{
  "bookName": "HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS",
  "authorName": "BERNARD DE VAULX",
  "publisherName": "HAWTHORN BOOKS PUBLISHERS",
  "publicationYear": 2026,
  "chapterNumber": 10,
  "chapterName": "The China Missions",
  "pageFrom": 144,
  "pageTo": 147,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 144,
      "ocrText": "CHAPTER X\nTHE CHINA MISSIONS\nTHE SITUATION PRIOR TO THE TREATIES OF\nTIEN-TSIN (1858) AND PEKIN (1860)\nAt the beginning of Gregory XVI's pontificate the position\nof the Chinese Christian communities was still much the same\nas it had been in about the year 1800, but there had been one\nchange for the better: the missionaries were coming out in\nslightly larger numbers; and one change for the worse: the\nhostility of the emperors meant the more rigorous application\nof the edicts prescribing Christianity. In a word, the Church\nwas still obliged to remain underground.\nLegal proceedings were taken against missionaries and\nChinese Christians. A Vincentian, Fr Jean Gabriel Perboyre,\nwho arrived in Honan in 1836, was betrayed to the police by\na renegade, then tortured for months on end for having refused\nto renounce his faith and to give information about the\nChristian communities. He was hanged on September 11th,\n1840. He was beatified by Leo XIII.\nThe missions only acquired legal status after the Opium War\nhad forcibly opened the gates of the empire. The causes of this\nwar are well known. On March 28th, 1839, the governor of\nCanton ordered that some 20,000 cases of opium which a\nmerchant by the name of Elliot wanted to introduce into\nChina, should be seized and dumped into the sea. The Chinese\nGovernment refused to pay the compensation claimed by\nElliot and suspended all trade with the English.\nAfter a short campaign China yielded and opened the ports\nof Canton, Amoy, Hing-Po and Shanghai to British traders\n(1842). In 1844, France and America in their turn negotiated\nthe treaty of Whampou. The French plenipotentiary, M. de"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 145,
      "ocrText": "THE CHINA MISSIONS\n145\nLagrenée, succeeded in having an article included in it (23)\naccording to which any Frenchmen venturing to any area out-\nside the five ports indicated in the treaty with England should\nbe taken, without receiving ill-treatment of any kind, to the\nFrench consulate in the nearest port. French priests thus found\nthemselves safeguarded by an international agreement. But\nbefore freedom to move about and to preach could be secured\nfor missionaries of every nation, a new European interven-\ntion was necessary. The circumstance which led to it was the\nmartyrdom of one of the missionaries, Fr Chapdelaine (1856).\nThe freedom in question was written into the treaty of Tien-\nTsin (1858) which also contained an article (8) declaring that\nany missionary in possession of a passport issued by the\nFrench Legation at Pekin would be considered as French.\nThus France's right of protection was recognized. The general\nassembly of the bishops of China, which included the Italian\nprelates, had stated in a letter written to the pope in 1851 that\nthey considered such protection \"indispensable\".\nThe treaty of Pekin (1860), negotiated by France, obliged\nthe Chinese Government to restore to the Christians, through\nthe good offices of the French minister to China, the church\nbuildings and those devoted to charitable works which had\nbeen previously confiscated. It also granted to the missionaries\nthe right to possess and to buy land for the erection of\nchurches and houses.\nThis state of affairs which has been called, perhaps too\noptimistically, \"the French protectorate\" was displeasing both\nto the Chinese Government-since it placed under foreign\nsupervision small areas of its territory and the Christians\nliving in them and to the Holy See, in so far as it re-estab-\nlished, though on a very small scale, and for the benefit of\nFrance, a state of affairs which was reminiscent of the former\npatronato system.\nThis dissatisfaction on the part of both Rome and Pekin\nmight, in favourable circumstances, lead to the establishment\nof diplomatic relations between them. The opportunity came"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 146,
