came a dangerous uprising, and every one else fled, the missionary had to
stay at his post. When an epidemic of cholera or yellow fever swept over a
district, the missionary had to act as doctor or nurse. Sometimes the
missionary died, as Dr. Heron died at Seoul and McKenzie at Sorai. Their
deaths were even more effective than their lives in winning people.
Dr. Allen gained a foothold soon after his arrival by sticking to his post
in Seoul during the uprising against foreigners that followed the attack by
the Japanese and the reformers on the Cabinet and their seizure of the King
and Queen. When Min Yung-ik, the Queen's nephew, was badly wounded, Dr.
Allen attended to him and saved his life. Henceforth the King was the
missionaries' friend. He built a hospital and placed Dr. Allen in charge.
Women missionary doctors were appointed Court physicians to the Queen.
There were years of waiting, when the converts were few, and when it seemed
that the barriers of four thousand years never would be broken down. Then
came the Chino-Japanese War. Koreans were forced to see that this Western
civilization, which had enabled little Japan to beat the Chinese giant,
must mean something. A young man from Indiana, Samuel Moffett, with a
companion, Graham Lee, had gone some time before to Pyeng-yang, reputedly
the worst city in Korea. Here they had been stoned and abused. When the
Chinese Army came to Pyeng-yang, and the country was devastated in the
great and decisive battle between the Chinese and Japanese, these two men
stayed by the Koreans in their darkest and most perilous hours. Koreans
still tell how "Moksa" Moffett put on the dress of a Korean mourner and
went freely around despite the Chinese, who would have almost certainly
devised a specially lingering death for him, had they discovered his
presence.
"There must be something in this religion," said the Koreans. Sturdy old
John Newton's belief that the worst sinner makes the finest saint was borne
out in the case of Pyeng-yang. It became in a few years one of the greatest
scenes of missionary triumph in Asia. The harvest was ripening now. In
Seoul men flung into jail for political offences turned to prayer in the
darkness and despair of their torture chambers, and went to death praising
God. The Secretary to the King's Cabinet preached salvation to his fellow
Cabinet Ministers.
The tens of converts grew to tens of thousands. From the first, the Koreans
showed themselves to be Christians of a very unusual type. They started by
reforming their homes, giving their wives liberty and demanding education
for their children. They took the promises and commands of the Bible
literally and established a standard of conduct for church members which,
if it were enforced in some older Christian communities, would cause a
serious contraction of the church rolls. The first convert set out to
preach to his friends. Latter converts imitated his example. From
Pyeng-yang the movement spread to Sun-chon, which in a few years rivalled
Pyeng-yang as a Christian centre. From here Christianity spread to the Yalu
and up the Tumen River.
The Koreans themselves established Christianity in distant communities
where no white man had ever been. Soon many of the missionaries were kept
busy for several months each year travelling with pack-pony and mafoo, from
station to station in the most remote parts of the country, fording and
swimming unbridged rivers, climbing mountain passes, inspecting and
examining and instructing the converts, admitting them to church membership
and organizing them for still more effective work.
When I hear the cheap sneers of the obtuse stay-at-home or globe-trotter
critics against missionaries and their converts, I am amused. It gives me
the measure of the men, particularly of the globetrotters. When the British
and American Churches seek to send out missionaries, the British and
American people will have registered the sure sign of their decadence. For
the Churches and nations will then cease to be alive. In travelling through
the north country I employed a number of the Christian converts, I found
them clean and honest, good, hard workers, men who showed their religion
not by talk, but by good, straight action. It is a grief to me to know that
some of these "boys" have since, because of their prominence as Christian
workers, been the victims of official persecution.
Under the influence of the missionaries many schools were opened; hospitals
and dispensaries were maintained, and a considerable literature,
educational as well as religious, was circulated.
When the Japanese landed in Korea in 1904, the missionaries welcomed them.
They knew the tyranny and abuses of the old Government, and believed that
the Japanese would help to better things. The ill-treatment of helpless
Koreans by Japanese soldiers and coolies caused a considerable reaction of
feeling. When, however, Prince Ito became Resident-General the prevailing
sentiment was that it would be better for the people to submit and to make
the best of existing conditions, in the hope that the harshness and
injustice of Japanese rule would pass.
Most of the Europeans and Americans in Korea at the time adopted this line.
I travelled largely in the interior of Korea in 1906 and 1907. Groups of
influential Koreans came to me telling their grievances and asking what to
do. Sometimes big assemblies of men asked me to address them. They believed
me to be their friend, and were willing to trust me. My advice was always
the same. "Submit and make yourselves better men. You can do nothing now by
taking up arms. Educate your children, improve your homes, better your
lives. Show the Japanese by your conduct and your self-control that you are
as good as they are, and fight the corruption and apathy that helped to
bring your nation to its present position." Let me add that I did what I
could in England, at the same time, to call attention to their grievances.
