Part 35

On the first and fifteenth of each month, a musical service is held before dawn in the two thousand Confucian temples scattered throughout China. These temples all contribute a little toward the support of Confucius’s seventy-seventh direct descendant, Prince Kung Fut Tsze (which Latinized is Confucius), of Shangtung, though some of the Kungs are Christians. The Confucian temples contain red and gold tablets of Confucius and his disciples instead of the statues appearing in the Buddhist, Taoist and War temples of the land. When Kwang Hsu, the reform emperor, issued an edict in 1898 that modern schools should be formed, he ordered that some of the Confucian temples should be impressed. Confucius did not institute ancestor worship in 550 B. C. He found that it existed in his own state of Lu (present Shangtung province) and in the adjoining states of Tsi on the north and Wei and Sung on the west, all of whom had taken it, with the sacred tripods, from the parent Chou clan, which brought them from misty prehistoric days thousands of years back. To Confucius, credit should be given for adopting ancestor worship as an indispensable rite in the organization of the growing Tsu clan and of the future conqueror and federator of China, the Tsin clan, which latter eventually ended feudalism, which was then, however, adopted by Japan and carried forward to our own day. Let us quote here the stern Carlyle’s sympathetic tribute to the ancestor worship of the Chinese: “The emperor and his millions visit yearly the tombs of their fathers; each man the tomb of his father and his mother; alone there, in silence, with what of worship or of other thought there may be, pauses solemnly each man; the divine skies all silent over, the divine graves--and this divinest grave--all silent under him; the pulsings of his own soul alone audible. Truly it may be a kind of worship. Truly if a man can not get some glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this portal, through what other need he try it?” Attempts have been, and doubtless will continue to be made to revivify or modernize Confucianism. The most notable of the viceroys, Chang Chih Tung, of Wuchang, wrote a book called _China’s Only Hope_ with this in view. Confucius was averse to liquor. One of the odes of the _Book of Odes_, written 1100 B. C., and edited by Confucius, rails against drunkenness. The ode realistically describes a riotous banquet which might have taken place in hilarious Vladivostok in 1904, previous to the war, when sweet Roederer ran like water.

The Pope of Taoism dwells on Lung Hu Mountain, in Kiangsi province. Taoism’s book, the _Tao Teh King_, written in 604 B. C. by Lao Tsz, speaks of the Triune God of reason, nature and virtue. The sect is now one of astrologers and nature worshipers, and is strong in the southern and eastern provinces. It builds temples and teaches the nature superstition of Feng Shui (Wind and Water), which until recently held the land in thrall against mining, industry and railways. The Taoists have been bitterly anti-foreign. Bows and arrows are sometimes hung up in the green Taoist temples as votive or thank offerings, the sentiment being that they are to kill one’s unpropitious influence or adverse Feng-shui. Taoist priests sometimes wear gorgeous gowns completely covered with embroidery of flowers, insects, birds, animals and the exorcised devil himself. They make a pretty penny by publishing or interpreting an almanac, the day selected possibly reading as follows:

June 10th

LUCKY:

To set sail to-day. To begin a land journey to-day. To begin a suit to-day.

UNLUCKY:

To bury your father to-day. To begin a new well to-day. To bargain for a wife for your son to-day. To buy oil to-day. To sweep your shop to-day. To hire a cook to-day.

The traveler who has everything ready at Ichang to start on the long journey through the glorious Yangtze gorges and rapids often wonders why his men can not be induced to start. The reason is that they are wading through the Luck Book, thus wasting an unnecessary week. Oil is needed, but it can not be bought on June 5th. Fish are needed, but can not be bought on June 6th. Rope can not be bought on June 7th, and when June 9th comes along it is unlucky to sail on that day. The Taoist priest makes his money by selling your laota (captain) an indulgence to sail on June 9th, for which you have to pay handsomely about ten cents, and the kinshan incense and firecrackers extra! The tiger and the dragon represent the early gods of the terrified aboriginal Chinese, and predate the ancestor worship of the first Chou clan of the north. These emblems have been adopted by the Taoist priests. The grotesque shrines are found among the mountains, a dominating view being necessary for the casting of the “influence.”

