Morning Calm v.6 no.60(1895 Jun.)
THE MORNING CALM. No. 60, Vol. VI.] JUNE 1895. [PRICE 1d.
The Bishop's Letter.
SEOUL: February 1895. DEAR FRIENDS,
By this time you must be quite tired of hearing all that I have to say about the conduct of the Japanese in this country, and of my frequently expressed opinion that Corea has very little hope of being bettered so long as Japan pursues the tactics which have characterised her action in the country since the invasion in the summer of 1894. I hope that this will be the last letter in which it will be necessary to allude to the subject. Nor should I allude to it now if circumstances had not made it advisable for me to show, as plainly as I can, and once for all, that in traversing their conduct I question, not their right to rule the country which they have conquered, but their power to give it the benefits of civilisation such as Western nations understand the term. My design, then, not being to meddle with politics, but to express an opinion upon morals, I should like to say that Japan cannot civilise other countries until she has civilised herself-that whatever mistakes she makes in learn-ing the lesson of her own civilisation, she will reproduce in her efforts to engraft that civilisation upon other races. And Japan cannot civilise herself so long as she remains heathen. No one, indeed, denies to Japan, or to China, or, I hope, to Corea, a civilisation. Civilisation as connoting an instruction of the people of a country in arts and refinements is a relative term. and has nothing to do with Christianity as such. Such a civilisa-tion Japan has had for centuries. But it is not this civilisation which she is now professing to give to Corea. For the last twenty years she has been endeavouring in vain to capture by storm the civilisation of Christian Europe-a civilisation which is still developing-the result of centuries of labour and suffering, of instruction which nations are slow to receive, and of lessons by which, when they have learned them, nations are often unwilling to benefit. The framework of this civilisation, supplied for the most part by ancient Greece and Rome, had assumed its most satisfactory form-satisfactory, at least, for the preservation in the State of law and order-when Rome, the mistress of the world, heard of the new Law Giver-the Incarnate Son of God. From that hour, whenever this civilisa-tion-or for that matter any other civilization-received the Spirit of Christ's law it became a new creature-instinct, as it were, with a Divine life, having a mission to the whole world for all time. The outward frameworks might vary-would vary in different nations. But when once they were in-breathed with this Spirit they stood forth as representatives not of civilisa-tions but of Civilisation—which please allow me to spell with a large C. When the European speaks of civilisation it is this kind of civilisation of which he is speaking—the civilisation which he owes to Christ. Of this civilisation he is a pioneer when he appears for the first time in the ports and rivers of countries which own a civilisation, but not of Christ. Of this civilisation he is a representative when by force or by treaty he has obtained a permanent foothold in those countries. He is the present heir of a civilisation which in its growth of centuries is gradually permeating the nations of the world ; a civilisation which may, or may not, sweep away the framework of their civilisations, but which, so long as it is true to the Spirit of that Divine life which it possesses, is alone worthy of the (now) sacred name of Civilisation.
One of the very few fallacies in Mr. Curzon's admirable-most admirable-book, "Problems of the East" (a book for which every foreign resident in the Far East must be profoundly thankful), is his use of this word civilisation, which, in his open-ing chapter, is singular and plural, with the indefinite article and without any article at all, and yet without any definition of the meaning which he intends his readers to understand is the meaning he attaches to the word. I am far from wishing to imply that Mr. Curzon had no definition in his mind when he wrote, or that his definition would not be sound. But he writes as I hear scores round me speak-as if, on the one hand, the word civilisation were a word to conjure with, and on the other, as if the word had the same meaning in the mouth of a heathen which it has in the mouth of a Christian.
When in my letter to the Guardian last June, and in letters, to you since, I spoke of the Japanese as barbarians, and of the harm they were doing to Corea in the name of civilisation, I did not intend to use the language of abuse or of complaint, but of a conviction that no nation could assume this civilisation (and, remember, it is this civilisation which Japan is aspiring to assume) by dressing itself up in its garments or by indulging a natural cleverness in the imitation and investigation of its arts and science. Their conduct in the Kow Shing affair was sufficient to teach people that something very different-in kind, not in degree-is needed before Japan can claim to be civilised with the civilisation of Europe or the United States of America. The action of the captain of the Nan-i-Wa (I do not say of seizing, for that is a question of international law which lawyers are, I believe, still discussing), but in sinking an unarmed merchant ship full of men, in lowering boats with guns to fire on those men when struggling in the water, in finally steaming away without attempting to rescue them-leaving that task to be undertaken afterwards by foreign men-of-war, when the news of the desertion, kept secret by the Japanese, had been brought to them from China-this action, I say, has never been to this day condemned by the Japanese Government. Nor could it well have been condemned when public opinion in Japan has no condemnation for it. I observe just the same absence of any public condemnation of what happened at Port Arthur months later. The pressure of European opinion and the honour of Japanese Christians have caused a voice here and there to be raised in protest. But the national conscience is not roused, because the national conscience is heathen.
