KOREA by Rev. George Heber Jones

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 45.

KOREA.

By Rev. George Heber Jones

BY REV. GEORGE HEBER JONES.

THE Koreans are an ancient people. Their historical period goes back three thousand years; their traditions carry us a millennium further into the mists of long-gone ages. Monuments of a hoar antiquity abound. The missionary works in cities laid out while Abraham was still in the land of the Chaldees; he gazes upon tombs which contained the dust of sages when Saul of Kish founded Jewish royalty. Seoul, the center of missionary operations, was built one hundred years before Columbus discovered America. A fortress erected in the time of Christ has become a missionary sanitarium.

The Korean is proud of his antiquity. His answer to the West, when first an attempt was made to open his rigidly secluded home, indicates full well his temper: "We are satisfied with our civilization of three thousand years, and want nothing you can bring." Age had impaired his eyesight, and he could neither see clearly nor discern properly just what it was the West proposed to give.

Later on, Korea, in the persons of a now famous embassy, visited the West and saw, but their conclusion upon return was thus expressed by the most eminent of that company: "The West is a mighty flame, Korea the moth flitting about it; flame is a dangerous locality for the moth." His infirm vision was dazzled and blinded by what he saw.

From this, however, we are not to infer that there is no spirit of progress among the Koreans. It is a human trait, especially emphasized among the Asiatics, to be eager for any personal benefit, and Korea is certainly desirous of our good things, but she wishes to be convinced of the genuine and beneficial character of what we offer before she accepts.

This very antiquity, however, brings out a great difficulty. That which Christianity would supplant is by long centuries of dominance ingrained into the very nature of the people, while we and our views appear to be but of yesterday.

It is not human for age to fall readily in behind the leadership of youth. The Bible is the only sacred book that ever declared, "A little child shall lead them," and Christ the only teacher who has affirmed, "Out of the mouths of babes hast thou ordained wisdom." But Asia must and will learn the lesson of making a distinction between the gift and the apparent giver, and it will be a happy day when she and the world shall fully appreciate the great truth that "God is no respecter of persons," either in his gifts or his calls to leadership.

In judging of the true condition of affairs in Korea I believe it well to call attention to the tendency in many quarters to confound material evidences of prosperity with progress itself. To many civilization is representative government, railroads, telegraphs, and steamships, tight-fitting garments, and the English language. A heathen nowadays is a man who wears baggy trousers and cannot speak English. Yet a nation may possess all the above things and still be as heathen as a Hottentot, while, on the other hand, there may be as devoted followers of the lowly Nazarene, who never saw a locomotive, voted for a president, or wore a derby hat, as you will find in America.

A nation is only transformed as its individual members themselves become transformed, and while national wealth and prosperity may outstrip the moral elevation of the people, only that which comprises the latter is permanent. The forces which make for the elevation of the Korean people are slowly making headway, but a great and often discouraging battle is being and must be fought with the opposition before material advancement will be noticeable.

Ten years ago Korea was a forbidden land. Even toward her nearest neighbors, China and Japan, her attitude was one of retirement and actual seclusion. Living in a fossilized state, any change could hardly be short of a miracle. To-day fully twenty thousand foreigners, including Chinese and Japanese, dwell within her borders, so we erect one milestone, for the day of isolation has passed, and the door to the country is open. The old stereotype plate of "seclusion," the traditional view for centuries, has been smashed, and instead we have hospitality and welcome.

Again, it was a dreadful thing for a Korean to leave the fatherland for a foreign clime; now we have Koreans in America, Russia, Japan, and elsewhere, and another traditional plate is smashed. Still another stereotype of the ages, namely, that all but Chinese are savages, has been permanently laid by, and we often find traces of humility even in Korea's attitude toward the West.

But it is our aim to speak particularly of the part Christianity is playing in the transformation of the nation.

KOREA IS A MISSION FIELD.

The material monuments which meet the eye are not the only evidences of Korea's antiquity. Of far greater moment than they are the evidences which do not appear to the eye. We are confronted by prejudices and habits which have dominated the people for hundreds of years. The longer certain views are held and certain courses of conduct followed, the harder it is to give them up and reform. This in Korea confronts us as a pertinent, ever-present problem.

The sages of Korea taught the nation that woman is inferior to man. Christianity flatly contradicts this, and there is a clash. The sages taught that some men are better than other men, and again we have a discord, for the church has as warm a welcome for the cooly as for the noble. Polytheism, that dreadful travesty of God's omnipresence, fills earth, air, and sea with gods, demons, and supernatural creatures, and opposes with all its force Christian monotheism. Immoral practices have the sanction of antiquity, and challenge Christianity's right of censure. And not only do these views enjoy the sanction of honored and revered names, but from habit they have become second nature. Divine grace alone can save from them.