Prince Ito was openly sympathetic to the missionaries and to their medical
and educational work. He once explained why, in a public gathering at
Seoul. "In the early years of Japan's reformation, the senior statesmen
were opposed to religious toleration, especially because of distrust of
Christianity. But I fought vehemently for freedom of belief and religious
propaganda, and finally triumphed. My reasoning was this: Civilization
depends on morality and the highest morality upon religion. Therefore
religion must be tolerated and encouraged."
Ito passed off the scene, Korea was formally annexed to Japan, and Count
Terauchi became Governor-General. Terauchi was unsympathetic to
Christianity and a new order of affairs began. One of the difficulties of
the Christians was over the direction that children in schools and others
should bow before the picture of the Japanese Emperor on feast days. The
Japanese tried to maintain to the missionaries that this was only a token
of respect; the Christians declared that it was an act of adoration. To the
Japanese his Emperor is a divine being, the descendant of the gods.
Christians who refused to bow were carefully noted as malignants. In the
famous Conspiracy Case, the official Assistant Procurator, in urging the
conviction of one of the men, said: "He was head teacher of the Sin-an
School, Chong-ju, and was a notorious man of anti-Japanese sentiments. He
was the very obstinate member of the Society who, at a meeting on the first
anniversary of the birthday of the Emperor of Japan after the annexation of
Korea, refused to bow before the Imperial picture on the ground that such
an act was worshipping an image." This one item was the only fact that the
Assistant Procurator produced to prove the head teacher's guilt. He was
convicted, and awarded seven years' penal servitude.
A strong effort was made to Japanize the Korean Churches, to make them
branches of the Japanese Churches, and to make them instruments in the
Japanese campaign of assimilation. The missionaries resisted this to the
utmost. They declared that they would be neutral in political matters, as
they were directed by their Governments to be. Having failed to win them
over to their side, the Japanese authorities entered into a campaign for
the breaking down of the Churches, particularly the Presbyterian Churches
of the north. I am well aware that they deny this, but here is a case where
actions and speeches cannot be reconciled.
Attempts were pushed to create churches of Koreans under Japanese. Son
Pyung-hi, who had proved a good friend of Japan during the Chinese War, had
been encouraged by the Japanese some time before to start a religious sect,
the Chon-do Kyo, which it was hoped would replace Christianity, and prove a
useful weapon for Japan. Here a blunder was made, for later on Son Pyung-hi
flung all his influence against Japan and worked with the native Christian
leaders to start the Independence movement. More important than either of
these two things, however, direct persecution was begun. Several hundred
Korean Christian leaders in the north were arrested, and out of them 144
were taken to Seoul, tortured, and charged with a conspiracy to murder the
Governor-General. Various missionaries were named as their partners in
crime. The tale of the conspiracy was a complete fabrication manufactured
by the police. I describe it fully in the next chapter.
Following this came regulations aimed at the missionary schools and
institutions. At the time of annexation, almost the whole of the real
modern education of Korea was undertaken by the missionaries, who were
maintaining 778 schools. A series of Educational Ordinances was promulgated
in March, 1915, directing that no religious teaching is to be permitted in
private schools, and no religious ceremonies allowed to be performed. The
Japanese authorities made no secret of their intention of eventually
closing all missionary schools, on the ground that even when religious
teaching was excluded, pupils were influenced by their teachers, and the
influence of the foreign teachers was against the Japanization of the
Koreans. Mr. Komatsu, Director of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, put this
point without any attempt at concealment, in a public statement. "Our
object of education is not only to develop the intellect and morality of
our people, but also to foster in their minds such national spirit as will
contribute to the existence and welfare of our Empire.... I sincerely hope
that you will appreciate this change of the time and understand that
missions should leave all affairs relating entirely to education entirely
in the hands of the Government, by transferring the money and labour they
have hitherto been expending on education to their proper sphere of
religious propagation.... Whatever the curriculum of a school may be, it is
natural that the students of that school should be influenced by the ideas
and personal character of its principal and teachers. Education must be
decidedly nationalistic and must not be mixed up with religion that is
universal." This is a much harsher regulation against missions than
prevails in Japan, where mission schools are allowed to continue their
work, with freedom to carry on their religious teaching.
The Government-General agreed to allow mission schools that had already
obtained Government permits to continue for ten years without having the
regulations enforced. Schools that had applied for the permit but had not
obtained it, owing to formal official delays, were ordered to obey or
close, and police were sent to see that they closed.
The Government commanded the mission schools to cease using their own
text-books and to use the officially prepared text-books. These are
carefully prepared to eliminate "dangerous thoughts," _i.e._, anything that
will promote a desire for freedom. They directly teach ancestral worship.
