NA AND 
 
 ' METHODISM 
 
 $B 155 bbfl 
 
 MES \y. BASilFORD 
 
(, 
 
 ^ 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
China and Methodism 
 
 By 
 JAMES W. ^ASHFORD 
 
 A Bishop of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church 
 
 CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
 NEW YORK; EATON AND MAINS 
 
Copyright, 1906, bv 
 Jennings & Graham 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 This booklet is in no sense a history of our 
 Methodist Episcopal Missions in China. It 
 is not even an attempt to express appreci- 
 ation of the splendid achievements of our 
 .missionaries. Full half of the space al- 
 lotted has been taken for a general account 
 of the land, the people, and the religions of 
 China, because interest in and appreciation 
 of our v^ork depend upon seeing our Mis- 
 sions in their relations to the unfolding life 
 of this vast empire. We have simply at- 
 tempted to present such a brief outline as 
 will enable American Methodists to under- 
 stand the problem which confronts us and 
 to make preparation for a suitable partic- 
 ipation in the centennial celebration of the 
 founding of Protestant Missions in China. 
 This celebration will occur in Shanghai, 
 April 25 to May 6, 1907, and American 
 Methodism ought to contribute three hun- 
 3 
 
4 Preface. 
 
 dred thousand dollars for the strengthening 
 and enlargement of our work. If the 
 Church at home can only realize that the 
 opportunity which now confronts us in the 
 Chinese Empire is probably the greatest 
 which has confronted our Church through- 
 out her history, the amount will be readily 
 and speedily pledged. 
 
 For the statements contained in this little 
 book, I have relied upon fourteen note- 
 books, filled with observations made while 
 visiting twelve of the eighteen provinces; 
 upon conversations with several hundred 
 foreigners residing in China from ten to 
 fifty years; upon Chinese Christians, who, 
 when they became confidential, threw new 
 light upon the problems mentioned in the 
 booklet; upon Chinese officials, whose 
 words and acts furnished interesting 
 glimpses of the external life of the em- 
 pire; and upon some seventy volumes on 
 China. The standard work is S. Wells 
 Williams' The Middle Kingdom, two vol- 
 umes, revised in 1882. I wish it were re- 
 vised again and brought down to date. 
 Arthur Smith's Chinese Characteristics and 
 Village Life in China are the most inter- 
 
Preface. S 
 
 esting and most informing volumes upon 
 the empire. Archibald Little's Far Bast fur- 
 nishes the best text-book on the geography 
 of the empire, while Jernigan's China in 
 Law and Commerce does for the twenty- 
 two provinces more fully than any other 
 volume what DeTocqueville's Democracy 
 in America did for the United States. 
 
 For the statistics quoted, I have relied 
 upon the tenth edition of the Britannica, 
 1902; the new International Encyclopedia, 
 1902; the tenth edition of Mill's Interna- 
 tional Geography, 1903 ; the Report of the 
 Imperial Maritime Customs for 1905, the 
 Statesmen's Year-Book for 1905, and the 
 Protestant Directory of Missions for 1906. 
 For the new statistics on Manchuria, I have 
 relied upon Consul- General Hosie's author- 
 itative volume on Manchuria, 1900; upon 
 the Japanese report on Manchuria, 1903-4, 
 and upon B. Putman Weale's Manchu and 
 Muscovite, 1904. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/chinamethodismOObashrich 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter 
 
 I. Land and People, 
 
 Pagb 
 
 9 
 
 II. 
 
 Religions, - - - - 
 
 17 
 
 III. 
 
 Christianity in the Empire, 
 
 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in 
 China, - - - - 
 
 45 
 
 V. 
 
 Possibilities, - . - - 
 
 89 
 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Mission- 
 aries IN China, 
 
 107 
 
China and Methodism 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Land and PeopIvE. 
 
 Our aim in this chapter is to furnish such 
 a view of the land, its location, fertility, ir- 
 rigation, enrichment, and cultivation as 
 will enable Americans to un- 
 The Land dcrstaud and appreciate the 
 population of the empire. The 
 latitude of the Great Wall, which marks 
 the northern boundary of China Proper, 
 corresponds roughly with a line drawn 
 from Philadelphia to Topeka, Kan- 
 sas. Imagine a body of land, compact and 
 rectangular in shape, extending east and 
 west from Philadelphia to Topeka, and far 
 enough south to include the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico and part of Yucatan, South America, 
 and you have the location of China Proper. 
 9 
 
10 China and Methodism. 
 
 The location of China makes the climate 
 more nearly semi-tropical than the climate 
 of either the United States or Europe, and 
 enables the people in nearly three-fourths 
 of the provinces to produce two crops a 
 year. 
 
 The second cause of the fertility of the 
 empire is its immense plains. Imagine a 
 mountain region, rising upon an average to 
 nearly twice the height of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, and you have the western dependen- 
 cies of Tibet and Turkestan. These mountain 
 ranges gradually descend eastward, form- 
 ing immense plains similar to the plains of 
 the Mississippi Valley. Exceptions to this 
 description are found in the mountains of 
 the Shantung and Fukien Provinces in 
 the east, and in the Chentu Plain in the 
 west. But in general, China consists of im- 
 mense plains and deltas in the east, rising 
 to rolling and hilly and mountainous coun- 
 try as one journeys westward. 
 
 The third cause of the great fertility of 
 China is the almost universal irrigation of 
 the soil. Irrigation makes possible the im- 
 mense rice area of China, and one and of- 
 ten two other crops follow the rice crop. 
 
Land and People. 11 
 
 The fourth cause of the fertility of the 
 empire is the enrichment of the soil by the 
 use of every particle of fertilizer pro- 
 duced in the empire, and the natural 
 enrichment of the soil by the loess 
 deposits. This loess formation con- 
 sists of fine dust, blown from the steppes 
 of Central Asia and covering two hundred 
 and fifty thousand square miles of the 
 northern part of China Proper to a 
 depth of from ten to a thousand feet. 
 
 The final cause of the fertility of China is 
 its intensive cultivation. The land is di- 
 vided among the people more fully than 
 the land of any other nation on earth. In the 
 southern and middle portions of China, the 
 fields apparently do not average more than 
 two acres each, and in Northern China they 
 probably do not average more than three 
 or four acres. These small farms are cul- 
 itivated with the greatest possible thor- 
 oughness. In a word, the Chinese are 
 gardeners rather than farmers ; and I have 
 seen field after field in succession in which 
 I could not detect a single weed. 
 
 As the result of these five causes — trop- 
 ical climate, immense plains, irrigation, the 
 
12 China and Methodism. 
 
 enrichment of the soil by artificial fertilizers 
 and the loess formation, and intensive cul- 
 tivation — great portions of the twenty-two 
 provinces yield twice as much per acre as 
 the fertile fields of Iowa and Illinois; and 
 China Proper yields the largest har- 
 vests of any country upon the face of 
 the globe. 
 
 For the statistics quoted below as to the 
 population of the Chinese Empire, I have 
 relied upon that most conservative English 
 publication, the Statesmen's Year-Book, 
 
 and it in turn has relied upon the 
 The People reports sent in by the governors at 
 
 the time of the assessment of the 
 Boxer indemnity. As the distribution of 
 the Boxer assessment was based on popu- 
 lation and the number reported determined 
 the proportion which each province must 
 pay, it is not likely that the fi^'ures are 
 beyond the actual population of the sev- 
 eral provinces. Besides, the six years that 
 have followed the Boxer Uprising have 
 been years of peace and plenty, and the 
 population has increased during that pe- 
 riod. 
 
Land and People. 
 
 13 
 
 PROVINCES. 
 
 Sq. Miles. 
 Anhwei or Nganhwei, . . 54.810 . 
 
 Chekiang, 36,670 . 
 
 Chili, 115,800 . 
 
 Chinese Turkestan, . . . 550,000 . 
 
 Fengtien, 50,000 . 
 
 Fukien, 46,320 . 
 
 Heilungkiang, 140,000 . 
 
 Honan, 67,940 . 
 
 Hunan, 83,380 . 
 
 Hupeh, 71410 . 
 
 Kansuh, 125,450 . 
 
 Kiangsi, 69,480 . 
 
 Kiangsu, 38,600 . 
 
 Kirin, 90,000 . 
 
 Kwangsi, 77,200 . 
 
 Kwangtung, 99,97o • 
 
 Kweichow, 67,160 . 
 
 Shansi, 81,830 . 
 
 Shantung, 55,97o • 
 
 Shensi, 75,270 . 
 
 Szechuen, 218,480 . 
 
 Yunnan, 146,680 . 
 
 Total, China Proper, . 2,362,410 . 
 
 DEPENDENCIES. 
 
 Mongolia, 1,367,000 . 
 
 Tibet, 738,000 . 
 
 Total Dependencies, . 2,105,000 . 
 Grand total Chinese 
 Empire, 4,467,410 , 
 
 Population. 
 23,670,000 
 11,581,000 
 20,937,000 
 
 1,200,000 
 12,000,000 
 22,876,540 
 
 2,000,000 
 35,316,000 
 22,169,000 
 35,280,000 
 10,385,000 
 26,532,000 
 13,980,000 
 
 7,000,000 
 
 5,142,000 
 31,865,000 
 
 7,650,000 
 12,200,000 
 38,248,000 
 
 8,450,000 
 68,725,000 
 12,324,000 
 
 429,532,000 
 
 5,000,000 
 3,500,000 
 
 8,500,000 
 , 438,032,000 
 
14 China and Methodism. 
 
 If we include the whole empire, the pop- 
 ulation averages only ninety-eight to the 
 square mile. For China Proper, the aver- 
 age population per square mile is one hun- 
 dred and eighty-two, while the average pop- 
 ulation of Germany is two hundred and 
 nine, and of Great Britain three hundred 
 and. fifteen. Great Britain, however sus- 
 tains her population largely by manufp.c- 
 turing goods and selling them to people 
 of other lands and receiving their products 
 in return, while the population of China 
 lives almost wholly off the land. When one 
 remembers that the Chinese produce two or 
 three crops per year over three-fourths of 
 China Proper, and that they are living on 
 much less food per man than the English- 
 man consumes, the figures for the popula- 
 tion are not unreasonable. The Maritime 
 Customs' report for 1905 for the coast and 
 river provinces, supplemented by the report 
 of the Statesmen's Year-Book for the in- 
 terior provinces, make the population oi 
 the empire 451,000,000. Sir Robert Hart 
 and Dr. Arthur Smith are confident 
 that the twenty-two provinces can sus- 
 tain a very much larger population than 
 
Land and People. IS 
 
 they maintain at present. Indeed, any one 
 who realizes that only the agricultural re- 
 sources of the country are thus far devel- 
 oped, and that the mining and manufactur- 
 ing resources of the empire yet to be de- 
 veloped are almost boundless, will not 
 hastily deny Ernst Faber's prophecy that 
 the Chinese Empire may yet sustain double 
 her present population. 
 
 We have thus tried to furnish such a 
 view of the land as will enable our readers 
 to comprehend the immense population of 
 the empire. In closing, let us catch one 
 more glimpse of this virile and fertile race. 
 Imagine a procession of Chinese marching 
 by a reviewing stand. Let them pass at 
 the rate of thirty per minute. This will give 
 you two seconds to impress t he image of 
 each Chinese upon your minda n9 to off eTa, 
 p rayer for the salvation of that pilgrim, 
 journeying to the eternal land. Let the pro- 
 cession continue through rain and sunshine, 
 cold and heat, through work days and holi- 
 days ; change the watchers each eight hours, 
 and let the procession continue day and 
 night ; and how long will these watchers re- 
 quire to review the population of China? 
 
16 China and Methodism. 
 
 Passing the reviewing stand at the rate 
 of thirty per minute, the Chinese pro- 
 cession will continue year after year, dec- 
 ade after decade, generation after gener- 
 ation, century after century, millennium af- 
 ter millennium, — "What,'' one exclaims, 
 "will the procession never end?'' Not un- 
 til the end of time, so far as mortals can 
 now foresee, because thirty per minute is 
 about the rate at which this abounding 
 race is multiplying. At this rate of march, 
 therefore, the procession is literally an end- 
 less one. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 R^IylGlONS. 
 
 A glimpse at the religious practices pre- 
 vailing among the four hundred and thirty- 
 seven million people in China will h elp us to 
 u nderstand the need of Christianity in the 
 empire. Perhaps I can give American read- 
 ers in the brief space at my command 
 a better conception of the religion of China 
 by omitting entirely the conclusions formed 
 from a study of six or seven volumes upon 
 the religions of the empire, and describing 
 the religious life of the people as it im- 
 pressed itself upon me. 
 
 As soon as a Chinese boy is old enough 
 to stand alone, he is taught to hold his 
 hands together in front of him and to wor- 
 ship before the tablets of his more recent 
 ancestors kept in the home. A 
 
 where the tablets of the earlier 
 ancestors of himself and the clan to which 
 he belongs are kept, and there joins in their 
 2 17 
 
18 China and Methodism. 
 
 worship. Parents in China no more leave 
 their children to choose their religion than 
 to choose the language they will learn. An- 
 cestors are worshiped by bowing, kneel- 
 ing, kotowing, or touching the head to the 
 floor, by prayers, and those who have re- 
 cently died are offered food and drink. 
 
 As soon as a boy is able to walk, he is 
 taken by his father or mother to the 
 shrines which line most roads or to the 
 temples in villages and towns, and he joins 
 in worship there. This worship consists 
 in burning incense, in praying, and some- 
 times in offering food and drink. 
 
 Chinese religion also enters to some ex- 
 tent into the celebration of the two chief 
 events in life — marriage and death. As the 
 child is not supposed to have a soul until 
 it is two years old, no religious celebration 
 attends its birth. At marriage the bride- 
 groom and the bride worship his ances- 
 tors, heaven and earth, and spirits which 
 they may deem it wise to placate; and by 
 this act the bride renounces her own fam- 
 ily and becomes a worshiper at the shrine 
 of her husband. A dying person is clothed 
 in his best garments, that he may appear 
 
Religions. 19 
 
 properly in the next world. A small piece 
 of money is often placed in the mouth of 
 the dead person to pay his passage across 
 the river, and sometimes a cake is put into 
 one hand of the dying person and a stick 
 into the other, in order that the spirit may 
 throw a sop to the dog which is said to op- 
 pose the passage, and in case the cake does 
 not engage the dog's attention, that he may 
 drive him off with the stick. Hideous 
 music is kept up in the house after death 
 in order to drive away the evil spirits ; and 
 at* the funeral paper money, paper houses, 
 paper furniture, etc., are burned, which are 
 supposed to be transformed by this process 
 into a spiritual form and to serve the de- 
 parted in the next world. After death, the 
 Taoist or Buddhist priest is consulted as to 
 a suitable place, a suitable time, and a suit- 
 able position of the body for burial. 
 
 The Chinese stand in mortal dread of 
 "Feng-shui" or the spirits of the wind and 
 the water, which are offended unless bodies 
 are buried, houses erected, roads laid out, 
 walls built, etc., etc., according to the di- 
 rections of the priests. 
 
 Each person is supposed to have three 
 
20 China and Methodism. 
 
 souls, one of which goes to the next world, 
 which the Buddhists teach will be good or 
 bad according to the deeds done in the 
 body; one of which resides in the tablet 
 of the deceased, which is kept in the home 
 until the accumulation leads to its removal 
 to the hall of tablets; and one of which 
 lingers near the body at the grave. In case 
 of any neglect of the spirit which abides in 
 the tablet or at the grave, that spirit suiters 
 torment itself and inflicts torment in the 
 way of disease, floods, accidents, etc., upon 
 the living. Hence the chief desire of every 
 family in China is to have a son to perform 
 the ancestral rites, as according to Chinese 
 theology, these rites can be fittingly per- 
 formed only by a son. In case a wife does 
 not bear her husband a son within a few 
 years after marriage, then the husband, on 
 the command of his parents, or of his own 
 volition, selects a second wife. Inasmuch 
 as the whole clan may suffer from the lack 
 of a son to perform the ancestral rites, 
 public sentiment not only indorses, but fre- 
 quently demands the possession of two 
 wives upon the part of the husband. In 
 case the husband is not fortunate enough 
 
Religions. 21 
 
 to secure a son through two or more wives, 
 he will ask a son from some other mem- 
 ber of the clan, or else buy a son, who at 
 once severs all connection to the family to 
 which he belongs by birth and becomes a 
 member of the family of his new father. 
 One universal form of religion in China, 
 therefore, is ancestor worship. 
 
