Good Citizens: British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918

Good Citizens: British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918

The inescapable political dimensions of missionary enterprises were never more obvious than during the turbulent period from 1870 to 1918. As world powers expanded and often collided in all too concrete political, economic, and military terms, leaders of Britain's major missionary societies had to deal with the closure of a once open evangelical frontier. In Good Citizens, James Greenlee and Charles Johnson draw on a wide range of archival materials to chart the complex, shifting, and often contradictory reactions of leading missionary organizations to the changing imperial realities around the globe. The authors examine the interaction of missionary organizations with local political powers and with their home government, arguing that in trying to decide which course of action to pursue, missionaries became knowledgeable students of imperial politics and the shifting state of international affairs. They show that leadership of British missionary societies was split between those who wanted to be treated without favouritism by the British government and those who had more aggressive expectations. In doing so they explore the pressures that contributed to the formation of imperial policy and perspective during a significant period of the evolution of the British empire. JAMES G. GREENLEE is professor of history, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, memorial University of Newfoundland. CHARLES M. JOHNSTON is professor emeritus of history, McMaster University.

M C G I L L - Q U E E N S STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION

Volumes in the McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. SERIES ONE G.A. Rawlyk, Editor 1 Small Differences Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815-1922 An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson 2 Two Worlds The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ontario William Westfall 3 An Evangelical Mind Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839-1918 Marguerite Van Die 4 The Devotes Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France Elizabeth Rapley 5 The Evangelical Century College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression Michael Gauvreau 6 The German Peasants' War and Anabaptist Community of Goods James M. Stayer 7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918-1939 Robert Wright 8 Serving the Present Age Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Methodist Tradition in Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 9 A Sensitive Independence Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881-1925 Rosemary R. Gagan 10 God's Peoples Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster Donald Harman Akenson 11 Creed and Culture The Place of English-Speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750-1930 Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz, editors 12 Piety and Nationalism Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850-1895 Brian P. Clarke

13 Amazing Grace Studies in Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States George Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll, editors 14 Children of Peace W. John Mclntyre 15 A Solitary Pillar Montreal's Anglican Church and the Quiet Revolution Joan Marshall 16 Padres in No Man's Land Canadian Chaplains and the Great War Duff Crerar 17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America A Critical Analysis of U.S. and Canadian Approaches P. Travis Kroeker 18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917-1981 Robert K. Burkinshaw 19 Through Sunshine and Shadow The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874-1930 Sharon Cook 20 Church, College, and Clergy A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844-1994 Brian J. Fraser 21 The Lord's Dominion The History of Canadian Methodism Neil Semple 22 A Full-Orbed Christianity The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900-1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau 23 Evangelism and Apostasy The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Kurt Bowen 24 The Chignecto Covenanters A Regional History of Reformed Presbyterianism in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 1827 to 1905 Eldon Hay 25 Methodists and Women's Education in Ontario, 1836-1925 Johanna M. Selles 26 Puritanism and Historical Controversy William Lamont

SERIES TWO In memory of George Rawlyk Donald Harman Akenson, Editor Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640-1665 Patricia Simpson Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience Edited by G.A. Rawlyk Infinity, Faith, and Time Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature John Spencer Hill The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces of Canada Charles H.H. Scobie and G.A. Rawlyk, editors Labour, Love, and Prayer Female Piety in Ulster Religious Literature, 1850-1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867-1900 John-Paul Himka The Waning of the Green Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887-1922 Mark G. McGowan Good Citizens British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918 James G. Greenlee and Charles M. Johnston

Good Citizens British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918 JAMES G. GREENLEE

and CHARLES M. JOHNSTON

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen's University Press 1999 ISBN 0-7735-1799-5 Legal deposit second quarter 1999 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for its activities. We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Greenlee, James G. (James Grant), 1945Good citizens British missionaries and imperial states, 1870-1918 (McGill-Queen's studies in the history of religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-1799-5

1.Missions, British - Political aspects. 2. Missionaries - Great Britain Political activity. 3. Missions, British-History. 4. Imperialism - History. I. Johnston, Charles M., 1926II. Title. III. Series. BV 2420.G741999

266'.o2341

C98-901138-0

This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc. in 10/12 Palatino.

In affectionate memory of Tom Willey (1934-1996) Friend, Colleague, Scholar and Joanne M. (Swan) Greenlee (1946-1998)

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Contents

Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Origins of the Missionary Societies xvii Secretaries of British Missionary Societies xx Introduction

3

1 The Politics of Spiritual Free Trade 6 2 "God's Greater Britain" 39 3 Citizenship in Crisis I: The Boer War 69 4 Citizenship in Crisis II: The Boxer Rebellion 98 5 "Higher Citi enship" 120 6 Armageddon 157 Conclusion

195

Notes 201 Note on Sources 259 Index 267

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Preface

Like Clio's sprawling enterprise as a whole, both missionary and imperial history offer limitless possibilities to the would-be explorer. New voices are constantly heard and novel methodologies help bring hitherto neglected historical realities into sharper relief. This is appropriate, since different questions naturally require different modes of investigation. This, however, does not imply that traditional methods should be abandoned. To do so, after all, would be to argue that the issues raised or implicit in an earlier historiography had been finally settled, an idea that surely runs counter to the experience and spirit of historical enquiry itself. This present study, for example, offers a case in point. Asking a political question, it applies empirical methods to archival sources in search of an answer, a traditional strategy that has recently been endorsed by such historians as David Washbrook and John Grigg.1 It was a debate between Brian Stanley and Andrew Porter that first supplied impetus to this book.2 In discussing the rise and fall of "Christianity and Commerce" as a missionary slogan, those scholars differed substantially on several points. They did, however, broadly agree that by 1870 British missionary groups were losing their taste for close involvement with secular agencies, whether private or official. Porter, in particular, noted that, disillusioned by long practical experience, missionaries increasingly looked to regions beyond the arc of Western influence in their late-century quest to evangelize the world in one generation. For many, he underscored, "isolation came to seem vital."3 Given this, the question naturally arises as to how

xii Preface

missionary bodies reacted to the rapid disappearance of an "open" evangelical frontier as various imperial states expanded and vied for power between 1880 and 1918. Aspects of this issue, to be sure, have been considered in numerous regional studies such as Roland Oliver's work on East Africa, Susan Bayly's study of South India, Ake Holmberg's classic on South Africa, and more recent investigations, including those of Adrian Hastings and Diane Langmore, to name but a few.4 Equally, the matter inevitably arises in histories of individual missionary bodies from the venerable "triple-deckers" of Richard Lovett and Eugene Stock to modern works, such as Brian Stanley's magisterial study of the Baptist Missionary Society.5 There remains, however, room for a broader overview drawing on the collective experience of several leading missionary organizations and that, at least in outline, is what this book seeks to offer. The question at stake here, it must be emphasized, is fundamentally political in nature, addressing as it does the evangelical response to international power politics as the latter impinged on missionary activity during the period under review. The focus, moreover, is very tight. Thus attention is lavished primarily on London-based missionary policy makers whose job it was to consider the larger geo-religious and geopolitical view, although due regard is paid to agents in the field who supplied them with information, opinions, and not infrequently with headaches. Were cultural diffusion or the impact of evangelization on the evangelized a significant concern of this book, more attention might have been paid to Dane Kennedy's recently proffered advice. Urging greater methodological eclecticism on imperial historians, that scholar calls for the wider use of the best fruits of what has been termed "colonial discourse analysis."6 In the main, however, that scholarship tends to emulsify an "essentialized" West into one undifferentiated and imperialistic "Self."7 Closely examined, missionary records do not support that interpretation. Instead, as will be shown, evangelical attitudes, policies, and actions appear to have been fraught with ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox where dealings with secular imperialism were concerned. Accordingly the work of a David Spurr can help occasionally in detail here, but it cannot lead the way.8 Similarly, recent feminist analysis sheds little light directly on the question being considered. It may well be true, as Frank Prochaska, Helen Callaway, Jeffrey Cox, and others argue, that women brought a different sensibility to missionary practice.9 They did not, however, have much influence on decision making at the higher or even medium levels of missionary administration. Thus Hastings emphasizes "the undoubted male dominance of the missionary world," while acknowledging the rapid growth of female agents in the field.10 Simi-

xiii Preface

larly, Brian Heeney confirms that, while the practical role of women expanded in the Church of England between 1850 and 1930, they were still systematically excluded from power at the outbreak of the Great War.11 In any event, as Patricia Grimshaw notes, female missionaries were "representative of the central cultural beliefs of their age" and under great pressure to conform to the official values of missionary societies.12 Gender, unquestionably, was a significant factor in many aspects of missionary life. But it should come as no surprise that, in that age, it had little impact on whatever passed for the official missionary mind as it confronted expansive imperial states around the globe. To say all this is not to denigrate women or the colonized whose perspectives, no doubt, varied from that of those who controlled mission policy during the period. Instead this is merely to clarify what the present study is and is not about. In offering an archivally based, empirical analysis of the often paradoxical reaction of missionary organizations to the high international politics of the age, its authors hope to make a modest contribution to understanding one aspect of a rich and infinitely varied historical subject.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge, first of all, the vital financial aid provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by follow-up grants administered by the Arts Research Boards of McMaster and Memorial Universities. This funding enabled us to spend many productive years researching the archives of the major missionary societies that operated out of the United Kingdom. We also gratefully acknowledge the subvention provided by the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada's Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, which enabled this book to see the light of day. Like archivists everywhere, the ones we consulted could not have been more kind and helpful. They included Miss C.L. Penney, who presides over Special Collections in the Heslop Room of the University of Birmingham Library, and Miss Rosemary Keen, who not only uncovered relevant material in her bailiwick, the Church Mission Archives in London, but pinpointed material at the University of Birmingham that immeasurably helped our cause. In Oxford the friendly staff of Rhodes House Library unfailingly came to the rescue when important mission sources and other documentary material had to be examined. Not far away, the cooperative Mrs Susan Mills and her staff at the Angus Library of Regents' Park College rendered the same kindly and productive service. So did Miss Rosemary Seton and other members of the archival staff at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The Southern Baptist Historical

xvi Acknowledgments

Commission in Nashville, TN, not only unearthed vital material but located inexpensive and comfortable lodgings for us in that city. Closer to home, the congenial staff of the McMaster University Library and the equally congenial Miss Judith Colwell of the Canadian Baptist Archives (McMaster Divinity College) came through handsomely with their expertise and advice. The same can be said of the patient and helpful staff of the United Church Archives in Toronto. Dr G.S. French, a friend and former colleague at McMaster, was good enough to take time out to locate material for us at those archives. In Newfoundland Ms Elizabeth Behrens, librarian of Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, provided expert assistance to the otherwise bibliographically marooned, while Principal Katy Bindon and VicePrincipal Adrian Fowler helped to prime the financial pump. As always, Dr Olaf U. Janzen offered collegial advice and encouragement. Similarly we owe a large debt to Dr Donald H. Akenson, senior editor of McGill-Queen's University Press, who amiably furnished key advice and support. To all these generous people we extend our heartfelt thanks. Finally, the help and support so cheerfully provided by our wives, Joanne Greenlee and Lorna Johnston, greatly lightened the task. As resourceful research associates and wise counsellors, they made a vital contribution and we are both very grateful.

Origins of the Missionary Societies

SOCIETY FOR THE P R O P A G A T I O N OF T H E G O S P E L I N F O R E I G N P A R T S (SPG)

In 1701, a century before the emergence of the main missionary societies, the SPG was established by the Church of England partly as a result of the forces released by German Pietism. Though primarily catering to British colonists overseas, the SPG early on also ministered to Africans, Amerindians, and East Asians. From the beginning it generated little enthusiasm, however, and by the eighteenth century's close its declining fortunes helped to pave the way for the more vigorous and well-received initiatives of the Church Missionary Society. By that time the Evangelical Revival was in full swing. All the same, the SPG was reinvigorated in the nineteenth century and organized important missions in North America and Asia. BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY (BMS)

Stimulated by the Evangelical Revival and urged on by the vision and enterprise of co-religionist William Carey, Baptists formed their own missionary society in October 1792. Carey's influential Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen, which owed much to the stimulus of Wesleyan Methodism, inspired the organization of the society's pioneering Bengal Mission to which he was appropriately appointed in 1793. Over the next century the BMS founded missions in China, India, and Central Africa.

xviii

Origins of the Missionary Societies

LONDON MISSIONARY

SOCIETY (LMS)

Emboldened by Carey's example, the LMS was organized in 1795 by Presbyterian and Congregationalist ministers as an ostensibly nondenominational society. In time, however, it came to be recognized as essentially a Congregationalist enterprise. In 1796 the society sent its first missionaries to the South Seas, organizing a bridgehead there that heralded its strategic missions in India, South Africa, Madagascar, and China. CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY (CMS)

Though they welcomed the organization of the LMS, Evangelical Anglicans, guided by the influential John Venn, could not conscientiously endorse the Congregational principle that underlay the LMS. By the same token they could not accept the High Church principle at the heart of the SPG. Accordingly in 1799 they formed their own mission venture, the CMS, and within a few years it had launched missions in India and West Africa. Another member of the Venn family, Henry, served for some thirty years as the CMS'S honorary secretary. WESLEYAN METHODIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY (WMMS)

This society was formed during the Napoleonic Wars when Wesleyan Methodists chose to redirect their prodigious evangelizing efforts from the domestic to the overseas scene. Just as their countrymen were globally battling Napoleon they would go to war with "Paganism" around the world. Organized initially at the local level, it was endorsed as a full-fledged society by the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in 1814 and shortly thereafter sent its first missionaries to India. The society's founders saw their efforts as the natural outcome of the Evangelical Revival launched by John Wesley in the previous century.

FOREIGN MISSIONS COMMITTEE OF

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND (FMC, PCE) The PCE was established in 1836 and in 1844 was recognized as an independent church in friendly alliance with the Free Church of Scotland. The FMC, appointed yearly by Synod, was founded in 1844 and took China as its principal field. Its first missionary, Wm Chalmers Burns, landed in Hong Kong in 1847. Thereafter missions were estab-

xix

Origins of the Missionary Societies

lished in South China, Formosa, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bengal. A small body, its staff included nineteen missionaries in 1880, rising to seventy-five in 1910. The conveners during the period were H.M. Matheson, who was succeeded on his death in 1897 by Alexander (Alex) Connell. Wm Dale, the secretary, however, conducted much of the overseas correspondence.

Secretaries of British Missionary Societies

Cyril Charles Bowman Bardsley (1870-1940), Oxford graduate; appointed Honorary Secretary of the CMS in 1910, successor to H.E. Fox. Alfred Henry Baynes (1838-1914), accountant and Minute Secretary of the BMS, 1861-78; General Secretary of the BMS, 1878-1906. Henry Elliott Fox (1841-1926), Cambridge graduate; Honorary Clerical Secretary of the CMS, 1895-1910, successor to F.E. Wigram. Marshall Hartley (1846-1928), Richmond College graduate; Secretary of the WMMS, 1888-1919; President of the Wesleyan Methodist Church Conference, 1903-04. F.H. Hawkins, the LMS'S Joint Foreign Secretary with R.W. Thompson after 1912. Businessman and co-founder of Papuan Industries Limited, an LMS "industrial mission." Frank Lenwood (b. 1865), succeeded Ralph Wardlaw Thompson as Joint Foreign Secretary to the LMS; educated Rugby, Corpus Christi, and Mansfield Colleges, Oxford. Tutor at Mansfield and then active with the Student Christian Movement. Represented the LMS at the Shanghai Conference of 1908. Henry Hutchinson Montgomery (1847-1932); Cambridge graduate; Bishop of Tasmania, 1889-1901; appointed Secretary of the SPG in 1901, successor to H.W. Tucker and E.P. Sketchley.

xxi Secretaries of British Missionary Societies

Ralph Wardlaw Thompson (d. 1916), graduate of the University of the Cape of Good Hope; Foreign Secretary of the LMS, 1881-1914; Chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1908. Henry William Tucker (1830-1902), Oxford graduate; Principal Secretary of the SPG, 1879-1901. Frederic Edward Wigram (1834-97), Cambridge graduate; Honorary Clerical Secretary of the CMS, 1880-95. Charles Edward Wilson (1871-1956), Regent's Park College and University of London graduate; BMS missionary and educator in India, 1894-1905; General Secretary of the BMS, 1906-12, successor to A.H. Baynes; Foreign Secretary of the BMS, 1912-39.

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Good Citizens

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Introduction

Privately organized and financed, British missionary societies solemnly disavowed formal political ties at home and abroad. Sturdy voluntarists in the main, they felt it wise to keep Caesar at arm's length. Metropolitan partisanship and frontier meddling were not only unseemly but could also be downright poisonous to long-term endeavour. Such, at least, was the official position of most missionary bodies, especially before the 18903. Even so, in their more candid moments, all but the most fastidiously neutral recognized that the missionary enterprise had an inescapable political dimension. There was, of course, plenty of room for interpretation on this point. Indeed, sectarian diversity alone guaranteed that acceptable political behaviour would be variously defined. Thus, at extremes, the confessional quietism of the Friends or Quakers stood in sharp contrast with the imperial rhetoric of some late-Victorian Wesleyans, Baptists, and High Churchmen. For their part the LMS charted a meandering course through the difficult currents at midstream.1 By the turn of the century the CMS was prepared to meet Caesar halfway and began urging periodic consultations so that missionaries and public officials could simplify their relations and perhaps even cooperate on essential projects.2 Meanwhile, open to suggestion, the ecumenically disposed International Review of Missions (IRM) assured its readers that "we shall keep our eyes open to the wider relations of missions, in which they influence, and are influenced by, the work of governments ..."3 Confessional differences aside, political complexity militated against a uniform mission approach to governments. After all, chameleon-like

4 Good Citizens

Caesar assumed a bewildering variety of shapes around the globe. Accordingly the bureaucratic warrens of Whitehall must have seemed simplicity itself to the evangelist faced with the intricacies of mandarinridden China or the perplexing tribal moots of Africa and Polynesia. When in the midst of all this, as revolutions, civil wars, and colonial expansion further served to shift the boundaries and nature of innumerable regimes, change was one of the few constants encountered by roving messengers of Christ. Acknowledging this, mission houses conceded that it was impossible to define, let alone implement, a universal code of political conduct for their servants.4 Clearly, secular and sectarian diversity inhibit generalizations about the political attitudes of missionaries. But so does a paradox inherent in the missionary movement, a paradox that helped to sponsor ambiguity and division. After all, while professedly apolitical, missions shared a geo-religious view that was unabashedly expansionist and predicated on the fundamental reshaping of global humanity. Obviously, some measure of engagement with what Nonconformists called the "besmirched world of politics"5 was inevitable for those who sought to build the New Jerusalem on such a scale. For their part political authorities from Whitehall to Peking grasped this intuitively. Wary of missionaries, they took evangelical pledges of neutrality with heavy doses of salt. Among the godly themselves, moreover, there were always those who recognized the political implications of their work. Speaking at mid-century to that very point, CMS champion Henry Venn had issued carefully worded political guidelines for his colleagues in the field. The Christian message, he cogently argued, was always potentially revolutionary in the sense that it forced people to ponder questions of justice and morality. The missionary, furthermore, was properly concerned not just with the spiritual well-being but also with the general welfare of his flock. Given this, Venn continued, missions had a definite political role, like it or not. That role, he hastened to assert, had nothing to do with day-to-day partisan politics, but it did entail speaking out when political actions overlapped major religious or moral issues. Thus, civil authorities had very properly been challenged on such vital questions as slavery and the opium traffic. All the same Venn held that it was essential, in practical terms, to eschew a "purely political" spirit and to avoid acting hastily or alone.6 As it turned out, these sage observations from an experienced hand served more to identify than to solve problems. Where, for example, was the line between hurtful meddling and needful intervention? Again, who was to decide, men on the spot or metropolitan policy makers? These and similar questions, troubling enough in Venn's

5 Introduction

day, would become even more intractable in the high imperial age to follow. Indeed late-Victorian missionaries, gripped by a mounting sense of urgency, would find no clear-cut solutions of their own. If anything, their task became even harder. Obsessed with perceived religious decay at home, they also had to contend with an increasingly volatile international climate as imperial competition and national rivalries heated up. Meanwhile, outdoing Venn, "Bible and Plough" evangelism took wing as more comprehensive and ambitious "developmental" strategies were applied in the form of female, industrial, and medical missions. Altogether, the theoretical boundary separating the spiritual, the humanitarian, and the political grew increasingly nebulous. When late in the century eschatological hopes and fears were injected into the mixture, missionaries often disagreed heatedly as to what did or did not fall within the compass of legitimate political engagement. They did so, moreover, not only among but also within confessional bodies. Not surprisingly, therefore, it is impossible to speak of missionary political attitudes in the singular. At most one can glimpse a few broad themes that enjoyed some currency during the period. These, however, were less the fruit of systematic thought than reactions to changing circumstances. Indeed, to the extent that a missionary political mentality existed at all, it was one bedevilled by ambiguity, ambivalence, and contradiction. Even so, no matter how untidily assembled, the political furniture of the missionary mind must be catalogued if expansionist Christianity is to be seen in full context. In this regard two general dispositions were sufficiently widespread to merit particular attention. One led some servants of the gospel to embrace the sprawling British Empire as a tool providentially designed to further evangelical ends while the other led in the direction of spiritual free trade. Missionaries dispersed across the broad spectrum of opinion between these two positions and seldom remained absolutely locked in place. Indeed individuals and whole organizations found themselves constantly shifting back and forth under the impact of changing circumstances between 1870 and 1918.

i The Politicsof Spiritual Free Trade

Spiritual free traders could be found in all missionary societies between 1870 and 1918. Some people took official proclamations of political neutrality very much to heart. Some did so out of theoretical conviction. Others simply saw no practical, long-term alternative. In any case literalists were rare since most recognized the force of Henry Venn's argument about the overlap of politics and evangelism. But given a choice, evangelical Cobdenites preferred to keep Caesar at arm's length and assigned him a limited role in the process of global redemption. Their most basic political avowal was that missionaries were, or ought to be, "good citizens" ready to "obey the laws of the land and to submit ... to all duly constituted authority."1 Scarcely new, the notion had been loudly trumpeted as Nonconformist churches and their "tinker" missionaries sought respectability by disavowing radical intentions.2 By late century, their respectable credentials now sterling, missionary societies settled into the role of established philanthropic lobbies on the metropolitan scene. This, of course, made some dealings with the state inescapable. Alluding to this in 1910, the Archbishop of York quipped that since trade seemed always to monopolize one governmental ear, "counteracting influences" were occasionally obliged to seek the other.3 Echoing that prelate, R.W. Thompson of the LMS argued that while missionary organizations eschewed partisan politics, missionaries themselves retained all the ordinary rights of British subjects, including the right vigorously to prompt or loyally to oppose specific government policies.4 Clarifying this in 1895, the official

7 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

historian of the LMS resurrected Venn's rule of thumb. Government, he declared, should be approached whenever its actions clearly inhibited Christian outreach.5 Few missionaries of any stripe would have quibbled with this proposition. Even so, spiritual free traders normally went out of their way to assure politicians at home and abroad that they sought no more latitude than other good citizens. Furthermore they emphasized that they expected no special status or treatment as an interest group. Instead they asked only for the same freedoms and protection routinely extended to all law-abiding persons. "We are entitled," a BMS missionary asserted, "to no less protection and care than Traders, Travellers and others on Scientific, Philanlc, and Diplomatic Missions." This, he continued, was the merest basic entitlement and ought not to be "construed as a desire to get on 'the inside track' with Governments concerned."6 This general claim, which might be dubbed the "missionary minimum," embraced insistence on government support for treaty rights and guarantees of religious toleration. Spiritual free traders, indeed, were confident that given a level playing field Christianity would drive all competitors to the sidelines. In this, it was held, the only role of government was to create through diplomacy conditions approximating a free religious market. And the term "market" can be used advisedly. "There is no locality in the world," a contemporary Baptist missionary wrote, "where [the gospel] is not in demand ... [it] has a marketable value, an infinite value, and constitutes the demand of the race."7 Playing on an evocative theme, the LMS summarized such thinking in declaring that all it wanted was a "fair field and no favour," firmly believing that time and Providence would secure the rest.8 Similarly, a Baptist publication announced that "where we have an equal start, a fair field and no favour, an equally great opportunity is given to us."9 If outsiders sometimes regarded such spiritually laissez-faire talk with deep skepticism, that may have been because its exponents were not always careful about language. Thus, almost as often as those favouring closer cooperation with the imperial state, free-trade missionaries showed a distinct penchant for military and colonialist metaphors. Such was the lingua franca of a whole generation. But whenever they paused to consider the full implications of their rhetorical addiction, missionaries of Thompson's ilk were quick to deny an unthinking subscription to full-blown realpolitik. They firmly rejected, for example, the old saw: "first the missionary; then the trader; then the consul; then the army; and then the war."10 As one indignant Congregationalist noted, this often described a lamentable chronological sequence, but it did not and could not establish a causal chain. The missionary, he countered, did not bring the trader or the

8 Good Citizens

army and certainly not the war. Merchants and soldiers came for reasons all their own and not infrequently were at odds with the evangelist. Furthermore, he fumed, traders worked for profit and officials for an often "hostile, selfish power." Only the missionary, he concluded, worked selflessly for "the people."11 Vocal Baptist John Clifford added punch to the point when he remarked that the "missionary goes not for territory, not for gold, not for political power; but to carry men to redemption and renewal."12 Summarizing this line of thought in 1903, MP and mission supporter J. Compton Rickett allowed that "so far as Christianity applies to political affairs, its message is cosmopolitan rather than national."13 For some, moreover, any appeal to armed force was all but unthinkable. To the Friends, of course, pacifism was a matter of confessional principle. Yet even those denominations that could, when pressed, endorse the resort to arms spawned many a missionary to whom the whole idea was repugnant. In 1893, for example, the Chronicle repudiated an American colleague, Cyrus Hamlin, for asserting that beleaguered missionaries should seek military support whenever required. The shocked magazine retorted that risk was a fact of missionary life and should be patiently endured as a professional obligation. In the long run, argued the editor, it was better to set an example of love and forbearance than to be identified with violence and compulsion. Clarifying an admittedly fine rhetorical distinction, he urged missionaries to rely on the "shield of faith" and the "sword of the Spirit" rather than on "carnal weapons." After all, he concluded, their calling imposed upon them a "more exalted standard of loving fortitude."14 For spiritual free traders, all talk of "fronts" and "battle lines" was purely figurative. It was, to be sure, not always that simple. The harried Congo missionaries George Grenfell and Thomas Comber agreed with the prophets of loving fortitude, but in their violent environment they were sometimes hard-pressed to uphold the standard, as we shall see. But others were wont to apply it, even in the most trying circumstances. In 1901, for example, Thompson baulked at the use of force even when two colleagues were murdered in New Guinea. Whitehall recommended sharp reprisals and, for once, was ready to put up the ships, men, and money too. The LMS leader, however, called for restraint. Writing to Joseph Chamberlain, he observed: "The Society's missionaries recognize at all times that in going into perilous positions they do so with a full sense of personal responsibility, and that they ought not to expect to be backed up, or protected, or avenged by the arm of government. The Directors know that nothing could have been more repugnant to the feelings of the murdered missionaries

9 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

than that their death should be made a reason for ... the shedding of innocent blood." If the colonial secretary insisted on military intervention, Thompson urged that it be limited to punishing the unambiguously guilty and them alone. It was only thus, he argued, that the natives would be taught to draw a distinction between vengeance and justice.15 For all their forbearance and self-declared neutrality, however, those who preferred the strategy of moral suasion were far from craven in the face of political authority. Few, in fact, ruled out vigorous action when it was deemed both necessary and, above all, likely to succeed. Even Thompson, in some ways the high priest of spiritual free trade, was firm on that point. Admittedly, he conceded that there was "a general principle universally recognized that missionary societies ought not to intermeddle in political affairs." Under very particular circumstances, none the less, he envisaged exceptions to this cardinal rule. Chief among these was the need to protest against religious persecution. In such instances, said Thompson, missionaries had a manifest obligation to call upon the state in humanity's name. Similarly, where the religious provisions of a treaty were violated, it was well within the bounds of propriety to seek Whitehall's aid.16 Indeed, when seriously provoked, the ordinarily restrained Thompson claimed even wider scope for missionary action. Thus, reviewing Robert Needham Gust's Africa Rediviva in 1892, he seized on a passage that called for the expulsion of evangelical "grievance mongers" from India. "It will," he erupted, "be an evil day for the British Empire when any man is expelled from any part of Her Majesty's dominions for free criticism of any public question, however unpopular his criticism may be. Missionaries do not give up their rights as men, nor do they lose the responsibility which attaches to Christian men and Christian citizens."17 Political restraint obviously had its limits. The conceptual foundations underpinning spiritual free trade were many and varied. As the language of fair field and no favour would suggest, evangelical Cobdenites were profoundly influenced by contemporary liberal rhetoric. Elements of this, in turn, meshed neatly with the historic voluntarism of dissenting churches. Thus, rugged individualism found expression in the i88os as Nonconformist missionaries in East Africa baulked at placing themselves under any form of government protection. To do so, they explained, would be implicitly to accept government control and this, they were certain, "would be fatal to Missionary enterprise."18 But a more positive impulse also drove such people to distance themselves from Caesar. Indeed the noblesse oblige exemplified in Thompson's response to the New Guinea murders cut powerfully across denominational lines in

io Good Citizens

its appeal to Dissenter and churchman alike. Accordingly, some missionaries took humanitarianism to its logical extreme, seeing selfsacrifice as the price of moral leadership and public trust. Ironically perhaps, in this they stood at no great remove from those public school proconsuls who claimed to be the "natural leaders" of secular society. Whatever the case, whether moved by confessional quietism, historic voluntarism, or noblesse oblige, many emissaries of the gospel turned to spiritual free trade out of strong conviction. Even so, torn as they were by paradoxical imperatives of official neutrality and intrusive evangelism, few missionaries clung fixedly to any doctrinaire position concerning relations with the state. Instead they shuffled along a lengthy continuum of opinion as, in complex practice, they discovered that tidy preferences sometimes had to be set aside. Sober experience, in fact, was a stern teacher. Thus many a missionary who was broadly indifferent to theory nevertheless learned to walk softly both at home and abroad simply as a matter of practical necessity. Within the confines of Greater Britain, for example, it required no great political acumen to discern that officials were frequently less than trusting or trustworthy in their approach to missions. There was, of course, no strict consensus among those officials, but many made it only too clear that at times they found Christ's emissaries tedious, inconvenient, and disruptive overseas. The Presbyterian FMC certainly had few illusions on that score. Letters written in 1869 by Sir Rutherford Alcock, Britain's representative in Peking, were subsequently presented to both houses of Parliament and conjured up a less than flattering picture of the FMC'S agents in China. The latter were wont, raged Alcock, to venture far beyond the protected circle of the treaty ports and to stir up all sorts of trouble without, he added, "much regard of consequences to themselves or to others."19 To the Earl of Clarendon he complained further that even in old mission fields, agents tended "greatly to complicate relations both political and commercial" and in general "to retard all progress."20 Another official, writing to Lord Granville in the 18705, castigated all missions that made political relations far more difficult than they need be. This was usually brought about, he complained, by such practices as employing women, abusing Confucian tradition, or flouting Chinese customs in general. With considerable passion, therefore, he called on Whitehall to limit the movements of missionaries or face growing upheaval.21 These were far from isolated outbursts, with similar misgivings broadcast throughout the period. In 1893, for example, one bureaucrat passed on in confidence some sharp comments from his chief,

ii Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

Lord Rosebery, to all the societies operating in China. The matter at issue was that some missionaries considered themselves "to be the sole judges of the extent to which their Treaty rights as British subjects to visit the interior of China shall be claimed." Rosebery, clearly concerned that Christian forays might spark embarrassing international incidents, brusquely disabused missions of any such notion: "Her Majesty's Government cannot allow that the general interest shall be made dependent on the judgment of individual [missionaries], and be liable to be sacrificed and endangered by their irresponsible action or misdirected zeal, however laudable and exalted their motives may be."22 Rosebery's criticisms were mild compared to the verbal abuse that officials on the spot heaped on missionaries elsewhere. For example just a few years before, Sir Gerald Portal, the exasperated consul general in Zanzibar, had composed a typical complaint about what he called a "missionary fanatic": "I am very anxious just at present about an English missionary who is in the hands of the hostile Arabs on the Mainland ... if he comes to grief there will be a terrible howl in Exeter Hall and all the missionary circles, these missionaries are simply terrible, they have no common sense, they won't do what they're told, & go like mules in the opposite direction to what they are advised, & then when they get into a mess they expect to be pulled out of it by the Government."23 And in Central Africa the same problem periodically raised its head. One Congo missionary, for instance, who seemed to believe that "wings of faith [alone] are the ordained means for crossing continents," blithely embarked on ill-conceived ventures that put himself at grave risk and the Foreign Office in a tizzy.24 Again, in East Africa another supposed servant of the gospel, brutalized perhaps by the rigours of tropical life, caused a sensation in mission and diplomatic circles alike when he physically struck and caused the death of a native porter.25 In the meantime the acerbic opinions of Portal, the diplomat, were shared in full by Frederick Lugard, the imperialist. The latter, in fashioning Indirect Rule in West Africa, regularly discouraged Christian initiatives in order to placate Moslem opinion.26 Given this tension and the power of imperial authorities to ignore mission pleas for fair field and no favour, it is scarcely surprising that some agents bent over backward to avoid giving offence. Thus, in 1881, Thompson observed that even when invited to do so "missionaries are often most unwilling to make complaints which seem to imply strictures on the conduct of local representatives of British authority."27 Thirty years later C.C.B. Bardsley displayed the same pragmatic reticence when he observed that it was a "very strong step to make any complaint against a Government Official," for, however justified in a mission-

12 Good Citizens

ary's eyes, this always brought down opposition and criticism. "We must," he sighed resignedly, "be prepared for this kind of thing."28 All too accustomed to that "kind of thing," metropolitan organizers such as Bardsley were required to mediate among political entities great and small. Not surprisingly they tended to be occupationally prone to nervousness when preachers overseas dabbled in politics. After all, something more than isolated local consequences were at stake. Thompson, for example, was acutely aware that missionary safety and credibility rested on a fragile reputation for neutrality. Political meddling, he advised, not only upset local interests but could antagonize great powers in a tense imperial age. Addressing Lord Salisbury on this point, he observed that it "has more than once been the experience of this Society that Continental Governments are quite unable to believe that English missionaries have no recognition from H.M.G. beyond their common rights as British subjects and that they are not in any sense political agents."29 Thus, when LMS missionary Alfred Swann unforgivably colluded with H.H. Johnston over tribal treaties round Lake Tanganyika, a mortified Thompson swiftly apologized to the foreign secretary for the ensuing tumult. He and the directors disowned Swarm's actions "as involving a serious breach of the society's regulations and as placing them in a false position in the eyes of the natives and the world."30 In the meantime the BMS also had to mollify the Foreign Office on occasion. Indeed in the fateful summer of 1914 it was still assuring Whitehall, as it had so often in the past, that it had "no desire to engage in public agitation either at home or abroad." Fully certain of its ground, the BMS confidently issued the following statement: "It regards in the most serious possible light an accusation against any of its missionaries of being a leader of a rebellion against a Foreign Government. When such a charge is made, and the missionary is imprisoned, it demands the fullest investigation, nor will it spare any pains to secure the widest publicity in its defence."31 Some years earlier Frederick E. Wigram of the CMS had been obliged to calm suspicious officials in German East Africa who complained of missionary interference. Thoroughly mindful of the potential for diplomatic disaster but trusting that CMS representatives were not involved, he succeeded in convincing his Teutonic hosts just "how strongly we deprecate [their] interference with political matters."32 For its part even the Anti-Slavery Society, which operated under fewer restraints than missions, also backed away from "political questions" that flared during the African scramble.33 It was, furthermore, one thing to risk London's displeasure and quite another to provoke a foreign potentate on his own soil. There,

13 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

good citizenship and circumspection were often essential to survival, let alone success. From China to Madagascar, from the Congo to the South Seas, British missionaries in their hundreds laboured beyond the arc of Greater Britain. The experience drove many down the road of moral suasion out of sheer necessity. After all was there any realistic alternative in a place such as Japanese-occupied Formosa? Presbyterian veterans on the island thought not. Their assessments of Tokyo's regime, imposed after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, varied considerably. Some, in fact, found collaboration quite congenial once the conquering Japanese set about modernizing transportation, encouraging education, reducing corruption, and limiting the opium trade. Intentionally or not, all these changes admirably served the cause of evangelization.34 Still, others such as Andrew Bonar Neilson were not so favourably disposed. Troubled by Japanese authoritarianism following one local disturbance, he sourly observed that people "might suppose that every resident on the island not excepting foreign missionaries were ticket-of-leave men ... bound over to keep the peace."35 In the final analysis, however, such private opinions were of little consequence. Protestant missionaries avoided confrontations with their Japanese overlords because they simply had no choice. This was particularly the case after the Anglo-Japanese agreement of 1902. Whitehall, it was perfectly clear, was not about to let any parochial evangelical issue upset its alliance with what one missionary, with unconscious irony, grandly called the "Britain of the East."36 Happily, a comfortable modus vivendi matured. Thus, by 1907, one observer could note that "instead of an inveterately hostile mandarinate the mission [met with] friendly authorities who find Christians to be their most orderly subjects."37 Good citizenship, it seems, could develop smoothly under some foreign overlords. Yet, even when this was not the case, it was still in the logic of circumstance that missionaries toe the line of political neutrality, like it or not. Such, at least, was the firm opinion of several seasoned China hands. While there was some disagreement about how much passivity was wise, few on the scene placed much reliance on governments of any kind. John C. Gibson, for example, who laboured for the Presbyterian FMC at Swatow, cared little for any politician or political theory, but he did understand the force of circumstance all too well. Throughout a long and eventful tenure, he walked a fine line under the watchful gaze of often less-than-friendly mandarins. Punctilious in his good citizenship, in time he became a master of the art. For example he made a point of weeding out suspicious Chinese who sought shelter from the law through conversions of convenience.38 In

14 Good Citizens

case this went unnoticed, Gibson loudly advertised his culling exercise to ever-vigilant Chinese officials.39 Patiently storing up a reservoir of good will, he drew on it very sparingly. Accordingly, he challenged mandarins only when indisputable treaty rights had been clearly violated. On one such occasion in 1882, street riots had led to the indiscriminate sacking of some FMC stations. Confident of his legal ground, Gibson went personally to lobby officials for compensation. This, he thought, was an obvious instance of needful, legitimate, and acceptable political assertiveness. Hence, undeterred by a crowd "howling for the blood of foreigners," he presented his case firmly and settled for the perfectly predictable compromise.40 In private, Gibson had little sympathy for the long-teetering Manchu dynasty. Of necessity, however, he kept this pretty much to himself. For that matter, a pragmatic rather than an ideological free trader, he had no objection to truly effective armed intervention by the great powers. But over time he learned not to count on them. Instead he more often criticized showy but sporadic gunboat diplomacy that was not matched with appropriate long-term commitment on the ground.41 In like manner some SPG organizers became jaded on the subject of armed protection. Indeed they gave up on any show of force to secure missionary interests simply because they felt that the shifting sands of British politics would virtually undermine effective action.42 Baptists were less certain on this point. At one time the BMS, much like the SPG, had endeavoured to distance itself from any species of interventionism. But when they learned that to the Chinese mind this meant that they did not merit protection, a more activist stance was adopted.43 Indeed theirs arguably became the most assertive society in China as they volubly reminded the indigenous Caesar that his primary function was to protect all his subjects, regardless of creed or nationality. In 1885, following the persecution of a missionary and his converts, A.G. Jones laid down his notion of a law that he expected Whitehall to uphold in the event Peking did not discharge its obligations: "If the matter is vigorously dealt with [by the embassy] in Peking and ... the authorities here are strictly charged to do their duty in regard to it, we believe it will prevent further trouble and do much good."44 In spite of an effective consular response on this occasion, Baptists long complained, as did the LMS, about the run-around missions frequently endured at the hands of the Foreign Office. Jones, in fact, once enlarged on the point when he upbraided a "hasty, hot & intemperate" British ambassador who had an irritating habit of making a "weak losing concession" rather than a "winning wise" one.45 Moreover political vagaries, bureaucratic laxity, and consular indifference were often

15 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

rendered all the more vexing in missionary eyes by the "scandalous behaviour and fast living" of so many legation personnel.46 One response to these varied problems was offered by the prospect of collective mission security. Presbyterian William Dale, for one, recommended safety in numbers through a "united front" of all the major societies.47 Acting in concert, he argued, missionaries might be more effective in their dealings with consuls and mandarins.48 But for many evangelical veterans on the scene, these proposals fell considerably short of genuine collective security. Not surprisingly, therefore, people like Gibson continued to operate on the assumption that they were very much alone and very vulnerable. Good sense, accordingly, dictated adherence to tried and tested good citizenship. Seasoned with firmness and expert gamesmanship, it was a recipe for survival. Very much a part of that recipe was Gibson's advice on dealing with mandarins. When visiting them, he counselled, one should always be in command of the facts and speak solely in the interests of peace. To him any other approach seemed dangerous and unrealistic.49 And for all that he urged a firm consular hand at times, Baptist Jones agreed. For him, as for Gibson, patient cultivation of the mandarins offered greater security than constant appeals to the Foreign Office. "The first and main thing," he emphasized, "is intercourse - mixing with them, visiting them, knowing and affecting them in ordinary life. This, in China, takes immense time: a visit of less than an hour is considered nothing. But it is worth the time - to quietly sit down at it."5° If there were a leitmotif in this approach, then perhaps it was Jones's insistence that the BMS seek a "ministry of reconciliation, not of assertiveness."51 His colleague, Timothy Richard, agreed wholeheartedly even while noting the difficulties of dealing with persons whose religious priorities were not as finely tuned as their bureaucratic ones.52 He reported, however, that if one made a point of patiently discussing fundamental moral and philosophical issues with the local gentry many of them "continued friendly" as a result: "To be thus visited and be allowed to visit them and preach the Gospel to them freely is a great advance on my early days in China when I was pelted with mud & stones for preaching to the people."53 The formula obviously paid off. The ebullient Richard exulted in the late i88os that "high officials who would not return the call of the ambassadors of England and Germany have within the last ten days returned the call of a missionary," presumably a reference to himself.54 This proud claim heralded what a Scottish banker and missions advocate had to say in 1897. "It seems almost impossible," Lord Kinnaird wrote Bishop H.W. Tucker at the SPG, "to get out of the official mind the terrible fallacy that Natives do not trust Missionaries: as

16 Good Citizens

you know in most cases they trust them more than they do officials!"55 Spiritual free traders Gibson, Jones, and Richard, exemplars of the painstakingly correct and accommodating approach to their hosts, must have derived no small comfort from that piece of praise. Clearly experience under Asian regimes taught some missionaries the practical wisdom of spiritual free trade. The lesson, moreover, was often powerfully reinforced for those operating in the colonial dominions of Britain's great power rivals. With the advent of various partitions, fair field and no favour was less and less easily had. Nothing illustrated this more vividly than the misadventures of the lateVictorian LMS. Indeed, as European states flexed their expansionist muscles, the society seemed destined to become a battered casualty of the imperial game. In a short span of time crucial fields such as Madagascar and Samoa, once on comfortably neutral ground, fell under the sway of foreign powers. Sensing an ominous pattern, Mission House had no doubts as to the identity of the principal georeligious threat to its global position. While others focused on Islam or Confucianism as the primary challengers, Thompson was far more concerned with France and its "Jesuits." Thus, surveying recent collisions with these foes, he groaned in 1895 that "this Society has a sort of fatality about it in relation to the French."56 In 1886, plagued by restrictions and regulations spawned over long years of French occupation, the LMS had withdrawn its best missionaries from Tahiti. Although the island was, strictly speaking, no longer of strategic significance to the society, the psychological blow was telling and long lasting. As the LMS'S first mission, Tahiti held immeasurable symbolic importance. For Congregationalists it had been their Polynesian "city on a hill" and the kernel from which their sprawling South Seas enterprise had blossomed.57 Moreover having to capitulate to "Jesuit" pressure and to retreat from a long-cultivated field left the society deeply fearful for far more vital outposts. Indeed as the i88os unfolded the conviction grew apace at Mission House that a global French forward movement was under way and that Tahiti was but a taste of worse things to come. The spectre of an all-consuming French imperialism appalled the LMS for a number of reasons. No doubt some mission officials were bitten by the imperial bug themselves and reacted on nationalistic grounds. But these seemed to be in a minority. Besides, it should be noted, German advances, when they came, certainly caused little in the way of hysteria at Mission House. Instead Thompson and company, ever mindful of the Tahitian case, saw the French as politically unscrupulous overlords for whom the concept of fair field and no favour had little or no meaning. In 1910, reflecting on long and sober-

17 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

ing experience, S.J.W. Clark, self-appointed roving inspector of missions for the LMS, summed up thinking on the matter. In the first place, he observed, wherever French officialdom went, the "Jesuits" inevitably trailed in their wake. Given the smallest opening, those "agents of the papacy" gave duplicity a new meaning with their ceaseless politicking. As for the bureaucracy of Republican France, where they did not blatantly favour the "Jesuits," they feared them to the point of discouraging all Christianizing influences. As Clark elaborated, France's secular authorities faced a highly politicized church at home, and one passionately anti-republican to boot. Therefore, he asserted, they refused to believe that British Protestant missionaries were any less meddlesome and dictatorial. In addition, Clark said, as servants of an agnostic state French colonial officers often felt that religious projects diverted both loyalty and cash from more deserving public undertakings.58 Paradoxically then the French brought two great evils with them: "Romanism" on the one hand and secular materialism on the other, both considered poisonous to Protestant missionary endeavour. It was, therefore, with genuine dread that Thompson and his colleagues contemplated what they took to be mounting French "aggression" in the i88os. Alarm bells were first sounded in the South Seas. In December 1881 Thompson wrote feverishly to Lord Granville at the Foreign Office asking him to intercede with France in the case of the Reverend John Jones, LMS missionary on the island of Mare in the Loyalty Group. According to Thompson, Jones had been working peacefully and successfully there for some ten years before a French protectorate was proclaimed in 1864. While Napoleon III had respected religious liberties, his successors, Thompson complained, had recently gone out of their way to make Jones's task as difficult as possible. Thus Protestant chiefs had been deported to Cochin China and their flocks fined and punished, all on the basis of supposedly flimsy charges brought by Roman Catholic agents. Every effort, Thompson continued, had been made to provoke Jones by subjecting him to arbitrary treatment. Meanwhile the natives were "compelled to submit to a religious regime they greatly disliked." To be sure, Thompson acknowledged, France had broken no laws, but still he implored the foreign secretary to come to Jones's defence so that a "British subject may be protected from insult as long as he observes the law."59 In the meantime Granville was requested to protest a rumoured French annexation of Raratonga and other islands whose inhabitants were said to be opposed to the move.60 The Mare affair dragged on for several years. From time to time the Foreign Office, under discreet prodding from Mission House, made

i8 Good Citizens

polite inquiries at the Quai d'Orsay concerning Jones's treatment.61 A wary LMS headquarters, however, could also work the other way. Responding to requests from Paris, it instructed Jones to undertake the gradual transfer of all mission-inspired local schools to French authorities. But when native pastors, who were elected by their congregations, refused to accept government control, Jones was immediately blamed and branded a political agitator. In February 1886, however, he and his society were relieved when all such charges were dismissed by a special French tribunal. Even so the following year there was a stark reversal of fortune and Jones was deported without charge or prior notice.62 On this bleak note the LMS mission came to an end on Mare. Throughout, Thompson and the directors had made vigorous representations to Whitehall, and in that sense, of course, they had been decidedly "political." They had not, however, in their own eyes overstepped the bounds of propriety. Indeed they comforted themselves with the thought that all appeals had been discreet and made through appropriate and established channels. No attempt, for example, had been made to embarrass the Foreign Office by going over its head to court public opinion. The requests for aid, furthermore, had been limited to the issue of promoting fair field and no favour, initially by asking for the protection of Jones's "ordinary rights" as a law-abiding British subject. Then they brought pressure to bear to secure an independent tribunal so as to determine the merits of the case.63 Most importantly, as fears about French and other species of imperialism continued to multiply, the LMS lobbied Whitehall to work for an international treaty guaranteeing religious liberty throughout the Pacific.64 In other words an embattled Mission House was turning increasingly for assistance to the politicians but primarily, it should be stressed, to preserve the essentials of spiritual free trade. Like Tahiti, Mare in itself was expendable within the grander LMS scheme of things. It was, however, viewed as an important test case as the imperial scramble gathered momentum elsewhere. Above all Mission House directly linked it to developments unfolding on another island half a world away. There, on Madagascar, the stakes were astronomical by LMS standards. No tiny atoll like Tahiti, Madagascar was'the society's largest and most successful theatre of operations. Launched in 1818, it had been systematically cultivated since 1862 with the aid of substantial Congregationalist backing. The effort proved well worth the labour. By 1870 the LMS counted fully 21,000 converts on the island. Ten years later, they numbered almost 70,000, exclusive of some 225,000 "adherents."65 Adorned with hospitals, various educational facilities, and a local seminary, the Madagascar

19 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

mission was the principal jewel in the LMS diadem. The Friends, the SPG, and the Norwegians were also well represented on the island, but the Congregationalists clearly outshone them all. Pride of place had been a consequence of good fortune and, although they might not have put it this way, sound political strategy on the part of the LMS. Where other missionary bodies toiled with varying degrees of success in the outlying provinces, Congregationalists had wisely concentrated on the capital of the ruling Hova people and particularly on the court. The great breakthroughs had come in the i86os when the society backed the right horse in a Hova political steeplechase. To the LMS'S delight, the queen, Ranavalova, widowed when her husband was assassinated, announced her Christian conversion in 1869 in a bid to achieve every edge possible in the struggle for legitimacy. In any event, with Ranavalova came the court; with the court came the aristocracy; and the rest followed in train. As Hova influence first consolidated and then fanned out, so spread the influence of the gratified LMS. The society, to be sure, never craved the privileges of an "Established Church" but, even so, by 1880 they were there for the taking. Clearly the LMS, while respecting the liberties of sister missions, had played the local political game with exceptional finesse, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.66 Then, in late 1882, all-too-familiar shadows suddenly cast a pall on this Malagasy idyll when France revived an ancient claim to the island. A shocked Mission House reacted immediately, reminding the Foreign Office that the Hova government enjoyed British diplomatic recognition and had made commendable educational and religious progress under the tutelage of largely British missionary groups. Appealing to all the appropriate sentiments, J.A. Whitehouse underscored the fact that the export of slaves had been stopped as well. Whitehall was asked to bear all this in mind when reaching its decision and was urged to "adopt such measures by arbitration and other peaceful means as shall secure the rights of the people and sovereign government of Madagascar."67 The French, however, still smarting from William Gladstone's intervention in Egypt, were ill-disposed to accommodate British representations and duly proclaimed a protectorate in 1883. This was a signal for a Franco-Hova war to erupt and, almost immediately, the LMS was directly embroiled. As French forces occupied outlying provinces and the Hova retreated, British subjects on the island were warned by their consul to "take care regarding all contacts and agreements with the natives." Meanwhile they were assured that, for them, the "Union Jack would be sufficient protection."68 Unfortunately for him, this was not the way things went for medical

2O Good Citizens

missionary G.A. Shaw. Arrested by French authorities, he was detained for two months on charges that were constantly redefined from the proverbial sublime to the ridiculous, from "encouraging rebellion" to providing inadequate security for poisons in his dispensary. In the end, after protests from London prompted by Mission House, Shaw was cleared of all charges and released.69 All the same, the whole episode had been chilling. The termination of hostilities in 1886 left France in partial control of the island's outer provinces. It also ushered in a Franco-Hova treaty guaranteeing religious liberty. Even so the LMS leadership, drawing a grim parallel with developments in the South Seas, were far from reassured.70 Almost at once, as if to ward off trouble, circumspect directors passed a categorical resolution of political neutrality, declaring that the "missionary is as completely unconnected with local politics as he is with trade."71 For their part, old hands on the island needed no such warning. Indeed, as one wrote Thompson, it was perfectly clear that the LMS had few political friends left in Madagascar now that the Hova had of necessity come to terms with France. Thus, he observed, "our mission is less and less likely to be well informed as to the doings of the Government and we must make up our minds to be left in ignorance ... and exercise the utmost discretion in accepting socalled information from the Malagasy who speak to us!"72 While some took comfort that "this country is not Tahiti yet," there was a general decline of confidence in the ability or the willingness of Whitehall to promote fair field and no favour in places such as Madagascar and the South Seas.73 Such confidence as remained suffered a stiff jolt in August 1890 when Britain recognized the French protectorate. In many missionary eyes this was "needlessly" done,74 with some agents going so far as to portray it as a blot on the national honour. In craven fashion, thundered the Chronicle, Madagascar and its people had been traded away for influence in Egypt and Zanzibar as Britain, like the other great powers, indulged in the harshest form of realpolitik. Though guarantees of religious liberty came with the Anglo-French agreement, they were hardly considered ironclad "given painful episodes in the South Seas." The LMS accordingly vowed to remain on the alert and to constantly remind Whitehall of its pledge.75 It was becoming distressingly obvious that imperial Caesar was not always as good as his word. This suspicion was powerfully reinforced in 1895 when tensions on the island exploded into full-scale war. The French marched on the capital and seized total control, eventually deposing and banishing the queen. At the height of the crisis tremendous pressure was