Among the aboriginal Lolo tribes of Yunnan an animal represents each day of the month. Accordingly the body of a caravaner is kept for burial until the lucky day of the horse arrives. A coin is put between the lips to pay the way, which shows that the rites are Taoist, and quite similar to old Grecian and Egyptian rites. When the revolutionists were fortifying Hanyang, in October, 1911, they did not hesitate to use a Taoist monastery as a fort in the hills. This marks a step forward against old superstitions, which were once insurmountable. The Chinese declare that a positive omen of a coming conflagration is the crowing of a cock during the night. Of course, all the cooks of Hankau recited this to their masters on the day when the imperialists burned the native city. Statues are many in the temples, monasteries, guild halls, pagodas and road shrines. Although Confucius is generally represented by a tablet merely, there are some temples which have statues of him and his disciples. Buddha is represented by three statues of the Past, Present and Future Buddha. Emperors of popular dynasties have statues erected to them in the temples. Then the Taoists have innumerable gods, including the famous gods of the War Temples. The guilds of the three hundred trades and twenty-one provinces all have patron gods, and it is orthodox to rub your finger on the god’s body in the place that corresponds with your sore spot, if you feel ill! You touch his back if you have lumbago (and find out that he is hollow!); his nose if you have asthma, and so on.

There are household gods; a god “Tsan” of the kitchen; pictures of gods to paste on the gates of the compound, and the God of Literature, who is very popular and has many temples. All over the north the Manchus have erected temples to the Fox, their wily patron god. This dependence on idols is not so dense as in India. The Chinese do it more as a good luck omen, just as we wear an opal or a turquoise, and not always as an essential religious rite. They have too much humor really to be as foolish as they may look when in the god’s presence. A god who doesn’t do his business well is as quickly dragged out by a rope and burned in times of stress as a human being would be treated with contumely whose prophecies always failed. In the south, religious edifices are being occupied for educational and civic purposes. When in 1908 the new learning broke over China like the full burst of a tropical day, the schools at first had to be housed in temples and monasteries. Recently, at Canton, the Wah Lum Monastery was used to entertain a public-spirited Chinese of Singapore, Chang U. Him, who brought both new learning and new wealth. “All interested in industries, self-government, charities and new education” were invited by circular to come up and see him “at the temple!”

Some of their religious proverbs, often touched with humor, are:

“If you must thrash a priest, wait until he has finished praying for you.”

“Man’s myriad schemes are not equal to a thought of God.”

“God gives birth and death to every man, but honors only to the few who deserve them.”

“The deeper your cave, the smaller is your heaven.”

“Man’s blow hits everything but heaven.”

“Do no wrong by light, and you’ll see no devil at night.”

“Penitence is good, but it should be proved by pennies.”

“Though the face is paler, the sin isn’t any whiter.”

“When things go well, we are so hungry that we eat all the meal; when trouble comes, we are glad to give it all to the idol.”

“Forget the priest on a fair day, but hug his idol on a foul.”

“A maker of idols never goes to a temple.”

“Fire for gold and trial for the soul.”

“Sorrow for the saint, and chisel for the statue.”

“Sorrow ends where sin begins.”

“Speak of the devil and he drops in.”

“Kind words outlive much frost.”

“Heaven calls the good soon, but doesn’t want the bad till the last.”

“The devil disguises himself less than his followers do.”

“When you forgive your enemy, the wrong pains less.”

“The silver whisper is loudest in the idol’s ear.”

“The whole earth is a coffin; only for the living the lid is not yet hammered down.”

“A lie is like burying the dead in the snow; the secrecy doesn’t last long.”

“The brows of the saints prop the pillars of heaven.”

