- CR
Chinese Repositary
- CWM
Church World Mission Archives
- EMS
The Evangelist and Miscellanea Sinica
On Tuesday 4 September 1832 Robert Morrison read the final proofs of a report co-signed by E. G. Bridgman that reviewed his mission in China. He recalled his missionary work with a joyful heart:
Twenty-five years have this day elapsed, since the first Protestant Missionary arrived in China, alone, and in the midst of perfect strangers, – with but few friends, and with many foes. Divine Providence, however, prepared a quiet residence for him; and, by the help of God, he has continued to the present time, and can now rejoice in what God has wrought.Footnote 1
As Morrison wrote this, he must have recalled the day, twenty-five years previously, on 12 May 1807 when, as a twenty-five-year-old, he boarded the Trident to China from New York. When the captain of the ship found out that he was a missionary to China, he asked him scornfully, ‘And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese Empire?’. Morrison answered with the assertion, ‘No, Sir, … I expect God will.’Footnote 2
The Trident reached the Portuguese colony of Macau on 4 September. Two days later, Morrison took a ship along the Pearl River to Guangzhou (then known in English as Canton). Under the ‘one-trading-port’ policy of the Qing government, Guangzhou and Macau were the most important trading ports at that time, and many British and American merchants were doing business there despite the many restrictions. These merchants wanted western governments to build up normal and equal diplomatic relations with the Qing government in order to improve the business environment, thus allowing them to realise their dream of opening up China. As the first missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS) to China, Morrison had a clear view of his objective. Although he had to join the East India Company (EIC) in 1809 to obtain legal permission to stay in Guangzhou, he never forgot his identity as an evangelist. His greatest dream had always been to lead the Chinese to God. He lived in China for twenty-five years except for the period when he returned to Britain on furlough in 1824–6, and from 1833 published the occasional journal The Evangelist and Miscellanea Sinica in Macau, the name of which explicitly reveals his attachment to his ‘evangelist’ identity. Morrison died in Guangzhou on 1 August 1834, at which time the Qing government was still maintaining its policy against foreign religions.
Morrison was a pioneer of the modern western missionary movement in China. William Milne and Walter H. Medhurst of the LMS had come to the East in 1813 and 1817 respectively but, restricted by the policy against foreigners, had worked mainly in Malacca and Batavia. The missionary work in Malacca was undertaken as part of the Ultra-Ganges Mission established by Morrison, and its main products were the establishment of the Anglo-Chinese College and the compilation and publication of Chinese religious tracts.Footnote 3 For most of his years in China, Morrison stayed on the frontline in Guangzhou and Macau. Much of our knowledge of Morrison comes from his Chinese translation of the Bible and his other written works, such as A dictionary of the Chinese language.Footnote 4 Scholars have lauded these ‘preparatory’ works as laying an important foundation for future missionary work in China.Footnote 5
Morrison's work in China was certainly important. This paper aims to sketch his views on mission in two ways. First, as a pioneer of the missionary movement in China in the nineteenth century, Morrison lived in a ‘pagan’ environment for a long time. It would thus be interesting to examine how Morrison perceived the traditional Chinese culture and religions, and to explore his thought from the perspective of cultural adaptation. Second, during his years in China, Morrison faced many political obstacles from the Chinese empire that he could not affect. His internal struggles and his spiritual journey, especially his insistence on attempting to evangelise the Chinese in this disadvantaged environment, are aspects that merit attention in exploring his thought.
Exploring a kingdom of heathens
Thousands of Poo Saat!Footnote 6
After arriving in Guangzhou, Morrison encountered both the Qing government's policy against foreign religions and the East India Company's unfriendly attitude toward missionaries. In the beginning, he could only work in Guangzhou as an ‘American’,Footnote 7 and it was not until February 1809 that he was able to resolve his residency status by working for the Company as an interpreter. Morrison understood his role as a pioneer well, and knew that in order to spread the Gospel to the Chinese he must first learn the Chinese language.Footnote 8 In his efforts to learn the language, he did not miss a chance to discover more about Chinese society, especially the religious traditions and practices of the Chinese.
On the first day of the journey to Guangzhou by boat, Morrison was attracted by the other boats going to and fro and by the boat-people, who were burning incense.Footnote 9 This first encounter with the ‘Poo Saat’ (pusa) deities of the Chinese was a great shock to him, and he could not help but ask in his journal: ‘Who is sufficient … to turn this crowd of people from their burial idols to the living God? What can I do?’Footnote 10
During his early days in Guangzhou, Morrison had a pressing urge to find out about the religious world of the Chinese. On 16 September he experienced his first traditional festival, the mid-autumn festival. The rituals of the Chinese on that day opened his eyes, and he described what he saw in detail in his journal. The experience helped him to understand the ‘old Chinese custom’ but also pained him because the Chinese made sacrifices to the ‘evil spirit’. ‘Will any day [come when] the Chinese are not idolaters?’, he asked, and sought to know the ‘reason’ behind these religious practices.Footnote 11
Morrison put many questions about the Chinese religious practice to a merchant named Ting-qua, whom he met on 17 September. He found out that praying to Poo Saat was a kind of reward for the help of the deities. Ting-qua took him to ‘a temple of Poo Saat’ on 21 September,Footnote 12 and four days later to a Buddhist temple in Guangzhou. Morrison wrote seven pages in his journal for this day, describing in detail what he saw.Footnote 13 On 7 October, he revisited the temple, where a young Buddhist monk introduced to him the main ‘idol’ and to the Buddhist Scriptures there.Footnote 14 On another occasion Morrison asked a monk called Sau Laum, ‘How many Poo Saat do the Chinese have?’ Sau Laum answered, ‘Ten millions’. ‘Ten millions?’ Morrison doubtfully repeated. ‘Yes, ten millions’, Sau Laum asserted. Morrison sadly recalled the biblical quote ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’Footnote 15
