The extraordinary feeling of hatred and contempt evinced by the
Chinese nation for missionaries of every denomination who settle in
their country, naturally suggests the question whether Christianity is
likely to prove a boon to China, if, indeed, it ever succeeds in
taking root at all. That under the form of Roman Catholicism, it once
had a chance of becoming the religion of the Empire, and that that
chance was recklessly sacrificed to bigotry and intolerance, is too
well known to be repeated; but that such an opportunity will ever
occur again is quite beyond the bounds, if not of possibility, at any
rate of probability. Missionary prospects are anything but bright in
China just now, in spite of rosily worded "reports," and annual
statistics of persons baptized. A respectable Chinaman will tell you
that only thieves and bad characters who have nothing to lose avail
themselves of baptism, as a means of securing "long nights of
indolence and ease" in the household of some enthusiastic missionary
at from four to ten dollars a month. Educated men will not tolerate
missionaries in their houses, as many have found to their cost; and
the fact cannot be concealed that the foreign community in China
suffers no small inconvenience and incurs considerable danger for a
cause with which a large majority of its members has no sympathy
whatever. It would, however, be invidious to dwell upon the class of
natives who allow themselves to be baptized and pretend to accept
dogmas they most certainly do not understand, or on the mental and
social calibre of numbers of those gentlemen who are sent out to
convert them; we will confine ourselves merely to considering what
practical benefits Christianity would be likely to confer upon the
Chinese at large. And this we may fairly do, not being of those who
hold that all will be damned but the sect of that particular church to
which they themselves happen to belong; but believing that the Chinese
have as good a chance as anybody else of whatever happiness may be in
store for the virtuous, whether they become Christians or whether they
do not.
In the course of eight years' residence in China, we have never met a
drunken man in the streets. Opium-smokers we have seen in all stages
of intoxication; but no drunken brawls, no bruised and bleeding wives.
Would Christianity raise the Chinese to the standard of European
sobriety? Would it bring them to renounce opium, only to replace it
with gin? Would it cause them to become more frugal, to live more
economically than they do now on their bowl of rice and cabbage,
moistened with a drink of tea, and perhaps supplemented with a few
whiffs of the mildest possible tobacco? Would it cause them to be more
industrious than--e.g., the wood-carvers of Ningpo who work daily from
sunrise to dusk, with two short intervals for meals? Would it make
them more filial?--justly renowned as they are for unremitting care of
aged and infirm parents. More fraternal?--where every family is a
small society, each member toiling for the common good, and being sure
of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease.
More law-abiding?--we appeal to any one who has lived in China, and
mixed with the people. Would it make them more honest?--when many
Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner
deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian
nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name. Should we not
run the risk of sowing seed for future and bloody religious wars on
soil where none now rage? To teach them justice in the administration
of law would be a glorious task indeed, but even that would have its
dark side. Litigation would become the order of the day, and a
rapacious class would spring into existence where lawyers and
barristers are now totally unknown. The striking phenomenon of extreme
wealth side by side with extreme poverty, might be produced in a
country where absolute destitution is at present remarkably rare, and
no one need actually starve; and thus would be developed a fine field
for the practice of that Christian charity which by demoralisation of
the poorer classes so skilfully defeats its own end. We should rejoice
if anything could make Chinamen less cruel to dumb animals, desist
from carrying ducks, geese, and pigs, hanging by their legs to a pole,
feed their hungry dogs, and spare their worn-out beasts of burden. But
pigeon-shooting is unknown, and gag-bearing reins have yet to be
introduced into China; neither have we heard of a poor heathen
Chinaman "skinning a sheep alive." (_Vide Daily Papers of July_ 12,
1875.)
Last of all, it must not be forgotten that China has already four
great religions flourishing in her midst. There is _Confucianism_,
which, strictly speaking, is not a religion, but a system of
self-culture with a view to the proper government of (1) one's own
family and of (2) the State. It teaches man to be good, and to love
virtue for its own sake, with no fear of punishment for failure, no
hope of reward for success. Is it below Christianity in this?
_Buddhism_, _Taoism_, and _Mahomedanism_, share the patronage of the
illiterate, and serve to satisfy the natural craving in uneducated man
for something supernatural in which to believe and on which to rely.
The _literati_ are sheer materialists: they laugh at the absurdities
of Buddhism, though they sometimes condescend to practise its rites.
They strongly object to the introduction of a new religion, and
successfully oppose it by every means in their power. They urge, and
with justice, that Confucius has laid down an admirable rule of life
in harmony with their own customs, and that the conduct of those who
approximate to this standard would compare not unfavourably with the
practice, as distinguished from the profession, of any religion in the
world.