New forces in old China : an unwelcome but inevitable awakening . es and village headmen are beset by clamorous hordeswho demand a settlement of their alleged grievances. Natu-rally the Chinese Christians do not at once outgrow this nationaldisposition. Whether they do or not, their profession of Chris-tianity makes them an easy mark for the greedy and and dislike of the native who abandons the faith of hisfathers and espouses the foreigners religion frequentlyhale him into court on trumped-up charges and the notoriousprejudice and corruption of the average magistrate oftenres
New forces in old China : an unwelcome but inevitable awakening . es and village headmen are beset by clamorous hordeswho demand a settlement of their alleged grievances. Natu-rally the Chinese Christians do not at once outgrow this nationaldisposition. Whether they do or not, their profession of Chris-tianity makes them an easy mark for the greedy and and dislike of the native who abandons the faith of hisfathers and espouses the foreigners religion frequentlyhale him into court on trumped-up charges and the notoriousprejudice and corruption of the average magistrate oftenresult in grievous persecution. The terrified Christian natu-rally implores the missionary to save him. It is hard toresist such an appeal. But the defendant is not always soinnocent as he appears to be, and whether innocent or guilty,the interference of the foreigner irritates both magistrateand prosecutor, while it not infrequently arouses the re-sentment of the whole community by giving the idea thatthe Christians are a privileged class who are not amenable 228. I—I hi* JOO W So ^ o X ° d ° O Missionaries and Native Lawsuits 229 to the ordinary laws of the land. When, as sometmies hap-pens, the Christians themselves get that idea and presume uponit, the difficulty becomes acute. Speaking of the Chinesetalent for indirection, the Rev, Dr. Arthur H. Smithsays:— It is this which makes it so difficult for the most conscientious anddiscreet missionary to be quite sure that he is in possession of all theneeded data in any given case. The difficulty in getting at the bottonfacts frequently is that there are no facts available, and, as the pilots say, no bottom. Every Protestant missionary is anxious to have his flock ofChristians such as fear God and work righteousness, but in the effort tocompass this end he not infrequently finds that when endeavouring to in-vestigate the facts in any case he is chasing a school of cuttlefishthrough seas of ink. An illustration of this occurre
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectmissions, bookyear190