When Morrison recounted the situation in China to the headquarters of the LMS in Britain and to his relatives, religion was naturally one of the main topics. In a letter dated 9 October 1807 he wrote that ‘In Canton the grossest idolatry prevails. The gods are innumerable: the rites are cumbrous and frequent.’ However, he could not yet conceive any relation between praying to the Poo Saat and religion. He only knew that ‘this shrewd and polished people in all their wisdom know not God. But they shall know – for the whole earth shall be filled with his glory’.Footnote 16 Later, he told the board of directors of the LMS that the Chinese people ‘have no idea of one intelligent, independent, and perfect Being, the Creator and Governor of the world. They have, however, lords many and gods many’.Footnote 17 Surrounded by this strange and profound religious atmosphere, he asserted more firmly than ever that the Chinese needed ‘missionaries of Jesus’.Footnote 18
From these early accounts, it is clear that Morrison took a very negative view of Chinese religions. Like many other early missionaries he regarded all non-Christian cultures and religions as ‘heathenism,’ and to him the religions in China were a representation of such heathenism. Only the Gospel of Christianity brought real salvation,Footnote 19 as ‘the influence of religion in the foundation of human character, individually and nationally, is greater than that of any other cause’.Footnote 20
According to Morrison, of the three religions prevailing in the world at that time – Christianity, Islam and paganism – Christianity was preeminent and predominant.Footnote 21 The idolatry of the Chinese thus came as a great shock to him, especially as the Chinese people were so involved and zealous in their worship. For example, he was deeply moved by the fervent faith of a Buddhist monk whom he saw when visiting a Buddhist temple.Footnote 22 In another letter he described the Chinese as ‘wandering in ignorance of God and his Christ’ but zealous in their idolatry, noting that those Chinese who were committed to their religious world seemed more fervent than some superficial western Christians. ‘But if the heathen are so exact in their worship of idols, what must we think of those who have the Bible, and yet worship him not?’ he asked.Footnote 23 He found many foreign merchants ‘who were called Christians’ in Guangzhou but whose actions contravened the beliefs that they espoused. To his disappointment, these merchants busied themselves with all kinds of business, even on Sundays.Footnote 24
Christ meets Confucius
Morrison not only learned about the religious activities of the ordinary people in Chinese society, he also instructed himself in traditional Chinese culture. To teach him the Chinese languague he hired several Confucian scholars through whom he learned about Chinese culture. Every Sunday, Morrison would ask these scholars to worship with him and read the Bible, and taught them how to pray. Once, he talked with one of his assistants about the undesirable customs of the Chinese of worshipping idols and burning incense in the temple. The assistant pointed out that he had also seen idolatry and worship among the Portuguese in Macau.Footnote 25 Thus, in the eyes of the Confucian scholars, Christianity was just another kind of ‘worship to the Poo Saat’. These intellectuals not only helped Morrison to understand the diversity of Chinese culture, and especially the complicated relations between Confucianism and other Chinese religions, but also gave him a profound experience of the secularised Confucian tradition that would prove to be one of the main challenges in spreading Christianity to China.
On 24 April 1808 the name ‘Kung-foo-tsze’ (Confucius) appears for the first time in Morrison's journal. On that day Low-heen (one of the Chinese assistants), who taught Morrison the Cantonese dialect, introduced Morrison to the Confucian temple in Guangzhou and to the worship of Confucius. Morrison had an in-depth talk with Low-heen on this subject. Low-heen told him that ‘the Chinese must have been mere brutes, and that not to worship him [Confucius] would be the highest ingratitude’. Morrison agreed that Confucius was ‘a wise and good man’, respected by many people. However, ‘we allowed that he should be esteemed and venerated; but then the Almighty, who was the Creator of the world, created him, and gave him the wisdom which he processed’. Morrison thought that ‘to pay equal honour to him as to God, or worship him instead of God, was altogether indefensible’. Low-heen, in contrast, did not think that there were any apparent differences between Confucius and Jesus. Morrison reiterated that Confucius was only a human being, whereas Jesus was ‘God manifest in the flesh,’ and that whereas ‘he [Confucius] regards only to the Chinese, but Jesus extended his regards to the world’. Morrison's comments on Confucius disturbed Low-heen,Footnote 26 and Morrison came to understand from his interaction with his assistants that the Chinese people would not readily accept that Christianity placed Confucius below God and Jesus Christ.
Morrison understood that there were two traditions in Chinese society. The first the belief of the ordinary people who ‘compose nine-tenths of the heathen world’, while the second is the belief of the Confucian philosophers ‘who despise the popular worship’ and they ‘are atheists in the world’. Morrison felt that the superstitious elements were ‘found only amongst the vulgar, and those who do not listen to the voice of reason’.Footnote 27 His educated assistants were ‘of [the] opinion that the notions of foreigners and of the Chinese are very similar in religious concerns’, and Morrison acknowledged that there were many truths common to both, particularly respecting the duty of one man to another; ‘but respecting God, our duty to him, and the way in which a sinful creature is accepted of God, they were widely different’. Many Chinese people ‘burned candles, offered incense, slew sheep, etc. to make God propitious; but Jesus gave himself a sacrifice, to make atonement for sin’. His Chinese assistants immediately and scornfully pointed out that ‘those who abounded in those offerings were bad people; good people had no occasion to do so’. Morrison replied ‘That some who worshipped were bad people was true; but it would not make those good who neglected it.’ The Chinese assistants were perplexed and asked him if he ‘thought all the men in China were bad men’. He immediately replied that ‘All the men in the world had offended God.’ His assistants thought that Jesus and Confucius were alike, but Morrison pointed out the ‘striking difference that appears in one atoning for the sins of men, and teaching so largely the way of a sinner's being accepted of God, whilst the other never mentioned God's name, nor taught anything respecting him’.Footnote 28