21 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

exerted on Thompson and the directors to take a more forceful line with Whitehall and the British public in the interests of the Malagasy mission. Much of this predictably came from agents on the spot. The Imerina province district committee virtually panicked, urging Thompson to make an exception to the general rule of political abstinence. "We get the impression," said the committee, "that very little effort has been made" to argue the mission's case. The criticism went even further. It was darkly suggested that Nonconformists were holding their tongues for fear of embarrassing their friends in the Liberal party. Consequently, church leaders were urged to speak out and to exert every ounce of influence in every quarter to see that the guarantees of 1890 were observed by the French. By this time, however, the latter were claiming that these guarantees were void on the grounds that they had been arranged with the former Hova government.76 Deluged with criticism, an anguished Thompson could only reply that large-scale political agitation was permissible only when treaty provisions or religious freedoms were directly violated. "No one," he continued, "can pretend that the present case is one in which these conditions apply." Beyond petitioning Whitehall to insist on religious guarantees, there were no grounds for action since Britain had recognized French claims in iSqo.77 Answering critics more bluntly, canny Chronicle editor George Cousins shot back that "anybody in the know" understood Madagascar to be a direct quid pro quo for Egypt, one that would go uncontested for reasons of state.78 In short the LMS leadership, having conceded that political battles over Madagascar were unwinnable, moved swiftly to rein in vocally belligerent missionaries. The society, accordingly, geared up to adapt to the new realities of Malagasy life. In truth, Mission House had been doing this for some time even before the final annexation. Thus as schools had shifted to instruction in the tongue of the new imperial overlord, French-speaking teachers were recruited for service from as far afield as Switzerland.79 And when France renewed its pledges of religious liberty, the LMS reciprocated with numerous declarations of political neutrality.80 Following the no-nonsense lead of Mission House, district committees on the island fell quickly into line. In a memorial to one governor, a chastened Imerina committee, once so eager for strong British intervention, assured him that "We are not so foolish as to be unable to see that the action taken by France was final. We should consider it highly criminal to say a word that would lead the people to believe that the French occupation was to be only temporary and such conduct would certainly expose us to the severe censure of the Society we represent."81 Thompson sold himself rapidly on these propositions, and on

22 Good Citizens

a tour of the island in 1896 joined other LMS servants in decrying a short-lived post-conquest rebellion against the regime. After all, as Thompson carefully noted, well over two hundred mission stations had also been sacked during these troubles, sparked by what he dismissed as "heathen bands" unassociated with the society.82 It seems never to have occurred to him that disillusioned patriots among the Hova may have been avenging themselves on a perceived turncoat. In any case the episode was offered as proof that even the native population now lumped the LMS with the hated French regime. That regime, however, remained to be convinced. In February 1897 some Congregationalist missionaries were detained by French officials for allegedly preaching rebellion.83 In the meantime Roman Catholic agencies swiftly occupied those schools, churches, and hospitals temporarily abandoned by the LMS during the rebellion. The upshot was a series of appeals to Paris and the despatch of a delegation, headed by Thompson, to the colonial governor, General Gallieni. That soldier, who, ironically, would become the toast of Britain and France for his spirited defence of Paris in 1914, mixed courtliness with brutal candour. While saying that he had nothing personal against missionary societies, the general made it clear that he had been sent to Madagascar "to break British influence on the island." That meant, in so many words,, strict control over the activities of the LMS. Religious liberty, he assured the Thompson delegation, would be respected but the full letter of the law would be invoked to ensure that evangelists remained absolutely neutral in political matters.84 In practice this involved the careful licencing and close regulation of schools and churches, some, but not all, of which would be returned to the LMS. Some time later Gallieni argued that in view of mounting imperial tensions those institutions represented potential centres of local disaffection and as such would have to be carefully monitored.85 Meanwhile there was growing Catholic influence to contend with. After seizing Protestant property during the rebellion, Catholics were loathe to return it, and it suited the government to delay negotiations on the point. Furthermore British missionaries complained that there seemed to be no restriction on so-called political priests who proclaimed that one had to be Catholic to be a good citizen.86 In desperation the LMS and other Protestant societies slowly turned more and more of their work over to the Paris Missionary Society. That body, however, was too small to shoulder the burden and, besides, as time passed there were growing doubts about its loyalties. Several British evangelists, for example, noted that younger members of the Paris society were "bitterly^anti-English" and were wont to say that they had come to Madagascar "for France" rather than "for Christ."87 At least

23 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

one British missionary was convinced that under growing pressure, "the PMS [had] sold themselves to the French Government" in exchange for mission stations and schools.88 In any case by 1899, as the strain of rapid expansion became too onerous for them, the Paris group began to withdraw from country stations. But this, as the LMS realized, would open the door to a "Jesuit" take-over and prompted it to consider a possible reclamation of the posts. Sobered, however, by harsh experience, one resident Congregationalist missionary baulked at the thought. To do so, said J. Stribling, "would I believe be a decided mistake - rendering us far too prominent before the authorities, not to mention the priests."89 Standing back to survey gains and losses, Thompson put the best face he could on this frustrating battle for fair field and no favour. Before the annexation, he noted, the LMS boasted 1500 churches in Madagascar, the largest of all its fields. By 1898 that number had been starkly reduced to 670. This was, he mused in doubtless a rationalizing frame of mind, not wholly detrimental to the society's work. After all, those who were lost merely constituted the "outer fringe of people who are hangers on for fashion's sake." With perhaps all too little sympathy for confused people caught in the colonial vise, he argued that the "Malagasy are sad time-servers and Catholicism will be the popular fashionable religion with multitudes of them in the future." Still, Thompson did more than dispense evangelical sour grapes. He also clear-sightedly predicted a difficult future now that the LMS had "lost the prestige and social influence of being the Church of the aristocracy and the Court."90 Good citizenship, he suspected, would come hard in a French Madagascar and such, indeed, turned out to be the case. Thus the many-sided tensions there would not significantly abate until the outbreak of the Great War. In the meantime a strict free trading line was the only political option open to the LMS. But, though shrunken, the mission had survived in not insubstantial form. Not only this, the lessons learned on Madagascar were quickly assimilated and carefully applied when yet another vital field fell under the control of a major foreign power. By the 18905 Samoa had long since replaced Tahiti as the strategic heart of LMS operations in the Pacific. Of the 35,000 inhabitants of the island group, over 25,000 were adherents of the society. Moreover, since its foundation in the 18405, the Malua. Seminary had trained over 12,000 native pastors, many of whom had helped launch new missions as far afield as New Guinea.91 Though Samoa lay in the path of expanding colonial powers, the danger of confrontation was greatly reduced in 1889 by a tripartite agreement among Britain,

24 Good Citizens

Germany, and the United States that established a joint commission, a vague protectorate, over the islands. But if the powers had it in mind to "avoid" Samoa, they had not properly reckoned on local developments. The islanders, of Malay descent, were divided into clans frequently at odds with one another. Consequently, civil wars were endemic and the great power condominium did little to stifle their recurrence. By 1898 trouble was brewing again as a typical succession crisis loomed over the local kingship. Indeed Thompson had sensed the rising tension and as early as 1895 he quietly petitioned Lord Kimberley on the matter. Divided superintendence, he advised his lordship, only meant divided authority, which opened the door to continued factional disputes of the old sort. Condominium, he went on, was a well-intentioned scheme but experience was proving it unworkable. Dropping a timely hint, he informed Kimberley that the natives, if they could not have independence, would overwhelmingly prefer British annexation to that by other foreign states. He did not, however, push this notion very hard. Instead he simply offered this counsel to the foreign secretary: "In the interests of peace and good government it seems urgently necessary that we or another of the signatory powers should be entrusted by the others with the responsibility of effectively advising the native Government and securing the maintenance of law and order in all parts of the Islands."92 In fact, as was his habit, Thompson was soft-pedalling the reports and the aspirations of at least some of his colleagues on the scene. Perhaps, haunted by Tahiti and Mare and now totally frustrated by Madagascar, he was understandably growing jaded with Whitehall's behaviour. Confessing as much to veteran missionary John Mackenzie, he wrote privately to say that "I am perfectly sick of going to Governments about such matters, and am disposed to be content to let things work out their own way ... it is quite hopeless for outsiders to exert any real influence to check the course of events."93 Although referring to events in distant Bechuanaland, this cri de coeur speaks volumes about the spiritual attrition suffered by a committed free trader in that hectic imperial age. In any case Thompson's colleagues on the spot became very nervous indeed when the succession dispute issued in yet another Samoan civil war in January 1899. But there was now an added element. The whole matter, explained local British missionaries, was rendered both complex and dangerous by the open involvement of the German consul. That official had allegedly encouraged a pretender to the throne in defiance of the succession decree issued by an American chief justice appointed to settle the dispute. Not content with undip-

25 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

lomatically rejecting the decree, the German consul had gone even further by personally leading one of the rebel attacks.94 Meanwhile the LMS was charged with rigging the decree by pressuring the American justice to favour the "Protestant" candidate. Hints were even dropped that bribery could be linked with the payments made to lawyers who had briefed that law officer.95 The varied allegations made headlines as far away as Australia. Meanwhile, as British gunboats landed marines to protect the missions and the American judge, an explosive situation became even more so. At least one missionary drew an ominous parallel, as had Thompson, no doubt. "We appear," wrote Ebenezer Cooper, "to be standing just now in relation to Germany and Samoa as our colleagues were standing some time ago in relation to France and Madagascar and the very greatest caution is required even in the expressing of private opinion lest it may be construed into an expression indicating a definite policy and definite action."96 Personalities, however, as well as experience, differed. William Huckett, for one, had simply lost patience with what seemed to him an-all-too familiar, all-too-exasperating predicament. A long-time servant in Madagascar, he had only just transferred to Samoa when the civil war flared up. Tired out by the petty politics of the tropics generally, he ridiculed as a tea-pot tempest the "two hour" insurrection that was causing so much commotion in the islands. "Samoan wars," he mused sarcastically, "are as exciting as Madagascar persecutions."97 Bitterly disillusioned, he despaired of playing the good citizen in such a Byzantine atmosphere. "As a Society," he wrote a friend, "we have the same stock charges made against us - political intentions." While denying any overt involvement on the part of LMS missionaries, Huckett recognized none the less that literal and unadulterated neutrality was virtually impossible to maintain in the circumstances. "I suppose," he reflected bluntly, "to be honest, by our conversations, correspondence to officials, letters to friends which get published, there is the slightest colouring of truth in the charge. It's hypocritical to publish denials. I have seen and heard enough in Asia to convince any German that Protestant Englishmen and Americans are fond of dabbling in politics."98 Convinced that there would always be political criticism, no matter how carefully one stepped, Huckett generally lost faith in the politics of moral suasion. And when the powers dawdled over the situation, he lost both his temper and his confidence in politicians altogether. As the crisis deepened he increasingly spoke his mind and turned into something of a loose cannon on the local missionary ship. First, there were his "sarcastic" articles to the Australian press deriding

26 Good Citizens

politicians, European and Samoan alike." Then came his verbal jousts with Brother Forestier of the French Roman Catholic mission.100 Finally, he showed his full volatility when he reportedly appeared, revolver in hand, ready to defend non-combatants on his station against rebel attacks.101 When more serious fighting broke out in the spring, Huckett was beside himself. He pulled no punches in private, raging to Thompson that the interminable local wars had no high purpose whatsoever but were born merely of the native's egotism and greed. He also charged that they were routinely fanned by the great powers who sided with one faction or another for their own selfish interests and often with no consistency. Thus the Germans, he grumbled, were now backing a chief who ten years earlier had forcibly removed the heads of forty German sailors. Meanwhile, he went on, the same old intrigues continued as the "Jesuits" levelled accusation after accusation against the Protestants, hoping that one would stick. "They are," wrote Huckett, "the stock charges of the Catholics and always trotted out in such times as these." Impatient with the game, he advised Thompson that they "are not worth noting, when you can get, as I can, a layman to use the appropriate adjectives in description of both the lie and the liar." He ended on a ferocious note by supporting renewed shelling of the rebels by British and American gunboats. At the same time he assured LMS headquarters that the whole missionary community stood behind great-power intervention and was fervently praying for British annexation. The worst prospect, from Huckett's perspective, was a return to the status quo ante-bellum. "The Samoans," he fulminated, "have had too much milk and water slightly sugared; they want iron." Thus, he concluded, if the condominium were simply to be restored, then he wanted a transfer back to Madagascar.102 By this time Thompson was no doubt ready to oblige him. So, for that matter, was J.E. Newell, the long-serving leader of the Samoan mission. Newell was particularly edgy because it was he who had been the original target of German and Catholic criticisms of political intrusion. As Newell told the story, his "steps had been tracked night and day by agents of the R.C. mission ... and the German Consul," once the succession issue had erupted in November. When the American chief justice asked him, as senior missionary, for a general briefing on the social and political scene, the trackers had pounced and denunciations were broadcast.103 Anonymous death threats followed, this in spite of Newell's flat denial of wrongdoing.104 Whatever the truth of the matter, he was sufficiently alerted by the experience to become thereafter a model of moral suasion. As a result, during the fighting his hospitals and stations granted refuge to

27 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

the wounded and desperate of all sides, while turning away any who still bore arms.105 Simultaneously he strove to rein in the pyrotechnic Huckett. "His violent and cynical language," Newell understatedly confided to Thompson, "would seem to indicate a present inability to sympathize in any degree with the Samoans." Worse, it created serious problems for the native church, while damaging the mission's reputation for neutrality. Newell also strongly objected to Huckett's "close association ... with the officers of the ships of war," especially the forceful Captain Sturdee of HMS Porpoise, who had ordered the shelling of rebel forces. As well he took sharp exception to Huckett's description of neutrality as "white washing" and to his demand that the LMS stop "sitting on the fence."106 To Newell's relief other veteran missionaries stepped forward to support him. They pointed out that, new to the field, Huckett simply did not comprehend the complexity of Samoan affairs and, hence, was endangering the whole mission's future by asking his colleagues to declare openly for the "legitimate" claimant to the throne.107 As the affair lumbered on, Newell won overwhelming public backing for his policy of neutrality from both his colleagues in the field and those in London. The impact of the whole experience, in fact, was no more clearly registered than in that senior missionary's reaction to the tripartite commission's request for his views on the future of Samoa. "I replied," he told Thompson, "that it was precisely a request of this kind from the Chief Justice that had given rise to the charge that the LMS had caused the late war ..." Taking great care at this juncture, Newell agreed to meet with the commissioners, but only when summoned. He also refused to discuss specific issues, such as which chiefs should be deposed or crowned. Furthermore he kept extensive notes of all his discussions with the commission and passed these on to Mission House. After consulting widely with his colleagues, he met the commission but restricted himself carefully to general observations about Samoan customs, the old condominium, and the qualities that any governor of the islands ought to have. These issues, he thought, were "general enough for a missionary."108 When asked, as reigning local expert, to translate a new constitution into Samoan, Newell at first demurred but finally agreed so long as he was not asked to comment on its provisions.109 Obviously he was closely adhering to the requirements of mission citizenship. So, in fact, was the once-incendiary Huckett. Disciplined by strictures from headquarters and colleagues on the spot, he apologized to Thompson in writing for his impulsive letters and actions. Carefully avoiding print, he was also steering clear of potential public

a8 Good Citizens

entanglements. "I give the stores," he said, "a wider berth than I would a plague house: I am scarcely ever in the company of officials except by courtesy."110 In private, like many of his confreres, Huckett confidently expected a British annexation, though he was increasingly cautious about saying so. Meanwhile he disavowed all partisanship.111 Obviously Mission House was very concerned to preserve its reputation for neutrality. Indeed, in the wake of these events, it conducted an investigation of the charges levelled against it. In particular it sought out the testimony of naval officers present during the civil war. One comforting response came from A.W. Torlesse, commander of HMS Royalist, who assured Cousins that the charges were "not founded on any fact which came under my notice and whenever I came into communication with the missionaries, their conduct was always scrupulously correct."112 Captain Leslie C. Stuart of HMS Tauranga confirmed this impression. The allegations that the LMS had requested naval shelling of a Catholic church were dismissed as a fantasy "utterly without foundation." Further, Stuart pointed out what several missionaries had long stated: with Protestants and Catholics intermingling on both sides, the war could hardly be called a religious one. He concluded by noting that he was well aware of the LMS'S penchant for neutrality and accordingly "endeavoured to refrain from doing anything which might bring the missionaries into the controversy."113 In the end, though this and similar testimony was carefully stockpiled, it never had to be used. The tripartite commission dismissed the allegations against Newell out of hand, and he remained active in the islands for years, but not, as he had anticipated, as a subject of the Crown. In November 1899 the shock was palpable throughout the missionary community when Britain withdrew her Samoan claims and sanctioned a partition between Germany and the United States. From Mission House to Malua, all members of the LMS had operated on the assumption that the Union Jack would ultimately wave unchallenged where the society's influence was so preponderant. Once again, however, the divorce between imperial and religious priorities was driven home. To an appalled Ebenezer Cooper, this was "beyond all comprehension." Why, he asked, would Whitehall annex so many neighbouring archipelagoes and not this vitally important one in which so much British evangelical energy had been so fruitfully invested? When no answers readily came, he was driven to assume that the government must have felt some pressing need to conciliate Germany."4 No less taken aback was J.W. Sibree. He urged Mission House to move swiftly to extract a decree of religious toleration from

29 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

Germany.115 And a reactivated Huckett, his blood again at the boil, predicted mass native migrations to Fiji.116 This was, however, only alarmist talk for, by and large, British missionaries soon reconciled themselves to this turn of events. Lizzie Moore, while confessing that "it has taken our breath away," rejoiced that strong and clear authority would at last prevail in the islands and that it was a "Christian and Protestant nation which [was] to have control.. .""7 Indeed this was to be the LMS line right up to 1914. After all, peace and order were the prime requisites and to most it seemed plain that a "great Protestant nation" like Germany could provide all that was needed in that regard.118 Even the mercurial Huckett calmed down and adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Much, he admitted, would depend on the first governor, who, if he were "Catholic, or anti-English, or too Deutschy/' might well cause problems. After annexation, however, Huckett was pleased to find that "the Germans here are more civil than they were and give us every encouragement as to non-interference in religious matters by the government that is to be."119 The Anglo-German accord on religious toleration in the Pacific, which was signed in 1886, cushioned the blow of annexation. By 1903, minor difficulties aside, LMS agents in Samoa confessed themselves perfectly comfortable in the role of good German and American citizens.120 The LMS, of course, was not the only British missionary society operating on ground held by European empires. Such, indeed, was virtually the common lot. But reactions to this differed. Thus, in its showpiece African mission, the BMS, also in pursuit of fair field and no favour, had no initial qualms about consorting intimately with its local colonial overlord, Leopold II of Belgium, who had founded the Congo or Independent Free State after Britain declined to add the region to her other African holdings. Envious of his neighbours' success in carving out tropical empires, Leopold had eagerly set about establishing his own personal fief in Central Africa, for which he gained international recognition at the Berlin West Africa Conference in 1885.121 As if good timing were everything, just when the BMS was looking for new fields to conquer the reputedly humanitarian Leopold invited it to help civilize the Congo through its mission "enterprise." An enthusiastic secretary A.H. Baynes promptly sent an information kit to the monarch, who reciprocated by ordering a subscription to the Missionary Herald.122 When Grenfell and Comber duly set out to establish a Congo bridgehead for the BMS in the late 18705, they consciously built on the David Livingstone legacy. As well they appropriately capitalized on

30 Good Citizens

the exploration work of the missionary's "discoverer," H.M. Stanley, who was now in Leopold's employ. But for Stanley's exertions and inspiration as a trail-blazer in Central Africa, said a grateful society in 1885, their Congo Mission could neither have been launched nor enabled to establish a string of stations into the far interior.123 Just as crucial, of course, were the evangelizing opportunities afforded by Leopold and the servants of the CFS. Yet the BMS and state officials knew full well that a contractual reciprocity was involved. The former was obliged to forgo trading and political activity, neither of which it had contemplated anyway, as the society's irritated treasurer and stalwart defender of good citizenship pointed out.124 More importantly, the BMS was required to extend the limits of civilization and help unravel the Congo's many geographical mysteries.125 Indeed if Stanley's own musings were on target, the society was called upon to assist in a daunting task. It amounted, according to one study, to nullifying through large-scale commercial and evangelical undertakings what many Europeans of a metaphysical turn of mind saw as a disturbingly alien void in Central Africa.126 Or, to put it another way, its African inhabitants, perceived as hopelessly degraded and degenerate, were seized upon as an excuse for Europe's civilizing intervention and colonial rule, a justificatory notion of which the expansionist Leopold made full use.127 In pursuit of its goals the CFS clearly expected the BMS to live up to its part of the bargain. The BMS was often requested, for instance, to make available its steel steamer Peace, which had been put on the Congo through the generosity of Robert Arthington, a Quaker benefactor to both the society and the LMS. Though a dedicated pacifist, Arthington could also be a patriot. He had stipulated that should the vessel be loaned out for secular purposes she must never be used by the military nor fly any flag but the Union Jack. A sympathetic member of the mission, W.H. Bentley, who was caught uncomfortably between the dictates of spiritual free trade and his own patriotic urges, remarked that "the natives up River understand what a flag means. It is very important that we as a Mission preserve our individuality. "128 But CFS officials sometimes failed to honour these conditions, including the flying of the flag, much to the society's chagrin and Arthington's outrage. All the same, Baynes may have created the impression that he would have been more flexible than the philanthropist had he had sole control of the Peace.,129 Throughout their Congo experience Baptists were also well aware that the authorities were constantly under pressure to favour coreligionist Roman Catholic missions. Grenfell, the BMS'S man on the spot and its principal missionary-explorer, deployed the customary

31 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

military metaphor when he made the following sombre observation in 1902: We are face to face with forces which aim at minimizing our influence at every possible point. In any country such opposition would be a serious factor, but in the Congo State, where RC Missionaries] have the active support of the Government, it constitutes a difficulty which people in a really free country cannot understand [but] ... we have every confidence in the weapons of our warfare ... The weapon upon which we rely is "The Word," & this unfortunately for themselves and Christianity, the RCS seem afraid to wield ...13°

Over time, in spite of the obstacles, that confidence was rewarded. Bentley rejoiced that in one district at least "bullying and blundering" Catholic missions were making little or no headway and were enraged by the Baptists' success.131 Apparently CFS bureaucrats were upset as well, for the simple reason, as Grenfell put it, that "Evangelical Christianity does not breed the dumb cattle beloved of officialdom. "132 Though all this gave rise to certain misgivings, the BMS was comforted by Leopold's energy and idealism, short-lived though the latter was, and was prepared to pin its faith on his assurances of support and his pledge to bring civilized law and order to his patch of Central Africa. And so long as he gave the appearance at least of embracing humanitarian principles the BMS was more than willing to sing his praises and minimize the supposedly isolated sins of his officers in Central Africa. Thus, when the CFS made its international debut, the society grandly sent off to Leopold an ornate address of congratulations, "illuminated upon vellum, mounted upon rollers of African ivory, and enclosed in a very choice and artistic casket."133 Indeed Baynes left little to chance and periodically visited Brussels to lubricate the relationship with Leopold and the officials selected for duty in the Congo. The approach, he shrewdly remarked, "cannot fail to be of advantage in the future."134 All the same, Baynes was advised early on that Leopold's grandiose plans were being funded on the comparative cheap, so much so that in late 1885 a pessimistic Grenfell thought the "whole thing [would] collapse" unless more revenue were poured into it.135 Ever wary, however, he gave no hint of his feelings to the Belgian monarch or his agents. In the event, the venture did not succumb for want of capital. Meanwhile the BMS, in spite of earlier misgivings, showed little outward concern when their servants in Central Africa occasionally assumed part-time political duties. Even though this contravened the original contract with the state, the latter agreed to it in the hope

32 Good Citizens

perhaps of storing up points for a return favour. In any case, in 1893, Grenfell was given the go-ahead to become an honorary British proconsul on the Upper Congo, though, to be sure, on a temporary basis only.136 More importantly, with his society's sanction he also entered the CFS'S own employ when he agreed to serve on a commission charged with the responsibility of settling the boundary between the state and Portuguese Angola. To help justify the undertaking in his own mind, this missionary-geographer, ever eager to extend the mission's frontiers, wondered if it was "the Lord showing us a way inland."137 A confidant anticipated the home committee's approval though he admitted that "some would cry it down as not in our line."138 The doubters were obviously appeased for the committee speedily recognized the "great importance" of the assignment and Grenfell's "singular capacity" to carry it out.139 But even if headquarters put its seal of approval on his becoming a virtual civil servant of a foreign power, they were not so enthused about his ambitious territorial plans. In the late i88os, for example, Baynes wanted the mission to pull in its imperial horns and concentrate on stations already occupied.140 Grenfell was loathe to tread any such path. Like any proconsul on the Empire's frontiers, he was impatient with attempts by a cautious metropolis to rein in what he perceived to be a wholly creditable forward policy. Indeed he bluntly described such a move as an "absurd reversal" of the BMS'S original intentions.141 He could also indulge in a little blackmail. "[If] the Society," he wrote Baynes in typical military vein, "has decided to call the flag back instead of bringing the men up to the flag, the sooner you sound the recall & begin to reorganize the better. We can't continue as we are, it is either advance or retreat, but if it is retreat, you must not count upon me - I will be no party to it, and you will have to do without me ... my heart is hot within me ... "142 Usually such tactics worked and the almost indispensable Grenfell got his way. With respect to the boundary investigations, however, he did assure an apprehensive Baynes that he would neither sanction nor engage in any warlike operations that might result.143 Though the work was arduous it proved withal a heady experience. During his official visitation to Angola, for example, he was, if not wined, at least dined in sumptuous fashion and to boot given what passed for luxurious accommodations. In short, he told Baynes, he was generally made "much fuss of," though he wistfully conceded that he was not "to the 'manner born'" for such a wholly unexpected reception.144 While thus engaged Grenfell also had his expenses and other financial requirements met by the CFS, as agreed to by his society.145

33 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

In view of all this it should come as no surprise perhaps that the same Grenfell became annoyed and defensive when angry critics of the CFS drew attention to its aggressive commercial projects and how they were riding roughshod over the native Congolese. "I do not feel called upon/' the offended Grenfell reacted, "to publicly question the action of the [Congo Free] State - our difficulties are serious enough without having the whole weight of officialdom against us, and I feel sure that mere criticism would effect nothing more than our own embarrassment."146 Always reticent about pointing the finger at the state, he later downplayed charges that the Congolese were being cheated on their wages or otherwise defrauded. "The great difficulty in this matter," he tried to convince himself and Baynes, "arises from the fact that the native much prefers his 'leisured ease' to anything like regular work, notwithstanding it may be rewarded by wages."147 He also challenged the truthfulness of some African reports of maltreatment, remarking that "I know of several instances where by giving a very one sided version of ... an affair the natives have induced missionaries to take steps they have afterwards deeply regretted."148 As for the serious difficulties he mentioned, he could have begun with the high missionary mortality rate, which often exceeded the recruitment influx.149 Perennial understaffing, metropolitan cost cutting/50 and troubled relations with unreceptive African communities could have been added to the list. Among the most unreceptive were cannibals whom Grenfell out of Christian charity was content to describe "as not nice people,"151 an understatement that would have offended many of his fellow Victorians who regarded cannibalism as the ultimate moral horror. Sometimes open confrontations with native Africans went beyond name-calling and hostile gestures. In some instances the missionary's life was literally on the line, doubtless making him feel an even stronger kinship with the CFS soldiers doing battle with "savage lawlessness." In one ugly Congo incident Comber was shot and seriously wounded when his party was attacked by a hostile ruler and his followers.152 Again, a distressed Grenfell reported that on one expedition he had been forced to fire on natives who attacked the Peace, regrettably killing one. An equally distressed Home Committee, while judging the incident unavoidable, fretted over the necessity of arming at all these supposedly peaceable servants of the gospel. The upshot was that the committee urged that extraordinary caution and prudence henceforth govern all visits to unexplored territories.153 At the same time, with an anxious eye to the squeamish, it suppressed Grenfell's account of the shooting when the Missionary Herald published his report of the expedition.154

34 Good Citizens

Just as disquieting were the recurring squabbles with state bureaucrats. They sometimes accused British missionaries of being in the paid service of Whitehall or at the very least a grave threat to Catholic missions. As if on cue a Jesuit journal reproached the BMS for allegedly undermining Belgian interests and urged that the society be dealt with accordingly. After all, the editor argued, if the roles were reversed and Belgian missionaries in India put their country before England they would be promptly expelled.155 In another instance one otherwise friendly official reluctantly admitted that he and many of his colleagues were simply afraid of the missionary's prying ways.156 But whenever BMS agents were accused of seeking some political advantage for Britain or otherwise acting irregularly it was thought best for them to ignore the issue and simply turn their attention to other matters, all the while protesting their good citizenship.157 In spite or because of the strategy, state servants often carried out an obstructionist "personal policy" against the mission - such as impeding the movements of the Peace - usually without fear of being censured by distant superiors. Grenfell was thus made acutely aware that farflung mission stations were often abjectly dependent for their very survival on the unpredictable whims of local bureaucrats.158 Therefore the last thing Grenfell wanted was to complicate life even more by upbraiding the higher echelons of the CFS. And he was anxious, indeed overly anxious at times, that missionaries always observe the proper form when addressing such dignitaries. Proper form aside, some missionaries resented the time taken up by the "mechanical work" that often had to be done on behalf of the state, time that could have been better spent on evangelizing.159 But Grenfell had little patience with such griping. Moreover he went out of his way to lecture one outspoken agent on the need to avoid the "blunt John Bullism" that gave offence to Continental neighbours.160 Significantly, the agent in question was one J.H. Weeks, who would later offer his own damning testimony on the Congo's labour abuses. Revealingly, Bentley may have had Weeks in mind when he too complained that otherwise "good men" often had no "sense of the importance of keeping on good terms with the state."161 In turn these "good men" might well have agreed with a future historian's verdict that the leaders of the Congo Mission were sometimes "indecently" supportive of the CFS.162 In any case Grenfell's jumpiness on the subject led him to suggest a form of censorship, which even he conceded might border on the unthinkable. Fearing that the home press might be fed prejudiced or misinformed reports, he wondered if Baynes could request that Congo agents refrain from criticizing the CFS except in letters addressed directly to the secretary and the committee.163 Baynes re-

35 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

sponded favourably. A short time before, Grenfell was even prepared to explain away the atrocities that so enraged Weeks. In effect he attributed them to weaknesses in the Congo's administrative structure that enabled odious "Kurtzes" to operate with virtual impunity and to put the mission itself at risk. "Even British discipline/' he offered by way of excuse, "is not equal to keeping our own men to bounds when blood is up, and 'the powers that be/ here on the Congo, are so far removed from the field of action that [their] men are practically uncontrolled and it is not wonderful that they lapse into 'atrocities.'"164 At any rate, given the mission's self-imposed restraints, a harried Grenfell should not have been surprised that many missionaries were less than candid about the actual state of things in the Congo.165 This statement, a kind of leitmotif, serves to sum up the dilemma facing the Congo Mission throughout. To be unflinchingly forthright about the ruthless exploitation of native labour, for example, was considered out of the question. After all, such outspokenness would lead immediately to the forced retreat from this flagship mission under pressure from aggrieved authorities and concessionaires. Thus, even in the Congo where it had been positively embraced at the outset, good citizenship was essentially obliged to cloak itself in expediency. This course of action ultimately backfired, as the mission fell into international disrepute following the exposure of Leopold's odious labour regime. Patently, in Samoa, Madagascar, the Congo, and other places beyond Whitehall's reach, good citizenship required a delicate hand and even then could prove problematic. There was, however, greater scope for political expression within the frontiers of Greater Britain and the customary restraint occasionally reached its limits. Thus, on formal or informal British soil, English missionaries were more prone to wax political from time to time, notwithstanding the frequent displeasure of Her Majesty's officials. Polynesian kidnapping and the opium traffic, for example, were always deemed fair game for missionary comment. The same held true for the "evils" of prostitution. Accordingly in 1887 LMS leaders had no compunction in denouncing government proposals to screen women working garrison towns in India. After all, they reasoned, it was the simple duty of every Christian to oppose anything that would "bring the State into complicity with sin."166 Missionaries also took aim at those in high imperial places who gave their blessing to dubious festivities that put the public authority in a bad light. For example the Archbishop of Canterbury was informed by an outraged SPG agent of a military ball in India at which the men were draped as "Devils" and the ladies as "Angels." The matter, he

36 Good Citizens

was advised, was "noticed in many papers and it seems not a few persons have been pained at the exhibition/'167 At times, moreover, even the most cautious missionary could be moved to dabble in high politics, as was the case certainly when Thompson tangled with Cecil Rhodes over the fate of Bechuanaland. There was, of course, nothing new about mission politicking in South Africa. From the earliest days of the century, agents such as John Philip and Robert Moffat had been sharp thorns in the side of local colonizers.168 From the 18703 on their mantle had fallen on Mackenzie ++ + , outspoken LMS champion of native rights in Bechuanaland. Notwithstanding the criticism of home organizers, for the next two decades the feisty Mackenzie repeatedly lashed out against landhungry and what he saw as morally deficient Cape and Transvaal interests. Convinced finally that only imperial protection could ward off aggressive settlers, in 1884 he r esigned from the LMS to assume the post of British Deputy Commisioner to negotiate the terms of a protectorate over the region. But his strong views quickly alienated various factions at the Cape, forcing him rudely from office and back into missionary harness. Still, his efforts had succeeded in blocking the formal annexation so favoured by Rhodes and other expansionists in Cape Town.169 Thus, for the moment at least, Bechuanaland was absorbed into the Empire not as a settler colony but as a protectorate under the Crown armed with numerous guarantees against outside interference. A potential link in Rhodes's grandiose Cape-to-Cairo scheme, Bechuanaland was equally crucial to the LMS. With most of its Cape stations now self-supporting congregations, the society for some time had concentrated its efforts in the far interior. By the 18903 some headway was being made in Matabeleland while an embattled bridgehead was hanging on in Central Africa. In the meantime real fruits were being reaped among the Bechuana, especially within Chief Khama's domain. Converted during the 18603 in the heat of a civil war, this astute leader of the Bamangwato threw in his lot with LMS missionaries and drew on their perceived influence in Britain to help bolster his prestige and bargaining position.170 In neat symbiotic fashion missionaries swiftly used this court conversion to advance their own cause. After Khama outlawed strong drink and refused to subsidize the otherwise tolerated traditional religion, he was touted by his mission admirers as symbolic of all that Christianity hoped to achieve in southern Africa. If he sometimes interfered in church affairs, this was set down to his authoritarian heritage and profoundly Christian enthusiasms. In any case for the LMS his dominion was the strategic focal point of its late-nineteenthcentury South African enterprise.

37 Politics of Spiritual Free Trade

It was in that context that Congregationalists welcomed in the early 18905 the victory of the British South Africa Company's private militia over Lobengula of the Matabele. An effective barrier to missionary expansion, the Bantu king had also been Khama's sworn foe. But as contexts altered, so did perspectives. When in 1894 the company urged the Crown to transfer the Bechuanaland Protectorate to its care, Mission House recoiled in horror. Loudly proclaiming its desire to avoid political interference "except where absolutely necessary," the society waded hip deep into a growing public controversy. A thoroughly agitated Thompson, well aware of Rhodes's general intentions, led the charge. In bold print he asked how any self-respecting government could even consider putting guardianship over a protected people in the hands of a notoriously greedy corporation comprising "a remarkable combination of dukes and stock-jobbers."171 When in spite of his remonstrances the Colonial Office granted the company's wishes in southern Bechuanaland and confessed itself sympathetic with respect to the north, Thompson could only rumble that this constituted "a very humbling chapter in Imperial politics."172 That fall, as Khama and two fellow chiefs arrived in London to plead their case, Mission House pulled out all the political stops. Closely advised by W.C. Willoughby, missionary to the northern tribes, Thompson served as intermediary between the chiefs and Whitehall.173 Acting as a virtual impresario, the secretary helped to stage public appearances at which Khama, decked out in European garb, delivered both diatribes against sin and highly charged proclamations of loyalty to the Crown.174 Moreover, in sharp contrast to the Madagascar affair, LMS supporters were fervently implored to whip up public opinion and to lobby persons of influence irrespective of party.175 In the meantime, behind the scenes, Thompson and Willoughby laboured to mollify Khama, whose frustration and intransigence over delays mounted daily.176 By November, as Whitehall bent to growing pressure and the company signalled its willingness to compromise with the northern chiefs, Thompson feverishly sought a way out of the morass. Acutely aware of Khama's sensibilities, he cobbled together a suggestion born of company proposals and some hints from Willoughby. The company, it appeared, was ready to recognize chiefly authority in reserve lands under the protection of an imperial officer. Fine-tuning this approach, Thompson wrote quietly to the Colonial Office that while Khama would no longer even talk with the company, he would readily concede all that it asked for directly to the Crown. Thus, he ventured that if the government dealt directly with the chiefs in the first instance, it might later transfer non-reserved lands to the

38 Good Citizens

company and thereby secure the basic interests of all parties. The proposal, Thompson admitted, was more symbolic than substantial in nature. Yet that, he argued, was the essential point. It offered escape from a minefield sown with painful antipathies. While he had yet to raise the idea with the chiefs, the LMS secretary was confident that they would accept any plan that left them direct wards of the queen.177 In this he proved correct as the suggestion won swift approval all round. Almost as quickly, however, the complex exercise was overtaken by events. Within months, the ill-conceived Jameson Raid left Whitehall seething with embarrassment and consternation. Rhodes, cashiered as premier of the Cape, was also stripped of his Bechuanaland concessions. Even so, the abortive episode was highly revealing. For one thing it illustrated that political reticence did not mean political naivety. After all it was Rhodes and not Thompson who finally overplayed his hand. Furthermore the Bechuana agitation demonstrated how public appeals to missionary values could, under proper circumstances, sway a government from its preferred course. Rosebery, for one, understood this clearly enough, as his carefully orchestrated annexation of Uganda made clear that same year.178 Beyond all this, the affair underscored the fact that, as Venn had suggested, there were few absolutes in missions' dealings with Caesar. Therefore the meaning of political neutrality depended very much on context. On foreign soil it frequently implied abstention from public comment altogether. Under the Union Jack, however, it often meant little more than avoiding party entanglements and official involvement in matters unrelated to missions. Moreover in the heady 18905 with talk of a rising Nonconformist Conscience, the evangelization of the world in one generation, and imperial scrambles galore, religion and politics for many grew increasingly indistinguishable. As for the ever-broadening Empire itself, even some of the most free trading of missionaries seemed able to view it as a morally acceptable and even positive instrument, one useful for curbing the worst effects of uncontrolled land hunger and "stock-jobbing" on the frontier. It was but a short step to perceiving Greater Britain as a tool providentially designed to hasten the hour of redemption.

2 "God's Greater Britain "

According to J.A. Hobson it had been a short step from the muscular religiosity of the previous generation to the "Imperial Christianity" he denounced in 1902. The jaded political economist set this down to "a lie in the soul" whereby well-meaning but deluded missionaries conflated the sacred and the profane as they fell victim to imperial "kilometritis."1 While a caricature of some missionary thinking, the observation vividly underscores the evangelical community's rising consciousness of empire, particularly between the Golden Jubilee and the South African War. Indeed a growing number of missionaries found positive connections between their own endeavours and those of the empire builders. But such reflections should occasion no surprise. After all, one of the chief rationales for defending missions was that Britain's spiritual life, tainted by decades of domestic materialism, could only be reanimated by the example of Christianity Triumphant overseas. "It is not of much consequence to ask," as the Baptists' C.H. Spurgeon put it, "will the heathen be saved without the Gospel? The question is, will we be saved if we do not send them the Gospel?"2 It was just a blunter way of saying that the conversion of the outer world was essential to sparking the respiritualization of the eroded Christian core. In the mid-i88os that very prospect seemed at hand for the gratified Home Committee of the CMS. Their sensors detected a "wave of Missionary interest that was re-Christianizing England and carrying her forward to assume more responsibilities for the heathen overseas."3 Some years later the CMS was pleased that its Younger Clergy

40 Good Citizens

Union was vigorously attempting to kindle interest in missions amongst indifferent London colleagues.4 And inspired in part by the church's Keswick Convention, which had been promoting a campaign of "practical holiness," the society saw the wisdom not only of courting gentlemen for its service but of recruiting working people who showed an equal devotion to the cause of winning souls overseas.5 Its sister organization, the SPG, also described the impulse to evangelization as nationwide and "classless," in the sense that its own active Working Men's Association was emphasizing the mission role it wished to play in close conjunction with other sectors of society.6 Meanwhile the Congo's George Grenfell saw the issue from another perspective. He went so far as to predict that Africa, the once Dark Continent now being illuminated by the gospel, would ultimately prove the "spiritual conservatory of the world" to which a jaded Europe would have to resort if it wished to recover the basic elements of its faith.7 On these grounds it was self-evident to many that capturing the soul of an expanding British world-state would be no mean beginning on the journey to global evangelization. The SPG, for example, was now in the habit of publicly stressing what had once been taken for granted, that it conscientiously despatched its agents "whithersoever the sons of the Empire had gone forth to colonize."8 In some minds, therefore, a bridge could easily be built between secular and religious expansionism. Many, moreover, were prepared to cross it partly because a mounting sense of urgency impelled them to find shortcuts to the evangelization of the world in one generation. Eschatology, accordingly, often served to feed imperial enthusiasms. The whole process, of course, was facilitated by the fact that the discourse of empire had, among other features, a powerful, quasireligious undertone that fairly begged for appropriation by the missionary camp.9 In the heady 18905 such language enjoyed a cachet among the elite and the common mass alike, ironically at a time marked by a sliding commitment to conventional church-going piety. But missions, understandably quick to seize any advantage, speedily borrowed that discourse, whatever its provenance, and made it very much a part of their own as they proceeded to integrate their epic accounts into the imperial literature of the day.10 In any event by the time Hobson took up his pen, there was sufficient figurative and literal evidence of Imperial Christianity to warrant universal attention. Those who proclaimed the advent of this particular species of Christianity drew on well-established themes. Indeed they merely adapted one of the oldest leitmotifs in imperial thought. This was the tendency to distinguish between undifferentiated, amoral expansion

41 "God's Greater Britain"

and a higher "true imperialism." The latter's features had varied considerably, depending on time and speaker. Edmund Burke, for example, had defined a largely secular doctrine of trusteeship. MidVictorians, on the other hand, insisted on the unity of Christianity, commerce, and civilization as they set about fashioning a more comprehensive imperial ethic. Given its flexibility, the malleable concept of true imperialism could accommodate even notorious skeptics such as Richard Cobden, John Bright, and William Gladstone. Rejecting "mere dependencies," they retained some enthusiasm for "true colonies" in which British civilization as a whole could take genuine root. Altogether, "true" empire building, which always involved the fulfilment of some kind of trust, had long demonstrated its capacity to inspire even those deeply suspicious of run-of-the-mill imperial ventures. Missionaries, needless to say, had often found the concept appealing. In the late-Victorian period, however, they turned to it with a greater sense of urgency. Indeed as overseas expansion neared its zenith so did missionary enthusiasm for their long-cherished form of pure imperialism. Little wonder in these circumstances that the SPG in 1899 pointedly entitled its bicentennial history "The Spiritual Expansion of the Empire."11 The BMS sounded the same note when it urged that a new map of Central Africa showing not only the customary political divisions but the location of all mission stations be hung in every schoolroom.12 Meanwhile, defining the missionary version of legitimate empire was easy enough. It was identified with Christian outreach, pure and simple. Although they could at times embrace the great trinity of Christianity, commerce, and civilization, there was never any doubt in mission circles that the first of these elements took precedence. Thus although an Eastern missionary conceded that commerce had played a vital civilizing role, it should be a "point of honour," he insisted, for all colonizing powers to pursue goals that would also enhance the vital spiritual endeavours of the missionary.13 He and most of his colleagues were, after all, only too aware that from time to time commercial interests and "civilizing" influences could seriously collide with evangelical imperatives. Voicing a missionary truism in 1899, one church journal, after detailing the various kinds of imperialism, concluded that the only one worthy of pursuit was that which sought "to plead the standard of Christian truth" wherever the empire held sway.14 Seeing it in this light, even spiritual free trader R.W. Thompson could occasionally wax lyrical about a "Grander England." This was, of course, the England of faith and conscience, the kernel from which the genuine article of empire sprang. Its foremost

42 Good Citizens

emissary was the missionary, the "embodiment of conscience, as a standard of duty, as a great example of what a man who loves empire ought to be in the empire he controls."15 Thompson it seems was content to play the role of moral exemplar. Others, however, called for the more active promotion of true imperialism and displayed impatience with those who failed to share their vision. Some missionaries, for example, noted the publication of John Robert Seeley's Expansion of England with decidedly mixed feelings. Granted, many responded sympathetically to the sheer sweep of those pages. There was also acclaim for Seeley's repudiation of the crass jingoism of the day, which, unhappily, disfigured even the occasional missionary report, like the following from a touring SPG agent in India: "Delhi, Cawnpore & Lucknow were the great centres of the [Indian] Mutiny & now we have seen, & seen thoroly [sic], the three. Never before did Hindoo & Muhammedan learn of what stuff an Englishman is made as they learned then. They have yet to learn, but as surely will do so, of what stuff the Englishman's Religion is made."16 On the other hand, the problem of jingoism aside, there was marked impatience with Seeley's purely rationalistic approach to empire building. It painfully reminded aggrieved evangelicals, particularly the more conservative, of the way his Ecce Homo had sought to humanize Jesus and downplay the pursuit of man's salvation.17 In a comparable way the Expansion of England disavowed teleology, providential and racial destiny, pomp, circumstance, and hagiography. Instead it coolly and clinically charted the eminently practical factors that had propelled Britain's rise to world power. All the while Seeley advised his compatriots to eschew hubris if they would maintain empire in an intensely competitive age.18 Criticizing romantic visionaries of every stripe, he was no doubt surprised to find those very people selectively embracing his words while ignoring his central argument.19 One such visionary brought out a fulsome handbook to the history of Greater Britain, which, while ostensibly indebted to the Expansion of England, still set out to show the Empire "in all its stages from acorn to oak as an organic whole ... nourished in every leaf by the same springing sap of British blood."20 In these circumstances a bemused Seeley might well have welcomed those who at least tackled him forthrightly on his own ground. Such a one was missionary advocate J.F.T. Hallowes of Barnsley, who eagerly reviewed the Expansion of England. No temporizer he, Hallowes described it as informative enough but deeply flawed and affording "no recognition of God in history, or [of] a Divine idea dominating events." Announcing a counter thesis, he proclaimed: "I believe, then, that it is God who has permitted the

43 "God's Greater Britain"

expansion of England and has prevented her from contracting again after the manner of other world states for reasons pertaining to the expansion of another Kingdom." Going further he edged towards spiritual jingoism when he described Anglo-Saxons as a chosen people who espoused the "purest form of Christianity current in the world." This, he concluded, was the rock-solid foundation upon which the Empire could securely rest.21 At the turn of the century a Baptist publication also hopped on the bandwagon but went an extra mile by lauding the growing harmony, spiritual and otherwise, between those twin guardians of the Anglo-Saxon Christian world, the "Motherland" and the United States.22 It goes without saying that missionaries were professionally committed to Hallowes's providential view of history. Fewer and fewer, however, shared his somewhat complacent attitude to the immediate future. In fact the anxiety latent in the work of Seeley and J.A. Froude and in Rudyard Kipling's later "Recessional" was often given a spiritual gloss by late-Victorian missionaries. Rising international tensions, ominous arms races, and cutthroat competition for overseas markets concerned them almost as much as they did secular policy makers. But to these problems evangelicals appended an ever-lengthening list of portents that gave eschatological urgency to the sombre trends of the day. Rampant "materialism" was one such. Another was what a saddened Methodist called "ethical lethargy."23 Symptoms of these were said to be reflected in stagnating church donations and in declining male enlistments in mission ranks.24 When to this were added the various scrambles for territory among increasingly "de-spiritualized" Western powers, fears intensified lest commerce and what passed for civilization leave the gospel trailing in their wake on the evangelical frontier.25 Where some missionaries saw a crisis looming in Central Africa, even more saw the teeming Far East as the focal point of decisive confrontation. It would come, they prophesied, not only between Christianity and its established religious rivals, but even more menacingly between the Cross and Western materialism. The prospect that China might be engulfed by the West's greedy industrial needs caused no end of misgivings in mission quarters. Again, the "frightful" possibility that a China moved by "pagan impulses" might opt for variants of Western civilization unleavened by "God and Christ" was also a haunting spectre.26 To be sure, some missionaries urged China to acquire an industrial infrastructure and an educational system based on Western models that would enhance its standing and self-esteem. They cautioned, however, that such modernization should only unfold under dynamic Christian auspices.27 At no time, the BMS'S

44 Good Citizens

Timothy Richard admonished, should the moral and the spiritual be outshone by the admittedly "brilliant wonders of modern material civilization."28 The same concerns were expressed for India. Not only should the subcontinent be given the "rich secular gifts of the West," an SPG missionary wrote, but "our religion" as well, otherwise "our gifts are to prove their destruction."29 This view from the front lines was strongly backed by leading theologians in the rear. For example the German scholar Adolf Harnack proclaimed that "alongside the powerful mission which our technical science and trade carry on all over the globe, must go the mission of the knowledge of God, of Christian virtues and Christian civilization."30 Small wonder, then, given the problems they faced in Asia and elsewhere, that evangelicals were in a pronounced eschatological mood. One response to the challenge was to redouble old efforts. Thus, in the late i88os and early 18905, several missionary societies launched "forward movements." The CMS, for example, almost doubled its complement of missionaries between 1887 and 1894, and managed in one year to raise £20,000 more than in any other over its long career.31 At the turn of the century Baptists reported breathlessly that thanks to such fund-raising movements the number of their Indian converts had increased tenfold over the past forty years, to some 350,000. Moreover in spite of unforeseen expenses resources had been found to double their male missionary force in the subcontinent to over seventy. The BMS'S China figures for that span were proportionately even better, soaring from a mere two to a heavenly thirty-six.32 Catching a similar fever at the LMS, Thompson "sounded the advance" in 1891, confident that an aggressive policy was not only warranted but, echoing the convictions of other societies, would actually serve as a much-longed-for tonic for the home churches. LMS organizers sensed a "beautiful readiness" throughout the four thousand British congregations, this despite the fact that the society was at that moment mired in debt.33 While a few cautious directors urged business-like prudence, Thompson's presence and fiery rhetoric won the day34 Mission House accordingly committed itself to placing fully a hundred more missionaries in the field by 1895. In a burst of enthusiasm, well-wishers trusted that where the work was so plainly revealed, God would inevitably provide the means to its accomplishment.35 By 1895 some of these ambitious hopes had, to be sure, been fulfilled, but flagging resources led to the termination of the scheme. Still, this and other forward movements offered resounding testimony to the quickened spirit of the hour, captured in a zealous Methodist's observation that the "great characteristic of the present missionary age ... in the last

45 "God's Greater Britain"

decade of the nineteenth century ... is this: open doors [and] the opportunity of all the ages."36 It was not coincidental then that this general mood also found expression in a growing desire, in some missionary quarters at least, to co-opt empire more directly into evangelical service. With entire continents facing partition and in spite of, say, the best efforts of the BMS in China, there seemed little choice other than to leave whole peoples to the mercies of unbridled Western materialism. France Overseas might be expected to carry official atheism and unofficial Romanism wherever she went, but surely, evangelicals held, Greater Britain had a higher mission, and this message they conveyed in a variety of ways. There were, for example, appeals to enlightened self-interest. Speaking to an appreciative mission audience in 1899, Lord Reay, former governor of Bombay, put the case succinctly. "Asked if I believe in the continuity of our Empire," he said, "I give as an answer that that entirely depends whether England will remain faithful to spiritual Christianity."37 Another titled luminary, Lord Cranborne, eldest son of Lord Salisbury, the prime minister, gave the notion a more optimistic twist when he appeared before a receptive CMS centenary meeting the same year. Asking if the empire could be justified, he answered, "only upon one consideration: only because we believe that ... we are able to confer benefits upon subject populations greater than it has been given by God to any other nation to be able to afford; and it is only because we know that in the train of the British Government comes the preaching of the Church of Christ that we are able to defend the Empire of which we are so proud."38 A skeptical prelate who happened to be present refused to be swept along in the current of enthusiasm. The Bishop of Worcester allowed: "I would not ... say a word which would seem to cast a chill on the warm glow of patriotism or to speak slightingly of all those temporal advantages by which our beloved country is distinguished amongst the nations of the earth ... the heart of this Metropolis [London] which ... in its overflowing wealth, its world-wide commerce, and its social framework represents, as in a luminous focus, all the power and opulence and majesty of this great Empire." But he then added a disclaimer: "Let us acknowledge this not in any boastful spirit but in fear and trembling." Indeed that course must be followed, he admonished his listeners, in the sure knowledge that "national greatness and glory" was at best only "a light thing" when compared with the need to "bear God's salvation unto the ends of the earth."39 As well, a member of the LMS addressed the main point in Cranborne's panegyric. He bluntly cautioned that all imperial peoples claimed to bring good order and justice to their subjects but more

46 Good Citizens

than claims were needed. Besides, he warned, empire divorced from the promotion of a "life-giving religion" was doomed to failure. Therefore if Britain achieved no more than ancient Rome then her empire was likewise slated for the scrap heap.40 Missionary enthusiasts such as Vernon Bartlet of Oxford's Mansfield College also appealed to a nobler ideal, in this instance on the basis of historical precedent. Down the ages, he argued, "in every form save the essentially Christian," imperialism had proven itself "narrower than man and so a serious rival to the noblest ideal; for the perversion of the best is worst of all." All other manifestations of empire were derivative and debased, for the simple reason that the gospel was the original and authentic imperialism. For Bartlet this was a "literal, historical fact" since Christian outreach was the "universal side of Israel's Messianic hope that first hinted at the inclusion of all men in divine unity and peace." The time, moreover, had come to expand what he called the "imperial sweep of the Kingdom of God through every tribe and people today." All else, he maintained, paled before that imperative.41 And a Baptist missionary agreed. J.G. Greenhough, dismayed by the current boasting about the mere trappings of empire, lauded the "humbler patriotism of the sanctuary." Wealth, power, and glory, he lectured in 1896, had been conferred by God for a higher function than national aggrandizement or to "puff [people] out with pride." Instead they were the signs and very proofs that Britain was to be "the great missionary nation." And woe betide a chosen people who turned their back on that divinely ordained destiny. "If we think only of empires and ambition," Greenhough sermonized with reference to the jingo ditty, "and not at all of this sacred trust and obligation, our privileges will be taken from us in spite of all our ships and money and men."42 A colleague, G.C. Lorimer, picked up on the theme, remarking that the "mighty empires of the day, with their 'far flung battle line,' [should] ponder the significance of these things. "43 The "signs and proofs" that Bartlet saw in history and Greenhough in contemporary events were readily apparent to others. Indeed Australian missionary Joseph King put two and two together historically and drew the conclusion that a great moment of transition was at hand. Its territorial expansion nearing completion, said King, "the Empire had only just come to the threshold of its great mission." As history itself conspired to further God's design, the churches would emerge as the heirs of the Empire's greatness with an unprecedented opportunity opening before them. Eschatology, it seems, was not without its hopeful side.44 There could be, however, no teetering at the brink, no fateful hesitation, as Lewis Gaunt warned the LMS an-

47 "God's Greater Britain"

nual meeting of 1899. "There could be no true and lasting Imperialism/' he emphasized, "unless it were Christian and there could be no Christian Imperialism unless first of all there was an Imperial Christianity." In these rather convoluted terms Gaunt argued further that no meaningful Christian imperialism could arise until sleepy congregations in Britain were shaken awake to their awesome responsibilities. The rise of a global Empire made possible a dramatic acceleration of God's work, but again only if the churches caught the "large Imperial spirit" and put missionary endeavours at the very top of the list of things to be done. "Whatever they might think of 'Little Englanders,'" remarked Gaunt, "they could not doubt that there was in the Christian Church no place for 'Little Christians.'"45 The outspoken Baptist leader John Clifford put it all much more pointedly. Just back from a speaking trip to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in 1897, he borrowed from Charles Dilke in voicing a missionary rendition of the Jubilee spirit. The time had come, Clifford rhapsodized, to establish nothing less than "God's Greater Britain."46 Seeley might have groaned inwardly at all this, but scores of missionaries heeded the call. Indeed a strictly literal reading of the rhetoric that issued from evangelical circles in the 18903 would convince any observer that the godly had undergone yet another conversion experience, taking empire as their shrine. The emergence of a Dilkeian "Greater Britain" cast a potent spell. For all his qualms about materialistic expansion, Greenhough could exult in 1896 that There is nothing more wonderful in the story of empires and nations, and nothing more unaccountable by ordinary causes, than the growth in power, wealth, and influence of our own people and of the people who share our language and religion. What vanity would have dared to project the dream which our eyes see realised. Who would have believed it possible that the kingdom of Elizabeth would expand into the empire of Victoria; that the dear, dear land whose praises Shakespeare sang would strengthen its stakes and enlarge the places of its tent until its sons ruled over one-third of the human race?47

Another Baptist, caught up in the evangelization of Victoria's swarming subjects in India, was struck with wonder by the "measureless advance" of the British Raj, which was helping make possible that noble goal.48 An exuberant issue of the Missionary Herald took pains to remind its readership that "God, in a most wonderful way, has given India to Britain." It further proclaimed that India's inhabitants were as much "our fellow subjects as are the people of Scotland

48 Good Citizens

or Devonshire."49 An SPG missionary with an expansionist turn of mind, however, thought that Britain's subcontinental domains did not extend far enough. Accordingly he urged that strategically located Kashmir be retrieved from its local Sikh ruler so that it might be properly governed and "Christianized."50 Moreover he likely agreed with Baptists who claimed that it was the lead given by Christian missionaries that had actually inspired the Raj to reduce anarchy, make wise laws, establish justice, and, with its military arm, protect all these blessings from invasion, mutinies, and internecine strife.51 The last three spectres, of course, always dogged the European in India, administrator, trader, and missionary alike. Thus when a Brahman openly wondered why Indians should not be armed to help repel a possible Russian invasion, a horrified SPG agent had only to mention the Indian Mutiny to bring the conversation to a grinding halt.52 And after a "supercilious" Indian scholar told a missionary that he disapproved of Britain's rule, he was given the stock reminder that only the Raj and its armed might prevented the extermination of his people by "more warlike races" in the subcontinent.53 But ironically the need for that same armed might sometimes militated against the mission establishment. On one occasion, for example, the BMS'S large quarters in Delhi were ordered torn down because they posed a potential threat to the city's fortifications if ever occupied by mutineers or invaders.54 Given these circumstances it is not surprising that missionaries often exhibited a decided taste for well-turned military and imperial metaphors. For years, of course, such had been the very stuff of missionary discourse. After all, the varied missions had for the most part been forged in the crucible of a great European war that left an enduring mark on generations of Britons. Moreover the missionary societies had subsequently evolved against the backdrop of the "little wars" that constantly erupted on expanding imperial frontiers or in strategic borderlands of Europe and Asia.55 Most Victorians took for granted that the so-called Pax Britannica was sustained by British forces engaged in more-or-less constant combat around the globe. Not surprisingly, as one student of the problem put it, there was much "civilian imitation of military organization, discipline and paraphernalia, and the diffusion of military sentiments and rhetoric in general."56 Consequently, military terminology often coloured what missionaries had to say, especially after they embarked on their own militant campaign to evangelize the world in one generation. In this regard historical references were frequently invoked to inspire contemporaries. "Our fathers," mused one Congregationalist in 1900, "had fought in the missionary crusades of this century and the continuation of the

49 "God's Greater Britain"

war rested now with young men and young women."57 Reaching further back in time, one enthusiast recalled the valour of ancient forebears and saw an evocative parallel between "Jonathan and his armour-bearer Gideon and his 300 and our Saviour's two and two all over the land."58 But recent memory also provided a treasure trove of stirring martial allusion. The Crimean War, for example, cast a long shadow for a reflective Baptist missionary in the i88os. "In the beginning of our mission in India," wrote James Culross, "man after man fell; and in our youngest mission - that on the Congo - it has been the same, only more deadly; indeed, to some onlookers, the going of our missionaries thither seems like the ride into the jaws of death at Balaclava."59 Indeed for a CMS colleague the temporal sacrifices made in the Crimea clearly entitled Britain to treat Turkey as well to the principles of "true Christianity."60 The SPG was also seized by nostalgia for the heavily freighted military events of mid-century, belatedly authorizing a tablet and special scholarships to honour missionaries who had perished in the Indian Mutiny.61 Bringing the parallelism up to date, in 1900 LMS missionary Owen Whitehouse likened the carnage at Spion Kop to the sacrifices required in the final battle for world evangelization. "God's true servants are warriors," he cried, and lauded the Salvation Army because it had been "guided by a sure instinct when it donned the names and titles of warriors."62 The evangelical struggle, he allowed, was always stern and tragic and the individual soldier, regrettably, saw little of the overall battlefield. Still, none should ever give way to despondency. "Let us," he urged instead, "close our ranks, let us sing together with martial ardour the new battle-songs of Zion, with our weapons in our hands; no faltering, no turning back."63 Perhaps this sort of paean is what Gaunt had in mind when he described Imperial Christianity as "so full of romance, pathos and interest of every kind [that it] must appeal even to the most unimaginative man."64 As it happened, some of the imaginative were waxing poetic on the theme. An anonymous house bard, for example, wrote the following Kiplingesque ditty to advertise the LMS'S forward movement: Wanted, a hundred men, A hundred of the best, From college, mart or home, Roused by the great behest "Evangelize the World." The earnest and the brave Will surely heed the call Of Him who lives to save.