 In addition to ancestor worship and per- 
 haps forming an integral part of the same 
 religious system is animism or a belief in 
 the spirits which inhabit wood, wa- 
 
 nimism ^^^^ rocks, rivcrs, mountains, etc. 
 In Shensi literally thousands of trees have 
 streamers fastened to them indicating that 
 people have been healed of their diseases or 
 helped by praying to the spirit inhabiting 
 the tree. Indeed, I have never seen a build- 
 ing in process of erection in China without 
 tufts of straw tied to the tops of the poles, 
 sustaining the scaffolding, in order to pla- 
 cate the spirits. The Chinese believe that the 
 spirits are everywhere around us. Some of 
 them are supposed to be beneficent, but the 
 vast majority of them inflict evils upon man- 
 kind, and any one of them may easily be- 
 
22 China and Methodism. 
 
 come dangerous. One is impressed with the 
 horrible forms and features of the images 
 of almost all of their gods in the temples. 
 The only two divinities with placid features 
 are Buddha and the Goddess of Mercy, and 
 the Chinese believe that it is so difficult 
 to arouse these to an active interest in their 
 affairs that I have seen stone images of 
 Buddha considerably worn by the pound- 
 ing of worshipers to awaken his interest. 
 The vast majority of Chinese believe that 
 the griping and the pains which attend dis- 
 ease are due to the literal gripping of the 
 vitals by some evil spirit, and the common 
 practice of medicine among them is an 
 attempt, by horrible noises, by terrible de- 
 coctions to be taken internally, by pricking 
 the body with needles, cutting it with knives 
 and burning it with fire, to drive out the 
 evil spirit which has temporarily taken po- 
 session of the body and which is causing 
 the pain. Few streets in China are built 
 straight, because the spirits are supposed to 
 fly in straight lines, and they can not find 
 their way through crooked streets. A Chi- 
 nese house is surrounded, when the Chi- 
 naman is able to afford the luxury, with a 
 
Religions. 23 
 
 high wall without any openings in order to 
 keep out the spirits, and a second blank 
 wall is built three or four feet in front 
 of the gate so that in case a spirit is fly- 
 ing toward the inclosure when the entrance 
 is open, he will strike the wall in front 
 and not find the gateway. The spirit is 
 supposed to be unable to turn a corner. 
 Tens of thousands of boys in China wear 
 at least one ear-ring in order to make the 
 spirits think that they are girls and hence of 
 no value to their parents. It is supposed 
 that the spirits are too stupid to look at 
 both ears, and that one ear-ring will de- 
 ceive them. Possibly the similarity in 
 dress between boys and girls and between 
 men and women is due to the same super- 
 stition. I judge that the Chinese are to- 
 day in substantially the same state of su- 
 perstition as were our ancestors when they 
 originated that form of church architecture 
 which represents the head and part of the 
 body of huge monsters projecting from 
 the churches in the form of gargoyles, etc., 
 striving to escape from the place where 
 Jesus is enthroned. When I asked several 
 Chinese leaders of our Foochow Confer- 
 
24 China and Methodism. 
 
 ence what proportion of our membership 
 believe in the presence to-day in China of 
 evil spirits similar to those portrayed in 
 the New Testament, they replied that they 
 supposed more than half of them had be- 
 come Christians through their belief that 
 Jesus could cast out evil spirits and deliver 
 them from their power. Mountains, rivers, 
 gulfs, rapids, whirlpools, etc., are the favor- 
 ite haunts of spirits, and especially of the 
 great dragon. If one could see the num- 
 ber of people throughout China beating 
 upon gongs and drums and every resound- 
 ing object and shouting in wild excitement 
 at the time of an eclipse to keep the dragon 
 from swallowing the moon and the sun; 
 if one could realize the horror among the 
 Chinese at our digging into mountains for 
 coal or making cuts through hills for rail- 
 ways, lest we touch the back of the great 
 dragon and produce an earthquake, flood, 
 or some other visitation of nature, he would 
 realize that the symbol on the Chinese flag 
 represents no mythical being, but one of 
 the most real and terrible monsters which 
 the Chinese imagination can conceive. One 
 can understand the poverty of the Chinese 
 
Religions. 25 
 
 when he learns that there are millions upon 
 millions, especially in the southern part of 
 the empire, who live on two to four cents 
 per day for each member of the household ; 
 and one can understand the superstition of 
 the Chinese when he learns that a people, 
 often suffering from insufficient food and 
 clothing, nevertheless spend from ten to 
 twenty per cent of their income in the dis- 
 charge of various rites for the dead, in of- 
 ferings to the priests, in idol worship, and 
 in deeds of charity to secure heavenly 
 merit. It is thus seen that ancestor wor- 
 ship and animism, or the belief that many 
 natural objects are inhabited by spirits 
 which must be placated, constitute the pre- 
 vailing religion of China. 
 
 Nor is the superstition connecte'd with 
 ancestor worship and animism confined to 
 the Ignorant. The worship of the gods of 
 agriculture, of rain, etc., by the emperor, 
 his ministers, and the viceroys at the spring- 
 time; the drinking of the blood of a fa- 
 mous robber last fall by the viceroy of 
 the two Kwang provinces in order that he 
 might acquire his bravery; the killing last 
 year of the favorite slave of the dying 
 
26 China and Methodism. 
 
 daughter of another viceroy in order that 
 the slave might accompany the dying girl 
 to the next world and continue to minister 
 to her there; the refilling of a deep cut 
 made for a road because the geomancer 
 said it disturbed the dragon and was 
 the cause of poor crops, — these and other 
 examples may be given to prove that even 
 the leaders of the empire are the slaves of 
 superstition. During the floods in Tientsin 
 in 1894, a snake took refuge in a temple; 
 and Li Hung Chang, the Bismarck of China, 
 publicly worshiped it as the embodiment 
 of the dragon. 
 
 We must not overlook the fact that 
 Buddha and the Goddess of Mercy are be- 
 lieved by the Chinese to be benevolent ; and 
 that part of their ancestor worship doubt- 
 less arises from their love of their parents. 
 But upon the whole, my observation and in- 
 quiries among the Chinese lead me to the 
 conviction that they think the good spirits 
 will serve them without offerings, while 
 the bad spirits demand offerings to placate 
 them. At least one sees tenfold as much 
 expenditure of time and effort and money 
 in placating evil spirits as in worshiping 
 
Religions. 27 
 
 the good spirits. One can not travel in 
 China with eyes and ears open without re- 
 aHzing the statement of Paul in First Co- 
 rinthians X, 19-23, that idol worship has be- 
 come in Asia, as it had become in Europe, 
 demon worship. The Bible furnishes a 
 striking illustration of a very predominant 
 trait of human nature in mentioning fear 
 as the first feeling arising in the human 
 heart on man's contact with the superna- 
 tural. One is almost humiliated in reading 
 that fear is the first emotion which arose 
 even in the heart of Mary at her first sight 
 of Gabriel. The corruption of human na- 
 ture and the fear which sin engenders has 
 led the Chinese to turn the spirits which 
 they worship into demons as the Corinthi- 
 ans had done before them. "What say I 
 then," says Paul "that a thing sacrificed 
 to idols is anything, or that an idol is any- 
 thing? But I say that the things which 
 the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to de- 
 mons and not to God ; I would not that ye 
 should have communion with demons. Ye 
 can not drink the cup of the Lord and the 
 cup of demons. Ye can not partake of the 
 
28 China and Methodism. 
 
 table of the Lord and o£ the table of 
 demons." 
 
 Summing up my first impressions of Chi- 
 nese worship, therefore, I should say that 
 while the Chinese are not spiritual, they 
 are full of spiritualism ; and that the spirits 
 which they worship have become in the vast 
 majority of cases demons and not angels. 
 While the Roman Catholics have shown far 
 greater willingness to adopt, or at least to 
 tolerate the heathen customs of the peoples 
 whom they evangelize than have the 
 Protestants, nevertheless they have mani- 
 fested real insight into Chinese religion and 
 displayed real strength in steadfastly hold- 
 ing for the last two hundred years that an- 
 cestor worship is idolatry. All Protestant 
 missionaries respect the learning and the 
 character of Dr. W. A. P. Martin. But 
 when at the Shanghai Conference of 1890 
 he proposed that Protestant missionaries 
 tolerate or modify ancestor worship, on the 
 ground that it is an expression of affection 
 and reverence for the dead, he found no sup- 
 porters in the large and progressive body 
 of missionaries there assembled. If idol- 
 atry were simply the worship of God un- 
 
Religions. 29 
 
 der a mistaken name, it would not be harm- 
 ful to the Chinese and it might not be worth 
 the effort and money of Christians to at- 
 tempt to overthrow it. But idolatry has 
 proved with them, as perhaps with all other 
 nations, to be demon worship. So deep is 
 the conviction of the Chinese that the 
 powers of the supernatural world are 
 evil and not good, that their strongest de- 
 sire is to be wholly delivered from super- 
 natural influences. This accounts for the 
 agnostic teachings of Laotse and Confucius, 
 and explains the Chinese tendency toward 
 agnosticism and materialism. Both of these 
 forms of unbelief afford temporary relief 
 from the superstitions which they supplant, 
 though in the end they leave the people even 
 less open to the gospel than the strong be- 
 lief in the supernatural, which is perverted 
 into superstition. The incredible part of the 
 gospel to the Chinese is that God is love. 
 They all accept the missionary's announce- 
 ment of the penalties of the law and readily 
 believe in the missionary's warning in re- 
 gard to future punishment. But that "God 
 so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
 
30 China and Methodism. 
 
 Him should not perish, but have eternal 
 life," is beyond belief. It seems liter- 
 ally too good to be true. I myself never so 
 fully icalized the meaning of the gospel as 
 "good news" as since spending the last two 
 years in this cellar of heathenism filled with 
 the darkness and made terrible by the hob- 
 goblins and the demons with which the sin- 
 ful imagination of the Chinese have filled 
 their every-day world. 
 
 Lack of space forbids the description 
 of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. 
 I need only say that while possibly God 
 may have designed Confucianism to 
 serve like the Old Testament as a law to 
 bring these countless millions to Christ, 
 the vast majority of them have used it, as 
 the vast majority of Jews used the Old Tes- 
 tament, to develop a Pharisaism which en- 
 ables them to dispense with the gospel; 
 while God may have sent them Buddha, 
 like a John the Baptist, as a forerunner of 
 the gospel, they have turned Buddha into a 
 substitute for Christ, and have further de- 
 graded Buddhism into the grossest super- 
 stition ; and Taoism has become so degrad- 
 ing a superstition that its priests and vo- 
 
Religions. 31 
 
 taries now receive only contempt from the 
 intelligent Chinese. If ever there was a 
 scientific demonstration by experiment of 
 the necessity of the gospel, not only for 
 eternal, but for temporal salvation, that dem- 
 onstration is furnished in a learned class 
 which is the most corrupt of any official 
 class on earth, and in four hundred and 
 thirty-eight million people, after two thou- 
 sand years of Confucianism and Buddhism 
 and Taoism, still in slavery to the grossest 
 superstitions. 
 
 It has been established that Zoroastrian- 
 ism was introduced into China in the early 
 centuries of the Christian era, and Mani- 
 chaeism later; but both were absorbed by 
 the Chinese people. The introduction of 
 Mohammedanism occurred during the 
 seventh century. Mohammedanism has its 
 largest following in the northwestern por- 
 tion of the empire, and it has once or twice 
 threatened the peace of the government in 
 that region, especially in the dependency 
 of East Turkestan. The Mohammedans in 
 China to-day probably exceed ten millions. 
 Owing to the rigid rule that the Koran 
 must not be translated, and to the fact 
 
32 China and Methodism. 
 
 that the Mohammedans dare not take the 
 sword in China to propagate their faith, 
 Mohammedanism, according to S. Wells 
 Williams, has not made the least impres- 
 sion on the polytheism of the empire, and 
 has not had the least influence in lifting the 
 morals of the people. The Jews entered 
 China probably during the Han Dynasty, 
 B. C. 202 to A. D. 221. Like the Koran, 
 the Old Testament was not translated into 
 the Chinese, and so far from modifying the 
 religion of the empire, the Jews, like the 
 Zoroastrians and the Manichaeans, have 
 been absorbed by the Chinese. Indeed, the 
 absorption of the Zoroastrians and the 
 Manichaeans and the Jews, the total lack 
 of influence of Mohammedanism, the prac- 
 tical transformation of Buddhism into a 
 Chinese form of animistic worship, indi- 
 cate that the Chinese are probably the 
 strongest race with whom alien religions 
 have thus far come in contact. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 Christianity in the; Empire). 
 
 The work of the Nestorian Christians 
 can probably be traced back to 505 A. D. 
 The famous Nestorian tablet, found at Sian 
 j^ . or Si-Ngan, the capitol of Shensi, 
 
 Chris- in 1625, was erected in 781, and 
 
 tianity contains the names of five em- 
 perors who embraced Christianity. The 
 Nestorian type of faith flourished to a 
 greater or less extent imtil the ninth cen- 
 tury, when the loss of early piety led to the 
 transformation of many of the churches 
 into heathen temples, although the faith 
 lingered for several centuries later. 
 
 Roman Catholic Christianity was intro- 
 duced into China in 1246, and a settled mis- 
 sion established in the empire in 1288 by 
 John Montecorvino. It is said^ that at his 
 death, in 1328, he had enrolled 
 Roman thirty thousand converts. It is af- 
 
 L/athoIicism - . ^ . i . i* ht 
 
 fectmg to read m his diary: It 
 is now twelve years since I have heard from 
 3 33 
 
34 China and Methodism. 
 
 the west;'' and it is extremely interesting 
 to read further on, "I have translated the 
 whole New Testament and the Psalms of 
 David." During the three centuries of 
 Mongol rule in China, there were many 
 flourishing Christian communities in north- 
 ern and central parts of the empire. But 
 the purity of the faith was gradually lost 
 through the introduction of image worship, 
 and on the establishment of the Ming Dy- 
 nasty, in 1368, the Roman Catholic con- 
 verts were largely absorbed into Moham- 
 medanism and Buddhism. 
 
 The second period of Roman Catholicism 
 extends from 1 582 to 1 736. It was inaugu- 
 rated by Francis Xavier, who was forbid- 
 den to enter China, and died on St. John's 
 Island, off the southern shore of the em- 
 pire, crying, ''O Rock, Rock, Rock, when 
 wilt thou break?" One of Xavier's com- 
 panions, Matteo Ricci, however, succeeded 
 in entering China in 1582 in the garb of a 
 Buddhist priest, and he set up an image of 
 Christ for worship, thus by his dress and his 
 conduct concealing his object and indicating 
 that he was an idolater. After twenty-one 
 years of effort, Ricci and certain com- 
 
Christianity in the Empire. 35 
 
 panions finally reached Peking through fol- 
 lowing the policy as stated by Abbe Hue, 
 "that the philosopher would make more im- 
 pression than the priest on minds so skeptic 
 and imbued with literary conceit/' The 
 first book translated by Ricci, with the aid 
 of the Chinese, was Euclid, and by 1636 
 the Catholic fathers had translated three 
 hundred and forty books, some of them 
 religious, but most of them relating to 
 natural philosophy and mathematics. Un- 
 der the leadership of Ricci and Schaal and 
 Verbiest, the three ablest leaders of the 
 Catholics during the second period, and by 
 the work of the five hundred Jesuit mis- 
 sionaries with them, the Church won large 
 apparent victories. Her triumphs, however, 
 were due to the substitution of image wor- 
 ship for Christian experience, to permission 
 given their converts to continue the worship 
 of Confucius and of ancestors, to the exer- 
 cise of civil authority for the protection of 
 their converts, and to their introduction of 
 western learning into the empire. They re- 
 lied mainly upon their catechists for the 
 conversion and instruction of their follow- 
 ers. But despite the defects in their work, 
 
36 China and Methodism. 
 
 some knowledge of the Bible, part of which 
 was orginally translated by Montecorvino 
 and a considerable knowledge of Christian 
 doctrine through the translation of Chris- 
 tian books reached the Chinese and devel- 
 oped a body of followers who in times of 
 persecution laid down their lives for the 
 Church and for the Church's Master. 
 
 The Franciscans and Dominicans were 
 drawn to the empire during the second pe- 
 riod by the apparent success of the Jesuits, 
 and bitter feuds arose between the Jesuits 
 and themselves. The Dominican Morales 
 secured the decision of Innocent X in 1645 
 that ancestor worship is idolatry ; the Jesuits 
 secured a reversal of the decision by Pope 
 Alexander VII in 1658; but in 1704 
 Clement XI condemned ancestor worship 
 and the worship of Confucius by a decision 
 undoubtedly in accordance with the facts, 
 a decision which the Roman Catholic 
 Church, at large cost to her prestige and 
 numbers, has consistently maintained down 
 to the present day. Owing to the inter- 
 ference of the Jesuits in political affairs 
 during the breakup of the Ming Dynasty, 
 about 1616, they lost their influence at 
 
Christianity in the Empire. 37 
 
 court, and the Church lost much of its 
 strength throughout the empire. Never- 
 theless the Church enjoyed another brief 
 period of prosperity in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century, and from 1700 to 17 18 
 a good survey and map of the Chinese em- 
 pire were made under the direction of the 
 Jesuits. 
 
 The most noted external events, in the 
 history of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 China during the last two centuries have 
 been the securing of access to the empire, 
 chiefly through the influence of Protestant 
 powers, the securing of the Edict of Tol- 
 eration by the treaty between China and the 
 United States in 1858, and the securing by 
 I'rance through pressure brought upon 
 China in 1899 of a treaty granting all Cath- 
 olic missionaries civil authority in the em- 
 pire. The Missiones Catholic ae for 1898 
 reports the total number of Catholic mis- 
 sionaries at 759 ; of baptized Christians, in- 
 cluding children, at 616,500, with thirty- 
 four colleges and thirty-four convents. 
 Owing to the weakness of the central gov- 
 ernment in the empire, China has furnished 
 an easy field for the maintenance of the 
 
38 China and Methodism. 
 
 Roman Catholic claim of civil as well as 
 ecclesiastical authority. Indeed, the civil 
 power is so grossly corrupt, the decisions of 
 the civil authorities are often so unjust and 
 cruel, and the adherents of Christianity are 
 so frequently selected for persecution by 
 the authorities in the hope of extorting 
 bribes that even Protestant missionaries 
 have felt tempted at times to exercise civil 
 authority in the interest of their converts. 
 But the practical impossibility of getting at 
 the real facts in Chinese lawsuits and the 
 long line of historical abuses arising from 
 the exercise of civil authority by the Church 
 in Europe and the New Testament example 
 of Christians enduring persecution with- 
 out an appeal to the civil authorities led the 
 Protestant missionaries unanimously to re- 
 ject the Chinese offer of civil authority to 
 themselves, following the extortion of sim- 
 ilar authority from the Chinese Government 
 by France for the French Catholic priests. 
 The Archbishop has the title and the honors 
 of a Viceroy, the Bishop those of a Gov- 
 ernor, the Priest those of a prefect or ruler 
 of a large district, while the native priests 
 and the native Christians are responsible for 
 
Christianity in the Empire. 39 
 
 their entire conduct to the foreign priests 
 and bishops. In a word, the French Cath- 
 olics have demanded, and to a large ex- 
 tent have secured, extraterritoriality for all 
 their members throughout the empire. 
 
