Taoism’s book, the _Tao Teh King_, written in 604 B. C. by Lao Tsz,
speaks of the Triune God of reason, nature and virtue. The sect is now
one of astrologers and nature worshipers, and is strong in the southern
and eastern provinces. It builds temples and teaches the nature
superstition of Feng Shui (Wind and Water), which until recently held
the land in thrall against mining, industry and railways. The Taoists
have been bitterly anti-foreign. Bows and arrows are sometimes hung up
in the green Taoist temples as votive or thank offerings, the sentiment
being that they are to kill one’s unpropitious influence or adverse
Feng-shui. Taoist priests sometimes wear gorgeous gowns completely
covered with embroidery of flowers, insects, birds, animals and the
exorcised devil himself. They make a pretty penny by publishing or
interpreting an almanac, the day selected possibly reading as follows:
June 10th
LUCKY:
To set sail to-day.
To begin a land journey to-day.
To begin a suit to-day.
UNLUCKY:
To bury your father to-day.
To begin a new well to-day.
To bargain for a wife for your son to-day.
To buy oil to-day.
To sweep your shop to-day.
To hire a cook to-day.
The traveler who has everything ready at Ichang to start on the long
journey through the glorious Yangtze gorges and rapids often wonders
why his men can not be induced to start. The reason is that they are
wading through the Luck Book, thus wasting an unnecessary week. Oil
is needed, but it can not be bought on June 5th. Fish are needed, but
can not be bought on June 6th. Rope can not be bought on June 7th, and
when June 9th comes along it is unlucky to sail on that day. The Taoist
priest makes his money by selling your laota (captain) an indulgence to
sail on June 9th, for which you have to pay handsomely about ten cents,
and the kinshan incense and firecrackers extra! The tiger and the
dragon represent the early gods of the terrified aboriginal Chinese,
and predate the ancestor worship of the first Chou clan of the north.
These emblems have been adopted by the Taoist priests. The grotesque
shrines are found among the mountains, a dominating view being
necessary for the casting of the “influence.”
Among the aboriginal Lolo tribes of Yunnan an animal represents
each day of the month. Accordingly the body of a caravaner is kept
for burial until the lucky day of the horse arrives. A coin is put
between the lips to pay the way, which shows that the rites are
Taoist, and quite similar to old Grecian and Egyptian rites. When the
revolutionists were fortifying Hanyang, in October, 1911, they did not
hesitate to use a Taoist monastery as a fort in the hills. This marks a
step forward against old superstitions, which were once insurmountable.
The Chinese declare that a positive omen of a coming conflagration is
the crowing of a cock during the night. Of course, all the cooks of
Hankau recited this to their masters on the day when the imperialists
burned the native city. Statues are many in the temples, monasteries,
guild halls, pagodas and road shrines. Although Confucius is generally
represented by a tablet merely, there are some temples which have
statues of him and his disciples. Buddha is represented by three
statues of the Past, Present and Future Buddha. Emperors of popular
dynasties have statues erected to them in the temples. Then the Taoists
have innumerable gods, including the famous gods of the War Temples.
The guilds of the three hundred trades and twenty-one provinces all
have patron gods, and it is orthodox to rub your finger on the god’s
body in the place that corresponds with your sore spot, if you feel
ill! You touch his back if you have lumbago (and find out that he is
hollow!); his nose if you have asthma, and so on.
There are household gods; a god “Tsan” of the kitchen; pictures of gods
to paste on the gates of the compound, and the God of Literature, who
is very popular and has many temples. All over the north the Manchus
have erected temples to the Fox, their wily patron god. This dependence
on idols is not so dense as in India. The Chinese do it more as a good
luck omen, just as we wear an opal or a turquoise, and not always as
an essential religious rite. They have too much humor really to be as
foolish as they may look when in the god’s presence. A god who doesn’t
do his business well is as quickly dragged out by a rope and burned
in times of stress as a human being would be treated with contumely
whose prophecies always failed. In the south, religious edifices are
being occupied for educational and civic purposes. When in 1908 the
new learning broke over China like the full burst of a tropical day,
the schools at first had to be housed in temples and monasteries.
