The Relation of England's Opium Policy to Christian Missions in China.
By James Brand
IN attempting to estimate the influence of this enormous evil on the spread of Christianity in China, two things must be borne in mind: (1) That the last war with England was undoubtedly used in the providence of God to open China to Christian missions. The good that may flow to China in the future from this circumstance is of course beyond computation. But the unfortunate thing connected with this gaining of liberty to propagate Christianity in that empire is that while it opened Chinese ports, it closed Chinese hearts. (2) It must also be borne in mind, that the comparatively slow progress of Christianity in China is not all to be attributed to this evil. There are other formidable hindrances, apart from opium, which missionaries have to meet, and which render China perhaps the hardest field in the world to evangelize. But, with a language said to be "invented by the devil to exclude Christianity," and a system of government backed by a superstition which constitutes the "Gibraltar of heathenism," was it not all the more inexcusable to add the curse of opium to these other hindrances to the cause of Christ? There can be little doubt that of the difficulties which lie in the way of the conversion of China, the various unchristian influences which proceed from nominally Christian ends are the hardest to overcome. The vices of civilization are always more deadly foes of Christ than are those of savage life. The opium traffic as a hindrance to Christianity is seen first of all in its effects upon the immediate victims of the vice. Here the hindrance lies, not chiefly in the prejudice awakened against Christian nations, but in the tremendous hold which the opium habit has upon Chinese life, and the extent to which it prevails. It is now a national vice. It is fastened upon the people more firmly than the drink habit of England or America. The hope of ever eradicating it from the life of the Chinese is now dying out of the hearts of intelligent Christian missionaries. The time for that hope has gone by. The sublime struggle of the Chinese Government, which has been compared to that of Laocoon in the coils of the serpents, has failed. The best that can now be done by human agency is to mitigate the evil as far as possible, by urging upon China the gospel, on the one hand, and by getting England to clear herself from further criminal responsibility, on the other. The extent to which the evil prevails is a vexed question. No reliable statistics have yet been prepared. The evil manifestly prevails more in the cities than in the country. Dr. Williams, writing nearly forty years ago, was of the opinion that the smokers of China numbered not less than 2,500,000. At a meeting held in Exeter Hall two years ago, for the investigation of this subject, J. Maxwell, M. D., testified that in the city of Taiwan Foo more than one-fifth of the adult male population used the pipe, and that the Chinese estimate was much higher than that. In the city of Soo Chow, one of the largest in China, the same witness said that there was unimpeachable evidence that seven-tenths of the adult male population used opium. At a missionary conference held in Shanghai in 1877, Rev. H. C. Dubois, of Soo Chow, said that thirty years ago there were five or six opium dens in that city; now, there are 7,000, and eight out of every ten men smoke. In the province of Sze Chuen it is said that seven in every ten men and three in every ten women use opium. It has been estimated that if 60,000 die annually in Great Britain from the use of strong drink, 600,000 die in China annually from the use of opium. The simple fact that the Chinese pay $125,000,000 a year for opium shows that the evil is colossal. Sir Robert Hart claims that it only draws "from five pence to eleven pence apiece per day from the pockets of those who indulge in it." Now five pence to eleven pence apiece per day may seem a small matter to Sir Robert Hart, with a salary of thirty or forty thousand a year, but his suggestion loses its force when we remember that a good mechanic in China earns only about eleven pence per day, and a common laborer only about seven pence per day, when health is good and the weather fine. This would not seem to leave very much for the support of wife and children. Yet these stupid people, he adds, "do not find in either the revenue produced or in the statistical demonstration of its percentage innocuousness any sufficient reason for welcoming the growth of the trade, or from desisting from the attempt to check the consumption of opium." Marvelous stupidity! The opinion of many missionaries on the field to-day is that most of the estimates of the number of smokers are too small. Dr. Henry Porter, writing from Shantung last fall, not only shows that the vice is enormously increasing, but is inclined to estimate the victims not far from 10,000,000. He says: "Mr. Sheffield has just spent a month in Mongolia, and reports that the majority of the faces of the men bear the marks of opium." Mr. Bagnall, of the American Bible Society, says of the people of Shantung and Honan, "The men all seem to smoke." A writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 17, p. 794, states that "in 1858 it was estimated that about 2,000,000 of Chinese smoked opium, and in 1878 from one-fourth to three-tenths of the entire population of 400,000,000." But suppose even the English