Says a northern pessimist: “Oh! the hypocrisy of religion; sacrifice a bullock once a year, and steal bullocks all the rest of the year.”

The supercilious man threw this sarcastic shaft at his accoster: “_I_ pick _my_ company.” The mission school man heaped coals of fire on his head with this bland reply: “And your company is proud to pick you.”

The Chinese love to contrast life and death, as is shown in their paintings of pear trees in bloom and willows in bud, while snow lies on mountain peak and hillside.

The Americans at home have established a beautiful custom of casting wreaths into the sea on Decoration Day in commemoration of the dead who were buried or lost at sea, and there is a similar custom at Venice and elsewhere. The Chinese, too, have a Decoration or All Souls’ Day, which is observed by the adherents of the three religions in the first week of September. Red boats and lanterns are set afloat, and the priests burn paper clothing, money and food, and set off firecrackers. Where the ceremony takes place on land, it is customary to throw copper money to the street gamins. The festival is also observed at the magisterial yamens and temples, and Wing Lok Street, Hongkong, is noted for the characteristic observance of the ceremony. The rise of republicanism is going to strike a hard blow at one of the main teachings of Confucianism, “serving the prince,” because there will be no prince to serve and also at “li,” the rule of blind obedience to those in power; following the trade of the parent; destroying children; self-disfigurement; concubinage; expensive funerals and priest-craft; abuse of women; blind worship of the past; suicide of purchased wives; exaggeration of man and minimizing of God; neglect of organized charities and of science and comparative history. This change will make the introduction of Christianity more hopeful. It is to be expected that the worship of ancestors will also weaken, and with it will weaken the custom of early marriages. The Chinese have too many children to educate properly, as the Americans and French have probably too few. A somewhat smaller China would mean a richer and better China.

Catholic missions began in China when by caravan Corvina visited Kublai Khan, at Peking, in 1292 A. D. Ricci arrived at Canton in 1582 and worked in many of the provincial capitals and at Macao and Peking. Schaal worked from 1622 to 1664 and had influence with the greatest and most artistic Manchu emperor, Kang Hi. Abbé Huc covered the country from Peking and Tibet to Macao from 1844 onward. The chief educational centers of the Romanists are at Peking, Tientsin, Canton, Macao, Saigon and Hongkong. The large press and college of the Missiones d’Etrangeres is at Hongkong (Aberdeen side of the island). At Peking is their extensive Pei Tang press. They have large, two-spired Gothic cathedrals at Canton, Peking, etc. The square towered cathedral on Caine Road, Hongkong, is the architectural crown of the lovely colony. The Catholics number 1,500,000, their work being strong in orphanages, among women, etc., and in comparison with Protestant missions very weak in higher education and the distributed Bible itself. They consider it expedient to train the child rather than to make the expensive experiment of reasoning with and educating the man. Therefore most of the modernized Chinese officials are Protestants. Naturally the Catholic method brings more converts than does the Protestant.

The American missions almost dominate in the expensive higher education of the land, and it now seems certain that American educational methods, thoroughly tried in China, will be adopted over the world because of their efficiency and altruism. The Protestant missions of Europe, working in China, are as follows: The Scandinavians work in Hupeh and the northern provinces, and while not rich, they have developed effective fearless men of great resource. The German Lutherans are active at Kiaochou, and in the north and the Yangtze valley. The English Baptists, dating back to 1792, have many missions, notably in Shangtung province. The London Missionary Society (mainly Congregational), dating back to 1795, operates largely along the coast, in the south, and at Peking. The Church of Scotland (both Free and Established), which is strong in medical missions, operates notably in Manchuria. The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of England have many missions throughout the land. The Anglican Church operates chiefly in the great ports; is now strong in higher education, and has erected many fine cathedrals. It has taken under its wing the foreigner in China, who, Kipling charged, did many reckless things “east of Suez!” Even the Friends’ Society of England has missions in China. The China Inland Mission, founded by the noted Doctor Hudson Taylor in 1862, has eight hundred missionaries who altruistically accept the smallest salaries paid in China. Many of them live on the land, in the “faith” method. The method of the organization is by personal contact rather than by expensive, highly organized education. For years this was the most dramatic and heroic mission in the darker provinces of the land. The Salvation Army has also come to China through the world-binding love of that extraordinary man, “General” Booth. American missions dominate in Protestant China, British and Colonial missions being one-half as strong, which means an equal zeal when the population of the two countries is considered.

