The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 04, October, 1900Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 04, October, 1900
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
I can give you many incidents of this character, but one is
sufficient. Several of the Congregational and Presbyterian Christians
in the village of Lung How Lee, of the Hoy Ping District, not far
from Canton, had a piece of land there and were building a free
schoolhouse, which was almost completed, when the enemies of the
Mission rose and destroyed the building; worse than this, several of
the rioters met and outraged a girl relative of one of the
Christians. This girl, because of her disgrace, committed suicide by
hanging. The Christians had the perpetrators before the District
Magistrate, who was about to punish them; when suddenly all their
relatives, together with the accomplices, about seventy in number,
went to Canton and joined the Catholic Church. They then got their
priests and the French Consul to plead for their imprisoned relatives
before the Chinese Governor. The result was that every one of the
culprits was released and the cases dismissed. These infamous
criminals, as soon as they were set at liberty, committed further
outrages; they attacked the Christians, drove them from their homes
and village, and plundered all they had. All these crimes were
committed before the eyes of the Catholic priests. How could they
tolerate such detestable acts. It makes our blood boil to see such
outrages. We are at a loss to understand why the Catholic priests
admitted such people to their churches, and why the French Consul so
blindly used his influence to liberate such criminals. These things
have not only occurred repeatedly in the Kwong Tung Province of South
China, but also throughout the whole Empire. The Catholic people have
not only wronged the Christians, but also the non-Christians, and
thus a strong sentiment is created against them.
Whenever there is a chance to pay back, these people will inflict a
heavy blow. In fact, these Catholics have already suffered the
consequences of their wrong-doing; this is why there were so many
more Catholics massacred than Protestants in the recent uprising.
But why should the people have killed the Christians at all? Well, in
a time of anti-foreign uprising the people are easily misled. The
rioter, and those anxious to plunder would surely say: "The
Christians are just the same as the Catholics," so they killed them
to effect robbery.
It is also true that the missionaries, especially those of Catholic
faith, have often been, by ignorant people, charged with decoying
children into their missionary compound and then killing them in
order to gouge their eyes out and secure their hearts from which to
make medicines. And again, we have heard silly rumors like these: The
foreigners send their missionaries to China to first win the hearts
of the people, and then come with armies to take China for their own.
All these different rumors have had their origin in Buddhist and
Taoist priests, who have shown most bitter jealousy toward
Christianity and missionaries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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