Passing to what Japan has done here since she won a bloodless victory over Corea, I could fill many pages with illustrations, taken from official Gazettes and facts perfectly well known to everybody, of her inability to give Corea the civilisation of Europe. But I should only weary you, and one instance shall suffice. You are all aware how completely Japan has conquered Corea : how by sweeping away the old Constitution-by abolishing their most cherished customs, by invading the relationships of the family-by abolishing or modifying the shape, colour, even the materials of men's clothes, and such an innocent and inveterate amusement as smoking, Japan has made the Coreans understand that whatever modicum of independence was allowed to them by China will not be theirs again. This is all well known, and to many it contains matter for unfeigned rejoicing. Corea is so low-so corrupt, they say, that any state of things will be an improvement on the present. Japan may not be the best instructor, but she is better than any Corea has now. And one day Corea will be thankful for benefits of which to-day she does not understand the value. But it is not every hand that can raise a nation out of the mire of corruption. Nor does Japan aspire to be merely something better than Corea. It is her claim to civilisation which is in question. And this claim breaks down again when we go on to inquire what step has been taken by those who (said to be the most enlightened of Japanese statesmen) are at present controlling the fortunes of Corea. the most serious step which Japan has yet taken is that con-nected with the King's oath. At the beginning of the year the King was compelled to swear, by an oath which his people would consider the most binding of all oaths, that he was an independent sovereign. The independence of Corea having been thus formulated, the laws which Japan now makes for the country are signed by the King and are represented to the people as the laws, not of Japan, but of a free and independent sovereign. Not that this deceives any-one, for there is no one who is ignorant that his country is now entirely governed by Japan. But the duplicity remains. And duplicity is the fatal and universal barrier between Corea and civilisation. Her political power may be strengthened by this conquest, but the civilisation of Corea will never be the better for an aggressive heathenism once more in her midst, and a govern-ment which, from the nature of the case, cannot know how vitiated and inoperative for good its enactments must be when the fatal flaw of misrepresentation or falsehood is to be found in them all. No. Japan is attempting too much. If she were more willing to learn she would be more fitted to teach. She may govern Corea well--that remains to be seen--but she can-not give her what she does not herself possess. The natural conscience of the people of Japan must first be illuminated by the Light of the world, and the hearts of her rulers enkindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, before they can guide Corea into the deep, still waters of truth and righteousness. And if it be said that Japan does not aim so high as this, then we cannot allow that in her self-imposed task she is giving to Corea civilisation as Western nations understand the word. I do not mean that Corea cannot be civilised until every Japanese is a missionary, but I look to the foundations which have made European nations strong in the past, which give them their strength now, and I do not see those foundations being laid by Japan in Corea. On the contrary, those foundations, as I have attempted to show you, however sound in statecraft and the policy of worldly power they may be, are not founded on that righteous-ness which alone exalteth a nation, The most hopeful sign for Corea since the occupation of the country has been the recent visit to me of two Japanese clergy from the American Church, who have been sent by their Bishop and their fellow-Christians in Japan to see what prospect there is of commencing missionary work amongst the Japanese soldiers and residents in Corea.
There is every prospect; and all true friends of Corca will welcome this attempt to begin at the right end and to undertake in the right way the difficult task of civilising her. Such phrases as "enlightened policy" and "enlightened statesmen," used of heathen rulers, gain their true meaning when used of men who, with the love of God in their heart, "come over to help us” in the work of regenerating Corea. Had I now by my side but one of the priests from England for whom I have asked so persistently during these five years, to undertake Mission work amongst the Japanese in this country, what a source of help he would be to me! How he would enable me to welcome as I wish to welcome these pioneers of Japan, and assure them-as my ignorance of their language fails to enable me to assure them-of the joy with which I hail the prospect-dim as yet-of seeing Japanese clergy holding my license and working alongside their English brethren ! You are not to think, then, that the political changes in this country have made our work harder. ‘We shall probably have many opportunities under the new rule which were denied to the missionary under the old. For Coreans the difficulty is, not that the Japanese have conquered their country, but that, having conquered it, they say they have not, and are making this terrible oath the pretended basis of the changes which they are everywhere compelling Coreans to accept. This is a long New Year's letter, but I will not make it longer except to say that we are all well, and that I am, more than ever, your grateful and affectionate C. J. CORFE.
Note.
It has been decided that in future the Intercession papers which are issued with Morning Calm shall appear only once in three months. Consequently, a copy will be enclosed with the numbers which appear in January, April, July, and October. Association of Prayer and work for Corea.
IT will be seen by a glance at our list of secretaries that an important addition has been made to the staff of the Associa-tion. As announced by the Rev. S. H. Berkeley in his speech at the Church House on our festival day, the Bishop's General Commissary and the Vice-Presidents of the Association have appointed an Assistant General Secretary, who has been acting as a Local Secretary in London, and whose name and address low appear next to that of the General Secretary, and who has most kindly undertaken both to help the General Secretary with portions of her large correspondence, and to take charge of the whole work at such times when she is, from any cause, unable to attend to it. Though still hoping to receive all her letters as before (except when otherwise specified in Morning Calm), the General Secretary asks that her correspondents will regard letters from Miss H. Wigram as if they came from her, and she is sure that Miss Wigram's appointment will be not only a great assistance to herself, but also a great gain in strength to the whole work of the Association. Owing to the pressure of other calls upon her time Mrs. Campbell Jones, to whom the Associa-tion has owed so much, finds herself obliged to ask to be relieved of the somewhat onerous post of County Secretary for London, which post will now be filled by Miss H. Wigram, while Mrs. Campbell Jones continues to work for us as Secretary for Chelsea. London Secretaries are therefore asked to send their July and all future Reports to Miss H. Wigram, and London mem-bers and subscribers and friends, who are not on any local list, are also asked kindly to send their subscriptions, and to address all communications to her. We have much pleasure in entering a new Secretary at Weymouth-Miss M. Falwasser, whose interest in the Mission has been already shown by the Sale of Work she organised last summer on its behalf. It will be of interest to members of the Association to hear that at a meeting held at St. John the Divine Vicarage, Vassall Road, on May 2, at which the large expenditure involved in the printing of Morning Calm was one of the subjects for consideration, it was decided that the Intercession papers should be issued quarterly instead of monthly. We do not think that the many who find their missionary devotions greatly helped by these papers will ever be sorry to continue to use any one of them for three months instead of for one only. It is earnestly hoped that those who pray especially for Corea will remember the great need, on which Mr. Trollope laid much stress in his speech on May 1, for more priests to join the very small staff of our Mission.
Miss Trollope, Secretary for Beckenham, sends an account of a very successful meeting held at Beckenham on Saturday, May 11. In spite of counter attractions it was attended by about 100 people. The Rev. M. N. Trollope spoke on the mission in Corea, and there was an exhibition of Corean curiosities, which was much appreciated, also tea, most kindly provided by Mrs. Trollope at the end of the meeting. There was no collection, but a box for the Hospitals and the Sister’ work in Corea, was found to contain 3l., which has been sent the Secretary of the St. Peter's Kilburn Association for nursing work in Corea. A large contingent of Bromley members, with their secretary, Miss Merriman, were present, also some Croydon members and their secretary, Miss J. N. Trollope, and some new members of the Association were enrolled. The General Secretary hopes to receive July Reports—and many of them—as usual, before July 10. From that date till September 1 her work will be taken by Miss H. Wigram, as she will be away from home. M. M. CHAMBERS HODGETTS.
Correspondence.