American missions are stronger in educational, political and medical activities; the British make a specialty of preaching, charities and personal work. The Americans develop more native preachers and translators than any of the other missions, and their confidence in the Chinese is producing wonderful results in reaching toward the establishment of a self-sustaining church some day. No work, except the medical missions, has, however, ever surpassed the aim of the British and Foreign and American Bible Societies to put a translated Bible in the hands of every Chinese. China, foremost of all lands, ranks learning above everything else. By its attitude in specializing in education, the American church has attracted the sympathy of the leaders of the nation. No nation has a monopoly of mission heroes, but the wisdom of the American decision has been at once apparent.

The Roman missions work largely on the medieval plan of: “Give me the child till he is thirteen and I don’t care who gets it after that.” The American Protestants and some of the British say: “Give him to me from thirteen to twenty-three, so that he can understand.” One proselytizes possibly by prejudice and association. The other, imparting all the knowledge possible, trusts to the mind and sense of cultivated justice in the pupil. The Roman orphanages in China outnumber the Protestants five to one. The high-grade schools and colleges of the Americans are almost alone in the field, though the British propose now to follow vigorously. The difference is in attitude. There is no difference between Romanist and Protestant missionary in China in braving death from the hands of pirates, persecution from “Boxers” and others, misery, disease and alienation. The heroes are numberless; their lives are thrilling; their aims are the most altruistic the world has known, and the orchard is in such a flower of fruitage now as to dazzle the altruist’s eye.

It was a matter of great interest to foreigners when the October, 1911, revolution opened, that the chief leader and organizer of the movement, Doctor Sun Yat Sen (Sunyacius) was a Christian, the son of a Cantonese (Fatshan) evangelist. It will be remembered that Siu Tsuen, the leader of the 1848 Taiping rebellion, which marched from Canton to Nanking via the Mei Ling pass, was also a Cantonese Christian, but infinitely inferior to Doctor Sun in education and experience, as well as in character. Eventually Siu fell away from the faith, under the influence of bad advisers, into savagery. The missions were all given advance information previous to the October, 1911, revolution, showing that the Chinese esteem missionaries ahead of diplomats. This is a very precious compliment, and marks the vast advance of Christianity in the hearts of the Chinese “Hoi Polloi.” Even before the October, 1911, rebellion, officials of the old class were throwing away their prejudices against missionaries and welcoming them as angels of light in a way that would have delighted Paul and Barnabas. General Tsen Chun Hsuan, a bloody enough loyalist leader in war, when viceroy of Szechuen province, made this address: “My hope is that the missionary teachers and medical missionaries of America and Britain will spread their gospel more widely than ever, and that the influence of the gospel may bring boundless happiness for our people of China. I shall not be the only one to thank you for your good work. Long live your Gospel.”