After this dialogue on Confucianism and Christianity, the Chinese assistants recommended that Morrison read the ‘Four Books’ (Sishu),Footnote 29 which not only helped him to learn the Chinese language but also furthered his understanding of Confucius and Confucianism. Morrison found that his Chinese assistants had infinite respect for Confucius, and when they were studying the ‘Four Books’ with him seemed ‘quite enraptured’.Footnote 30 After studying the ‘Four Books’ in depth, Morrison better appreciated the attitude of Confucius who rejected ‘the superstitions of the times’, but also pointed out that Confucius ‘had nothing that could be called religion to supply their place’. Thus, the mass of Chinese people could not find satisfaction in the ‘cold system’ of Confucius, and due to ‘the defect of the cold system of Kung-foo-tsze, they generally practice the rites … They teach that assistance is to be derived from the gods’.Footnote 31
After living in China for more than ten years, and as his knowledge of Chinese traditional culture increased, Morrison had more criticisms of Confucius. He came to perceive the main difference between Christianity and Confucianism to be the essential difference in nature between religion and ethics. To Morrison, Confucius was a ‘moral philosopher’ whose teaching was morality, not religion. Ethical morality mainly involved interpersonal relationships and responsibility, such as the Confucian teaching of the ‘five traditional cardinal human relations’ (wulun). Religion, in contrast, dealt with the relations between human and God. Morrison admitted that Confucian teaching was ‘very good’ but nevertheless ‘impious in what Confucius taught, about the wise man being equal to Heaven’. In his view, Confucian teaching tended to ‘make the Chinese that proud and irreligious people which they are. Confucius taught the people nothing about God and a future state of existence’.Footnote 32 Morrison felt that ‘the influence of Confucius opinion and practice has been injurious to China ever since, and is so at the present day’.Footnote 33
Morrison found that many Confucian scholars unwaveringly praised Confucius. For example, every year in the worship of Confucius, more than 60,000 herds were sacrificed in some 1,560 Confucian temples across the country, a practice that Morrison described as the act of ‘learned heathen’ who ‘generally teach that death is annihilation; and sometimes affirm that there is neither God, angel, nor spirit . . . . . . their worship must be addressed merely to a nominis umbra’.Footnote 34 The Confucian scholars who treated Confucius like an idol in this way were considered by Morrison to be ‘idolatrous atheists’.Footnote 35 Morrison was particularly discontented with the righteousness of Confucian scholars, describing them as ‘intellectuals’ and ‘Sadducees’.Footnote 36 He reminded the Europeans that they should not believe easily that the Chinese would really act in accordance with their doctrine: ‘The European student must not consider what the Chinese teach, and what they do, as always the same.’ He believed that the moral maxims of the Chinese did not regulate their inner mind and deeds. He opined that the Chinese knew what was right, but as the nature of man was depraved and fallen they often committed sin.Footnote 37
Chinese ancestors
On 20 December 1812 Morrison wrote in his journal of the traditional funeral of a Chinese merchant who had been in business with the British, where he heard for the first time about the concept of spirits among the Chinese: ‘It is supposed that the spirit returns every seventh day’ until seven times seven days.Footnote 38 By then Morrison better understood that the Chinese attached special importance to the afterworld in their funerals and in their ancestor worship. In his book, View of China, which introduced Chinese customs, he dedicated a chapter to funerals, explaining in detail how the bereaved handled funerals. When introducing Chinese festivals, he also described how the Chinese ‘sacrifice and sweep’ during the Qing-ming festival.Footnote 39
It is interesting to note from Morrison's journal how as a missionary he described the nature of ancestor worship. Morrison candidly noted that ancestor worship was ‘neither rational nor innocent, but superstitious and idolatrous’.Footnote 40 He observed that when worshipping ancestors, the living often prayed ‘for prosperity in their particular callings and in their families’. To Morrison, such prayers to the deceased violated the Bible's teachings; in criticising them he did not mention that the Jesuits had also tried to justify ancestor worship. He instead stressed that Christians should take a clear stance against such practices.Footnote 41
Morrison was not unaware of the ethical dimension of ancestor worship, especially the spirit of filial piety and commemoration, and he understood that a Chinese person who did not engage in ‘pae shan’ (worship of the tumuli) or ‘sao fun-moo’ (sweeping the tombs) would be regarded as unfilial.Footnote 42 However, he asserted that the ‘worship-blessing’ of praying to the deceased for prosperity that he observed among many Chinese was no different from praying to idols, and was a means to ‘bribe’ the deity.Footnote 43 In his book Miscellaneous essays, Morrison opposed worshipping ancestors as if they were gods: ‘Sweeping tombs should be for fulfilling filial piety. But the ancestors must not be regarded as god in heaven.’Footnote 44
He also noticed that the Chinese engaged in ‘Yu-lan-shing-hwuy’ (yulan shenghui)Footnote 45 on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The idea behind the rite was that the deceased who were suffering in hell needed the living to ‘elevate’ them.Footnote 46 He also mentioned that the Chinese celebrated throughout the year the birthdays of different deities, such as the birthdays of the land god, the god of luck, the Buddha and the furnace divinity Tae-suy.Footnote 47 Clearly, China was a polytheistic nation.