DEAR SIR,--As I have been a good many times questioned in various parts of England with reference to the Roman Catholic Mission in Corea, and the relation of our own Mission to it, would you allow me to draw the attention of any of your readers who may be interested in the matter, to the statement of the subject which occurs in my sermon, preached at the Corean Festival on May 1, and now printed in the current number of Morning Calm?
Faithfully yours, MARK NAPIER TROLLOPE. Mission House, Cowley St. John. NEWCHWANG: March 10, 1895.
"We have been in the wars so much this week, that though I don't know when I may be able to send this letter, I thought it might interest you and our friends who read Morning Calm if I wrote an account of what we have had happening here of late. All this winter, as I expect you know, we have had much fighting going on all round us, of which we have had gruesome witness in the many hundreds of wounded Chinese in the Red Cross hospitals which our local doctor has established here in conjunction with the five missionary doctors who are here for refuge from towns in the interior, and the two naval surgeons. All the winter we have had scares of the Japanese attacking this town, but the general opinion always was that they would wait till the river was unfrozen, and transports and other ships could come up. However, last Monday, March 4, a letter was received from the Japanese general in Haichêng warning the foreign residents that their army intended taking Newchwang, as it was made a basis by the Chinese, who were continually harassing their lines of communication between Port Arthur and Haichêng. The Chinese army got wind of these tidings, and through the night and all the next morning they were flying from Newchwang-about 35,000 of them-to Tien-chwang-Tai, a town about fifteen miles to the north, on the road to Tientsin. The next morning, 6th, reports came that the Japanese were coming-that they were in sight-that they were at the gates, and my wife and I went down to the Customs and saw the whole capture from the roof of the Com-missioner's house. Not a Chinese soldier was to be seen, but here and there Chinese families, wives and children, were hurrying for refuge to foreign houses. Then (11.30 A.M.) some Japanese soldiers climbed the walls, opened the gates, and without a shot being fired, the Japs came pouring in through the south and east gates. Presently the main body of the Japanese army came through the East gate and our settle-ment, passed the gunboats and the Customs on into the Chinese town, I am sorry to say the crew of the American gunboat cheered them, which we Britishers thought bad taste. At the same time we saw three columns of Japanese troops crossing the river on the ice, and then away in the west the river became black with Chinese trying to escape. The Japanese opened out on the plain opposite, and fired several volleys into them, and also fired from the jetties on the bank of the river at the east end of the town. They say the Chinese were armed, but they did not return the fire, and I don't quite see why they were fired on. It is believed the Chinese prefect of the city (Taotai) was among the fugitives. He was in the city just before the Japanese arrived, and has never been seen since. Soon all the Japanese soldiers had passed eastward and were hidden from sight in the narrow streets of the town. We went home to tiffin, but about 1.30 a firing of big guns and explosion of mines began in the west end of the town, and I rushed on to the roof of our servants' quarters, but could see nothing but columns of smoke. I heard afterwards that they were guns and mines from the Chinese forts, where the garrison had still remained. Soon I noticed Chinese hurrying by with tables, chairs, doors, window frames, &c., and felt so sorry for the poor fellows trying to save their little belongings, when I found it was the Chinese canaille, taking advantage of the general confusion, were pillaging a Chinese magistrate's court (Kuanting) next to the Customs. I went to see the place soon afterwards, and found it gutted beyond belief. Even the wooden staircase was being carried away when an American picket stopped them and took charge of the place till some Japanese soldiers came and relieved them. A great deal of pillaging of pawnbrokers, who are kind of bankers, and other shops took place by Chinese rowdies on the 6th and following day. In the afternoon I saw a splendid train of artillery come in through the south gate and pass close by our house. Over a hundred wounded Chinese soldiers were silly enough to run off from our hospital. The terror of the Chinese has been very pitiable. We have seventeen poor women and their children, and six men in our servants' quarters, and our spare room packed with their goods and chattels. My wife goes to see the poor women every day, and they are so grateful, but I hope they will be going soon, for the way they are living is anything but wholesome, either for them-selves or their hosts. On the 7th we were distressed to hear that our postal courier, who had left for Tientsin on the 6th with our letters for England, had been seized by the Japs, and he and his mails brought back. However, he got a pass from the Japs, and started out pluckily again only to be seized and robbed by the Chinese. Now we fear we shall get no letters till the port opens, and no one can say when that will be, for the ice is still twenty-six inches thick in the river, and it is frozen further out to sea than has ever been known before. 17th. No particular news this week. Everything seems to be settling down and Chinese less scared, but the weather is still piteously cold, and so many are without homes. On the 11th the bulk of the Japanese army marched through the town; they said southward, but there is an idea that as they all volunteered that they were going south, they are really going north to make a dash at Moukden. There are only a few hundred soldiers left in the town, and they keep perfect order. I have never seen one ill-be-haved Japanese soldier from first to last, and even the Chinese are loud in their praises. I hear that as soon as the port opens a Japanese civil governor is to be sent here, and in fact the place will become a Japanese town. There is a rumour that the Japanese want to retain this province of Shinking. We cannot be too thankful for our merciful preservation on March 6. In the very same week, old Newchwang was taken with very great loss of life on the Monday, and on the Saturday Tien-chwang-Tai burned, and some thousands killed and wounded. Had the Chinese not evacuated this port on the Tuesday, the foreign settlement must have suffered terribly, as it lies between the Chinese town and the east gate by which the Japanese entered, but as it is not a single foreigner or Chinaman has been injured in person or property except through the pillaging done by the Chinese themselves. I hear those whom the Japanese fired on across the river were out of range, and the firing was only to frighten them. The Chinese have shown their grati-tude to the Japanese for respecting their property by charging them double the proper price for all the provisions and other goods they have bought whilst here! Our doctors went over the Japanese military hospital last week and found everything as perfectly conducted as could be in a European war. All the wounded on nice clean mattresses in unbleached calico pyjama suits, and the latest appliances in the way of surgery. Japan has now the destinies of the whole farther East in her hands, and if she accepts Christianity, as she is rapidly doing, it may be through her that Corea and China may be also evangelised in a way which it could not be done by western missionaries to whom the Mongol mind is a baffling enigma. War is a dreadful thing. This war seems unjust in its initia-tion, but I think we may hopefully pray that it may work out a great final good. “F. W. DOXAT."
The Second Triennial festival.
