ROMANISM IN CHINA by John Ross

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 32.

ROMANISM IN CHINA.

By John Ross

BY REV. JOHN ROSS, MUKDEN, CHINA.

The history of the Roman Catholic Church in China is one laden with lessons as to the character of that church, and one which gives the only satisfactory key to open the mystery of Chinese hostility to western peoples. The Jesuits, who zealously push their way to the foot of the throne in China, were men who were guided by wise counsels, and men trained in all the learning of the west. Professors of the Sorbonne, with men of leading minds among the Jesuits of Paris, were sent, under royal auspices and with regal gifts. By their mathematical learning they procured for themselves the control of the observatory in Peking, the construction of the all-important annual almanac, and the respect of all who loved learning. Never in any court had they so thorough a hold of royalty as they had during the long reign of Kanghi. Had they been able to get him baptized, as they had hoped, or had they continued the policy which guided them into and retained them in his favor, China might have long ere now been virtually a vassal of the pope. From among the most brilliant scholars of the empire they had numerous converts, and some of the best books ever written in favor of Christian doctrine were the product of high officials converted to Romanism. That church was not then wholly given over to the idolatry of Mary, as it is now.

But the nemesis of Jesuitry, despite that splendid commencement, rapidly followed in the wake of prosperity. The successor of Kanghi did not reverence them with the affection of his father. A younger brother was a great friend of theirs. With other younger brothers the Jesuits conspired to dethrone the emperor and set this friendly younger brother on the throne. The emperor was aware of the treason, but left it alone till some of the leaders retired into Mongolia to take steps to collect an army. Then suddenly the chief conspirators were apprehended. The Jesuits were banished to the west of Kansu. The intercession in their behalf of a special embassy of Portugal, which then possessed the commercial supremacy in the east, was the cause of the death of the prisoners. For learning, by overland mounted courier from Canton, the design of that embassy, the government sent messengers to the west, and the Jesuits were put to death. Steps were taken to prevent the high-handed proceedings of converts all over the empire.

The administration of justice was impossible where the Roman Catholics congregated in any numbers; for they went in a body to the yamen, and terrified the magistrate into acquiescence to their will. No Roman Catholic convert, accused of any crime whatever, could be brought to justice.

Measure after measure was adopted to stop this constant overawing of magistrates; and, as nothing else availed, the persecution began, which put an end once for all to the unbearable authority which the Roman Catholic Church had arrogated to itself in the interior. From that time the Roman Catholics were under a cloud more or less dark till the French war dispelled the cloud and gave them as much liberty (1860) as ever they had to carry out their will—which they could now do without any fear of resulting persecution. The manner in which they have acted in China since has produced the fire of anti-foreign feeling, which has roused every riot which has occurred in this land. The Chinese are as yet incapable of differentiating between the peoples of the west. Americans are as much foreigners as French; and the hatred is against the foreigner on account of the doings of the French. The Chinese dread the spread of the foreigner into the country—for every foreigner is a center of more or less disturbance. If, therefore, an American missionary is mobbed when building a foreign house or church after the western fashion, let no one think that the mob is opposed to the teaching of Christianity. The Chinese have nothing but respect for the Christian system; but they hate, because they fear, the foreigner. Not as a missionary has any one ever been attacked, but as a foreigner.

The story is too long to relate why this anti-foreign feeling is so deep-seated and widespread. But it is all to be laid at the door of the Roman Catholics. That church is said to be semi-political. In China you must omit the “semi” before you can understand the truth. The Roman Catholics never preach to the heathen. They rarely preach to their own people, who are grossly ignorant of the elementary principles of Christ’s teaching. They don’t preach; but if a convert has a grudge against a neighbor, he goes to the priest and tells him that so and so is “reviling the Roman Catholic Church.” If the quarrel is serious, he takes with him the fragments of the cross worshiped by the converts instead of their former idols, and accuses his enemy of having broken the cross. In nine of ten cases the Roman Catholic breaks the cross, and goes with this story, as the common people dare not quarrel with a Roman Catholic. The priest sends a document to the judge, purporting to proceed from a high official, by imperial authority, stamped with a formidable-looking official stamp. This document demands the punishment of the offender. That man is imprisoned, and gets out again only after the Roman Catholics are satisfied with the punishment received and the amount of money paid; for in all cases money is the chief concern. If the judge is slow in carrying out the desire of the priest, the latter waits upon him in person, and will not leave till his object is attained. In very exceptional cases the judge is unable to bring himself to carry out the outrageous demand. Then the priest goes in person to the governor general, lays his complaint against the judge, who has at last either to yield or to be degraded and succeeded by one who will decide according to the pleasure of the priest or bishop. Often, however, the offender is taken to the Roman Catholic Church, where there is a place of torture, which no native ever leaves without bitterly repenting ever having called in question the power of the Roman Catholics.

