MISSIONARIES AS MAGISTRATES.
By L. A. P.
Under the above head the Independent gives in brief the history of a question recently decided as to the attitude of the Church of England concerning its missionaries in China. It says:— “The correct principle has been very admirably laid down within a few weeks by Lord Salisbury and the Archbishop of Canterbury in reference to the proper relation of missionaries to a semi-civilized government. The French Catholic missionaries in China, bishops and priests, claim and are allowed the authority of a magistrate or mandarin. If of a higher rank than the mandarin they sit in judgment in the case of a convert who is accused or who is a party to a suit with a heathen; or if of equal rank the ecclesiastic sits with the magistrate and practically controls the decision. It is generally believed that the favoritism thus allowed is the cause of very much of the prejudice among the Chinese against Christians and especially against Catholic Christians, and even of the Boxer outbreak. The bishops assume the state of a high officer and travel with all the splendor of mandarins of high rank. An English missionary wrote to the British Legation at Peking asking whether it would be well for Protestant missionaries to claim the rights and privileges extended to their Roman Catholic colleagues. He referred it to the Foreign Office in London, and Lord Salisbury referred it for advice to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop decided that as a matter of principle and of policy it is undesirable that Protestant missionaries in China should claim the privileges allowed by imperial edict to members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and this is approved by the Anglican bishops in China; and Lord Salisbury replies that Her Majesty's Government concurs in this opinion, and that no further action should be taken with a view to obtaining for British Protestant missionaries the privileges conferred on the Roman Catholic clergy.” The principle referred to is correct, whether the government be semi-civilized or wholly civilized. Of course, with the question of the Anglican missionaries there is the matter of policy, as connected with the British Government. But were the missionaries sent out by any other than a State-established church, the question of policy,—which carries with it politics in this relation,—enters whenever the missionary, as such, accepts office under the government. And with politics the Christian missionary should have nothing to do. L. A. P.