THE second Triennial Festival in connection with the Mission was celebrated on Wednesday, May 1 (Feast of SS. Philip and James). The Holy Eucharist was offered at a large number of churches both in London and throughout the country, in behalf of Corea, and there was a Solemn Celebration at the Church of St. John the Divine, Kennington. At this service the sermon was preached by the Rev. Mark Napier Trollope (senior priest of the Mission) of which we are able to give a full report : - " Jesus saith, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me."-S. JOHN xiv. 6. There are perhaps no days in the year-unless it be on some of the greater Festivals-upon which one's mind turns more naturally to the thought of the missionary duty and missionary activity of the Church than upon an Apostle's feast day, such as that which the Church celebrates to-day in honour of S. Philip and S. James. It is, I suppose, true to say that is becoming less and less possible for any of us to be or to remain profess-ing Christians and professing Churchmen on any of these lower grounds of mere tradition, mere responsibility, mere convenience, which were perhaps sufficient to keep earlier generations within the fold. The restless activity and the busy thought of the age forbid it. We are-and we may thank God for it, in spite of the stress and strain it brings with it-constantly forced back upon our first principles, forced to think for ourselves. Why I a Christian? Why am I a Churchman? Why was God made man ? Why did He send His Holy Ghost and found His Church? What does it all mean? What bearing has it all on my life, and on the world in which I live? And having faced it all, we may take our stand with increasing firm-ness on the principles we have grasped and thought out for ourselves
And a Festival like to-day's gives point to such thoughts as these, for it carries us back in thought, does it not, to that first Eastertide, when the Risen Lord appeared in the midst of the disciples, in the upper room, when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, and said to them, “Peace be unto you; as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." And we recognise with increasing clearness that, as Christ was the Apostle-the Sent One-of the Father, so the Church, the Holy Catholic Church, throughout all ages and throughout all the world is the Apostle-the sent one-of Christ; while we individual Churchmen and Churchwomen, are sharers in the Apostolic commission then given to the Church at large in the persons of the original disciples. It is true that we are accustomed usually to confine the title of Apostle to those whom Our Lord in person chose and sent, though by common consent it is usually given also at least to S. Barnabas as well as to S. Matthias and to S. Paul. But in point of fact S. Philip and S. James and their brethren were, we know, so to speak, but the first layers of stones in “that city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God;" we know also that we too “are built upon that foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” And if we share, by the mere fact of our Christianity, the Apostolic privilege, be sure of it we share the Apostolic responsibility too.
So stated, it all seems plain and obvious enough. The Holy Catholic Church of Christ was founded, and exists, not for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual needs of a limited number of human beings-not merely to baptise, to marry, and to bury, nor even merely to confess and to com-municate, and provide opportunities of worship for, the residents in a few favoured localities. As an Apostolic body, entrusted with the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, endowed with the Holy Spirit, sent by her risen ascended Lord upon her at her birth, she exists for the very Purpose of witnessing before the world at large, and not merely before her own members (lapsed or constant), to the work which God hath wrought in Christ and still works through herself. She exists in short, first and foremost, for the very purpose of conducting missions to the heathen, to those who as yet know not God, are indeed “without God in the world,” except for such broken and scattered rays of light as may have survived, in this quarter of the world or in that, the overwhelming spiritual darkness in which mankind at large has been plunged by the Fall. Nowadays-perhaps, though unfortunate, it is inevitable-our habit is to specialise everything : and this habit affects our conception of the Church's office and Work in a way which is, at least from some points of view, little short of disastrous. We cut up the Church's work into little parcels, and label them, “Purity Works,” “Temperance Work," “Educational Work,” “Work amongst Girls," “Work amongst Boys," “Home Mission Work," " Foreign Mission Work,” and the like, and are only too apt to think that we, though Christians, can compound for our neglect of some one or more of these by our interest in the rest, or perhaps in but one amongst the rest. Thus “Foreign Missions” have been labelled with the others and placed in the long catalogue of interests out of which it is assumed that the Catholic Christian is entitled to pick and choose as seemeth him best, and we have come (have we not, too many of us ?) to regard Foreign Mission work as merely one thing out of many which may claim the Churchman's interest, as a mere outlying department of the Church's activity, as a cause to be espoused or neglected according to fancy, and without prejudice to our Position as Christians and Catholics, instead of learning to look on it as that which touches the very core and centre of the Church's life, as that in short which forms the very reason of her existence in the world at all.
And yet the moment one begins to think-as a Festival like to-day's should surely force one to think-clearly and calmly about the essence of Christianity and the principles on which our Christian life is built up, how plain it becomes that the Church is and-if she is true to her principles-must be primarily and before all things a missionary body, and that we are-and if the Church is to do her duty must recognise that we are-by the very fact of our baptism and our consequent membership in her and in Jesus Christ, missionaries, and “foreign” missionaries to boot. This truth enters into every orthodox conception of the Person and Work of Christ, aye, and of the very nature of the Godhead Itself-for if God be Love and “so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” for its redemption, how can we, how dare we, shorten and limit God's redeeming purpose within any narrower bounds than He has Himself set? It pervades our whole conception of the office and work of the Catholic Church of Christ; it enters into the very devotions which are the breath of her life and her children's. One marvels to hear people complain sometimes that there is so little recognition of missionary work in the public devotions of the Church. And yet the very marrow of those daily Offices which our dear English Church puts into her children's mouths consists surely of the recitation of the Psalter, coupled with the reading of “the rest of Holy Scripture.” And, to say nothing of this last was ever such a manual of missionary devotion-so full of missionary principles, missionary aspirations, missionary pro-phecy-placed in the Christian's hands as the Book of Psalms? Never, I think, was this so forcibly presented to my mind as on the day when I first set foot on the heathen soil of Corea, four years and more ago. I remember well that it was the 19th day of the month, the 19th day of March ; and, when I came to say my Office, I found that, after that stirring claim of universal sovereignty for God, to which the Venite gives expression day by day, the words which the Church put in my lips ran thus : - “O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the whole carth. . . . . “Declare His honours unto the heathen : and His wonders unto all people. “For the Lord is great, and cannot worthily be praised ; He is more to be feared than all gods. “As for all the gods of the heathen, they are but idols : but it is the Lord that made the heavens. . . . . . “Ascribe unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people: ascribe unto the Lord worship and power. “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness : let the whole earth stand in awe of Him. “Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King : and that it is He who hath made the round world so fast that it cannot be moved ; and how that He shall judge the people righteously."