A Christianised way out
Christianity claims the world as the sphere of its operations: it knows no other locality. It commands the nations to give up nothing but what it is injurious for them to retain; and proposes nothing for their acceptance but what they are miserable without. It casts no slight on any one country, by exalting the virtues and glory of another. It represents ‘all peoples and nations’ as on a level in the eyes of God – as equally offenders against him – equally subject to the decisions of his awful justice – and equally welcome to the benefits of his abundant mercy. Its moral and positive duties are equally binding on all to whom the Gospel is make known – its salvation and privileges are open on the same terms to all who will receive them, without distinction of age, rank, talent, or country; – and its tremendous sanctions will be executed on all who reject or abuse it, without partiality, and without the possibility of appeal or escape.Footnote 48
This quotation represents Morrison's and Milne's basic understanding of Protestant mission overseas. It was with such enthusiasm for mission work that Morrison came to China in the first place and came to understand the country. He truly believed that missionary work was a response to God's call to implement the Great Commission of Christianising the ‘pagans’.Footnote 49
Unsurprisingly, as a missionary Morrison was particularly interested in religions in China, but he was critical of them, asserting that ‘the Fuh (Buddhists) and Taou (Taoists) did not pay sufficient attention to morals. Confucius neglected religion, while Jesus united them both in their highest perfection’.Footnote 50 At the same time, ‘superstition and idolatry usurp the place of true Religion; and Chinese, like the rest of mankind, are inclined to lie satisfied with external observances, instead of Religious and Moral Rectitude’.Footnote 51
Although Chinese culture was deeply ingrained with ‘paganism’, Morrison tried to distinguish civilisation from religion. He refrained from describing the Chinese as an ‘uncivilised’ race, noting that ‘In China, for example, there is quite as much mildness and civility in the intercourse of human beings, as in Europe, and sometime more. And men's actions are as much regulated by law and by etiquette, and so are as much polished, as in any nation they can be.’ The biggest difference that he perceived between China and Europe was that China was ‘unchristianised’, and noted that relying on civilisation alone would not sweep away paganism and idol worship: ‘Art, and science, and civilization, never have, by themselves, turned men from superstitious idolatry to the worship of God.’ He found China to have a rich literary tradition, but that idol worship was everywhere, and only worshipping the true God could help the country move away from idolatry.Footnote 52
In May 1825, while Morrison was in Britain on furlough, he gave an address to the LMS in which he pointed out that China had abundant natural resources and cultural traditions, and that the empire had a social order as good as any other country. Thus, ‘What then do the Chinese require from Europe? – Not the arts of reading and printing; not merely general education; not what is so much harped on by some philantropists – civilization: – they require that only which St. Paul deemed supremely excellent, and which it is the sole object of the Missionary Society to communicate – They require, the knowledge of Christ.’ He stated this clearly:
For with all their antiquity, and their literature, and their arts and refinement, they are still infatuated idolaters; they are still given up to what Heaven regards as abominable idolatries and to vile affections, workings that is unseemly. Not liking to retain God in their knowledge, they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator; they are haters of the true God, are filled with all unrighteousness, fornication and wickedness. With all their civilization, still envy and malice, deceit and falsehood to a boundless extent, pride and boasting: a selfish ungenerous, scarcely honest prudence, and a cold metaphysical inhumanity, are the prevalent characteristics of the people of China.Footnote 53
China's paganism had motivated Morrison to spread the Gospel to the Chinese people to fulfill the goal of Christianising China. He realised that Christianity, as a monotheistic belief system, was the direct opposite of China's polytheism. He observed that, superficially, religions in China promoted tolerance among the Chinese people, yet the prerequisite of such tolerance was that one had to be ‘tolerant to the principle of a multiplicity of gods’. In this sense religions in China were not tolerant of the challenge of monotheism.Footnote 54 How to explain to the Chinese the grace of Jesus Christ and the one God was thus Morrison's ultimate concern as a missionary.
Preaching Christ to the Chinese
Religious tracts
Morrison finished the Chinese translation of Acts and St Luke in 1810. In addition to his work on the Chinese version of the Bible he also began to publish religious tracts in Chinese. When he wrote to the LMS in 1810, he suggested the publication of religious tracts to be distributed along with the Bible as supplementary tools for evangelisation.Footnote 55 His idea was believed to have been inspired by the morality books (quan shan shu) that were commonly found in China.Footnote 56
In 1811 Morrison wrote his first religious tract, which bore the title Shendaolun shujiushi zongshui [A true and summary statement of the divine doctrine], as a fundamental book on faith. The next year, he published a book on catechism entitled Wenda quanzhu yesujiaofa [An easy explanation of the doctrine of Jesus]. Later, he published several other books for evangelistic purposes, including Shentien daosui jichuan [Miscellaneous essays, 1819], Quandou shenlu shuzhiwen [Homilies on reading the Scripture and on the misery of mankind, 1821], and Gushen feng shentian qishi diao jiaxun [Domestic instructor, 1823–33].Footnote 57
Compared to those penned by his fellow missionary Milne, Morrison's religious tracts were fewer in number and less creative in style. Milne used the device of fiction to write his religious tracts, the most famous of which was Changyuan liangyou xianglun [Dialogues between Chang and Yuen], published in 1819.Footnote 58 Patrick Hanan, a scholar of the modern Chinese novel, states that although Milne was the first and most famous of the missionary-novel writers, Morrison's earlier works Gushi rudiyaguo lidai luezhuan [Outline of Old Testament history] and Gushi rudiya guo lidai luezhuan [Tour of the world] already showed some features of vernacular fiction.Footnote 59 Morrison was willing to use the novel style to write primers, but was reluctant to adopt that style in religious tracts, which indicates that he was more conservative and cautious than Milne. Morrison tended to be unidirectional in his teaching and preaching. He reported that Milne had wished to modify the Nianzhong meiri zaowan qidao xushi [Daily morning and evening prayers of the Church of England] that he had edited and translated ‘so as to render them more suitable to our peculiar circumstances, and the state of the heathen’.Footnote 60 This Morrison rejected, and did not elaborate what had been meant by ‘suitable to the heathen’. This incident indicates that Milne had greater creativity and flexibility than Morrison. The common concern of the missionaries who published religious tracts was how to spread the Gospel to the Chinese. Morrison, who was a pioneer in this area, was inclined to use a more traditional means of preaching in his publications.