5O Good Citizens Wanted, a hundred men, In the power of Grace Divine, Ready to claim the danger posts Of the apostolic line; To live or die for Africa In the ranks of Moffat's band; Or with Griffith John to plant life's tree In the wastes of the Flowery Land.65

Months later a ten-stanza epic reissued the challenge, this time perhaps with echoes from Henry V: Oh, men of England, awake! awake! Your part in the glorious warfare take, The toil and danger and sacrifice face For vict'ry is sure, though tedious the race.66

And some sense of the geographical sweep of the missionary endeavour was captured in this strained but heartfelt contribution: From England's wintry climate, From China's picturesque land, And Africa's sunburnt brunettee, Look up and hold their hand. From Transvaal and from Burmah Comes forth an earnest strain; They call us to deliver Their lands from error's chain.67

Evangelical versifying such as this had much in common with the period's popular imperial literature. Just as the LMS wanted a "hundred of the best," so G.A. Henty, Rider Haggard, and later John Buchan described dashing heroes who were always exceptional by nature. Thus when these writers trumpeted the call to an active life overseas it was directed primarily at the few. In the case of missions it went out, to quote the CMI, to those whose "manly virtues - courage, endurance, and self-denial" had been fostered by a "vibrant Christianity."68 There was constant talk of the need for "strong" and "extreme men" who would go "anywhere" in order to reinforce the "fighting line."69 In effect the ideal recruit was the one who wished to emulate the very "manliness" of Christ himself, a favourite theme of late-Victorian religious publications.70 Nor were these virtues neces-

5i

"God's Greater Britain"

sarily restricted to the male of the select mission species. Although the female agent had often been expected to take a back seat, she was already making her own mark as an evangelical expansionist and proving in the process that for all her "tenderness" and supposed frailty, she was just as hardy as any man.71 Thus, Mary ("Ma") Slessor, the independent and romantic Scottish missionary, exuberantly seized the opportunities of her chosen field in the otherwise inimical borderlands of West Africa.72 In the ranks of the LMS, which led the way in promoting the role of the female agent, the likes of the formidable Mary Cockin and Lilly White, who laboured respectively in Madagascar and India, stand out prominently.73 In a real sense the tropical frontier was made to order for just such a cream of the crop, male and female alike, people unsullied by the debilitating materialism that disturbed Kipling as much as any missionary. The Arnoldian virtues of spiritual commitment, unflagging devotion to duty, dogged perseverance, and unalloyed honesty were thought to constitute the essence of "character" in the truly outstanding missionary, whatever the gender. Moreover the exotic demands of Asia and Africa were often credited with bringing out the individuality and powers of leadership that civilization often stifled or left underemployed, particularly among women.74 As Froude, who lamented the softness and drift of British urban life, would put it, such frontier lands were both opportunity and rugged proving ground. It was there that natural leaders could bring to their tasks the "magical" presence that was held to be the one great hope of Britain in a demanding age. At the very least then, Christianity overseas was both a refuge from and a cure for the corrosive blight of the metropolis. Beyond this the "wastes of the Flowery Land" and other sprawling colonial regions were frequently depicted as empty, in the sense that energetic Britons, imperialists and missionaries alike, could start rebuilding there from the ground up, uninhibited by the complications and distractions of the home environment. Both species of builders, moreover, emphasized the importance of duty and self-sacrifice, which a Kipling might have seen as the best and only substitute for formal religion.75 Missionaries, of course, saw self-sacrifice as the concomitant of evangelization, pure and simple. In either case the appeal was to that latent streak of masochism that some have seen as basic to the late-Victorian mind.76 And colouring all was the urgent, martial language that suffused so many calls to "the earnest and the brave" of differing but related stripes. If historical and literary images dotted the rhetorical landscape of Imperial Christianity, so too did straightforward talk of rudimentary

52 Good Citizens

strategy and tactics. Thus those mission leaders yearning for a unified worldwide evangelical crusade eagerly grasped at the military metaphor when making their case. "The unity of an army" remarked a Baptist, "consists in each regiment implicitly obeying the general; and true Christian union is shown by each individual and each church practicing and proclaiming ... what they believe their Lord has taught... [The Evangelical churches] are fighting the same battle, under the same Lord, and we shall rejoice together in the ultimate victory ... "77 "We are," a CMS missionary concurred, "companies in one regiment under the same Master - comrades in the noblest sense."78 For his part Grenfell seemed anxious to promote in the ranks of his Congo Mission the elan and cohesiveness that distinguished a proud regiment of the line.79 Again, a missionary in East Africa wrestling with administrative anomalies showed a rough working knowledge of the military chain of command. Thus he likened the bishop to the general of an army and the clerical superintendent of a mission station to the colonel of a regiment. "The general's authority," he carefully explained, "is supreme and his directions are carried out, but all the commands reach the subordinate officers in the regiment only through the Colonel. He is the official medium of communication."80 In due course even a uniform of sorts was prescribed for CMS missionaries in the field, which called for the wearing of distinctive stripes and buttons on the cuffs of their tunics.81 Meanwhile a Baptist missionary in China was typically urging that a key city be occupied along with its hinterland, otherwise it would be tantamount to leaving a "battery to play havoc on our rear" or to a "general leaving the main portion of the enemy ... unsubdued."82 A colleague in India aggressively made a point of holding his meetings in a Bengali theatre because "I like using the enemy's guns to turn and fire upon his own forces."83 A Methodist missionary, who had obviously read his Henty, was even more bellicose. Describing his comrades as the ardent and "dashing artillerymen ... and cavalry of the Church," he urged them forward with these rousing words: "mount your guns, load them to the muzzle, and let every shot strike! No random firing, no wooden guns, no work without definite aim. Come, ye cavalry raiders, and dash into the very heart of the enemy's country! Let us burn our bridges as we go, for God's trumpet never sounded a retreat."84 A less warlike Baptist in China, who wanted more first-rate men to opt for the mission field, simply asked plaintively: "When a serious war breaks out what government keeps its best generals at home?"85 In the Congo some BMS missionaries promoted the organization of native church workers as so many foot-soldiers. "The system of set-

53 "God's Greater Britain"

ting the natives to work/' wrote a confident W.H. Bentley in 1902, "and spending our time and energy in directing, teaching, training, and developing is the best. We should be the generals in the campaign, and let the rank and file do the main part of the work." He ended on an apt though vague Boys' Own Annual note: "A general may be as useful a swordsman as a private, but he ought to be more useful on the top of a hill somewhere."86 Bentley then enlisted, as so many missionaries did, the experience of the unfolding Empire - or at least his perception of it - to fortify his point. Contrary to the views of some of his colleagues, he thought the BMS should be "more Imperial in its policy" and establish forward bases "a good distance apart, leaving them to fill in the interspaces with native evangelists, not whites."87 And so it went as "fronts," "battlelines," "forward bases," "armour," and "weapons" were wedded to the missionary discourse. It is one thing, however, to note this pervasive rhetorical deployment and quite another to sense what it meant. Some missionaries, of course, made it easy by speaking quite literally. William Huckett, for instance, did more than "refer" to arms during the civil war in Samoa. In fact he took them up, as Grenfell had in the Congo, in defence of mission interests and for a time (unlike his Baptist colleague) vociferously called for armed intervention to crush his adversaries. For his part John Mackenzie shifted back and forth between his roles as missionary and imperial proconsul in Bechuanaland as though the two were indistinguishable. While not necessarily sanctioning violence, he was ever ready to play the imperial card. Accordingly during one crisis on his patch he toured England seeking and getting support for a protectorate that would ward off Boer influence in the region. In tones that would have been familiar from a Milner, he had asked in the course of his tour: "Where are our coasts? Do they mean this little island? Have we come to this - that we have no interests and no borders beyond the English Channel? The thing is absurd!"88 Nor did CMS missionaries shrink from actively participating in the bitter civil strife in Uganda between Catholics and Protestants, who were seen, rightly or wrongly, as the surrogates respectively of France and Britain. When criticized for resorting to firearms,89 these agents hotly retorted that "any right-minded man" would have acted the same if "called upon ... to defend the life and honour of helpless women, and to maintain the constituted order of the country."90 As also mentioned, Presbyterian John C. Gibson had no objection in principle to Western military involvement in China when deemed necessary, so long as it was truly effective. All this discourse and action, of course, reflected the apparent divide that separated the activists who supported interventionism and God's Greater Britain

54 Good Citizens

from those spiritual free traders who responded to the lead given by Thompson. But even for those who did not see the situation in such black-andwhite terms the distinction between missions and empire was often painfully apparent in another very practical sense. In spite of their modest successes and Gaunt's romantic talk, missionary recruiters were only too aware that it was often difficult to compete with the seductive lure of Queen and Country. Lamenting this, one evangelical noted the perennial problem of attracting new recruits and complained: "There is no lack of volunteers when men are needed to engage in some military expedition, involving special hardship or danger, for the honour of our country; shall not the soldiers of Christ be as ready to 'endure hardness' for His sake, and count it a privilege to go to the front for Him ...?"91 Clearly some did not, as an infuriated CMS secretary discovered. He roundly condemned one agent who "would only go to the Mission Field under compulsion and with the hope of freeing himself from his obligations to the Society as soon as possible ... "92 Somewhat later the secretary's frustration surfaced in a fundamental rhetorical question: "Is Christ's cause less sacred than that of a country?"93 Obviously, while happy enough to employ the imperial metaphor, missionaries at times also viewed empire as a competitor in the quest for hearts, minds, and hands. A complicating factor was the suspicion that the empire of the day had not quite measured up to the missionary standard of true imperialism. For all its virtues the former was not synonymous with the latter. Veteran Baptist missionary Charles Wilson certainly had some reservations. In 1897 most of his colleagues joined enthusiastically in the lavish celebrations of Empire. Thus one CMS official remarked that the Jubilee enabled his society "to realize more clearly and distinctly than ever before the magnitude of our Empire."94 But Wilson was not impressed and sourly observed that the "very words 'Diamond Jubilee' have become nauseous to me."95 The disgust was brought on in part by Britain's refusal to take the side of Christian Greece against the Moslem Turks. "The period of our present [Tory] government," he raged, "has been one miserable succession of Disgraces at home and abroad ... England makes great professions, is very keen on the question of valid ordination of bishops, on the presence of Spiritual peers in the House of Lords, open air altars and ... the trappings of a state religion, but seems to overlook questions of righteousness, temperance, and judgement to come ..." Summing up bitterly, he added that the "best celebration of the Diamond Jubilee that I can think of just now would be the establishment of the Sultan and his family in St. Helena ,.."96 Wilson's outburst smacked of confessional sour

55 "God's Greater Britain"

grapes, to be sure, but his strong misgivings about popular moods and government priorities were not unknown in other mission camps, including the Anglican, as the skepticism of the Bishop of Worcester had starkly revealed at the CMS conference. Above all it was the commercial side of empire that often troubled even imperially minded missionaries. Gone were the days when observers had automatically linked Christianity and commerce - the outward dividend of the gospel of free trade - in a providentially arranged liaison to achieve the highest purposes of the nation.97 To be sure, the morality of certain species of trade, such as the East India Company's, had not gone unquestioned at mid-century.98 But arguably it was the advent of large-scale global cartels that tarnished the notion that commerce was the morally enriching and civilizing force it had once been made out to be. In spite of these misgivings missions were not unmindful of the vital facilities that commerce could sometimes make available. Nor did they have an absolute aversion to the late-Victorian market-place. Indeed on one occasion, to the distress of Bishop Montgomery, some SPG missionaries engaged in costly work in the tropics actually used the yardstick of market forces to measure their own worth when salary increases were broached.99 And when some Anglican missionaries thought they ought to be paid by conversion results, a horrified C.R Pascoe thought it savoured of the commercial traveller with a fixed salary, and "as much in addition as you can make by commission."100 Yet even if these were exceptional cases, the language of business and finance, like the rhetoric of war and empire, often loomed large in missionary discourse, as when one evangelist remarked that "a day spent in hard gospel work ... is so much capital invested for the eternal good of [the] people."101 Moreover, while undoubtedly fewer in number than earlier in the century, there were still plenty of missionaries who took an active role in business. Some were sharp-eyed agents in the field who were quick to spot opportunities where mercantile interest and native needs supposedly merged. One man in Burma, for example, encouraged British manufacturers to produce a cheap paraffin lamp "with a simple wick ... and giving a good light." Such an item, he shrewdly pointed out, meant profit for industry happily combined with benefit to his parishioners.102 Few, of course, went so far as two Baptist missionaries. A.G. Jones, who served in China, became so enmeshed in a family concern that he confessed himself distracted from his evangelical duties.103 A colleague, however, was more than distracted. He literally changed hats when he gave up mission work altogether in favour of his family's demanding millinery business.104 On the other hand some emissaries

56 Good Citizens

of the gospel adroitly juggled their spiritual and secular interests. One CMS agent, a member of the Baring family of bankers, not only supported a whole mission station in East Africa but made over to his society a sizeable block of shares in a profitable American railway company.105 And no less a figure than RE. Wigram, the CMS'S affluent secretary, dabbled in the market and freely recommended stocks in which he and his family had a stake.106 Wigram's colleagues, moreover, had no serious misgivings about such ventures. Thus, on at least one occasion, the CMS quickly dismissed allegations that its hands were less than clean because it dealt with banks whose business was sometimes morally tainted. After describing banks as mere "money shops," H.E. Fox used a homely gardening figure to puncture the notion that the CMS'S deposits could be debased if banks did in fact act in a dubious way. "The sunbeam which falls upon a rose," he comforted himself, "is not defiled by falling upon a dunghill."107 Indeed a colleague, who was obviously impervious to the issue, had no hesitation in recommending a Shanghai banker - whose "love for Christ" was unthinkingly assumed - for the society's finance committee in China.108 And the BMS in turn saw no reason, of course, to question the probity and integrity of its treasurer, the banker Joseph Tritton, a co-religionist who unfailingly supported their efforts. All the same, missions could suffer when their resources were ravaged by the not uncommon bank failures of the period, as happened in the SPG'S dealings with one stricken institution.109 In the main, however, it would seem that missionaries had nothing against commerce and finance in principle, however much they might have lamented their distortions and lapses in practice. It was almost as if they were drawing, as they had in the case of empire, a distinction between a perverted species and a true one. The perverted species, spawned in scrambles and cartels, were giving rise, missions complained, to imperial enterprises that were more divisive than unifying, just as Seeley had argued.110 According to one critic, who was thoroughly agitated by the materialism of the age, too many so-called Christian manufacturers were now more likely to defraud their hapless non-European customer than morally uplift him through the pursuit of honourable trade.111 And where the trader did not actually bilk the native, he all too often set a bad example. Writing from Samoa in 1887, missionary Charles Phillips wailed about the glaringly wicked conduct of white traders, which ran the gamut from drunkenness, gambling, and "coarse infidelity" to "flagrant vice and unblushing immorality."112 At the same time an aggrieved Grenfell complained that his countrymen were involved with other unscrupulous whites in the Arabs' nefarious ivory trade, which brought "plun-

57 "God's Greater Britain"

der, murder, and rapine" to so many parts of Central Africa.113 Other missionaries were upset simply by the general demeanour of many of those who sought their fortunes in the tropics. The sulphuric Wilson outward bound for India described the "queer lot" of people on board: "Women with extravagant evening dress, smoking cigarettes and men swaggering about ordering the stewards as one would imagine they do their native servants, young fellows out for the first time from home, and old stagers with 'whiskey and soda' faces and the unmistakable Indian and Colonial British air about them."114 Apparently the most arrogant of Wilson's fellow passengers were returning planters, the entrepreneurial aristocrats of the tropics."5 In view of all this he was perfectly certain of one thing: "missionary work ... must be done, not only without the patronage and assistance of English residents but in spite of their presence ... it is reserved for his fellow countrymen, living in receipt of more than ten times his income, to welcome ... a missionary ... with a smile that makes one's blood run cold and to crack jokes upon the 'souls of niggers/ "ll6 At least one SPG missionary was in full agreement on the main point, namely that only rarely did the Anglo-Indian and the missionary pull together for the welfare of India.117 By 1893 Thompson was sharing the sentiment. Moreover he was convinced, along with Methodist missionaries, that the spread of British enterprise in South Africa was exerting a decidedly negative influence on the native population, who were valued solely as cheap labour or as consumers of bad liquor."8 In turn while some WMMS and SPG officials were grateful for Cecil Rhodes's financial and political support, others questioned the titan's integrity and trustworthiness, especially when his chartered company embarked on commercial manipulations that threatened the rights of Africans.119 Small wonder that the Missionary Herald, which clearly had problems with the yellow press as well, sought to distance the BMS from such questionable practices. It expostulated that as a "spiritual society it is as different from chartered companies and business organizations as the New Testament is from the Daily Mail."120 This was all very well, but for a disillusioned LMS missionary it did not alter the fact that in South Africa "we [British] first steal by force from [the native] because we think there is gold in it and then demand that he should develop it."121 Speaking generally, A.M. Mackay, the CMS'S man in Uganda, summed up the problem by acidly remarking that "in former years the universal aim was to steal the African from Africa. Today the determination of Europe is to steal Africa from the African."122 What made matters even worse was that disenchanted natives were coming to look upon Christianity as "the

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religion of the conqueror."123 On one occasion a discouraged Wilson admitted much the same for the Indian scene, remarking that "the missionaries are 'Sahebs' and are classed in the native mind along with Magistrates, Police Superintendents and planters." There was always the danger too that overly elaborate mission stations might make natives think the European servant of God was "immensely rich" and belonged to an entirely unreachable world.124 Also in India, Rev. J.A. Joyce, striking by then a repetitive note, anticipated the economic analysis of local nationalists as he lashed out at the iniquitous nature of British trade with the subcontinent. "It is not, as so many would have us believe," he grumbled, "our military or political expenditure that is impoverishing India, but that in pursuance of British interests we are ... simply exploiting her for our own benefit." Now properly worked up, Joyce added: "it is the merest cant to talk of carrying the blessings of civilization to these countries. We go there absolutely and unblushingly to fill our pockets."125 Indeed even seemingly inoffensive imperial preferences could upset Baptist Clifford. He was convinced that for all their supposed mutual benefits such profit-seeking devices would suborn loyalty and devotion to lofty ideals and reduce the Empire's overseas "sons" to "bastards."126 Conceivably all this was part and parcel of the Idealist philosophy gaining ground in Europe and Britain, which put a high premium on the exaltation of the spirit and the repudiation of the material culture of the modern industrial age.127 In the circumstances some missionary societies were stung to take remedial action through Christianizing commerce on their own. The CMS for its part sought to place committed Christian businessmen in key positions overseas as a means of thwarting "ungodly" ones.128 The society probably had a role model in mind, one Matthew Wellington, an influential East African merchant and mission supporter who had accompanied the storied David Livingstone on his last travels.129 The strategy of recruiting such "ambassadors" had another dividend. As the Gleaner pointed out, it provided an excellent opportunity to tap the services of a class all but neglected by the society in the past.130 One such business convert to the cause, as a delighted BMS discovered, was a former official who had seen lengthy service in the Punjab. "As a businessman speaking to businessmen," he fulsomely observed at a turn-of-the-century board of trade meeting, "he was prepared to affirm that the work done by missionary agencies in India exceeds in importance all the work that has been done by the Indian Government since its commencement."131 In the meantime "Bible and Plough" theory was updated as several societies developed so-called industrial missions. Some of these were

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modest enough and involved little more than furnishing instruction for native tradesmen on existing mission stations. This was true of the CMS, which by and large regarded such endeavours, when the society was disposed to promote them at all, as distinctly peripheral to their main purpose of evangelization.132 The SPG, perhaps with a greater show of conviction, established modest industrial missions in West Africa and rudimentary business instruction in India. The latter was done in the hope that pupils would be "drawn nearer to us" and "diverted from vain dreams about the Bar and Government employ."133 Other initiatives, however, were more substantial. At Mangalore in south-western India, for example, the Basle Mission with Germanic thoroughness systematically developed weaving and tile-making industries to provide employment and social stability for the thousands settled on its lands.134 Similar experiments in husbandry and manufacturing were undertaken by the society in self-sufficient Christian villages in West Africa. This was done in part to combat the growing trend to plantation economies that often blighted communal life and reduced the African to a landless and itinerant existence.135 Because the Congo was a prime example of this, activist missionaries there sought to establish a similar industrial mission with the aim of breaking the repressive concessionaire system and its system of forced labour. They were well aware though that it would have to be developed on "distinctly Christian lines," otherwise its Belgian critics would say that it was simply hankering after a share of the lucrative Congo trade.136 Grenfell was certainly keen on industrial training. "A strong Industrial Department," he once wrote, "is hardly less important than that for teaching. After the Gospel there is certainly nothing more important than that ... people should be taught the dignity of labour & the advantages of industry ... "137 For its part the LMS in South Africa persevered with so-called mechanical schools for natives even if their graduate carpenters and stone masons were often discriminated against by white employers and workers.138 Still, the Times, in reviewing Richard Lovett's history of the LMS, commended the society for its contributions to the "training of uncivilized peoples."139 Not surprisingly observers like E.D. Morel expected that colonial officials preoccupied with economic development would be more apt to support a mission of this sort than a purely evangelical one that only produced educated men and women likely to turn up their noses at manual labour.140 More ambitious than any industrial school, however, were the quasi-independent but mission-backed limited liability companies that seemed to spring up in response to the corporate undertakings of

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a George Goldie or a Rhodes. Some troubled evangelicals were convinced, of course, that these ventures would turn missions into mere profit-making ventures, replete with investors, boards of directors, and annual reports. But their founders, backed by the support of educational reformers like the influential Michael Sadler, maintained that such enterprises could provide gainful native employment on fair, Christian terms. And it could all be done, they claimed, in a way perfectly compatible with sound business practice. Thus Papuan Industries Limited paid dividends, but only up to 5 percent, while any surplus was ploughed back into the "social advancement of natives on Christian lines." Although legally autonomous the company was in fact an LMS operation. Its first head, missionary F.W. Walker, generalized that whereas the "power and influence of commerce has hitherto been opposed to Christian Missions," now the limited liability company "under Christian control, has unlimited possibilities."141 Along similar lines the United Free Church fostered Scottish Missions Industries Limited in India, and the CMS supported the Uganda Company Ltd and East African Industries Ltd, formed in 1903 and 1906 respectively. Under the direction of its first general manager, K. Borup, the Uganda Company ventured into cotton cultivation and processing. Reminiscent of what the Basle Mission had achieved in West Africa, the work was undertaken in the homes of the African workers, thus ensuring both a vital income supplement and the preservation of family and communal life. Meanwhile East African Industries, whose dividends were limited to 6 percent, was heavily involved with such unrelated operations as brick making and clothes laundering.142 To put it mildly, these varied developments provided clear evidence that not all missionaries considered commerce per se beyond redemption. Viewed in broad perspective it could be said that missionary attitudes to the late-Victorian Empire were far from homogeneous. The imperial zeal of the Wesleyans so ably described by Stephen Koss143 sharply contrasted with the more qualified enthusiasm of Congregationalists, let alone the outright skepticism of the Baptist Wilson. All the same, when special definitions and lingering reservations are taken into account, there is no denying that in the 18908 the weight of missionary opinion inclined towards empire. If some of this preference was born of little more than submersion in popular moods, phobias, and rhetoric, at least part of it simply made good sense in the context of the moment. For one thing, identification with the imperial cause was useful in fending off bothersome critics. In response to a blast from Nile explorer Sir Samuel Baker in 1887, Rev. James Johnston marshalled pages of evidence demonstrating that missions,

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like the BMS'S Congo Mission, regularly facilitated the spread of the West's trade and culture.144 Similarly stirred up, in 1894 C.S. Home of the LMS described Robert Moffat and Livingstone as "the living way" whereby commerce had penetrated the interior of southern Africa. "Talk about the cost of missions!" he protested, "I venture to say ... that the money expended on missions has come back again with handsome interest in actual profit."145 Another observer praised the CMS for having blazed a highway into inner Africa while "Scientific & Commercial men," who would clearly benefit from it, had done little but talk about the project.146 This admirer, grateful missionaries discovered, was not alone in commending these and other so-called indirect results of their work. While a scornful Baker might have derided missions, some leaders of the secular community, political and otherwise, warmly applauded their extracurricular accomplishments. This led some clergymen to stress these as much as the primary goal of evangelization as a way of bestowing "a new lustre over the whole field of mission work."147 While most missionaries believed with a passion, of course, that the evangelical effort should never take a back seat to "secular dividends," they were well aware that they had in many and diverse ways contributed to the Empire and to the larger world beyond their mandate. And this was now being acknowledged as never before. An impressed British consul in China, for example, wrote glowingly not only of the missionaries' general deportment but of their social engineering and scientific and cultural achievements. In an age bewitched by the selfless Gordonian hero, this official at least was proud to include the dauntless missionary in that magical circle.148 Others in India, though less carried away, none the less awarded missionaries solid points for simplifying the work of the Raj. This they had done, so these bureaucrats pointed out, by "leavening the natives," relieving the distress of famine and flood, or, at the very least, by forcing "open sinners to do their dark deeds in secret."149 A Baptist missionary painted an even grander picture of achievement. And he did so with broad strokes. While others might have questioned the stress put on the indirect results of evangelization, he would have none of it. In India, he wrote in 1902, philology, linguistics, and the budding science of ethnography had made important advances under the mission banner. "Affinities," he enthused, "between the Indian races and ourselves have been discovered, the science of languages has been stimulated, the history of religions has been studied, the materials for the study of comparative religions have been gathered."150 It also happened elsewhere. To take just one example among many, Bentley had found time to write extensively on the

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languages, religions, customs, and mores of the peoples he encountered on his evangelical travels in Central Africa. Certainly he had good reason to think that his Pioneering on the Congo would appeal to an audience far beyond the limits of the mission community.151 Indeed in the days of the African scramble, when colonizing powers wished to control communications with their new tropical subjects, the work of Bentley and his fellow mission philologists proved invaluable.152 With a view to keeping Britain in step with the Continental competition, in 1905 the University of London invited the SPG, among other missions, to a conference on the need for enhancing the study of Oriental languages in the imperial metropolis.153 The ethnographic efforts of missionaries were also considerable, and appreciated. Typically, W.C. Willoughby, an LMS missionary with a scholarly bent who examined ancient tribal sites in South Africa, was more than willing to share his historical and ethnographic knowledge with other interested parties.154 Still another eager missionary-scholar, this time in India, reported fully on his investigations into the origins of Himalayan peoples and advanced the novel theory that they were refugees not from Moslem persecution, as had long been believed, but rather from more ancient enemies.155 Not surprisingly, as it turned out, missionary reports on the people they sought to evangelize, however esoteric or coloured by their Christian preoccupations, were often vital grist for the mill of the astute administrator and trader. There was, of course, an important academic benefit as well. Typically, in the 18905 the International Association for Comparative Jurisprudence and Political Economy sought and received extensive information from the CMS on the social customs and laws of the varied African peoples the society worked amongst.156 When carefully handled, along with other contemporary documentation, such reports proved helpful to those who also came to specialize in the complex field of comparative ethnography.157 This was especially true of the work of Alexander Gillon MacAlpine, a Scottish missionary at Livingstonia, who contributed to the Journal of the African Society. In spite of his strong evangelical commitment he was, by the standards of that day, remarkably objective in his discussion of the beliefs and customs of the Tonga people.158 Missionaries also made medical contributions to imperial society. Often faced with the terrors of tropical life, they had to cope as best they could with such scourges as malaria, yellow fever, and sleeping sickness. And they were quick to pass along insights and information gained in their endless battle with disease and discomfort, as the SPG did, for example, during the course of its long Indian experience. Among other contributions, its mission schools preached the gospel

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of proper sanitation and taught the natural history of the causes of tropical diseases.159 The Congo Mission, for another, learned the hard way about the proper quinine dosages required to fight malaria and, in company with enlightened medical opinion of the day, did battle with the widespread medicinal use of morphine and other opiates.160 Steps were also taken to monitor diet and physical activity in a debilitating climate. At the same time physicians were encouraged to come out and study the mission's medical problems, including staff members of the recently founded Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, with whom the BMS established a close connection.161 In the end perhaps, the welcome developments that sprang from such indirect results of evangelization simply meant, as one Baptist put it, that missionaries typified all that was quintessentially British in that expansive age. The nation's cultural attributes, political institutions, scientific accomplishments, and above all its spirit of adventure eminently fitted it for the global task of which evangelization was hailed as the highest expression.162 This perhaps was another way of stating what the SPG had long maintained, that the British missionary, like his lay compatriot, was a "vital centre of energy" for fuelling expansion163 and that missions, by any definition, were an "imperial asset."164 In short they had, as one historian writes, "perhaps more than their share of the dynamic spirit that lay behind the expansion of Europe."165 According to Baptist missionary Jones of the North China Mission, they were armed with another sterling quality, one that no jingo would ever be accused of having or few Europeans would readily attribute to Britons. "It does seem that we ... have," Jones reflected, "despite all that is specially John Bull, some innate facility for entering into the spirit of others - their religion, social forms, etc. - that I do not see so markedly in the Missionaries of other countries, as a rule."166 As the empire expanded it was increasingly prized by missionaries as a shield and buckler at home and as a safe and productive haven abroad. Indeed, as territorial scrambles heated up, refuge within the bounds of Greater Britain had a special appeal. Congo missionary Grenfell certainly felt the attraction as time wore on. While professedly non-political, that Baptist increasingly yearned for the "shelter of the British flag."167 Writing home in 1893, he noted: "Some of the ... Churches have felt very strongly about the disadvantages of mission work under a foreign flag, & some time ago considered the question of commencing a separate work in their portion of Central Africa under British rule. I was so much impressed by the reasonableness of the proposal that I decided to work in support of it... "l68 As one of those church bodies the CMS, though accustomed to working

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under foreign flags, sometimes pondered the desirability of operating where their own compatriots held sway, particularly when the alternative made for less mission stability.169 This, moreover, was doubly the case when the local governing authority was positively hostile. Thus, after several years of trying to adapt to life with his French overlords, in 1898 LMS missionary William Cousins sadly but firmly advised leaving Madagascar. In that colony, he claimed, a Protestant evangelist had to be at least "half a Frenchman" to have any prospect of success.170 A few years later one of his colleagues went a step further, urging withdrawal from all "foreign" stations.171 Still, while talk of this nature was understandable and common enough, it was seldom acted upon. In most cases the missionary investment was simply too heavy to abandon. For his part Grenfell elected to remain in the Congo and follow his "duty" of consolidating the BMS'S efforts there. He rationalized this by pointing out that his stretch of country had been more British than Belgian anyway when the mission was inaugurated in the 18703.172 His concerns, however, were only temporarily assuaged. Quite soon Grenfell began to suspect that, for all its public protestations, the Congo Free State really wanted to see the back of the BMS, if only to mollify its Catholic critics. Sometimes indeed he was made to feel "very wild" when the authorities threatened to prevent the establishment of more mission stations in the interior.173 If the society ever did depart the Congo as a result of such rebuffs, he wrote, "it would be immensely more congenial for British missionaries to labour under their own flag" elsewhere in Africa.174 For that matter, seldom one to ignore an opportunity, he had already suggested that the BMS venture into those parts of East Africa recently put under the Union Jack.175 Though he came to realize that the CMS had first call on those territories, particularly on the Nile/76 he urged, as a second-best, a trans-African scheme to link up the Congo Mission with the Anglican posts in Uganda.177 This would form, in the hopeful words of the Missionary Herald, a "wonderful line of stations, stretching across the Continent from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic ..."178 In turn a receptive CMS, which had organized its own exploring expeditions, was well aware of the close connections between East and West Africa in all their forms, commercial, scientific, political, as well as evangelical.179 In the meantime the BMS contemplated a similar linking strategy involving LMS stations on the Zambesi and in the Lake Tanganyika country.180 Taken together these forays would fortuitously provide a barrier to Catholic expansion, including the English variety. Sometimes, much to the chagrin of Grenfell and his CMS colleagues, British proconsuls like Lord Cromer were prepared to countenance such "papist" ex-

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pansion as the price for keeping the peace on their administrative patches.181 Meanwhile, not to be outdone by other societies, the CMS, as noted, was also forging some geo-religious plans predicated on an imperial base. Convinced in 1898 that the "religious feeling of this country" demanded perpetuation of the memory of General Charles Gordon, Anglicans seized upon the aura of his martyrdom to justify the evangelization of all the peoples on the Upper Nile recently fallen under England's control.182 The BMS'S expansionist Grenfell went even further at one point and recommended - unavailingly - that Britain annex "another ... needy [but unnamed] part of the Continent" in order to spare it the agony of native misgovernment and heathenism.183 Other missionaries had also been tempted down this road. For example, echoing the entreaties of Methodists appalled by perceived anarchy in Zululand, the SPG'S Bishop Tucker hoped that Britain would annex the unhappy country, even if such forcible intervention did violence to what he called his political principles.184 Similarly, Methodists in the Pacific urged British action in Fiji to counteract the anarchic effects of settler-native conflict. Yet as a student of the problem has noted, such initiatives sprang not so much from an ingrained imperialism as from a pragmatic urge to establish the vital prerequisites of missionary endeavour: peace, order, and good government.185 A case in point was one gratified missionary's observation that under British rule the various warring tribes of North Borneo were "gradually settling down to a quiet and industrious life."186 Thus, for some, missionary ends could neatly dovetail with imperial means. This was also true in a broader sense than facilitating this or that particular mission. Revisiting Seeley's Expansion of England in 1894, reviewer Hallowes paused to, make a point already long familiar to missionary readers. There were, he catalogued, three types of Christians: "the parochial, the narrowly patriotic and the oecumenical." "God," he continued, "wants us to be oecumenically-minded, and as English Christians belonging to a world-wide empire it is especially our duty so to be."187 In the context of that day, ecumenism was more narrowly conceived than would sometimes later be the case. Eschewing accommodation with other traditions, ecumenists of Hallowes's stamp focused primarily on the reunification of splintered Protestant Christianity and the universalization of its faith. In this, it was held, overseas missions were the primary catalyst. They taught, as Rev. J.W. Dawson explained, "the Imperial side of Christianity - to make the kingdoms of the world the Kingdom of God." It was their task to point the way to a world conceived of as one. Thus, he argued, if Christians were to unite it would have to occur in the mission field.188

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Quaker benefactor Robert Arthington had anticipated Dawson when he wrote in the i88os that "we make too much of our denominational peculiarities in connection ... with ... work among the heathen." He too called on missions to pool their resources and "work together in sympathy abroad."189 It was this kind of thinking as well as problems of overlapping and waste that led many late-Victorian missionaries to advocate, at the very least, the merger of home and colonial churches in something akin to the "Imperial Federation idea in politics," as one of them put it.19° Impressed by the "larger Imperial policy" of those years, the BMS soon took a step in this direction. It used its centenary in 1892 as the trigger for an ambitious fund-raising campaign that targeted not only the home islands but, for the first time, Britain's far-flung white colonies.191 Meanwhile, on a larger scale, inter-society and international missionary conferences had been the order of the day for some time, held roughly every ten years since the first such gathering in 1854.192 More significantly, day-to-day interdenominational cooperation had increasingly become a fact of life in the field as the missionary frontier expanded and resources failed to keep pace.193 By the turn of the century informal collaboration, or what a CMS missionary called "friendly conferences,"194 had reached the point in some places that agents abroad were urging London organizers to amalgamate in all but name.195 For those already committed to evangelizing the world in that generation, such positive portents were more than welcome in an otherwise jarring age. Is it any wonder, then, that in a militant but hopeful mood missionaries sometimes used rhetorical hope-and-glory language? Harbingers of true imperialism, they were confident that worldly empire was a thing they could refine and perhaps even make holy. Hopes were even held out for Christianizing the military, the blunt instrument of power upon which both missions and empire often had to rely, more than on metaphors, for their collective survival. There were some encouraging signs. A CMS publication noted approvingly that some troops in the Nile Expedition had often prayed and sung in the desert. This was a double blessing because it reportedly impressed the local natives who normally had every reason to associate "Tommy" not with prayer and devotion but with "Beef, Beer and Lust," the despised vices of the unbeliever.196 The process was helped along by the Army Scripture Readers' Society, which under WMMS auspices appropriately despatched an ex-sergeant to do the reading honours on the Nile.197 The soldier's rehabilitation received another boost when church organizations adopted army units and a supportive Whitehall tried to make a respectable Christian soldiery an integral

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part of the nation's religious life.198 Nor was this phenomenon confined to the lower ranks. "Many of our warmest friends and strongest members," claimed one missionary, "have been and are officers in [H.] Majesty's services, both Naval and Military. They have seen with their own eyes the need of Missions and the results."1" And the SPG was heartened in turn when "Christian soldiers" of all ranks subscribed to their Army Missionary Fund.200 Another auspicious sign of the times was that military biographers were now insisting that the truly good officer was not only a gentleman but a visible Christian whose faith and spirit enhanced his professional prowess.201 Clifford, the vocal Baptist spokesman, was understandably among those who welcomed the salutary changes affecting the course of Empire. Indeed when he went so far as to announce that he had been an imperialist long before Joseph Chamberlain, he was likely speaking only partly in jest.202 In any case he was convinced that the Empire offered a way to the unification of humanity under the Cross. Even so he might have quarrelled with Jones's notion that his countrymen were innately equipped to enter into the spirit of other peoples. Thus Clifford tended to agree with those who wrote that the "English mind is naturally more or less insular, imperial and unsympathetic with other races." Along with other evangelical critics he feelingly regretted the "swagger, arrogance and complacency of the Briton abroad."203 But there was one redeeming factor. While Clifford had to admit that the British exhibited "insatiable greed, an aggressive selfishness, and most of the vices of a conquering people," he also held that they were a "great colonizing stock" whose destiny was to render the "family of man a homogeneous whole ..."2°4 And in the process, flaws notwithstanding, "irrepressible Englishmen" would fashion a global melting pot and lead the way in the evangelization of the world.2°5 Indeed other evangelicals waxed geopolitical as well as georeligious when they too contemplated what migrating Britons and their descendants had achieved overseas. For example, in lock step with Dilke and Froude, an India missionary travelling home by way of Canada rhapsodized that its recently completed Pacific railway "is a wonderful Imperial monument, opening up the vast North West with all its great possibilities, & connecting England, Canada, Australia, China [and] India."206 He also welcomed the "free and easy life" of the white colonies with their "perfect" self-government and manhood suffrage. While he scolded them for their supposed devotion to pleasure and gambling he was pleased overall with what he saw of their active church life. "I am not quite sure," this missionary mused, "I should not like to end my days in one of the Colonies."207

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Equally enthusiastic, the principal of a church college in India urged that before they embarked on their careers young missionaries, especially those fresh out of university, should augment their formal education by touring the white colonies and learning about the "wider world" of the Empire.208 When their turn came to comment, Scottish Baptists were in full agreement. They marvelled at the infinite variety of the Empire, which embraced people of "every kind of social standing and culture but all of them one in their loyalty to the great Queen Mother of them all."209 Indeed, as the century drew to a close, it became more and more fashionable to invoke the majestic aura of Victoria when proclaiming the virtues of empire and missions. Thus, in the Jubilee year, 1887, Mary Richard, the wife of the China missionary, boldly suggested to the BMS secretary that the queen write the Chinese emperor, "telling him the true secret of Her prosperity & that of the countries ruled by her."210 Given such visions, hopes, and sentiments, therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that evangelical Christianity, as personified in the likes of Clifford, was for the most part comfortable with imperialism as then perceived and was prepared to think and function within its framework.211

3 Citizenship in Crisis I: The Boer War

As the century drew to a close, John Clifford was not alone in his call for a "true imperialism" that would hurl the combined weight of British influence into the struggle for world evangelization. Between 1899 and 1914, however, many missionaries grew increasingly skeptical about cosy relations with Greater Britain or any other secular agency. Rather, ecumenical communion came to be seen as a better path to global salvation. Thus old denominational rivals began pooling their resources and coordinating their efforts, or at least contemplated doing so. Besides being financially prudent, this also reflected the disenchantment of mission houses with princes, politicians, and profits. As always, missionary opinion on this score was far from monolithic but, even so, a broad if gradual shift from imperialism to ecumenism was one of the most notable features of the period. There was, to be sure, no single event that triggered this. Instead the drift towards ecumenical self-reliance was set in motion by a number of factors. One was anti-sectarian idealism, which had been a powerful component of missionary thinking since the late eighteenth century, notwithstanding later Victorian particularism.1 Another, of course, was voluntarism, an even more potent evangelical tradition. But it was harsh direct experience after 1899 that prompted renewed emphasis on these twinned themes. Clamorous sabre-rattling in a volatile international arena was only the most obvious sign that nations still marched to the tune of realpolitik. True imperialism, moreover, received a dramatically telling body blow when one of its apparent champions, Leopold II of Belgium, was exposed as the

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source of humanitarian nightmares in the Congo. Beyond this the stagnation of missionary enterprise paralleled a decline in church attendance, all of which furnished depressing evidence that the British public had been weaned neither from materialism nor indifference to the cause of world evangelization. It was, however, conflict in South Africa and China that first gave exponents of "Imperial Christianity" serious reason to pause. The Boer War and the Boxer Rebellion threw once triumphalist British missionaries on the defensive, and not just in the most obvious physical sense. The threat to life, limb, and outpost, of course, was palpable enough, as operations were disrupted, stations sacked, and lives lost. In addition prices soared in the regions blighted, delivering another stiff jolt to missionary capacity and morale. Making matters even more difficult, vocal critics of missions cited evangelical meddling as a prime cause of both catastrophes. Worse still, while trying to defend their actions in the court of public opinion, missionaries fell out amongst themselves, particularly over events in South Africa. Inevitably, many were driven to re-evaluate how much and what sort of Western influence was truly desirable on the missionary frontier. With respect to South Africa it should be borne in mind that even though relations between Britain and the Transvaal had been steadily deteriorating for years, few missionary leaders had expected that the issues would have to be settled on the battlefield. However politicians and strategists might have perceived the situation, some missions were pleased that at least a religious detente had come to prevail between Boer and Briton. Indeed only months after the searing experience of Majuba Hill, the Bishop of Bloemfontein could report, to the surprise of some colleagues at home, that he and his clergy were enjoying harmonious relations with most Afrikaners.2 At decade's end that situation still seemed to hold good. "The Boers, as a rule are very kind to us," an SPG missionary happily reported in 1889, "[and] if a man goes among them gently & quietly, as a Christian, not as an Englishman, many of them will receive him with genuine kindness, & even affection when they know him well."3 In other words, when the missionary stuck to his religious knitting he was more or less free to go about his work. There were, to be sure, misgivings in other SPG quarters. The Bishop of Pretoria, whose relations with Afrikaners were not as cordial as those of his fellow cleric, obviously lived in dread of a Boer resurgence after Majuba. He wrote Bishop Tucker in the hope that something could be done about it, not excluding the reversing of history itself. "I cannot alter things," the bemused secretary responded,

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"or prevent the past war or make the Transvaal a British Colony even if I wished to do this last, which I don't."4 Indeed the society's leadership was not prepared to join those strategists and investors busily endorsing flag-waving attempts to put the Transvaal in its place. Enlightened self-interest and "good citizenship" combined in this instance to urge circumspection upon the SPG, which was planning to extend its domain north of the Boer republics even as Tucker wrote. Such a venture, obviously, would partially depend on Pretoria's goodwill. More importantly it would require the cooperation of Cecil Rhodes and his chartered company, which had its own plans for the country beyond the Zambesi. Within limits the SPG welcomed whatever aid the company was prepared to offer even if some of its missionaries felt that Rhodes's aggressive ambition would destabilize and alienate their prospective African parishioners.5 Much would also depend, however, on the society's ability to fund its expansion, and this was by no means certain.6 The uncertainty only increased in 1891, following bank failures in the Cape Colony that depleted the SPG'S coffers to the sad tune of some £io,ooo.7 Small wonder, then, that the society was in a conciliatory mood. Perspectives, of course, varied. For their part, after Majuba, LMS missionaries were far too concerned by the prospect of a resurgent Transvaal to take much notice of any supposed religious detente. Self-appointed champions of native rights, they had never been known to bite their political tongues. John Mackenzie's blistering critique of Afrikaner influence, after all, was just an extension of the views of early-nineteenth-century forerunners such as John Philip and J.T. Vanderkemp. Between these generations the torch had been passed by the likes of R.W. Thompson's own father, who at mid-century had suffered the indignity of being burned in effigy by angry settlers.8 By the 18905, accordingly, an anti-Boer pattern was deeply woven into the very fabric of local LMS lore. Still, it should be remembered that Mackenzie and his associates were far better placed than the SPG to eschew accommodation with Afrikaners. In the 18705 the society had shifted most of its resources from the Cape to Bechuanaland where a nominal British protectorate and strong relations with native leaders partially insulated it from interference from the Transvaal and the Cape. From this relatively secure perch, Congregationalist agents had directed a withering rhetorical fire against any and all settler influence in the region.9 Also targeted in the barrage was the Dutch Reformed Church, a tactic naturally accentuated once hostilities broke out. Thus one vocal LMS agent struck a deep and familiar chord when, soon after the shooting started, he identified the "taproot" of the whole mess. "If the Dutch Reformed Church of South