The missionaries have protested in every way they can. The
Government-General is adamant.
Before the start of the Independence movement the mission schools were
being carefully watched. Dr. Arthur J. Brown gives one example of their
experiences,[1] in connection with the graduating exercises at the
Pyeng-yang Junior College last year.
[Footnote 1: "The Mastery of the Far East," by Arthur Judson Brown.]
"Four students made addresses. The foreigners present deemed them
void of offence, but the police declared that all the speakers
had said things subversive of the public good. The students were
arrested, interrogated and then released, as their previous
records had been good. The provincial chief of gendarmes,
however, summoned the students before him and again investigated
the case. The president of the college was called to the office,
and strictly charged to exercise greater care in the future. The
matter was then reported to the Governor of the Province, and
then to the Governor-General. The latter wrote to the president
of the college that the indiscretion of the students was so
serious that the Government was contemplating closing the school.
A similar communication was sent by the Governor-General to the
provincial Governor, who thereupon called the president to his
office, and said that unless he was prepared to make certain
changes the school would have to close. These changes were
enumerated as follows: (1) Appointment of a Japanese head master;
(2) dismissal of three of the boys who had spoken; relief of the
fourth from certain assignments of teaching which he was doing in
the academy, and promise not to repeat the oratorical program in
the future; (3) secure more Japanese teachers, especially those
who could understand Korean; (4) do all teaching, except the
Chinese classics, Korean language and English, through the medium
of the Japanese language; prepare syllabi of the subjects of
instruction, so as to limit it to specified points, teachers not
to deviate from them nor to speak on forbidden subjects; (6)
conform to the new regulations. (That is, eliminate all Christian
instruction.) When the president replied that he would do all
that he could to make the first five changes desired, but that as
to the sixth change, the mission preferred to continue for the
present under the old permit which entitled the college to the
ten year period of grace, the official was plainly disappointed,
and he intimated that number six was the most important of all."
The Independence movement in 1919 enormously increased the difficulties of
the missionaries, although they refrained from any direct or indirect
participation in it, and the Koreans carefully avoided letting them know
anything ahead about it. The difficulties of the missionaries, and the
direct action of the authorities against Christianity at that time is told
later, in the chapters dealing with the movement.
The Japanese authorities will probably do two things. They will order the
closing of schools under various pretexts where Christian teaching is still
maintained. They will endeavour to secure the elimination of those
missionaries who have shown a marked sympathy with the Korean people. They
have ample powers to prosecute any missionary who is guilty of doing
anything to aid disaffection. They have repeatedly searched missionary
homes and missionaries themselves to find evidence of this. Save in the
case of Mr. Mowry, who was convicted of sheltering some students wanted by
the police, they have failed. Even in that case the original conviction has
been quashed on appeal. Such evidence does not exist, because the
missionaries have been really neutral. Neutrality does not satisfy Japan;
she wants them to come out on her side. Unfortunately her action this year
has turned many away from her who tried hard up to then to be her friends.
XIII
TORTURE A LA MODE
"The main thing, when you are tortured, is to remain calm."
The Korean spoke quietly and in a matter-of-fact way. He himself had
suffered torture in its most severe form. Possibly he thought there was a
chance that I, too, might have a personal experience.
"Do not struggle. Do not fight," he continued. "For instance, if you are
strung up by the thumbs and you struggle and kick desperately, you may die
on the spot. Keep absolutely still; it is easier to endure it in this way.
Compel your mind to think of other things."
Torture! Who talks of torture in these enlightened days?
Let me tell you the tale of the Conspiracy Case, as revealed in the
evidence given in open court, and then judge for yourself.
When the heads of the Terauchi administration had made up their minds that
the northern Christians were inimical to the progress of the Japanese
scheme of assimilation, they set their spies to work. Now the rank and file
of spies are very much alike in all parts of the world. They are ignorant
and often misunderstand things. When they cannot find the evidence they
require, they will manufacture it.
The Japanese spies were exceptionally ignorant. First they made up their
minds that the northern Christians were plotting against Japan, and then
they searched for evidence. They attended church services. Here they heard
many gravely suspicious things. There were hymns of war, like "Onward,
Christian Soldiers" and "Soldiers of Christ Arise." What could these mean
but that Christians were urged to become an army and attack the Japanese?
Dangerous doctrines were openly taught in the churches and mission schools.
They learned that Mr. McCune, the Sun-chon missionary, took the story of
David and Goliath as the subject for a lesson, pointing out that a weak man
armed with righteousness was more powerful than a mighty enemy. To the
spies, this was nothing but a direct incitement to the weak Koreans to
fight strong Japan. Mission premises were searched. Still more dangerous
material was found there, including school essays, written by the students,
on men who had rebelled against their Governments or had fought, such as
George Washington and Napoleon. A native pastor had preached about the
Kingdom of Heaven; this was rank treason. He was arrested and warned that
"there is only one kingdom out here, and that is the kingdom of Japan."
