Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

ies and hatreds. In the end it failed utterly. Niggardly toleration for a season was the best boon it could obtain for Christianity; the state policy of exclusion of everything foreign, as being valueless to the welfare, and dangerous to the stability, of the empire, held inexorably on its way: while the missionaries were honored at Pekin, and suffered to worship as they would, their religion was proscribed and persecuted everywhere else. The mission sank into the unhappy position of a knot of personal satellites of the emperor, and unrewarded servants of the empire, and at last became extinct. We will briefly trace its history during the interval.

As soon as the news of Ricci's success reached the West, he was appointed Superior of all the Chinese missions, and a numerous band of laborers was sent out to work under his direction. For some time all went well. But, shortly after Ricci's death, the opposition of those who were jealous of European influence at the capital prevailed, and an edict was obtained by which the missionaries were expelled from the country, and all exercise of their religion forbidden. Many of them remained in hiding, protected by the friends they had made, both in the court and among the people, and waiting for better times. At this period the troubles and disorders which led to the overthrow of the dynasty were breaking out in every province. The friends of the missionaries succeeded in having them authorized to reappear, as men whose knowledge and capacity might be made useful to the empire. Adam Schall, the most eminent among them, was made chief of the astronomical board, and, about 1640, was set to casting cannon for the imperial use. But the dynasty, oppressed at once by rebellion and foreign invasion, was doomed to fall: in 1644, Pekin fell into the hands, first of the rebels, and then of the Manchus the latter remained its masters and the masters of the empire.

The change of dynasty made no difference in the condition of the mission, although, of course, the Christian communities suffered, and Christian missionary labor was greatly impeded, by the disturbances and civil wars which desolated the empire. Schall was continued in his offices and dignities, and

received unusual marks of favor from the first Mongol emperor, whose attachment to him was excessive, and over whom he wielded a powerful influence. With the regents who, after the death of the emperor, conducted for a time the affairs of state during the minority of his son, afterwards the great Kanghi, the case was different; and the enemies of the missionaries were able once more to set on foot a persecution more violent than the previous one. In 1665, the Christian religion was placed under ban: the missionaries were thrown into prison, and condemned to deportation into the depths of Tatary, while Schall, the chief mark for jealousy and hatred, was sentenced to an ignominious death. An earthquake prevented the execution of the sentence, and frightened the persecutors. Schall was released, but immediately died. Four others were retained, that they might serve the empire, and the rest, twentyfive in number, were sent to Canton and thrust out of the country.

Science once more raised the missions from their low estate. Their chief persecutor, and Schall's successor as head of the astronomical board, proved himself a terrible ignoramus and bungler in his profession. In constructing the state calendar, a matter of the highest consideration in China, he had even allotted to the new year an intercalary month to which it was not entitled! This and other errors were proved upon him by the missionaries, in presence of the young emperor, who had now assumed the reins of power. Their triumph was complete their foe was disgraced, and Verbiest installed in his place; and the admiration and confidence of the greatest and ablest monarch who ever sat on the throne of China was given to the missionaries, never to be withdrawn. He became their eager pupil, and their attached friend and protector. The victims of the recent persecution were at once recalled to their old fields of labor, and some years later, in 1692, the emperor's direct and sovereign authority carried through the tribunals, in spite of their reluctance and opposition, a decree which granted full toleration to Christianity throughout the whole empire. The reign of Kang-hi is the period of the greatest prosperity of the Catholic missions in China. It is

also the period of the most active and honorable participation of the missionaries in the affairs of the country. Verbiest again founded cannon, for use in the wars against the Tatars. Gerbillon negotiated a treaty of peace and amity with the Russians on the northern frontier. The emperor was cured of a dangerous fever by the use of quinine. The great work of constructing an accurate map of the whole empire was successfully accomplished.