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Africa," he thundered, "had been true to its calling and the Master's great commission to spread the Gospel in this Dark Continent, we should not have had a baptism of blood in this land today."10 Yet, whatever their vantage point, before 1899 few missionaries on the ground preached or prophesied outright war. Nor did organizers at home show undue alarm even in 1897 when Tucker, to name but one, was assailed by reports of "bad passions, race feelings, drought and rinderpest."11 This is not to say, however, that complacency reigned at London's mission houses. Their denizens, after all, could scarcely avoid the pervasive discussion of deteriorating Anglo-Boer relations during the long prelude to war's outbreak in October 1899. The Transvaal's armaments build-up, President Paul Kruger's dogged opposition to aggressive Uitlander demands, Lord Milner's matching intransigence, the machinations of Rhodes, deadlocked negotiations, and troop movements, these were the very stuff of daily discourse.12 In the meantime, as the situation worsened, missionaries at the scene deluged their home offices with grim warnings. In June 1899, for example, Methodist leaders were alerted to the "menace of the political situation."13 One WMMS missionary was far more explicit in September. "Everybody here expects War," he told the secretary, Marshall Hartley, "and alas the bitterness between Dutch and English is so intense that no one believes himself safe."14 Meanwhile the SPG was receiving similar information about the political impasse along with accounts of the resulting business stagnation in southern Africa.15 Adding his voice to the sombre chorus, LMS veteran Howard Williams had told Thompson as early as May that the situation was all but irretrievable. Ruminating on "the prospective rumpus with the Transvaal," he sagely reasoned that while "Kruger and a few more may see that it means political extinction ... it is doubtful if they are strong enough to resist the younger and unenlightened blood of the country."16 As at home, so also in the field, missionary reaction to the gathering storm was far from uniform. Indeed all the gloomy talk gave some members of the WMMS a case of the jitters. Among the most nervous was the so-called burgher missionary, George Weavind, then serving as chairman and general superintendent of the Transvaal and Swaziland District. A native of Worcester but long domiciled in the Afrikaner states, this evangelical pioneer had, according to one troubled colleague, forged there the "most tender domestic relationships [that] could scarcely fail to beget pronounced, if not exclusive Dutch sympathies."17 Presumably in that day and age this meant that he had married, and very likely an Afrikaner. Although Weavind had stood by the British at Majuba and even served in their garrison at

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Pretoria/8 he was certainly upset in the summer of 1899 by what he termed one-sided assessments of the gathering crisis. Consequently he tried his hand at coming up with a fair and realistic one of his own. "I am convinced," he wrote home, "the British Government will resort to war only as a last resource to secure what they deem necessary in the interests of the Empire, because the talk about the franchise, however just the position taken, is only a pretext. I am equally sure this Government [the Transvaal's] is anxious to do what it appears just and right, and go as far as in its judgment it can without endangering their right to govern ,.."19 Then, barely a week before the war's outbreak, he abandoned any show of moderation by rejecting the idea that the Kruger regime should be held solely responsible for it. "The High Commissioner," he told Hartley, after apologizing for his "bitterness," "has in my judgement carried out Mr. Chamberlain's policy to the very letter, and by his arrogance and dictatorial manner ... done his utmost, as he was instructed to do, to exasperate this Government, and it is impossible for them to do, what I honestly believe they wish to do, meet the wishes of the British Government... if bloodshed comes, then I say deliberately the British Government is solely to blame."20 Had he been privy to them, LMS missionary A.J. Wookey, then at Molepolole, would have found Weavind's remarks decidedly inappropriate even though Wookey was no warmonger himself. He understood only too well that open hostilities would "upset the whole country" and along with it the mission cause. All the same, Wookey felt sure that there existed "a great need that the matters in question between the Boers and the Uitlanders be finally and authoritatively settled on a sound and liberal basis for both alike." After a pause he then stressed what would soon become the principal theme of all those missionaries who, either regretfully or enthusiastically, endorsed the war: "the position of the natives must be made better than it is at present." If force were required to soften or reverse Boer native policy, then, he concluded, so be it.21 Williams seconded these views in late September. He wrote Thompson that his one great misgiving was that hesitation in London had delayed the despatch of significant armed forces and thereby allowed the crisis to escalate and threaten the entire colony.22 Clearly, given the volatility and immediacy of the problem, it was becoming more and more difficult to maintain a balanced judgment or to avoid entanglement in the debate. Thus even as Weavind was driven in one direction, other Methodists determinedly took off in an opposite one. "I am persuaded," one such wrote home in July 1899, "that if the Home Government would make a display of force and the

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Radicals keep quiet, that the Boers would give us all we righteously ask for."23 Another made comments that closely matched the bellicose expectations of the British High Commissioner. "There is only one possible settlement - war!" Lord Milner had once confided. "It has got to come."24 In close agreement, the missionary craved a settlement too but cared little how it was achieved, whether through war or diplomacy. "Come it will," he wrote breathlessly in September, "and then there will be an unmatched Expansion of industry accompanied by a rapid rush of new population. May our church seize the opportunity which will be hers in a few months! I believe she will."25 This Methodist enthusiast was underscoring another article of faith that would, along with the defence of native rights, underpin much of the missionary support for a final showdown with the Boers: the Transvaal as it stood must not be bargained with but utterly transformed. Much of this smacked of a book published just weeks before the war began: The Transvaal from Within: A Private Record of Public Affairs. Part of a veritable flood of publications on South Africa, it swelled the tide that threatened, as The Times complained, to "swamp the most industrious reader."26 Its author, James Percy Fitzpatrick, a Uitlander agent of European mining interests, was a political activist working for the disintegration of the Boer republics. For him that welcome prospect would open up the Transvaal to British commercial enterprise and put an end to the regime's "stupid opposition to modern ideas," not to mention its alleged ill-treatment of Uitlander "helots."27 In their ways, the hopes of the missionary and those of the scheming Uitlander neatly meshed. However different the end in mind might have been, both revolved around the economic and cultural transformation of the "torpid" Boer republics. In the process, commerce, civilization, and Christianity would be the clear beneficiaries. Thus, on the very eve of hostilities, some missionaries eagerly anticipated the advent of a true imperialism on the veldt while others such as Weavind cringed at the prospect. Still others, however, especially the leaders at home, joined a saddened Bishop Tucker in praying that "even now war may be averted."28 In the end, of course, this prayer went unheeded. When Kruger and President Marthinus Steyn of the Orange Free State invaded British territory in a pre-emptive gamble that October, the long-anticipated was suddenly all too real. Under intensified pressure an incipient fissure dramatically widened in missionary ranks. For the most part the split mirrored the yawning division in the higher echelons of British society. Similarly it became more pronounced as, unexpectedly, the "inglorious" war dragged on and finally degenerated into a bleak guerrilla campaign marked by

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reported atrocities on both sides. The debate at Westminster, to be sure, had been gathering steam long before the first shots were fired. Radicals in the Liberal party, long critical of Britain's reputedly costly and aggressive policies overseas, denounced her intrusion into the Transvaal's affairs. Intellectual support came from the likes of John M. Robertson, who despaired of the corrosive effects of a patriotism that had come to stand, as he quipped, "for love of more country."29 It was, however, J.A. Hobson, left-wing political economist and trenchant social critic, who came to provide parliamentary "pro-Boers" and Emily Hobhouse with really explosive ammunition. Accusing imperialists of fostering expansion to deflect attention from domestic ills, he and the Radicals struck a responsive chord in reform-minded Liberal circles. More particularly, in ascribing the war to Byzantine conspiracies led by Jewish financiers, Hobson tapped a rich vein of anti-Semitism that was never far below the surface of British society.30 In turn this cleared the way to dismissing complaints against the Boers as so much expedient window-dressing for sinister, deeply rooted designs. When to this were added denunciations of the generally deleterious impact of European influence on African societies, the Radical case made a strong appeal to those who upheld the Nonconformist Conscience, most of whom were dedicated Liberals to begin with. The propaganda battle was joined, of course, when Tories and Liberal-Imperialists retorted that Radicals lacked proper notions of native trusteeship and had themselves conveniently ignored the very real Uitlander grievances.31 In all, the stage was set for a major confrontation as both sides appealed to potent elements of the fractured British conscience. The debate held more than purely public interest to the missionary community. Indeed from the outset critics charged its members with complicity in the whole South African fiasco. Typical was the indictment delivered by John J. Coulton, an outraged Cape citizen. Detecting what he considered an ominous trend, he alleged by way of parallel that there had been "no trouble in India until missionaries were admitted." After that, it had been a straight descent into the Mutiny of 1857. Closer to home, he continued, the Great Trek had been in no small measure a Boer reaction to meddlesome LMS agents. And that exodus, he argued, had led inexorably to the foundation of the Transvaal and to all the problems that had precipitated the current hostilities.32 One-dimensional, linear thinking such as this, common enough whenever crises arose, proved particularly troublesome to missionary interests. The Radical critique, however, was farther reaching and harder to counter. How, for example, could one "disprove" Hobson's assertion

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that missionaries were well-meaning but unwitting pawns in a larger capitalist game? And did not reflective missionaries hear some of their own anxieties and self-doubts echoed in Radical analysis? As it turned out, even among evangelicals who supported the war, there was some grudging assent when Hobson charged that this reputed effort to liberate the African from Boer tyranny might well end in his becoming a wage slave to the European magnate.33 This concern, in any case, certainly engaged the attention of W.C. Willoughby, soon to be founder of the LMS'S "industrial mission" at Tiger Kloof. Acknowledging that native labour was indispensable to local industry, he emphasized that "we need the natives quite as much as they need us." It would do no good therefore, he argued, simply to say that "if the niggers give us trouble - well, so much for the niggers." Instead, unless endless conflict were desired, it was necessary, as he put it, "to cultivate the manhood" of the African, to teach him the arts of civilization, while recognizing that helotry would not suffice indefinitely. After all, remarked the paternalistic Willoughby, "no wise and strong race can live in close contact with a lower and weaker race, doing nothing to uplift it, without being dragged down to the lower level."34 Some years later a prestigious mission publication went beyond Willoughby's notion when it also sympathetically addressed Hobson's point. Problems would always arise, it editorialized, "if the stronger race depends from youth to old age upon the manual labour of the backward race, and lives largely, as is the case at present, on the exploitation of the labour or the ignorance of a people just emerging from barbarism."35 Indeed Radical views sometimes dovetailed neatly, if disconcertingly, with those of missionaries themselves. For example the charge that this was a capitalist war and that labour, white as well as African, was ruthlessly exploited on the Rand was echoed in what a Methodist agent wrote in 1901. "We have always contended," he observed, "that this is not a Capitalist war, so we think. At the beginning of the war a prominent capitalist said 'We are now fighting Kruger [but] the real man we shall have to fight is Tom Dodd.' The late Mr. Dodd ... was a fine specimen of a north country Christian man, and the born leader of labour in its struggle with capital. Poor Dodd is dead ... Now the capitalists are showing their hand."36 The Jewish card, moreover, played well in some missionary circles. Thus another Methodist, who otherwise condemned everything the pro-Boers stood for, none the less shared their disgust for the perceived Jewish influence at work in "selfish, sordid and sensual" Johannesburg. He left little out, vehemently asserting that the "biggest rogues are the Jews." "I can now understand," he went on chillingly, "as I never

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could before, the anti-Semitic attitude of many parts of the European Continent."37 Indeed ethnic slurs even among missionaries appeared to be a commonplace, as when one blurted out that an "East End Jew would be afraid to give 2/6' for the clothes that many Boers wore."38 All this meant that Radicals often put missionaries in a very difficult situation since many of the latter shared at least some of the former's apprehensions and prejudices. In any case external criticism only served to sharpen existing divisions within missionary ranks. While opinions varied everywhere, the major fault line in the missionary community ran between metropolitan leaders and the rank and file in the field. Among the secretaries, Bishop Tucker of the SPG was scarcely controversial when he mused in November 1899 "that all but the most bloodthirsty are longing for an early peace."39 Some months later, however, the CMS'S C.C.B. Bardsley found himself more obviously torn on the implications of a complex war. For him it involved, among other things, the balancing of patriotic duty and Christian conscience. "To me at any rate," he wrote some associates, "the terrible war still raging has been full of revelations, partly concerning the needs of the Army in the field and partly concerning God's providential ordering of the events of the world. The war must have brought up in many men's minds great problems concerning prayer - Do our prayers really avail to turn the course of events? Upon what principles can we approach God in such straits?"40 Clearly shaken, Bardsley called for more intensive Bible study as he linked the soldier short of ammunition on the veldt to the Christian worker stripped of the Scriptures' armoury. And his anxiety was probably intensified by a CMS report that, while upholding the justice of the British cause, took pains to note that the true calamity was that the war was being fought between "two Christian peoples ... in what is still practically a heathen land."41 No doubt Bardsley and other troubled moderates took some comfort from the words of calmer colleagues such as H.E. Fox. "I have never yet met anyone," Fox wrote, "who wanted to go to war. The regret that we were forced to do so is universal. This is more than an opinion - it is a fact."42 In other words for all that people properly deplored blood-letting, once the Boers had resorted to arms, there was simply no honourable alternative for Britain but to respond in kind. And when Radicals decried such thinking as expedient rationalization, they were summarily dismissed by Fox as "an exceedingly small minority."^ He then turned to a more positive wartime development when, echoing Clifford's hopeful statements, he cited evidence of growing Imperial unity. "It is very pleasant," he remarked, "to see such gleams of light in the midst of the present political darkness. God

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seems to be knitting the hearts of the people together in the Empire in such a way by all this trouble as perhaps may lead to a greater united effort on the part of His people all the world over for the evangelization of the world before His Coming."44 Ebullient Methodists, in turn, seemed to appropriate the process as if it were preordained. "Methodism," announced their conference in 1900, "has played a silent but important part in the knitting of those ties ... which bind our colonies and daughter nations to the mother country. We realize that the future of the English race depends upon the public spirit of its Christian men; of those Christian men the people called Methodists form the largest and most compact division."45 An Anglican, T.A. Gurney, also saw the process as one of the war's saving graces, even if he might have been bemused by the Methodist claim. He rhapsodized in the Church Missionary Intelligencer about the "fellowship in which 'One Flag, One Fleet, One Throne' has become the symbol of a union in which ... fervent loyalty, imperial obligation, and common interest bind together the most widely separate portions of our Empire." He went on to argue that a true imperialism would surely survive the conflict and prosper as part of a "spontaneous impulse" to better the lot of all humanity under the stewardship of Christ. Having delivered these lofty sentiments, a perturbed Gurney then tackled the Radicals head-on. He railed against the "error" of those who, however humanely saddened by a "distressing war," mistakenly lumped Empire with militarism, "Covetous Aggression," and the scheming of the "moneyed classes."46 But to some missionary leaders such assurances and assertions offered little solace. Though Methodist church officials were filled with pride for the "ardent patriotism" of British soldiers, they chastised the national "arrogance" and "abuse of power" that had sent them off in the first place. "The conflict in South Africa," the conference of 1900 even-handedly lamented, "has filled our hearts ... with grief before God. We mourn ... over the thousands of brave men who have fallen on both sides. May ... God extend His pity to every English [sic] and Dutch home desolated by this awful scourge!"47 Clifford was equally heartbroken. "My soul," he anguished, "has been indescribably afflicted for my country ... Oh, that England should have fallen so low ...!" His Imperial fealties were gravely shaken by what he dubbed "this dishonourable war." At the very outset he joined forces with W.T. Stead, the journalist, social reformer, and otherwise voluble imperialist who broke ranks and came out in support of the "wronged" Boers. Together Clifford, Stead, and others helped organize a committee to bring peace and justice to a beleaguered South Africa.48 Seeking to avert what he called a national disaster, Clifford

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urged his compatriots to abandon their "false pride of race and blind hatred."49 All the same, while waiting for that to happen, he eventually convinced himself that all parties in South Africa, especially the natives, would gain immeasurably if British rule replaced the Dutch regime.50 Indeed at one point Clifford, who had already talked about global homogenizing under the aegis of Anglo-Saxondom, called for the blending of Briton and Boer on the veldt as a solution to the dilemma.51 At the height of the war, however, he roundly condemned the conflict and the "cowardly churches" that supported it. He paid for his temerity when his home and person were threatened by an angry mob out for the blood of so-called pro-Boers. "The worst aspect of this matter," a sorrowful Clifford reflected, "is the revelation it makes of the condition of the country. When a nation blunders, as ours has done ... it is evident that there is a deterioration of moral fibre, a depraving of the conscience, a blinding of the judgment, that must lead to further doom. The forecast cannot be one that omits penalty - doom. The Eternal Laws will not be defied ... Judgment will take the Nation to school and teach us as nothing else will.. ,"52 Nor, as noted, did Clifford stand alone. The war sharpened the misgivings of a fellow Baptist to whom the military metaphor and the derring-do tales of a G.A. Henty were now anathema. W.T. Whitley sermonized that historians and writers paid too much attention to what generals did and "how the British flag was carried forward and frontiers were extended."53 Another co-religionist, Charles Wilson, already jaundiced by the pomp of Empire, grew increasingly critical of such self-evident "humbug." He scornfully mocked the elaborate durbars, the "infernal cannonading," and the "sickening vanity" that marked Delhi's celebration of Edward VII's Coronation Day in 1903.54 More directly, the charismatic Charles H. Spurgeon, founder of the populist Baptist training college, repudiated the war and called on Britain to renounce all territorial annexation in South Africa.55 In turn the secretary of the Baptist Union approvingly read out in committee a resolution from colleagues at the Cape. In this, the Evangelical Church Council of Port Elizabeth expressed "its deep regret that the questions in dispute ... should have led to [this] deplorable war ... and earnestly trusts that there may be a speedy cessation of [it], and the settlement of all questions in dispute on the basis of righteousness and mutual good."56 This declaration, though largely intended for a Baptist audience, would have been warmly received by some leading figures at the LMS as well even if, officially, Mission House generally avoided public comment on the war. Retreating into a traditional formula, the directors proclaimed early in 1900 that "Missionary Societies, as such, may

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not regard it as coming within their legitimate province to discuss or express opinions upon questions of Imperial policy."57 For the most part, therefore, LMS publications "studiously refrained from ... anything in the nature of a political or partisan allusion to the situation in South Africa."58 Yet as early as December 1899 Thompson hinted that friends of the LMS, like the public at large, differed on the merits of the case.59 While literally accurate, this was also a more than mildly disingenuous understatement. After all, the venerable foreign secretary himself entertained views strikingly similar to Clifford's, and had a desk strewn with complaints to prove it. The most biting of these came from missionaries in the field to whom Thompson had revealed his innermost thoughts in a stream of private correspondence. Thus in January 1900 J.S. Moffatt scrawled an angry letter from the Cape rejecting Thompson's Hobsonian analysis of the war's origins: "I do not set much store upon the theory that you and some others have expressed that the attitude of our political leaders has been influenced by the pressure of financiers."60 A month later David Mudie, LMS treasurer at Cape Town, confessed that he was "staggered" by a letter Thompson had written to the Christian World applauding the "kindly treatment" meted out by Boers to non-combatants.61 Unquestionably, while diplomatic enough in public, the secretary had unhesitatingly expressed his anti-war opinions within the bosom of the LMS family. Thompson, moreover, was not without considerable support at Mission House. This became plain when those who controlled the Chronicle did everything but declare their opposition to the war in the magazine's June 1900 edition. "In less than three months after the Hague Conference closed," a carefully worded lead article ran, Great Britain was engaged in the most serious, the most sanguinary, and in many ways the most unhappy conflict of modern times. There has been a very marked and painful divergence of feeling and opinion even among Christian men as to the justice and expediency of the position our country has taken in this quarrel, and not a few of the Society's friends and supporters have been disposed to demand that it should ... publicly connect itself with the party which condemns the war as unrighteous.

With the directors split on this issue, the editors fought just shy of such a commitment. Even so they took care to add that "there can scarcely be room for difference among Christian men as to the witness which war bears to the tremendous power of selfish and sinful passion."62 All told, various mission officers in London preached peace and conciliation, albeit with varying degrees of candour. There was, how-

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ever, much less of this on the agitated South African mission field where it was easier said than done. Indeed LMS agents in the Cape Colony were more than ready for a scrap. The Boer invasion struck James Good as little more than a plundering expedition designed to compensate for bad seasons in the Transvaal. The raiders, he fumed, would enjoy the chance "to lay in a stock of 'tussets' and 'baadjes' for their 'vrows' and 'kinders.' " His only fear was that they might be "missing when Messrs. Duller and Co. call on them." Good also fulminated against the sedition flourishing at the Cape after he heard talk of local Boers shipping mauser rifles hidden in piano bases to points in the interior.63 Equally obsessed with fears of a Boer rebellion in the colony, Mudie lambasted Thompson for his appeasing views, pointing out that the war was the outcome of a long-brewing Afrikaner plot.64 Among Methodists, arguably the most militant was George Lowe. Stationed in the Transvaal when the war struck, he was as much a Uitlander as Fitzpatrick, whose book he openly admired.65 A graduate of the WMMS'S Richmond College, Lowe had served briefly in Sierra Leone before joining the society's Transvaal Department in 1884. Over the years, unlike his colleague Weavind, he became convinced that an aggressive Afrikanerdom was rising in the wake of Majuba and threatening the political and religious future of a British South Africa. While observers such as Hobson, Clifford, and James Bryce dismissed a "Dutch conspiracy" out of hand, Lowe insisted, once the war had started, that even the "most decided of the proBoers will now see in the elaborate preparations some confirmation of the belief that for years [the Afrikaners] have been preparing to throw off the British yoke."66 He later complained that the Radicals' activities were hamstringing the military effort in South Africa and souring the climate of opinion at the very heart of Empire. Meanwhile, sensing an extension of Boer plotting, Lowe drew attention to "impertinent" remarks made by Transvaal authorities. These, he claimed, were cleverly designed for the benefit of Radicals at Westminster and Britain's rivals in Europe who were seeking to undermine the Empire's will.67 For Lowe there was in all this a sense of a proud and virtuous mother country unjustly accused and dangerously isolated. Only the "mighty God of battles," he declaimed, was Britain's true friend at this critical moment. Above all he prayed that there would be no attempt to patch up what he called a broken peace. He agreed totally with the geopolitics of a fellow missionary who remarked that "while war is hateful and calamitous, the continuance of Dutch rule ... especially if extended, as Dutchmen desire, to the whole of the Sub-Continent - would be infinitely more hateful

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and calamitous, both from a political and religious point of view."68 For Lowe and his colleague the hour of compromise had passed. Another Methodist, however, described as "rabid" by a fellow missionary, went much further. He regarded the hostilities on the veldt not as a hateful calamity to be endured but as a providential boon to be savoured. Expressing a view popular in certain Continental circles, he made the disconcerting statement that "war is sometimes in its effects as a refining fire. It certainly breaks up the stagnation of existence and causes (or should cause) the stream of life to run more clearly."69 On the other hand, to their considerable credit, some missionaries caught up in the maelstrom tried to paint a more balanced picture. These included agents like Weavind, who, because of the personal respect they had won from the Boers or because of their circumspection, were not forced, as Lowe was, to leave the republics while hostilities raged. As one of them put it, echoing what the SPG had said after Majuba: "If we have been suspected because we were British, we have been trusted because we are Christians."70 Accordingly some missionaries reported that they had been afforded every consideration by Afrikaner authorities and permitted within limits to go about their work. Again, other agents stationed outside the republics rose above the strife, poignantly recognizing many old acquaintances and fellow worshippers amongst Boers taken prisoner.71 More commonly the dash and courage of the Afrikaner regulars elicited grudging praise, even from those missionaries who prayed daily for their defeat. Thus LMS veteran John Brown would reflect ironically on the Boer stand at the Modder River: "It has made me sorry that I am convinced that the uncontrolled rule of such men as Cronje would be a curse to the natives and a hindrance to progress. Bravery and military capacity such as his deserved to succeed instead of failing."72 Even the acerbic Lowe was prepared at least to give the Kruger regime a good grade for strategic decision making, particularly its move to expel the "Enemy within its gates": "It was a master stroke of policy. They had not to feed us, they secured the lines of communication free of interference, and they prevented the British when they came into the country finding allies in a Great Community of their own people."73 For his part, meanwhile, Weavind appears to have done his level best to maintain a more or less neutral position in the Transvaal while defending the interests of the WMMS. In other words he was endeavouring to uphold what he conceived to be the time-honoured principles of good citizenship.74 Even so some still suspected him of proBoer sympathies or at the very least of toadying to Kruger.75 Such suspicions seemed confirmed when, for example, Weavind tried to

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put a cap on a colleague's frank discussion of political issues for fear it might invoke the wrath of the authorities.76 Other missionaries, however, strongly defended him and the way he walked the political tightrope and discharged his missionary obligations under difficult circumstances.77 For that matter even the most fervently pro-war colleague could demonstrate that fundamental disagreement on public issues need not always warp perspective. Thus Lowe, as a show of personal confidence, made a point of having Weavind accompany him on his rounds, especially when he met with military authorities who harboured doubts about the burgher missionary's loyalty.78 Obviously, not all sense of proportion was obliterated by the impact of war. Even so, early in 1902, with the military's doubts not stilled and his loyalty being questioned by the civil authorities, an unhappy Weavind felt obliged to resign his Transvaal post, all the while protesting the "slanderous charges" brought against him.79 Weavind's fate demonstrated that what passed for moderation and good sense was far more evident during the early rather than the later stages of the conflict. A series of developments combined to harden attitudes, including the missionaries'. Not the least of these was the expulsion of thousands of refugees from the Boer republics. Their fate was graphically reported and perhaps exaggerated by the metropolitan press, which gave prominent coverage to the "harrowing recitals" of the misery endured, particularly by women and children.80 One missionary eyewitness, who involuntarily joined the exodus, marvelled at the jumbled assortment of humanity that made it up. It ranged from the "white-haired and reverent Archdeacon of Krugersdorp to the drunken miner who hugged the whisky bottle to his breast and sang in broken and coarse strains snatches of 'Rule Britannia' and 'God Save the Queen/ "8l Meanwhile, visiting new arrivals in Cape Town every day, Mudie wrote a string of scathing letters flaying those at LMS headquarters who prated on about the "kindliness" of the Boers.82 Passing on stories of confiscations and evictions, he also highlighted reports of mutilations that Afrikaners had carried out on natives assisting British refugees.83 He spared no one. Flailing Thompson, the Radicals, and vocal exponents of the Nonconformist Conscience at home, he seized on the victims' plight as firm justification for Britain to resist "the domination of Boer and Bond." "If we had only been Armenians," he prodded, "what a clamour there would have been for intervention and war at the Memorial Hall."84 Angered generally by all this, missionaries on the scene were particularly outraged when the Boer regime subjected their colleagues to expulsion. Most had expected Kruger's exemption of clergymen from impressment to be honoured in exchange for declarations of neutral-

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ity. Many were shocked, therefore, when suspect missionaries such as Lowe found their possessions commandeered and themselves unceremoniously put on a Cape-bound train. In LMS circles the unhappy case of J. Tom Brown had an especially sharp impact. As agent at Kuruman, he found himself trapped when the Boers fanned out into Bechuanaland. Claiming neutral status as a servant of the gospel, Brown assisted surgeons of both sides when the town fell to Afrikaner forces in January 1900. However, he refused, when commanded by the victors, to hand over the mission's oxen, citing the Transvaal exemptions. As a result he was promptly arrested for sedition and together with his wife, then quite ill, hustled out of Kuruman on a mere forty-eight hours' notice.85 "After all I have seen of Boer dishonesty, breach of faith and shameless conduct," a disenchanted Brown wrote when safe at last in British hands, "all my sympathy for them has vanished."86 The incident quickly became a cause celebre. John Brown, an LMS missionary at the Taungs Reserve, had grudgingly applauded Boer conduct in his neighbourhood, until he learned of his namesake's fate. At that point he concluded that this was as clear a foretaste of future Boer rule as anyone was likely to get. His disillusionment was all the more keen because he had hitherto taken at face value Boer assurances that non-combatants were not being expelled from the Transvaal or conquered territory. Now he regarded his own light treatment as "more the result of policy than principle," an effort, in other words, to keep order on the cheap at the fringes of Boer power.87 Meanwhile his colleague at Kanye, Edwin Lloyd, dismayed by confiscations in his region that amounted to little more than looting, began to drift away from the anti-war position he had initially adopted.88 If the fate of the refugees helped to harden missionary attitudes, so did the Boers' resorting to guerrilla tactics after the surrender of their regular forces. This, of course, rekindled fears of a rebellion at the Cape as Boer irregulars invaded the colony and emboldened local Afrikaners to join them. To many the raids brought the war uncomfortably close to their own doorstep. For "the first time during the war," a thoroughly agitated SPG reported, "the settled districts of this Diocese are being overrun ... by [enemy] marauders."89 It was, however, the disregard all this showed for the accepted conventions of war that most angered missionaries. Thus Lowe erupted: "What the Boers could not accomplish in fair and open warfare they try to do by acts of petty and contemptible tyranny."90 Waxing melodramatic, equally angry colleagues, their "blood at the boil," talked constantly of the Boers' "brigandage" and of their "dastardly outrages" against natives

85 The Boer War and white non-combatants alike.91 In these circumstances any attempt by missionaries to deflate stories of Boer atrocities or to urge prayers for the enemy fell easy prey to wartime fear and acrimony.92 As an exercised SPG missionary saw things, it was all well and good to pray for Boers but he rejected the plea that the latter were fighting and dying in defence of their homes. Those homes, he insisted, were never at risk even while they were "sacking and destroying the houses of loyal subjects. "93 Their blood roused, many local missionaries called for stern action. Indeed the crisis brought on by disloyalty and incipient rebellion at the Cape so alarmed John Brown that he was even resigned to the possibility of having to give up "the privileges of responsible government for a time."94 Delays in responding to the raids led a distraught Wookey to call on the British authorities "to leave their red tape ways and carry out plans for speedily settling the country."95 Only just back in Kuruman, Tom Brown in January 1901 reported that raiders had shelled his local church despite its white flag and a sign that it housed only women and children. With two dead and more injured in the incident, the beleaguered missionary told Thompson that "we can best hope that soon Lord Kitchener will have been able to lay these brutal murderers by the heels."96 When Kitchener finally did adopt stringent measures to subdue Boer resistance, he did so, not surprisingly, with considerable missionary support. To be sure, a few agents did have the courage to show compassion for the enemy and to second Hobhouse's condemnation of scorched earth and concentration camps. These critics, however, were brusquely advised by colleagues to save their sympathy for British refugees evicted from comfortable homes and reduced to menial labour at the Cape.97 All this bleating about Boer hardship was wearing on John Brown's already frayed nervous system. Having spent months under virtual house arrest in enemy-occupied Bechuanaland, he had sat out the formal hostilities in the hectic company of a deranged colleague who at one point had threatened to take a knife to all about him.98 Finally, when formal surrender brought no peace but only stepped-up guerrilla raids, Brown lost all patience with pro-Boers and what he considered half-hearted British responses. In July, after writing that "Mr. Chamberlain thinks that there is no war left to speak of," he angrily added, "I wish he lived as near to it as I do."99 By August he and other missionaries in the region were reporting serious food shortages as both Boer and British combatants requisitioned or destroyed local stores.100 Even when there was something for him to cheer about after Lord Methuen's "clearing" of the Transvaal, Brown's "huzzahs" were combined with an irate attack on Hobhouse. "The only people who are

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fortunate at the present time," he raged, "are those in concentration camps or in prison; for they must be fed, even tho' loyal subjects are starving."101 Plainly, compassion was wearing thin among Brown's ilk and so was their patience with Radicals who charged them with letting their "credulity outrun their judgment" when reporting Boer atrocities to a receptive Exeter Hall.102 Retorts to such barbs had, of course, been issued from the start. Men on the spot, however, pointed to a grim irony in the situation. In successfully dividing public opinion at home, they argued, Radicals and their allies had only succeeded in drawing out the war. Railing against the "Conciliation Committee," Moffatt complained that it provided precisely the kind of support that had encouraged Boers to launch hostilities in the first place.103 He confessed himself sorry for the average Afrikaner deluded by such people, and maintained that the Radicals' sole contribution was "to hearten the Boers and prolong the war."104 "Your Dutchman is bad enough," he observed elsewhere, "... but he is not as bad as the English proselyte he makes."105 Sentiments such as these, reiterated time and again while the formal war raged,106 became even sharper following the descent into irregular hostilities. Indeed by August 1901 John Brown was writing despondently: "I hope I live long enough to see the end of the war." Assigning blame, he continued: "Thanks to the hopes of independence held out by our pro-Boer friends ... the war will have a last stage. That stage may be uncertain in its duration but there is no doubt about the nature of it. Its effects will be lamentable."107 Obviously, exercised missionaries on the ground were deeply committed to the war within the war, and the arguments of the Radicals rang every bit as loudly in their ears as any volley from the local battlefield. Moreover a genuine siege mentality gripped their ranks as time went on. This, in part, was fed by their sense of being abandoned by many of their spiritual brethren and natural allies at home. Increasingly they regarded themselves as front-line troops in a desperate battle for hearts and minds. Accordingly the refugee problem and the guerrilla campaign were almost welcome because in the eyes of a Moffat or a Lowe, at least, they provided striking confirmation of the case they had made all along. At its heart, however, lay the conviction that, whatever its proximate cause, the struggle would determine the fate of native peoples throughout the whole of southern Africa. Given this, Radical allegations that had played well in some metropolitan missionary circles won far less acceptance among agents in the field. The financial conspiracy theory, for example, was deemed narrow and misleading. To be sure, some, such as Mudie, conceded that

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the Rand magnates had considerable influence and often acted selfishly. In fact he and many other missionaries had condemned the Jameson Raid as "a great crime and a miserable political blunder." But Mudie argued that the "evil influences of Capitalism" were not "confined to men who are the owners of diamond and gold mines ..." On the contrary, he alleged, the same forces were at work "amongst men who have their thousands" and who used them in an effort to silence preachers who supported the war.108 Enlarging on this theme, John Brown argued that bribery in South Africa was so endemic that it was "fast becoming a matter of bookkeeping." But it was not, he added, confined to the ranks of the Rand lords. Kruger, he pointed out, had already stated that large amounts of Transvaal secret-service money had been dispensed in the Cape Colony. As Brown would have it, much of that cash had found its way not only into the hands of seditious Dutch agents but also to Americans and "Irish nationalists who disgust even pro-Boers." Such, wrote the paranoic Brown, was the broad and sweeping power of the purse in South Africa.109 Even if they found Hobson's analysis of the capitalist conspiracy onesided and narrow, many missionaries in South Africa readily conceded some points in the Radical critique. This was particularly the case when indictments of Western secular influence were filed. Lowe, for one, although an avid defender of Uitlander political rights, had no use for certain worldly whites on the Rand. He was, in fact, sharply critical of those who stooped to peddling liquor, the "nigger-killer."110 Equally, he deplored those who undermined the work ethic by tempting natives with lotteries and sweepstakes.111 In a burst of reforming zeal, Lowe brought all this to the attention of the Superintendent of Native Affairs. He was utterly dismayed, however, when that official firmly advised him that the feelings of the European community would invariably have to take precedence over the perceived interests of the African.112 As a result, according to one missionary study of the situation, the Rand speedily became a "university of vice for the native people."113 An LMS agent reached much the same conclusion at Bulawayo when it began to feel the tug of "civilization," sadly noting that drink and prostitution were destroying the moral fibre of its natives. Still, he chided, the Africans could hardly be blamed for this. "They are," he scolded, "only following in the footsteps of others who came here from so-called civilized countries ... to carry on their nefarious traffic."114 All told, few missionaries of any experience regarded the wholesale expansion of Western society as an unalloyed boon for South Africa's natives. Hence they travelled part of the path trodden by the Radicals. But this shared journey was decidedly short. A decisive parting of the ways came when pro-war missionaries urged compatriots to

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think in comparative rather than in absolute terms about the kinds of white influence on offer in South Africa. In doing so they came to the central point of their case for the Imperial cause: a triumphant Afrikanerdom would spell spiritual and material ruin for the region's native peoples. While admitting Greater Britain's many faults, they held that the unbridled Boer alternative would be infinitely worse for their African constituency. Writing in 1900 of the origins of the war, but also of the broader record of the contending parties, one LMS agent put the matter plainly enough. "It is of little use," he wrote, "for England and the Transvaal to be reproaching each other," since "blame attaches to both and neither can show clean hands." He had, however, no hesitation in declaring that "the Transvaal's hands are the dirtiest."115 Similarly, Methodist missionary G.S. Eva had little doubt that this was a "necessary war." Had it not been undertaken, he maintained, the consequences would have been disastrous for both the missionary effort and the black community. In effect if missions were forced out or subjected to Boer regulations, the native would be at the mercy of a society that regarded him "as little removed from the monkey and as hardly possessing a soul.""6 Indeed warnings of this sort were the very essence of missionary correspondence from the field.117 Even a metropolitan writer whose "heart bled for the sufferings of the Boers," took much the same stand: "But it is well known - it is a matter of history - that the Boer Government has never been favourable to missionaries; that on the contrary, in the strong inherited instinct of that people to isolate themselves, and to drive out from among them any foreign element, they have made life very hard, not only for the natives ... but for the messengers of the Gospel ..."II8 More pointedly, J. Tom Brown solemnly warned that "the paramountcy of the Dutch means the end of all our mission work and the enslaving of all the black races of South Africa.""9 To people of this persuasion the real issue in this virtual holy war seemed patent enough while the spiritual stakes loomed astronomical. Consequently they simply could not comprehend the metropolitan hostility that so often greeted their message. Indeed much of the heat in their pronouncements was generated by a sense of having been betrayed at home. John Brown, for example, scanning months of old newspapers after his confinement, fired off an angry response of his own. "My party sympathy as a Liberal," he wrote bitterly, "has not been strengthened by finding that some of the leaders could try and make party capital even out of such a crisis. I feel as though I shall never wish to read anything Mr. Stead can write, clever as he is; and in my opinion any Englishman continuing to subscribe to the Review of Reviews might well be suspected of disloyalty."120 While a

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large daub of nationalist sentiment no doubt coloured Brown's picture of the situation, he was certainly no John Bull. Indeed, like some other evangelicals, he just as vigorously denounced jingoism and especially the triumphalist excesses that followed the relief of Mafeking.121 Instead, in this context, "disloyalty" for him had a deeper meaning than simple clan desertion. Much more significantly, it implied dereliction of a Christian duty. Brown's colleague Moffat was quick to drive this point home. In 1901 he went to London with an interdenominational delegation whose purpose was to ensure that Whitehall put native issues front and centre in any prospective peace settlement. Writing to Thompson on the matter, the missionary ill concealed his contempt for pro-Boer co-religionists, facetiously writing that "possibly we may secure some co-operation even from our Congregationalist friends at home." Still, he was wary even on that score. "I cannot forget," he continued, "that in 1881 for party reasons Congregationalists sat still and without protest allowed the British Government to put back half a million of natives into Boer vassalage." He doubted that much had changed in the interval and mused morbidly that his statements on the subject were "probably just another nail in my coffin in the minds of people who have got capitalists on the brain."122 The general argument put by Moffat, Lowe, and others like them was not entirely without effect. Radicals might have touched a missionary nerve or two, but Brown and other pro-war evangelicals had a few aces up their sleeves. One was the powerful distrust of Afrikaner society that permeated all levels of the missionary community, conflicting opinions about the war notwithstanding. Another was the emphasis they gave to native, rather than merely Uitlander, rights as an overriding element in the situation. The war within the war, in other words, was by no means an unequal contest since agents in the field could claim some traditional missionary high ground of their own. At any rate, by early 1900, a harrassed Thompson confided that he was squarely "under the lash" of his colleagues on the spot.123 Under pressure, and also perhaps because as his father's son he made at best a reluctant pro-Boer, the secretary increasingly stuck to themes around which he hoped all LMS troops could rally. Thus, while still critical of the war, he began to think, much like Clifford, that "when a final peace settlement comes there will be equal rights for all white men south of the Zambesi and for blacks as well who have an equal claim ... since under the British flag, thank God, political distinctions arising from colour are unknown."124 Warming to this message, he later added a twist of his own in urging the extension of Imperial

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authority to the Transvaal after the war, rather than that of a chartered company.125 In short it would appear that in spite of the battering that the Radicals gave it, the gospel of true imperialism still had the power to fight back. Some of that power undoubtedly flowed from endless reports of native loyalty to Queen and Empire that flooded in from the front. What, after all, could a Thompson say when one of his Cape colleagues wrote: "I think it might have some effect upon yourself and some others of our Congregational brethren if you could see and hear the general jubilation amongst the coloured people whenever we have had a success ,.."126 Apart from such general observations, much was made of high-profile demonstrations of native fidelity. Wookey, for example, recorded his gratitude to Bechuana chief Sebele who sheltered him while combating Boer incursions.127 The most celebrated incident, however, occurred during the early hostilities when, with Boer forces nibbling at his territory, Khama, ever the darling of the missionary set, threw down the gauntlet to would-be invaders. "I am a child of the Queen," declared the chief. "The white people are in my care and if an armed force whose object it is to kill the people crosses into my country, my bullets and guns will speak." The elated Williams, who translated this declaration and called for its publication throughout Britain, urged that such loyalty be properly recognized after the war.128 Wookey seconded the plea once his station fell to the Boers. While he called on the natives to observe formal neutrality, he did "allow them in some way to show their loyalty, so that there [would] be no excuse for taking away this country when the war is over."129 Of course not every missionary sang the native's praises. One LMS agent complained to all and sundry that gratitude was not one of the African's strong points.130 And ironically, for all of Lowe's professed solicitude for his native flock, some of its leaders wished him permanent good riddance on the grounds that he had left his mission field without proper notice. The fiery Methodist, who seemed to have an answer for every criticism, put this down to the fact that "those who do most for the natives suffer most from their aggressiveness."131 Even so, the dominant note that Lowe and others struck was that the Africans' general wartime loyalty would impose a solemn obligation on Britain at the eventual peacemaking. Lowe then condemned the military brass for failing to facilitate the missionaries' speedy return to their abandoned stations. Delay, he complained, would have a demoralizing effect on African converts.132 Indeed many missionaries were concerned when individual native groups, frustrated by the British army's sluggishness in recovering lost

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ground, began to make their own peace with the Boers.133 Willoughby was among those who cautioned that, as the war disrupted mission work and dangerously destabilized native communities, the evangelical future would depend on tapping African goodwill while it lasted.134 Small wonder then that his impatience mounted not only with the proBoers but with the wartime Empire's all-too-patent shortcomings. A troubled John Brown was equally impatient. "The conviction is being forced upon me," he wrote in March 1900, "that God has a controversy with my country and that the Boers are being used to lessen our pride."135 Instead of being treated to a mighty Christian host cleansing all before it, anxious missionaries saw only the halting and fallible agencies of the British government. As the war sputtered inconclusively on, Brown and others grew ever more critical of their would-be saviours. For one thing, pressured Imperial authorities seemed to give way to an unwholesome secularism, even an anticlericalism, that trivialized the mission agenda, notably the desire to return to recaptured stations.136 For another, according to one aggrieved SPG agent, the army had earlier on needlessly damaged mission property during its ham-fisted offensives.137 Beyond that, Brown disclosed that British officers could be every bit as careless of missionary neutrality as any Boer commando. He recalled an incident in which some refugees gathered at his station were armed by a local British commandant intent upon pursuing Boer guerrillas. In spite of Brown's protests that this compromised his station's non-combatant status, the "dictatorial" officer threatened to "make things hot" for the LMS should his plans be blocked.138 While such incidents might be written off as local exceptions, there was harsher criticism for the general tone of the army. Lowe, for example, made angry comments about British soldiers who refused to act like members of a truly Christian army. In this he joined colleagues who denounced irreverent and irregular soldierly activities that often violated the Sabbath or led to the plundering of civilian supplies.139 But fortunately, from Lowe's point of view, these rampant sins were offset, at least to a degree, by the supposedly exemplary conduct of Methodist warriors who spoke "most freely of spiritual things" while heading for the front - a genuine Christian soldiery if ever there was one.140 Again, all the societies were gratified by the organization of a Soldiers' Christian Association, which made religious literature available to the troops. "Solemnized by the stern realities of the battlefield," as a pleased CMS magazine put it, they reportedly responded well to the organization's efforts.141 It was all the more disheartening, then, when British commanders in the field sometimes set a poorer Christian example than their Afri-

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kaner adversaries. "The Boers as a people," noted John Brown, "profess trust in God and even in war, observe the Lord's day." The same, he continued, could not be said of British officers such as Sir William Gatacre who thoughtlessly selected a Sunday for his attack in the Stormberg.142 The religious tone of the republics also impressed a Baptist missionary in far-away India. "Whatever be the faults of the Boers," he perceptively pointed out, "they do not forget God. They go to the war like the old Puritans, like Cromwell's Ironsides."143 Thus, the Afrikaners did not lack for hardy Christian soldiers either, as the British were learning to their heavy cost. While missionaries offered mixed reviews of the British army's religiosity, their assessments of its performance in the field were overwhelmingly negative. Like most other observers they had expected a mercifully short campaign and a decisive reversal of Majuba. When this failed to materialize, some agents of the gospel half suspected that it was the General Staff, more so than the Boers, who had been sent as a trial by God. Lowe, the self-styled strategist, often questioned the field tactics of Sir Redvers Buller, the first Imperial commander. He wondered, for example, why the general, given all his opportunities, failed to deliver a knock-out blow, invariably allowing Boer guerrillas to recoup and live to fight another day.144 By January 1900 the LMS'S Moffat was beside himself. "Our generals," he wrote despairingly, "seem paralysed." To him Methuen was passive, Buller outgeneralled, and Gatacre was proving to be "a duffer of the most pronounced type." Thoroughly dismayed, Moffat anxiously waited to see what Field Marshal Lord Roberts and Kitchener could do.145 When, as it turned out, the vaunted "Bobs" proved no quicker off the mark than his hapless colleagues, a disgusted John Brown snidely noted that he was probably just waiting for "winter gear" to arrive.146 Other missionaries weighed in with assorted pot-shots at the forces' well-publicized waste, inefficiency, and red tape. Inevitably these flaws were contrasted with the Boers' mobility, invidious intelligence system, and marked ability to outwit their plodding foes.147 In the end it was probably armchair-general Lowe who best encapsulated his colleagues' frustrations with what passed for the British campaign. "The ways of [our] Military authorities," he wrote despondently at one point, "are like Providence, mysterious and making large calls upon our uncomplaining trust."148 Disappointed with military performance, missionaries were appalled by military spending. "When John Bull fights," the Chronicle jibed facetiously, "he fights like a gentleman so far as being heedless of expense is concerned." Indeed, it was reckoned that the cost of but three military convoys matched the LMS'S entire annual income.149

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There was, however, more than just a simple concern with value for money behind such comments. Deeper down in missionary vitals, disturbing fiscal facts of life gnawed painfully at their confidence and optimism. A certain degree of wartime privation had been expected as a matter of course so it was not just temporary hardship and inconvenience that plunged missions into depression. Rather it was the spectre of chronic shortage that produced that unhappy condition. For some time missionary revenues from donations, legacies, and special forward movements had failed to keep pace with expanding needs. In 1902 the LMS reported that it was spending all of £500 a week more than it was taking in.15° While scarcely a new phenomenon, the pattern of rising deficits became especially alarming as the war sent prices soaring in South Africa. From Bechuanaland A.J. Gould described a four- to fivefold increase in the cost of living.151 Williams complained that his salary had less than half the purchasing power in the colony that it had in England.152 James Richardson, LMS agent at Vryburg, also tried to put the sombre picture in a comparative context. Echoing the market-value talk of SPG missionaries in the tropics, he remarked that at an annual stipend of £225 he earned far less than a young bank manager at £400. For that matter, he went on, even accountants took home markedly more than emissaries of the gospel. Surely, he mused, something was seriously amiss.153 And, as it happened, organizers at home, who ordinarily might have questioned such secular parallels, could not have agreed more in this instance. At any rate, for all missionaries, regardless of their attitudes to the war itself, there was something deeply alarming in the fact that Britons would shower resources on their armed forces while allowing mission incomes to stagnate. Editors of the Chronicle drew attention to a sobering statistic that, to them, spoke volumes about priorities in the heartland of Empire. The war in South Africa, they noted, cost Britain some £300,000,000, a sum that far eclipsed that expended on the total missionary enterprise since time immemorial. "It is," they sadly observed, "a strange record for a Christian nation at the beginning of the Twentieth Century."154 Be that as it may, missionaries themselves did not always take the counsels of Christian brotherhood directly to heart. Indeed in spite of their sporadic collaboration with other societies, Lowe and his WMMS colleagues often acted in a highly proprietary way, as though they should be recognized as the only genuine missionary voice in the colony. In fact they had already made it plain that Natal ought to be regarded as the "most truly Methodist and the most English of the Districts in South Africa."155 Certainly Lowe, for his part, would have it no other way. In his view, supporting the war on behalf of British

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paramountcy and African rights should never obscure the need to protect and extend Methodism's own sphere of influence. And if that had to be done at the expense of sister societies, so be it. With a trace of paranoia he repeatedly warned WMMS headquarters against the growing presence of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Anglicans, as if indeed they were as sore a threat to the redemption of South Africa as the Boers. These rivals would, he aptly claimed, "move Heaven and Earth" to diminish the WMMS'S domain, ironically just as his society was moving in on the LMS'S hard-won turf in an effort to thwart that body's expansion plans.156 Never one to mince words, Lowe thus concluded that "We have nothing to hope from fraternal consideration from any of the Nonconformist bodies."157 And that went double, of course, for the SPG, which had long complained that "dissenting influences" in the Cape parliament had consistently conspired against it.158 One of Lowe's fellow missionaries sounded another alarm. The sudden wartime influx of military and bureaucratic contingents from Britain, he warned, had so augmented Anglican congregations that the SPG might be encouraged to expand, and principally at the Methodists' expense.159 As it turned out, the WMMS missionary had every reason to be concerned because the notion had certainly occurred to the SPG. Up to this point the latter had prided itself on having done its work without the distasteful self-advertisement supposedly characteristic of other missions.160 The society, for example, had long taken exception to the Methodist boast that they outnumbered all but members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Seizing upon an 1892 government census, the SPG accused their WMMS rivals of manipulating the figures, which when left on their own revealed that Church membership numbers (both European and Native) were still comfortably ahead of those of the Methodists, not to mention the Roman Catholics and Presbyterians.161 At any rate, whatever their diffidence in the past, by the spring of 1900 SPG missionaries were vocally anticipating new evangelical opportunities in what they were calling the "grand field" of a conquered Transvaal.162 Their enthusiasm was fuelled by the expectation that many natives there would "doubtless join the Church which represents the nation with whose cause they sympathize."163 These, of course, were fighting words to both Methodists and Congregationalists. In view of these developments a student of missions probably understated the jockeying for advantage in those pre-Edinburgh times when he wrote the following some years later: Previous to the Three Years' War (1899-1902) the various missionary agencies were operating in practical isolation. Missionaries belonging to different soci-

95 The Boer War eties met indeed at times in fraternal conference, but such gatherings were local and partial, and resulted in no ... definite missionary policy and uniform missionary methods ... it was regarded as axiomatic that [solutions] must be compassed by each society in its own way, and with rigid adherence to its own doctrinal and disciplinary systems.164

While actively promoting the Methodist "system," Lowe struck a metropolitan and imperial note. He insisted that the effort be undertaken through the vehicle of the "deeply implanted sentiments of the Old Country." Not for him the notions that seemed to govern the colonial species of Methodism, which had often been judged wanting in spirituality, breadth, and initiative.165 At any rate, once permanent peace was restored to South Africa, a confident Lowe wrote early in 1900, "The settlement that we think in the end is inevitable will open out new opportunities for native missions ... We must be prepared to hold our own as the premier Missionary Church in the Transvaal, determined that we will be content with no second place in the evangelization of the Native races. Where we have touched the outskirts we must be prepared to take fuller possession ..." As other missionaries had announced already, there was, he said, "a glorious future for the Transvaal, and Methodism must see that her advance keeps pace with the growth and development of the country."166 If nothing else his fulsome observations put a spiritual spin on the political catchphrase, "Scramble for Africa." Thus if a J.P. Fitzpatrick welcomed the day of victory as an opportunity to modernize the Transvaal under the aegis of the British world-state, then a George Lowe saw it as a door opening out to a formidable Methodist empire in the transformed Boer republic. Others also took heart but for different reasons. In spite of the "objectionable Mafeking way" the peace was celebrated in London/67 the Church Missionary Intelligencer was convinced that the war's trials had cured Britain "at least for the moment, of a boastful spirit." And the Baptist missionary in India who had been shocked early on by the "godless" attitude to the war would have been happy to learn that there was recognition "even in the secular press that Divine providence has restored the blessing of peace."168 Moreover the lavish coronation of Edward VII, which roughly coincided with Vereeniging, unleashed a torrent of spiritual reflections that washed away for many the doubts that had haunted Clifford during the war. Above all it was hoped in missionary quarters that the Christian converts gathered from all over the Empire to help celebrate the royal occasion would be seen by the public as a reminder of what "God has done in the mission field."169

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These sanguine reflections, however, collided head-on with grim realities on the postwar South African scene that temporarily chilled the hopes of the Lowes and Fitzpatricks. Indeed short-term prospects were darkened by LMS reports of continued Boer raiding and looting even after the diplomatic niceties had been observed.170 Although missionaries were relieved when the guerrillas finally vanished and the military cleared out, at least one agent warned of the "bitter feeling ... on account of the way in which loyalists are being treated, both Boor [sic] and English, as compared with those who have been fighting against us."171 He doubtless resented a conciliatory statement in a CMS publication that acknowledged the Boers' gallant resistance while engaged in defending their self-respect.172 For different reasons that would have appalled the missions, other Europeans fondly recalled the good old days of Boer rule in Johannesburg. "Kaffirs now keep the sidewalks," bitterly complained one, "- and jostle white women into the road - a thing impossible under the late Boer gov't - They had to walk in the road then - their proper place - or they were whipped. A nigger has his place and should keep it... "173 Meanwhile an LMS missionary, who would have deplored such remarks, was still so jaundiced by South Africa's bleak postwar prospects that he thought of getting out. Another complained that the much-publicized "fascinations of life [here] ... have not yet dawned over my horizon." "I find," he continued, "nothing but dawdle, delay, tedious waiting, 'tomorrows-unlimited,' idleness which might well be called 'masterly inactivity.' Lying and lust stand out boldly in the foreground."174 For its part the SPG had its own concerns in the immediate postwar period. The uncertainties the society faced in the Cape Province dashed cold water on some of its wartime expansion plans. Although the church's fabric had suffered comparatively little dan^age/75 a missionary gloomily reported that as an institution it was too closely identified with the British cause. That identification was only reinforced when Bishop Montgomery invited Milner to serve as an SPG vice-president out of gratitude for the high commissioner's help during the war.176 In any case the missionary went on to report that the "mass of the farming population, the employers of coloureds - aren't likely to give any considerable facilities to their work people and families to come under [us] ... [There is] a silent, steady influence of distrust and dislike."177 But this had been foreseen long before the formal end of the war. "There is down here at the Cape," a Methodist had stressed in the fall of 1900, "a strong undercurrent of pro Boer feeling, bitter and resentful, which will not easily be pacified, but will rather snap at every opportunity of mischief. Our future will be difficult ... "178 Thompson agreed, but his concerns arose from a

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different quarter. It was, indeed, the rise of "Ethiopianism" among the native communities of South Africa that troubled him the most. With links to the politicized American Methodist Episcopal Church, the Ethiopian movement promulgated the notion that the African church should be exclusively native. As Thompson saw it, the idea was neither surprising nor wholly to be condemned. The LMS, after all, like several sister societies, had long subscribed to the concept of building self-sufficient, independent local churches. None the less the veteran secretary bridled at the thought of institutionalizing ethnic distinctions, especially in religion. He also had misgivings about the people who were acting as the principal agents of the movement. Too often, he charged, these were men who had been disciplined by other churches, sought personal preferment, or were tribal chiefs longing to preserve their autocratic power through devising regional state religions. Ironically, he argued, the war had facilitated the spread of Ethiopianism by extending British rule and thus making small tribes feel safe enough to hive themselves off from old domineering ones. Given the LMS'S financial inability to provide for the individual needs of these smaller communities, he feared that Ethiopians would find a fertile field among the poor of Bechuanaland. Accordingly, fiscal woes notwithstanding, he urged Congregationalists to pour ever-greater resources into this established mission constituency.179 The SPG, however, came to a different conclusion. In the aftermath of war it found future prospects too forbidding. Accepting Boer hostility as a given, one of its missionaries rudely punctured Clifford's hope that the two white societies in South Africa might be reconciled and fused.180 Anxious to husband its resources, the SPG eventually scaled down its commitment to the region, resolving instead to concentrate on more promising fields elsewhere.181 In any case the arrival of what passed for peace in South Africa had not produced anything like the true imperialism some missionaries had yearned for. Instead it had divided missionaries, at least temporarily; exposed them to public criticism; put an additional strain on their coffers; and destabilized the region for some time to come. Worst of all, while winning the war, Britain gradually conceded the peace in the name of striking up good relations with the Boers. As a result, by the time the Union of South Africa was born, native rights, for which missions had long fought, had been all but trivialized even at the Cape.182 The war, in short, while opening up fresh opportunities for the missionary cause, also brought it a host of disappointments.