Recently, at Canton, the Wah Lum Monastery was used to entertain
a public-spirited Chinese of Singapore, Chang U. Him, who brought
both new learning and new wealth. “All interested in industries,
self-government, charities and new education” were invited by circular
to come up and see him “at the temple!”
Some of their religious proverbs, often touched with humor, are:
“If you must thrash a priest, wait until he has finished praying for
you.”
“Man’s myriad schemes are not equal to a thought of God.”
“God gives birth and death to every man, but honors only to the few who
deserve them.”
“The deeper your cave, the smaller is your heaven.”
“Man’s blow hits everything but heaven.”
“Do no wrong by light, and you’ll see no devil at night.”
“Penitence is good, but it should be proved by pennies.”
“Though the face is paler, the sin isn’t any whiter.”
“When things go well, we are so hungry that we eat all the meal; when
trouble comes, we are glad to give it all to the idol.”
“Forget the priest on a fair day, but hug his idol on a foul.”
“A maker of idols never goes to a temple.”
“Fire for gold and trial for the soul.”
“Sorrow for the saint, and chisel for the statue.”
“Sorrow ends where sin begins.”
“Speak of the devil and he drops in.”
“Kind words outlive much frost.”
“Heaven calls the good soon, but doesn’t want the bad till the last.”
“The devil disguises himself less than his followers do.”
“When you forgive your enemy, the wrong pains less.”
“The silver whisper is loudest in the idol’s ear.”
“The whole earth is a coffin; only for the living the lid is not yet
hammered down.”
“A lie is like burying the dead in the snow; the secrecy doesn’t last
long.”
“The brows of the saints prop the pillars of heaven.”
Says a northern pessimist: “Oh! the hypocrisy of religion; sacrifice a
bullock once a year, and steal bullocks all the rest of the year.”
The supercilious man threw this sarcastic shaft at his accoster: “_I_
pick _my_ company.” The mission school man heaped coals of fire on his
head with this bland reply: “And your company is proud to pick you.”
The Chinese love to contrast life and death, as is shown in their
paintings of pear trees in bloom and willows in bud, while snow lies on
mountain peak and hillside.
The Americans at home have established a beautiful custom of casting
wreaths into the sea on Decoration Day in commemoration of the dead who
were buried or lost at sea, and there is a similar custom at Venice
and elsewhere. The Chinese, too, have a Decoration or All Souls’ Day,
which is observed by the adherents of the three religions in the first
week of September. Red boats and lanterns are set afloat, and the
priests burn paper clothing, money and food, and set off firecrackers.
Where the ceremony takes place on land, it is customary to throw
copper money to the street gamins. The festival is also observed at
the magisterial yamens and temples, and Wing Lok Street, Hongkong,
is noted for the characteristic observance of the ceremony. The rise
of republicanism is going to strike a hard blow at one of the main
teachings of Confucianism, “serving the prince,” because there will be
no prince to serve and also at “li,” the rule of blind obedience to
those in power; following the trade of the parent; destroying children;
self-disfigurement; concubinage; expensive funerals and priest-craft;
abuse of women; blind worship of the past; suicide of purchased wives;
exaggeration of man and minimizing of God; neglect of organized
charities and of science and comparative history. This change will make
the introduction of Christianity more hopeful. It is to be expected
that the worship of ancestors will also weaken, and with it will weaken
the custom of early marriages. The Chinese have too many children to
educate properly, as the Americans and French have probably too few. A
somewhat smaller China would mean a richer and better China.
Catholic missions began in China when by caravan Corvina visited Kublai
Khan, at Peking, in 1292 A. D. Ricci arrived at Canton in 1582 and
worked in many of the provincial capitals and at Macao and Peking.
Schaal worked from 1622 to 1664 and had influence with the greatest and
most artistic Manchu emperor, Kang Hi. Abbé Huc covered the country
from Peking and Tibet to Macao from 1844 onward. The chief educational
centers of the Romanists are at Peking, Tientsin, Canton, Macao,
Saigon and Hongkong. The large press and college of the Missiones
d’Etrangeres is at Hongkong (Aberdeen side of the island). At Peking
is their extensive Pei Tang press. They have large, two-spired Gothic
cathedrals at Canton, Peking, etc. The square towered cathedral on
Caine Road, Hongkong, is the architectural crown of the lovely colony.