From Morrison's journal, it is clear that despite the ban on the preaching of foreign religions by the Qing government, he still strove for opportunities to distribute religious tracts to the Chinese. For example, on 16 October 1812 he gave some tracts to a Taoist priest in a Taoist temple. After a few weeks he contacted the priest again, who ‘said that the books were good … He asked who Yay-soo (Jesus) was; whether or not he were Poo-saat, an epithet of the Chinese gods? I told him that he was God, the Saviour of the world.’Footnote 61 On 7 March 1813 he gave religious tracts to a poor man and ‘explained to him the doctrine of the unity of God, and the sin of idolatry’.Footnote 62 On 15 October he wrote that a Chinese man to whom he had given tracts before had come to ask for more books for his friends.Footnote 63 Morrison also hired Chinese people to distribute the Bible and his tracts. In his reports to the LMS he mentioned that he had sent several hundred books to Fujian province in the summer of 1812.Footnote 64
Morrison's works clearly violated the ban of the Qing government, and perhaps even provoked Emperor Jiaqing's ‘Edict against Christianity’ of 1812, which proclaimed that
The Europeans worship God, because in their own country they are used to do[ing] so; and it is quite unnecessary to inquire into the motive: but then, why do they disturb the common people of the interior? – appointing unauthorizedly priests and other functionaries, who spread this through all the provinces, in obvious infraction of the law; and the common people deceived by them, they succeed each other from generation to generation, unwilling to depart from their delusion. This may approach very near to bring[ing] a rebellion. Reflecting that the said religion neither holds spirits in veneration, nor ancestors in reverence, clearly this is to walk contrary to sound doctrine; and the common people, who follow and familiarize themselves with such delusions, in what respect do they differ from a rebel mob? If there is not decreed some punishment, how shall the evil be eradicated? And how shall the human heart be rectified? From this time forward, such European[s] as shall privately print books and establish preachers, in order to pervert the multitude, and the Tartars and Chinese, who, deputed by Europeans, shall propagate their religion, bestowing names, and disquieting numbers, shall have this to look to: – the chief or principal one shall be executed; – whoever shall spread their religion, not making much disturbance, nor to many men, and without giving names, shall be imprisoned, waiting the time of execution; and those who shall content themselves with following such religion, without wishing to reform themselves, they shall be exiled to He-lau-keang [Heilongjiang province], etc. As for Tartars, they shall be deprived of their pay. [text translated by Robert Morrison]
Morrison was very concerned about the religious ban of the Qing government, and translated the edict into English to send to the LMS. However, he decided he must ‘go forward, trusting in the Lord. We will scrupulously obey governments as far as their decrees do not oppose what is required by the Almighty’.Footnote 65
Morrison's work had also caused discontent among the board of the East India Company, who feared that it would affect their commercial interests in China. In 1815 the board ordered the Guangzhou office to terminate Morrison's employment immediately, claiming that he was working against the interests of the company. The Guangzhou office informed Morrison of the decision on 14 October, but as it valued Morrison's contribution to the company, it delayed the execution of the order. The senior official of the Company in Guangzhou, George Thomas Staunton, hoped that he could persuade Morrison to promise not to translate and print the Bible. But Morrison refused, claiming that the Chinese government's edict was aimed at the Catholic Church and that Chinese official documents had never named him. He admitted that he distributed religious tracts, but claimed that this was conducted in great secrecy. In the event that he were found out, he would accept responsibility for it and would not involve the Company. In the end, the Guangzhou office accepted his assurances.Footnote 66
The true saviour
The other important use of the religious tracts was to help Morrison to explain the Christian doctrine to his Chinese assistants during Sunday fellowship. In his reports to the LMS in 1812 he stated that there were eleven Chinese who were regular attendees of Sunday worship at his home: Kŏ-sëen-sang, Low-heen, A-tso, Tsang-pin, A-ing, Hwang-chin, Ayun, A-sam, Tung-yung, Tsae-a-fo and Yong-sam.Footnote 67
How did Morrison introduce the Gospel to these Chinese men, who were steeped in their own traditional culture and religions? In the preface to Acts, his earliest publication, he summarised the core values of Christianity:
The Creator of all creatures is the only living God. He created man with good nature but after man violated the command of God, man's innate nature became depraved and thus he has to encounter difficulties and death. And after death, man enters hell. Therefore Jesus, who comes from Heaven, came to save the world. In His lifetime, He preached to people to let them know God and know what is good. Yet He sacrificed himself for the sins of humans. After He was crucified on the cross, He was resurrected on the third day and ascended to the Heaven. He will judge the world. When Jesus was alive, He called twelve apostles and sent them to different places to preach before He returned to God. Thus, His acts were preached and recorded. For those who believe in Jesus, they will be forgiven their sin and will become good again. They will be resurrected after death, enjoying eternity. The deeds of Jesus and the command of God were recorded by ancient people of goodwill. It was written in other scriptures. Believers should take reference from it.Footnote 68
Morrison clearly particularly emphasised the issue of ‘human nature’. The Christian doctrine regards all men as sinners, a viewpoint unlikely to be acceptable to followers of Confucius, who held strongly to the ideology that human nature is inherently good. Morrison understood this well, and thus tried to blend the doctrines. He did not totally reject the inherently good nature of humans, but limited it to the original state of God's creation. He stressed that after man committed sin, his innate nature became depraved.Footnote 69 In another catechism he asked, ‘God created man. Was he inherently good?’ The answer given was ‘Yes, when man was first created, that is, Adam – the forefather of human beings, his innate nature was good. But after he violated the command of God, he became depraved.’Footnote 70
Morrison noticed that Confucius could not show sinners the way to salvation, which was the essence of the Christian doctrine.Footnote 71 He spoke about sin from the perspective of broken relations between man and God (de zui shen), stressing that as a result of sin man ‘should enter hell’Footnote 72 and would die ‘in eternal pain’.Footnote 73 The pain of ordinary people came from offending God, and they might have to suffer punishment forever.Footnote 74 Morrison saw that actually the Chinese also admitted that they committed ‘wrongdoing’ (guo) or ‘sin’ (zui), but believed that they could use ‘merit’ (gong) to offset their ‘wrongdoing.’ For example, Buddhism's ascetic tradition holds that one can earn credits and atonement by good deeds and praying. According to Morrison, these were all means by which Satan cheated and controlled people to make the Chinese believe that they did not need the Saviour.Footnote 75 He also noted that the Chinese people accorded strong importance to meritorious deeds, especially the use of a ‘table of vices and virtues’, to measure their behaviour, which reflected their inclination toward self-salvation.Footnote 76 Thus, the Chinese people regarded their own righteousness highly, which was a ‘false religion’.Footnote 77
