The Jesuits in China

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 13, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 15.

The Jesuits in China.

In a letter sent from Canton, mention was made of the cathedral going up there, which is to cost three millions of dollars. We learn that another, quite as magnificent and costly, is being erected at Pekin; also, that in nearly every important city of the empire churches are being erected. The Jesuits are in China in great force. Here comes one of their priests, a Frenchman, wearing Chinese clothing, with a pigtail hanging down his back. He has become a Chinaman, following to the letter the apostolic example and precept—becoming all things to all men, to accomplish the end in view. The Jesuits throughout the empire have adopted the dress, the habits and customs of the Chinese—eating as they eat, sleeping as they sleep, shaving the forehead and not the crown, just as the Chinese shave theirs.

Your readers will remember that two hundred years ago, the Jesuits were numerous throughout the empire, but upon the accession of a new dynasty they were driven from the kingdom, and their property confiscated. But through all these long years Rome has had her eyes open. When the French brought forward the treaty lately signed between France and China, one article stipulated that all the property confiscated two hundred years ago should be restored to the Jesuits.

“It is impossible,” said the emperor’s ministers.

“It must be done,” was the reply of the French commission.

“Who can tell where it was situated? How can it be identified? There have been great commotions—a great many changes since then. We cannot find it,” said the ministers.

“Of course there may be some difficulty; but if the fathers of the church can identify the property, your Highnesses will restore it,” said the bland commissioners.

“Oh, yes; if they can show that it was once owned by the church,” was the reply, and the article went into the treaty.

A few months later the fathers appeared at Pekin with a great bundle of title-deeds and documents, yellowed by time and moldy from their long repose in the archives of the Propaganda at Rome.

The emperor’s ministers were confounded, but there was no help for it; and so the church to-day is in possession of immense estates in nearly every city of the empire.

The other day, while walking through the streets of the old city of Shanghai, Rev. Mr. Yates pointed out long ranges of buildings which had been restored to the Jesuits under that article of the treaty. The income from these estates is enormous. No estimate can be made of the amount, which is known only to the fathers, who keep their own counsel.

The Jesuits are having great success in this empire. The forms and ceremonies of the Buddhist religion are so much like those of the Roman Catholic that one can hardly tell the difference. A Chinaman entering a Protestant church sees no gods, images, nor pictures, and he comes to the conclusion that the Protestants are altogether godless; but he enters a Jesuit church, and sees a better class of images than he is accustomed to worship, pictures more pleasing than those upon the walls of his own temples. He sees the priests of the altar in gorgeous robes, inhales sweeter incense than that ascending from the joss-sticks. The music of the choir, the deep-toned organ, is more than the rub-a-dub of the drums. Is it any wonder that the churches are thronged at morning mass, or at the hour for vespers?

Rome takes long looks ahead. She is educating for the future. Foundlings are picked up by the hundreds and thousands; poor parents sell their children for a trifle, parting with them that they may be educated by the priest. A few years hence these foundlings will be traversing the hills and valleys, stopping at all the villages, setting up schools, and carrying on the work of the church.

A gentleman of Shanghai, one who has been long in the country, who can speak the language, who has traveled through several of the provinces dressed as a Chinaman, in search of coal and iron and other materials, has had excellent opportunities for observation, and his opinion is worthy of consideration. He says:—

“Of the missionary effort put forth in China, at least ninety per cent. is by the Catholics.”

The restoration of the confiscated property has given the church of Rome great vantage ground. The priests have been pressing the Imperial Government in another direction. The French minister has obtained an imperial decree permitting the priests to decide all questions of law between Chinese Catholics and those who still adhere to the Chinese religion. Secretly, persistently, and constantly, they are laboring to obtain possession of China. So high a personage as Sir John Bowring, who was here for a long while, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting last August at the meeting of the British Association, expresses the opinion that Romanism stands a fair chance of obtaining possession of this vast empire. Certainly Rome is working with a zeal, energy, singleness of purpose, and far-sightedness which may challenge admiration.—Cor. Boston Journal.