The Catholics number 1,500,000, their work being strong in orphanages,
among women, etc., and in comparison with Protestant missions very weak
in higher education and the distributed Bible itself. They consider
it expedient to train the child rather than to make the expensive
experiment of reasoning with and educating the man. Therefore most
of the modernized Chinese officials are Protestants. Naturally the
Catholic method brings more converts than does the Protestant.
The American missions almost dominate in the expensive higher education
of the land, and it now seems certain that American educational
methods, thoroughly tried in China, will be adopted over the world
because of their efficiency and altruism. The Protestant missions
of Europe, working in China, are as follows: The Scandinavians work
in Hupeh and the northern provinces, and while not rich, they have
developed effective fearless men of great resource. The German
Lutherans are active at Kiaochou, and in the north and the Yangtze
valley. The English Baptists, dating back to 1792, have many missions,
notably in Shangtung province. The London Missionary Society (mainly
Congregational), dating back to 1795, operates largely along the coast,
in the south, and at Peking. The Church of Scotland (both Free and
Established), which is strong in medical missions, operates notably in
Manchuria. The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of England have
many missions throughout the land. The Anglican Church operates chiefly
in the great ports; is now strong in higher education, and has erected
many fine cathedrals. It has taken under its wing the foreigner in
China, who, Kipling charged, did many reckless things “east of Suez!”
Even the Friends’ Society of England has missions in China. The China
Inland Mission, founded by the noted Doctor Hudson Taylor in 1862,
has eight hundred missionaries who altruistically accept the smallest
salaries paid in China. Many of them live on the land, in the “faith”
method. The method of the organization is by personal contact rather
than by expensive, highly organized education. For years this was the
most dramatic and heroic mission in the darker provinces of the land.
The Salvation Army has also come to China through the world-binding
love of that extraordinary man, “General” Booth. American missions
dominate in Protestant China, British and Colonial missions being
one-half as strong, which means an equal zeal when the population of
the two countries is considered.
American missions are stronger in educational, political and medical
activities; the British make a specialty of preaching, charities
and personal work. The Americans develop more native preachers and
translators than any of the other missions, and their confidence in
the Chinese is producing wonderful results in reaching toward the
establishment of a self-sustaining church some day. No work, except
the medical missions, has, however, ever surpassed the aim of the
British and Foreign and American Bible Societies to put a translated
Bible in the hands of every Chinese. China, foremost of all lands,
ranks learning above everything else. By its attitude in specializing
in education, the American church has attracted the sympathy of the
leaders of the nation. No nation has a monopoly of mission heroes, but
the wisdom of the American decision has been at once apparent.
The Roman missions work largely on the medieval plan of: “Give me the
child till he is thirteen and I don’t care who gets it after that.” The
American Protestants and some of the British say: “Give him to me from
thirteen to twenty-three, so that he can understand.” One proselytizes
possibly by prejudice and association. The other, imparting all the
knowledge possible, trusts to the mind and sense of cultivated justice
in the pupil. The Roman orphanages in China outnumber the Protestants
five to one. The high-grade schools and colleges of the Americans are
almost alone in the field, though the British propose now to follow
vigorously. The difference is in attitude. There is no difference
between Romanist and Protestant missionary in China in braving death
from the hands of pirates, persecution from “Boxers” and others,
misery, disease and alienation. The heroes are numberless; their lives
are thrilling; their aims are the most altruistic the world has known,
and the orchard is in such a flower of fruitage now as to dazzle the
altruist’s eye.