4 Citizenship in Crisis II: The Boxer Rebellion

As it turned out, events in South Africa had to compete for attention with a major international crisis half a world away, one that also profoundly affected missionary attitudes to Caesar. Bishop C.P. Scott of the SPG made the strategic connection when he wrote from China in the spring of 1900. Relieved by what he thought to be the war's end in the Transvaal, he assumed that this would "mean the saving of the situation out here, for it sets the home Government free to prosecute a policy of vigour in compelling the Chinese to stop these disgraceful proceedings."1 He was referring, of course, to the shocking Boxer Rebellion, which, even more than the crisis on the veldt, would sour relations between missionaries and their political overlords. That rebellion was only the latest though certainly the most cataclysmic of a series of assaults against the missionary presence in China. Starting with the Tientsin massacre of 1870, mission records had been regularly punctuated with tales of persecutions, both large scale and small.2 Timothy Richard's description of the troubles that erupted in Chungking in the mid-i88os was typical of the accounts that frequently assailed mission headquarters. He talked, for instance, of the "farcical" viceregal proclamations that were issued only after anti-mission rioting had done its worst. Or he sounded a routine warning that a new crop of mandarins would be even more anti-foreign than their predecessors and cause no end of trouble.3 A Methodist missionary, W.T.A. Barber, a victim of rioting and vandalism in the Canton District, echoed Richard's complaints about dilatory officials. He went on to deplore the idolatrous "bowing and scraping" that

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invariably accompanied the end of such disorders.4 Then a few years later these servants of the gospel had a scarier foretaste of the Boxer crisis to come. For two months, Richard reported in July 1891, "the Anti Mission storm has been sweeping over Central China like an epidemic, burning chapels, looting property and threatening all Foreigners with extermination."5 The situation so graphically described by Richard and Barber was much the same in the Presbyterian bailiwick of John C. Gibson at Swatow. In 1895 it was raided and plundered by secret societies among the Hakka, the people who had sparked the sweeping Teiping revolution forty years before. Fortunately for the mission, Gibson was an experienced hand and did not allow himself to panic. Indeed he took solace in the thought that "the average Chinaman prefers to keep on the safe side." Even so, he was understandably wary. "In this country," he observed, "one never knows what a small matter may grow to." Moreover he was keenly aware that the potential for rebellion was uncomfortably high, the people having "lost respect for the Government in consequence of their failure in the [1895] war with Japan."6 Still, when rebels sacked missions in the interior a few months later, Gibson's station was spared, though thanks largely, he thought, to the presence of an intimidating German cruiser in the harbour. Earlier, at Wuchang, a Methodist colleague, Frederick Boden, also had cause to be thankful that British and French gunboats were on hand to threaten reprisals for any assaults on his mission station. This kind of protection was all the more imperative since many a mandarin was disposed to turn a blind eye and renounce all responsibility for the wholesale destruction of chapels and other mission property.7 In the circumstances Gibson, for one, warned foreign consuls that if they failed to post guards at mission stations drawn from their own nation's military they were inviting open disaster.8 He also passed the word that in the wake of these immediate problems the Chinese were growing convinced that the West would react by partitioning their country. According to Gibson, however, most of them would end up viewing this with equanimity so long as their own districts did not go to the French, who for one reason or another were singled out as the least acceptable foreign rulers.9 But, no matter what happened, he fretted, Lord Salisbury would require "both light and stiffening." Above all, he continued, the foreign secretary would have to penetrate beyond the formal niceties and intricate subterfuge that masked the true designs of the Imperial Court in Peking. "How is it," a frustrated Gibson asked, "that in diplomacy the Chinaman always scores against the shrewdest hands in Europe?" All he knew for certain was that in this most recent disturbance it had taken "infinite

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labour against the utmost efforts of Chinese officials" to bring twenty-six low-ranking rebels to justice. In the meantime Westerners had remained ignorant of the whole affair until missionary survivors brought it to their attention.10 All told Gibson was convinced that he and his colleagues had "little to gain from the Mandarins and must look higher," in other words to Peking itself. For that matter he was sure that, with Christians standing among its most orderly citizens, the "Chinese Church can do more for the [Peking] Government than the Government can do for the Church."11 As indicated elsewhere, Gibson's grumbling about the devious ways of diplomacy was hardly unique. Many missionaries had long complained of the perceived reluctance of Foreign Office personnel to intervene on behalf of persecuted Protestant missionaries. Consuls were constantly being accused, rightly or wrongly, of "want of sympathy," laxness, and indifference or, even worse, of conniving with Chinese officials who wished to restrict the missions' operations on the grounds that they were socially disruptive.12 Unquestionably, missions had long been advised by a guarded Foreign Office to be circumspect and discreet in their dealings with the locals and to avoid "secular business" or any activity that would give undue offence and cause problems for themselves or British consuls. For example missions were asked to exercise care in their biblical translations and to throw their schools and orphanages open for public inspection so as to dispel "absurd rumours" about the nature of their work.13 Above all, such customs as dancing or any form of public intimacy, however they might have been countenanced in the West, were flatly discouraged lest they violate the taboos of Chinese society and undermine the work of the female missionary, particularly the unmarried one.14 The single woman on the mission field was always a matter of concern. As the LMS bluntly pointed out in one of its innumerable "lessons," "sex" - a word not ordinarily bandied about in those times "cannot be ignored in this land."15 And more than once missions had been reminded of the old refrain that if they insisted on operating in territory deemed unsafe they should not expect help from the diplomats when they ran into trouble.16 In such vulnerable situations, advised a Methodist missionary, agents of the gospel should act with even more than the usual "dignity, coolness and deliberation."17 In keeping with the dictates of spiritual free trade, at least one society, the BMS had grasped the wisdom early on of treading softly over the minefield of Chinese customs and beliefs. Indeed to gain a better knowledge of those beliefs, aspiring Baptist missionaries were required to consult scholarly mission works on Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.18 They were thus equipped with what Richard

ioi The Boxer Rebellion

dubbed "Comparative Theology," a subject in which he showed an enormous interest and on which he lectured at every opportunity.19 Missionaries so trained were then bravely sent forth with the wordy warning not to "let your righteous enthusiasm ever betray you into an improper impatience or precipitancy." They were also urged to be agreeable, discreet, and tactful and to respect as far as possible local views and forms. In effect they were to take special care not to hurt the feelings or "wound the weak conscience" of their Chinese hosts.20 Later, to a greater extent than other missions, the BMS was even prepared not only to study but to recognize some merit in the Chinese classics and to adapt itself to "native principles of organization." At the very least their mission schools aimed, at explaining those classics from a Christian vantage point, "the deficiencies as well as the excellencies in the sage's teaching being pointed out."21 After all, as veteran A.G. Jones frequently noted, "China is an ancient, highly civilized Empire, with a vast literature, and [a] most complex social constitution."22 And at times even the resourceful Jones was daunted by the task of reaching the heart of that empire. Once, while bemoaning the obstacles in his path, he all but mimicked a weather report, talking as he did about "the torrents of prejudice and a never ceasing roll of ignorance," set against the "rocky heights of Confucianism ... and the clouds of Taoistic speculation."23 Meanwhile the qualification, "as far as possible," that theoretically conditioned the conciliatory approach was often seized upon by the more militant and invariably younger agent to justify his going over the line and aggressively repudiating egregious local customs that no practising Christian should be expected to condone. Yet however revolted he was by such practices as foot-binding and female infanticide,24 the junior recruit was strongly advised by old China hands that a peremptory public denunciation of such horrors "would never do."25 But when the younger man persisted in his militant ways with, moreover, the backing of some home officials, Jones and Richard speedily made their feelings known. Indeed they complained of what a later generation would call a youth culture, which, they asserted, often sought to marginalize the older agent in general and which in particular had the effect of reducing a sister body, the LMS, to a "third-rate power" in China.26 Whatever Presbyterian Gibson might have thought of the disgruntled Baptists' observations - let alone the LMS - he too addressed the problem of the young missionary destined for China. He warned, for instance, against "pigeon-holing" him as an "evangelist," "teacher," and so on at the beginning of his career. The field, Gibson asserted, was so complex and demanding that new agents needed time to find

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their own special strengths and aptitudes as they slowly learned their trade. Thus, he pointed out that a promising young evangelist at home might wind up having no feel for the preacher's task in China, where great effort was required to understand "the mental, social and religious standpoint of the hearers." Above all, Gibson admonished, the truly successful missionary had to be a lifelong student dedicated to the study of China's languages, customs, and religion. There was, he felt, no alternative in an environment in which "a slight slip in thought or expression could be fatal to a man's hold of a heathen audience."27 Sophie Lyall, wife of a medical missionary at Gibson's station, offered similar observations. Her husband, she related, trod very warily where Chinese sensibilities about women were concerned. Accordingly he never treated a female unless it was a matter of life and death, and even then he was invariably careful to exclude all his local male students and assistants from the operating room. For that matter, Lyall refused even to consider teaching on the subject of "women's diseases" in his training of would-be Chinese aids.28 For the most part, then, veteran missionaries strove with varying degrees of success to snuff out the dangerous flashpoint where the mandate of the mission collided with local customs (not to mention the objects of diplomacy) and aroused the hostility, often violent, of the Chinese community. All the same, missions made no bones about the fact that quite often their troubles stemmed from inflammatory anti-foreign literature that was often circulated with the mandarins' and literati's approval. Missionaries were well aware that Confucian scholars, alarmed by Christian inroads that threatened the very culture they were ordained to preserve, were in the forefront of the propaganda campaign. Aggrieved servants of the gospel were naturally quick to condemn the "disgusting" tracts these academicians put about, particularly when they depicted missionaries as devils and Christ as the "Hog" who sanctioned abortions and child castration.29 An outraged WMMS went so far as to urge an all-mission effort to have British authorities suppress an "obscene" literature that was "full of incentive to murder."30 Richard's anguished wife entered the lists in 1895, urging "Christian powers" to erase the "awful assertions" about missionaries in the socalled Chinese Blue-books. She even wondered if Lord Salisbury himself should not be approached on the matter.31 But once the Boxer Rebellion erupted the foreign secretary had far more urgent issues to deal with than censorship, notably calls for Britain's intervention to assure help and compensation for beleaguered missions. And as he was only too well aware, all this unfolded in a climate of mounting international tension that boded ill for the Far East and the peace of the world.

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Fully a year before the rebellion broke out, an anxious Richard, constantly on the lookout for danger signals in China, had despatched a warning to A.H. Baynes. Claiming there was far "less safety in China than used to be," he predicted that the troubled country would soon reach the "bursting point" of revolution.32 His remarks reinforced reports from Bishop Scott. In the spring of 1895 the latter wrote that in the aftermath of her disastrous war with Japan, "poor old China" was again wracked with pestilence, disease, flood, and famine, the perennial scourges of her society and the fertile seedbed for disorder. As well the bishop feared for hapless missions and the country generally if disgruntled "masses of so called soldiers" were suddenly disbanded and returned to their homes.33 Missionaries, of course, were not the only interested parties on the alert for danger. For years Whitehall and the China traders had agonized over what brigandage and civil war could do to their influence and profits. They were also deeply concerned that Continental rivals might exploit China's instability to advance their own agendas at the expense of the many advantages accruing to Britain since its acquisition of Hong Kong a half-century earlier. But for the Protestant missions there was clearly a higher advantage to protect: their own agenda. "The activity and organization of Russia, Japan and the RCS," Richard complained in 1899, "make a grand harvest out of the inactivity and disorganization of the other forces."34 The SPG fully concurred, at least with respect to the Roman Catholic threat. "In all parts of the world, notably in China," Bishop Montgomery told the secretary of the Presbyterian Church in England, "their malign influence, dictated by unworthy and double motives, is doing incredible harm."35 But however deep-seated their differences, most missions agreed that it was in Britain's interests as well as their own that she maintain her traditional "open-door policy" and bar any move by another Western power or combination of powers to "Africanize" China. While all the powers came under suspicion, it was Russia, long Britain's bete noire in the Middle East and southern Asia, that was routinely singled out by Richard and others as the case-study of dangerous expansionism in the Far East. This was particularly so after the czar's intrusion into Manchuria after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895. Just as it had long coveted India, wrote Jones, the "Russian Bear [was] sharpening his claws to clutch at North China" itself, and that included Shantung.36 But it went virtually unnoticed that Germany had already beaten St Petersburg to the punch. As one of the powers that had restrained Japan after her victory over China, she claimed as a reward the Shantung port of Tsingtao. When the Chinese did not

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immediately deliver, Berlin exploited the killing of German missionaries as an excuse to occupy the port and its hinterland, for which it secured a long-term lease in 1898. This dramatic move prompted the Russians to demand similar concessions from Peking in the Liaotung peninsula, which ultimately led to their occupation of strategic Port Arthur. Not to be outdone, Britain promptly followed suit by arranging a similar lease of the adjacent port of Wei-hai-wei.37 Though not exactly a full-blown scramble, this grim maneuvering for position rang alarm bells in many a missionary circle. Yet one mission, the SPG, sniffed a geo-religious dividend of its own now that it had taken over the work of the CMS in North China. Convinced that a Shantung under European direction would become pivotal in every way, Bishop Scott drew up plans for the SPG'S increased presence in the peninsula. Indeed following a visit to the Royal Navy's new base at Wei-hai-wei in the summer of 1898, he waxed positively imperial and talked about the society's need to exploit a "changing situation" brought on by Britain's increased visibility in that part of China. He was particularly grateful for the hospitality extended by base commander Admiral Seymour and his aide, Captain Jellicoe.38 Most other missions, however, did not appear to share Scott's enthusiasm and openly dreaded the consequences of Europe's steady nibbling at China's territorial integrity. The evangelical societies, notably the CMS and BMS, squared off against their own country's past dealings with China, charging her with having promoted the opium traffic and fighting an odious war to protect it.39 "We have injured [China]," as one Baptist publication put it, "as no nation probably ever injured another," while by contrast missions had brought the gospel to bear on the problems facing the Chinese people.40 On one occasion the charge was thrown in the face of a Methodist missionary when he implored resentful Chinese youths to drop their opium habit.41 Meanwhile, ominous though the turn-of-the-century situation was painted, it was still considered salvageable if the European powers could only agree to unite and work for the good of all, Chinese as well as foreigners. What Richard had in mind at one point was a joint advisory council of great power delegates and Chinese officials that could pursue those objectives under the general supervision of the Empress Dowager.42 If some such scheme were not implemented, Richard warned apocalyptically, and the powers persisted in their "very foolish" competitive ways, then a general war would surely erupt in the Celestial Empire and plunge the whole world into turmoil.43 Like many a worried layman, the Baptist missionary was convinced that the unbridled pursuit of naval bases, spheres of influence, and commercial concessions would not only destabilize China but

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come back to destroy the peace of Europe itself. Jones was of the same mind, emphasizing the need for submerging Europe's expansionist rivalries in a concert of the powers whose primary goal should be the pursuit of peace, stability, and justice for all in China.44 Indeed Richard, who was consulted on these matters by at least one prominent British politician,45 called for nothing less than a Universal Peace Union or a League of Princes for the Promotion of Universal Peace. Only such preventative political medicine could neutralize - to use Richard's words - the "microbe of material selfishness," the dangerous side-effects of the "world-wide Scramble," and the disorders brought on by "gigantic syndicates."46 Furthermore such wholesale scrambling threatened to shatter the hopes many missionaries entertained for the orderly and constructive reform of China along Western lines. On the face of it the SinoJapanese War had only added to the potential for catastrophe. Initially, Richard, for example, feared that the "Japs," as he habitually called them in his private correspondence, would end up conquering all of China, thus setting the stage for armed European intervention and a general war.47 But happily, much to the missions' relief, the powers had instead deployed diplomatic weapons to restrain the Japanese. There was also another silver lining in the dark cloud. The war's chastening effect on China's rulers was hailed as providential because for a time it helped to discredit those conservative forces that had consistently set their face against the Chinese Westernizers who had warmed to the teachings of missionaries. Among other goals, the latter had constantly urged China to admit, within a dynamic Christian setting to be sure, a full-scale study of Western science, politics, philosophy, and history.48 In 1895, the year of the Sino-Japanese War, the restless Richard sketched the approach for Bayne's benefit: Seeing the country going to wreck by the utter incapacity and ignorance of those in power I could no longer sit idle looking on. I ventured to address some communication to [viceroys and had interviews with them] ... The subjects discussed at the first interview were the general principles underlying international intercourse and the progress of mankind. It is not a matter of blind force but there is a Divine Providence guiding all nations and bringing them more and more to be like members of one family etc.49

At these meetings Richard also underscored the practical measures needed to revitalize China and, while admitting that it was very late to achieve reforms, he stressed that a start must be made.50 His practical measures went unspecified on this occasion but they doubtless

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included those he had championed some years before: the introduction of Western engineering techniques and the proliferation of railways, mines, and factories - in short the assembling of the economic infrastructure of a modern state.51 Such developments, Richard trusted, would enable a reformed China to stand proudly on her own feet in the international arena. This multifaceted approach was touched on by other missionaries, like the awestruck Baptist who had observed in 1883 that "Christianity ... will spread just as Cotton Cloth, lucifer matches, mining machinery, & everything foreign will spread in China . ,."52 All this prompted Richard to intone a year later that the "engineer is almost as important as the politician in changing China."53 But neither, of course, was as important as the native Christian leader who had been nurtured over the years by missionaries like himself. Constantly making the point that China's material and cultural progress should unfold under Christian auspices, he stressed the "moral, spiritual [and] educational wonders which Christians can introduce."54 So, understandably, did the Missionary Herald, which cautioned that Western learning and industrialism must never be divorced from the Christian impulse.55 To that end Richard had collaborated with likeminded members of the LMS in founding the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge (SDCGK). To advance its work he sought the support of other missions, particularly the CMS, in part, as he put it, because the latter was "so wealthy."56 Meanwhile R.W. Thompson had good reason to collaborate with the Baptists' reformist endeavours in China simply because he had already reached conclusions similar to Richard's. Thompson was critical of existing Christian schools since they catered primarily to those seeking civil-service positions and, in consequence, adhered strictly to the traditional Confucian curriculum. In his mind this merely reinforced barriers to the acceptance of Christianity. For the advance of the gospel, announced Thompson, it was imperative to break down Chinese belief in the superiority of their own culture. He was therefore convinced that "until Western knowledge of the simplest kind can be introduced into the Chinese mind, that proud exclusiveness so closely and so strongly associated with a blind ignorance will not be broken down." Quite prepared to retain Chinese as the language of instruction, Thompson nevertheless recommended that lessons in Western geography, history, arithmetic, and physical science be instituted as the groundwork for inculcating "higher truths."57 The reformism introduced by Gibson, Richard, and their fellow missionaries had clearly gained adherents among the Chinese literati and upper classes, as the North China Herald suggested in the spring of

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1897: "The education of the Chinese youth in the English language is now felt by the well-to-do classes to be a necessity. They must become acquainted with the sciences and the political history of foreign countries, and they must be able to speak and write English. - This feeling will naturally lead to new developments in the missions."58 For years veteran missionaries had been establishing a good working rapport with strategically placed mandarins and scholars and they exploited it for all it was worth. Indeed a bemused colleague had reported, with mixed feelings, that Richard's principal friends were invariably Chinese rather than fellow Europeans and that "everyone was cap in hand to him."59 The whole effect was heightened by his ostentatious donning of native garb and by his consummate mastery of the language. While other missionaries were reluctant to go that far along the road to acculturation, they none the less came to terms with some Chinese basics. Thus one Methodist agent came to pay less and less attention to "the absence of table linen and knives and forks ... I have attained an amount of proficiency ... in the use of chopsticks and have even managed to eat pork and seaweed as the relish of my rice."60 Whatever enjoyment he derived from the experience, he doubtless expected a return on this visible adjustment to Chinese ways. In the meantime key Chinese friends and kindred souls of reformist missionaries were anxious to translate the latter's modernizing concepts into a national policy. Although the Qing dynasty remained in place after the Japanese war, Chinese Westernizers came to exert a powerful influence on the young emperor, a process that set off a flurry of reforms in the summer of 1898. Sensing a golden opportunity, Gibson wrote excitedly to Presbyterian officials in London. "I hope you will be able," he scribbled to Alex Connell, "to convince the [Foreign Missions] Committee that the present crisis in China is one of which we must seek to make the most." The many Chinese who were clamouring for Western instruction stood as a symbol of the "new era" about to dawn, Gibson wrote, and missions must play a vital role in shaping it. There was, however, not a moment to lose. For Gibson it was a question of carpe diem and his one great fear was that "large movements toward the Christian cause [would] take the wrong direction for want of proper supervision." Now, he urged, was the time to commit whatever reserves the Committee might command.61 The golden moment was quickly lost, however. Indeed the reforms were so sweeping as to thoroughly alarm reactionary forces seeking to regroup around the leadership of the conservative and still powerful Empress Dowager.62 Emerging from behind the scenes she orchestrated a coup d'etat that routed the reformers and silenced their supporters. As a result a once-hopeful Richard was obliged to eat his

io8 Good Citizens earlier words about the possibility of his children growing up to serve the Empress Dowager in a modernized China.63 Not only this, China was about to experience its "bursting point." The Boxer Rebellion threatened to fulfill Richard's darkest forecasts and those of China's prescient English-language press. In late February 1900, several days before it occurred, a fearful North China Herald was predicting a horrendous revolt against the Western presence.64 Not surprisingly the opportunistic Empress Dowager aided and abetted the Boxers (Fists of Righteous Harmony), ultra-patriotic and xenophobic bands who had been fiercely condemning Western intrusions in general and the missionary influx in particular. The Boxer rampage began in March 1900, and before it spent itself, destroyed communications, sacked towns, and massacred missionaries and their converts. Eventually the "rebels" stormed the capital and laid siege to the foreign legations. In the bloody and chaotic fighting the unthinkable happened when the German ambassador to the imperial court was killed. In its severity and scope the rising far eclipsed anything that had gone before and fostered almost overnight that unified European response that Richard and others had been plaintively requesting for years. And it had come not a moment too soon for most missionaries. "Whilst we do not want any government force," an agitated Richard wrote Baynes from New York, where he was attending the World Missionary Conference, "to help in the conversion of a single Christian for that work is spiritual we must insist that it is the duty of all governments to protect the good against the violence of evil-doers or we may see Christianity swept out of China just as it was swept out of N. Africa & Asia Minor and Turkey by the cruel hands of the Moslem."65 As if to confirm Richard's prediction, missionary refugees, driven by the Boxer storm, flooded across North China. Soon the LMS was reporting that its stations were being systematically ravaged, even in Peking where its agents were huddling for protection behind legation walls.66 In August, in the more tranquil south, Gibson could count his blessings even if he had cause to shudder when grim accounts filtered in of desperate missionaries fleeing from the danger zone in the north. He reported that they were crowding by the hundreds into Shanghai to the point where local agents were hard put to properly house them. All the while he had to keep a weather eye out for trouble nearer home.67 He had not long to wait. That very month six chapels were looted and sixty families saw their homes destroyed in the interior of his district. As casual as well as organized violence escalated, Gibson tartly called attention to the fact that the mandarins had done very little to

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stop the outrages. His own station, to be sure, proved safe enough but that, he acknowledged, had been largely guaranteed not by local officials but by the presence of British and French warships in Swatow Harbour.68 And it was only after sharp prodding by the powers that the viceroy at Canton finally stirred himself to issue strongly worded instructions to suppress the anti-foreign threat. Gibson, however, like others before him in such crises, did not hold his breath, sourly observing that "one never knows whether public instructions are not tempered by private hints." Thus he remarked that the Tao-tai of his region had not even bothered to issue the formulaic proclamations against disorder that had long been the custom. Meanwhile raiders were pillaging the interior with impunity and for no higher motive, groaned Gibson, than a simple desire for plunder.69 Assessing the broad situation in China, he likened the current unrest to that which had attended the Taiping rebellion. Ever skeptical of great power intentions, the fiery Presbyterian warned: "The Powers will remember that when they fired the first shot at Ta-ku, they pledged themselves in honour to seeing the thing through to the bitter end. To withdraw or slacken now is to hand over the Empire to anarchy and bloodshed to which all that has yet taken place would be a trifle."70 For his part Bishop Scott of the SPG mused over the "strange and wonderful" juxtaposition of his society's bicentenary celebration and the "terrific disturbances" convulsing China and South Africa. The musing then gave way to a call for Britain and the powers to step in and rectify the Chinese situation, by force if necessary.71 The appeal to armed interventionism, from which many missionaries, particularly those wedded to spiritual free trade, had recoiled in less volatile times, now became the order of the day as more and more "disgraceful proceedings" were reported.72 In June a desperate Scott called for the aid of the "Admiral's men," the sailors under Seymour's command, if no regular troops were available to protect isolated missionaries, like the three SPG agents already murdered and mutilated in the interior.73 He all but gave way to despair and, much like Richard, expected some form of Armageddon to engulf China. "I should not be surprised," he confided to H.W. Tucker, "to hear of war declared between China and some one or more of the World Powers - and then ? I suppose a new era; but one dreads to think what may happen meanwhile. "7« In due course, much to the missions' relief, an international army made up of contingents from all the treaty powers and placed under German command prepared to descend on Peking. In mid-July a nervous Scott reported the heavy shelling of the "Native City (the source and root of all the mischief)" - as he put it - and the subsequent as-

no

Good Citizens

saults of allied forces, including a British contingent.75 Then early in August he had the satisfaction of witnessing a whole allied army corps marching on its way to Peking's relief.76 The upshot was that the legations siege was lifted, the Boxers were broken, and a humiliating surrender was forced on the Chinese. It came complete with demands for large indemnities for the loss of European and American lives, mostly missionaries and their converts, and compensation for extensive property destruction and damage. In all some 50 Catholic agents and nearly 200 Protestant ones, including missionary children, had been killed, along with 30,000 so-called national Christians of various faiths.77 As distressing as such casualty figures were, there were angry complaints that they had often been inflated by a sensationalist London press. Indeed Gibson, while in August giving Convenor Connell a detailed record of the losses in his district, pointedly warned that "through the newspapers some exaggerated accounts may reach you."78 This had naturally caused anguish for relatives and friends at home until they learned from mission sources that some agents had actually managed to "return from the grave" after Peking's relief.79 And many of them, it appeared, had been far from passive observers while under siege. "But for the Missionaries," gushed the American minister, "and the native converts who dug the mines and made the barricades and helped generally in the defence [of the city] there would have been no deliverance for the Legations!"80 In any event, with the Boxers beaten, the missionary survivors and exiles could resume their tasks, though most instinctively realized that things would never be quite the same again. "Even the dogs in the streets," wrote one Baptist facetiously, "seemed fully aware that great changes had come into existence since our departure, for they ceased to bark as we passed them. Even to this day the canine species are deeply impressed with the fact that the Allies are in possession of Peking."81 Ultimately, when it came time to negotiate the Boxer Indemnity, the good citizenship policy followed so scrupulously by some British missionaries paid welcome dividends.82 Thus mandarins were disposed to accept Presbyterian Gibson's claims without fuss, while the local French mission, demanding a huge and seemingly unpayable sum, had to call in troops for support.83 Tucker at SPG headquarters went Gibson one better by choosing to downplay the indemnity question altogether. Indeed he expressed regret when he learned that Bishop Scott on his own initiative had demanded substantial reimbursement for destroyed mission property. The spirit of forgiveness, however, may not have been the only factor that influenced Tucker. He was also convinced that Scott's course, not unlike the more puni-

in The Boxer Rebellion

tive French one, would seriously prejudice missionary work in the minds of the Chinese people.84 Under his guidance, the SPG'S Standing Committee decided that the society should have nothing to do with compensation on any account, saying in effect that it should not be held responsible for any action Scott might take.85 The message must have come through loud and clear to the harried ecclesiastical proconsul. In the end Scott applied for what amounted to token compensation only, a request for a modest memorial tablet and a church site. To be fair, his original plan may have been driven by personal factors, notably the death of his wife, which had been hastened by deprivation and anxiety during the uprising.86 Besides, as Scott had tried to make clear, his original proposal had been "calculated not to make China suffer so much as to reimburse when possible actual losses - or restore prestige to the Mission," in other words, to indulge in a face-saving exercise.87 But ironically, the mission's prestige was precisely what Tucker feared might be jeopardized should the bishop push his full program of reimbursement. Meanwhile other groups such as the American Methodists in Peking obviously paid little heed to such admonitions. Some years later an awed Baptist missionary reported that after taking a "very large sum in indemnity," they built for themselves a "superb range of fine buildings .. ,"88 In any event the SPG'S restraint was also reflected in the views of Methodist church officials at home. In spite of the damage done WMMS missions, they were strongly opposed to a policy of "vengeance" against the Chinese.89 This response, however, was not exactly matched by that of the BMS. While some Baptists at home agreed that the "reputation of the Christian Church required that the punishment meted out [to the Boxers] should not be unmixed with mercy,"90 others on the scene, who talked darkly of "anti-foreign fiendishness," were not disposed to strain its quality. Nor did they shrink from calling upon the Whitehall cavalry to help them out. "I hope," Richard wrote forcefully from Shanghai, following his return from America, "the Allied Powers will dictate the terms of peace and reserve their power to dictate, otherwise all the Missionary societies will have to recall their Missionaries from China."91 Already Richard had boldly asked the Foreign Office to sanction his telling the viceroys of their responsibility for the safety of all British subjects in the country. And convinced, rightly, that the Empress Dowager's regime was in cahoots with the Boxers, he proclaimed that any government that backed it would be a "traitor to humanity."92 While the LMS used softer language, it certainly welcomed overtures to the British government, particularly with respect to compensation for property damage. On the other hand no requests in the end

112 Good Citizens

were made for indemnifying lives lost. Missions, as Richard's biographer puts it, "would not sell the lives of their missionaries for money."93 In any case the LMS and the BMS ended up coordinating their Whitehall strategy, a move made easier by the cordial relationship between their respective secretaries and by the societies' cooperation on, among others, the medical front.94 That Thompson opted for the strategy was a clear indication that the times were indeed out of joint. This inveterate spiritual free trader who normally shunned overtures to the state now told a sympathetic Baynes that he had little time for the notion held by "some of our friends" that no indemnity application should be submitted to Salisbury. "This is not the general opinion among us," he stressed: "My own idea is that we should send to Ld Salisbury a carefully prepared statement of the losses of the Society, and also the private losses incurred by the missionaries, and request him to include our claim in the larger bill which the British Government will have to present to China."95 To say the least his customary reticence had wilted under the enormity of the crisis. He duly forwarded the detailed LMS claim to Whitehall in October 1900, noting the destruction of the society's missions in Peking, Tientsin, and other centres.96 Although Baynes fidgeted over the difficulties of computing, as Thompson had, all the varied corporate and individual losses, he ultimately followed the LMS'S procedure and petitioned Salisbury at the Foreign Office.97 There appeared to be little fretting, however, unlike in the SPG'S camp, that the indemnity strategy might backfire and result in the alienation of the Chinese community, which had at this stage, as Bishop Scott warned, "little reason to love ... foreigners."98 It was only after the event that this factor seems to have been taken to heart by the LMS. How else can one account for the "Lesson" that appeared in the Chronicle within the year, that missionaries "should abstain from assisting their converts in any of their political rights as citizens of this empire"? In effect the practice of calling on consuls and the military, which put the mandarins' "noses out of joint," not to mention raising Salisbury's blood pressure, should henceforth be avoided whenever possible.99 But arguably what this really amounted to was that Thompson and the LMS were only returning to their traditional free-trade position now that the worst of the emergency was over. After all in September 1900 the Chronicle had offered the following editorial opinion: "It is early yet to discuss the future of China, but we are glad to observe that the feeling is growing that the integrity of the Chinese Empire should be respected. Any scheme of 'partition' would be as disastrous as it would be unjust. It would mean bringing, eventually, another 400,000,000 of the human race within the vortex of militarism."100

113 The Boxer Rebellion

Likewise the SPG, which had soft-pedalled the indemnity question from the start, shed much of its geo-religiosity and steered clear of political waters in the post-Boxer period.101 Indeed it went so far as put up "Chinese-style houses" for its once-imperial Shantung mission so as to "take away the impression we were foreigners."102 If the Chinese had, as Scott warned, little reason to love those foreigners then the much-importuned Salisbury, whose office was swamped with requests for aid and intervention, may in turn have found little cause to love missions. According to the press a muchquoted speech the prime minister gave at the SPG'S bicentenary celebration in 1900 harshly attributed to missionaries the responsibility for recent events in China.103 In some quarters, however, this was considered a journalistic exaggeration. The CMS'S historian, Eugene Stock, convinced of Salisbury's personal sympathy with missions, carefully emphasized this point. Still, he conceded that the Foreign Office should have known better than to create the contrary impression.104 As well it was on the record that Salisbury compared modern missions unfavourably with those of antiquity. He told his discomfited SPG audience that while the ancients "underwent the martyrdom and braved the torments" on their own, their modern equivalents were more apt to "appeal to the Consul and the mission of the gunboat." Mainly for this reason, Salisbury coldly announced, missionaries were not popular at the Foreign Office.105 Responding in kind, Connell made it clear that in the wake of Salisbury's address the Foreign Office was not precisely in high favour with the PCE'S Foreign Missions Committee. Describing suggestions that missionaries were to blame as "mischievous and cruel," the convenor cited racial hatreds and xenophobia as the true source of the Boxer revolt. While granting that Roman Catholics were frequently too aggressive and political, the same, argued Connell, could not be said of Presbyterian emissaries. "It has been," he wrote snappishly, "a most cruel suggestion, and a most untrue one, that the missionary is inclined to place his reliance partly upon God and partly upon the gunboat. Speaking for our own missionaries, I do not know of a solitary case in which they have appealed to the Consul, even in great peril ... They have never appealed to the British Government, so far as I know."106 While this statement, no doubt, implied a special reading of Connell's many letters from Gibson, it was nevertheless typical of the sharp reaction provoked by Salisbury's speech. The more temperate Gleaner, following Stock's lead, conceded that the speech was not entirely an unsympathetic one. Even so, Salisbury was chided. "The Prime Minister of a great empire," the magazine editorialized,

114 Good Citizens might have more appropriately seized the occasion to acknowledge the eminent services rendered by a Society [SPG] whose special sphere is the outlying possessions of the empire itself ... Lord Salisbury ... might have acquitted the SPG - and indeed the CMS and other English societies - of a hankering after gunboats: and he might have remembered how he himself [once] sent to the CMS ... the cordial acknowledgment of the Chinese Government of the Society's refusal to accept compensation for the Kucheng massacre.

It then went on, almost delightedly, to remind the politicians that the outcry for intervention on that occasion had been raised not by the missions, which knew that Chinese would be killed if revenge were taken, but by Hong Kong merchants who feared that if the massacre went unpunished their commercial fortunes would suffer. "When missionaries are murdered where there is no trade," the Gleaner tartly concluded, "there is no avenging."107 Salisbury's speech triggered an angrier response, however, from agents in the field. Richard strongly encouraged an equally distressed CMS colleague, W. Gilbert Walshe, to write a stern reply to the prime minister's "extraordinary address."108 But even before Salisbury made his controversial comments some missionaries had already put him in their bad books. For one thing he had once made a point of passing on to an outraged BMS a consular report implying that its servants, like some other China missionaries, were guilty of "crass" methods of work.109 For another he had refused, on grounds of policy, to lift customs duties on religious works despatched to missionaries.110 It turned out, of course, that Salisbury was not alone in linking the maligned missionary with the Boxer uprising. War correspondents of the "non-Christian" variety - Richard's phrase - often accused missions of forcing their faith "down the throats of the Chinese."111 As well an assortment of influential scholars, including the Orientalist Robert Needham Cust and the linguist Max Miiller, deplored the missionary's alleged dismissal of the cultural subtleties of the Celestial Empire.112 Moreover such charges were often made privately by what Richard sulphurically called the "Foreign Ministers of Protestant Christian nations." The result, he despondently wrote Baynes, is that "Christendom outside the Missionary Societies is a great deal in sympathy with the first false cry of the Chinese government that all this Boxer trouble arose from enmity between the Christians and the nonChristians."113 But in extenuation, that same Christendom may have got wind of complaints that some missionaries were filled with contempt for everything Chinese. Like other insensitive Westerners they had taken courses "certain to be misconstrued by the natives and

115 The Boxer Rebellion

equally certain to foster some of the very worst of their natural tendencies.""4 Meanwhile, the so-called yellow press, notably the Daily Mail, had a field-day, charging that on one occasion an irate missionary had to be restrained by a "humane cavalry officer" from braining a wounded Chinese."5 The outraged Chronicle resorted to tit-for-tat rebuttal, suggesting that the misconduct of some of the avenging European troops could only have embittered the Chinese."6 The Missionary Herald chimed in with a larger question: "when the stronger nations' hands are unclean with sowing foul seed among the weak and unenlightened nations, what can be expected but a black harvest, such as these so-called Christian countries have just reaped?""7 Mission magazines and centennial publications also complained that too little was being said in the press and elsewhere on behalf of the China agents, and they agonized over the "extraordinary readiness with which the average man will believe evil of [us]."118 It was not just the China missionaries, however, who came in for this kind of neglect and abuse. Even at the best of times, as a CMS agent ruefully admitted, missions everywhere were "quite accustomed to the lying accusations ... which misinformed and malicious persons choose to circulate about [them] and their work.""9 The Gleaner echoed the lament, noting that those newspapers with a reputation for "smartness" thought missions fair game no matter how disinterestedly they conducted their affairs.120 But the press may simply have been giving voice - albeit rudely for the most part - to a growing secularization that found little room for the emotional public protestations of faith that were the lifeblood of the missionary movement.121 Amy Wilson (Charles Wilson's wife), for one, was well aware of the problem. She sadly remarked that "it is not fashionable for us to find our joy and rejoicings in our religion. We are considered eccentric if we do."122 Yet in spite of this inimical climate, the Chronicle and its sister journals tried as best they could to disabuse the public of the damaging notions that had grown up about the China missions in the wake of the Boxer crisis.123 It was an uphill fight all the way. Again and again exasperated missionaries tried to convince their countrymen that the issues were far more complex than the papers were prepared to admit. As early as September 1900 the LMS had lashed out against the press's "dastardly" efforts to shackle missionaries with the blame for recent events. The real root of the conflict in China, the Chronicle's editors retorted, was the "shameless policy of grab" pursued by the Western powers. Delving deeper into the issue, they conceded that missionaries may have sometimes "disturbed things a bit" but that, they

n6 Good Citizens insisted, resorting unwittingly to the secular gospel of the day, was the "price of progress." Besides even if missionaries had made mistakes, these were nothing compared to those of traders, officials, and the military. After all, the editors asked, who authorized the Opium War, the French occupation of Fuchow, and the English seizure of Wei-hai-wei?124 Indeed the war to make the world safe for opium had been a proverbial red flag to the missionary.125 The "iniquity of the ... traffic," thundered Methodists in London, "has aggravated the hatred of that vast and proud [Chinese] people toward the foreigner and has sapped our moral influence with its government."126 Again, as many wondered, had not exploitive industrial interests, in Congo fashion, harnessed hapless Chinese multitudes to the task of producing for the needs of the developed world in a way far removed from the ideals cherished by Richard and the reformers? For some troubled missionaries, the arrival in China of Europe's industrial revolution conjured up at the very least a world of the macabre, complete with time warps. Thus, after inspecting a vast mining operation that employed thousands of native workers under the supervision of a solitary English engineer, a bemused SPG agent remarked in 1889: "... the combination of Chinese life and European scientific methods and appliances suggests the picture of a piece of modern English colliery and railway industries set down in the middle ages."127 The overall message was clear enough. For the most part Europe's political and economic dealings with China were morally flawed, in sharp contrast to the advantages Protestant missionaries had supposedly conferred on the country.128 Richard put his finger on a related problem in a statement prepared for Baynes in the spring of 1901. He accused some of the powers of pursuing the same dubious tactics that had fashioned disaster in the past, particularly their refusal in the post-Boxer period to support the Chinese reformers with whom he had long communed. They did so, he wrote perceptively, out of fear that a properly reformed China "might become a formidable rival to the Powers in industry, commerce and other ways. So China is to be like Turkey to continue in her ignorance, conservatism, poverty and weakness. Thus the Christian powers act in an unchristian manner, dominated by fear and suspicion instead of by love and goodwill." "This means," he sadly concluded, "that Christian missions in China will have to be carried on in the face of the ignorance and suspicion of the Chinese ,.."129 He also mourned the indifference shown by Western governments when the so-called China problem had first come up for international debate. Indeed, during his sojourn in New York in the spring of 1900, he had gone so far as to request Secretary of State John Hay to intervene to preserve missions and the peace in

ii7 The Boxer Rebellion

China. But while sympathetic, Hay had begged off on constitutional and political grounds, pleading such complications as the general election then in full swing in the United States.130 Meanwhile, turning to other charges, missionaries reminded their critics that not all Chinese officials had turned their subjects against them during the troubles, as some editors were claiming.131 "Some few mandarins," wrote Gibson during the crisis, "have acted well in preserving order and befriending foreigners in defiance of the orders of the Empress and at great risk to themselves. There will be no safety for them, nor for the native Christians and foreigners, while the Empress still holds power ...//132 For their part organizers of the PCE'S Women's Missionary Association later recorded their gratitude to Chinese bureaucrats who, at the risk of their own lives, had altered the harsh wording of the empress's edicts to ensure relative missionary safety in the south.133 It was also reported that agents had often been awarded high ranks in the mandarins' own circles, which authorized them, as in Richard's case, to wear protective buttons on their hats.134 Richard reminded all and sundry too that even though he had strongly urged foreign intervention and had attacked those who had sheltered the Boxers/35 many mandarins did not exactly penalize him for those sins. On the contrary, in a "remarkable" turn of events, he was approached by a provincial governor to serve as his adviser and to become president of a proposed college of Western learning, a project dear to Richard's reformist heart.136 This was the institution that, at his suggestion, had been awarded the compensation originally set aside to cover Protestant mission losses in Shanxi.137 A Baptist publication was so enthused by these developments that it grandly predicted a much freer and easier relationship between missions and mandarins.138 And the resilient Richard could also summon up reserves of optimism. In the spring of 1901, with the Boxer Rebellion behind him, he doggedly returned to his formula for modernizing China in strict accordance with the country's basic needs. Rather this, he concluded, than the "Gunboat Policy" that had produced the latest troubles.139 The outburst, had it been made public, would have caused some angry head shaking in Salisbury's office. Such mission counterpoints, however, seemed to make little impression on the critics, either then or later. Thus in 1910 the tabloid John Bull rehashed the Boxer episode and severely criticized the missionary's supposed involvement. Sensational articles in the Morning Post went even further, saying that missions had been a "storehouse for property stolen or looted from the palaces of the Emperor and of all the wealthy people." The writer of the offending articles was none

n8 Good Citizens other than Sir Hiram Maxim, the arms inventor and manufacturer, whose livelihood did not exactly endear him to the missionary anyway. Amidst a storm of protest he insisted that he had "made no wild statement that [he] was not prepared to prove up to the hilt."140 Though the societies were pleased that Foreign Office dignitaries sprang to their defence/41 they still had the uneasy feeling that Whitehall's overall acceptance of their Chinese operations was only lukewarm at best. It was left to the indefatigable Richard to put the matter of missionstate relations in its broadest perspective. "Why," he asked in 1905, "did Lord Salisbury say that missionaries were not popular at the Foreign Office?" Whatever reason the former foreign secretary might have given, Richard had his own explanation: "The missionaries were unpopular because of the lack of understanding between the British government and the missionaries, as if they represented different interests, instead of being only different phases of the civilization of Christendom. What helps one helps the other. What hinders one hinders the other ..." In effect all parties, secular as well as sacred, shared strong common interests and the sooner the missionary and the bureaucrat, not to mention the latter's political master, realized that the better. While Richard admitted that some China missionaries had been indiscreet during the Boxer disorders, so had certain "Jingo politicians." The implication was that such unwelcome extremes should not be allowed to discredit those sensible missionaries and officials who were labouring to serve the best interests of humanity.142 By 1905, however, there was something mildly passe about Richard's call for missions and empire to stride hand in hand towards the beckoning horizon of a common destiny. To begin with, the Boers and Boxers had done more than make life temporarily difficult on the missionary frontier. Rather, directly and indirectly, they helped to expose what missions perceived as a widening gulf between their values and those of an increasingly secularized Greater Britain. To be sure, in both instances the Imperial cavalry had come galloping sooner or later to the rescue, but the cost had been steep. Thus, to one degree or another, both conflicts had turned out to be public relations nightmares for the missionary community, which, divided over South Africa, was flayed by politicians and journalists eager to find scapegoats in China. Given this and the stagnation of their income, missions were made forcibly aware that not only the government but the people of Britain were drawing a clear distinction between religious and imperial priorities. In the last year of the old century, an anonymous clergyman captured the mood in a heavily loaded rhetorical question put to readers of the Church Missionary Intelligencer: "In

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a century or two when our successors have read these utterances, will the future Church historian write with enthusiasm about the manner in which the missionary spirit kindled like fire among all classes of people ... in this golden age ...?" Plainly he thought not, and based his sobering response on the declining moral, emotional, and financial support for missions in the community at large. It was a state of affairs that filled him with "humiliation and shame."143 Beyond that, experience in the Transvaal and in China undoubtedly made clear the local dangers of identification with a far-off great power. The disillusioned Gibson was not alone in worrying that Western governments, prone to diplomatic half measures, too often left missionaries unceremoniously out to dry. Few agents in South Africa, for that matter, reposed overwhelming confidence in the Imperial arm after the inglorious muddle on the veldt. Furthermore, highly visible public attacks on missionaries, such as Salisbury's, required emissaries of the gospel to lay the blame for conflict and commotion at other doors. Increasingly, therefore, as the Chronicle was wont to do/44 they loudly dissociated themselves from "stockjobbers," "militarists," and the "policy of grab" - in other words, from the potent and undesirable elements perceived to lurk in the Imperial camp. As a torrent of harsh words flowed under the bridge, talk of "true" imperialism began to ring a little hollow. As the tide ran against native rights in South Africa and as missions slammed Lord Milner's use of coolie labour, it rang hollower still. Needless to say, when the ugly scandal of the Congo atrocities broke, the urge of some missionaries to extricate their movement from secular agencies altogether grew even more powerful. In the end, though far from extinct, Clifford's Jubilee musings began to sound rather quaint as the first decade of the new century unfolded.

5 "Higher Citizenship

Even as missionaries scrambled to defend their roles in South Africa and China, other major problems loomed. The BMS in particular was caught in the floodlights of a bitter international scandal. As longstanding "good citizens" of the Congo Free State, its agents squirmed in acute discomfort when Leopold II's regime was charged with spawning atrocities that smacked of the worst that the old slave systems had to offer. Though not as compelling and dramatic as the Boxer imbroglio, the Congo question none the less engaged humanitarian attention for the better part of a decade. Along the way, and all too reminiscent of the Chinese crisis, a major missionary body came under the gun, both within and without its constituency, for the perceived way it handled the situation. But while especially troubled in this instance, the BMS shared an equally challenging problem with all its sister societies. Indeed long-simmering financial pressures threatened to boil over in the first decade of the new century as mission house after mission house reported soaring deficits. At the same time the once-healthy stream of male recruits began to dry up. It was within this generally sombre context of crisis and shortfall that many missionaries sought renewal through the ecumenical movement whose brightest symbol would be the Edinburgh Conference of 1910. Before that hopeful hour struck, however, missionaries, already sorely tried on the veldt and in the Celestial Empire, perforcedly groped towards a concept of "higher citizenship" even as the bitter Congo affair unfolded.

121 "Higher Citizenship"

The labour abuses in Central Africa, already exposed by humanitarian groups, were dwarfed by the atrocities on the rubber plantations that burgeoned to meet the developed world's growing needs. Although a commission for the protection of natives had been struck by the CFS, it carried little weight with international opinion, particularly when it became plain that Leopold himself was actively engaged in the harshly driven plantation economy. Even George Grenfell, who was appointed to the commission along with W.H. Bentley and other missionaries, had recurring doubts about its usefulness and the sincerity of the officials who authorized it.1 As a result he was not all that sanguine about the commission's prospects, particularly when he convinced himself that its missionary members were powerless to make the CFS do anything it did not wish to do.2 Besides, he pointed out, he and his commission colleagues were not even residents of the districts where the worst cruelties were being reported and therefore were unable to speak from first-hand knowledge.3 All the same they gave no thought at this time to resigning from the body. Furthermore, feeling perhaps that once more he had to play the card of circumspection, Grenfell tended to minimize or ignore altogether abusive conditions that he was unable to witness or personally verify. Years later, for example, he complained of what he called the "racy report" submitted by a British consul. It supposedly inflated stories of cruelties or drew attention to irregularities already corrected by state officials, whose counter reports Grenfell was invariably willing to swallow.4 For him, however, it may have been a simple matter of denial. As a Nonconformist Liberal imbued with late-Victorian idealism, he may have blocked out the chilling notion that his generation of Europeans could actually be guilty of the sins once perpetrated by their slave-trading forebears. Again, the relatively unsophisticated Grenfell may have had his head turned by the honours the Belgian king had already heaped on him - the Order of Leopold and a knighthood - for his civilizing efforts in Central Africa. To be sure, the BMS'S Standing Committee trusted that he would value these "only as a practical assistance ... in connection with his official relations with the Congo Government."5 But arguably the awards may have clouded his judgment on vital matters that packed the agenda of those eager to expose and denounce the Congo's grim realities.6 A.H. Baynes, though perhaps more worldly wise than his colleague,7 may have been similarly dazzled. As late as 1903 he was still fulsomely thanking Leopold for conferring yet another "cherished" distinction on the society.8 Bentley also appeared to treasure the praise of senior state officials, and made a point of identifying himself

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on the title page of his Congo book as the Chevalier de 1'Ordre Royal du Lion, an honour personally conferred by Leopold.9 Soon enough both Grenfell and Bentley were accused of looking the other way when the worst of the Congo atrocities were being committed. Leading the charge in both private correspondence and public print were the venerable Aborigines Protection Society (APS) and E.D. Morel's recently formed Congo Reform Association (CRA). IG In the spring of 1904, when the labour abuses and cruelties were at their height and some months after the native commission wound up its affairs, an undaunted Bentley responded: As far as I am concerned it is all hear say, I have seen nothing. Of course it will be said that there are none so blind as those who will not see, but even that retort cannot be made, for no ... reports [of abuses] reached either me or my colleagues here, until long after I ceased to be a member of the Commission. Yet I have been blamed for not reporting what my critics say "I must have known about." Beside all this ... the country about us is quiet, and I could not hope for anything better ... if we were under British rule ..."