 The interference in yamen cases by the 
 French Catholics concerns all Christians, 
 because the Chinese can no more tell the 
 difference between an Englishman and a 
 Frenchman than Americans can tell the dif- 
 ference between a Cantonese and Tientsin 
 Chinaman. Hence in the recent Nanchang 
 riot, caused by the unwarranted interfer- 
 ence of the French priests with the action 
 of the Chinese courts and the death of the. 
 Chinese magistrate at the French priest's 
 home, English and American Protestants 
 suffered with French Catholics. Surely in 
 the interest of international peace, not to 
 speak of the spread of the gospel, the gov- 
 ernments of England and America should 
 ask France to follow her action in sepa- 
 rating Church and State at home by their 
 separation also in China. Until this reform 
 is brought about, Protestant missionaries 
 owe it to their countries and to their own 
 Churches, as well as to the Chinese, to com- 
 
40 China and Methodism. 
 
 mend heartily the truth which the Roman 
 CathoHcs have brought to China, the self- 
 sacrifice and the heroism of many of their 
 missionaries in the propagation of this truth, 
 and the heroism of the Chinese martyrs who 
 have died for the Catholic as well as the 
 Protestant faiths, on the one side ; but, upon 
 the other side, to draw the line distinctly 
 between the Catholic and the Protestant 
 view of the right of the Church to inter- 
 fere in civil affairs and to protest earnestly 
 against the use of earthly weapons for the 
 propagation of the gospel of the Prince of 
 Peace. 
 
 The Greek Catholic Church was estab- 
 lished in Peking in 1685, and the faith has 
 continued in existence in the empire down 
 to the present time. The Greek Church, 
 however, has never been active in prose- 
 cuting its work, and has to-day only a 
 handful of converts. It is not a force to 
 be reckoned with in the empire. 
 
 One of the most philosophical Chinese 
 Christians said half musingly last year, 
 "Why if Jehovah is the God of all the earth 
 has He passed by the largest nation and left 
 it century after century without the; gos- 
 
Christianity in the Empire. 41 
 
 pel? Will not the Judge of all the earth 
 do right?" After musing a little longer, 
 he added: "When the Nestorians came to 
 us in the fifth century we absorbed them 
 and transformed their religion into heathen- 
 ism. So we absorbed the Roman Catholic 
 religion when it first appeared in the em- 
 pire in the thirteenth century ; we have ab- 
 sorbed Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism 
 and Judaism, and transformed Mohammed- 
 anism far more than we have been trans- 
 formed by it. Possibly God has been 
 waiting century after century for a means 
 strong enough to transform this mighty 
 empire. Has He found it in the open Bible 
 and the purest and most triumphant type 
 of Christianity thus far known on earth?" 
 Protestant Christian Missions in China 
 may be summed up under five periods : 
 First, the pioneer period, between 1807 and 
 1842, inaugurated by Robert Morrison, who 
 was later joined by William Miller. In 
 18 14 Morrison baptized his first convert, 
 Tsai A-ko. In 18 18 Morrison and Miller 
 completed the translation of the Bible into 
 Chinese, and it was published in 182 1 by 
 the East India Company. Morrison died 
 
42 China and Methodism. 
 
 in 1834, the first Protestant missionary 
 statesman of the Chinese empire. Dur- 
 ing the first period of thirty-five years, 
 two of the eighteen provinces were reached, 
 but only six converts were won. 
 
 The second period, 1842 to i860, dates 
 from the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, by 
 which the five treaty ports of Canton, 
 Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai 
 were opened to foreign trade and residence. 
 Chinese traditional contempt for the for- 
 eigners had been turned into hatred by the 
 war with Great Britain, closed in 1842, by 
 which the opium traffic was forced upon 
 the country. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that at the close of the second period in 
 i860, despite the fact that fifteen additional 
 societies had entered the field and the mis- 
 sionary force had increased to one hun- 
 dred and sixty, there were fewer than a 
 thousand Christians. 
 
 The third period, i860- 1877, was inaugu- 
 rated by the Treaty of Tientsin, enabling 
 travelers to go by passport to any part of 
 the empire and establishing religious free- 
 dom throughout China. Under this treaty 
 the missionaries began to penetrate to the 
 
Christianity in the Empire. 43 
 
 interior. The report of the Shanghai Con- 
 ference in 1877 showed four hundred and 
 thirteen missionaries in China, an increase 
 of threefold, and eighteen thousand con- 
 verts, an increase of eighteen-fold. 
 
 The fourth period of missionary activity, 
 1877 to 1900, shows an increase of mission- 
 aries from 473 to 2,785, with 3,698 native 
 workers of both sexes. The number of 
 missionary societies had risen to sixty-eight, 
 all of the eighteen provinces were occupied, 
 and the number of communicants had risen 
 from eighteen thousand to one hundred 
 and twelve thousand. 
 
 The fifth period dates from 1900 to 1907. 
 It was inaugurated by the Boxer uprising, 
 which resulted in the death of one hundred 
 and eighty-six Protestant missionaries and 
 of some ten thousand Protestant converts. 
 At first it seemed that the results of a cen- 
 tury's struggle for the evangelization of 
 the empire had been swept away. But, 
 as on other occasions, the blood of the 
 martyrs has proved the seed of the Church. 
 The Protestant Churches have not only re- 
 gained the losses made in 1900, but the 
 number of missionaries has increased from 
 
44 China and Methodism. 
 
 2,785 to 3,241 and the number of converts, 
 despite the loss by martyrdom, has in- 
 creased from 112,000 to substantially 150,- 
 000. 
 
 The missionaries in China constitute so 
 fully a common brotherhood that the 
 Protestant missionaries especially through- 
 out the empire stand in as close relations 
 to each other as the Methodist preachers in 
 the United States. It seems ungracious, 
 therefore, to pass by their work with this 
 brief reference and to devote an entire 
 chapter to the work of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church. I could take 
 up the work of almost any other Church in 
 China and present it in such a way as to in- 
 spire that Church at home with a just ad- 
 miration for the heroic service of her mis- 
 sionaries and with a just pride in the splen- 
 did results which they have achieved in the 
 Chinese Empire. As, however, I am writ- 
 ing to secure men and money from the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church for the re-en- 
 forcement of our work in China, I now 
 pass the work of the other Churches for a 
 larger, but wholly incomplete, portrayal of 
 the work of our own missions. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MitTHODisT Episcopai, Church in China. 
 
 Four incidents contributed to the found- 
 ing of the Methodist Church in China. 
 First, the Missionary Lyceum of Wesleyan 
 
 University, Middletown, Conn., in 
 Opening jg-^^ debated the question, "What 
 
 is the Most Promising Field for 
 a Foreign Mission of Our Churgh?" 
 China was strongly advocated, ^nd as 
 a result of the debate a committee 
 was formed to prepare an appeal for 
 opening a mission in that land. An appeal 
 was published in The Christian Advocate, 
 and fourteen hundred and fifty dollars were 
 raised for this purpose. Second, Rev. Jud- 
 son Dwight Collins graduated in 1845 '^^ 
 the first class of the University of Mich- 
 igan. Before graduation he offered him- 
 self to the Missionary Society for China. 
 Upon learning, on graduation, from Bishop 
 Janes, that our Church had no mission in 
 45 
 
46 China and Methodism. 
 
 China, he wrote again, asking the bishop 
 to secure for him passage before the mast 
 on the first vessel SaiHng* adding, "My own 
 strong arm can pull me to China and sup- 
 port me after I get there." Third, the fore- 
 sight of the Wesleyan students and the en- 
 thusiasm of the Michigan graduate were 
 re-enforced by a statesmanlike address by 
 President Wilbur Fisk, of Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity, in 1846, advocating the opening of a 
 mission in China by our Church. Fourth, 
 the agitation of the ten years culminated in 
 the personal sacrifice of Rev. W. C. Palmer, 
 D. D., who in 1846 subscribed one hundred 
 dollars* a year for ten years for the found- 
 ing of a mission in China, and largely se- 
 cured twenty-nine other persons for sim- 
 ilar subscriptions. Thus the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church undertook the evangel- 
 ization of a fourth of the human race on 
 the pledge of three thousand dollars a year 
 for ten years, with most of the pledges 
 made by Methodist preachers who had no 
 knowledge of where their next year's sup- 
 port would come from. It was the day of 
 heroic faith; but faith triumphed. In 1846 
 China was placed on the Hst of Methodist 
 
M. E. Church In China. 47 
 
 Episcopal missions, and Rev. Judson 
 Dwight Collins and Rev. Moses C. White, 
 M. D., were accepted as the first mission- 
 aries of our Church. 
 
 Fortunately our Church, in her mission- 
 ary activities, followed the Divine order — 
 namely, beginning from Jerusalem. Our 
 first mission was to Indians in our own 
 land; our second to an American colony 
 from our own land, then settled in Liberia ; 
 our third to a sister republic in South 
 America under Roman Catholic domina- 
 tion, and our fourth to a foreign land — 
 namely, China. Bishop Coke, one hundred 
 and thirty-two years earlier, leaping over 
 the intermediate steps, had summoned our 
 Church to found a foreign mission in India 
 and, himself leading in the heroic effort, 
 had died at sea and been buried in the 
 Indian Ocean — only an ocean is large 
 enough for fitting sepulcher of such a man. 
 Bishop Coke's dream was now realized 
 in the founding of the first mission of our 
 Church among a wholly non-Christian peo- 
 ple. 
 
 Brothers Collins and White sailed from 
 Boston on the good ship Heber, April 15, 
 
48 China and Methodism. 
 
 1847, *^^<i landed at Macao, near Canton, 
 ^, ^ about the middle of Ausrust, and 
 
 The Foo- , ' 
 
 chow Mis on September 4th reached Foo- 
 ^'°" chow, their intended station. They 
 were welcomed by Stephen Johnson and 
 Lyman B. Peet, of the American Board, 
 who had reached Foochow a few weeks 
 earlier; and the delightful relations thus in- 
 augurated have continued between the two 
 missions for sixty years. 
 
 While the missionaries were learning the 
 language, they aw^akened the interest of the 
 Chinese by the successful use of a small 
 stock of medicines which Dr. White had 
 brought from America and by the distri- 
 bution of a large number of tracts and por- 
 tions of the Scripture, which they had se- 
 cured from English missionaries at Macao 
 and Hongkong. So eager was the dem.and 
 for literature that the first request which 
 the missionaries sent home w^as for a print- 
 ing press. Our missionaries were among 
 the first to recognize the Chinese reverence 
 for learning and to use modern education 
 along with medicine and Christian litera- 
 ture as providential means for the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity. Hence in February, 
 
M. E. Church in China. 49 
 
 1848, the first boys' school was opened with 
 eight pupils and a school for girls with ten 
 pupils, while a Sunday-school was organ- 
 ized in March. April, 1848, Rev. R. $• 
 Maclay and wife and Rev. Harry Hickok 
 and wife reached the mission. Illness drove 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hickok to America the next 
 year, but Doctor Maclay became one of the 
 founders of our Church in China, later the 
 founder of our missions in Japan, and later 
 still the founder of our missions in Korea ; 
 and he still lives in ripe old age, one of the 
 missionary statesmen of our Church. 
 
 So great was Doctor White's success that 
 in 185 1 Rev. Isaac W. Wiley, M. D., and 
 wife arrived to engage in medical and edu- 
 cational work. The four forms of all suc- 
 cessful missionary work— namely, the dis- 
 tribution of Christian literature and espe- 
 cially of the Bible, educational work, med- 
 ical work, and preaching the gospel — were 
 now successfully launched. 
 
 The work which had begun so auspi- 
 ciously now began to suffer reverses, but 
 from causes entirely beyond the control of 
 the missionaries. Illness, which in 1849 
 had driven Brother and Sister Hickok 
 4 
 
so China and Methodism. 
 
 home, compelled J. D. Collins to return to 
 America in 185 1 — alas! too late for human 
 help, and he died in 1852, the first mission- 
 ary martyr for China. In 1853 the death 
 of Mrs. White compelled Dr. White to 
 return to America, where he rose rapidly 
 in his profession and became a professor 
 in Yale University, never losing his inter- 
 est in the work in China. Again, the Tai- 
 ping Rebellion, which from 185 1 to 1865 
 proved a veritable scourge of God for 
 China, drove to Hongkong for protection in 
 1852 all the Foochow missionaries except 
 Dr. and Mrs. Wiley. Dr. Wiley trusted 
 to his medical influence for protection, 
 and he and his wife ventured to continue 
 the work. But in a few months Mrs. Wiley 
 died, and the doctor, with his motherless 
 children, was compelled to return to the 
 United States, thus leaving the mission at 
 Foochow, at the end of six years' effort, 
 without a single convert or a single worker 
 on the field. Methodism is not easily dis- 
 couraged, however, and in 1855 the work 
 was resumed by R. S. Maclay and wife, 
 while Rev. Erastus Wentworth and wife 
 and Rev. Otis Gibson and wife were sent 
 
M. E. Church in China. 51 
 
 out as re-enforcements. August 3, 1856, 
 the first Methodist Episcopal Church built 
 in China was dedicated under the name 
 the Church of the True God. 
 
 The year 1857 rnarks not only the first 
 decennial year of our work in China, but 
 a new era in the mission; it witnessed the 
 first convert to Christianity won by our 
 missionaries in the empire — namely, Ting 
 An, a man forty-seven years old, with a 
 wife, five children, and a host of relatives. 
 A few weeks later his wife and two of his 
 children were baptized, Mrs. Ting being 
 the first woman convert in the Fukien 
 Province and the first woman baptized by 
 our Church in China. By the end of the 
 year, thirty-eight adults and three children 
 were received by baptism. The faith of our 
 missionaries was thus publicly honored by 
 God, and it seemed to them as if the mil- 
 lennium had come. In 1858 the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church was regularly organized 
 in China, with members, probationers, class- 
 meetings, quarterly-meetings, and all the 
 other features of our work. 
 
 In 1859 the work began to spread, and 
 thirteen inquirers were enrolled at To- 
 
52 China and Methodism. 
 
 cheng, fifteen miles northwest of Foochow 
 up the Ming River. The spiritual interest 
 now deepened rapidly, and inquirers and 
 converts began to multiply, so that in 1859 
 six Chinese converts were licensed as local 
 preachers. The Methodist system of re- 
 ceiving inquirers, first on probation, and of 
 starting men toward the ministry by a sim- 
 ple license to exhort, which may be recalled 
 at any time and which expires at the close 
 of a year unless renewed by formal vote, 
 proved a providential m.ethod of building 
 up our Church in China. By it our Church 
 was speedily enabled to enroll members 
 upon trial and to enlist native workers in 
 the ministry, and by it she is enrolling to- 
 day a larger number of members and of 
 native workers in proportion to her mis- 
 sionaries than any other Church in the 
 empire. 
 
 Along with Christianity, western educa- 
 tion and western medicine the missionaries 
 began in 1859 reform efforts in opposition 
 to foot-binding and to opium. They also 
 introduced into the empire white potatoes, 
 tomatoes, and many other vegetables and 
 fruits, so that almost every province in 
 
M. E. Church in China. 53 
 
 China has thus permanently enriched her 
 agricultural resources through missionary 
 efforts. 
 
 Encouraged by the success now attend- 
 ing the work, the Church at home sent out 
 in 1858 Rev. Stephen L. Baldwin and wife, 
 Miss Beulah Woolston, Miss Sarah Wools- 
 ton, and Miss Phoebe Potter. These young 
 women were the file-leaders of the splen- 
 did host of Woman's Foreign Missionary 
 Society workers in the empire, and soon 
 opened a girls' boarding-school. Doctor 
 Baldwin, by his splendid services in China 
 and in America and by his heroic death, 
 justly earned the title of the St. Stephen 
 of Chinese Methodism. In i860 Rev. Car- 
 los Martin and wife came out. Four years 
 later Brother Martin's four-year-old boy 
 fell ill with cholera, and the father carried 
 the lad in his arms, trying to soothe his pain, 
 until, at midnight, he brought the child to 
 his wife, saying, *'Mary, I can not keep up 
 another minute." Placing the child in its 
 mother's arms, he himself lay down over- 
 come by the same disease. Two hours later 
 the father was unconscious, and the child 
 died. Before sunrise the father passed 
 
54 China and Methodism. 
 
 away, and before sundown the two were 
 buried, and Mrs. Martin was a childless 
 widow. 
 
 Whereas the first ten years of missionary 
 effort were required to make a single con- 
 vert, the second ten years proved fruitful, 
 and in 1867 four hundred and fifty members 
 of our Church were reported. The mission 
 now entered upon a period of expansion. 
 While it had only eleven workers, counting 
 the wives of the missionaries, for the twen- 
 two-million people of the Fukien Province, 
 yet this little band heroically consented that 
 the eight new missionaries just arriving 
 should go to the regions beyond and open 
 up new fields. Before following these new 
 recruits to their heroic tasks, let us complete 
 the sketch of the Foochow Mission. 
 
