"CHRISTIAN" AMERICANS AND THE "HEATHEN CHINESE."
By Milton C. Wilcox
The Chinese are heathen. Americans are called Christians, and the nation a “Christian nation.” It is worth while, in the light of these claims made by Americans, to consider some of the demonstrations of their respective characters, especially when so much is being said in the religious and secular press about the persecution and massacre of Christian missionaries in China. The Evening Post, of New York, has set before the public some facts and comparisons, which Americans, who make such high claims for their “Christianity” and civilization, would do well to ponder. Here is a summary of some of these facts:— In China, 1870, the Tientsin massacre, 19 French and Russians killed, including 4 nuns, and mission buildings destroyed. In United States, 1881, riots in Denver. Chinese dragged through the streets by neck ropes. One killed, several injured. In United States, Sept. 2, 1885, the Rock Springs riot, Chinese village looted and burned by 150 miners, 28 Chinese killed, 15 wounded, 14 burned to death, and charred corpses eaten by dogs and hogs. The whole thing approved by the people. A fruitless inquest followed. September 1, Chinese village at Seattle burned, 3 killed, several wounded. In various places in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon 28 were killed. In Juneau, Alaska, 87 Chinese were driven out and set adrift on the ocean in two small boats without food. The same year Chinese were expelled from a score of places on the Pacific Coast, 100,000 fleeing to San Francisco in terror and destitution. In 1887, on hearing of the American riots, there were return riots in China, but no lives were taken. In 1891 there were riots in Wuhu and elsewhere in China, property was destroyed and three British killed. In 1891 in the United States there were arson and robbery, with one woman burned to death in California. In 1894, in Oregon, 10 Chinese were ambushed and murdered. “Every one was shot, cut up, stripped, and thrown in the water,” most of them being shot in the back. In its examination of these cases, the Post thus comments:— On this side we find the Chinese invariably and unanimously acquitted of any provocation; they are conceded to be inoffensive in their conduct, industrious and useful in their work. On that side we find, in the missionary settlers at least, a similar absence of provocation, together with a highly useful activity. On this side, however, the Chinese compete for employment at exasperatingly low wages, and thus undoubtedly disturb the economic order to a serious extent. On that side, in a similar way, the missionaries come with doctrines and customs which, by the Chinese standard, pervert morality and overturn its basis, the family; while an unfortunate combination of circumstances has spread an ungrounded but often highly plausible belief that they kidnap Chinese children for their orphan asylums, and use babies’ eyes and hearts as medicaments in their hospitals. On this side, consequently, we find sporadic outbreaks of violence by a turbulent and lawless class of the community. On that side, no different results follow, these recent killings of 1895, for instance, being the work of a band of marauding rebels. In China, again, while decent people think about these things just as decent people do here, we find often a part of the intelligent class—officials and scholars—openly or quietly abetting; we notice, also, that strife is often excited for political ends. On this side, too, we find the Pacific Coast officials often conniving, seldom protesting, at the persecution of the Chinese, and constantly effecting a practical denial of justice; we also find the same nefarious use of popular feeling for political purposes. On that side we find these outbreaks consisting of robberies, lootings, and burnings, of assaults and “massacres;” on our side, too, we find theft and destruction, with cowardly and barbarous butchery. Thus far the cases run on all fours. But there are two differences: First, the Chinese Government has never denied its duty to pay for all these things, and in the vast majority of instances the records show a full and fairly prompt payment. But it has been reserved for the officials of our enlightened republic to record themselves before the world as repudiating our liability to pay, and to relegate the Chinese to the tender mercies of a hostile local tribunal and a farcical justice; and the Rock Springs and other indemnities came as pure gratuities, thoroughly inadequate, pushed through a not too willing Congress. Secondly, the Chinese who have suffered here were undoubtedly in the simple exercise of their full treaty rights in settling and working where they were. But the missionaries who have suffered outside of the treaty ports were with equal certainty voluntary intruders where they had no right to settle; for missionary work in China (strange as it may seem) has been and is largely conducted by the aggressive occupation and persistent maintenance of stations outside of the stipulated treaty limits of residence. The moral which the Evening Post draws is in part as follows:— If the Chinese are black in iniquity, then we are equally so; that if we prefer to think our people as a whole untainted by these sporadic excesses, the same conclusion must follow for the Chinese; and that a little more deliberation in the choice of vituperative adjectives is desirable. . . . A decent regard for the tu quoque argument, and an intelligent study of the point of view of our foreign neighbors, are things which our press can not too assiduously cultivate among our people. A lesson which we would draw from the above is hinted at by the Post when it says that our demand for a protectorate over China “is as good an example as Christian history has ever afforded of the mote and the beam.” The lesson is that America is not a “Christian nation.” But few of its people comparatively are Christian people. Profession is nothing. “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord,” says Christ, “and do not the things which I say.” Judged by Christ’s teachings and life, what is there about our government, or about Americans as manifest in the treatment of the colored races, at home, which would show it or them to be Christian? That there are Christians in America—very many indeed—we are glad to believe. The massacre and persecution of our missionaries in foreign lands we deeply deplore, and our heart goes out in sympathy with the sufferers. We are glad to believe that these men are Christians, but that does not make the country or people from which they sailed Christian, and their work in heathen lands would, to our mind, be more effectual if America were rated at its true status, a mere government of earth, and its people of all characters and classes, the majority of whom are as much in need of the life of the Gospel as the heathen Chinese. In fact, “Christian America” and “Christian England” are to-day persecuting Christians, those who are walking in the footsteps of Christ. Would to God that those who differentiate between “Christian” and “heathen” nations would learn what Christianity is. M. C. W.