In the autumn of 1911 wholesale arrests were made of Christian preachers,
teachers, students and prominent church members, particularly in the
provinces of Sun-chon and Pyeng-yang. In the Hugh O'Neill, Jr., Industrial
Academy, in Sun-chon, one of the most famous educational establishments in
Korea--where the principal had made the unfortunate choice of David and
Goliath for one of his addresses--so many pupils and teachers were seized
by the police that the school had to close. The men were hurried to jail.
They were not allowed to communicate with their friends, nor to obtain the
advice of counsel. They and their friends were not informed of the charge
against them. This is in accordance with Japanese criminal law. Eventually
149 persons were sent to Seoul to be placed on trial. Three were reported
to have died under torture or as the result of imprisonment, twenty-three
were exiled without trial or released, and 123 were arraigned at the Local
Court in Seoul on June 28, 1912, on a charge of conspiracy to assassinate
Count Terauchi, Governor-General of Korea.
"The character of the accused men is significant," wrote Dr. Arthur Judson
Brown, an authority who can scarcely be accused by his bitterest critics of
unfriendliness to Japan. "Here were no criminal types, no baser elements of
the population, but men of the highest standing, long and intimately known
to the missionaries as Koreans of faith and purity of life, and conspicuous
for their good influence over the people. Two were Congregationalists, six
Methodists and eighty-nine Presbyterians. Of the Presbyterians, five were
pastors of churches, eight were elders, eight deacons, ten leaders of
village groups of Christians, forty-two baptized church members, and
thirteen catechumens.... It is about as difficult for those who know them
to believe that any such number of Christian ministers, elders and teachers
had committed crime as it would be for the people of New Jersey to believe
that the faculty, students and local clergy of Princeton were conspirators
and assassins."
Baron Yun Chi-ho, the most conspicuous of the prisoners, had formerly been
Vice Foreign Minister under the old Korean Government, and was reckoned by
all who knew him as one of the most progressive and sane men in the
country. He was a prominent Christian, wealthy, of high family, a keen
educationalist, vice-president of the Korean Y.M.C.A., had travelled
largely, spoke English fluently, and had won the confidence and good will
of every European or American in Korea with whom he came in contact. Yang
Ki-tak, formerly Mr. Bethell's newspaper associate, had on this account
been a marked man by the Japanese police. He had been previously arrested
under the Peace Preservation Act, sentenced to two years' imprisonment and
pardoned under an amnesty. He had also previously been examined twice in
connection with the charge against the assassin of Prince Ito, and twice on
account of the attack made on Yi, the traitor Premier, but had each time
been acquitted. "I am not very much concerned as to what happens to me
now," he said, "but I do protest against being punished on a charge of
which I am innocent."
The case for the prosecution was based on the confessions of the prisoners
themselves. According to these confessions, a body of Koreans, in
association with the New People's Society, headed by Baron Yun Chi-ho,
plotted to murder General Terauchi, and assembled at various railway
stations for that purpose, when the Governor-General was travelling
northwards, more particularly at Sun-chon, on December 28, 1910. They were
armed with ready revolvers, short swords or daggers, and were only
prevented from carrying out their purpose by the vigilance of the
gendarmerie.
A number of missionaries were named as their associates or sympathizers.
Chief of these was Mr. McCune, who, according to the confessions,
distributed revolvers among the conspirators and told them at Sun-chon that
he would point out the right man by shaking hands with him. Dr. Moffett of
Pyeng-yang, Dr. Underwood of Seoul, Bishop Harris, the Methodist Bishop for
Japan and Korea who had long been conspicuous as a defender of the Japanese
Administration, and a number of other prominent missionaries were
implicated.
When the prisoners were faced by these confessions in the open court they
arose, one after another, almost without exception, and declared either
that they had been forced from them by sustained and intolerable torture,
or that they had been reduced by torture to insensibility and then on
recovery had been told by the Japanese police that they had made the
confessions. Those who had assented under torture had in nearly every case
said "Yes" to the statements put to them by the police. Now that they could
speak, they stoutly denied the charges. They knew nothing of any
conspiracy. The only man who admitted a murder plot in court was clearly
demented.
The trial was held in a fashion which aroused immediate and wide-spread
indignation. It was held, of course, in Japanese, and the official
translator was openly charged in court with minimizing and altering the
statements made by the prisoners. The judges acted in a way that brought
disgrace on the court, bullying, mocking and browbeating the prisoners. The
high Japanese officials who attended heartily backed the sallies of the
bench.