These views have been systematized in three great cults—ancestral worship, Buddhism, and the heresies.

Ancestral worship is the State religion, and, emphasizing as it does the beautiful trait of filial piety, presents a hard problem to the missionary. It is associated with the tenderest thoughts and most hallowed memories of the Korean. Its rites are obligatory upon him as the last mark of respect and love to father and mother, and to omit them brings upon him the contempt, the censure, and sometimes the violence of neighbors and friends.

Buddhism is languishing in an effete old age, rotting in immorality. The priests and nuns, while looked upon with great contempt by the higher class, yet possess great influence over the lower classes, the women, and the superstitious of every class. Most of these priests are in the monasteries for the rice and clothing it brings them. This sordid aim prevents that creed loyalty which would develop fanatical opposition to Christianity. Doubtless one of these days the devil will lead the cohorts of Buddhism against us, but the personnel of the priesthood will have to change before he can wake them up to fanaticism.

The heresies embrace all outside the two great cults. They comprise the superstitious notions of the people, the parasitic encumbrances of the two other cults, with the myths of the aboriginal Koreans. These comprise ghosts, demons, monsters, and genii, the inventions and self-deceptions of a sinful and fearful imagination, unmoored from the true God, and adrift in darkness for thirty centuries and more.

At this very point the preciousness and glory of the deliverance in Christ shines out beautifully. The Christian is surrounded on all sides by the omnipresent God and Father, whose character is known, whose love and providence are boundless, and who is one and unchangeable. The unconverted Korean moves amid the myriad creatures of his imagination; they frequent the walls, ceiling, and floor of his room, the gate by which he enters, the brook flowing by, the trees about, the mountains in the distance, and the air above; their characters are of ten thousand varieties; their demands upon his time and resources, unlimited. Nowhere is Christ's declaration, "Whom the Son maketh free is free indeed," better appreciated than in Korea.

These systems have given rise to the customs and modes of life among the Koreans. Filial piety is a marked trait. The power of the parent is absolute, the submission of the child hearty and genuine. The respect paid by youth to age shames the West, America especially. Indeed, the status of age in Korea is a pleasant thing to see.

Loyalty and devotion to the king is another marked trait of the Koreans, who view his majesty as the national father rather than as a despot.

From the same source, however, the State creed, comes the injustice done woman. The dualism which dominates a Korean's every conception has placed her in the same category with darkness, weakness, inferiority, and iniquity. Viewed as inferior to the man, her lot is one of subjection. From the father she passes under the control of the husband, after whose death she is virtually subject to the eldest son. She enters the marriage state during the age of fourteen to seventeen, this being absolutely obligatory if she would retain the respect of her people. Ancestral worship, being based on the possession of male posterity, places its sanction on plurality of wives, and in thus destroying the true home life opens the way for great immorality. The true wife is often deserted for some favorite concubine or mistress, and no stigma of disrepute incurred.

Another custom which we find it hard to explain and harder to encounter is that of caste. Three divisions, of high, middle, and low class exist, well defined and separate, based possibly on the Hindu idea, though far from being so rigid. This, however, has given rise to a code of etiquette, degrading alike to all. It cannot but produce pride and arrogance in

the upper classes, and crush out ambition and self-reliance in the lower classes. The noble meets the cooly in our services as an equal, and when they become members of a church, as a brother. While most awkward at times, nevertheless it often becomes a test of conversion, for those who refuse to show humility at this point soon fall.

The evil of this custom is that it denies the right of every man to freedom, and creates a class standard of blood and ancestry instead of merit. It shuts up the cooly to that development of his faculties which would fit him to fill a higher station in life. It places the low man at the mercy of his superior, who may act toward him in a manner which would put him in prison in the States, and yet the cooly can obtain no redress.

It cheapens human life, for while custom secures the noble the possession of his goods, immunity from torture, and a regard for his person, not so the luckless low man. Guilty of an actual offense, or it may be incurring only the displeasure of an aristocrat, he is liable to be dragged off to prison by the hair of the head, stamped upon with hobnailed shoes if he falls by the roadside on the way, subjected to the most horrible and vile tortures a foul heathen imagination can invent, and finally dispatched by a bloody and painful execution.

This cheapness of human life and disregard of the sacredness of the human body is, after all, not so much a result of the caste idea as a direct effect of heathenism itself, for the same spectacle horrifies the missionary in lands where class privileges do not prevail as they do in Korea. One of the greatest triumphs of Christianity has been its victory over cruelty and torture. A heathen may well sigh for the privilege of being born in a Christian land.—Gospel in All Lands.