Ironically, Grenfell had recently used the yardstick of that rule to measure the CFS'S failure to raise up and train, in British Imperial fashion, a significant cadre of Africans - in effect, collaborators - who would have a vested interest in supporting the state and easing the task of administration.12 In the meantime attacks on the agents' good faith was almost too much for the Missionary Herald. Not only would they spoil the Congo Mission's silver anniversary party13 but, more importantly, threaten to tarnish the BMS'S reputation. "Surely no one at all acquainted with the ... Society," spluttered the magazine in 1903, "... can entertain the thought that the Committee ... will hesitate for a single moment to take action of the strongest character to vindicate the rights of native peoples."14 For his part Grenfell's biographer was appalled by the insinuation that the missionary had "connived at abominable cruelties by maintaining an interested silence."15 In his own defence Grenfell could have pleaded that he had always welcomed the public exposure of money-grubbing state officials who had imposed a "terrible affliction" on the natives.16 Again, he had periodically raised other concerns about the CFS'S dealings with the Congolese. For example he drew attention to the inequities and inefficiencies of a taxation system that unfairly penalized those who happened to be within convenient reach of the state's authority. He also questioned the policy of arbitrarily requisitioning farm animals, which seriously depleted the breeding stock required for the African herdsman's survival and

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prosperity.17 Clearly, however, concerned and vocal Baptists such as John Clifford were convinced that Grenfell and Baynes should have said and done much more. Clifford indeed shortly prevailed upon the Baptist Union to join with other organizations urging Whitehall to call for the international condemnation of the CFS under the terms of the Berlin accord that had recognized the state in 1885.l8 As for the missionaries in the dock, both Bentley and Grenfell, when confronted with unpleasant facts, bravely tried to strike what they thought was a balanced assessment. Although ultimately they came to acknowledge the CFS'S sins, especially the unpopular rule of the "rubber regime," they habitually underscored the state's achievements in bringing order and stability to the region.19 Indeed Grenfell accused the papers, the CRA, and H.R. Fox Bourne of the APS of ignoring or trivializing that contribution.20 Bentley in turn complained of the APS'S extremism and its failure to look "on the other side," to which Fox Bourne replied: "Oh, the other side can very well look after itself."21 Bentley also thought it reasonable even at this late date for the CFS to insist that the outspoken J.H. Weeks - a Victorian forerunner of the modern whistle blower - cease pouring out his scorn to the newspapers and report only to his headquarters in a "correct and decent" manner.22 And when Grenfell learned that a dissident Congo missionary wanted to declare a free zone around his station that would bar the state's taxes and conscription of labour, he exploded rhetorically: "What would a British Colonial Governor say to such a proposal? Or what would the Governor of the Phillipines [sic] say if the RC missionaries asked for ten square miles of his territory, round one of their stations, where two of his most unpopular measures should no longer be in force?"23 Moreover both he and Bentley thought that greater attention should be paid to the role the state played as a bulwark against the Islamic tide in Africa.24 Most missionaries, of course, had every right to dread this invasion threat but critics might have been tempted to dismiss it as a smokescreen. Indeed, much to Grenfell's consternation, the widely quoted H.M. Stanley held that the Arabs had actually "done good ... in opening up the road" in the Congo and that their presence had not been an "unmitigated evil."25 In the meantime the missionary's friends in England had difficulty coping with his equivocations over the authenticated atrocities so fully reported in the London press.26 But all this would change. Following decisive parliamentary debates in 1903, and again in 1904, Roger Casement, British consul in the Congo, was instructed by the Foreign Office to undertake a full investigation of the accumulating atrocity accounts, some of which

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had been furnished by the BMS'S own Weeks.27 Casement, an Irishman, was already well-known to the Congo Mission. This "genial and very good man" had once served them as a lay helper and his kindness to the Congolese had been especially commended.28 When as Consul Casement he and missionaries like Weeks furnished incontrovertible proof not just of forced labour, which was bad enough, but of large-scale atrocities as well, Grenfell and Bentley finally and fully accepted the situation in their own ways. Indeed Grenfell appears to have been the first to do so, this in the spring of 1904. Although still clinging to a slender shred of hope that the CFS might somehow redeem itself at the final moment, he regretfully admitted that "those who have so long maintained the contrary are to all intents and purposes justified." "I have been blinded," he went on dejectedly, "by my wish to believe 'the best/ The recent revelations have saddened me more than I can say."29 Old habits died a slow death, however. Some weeks later Grenfell again tried to convince himself that a more-or-less well-intentioned state government had, in the end, been betrayed by its freebooting officials on the spot. Nor had he stopped there. He went on to remind Baynes that Leopold, whom he depicted as an early torchbearer of the West's values in Africa, had undertaken a heavy moral burden that Britain, to her discredit, had spurned. What followed next qualifies as a panegyric: Under the absolutism of His Majesty ... (a monarch, who if not all wise, is certainly among the most sagacious of men, &, if not as philanthropic as people believed in the early days of the Congo enterprise, most certainly enacted a wonderfully complete code of beneficient laws) a marvellous change during the second decade of my African life came over the distracted country I had previously known ... I have often maintained, & I believe I am justified in so doing, that in no other colonial enterprise even in twice the time, had such an extent of territory been opened up & brought more or less within the range of ordered government.30

At one time Bentley may have been moved to say much the same thing.31 But in the fall of 1905 he wrote privately that the Casement findings would make Leopold and the CFS realize at long last that "simple denials of cruelties will in future not be enough. They must not be allowed."32 Some time before this both he and Grenfell, who had managed to get so many other things off his chest, refused to wear the medals and decorations awarded them by Leopold (a practice, by the way, already ridiculed in other mission circles as "ostentatious and childish").33 Yet it would appear that, for his part, Grenfell had

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taken this action not in response to the reported atrocities but because the CFS had rejected his plans for the transcontinental expansion of the Congo Mission. In any case when he subsequently repudiated his medals and sent them to Baynes for forwarding to Leopold, the evercautious secretary declined to do so, this in spite of the fact that he himself had been rebuffed by Brussels after he wrote them about the atrocity reports.34 In the fall of 1905 Grenfell passed on some reflections to Herbert Samuel, the Liberal politician and APS member who had started the ball rolling two years before with a parliamentary motion calling for international action against the CFS.35 For one thing, he tried to assure the skeptical Samuel that his former silence on the problem should not be attributed to indifference and that he fully backed the reforms that the humanitarian cause was now demanding.36 Grenfell made a further observation. "It is not a question of nationality," he wrote the politician, as if to convince himself that it was actually a universal flaw, "it is the operation of the laws of cause and effect to which English and French and Belgians are subject. The system followed is a vicious one ... [an] appalling harvest of crime that emphatically condemns it."37 That very day he mournfully conceded to another correspondent that turn-of-the-century Europe was indeed capable of "drifting into the colonial ruts of a time one hoped had gone forever."38 But a disturbed contributor to the Missionary Herald had anticipated him: "[T]he same kind of arguments used then to defend the slave trade ... have been employed in our own time, and have found support. There are a good many things in much more recent history which forbid our boasting."39 In any case the statement in the Missionary Herald was all the more poignant given the move afoot to celebrate the centenary of the slave trade's abolition in conjunction with the Congo agitation.40 To add to the gloom, Stanley's pioneering work, which had initially inspired the BMS, had appeared to degenerate into a violent "exploration by warfare," yet another manifestation of Europe's new imperialism.41 Indeed ever since the late i88os, once-well-disposed missionaries had been complaining bitterly of Stanley's lawlessness and insolent disregard of their rights and requests.42 This state of affairs only deepened Grenfell's disenchantment with the once "magnificent enterprise" on the Congo.43 The disenchantment, however, was well seasoned with anguish. By persistently seeking to be a good citizen according to its own lights, the Congo Mission had been saddled in some quarters with the charge of complicity in the inhumane activities of the CFS. This charge, of course, a distressed Grenfell dismissed as "most unreasonable."44

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At any rate redemption was on the way. Though belated, the BMS'S subsequent response to the problem helped substantially to restore its standing with the humanitarian community and the public at large. Together with sister societies, it joined forces with the APS, the CRA, and other groups urging Whitehall to bring Brussels to task.45 The real test came with the LMS'S response. Ordinarily reluctant to comment on public issues, the society was so agitated in 1907 that it actually urged its members to write their MPS about Leopold's "intolerable and abominable" regime.46 It made an even bigger commitment a year later when it officially subscribed to Morel's association and pointedly sent delegates to a noisy demonstration by that body at Queen's Hall.47 Thereafter R.W. Thompson's signature counted for a good deal when the CRA and other organizations circulated appeals on behalf of the Congolese.48 The LMS and its sister groups kept up the political pressure even after Leopold's state became a formal Belgian colony in 1908. Unhappily, the change of regime did not bring about the total cessation of abuses; indeed the forced-labour decrees of the CFS were actually renewed. Not only this, former state servants of dubious reputation were reportedly returning to posts of responsibility.49 As a result Belgium was baldly accused by the Chronicle of perpetuating the policies of a "sixteenth century Conquistador," which, the magazine darkly stressed, could have been curbed early on by a more watchful Britain. All the same it was pleased that the latter, unlike France and Germany, refused to recognize the transfer of power until certain guarantees were in place. Yet soon enough the Chronicle was sharing the CRA'S growing unhappiness with Whitehall's "inactive" and "vague" handling of the issue and asking its readers to take to heart Morel's "passionate, reasoned and reasonable protest against Sir Edward Grey's Congo policy."50 Then in 1909, in a rare burst of comity, Congregationalists and other evangelicals were joined by leading Anglicans in the campaign to make the foreign secretary honour Britain's obligations. At yet another impressive demonstration at Queen's Hall, the Archbishop of Canterbury himself appeared on the speaking platform alongside the gratified leaders of Nonconformity.51 This was all very welcome but, even so, the church was much less vocal on a related issue, the forced labour recently introduced in the British dependency of Uganda. For what it was worth, the reason given was that any public discussion of that problem might undermine Whitehall's negotiations with Belgium on the more pressing Congo one.52 So fierce was the chorus of British disapproval of the Congo regime that the Anti-Slavery Society considered it unwise in the spring of 1908 to despatch a delegation to Brussels lest it spark unpleasant

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scenes.53 A year later the SPG was informed that feelings were still running high in the city and that a Roman Catholic "invasion" was being planned in the southern Congo as a retaliatory move.54 Angry Belgian officials were speaking out too. Echoing cynics across the Channel, one acidly wondered "why [people] in England take an interest in the Congo instead of things nearer home."55 His country's newspapers, which often followed the lead of the Anglophobe French press, heatedly accused the British of using the atrocity issue as a cover for their own greedy designs on Central Africa, particularly the "copper mining empire" in Katanga.56 But Exeter Hall, mission houses, and reform groups remained undeterred, and continued to harangue Brussels and to dog the Foreign Office. The upshot was that Britain refused to recognize the new Congo administration until as late as July 1913, when the sought-after Belgian guarantees were finally pledged. In the course of their campaign, missions received an unexpected boost when influential public figures such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came to their assistance. Once a vocal opponent of the missionary endeavour, Conan Doyle now swung round to its defence. "But for the missionaries," he wrote in an article reprinted in the Chronicle in 1909, "we should never have sent our consuls and never had any information about the Belgian treatment of the natives."57 As a result he became "much occupied in Congo matters," and together with other luminaries financially supported the investigations of Brussels's administration of the colony.58 His literary skills were also deployed on behalf of the cause. The exploits of Sherlock Holmes temporarily yielded to finding a solution to what the celebrated author called The Crime of the Congo, a book that the Chronicle urged all to read. Missionaries of every stripe found Conan Doyle's supportive words doubly gratifying because they offered an impressive counterpoint to the obloquy heaped on them during the South African and Boxer troubles. They also stirred pleasant memories of earlier plaudits from public figures like Sir Harry Johnston that had underscored the philanthropic as well as spiritual dividends of the missionary effort.59 There was, meanwhile, another culpable Caesar much closer to hand, indeed within the very bosom of the Imperial family. In Rhodesia, for example, appalled CMS agents reported in 1911 that native commissioners were requiring chiefs to provide African labourers by force.60 It was also feared that British-dominated cocoa interests in Angola might be tempted to exploit the forced labour program that had long been an odious feature of the Portuguese colony.61 But it was Lord Milner's introduction of indentured Chinese coolie labour to South Africa that topped the list of Imperial derelictions. Still, for

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all its shocking features, the policy fell short of producing the sense of moral outrage sparked by the more emotive Congo atrocities. Indeed the SPG, for one, initially seemed more concerned by the need to Christianize the coolie than to condemn the policy that had brought him to South Africa in the first place.62 For a time too the Anti-Slavery Society thought that the full-blown slavery of West Africa merited more attention than the supposedly milder Chinese version to the south.63 And at the outset a typically cautious Thompson shied away from the question on the grounds that it was far too "political." As a result condemnation of the practice just narrowly won out at a lively LMS board meeting in the spring of 19O4.64 But when the pros and cons of the issue were fully debated in the Chronicle later in the year, the society was moved to speak out more boldly. Thus when T.W. Pearce, a former Hong Kong missionary, suggested that the terms of the indentures might actually benefit the Chinese,65 he was swiftly rebuked by a horrified colleague. At the urging of the Chronicle's editor and the LMS Literature Committee, Matthew Stanley wrote a stinging counter-attack to Pearce's "seriously deficient" statement. Above all Stanley recoiled from the nasty prospect that the LMS would "appear ... on the wrong side in this matter," and went on to intone that "Sin is no less sin because it is gilded."66 Such sentiments were powerfully reinforced by the tracts on "Chinese slavery" being generated by the Anti-Slavery Society, whose interest in the matter had obviously been rekindled. In any case, as a result of their strenuous exertions in central and southern Africa, missions were now being perceived by the likes of Conan Doyle as trustworthy, disinterested critics of Caesar, be he foreign or domestic. This factor, combined with the ecumenism that had aided in the liberation of the Congolese, helped to shape vital parts of the agenda that would drive the World Interdenominational Conference being planned for Edinburgh in 1910. If missionaries began to agonize over the performance of sundry imperial states when important moral issues were at stake, they were even more disturbed by the ostensible decay of their own constituency. In 1903 R.F. Horton, chairman of the Congregational Union, dropped a hint of this. "The established missions," he wrote, "strike the outsider very much as the churches at home do - good, practical, dutiful, but hardly inspired." There was, he continued, a vague "sense of halt," a loss of impetus, that registered most obviously in the growing financial difficulties experienced by most missionary bodies. "The chill criticisms increase," said Horton, while "the charm to elicit the necessary sums seems to have been lost..."

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Far from panicking, however, the chairman anticipated that the current slump could be reversed if bold and imaginative appeals were made to the Christian conscience. Meanwhile, invoking the old gospel commission, he urged missionaries to go "without scrip, without purse, without two coats," since God would not point the way without providing the means.67 Experience, however, was a stern and solemn teacher. Only two years later William Dale, secretary to the Foreign Missions Committee of the PCE, was writing to agents in the field of the "great financial pressure" under which the committee groaned, and urging them to seek every possible reduction in expenditure.68 By 1905 even Thompson, who was wont to follow Horton's stirring advice, confessed his intense frustration in the wake of an LMS conference called to confront the fiscal issue. "There was," he lamented, "very painful evidence of an utter lack of real appreciation of the greatness of the claim and urgency of the [missionary] enterprise." As he contemplated chronic underfunding, the soul-weary Thompson sighed: "It would be ludicrous if it were not so pathetic, so serious, so tragic."69 Lamentations of this sort echoed with varying resonance through most mission boardrooms in the opening decade of the century. In some instances this approached keening, so stricken were organizers by the prospect of imminent decline. In scope the problem varied from society to society, but to one degree or another all had to cope with the hazards of financial ill health. There was, of course, nothing absolutely novel about all this. Deficits had been the common lot since the 18703 when the missionary frontier had expanded beyond the metropolitan capacity to fund it. As early as 1880, for example, the WMMS was complaining of "a poverty which in some districts is little short of ruin."70 At mid-decade a crippling commercial depression and declining offerings were being blamed for still further Methodist setbacks. The society's income high of 1875 - £121,000 - had declined by 1884 to £102,000, and Christmas donations, upon which apparently much depended, had fallen in the same period from some £9000 to £67oo.71 The situation was little better a few years later. In 1892 the WMMS was bemoaning undermanned missions and the "poor ambition," dictated by necessity, of merely "holding our own" in Africa, India, and China.72 For some societies, however, accumulated debts were kept down or wiped out altogether by special drives, particularly those marking the much-heralded centenaries of older organizations like the BMS and CMS.73 The forward movements of the 18905, however, while generating fatter revenues, also added even more corpulent yearly burdens. By 1905 at the latest, many leaders such as Thompson feared that chronic shortfalls would permanently erode their work.

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Among the major societies the CMS, as if to bear out Timothy Richard's assumptions about its affluence, seems to have met the challenge most successfully. In 1887 its income stood at £208,000. By 1899, thanks to special appeals and more systematic constituency work, this had climbed to an impressive £325,000. These welcome gains, however, were still insufficient to keep pace with expenditures averaging some £370,000 a year between 1900 and 1904. Though yet another call to the faithful expunged the cumulative debt in 1903, by 1906 there was once more serious talk of retrenchment. Again, if 1911 saw the healthiest-ever receipts, with £384,000 donated from all sources, the persistent deficit led organizers to depart from a policy laid down in 1887 that no candidate be refused on financial grounds alone.74 Thus the staff, greatly enlarged since 1899, peaked in 1906 and declined slightly thereafter. Even so, in 1913 it was still substantially larger than when the century opened, having been augmented by the twenty-six male missionaries enrolled three years before in the glow of the Edinburgh Conference.75 By 1913, however, the society faced a real crisis with its total debt reaching an unheard-of £74,000. In response the Swanwick Conference of 1913 issued a call for support, to which Anglicans responded handsomely, retiring the debt and leaving the CMS with a small surplus. In a relatively buoyant mood, the society laid down plans for renewed expansion in 1914-76 Most other societies, however, enjoyed no such fleeting comfort even if one, the SPG, was relieved that in its fund-generating bicentenary year expenditures were more than covered by total income.77 The less fortunate LMS spent most of the pre-war decade reeling from successive fiscal body blows. In 1895, to be sure, it had managed to fight back and floor its debt with a highly lucrative centennial drive. Moreover the forward movement of the early 18905 permanently raised the regular annual income well over earlier levels. Whereas in 1881 Mission House took in £87,000, its receipts in 1901 totalled £123,000 and reached a lofty peak of £159,000 in 190678 Yet, as organizers were well aware, that same forward movement added almost seventy missionaries to the society's roster, which by one calculation imposed henceforth an additional £40,000 on the yearly expenditure.79 With income averaging £123,000 and expenses of £145,000 annually between 1900 and 1913, recurring deficits produced mounting debt.80 By 1913 the LMS, although only a third the size of the CMS, staggered under a load only £3000 less than that of its larger cousin.81 Accordingly, while the sprawling Anglican communion could dismiss its charge and think about recovery, Congregationalist leaders, with a base of fewer than half a million church members to draw upon, were all but numbed by their fiscal circumstances. "All

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I have got to say," muttered Thompson at this juncture, "is, God keep us from panic."82 The prospects were not much better at Presbyterian headquarters on East India Avenue. About an eighth the size of the LMS and utterly dwarfed by the CMS, the FMC supported close to forty fully qualified missionaries in 1910, well up from the sixteen agents of 1880. Similarly, its income had risen, but not at the same pace as expenditures. In 1905, for example, the treasurer regretfully reported a shortfall of more than £2ooo.83 By 1909 the deficit was £3000 and twelve months later the committee's commitments outstripped its revenue by 25 percent.84 Strict economizing and a special appeal brought some welcome relief by 1913 but this had been accomplished only because numerous vacant posts overseas had been left unfilled.85 Clearly, for the FMC as for many others, the business of faith had become very taxing indeed. Methodists were keenly aware of this, facing as they did a debt of some £7700 in 1909. It was only through the generosity of affluent friends and calls on a special reserve fund that enabled the WMMS - as they put it - to "melt" the debt the following year. Even so the society was solemnly warned that unless its yearly income was increased by at least £5000, it could not expect to sustain its existing missions, let alone expand.86 All this was set against the sobering fact that the "total sum raised annually for all Methodist objects ... works out at no more than 6d. in the £ of the total income of Methodists; and of this 6d. less than 3/4d. goes to foreign missions."87 It should be borne in mind, of course, that no missionary society was forced to plead anything like total bankruptcy. With investments and scores of fixed assets such as schools and hospitals, even the most modest organization could have paid off its debts in a trice. This, however, would not have solved the long-term problem, the generation of regular revenues adequate to sustain established and future endeavours. Windfalls from gifts and legacies occasionally eased financial burdens, but these, as demonstrated in the WMMS'S case, could not be relied upon year in and year out. Indeed some legacies were at best mixed blessings, among them the Arthington Trust. When Robert Arthington of Leeds - the so-called miser of Headingley Lane - died in 1901, he left the bulk of his substantial fortune, in roughly equal parts, to the LMS and the BMS. Each received between £250,000 and £350,000, which should have been more than enough to cover even a full decade of deficits. But the terms of the trust were such that it could not be used to fund existing work, let alone to retire debts. Instead it had to go exclusively to new endeavours and be completely spent within twenty-five years. Arthington, in effect, had facilitated some short-term growth without suggesting how it might

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be sustained down the longer road.88 On the other hand the WMMS, which appeared to have a choice in the matter, willingly decided to devote one of its larger legacies to the extension of mission work.89 At any rate, all things considered, most mission organizers, however grateful they were for bequests, became obsessed with developing a regular income appropriate to the scope of their ambitions. Those ambitions moreover ran very high indeed. Much of the bitterness and frustration that coloured mission comment on the fiscal situation stemmed from a sense that while the new century offered unparalleled opportunities for evangelical progress now that the "world was open to all the Gospel,"90 those opportunities were being mindlessly squandered. The Far East, and China in particular, were considered ripe for swift and decisive action. On the eve of the Boxer Rebellion, J.C. Gibson had sniffed a "new era" in the wind.91 By 1903, with conflicts settled in South Africa and China, the Chronicle expected a great leap forward in both countries and called for £15,000 of additional donations to meet the demand.92 No less eager, Dale, like the BMS'S Richard, rhapsodized on the limitless possibilities in post-Boxer China, as a supposedly discredited Confucian system gave way to Westernization leavened by the Christian faith.93 Significant enough in itself, the rapid evangelization of China at this electric moment was seen to be globally important as well. As one of Dale's Presbyterian colleagues put it in 1905, if the sprawling Chinese diaspora in the Pacific could be Christianized it would constitute a massive missionary force for bringing within reach "the final triumph of the Gospel."94 The stakes, in short, were enormous; the time was fleeting and the need, or so it seemed, was self-evident. It was, therefore, with intense frustration that mission activists watched deficits relentlessly climb. Demoralization became nothing short of excruciating, and not only in the boardrooms. On an inspection of LMS stations in China, Chester businessman S.J. Clark wrote home in 1907 of the crippling effects of persistent underfunding. "Our men," he grieved, "are dismayed, unhappy, and overworked and it is pitiable to see some of the best ... just on the verge of breakdown."95 The same problem hounded other missions. In many instances the shortage of funds combined with long hours and the terrors of tropical life to ravage the missionary's well-being, producing at least one certified case of lunacy at a BMS mission field in India.96 There was, at this time, no shortage of explanations as to what lay at the root of the financial problem. One school of thought was even disposed to look on the positive side. Thus Gibson held that missionaries, always in advance of popular opinion, should damn the fiscal

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torpedoes and steam full speed ahead. The churches, he was sure, like some lumbering convoy, would in due course catch up. "Success," he argued, "means burden and burden imposed is a pledge of grace that will surely be given to meet the need."97 This was in effect the logic of the forward movement: God would not open a door without providing the means to pass through it. In the same spirit, LMS Home Secretary A.N. Johnson observed in 1906 that "our financial difficulties ... are the penalty of success, the evidence that the great object of our efforts is being attained."98 On the other hand there were skeptics who, under increasing fiscal pressure, maintained that God's message in all this was open to interpretation. Perhaps, ventured one Congregationalist minister in 1905, the Almighty was really urging missionaries to think with their heads as well as their hearts and to abandon the idea of rapid, unlimited growth.99 In brief, as missionaries read the "signs," they gleaned no emphatic single revelation. Adopting a historical posture in 1905, Thompson suggested that there was a natural process at work, which, if better understood, might loosen some purse strings and, to boot, supply a comforting perspective on current demands. Echoing perhaps the trusteeship theories of Edmund Burke and Robert Jacques Turgot, he argued that the missionary enterprise had passed through three historical phases. Simple evangelization had constituted the first, as territory was staked out and the Word was sown. "Consolidation" came next as missions took root, diversified, and assumed a wide variety of responsibilities, all of which rendered the heathen truly civilized Christians. In the final phase, their work accomplished, missionaries would gradually withdraw, leaving the church entirely in native hands. At the moment, said Thompson, most missions were in the second, consolidative phase. With schools, hospitals, "women's work," and industrial training added to conventional evangelical obligations, heavy expenditure was unavoidable. The strain, however, would not last forever. Therefore Thompson urged his generation to accept its clear historic duty; that is, bear the burden of success and thereby hasten the "more rapid realization of the final goal."100 In some respects Thompson was merely stating the obvious. Much of the soaring expenditure reflected the more intensive and varied cultivation of the mission field. Indeed in their concern for the social, economic, and medical dimensions of their enterprise, turn-of-thecentury missionaries put "Bible and Plough" forebears to shame. Inherently more expensive than earlier efforts, their "developmental" approach burgeoned, moreover, during an exceptionally inflationary period. As was frequently noted at the time, revaluations of Indian and Chinese currency alone considerably raised mission costs. With

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the Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion, and other upheavals adding to the fiscal pressure, missionaries complained of constantly rising prices in most major fields.101 Such brutal economic facts of life were self-evident contributors to the financial nightmare and accepted as such. More heavily debated were other factors that supposedly aggravated the crisis. Among these the most frequently cited were organizational creakiness, bad business practice, and loss of touch with church-going constituencies. Ardent soul-searching about these, furthermore, could sometimes generate intense heat. Such, at least, was the lot of the LMS as it was rocked by the "Faith or Business" controversy. Freezing spending for the foreseeable future in 1902, grim Congregationalists watched anxiously as deficits continued to mount over the next three years. In February 1905, impressively spurred to action, they gathered 1600 strong to confront matters squarely at the Mission House Conference.102 Designed to clear the air, the meeting only succeeded in complicating matters by touching off a prolonged wrangle over philosophical fundamentals and management details. Those who spoke up for "Faith" included Mission House heavyweights Thompson and Home Secretary Johnson, who, while acknowledging the need for prudence, strongly opposed "panic legislation."103 They were willing enough to shelve expansion for the moment but they baulked at talk of withdrawal and even more vigorously laboured to deflate calls for a strictly balanced budget. Thompson made the point that a purely businesslike response to a "Divine Commission" would destroy morale in the field and hand over control to the churches in the metropolis. To do so, he bluntly argued, would be to forget that the LMS received its call from the heathen and its mandate from Christ, certainly not from congregations at home. Playing a battered but still potent trump card, Thompson and his allies proclaimed: "If only we had more faith, He would do ten times more than He had ever yet been able to do for us."104 When their turn came, the champions of "Business," who included many a prominent director in their ranks, fought back with passionate arguments of their own. W.S. Houghton, who proposed the balanced-budget scheme, lashed out against a policy of deliberate overspending that "dampened the missionary ardour of the churches." "When," he angrily observed, "a great Society adopted a policy of spending money which they had not got, and which they were not sure of getting, in the belief that 'God would see them through' because their aim was a good one, they ought not to call it faith, but rather presumption and speculation." A thoroughly warmed-up Houghton then left no doubt as to where he thought blame ought to be laid. The forward movement of 1891, he charged,

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had saddled the LMS with all but unsupportable burdens. The churches, he warned, would no longer be "coerced" by appeals for money that had already been spent.105 Another director, A.J. Viner of Oldham, cautioned that signals on this point were unmistakable and that special appeals would soon enough fall on deaf ears. By 1906, he noted, the LMS had issued nine such dramatic pleas in the past thirteen years, with steadily declining results. Suggesting that directors had cried wolf with all-too-numbing regularity, Viner remarked that special entreaties from the LMS had simply lost their power to open pocketbooks.106 His concern was shared by those directing the affairs of the CMS and the BMS. RE. Wigram did not take kindly to the circulation of high-flown station reports when appeals went out. He argued that, by defying plausibility and common sense, they only caused head shaking among the more thoughtful in the pews who were well aware of the setbacks that missions routinely suffered.107 Grenfell on the Congo made the same point. Many agents like himself, he maintained, were repelled by the glowing hyperbole that often inflated mission publications out to court the public and to pry loose funds at forward movement time.108 How much longer, he seemed to be asking, would otherwise sympathetic people be swayed by such tactics? Criticism of a related kind came from the reports of the self-appointed LMS auditor, Clark, who on a personally financed odyssey roamed the society's major fields between 1907 and 1910. His various letters, memoranda, and reports together constitute something of a renegade Domesday Book, a snapshot of a missionary body in distress. The message, moreover, was simple and direct. "Nothing short of reconstruction from top to bottom," minuted Clark, "will, in my judgment, prevent the LMS work ... steadily deteriorating."109 Still, not unlike Thompson, he urged calm, deliberate change and opposed both "gradual starvation" and "indiscriminate giving up or transfer of work." Clark was sure that God intended the financial crisis to be a blessing but that divine purpose could be defeated by what he called "panic remedies." It also became plain that the businessman had little time for those comparatively uninformed and potentially troublesome board members who "by aid of a small scale map think that, with a blue pencil, they can reconstruct the work of the LMS in a time of grave financial distress."110 In 1909 Clark addressed the problem by drafting his own renewal scheme, which appeared as a "highly confidential" report for the eyes of sympathetic directors at home. The need, as he saw it, was "not for more men or more money" but rather for basic restructuring. The society, he maintained, had drifted into all manner of new work

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without giving thought to altering its ancient procedures. Thus, to cite just two examples, hospitals had no common system of administration and every mission had different bookkeeping methods, which new agents invariably had to learn from scratch. Furthermore, he maintained, buildings were inexpertly supervised during construction and often wound up costing double what they should. Meanwhile furloughs were never properly coordinated to ensure the essential continuity of effort. To resolve these problems he called for a sweeping systematization and greater central control by a more expert species of administrator. "When all vote and few know," Clark admonished, "there is little efficiency, but a considerable element of danger.""1 At home Thompson was, to put it mildly, bemused by Clark's stoking of the business lobby. Indeed he objected to interference from an irresponsible non-board member, especially one who was a "strong man, known to be possessed of a certain idea and to be pushing it for all it's worth." When this extended to Clark's tagging along with official Mission House deputations to the field, the foreign secretary drew the line. "I find," wrote an irritated Thompson in 1910, "that Mr. Clark, in his recent journey through South Africa, actually told our friends that there was going to be a great policy of reconstruction with Advisory Committees and that this would be done for South Africa immediately." Pointing out that such matters had yet to be raised even with the board, Thompson wrote wearily to men in the field quashing in effect yet another tale from that generation's rumour mill.112 In truth, as it turned out, the entire faith or business controversy issued in neither balanced budgets nor full-scale reconstruction. It did, however, help to define the scope of a problem that riveted missionary attention as few others did in the years leading up to the Great War. It was a crisis of expectations, often acrimonious, frequently personal, and always exhausting. By 1909 Thompson, for one, was nearing his limit, so much so that he was contemplating retirement. "The problem haunts me day by day," the clearly overworked secretary wrote a friend, "and I am utterly staggered when I try to work out any scheme of reduction which will bring the Society's expenditures down to the limit of its present income.""3 Among non-Anglican societies, the truly harrowing element in all this was the growing fear that their once-solid home support was visibly crumbling. In the case of the Methodists, by 1911 the situation was even more disturbing as they witnessed the numerical decline of their constituency for the fifth consecutive year since 1906."4 While the LMS and the FMC seemed to suffer no such erosion in numbers, they still had to meet the problem of flagging financial support.

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Tightening up their grass-roots organizations was seen as one possible solution. Presbyterian leaders henceforth ensured that each congregation was served by three local officials priming the pump.115 For its part the LMS appointed A.M. Gardiner as its first organizing secretary in 1903 with the sole task of whipping up interest among the home churches.116 As part of this an effort was made to freshen up the missionary sales pitch. In the name of economy the LMS had pared back its once-substantial staff of home workers who had advertised the society in its constituency. Accordingly for almost thirty years it had depended primarily on printed matter and the occasional sermon by agents on leave to carry the word to the churches. After the turn of the century, however, like the FMC, it turned to lantern slide presentations and the use of touring "missionary vans" in order to provide a dash of colour and romance to the missionary cause. If any Presbyterians were unclear on this point, moreover, Dale was there to set them straight. Whatever more reticent Baptists and CMS people might have thought of the approach, Dale in 1906 urged PCE missionaries in the field to write at least "one careful popular article" a year for the Monthly Messenger as a means of stimulating the "sympathies and gifts" of metropolitan congregations."7 To calm those who deplored any form of flamboyant advertising, at least he had emphasized "careful." Above all he advised both agents abroad and their furloughed colleagues at home to concentrate on "anything that can be labelled progress," that generation's favourite catchword.118 The vital thing, however, was to add life and immediacy to the subject - simply put, to entertain by stirring the popular imagination. In an age of increasing leisure, cheap dailies, and other potent distractions, Dale obviously thought that self-promoting missions too could cash in on the populist approach.119 Others were not so certain. The SPG, which also resorted to theatrical devices to arouse the lethargic, ruefully concluded that while entertaining enough they proved far from spiritually inspiring.120 In any case some missionary observers argued that all the talk about the need for meeting the competition of secular mass entertainment was beside the point. They claimed that the really damaging competition for revenue came rather from alternative appeals to the Christian conscience. These may have included such spiritual exotica as Rosicrucianism, theosophy, and those other popular doctrines of the time recently discussed by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience.121 Whatever the case most missions seemed well aware that the real struggle for hearts and minds would have to be in the nation's burgeoning cities. In 1903 a worried LMS had carefully studied its returns and noted that less-secularized rural folk tended to be far more

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generous with donations than their free-spirited urban cousins, particularly when the latter resided in industrial areas.122 In turn concerned Methodists, constantly in search of "Social Purity," feared that such popular amusements as gambling and sports were seriously eroding religious and civic values, not to mention mission offerings, among the working classes.123 But assuredly it was the political world's ardent pleas for social reform, particularly at the urban level, that caused the greatest concern in mission circles. Speaking for Methodism, a troubled John Wakerley observed that "many are looking for ... social betterment to arise from another quarter than the Christian Church ... and to find their hope ... in the acceptance of fresh economic ideas." For him this was unconscionable. "It may be our opportunity to show," he continued, "that parliamentary procedure, legislative enactment, vigorous administration are inadequate ... Our duty is to show that... there are principles of Christian teaching which would work a peaceful but certain revolution. It must be ours to show a more excellent way."124 After all, as one of Wakerley's colleagues reminded the critics, had not Methodism's founder, John Wesley, been the quintessential "Social Reformer" ages before politicians gave any thought to the matter?125 Meanwhile Rev. F.R. Swan of the LMS was thinking much the same as Wakerley when he defined the central problem of missions as the need to tap the enthusiasms of Christians obsessed with domestic social ills.126 Attempting to link evangelism with the emergent social gospel, Swan underscored a venerable mission theme. "Can we in England be saved," he asked in 1906, "while other races are living in ignorance and savagery?" Perhaps he took a timely cue from those who drew a connection between imperialism and social reform when he asserted that "the very idea of 'brotherhood' or a 'social body' is given up when the words are taken to mean only a particular class or a special country."127 Some time later he returned to this theme, tackling objections to missions levelled by concerned social reformers. He conceded that missionaries had probably sacrificed some claims to relevance by failing to develop a more modern apologetic, one in keeping with "changed ideas of the soul and its destiny and the more liberal conceptions of religion." What was required, he insisted, was "a progressive, spiritual theology ... adapted to the mind of the particular people we are anxious to serve." Given this change in direction, he trusted that no one could then charge missions with using "social work" to foist alien conceptions on foreign cultures. "We shall then," Swan wrote, "have no need to ask anyone to accept our doctrines for the sake of our social work. The two are not divided, and cannot be divided. Our theology should

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be revealed in our social work."128 Basil Mathews, the Chronicle's editor, also tried to co-opt the social gospel for the LMS. "Speaking broadly," he wrote in 1912, "and allowing for the growing ferment of the leavening Christian conscience, we in Britain today live in a social and economic system which is in itself a concrete blasphemy." But this, he contended, only increased the direct relevance of the missionary cause. In terms reminiscent of J.A. Froude's earlier call to empire, Mathews admonished those who would neglect overseas obligations in favour of domestic reform. "The world," he chimed, "is one. It is one body, with the cable and telegraph lines running like nerves to the ends of the earth ... If we suffer here, they are sick in the East; if there is a horrible gangrene there, it weakens us here. There are not two problems, but one."129 Addressing contemporary concerns and sprucing up their public face, mission bodies campaigned hard to maintain their core support. It was, therefore, devastating for some when the longed-for surge failed to materialize, in spite of the lure of lantern slides and missionary vans. For example Baptist expectations that their 1892 centenary drive would lead over time to massive church offerings were rudely crushed. Although they did gather in considerable revenue at the very end of the century, it still fell considerably short of the hoped-for goal of £ioo,ooo.13° By 1902, indeed, the BMS'S income had not really topped that of the centenary year. And instead of being able to recruit the magical figure of a hundred additional missionaries, they ended up with a disappointing forty.131 The FMC appeared to be in the same boat. The returns from its 1909 canvass disclosed that across the church spectrum congregational donations, private gifts, and special thanksgiving offerings were in sharp decline.132 When the same thing occurred in subsequent years, Dale and his harried colleagues were driven to ask whether the faithful had not reached some sort of natural point of saturation.133 At the LMS, meanwhile, successive funding crusades yielded even more discouragement. In 1905 it was calculated that only one out of three Congregationalists regularly contributed to missions; a year later fully half of the minority who responded to a special appeal refused to pledge a specific amount beyond the average gift of a "farthing."134 Then, in 1909, as the crisis continued to mount, the society realized a mere quarter of the returns expected from a muchtrumpeted "Million Shillings Fund" organized by an anxious Thompson to forestall withdrawals from marginal fields.135 The sobering truth was that the society's average yearly income was sustained only because donations from the native church were on the rise and partially disguised the declin at home.136 Small wonder that a sour Thompson

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feared handing over control to "the nervous and lukewarm people in the churches."137 Another pastor simply wrote off Congregationalists as anything like believers in the church militant.138 Some years later the newly minted International Review of Missions buttressed the point by warning that a "stiff-jointed, apologetic, perfunctory churchism is not the material out of which a missionary Church is made."139 Nor in his explanation of the financial dearth did Thompson neglect to mention another of the perceived curses of that age. To use his words, written on the very eve of Edinburgh, it was the "canker of materializing influence" that had "eaten very deeply into the religious life."140 Equally distressed Methodists also warned of the "infection of materialism" that was poisoning the secularism of the times.141 With the loss of hope in financial revival at home, retrenchment was seized upon as the only viable alternative. By 1913, a truly bleak financial year, retreat from marginal fields became a reluctant strategy for the FMC.142 Even earlier the LMS began turning away qualified male candidates, a sure sign of its own serious commitment to cost cutting.143 Then the call went out in some quarters for the abandonment of old flagship fields such as Madagascar and the South Seas as well as the winding up of some ancient Indian missions. Though the threatened resignation of irate missionaries and Thompson's stubborn opposition forced an impasse in 1905, even he had to admit four years later that the overburdened LMS might soon have to share "without shame" some of its obligations with others.144 Thus, arrangements were shortly made to have Canadian Baptists and Methodists take over certain Chinese fields so that the society could concentrate on other responsibilities.145 But even in the blighted circumstances of 1913 that and other economy moves were deemed, at best, a necessary evil. An agonized Thompson left no one in any doubt that personally he could never fully "believe" in such a retrogressive policy.146 When fund-raising and retrenchment failed to hold the line, there was still a glimmer of hope in two other courses of action. In a 1906 circular to all FMC missionaries, Dale urged that "self-support on the part of the Native Church should be pressed as much as possible," starting with the raising of fees in schools and hospitals. Though it should not be undertaken hastily, he advised, the move would likely ensure that the many non-Christians who availed themselves of such services would thus help to support them.147 Pursuing other tactics, both the FMC and the LMS subsequently called on indigenous Christians to take over specified stations and, further, allocate resources for the training of native agents.148 In this spirit "industrial missions," such as Tiger Kloof in South Africa and Papuan Industries Limited,

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were developed to lay an economic foundation for native Christian communities.149 Altogether the fact that revenues from overseas congregations rose while those at home stagnated or fell would seem to indicate that the LMS and the FMC enjoyed some success with the program of stimulating the frontier church. The WMMS was cheered too. According to gratifying returns made in 1910, their mission stations had over time enjoyed a membership increase that more than made up for the demographic shortfall at home.150 Even so, as deficits continued to soar, there was considerable enthusiasm for yet another potential solution to the financial dilemma. There might be, Dale suggested in 1906 to missionaries at Swatow, much financial benefit in a species of union with American Baptists on the scene. Pointing to real savings already achieved from intersocietal cooperation in education and medicine at Amoy, he urged others to follow that example.151 Meanwhile the same thoughts had occurred to the LMS and the anguished Thompson. George Cousins, an influential member of the society's executive, called for a practical "Comity of Missions" while the secretary and even Clark grudgingly agreed that duplication and overlapping were luxuries that missions could no longer afford.152 Similarly, Methodist leaders "groaning under the financial load" were calling upon all church missions to mount a concerted "world-conquering campaign."153 Henceforth, whatever the misgivings, cooperation and collaboration would have to become the new battle-cry. Arguably there was nothing strictly new in this, since practical cooperation in the field had always been a feature over the years. This had usually involved, however, nothing more consequential than filling in for a stricken colleague or one on furlough. For the most part, in other words, it had been a simple matter of practising Christian charity or plain common courtesy in the broadly Protestant community on the missionary frontier. This was all very well, of course, but the likes of Dale and Cousins were considering something more substantial than short-term, localized marriages of convenience. If, in 1906, they stopped short of calls for full ecumenical union, they did urge more systematic mutual effort among societies similarly laden with debt and distress. Indeed, finding less support in the general British public than expected, missionaries were in a mood to look within their own select, if varied, community for reassurance, rebirth, and a new lease on the future. If grave financial pressure added urgency to ecumenism, dramatic developments on the international scene were positively galvanizing. Taken together, they forced home some unpleasant truths on chancelleries and mission houses alike. First and foremost it was becoming

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plain, as much to Richard as to Lord Salisbury, that the world was becoming a more volatile and dangerous place. Wars and rumours of wars abounded and competing political and military alliances jostled for advantage. Even the fledgling United States came of age as a power when it took on and defeated a European state, albeit an unimpressive Spain, and established itself as an imperial force in the Pacific. That conflict, however, had unfolded within the Western community. Of far greater significance, the Sino-Japanese War had been followed in 1905 by the "electric thrill" of Tokyo's victory over Czarist Russia. "The tide of Western advance and domination," the CMS'S W.H.T. Gairdner marvelled with a tremble, "which had seemed more like an unchangeable phenomenon of nature than a resultant of human actions and states, was checked, rolled suddenly back."154 Observers like Gairdner were faced with the jarring spectacle of an Asian power coming aggressively into its own and undoing the natural order of things. The American John R. Mott, the so-called apostle of mission unity, saw another potential danger. The Nipponese victory over Russia had stimulated a powerful nationalist sentiment in all of Asia. And closely associated with it was a "spirit of racial pride and aggressiveness" that reacted against foreign influences of any kind.155 One could only hope and pray, as Gairdner, Mott, and others did, that a militant Japan could be "swept into the current of the unified life of all mankind" and resist the call of "national aggrandizement."156 But that hitherto isolated country had already been swept into global diplomacy. In 1902 she was invited into an alliance with Britain, then anxious to line up new battle-hardened friends to discourage old European rivals from encroaching on her imperial doorstep in the East. The Foreign Office obviously agreed with one missionary's observation that "No white man of to-day despises the Japanese, certainly not in Russia ..."157 And certainly not in Britain. Then two years later, with the object of reducing colonial strife, Whitehall ventured into an entente cordiale with her ancient rival, France. Though it eased international tensions, many British missions were dismayed by this compact with the champion of "Jesuitry." Missionaries no less than statesmen had to cope as best they could with these unnerving circumstances. Earlier informal meetings of missions, however extensive or promising, were now seen as inadequate to the task of promoting the kind of global evangelization needed to meet the challenges of a new and more menacing international order. What a Baptist had once quaintly called the "exhibition of missionary chivalry" was patently no longer enough.158 But there was another

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overriding factor that had been anticipated by the ecumenically disposed J.ET. Hallowes and J.W. Dawson in the 18903. As a once beneficent imperialism began showing its uglier face in Africa and China, the integration of an aroused Christian world, beginning with its mission structure, was seen as a vital counterweight. "England and English Christians," pleaded a concerned participant at the Shanghai Mission Conference of 1907, "ought to be far more deeply concerned about the moral tone of our political and commercial relations," especially with countries in the East.159 On the very eve of Edinburgh, an aroused Wesleyan Methodist Church joined in the plea. "There is an imperative spiritual demand," it intoned, "that national life and influence as a whole be Christianized: so that the entire impact, commercial and political now of the West upon the East, and now of the stronger races upon the weaker, may confirm, and not impair, the message of the missionary enterprise."160 But these observers had been anticipated. "The test question of a free nation," declared a contributor to the Chronicle in 1905, "is not, 'What freedom have you won/ but 'What freedom do you give?' It is a test which this country could have stood much better a generation ago than it does today, especially in relation to weaker peoples." "Free Churches belie their name," he continued, "if they do not make England an emancipating power wherever she goes. The less the State is so, the more the churches must be which are free of the State."161 The campaign was perceived as nothing less than that Christian counter-imperialism which had long been talked about as a means of re-spiritualizing a fractious and mercurial secular world. A generation later when William Temple was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury he recalled that out of a purely missionary enterprise in 1910 had come the notion of a "world-wide fellowship interpenetrating the nations, bridging the gulfs between them, and supplying the promise of a check to their rivalries."162 At the turn of the century an American religious publication had vigorously pushed this line. James S. Dennis, the author of Christian Missions and Social Progress, remarked that the "spirit of Christianity is specially needed as a solvent and stimulus" now that a "deeper world consciousness" was emerging in response to the demands of "international interchange."163 He also talked about a notion that would capture the imagination of the whole mission community. This was nothing less than the higher citizenship that that community could forge, one untarnished by political, chauvinistic, racial, or caste considerations.164 Turning to the other strand in the pattern, the pursuit of world evangelization, Dennis hoped that his book would help establish "a

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deeper interdenominational consciousness in the whole circle of Christian laborers ... A sense of fraternal comradeship transcending all ecclesiastical lines, and co-operating heartily for the expansion of Christ's kingdom, is in keeping with the present-day temper of Christianity ...//l65 Yet in spite of the welcome "present-day temper" of which Dennis made so much, there was still enough serious mission rivalry to warrant concern. For example, writing from the Asian field as late as 1907, one SPG agent candidly reported that "all denominations are unscrupulous in trying to filch away one another's converts. Our greatest difficulties ... do not come from the heathen but from one another. We profess to disapprove of such things but they go on, among our own missions as well as elsewhere."166 Just a few years earlier news had come of the "hostile" and "treacherous" incursions of Scottish missions into areas staked out by the SPG in India. To make matters worse their trespassing was allegedly encouraged by CMS missionaries "jealous" of the advantages enjoyed by their fellow Anglicans.167 Baptists in turn may also have welcomed this evangelical assault on what they acidly called the "parasite Society for the Propagation of the Gospel."168 Meanwhile the LMS too was concerned with interlopers on its turf. In 1908 it lodged protests with the Universities Mission over the latter's expansion plans in Central Africa, which threatened the work of both Congregationalists and the United Free Church of Scotland. At a pettier level, perhaps, the LMS attacked a "gravely discourteous" SPG for "exploiting" David Livingstone's name and making it appear that the storied pioneer was an Anglican after all.l69 To meet such problems, others besides Dennis had taken up the unity cause, including the same CMS reproached in India. In 1903, a year after the South African War formally ended and the Anglo-Japanese alliance was signed, the society's committee report issued the following clarion call: "Let the motive for going forward ... with the missionary enterprise ... be considered. Is it the glory and honour of a Society, or of a religious party, or even of a Church? God forbid! The one grand object of Missions is that He may be exalted, and the Church Missionary Society wishes God-speed to every Mission, every Society, every Church that works for that object."170 These were fine words but, as expected, they ran headlong into basic ecclesiastical differences. Even the CMS'S obliging secretary, H.E. Fox, had frankly remarked in 1898 that he saw no way to overcome even the "practical difficulties ... in the present state of poor fallen human nature."171 While his society's report recognized that such problems would have to be taken into account, it refused to regard them as insuperable obstacles on the road to unity. Rather, the report's main aim

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was to discredit those "groundless and unworthy suspicions" that often hamstrung the religious entente cordiale that so many missions besides the CMS wished to see in place both at home and overseas. In a closing flourish, the committee statement quoted the rejoicing of an American prelate: "I have tried to find the image of my Master upon the faces of those from whom I differ, and God has overpaid me a thousand-fold."1?2 The sentiment ultimately found expression in a new kind of missions publication aimed at both reflecting and promoting in "scientific" fashion the growing spirit of collaboration.173 The International Review of Missions, under the direction of the influential British ecumenist J.H. Oldham, provided a vital sounding board for those yearning in a rapidly changing and unsettled world for a unified response to the mission challenge. To those despairing of the divisive mission scene in South Africa, perhaps the worst of its kind, an early issue of the IRM brought welcome news. Though, to be sure, not all ambitions in the region, least of all the Methodists', were put on full hold, their mission and others came to realize that public posturing and jockeying for advantage were unseemly and counterproductive, especially in a multicultural and war-ravaged community that cried out for conciliation not competition. As a result, reported an enthused contributor to the IRM, missions in South Africa resolved to go beyond the irregular local gatherings and the fitful cooperation of the pre-war years and to establish a more inclusive and centrally administered organization. As early as 1904 this emerged as the General Conference of South African Missionaries. Over the next decade it met regularly to consolidate opinion, promote the spirit of comity, and, above all, to "demonstrate to outsiders the essential unity of aim which underlies all the diversity of missionary opinion ... "174 The IRM itself, however, was the literary by-product of a broader unity campaign that far transcended regions and even continents. Four years after the organization of the South African conference, plans were laid in Oxford for a full-fledged and representative world assembly beyond anything hitherto attempted, including the previous world conference staged during the Boxer troubles. Unlike with earlier initiatives, the organizers of 1908 were anxious to equip the next assembly with the means to address the major problems then facing the overseas work of evangelization. To this end a number of commissions were appointed to collect and analyse information on a wide variety of subjects. These ranged through education, native churches, women's organizations, and lay associations to the varied strategies needed for achieving the sought-after unity. In addition mission relations with governments, a matter now uppermost in the

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minds of many, was also given an important spot on the agenda. Indeed to look at the planning program is to see encapsulated all the many and diverse problems, challenges, and crises that had beset the missionary endeavour for the past half-century. If anything of substance was left out, certainly few could have readily identified it. Representation on the commissions was drawn not only from Britain and the United States but from the Continent as well. Invitations were sent out calling on virtually every operative missionary society to have their delegates attend what was hailed as the world's first interdenominational missionary conference. In the end only the Roman and Greek Churches declined to be represented when the conference met in Edinburgh in the spring of 1910. This decision distressed those in the Anglo-Catholic community who had already sought a rapprochement with Rome. And that object would be put further out of reach if the Church of England became publicly associated with a "Pan-Protestant movement," which to many High Church critics seemed to be what Edinburgh was all about.175 To add to their dismay the SPG'S sister body, the CMS, with its strong evangelical leanings, seemed altogether too willing to be part of that movement. As a result it was only after considerable soul-searching that Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, agreed to put in an appearance as the official representative of the church and to make an address to the conference.176 Bishop Montgomery of the SPG, who in spite of similar misgivings also consented to attend, at least had the wit to remark that he felt like a "lion in a den of Daniels."177 A leading "Daniel," the CMS looked forward to working with fellow evangelicals though some of its members winced at the prospect of having to associate with "ritualists" and "sacerdotalists" from its sister organization.178 In any case, led by its enthusiastic secretary, C.C.B. Bardsley, the CMS was an active and influential participant from the start. Moreover, as Bardsley moved among receptive delegates and waxed eloquent on the assembly's need to liberate the missionary movement from "low ideals," the impression grew that other societies looked to his for a lead.179 Certainly, prominent CMS spokesmen were elevated to commanding positions at the conference. Gairdner was chosen to write up an account of its proceedings while colleague Oldham, who shortly put together the IRM, was named its general secretary. Interestingly, Bardsley valued Gairdner's Edinburgh as a way of "educating" the CMS'S general committee on the issues at stake, which suggests that its support may have been less than total at the outset.180 Other individuals and societies were also making their presence felt in the Scottish city. One of these was the vocal Mott. Earlier he

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had orchestrated Christian youth movements on both sides of the Atlantic that in their own way had helped to lay Edinburgh's groundwork. Even more significantly he had been the driving force behind the vital preparatory work at Oxford in 1908. Not surprisingly, given his expertise, experience, and energy, this "master of assemblies" was unanimously chosen to chair the proceedings that unfolded in the Free Church's Assembly Hall.181 Meanwhile the formidable Thompson of the LMS also played a leading role in organizing and directing meetings. Throughout he could count upon the shrewdness and experience of colleagues Cousins, Johnson, and Frank Lenwood, the latter his successor as foreign secretary. Baptists, who warmly welcomed the opportunities that Edinburgh provided, notably in lay mission work, had long commended Thompson for his "broad and comprehensive" mission policy and looked forward to his leadership at the conference.182 Equally enthusiastic Methodists in attendance also lauded the organizers of the "confederation of forces" that would bolster the campaign to achieve global evangelization.183 Whatever their denominational affiliation, all the delegates were stirred by the following declaration: Just as a great national danger demands a new standard of patriotism and service from every citizen, so the present condition of the world and the missionary task demands from every Christian, and from every congregation, a change in the existing scale of missionary zeal and service, and the elevation of our spiritual ideal.184