The literal name by which the Roman church goes in China is “Tien Chu” (Heaven Lord church), and the Protestants are generally called by the Catholics and by the Chinese “Jesus church,” or “Shangti” (Supreme Ruler church). The American Episcopalians and the British Anglicans in April, 1912, decided to call themselves the “Holy Public church” (Sheng Kung Hwei). The Roman missionaries had much to do with the annexation of vast Tonquin (population twenty-two millions) by France, and their activity is similarly ambitious in Yunnan province, lower Szechuen, and in Kwangsi and Kweichou provinces. As long ago as 1844, so brave a traveler and learned a priest as Abbé Huc insisted on wearing the yellow robe of the privileged mandarin class. Not only at one station or in one province did he do this, but on his journey of 1849 through Tibet, Szechuen, Hupeh, Kiangsi and Kwangtung provinces, he wore the robe and demanded the reception of a mandarin, the thinly veiled implication being that if he was interfered with, there were French guns that could pound the Taku and Bogue forts on the way to Tientsin and Canton, respectively, which they really did ten years later. As late as 1899, when China was torn by dissensions between the reformers and the reactionaries, and while the wounds of her defeat by Japan were still open, the Roman church, with the diplomatic aid of France, forced from the then Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board) an imperial rescript granting Roman priests the rank and insignia of a Chinese perfect (mandarin), and Roman bishops the astoundingly high title and insignia of a viceroy, which honors affected eleven hundred priests and forty-six bishops. It was not until 1909 that China resolved to throw off this incubus. The rescript was rescinded by the new Wai Wu Pu (Foreign Board) and Li Pu (Board of Rites). Enlightened Romanists in America of course do not uphold such militant Romanism, which smacks rather much of the bizarre days of Cortez. Let it be said too that the French Romanist abroad is more medieval than the French Romanist in France. While sailing in the Red Sea, talking with French clerics from Tajoora, which faces the hot Gulf of Aden, and while walking along the red banks of the Saigon River in Indo-China, I have heard bitter criticisms from French priests which would have been deemed _lèse majesté_ in the home republic itself.

A traveler can not pass through China without being mobbed by the sick to be cured. “You are a foreigner, you _must_ be a doctor; cure me and mine; I have heard that the foreigners can cure any ill; cure me, man of Jesus.” It is agonizing. I knew a man who only carried a caustic stick and two drugs (quinine and salts). Wherever he was mobbed with appeals he administered these drugs to those whom he thought they would benefit. Almost better if he had not done so. The cured who leaped about with new life were enough proof that he was “lying” when he said that he could not heal the wounded, the seriously ill, the leprous and the ulcered. He was almost torn apart. Were I a billionaire, I am a thousand times sure that I would send a thousand medical missionaries to China for five years, each man to hire a Chinese understudy, and carry a full surgical and medical chest, and the Bible and medical text books only. Then I would leave the Chinese pupils to carry on the work; they would be stationed as radiating centers at proper distances apart throughout the land. I would then spend the rest of my life listening to the marvelous stories which my five thousand friends had to tell of what they had seen and done. No man who ever lived--not even Paul when he wrote the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians; not even the beloved John when he saw the Heavenly City in seraphic dreams--would have experienced such real and wide happiness as I. No man could pass away with more ecstatic memories, such a delirium of too much joy.

I want to write a word of commendation of the missionary, for detraction by some in high places, and by some authors who write as they fly and flit at the ports, is not uncommon. The attacks upon missions in Henry Norman’s _Peoples and Politics of the Far East_, and in Pumpelly’s _Across America and Asia_, are well known, and have been repeated by others. One may be a cynic at home, and with reason sometimes criticize some pulpits because they fear the magnate at the end of some pews, and color their sermons accordingly. One may in a supercilious way sneer at the seeming lack of personality in the missionary candidate, who in a gentle faith stands up in her or his church to answer the call: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” But follow the worker into the China field, and see what that call and the altruistic opportunity has done by its very immensity. The gentle missionary has soon become many things: a brave pioneer in exile; a scholar and linguist; an organizer of great power and tact; a local foreign minister of great ability in adapting the West to the East; a scientist, housekeeper, traveler, physician, explorer, ethnologist, nurse, orator; the only host of explorers; the most generous of mankind; an ideal example of what the West should be; the most inspired of human beings in self-sacrifice and wonderful accomplishment under difficulties. Their expenses are many; their resources few. Many have to live on the slimmest of contributions from home, such as the missionaries of the China Inland Mission, the Scandinavian Mission, and the Scottish Missions, which are not rich.