Well, the 19th day of the month and the 96th Psalm are not peculiar in this; and, if it be true that the lex orandi is the lex credendi, and therefore the lex agendi of the Church, how can we complain that the public prayers of the Church are devoid of missionary aspiration, and how dare we, any of us, go to God day by day with a lie on our lips, if we do not in our hearts believe in the missionary duty of the Church, nor care to take what pains we may to see that she carries that duty out? In short, however conving-ing the arguments of the worldling against Foreign Missions, however de-pressing the estimate unkindly critics form of their success, we feel that we cannot be slack or faithless in the matter, without giving away the whole of our case, without cutting at the root of our faith in the Church, in Jesu Christ, -aye, in God Himself. In answer to the appeal-the often dumb appeal-of all humanity in all ages since the Fall, the appeal to which the Psalmist gave utterance in his prayers, “Show Thou me the way that I should walk in, for I lift up my soul unto Thee,” God in the fulness of time replied through His Incarnate Son, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" And if that utterance of Christ about Himself be true, remember we, that neither the claims of God nor the needs of humanity can be satisfied, unless and until the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
So plain and obvious it all seems. And yet, the moment we begin to translate our principles into practice, how thorny the path; how many and apparently insuperable the obstacles and difficulties! I will say but little now of difficulties, so glibly raised by men of the world, so readily, alas ! assented to too often by half-hearted Churchmen, difficulties which (if listened to) must go far to dishearten us and deter us from doing what in our heart of hearts we know to be our duty, cutting as they do at the very root of all missionary enterprise and effort. The old, old cry, for instance, “There is so much to do at home, so many practical heathen in our midst, why spend our men, our money, our efforts, our prayers, on those abroad " is a cry which must, if it had been listened to, have stified the infant Church in her cradle, which must have kept the Twelve shut up in the Holy City, or at least in the Holy Land, which would have kept S. Paul, S. Barnabas, Silas and the rest at Antioch, if indeed they had ever got so far, which would have deprived us of all the Epistles of St. Paul, unless that to the Hebrews be his, as well as of the greater part of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles,- is a cry, moreover, which would have kept back an Aidan, an Augustine, a Birinus, a Felix from our own dear English shores, as it must have shut out our own saints, Boniface and Willibrord, from the wilds of Germany, which would, in Short, have left Europe (as those who now. utter this cry are prepared to leave the rest of the world) in that darkness from which God Himself had come to rescue man. No! we cannot, in loyalty to our Lord, in pity to our fellow-men, hearken to any such cry as that.
But there are other difficulties than this, and such as this-difficulties earnestly felt and seriously urged by God-fearing men, to whom the honour of the Catholic Church is very dear, and who would be, most of them, among the very last to indulge in any such treason to our Lord as is involved in the abandonment of the cause of Missions as a whole. To two of these, touching us in Corea very closely as they do, let me briefly address myself. First, then, we are warned against the scattering, the dissipation of the Church's energies, involved in setting up new missions in different quarters of the globe, to the apparent distraction of the faith-ful at home and weakening of centres which already exist. The Church of England, we are warned, cannot be, indeed she does not claim to be, oecumenical. In God's name then, it is urged, let us confine ourselves to nose quarters of the globe whither our political responsibilities clearly call us, and devote our energies to the strengthening of those mission centres which do already exist. Why in particular go to Corea? while we are face to face with the paramount claim which our Indian, our African, our American, our Australasian dependencies have upon us? Surely, if further afield we must go, We should at least do better to devote ourselves to re-inforcing our old-established missions in China and Japan. Well, the answer is not far to seek. I can quite understand how those whose thoughts and sympathies are already deeply engaged on behalf-let us say-of Ceylon Calcutta, of Nyasaland or Madagascar, of Kaffraria or Zululand, of Trinidad or New Westminster, may (though I cannot say should, and will not say do) look askance at the founding of some new mission, which they fear will divert into new channels some of the support and sympathy for which they have hitherto looked, and not looked in vain. But, however un-wise the rash multiplication of centres and dissipation of energies, we must not forget that "Here is that scattereth and yet increaseth,” and possibly those whose sympathies are thus wholly pre-occupied are hardly the best judges as to when the "scattering” is wise, and when impolitic and wrong. It rests surely with those whom God has placed in positions of supreme responsibility, backed by those whose local knowledge entitles them to a respectful hearing, to say whether, in this or that quarter of the globe, the Church is justified at any given moment in “lengthening her cords” as well as "strengthening her stakes.” If irresponsible persons had gone about to set up a mission in Corea or elsewhere, without the request, or at least the countenance, of those neighbouring bishops, who were most concerned and best fitted to judge of the desirability of taking such a step, one might well hesitate before throwing in one's lot with such a course as that. But in point of fact we know that the Corean Mission was only instituted by the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, as the natural sequel and outcome of our older Missions in China and Japan, at the urgent and reiterated request of our Bishops in those countries, and with the more than hearty approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the premier Prelate of the Anglican Communion.
