Having considered as fairly as possible the non-missionary portion of the foreign residents in China, it is now incumbent to consider with equal fairness the missionary class, representing the peoples of England, Scotland, and Ireland, France, Germany and Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, Belgium, Holland and Scandinavia, the United States, Canada and Australasia, In conversation with a certain Taotai, who had been educated in part by certain veterans in the missionary ranks, and who had visited the Christian nations of the West, I was surprised by hearing spoken in all mildness of tone, though possibly not in spirit, the following serious accusation: "The missionary movement will do a great deal of harm to. our country." And that no doubt speaks the real sentiments of not a few. To rebut the charge, it is not policy that we in turn accuse the accuser or misjudge his motives, nay we should acknowledge that even such a harsh criticism may be the expression of a deep patriotism and a love of truth and order.
Speaking of the designs of those who instigated the riots along the Yangtze valley 1891, the native organ in Shanghai, called the Shéupao, thus wrote at the time: " People generally speak of these disturbances as being the outcome vf disagreements between the masses and the foreign religious orders." Then later on it adds: "'However, it is not the dissatisfaction felt towards the churches, but it is under the pretence of dissatisfaction that troubles are caused." This, we think, characterises the disturbances witha greateramountofaccuraey, atleest the troubles which originated in 189]. Itrecognises the composite nature ofa very difficult problem, the solution of which is not in recrimination or secret surmisings, but in a calm open discussion of all the real phases, In a previous section, when examining the culpability of the Chinese people, we pointed out the false suspicions and the misconceptions which they entertained of the missionary movement, but in all fairness we must admit that if the missionaries themselves have given no real cause for anti-foreign feeling, they have given an occasion, and perhaps if we delve more deeply, we may find here and there a little blame and remissness. AI] that is needed, as in all the previous sections, is a correct induction from existing facts on the sound testimony of competent witnesses.
Some time ago the Rev. John Ross, who generally writes with considerable clearness and moderation, penned an article on "The Riots and their Lessons," in which he specified certain mistakes, as he conceived them in all fairness, in this missionary body. Whereupon a critic appeared condemninghim in far from gentle language. After noticing the strictures as true or as false, he sums up thus: "'In either case the evil of them [i.e. the strictures] is most manifest. They supply the enemy with further arguments against the cause; they make it possible out of the missionary': own mouth, as it were, to condemn him they lead an uninformed public to inevitably believe every anti-missionary tale, no matter how' absurd; they direct the sympathy of friends; beget suspicions; give rise to divisions; and in a word, play the very mischief." While thus deprecating any attack on the missionaries,.the writer closes. his article with a strong rebuke to the Chinese officials. We only quote two sentences: " There is but one cure for rights, namely a wholesome fear of the consequences on the part of those hoare notoriously ill-disposed. This fear the magistrates can put upon. the people, if they: are so required." This method of partiality may be pleasing to the missionary sense of self-protection, but the sense of general or common justice requires a more general treatment or none at all. What we have written about certain short-comings in. the Chinese mandarins is no doubt highly satisfactory to our cautious and admonitory friend, but we confess that such restrictions alone would not satisfy our own sense of fairness, and we doubt if the majority of our readers would heartily approve of such one-sidedness. Adherence to the truth, however reactionary the force on one's self, is never to be feared, if the main object of our cause be one of truth and the repulsion of error and misconception.
The missionary body, however, is a varied one, and it is essential to the truth that we discriminate. Failure to do so may injure the innocent for the fault of the guilty. In reading the mass of proclamations, Edicts, and articles, we have noticed the tendency to speak of missionaries as one body or of Christians as of one Religion, Thus th writer of the article ' Defensio Papa adds " postscript: "What I have written above applies equally to Protestant and to Catholic missions in China." "So long as Protestanism and Romanism have not united under one head, and have lacked even the simple element of mutual conference; are different in many methods of works in certain rites, and in a few points of doctrine; are in fact different organisations, we deem it inexpedient to mix them together in a clear and candid review. As the Circular of the Tsungli Yamen in 1871 remarked "The people in general, unaware of the difference which exists" between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, confound these two religions ander this latter denomination." We, however, propose to (discriminate between the two, and will hence first point out the sources of trouble, as we understand them, in the Roman Church in China, and then in, Protestantism, (To be continued.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.