 Rev. Isaac W. Wiley, M. D., who had 
 come to Foochow as a missionary in 1852, 
 who had remained at the station as a phy- 
 sician and evangelist when the other mis- 
 sionaries were driven to Hongkong, who 
 had buried his wife at Foochow a little later 
 and been compelled to return to America 
 with his motherless children, steadily rose 
 in the estimation of the Church at home, 
 
M. E. Church in China. 55 
 
 was elected to the Episcopacy in 1872, vis- 
 isted China as Bishop in 1877, and organ- 
 ized the first Annual Conference in this 
 great empire. Surely as Doctor Wiley stood 
 in 1852 in the little cemetery at Foochow 
 on ground hallowed by the death of his 
 wife ; as he closed the door of the mission- 
 ary home, and looked down upon the city 
 from which he was being forced to return 
 to America without witnessing as the re- 
 sult of the labors of himself and his fellow- 
 workers a single convert, he must have 
 been led to fear that the whole movement 
 was a miserable Methodist fiasco, springing 
 from the zeal of callow students, backed by 
 the unbalanced enthusiasm of preachers. 
 But when he was permitted to return twen- 
 ty-five years later and organize an Annual 
 Conference and witness two other missions, 
 springing out of the labors of himself and 
 his fellow-missionaries, his heart must have 
 cried out in gratitude, "What hath God 
 wrought !" It is still more remarkable that 
 seven years later Bishop Wiley, on another 
 tour around the world, reached Foochow 
 in time to lie down and die, November 22, 
 1884, thus finding his last resting-place on 
 
S6 China and Methodism. 
 
 the spot where he began his missionary la- 
 bors, a spot consecrated by the death of his 
 wife thirty-two years before and hallowed 
 by the later victories of the cross. In pro- 
 portion to the number buried there, no other 
 cemetery in our Church contains so many 
 men and women whose names are high upon - 
 the bead-roll of heroism. With Bishop and 
 Mrs. Wiley, Mrs. White, Mrs. Hickok, 
 Mrs. Wentworth, Carlos Martin, Nathan 
 Sites, Nathan J. Plumb, Professor Ben 
 March, and President Simester, the Foo- 
 chow Cemetery has become the Campo 
 Santo of Methodism. 
 
 We have not time to follow further the 
 history of this Conference or the record 
 of the noble leaders who have toiled and 
 suffered and died in carrying out Christ's 
 last command. We will even leave the in- 
 spiring statistics of her g-rowth for the sum- 
 mary at the close. Suffice it to say that were 
 all the missionaries of all the Churches and 
 all the members of the kingdom of heaven 
 on earth translated to glory to-day, save the 
 members of our Church in Foochow Confer- 
 ence, these twelve thousand Christians have 
 sufficient Christian experience, so close and 
 
M. E. Church in China. 57 
 
 personal a union with Christ, and sufficient 
 loyalty to Him to start the kingdom once 
 more around the world. Even if all Chris- 
 tian literature, including the Bible, were 
 taken from the earth, these Fukien Chris- 
 tians could reproduce from memory the 
 New Testament, the Psalms, Genesis, and 
 Exodus, and Job, word for word, and the 
 remainder of the Old Testament in substan- 
 tially its present form. What stronger 
 statement can be made for any Church in 
 any land on earth! 
 
 In 1866 Rev. Virgil C. Hart and wife 
 
 arrived at Foochow, and in 1867 they were 
 
 sent to Kiukiang-, about eight hundred 
 
 ^ , miles northwest of Foochow, and 
 
 Central 
 
 China Mis- about four hundred and fifty miles 
 ^'°" up the Yangtse, to open work in 
 Central China. Kiukiang was regarded as 
 the northern gateway to the Kiangsi Prov- 
 ince, as the eastern gateway to the Hupeh 
 Province, and the western gateway to the 
 Anhwei Province, and so was considered an 
 exceedingly important doorway to eighty- 
 five million people. Probably it would have 
 been better had our missionaries gone one 
 hundred and fifty miles further up the Yang- 
 
58 China and Methodism. 
 
 tze and settled at Hankow, which is prov- 
 ing to be the Chicago of China, and which, 
 with the cities of Hanyang and Wuchang, 
 on the opposite banks of the Yangtze and 
 the Han, now numbers two million people as 
 compared with eighty thousand in Kiuki- 
 ang. But our missionaries could not fore- 
 see the relative growth of these two cities 
 fifty years ago any more than pioneers could 
 foresee the relative growth of Chicago and 
 Milwaukee; and Kiukiang has proved to 
 be a good location with unlimited possibili- 
 ties of work. Doctor and Mrs. Hart were 
 soon re-enforced by Rev. Elbert S. Todd 
 and wife, and later by Rev. Henry H. Hall 
 and wife and Rev. John Ing and wife, and 
 our mission in Central China in due time 
 took up the four departments of Christian 
 work — distribution of the Bible, healing the 
 sick, teaching the children, and preaching 
 the gospel. 
 
 The father of Misses Anna and Mary 
 Stone was the first convert in the Hupeh 
 Province. His daughters were the first 
 girls in Central China belonging to the 
 better class of society who were brought 
 up with unbound feet. Through the self- 
 
M. E. Church in China. 59 
 
 sacrifice of Miss Gertrude Howe, who has 
 been in Central China for over thirty years, 
 these sisters and Dr. Ida Kahn were ed- 
 ucated in America. Miss Anna Stone has 
 cast the strange spell of her beautiful voice 
 and her winning personality over thousands 
 of people in America, whose hearts she has 
 won for China by her singing, and over a 
 still larger number in China, whose hearts 
 she has touched by her beautiful voice and 
 her saintly face. Like hundreds of thou- 
 sands in the homeland and millions in 
 China, she became a victim of the great 
 white plague, and in 1906 heard the Mas- 
 ter's call to join the angelic throng around 
 the throne. Dr. Mary Stone has become 
 the leading physician in Kiukiang, and, 
 like Dr. Ida Kahn, of Nanchang, and Dr. 
 Hu King Eng, of Foochow, she is render- 
 ing a spiritual and physical service to her 
 sisters in the empire which only eternity 
 will reveal. How little Dr. Hart, when 
 winning the Hupeh Chinaman, and Miss 
 Howe, when putting her money and influ- 
 ence into the training of these Chinese girls, 
 dreamed of the outreaching influence of 
 that family in the second generation ! How 
 
60 China and Methodism. 
 
 little men and women at home whose sacri- 
 fices are supporting workers in this greo.t 
 empire to-day foresee the splendid results 
 which coining generations will witness as 
 the outcome of their heroism and self sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 The leading stations in the Central China 
 Conference are Kiukiang, opened in 1867, 
 but now with the Kiukiang Girls' School, 
 the Woman's Hospital, and the William 
 Nast College, the center of life and hght 
 for millions of people surrounding it; 
 Wuhu, opened in 1882, the largest Chinese 
 port for the original shipment of rice, where 
 our women have secured a site worth five 
 times as much as they paid for it a few 
 years ago, and where Dr. E. H. Hart, son 
 of the founder of the mission, has the 
 leading surgical hospital on the Yangtze 
 River; Chinkiang, opened in 1882, where 
 the Grand Canal crosses the Yangtze, and 
 where our woman's hospital and girls' 
 school and preaching stations extend their 
 influence to other millions up and down the 
 river and the canal ; Yangchow, on the 
 Grand Canal, the center of the silk industry 
 and a strategical point for the introduction 
 
M. E. Church in China. 61 
 
 of our work to the regions lying north of 
 the Yangtze, and Nanking, the old capital 
 of the empire, and still the leading intellec- 
 tual and political center of the Yangtze Val- 
 ley, where our Nanking University, our 
 Philander Smith Memorial Hospital, our 
 Girls' school, and our evangelistic work are 
 sending out streams of healing to addi- 
 tional millions in the Kiangsu, Anhwei, and 
 Kiangsi Provinces ; and Nanchang, the last 
 station to be founded and the last of the 
 seven cities of China with a million or more 
 inhabitants to open its doors to the gospel. 
 Our work in Central China has proceeded 
 with a rapidity which would have been re- 
 garded as providential by the early mission- 
 aries in the empire. The gains, however, 
 have not been so rapid as in the other four 
 missions of our Church in China. This 
 slower growth is due chiefly to the fact that 
 in Central China our boundless opportuni- 
 ties exceed so largely our present resources. 
 When we thrust fifty missionaries into three 
 provinces for the distribution of Christian 
 literature, the healing, teaching, and evan- 
 gelization of more people than are found in 
 the United States to-day, what can our 
 
62 China and Methodism. 
 
 Church expect but a lack of supervision and 
 leadership and a consequent failure of the 
 native Christians to measure up to the re- 
 sponsibilities thus thrust upon them? If, 
 in addition to re-enforcing the workers in 
 our present hospitals, schools, and colleges, 
 we can speedily put one missionary for 
 evangelistic work into the Central China 
 Mission for each five million of the pop- 
 ulation, we can secure results there which 
 will cause the heart of the Church at home 
 to leap for joy and the angels in heaven to 
 strike a new note of victory. 
 
 January 20, 1869, Rev. Lucius N. 
 Wheeler and wife were sent to Peking to 
 open the North China Mission. February 
 
 2y, 1869, Rev. Hiram H. Lowry 
 China ^^^ ^^^^ followcd, and on Doctor 
 Confer- Wheclcr's retirement, on account 
 
 of ill health, from the superintend- 
 ency of the mission in 1873, Doctor Lowry 
 was made superintendent and continued in 
 that position until the mission became a 
 Conference. The North China Mission 
 followed in the footsteps of the Foochow 
 Mission, and adopted the four forms of 
 propagation universal in Protestant mis- 
 
M. E. Church in China. 63 
 
 sions — namely, the distribution of the Bible 
 and Christian literature, healing the sick, 
 teaching the young, and preaching the gos- 
 pel. Peking, as the capital of the empire, 
 and as a city of between one and two mil- 
 lion people, has been the center of our work 
 for the Chihli Province perhaps even more 
 fully than Foochow, with its million inhab- 
 itants, has been the center of our work for 
 the Fukien Province. 
 
 A providential incident carried the gospel 
 into the adjoining Shantung Province. In 
 1874 a Mr. Wang of that province, with 
 thousands of other Chinese students, was 
 attending the examinations for the highest 
 degree at Peking. While there he heard 
 the gospel preached in one of our street 
 chapels. He was much impressed with the 
 story of a Savior who was the Son of the 
 only true God and who had come to earth 
 to save men from the guilt and the power 
 of sin. He procured the New Testament 
 and other Christian literature and became at 
 heart a believer. On his return to Shan- 
 tung he told his wife of the strange new 
 faith which had wrought peace to his soul. 
 She was so eager to know more about the 
 
64 China and Methodism. 
 
 doctrine that she resolved upon a personal 
 journey to Peking, and her son took her all 
 the way from Taian to the capital, a dis- 
 tance of four hundred and sixty-three miles, 
 in a wheelbarrow. She also became a joyful 
 disciple of Jesus Christ, and continues to 
 this day to bear testimony to His saving 
 power to thousands of her fellowcitizens. 
 Her great ambition is to reach the Dowager 
 Empress and tell her the wondrous story of 
 personal salvation through Jesus Clirist, be- 
 fore the Empress is called to render an ac- 
 count for the deeds done in the body. It 
 was through the faith and the self-sacrifice 
 and the heroism of the Wangs that Meth- 
 odism was introduced into the Shantung 
 Province. Their son, Wang Chengpai, be- 
 came a minister, and witnessed a heroic 
 confession to his faith by a martyr's death 
 during the Boxer uprising. 
 
 In 1878 the Peking Boys' [Boarding- 
 school was opened with six students. This 
 developed into the Wiley Institute in 1885, 
 and was organized as Peking University in 
 1888. The revivals held at Peking Uni- 
 versity under President Lowry in 1905-6 
 swept one hundred and twenty-five young 
 
M. E. Church in China. 65 
 
 men into the Christian ministry, and led 
 the young men, on their own initiative, to 
 form the first Student Volunteer Band in 
 China. This is the most hopeful sign of 
 self -propagation we have thus far seen in 
 the empire. I doubt also if any other re- 
 cent revival at any single church or college 
 in the world has led so many into the min- 
 istry of our Lord Jesus Christ as has this 
 outpouring of the Spirit upon a Church in 
 a mission land. 
 
 In 1880 Doctor John F. Goucher, of 
 Baltimore, gave five thousand dollars to 
 establish a woman's hospital at Tientsin, 
 and the hospital was dedicated in 1881 as 
 the Isabella Fisher Hospital. In 1893 the 
 North China Conference and the North 
 China Woman's Conference were organ- 
 ized. In 1902 the John L. Hopkins Me- 
 morial Hospital was dedicated at Peking, 
 and in 1906 the medical work Of Peking 
 University was united with the medical 
 work of the London Mission, the American 
 Board, and the Presbyterian Mission, thus 
 forming the strongest medical school in the 
 Chinese Empire. 
 
 The great event in the history of the 
 5 
 
66 China and Methodism. 
 
 North China Conference was the baptism 
 of fire and blood through which our Churcfi 
 was called to pass in connection with the 
 Boxer uprising. The story is vividly told 
 in Professor Headland's ''Chinese Heroes." 
 As a providential preparation for the out- 
 break, Rev. J. H. Pyke, w^ho had been a 
 member of our mission since 1873, and 
 whose own spiritual strength had been 
 greatly renewed by participating in revival 
 services at Ohio Wesleyan University, con- 
 ducted by Rev. S. L. Keen in 1893, returned 
 to China, and was used by the Lord for the 
 promotion of revivals, not only in our 
 Church, but in other Churches in North 
 China. During the Boxer uprising these 
 revivals v/ere recognized as a providential 
 preparation, enabling literally thousands of 
 Christians to witness a good confession to 
 Christ by deaths matching in heroism the 
 deaths of Ridley, Cranmer, and Huss at the 
 time of the Reformation. I need not re- 
 count the story of the brilliant heroism dis- 
 played by our Methodist missionaries and 
 others in the Peking siege and in the strug- 
 gles and capture of Tientsin. We are 
 proud of the fact that one of our mission- 
 
M. E. Church In China. 67 
 
 aries, Prof. F. D. Gamewell, was chosen 
 from the representatives of the five leading 
 governments then in Peking to take in 
 charge the erection and maintenance of the 
 fortification of the legations during the five 
 months' siege; and that he discharged the 
 task with such signal ability and fidelity as 
 to win the hearty commendation of Sir 
 Claude Macdonald, commander of all the 
 troops, the enthusiastic praise of the London 
 Times, and the formal thanks of the British 
 Government, tendered him officially through 
 the American Secretary of State. But Doc- 
 tor Gamewell insists to this day that he has 
 not shown a particle more bravery and de- 
 votion than Brothers W. T. Hobart, J. H. 
 Pyke, George R. Davis, William F. Walker, 
 George W. Verity, and Doctor George D. 
 Lowry, who met the respective duties as- 
 signed to them with equal fidelity. The pro- 
 tection of the legations and of the mission- 
 aries from the longest continued rain of 
 shot and shell in history was due not simply 
 and perhaps not chiefly to the combined ef- 
 forts of the soldiers and missionaries, but 
 to the Chinese Christians vv^ho built the ram- 
 parts in obedience to foreign orders and ce- 
 
68 China and Methodism. 
 
 mented them with their blood, and above 
 all to the God of the universe, who holds 
 the destinies of individuals and of nations 
 in the hollow of His hand. 
 
 I can not leave the Boxer uprising with- 
 out at least a fuller reference to the splen- 
 did heroism of the Chinese Christians. Just 
 before the Boxer outbreak word was sent 
 to N. L. Hopkins, M. D., and Rev. J. N. 
 Hayner, who, with their wives and children, 
 were in Tsunhua, that danger was impend- 
 ing. Doctor Edna G. Terry and Mrs. Geo. 
 D. Lowry and Mrs. H. E. King, with the 
 children of the latter two, were also at 
 Tsunhua. Doctor Hopkins and Brother 
 Hayner did not think the danger was se- 
 rious, and did not leave the city immedi- 
 ately. A second messenger arrived between 
 nine and ten o'clock in the evening, inform- 
 ing them that the last train would pass 
 through Tongshan, sixty miles distant, at 
 noon the next day, and that their only hope 
 of escape was in catching this train. It took 
 much effort and several hours to secure 
 Chinese carts and get started from Tsunhua 
 to Tongshan, and the two men, five women, 
 and seven children left Tsunhua about two 
 
M. E. Church in China. 69 
 
 A. M. They were not out of the compound 
 a half hour before the mob broke in and set 
 the buildings on fire. At once the persecu- 
 tion of the Christians began. The Chinese 
 pastor was taken to a heathen temple and 
 urged to worship the heathen gods. This 
 he refused to do, and he was tied to one 
 of the stone lions throughout the night, 
 while his friends gathered around him and 
 urged him to renounce Christ; but he con- 
 tinued to bear witness to Christ's power to 
 save. At daylight the crowd rapidly in- 
 creased to several thousand, and in a mad 
 rush he was suddenly attacked and his 
 heart literally torn out by the mob. Nor did 
 the crowd confine its persecutions to men. 
 Among the women were two native teachers 
 of our girls' school at Tsunhua. These 
 were ofifered their lives on condition that 
 they would renounce Christ and become the 
 concubines of persons who proposed this 
 way of escape on that fatal day. The wo- 
 men declined. One of them had her feet 
 chopped off with a dull ax, and later was 
 killed with a sword. The other was 
 wrapped in cotton and soaked with kero- 
 sene and then set on fire and burned alive. 
 
70 China and Methodism. 
 
 Every Methodist in the place, with the ex- 
 ception of four or five who were small and 
 unknown, suffered martyrdom, and the 
 Tsunhua list of martyrs numbers one hun- 
 dred and sixty-three. 
 
