SIR R. HART ON MISSIONARY PROPAGANDA.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3143, 18 July 1901, Page 3

SIR R. HART ON MISSIONARY PROPAGANDA.

Sir Robert Hart contributes to a Berlin Review an article on reform in China, in which he says, regarding the missionary question:—“The Chinese are not intolerant, either Government or people. ‘Renounce exterritorality,’ said the Grand Secretary Wen Hsiang, ‘ and your missionaries can settle and teach wherever they like. If they can make people better than they are the gain is on our side.’ This very valuable right of exterritorality will hardly be given up so quickly, but what Wen Hsiang said goes to the root of the question, for no Power in the world can willingly sanction an imperium in imperio.” Sir Robert considers the efficacy of Christian missionaries would be greatly enhanced if they would follow more closely the spirit of the Master’s words : “ Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” “Would it not be better,” he continues, “ for missionaries to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials, and to resist every temptation of divesting their environment of its local character, or the individuality of his nationality, European domestic maners and customs may apear of great significance to the missionaries themselves, but not one of them has anything to do with the salvation of the soul, or with heaven. The object of missionaries should be to make the Chinese Christians, but not Occidentalists. Mission buildings in the interior should too be constructed of purely native architecture.” Sir Robert Hart suggests that in new or future treaties clauses relative to the missionary question might be introduced, and it might be made iclear to all that loyal recognition of Chinese laws, conscientious adherence to essentials, and noninterference in official matters, is the duty of missionaries to the State which suffers the propaganda of Christianity within its frontiers. This he considers would conduce to tranquillity in the country, and friendly international relations between missionaries and converts.