In the end, the conference was a genuine world gathering. All told, some 1200 delegates came to Edinburgh from around the globe, representing some 160 missionary boards or societies and virtually every continent and major ethnic community. "The evangelization of the world," as one participant put it, "... is not chiefly a European and American enterprise, but an Asiatic or African enterprise."185 All the same only a small fraction of the assembly was made up of members of the overseas native churches though at the time even this minuscule representation was considered something of a breakthrough.186 However few their numbers the presence of native churchmen helped make certain that the Far East in particular would not be ignored at Edinburgh. Indeed, as if to anticipate the 1910 gatherings, church unions were already making their mark in both China and India. A Presbyterian Church of China had begun to emerge after 1905 and plans were in store for nothing less than a federation of all Protestant churches in that country, a scheme that attracted the support of an overwhelming majority of working missionaries.187

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These developments were reinforced by the strong unity appeal that came out of the well-attended Shanghai Conference of 1907. As for India, Dale had reported in 1907 that virtually all Presbyterian churches in the subcontinent, British as well as American, had come together to form a union of their own. Beyond that a National Missionary Society of India was also launched, comprising native Christians of all denominations.188 In turn the LMS was happy to report in 1908 that it had helped to form a regional body, the United Church of South India, with the close support of the United Free Church of Scotland, the Dutch Reformed Church, and the American Board of Missions.189 Therefore it would have been folly to ignore the Far East in any case when the conferees assembled in Edinburgh. The new fact of international life was the emergence of a revitalized India, a reformist China, and an ambitious Japan, and that fact now had to be acknowledged at both missionary and diplomatic gatherings. Pressing their case, delegates from the East, particularly from the Celestial Empire, talked repeatedly of the need for a "National Christianity" that would better suit the requirements of culturally different Asian societies.190 And they had Western friends at court. Mott, echoing the concerns of a Methodist participant, G.G. Findlay wrote that "our ... idiosyncracies of thought and practice and our endless sectarian subdivisions should be overcome or at least be left at home" by those missionaries assigned to Asia.191 The LMS'S Thompson went even further. "I see growing before my eyes," he wrote some months before the Edinburgh meetings, "in some parts of the world various amalgams of our different Western forms of Church organization and order which have been shaped in accord with the genius of the people to whom we have carried the Gospel, and I rejoice to think that it is not necessary to insist upon our Western ecclesiastical order as of vital importance in the development of the Christian life."192 The Orientalist scholar Max Miiller would have greeted these remarks with resounding approval. Though critical of missions on other grounds, this Oxford don did commend them when they spread the general spirit and principles of the gospel in a form both beneficial and acceptable to all of humanity.193 Some missionaries, indeed, like the BMS'S George Howells in India, were prepared to capitalize on the radical concept of "fulfilment" advanced by Miiller and other scholars. This urged that Christ be perceived not as the mortal enemy of Oriental religions but rather as the agent fulfilling their highest aspirations. Howells, who presided over Serampore College, went on to furnish what amounted to a higher criticism of Hinduism and its relations with Christianity in his Soul of India, published in

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1913.194 To a degree the book reflected a growing awareness, at least in academia, that non-Christian religions were also conscious of God's voice and might have valid contributions to make to an understanding of the phenomenon. In a real sense this flirtation with comparative religion was in keeping with some of the sentiments expressed at Edinburgh, three years before the Soul of India appeared. For the vast majority, of course, in both mission and lay ranks, the comparative approach had strict limits. While one pious servant of the Raj, for example, acknowledged that he had come in contact with the wisdom of Hinduism and the "strong points" of Islam, he "never found in any of these anything to equal that of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ... "195 Certainly not all, then or later, thought the way of the Thompsons, Miillers, and Howells when it came to recognizing the autonomy and distinctiveness of native Christian churches. A High Anglican, Charles Robinson, added a disquieting note when he alluded to another danger, "that local churches under the influence of a rising nationalist spirit in the East will develop separate aims and sympathies from 'the great consensus of the continuous Church of all the ages/ " These words appeared in Robinson's History of Christian Missions (1915), which, complained a reviewer in the IRM, gave no account of what had transpired at Edinburgh.196 In any case it was apparent that while some were prepared to welcome diversity in unity, even if it meant a form of decolonization and spiritual accommodation, others, notably the SPG and its friends, were still seized by an imperial theology. Furthermore the growing militancy of the Indian National Congress and its promotion of a powerful Hindu revivalism only served to strengthen the opposition to any kind of theological modus vivendi.197 On the other hand Methodist Joseph Passmore looked on the bright side. Far from fearing the "stormy nationalist movements of the East," he thought they "lent themselves to the ripening of many an Eastern mind for the reception of moral and religious teaching that is outside the system by which Orientals have been bound for many generations."198 A colleague and Edinburgh participant made these points and more. While duly acknowledging the great intellectual, political, and religious ferment in India, "with its awful possibilities of disorder and decay," W.H. Findlay also underscored the country's "glorious potentialities of a new and wonderful national life." And in keeping with much of the Edinburgh mood, he forcibly reminded the Raj of its sacred moral responsibilities: "Let us remember the high demand which India's condition makes on all her rulers for unselfishness of aim and effort, for wisdom, courage, patience, and sympathy. So let us pray for her rulers."1"

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Thompson and like-minded colleagues would have warmly endorsed that last statement, just as a good many delegates appeared to side with the LMS secretary on the issue of spiritual accommodation. Some years before, at Shanghai, considerable stress had been laid on reducing the European role and correspondingly increasing that of native Christians in the missionary enterprise.200 For many agents the same should also hold for India, regardless of its political situation. Until Christianity was "Indianized," an LMS missionary typically warned in 1908, "it will remain an outcaste, exotic religion rather than an indigenous one."201 Similarly, BMS, CMS, and WMMS missionaries talked about the need to ensure that Indians not be considered "denationalized" after undergoing conversion.202 A publication aimed at the growing laymen's missionary movement had strongly hinted that such sentiments should now be taken seriously in the West. After all, it explained prosaically (though perhaps incorrectly), thanks to the technology of improved communications, "Our constituency has a knowledge of the non-Christian world that in the past it did not have. Men in our churches are no longer so ignorant of other peoples ... [Though] our treatment of the Chinese ... testify [sic] to the fact that race prejudice is still strong ... the white man does not look down upon the men of other races as he did a century ago. He recognizes more clearly the good qualities which some of the nonChristian people possess."203 Yet Japan's violent entry on the international scene led one troubled Edinburgh contributor to decry the country's "feudal" character. He was appalled that its chief features were "dominance of society over the individual, the worship of ancestors [and] the deification of the ruling house." Another concerned participant observed that the Japanese favoured neither Buddhism, the popular religion, nor Christianity, the recent import. Indeed, he claimed, they did not even fancy Shintoism, the home-grown state religion, all that much, but preferred instead only "Japan" and the militant crystallization of the national spirit.204 In that connection worried Methodists had noted years earlier that the first question many Japanese asked missionaries was whether Christianity itself could "be welded into a good political instrument" for the country.205 In any case nationalism as a powerfully driven secular religion was not a palatable prospect at Edinburgh, though Western delegates may have needed reminding that imperialism was still disporting itself in similar fashion in their part of the world. Discussions of these themes naturally led to the vital subject of mission relations with Caesar and to a recapitulation of all the varied strategies that had hitherto shaped the missions' response to the

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problem. The commission entrusted with this responsibility included Lord Balfour as well as two Americans, Seth Low and the naval theorist Admiral A.T. Mahan. By now a bromide, the notion that missionaries were a constant thorn in the statesman's side, though roundly rebutted by Richard after the Boxer crisis, still had to be fielded. Low even revived Richard's arguments, quaint or otherwise. He made a strong case that missions and diplomats were more often than not mutually helpful and that both were beginning to recognize that they were pursuing essentially related goals. Low then went on to recite the gospel of spiritual free trade, that in effect mission houses should have every right, while pursuing their legitimate business, to seek the good offices of government when planning to extend their operations into fresh jurisdictions.206 They were only too well aware - shades of China - that for expediency's sake the diplomat was seldom eager to grant a mission wish that might offend the dominant non-Christian religion in his bailiwick. In the course of the discussion, a comparative study of mission-state relations was also prepared. It concluded that Germany and the Netherlands were by far the most enlightened when it came to opening doors for the missionary. But, to no one's surprise, the study gave a low grade to France, whose anti-Protestant policies in Madagascar were judged "deplorable."207 In order to give missions a larger voice and a more influential role at the political level, it was recommended that an international board be set up to coordinate strategy and exert pressure in high places. This went down well with virtually all the delegates. Balfour, who made the proposal, was cheered to the rafters when he described the response: "It was as though a whole society of world-servants were realising its collective dumbness, its corporate impotence - and rebelling against it."208 This was all very encouraging, but as most delegates realized it was another matter to draw up a firm set of guidelines covering every conceivable contingency on the far-flung mission field. Given the complexity of the challenges and the multiplicity of circumstances around the globe such a political handbook would have been at best a curiosity, at the worst a source of endless frustration. And this was the consensus well before the Great War burst upon the global stage. Meanwhile, however they might have differed over theological issues or practical matters, most delegates were agreed on one thing, that the start made at Edinburgh should be expanded into a global journey. "The main idea," as one CMS official put it in a burst of enthusiasm that mangled his grammar, "is to carry on the spiritual lesson of Edinburgh and so create a real big interest in the cause."209 An excited LMS similarly concluded that the Scottish meetings and the

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earlier Shanghai Conference had clearly heralded the need to sustain "the united force of the whole church."210 The upshot was one of Edinburgh's most significant decisions, the appointment of the so-called Continuation Committee. It was entrusted to the enthusiastic and ubiquitous Mott, who had already overseen the conference's debates on the varied commission reports. As well Mott complied with a request to provide a statement on the challenge facing Christendom at that vital moment. The resulting Decisive Hour of Christian Missions presented the varied tasks his Continuation Committee would have to shoulder. These in turn were conveniently summarized in, appropriately, the first issue of the IRM. Right off the bat Mott announced that the committee would have to become an active clearing-house of information for all missionary societies whatever their polity, theology, location, or field of work. And one way to achieve that object, as Mott saw it, was to organize visits to far-flung missions, several of which he personally undertook to India and the Far East. In 1913 he organized and chaired a series of conferences in China that probed mission conditions there and gathered proposals for concerted action.211 The LMS, like other societies, pitched in by arranging local and regional conferences for disseminating the Edinburgh message.212 Such initiatives, along with publications, correspondence, and regular interdenominational meetings, were deemed vital if the conference's major objectives were to be reached. Another practical step toward that goal was the creation of the United Missionary Training College at Selly Oak, Birmingham.213 Mott spelled out the challenge in bald terms. Hoping to lay the foundations for a "real science of missionary occupation," he none the less cautioned that the task could not be accomplished simultaneously for all societies. He then made a "damaging confession," that no adequate survey had ever been undertaken of particular mission fields, let alone the global field of operations. As a result missions had been seriously hobbled in their efforts to achieve the sought-after evangelization on a world scale.214 The vital prerequisite to success then was to complete such a survey with all possible speed, thus setting in motion a process that paralleled the Imperial Round Table surveys then being undertaken by Lionel Curtis.215 In the case of missions, however, Mott was realistic enough to concede that this would require "years of work." Not only this, the committee had to face up to the fact that the Church of England was, at best, a restive member of the mission family. The SPG'S Montgomery and Archbishop Davidson had, to be sure, put in an appearance at Edinburgh and, in Mott's optimistic words, had seen the merit of getting to know and working with "very noble

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Christians who are not in communion with us."216 And those other Christians, albeit with varying degrees of reluctance, had accepted the church's wish to exclude contentious and disruptive questions of "faith and order." Indeed the reduction of possible conflict rather than the discussion of core theological questions seems to have been a major sub-agenda at Edinburgh, a procedure that appeared to resemble that deployed at the Imperial Conferences of the day.217 Even so, after all was said and done, the Davidsons and the Montgomerys were still reluctant to endorse the cause of formal mission unity on the grounds that it smacked too much of the pan-Protestantism they had distrusted from the outset. They were also convinced that nondenominationalism, a feature stressed at Edinburgh, was just another word for outright undenominationalism, which they dismissed as a wholly negative factor.218 As one of their colleagues noted some years later, "Any action is to be deprecated that will tend to obliterate the distinctive message which the various representatives of the Christian churches in the mission field have to give. These differences are of 'priceless value' in making the mind of Christ fully known to native peoples ... Unity, therefore, when it comes, can involve no compromises on principles ... "219 Furthermore the SPG leadership later convinced itself that the much-touted Continuation Committee was threatening to become a law unto itself, a peremptory "organic force" in its own right.220 Not surprisingly then, Montgomery told a disappointed member of the LMS that it was "entirely and absolutely out of the question" for the SPG to recognize the recent world conference and the work of that committee.221 While the bishop was prepared to visit non-Anglican missions and to show them "unfeigned respect and reverence," he made it clear that officially he would take no part whatsoever in any of their services.222 Moreover, though hints had been dropped of SPG cooperation with other societies in the educational field, Montgomery vetoed a joint college venture with Singapore's Methodists just weeks after the close of the Edinburgh conference.223 This and other rebuffs prompted reminders of the fiscal raison d'etre of unity. If the SPG had been more forthcoming, as Bardsley and other evangelicals protested, then the financial problems all societies faced could have been eased, at least in part. Indeed, they argued, the "Unification of Forces," by making possible cost sharing on the mission field, could release funds for vital projects hitherto shelved by financial dearth.224 But churchmen remained unmoved. And they proved just as adamantly opposed at the so-called Kikuyu Conference of 1913 when plans were drawn up for melding the work of the four principal missions in East Africa.225 Meanwhile a unified diplomatic approach

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involving the SPG in Madagascar was also sidetracked. In 1912 the Archbishop of Canterbury turned a deaf ear to proposals that he present to the Foreign Office the case that non-Catholic missions, including even the SPG, had prepared against French policy on the island.226 The society's intransigence could not, however, take the bloom off the high hopes that other missions entertained for a concerted advance overseas, particularly in China. Ever since the dust had settled on the Boxer Rebellion missionaries had been seeking to harmonize the evangelical, intellectual, and economic development of the country. As the Chronicle later so delicately announced, every effort had to be made, without denigrating what had gone before, to devise a "more scientific strategy" to that end.227 Missions were well aware, of course, that China was not standing still either. All agreed that she was in the throes of rapid change and that the results would be crucial both to the world at large and the global Christian endeavour. Mott, who greeted the phenomenon with the missionary's usual mixture of hope and apprehension, remarked that China was seized with a "growing desire to acquire national independence and power."228 Such heady aspirations, twinned with the Westernizing campaign of Chinese reformers, soon stormed and breached the walls of Manchu power and Confucian tradition. The stage was thus set for the sweeping revolutionary events of 1911 that ushered in a whole new era. Despite the turmoil precipitated by what a Methodist called the "volcanic rage" against the Manchus,229 many missionaries rejoiced and gave themselves credit for the upheavals.230 As the FMC bluntly put it, in "a corrupt State the Christian faith must needs be revolutionary" as well.231 Moreover the China missions saw a chance to make their presence felt as forcefully as that of the revolutionaries and their conservative foes. Carried away by the prospect, the Chronicle also made reference to seismic disturbances when it exulted that "China is a great place as a mission field; it is like Vesuvius, the soil is wonderfully rich and we get the best grapes in the world, but it is liable to periodic outbreaks which bury the rotten Pompeiis and leave us better opportunities than ever."232 Whatever the actual effects of mission exertions during the crisis, the political upshot of the revolution was the defeat of Manchu conservatism and the formation of the Chinese Republic. And it brought gains for the missionary cause in its wake. Whereas before, the range of its outreach was limited to the exigencies of treaty protection, now under the new regime there was to be unfettered religious toleration across the board.233 A hopeful Bishop Montgomery was in the throng of missionaries who understandably welcomed the new dispensation. Hoping that

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the republic's enlightened Westernization would inspire its politics as well as its culture and economy, he warmly assured the new Chinese ambassador that prayers were being offered up that "God may establish your Empire on strong foundations - giving you a firm Republican Government, a noble President, and righteous rulers in Parliament and the Provinces."234 The FMC was almost as fulsome in its acceptance of the new order. After the unseating of the Manchus, it reported in 1913, the new republican regime was developing "ideals of disinterested patriotism" and liberal responses to mission work. The society glowingly praised the republic's founder, Dr Sun Yat Sen, for having given missionaries a "rousing summons to permeate the whole country with Christian doctrine."235 Methodists were also quick to acclaim the new Chinese leader. One awestruck missionary, Charles Bone, solemnly revealed that Sun Yat Sen had "spent the entire night in prayer during the last hours that he spent in England, ere he embarked for China, to take charge of the great task of leading his native land out into a new, political, commercial, and educational world ..."23<s At that moment veteran missionaries long subjected to the vagaries and vicissitudes of China's court intrigues must have uttered a heartfelt prayer of their own as the country embarked on its new political course. In the meantime, in the face of High Church sniping and, as it turned out, a good deal of public apathy, Mott and his colleagues bravely laboured to keep alive the "spirit of Edinburgh" both at home and overseas.237 They were gratified to learn that promising ventures were being started or at least contemplated as far afield as Madagascar, Hong Kong, and the South Seas as missions came together to pool educational and social resources.238 As well, through the organization of special councils and regular meetings of the Continuation Committee, together with "epoch-making" flying trips abroad, Mott and other leaders began to tackle the sweeping tasks they had set for themselves.239 Methodist praise for their efforts was typical. Thanks to them, wrote the editor of their church magazine in 1912, "God has done a hundred years' work in the last five years," and that work included visits to "all the great battlefields of Christianity" and the extension of hope and support to thousands of missionaries.240 Throughout 1913, in both the Old World and the New, a buoyant Continuation Committee met to forward the cause. Even if Mott did allude to the ugly prospect of Asia embracing the aggressive strategies of Western powers, there was no direct hint of what was actually to come in his musings on Christian unity. Indeed no more than most did he foresee the monumental crisis that would shortly dwarf its puny forerunners.

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The Great War effectively put paid to the annual deliberations of Mott's cherished committee. More seriously, it threatened to disrupt if not destroy the hopeful mandate entrusted to the Edinburgh Conference a few short years before. Unhappily, to recycle Archbishop Temple's phrases, that "world-wide fellowship," in spite of its best efforts, had been unable on its own to bridge the gulf between the nations. Nor had it been able to supply the "promise of a check to their rivalries," which had been dangerously gathering momentum since the turn of the century. In effect what passed for the higher citizenship had not emerged as a wholly effective counterweight to a flawed and dangerous Caesar. There was another significant factor. The missions' disenchantment with and disengagement from the state, which had led them to Edinburgh and ecumenism, was about to be deflated by the all-consuming challenges of the Great War. Ironically that conflict turned out to be, in effect, what the Edinburgh declaration had alluded to in passing as the hypothetical "national danger" that would "demand a new standard of patriotism."

6 Armageddon

Early in 1910 the secretary of the SPG wrote a disquieting letter to the Archbishop of Cape Town. After lamenting the chronic underfunding of missionary effort, he prophesied bleakly that "An European war, which I suppose is not an impossibility ere long, may reduce every grant to every Diocese in the world."1 The perennial grant problem and the looming prospect of war were, to be sure, hardly news by 1910, the year that missionary conferees had hopefully assembled in Edinburgh to address those and other questions. Preoccupied almost to the point of obsession with funding, mission houses had crises enough on their own doorstep without having to look to Continental affairs. Thus the WMMS was concentrating on whatever financial dividends might flow from the celebration of its much-heralded centenary in 1913.2 LMS organizers had no such happy prospect, and in what they later described as a "numb year of despair," they contemplated the dawn of 1914 with little short of fiscal dread.3 A steady fall in income left the Presbyterian Foreign Missions in a similar state of chilled anxiety.4 Assessing the root causes of this dearth, Congregationalist minister Dr Horton offered an evangelical analysis of "a world grown old, and cold and weary." Facing large-scale withdrawals at several points on the LMS'S frontier, he ventured that "our financial difficulty arose from a spiritual insolvency; that underneath the lack of gifts lay the bankruptcy of conviction."5 Indeed many a missionary found the last years of peace as barren and disappointing as did the poetic Rupert Brooke, particularly when the eschatological mood and soaring ambitions evoked at Edinburgh raised scant echo

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even in the churchgoing public. Increasingly, moreover, missions found little solace in the "progress" of international affairs. With respect to those affairs, for some forty years, particularly since the Franco-Prussian War, there had been a veritable avalanche of literature, both professional and amateur, on what shape future wars would take and how they would be fought, won, and lost. From The Battle of Dorking to The Riddle of the Sands and beyond, concerns were aired in England about the age-old nightmare of a cross-Channel invasion. Over time, and especially after the Tirpitz Programme of 1898 and her angry denunciation of Britain's role in the South African War, Germany was often singled out as a major threat in both the popular and official mind.6 Though it would be misleading to exaggerate the effect, British clergy and missionaries in particular could hardly be immune to the anxiety generated by the torrent of invasion literature that engulfed the country before the actual outbreak of war. Unquestionably, men of the cloth were genuinely appalled by the spectre of "militarism," even if at times they felt powerless to deflate it or to help avert what the SPG secretary almost matter-of-factly contemplated in 1910. Short of divine intervention, some saw little hope of coping with a phenomenon that seemed beyond their control. Thus a BMS official observed, in a curiously unparsonish turn of phrase: "We missionaries cannot really know much about a matter so far above us."7 In short, invoking a time-honoured prescription, a good many clergymen were disposed to leave worldly wise Caesar to run his own ominous domain. All the same at least one outspoken missionary with a social conscience chided the churches for allegedly dragging their feet on the "peace question." "Instead of preaching a sermon on Peace once a year," Timothy Richard remonstrated, "it should be preached every Sunday till we get peace. Till then Christendom is not civilized but barbarous - not only treating foreign nations with barbaric brute force, but burdening the poor of their own countries with colossal want till a fourth of them is driven to the starvation zone."8 Others scattered across the religious spectrum soon joined in, urging that before it was too late the prevailing "cult of blood and iron" should be exchanged for that of "national fraternity."9 And the secretary of the SPG doubtless shared the sentiments of C.C.B. Bardsley, his opposite number at the CMS, who on the very eve of Armageddon waxed emotional about the "supreme importance of peace and the awful harm in the progress of the Kingdom through war."10 The same churchman had tentatively made plans to attend a peace conference in Switzerland only to see it aborted in the fateful month of August 1914. On the other hand the WMMS and the LMS evinced no outward concern with

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Europe's danger signals in the months immediately prior to the war. Absorbed in financial and recruitment problems, business-as-usual kept their attention riveted on ever-pressing domestic concerns.11 Elsewhere, however, misgivings were being expressed about the extent to which the military idiom had come to suffuse missionary discourse. A case in point was the fearsome God and Our Soldiers (1904), written by an Anglican chaplain who had served in the South African War.12 Another was a letter written by the otherwise peaceloving Bardsley to some grammar-school boys in 1911, endorsing what Lord Roberts had recently told the Church Lads' Brigade: "Remember lads - the best thing in the world is to be a soldier of Jesus Christ. Life is a warfare; temptations are real and strong; but the Captain under whose banner we must fight the good fight will give us strength and victory so that one day we may each one of us win our crown."13 But for a good many this kind of talk was beginning to grate on the ears. Indeed, when the real thing appeared to be in the offing, such people "tired of military metaphors about sending reinforcements here and occupying strategic points there."14 Nor was everyone, least of all the missionary, pleased by the martial splendour that radiated from grand public rituals such as the funeral of Edward VII and the coronation of his successor, even if Methodists were grateful when George V "put an Imperial stamp" of approval on the WMMS centenary.15 And though the public was traditionally supposed to love a parade, a visiting colonial student was jarred by the "glittering array" of Continental military contingents that accompanied the departed Edward on his last journey: "Europe in arms," she worried.16 Bardsley of the CMS, busily organizing a retreat for thinking out the varied problems facing missions in 1911, was discouraged by the distracting effect of such pomp and circumstance.17 An exasperated official of the Anti-Slavery Society shared his distress and fumed over the way these military spectacles not only "disfigured" the capital's public places but diverted the politician's and the press's attention from more vital issues.18 Again, many a South African missionary could readily recall how the Boer War, Britain's most recent exercise in applied militarism, had cost the country so dearly in men and money.19 Yet, however deep their misgivings, missionaries were creatures of their hour and, ambivalent as always in their attitude towards the state, they persisted in the ancient habit of winnowing out and focusing on the Christian elements in its make-up. This Shavian triumph of hope over experience might have been ill-founded but, like second marriages, it was widely embraced. Thus the CMS secretary, perhaps for his own peace of mind, chose to downplay the martial dimension

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of the royal funeral and underscore its religious tone. Alluding to the late king's notoriously unrestrained lifestyle, Bardsley rejoiced that Edward VII had become "a truly changed man" before his demise, presumably because of his belated baptism in the church.20 Even so, this same missionary official still seemed attuned to the military discourse of the day, for he continued to refer casually in his official correspondence to "workers at the front" or "reinforcements for the posts."21 In 1902, as though in two-part harmony, an excited contributor to a Baptist missionary magazine wrote of the Indian challenge to Christianity in these terms: "Work on the hills is like storming a number of small forts, which fall one after another; work on the plains is being carried on against two enormous compact fortresses, called Hinduism and Mohammedanism, and our work is to so large an extent the slow sapping and mining which has nothing to show for itself for a long time, but will have a great deal to show when the time for the 'great explosion' comes."22 One could hazard the guess that the writer's vocabulary and perhaps his thoughts had been shaped in part by the omnipresent war literature that had long anticipated its own version of "the great explosion." Yet in spite of the way Germany was progressively targeted in that literature, it would appear that the scaremongers were not out-andout Germanophobes. Thus J.L. Garvin and Leo Maxse used their position as respected newspaper magnates not so much to flog Berlin as to alert Britain to the need for improving its defences and restructuring its economy to meet the challenge of a drastically altered world.23 Even so observers may have feared, as a modern study argues, that these so-called alarmists were giving army personnel the "best conceit of themselves of any British soldiery since Marlborough's time."24 At any rate in 1895 a future Archbishop of Calcutta and stalwart SPG man had settled for a less militant contribution to the debate. While presiding over Harrow, he extolled the unique institution of English games as a means of preparing the nation for meeting the threat of a militarized Europe.25 Whatever the case the prospect of war with Germany was particularly abhorrent to many British missionaries. With some notable exceptions they celebrated the efforts of their fellow evangelicals from Central Europe. They also happily professed to see in the "highly educated German" the Briton's supposedly "innate facility for entering into the spirit of others."26 In any event German and British missions did regard their tropical efforts as complementary while viewing Roman Catholic agents acting for France, Portugal, and Belgium as all-but-deadly competitors. More than once, for example, the CMS was urged to keep open "channels of co-operation and communication"

161 Armageddon with German societies, particularly in East Africa.27 Again, when a German scientific expedition to the Congo sought assistance from the BMS it was liberally given and volubly appreciated.28 Further, when some British missionaries made a point of inspecting Germany's educational system and its theological schools they returned duly impressed and ready to borrow. Indeed one of them reported that a German educator observed that while "Germans study out great problems English1™1 jump at the practical application and gain the cream of the material benefit."29 Among those who had already benefited from Germany's educational achievement were Scottish Presbyterians who had studied at that nation's universities and imbibed their higher criticism, idealism, and liberal theology generally.30 Clearly, AngloGerman missionary reciprocity outlived the failure of the two states to forge a diplomatic alliance in the 18905 and would be one of the last fraternal links sundered by the war. It would appear that British Baptists took the lead in seeking closer ties with the Continent and particularly with Germany in the halfdecade before 1914. In 1908 John Clifford, himself the son-in-law of a German academic, even more predictably took this line: "We are predestined ... we German and British folk, to march step by step through the practical union of these two peoples, in the interests of peace, in the interests of righteousness and holiness and goodness, in the interests of all humanity."31 His words were addressed to a visiting delegation of German churchmen, Catholic as well as Protestant, who were overwhelmed by the fulsome greeting they received in Britain.32 In a very real sense, however, Clifford's was no mere idiosyncratic gesture but a typical expression of Radical-Liberal and Nonconformist respect for the contributions a bourgeois, cultured Germany was making to a European civilization already illumined by Britain's example.33 Even some members of the church establishment were known to embrace the concept. Thus in 1912 a Vicar Crane, in his book, The Passing of War, observed that there existed between Germany and England "a bond of blood and character, a likemindedness which ought to be an even greater guarantee for the maintenance of sympathetic intercourse [than] ... the industrial, commercial, and financial intimacy ... of these two nations ,.."34 Such notions nonplussed many a Tory and hard-nosed Whig who were inclined to rank strategic factors and the nation's vital interests ahead of moral, ethnic, cultural, and idealistic considerations.35 The socalled realists, alarmed by the spectre of a pre-eminent Germany, looked to conservative options such as conscription and rearmament to meet the anticipated challenge from Central Europe. Even so dedicated a Liberal as the novelist George Meredith could out of fear of

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German militarism urge the introduction of universal military service as the only means to save the country from the terrors he anticipated in England before the Storm (i89i).36 All this was anathema, of course, to the Nonconformist community and its allies on the political left. Indeed after a brief fling with the politics of interventionism during the Armenian massacres affair and a flirtation with imperialism at the turn of the century, most Nonconformists had returned to the Cobdenite fold in the decade before 1914 as vocal champions of peace and internationalism.37 For that matter some, like the LMS leadership, had never left it. Thus, as dreadnoughts multiplied on both sides of the North Sea, missionaries envisioned yet another episode in the ongoing confrontation between the "rational" and the "spiritual" that had given rise to the "Nonconformist Conscience" in the first place. On the other side of the religious fence, some Anglican bishops and SPG officials seemed not overly disturbed by recent Continental developments. Indeed they were prepared to recognize the legitimacy of Germany's colonial expansion and naval armament programs, which they considered essential to the safeguarding of Western civilization as a whole.38 All the bristling hardware notwithstanding, evangelicals, for their part, were well aware that Anglophobia did not reign unchallenged in the Kaiser's domains. There were still many Germans like the one who had once written Joseph Chamberlain on the "baleful separatist measure" of home rule. "The majority of Germans," he had assured the colonial secretary, "... wish well for the good cause of their kinsmen of Anglo-Saxon origin. They see in the maintenance of the Union a guarantee of universal progress."39 Such statements had been complemented by those from the other direction. Thus, the German-born Oxford scholar Max Miiller had laboured to interpret Britain sympathetically to those of his countrymen who harboured suspicions of her designs overseas.40 Then, some years later, missionaries and their friends were comforted when Bernhard Dernburg, the comparatively liberal German colonial secretary,41 made a conciliatory address to the African Society in London. He began by recounting the practical administrative and military ways in which German and British interests had been mutually served in Africa through the "recognition of common interests."42 His remarks, made in 1909, were a reminder that Britain's relations with Germany, unlike those with Paris and Rome, had been comparatively tension free since the South African imbroglio.43 Dernburg then went on to reflect: Every successful colonization starts by establishing peace and justice, and the Pax Britannica in a British Colony is as essential to its German neighbour as

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the Pax Germanica is to a British contiguous territory ... [The] acknowledged trusteeship by the European nations over inferior races is the inward justification of colonizing ... My contention is that... there is an absolute solidarity in the interests of all white men in their struggles with and their endeavours on behalf of the black man, and in the strengthening of their own dominant race in Africa. I have been happy to show also that if this be so, Briton and German have been the first to grasp the significance of this fact and gone far together to give it effect. Let me therefore hope that we shall go on together in the same spirit, as a matter of general ethics, as well as of advanced statesmanship, so as to fulfil for our African trust the beautiful words: - "Peace on earth and goodwill towards men."44

Yet in spite of such fervent homilies and such fraternal initiatives as the European Baptist Congress that met in Berlin in 1908, there was no denying the disquiet that periodically surfaced in Anglo-German relations at all levels. On the missionary level it was reflected primarily in the British evangelicals' dealings not so much with their opposite numbers as with German officials. Not infrequently these had helped to sour relations and led to tensions not easily dispelled. For example in the Cameroons in the mid-i88os some Baptist missionaries had formally accused the Germans of "insulting," "hostile," and "gun-brandishing" behaviour and as a consequence had refused to have anything more to do with them.45 In Samoa the flare-up between the LMS and German colonial officials had in 1900 issued in biting denunciations on both sides.46 More recently, in the winter of 1914, with Armageddon only months away, distressed British missionaries were advised of German acts of brutality in Togoland.47 And in vitally strategic Egypt, where the CMS had vocal representation, Berlin was accused of intriguing against British interests virtually up to the very outbreak of war.48 As noted, however, in spite of problems with the Kaiser's officials, W.H.T. Gairdner, when he compared German and French colonial attitudes to foreign missionaries in his synopsis of the 1910 Edinburgh conference, found the former greatly to be preferred.49 Even so while British officials and missionaries had often complimented Germany on her overall management of overseas colonies, they were sometimes distressed by the insensitive means used by on-site officials, often with the full backing of their superiors in Berlin.50 In any event it is clear enough that a measure of disenchantment with and outright repudiation of Germany's official actions in the tropics did not suddenly originate in the virulent Germanophobia spawned by the Great War, as one otherwise commendable study would have it.51 Rather its seeds were sown much further back, in the days of empire building that led up to that conflict.52

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Early on, for instance, some British missionaries, steeped in the rigid class-consciousness of their own society, had feared for the future of German East Africa when it was colonized not by respectable folk but by a species a Noel Coward would later call "the wrong people," in this case "lower class Germans." Such ill-bred immigrants would supposedly ride roughshod over the natives and in the process give every white man, including the British missionaries in the colony, a bad name.53 Sadly unaccustomed to the British notion of native trusteeship, or so the argument ran in spite of what a Dernburg would later assert, such Germans would more or less fit the description of the "lesser breeds" pilloried by Rudyard Kipling.54 Initially the CMS had also had to contend with suspicious German officials in East Africa. By the fall of 1908, however, the society's general committee could report that such difficulties had, for the most part, been resolved and that relations with the local authorities were "much more friendly." "Save for the little disadvantage," the report continued, "that Missionaries must always meet in a German territory if they do not know and use German, there seems just now no serious difficulty on this score."55 The difficulty had been solved in part by sensibly ensuring the appointment of people knowledgeable in the language.56 At the same time efforts had been made to avoid any clashing of mission spheres through the use of existing tribal and linguistic boundaries.57 But one problem would not go away, one common to most missionary organizations at this time - in effect, the disheartening shortage of CMS missionaries.58 Indeed at one point the undermanned society even contemplated surrendering its East African work to a German agency but in the end it decided to persevere given the time and resources already lavished on it. Besides, as the CMS publicly explained, the proposed transfer "ha[d] only a few parallels [anyway] in our treatment of other missions."59 Other considerations may also have played a role in the society's decision to stay. One was the perceived need to protect the interests of the Universities Mission to Central Africa, whose work in the German colony was said to depend on the presence of the more influential and experienced CMS.60 Again, the latter may have considered itself to be better suited than a German replacement, presumably vulnerable to political pressure from Berlin, to care for the East African's interests. Certainly elsewhere on the continent there was serious cause for concern on these grounds. For example at the height of the pre-war crisis and barely two weeks before Britain's declaration of war, officials of the Anti-Slavery Society were agonizing over Germany's sorry record of oppression in South-West Africa.61

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When all is said and done perhaps the experienced British missionary, like his counterpart in the Anti-Slavery Society, was well qualified to pronounce in peacetime on what his more innocent compatriots would have to wait for the Great War to reveal - the apparent proclivity of the German bureaucracy and military for "atrocious" behaviour. Or to put it another way, the missionary would, through intimate contact with the situation, be among the first to accept as plausible the wartime reports of German military atrocities against combatants and non-combatants alike. Revealingly, a German female missionary in the service of the LMS, who had firsthand knowledge of her country's heavy-handedness in Samoa, wrote home to R.W. Thompson in 1895 that "though I am a loyal German I pray with all my heart that it may be England" and not Germany that would eventually be chosen "to establish a protectorate over [the islands]."62 In any case the missionary might be excused if he or she had few illusions about German policy and its practitioners on the eve of the "great explosion." Selective hindsight, however, can distort as well as illumine. Thus, in assessing British missionary reactions to perceived external threats, to focus exclusively on rising disquietude about Germany before 1914 would be to seize on a leitmotif and call it a symphony. Indeed until the war dramatically altered things, "Romanism," and particularly its French variant, remained the primary antagonist. By comparison Germany seemed but a boorish irritant. Truth to tell, the entente cordiale might as well have been signed on the moon, for all that it altered geo-religious perceptions in London's missionary headquarters. On this score arguably, little had changed since the i88os when Thompson had mused darkly on the missionary version of realpolitik, in which Protestant did battle with "Jesuit" on a global basis. Methodists too had girded for the fight against France's "evil Christianity," which stood accused of generating a "fierce Antiprotestantism" on the mission field.63 Until the balloon went up in August 1914, this was for most missionaries the great overarching fact of international life. Still it also has to be remembered that some in their ranks had despaired of any kind of Christian spirit on the Continent and made indeed no real distinction between an "infidel France," a "German despot," and a "Russian Czar."64 In any case, while occasionally uncomfortable in German lands, British societies showed a distinct reluctance to locate on French territory. Deeply wounded by its "defeat" in the face of French "aggression" in Tahiti, the LMS for its part never forgave or forgot. Furthermore the running battles with French officialdom in Madagascar, still unresolved in 1914, left Mission House with livid wounds that did not quickly heal. Indeed, writing to Sir Edward Grey in 1912,

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F.H. Hawkins, LMS foreign secretary, complained of repressive French plans in Madagascar and warned that "there can be no doubt that if the whole case is stated to the Christian public in Great Britain, it will create an amount of feeling ... which will be anything but helpful in the endeavour to maintain close friendly relations between France and Britain."65 With the backing of forty missionary societies, Hawkins pleaded with Grey to intervene at the diplomatic level, a step the foreign secretary eventually took. Meanwhile in Central Africa, despite their misgivings about the Congo regime, British missionaries regularly preferred to locate on Belgian rather than French territory because of the "high handed ways of the Jesuits."66 At the height of the Fashoda Crisis, George Grenfell of the BMS reported that "the French papers are very wild with the Governor of the French Congo for having made concessions of land to English Protestants after they had refused to carry cargo for the Marchand Expedn. in their ... two steamers ... It will be an evil day for us if France ever has the opportunity for exercising the right of pre-emption."67 In another letter home he ill concealed his annoyance with a Paris whose "ineptitude ... is enough to take one's breath away."68 On the other side of the world, missionaries active in France's Pacific empire continued to denounce local bureaucrats who sided with European planters opposed to proselytizing amongst the natives, their principal workforce.69 The AntiSlavery Society, for its part, regularly received baleful reports from missionaries in the New Hebrides who condemned not only the French planters but equally culpable Britons who had gone into business in the colony. While sympathetic, the society tried to take a balanced view by noting that in some instances the French press had actually praised the missionaries' "excellent work." The society even insinuated that the missions may well have been seeking a "political tyranny" of their own.70 Nevertheless, urged on by unchastened missionaries, the anti-slavery organization petitioned an often dilatory Colonial Office to repudiate those French authorities who were "blackening" the efforts of British missions.71 Even when he did respond, Sir Charles Lucas at the Colonial Office showed little sympathy when, for example, the secretary of the Melanesian Mission presented him with what purported to be the facts of the case.72 Although the Foreign Office was speedier at acknowledging receipt of the society's appeals, it seldom acted upon them in a manner that pleased the missionaries. In the end the latter and their allies invariably lost out at the diplomatic level, all of which prompted an exasperated Anti-Slavery Society official to exclaim: "how perverse Governments and Govt. officials sometimes seem!"73

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While the Foreign Office and the General Staff might understandably wish an accommodation with the French in the shifting geopolitical circumstances of the day, the missionary lived in another kind of world with a different agenda and different priorities. These he seldom hesitated to communicate to Whitehall. The latter in turn, preoccupied with its own grand strategy, was, while always polite, more often than not unresponsive to such appeals. But even if it turned out to be a losing battle for the missionary on the diplomatic front, one thing was certain: France, home to the hated Jesuits and sword of the papacy, bulked larger as a menace than any German dreadnought in the spring of 1914. Meanwhile Belgium, whose plight as Germany's victim would catch at the heartstrings of many Britons, particularly the Nonconformists, had only months before the war exhibited an ugly Anglophobia, which, of course, had been reciprocated in full measure. As noted this was spawned by repeated humanitarian and missionary efforts, organized mainly in Britain, to publicize and repudiate the welldocumented atrocities in the Congo. As with so many other things, however, the war brought about some rapid reassessments where "poor little Belgium" was concerned. In a trice the German invasion left thousands of Belgian refugees on England's doorstep, and they were showered with the same humanitarian largesse once reserved for African victims in the Congo. Indeed Baptist missionaries in the colony were quick to organize a fund-raising campaign of their own for the Belgian National Relief Fund.74 At home, Methodists speedily pitched in too, extending aid to those who sheltered or assisted refugees in England and Belgium.75 Remarkably, these evangelical benefactors joined wholeheartedly in proclaiming that a "Protestant people are [now] extending their arms of affection to a Catholic one, and the common enemy is Pagan."76 And sealing this volte-face, Germany's notorious contempt for the "scrap of paper" guaranteeing Belgium's independence soon became a much-used metaphor for dishonour at home and abroad. A parallel was drawn, for example, in Portuguese West Africa. A BMS missionary complained in 1915 that officials there had not only gone back on promises to confer with local chiefs but had actually put them in chains. "To our mutual enemy, Germany," he remonstrated, "solemn promises made to weaker people may be but 'scraps of paper/ but it would be a calamity indeed if any of our Allies should come to view promises in that light... "77 In the meantime the fate of "little Belgium" at the hands of "barbaric" German armies abruptly eclipsed the pre-war concerns that had sustained the activism of the Anti-Slavery Society, the Congo Reform Association, and the missionary community. As one humanitarian activist wailed, the "whole country is pre-occupied with this

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terrible war" and it "is useless for [us] to do anything of a public kind at present."78 Still, he bravely reminded all who were prepared to listen that Belgium, embattled though she was, should still be suspect as a colonial power because of her deplorable treatment of the Congolese. Therefore he urged that in no circumstances should she be awarded a defeated Germany's African colonies at war's end. Instead, he argued with the Briton's habitual sense of moral superiority that all colonies there "would be better in our hands."79 At the same time, Baptist missionaries who had been quick to champion Belgium at the outbreak of war were soon having second thoughts when they learned that Catholic priests, whose operations were heavily subsidized by Brussels, were busily oppressing Congolese Protestants.80 As in the past, however, the old formula of good citizenship, though a bit ragged at the edges, was still very much in place. Thus the BMS Home Committee, doubtless dogged by the painful memory of the outspoken J.H. Weeks, stipulated that missionary complaints should never go directly to Belgian authorities but only through the proper channels, namely the Congo Mission secretary or its legal representative. Again, all agents in the field were firmly reminded that "the missionary is not sent abroad to rule the country but to preach the Gospel [and] he must be careful to keep himself from entanglement in political matters as far as possible."81 Meanwhile, when a book was published that exonerated former Congo officials and challenged reports of atrocities, Roger Casement's included, an Anti-Slavery Society official remarked that while "it is difficult at the present time to do anything that would seem to reflect on our Belgian allies," he saw no valid reason to spare the author.82 Another wartime writer also refused to let Belgium off the hook. After recounting the "horrible cruelties" perpetrated by officials in the Congo, Herbert Adams Gibbons added a heavy dose of irony by telling his readers that the pre-war Belgian press had actually declared that "Germany par excellence of all the Powers was free from suspicion ... in her dealings with small nations!" He also condemned the "blind partisans" who used Casement's wartime conspiracy against the British as grounds for repudiating his Congo revelations.83 All such statements were undercut, however, when a manifesto signed by leading German scholars outraged opinion in Britain by denying that Belgian neutrality had been violated or that Germany had in any way caused the war.84 The outcry was all the greater when German academics invoked a theology of history that pronounced their nation's cause a sacred manifestation of God's will.85 As for France, though latent misgivings would linger about her past transgressions in the tropics, most would be subsumed in the

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undeniable need to coordinate Britain's military effort with its beleaguered partner. Indeed even in the last few years of peace there had been indications that diplomatic friendship had paid off, at least for the humanitarian cause. A case in point was a joint Anglo-French denunciation of Moroccan slavery.86 As well there was gratifying evidence that the entente might just produce some missionary dividends after all. Under intense pressure from the SPG, the LMS, and the Friends, Grey finally approached the Quai d'Orsay on the issue of Madagascar. In the end, perhaps with one eye on the Rhine, Paris in 1913 issued the long-sought decree of religious liberty for that island. Immensely gratified if still a trifle wary, Thompson, in thanking Grey, observed that while the edict fell a little short of expectations, it nevertheless constituted a genuine advance and offered considerable hope for the future.87 This significant French concession and news that an accommodation might also be reached in the New Hebrides88 no doubt helped prepare the way for a kind of missionary entente cordiale when the guns began to shoot. A Catholic was still a Catholic, to be sure, but, as D.W. Bebbington would have it, the Kaiser came to be cast in the role of the Sultan.89 Thus, thanks to a process of elimination, Germany and Germany alone eventually stood out as the sole enemy of the moment. The Germanophobia that had been building over the years thanks in part at least to an agitated press and futuristic war literature was now given its total legitimacy. Mission reactions to the actual outbreak of hostilities were predictably mixed and somewhat reminiscent of the South African War experience. On the downside, it was feared in some CMS quarters that missionaries "may find their witness for Christ seriously hindered ... and in some cases trouble may be in their own minds as to its meaning for the Kingdom of God."90 All missionary societies shared the problem of having to face up to the "reality of Christianity in a world which sees Christian nations at war"91 though clearly war as a destroyer of ideals and a sower of doubt had been a subject for anxious discussion long before the guns of August began to boom. The problem, as some saw it, was twofold. On the one hand Presbyterians were obviously not alone in their concern that "non-Christian hearers ... may be unable to grasp the moral and spiritual issues of the war."92 In short, as Christian Europe lapsed into fratricidal chaos, the danger was that Christianity itself would irreparably lose face abroad. Thus, distressed Methodists feared that so general and devastating a conflict would be hailed in unfriendly quarters "as a proof that Christianity is finally discredited."93 On the other hand worries were expressed that people at home, absorbed in Armageddon, might easily forget all

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about foreign missions or, even worse, regard them as unpatriotic diversions from the war effort.94 These worries were shared by the Bishop of Calcutta in a letter to the SPG secretary two weeks after Britain entered the conflict. All the same, he guardedly went on to offer a piece of comfort: "One can only hope most earnestly that through these fires - perhaps nothing less would suffice - the nightmare of militarism, armaments and international jealousies which has been brooding over Europe for so long & checking all high effort in a hundred directions that we can hardly trace, may be dispelled, and that, when the affliction is past, we may start out again on truer and happier lines and be able to rise better to the world-wide tasks that lie before us."95 In effect militarism and its associated evils would expire if subjected to a massive burning at the stake, though no thought seems to have been given to the unwitting spectators who would likely be sucked into the great conflagration. At any rate the bishop's pronouncement was an anguished reversal of a notion long popular in intellectual and militaristic circles. A general war, it was argued, would somehow serve a redemptive purpose by destroying a "rotten peace" and by making way for a new and revitalized society.96 The argument also calls to mind remarks by the queen's chaplain about war's welcome contribution to the shaping of character,97 not to mention the "rabid" statements made by a Methodist missionary on the eve of the South African War. And Methodists were still wont to speak in these terms, if not quite so rabidly. Thus their chaplains on the Western Front were said to "have purified themselves, and made themselves white, and been refined."98 All this found a strong echo as well in the comment of a United Free Church minister that trench warfare constituted a "solemn purification by fire," out of which would come for those who survived it a "higher spiritual elevation."99 For a time even the SPG'S Bishop Montgomery flirted with the idea that the war, at the very least, would be an invigorating spiritual experience for all concerned.100 In any case the anxious Bishop of Calcutta did not have the last word on the subject. The Baptist Union and the Scottish churches, for example, categorically reversed the stand taken by their Germanophiles just a few years earlier. Appalled by Berlin's violation of Belgian neutrality, the union proclaimed in an unequivocal manifesto: "We believe the call of God has come to Britain to spare neither blood nor treasure in the struggle to shatter a great anti-Christian attempt to destroy the fabric of Christian civilization."101 A few days after Britain declared war, a Church of Scotland minister probably spoke for most of his colleagues when he sermonized that "if ever in the history

171 Armageddon of mankind there has been a just war, it is this war."102 Within the year anguished Methodists were striking the same note. "Deeply as we deplore the appalling spectacle of bloodshed and wide-spread misery," declared their Church Conference in the summer of 1915, "we are driven to confess that a righteous war is better than an immoral peace."103 Almost in a flash those who had been committed to peace and internationalism shed any troubling dilemmas they may have harboured. Soon they were calling for the utmost sacrifice in order to rid the world of "Prussian militarism" and its threat to undo everything that Christianity, at least the British variety, held dear. Arguably, Baptists, for their part, may not have shifted their position all that much. Like many they undoubtedly drew a distinction between two Germanics, the one dominated by an overbearing Prussianism, and the other informed by liberal and bourgeois values. Regrettably in their view the former had now gained the upper hand. The only way to salvage that other Germany and the West, so the argument ran, was to wage an all-out war against the authoritarian establishment that had triumphed in that supposedly divided country.104 Baptists and other Nonconformists were not alone in this. Outraged spokesmen for both the Church of England and its Scottish counterpart were quick to add their voices to the rising tide of denunciation.105 As well Whitehall and Westminster were soon trumpeting much the same line about Prussian militarism, claiming that the "leading people in Germany who are mainly responsible for this war never allowed their countrymen to suspect that their designs were aggressive."106 All the same, one factor that went beyond the purely political could have weighed heavily in the minds of conservative Baptists and in evangelical circles generally: Germany's ardent cultivation of the higher criticism, the controversial Biblical scholarship that had already gained a sizeable number of disciples in British academe. In the charged atmosphere of wartime, however, one factor was conveniently forgotten. The imported scholarship, which subjected the Bible to historical scrutiny and rigorous textual analysis, had always been tempered by a "typically English moderation" that tried to cater to the sensibilities of the average worshipper.107 Methodism, for its part, had certainly seemed to come to terms with it. "From the furnace of historical criticism into which it had been cast," its Church Conference had declared in 1901, "our New Testament has been given back to us, loosed from the thongs of tradition in which it had been bound, and made ready for wider service and for more confident appeal by the witness of the fire to its proof."108 A Baptist magazine, however, made no such allowances. It thundered that missionaries and churchgoers "are fought with weapons

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from Tubingen and Leyden and Oxford and Edinburgh," forged by those "who study the Bible purely as if it were an ordinary book."109 As a result the so-called new scholarship was branded by conservatives as a threat to the very integrity of the Scriptures and the foundations of a "Christian civilization."110 Indeed for many alarmed Baptists and their Nonconformist comrades it was to the sanctity of evangelicalism what the jackboot was to the political liberties of England and Europe. In effect a "weakened Bible" in Germany was giving rise to a so-called neo-paganism that would totally subvert the Christian experience there and fuel the cause of militarism.111 In this sense the conflict with Germany was thus to be turned, as one writer has put it, "from a continental power struggle into a veritable war of cultures." "Britain," he continued, "felt not only her pre-eminence in the world but her entire way of life threatened by the thrusting energy and instability Germany was seen to typify."112 To this those Baptists who naturally underscored the spiritual menace of Germany would have added a hearty amen. That Baptists seemed to be in the forefront of this wave of condemnation could be attributed in part to their determination to free themselves from the marginalization they had long been subjected to at home. Inadvertently or not, they may have used the war as a lever to achieve that object and gain full acceptance as Englishmen."3 But this can only be part of the story at best, since the Friends, equally marginalized, remained doggedly pacifist in the crisis. Meanwhile the BMS too took some solace from the crisis facing civilization. Its General Committee, meeting in September 1914, reached back into the past and was "reassured by the record of the Society during the Crimean War, when the difficulties seemed rather to stimulate than discourage our supporters; and the experience during the South African War was even more encouraging. It was therefore felt that there was no ground for panic nor reason for the vital curtailment of the work."114 To some extent those in charge at the CMS and the LMS shared the sentiment. Thompson spoke for many when he soothingly reminded a meeting of the All Missions Boards that "most of our Societies were founded during some of England's darkest hours" and like the country that had cradled them, they had not only survived but prospered.115 Like the generals, the societies were often guided in their thinking by the experiences of previous wars and blithely expected the same response and outcome this time around. But if Thompson's Baptist and Methodist colleagues thought that he shared their initial response to the war, they were badly mistaken. In fact he and other LMS leaders harboured grave misgivings about the conflict, even if experience showed that it could be survived. To be sure,