 Perhaps another even more striking inci- 
 dent of the fidelity of the Chinese is found 
 in the Ch'en family. This has been one of 
 the leading families in the mission for many 
 years. The North China Conference closed 
 its session at Peking the day before the 
 Boxer uprising took place. Rev. Brother 
 Ch'en and wife and three children started 
 promptly back to their station. They were 
 overtaken and captured by the Boxers and 
 were offered their liberty and safety if they 
 would renounce the Christ. The father 
 steadfastly refused, and was put to death 
 in the presence of his wife and children. 
 The wife steadfastly refused to deny Christ, 
 and was then put to death in the presence of 
 her children. One son and two daughters 
 steadfastly refused to deny the Master and 
 were put to death. When I held the Con- 
 ference at Peking in 1905 one of the sur- 
 viving sons was the popular pastor of our 
 Asbury Church at Peking, the leading 
 
M. E. Church in China. 71 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in North 
 China. At his own personal and urgent re- 
 quest, I transferred him from this large 
 Church to the small one in a northern town 
 where his father suffered martyrdom, that 
 he might preach the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ to those who shamefully put his 
 family to death. The North China martyrs 
 have forever put to shame and contempt 
 American travelers who denounce Chinese 
 Church members as simply ''rice Chris- 
 tians." 
 
 As Lowry, Davis and Pilcher, Walker 
 
 and Pyke and Hobart and Verity; Mrs. 
 
 Jewell and Miss Gloss, M. D., and Miss 
 
 ... , Terry, M. D., have been the lead- 
 
 Hinghua r 1 XT r^'i ' r^ r 
 
 Confer- crs of the North Chma Confer- 
 ence ^j^^g . ^g gites and Plumb, Wilcox 
 and Worley, Misses Parkinson and Bona- 
 field and Trimble have been the leaders in 
 the Foochow Conference, so Brewster and 
 Owen, Misses Wilson and Lebeus have led 
 the forces in the Hinghua Conference. As 
 Pilcher has consecrated the educational 
 work in North China and Marsh and 
 Simester in Foochow by martyrdom, so 
 Guthrie in Hinghua has crowned his edu- 
 
72 China and Methodism. 
 
 cational career for the Master by his death 
 upon the field. The Hinghua Conference 
 was separated from the Foochow Confer- 
 ence in 1896, although the work was begun 
 in the Hinghua territory many years earlier. 
 The Conference practically embraces the 
 Hinghua Plain, with the surrounding hills 
 and mountains extending back to the west- 
 ern edge of the Fukien Province and em- 
 bracing a territory of some six or eight thou- 
 sand square miles, and a population of three 
 to five million. This Conference is the su- 
 preme illustration to our Church at home 
 of the value of intensive effort in China. 
 Hinghua, with its church, its Rebecca Mc- 
 Cabe orphanage, its industrial school for 
 boys and girls, its Bible-training school for 
 women, its high school and Biblical school 
 for men, furnishes a striking illustration of 
 successful work in the capital of the pre- 
 fecture. On my last visit to Hinghua I 
 baptized thirty-eight children at a single 
 service, eight of whom bore the name of 
 their patron saint, McCabe. 
 
 Singiu, with its Isabel Hart Girls' School, 
 its Hamilton-Uhler Memorial Building and 
 Knoechel School for Bible Women, the 
 
M. E. Church in China, 73 
 
 German Memorial Home, the William 
 Nast Memorial Church, and the Mar- 
 garet Eliza Nast Memorial Hospital fur- 
 nishes another one of the finest plants for 
 all-round missionary work to be found in 
 China. With our plants at Ingchung and 
 Dehhua and Duacheng, we reach a moun- 
 tain territory of some six thousand square 
 miles in extent, with a population of about 
 one million people; while with our plants 
 at Hinghua and Antau and Singiu, we 
 reach some two to four million more. In 
 view of the many other opportunities in 
 China, there was serious discussion a few 
 years ago about the abandonment of the 
 work in the western part of the Hinghua 
 Conference, the mountain region with only 
 a million people. But the four hundred 
 members of our Church then in that field 
 declined to be transferred to the Scotch 
 Presbyterians of Amoy. We have been 
 prospered in all our schools and Churches 
 since our decision to remain there. Surely 
 if it is worth while for Methodism to put 
 men and money into the 146,000 square 
 miles of Montana in order to reach a quar- 
 ter of a million inhabitants, or to work in 
 
74 China and Methodism. 
 
 the thirty-three thousand and forty square 
 miles of Maine in order to reach seven hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants, it is worth while 
 for Methodism to attempt to occupy the 
 six thousand square miles of the western 
 part of the Hinghua Conference in order 
 to reach a hardy mountain population of 
 one million souls. While the population is 
 thin as compared with the other regions of 
 China, yet it was such a mountain region 
 that gave Confucius and Mencius to the 
 empire ; it was such a mountain region 
 that gave Paul to the early Church, and a 
 similar region that gave Patrick Henry 
 to the American Revolution. If this region 
 furnishes the St. Paul for the Church in 
 China in the twentieth centry, our efforts 
 will be repaid a thousand-fold. But it is 
 quite possible that the thirty-six square 
 miles of pottery clay in the region of Deh- 
 hua and the iron and coal of Duacheng may 
 turn this mountain region into the Birm- 
 ingham or Pittsburg of the Fukien Prov- 
 ince. It is not improbable that the popula- 
 tion of the region will double or quadruple 
 within the next twenty-five years, and this 
 part of our work be regarded as one of the 
 
M. E. Church in China. 75 
 
 most providential in the empire. Surely 
 when comparing the seven missionaries 
 (including teachers, preachers, and physi- 
 cians) sent to minister to the million people 
 in the western part of the Hinghua Confer- 
 ence with the one hundred and eighty-seven 
 Methodist ministers, not to mention the phy- 
 sicians and teachers in the State of Maine, 
 the Church will not feel that she is giving 
 even the Hinghua Conference a very rich 
 endowment of men and means. Indeed, the 
 doubling of the number of our missionaries 
 would enable us to double or treble our 
 members in that Conference within the next 
 four or five years. But even with such 
 scant equipment, the Hinghua Conference 
 furnishes the best illustration in China of 
 the intensive method of cultivating our field. 
 I am sure that the Hinghua people will 
 maintain that with an equal number of mis- 
 sionaries in proportion to the population, 
 equal results could have been obtained in 
 every other part of China. But the three to 
 five million Chinese in the Hinghua Confer- 
 ence, under the intensive method of culti- 
 vation, have given us 4,500 Church mem- 
 bers. A similar cultivation of the fields 
 
76 China and Methodism. 
 
 throughout the empire and a similar length 
 of time for growth would give Methodism 
 in China 675,000 members. 
 
 The West China Mission, the latest of 
 our missions in China, was opened through 
 the generosity of Dr. J. F. Goucher, who 
 
 ^ pledged the Missionary Society a 
 
 China gift of $5,000 if she would enter 
 Mission that distant field. On payment of 
 this sum Rev. Lucius N. Wheeler and wife, 
 who had opened the mission in North 
 China, and Rev. Spencer I^ewis and wife 
 opened work in this mission in 1882. Doctor 
 Wheeler's daughter, Miss Frances Wheeler, 
 at the same time opened the work of the 
 Woman's Foreign Christian Missionary So- 
 ciety. When Doctor Wheeler's health com- 
 pelled his retirement from the Conference, 
 in 1884, Prof. F. D. Gamewell succeeded 
 him as superintendent of the mission. Miss 
 Gertrude Howe, who had been in Central 
 China since 1870, was also loaned to West 
 China for a few years to take charge of the 
 work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
 Society. 
 
 The West China Mission offers at once 
 both the greatest difficulties in reaching the 
 
M. E. Church in China. 77 
 
 field and tlie richest results thus far 
 achieved by any mission of our Church in 
 the empire. After one has traveled from 
 New York to Shanghai in perhaps twen- 
 ty-five days, he will need ten days more to 
 go by steamboat up the Yangtze from 
 Shanghai to Ichang, stopping at the river 
 ports on the way. But when he has reached 
 Ichang and has spent thirty-five days on his 
 journey, he is still only half way to the 
 Szechuen Province in the time required to 
 reach the field, and far less than half way 
 in the dangers to be encountered on the 
 trip. It usually requires thirty days under 
 the most favorable circumstances to reach 
 Chungking, the commercial metropolis of 
 the Szechuen Province, and forty days to 
 travel from Ichang to Chentu, the capital 
 of the province. It will be readily under- 
 stood, therefore, that the people of the 
 Szechuen Province had seen very little of 
 foreigners on the first arrival of our mis- 
 sionaries in the field, and that they were 
 naturally timid and fearful of the results of 
 the foreign religion. This led, perhaps, to 
 greater opposition to the missionaries on 
 the founding of the mission than upon the 
 
78 China and Methodism. 
 
 part of the people in any other province in 
 the empire. So great was this opposition 
 that under the inspiration of Taoist priests, 
 a riot broke out in 1886 which drove every 
 missionary from the field, and left the 
 Church apparently nothing to show in the 
 way of results for her effort and sacri- 
 fice. In the winter of 1886 Rev. Virgil 
 C. Hart and wife and Rev. H. Olin Cady 
 and wife were sent to reopen the mission. 
 Doctor Hart served as superintendent of 
 the mission until ill health caused his re- 
 tirement, when he was succeeded by Rev. 
 Spencer Lewis, who continued as superin- 
 tendent of the mission until his appoint- 
 ment in 1903 as one of the committee to 
 prepare a new translation of the Bible made 
 necessary his return to the eastern side of 
 the empire. As our missionaries were 
 among the first to enter West China, they 
 naturally opened work in the valleys and 
 the rich plains lying between Chungking 
 and Chentu, where the population of the 
 province is the densest. Hence when other 
 missionary societies entered the field and 
 the territory was later divided, our mission 
 was assigned the field already occupied by 
 
M. E. Church in China. 79 
 
 our missionaries embracing an area some 
 three hundred miles long by seventy or 
 eighty broad, lying largely between Chun- 
 king and Chentu, which is known as 
 the Chentu Plain. Mr. Little, in The 
 Far Bast, says that one part of this plain, 
 forty by sixty miles in extent, sustains the 
 densest population of any spot on the globe, 
 unless a similar area in England, including 
 London, equals it in numbers; and the 
 London population draws its support from 
 the ends of the earth, whereas the Chentu 
 population draws its support from the soil. 
 This fertile section gives our mission in 
 West China about one-tenth of the area 
 of the province, but probably a third of 
 the population. In other words, our Con- 
 ference embraces about twenty-five thou- 
 sand square miles of territory and over 
 twenty million people. The stations opened 
 and occupied by our ni.issionaries are 
 Chungking, Tsicheo, Suiling, and Chentu. 
 We have at Chungking, the St. Louis of 
 the Chinese Empire, with a population 
 of five hundred thousand people, a fine 
 general hospital for men and women — ^the 
 best-known hospital in West China, — a wo- 
 
80 China and Methodism. 
 
 man's hospital, a Bible-school for men, a high 
 school for boys, a high school for girls and 
 a Bible training-school for women. Chentu, 
 the capital of the province, and thus the 
 center of political influence for sixty-eight 
 million people, has a population of five hun- 
 dred thousand, with a million five hundred 
 thousand more within a few miles of the 
 capital in the densely populated Chentu 
 Plain. We have just completed here the 
 best hospital building in West China, and 
 have schools for boys and also girls, and 
 are starting the Chentu University, which 
 will mold the intellectual and spiritual life 
 of the province. Our gains in West China 
 have averaged twenty-nine per cent a year 
 for the last two years, and we could easily 
 double our membership in the province 
 within the next two years, if we could en- 
 ter the openings now inviting us. A single 
 scene illustrates the eagerness of the peo- 
 ple of the Szechuen Province for the gospel. 
 I recall reaching a city of 40,000 people 
 one evening about sundown. The inn was 
 cold and dark and filthy, and after spread- 
 ing our oilcloths over the Chinese beds of 
 straw to prevent the vermin reaching us, 
 
M. E. Church in China. 81 
 
 we set up our camp bedsteads on top of the 
 oilcloth, and our beds were speedily pre- 
 pared. Despite the weariness from the 
 day's travel, I preferred walking in the 
 street while the cook prepared our supper 
 to sitting in the dark inn. I had walked 
 only a short distance when the street led 
 into the temple area, and I saw a consid- 
 erable number of men coming with natural 
 curiosity to see the western stranger who 
 had stopped inside their temple grounds. I 
 returned to the inn and asked Brother 
 Johanson to bring his mandolin and play 
 a tune, and then translate for me. Before 
 he completed the first hymn we had an au- 
 dience of from five hundred to a thousand 
 men. I told them that I would gladly ex- 
 plain to them the cause of our visit, but I 
 saw that we were in the temple area and the 
 Book which we had brought them and 
 which we were sure came from God for- 
 bade the worship of idols, and I must not 
 tell them about this Book in their temple 
 area without their permission. Their cu- 
 riosity and their politeness combined over- 
 came their respect for their idols, and they 
 bade me speak freely. I then spent about 
 6 
 
82 China and Methodism. 
 
 twenty or thirty minutes in telling them as 
 clearly as possible what the gospel means 
 and in making clear to them that they could 
 not become Christians without abandoning 
 all idolatry. I tried to show them that the 
 gospel contained the best news that had 
 ever reached mortal men. At the close I 
 asked how many of them had ever heard of 
 Jesus Christ and the Bible, and they said 
 that not one of them had ever heard the 
 story. I told them that I was not sure that 
 I could secure them a preacher, as we had 
 very few Chinese preachers in the province, 
 and that even had I a preacher we had no 
 place in the city where he could teach them 
 the doctrine. Nevertheless I ventured to 
 ask them at the close how many of them 
 would like to have a man come and teach 
 them more of this way of life, if I could 
 procure such a man, and perhaps two hun- 
 dred of them raised their hands. At the 
 close of the service thirty or forty of them 
 gathered around me, assuring me that they 
 could secure a place for teaching the doc- 
 trine, and that they would help support a 
 man, if I would only send them some man 
 to teach them the way of life. I left that 
 
M. E. Church in China. 83 
 
 city determined to put it upon the list of 
 appointments at the coming Conference. 
 When I reached the Conference I found 
 that in order to hold places of equal pop- 
 ulation, where we already have Chris- 
 tians, we must send men into the field 
 with little or no preparation — ^men who 
 had only been Christians for three or four 
 years, and that without foreign supervision 
 these men were wholly unqualified to estab- 
 lish Christianity and to lay the foundations 
 of our Church among a heathen people. 
 We can not, therefore, honestly hold posses- 
 sion of this territory or of these cities in 
 W^est China unless we have more missionary 
 supervision by men and women from the 
 homeland. Despite every effort, I could 
 not send a minister. How long will the 
 Church at home leave cities numbering 
 forty thousand inhabitants asking for the 
 gospel without the word of life for the lack 
 of men and means? How long will w^e 
 leave a field where our gains averaged 
 twenty-nine per cent a year without the re- 
 enforcements absolutely essential to our fu- 
 ture growth or even to holding our present 
 territory ? 
 
84 
 
 China and Methodism. 
 
 The latest statistics available for all the 
 
 Churches are found in Professor Harlan 
 
 P. Beach's ''Geography and At- 
 
 ^pclu- /^^ Qj Protestant Missions'' pub- 
 
 lished in 1900. Most of the 
 
 Churches have made advances since that 
 
 date, but the advances have been relative, 
 
 and the statistics show the comparative 
 
 work of all the Churches in China: 
 
 Missionaries, .... 
 
 Stations, 
 
 Hospitals, 
 
 Day Schools, .... 
 
 Scholars, 
 
 Higher Institutions of 
 
 L/carning, 
 
 Students in same, 
 Church Members, . . 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 METHOD- 
 
 
 IST. 
 
 3,026 
 
 183 
 
 3,129 
 
 254 
 
 259 
 
 7 
 
 1,819 
 
 371 
 
 35412 
 
 7,655 
 
 170 
 
 19 
 
 5,150 
 
 827 
 
 112,808 
 
 25-244 
 
 .06 
 .08 
 .03 
 
 .20 
 
 .21 
 
 .II 
 
 .16 
 .22 
 
 The above table shows that the num- 
 ber of Methodist missionaries in China is 
 six per cent of the total number of Prot- 
 estant missionaries working in that land. 
 These workers, therefore, should be able 
 to report six per cent of the results 
 achieved in the empire. I have already 
 called attention to the fact that there are 
 
M. E. Church in China. 85 
 
 four types of work carried on in China — 
 namely, circulation of religious literature, 
 hospital work, school work, and preaching 
 the gospel. We have no comparative sta- 
 tistics showing the literary work done by 
 the representatives of the various missions. 
 I am sure, however, that Methodism has 
 fallen far below her just proportion of lit- 
 erary work. We have distributed as much 
 literature through our press, formerly lo- 
 cated at Foochow, but now at Shanghai in 
 connection with the Methodist Church, 
 South, and through small presses at Peking 
 and Hinghua, as have other missionaries. 
 We are now prepared at Shanghai to do 
 publishing equal to that of any other 
 Church in the empire. But we have 
 not done our share of the work in trans- 
 lation or in the production of literature. 
 This is not because we have lacked men 
 qualified for such work. Rev. Spencer 
 Lewis, on the Bible Revision Committee, 
 Professor Headland's books, and the writ- 
 ings of Drs. Kupfer, Wilcox, Ohlinger, 
 Gamewell, Mrs. Gamewell, Dr. and Mrs. 
 Taft, Mrs. Baldwin, Lacey Sites, Miss 
 Howe, W. F. Walker, Jr., the articles by 
 
86 China and Methodism. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brewster, Mr. and Mrs. 
 St. John, Mr. Beach, Miss Laura White, 
 and others, show that we have people 
 in connection with our missions quaH- 
 ified for literary work. We have, however, 
 so impressed upon our missionaries the 
 practical duties of the mission, and espe- 
 cially teaching and evangelistic work, that 
 we have not left them the time for the pro- 
 duction of a Methodist literature or an 
 Arminian theology. 
 
 From the statistics we have only three 
 per cent of the hospitals. But as the sta- 
 tistics given by Professor Beach show only 
 seven hospitals for our Church, whereas we 
 are maintaining in China to-day seventeen 
 hospitals, the report furnished in 1900 was 
 probably defective. Our hospitals also 
 are among the largest in China. Hence w^e 
 are doing our full share of medical work. 
 
 Turning to the third form of missionary 
 activity — namely, teaching — the statistics 
 show that with six per cent of the workers 
 we are teaching twenty-one per cent of all 
 students in day schools, and training six- 
 teen per cent of all students in higher in- 
 stitutions of learning. This report is ex- 
 
M. E. Church in China. 87 
 
 ceedingly gratifying, and shows that Meth- 
 odism in China, as at home, is leading in 
 educational work. 
 
 Turning to the fourth and highest form 
 of missionary activity — namely, preaching — 
 the statistics show that with six per cent 
 of the missionaries, and a very small pro- 
 portion of these engaged in direct evangel- 
 istic work, we have twenty-two per cent of 
 the membership of the Protestant Churches 
 in China. The report furnished to Pro- 
 fessor Beach includes full members and 
 probationers in the Methodist Church, but 
 not inquirers or adherents. Some of our 
 missionaries feel that in this comparison 
 we ought only to count our members in full, 
 and not our probationers. Putting the com- 
 parison on this basis, the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church, with six per cent of the mis- 
 sionaries, has twelve per cent of the mem- 
 bers of the Protestant Churches in the em- 
 pire. From conversations with our mission- 
 aries and a comparative study of the sta- 
 tistics, however, I believe that we are en- 
 titled to include in our report probationers 
 as well as full members, and I think our 
 Church may justly claim twenty-two per 
 
88 China and Methodism. 
 
 cent of all Protestant Christians in the em- 
 pire. Besides, the gains of the last seven 
 years give us some 32,000 members and 
 probationers in 1907, as compared with 
 25,244 in 1900. In a word, the comparison 
 shows that the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in China is accomplishing far larger results 
 relatively in hospitals than at home, because 
 hospitals have proved one of the providen- 
 tial means of gaining access to peoples 
 hostile to Christianity. In education and 
 in the spiritual transformation of the em- 
 pire, the missionaries of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church are accomplishing by in- 
 disputable statistics two or three times as 
 much as the number of men and women 
 sent to the field and the money given to 
 China give us any right to expect. Surely 
 we may thank God for wisdom in the use 
 of means and for the consecrated men and 
 women who are giving their lives for the 
 advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom in 
 this great empire. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Possi biIvITie;s. 
 
 Th:^ Awakening oi^ th^ Empire. 
 It may seem that the Boxer Uprising, 
 and especially the unrest which character- 
 izes China at the present time make the 
 prosecution of missionary work in China 
 now unsafe and unfruitful. There is un- 
 rest in China to-day, and missionary work 
 may be attended with some degree of risk 
 to the missionaries. But the present un- 
 rest in China is no more a recrudescence of 
 Boxerism than the revolution now taking 
 place in Russia is a fresh manifestation 
 of the old-time autocratic tyranny. The 
 Boxer movement was in the hands of old 
 men; the present unrest in China is fo- 
 mented by young men. Boxerism was ex- 
 ceedingly loyal to the existing dynasty ; the 
 present movement is at least critical, if not 
 89 
 
90 China and Methodism. 
 
 hostile to the reigning dynasty. Boxerism 
 was an attempt to push Europeans and 
 Americans out of China and leave her un- 
 disturbed in her civilization three thou- 
 sand years old; the present movement is 
 an attempt to modify the existing civiliza- 
 tion and bring China out as a modern na- 
 tion. The most striking fact in modern 
 history is the awakening of China in the last 
 five years. 
 
 Doctor Griffith John, who celebrated the 
 fiftieth anniversary of his work in China 
 in 1905, and whose statements are given 
 the widest publicity and the heartiest in- 
 dorsement in the London Times, said re- 
 cently that the change which has come over 
 China since the Boxer uprising is nothing 
 less than a revolution. He added that had 
 this change been characterized by the blood- 
 shed which has taken place in Russia, or 
 by the excesses of the French Revolution, 
 the eyes of the world to-day would be, not 
 upon Russia, but upon China. 
 
 Arthur Smith, D. D., said before a body 
 of missionaries last summer that China has 
 made more progress since 1900 than any 
 other nation on the face of the globe. He 
 
Possibilities. 91 
 
 did not mean that China had advanced her 
 output of coal and iron or had constructed 
 more miles of railroad than the United 
 States ; but he meant that China had made 
 a far more profound change in her atti- 
 tude toward modern civilization than has 
 the United States, or Japan, or any other 
 nation during this period. A few days af- 
 ter Doctor Smith's address, I asked Sir 
 Robert Hart, the ablest Englishman in 
 China, if he accepted Doctor Smith's 
 view. He replied : ''It is substantially cor- 
 rect. Let me put the matter in my own 
 language. During the first forty-five years 
 of my residence in China, the empire 
 seemed to be, so far as the influence of for- 
 eign nations was concerned, a closed room 
 without a breath of air from the out- 
 side world reaching us. I could not see 
 that the Chinese were in the least conscious 
 that any other nation upon the face of the 
 globe existed. Upon the contrary, during 
 the last five years, every door and window 
 has been opened, and the breezes from all 
 parts of the earth have been blowing 
 through China. We may expect occasional 
 
92 China and Methodism. 
 
 thunder-storms, and possibly a typhoon 
 may sweep us out of the empire ; but China 
 will never again be closed to western influ- 
 ences." 
 
 In proof of the statements of these au- 
 thorities, note the fact that five years ago 
 there were from one to two hundred post- 
 offices for all China; now there are seven- 
 teen hundred. There were three newspa- 
 pers published in Tientsin four years ago; 
 now there are twenty-one newspapers in 
 that city. This marvelous increase of news- 
 paper circulation is characteristic of all 
 leading cities of the coast. A more far- 
 reaching indication of progress is the fact 
 that Yuan Shih Kai, the most energetic 
 and progressive viceroy in the empire, has 
 established over five thousand schools, more 
 or less modern, in a single province, within 
 recent years, and these schools have an 
 enrollment of more tKan fifty thousand. 
 This is but an indication of the educational 
 reform which is sweeping the empire. The 
 most spectacular change is the edict of the 
 empress dowager, decreeing that while all 
 present graduates of the old system shall 
 be eligible for office, the future officials of 
 
Possibilities. 93 
 
 the empire must have some examinations 
 in western learning, arts and sciences. 
 Without doubt, China is awake. A new 
 civilization is being formed. The question 
 which confronts Christendom is, Will this 
 civilization be cast in materialistic or in 
 Christian molds? 
 
 With the awakening of the empire comes 
 the opportunity of thirty centuries for win- 
 ning the Chinese for Christ. Doctor John 
 says that he is not so much concerned over 
 the awakening of the empire as he is about 
 the awakening of the Churches of Europe 
 and America to the opportunity which con- 
 fronts them. The people are breaking 
 away from the customs and the civilization 
 of three thousand years; western civiliza- 
 tion is invading the empire. Christianity 
 carries with it the prestige of being the re- 
 ligion of the west. The Chinese are ready, 
 with Queen Victoria, to assign the cause 
 of the greatness of western nations to the 
 Bible and Christianity. This time of 
 change offers marvelous opportunities in 
 each of the four lines of missionary activ- 
 ity. 
 
 In the first of these departments of Chris- 
 
94 China and Methodism. 
 
 tian work in China — namely, the distribu- 
 tion of Christian Hterature — ^the Chinese 
 ^ , reverence for learning has always 
 
 Distribut- ^ . . X 
 
 ing Liter- Opened up opportunities. bo 
 ture great is that reverence that not a 
 scrap of paper with a Chinese character 
 on it is trampled under foot, and through- 
 out the cities of the empire you will find 
 receptacles for the reverent burning of all 
 pieces of paper. But the eagerness for 
 western learning at the present time offers 
 an especial opportunity for the dissemina- 
 tion of Christian literature. Doctor Grif- 
 fith John told me in a recent interview that 
 whereas during the first forty-five years of 
 his work in China, he found it difficult to 
 sell or even to give away Christian tracts, 
 the society with which he is connected is 
 publishing and selling at Hankow at the 
 present time a million copies of the Bible 
 or portions of the Bible a year. The mis- 
 sionaries have overcome the greatest ob- 
 stacle to the dissemination of the Word of 
 God in the translation of the Bible into the 
 universal written language of the Chinese. 
 The New Testament is now sold in China 
 for three cents a copy. This is slightly less 
 
Possibilities. 95 
 
 than the cost of production. It is entirely 
 saf'^^, however, to say that with the improved 
 methods of publication, fifty million copies 
 of the New Testament could be produced 
 at a cost of one and a half million dollars. 
 With ten per cent of all the men in China 
 able to read and write, this issue would 
 furnish one copy of the New Testament 
 for every home in China in which it could 
 be read. While the missionaries, teachers, 
 and physicians in China are by no means 
 sufficient to cover the whole field thor- 
 oughly, nevertheless a careful calculation 
 shows that with the use of the mission- 
 aries and other workers whose salaries are 
 paid by their Churches, re-enforced by Chi- 
 nese colporteurs, these books could be dis- 
 tributed throughout the empire at a cost of 
 half a million dollars. Many of the tracts 
 would be purchased, and the amount neces- 
 sary to be raised greatly lessened. But it is 
 possible for two million dollars raised 
 by the sale of tracts or contributed in Amer- 
 ica, to evangelize — not to Christianize, — ^but 
 to present the gospel in the native language 
 to the Chinese, and thus give a fourth of 
 the human race within the next ten years 
 
96 China and Methodism. 
 
 as full a knowledge of salvation as Europe 
 had at the time of the Reformation. The 
 providential time for the distribution of the 
 Bible in China is when the empire is emerg- 
 ing from the civilization of the last thirty 
 centuries, and is entering upon the civ- 
 ilization of the western world. Neglect 
 this opportunity for the next twenty-five 
 years, and the new civilization of China 
 will then be set in materialistic molds, and 
 the same effort will not accomplish a tenth 
 or perhaps not a twentieth as much for the 
 empire as it will accomplish at the opening 
 of the twentieth century. 
 
 In the second department — medical work 
 
 — now is the time of unique opportunity. 
 
 The awakening of the empire has brought 
 
 a great interest in western medical 
 
 Medical science : but aside from the mission 
 
 Work 
 
 hospitals and physicians, there is 
 practically no modern medical science in 
 China. Twenty-five years from now the 
 present opportunity will have passed by, for 
 the Chinese Government will have founded 
 hospitals, and the mission plants will not 
 be alone in the field. Already the Japanese 
 Government has established some of the 
 
Possibilities. 97 
 
 finest hospitals in the world. In China, 
 however, the Mission Hospital is often 
 the only method of introducing modern 
 medical practice among populations num- 
 bering from five to twenty million. It 
 links Christianity in a pecuHar way 
 with the best in western science. It 
 is the one unanswerable argument in 
 communities prejudiced against Chris- 
 tianity. Again and again the Chinese 
 Christians have been able to point out to 
 hostile persons, man after man, woman af- 
 ter woman, child after child, whose life 
 has been saved by our Christian physicians 
 when the Chinese had abandoned the patient 
 to death. In a peculiar sense the medical 
 missionary is reproducing the deeds of the 
 Master, who went about doing good; and 
 it is simply impossible in China, as else- 
 where, to speak against such humanitarian 
 service. Indeed, already the Chinese so 
 fully appreciate our hospitals that they are 
 generously contributing for their support, 
 and in cities like Antau and Nanchang, they 
 are offering to raise the money for the 
 building and equipping of hospitals if we 
 will furnish a physician. Here is a provi- 
 
 7 
 
98 China and Methodism. 
 
 dential opportunity now open to the Church 
 in medical work such as she never enjoyed 
 before and such as she will never enjoy 
 in China again. 
 
 In the third department — that of educa- 
 tion — the great demand for the western 
 learning and English has opened a door of 
 P wonderful opportunity at the pres- 
 
 tional ent time. Our mission schools 
 ^°^^ and colleges are now the best 
 equipped in the country, and they are over- 
 flowing with students. We must move 
 speedily, however, and greatly increase our 
 present equipment and plants in order to 
 take advantage of this opportunity. Gov- 
 ernment schools are being rapidly estab- 
 lished and government competition will be 
 keen in the years ahead. Already the gov- 
 ernment schools of Japan are superior in 
 equipment to most of the Christian schools. 
 Indeed, the University of Tokyo has one 
 hundred and twenty-three professors in its 
 scientific department, twenty-one of whom 
 are in the engineering department alone; 
 and every man of them has his Ph. D. de- 
 gree from Europe or America. Indeed, 
 Japan has to-day one of the best-equipped 
 
Possibilities. 99 
 
 technical schools upon the face of the globe. 
 China is following in the footsteps of Japan, 
 and there will be a speedy development in 
 government education. Were it possible for 
 government schools to be distinctly evan- 
 gelical in their influence, we might leave 
 education to the State. But even in Amer- 
 ica, in the State universities, the opportu- 
 nities for Christian training are largely lim- 
 ited. To abandon the Church schools in 
 China would be to lose the opportunity of 
 putting the stamp of Christ on the student 
 life of the country, to lose one of the most 
 effective of evangelizing agencies, and the 
 only agency for training ministers and 
 making Christianity self-propagating 
 throughout the empire. Moreover, the gov- 
 ernment education in China to-day is not 
 only negative so far as Christianity is con- 
 cerned, but positively heathen in its influ- 
 ence. Teachers and pupils are required to 
 worship Confucius, and immorality is prev- 
 alent. If the ban of heathen worship is re- 
 moved, we may well covet loaning to 
 China our best-equipped men for the schools 
 of learning which the government is estab- 
 lishing in order to put the stamp of Christ 
 
100 China and Methodism. 
 
 so far as possible on the rising national edu- 
 cation of the country. But it will always 
 be necessary in China, as in America, to 
 have the Church schools for distinctly evan- 
 gelical education. If we succeed in intro- 
 ducing the English language into the 
 schools of China, as it is now taught in the 
 schools of Japan, and as it seems to be 
 coming in China, God will use this instru- 
 ment alone to evangelize in some measure 
 the empire of China just as he used the 
 Greek language to transform the civilization 
 of her Asiatic conquerors, and the Latin 
 language to evangelize the Teutonic and 
 Celtic races; and further, if the various 
 Churches will unite in founding institutions 
 of Christian learning, fitted to give instruc- 
 tion in western arts and science equal to 
 that furnished in the national institutions, 
 and, above all, if our Christian colleges are 
 filled with the spirit of the Master, I be- 
 lieve that during the next twenty-five or 
 fifty years the Christian schools and colleges 
 of China will play ^n important and provi- 
 dential part in casting into Christian molds 
 for all time to come the new civilization of 
 a fourth of the human race. The demand 
 
Possibilities. 101 
 
 for immediate action is all the more impe- 
 rious when we remember that ten thou- 
 sand dollars, or even five thousand dollars, 
 will accompHsh as much to-day in China 
 as a similar amount accomplished at Har- 
 vard or Yale two hundred years ago, and 
 as much as twenty times that amount will 
 accomplish in an American university to- 
 day. The opportunity in education which 
 now confronts the Christian Churches is the 
 greatest in the Church's history. 
 
 Turning to the great and distinctive 
 work of preaching the gospel — the evan- 
 gelistic work — here again the op- 
 Evangel- portunities are simply boundless. 
 
 IStlC Work Jl . , r 1 . . , 
 
 The spirit of prayer which has in 
 an unusual degree taken possession of 
 the missionaries in China since the 
 Welsh revival ; the spirit of unity and 
 co-operation which have grown mark- 
 edly since the Boxer uprising; the re- 
 markable revivals at Foochow, Hing- 
 hua, in Shantung, West China, throughout 
 Chihli, and in other parts of the em- 
 pire during the last winter ; the forma- 
 tion by the Chinese on their own initi- 
 ative of a Student Volunteer Band, with 
 
102 China and Methodism. 
 
 an enrollment of one hundred and twenty- 
 six at Peking University, the numer- 
 ous revivals which have graciously visited 
 other Churches during the past winter, 
 indicate that the Holy Spirit is moving upon 
 the hearts of the Chinese for the develop- 
 ment of a self-supporting and self -propagat- 
 ing Christianity in the empire. On a hun- 
 dred and thirty occasions, after preaching 
 in China, I have given the invitation to the 
 Chinese immediately to accept Christ, and 
 in every single instance I have had a re- 
 sponse, the numbers varying from two or 
 three to as high as one or two hundred. 
 No man can visit the Protestant Missions 
 of China and compare the present condi- 
 tions with the reports of the struggles and 
 difficulties of preceding years without ac- 
 cepting the judgment of Doctor Griffith 
 John that if the Churches of Europe and 
 America awaken to the situation, their 
 representatives in China can enroll inquir- 
 ers during the next few years literally by 
 the tens of thousands. Indeed, those Chris- 
 tian Churches which heed the call of the 
 Master and meet the present opportunity in 
 China will become the leading Churches of 
 
Possibilities. 103 
 
 this vast empire for all time to come. The 
 awakening has already come in China. The 
 question is, Will the Churches of Europe 
 and America meet the providential oppor- 
 tunity ? 
 