Moreover, if the assumption of political responsibility and the extension of commercial influence by Great Britain form-as surely they do-an over-powering reason why Englishmen should be forward in missionary enter-prise in places where her flag and her commerce are thus thrust to the fore, it can only be in ignorance of the facts of the case that English Churchmen are led sometimes to imagine that the English Church has no vocation, no mission in the Far East. She may not indeed claim to be oecumenical, but she must surely at least try to keep abreast of the advances made by Eng-lish civilisation, English arms, English statesmanship, and English trade, amongst the Pagan powers of the world. Our responsibility for Corea is indeed but a part-a small part-of our infinitely larger responsibility for China and Japan. How vast that responsibility is, how serious the duties it involves, it has been the merit of the otherwise disastrous wars, of late raging for so many months between these two great heathen nations, to force upon the attention of thoughtful people in England, in a way in which perhaps it was never presented before. It may be true that England has not literally annexed vast territories either in Japan or in Corea, or (if we except Hong Kong) in China, as she has done, for instance, in India and America. But she has done all she could do, short of technical annexation, forcing her commerce and her flag, often at the point of the sword and bayonet, into the hearts of those countries. teaching-and finding at least in one of them a ready scholar-all that she could impart in the way of physical science and material civilisation, and, followed as she has been by the sister-nations of Europe and America, still holding a paramount position there in the Far East, both amongst those who followed her and amongst the peoples to whom she has thus introduced herself. And then there is the second difficulty, the second objection raised those who, while keenly alive to the missionary duty of the Church in prin-ciple, are disposed to think that the English Church might well have looked elsewhere than in Corea for the employment of her evangelising energy. I mean, of course, the objection raised by those amongst us who feel so keenly the divisions of Christendom-and what earnest Christian does not them keenly ?-that they would very largely restrict the missionary activity of their own branch of the Church, if, indeed, they would not, as I fear some would, deny her any sphere for that activity at all. Are not you, they ask us, doing more harm than good, and making confusion worse confounded by going to a country already “occupied” by Methodist and Presbyterian Missions? Are you not, in addition, trampling on ecclesiastical orders by going to a country wherein there is already at work a Mission of our Sister Church of Rome, a mission with a touching and heroic history in the past, and a flourishing work in the present ? Would it not have been well for the English Church here at least to hold her hand and devote her energies else-where? I trust that I shall not be deemed careless of the peace and honour of Christendom, which is, I call God to witness, as dear to the hearts of us in Corea as it can be to those of any of our cities, when I say in answer to this question that my settled opinion, after a careful study of the facts upon the spot, can only find expression in a loud and emphatic "No." And the longer one looks at it, the clearer and the more emphatic the negative becomes. No, we are not mere troublers of the peace of Christendom : without a doubt we do well to be there, we of the English Church. Do you ask me why? Then let me try quite simply and shortly to make my mean-ing clear.
And let me say at once that bad, shamefully bad, as the divisions of Christendom are, they do not or need not constitute such a scandal in the face of heathendom as we in England are apt to imagine. With common prudence and common charity (virtues unfortunately not always conspicuous in the bearing of missionaries) the problem provided by our unhappy divisions should not be acute, nor need it become acute for centuries, so vast is the field before us. We who in England, with some twenty-five to thirty millions of inhabitants, think the Church understaffed with some thirty bishops and thirty thousand clergy, talk glibly of a country like Corea, with some twelve to fifteen millions of inhabitants, being “occupied” by one bishop and a score of priests ; or of a land like China, with some 300 or 400 million souls, being "occupied” by a score of bishops and some thirty score of priests. Why, with all the centuries of work and devotion, with all the thousands of converts, to which the Roman Catholic Missions in China, Corea, and Japan can point, their representatives would be themselves the first to admit that the veriest fringe of the work had hardly yet been touched, and that not less than ninety-nine hundredths of the people yet remained to be won for Christ. And even if in this vast untouched field representatives of different missions chance to find themselves now and again in over close proximity, be it remembered that in the eyes of an Oriental the appearance of external divisions amongst the professors of a Common Faith does not necessarily militate against its truth. What is a contradiction in terms to our Western minds is not so necessarily to theirs. Nor is the phenomenon Strange to them. The Buddhists of Japan, for instance, and the Mahometans of India are as familiar with the sectarian idea, amongst themselves as (to our shame be it said) are we Christians in England. Be it remembered too that the divisions of Christendom are no hew things, the broken unity of the Church is no new problem of these latter days. The successes which the Church has won during these past 1800 years and more have been won in spite of the schisms by which she has time out of mind been rent asunder, and the heresies by which she has been in every century distressed. And records remain to show that the gibe, which flows so naturally to-day from the lips of the worldling who scorns Missions, “Hadn't you better settle amongst yourselves what your faith is before you send Missions to the heathen world ?" is a gibe to which the Christian apologist had to find his answer in the earliest days of the Church's history. Yet, there will be some who say, even admitting all this, you cannot but allow that your very presence in a country like Corea constitutes at least a technical trespass, an uncanonical intrusion within the sphere of another lawfully-appointed prelate. Well, if it be so, do not let us forget that we in Corea stand on the same footing as nearly every other Mission of the English Church, and that the admission of this principle as final and conclusive cuts at the root of nearly all our missionary work, not only in Corea, China and Japan, but in India and Canada, in Madagascar and South Africa too: for it cannot be seriously maintained, even in those countries where England has assumed supreme political power, that mere military conquest gives any title to over-ride canonical rights. And it only remains for us English Churchmen-for us who boast that on our Empire the sun never sets, for us whose language is rapidly becoming the lingua franca of the globe-to sit still and see the principal, the essential work of the Church left wholly in the hands of such nations as the French, the Belgians, the Italians, and the Portuguese. And, in point of fact we in Corea, and our brethren in China too (for in neither of these countries has the Roman Church any settled territorial hierarchy) are far more innocent on this score of technical intention than our brethren in Japan, in India, in Canada, in Madagascar, where the Roman communion is represented, and has in some instances been for centuries represented, by an established hierarchy, with territorial titles drawn from the land in which the Missions are planted. The truth of the matter is that we cannot hope to legislate for heathendom as we do for settled Christian countries, and I venture to assert that in early ages the Church did not attempt to do so. To take an instance from the history of our own land, the fact of the technical occupation of Britain by the bishops of the ancient British Church did not prevent S. Augustine from proceeding with his mission to these islands. Nor did the plenary commission of S. Augustine and his successors interfere with the missionary enterprise of S. Aidan and his Celtic brethren in the north. But I have kept the best till the last. In truth, the presence of an Anglican Mission in the field, side by side with the representatives of Rome, and sometimes (as is notably the case in Japan) with flourishing Missions of the Greek Church, as well as the various Protestant bodies, so far from being an aggravation of dissension, is, and must be, if we are true to our principles, the best and surest pledge of future unity. Re-member, we are not primarily responsible for the confusion. It is those before us. We may hold our hands indeed, but go where you will throughout the world, and you will find (though their total numbers are but a drop compared with the vast ocean of heathenism) on the one hand the Roman Church at work, on the other some one, or perhaps several, of the many Protestant sects. How strong (to their credit be it said !) the Foreign Mission work of the various Protestant bodies is, has perhaps been realised by but few people in our own Church. To take two simple instances in Burmah, I believe that something like four-fifths of the natives who profess the Christian faith are Baptists: in Madagascar, the