      "ocrText": "146\nTHE CHINA MISSIONS\nin 1885. At the time of the Tonkin expedition when Franco-\nChinese relations had become strained, the emperor had made\nit known that the Chinese Christians and the missionaries,\neven those who were French, would be safe from violent\naction of any kind. Leo XIII thanked him and reminded him\nin a letter dated January 1st, 1885, that the envoys of the\nSovereign Pontiff were not recruited from one nation alone.\n\"A fact\", he pointed out, \"in complete accord with the nature\nof the Christian religion, which is not made for one people\nalone but for all, which unites all men in the bonds of brother-\nhood with no distinction of country or race.\"\nIn its reply, the imperial Government made it known that\nit was willing to accredit a minister to the Holy See and to\nwelcome a nuncio in Pekin. The establishment of direct\nrelations, however, did not take place, as France refused to\nrenounce the benefits she enjoyed under article 8 of the treaty\nof Tien-Tsin.\nTHE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FRENCH\nPROTECTORATE\nThroughout the empire the treaties (Whampou, Tien-Tsin,\nPekin) improved the situation. When the guarantees of\nreligious freedom secured by them had been included in the\ntreaties China signed with Prussia (1861), Denmark and\nHolland (1863), Spain (1864), Italy (1866) and Portugal (1887),\nthe Chinese missions did indeed take on the international\ncharacter Leo XIII was to emphasize.\nThere was now no longer any need to work underground.\nYet the outbreaks of civil war, brigandage, the attacks of\nxenophobia-those endemic diseases of China-never ceased.\nOne orgy of butchery after another took place in the second\nhalf of the nineteenth century, down to the most deadly of\nthem all, that of the Boxers in 1900 which martyred several\nthousand Chinese Christians.\nThe Chinese world faced by the missionaries in the second\nhalf of the century was almost the same as it had been in the"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 147,
      "ocrText": "THE CHINA MISSIONS\n147\npreceding period. It was shut in on itself, closed to European\ninfluences, and all but exclusively agricultural. Attachment\nto traditional ways, whether in the shape of loyalty to Chinese\nculture among the educated or of mere superstition among the\npeasants, kept all its force. Both classes took part in the family\nor national rites condemned by the Bull Ex quo singulari.\nThe old institutes (the Paris Foreign Missions, the Vincen-\ntians) developed the country settlements already established.\nThe newcomers acted in the same way for a long time. Yet\nsome of them showed occasional leanings towards the creation\nof reductions, the Scheut Fathers, for instance, in Mongolia\namong the Ordos and the Ala-Shan. These Christian com-\nmunities which had fully developed thanks to the treaties,\nsatisfied all the spiritual and vital needs of their members. But\nthey were isolated groups, cut off from the national life. How\ncould it be otherwise as long as the Bull Ex quo singulari con-\ntinued to have the force of law?\nThe increasingly numerous vicariates on which they\ndepended did not lose sight of the need to train a Chinese\nclergy. They all had preparatory schools in which vocations\nunderwent a testing period, and seminaries leading to the\npriesthood. The Jesuits, faithful to their traditions, concen-\ntrated all their attention on higher education. At Zi-Ka-Wei,\nthey established the College of St Ignatius, then, in 1873, an\nobservatory which soon became famous throughout the world.\nAt Shanghai, they opened in 1903 the Aurora University and\nat Tien-Tsin, an institute of higher studies. At Pekin, the\nFathers of the Divine Word founded two universities.\nThe following figures show the progress of the Church in\nChina in the nineteenth century. In 1800, the six vicariates\nnumbered 300,000 faithful served by 198 priests, of whom\n89 were Chinese. In 1885, the 650,000 Christians were dis-\ntributed among the 35 vicariates served by 700 foreign mis-\nsionaries and 273 Chinese priests. In 1900, the number of the\nfaithful had risen to 740,000, distributed among 82 vicariates\nserved by 471 Chinese priests and 904 missionaries."
    }
  ]
}