 As the Mediterranean Basin was the seat 
 of empire and of imperial struggle in the 
 days of the Caesars; as the Atlantic Basin 
 has been the seat of modern civilization, 
 so the Pacific Basin will be the center of 
 the civilization and the action of the twen- 
 tieth century. The same ambition and en- 
 ergy which prompted our ancestors to leave 
 Europe for the New World, which 
 prompted our fathers and mothers to leave 
 the New England Coast for the Mississippi 
 Valley, — ^that same energy and aspiration 
 for leadership, not unmingled with hero- 
 ism, will push their descendants on to the 
 far-flung battle-line in the conflict between 
 the civilization of the Occident and the 
 Orient already on around the Pacific Basin. 
 The same statesmanship and generosity 
 which led to the laying of the foundations 
 of Columbia and Yale and Harvard in the 
 seventeenth century, will lead equally wise 
 and generous men to lay the foundations 
 
104 China and Methodism. 
 
 in the twentieth century of the Harvards 
 and Yales and Columbias of China. The 
 same combination of Christian statesman- 
 ship and lofty patriotism and devotion to the 
 Master which led our Methodist fathers and 
 mothers to lay the foundations of the king- 
 dom in the Mississippi Valley, and indeed 
 throughout the United States, will lead 
 them to lay equally broad and deep the 
 foundations of Methodism throughout the 
 Chinese Empire. Were modern science to 
 discover a new continent at either pole, with 
 a population of two hundred and fifty mil- 
 lion, Methodism would have missionaries 
 on the way to the new field within a month. 
 But our Church has missionaries in only 
 nine of the twenty-two provinces of China. 
 There are two hundred and fifty million 
 people in China to-day who are not touched 
 by the Methodist Church, and are scarcely 
 touched by any other mission. 
 
 Three hundred thousand dollars con- 
 tributed to our missions for the celebra- 
 tion of the centennial of Protestant mis- 
 sions in China in 1907 will enable our 
 Church to strengthen existing missions and 
 to enlarge her borders, so that she can 
 
Possibilities. 105 
 
 have a million members and probationers 
 in China within the next fifty years, and so 
 that she will be able to do her full share in 
 evangelizing this fourth of the human race, 
 just emerging into modern life. Surely 
 with every man, woman, and child arising 
 to the occasion and making some contribu- 
 tion for this centennial, we may easily real- 
 ize this amount. Methodist statesmanship 
 will not rest content with a bare foothold in 
 nine of the twenty-two provinces, but will 
 lay at least as broad foundations for the 
 four hundred and thirty-eight million peo- 
 ple now occupying the eastern coast of Asia 
 as for the eighty million people in the home- 
 land ; and Methodist devotion to the Master 
 will lead to the additional sacrifices neces- 
 sary to offer the gospel to the two hundred 
 and fifty million people whom we are thus 
 far not attempting to reach, and who are 
 scared}^ touched by any other mission. The 
 opportunity becomes almost imperious when 
 we remember that the three hundred thou- 
 sand dollars asked for will accomplish as 
 much as three million dollars will accom- 
 plish in another generation. Shall the new 
 civilization of China be cast in Christian 
 
106 China and Methodism. 
 
 or materialistic molds is the question which 
 must be decided within the next twenty- 
 five or fifty years. Upon the Christian 
 Churches of Europe and America rests the 
 decision. 
 
Contributions of 
 Native Church..., 
 
 No. Patients 
 Treated 
 
 No. Hospitals.. 
 
 «» 
 
 S y^ 
 
 u i 
 
 CO 1-1 o> cc 
 
 No. Pupils.. 
 
 No. Day and Other o 
 Schools ^ 
 
 fe ^ 
 
 No. Enrolled.. 
 
 No. High Schools.. | 
 
 No. Enrolled.. 
 
 i 3 s ^ 
 
 No.BiblicalSchools | •» 
 
 Students Enrolled.. 
 
 No. of Colleges.., 
 
 No. of Sunday- 
 school Scholars.. 
 
 No. of Sunday- 
 schools 
 
 Per Cent Increase.. 
 
 Amount Increase.., 
 
 Members and Pro- 
 bationers, 1904 
 
 Total No. Members 
 and Probationers... 
 
 Members on Proba- 
 tion 
 
 Members in Full 
 Connection 
 
 Native Workers 
 
 Total No. Mission- 
 aries 
 
 Missionaries 
 
 W. F. M. Society.. 
 Missionaries Parent 
 
 Board and Wives.. 
 
 I-H rH G^ 
 
 CO o 
 O OT 
 
 3 3 s s 
 S 51 2 ^ 
 
 Oi CO -t* CO 
 
 el^ w u ;z; ^ 
 
 107 
 
 I us 
 
 C» (M ■«* i-H O 00 
 ■<*i C^ lO lO CO 
 
 u ^ 
 
 rt H 
 
 ^ 
 > 
 
 -^ c 
 
 >! 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 o o 
 
 
 05; « S 
 4J .12 rt <-' 
 
 1^^ 
 
 S^ s 
 
 O Q 
 
 Is ^ 
 
 O rt «-- 
 
 S<3 
 
 ^^^$ 
 
 5 a 
 
 C 4) 
 
 o o 
 
 n3T3 
 
 E^ o 
 
 o I „ 
 
 4-; (U U) 
 •"WO 
 
 > >< w 
 o « .S 
 
 1 f 
 
 bo .2 
 
 C OS E u 
 
 O 
 
 !2; 
 
 N CO ■»*< 
 
 ^ iz; ;?; 
 
THE ROLL OF HONOR. 
 
 LIST OF MISSIONARIES WHO HAVE 
 GONE TO CHINA. 
 
 I. PARENT BOARD. 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 
 Collins, Judson Dwight, M. D. Sept. 6, 1847. 
 
 White, Moses Clark, Rev., Sept. 6, 1847. 
 
 White, Mrs. Isabel Jane Atwater, Sept. 6, 1847. 
 
 Hickock, Henry, Rev., April 14, 1848. 
 
 Hickock, Mrs. Henry, April 14, 1848. 
 
 Maclay, Robert Samuel, Rev., April 14, 1848. 
 
 Maclay, Mrs. Henrietta Caroline Sperry July 6, 1850. 
 
 Wiley, Isaac William, M. D., July 9, 1851. 
 
 Wiley, Mrs. Frances J. Martin, July 9, 1851. 
 
 White, Mrs. Mary Seely (Mrs. Moses C. White) July 9, 1851. 
 
 Colder, James, Rev., . . • July 9, 1851. 
 
 Colder, Mrs. Ellen C. Winebrcnner, July 9, 1851. 
 
 Wentworth, Erastus, Rev., June 18, 1855. 
 
 Wentworth, Mrs. Anna M. Lewis, June 18, 1855. 
 
 Gibson, Otis, Rev., Aug. 12, 1855. 
 
 Gibson, Mrs. Eliza Chamberlin, ........ Aug. 12, 1855. 
 
 Woolston, Miss Beulah, Mar. 19, 1859. 
 
 Woolston, Miss Sarah H., Mar. 19, 1859. 
 
 Wentworth, Mrs. Phebe Potter (Mrs. Erastus 
 
 Wentworth), Mar. 19, 1859. 
 
 Baldwin, Stephen Livingstone, Rev., Mar. 19, 1859. 
 
 Baldwin, Mrs. Nellie M. Gorham, Mar. 19, 1859. 
 
 Martin, Carlos Roscoe, Rev., April x, i86o. 
 
 108 
 
The Roll of Honor. 109 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 
 Martin, Mrs. Mary, April i, i860. 
 
 Sites, Nathan, Rev., Sept. 19, 1861, 
 
 Sites, Mrs. Sarah Moor6, Sept. 19, 1861. 
 
 Binkley, Samuel Lybrand, Rev., Mar., 1862. 
 
 Binkley, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Mar., 1862. 
 
 Baldwin, Mrs. Esther E. Jerman (Mrs. S. L. 
 
 Baldwin) 1862. 
 
 Hart, Virgil, C, Rev., May 27, 1866. 
 
 Hart, Mrs. Addie, ....*• May 27, 1866. 
 
 Wheeler, Lucius Nathan, Rev May 31, 1866. 
 
 Wheeler, Mrs. Mary E. Davis, May 31, 1866. 
 
 Lowry, Hiram Harrison, Rev., Oct. 10, 1867. 
 
 Lowry, Mrs. Parthenia Elizabeth Nicholson, . . Oct. 10, 1867. 
 
 Todd, Elbert S., Rev., Nov.. 1867. 
 
 Todd, Mrs. Emma, Nov., 1867. 
 
 Plumb, Nathan James, Rev., Oct. 14, 1870. 
 
 Pilcher, Leander William, Rev., Oct. 20, 1870. 
 
 Ing, John, Rev., Oct. 14,1870. 
 
 Ing, Mrs. Lucy E. H., Oct. 14, 1870. 
 
 Hall, Henry H., M. D., Oct. 14, 1870. 
 
 Davis, George Ritchie, Rev., Oct. 21, 1870. 
 
 Ohlinger, Franklin, Rev., Oct, 14, 1870. 
 
 Davis, Mrs. Maria Brown Kane (Mrs. George R. 
 
 Davis), April 6, 1872. 
 
 Gamewell, Mrs. Mary Q. Porter (Mrs. F. D. 
 
 Gamewell), April 6, 187a. 
 
 Hall, Mrs. Henry H., 1873. 
 
 Plumb, Mrs. Julia Walling (Mrs. N. J. Plumb), 1873. 
 
 Pyke, James Howell, Rev., Dec. 11, 1873. 
 
 Pyke, Mrs. Annabel Goodrich, Dec. 11, 1873. 
 
 Walker, Wilbur Fisk, Rev., Dec. 3, 1873. 
 
 Walker, Mrs. Mary Florence Morrison, .... Dec. 3, 1873. 
 
 Hykes, John Reside, Rev., Nov. 22, 1873. 
 
 Harris, Sylvanus D., Rev., Aug., 1873. 
 
 Harris, Mrs. Tillie K. Boyd, Aug. 1873. 
 
 Stritmatter, Andrew, Rev., 1873. 
 
 Stritmatter, Mrs. Lucinda L. Combs, 1873. 
 
 Edgell, Benjamin Ellis, Rev., Nov., 1873. 
 
 Edgell, Mrs. Hannah Louisa Dawson, Nov., 1873, 
 
 Cook, Albert J., Rev., Nov., 1873. 
 
110 
 
 The Roll of Honor. 
 
 ffe, 
 
 Leander 
 
 John R 
 
 Arrived in China, 
 . . . Nov. lo, 1874. 
 . . . Nov. 10, 1874. 
 
 1875. 
 
 1875. 
 
 1876. 
 
 Chandler, David Warren, Rev., . . , 
 Chandler, Mrs. Mary Eldora Stanley, 
 Tarbell, William E., M. D., .... 
 Tarbell, Mrs. William E., . . . 
 Ohlinger, Mrs. Bertha Schweinfurth (Mrs, 
 
 lin Ohlinger), 
 
 Pilcher, Mrs. Mary H. Garwood (Mi 
 
 Pilcher) 
 
 Benton, William G., Rev., 
 
 Bagnall, Benjamin, Rev 
 
 Willits, Oscar Wellington, Rev., . . 
 Willits, Mrs. Caroline T. Mason, . . 
 Carter, Thomas Coke, Rev., .... 
 Carter, Mrs. Maggie Brown, .... 
 Taft, Marcus Lorenzo, Rev., .... 
 Hykes, Mrs. Rebecca S. Marshall (M 
 
 Hykes), 
 
 Kupfer, Carl Frederick, Rev., . . . 
 
 Kupfer, Mrs. Lydia Krill, 
 
 Lewis, Spencer, Rev., 
 
 Lewis, Mrs. Esther Bilbie, 
 
 Gamewell, Francis Dunlap, Rev., . 
 Verity, Mrs. Frances Irene Wheeler (M 
 
 Verity), 
 
 Worley, Thomas H., Rev., 
 
 Worley, Mrs. Alsa Almeda Cole, . , 
 Woodall, George Washington, Rev, 
 Woodall, Mrs. Sarah Reston, . . . , 
 
 Taylor, John L.,M.D., 
 
 Taylor, Mrs. John L., 
 
 Jackson, James, Rev., , 
 
 Jackson, Mrs. Jame Catherine Radcl; 
 Taft, Mrs. Emily Louise Kellogg (Mrs, 
 
 Taft), 
 
 Smyth, George Blood, Rev., . 
 
 Wilcox, Myron Chesterfield, Rev. 
 
 Wilcox, Mrs. Jessie Mary Wood, 
 
 Worley, James Harvey, Rev., . 
 
 Worley, Mrs. Imogene Laura Field, 
 
 Hobart, William Thomas, Rev Oct, «i, iSSa. 
 
 G. W, 
 
 M. L. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 13, 1876. 
 
 
 1877. 
 
 
 1879. 
 
 Apri 
 
 I, 1880. 
 
 Apri 
 
 I, 1880. 
 
 
 1880. 
 
 
 1880. 
 
 
 1880. 
 
 
 1881. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 28, 1881. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 28, x88i. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 10, 1881. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 10, 1881. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 22, 1881. 
 
 
 1881. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 20, 1 88a. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 20, 1882. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 5, 1882. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 5, 1882. 
 
 
 1882. 
 
 
 1882. 
 
 
 1882. 
 
 
 1882. 
 
 
 1882. 
 
 
 1882. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 3, x88a. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 3, 1882. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 , 1883. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 , 1882. 
 
The Roll of Honor. 
 
 Ill 
 
 (Mrs, 
 
 Hobart, Mrs. Emily Marcia Hatfield, . 
 Longden, Wilbur Cummings, Rev., . . 
 Longden, Mrs. Gertrude Kidder, . . . 
 
 Crews, George Beggs, Rev., 
 
 Crews, Mrs. Katherine V, Town, . . . 
 
 Brown, Frederick, Rev., 
 
 Smyth, Mrs. Alice Barton Harris (Mrs. G. 
 
 Smyth), 
 
 Beebe, Robert Case, M. D., Rev., . . 
 
 Beebe, Mrs. Harriet Linn, 
 
 Brewster, Mrs. Elizabeth Marie Fisher 
 
 N. Brewster), 
 
 Smith, Joel A., Rev 
 
 Smith, Mrs. Florence L. Van Fleet, . 
 Brown, Mrs. Agnes Barker (Mrs. Frederi 
 
 Brown), 
 
 Walley, John, Rev., . . 
 
 Walley, Mrs. Louise M., 
 
 Little, Edward S., Rev., 
 
 Little, Mrs. Carrie Bate, 
 
 Banbury, James Joseph, Rev., . . . 
 
 Banbury, Mrs,, Cecilia Brown, . . . 
 
 Cady, Henry Olin, Rev., 
 
 Stuart, George Arthur, M. D., Rev., 
 Stuart, Mrs. Rachel Anna Golden,, 
 Hopkins, Nehemiah Somes, M. D,, 
 Hopkins, Mrs. Fannie Blanchard Higgins, 
 Nichols, Don Wright, Rev., .... 
 Nichols, Mrs, Anna Ruth Cubberly, 
 
 Greer, Miss Vesta O., 
 
 Ferguson, John Galvin, Rev., . . . 
 Ferguson, Mrs. Mary E. Wilson, . . 
 Curtiss, William Hamlin, Rev,, . . . 
 Curtiss, Mrs. Florence Davis, . . . 
 Wilcox, Mrs. Hattie S. Churchill (Mrs. M, 
 
 Wilcox) 
 
 Lacy, William Henry, Rev., 
 Lacy Mrs. Emma Nind, . . 
 Curnow, James Gats, Rev., . 
 Gregory, James J., Rev., . . 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 Oct., 1882. 
 Oct., 1883. 
 Oct. 1883. 
 Oct. 1883. 
 Oct. 1883, 
 1883. 
 
 ck 
 
 1884. 
 
 1884. 
 
 Nov. 17, i884» 
 
 1884. 
 
 1884. 
 
 188s. 
 
 1886. 
 
 1886. 
 
 1886. 
 
 1886. 
 
 Dec., 1886. 
 Dec, 1886. 
 Oct. 1886. 
 Aug. 7, 1886. 
 Aug. 7, 1886. 
 April 7, 1886. 
 April 7, 1886. 
 Dec. 26, 1887. 
 Dec. 26, i887. 
 
 1887. 
 
 1887. 
 
 1887. 
 
 Nov. 12, 1887. 
 Nov. 12, 1887. 
 
 1887. 
 
 Nov. 5, 1887. 
 Nov. 5, 1887. 
 Oct. 1887. 
 
 x888, 
 
112 
 
 The Roll of Honor. 
 
 Gregory, Mrs. James J., . . . 
 Donohue, Timothy, Rev., . . 
 Donohue, Mrs. Timothy, . . . 
 Scott, Mrs. Lillian G. Hale (Mrs. J. 
 Curnow, Mrs. Mary Jane Eland (M] 
 
 now) 
 
 Brewster, William Nesbit, Rev. 
 Banbury, Mrs. Annie S. Bowen (M; 
 
 bury) 
 
 Wright, Amzi Curtis, .... 
 Wright, Mrs. Sallie E. Lee, . . 
 Jellison, Ernest Ruel, M. D., 
 Jellison, Mrs. Rosa Belle Ryder, 
 Davis, Miss Hattie E., . . . . 
 
 Smith, S. A., Rev., 
 
 Osborne, D. E., M, D., . . . . 
 
 Stevens, Leslie, Rev., 
 
 Stevens, Mrs. Minnie J. Phillips^ 
 McBurnie, Mrs. Eva J., . . . 
 Jones, Thomas R., M. D., . . 
 Jones, Mrs. Stella B. Nichols, M. D 
 Headland, Isaac Taylor, Prof. 
 Headland, Mrs. A. A., ... . 
 McCartney, James Henry, M. D 
 McCartney, Mrs. Kasiah Thomas, 
 Hanzlik, Miss Laura Catherine, 
 
 Collier, Miss Clara, 
 
 Verity, George Washington, Rev, 
 McNabb, Robert Leroy, Rev., . 
 McNabb, Mrs. Sarah M. Canan, 
 Kepler, Charles O., Rev., . . . 
 Kepler, Mrs. Charles C, . . . . 
 
 Barrow, LaClede, Rev., 
 
 Barrow, Mrs. Mary L. King, . . 
 
 Scott, Julian F.,M. D., 
 
 Miner, George Sullivan, Prof., . 
 Miner, Mrs. Mary Phillips, . . . 
 Canright, Harry Lee, M. D., . . 
 Canright, Mrs. Margaret Markham, 
 Bosworth, Miss Sarah Maria, .... 
 