There is no Roman Catholic diocese or Bishop of Corea, or of any city Corea. There is a French Roman Catholic Mission in Corea (as there is in most other countries) with a noble history and considerable numbers of converts. The Mission is worked by the Paris Société des Missions Etrangères (the French S.P.G.), and its present staff consists of about twenty priests under a Vicar Apostolic, in Episcopal orders, who takes his title from Milo, an island in the Grecian Archipelago. There are no native priests. The number of converts has for the last twenty-five years been given at about 20,000, that is, the fistieth part of one million. The total population of Corea is believed to be about twelve to fifteen million souls. London Missionary Society-practically a Congregationalist body-has close on 240,000 native adherents, as against some 40,000 Roman Catholics, and a much smaller number who owe their Christianity to Anglican Missions ; while (to add a third instance) in China I am assured that the men and women who are converting the people of that wonderful country to some phase or another-too often, alas! but a fragmentary phase-of the Christian faith, are not the Roman Catholics with their start of over three centuries and their magnificent record of work done and martyrdom suffered, not the tiny handful of excellent missionaries who represent the English Church, but the emissaries of the various Protestant sects, who throng in such large numbers to the “Middle Kingdom.” Here, then, is the problem which we have to face. And can we not see how, in the providence of God, the position which our English Church occupies, and which (whether we like it or no) she must continue to occupy, between the Roman Catholic on the one hand, and the mere Protestant, of whatever denomination, on the other, does give a pledge and a hope of future grace, not only (as has been so often pointed out) for the broken unity of the Christian Empire in which we live, but also for the perplexing divisions by which the Church's energies are distracted in the Foreign Mission Field ? Some day there will come a time when the people (for instance) in Corea, who owe their conversion respectively to the French Roman Catholic, American Presbyterian or Methodist, and Anglican Missions, will cease to be dominated by French, American, and English missionaries. What better pledge could be given of the possibility of these divergent masses, being then ultimately welded into one consistent whole, than the presence amongst them of a nucleus of Christians trained in the Catholic Faith, as held and understood by the Anglican Church? Surely, if God could bring the unity of our great Ecclesia Anglicana out of the jarring controversies of the Celtic, Italian, and British Churches, which all helped to give her life, we may trust that He can and will in His own good time, in Corea and elsewhere, bring peace and unity out of the divergent and apparently inconsistent elements which distract our minds in the various quarters of the Mission Field to-day. And the best and surest guarantee that it will be so, lies in the presence (wherever she is called) and the patient persistence, amid the Babel of tongues, of our own dear English Church. I have dwelt long-some will think over long-on obstacles which seem to stand in the way of putting into practice all that is involved in that utter-ance of our Lord's, which I have taken for my text to-day, and which the Church takes, as it were, as her motto on this Festival. There are many subjects on which one would rather have spoken to you on such an occasion and in such a place as this. But it seems to me of paramount importance that the faithful at home should have more perfect information and a clearer understanding on these points. For the frankest recognition of the prin-ciple of the foreign missionary duty of the Church is of but slight avail, if every attempt at the practical exemplification of the principle is to be met and paralysed by some newly-discovered and ill-considered objection. And the facts on which I have dwelt exist and force themselves with painful emphasis from time to time on the mind of the missionary resident abroad; but they are not facts which, as a rule, get set before the supporters of Missions at home, for every Mission, intent on its own work, is apt, quite naturally, to speak of itself in its periodicals,mand in its representative spokes-men as the one body at work in its particular quarter of the field. And then, when from one cause and another it is suddenly revealed to the faithful at home that there are such difficulties and unsuspected obstacles in the way, the blow comes with a numbing and paralysing force, and the newly-discovered difficulty assumes a much greater importance than it is strictly entitled to.
Nothing but a frank recognition and a careful study of the facts of the case avails in the service of any cause whatever. There are, I have said, other subjects on which one would have more gladly spoken to-day from such a text as this, than those which have actually engaged us. But I have left myself but little time for them. Let me, how-ever, in conclusion briefly dwell upon two. First, the danger we are in, in this 19th century, from a confusion of ideas, of practically abandoning the unique claim made by our Lord, and abandoning it in the supposed interests of material progress and secular civilisation. It is a danger which years ago Dr. Liddon pointed out as a growing one, and exposed with his match-less eloquence the danger of so over-rating what we describe as the "bless-ings of our civilisation as to imagine that, in point of fact, they apart from Christ form the real way, truth, and life, and that steam and electricity and military skill, and sound principles of sanitation, extended commerce and improved means of cominunication, a vigorous journalism and a highly developed municipal life and organisation and the like, that these, rather than the Person of our Incarnate Lord, are the real means by which man arrives at least at the true end of his being, if not at union with God. That is the principle which lies at the root of the educational struggle now being fought so keenly in our own England, and which underlies indeed most of the controversies of the present day-the antithesis between God in the world regenerating mankind through the Incarnation of His Son, and the world organised apart from God with all the highly developed paraphernalia of material civilisation. It matters not of what sort the civilisation is, old fashioned or new fangled, oriental or European, Chinese or English. In fact, except so far as they bear on “the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,” one form of civilisation is to the Church much as another, with a preference for that which is least foreign and proved by experience to be best suited to the national character. When we speak of the “blessings” of civilisation, we are thinking as often as not of the com-forts and conveniences it brings with it, and it should in fairness be remem-bered that standards of comfort and convenience may well vary in different quarters of the globe, and that no nation is, from the moral and spiritual point of view, deserving of either praise or blame, for the readiness with which it adopts, or the obstinacy with which it rejects, European ideas and standards in these matters. There is nothing specially moral about the steam-engine, nothing necessarily Christian about the telephone, or even the torpedo, nothing specially sacred about our European civilisation at ail, except so far as it is the outcome and expression of our Christianity. It is hardly the business of the Church to “push” one form of secular civilisation as against another ; but rather, confident that she possesses the key to the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, to welcome what she finds and quicken the withered stock of nationality by inserting the principle of the new life, thus giving a fresh beauty and vigour to all that was good in the old system, as well as adding those new touches, in which the old system was so obviously lacking.
And the second point on which I would dwell in conclusion is this. If again that utterance of Christ about Himself be true, let us not forget what it involves for us, and how it affects our methods and conceptions of mission work, the work of the Church. We know the power by which He Who was "the Way, and the Truth, and the Life" forced Himself upon men’s hearts and minds, and in so doing set flowing the springs which should regenerate the world, namely, by the sacrifice of self. We think we are going to regenerate the world, to bring God's kingdom here on earth, to do the will of God, and to win a way for ourselves and others to His Presence by our worrying fussiness or wearisome activity in our work. There could not be a greater mistake. The road to communion with the Father was opened by Him who was "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," simply and solely by the power of sacrifice. Sacrifice alone is fruitful. Our work, our very prayers, unless offered in the spirit of sacrifice, will not answer the purposes, nor effect the will of God. That surely must affect, and affect seriously, the whole of our conception of our missionary duty, the means which we should use to prepare for it, the spirit in which we should carry it out-for that, and that alone, will carry us, and with us, those to whom we are sent to minister, straight to the Father Who is for all the world its true end and aim, as He is the ultimate cause and author of its existence.
In the afternoon the General Meeting was held at the Church House, Westminster, under the presidency of Field-Marshal Sir John Lintorn Simmons, at which a large number of those interested in the Mission were present. The CHAIRMAN said that this mission to Corea was one of very great interest. First, it would appear that at the end of the last century some books having reached Corea, some of the more learned of the natives studied them, and attempted to start a Church of their own, without any mission having been sent to them. Though the attempt was necessarily abortive, it at any rate showed that there was at that time a longing for some better religion than they possessed of their own. After that the Pope sent a mission to Corea, and there were sundry martyrs among the mis-sionaries. Then came the time when our own Church thought it right, upon the invitation of the Bishop of Japan, to send out a mission of its Own. It was founded as a sort of forlorn hope, for at that time Corea was scarcely known at all; the inhabitants were said to be of a savage character, and life was not considered to be very safe among them. The Archbishop of Canterbury having called upon Bishop Corfe to go out as missionary bishop. Bishop Corfe bravely accepted the position, gave up, at great personal sacrifice his position in the Navy, where he was greatly respected and beloved, and went out to spend his life among a barbarian people. Such was the origin of the mission. He thought the missionaries Were rather to be complimented on the fact that they had not been in a hurry to get a few nominal native Christians around them, but had preferred to lay the foundations of the mission broad and deep. The care of the sick was a special feature of the work. Hospitals bad been established, under the charge of Sisters. It was a striking testimony to Bishop Corse's worth that the Navy should have undertaken to found and support a hospital in Corea. This institution had done excellent work under Dr. Wiles, and in looking after the guard of English sailors at the capital, and in tending wounded Coreans. Commander SCOT ROGERS, R.N., moved the following resolution : - "That this meeting desires to place on record its sense of the increasing portance of Christian missions in the Far East, and to urge upon the Church at home the need there is of more support for the Church's work in Corea.”
As Commander of H.M.S. Archer, which had been stationed at Chemulpo during the course of the war in the East, he had for several months been in almost daily communication with Bishop Corfe, and had been led to take a deep interest in his mission. At that time there were some Corean soldiers er treatment who had been wounded during the rebellion, and very grateful they appeared to be for the way in which they had been looked after. He had also an opportunity of seeing the printing press set up by the Mission in full work-printing not only from English type, but also from Corean. He had also good reason to appreciate the services of Dr. Landis, who had been most useful as interpreter.
The Rev. M. N. TROLLOPE seconded the resolution. With more particular reference to the Mission itself he might say that it had three good things. First, it had Bishop Corfe. Secondly, there was the hospital work, which was the great means of breaking down prejudice and opening out an avenue for getting at the Coreans. And then the Sisters were the third good thing, whose work was beyond all praise. He was breaking no confidence when he said that the hospital work was likely to receive a great extension, owing to the fact that the Mission in Corea had received a visit from the great traveller, Mrs. Bishop, who pro-posed to present to the Mission a hospital for women, which she was going to build at her own expense, and the work in which was to be undertaken by the Sisters, with the assistance of a lady doctor, as it was impossible to do any work among the women of Corea except by women. He might say that when the Mission was first started, it was not expected to make con-verts within a short space of time, but he could bear witness to the good effect which the nursing and attention that the Coreans received in the hospitals seems to have had on their character. With regard to the weak points of the Mission, the first was the fewness of the mis-sionaries. Bishop Corfe had but three clergymen under him, and that was not a sufficient staff for taking up the openings which presented themselves. The Archbishop was undoubtedly right when he said that missions ought to be carried on from strong centres rather than by means of scattered pastorates ; but how could strong centres be formed when there were only three priests at work in the field ? If he urged upon people the necessity for more support from home, he was not unmindful of what had already been done for the Mission. He was not unmindful of what had been done for them by the Navy. Then there was the wonderful Association for Prayer and Work for Corea, which numbered more than 3,000 members, and which was a great source of strength to the mission. Then he should like to lay stress upon the work of Father Kelly and the Society of the Sacred Mission which he had established. It was a plucky attempt to grapple with a difficult problem ; it was but a small work at present, but he was sure it was going to have a great future. He could not conclude with-out testifying once again to what was, after all, the reason of their existence-he meant the help which the Mission received from the S.P.G. The Corean Mission, he thought, was the pet mission of the S.P.G. Lastly, one other good thing the Mission had at home was the Commissary (Rev. C. E. Brooke). No one but the missionaries out in Corea could tell what it was to feel that the Mission had its roots deep down in such a parish as S. John the Divine, Kennington. (Cheers.)
Colonel EVERITT moved, and Rev. S. H. BERKELEY seconded, the following resolution :- “That the members and associates of Bishop Corfe's Mission in Corea, in meeting assembled, pledge themselves to uphold the cause of Christian Missions by word and work and prayer, as opportunity shall be given to them." The Rev. J. B. HARBORD also spoke to the resolution, and reminded the meeting that it was the earnest wish of Bishop Corfe that his Mission to the Corea might be the means of stirring up a general spirit of interest in missions, and more especially in that service to which he was so much attached. The resolution was carried, and the meeting concluded with the putting of the votes of thanks to the Chairman, the preachers, and the clergy who had lent their churches for the festival. -From the “Church Times.”