The Roman Catholic priests are high officials with civil rank. They assume a style and dignity superior to that of a county judge. The bishop has the dignity of a judge of appeal. The cardinal is “king” of the church, and the pope “emperor.” The demands of the Roman Catholic Church—at least in Manchuria and in Szchuen, not in Shantung, I understand—are the demands of civil officials acting under imperial authority. What know the Chinese of all this? They only know that France upholds all these pretensions, and has once and again refused to curtail the action of the priesthood in this dictation to the native officials. These latter are degraded in the eyes of the people because of their subserviency to this foreign despotism which has gradually enveloped them round. The people are indignant that there is no appeal from the unrighteous tyranny of Roman Catholics. Is it specially wonderful that there should be occasional riots? Would such action—and far worse, which I care not to mention at present—be tolerated for a day in America or in any of the nations of Europe?

For a quarter of a century I have resided among the Chinese and Manchus. The outcry against them is a libel upon one of the most sober, diligent, gentle races on the face of the earth. My sympathies are entirely with the Chinese, despite the blind folly of the means they take to get rid of the foreigner. They believe the missionary is a teacher of religion only as a pretext under cover of which he carries on political aims to subvert Chinese subjects from their allegiance. However long those have been in China who declare that this hatred is confined to officials and literary classes, they are ignorant of the facts of Chinese present life and past history. In the open ports you can never come to understand the Chinese. You must live among them, and come into contact with all classes. There are few of the poorest families in China who are not connected with or interested in some one or more of the literary and official classes. There is no caste in China. Did the common people not regard the foreigner with at least as great a hatred as the official and literary classes, no riot would be possible. They would not run the risk of losing their life merely to act on what they considered the falsehoods of the ruling class. Chinese are exceedingly ignorant of us; not a few of us, missionaries and merchants, are equally ignorant of the Chinese.

What is the practical outcome of this hurriedly written paper? It is the desire to earnestly entreat every one directly interested in the conversion of the Chinese to manifest Christian forbearance instead of worldly revenge; to show the Chinese in practical life what is the real meaning of Christ’s teaching and of Christ’s example. Instead of the ready fault-finding—for which there is reason enough—let there be the quiet sympathy which will endeavor to understand the Chinese mental attitude. Let, above all, the desire be everywhere manifested in our dealings with the Chinese to remove from their minds the root of all the mischief,—the belief that we are political agents. Never let any one lightly move the foreign power. Appeals to Cæsar, and cries for the gunboat, for ministerial dictation in Peking, or consular action in the provinces, should be resorted to only in the most extreme cases.

There has been lately on the part of many an unexpected eagerness to cling for protection to worldly power, instead of leaving all in the power which is over all. To me it is saddening in the extreme to discover how much it has been forgotten that the “weapons of our warfare are not carnal.” Every resort to carnal weapons is but another proof to the Chinese that we are political agents. Remove this belief, you open the way for the best classes of Chinese—those who most love their country—to become Christian.

No Chinaman will be found who is ready to object to the teachings of Christianity. The most bigoted Confucianist, in coming face to face with Christian teaching, can but explain, “Jesus is the sage of the west, Confucius the sage of the east; you follow yours and allow us to follow ours.” There is but one great seriously mighty barrier at present against the speedy advance of Christianity, and that is the belief that we are political agents. China sorely needs Christianity. Confucianism is an ethical and political system. . . . Buddhism is an atheistic pessimism holding out the cessation of being as the ultimate hope of man’s greatest and holiest efforts. Taoism has degenerated into a poor magical system, worthy, perhaps, in many of its exhibitions, to be placed side by side with the absurdities of “spiritualism.” These three systems, despite the lunatic attempts of some westerners to galvanize one or all of them into something like life, are utterly unavailing before the heart cries of this nation. Heart sickness everywhere in this land can be cured only by that which is foolishness to the wisdom of this world. Here, as elsewhere, it is true that Christianity alone contains and alone bestows the highest promise and fulfilment for the life that now is and for that which is to come.—Missionary Review of the World.