In contrast to the ‘own righteousness’ of the Chinese, Morrison believed that the way to absolution came only from God, and emphasised that God's son Jesus Christ, who made ‘self-sacrifice to atone the sins of man’, was crucified on the cross and resurrected on the third day,Footnote 78 and that ‘Those who believe in him will not die but gain eternity.’Footnote 79 To Confucians, the concept of ‘eternity’ was difficult to understand. Morrison also had to clarify the concepts of ‘soul’ and ‘resurrection’, explaining that ‘A believer's soul is sanctified when he dies. That is, it enters eternal heaven while his body and soul are buried on earth until the day of resurrection.’Footnote 80
Morrison's assistants had doubts about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the question of what good it did to be a follower of Jesus was one that he could not evade. He explained that those who believed that Jesus is the son of God would be counted as sinless.Footnote 81 However, although Morrison stressed the salvation of Jesus Christ and his grace of atonement for man, he also used some Confucian concepts to explain how Christians avoided evil. For example, on the cover of a hymn book, Morrison used a quote from ZhuangziFootnote 82 in the subtitle: ‘Different kinds of evil thoughts will arise if one does not have righteous thoughts for just one day.’ He also wrote in the preface that ‘The poems of the secular people mostly do not carry good intentions and could harm the soul and are not good for nourishing the heart. Here I have collected several poems to help people to do good deeds, and to glorify the Creator who created heaven and earth and who is honoured for saving human beings.’Footnote 83 Here, Morrison borrowed the Confucian concept of ‘nourishing the heart’ (yangxin) and Zhuangzi's ‘thinking righteously’ (nianshan) and blended them with Christian poems in the hope that they would help believers to do good deeds. In another tract, he also borrowed the Confucian concept in the Book of the Great Learning (daxue) that ‘if one can one day renovate oneself, do so from day to day; there should be daily renovation’ to stress that Christians could ‘change day by day to become good’.Footnote 84 Of course, Morrison did not neglect the importance of the holy spirit in the Trinity, positing that people could ‘do away with evils and return to goodness’ with the help of the holy spirit.Footnote 85
Morrison also noticed that Confucianism had a high regard for moral ethics, and was thus similar to Christianity in this respect. However, he wanted to go beyond the concept of senior and subordinate behind the ‘five traditional cardinal human relations’ (wulun) and bring in the Christian idea of equality and mutual love.Footnote 86 Taking the status of women as an example, he criticised the Confucian teaching of the Chinese moralists for its discrimination, which was in direct contrast to Christian education which elevated women's status. This had been demonstrated in India and Malacca, and Morrison hoped that the same could be realised in China. He stressed that the Bible teaches that a husband must love his wife, which gave women a better position than they were accorded in Chinese teaching,Footnote 87 and pointed out that the Christian commandments ‘love thy God’ and ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ show the close relations between moral ethics and the Christian religion.Footnote 88
Morrison apparently did not want publicly to criticise Chinese culture and religious customs. In his Chinese religious tracts, he did not compare Christianity with Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism to encourage respect for Christianity and avoidance of Chinese religions. He also did not criticise the idolatry of the Chinese. Indeed, the word ‘idol’ appeared only in his tracts when he mentioned the Ten Commandments: ‘You shall not make for yourself any idol’. He was very aware of the sensitivity of ancestor worship, and merely observed that ‘sweeping tombs should be for fulfilling filial piety. But the ancestors must not be regarded as God in Heaven’.Footnote 89 This reflects that he did not want to arouse resentment while teaching the Christian message. Morrison's criticism of Chinese religions and culture in his English writing is essentially absent in his Chinese religious tracts. This not only shows that his Chinese and English audiences were not the same, but also reveals something about his strategy for spreading the Gospel.
Morrison was a pioneer in introducing ‘God’ to the Chinese. He conceded that some pagan concepts could be retained with certain additional elements. For example, the word ‘heaven’ (tian) could be kept, but had to show at the same time the glory of God's reign:
I do not bring to them another god, but endeavour to convince them that their ideas of Shin (shen) are erroneous; that there are not many gods but one … I even let them retain the word Teen (heaven); but ingraft upon it proper ideas, as we do in our own language. Those who know any thing of religion, have lost the heathen idea of heaven, and mean by it the God who reigns in glory there. It is a matter of small importance to give to the heathen new words in comparison to the giving of right ideas of things.Footnote 90
Therefore, in his translations of the Scriptures and his religious tracts, he borrowed much terminology from Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, such as god (shen), heaven (tian), goodness (shan), evil (e), retribution (baoying), paradise (tiantang), hell (diyu), repent (hui), sin (zui), redeem (shu) and soul (linghun). As Daniel H. Bays notes, borrowing concepts from Chinese Buddhism and folk religions to express Christian concepts was very common in the Chinese writings of the western missionaries in the nineteenth century.Footnote 91 Morrison's journal reveals that he often used his religious tracts to talk about the way to God with his assistants and to answer their questions.Footnote 92 He baptised Tsae A-ko, the first baptised Protestant Christian in China, on 16 July 1814 in Macau,Footnote 93 and had baptised ten Chinese by 1832.Footnote 94
Evangelist at the gate
China opened?
When Morrison first arrived in China, he understood the close relationship between the opening of China and the freedom to preach. The fact that he joined the East India Company indicates that he was prepared to compromise and make sacrifices to resolve his residency status.Footnote 95 His realism about the situation in China is revealed in his letter to the LMS in January 1816, in which he described the station as one which did not present an immediate prospect of extended efforts, nor of immediate success. To prepare materials for future years, or for succeeding laborers, was as much as the most sanguine of our Society anticipated. It is with the same views that we must still persevere, in the hope that the Almighty Disposer of events will finally remove the obstacles which at present impede the full and free diffusion of the truths of revelation in China.Footnote 96
The obstacles to which he referred were obviously political, and in particular the attitude and policies of the Qing government. Simply waiting for the Chinese government to change its mind would make it impossible to realise his dream. The diplomatic efforts of the British government were thus very important.