Inspector-General's report to be correct as to the number of smokers, is it not safe to add three more to every one of his two millions to represent the wives, children, and friends who directly suffer from this vice? No honest estimate of the evil of intemperance could be made by simply giving the number of drinking men. Moreover, thinking people will be slow to believe the statement of Sir Robert Hart, that the opium business "does not specially damage either the finances of the State or the wealth of the people," when we are informed that China pays out annually $4,000,000 more for opium than she receives for tea; and $10,000,000 more than from her exportation of silk, and $12,000,000 more than she pays other countries for cotton and woolen goods. The moral argument, however, against the opium business, does not rest solely upon the exact estimate of the number of smokers. It rests chiefly upon the intrinsic evil effects upon man's moral and physical nature, upon the tremendous hold which the habit has upon the victim, and the fact that it is now become, through English influence, a national vice. This gigantic national evil, thus fastened upon the people, it is needless to say, is essentially antagonistic to the religion of Christ. These millions of victims, like the drunkards of our own land, are almost hopelessly beyond the reach of the gospel. The moral nature of the confirmed smoker becomes so debauched that Christian truth finds but little to which it can appeal. This enormous class cannot be received into missionary churches, even when they seem to have accepted Christian truth, till the habit is abandoned, and that is well-nigh beyond reasonable expectation. "Thus this trade," said an English missionary in 1877, "speaks more convincingly to the Chinese mind against Christianity than the missionary does or can do for it." Another class of the Chinese people, strongly armed by the opium business against the gospel, are the producers. This class must also be very large. One-half of all the opium consumed in China is now raised at home. It has become a national product, and when we remember that the profit on opium on a given quantity of land is twice as great as that from grain, we can understand the fearful temptation to extend and perpetuate the evil to which Chinese farmers are exposed. It is precisely the temptation which the brewers and distillers in our own country are too weak or too selfish to resist. And as the financial interest of every manufacturer and trafficker in intoxicants is measured by the zeal with which he fights Christianity, so it must be with the producers of opium. In both cases the manufacturers are the most heartless and inveterate foes of Christ. That radical antagonism between the preacher of the gospel and every man who proposes to enrich himself by pandering to the moral weaknesses of his fellow-men, must grow more and more deadly as the struggle goes on. A further hindrance which this satanic business puts in the way of Christ is the effect it has had on the Chinese Government officials. Multitudes of them have been utterly corrupted by English smuggling and bribes, so that they are secretly on the side of the producer and the trader, and hostile to those who oppose the traffic. Those of them who have not been corrupted have been alienated in their feeling and disgusted with the selfish and mercenary spirit of western nations which claim to be governed by the principles of the gospel. This corruption of lower officials has both discouraged and baffled the Government of China in its long, heroic struggles against the vice. Perhaps the greatest obstruction in the way of Christianity is the prejudice the opium traffic has created in the mind, not of producer, or trader, or consumer, or official, but in the minds of the great mass of the better classes of the Chinese people against all who bear the Christian name. The masses of the people suspect, ignorantly of course, but sincerely, that the design, even of Christians, is to ruin, not to save, them as a people. Dr. Nevins remarks that "the suspicion and distrust which the Chinese have manifested is not so much the result of their natural disposition or the teaching of their sages, as of their unfortunate and prejudicing experience in their intercourse with foreigners." We need not be surprised, therefore, to find, as we do, a Chinese Christian referring to the sentiments of the countrymen on this subject in the following language: "It is clear, say they [the Chinese], that our country is being ruined. These mission schools and hospitals are not really established with good intention. Why do they not put an end to the sale of opium? Would not this be better than ten thousand hospitals and ten thousand preaching halls?" English Christians themselves have said: "There is not a greater barrier to the introduction of the gospel in China by the hand of foreigners than the trade in opium by those who bear the Christian name." This reasonable and universal feeling, be it remembered, is not simply against the British Government, as such, but against the English people. The Chinese, as a whole, cannot distinguish, as we can, between England as a Government and England as individuals. Hence any act of that Government which claims to be Christian is taken by the Chinese masses as a measure of the principles of Christianity, and thus the prejudice is in some degree against all Christian nations.—James Brand, D. D., in Bibliotheca Sacra.