 Scott) 
 O. 
 
 Cur. 
 
 1 in China. 
 
 1888. 
 
 1888, 
 
 Jan. 
 
 1888. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 31, 1888. 
 
 
 1888. 
 
 Nov 
 
 5, 1889. 
 
 Nov 
 
 5, 1889. 
 
 
 1889. 
 
 
 1889. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 24, 1889. 
 
 
 1889. 
 
 
 1889. 
 
 
 1890. 
 
 
 1890. 
 
 
 1890. 
 
 
 1890. 
 
 
 1890. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 I, 1890. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 I, 1890. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 30, 1890. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 30, 1890. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 1891. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 4, 1891. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 1891. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 12, 1892. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 12, 1892. 
 
 
 1892. 
 
 
 1892. 
 
 
 1892, 
 
 
 1892. 
 
 
 1892. 
 
 Jan." 
 
 I, 1892. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 I, 1892. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 II, 1892. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 II, 1892. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 10, 1892, 
 
The RoU of Honor. 113 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 
 Irish, Ralph Orren, Rev., Nov. 14, 1893, 
 
 Irish, Mrs. Lucinda Giffin, Nov, 14, 1893, 
 
 Hayner, James Frederick, Rev., 1893, 
 
 Hayner, Mrs. Mabel Sylvester Shattuck, 1893. 
 
 Gouchenour, Mrs. Mary A., 1893. 
 
 Boyd, Mrs. Martha I. Casterton, 1893. 
 
 Peat, Jacob Franklin, Rev., May 10, 1893, 
 
 Peat, Mrs. Emily May Gaskell, May 10, 1893. 
 
 Manly, Wilson Edward, Rev., Mar. 15, 1893. 
 
 Manly, Mrs. Florence May Brown, 1893, 
 
 Hart, Edgerton Haskell, M. D., Sept. 16, 1893, 
 
 Hart, Mrs. Rose Elizabeth Munn, Sept. 16, 1893. 
 
 Lowry, Edward K., Mr., 1894. 
 
 Terrell, Miss Alice, 1894, 
 
 Myers, Quincy Allen, Rev., Feb. 13, 1894. 
 
 Myers, Mrs. Cora Lacey, Feb. 13, 1894, 
 
 Lowry, George Davis N., M. D., Nov. 8, 1894, 
 
 Lowry, Mrs. Cora Belle Calhoun, Nov. 8, 1894, 
 
 King, Harry Edwin, Professor, Nov. 2, 1894, 
 
 King, Mrs. Edna Alexine Haskins, Nov. 2, 1894, 
 
 Headland, Mrs. Mariam Sinclair, M. D. (Mrs. I. 
 
 T. Headland), 1894. 
 
 McCartney, Mrs. Sarah E. Kissack (Mrs. J. H. 
 
 McCartney), „ 1895. 
 
 Newman, Jesse Ford, Oct. 5, 1895. 
 
 Newman, Mrs. Lucy Eliza Wheeler, Oct. 5, 1895, 
 
 Cady, Mrs. Hattie Yates (Mrs. H. O. Cady), 1895. 
 
 Curtiss, Mrs. Lulu M. Hale (Mrs. W. H. Curtiss), 1895. 
 
 Owen, Thomas Buckley, Rev., Dec. 25,1895. 
 
 Wright, Mrs.. Hattie W. Kelley (Mrs. A. C. 
 
 Wright), 1896. 
 
 Wilson, Miss Mary F., 1896, 
 
 Simester, James, Rev., Sept. 27, 1896, 
 
 Simester, Mrs. Winifred Smack, Sept. 27, 1896. 
 
 Mac Vey, William P., Rev., Sept 11, 1896, 
 
 MacVey, Mrs. Ida G., Sept. 11, 1896. 
 
 Abbott, Miss Efifie Louise, Oct., 1896. 
 
 Wilson, Wilbur Fisk, Professor, Aug. 25, 1896. 
 
 Main, William Artyn, Rev., Sept. 27, 1896. 
 
 Main, Mrs. Emma Little, Sept. 27, 1896. 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 The Roll of Honor. 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 
 James, Edward, Rev., Sept., 1896. 
 
 James, Mrs. Elizabeth LeDoux, Sept., 1896. 
 
 Johanson, Johan August, Rev., 1896. 
 
 "Woolsey, Frank Mahlon, M. D., Feb., 1897. 
 
 Woolsey, Mrs. Hattie E. Elmore, Feb., 1897. 
 
 Skinner, James Edward, M. D., Nov. 9, 1897 
 
 Skinner, Mrs. Susan Hunt Lawrence, M. D., . Nov. 9, 1897. 
 
 Bowen, Arthur John, Rev., Oct., 1897. 
 
 Bowen, Mrs. Nora Jones, Oct., 1897. 
 
 Lowry, Mrs. Katharine Mullikin (Mrs. E. K. 
 
 Lowry), Sept. 1897. 
 
 Marsh, Ben Herbert, Professor, ..,•••.. Nov. 7, 1898, 
 
 Marsh, Mrs. Evelyn C. Pinkney, 1898, 
 
 Rowe, Harry Fleming, Nov. 24, il 
 
 Rowe, Mrs. Maggie Nelson, Rev., Nov. 24, i{ 
 
 MacLean, Robert E., Rev., .... Nov. i, il 
 
 MacLean, Mrs. Effie May Potter, Nov. i, il 
 
 Guthrie, Fred Lincoln, Professor, Oct . 17, 1899. 
 
 Hall, Osman Frederick, M. D., May 23, il 
 
 Caldwell, Ernest Blake, Rev., Dec. 19, 1899, 
 
 Caldwell, Mrs. Gertrude Flora Beeler, •. . . Dec. 19, i 
 
 Martin, James Victor May 2, 1900. 
 
 Guthrie, Mrs. AdelinaGoetz (Mrs. F. L. Guthrie), 1900 
 
 Wilson, Mrs. Mary L. Rowley (Mrs. W. F. Wil- 
 
 son), 
 
 Beech, Joseph,' Rev., 
 
 Beech, Mrs. Nellie Miriam Decker, 
 
 Wilson, John F., Rev., 
 
 Williams, Walter Webster, M. D., . 
 Trindle, John Robert, Rev., .... 
 
 Kauffman, Miss Kate E., 
 
 Henke, Frederick G., Rev., .... 
 Henke, Mrs. Salina A. Hirsch, . . . 
 Hall, Mrs. Christina Williams (Mrs. O. F, 
 Charles, Milton R., M. D., . . . . 
 Caldwell, Harry Russell, Rev.,. . 
 Wilson, Mrs. Amanda Goodrich (Mrs. 
 
 son). 
 
 1900. 
 
 . . . Jan. 25, 1900. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1901. 
 
 . . . Mar. 24, 1901. 
 
 1901. 
 
 . . . Feb. 8, 1901. 
 
 1901. 
 
 igot, ) 
 
 Hall), 1901. 
 
 190Z. 
 
 . . . Jan. 26, 1901, 
 F. Wil- 
 
 1902. 
 
 Trindle, Mrs. Josie Newland (Mrs. J. R. Trindle) 1902. \ 
 
 3t. John, Burton Little, Rev., 
 
 , 3ept., 1902, 
 
The Roll of Honor. 115 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 
 St. John, Mrs. lo Barnes, Sept., 1902. 
 
 Gowdy, John, Rev., Sept., 1902. 
 
 Gowdy, Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson . . , Sept., 1902. 
 
 Davis, George Lowry, Rev., Oct., 1902. 
 
 Davis, Mrs. Irma B. Rardin, Oct., 1902. 
 
 Charles, Mrs. Marilla Goodrich (Mrs. M. R. 
 
 Charles), . . • • 1902. 
 
 Caldwell, Mrs. Mary Belle Cope (Mrs. H. R. Cald- 
 well), 1902. 
 
 Batcheller, Walter Benson, M. D., 1903. 
 
 Batcheller, Gertrude Andres, M. D., 1903. 
 
 Yost, John Wycliffe, Professor, Oct., 1903. 
 
 Krause, Oliver Josiah, Mr., Nov. 25, 1903. 
 
 Keeler, Joseph Leonard, M. D., Nov. 25, 1903. 
 
 Keeler, Mrs. Elma A. Nichol, Nov. 25, 1903. 
 
 Hanson, Perry Oliver, Rev., Nov. 10, 1903. 
 
 Hanson, Mrs. Ruth Ewing, Nov. 10, 1903. 
 
 Dildine, Harry Glenn, Rev Oct., 1903. 
 
 Dildine, Mrs. Maud Fairbanks LaDowe, .... Oct., 1903. 
 
 Crawford, Walter M., Rev., Dec, 1903. 
 
 Bissonnette. Wesley S., Mr., Oct., 1903. 
 
 Bissonnette, Mrs. Estella Evelyn Stenhouse (Mrs. 
 
 W. S. Bissonnette), May, 1904. 
 
 Yost, Mrs. Edna A. Bowman (Mrs. J. W. Yost), . Sept., 1904. 
 
 Ricker, Raymond Craver, Prof., Sept., 1904, 
 
 Maddock, Miss Caroline Emma, Oct., 1904. 
 
 Jones, Edwin Chester, Prof., Oct. 22, 1904. 
 
 Gibb, John McGregor, Prof., Oct., 1904. 
 
 Ensign, Charles Francis, M. D Nov., 1904. 
 
 Ensign, Mrs. Myrtle, Nov., 1904, 
 
 Jones, Ulric Robert, Rev., Nov., 1904. 
 
 .Jones, Mrs. Glennie Louise Wood, Nov., 1904. 
 
 Trimble, Frederick Homer, Mr., Jan., 1905. 
 
 Meek, William Shankland, Mr., Nov., 1904. 
 
 Meek, Mrs. Maude Van Horn, Nov., 1904. 
 
 Taft, Mr. Mary (Swail) Wilkinson (Mrs. M. L. 
 
 Taft), Oct., 1905. 
 
 Martin, Arthur Wesley, Prof., 1905. 
 
 Martin, Mrs. Alice Donaldson Bull, 1905. , 
 
 Eyestone, James Bruce, Rev., , . Oct., 1905, 
 
116 
 
 The Roll of Honor. 
 
 Craw 
 
 F. H 
 
 Arrived in China. 
 
 Oct., 1905. 
 
 Nov., 1905. 
 
 Nov.. 1905. 
 
 Eyestone, Mrs. Elizabeth Wright, 
 Carson, Frederick Stanley, Rev., . 
 Carson, Mrs. Grace Darling, . . . 
 Crawford, Mrs. Mabel J. Little (Mrs. W 
 
 ford) 
 
 Brown, Grow Stanley, Rev., .... 
 Freeman, Claude Wesley, M. D., . 
 Trimble, Mrs. Rena Nellie Bowker (M 
 
 Trimble) 
 
 Torrey, Ray Le Valley, Rev., . . . 
 Houghton, Henry Spencer, M. D., . 
 Houghton, Mrs. Caroline M. Carmack, 
 
 Ford, Eddy Lucius, Rev., 
 
 Ford, Mrs. Effie Lillian Collier . . 
 Blackstone, James Harry, Rev., . . 
 Blackstone, Mrs. Barbara Treman, . 
 Bankhardt, Frederick, Rev., .... 
 
 Williams, Elrick, Prof., 
 
 Wincher, Miss Kate A., 
 
 Gibb,Mrs.Katherine Cardlin (Mrs. J. McG. Gibb) 
 
 Date not given 
 Mortson, Miss Florence L., . . Sailed for China Nov. 26, 1906. 
 Coole, Thomas H., M. D., . . . " << «< n ^8, 
 
 Coole, Mrs. T. A., " " *' " 28, 
 
 Oct., 1905. 
 Oct., 1905. 
 1906. 
 
 1906, 
 
 1906, 
 
 1906. 
 
 1906. 
 
 1906, 
 
 1906. 
 
 1906, 
 
 1906, 
 
 1906. 
 
 1906. 
 
 .... 1906. 
 
 II. WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 1871. 
 
 Woolston, Beulah. 
 Woolston, Sarah. 
 Brown, Maria (Davis). 
 Porter, Mary G. (Game well). 
 
 1872. 
 Hoag, Lucy H., M. D. 
 Howe, Gertrude, 
 
 1873. 
 Combs, Lucinda(Strittmater), 
 
 1874. 
 Mason, Letitia, M. D. (Quine). 
 Trask, Sigourney (Cowles). 
 
 1875. 
 Campbell, Letitia, A. 
 
 1877. 
 Howard, Leonora, M. D. 
 
 1878. 
 Sparr, Julia, M. D. (Coffin). 
 
The Roll of Honor. 
 
 117 
 
 1879. 
 
 Bushnell, Kate C, M. D. 
 Howe, Delia A. 
 
 1880. 
 Cushman, CIa~a. 
 Sears, Anna B. 
 Yates, Elizabeth U. 
 
 1881. 
 Gilchrist, Ella M., M. D. 
 Wheeler, Frances (Verity). 
 
 X882. 
 Akers, Stella, M. D. 
 
 1883. 
 Jewell, Mrs. Charlotte M. 
 
 1884. 
 Corey, Katherine, M. D. 
 
 (Ford). 
 Fisher, Elizabeth (Brewster). 
 Jewell, Carrie. 
 Robinson, Mary C. 
 
 1885. 
 Gloss, Anna D., M. D. 
 
 1886. 
 Green, Nellie R. 
 Pray, Susan. M. D. 
 
 1887. 
 Carlton, Mary E., M. D. 
 Hartford, Mabel C. 
 Shaw, Ella C. 
 Terry, Edna G., M. D. 
 
 1888. 
 Bonafield, Julia. 
 Hale, Lillian G. (Scott-Wej- 
 
 day). 
 Johnson, Ella (Kinnear). 
 Ketring, Mary, M. D. 
 Mitchell, Emma L. 
 Peters, Sarah L. 
 
 Steere, Anna E. 
 Trimble, Lydia. 
 Wilson, Frances O. 
 
 1890. 
 Benn, Rachel, M. D. 
 Lyon, M. Ellen, M. D. 
 Stevenson, Ida B., M. D. 
 
 1891. 
 Frey, Cecelia M. 
 Ogborn, Kate L. 
 Sites, Ruth M. (Brown). 
 White, Laura M. 
 
 1892. 
 Glover, Ella E, 
 Harrington, Susan (Crous- 
 
 land). 
 Masters, Luella, M. D. 
 Stanton, Alice M. (WoodrufT). 
 Wilkinson, Lydia M. 
 Young, Effie G. 
 
 1893. 
 Davis, Mrs. Anna C. 
 Donahue, Julia M., M. D. 
 Wilson, Minnie C. 
 
 1894. 
 Allen, Mabel 
 Galloway, Helen R. 
 Meyer, Fannie E. 
 Peters, Mary 
 
 1895. 
 
 Barrow, Mrs. M. L., M. D. 
 (King). 
 
 Collier, Clara J. 
 
 Croucher, Meranda (Pack- 
 hard.) 
 
 Harris, Lillian, M. D. 
 
 Hu King Eng, M. D. 
 
 Kissack, Sadie E. (McCart- 
 ney). 
 
118 
 
 The Roll of Honor. 
 
 1895. 
 
 Linam, Alice 
 
 Rouse, Wilma H. (Keene). 
 Shockley, Mary E. 
 Taft, Gertrude, M. D. 
 Todd, Althea M. 
 Wells, Phoebe 
 
 X896. 
 Deaver, Ida C. 
 
 Oilman, Gertrude 
 Kahn, Ida, M. D. 
 Merrill, Clara E. 
 Stone, Mary, M. D. 
 
 1897. 
 Todd, Grace. 
 
 X898. 
 Glenk, Marguerite (Burley). 
 Lebeus, Martha. 
 Longstreet, Isabella 
 Varncy, L. W. 
 
 1899. 
 Dreibelbies, Caroline 
 Manning, Ella 
 Nicholaisen, Martha L. 
 Parkinson, Phoebe A. 
 
 1900. 
 Adams, Jean. 
 Goetz, Adeline (Guthrie). 
 Martin, Elizabeth. 
 Martin, EmmajE., M. D. 
 Plumb, Florence J. 
 Rowley, Mary L. (Wilson). 
 
 X901. 
 Edmonds, Agnes M., M. D. 
 Marriott, Jessie A. 
 Tibbet, Mrs. Susan. 
 Williams, Christiana (Hall). 
 
 1902. 
 Pierce, Thirza M. 
 Sia, Mabel. 
 Westcott, Pauline E. 
 
 1903. 
 Alexander, Bessie. 
 Deavitt, La Dona. 
 Jones, Dorothy. 
 Travis, Grace F. 
 Wheeler, Maude S. 
 
 1904. 
 Bartlett, Carrie M. 
 Betow, Emma J., M. D. 
 Chrisholm, Emma M. 
 Crane, Edith M. 
 Crooks, Grace A. 
 Glassburner, Mamie F. 
 Hu, Mary L. 
 Koons, Sue L., M. D. 
 Lorenze, Frieda V. 
 McHose, Lotta. 
 Peters, Alice. 
 Strow, Elizabeth. 
 Stone, Anna. 
 Thomas, Mary M. 
 
 1905- 
 Hitchcock, Frances H. 
 Hughes, Jennie V. 
 LiBiCu, M. D. 
 Newby, Alta. 
 Simester, Mary A. 
 Stranik, Gertrude. 
 Wells, Annie M. 
 Witte, Helen W. 
 
 1906. 
 Brethorst, Alice. 
 Draper, Frances L., M. D. 
 Horsinger, Welthy B. 
 Knox, Emma M. 
 Powell, Alice M. 
 Strawic, Gertrude. 
 Tang, Iliene. 
 
 I 
 
CsJ 
 
YC148508 
 
 ,.^.ir»: