bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1987) — Fall 1987 // Automne 1987, pp. 58–59
Saving China: Canadian Missionaries in
the Middle Kingdom 1888-1959 by Alvyn
J. Austin, University of Toronto Press, 1987,
395 pp.
The 600 Canadian Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries withdrawn from China after the People’s Republic was established in 1949 represented the largest Canadian activity overseas to that date, apart from the Canadian expeditionary forces overseas in the first and second world wars. Alvyn Austin has written a good popular history of these Canadian missionary activities set against the evolution of China’s troubled history of the past century and he also discusses the impact of the China experience on Canadians at home.
Through treaties signed following the first and second opium wars (1839-60) the Western powers secured the opening of treaty ports and the privilege of extraterritoriality (i.e. nationals to be tried only by their own consuls). Foreigners with proper passports were to be permitted to travel anywhere in the interior. By the so-called “toleration clauses” inserted in the Chinese text of the French convention of 1860 by a French priest translator French missionaries were accorded the privilege of renting and purchasing land in all provinces and erecting buildings thereon. This privilege was not formally granted by treaty to Protestant missionaries until 1903, but in practice it was often conceded to them. Taking advantage of these concessions, missionary societies in the Western countries launched active campaigns to spread the gospel throughout China.
The starting year for Canada chosen by Austin is 1888. In that year the Reverend Hudson Taylor, the most famous missionary since the death of Dr. David Livingstone, travelled back to China from England by way of Canada. Here he enlisted 13 recruits with little formal education but strong faith to join him in the China Inland Mission. These were the first of the large flow of evangelical missionaries from Canada to serve all over China with the C.I.M., which grew to include 25% of all Protestant missionaries in China by 1940.
In the same year the Presbyterian Church in Canada sent the Reverend Jonathon Goforth to China, where with others he began to open up the North Honan Mission. In 1891 nine missionaries of the Methodist Church opened a mission field in the southwest province of Szechuan. In 1907 the Anglican Church opened a mission in South Honan under Bishop W.C. White.
The first Canadian Roman Catholic missionaries to go to China were two French-speaking Franciscan Sisters of Mary, who were sent in 1902 to replace French sisters martyred during the Boxer uprising in Shantung. They were joined later by two Franciscan priests. By 1940 there were 400 French Canadian missionaries working in China. The largest missions were the Jesuits at Suchow in North Kiangsi and the Missions Etrangères in Manchuria. About 1920 the Scarboro Foreign Mission of Toronto began working in Chekiang
Foreign missionaries had to face many internal upheavals in China. One of the most disruptive was the Boxer Movement of 1901 which the wily Empress Dowager succeeded in directing against Westerners. Austin states that the early missionaries brought some of the anti-foreignism on themselves because they had no background in Chinese studies or in comparative religion and sought single-mindedly to convert the heathen. He fails to balance this with a description of the backwardness and corruption of the late Manchu China. Of the 300 foreigners killed by the Boxers, 243 were missionaries, miraculously none Canadian. After the collapse of the Manchu dynasty in 1911 China was torn by civil war, ended by Chiang Kai-shek’s capture of Peking in 1927. For a time there was greater tranquility.
Over the years the major Protestant churches evolved a social and institutional approach to their China missions, building and operating schools and hospitals and sharing the staffing of Christian universities. Austin notes that two thirds of the United Church missionaries were women who did much to elevate the status of women in China, and in the process of money raising in Canada encouraged many housewives to get out and speak at meetings and organize to raise funds. The C.I.M. and other evangelical groups continued to focus most of their attention on conversion
Beginning in the 1920s, and gathering momentum, Chinese Christian communities united in two large Protestant churches and one Roman Catholic and became increasingly self-governing and independent. Missionaries were expected to await invitations from the Chinese churches to collaborate with them.
The scene changed again with Japanese aggression, first in Manchuria in 1931 and then in North China in 1937. Many of the Christian institutions like the universities fled to West China. When war erupted between Japan and the Western powers in December 1941 those missionaries who had remained in the Japanese occupied areas were interned. After Japan’s defeat in 1945 there was a short period of hope, but this was soon shattered by civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists. When the People’s Republic was proclaimed in Peking on October 1, 1949 there was a guarantee of freedom of religion. But in fact many Chinese Christians were declared to be collaborators with the Kuomintang or with the Imperialists, or of being capitalists or landlords. Many were liquidated. In due course the Communists began to bring pressure to bear on the missionaries who had remained. When the Korean Conflict broke out in June 1950 Westerners became even more suspect as enemy aliens. Some were expelled; others were put on show trials, imprisoned, and then expelled. The last Canadian missionary left in 1959. Idenendent Chinese churches wıI ling I ustin describes the emergence of th collaborate with the Communists and cut off from all foreign contact. When Chairman Mao Tse-tung unleashed the Cultural Revolution in 1966 the continuing churches were closed and Christianity proscribed. It went underground. After Mao’s death in 1976 and the arrest of the leftist Gang of Four, religious freedom was gradually restored and churches returned to their congregations. Austin recounts how the Chinese churches survived and have taken on new lite in recent years as churches independent of foreign influence. Because the Vatican maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan relations between Peking and the Vatican remain strained and the Chinese Catholic Church does not acknowledge the authority of the Pope.
Austin’s survey contains a wealth of references to source material. It is remarkable the amount of information he has been able to pull together and incorporate in a balanced way in this study. Many minor factual errors will be drawn to the author’s attention by this reviewer. But they do not detract from the value and interest of this comprehensive survey. For those wishing to delve deeper the University of Toronto-York University Joint Centre on Modern East Asia has produced over the past three years a series of scholarly monographs on “Canada and East Asia: Missionaries, Public Opinion and Policy.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1987) — Fall 1987 // Automne 1987, pp. 58–59. Read the rest of this issue →
