitality is very delightful so far away from home, and the cordial
spirit of the host and hostess lent a special attractiveness to the
occasion. I was particularly pleased to meet a Chinese friend there,
Miss Tseng, who invited us to visit her school next day. In Chapter VIII
I have tried to give an account of this famous scion of a famous race.
With all the educational and religious and philanthropic institutions
to be visited, it was most difficult to find time to see the monuments
of the past, but we determined not to miss the beautiful golden-roofed
temple, dedicated to Chia Yi, a great statesman of the second century
B.C. It is now transformed into a school, and we saw the boys drilling;
but they seemed an insignificant handful in those noble courtyards, and
there were no signs of proper or even necessary equipment.
Our time at Changsha was all too short, and it ended very pleasantly
with an evening spent at the Consulate. By this time many of the Chinese
were in full flight, because of the coming Southerners, and the city was
supposed to be set on fire by incendiaries at 8 p.m. Our steamer had
retired into the middle of the river, because of the rush of passengers
clamouring to be taken on board, and the captain was unable therefore to
fulfil his engagement to dine at the Consulate. We were promised a fine
sight of the blazing city—only happily the show did not come off—from
the Consulate garden across the river. We stayed there in the delicious
summer air till it was time to go on board, and found it difficult not to
step on the slumbering people who covered the deck when we reached the
steamer. At midnight we slipped down stream, following in the wake of the
departing Governor. The Southern troops came in a few days later, but
without the looting and fighting which has so often happened in similar
circumstances.
_Chapter VII_
_Present-Day Ironsides—General Feng Yu Hsiang_
“There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven the perfect round.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.”
—BROWNING.
_Chapter VII_
_Present-Day Ironsides—General Feng Yu Hsiang_
[Illustration: INN LAMP.]
China is a land full of surprises, and at the present day there is
an amazing variety of individual efforts for the regeneration of the
country by her patriotic sons and daughters. In some ways the chaotic
political state of China makes these individual efforts possible where
perhaps a more settled government would not admit of them. For instance,
each province is governed by a military or civil governor, or both; and
within a province may be found large territories practically controlled
by some autocratic military official, the presence of whose army is the
potent warrant for his wishes being executed. In the province of Hunan,
roughly speaking in the centre of China proper, is such an area, of which
Changteh is the army headquarters.
Having travelled for many weeks through districts infested with robbers,
where law and order are mainly conspicuous by their absence, where the
land is one great poppy garden for the opium trade, it came as a shock of
surprise and delight to enter a district where we found the exact reverse
of these things.
In 1918 there was fighting between the forces of the North and of the
South throughout this district, and as the Northern forces were defeated
and the City of Changteh captured by the Southerners, General Feng was
sent from the neighbouring province of Szechuan to re-take the city. He
had not only defeated the Southern Army there, but had treated them in
an entirely new way. Feng disbanded the Southern troops after disarming
them, and presented each officer with ten dollars and each private
with five dollars, so that they might be able to return to their homes
without resorting to pillage, the source of so much sorrow in China. The
General led his troops to Changteh and found that the Southern forces had
withdrawn, so that he entered the city unopposed, though by no means with
the goodwill of the inhabitants. They were only too familiar with the
tyranny of ordinary Chinese troops; for it is not by foreigners only that
they are evilly spoken of, but by all Chinese.