It was a matter of great interest to foreigners when the October,
1911, revolution opened, that the chief leader and organizer of the
movement, Doctor Sun Yat Sen (Sunyacius) was a Christian, the son of a
Cantonese (Fatshan) evangelist. It will be remembered that Siu Tsuen,
the leader of the 1848 Taiping rebellion, which marched from Canton
to Nanking via the Mei Ling pass, was also a Cantonese Christian, but
infinitely inferior to Doctor Sun in education and experience, as well
as in character. Eventually Siu fell away from the faith, under the
influence of bad advisers, into savagery. The missions were all given
advance information previous to the October, 1911, revolution, showing
that the Chinese esteem missionaries ahead of diplomats. This is a
very precious compliment, and marks the vast advance of Christianity
in the hearts of the Chinese “Hoi Polloi.” Even before the October,
1911, rebellion, officials of the old class were throwing away their
prejudices against missionaries and welcoming them as angels of light
in a way that would have delighted Paul and Barnabas. General Tsen Chun
Hsuan, a bloody enough loyalist leader in war, when viceroy of Szechuen
province, made this address: “My hope is that the missionary teachers
and medical missionaries of America and Britain will spread their
gospel more widely than ever, and that the influence of the gospel may
bring boundless happiness for our people of China. I shall not be the
only one to thank you for your good work. Long live your Gospel.”
The literal name by which the Roman church goes in China is “Tien Chu”
(Heaven Lord church), and the Protestants are generally called by the
Catholics and by the Chinese “Jesus church,” or “Shangti” (Supreme
Ruler church). The American Episcopalians and the British Anglicans
in April, 1912, decided to call themselves the “Holy Public church”
(Sheng Kung Hwei). The Roman missionaries had much to do with the
annexation of vast Tonquin (population twenty-two millions) by France,
and their activity is similarly ambitious in Yunnan province, lower
Szechuen, and in Kwangsi and Kweichou provinces. As long ago as 1844,
so brave a traveler and learned a priest as Abbé Huc insisted on
wearing the yellow robe of the privileged mandarin class. Not only at
one station or in one province did he do this, but on his journey of
1849 through Tibet, Szechuen, Hupeh, Kiangsi and Kwangtung provinces,
he wore the robe and demanded the reception of a mandarin, the thinly
veiled implication being that if he was interfered with, there were
French guns that could pound the Taku and Bogue forts on the way to
Tientsin and Canton, respectively, which they really did ten years
later. As late as 1899, when China was torn by dissensions between the
reformers and the reactionaries, and while the wounds of her defeat by
Japan were still open, the Roman church, with the diplomatic aid of
France, forced from the then Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board) an imperial
rescript granting Roman priests the rank and insignia of a Chinese
perfect (mandarin), and Roman bishops the astoundingly high title and
insignia of a viceroy, which honors affected eleven hundred priests
and forty-six bishops. It was not until 1909 that China resolved to
throw off this incubus. The rescript was rescinded by the new Wai Wu Pu
(Foreign Board) and Li Pu (Board of Rites). Enlightened Romanists in
America of course do not uphold such militant Romanism, which smacks
rather much of the bizarre days of Cortez. Let it be said too that the
French Romanist abroad is more medieval than the French Romanist in
France. While sailing in the Red Sea, talking with French clerics from
Tajoora, which faces the hot Gulf of Aden, and while walking along
the red banks of the Saigon River in Indo-China, I have heard bitter
criticisms from French priests which would have been deemed _lèse
majesté_ in the home republic itself.
A traveler can not pass through China without being mobbed by the sick
to be cured. “You are a foreigner, you _must_ be a doctor; cure me and
mine; I have heard that the foreigners can cure any ill; cure me, man
of Jesus.” It is agonizing. I knew a man who only carried a caustic
stick and two drugs (quinine and salts). Wherever he was mobbed with
appeals he administered these drugs to those whom he thought they would
benefit. Almost better if he had not done so. The cured who leaped
about with new life were enough proof that he was “lying” when he said
that he could not heal the wounded, the seriously ill, the leprous and
the ulcered. He was almost torn apart. Were I a billionaire, I am a
thousand times sure that I would send a thousand medical missionaries
to China for five years, each man to hire a Chinese understudy, and
carry a full surgical and medical chest, and the Bible and medical text
books only. Then I would leave the Chinese pupils to carry on the work;
they would be stationed as radiating centers at proper distances apart
throughout the land. I would then spend the rest of my life listening
to the marvelous stories which my five thousand friends had to tell
of what they had seen and done. No man who ever lived--not even Paul
when he wrote the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians; not even the
beloved John when he saw the Heavenly City in seraphic dreams--would
have experienced such real and wide happiness as I. No man could pass
away with more ecstatic memories, such a delirium of too much joy.