An unfavorable change, which, even before the close of the reign of Kang-hi, came over the condition and prospects of the Chinese mission, was due to dissensions among the missionaries themselves. Ricci had been very tolerant of the weaknesses of Chinese character and the prejudices of Chinese education, and had sought to adapt to them, so far as was possible, the doctrine which he preached. He had seen no sufficient objection to permitting the practice of those ceremonies of official and ancestral worship which made up the substance of the orthodox state and popular religion. He regarded them as the "peculiar institution" of the empire, which had a civil character merely, and upon which it was highly unadvisable to lay a disturbing finger, lest the great work of spreading the gospel among the benighted heathen of the empire should thereby suffer hindrance; for every religion which had as yet obtained permanent foothold in the country had been compelled to respect and adopt those venerable rites. His view was a highly politic, but probably also a sincere, one; and it was correct, at least so far as this, that the Chinese generally performed the ceremonies as mere inherited forms, connecting no idolatrous or other meaning with them. Unquestionably, however, they were by origin, and in their real nature, superstitious and idolatrous, and it could be but a degraded and lifeless Christianity which would permanently tolerate them. Differences of opinion respecting their character and the manner in which they were to be dealt with had prevailed from the beginning among the Jesuits themselves, yet these, as a body, adopted the views of Ricci. The Dominicans and missionaries of other orders as generally condemned them. The dispute, aggravated by the rivalry of the monastic orders, and

even by political and national jealousies, long raged high, greatly to the scandal of the unbelievers and the detriment of the missions. Both sides appealed to Rome, and several discordant decisions were, in the course of the seventeenth century, provisionally pronounced by the Holy See, subject to revision upon farther examination; 'yet the scale evidently leaned strongly against the views defended by the Jesuits. The latter were then so indiscreet as vastly to complicate the question by appealing to their friend and patron, the emperor, and making him a party to its adjudication. He, himself an eclectic and an indifferent in matters of religion, as Chinese emperors have long been wont to be, pronounced a decision, as was to be expected, in favor of the Jesuits and of the Chinese rites, declaring the latter to be free from all taint of idolatry, and altogether innocent and praiseworthy. But unfortunately, after the maturest deliberation, the case was decided at Rome the other way. Here were two irresistible forces, the infallibility of the pope and the universal authority of the emperor, formally arrayed in opposition to one another; neither could give way, but the missions had to feel the direful effects of their collision. Repeated embassies from the pope to the emperor only led to violent disputes, and to the exile, imprisonment, and persecution of the legates; while the imperial favor was withdrawn from the missions, and the continued toleration of the missionaries within the borders of the empire made conditional upon their giving a promise in writing to make no opposition to the rites, and to remain all their lives in the country. Hardly, however, had the last papal legate returned from his futile mission, when, in 1722, the great Kanghi died.

Yung-ching, his son and successor, was a ruler of abilities not unworthy of his father, but a man of stern temper, and who cared little for the society and personal instructions of the missionaries. As the personal protection of the emperor had long been the main defense of the missions, prohibition and persecution now immediately followed. In answer to the expostulations of his European servants at Pekin, the emperor gave them, with his own mouth, the explanation of the course

which he deemed it for the interests of the empire to pursue, using these remarkable words: "You wish all the Chinese to become Christians, and your law requires it; that I know very well. But in that case, what should we be? the subjects of your kings? Your Christians recognize none but you; in times of trouble they would listen to no voice but yours. I know that at present there is nothing to fear; but when your vessels should come by the thousands and tens of thousands, there would be trouble."

We have here the key to the whole policy of the Chinese, in respect to both the religion and the commerce of the West, as it was gradually developed and established, under the most enlightened sovereigns who have ever ruled over the empire. Their intolerance of Christianity had no religious motive; but they feared the men of Europe. They feared them for the very qualities which they admired in them, and turned to their own profit-for their energy of character and their vastly superior knowledge. They could bear the growth of no such powerful influence as Christianity might be expected to become, to the decay of the native institutions, the ruin of the ruling dynasty, and the final imposition of a foreign domination.

The history of the Chinese missions after the death of Kang-hi may be told in few words. The prohibitory edict of Yung-ching was never repealed. The missionaries at Pekin were allowed to remain, to recruit their numbers from time to time, to retain their civil offices and dignities, and to practise by themselves the ceremonies of their religion; but as Christian missionaries they were forbidden to labor, nor was the presence of Europeans tolerated except at the capital. Yet, during this and the following reigns, the exiled laborers stole quietly back to their posts, and continued their old labors in secret, and under the constant dread of discovery. This was, indeed, the best and most heroic epoch of Catholic Christianity in China; the annals of the church can hardly show more noble examples of self-devotion, of persevering labor in the midst of discouragement and danger, of patient endurance of a life of hardships, of fortitude and resignation in meeting

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »