Missionary Societies Decline Blood Money
The following paragraph telling how $35,000 has gone begging among Christian missionary societies in Great Britain, is from the Wesleyan Word and Workers.— The British government, having received from the Chinese government £7,000 by way of “compensation” for the murder of two missionaries of the China Inland Mission, placed the sum at the disposal of that mission. The China Inland Mission, however, declined to accept “blood-money;” the vengeance it exacts from the Chinese for the lives of its many martyrs is to lavish upon them more lives of loving and heroic labor. On this refusal the British authorities have sought some way by which the £7,000 could be applied to the benefit of the Chinese, and have naturally thought that it might be spent to most advantage in connection with the beneficent activities of some missionary society. The chairman of our Wuchang District was therefore approached by the British consul with the suggestion that we should accept this sum, and use it for the extension of our medical, educational, or social work in that district. But the December committee adopted, by a large majority, a resolution courteously declining to receive the money.