I want to write a word of commendation of the missionary, for
detraction by some in high places, and by some authors who write as
they fly and flit at the ports, is not uncommon. The attacks upon
missions in Henry Norman’s _Peoples and Politics of the Far East_,
and in Pumpelly’s _Across America and Asia_, are well known, and have
been repeated by others. One may be a cynic at home, and with reason
sometimes criticize some pulpits because they fear the magnate at the
end of some pews, and color their sermons accordingly. One may in
a supercilious way sneer at the seeming lack of personality in the
missionary candidate, who in a gentle faith stands up in her or his
church to answer the call: “Go ye into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature.” But follow the worker into the China field,
and see what that call and the altruistic opportunity has done by its
very immensity. The gentle missionary has soon become many things: a
brave pioneer in exile; a scholar and linguist; an organizer of great
power and tact; a local foreign minister of great ability in adapting
the West to the East; a scientist, housekeeper, traveler, physician,
explorer, ethnologist, nurse, orator; the only host of explorers; the
most generous of mankind; an ideal example of what the West should
be; the most inspired of human beings in self-sacrifice and wonderful
accomplishment under difficulties. Their expenses are many; their
resources few. Many have to live on the slimmest of contributions
from home, such as the missionaries of the China Inland Mission, the
Scandinavian Mission, and the Scottish Missions, which are not rich.
Many, like the American and English missionaries, receive fair help
from home, but spend on their equipment, and educational and hospital
buildings the money that was due to themselves and their families
as salaries. The highly cultured, brave president of the Nanking
University accepts only $1,500 as salary, whereas if he were in
America, on a purely business basis he would be expected to demand
$15,000 for the same services and expenses of his high position. The
writer does not mean to select one board as doing better than another.
All have done marvelously, and China can never forget. In the Yangtze
valley at Shanghai and Wuchang, along the whole front of the rebellion
of 1911, the American Episcopalians have universities and training
schools, which were especially noted by the republicans. The missionary
does not always desire money. Such a simple thing as a magazine, or
a new book of travel, or a standard work of fiction, or a weekly
newspaper from some metropolis, is a god-send to the missionaries at
the outposts, under the idol’s hills, who like to feel that though
they are thousands of miles from a treaty port, they are yet in touch
with civilization. Any one can get from the Mission Boards the names of
missionaries who are off the beaten track from Yunnan province up to
the Amur River in China, and send them now and then at trifling cost
this cheering literature, which will shine upon them like the beloved
sun of the far-away home land. Treat them as American and British men
and women, and not only in the high light of missionaries, for they are
the ambassadors from the West to the East, and there is no form of our
civilization in which they are not active, efficient and heroic.
England and America contribute the same sum to missions, but as England
is the smaller, the statistics reveal that America is doing only half
what she should do in the China mission field. Of the denominations,
the American Methodists easily lead the world, followed in order by the
Anglican Church of England, the Presbyterian Church of America, the
Baptist Church of America, and the old Congregational Church of America
with many heroes on its old roster, which dates back to 1812. If you
ask what the Chinese think of missionaries I will quote the following
prayer spoken by the Confucian viceroy, Hsi Liang, in the Scotch
chapel at Mukden for the hero physician, Doctor Jackson, who died as a
voluntary martyr in the pneumonic plague in 1910, and you can answer
whether you do not think it eloquently pathetic: “Doctor Jackson, with
the heart of your Christ, who died to save the world, came to our aid
when we besought him to help our country in its hour of distress.
Daily, where the plague lay thickest, amidst the groans of the dying,
he struggled to help the stricken to find medicine. Worn out by his
efforts the pest seized and took him long before his time. Our sorrow
is beyond all measure; our grief too deep for words. Oh! Spirit of
Doctor Jackson, we pray you to intercede for the twenty million people
in Manchuria, and ask the Lord of Heaven to take away this plague so
that we may once more lay our heads in peace upon our pillows. In life
you were brave; you, therefore, now are a spirit. Noble Spirit, who
gave up your life for us, help us still, look down with sympathy upon
us all.”