In July 1816 Lord AmherstFootnote 97 and his delegation came in Guangzhou to negotiate with the Qing government on Sino-British relations. Morrison was invited to be the Chinese secretary and to travel north with the delegation, which arrived in Beijing on 29 July. Yet the mission was unable to meet Emperor Jiaqing, and returned without success to Guangzhou in January 1817. Morrison was not interested in joining the delegation initially, worrying that his work might be affected, but he changed his mind when he realised that he might have the chance to meet senior Chinese officials.Footnote 98 The trip not only gave him a chance to leave Guangzhou to broaden his knowledge, it also gave him great hope of improving Sino-British relations. He saw the impasse on evangelisation, and recognized that his goal to help the Chinese know God could only be achieved through securing free movement in China.Footnote 99
As the Chinese secretary to the delegation, Morrison recorded what he saw and heard during the trip and wrote a chronicle of the journey that was published in 1820. In his introductory remarks he wrote that ‘As individuals are improved by an amicable intercourse with each other; and as parts of the same empire are gradually ameliorated in proportion as they have an easy intercourse amongst themselves; so separate and independent nations are mutually benefited by a liberal and amicable intercourse.’ He firmly believed that ‘national and commercial intercourse will proceed best under an idea of the equality and reciprocity of the two countries’. However, he felt strongly the arrogance of China toward other countries on the subject of ritual, and especially the insistence of the Chinese officials that the delegation make ‘thrice kneeling and nine times beating the head against the ground’ to the emperor.Footnote 100
In addition to Morrison's chronicle, Chinese official documents also recorded the episode.Footnote 101 From a letter to the throne, it is clear that both the Chinese officials and Morrison insisted on upholding their own standpoints over ritual. At the Yuanmingyuan Palace in Beijing, Lord Amherst refused to meet Emperor Jiaqing straight away as they had only just arrived. As a result the delegation was ordered to leave the capital. The British envoy failed to improve relations, and the trip ended abruptly in farce.Footnote 102
When Morrison reported to the LMS about this trip, he could not hide his discontent: ‘A British nobleman, representing his sovereign, and who had come 50,000 miles to the Court of China, demurred, as was natural, to enter thus into the imperial presence, and pleaded with the duke, who came out to urge the Ambassador into the hall of audience.’ This unhappy experience was Morrison's closest encounter with the ‘character of this despotic and semi-civilized court’.Footnote 103 Later, in his memoirs, he condemned the Chinese government as a ‘military despotism’ and described the Chinese as barbarous:
If ‘barbarity’ or being ‘barbarous’ express something savage, rude and cruel, the present inhabitants of China do not deserve the epithet; if it expresses a cunning, selfish policy, endeavouring to deceive, to intimidate, or to brow-beat, as occasion may require, connected with an arrogant assumption of superiority on all occasions, instead of cultivating a liberal, candid, friendly intercourse with men of other nations, they are Barbarians.Footnote 104
This was his most severe criticism of China.
Desperation and hope
‘Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made’ (Isaiah ii.8). Morrison believed that China was the image of the Jewish kingdom that Isaiah had described some two thousand years previously.Footnote 105 Yet this country of idols had closed its doors tightly. What could he do?
After returning from Beijing, Morrison faced his greatest inner struggle since arriving in China, where he had now been for ten years. He revealed this in a letter:
I have been here these ten years now. I wish I could see it my duty to go where I might enjoy the sweets of liberty and religious society. I am under continual dread of the arm of the oppressor, and more than that, the natives who assist me are hunted from place to place, and sometimes seized.Footnote 106
In another letter, he even expressed his intention to leave the country for Malacca. However, he eventually managed to overcome his inner struggle.Footnote 107 On 4 September, the tenth anniversary of his arrival in Macau, he wrote a review of his work over the foregoing decade. On the one hand he admitted that ‘our difficulties are many, and our prospects very limited … Little has been done, and it must be acknowledged that our progress has been but small’. On the other hand, amid such obstacles, he had learned to focus on the progress that had been made, that is, the completion of the translation of the New Testament and the establishment of a base in Malacca, with other translation works in progress. Relying on God's grace was the greatest support that he had.Footnote 108
There was no change in China's political environment with the passage of time. In 1822, the fifteenth year of his stay in China, Morrison wrote that ‘I have now been fifteen years in this country; and one-half of those years quite alone.’ Yet he did not give up. He knew that if he left China for Malacca, the fruits of the seeds that he had sown would wither.Footnote 109 In his review of his fifteen years of work, he addressed the question of what he had done to promote the diffusion of Christianity, and reaffirmed the fruitful results that he had learned Chinese, translated the Bible, set up a base in Malacca and distributed Christian tracts in Chinese.Footnote 110
In the face of the closed-door policy of the Chinese government, Morrison upheld a peaceable policy. He felt that ‘Christian Britain ought to use prudent and peaceable means to convey the light of divine revelation to China … In order to do this, the Chinese language should be more studied by the Christian world’, and he wondered ‘how shall the truths of divine revelation be conveyed, opened, and expounded, without the thorough knowledge of the language and the literature of China?’Footnote 111 He criticised British merchants who were trafficking opium to China for engaging in ‘a traffic which is far from being reputable either to the English flag, or to the character of Christendom’.Footnote 112 In a speech made when he was back in Britain, Morrison admitted that there were many difficulties with his mission: ‘The difficulties which exist to impede the prosecution of this work are many and great … But notwithstanding all these difficulties, greater is he that is for us, than all they that can be against us.’Footnote 113
The new era
Changes in Sino-British relations
In 1834 the East India Company's monopoly of British trade with China expired, and the British monarch sent a superintendent of trade to be stationed in China. Sino-British relations entered a new era, as the links with China that had been managed by the Company were now taken over by the British government. In the past, Sino-British relations had been mainly controlled by the Board of the East India Company and the Taipan, who was based in Guangzhou, and their focus had been commercial interests. Now, with diplomacy returned to the hands of the British government and the superintendent of trade, the status of Britain and of the superintendent in China had to be considered in addition to commerce: political matters assumed gained importance.Footnote 114 Some scholars assert that 1834 was a turning point for Britain in its diplomatic relations with China, with the East India Company's attitude of compromise with the Qing government being replaced by a more aggressive policy of invasion by force.Footnote 115
In July 1834 the first superintendent of trade, William J. Napier, arrived in Macau, and Morrison was appointed as his Chinese secretary and interpreter. Morrison's feelings were mixed. He wrote on his journal: ‘Pray for me, that I may be faithful to my blessed Saviour in the new place I have to occupy. It is rather an anomalous one for a Missionary. A vice-consul's uniform instead of the preaching gown!’Footnote 116 Since 1809 Morrison had been an employee of the East India Company and had used his spare time for his missionary work. It was not easy, but he managed to accomplish both tasks at the same time. Now he worried whether, as a civil servant of the British government, he could strike a balance between his double identities in politics and religion, and clearly felt the tension between the two roles.
In accordance with the instruction of the British foreign minister Lord Palmerston,Footnote 117 Napier was to make direct contact with Beijing to establish diplomatic relations. However, immediately after his arrival in Guangzhou, Napier had several confrontations with Lu Kun, the viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi, over the nature of his appointment and the system of greetings and official relations. Morrison's son, John R. Morrison, and other officials received documents from Napier to negotiate with the viceroy in late July, but Lu Kun refused to accept them on the basis that such documents should be presented through the merchant system [Gonghang]Footnote 118 in Guangzhou. However, Napier refused to accept the middleman role of Gonghang. Both sides came to an impasse, which worried Morrison deeply: ‘There is a feud at the very outset. John was recognized by the Mandarins as Morrison's son. I expect no good to us to arise from it. May the Lord overrule all for the furtherance of the Gospel’, he wrote in his journal.Footnote 119
In early September Napier ordered a British cruiser to enter the inner river at Guangzhou by force and opened fire on the Humen Fort. Lu Kun expelled Napier to Macau, thus creating a further crisis in Sino-British relations. Napier died in Macau in October. After his failed mission, more voices in Britain rose in support of taking a hard stance to force China to open its doors. Coupled with the opium issue, Sino-British relations were on the verge of the breakdown, which would ultimately lead to the outbreak of the Opium War a few years later. However, Morrison did not have the chance to see these changes and confrontations. He was bed-ridden by 29 July 1834, and died on 1 August. His death drew the old era to a close and marked the beginning of a new era both for Britain and for Christian missionaries in China.
A new phase in the missionary movement
In addition to the changing nature of Sino-British relations in the 1830s, there were also new developments in the missionary movement. Morrison was for many years the only missionary in Guangzhou. However, after 1830, E. G. Bridgman and David Abeel of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions arrived in Guangzhou, and in 1831 Karl Gützlaff of the Netherlands Missionary Society decided to leave his society and his work in south-east Asia to preach in China.Footnote 120 The missionary movement in China thus entered a phase that differed greatly from the adverse environment that Morrison faced in the beginning.Footnote 121 The new missionaries in China were discontented with the closed door policy. As Bridgman observed in May 1834, ‘China must come down from the lofty heights which she has so long held in her estimate. She must be enlightened and elevated and take her proper rank among the nations of the world. Free, unrestricted intercourse must be urged vigorously. Merchants are wide awake on the subject. Shall we slumber?’Footnote 122 After Napier's mission, Bridgman wrote to the Chinese Repository to express his strong grievances over the Western countries' continued use of a ‘quiet system’:
Nations are under obligations to each other; that China, as it regards her relation to other nations, is in a position of open violation of the law – thou love thy neighbor as thyself; and that, in such an attitude, they not only may, but must, remonstrate with her, and, if they cannot persuade, compel her, if they can, to a course more consistent with their rights and her obligations.Footnote 123
Bridgman's comments reflect both the discontent and the hope of westerners in China, including the missionaries, with the new circumstances.Footnote 124 Gützlaff even travelled north along the coast of China in 1831–3 to explore the situation there and to distribute religious tracts.Footnote 125 Gützlaff was of the strong opinion that ‘We want here no gentlemen-missionaries’:Footnote 126 ‘the call to open China pervaded Gützlaff's writings’.Footnote 127 The new missionaries in China would not tolerate the Qing government's closed-door policy as Morrison had done. Some of them suggested taking a strong stance to force China to open up and later even justified engaging in war, which stigmatised the early missionary work in China.Footnote 128
Morrison of course hoped to see China open its doors, as this would have allowed him to realise his mission and his dream. His opinion on how China handled diplomatic relations, such as over the issues of ritual (bowing) and consular juridiction for foreigners reflected the mainstream opinion among westerners. Having no trust in the Chinese judicial system, he had suggested consular jurisdiction as early as 1822.Footnote 129 He never managed to overcome his sense of the superiority of western culture, yet he never suggested using force to open up China. He accepted the limitations of the environment and tried to create conditional freedom in the circumstances. His literary achievements reflect this strategy, and demonstrate his belief that China should be evangelised in a peaceful way.Footnote 130
As the first Protestant missionary to China in the nineteenth century, Morrison was inevitably faced with the challenge of making the Christian faith known in the non-Christian world. Affectedly deeply by western Christian civilization and the values and world view of Christianity, like other early missionaries in China Morrison had a negative attitude toward Chinese traditional religions, regarding them as forms of paganism, idolatry and superstition. He believed that Christianity was the only means of redemption for humankind. The missionary movement in the nineteenth century was thus largely driven by the belief that western Christian civilisation had come to redeem the soul of the pagan.Footnote 131 If there had been no such religious call and passion, it would be hard to explain why so many western missionaries came to the east. Of course, it cannot be denied that the Christian missions rode on the tide of western colonialism. However, Morrison had from the outset placed his missionary work at the forefront, and his real concern was the spreading of the Gospel and the fight against Satan on pagan soil. The total rejection of non-Christian culture by the missionaries could be interpreted as a ‘moral equivalent of Imperialism’,Footnote 132 but this would not reflect the truth. ‘Clearly, he [Morrison] shared some of the prejudices of his early nineteenth-century British contemporaries and the desire of evangelicals to share the Gospel with the “heathen” of China. It is equally clear, however, that as Morrison continued to live, learn, and work among the Chinese, he gained a profound respect for Chinese culture, language and some of the people.’Footnote 133
Despite his opposition to ‘paganism’, Morrison had studied Chinese traditional religions and culture. He recognised that Confucian moral ethics stressed self-perfection, which ran contrary to the idea of the redemption of Jesus Christ and reflected the basic contradiction between Chinese culture and Christianity. Thus, when he wrote his religious tracts in Chinese, he avoided using sharp words and did not obviously reject Chinese culture. Instead he responded directly to Chinese doubts about the Christian faith. This can be understood as Morison's strategy when handling sensitive issues in the early stage of missionary work, although he never totally accepted or appreciated Chinese culture. The means by which he might spread the Gospel to the Chinese against the background of Chinese religious culture and how he could preach about sin and the importance of Jesus Christ's redemption were key issues in Morrison's mission thought.
On Sunday 27 July 1834 Morrison held his last Sunday worship from his sickbed in Guangzhou. Twelve Chinese joined the service. John Morrison noted that in this pagan country, in this corrupted city, it was wonderful to have this group of people praying and glorifying God together.Footnote 134 These twelve followers were the church that Morrison established in China. On the afternoon of 1 August, Morrison prayed with Edwin Stevens for his wife and son and for the China Mission. He prayed for God's grace and the presence of peace on those who worked for God in China.Footnote 135 He died at 10:00 pm, and his body was moved to Macau the next day. The inscription on his grave reads as follows.