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on balance it was acknowledged that Britons had little choice but to answer their country's call once the shooting started. But at least until the spring of 1915, Mission House remained highly critical of popular Germanophobia. Indeed, as had been the case during the South African War, the LMS voiced serious doubts about the morality of participating in the current slaughter, which, of course, far eclipsed anything that had gone before. For one thing, Thompson and company initially had no patience with the notion of social or aesthetic purification by blood sacrifice. Instead they scorned the idea that collective immolation was the antidote to spiritual complacency and rampant materialism.116 Every bit as disturbed as conservative Baptists by the higher criticism, LMS officials nevertheless refused to see the confrontation with Germany as an inevitable and cleansing clash of cultures. On the contrary they lamented the rapid decay of the ecumenical spirit and continued to champion the essential unity of the global missionary enterprise.117 Similarly H.E. Fox at the CMS, a society that also took a conservative approach to the higher criticism,"8 cited the ''international fellowship in Christ" that had emerged after Edinburgh and pleaded that the "oneness of our work ... not be destroyed even by this terrible war." Agonizingly, however, his colleague Bardsley also had to concede, as he had during the South African conflict, that "as a nation we're obliged to fight on behalf - as we believe - of a righteous cause."119 But the LMS'S Chronicle's lead article for September 1914 went further and called on the faithful to mobilize for reconciliation. After all, asked the editor, "are we not ourselves the problem?" Perceptively identifying the ills that had long sickened the European body politic, he forcefully chided his readership: "We want personally as Christians and corporately as Christ's body to explore the heathen territory of our own souls, take the Gospel into unoccupied fields of our own minds, wage implacable war on the hate and pride, the social and racial arrogance, the intellectual superiority that are the basis of war ..." Blaming the "warlords of Europe," irrespective of nationality, for engineering a "gigantic apostasy from Christ," the editor heatedly called for a countervailing war, nothing short of a "War of Reconciliation." The proposed first step in the campaign was to offer fraternal sympathy and tangible assistance to German colleagues marooned in British colonies.120 In a similar spirit, by October the LMS was taking aim at all those profiting from the war, a species that elicited more and more public criticism as the conflict dragged on. The society repeatedly prodded the profiteer to balance the moral ledger through purgative offerings to the missionary cause. Meanwhile, playing on a currently popular theme, missionaries were also urged to conduct "The King's business as usual."121

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But if Baptists, Methodists, and Scottish Presbyterians were ready, aye ready, and Congregationalists conversely recoiled in horror when the lights went out in Europe, others were reduced to groping for an adequate response to the enormities of the moment. Such was the fate of Bishop Montgomery, the SPG secretary, who in the fall of 1915 was still scrambling to come to grips with the unthinkable: "The war has made it quite impossible to think of extension of any Missions for years to come ... These are most abnormal times. Everything is in a transition state. The duty of each of us is to hang on to anything and everything. Enormous changes may come anywhere."122 At the war's outbreak, however, even while "perfect turmoil" still reigned, he had been sufficiently composed to announce, in best music hall manner, that "I am one of those who when people ask whether we are downhearted, shout No!"123 Perhaps his spirits had been buoyed by the French army's success at the Marne in early September 1914. Certainly that achievement had heartened Bardsley at the CMS who exulted over "the wonderful turn of the tide these last few days have brought!"124 In any case Bardsley and Montgomery, like missionary cheer-leaders, went on to applaud what they saw as the "new spirit in the land" that would uphold the church in its task of evangelizing the world. Other missionary spokesmen took up the cry, seeking to snatch opportunity from the jaws of disaster. One saw "a new Coming of the Kingdom through the War," while another hailed the opportunity to entrench the meaning of service not only for fighting a righteous war but for expanding the horizons of missionary endeavour. "If only the clergy and God's people," he wrote, "have grace to use the opportunity."125 Some did seize the opportunity, like the Baptist missionary candidate who was told by his delighted superiors that his YMCA stint among the troops would "help him to work efficiently on the Congo" where he was ultimately assigned.126 The mood was reinforced by those who insisted that the "crisis is now at Home" and that greater leadership on the part of the churches and their missionary organizations was the ultimate imperative.127 While perhaps slow to be embraced by the LMS, the tendency to Christianize the war, to see it as a purifier of ideals, took hold quickly in many missionary circles. Thus, summarizing the experience of 1914 as a whole, the Presbyterian Woman's Missionary Association remarked: "To many of us the war has shed a clearer light on some spiritual ideals and so brought home to us what missionary work ought to be. For instance, there has been a wonderful resolution of self-sacrifice not only in our men called to be soldiers, but in the women at home. There has been a marvellous response to the call for

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services of many kinds."128 Drawing out this line of thought and assimilating the total national effort into a spiritual whole, WMA president Edith Bell continued: "Let no one say, I am too humble to count in the warfare of the Church."129 Indeed, once the initial shock was absorbed, many missionaries had little difficulty in isolating those elements of the war that fitted neatly into their own moral universe. Some, in fact, could find within it the prospect of a renewed and more potent internationalism. "Nothing would cheer our home workers more," one wrote, "than the consciousness that all, in every continent, of whatever race, colour or tongue were imbued with a common spirit ... [and] in a spirit of comradeship as members of one body, as fellow Churchmen in the Empire of Christ, bound together by ties more sacred than even those of any worldly empire because they are world-wide ..."13° Thus hope mingled with despair and acceptance with skepticism as British missionaries in their great variety addressed the moral implications of 1914. Spiritual dilemmas aside, there was one point of near-total agreement that knit missionaries together in a brotherhood of anguish. Almost without exception the societies braced themselves for grimly anticipated material shortages. Already chronically in debt and starved for male recruits, these organizations entered the war with but one gallant hope: that indeed it would be over by Christmas. Still, praying for the best but planning for the worst, mission officials everywhere talked gloomily of the need for spending cuts and temporary retreats overseas. To be sure, such pronouncements were invariably accompanied by solemn assurances that there would be no "swerving from the task."131 Thus, locked into the military metaphor even while struggling with its full implications, the LMS spoke bravely of sustaining its own "thin red line of missionary warriors," presumably come hell or high deficits.132 To help combat its personnel problems the SPG relaxed many of its rules, including the one proscribing the appointment of married missionaries. "These are not days," Montgomery pointedly announced, "to reject men who seem to be the right people."133 Also in response to the crisis, several Congregationalist missionaries spontaneously offered to take pay cuts and to return part of their salaries, so that the work of God's "advance guard" might continue, war or no war.134 Smaller and therefore even more vulnerable to the slightest fluctuation, the Presbyterian FMC teetered on the brink of financial panic as it surveyed its books in September 1914. Home offerings, declining slowly since 1911, took an alarming dive with the advent of hostilities, inflaming fears for the future of the work.135 For its part the WMA, female counterpart to the FMC, was in slightly better financial

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shape, but it too sought the path to retrenchment. Accordingly, previously sanctioned projects were closely re-evaluated, conferences were cancelled, and costly illustrations were drastically reduced in official publications.136 Elsewhere, furloughed missionaries of every stripe volunteered to defer their return overseas so their salaries could be saved. Others offered to complete their degree programs and to take curacies at home so as to support themselves while the crisis lasted.137 A program of economizing, universally contemplated, was variously achieved. At the CMS Bardsley was soon made aware that the war had cut heavily into enrolment at the society's Islington College, so much so that some thought was briefly given to closing the institution. Though that did not happen the preparatory school that served as the college's feeder did shut its doors in November 1914.138 Nor did the SPG escape some anxious moments. It too reconsidered grants pledged "before there was the slightest suspicion of a war affecting half the world, and the British Empire in particular."139 The BMS in turn confessed to the need to cut out such "frills" as free literature, missionary furloughs, and a deputation to the China field as home churches, particularly in London, reeled from the war's initial financial shock.140 The society also struck a War Emergency Committee to cope with the unforeseen.141 Groaning under this pressure but determined to hold the line, missionary societies reacted sharply to lay critics who questioned the wisdom of diverting resources from the military to the evangelical front. When, for example, it was suggested that some notoriously "unproductive" missions be abandoned, an incensed SPG secretary summoned up a naval analogy in response: "Take the case of our Fleet. Admirals may be wrong in strategy. They may want replacing or correcting, but for the people to issue a proclamation that in future they advocate the victualling of a certain Fleet only, or of not victualling a certain Fleet in some part of the world because they consider the Admiral is faulty in his strategy - that's the wrong way. No war could be won on such terms as those -,"142 More typically, however, the stock missionary reply to patriotic cost cutters was to remind them what the war was supposedly all about. Stung to comment, for example, the PCE retorted that in a morally bankrupt world missionary labour should be redoubled, not reduced.143 Similarly moved, LMS supporter Rev. Hardy Harwood asserted that missionary endeavour represented the highest form of patriotism in that it struck at the root causes of war itself.144 In 1916, citing no less a figure than the missionary ecumenist J.H. Oldham, the LMS Chronicle fended off lay critics with this thundering statement (borrowed from G.K. Chesterton):

177 Armageddon "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and never tried."145 The opening artillery salvoes of August 1914 had thus occasioned manifold reactions within the missionary community. Few, however, had anticipated that the war would lumber on even after the leaves had fallen and Christmas was but a memory. When Montgomery learned, for example, that a missionary had signed on as an army chaplain, he thought that would mean a year "if the War continues."146 Again, when the British Expeditionary Force managed to escape destruction at Mons in the early fighting, Bardsley rejoiced for otherwise "it would have meant a terrible prolongation of the war."**7 A little later he also ventured the opinion, reflecting expectations of a short conflict, "that the War has [not] got down deep in the country at present."148 But all too soon it became plain that a static war was about to replace the war of movement on the Western Front. Montgomery and other mission officials began to think the hitherto unthinkable, that "there is not the slightest chance of this war being over for a very long time."149 Once this sunk in the perspective changed and thought had to be given to long-term rather than short-run considerations. Temporary irritations now loomed as long-range dislocations. Montgomery put it this way to a missionary who had obviously entertained other plans: "I have no doubt whatever that in these days those who are holding the fort abroad ought not to leave those posts. I know your patriotic feelings and how you long to be doing something for the Empire, but at this moment I cannot help feeling that for the next few months your plain duty is to stay where you are ... in due time when you return, if you still feel that you are called to go to the Front as a soldier, there will be plenty of time for you to be trained and to fight ..."15° These thoughts were echoed by Bardsley at the CMS who advised a missionary to return to the China field rather than work among soldiers at the front. He was told in short that there is that "other work that should have priority."151 Some Baptists agreed. While they "watched with profound emotion the splendid heroism of our sons who have given life itself for the defence of the Motherland and Empire," they pointed out, with equal feeling, that mission work was no less heroic and imperative.152 Methodists were quick to make the same point and proudly reported that, war or no war, some mission fields had actually been visited by the WMMS'S secretaries and given a much-needed morale boost.153 Perhaps, however, many were coming to realize that missionary priorities might not go down well with the country at large, now that it was engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Already some critics were

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questioning the military exemptions accorded clergy at the war's outset, particularly after zealous patriots in the pulpit urged male parishioners of military age to pay a speedy visit to the recruiting sergeant. But whether missionaries were exempted or not, people at the BMS also had to accept that some, particularly those in the medical service, were themselves "patriotically exercised" about the war and anxious to do their bit at the front.154 These eager Christian soldiers may have reckoned that the grim hardships of the mission field had providentially prepared them for the horrors of no man's land. Methodist missionaries shared the feeling and resolved in the "great national emergency" to do their share in furthering "God's work" on the battlefield.155 Before the war ended at least nine of them enlisted for active service while more than twenty others volunteered as doctors, chaplains, and YMCA officers.156 A CMS missionary from Ceylon serving as a regimental padre in France certainly had his share of adventures and misadventures at the front. On one occasion, while boldly venturing out alone to salvage a crashed German aircraft, Alek Fraser was fired upon from enemy lines. The "hunt was keen enough," he reported, "to make one buck-up all the time, and I worked with great zeal and speed and ecstacy. It is not a question of courage or funk at all. It is really a sort of gamble, I think. You are working for a high stake, something Britain needs, and you have had to put into the balance all you have. So you just play all you know." Later, while "playing all he knew," Fraser was severely gassed and subsequently invalided out of the service.157 In the circumstances such graphic experiences and patriotic reflections came to be accepted almost as a matter of course. The CMS was also made aware, however, of the other side of the coin, that some devout members of the church had vocally opposed the war and suffered publicly for their pains.158 Bardsley addressed his colleagues' dilemma in these ambiguous terms: "I agree that any of us who're officials of the CMS need to exercise great care in public utterances - at the same time all of us have to be witnesses and to act as we believe to be the truth. Personally, I do not fear the CMS being out of touch with the country in any way as regards the ivar."159 Yet a week later he was privately deploring the church's general attitude towards the war, particularly its failure to sound a note of penitence. "The man who tries to do so," he sighed, "is regarded rather as a pessimist, and as giving away England's position."160 The SPG'S Montgomery appeared to have no such qualms. Indeed he would later facetiously express his unhappiness with conscientious objection to the war. "Just had £1 sent me by a co," he wrote an overseas bishop in 1917, "as a thank-offering for 10,000 cos who have gloriously refused to fight for

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any cause. I have, of course, respect^ returned the money. I do not know how it is that the person in question could have supposed that we should be of the same opinion."161 Many in the churches appeared to share Montgomery's distaste. But others, including Archbishop Davidson and Bishop Charles Gore, took a more sensitive line and publicly defended the co's position, even the absolutist one that rejected all forms of alternative service.162 While Montgomery and his CMS opposite number were doing their bit by giving the missions' version of business-as-usual, other missionaries were agonizing over Britain's vulnerability to new forms of warfare at sea and in the air. The hit-and-run coastal attacks by Admiral Hipper's squadrons and the Zeppelin raids on London were especially worrying. "I have just heard of your air-raid experience," an appalled BMS secretary wrote his parents in the late summer of 1915, "and am so thankful to God to know you are all safe and sound ... I am so sorry you should be harassed and frightened like this. These Zeppelin outrages are so foolish and futile as well as wicked."163 Meanwhile U-boat warfare was another major concern for those who depended so heavily on free and easy access to sea lanes. At least one SPG bishop narrowly escaped a submarine attack in the Irish Sea, and a ship carrying missionaries was the victim of another in the South Atlantic.164 Other distressing news soon arrived that missionaries and former missionaries, who had stoically written home saying their time was near, were falling in battle to shot, shell, and gas on the Western Front.165 For some it may have been a kind of apotheosis. Doubtless it was the same stoicism they had displayed during pre-war tribulations - the depredation, isolation, and death that had haunted many a mission station around the globe. All the same, Montgomery, for one, betrayed the home front's failure to grasp the gruesome reality of trench warfare when he wrote a wounded soldier, possibly a missionary or the son of a missionary, that "you must be disappointed that you were not able to see the war through."166 Another missionary was convinced that the sacrifices made by the many university and public school men who had readily joined the colours could only inspire the recruitment of greater numbers for the equally imperative challenge of the mission field. Reminiscent of the public's criticism of the clergy's military exemption, he showed little patience with the ecclesiastical equivalent of slackers, those "who say that it is highly desirable for other men to be Missionaries and then not go themselves."167 To make some sense of the wholesale slaughter in Flanders, impassioned observers were more and more inclined to speak in apocalyp-

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tic terms of a necessary holy war or crusade against the "pagan" Germans who had destroyed the Bible and backed militarism. C.R Pascoe, Montgomery's understudy at the SPG, had been among the first when he dramatically boiled the issue down to: "Christ or antiChrist? - that is the question, and we ought not to have any doubts as to the ultimate result."168 Other prominent churchmen and vocal Nonconformists like Clifford had been quick to seize on the holy-war motif too. Some Methodist leaders endorsed it as the only way to perceive the fight against Germany's "tyrannic supremacy" and the Kaiser's "villainous hordes."169 Although one study contends170 that these Christian holy warriors were comparatively rare, arguably their influence could have been incalculable. At any rate this new spin on events caused a bemused Montgomery to remark on "strange things," such as the plan of the Bishop of Pretoria to bring himself and forty of his clergy to England as so many avenging crusaders.171 Meanwhile, as the war assumed more terrifying proportions and as casualties continued to soar, the IRM solemnly pronounced, in the language of the burgeoning earth sciences, that the "record of the ages ... is seen twisted and broken at intervals by the force of some gigantic prehistoric catastrophe. Future students of the missionary situation of 1914 will see the results of the long patient work of missions and the Christian Church broken by a huge fault, due to the tremendous upheaval of the war."172 And nowhere was this more obvious than in the gulf that opened between British and German agents overseas as the war broadened out to include what a frustrated and saddened Bardsley called "mission areas and pagan peoples."173 German missions, fearing that evangelization would be disrupted and discredited in the eyes of the non-European, were equally distressed. Initially, in sharp contrast to the obloquy heaped on the "Hun" military and their "warlord" Kaiser, considerable concern had been shown for those German missionaries operating in British territory. After all, they could be made out to represent the civilized Germany with which Nonconformity had communed before the war. Not only this, a WMMS report went out of its way to remind its readers of what had once been a commonplace, that "long before Germany dreamed of colonial expansion, German Protestants had worked with British missionaries" in Africa and India.174 The standing committee of the Conference of British Missionary Societies, chaired by the CMS'S Bardsley, set about passing the hat for Germans stranded and forced to "live on the country," particularly in Africa.175 Four days after the declaration of war, Bardsley drew up plans for an immediate appeal and sought an interview with the American ambassador in the hopes of landing his country's support for relieving the troubles facing

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German missionaries.176 Similarly the directors of the LMS, eager to pluck an ecumenical rose from a cluster of forbidding thorns, instructed their missionaries in India, China, and Africa to spare no effort in aiding German colleagues trapped on British soil. Invariably, however, German missions were either reluctant to accept the proffered aid or rejected it outright, much to the gratification of the Berlin papers that openly scoffed at the offers of assistance.177 This led an unhappy Bardsley and his colleagues to lament the "grievous breach" with their fellow workers. Although contributions continued to come in, it was thought advisable, doubtless out of respect for the growing patriotic feeling in the country, to postpone action on a general appeal to the public.178 Some laymen, to be sure, continued to press for aid to isolated German missions, whether they wanted it or not, but others were obviously critical of the scheme to help the "enemy," particularly when so much needed to be done for hard-pressed British fields. Acting not unlike a lover scorned, the LMS, for example, gradually stopped extending hitherto regular pledges of aid to German missions. At one point in November 1914 a defensive Bardsley felt obliged to assure one critic that he had not backed the relief program officially as the CMS'S secretary but only as chairman of the standing committee of the Conference of British Missionary Societies.179 By this time, however, the general consensus was that the gifts collected should instead be earmarked for India or handed over to the Paris Evangelical Mission, considered to be the "worst off amongst Continental Societies."180 That mission was obviously more politically acceptable in any event, even if it had been less than forthright with British societies in Madagascar before the war. Like French Protestants generally, who had long been scorned for their liberal republican leanings, its members were as keen as any English Baptist to use the war as a means of demonstrating their patriotism and restoring their political credit.181 Meanwhile hopes had been expressed in London that "this terrible war" would not cause distress or danger to British missionaries in German East Africa. All too soon, however, it was ominously reported that communications had been broken off there and that cables sent to CMS agents had been returned.182 Some weeks later news was received that British missionaries had been interned by order of the German authorities. The CMS and the Universities Mission in Central Africa, however, were relieved to learn that their missionaries were safe and not being subjected to what they called "rough stuff." Reciprocal treatment in the meantime was accorded German missionaries operating in British West Africa, notably the Gold Coast. Such developments apparently had a "quieting influence on the

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people/'183 which was obviously judged essential. As one mission official intoned, in the self-absorbed ethnocentrism of the day, it was "[ajlmost impossible to explain the war to the African mind."184 Yet the African was probably dumbfounded by the spectacle of white people, who had tried to bring him order and civilization, falling out so dramatically amongst themselves and resorting to the violence they condemned when he committed it. While one historian has questioned the notion that Europe's fratricidal strife tarnished its prestige in the African's eyes, another claimed - as had German and British agents at the time - that it "struck at the whole ethical authority of the missions."185 Later on the situation would change dramatically for both British and German missionaries caught behind the lines in East Africa. This was the direct outcome of the large-scale British campaign undertaken against outnumbered German troops and their askari auxiliaries.186 From the very outset it proved both unimaginative and indecisive, which led a CMS missionary to lament understatedly in 1915 that the military situation and hence his society's future in East Africa were "uncertain."187 Sharply reminiscent of mission perceptions of the military during the South African War, the British forces were described as "a rotting, undisciplined, weak, planless, gutless lot of buffoons in uniform."188 Undaunted, one enterprising CMS agent who had no wish to sit on the sidelines entered the service as an interpreter and thereby happily spared his society the expense of his stipend.189 Over the course of the lengthy campaign, which finally ended in a British victory, much of the colony became a full-scale war zone and its food and other resources were plundered by warring armies. At the same time, the African community was rudely disrupted. To help resolve the problem an inventive Baptist missionary took a leaf from Grenfell's Congo book and, with his society's approval, accepted a British offer to serve as assistant political officer and native commissioner in conquered territory.190 But many Africans were beyond the reach of his services, including those already forced into active military duty or non-combatant roles such as portering. In these turbulent circumstances the CMS could scarcely entertain plans for expanding their operations in that part of East Africa. Indeed they had to face up to the grim reality that the beleaguered German colonial administration would show little patience with the British nationals in their midst, even if they were missionaries for the most part. As a British command paper revealed in 1917, many of those missionaries had ultimately been removed to so-called camps whose

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"bad quarters" and inadequate food were explained away, in part, as retaliation for the supposedly improper treatment of German civilians in England. Not only this, Indian and native prisoners of war were said to have been uniformly abused by the Germans, and sometimes died in confinement.191 Earlier, a report in November 1914 from LMS missionary doctor H.E. Wareham had anticipated this litany of woes by making it clear that paternalistic canons had been violated by the Kaiser's minions in East Africa. "It is an understood rule," he wrote, "that in these wars the natives are not brought into the row." Unthinkably, however, Germans were allegedly "ignoring all the rules of civilized warfare" by recruiting African bands and encouraging them to rape, pillage, and murder. Forcing British authorities to reply in kind - or so the excuse ran - these heirs of Luther had thus betrayed their trust and "set hell loose."192 A resigned Anti-Slavery Society, which also found the use of native troops objectionable, felt powerless to protest a "practice being followed on all sides ... in this life and death struggle."193 Meanwhile some interned British missionaries were outraged by being put to work under native supervision, a "degrading" practice that violated the natural order of things.194 On the other side of the continent, in the British-held Gold Coast, German missionaries, who had initially been left to their own devices, were later put under arrest along with other enemy aliens. Though shortly released, the missionaries were subsequently threatened with deportation. In the German colony of Kamerun, which was subdued by the British and their African units in 1916, the Basle missionaries actually suffered that fate, being despatched to England after being "harshly treated," and then returned to Germany.195 Naturally those in Britain who questioned aid for German societies would have been even more hostile had they learned of "atrocities" against their own when they actually occurred. They were already disturbed by a report that German theologians, presumably trying to undo adverse publicity about Belgium, had drawn the world's attention to the alleged ill-treatment of "peaceful" Germans living abroad.196 Critics would also have been incensed by a German clergyman's comment in October 1914 that "Berliners think [that] German Troops will be in London in the next four weeks."197 It showed, among other things, how strong a grip the pre-war futuristic literature still had on the public's imagination, whether German or English.198 As the war ground on month after month with no resolution in sight, less and less sympathy came to be shown German missionaries in every British possession, and eventually plans were drawn up to intern or repatriate them. In the beginning, to be sure, efforts had been made in Britain to maintain some kind of permanent link with

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German missions in India. Although the National Missionary Council conceded that it could not "interfere with the political and military policy laid down in the interests of the Empire," it did express sympathy for disadvantaged German missionaries in the subcontinent.1" Some council members went even further and made representations to government that resulted in the lifting of travel and other restrictions imposed on German missions at the outbreak of war. But all that would change. For example by the summer of 1915 it was reported that German missionaries were being officially interned "by the dozen" in the SPG'S diocese of Chhota Nagpur.200 The local bishop was visibly distressed by the excited patriotism and ugly newspaper agitation in the English community when the policy was announced. Invoking "chivalry and Christian fairness/' he urged that "neither the Indian workers nor the people of the [German] mission should be allowed to suffer through rivalries and sins which have involved Europe in war."201 In London Montgomery took the high road too when he recognized the classic plight of the innocent bystander caught up in events beyond his control. The SPG secretary stated it plainly enough in his "Memorandum on German Missions in India." While his society was being directed to administer those missions, no attempt, he pledged, would be made to proselytize their Lutheran Indian converts, who reportedly numbered in the tens of thousands.202 All the same his own patriotism broke the surface when he squelched a suggestion that Swedish missionaries be permitted to take the Germans' place. Not only did he suspect Sweden's "loyalty" to the Allies, but he feared that any missionaries she sent out would be dangerously "Germanized," drawn as they were from her official and literary classes, which reputedly were sympathetic to Berlin.203 A deeply suspicious India Office felt the same way. In the summer of 1916, while politely acknowledging the labours of neutral missions, it stressed that "experience has shown that some safeguards are necessary to ensure that individuals desiring to work as Missionaries are not in active sympathy with the enemies of the British Empire, or lacking in goodwill towards the Government."20^ Within the year those safeguards, in the form of licenses and inspections, were firmly in place, stifling any scheme to accommodate "enemy" and "alien" servants of the gospel.205 The policy, to be sure, did not go unquestioned in the missionary camp. The BMS not only deplored the moral indignity of licensing but worried that the practice might be extended after the war to include missionaries of Britain's current allies, France and Belgium. Might it not also, they asked, be applied to native Christians in India and subject them to the "humiliating restriction of

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licenses like toddy-sellers or garry drivers"?206 The SPG shared the concern and underscored another problem, namely that the restrictions could spark retaliation against British missionaries elsewhere in the world.20? In Assam, meanwhile, another example unfolded of the fate that befell many German missionaries in southern Asia. A policy of internment was vocally backed by flag-waving British planters who made good their threat to bar those missionaries from returning to care for the coolie workforce. They preferred instead, to no one's surprise, the services of the SPG, whose presence in the country, ironically, had never been all that visible.208 Whatever the local bishop may have felt personally about the situation, he was merely acknowledging an imperial fact of life when he stated cryptically that the planters' "word is law on their own gardens."209 That many of them were reputed to be public school and university men210 demonstrated that rampant Germanophobia was not, as some would have it, peculiar to the so-called lower orders. At any rate the experience with hard-nosed planters, however well educated and socially respectable they may have been, never seemed to vary, whatever the setting.211 The BMS, for its part, though highly critical of the Teutonic Caesar was understandably supportive of its own German agents in India and intervened on their behalf when they were ordered repatriated. The society, which went as high up the ladder of command as Austen Chamberlain, the secretary of state for India, was gratified when his office ultimately agreed to soften the regulation so as to permit either internment or deportation to a neutral country. One grateful German pastor who chose internment offered to retire from the BMS mission field so as to spare its directors embarrassment, only to be reassuringly told that he would be kept on as a full-time member.212 In the midst of all these vicissitudes, in the throes of a total war that seemed endless, early reactions to the conflict's meaning were thus frequently modified by harsh and protracted experience. Familiar enough, for example, is the story of youthful enthusiasts such as Robert Graves, who, after never-ending tours in the European charnelhouse, were more than willing to bid goodbye to all that which had first lured them to the colours. At the other extreme were those who underwent an equally intense but wholly divergent metamorphosis. Such, at least, was the fate of the LMS leadership whose martial epiphany illustrates the cumulative impact of the deepening war and the way in which some missionary doubters eventually came to terms with it. Passionately Cobdenite in August 1914, Mission House three years later was finally emulating its sister societies and calling for sacrifice "to the last ounce." Indeed Home Secretary Nelson

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Bitton was by then proclaiming that "life, treasure, energy and material ... must still be given without stint for the final accomplishment of those ideals which led the nation into the conflict."213 Clearly, perceptions had changed. They had done so, however, not in a blinding moment of revelation, but under the influence of a variety of circumstances, some already related, which gradually tipped the balance in favour of the war. Indeed the LMS increasingly adopted a view that Christianized the conflict and Britain's role in it. "Our men," chimed the Chronicle in 1915, "are not fighting for territory or trade for Britain - they are pouring out blood for a new civilization for the world."214 Not to be underestimated in this attitudinal transformation was the death in 1916 of the imposing Thompson. As the LMS'S foreign secretary from 1881 to 1914, he had, more than any other single individual, set the tone at the society's headquarters. Outraged over the South African War, he had become a confirmed anti-militarist by 1914. Although no one, of course, could dictate policy singlehandedly in so democratic a body as the LMS, nevertheless the grand old man's demise may well have loosened some otherwise reticent tongues. The leadership, after all, had been quietly but firmly opposed by its emissaries on the spot during the campaigning on the veldt at the turn of the century. In like manner, by 1915, self-proclaimed "War of Reconciliation" or not, more and more of the society's staff were enlisting for active service at home and abroad. Under the circumstances there was little choice but to wish them Godspeed and good luck.215 There was also the sobering fact that the campaign for reconciliation lacked a sympathetic audience in Germany, particularly as time dragged on and the fighting and bitterness intensified. There were, however, positive as well as negative spurs to the comparatively slow conversion of the LMS to a more warlike stance. Chief among the former was the seemingly miraculous recovery of something approaching financial well-being. The LMS enjoyed a fiscal boom that grew ever more robust as the war progressed. This unheard of state of affairs stood out in sharp contrast to its earlier financial woes, not to mention those of many other societies. Things were also looking up for the WMMS, particularly after 1916. By that year, in spite of the war's intrusion, its centenary campaign had succeeded in raising an unprecedented £260,000 for equipping and extending overseas operations. Not only this, the society's debt was reduced and its regular income maintained.216 But the CMS was not so fortunate. Three months into the war, for example, the society, severely straitened before it started,217 was already, as Bardsley revealed, "£12,000 behind." And its income continued to slide and its expenditures to climb for the remainder of the conflict.218 Although its sister body, the SPG, had

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been able before the war to provide heftier stipends for both European and native workers,219 wartime losses on foreign exchange rates and the increased cost of living left the society in serious financial trouble at the end of the fighting - some £50,000 in the red.220 The BMS, on the other hand, reported that at the war's outbreak its deficit was well under control even if it was having difficulty finding the necessary funds to despatch additional missionaries overseas. Throughout most of the war indeed its financial situation remained comparatively healthy,221 a happy state of affairs that doubtless owed much to the financial acumen of Joseph Tritton, the society's treasurer. The secular credentials of this committed layman were impressive. Formerly a partner in the banking firm of Barclay, Bevan, Tritton & Co., he had become a director of its successor, Barclay's Bank Ltd.222 Meanwhile LMS'S Mission House, which had been saddled with a mid-1915 deficit of £i8,ooo,223 was joyously shocked when the following year its income shot up by a remarkable £15,000. Planned withdrawals overseas were almost lightheartedly cancelled. In the meantime stunned but happy directors set about searching for an explanation, any explanation, for this unanticipated windfall. Naturally, they were disposed to take it as a sign from God. "This is an event," marvelled the Chronicle, "not simply in the history of the Society, but in the spiritual life of the churches of our land. It reveals an awakening soul, a quickened passion for the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is, in a real sense, revival."224 In places, congregations had doubled, even quadrupled, their usual gifts, and 1916 was hailed as the annus mirabilis of contemporary missions.225 There were assuredly some flies in the financial ointment. For one thing, as had happened in the SPG'S case, a shifting silver exchange forced prices in the East dramatically upwards and much of the new-found wealth was eaten up by inflation. Furthermore the directors were well aware that wartime cutbacks might continue to be necessary. But for evangelicals ever alert to portents of revival, all this was quite beside the point. Instead, it was the steady rise of offerings that captured their imagination. Thus as impressive subscription records were set each year, including 1919, the cumulative deficit was reduced from an appalling £70,000 in 1914 to a comparatively manageable £8000 just before the armistice. Equally heartwarming, the circulation of the Chronicle and other LMS publications expanded rapidly until by 1917 it was 400 percent higher than in i9io.226 Not surprisingly, a fiscally buoyant eschatology ardently took wing at Mission House. Even before the financial clouds lifted, however, LMS leaders had begun to re-evaluate the war. The donations bonanza merely spurred

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them faster down this path. For them the key in this accommodation was in superimposing long-established preoccupations on the current crisis. The lessons of Edinburgh, they came to believe, had not been lost after all, but recast and given new urgency, a notion that fully accorded with the hopeful views of John Mott who war or no war still passionately believed in the promise of the "decisive hour/'227 In the fall of 1916 this message was also delivered to the BMS, among other societies, by Oldham, the influential secretary of the Continuation Committee and long a close Mott associate. Drawing on the inevitable military analogy, Oldham addressed the problem in these terms, as recorded in the minutes of the BMS'S General Committee: In this war, if the Allies were to pursue severally their own independent policy and strategy it would be impossible to defeat the enemy. If to-day, facing ... enormous problems in Asia and Africa, a hundred different Mission Boards attempted to work out their own policy and strategy, some very splendid and heroic things might be done, but the "war" would not be won. Among the lessons Mr. Oldham believed God would teach us were how much we depended upon one another ... and how much better work we could do ... if we made up our minds to do it together.228

Oldham reinforced the point made by the Chronicle late in 1915. While the storied Edinburgh conclave, the magazine reminded its readers, had made the global challenge clear, Christians had sadly slumbered until, finally, "on August 4th, 1914, God stabbed our spirit broad awake." Then the Chronicle went Oldham one better by proclaiming that the war, by stripping away the "stage scenery of civilization," had left missionaries everywhere as the only conceivable "builders in the waste. "229 In the face of perceived German intransigence, Mission House gradually refocused its vision of reconciliation and projected it onto a larger stage. Eventually the revised "war" took shape as a necessary, if painful, step on the road to universal brotherhood in Christ. Home Secretary Bitton captured this feeling when he sensed "the opening of a new door into the hearts of our own people, through the conviction of human insufficiency which has come upon us, and the emphasis upon the claims of human brotherhood, expressed in the dependence of the allied forces upon Africa, India and the Empire beyond the seas, for co-operation and assistance in the great work of saving the world from unChristian tyranny."230 Over and over this became the dominant note in the LMS chorus. Europe would redeem itself not only by internal reawakening but by shedding its discredited habit of colonialism. Accordingly the essence of Cobdenism could be

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preserved, even as the LMS preached war. Formulating its own "war aims" in 1917, Mission House kept the focus squarely on the outer world rather than on European frontiers. A just settlement, it proclaimed, would have to recognize the legitimate interests of varying peoples around the world, none of whom would finally come to Christ if indefinite subordination to Europe were the price.231 In the Pacific, for example, the motto should be "The Islands for the Islanders and both for Christ."232 Again, an increasingly Christianized India, through its demonstrated loyalty and sacrifice, would merit a greater measure of self-government.233 Other societies and groups took up the challenge. The IRM boldly asserted that India was becoming ever more conscious of herself as a nation, and that this should be acknowledged.234 The YMCA in turn talked about how essential it was that "the Christian should in future make every effort to place educated Indians in responsible places for work. The Indian who is educated expects it and will rise to it."235 In March 1917 the SPG'S usually phlegmatic India Sub-Committee responded warmly to the YMCA'S "extraordinarily interesting facts," which had included the following: "At the beginning of the war, educated Indians wanted us indeed to win, but only after so great a thrashing as to make Englishmen at length humble and not arrogant, but as the war proceeded the tone changed. They recognized more and more the best side of the British race, and also that the cause was their own cause. It would be evident, therefore, that if troops had not been sent West from India, it would have been considered a slap in the face to India."236 However fractured the argument, at least it recognized the emergence of India as a state in the making. The point was also driven home that the European sojourn of Indian troops had contributed to their political education and appreciation of Western values, without which presumably no independent India could materialize. A few months after the war's end, an SPG missionary was convinced that the "day of the Britisher in India [was] over" and that the native church should be prepared for the "tremendous task" before it once Indian home rule arrived.237 The arguments marshalled on behalf of granting greater freedom to Indians were considered inapplicable, however, to the Chinese coolies recruited to serve in labour battalions behind the lines. For one thing, unlike the Indians, they came not as hardy warriors but as docile workers. For another, they were.perceived, in spite of some signs to the contrary, as being less nation-conscious than the Indian soldiery serving alongside Allied troops. In any case, with the hearty approval of the War Office, experienced China missionaries eagerly volunteered as chaplains, counsellors, and translators among the coo-

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lies in France. When superiors complained that their exodus seriously weakened Far Eastern stations, these missionaries responded that their spiritual care of Chinese labourers was a singularly appropriate task, especially when so many of them were drawn from their old flocks.23g At one point Montgomery at the SPG seemed swayed by the argument, so much so that he took it another step. Writing to his China bishops early in 1917, he remarked that "If you want to call attention to your work and to its spirit -1 can't think of a better way than by offering every single European priest you have to Government, leaving yourself solely with Chinese workers for six months ..." He went on to say that if this "magnificent opportunity" were seized it would have an immense effect on China and on public opinion at home since so many in Britain and abroad were now talking publicly about China for the Chinese. Although admitting that all this amounted to a counsel of perfection, he persuaded himself that there was "something in it. "239 So did others in the missionary movement who desperately wanted to keep alive the liberal spirit that had inspired Edinburgh. For them, significantly, the solution to many problems lay in the promotion of self-sustaining native churches or, to put it another way, in a program of ecclesiastical decolonization. This was long the goal of those who recognized the vitality and sufficiency of overseas Christian congregations and who welcomed the reduction of the home churches' financial and administrative obligations. "The outcome of this world strife," wrote the same hopeful Montgomery in the summer of 1916, "may result in a distinct advance towards self-support" that "would cheer the folks at home."240 Equally cheering for all missions was the wartime response of Britain's dominions and colonies to the needs of a mother country locked in a life-and-death struggle with "despotic barbarism."241 When Montgomery was asked to represent the Church of England at a major American church convention in the summer of 1916, he thought it "his duty to set forth the attitude of our Dominions overseas by showing what messages have been received in this war - and what gifts have been made for war purposes."242 His visit could also be seen as a fruitful way of influencing public opinion in neutral America at a crucial stage of the war. Thus, combining older streams of thought, from vague doctrines of trusteeship, "Imperial Christianity," and the "higher citizenship," with fresh initiatives born of the war, many missionaries, even initially reluctant ones, came to terms with what they saw as the apocalyptic moment. For its part the LMS, like most societies, warmly

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embraced the project of a global league of nations. To succeed, they counselled, it would have to function as a "super-kingdom" whose only conceivable monarch was Jesus Christ.243 Those who spoke for the SPG were also well aware of how the globe had been integrated and, in a sense, re-invented by the war. Using a currently popular phrase, Montgomery remarked, not without some disquiet, that the "world is now a whispering gallery, and everything that is done anywhere is at once announced in all other places."244 As for "Reconstruction," the LMS contended that it would have to be global, otherwise it would be futile. Fortunately there was a readymade program of social reform in the gospel that was readily applicable East and West. Looking forward to the grand reconciliation and registering just how far it had travelled since the outbreak of hostilities, the Chronicle in December 1918 expressed the feelings of many a missionary when it pronounced that global "destruction ... radiated in effect from Berlin, and retribution has returned there, for God rules."245 A milder version of a "Hang the Kaiser" statement, it was a far cry from the initial response of Mission House in the distant days of August 1914. It is well, however, to place it alongside a postwar disclosure. It appears that the Berlin Missionary Society, even while the fighting raged in East Africa, had undertaken work and made financial contributions on behalf of a beleaguered CMS, for which, to be sure, they were duly compensated in 192O.246 By this time, of course, the CMS should have been poised to grasp the long-deferred opportunity to expand its operations in the conquered German colony. As it turned out, however, the financial shortfalls that had consistently plagued the society's efforts made short work of the plan and the challenge was passed to others.247 When in turn Montgomery and his SPG colleagues surveyed the potential opportunities of the immediate postwar period, their thoughts were obviously coloured by the euphoria of peace. Their plans ranged from helping to put up war memorials in India to inviting all the overseas dioceses "to give us big policies extending over a term of years." "It means," said Pascoe, the acting secretary, "a survey of the whole world on big lines," with a view to extending the boundaries of the SPG'S domain, the process hamstrung by the war. This call went out in the hope that the bigger the policy the more funds would be released to implement it, or, as Montgomery had put it a little less crassly in 1917, "the finer the ideal the easier it is to get the money."248 These were brave words given the recurring deficits that had reddened the SPG'S books throughout the war years. The society in 1919 was actually faced with a full-scale financial crisis that

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threatened to reduce, among others, its European staff in India. Nor did Montgomery's statements give any hint - even if funds could have been found for salaries - that there were far too few mission candidates coming forward anyway in the first full year of peace.249 There was no pausing to speculate on the reasons for this shortfall but doubtless disenchantment and moral exhaustion, among a host of factors spawned by the war, were high on the list. Ever the hearty cheer-leader, however, Montgomery forged ahead. First and foremost in his mind was the refurbishment and expansion of the SPG'S infrastructure overseas - new buildings here, college extensions there - so that it might compare more favourably with the impressive holdings of the CMS. Although postwar plans called for greater cooperation between the two church bodies, their relationship, as already explained, was never an easy one. Indeed not even the arrival of Armageddon with its supposedly overriding concerns had put a full stop to the backbiting and jostling for advantage that had long plagued it, particularly in India.250 Furthermore, only lukewarm at best in its response to Edinburgh, the SPG was still reluctant to join in a common missionary endeavour with theologically suspect evangelical societies.251 Indeed throughout the war years Montgomery had urged his society to do more work among soldiers and sailors and not let the Nonconformists "get the jump on this."252 Initially, to be sure, the SPG seemed somewhat ambivalent on this score. Thus in 1915, after noting that the "forces of Christendom ... much of it distinctively Protestant... were coming into closer contact the world over," Montgomery allowed that the church "may wish to work with this mighty force." The latter embraced for the most part the so-called Free Churches, which aimed at keeping alive some semblance of the Edinburgh spirit even in the darkest days of the war.253 But for Montgomery and the SPG the price in the end would be too high if such collaboration led to any erosion of the church's "distinctive principles." The issue was then bluntly spelled out in a statement that only served to reinforce the stand taken at Edinburgh: "It will be known to all how much more sensitive Churchmen have become of late years on the subject of co-operation with other religious bodies. This is partly due to the fact that experiments have been tried which have had the effect of lighted matches in a powder magazine rather than union ... Union between the Anglican Church and the great Protestant denominations in religious teaching and life does not make for real union."254 At war's end, in spite of the euphoria, there was no indication that the SPG had any plans to alter its position and open the floodgates to amalgamation. In effect there was to be, if the society had its way, no

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worldwide spiritual league comparable to the global political assembly soon to convene in Geneva. Thus the far-ranging postwar vision of the LMS had no real parallel at Montgomery's headquarters. Again, while some missionary bodies were eager, like the BMS, to talk about the new era that was bound to follow the cataclysm of war, the SPG seemed more intent on making its institutions and its provinces "worthy of its great past" than on using them as a vehicle for transporting it into the future.255 The manpower problems facing the SPG were, generally speaking, common to most societies at the end of the war. Some, however, tackled them more imaginatively than others. The BMS, for example, tracked prospective candidates in the armed forces who had indicated their missionary purpose before enlistment. To its delight it found many of them still firmly committed to the task.256 The society also urgently sent word to one-time medical missionaries who had signed on for military service to return as speedily as possible to their missionary posts. Again it was gratified by the response. In the light of dramatically changing postwar circumstances and with a keen eye to the future, some Baptist mission stations were also urging headquarters to go beyond conventional missionary ranks for recruits. What they had in mind were "special men and women of well tested character" for vital teaching and health care duties in the tropics.257 Thus Baptists in the spiritual trenches were saying that while one kind of war had been won, another and much older one still had to be fought but now, they insisted, with more innovative weapons. Methodists gave hints of sharing these views. Certainly they were aware that the war had posed new challenges for the missionary effort, primarily in the way many Christians at the front had been spiritually transformed by it. Having faced the "sternest realities of life," the conference concluded in 1916, "their whole conception of religion had been immeasurably simplified. At last its essentials stand out in their thought apart from matters of secondary significance."258 Since this supposedly stripped-down wartime generation would now be called upon to fill mission vacancies, it was imperative that its spiritual transformation be taken into account and used to the best advantage. Not surprisingly the Methodist Church and a hopeful WMMS made every effort to provide a warm welcome to co-religionists and especially would-be missionaries returning from war service.259 In the meantime all missionaries, along with countless others in the secular and spiritual worlds, took time out in November 1918 to offer up a fervent thanksgiving for the end of the worst carnage in history. The armistice and its immediate aftermath were variously observed all the way from Piccadilly Circus at the heart of Empire to the remot-

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est mission station on the tropical frontier. "The news of the signing of the Treaty of Peace in Paris ... arrived here yesterday/' typically reported a happy BMS representative from the Congo in late June 1919, "and we all received it with great thankfulness and joy. The flags were all flying and the Missionary Drum & Fife band which is the only musical company in the town paraded the roads and public places playing a programme of their selection consisting of Hymn tunes & National anthems ... "26° When the music ended and the celebrants dispersed, however, they and their colleagues around the globe were under no illusions. All were acutely aware of the challenges that lay in wait for the mission cause and for whatever remained of the "Edinburgh spirit" in a world virtually turned upside down and inside out.

Conclusion

Over the half-century that ended with the armistice in 1918, missions had done battle on a variety of fronts and with diverse foes. Thus at home they had consistently warred against the sins of materialism, secularism, "ethical lethargy," and downright indifference. But overseas had been their paramount theatre of operations, and there they had been preoccupied with the travails of planning and waging their global crusades. Not unlike imperial expansionists, they had willingly shouldered a heavy strategic task, the so-called White Missionary's Burden, an evangelical play on the well-worn cliche of the day.1 This was nothing less than the evangelizing of the world in one generation and it had been rigorously pursued under the general rubric of "good citizenship." Its advocates doggedly subscribed to goals like the following: "Conscious ourselves of having no subtle or selfish ends to serve, we may say it once more ... that we do not seek to extend English influence or sentiment in any ... country. We have no English propaganda at work ..."2 Thus did Methodists speak about such matters in 1898. Fellow evangelicals in the CMS were not far behind. That same year their official magazine categorically declared that it would allow in its pages no "place of prominence" for politics.3 In so doing, it reinforced the point made by the CMS in the mid-i88os that "[we seek] no authority for ourselves and should be prepared to recognize any permanent fixed government. Our objects are quite apart from political questions. On this point there should be no doubt... If once we allow ourselves to be mixed up in political questions [the] confidence in the

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purity of our motives will be shaken."4 At one time or another similar sentiments were voiced by Baptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, particularly the latter when the redoubtable R.W. Thompson was in charge of their overseas affairs. One force deployed under the umbrella of good citizenship was the voluntarism embodied in the concept of spiritual free trade. Restated briefly, missions would assume an arm's-length stance from Caesar and merely request that their servants be allowed a fair field and no favour in which to market their legitimate evangelical wares. In return missions pledged to be disinterested parties and refrain from meddling with the affairs of the imperial state with which they had to deal. This was the policy to which all societies, regardless of confessional differences, were committed in one form or another. Yet the fact remains that their political aloofness was intermittently softened to accommodate flirtations with the state, to the point where mission relations with Caesar were anything if not ambivalent. This was particularly so if the state in question happened to be one's own and seemed committed to policies that accorded with the basic objects of the world's evangelizers. In other words at any given time circumstances might warrant making common cause with empire if such a course favoured the spiritual cause. Indeed missionaries sometimes talked about the benefits of a "true imperialism" almost as much as they sang the praises of spiritual free trade. For them the former represented the ideal situation in which the strategy and purposes of secular expansionism were deemed reasonably compatible with the goals of missionary enterprise. Therefore in certain instances it seemed both wise and prudent to co-opt empire in the worthy pursuit of global evangelization. Baptist John Clifford - the "imperialist before Joseph Chamberlain" - was among those from across the whole spectrum of the missionary movement who welcomed the jubilees and other royal festivals that stimulated popular interest in Britain's political and spiritual sway around the globe. More importantly, these same people were keen on empire because it was a sure means of providing the peace, order, and good government that was often so vital for mission advancement. Both spiritual free trade and true imperialism, however, proved highly vulnerable. To take the former first, it was constantly under attack from the harsh reality of circumstance. However conscientiously they tried, missionaries found it difficult to shed their "Englishness" at the door when their political disinterestedness was rudely thrust into the inhospitable setting of a Boer War, a Boxer Rebellion, or, even worse, a Great War. Moreover while the mission leadership at home might lay down a blanket law of spiritual free trade, cataclysmic

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Conclusion

events on the mission field always had a way of diluting if not rescinding it. To put it another way, the more-or-less rarefied view from a metropolitan headquarters sometimes failed to discern how critical and emotionally charged problems could absorb the troubled agent on the frontier. Similarly, when major moral considerations were on the line, conscientious missionaries could hardly remain silent. As it turned out few of them did in spite of what their mission houses might have to say on the subject of leaving Caesar to his own devices. Periodically, indeed, society secretaries were told, sometimes testily, that it was after all the experienced missionary in the field rather than his far-off superiors who had the vital knowledge and insight for judging crucial issues.5 Certainly Thompson, like many an Imperial administrator across the way in Whitehall, had been subjected from time to time to this stark assertion. This was particularly so during the South African crisis when, to his chagrin, some LMS missionaries became bitter and activist foes of the Boer republics and expected him to follow suit. Again, not a few Methodist agents stationed there had also outpaced their home committee and become vocal patriots. And like militant flag-wavers in political ranks at home, they were wont to demonize an Afrikanerdom that had not only degraded the natives, their mission's special concern, but impertinently challenged the British Empire. All the same the Methodist response, like the LMS one, was by no means monolithic. Clearly some agents were less "rabid" in their denunciations of the Boers and support of the war than their more aggressive colleagues. Though by no means impervious to the gravity of the political and religious stakes, they none the less desperately yearned to get on with the business of evangelizing, war or no war. In the Congo George Grenfell and W.H. Bentley had shared that yearning, albeit in different circumstances. When they stubbornly upheld the rule of good citizenship, even in the face of the CFS'S atrocious treatment of the Congolese, they provided an easy target for the angry recriminations fired off by humanitarians and their own outraged colleagues. Meanwhile, in China, missionaries like the Timothy Richards, J.C. Gibsons, and A.G. Joneses had, at least according to their own lights, respected the status of mandarins and the sovereignty of Manchu emperors. They prided themselves to boot on having raised up a class of trustworthy Chinese Christian citizens that would be a credit to any state. Yet in spite of this they were continually confounded by the Confucian counter-attack on the Christian intrusion. Nor were matters helped when British diplomats took pains to discourage missionary initiatives that threatened the peace and stability of their bailiwicks. Yet when that stability was disrupted by the Boxer Rebellion, watchful

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missionaries quickly seized the opportunity afforded by the West's angry reaction. Exchanging one form of good citizenship for another, as they might have seen it, they had unhesitatingly urged a sympathetic Britain and other powers to intervene against the Boxers and bring Peking and the implicated mandarins to task. In extremis then, embracing the support of the gunboat, the soldier, and the marine was an option beleaguered missions were prepared to take, some, to be sure, more enthusiastically than others. In any event a strict subscription to the rules of spiritual free trade always had its limitations, as most missionaries ruefully discovered. Still, the rules were always there as a cautionary reminder of what ought to be done or not done - a kind of missionary constitution, so to speak - and were constantly trumpeted as the only effective way to cultivate public confidence and trust in the evangelizing endeavour. And not only in the foreign Caesar's court but in their own society as well. On the home front missions were sometimes obliged to fight a nasty war within a war. In effect their militant campaign to evangelize the world as "good citizens" was often put off stride by the flank attacks of hostility, ridicule, or cynical jocularity mounted by British politicians, proconsuls, scholars, journalists, and diplomats.6 These included the much-publicized anti-mission charges laid by Lord Salisbury during the Boxer troubles and the unflattering remarks of the equally magisterial Lord Curzon. In his Problems of the Far East Curzon lashed out at the missions' supposed arrogance, comfortable lifestyle, and disdain for native religions and ethics. His book also made unpleasant innuendos about the "bevies of young girls" and the "rice Christians" recruited for the missionary cause.7 The disenchantment with sniping diplomats and politicians was mild, however, compared to the missions' agonized soul-searching over the long-term implications of the South African War and the Boxer imbroglio. The protracted guerrilla war on the veldt ultimately exposed for many the ugly side of the Pax Britannica once acclaimed as the ally of global evangelization. The ramifications of the Boxer Rebellion only served to fortify the unhappy mood. Although they had been quick off the mark to call for the powers' intervention against Peking, missions minced few words about the questionable way an acquisitive West had consistently exploited the Chinese and implicitly laid the groundwork for the Boxer uprising. In short, there now appeared to be something much less "godly" about Greater Britain. Consorting with it at all had, if anything, identified the missionary's cause in the public mind with the ugly realpolitik of the day, so much so that the feeling grew in mission circles that the sooner a visible disengagement with Caesar was arranged the better.

199 Conclusion

As a consequence the mission leadership reverted not merely to the canon of spiritual free trade but grandly promoted the notion of a "higher citizenship," one that could transcend the divisive allegiances that had brought on the strife and rivalry that so disfigured the international scene. In effect disillusionment with the state prompted missions to look to their own resources for rejuvenation and expansion. At the same time, they took steps in that age of battles and skirmishes to cultivate the development of a "Christian soldiery" and to counter the commercial excesses of imperialism through their own ambitious "Bible and Plough" programs. The keystone of their arch of renewal, however, was the Edinburgh Conference of 1910, which aimed at unifying the work of all missions around the globe. Furthermore this unified missionary enterprise was touted as a counterweight against the global imperialism that had produced dangerous scrambles for power and profits in Africa and Asia. Significantly, in keeping with the spirit of the higher citizenship, this ecumenical exercise was accompanied by a changing attitude toward the native church. Repelled by the West's "policy of grab" that paid little heed to the lot of non-Europeans, missions compensated for it by elevating the status of native Christians and by making greater allowances for the unique contributions they could make to a theology hitherto dominated by the West. It followed that as the native church consolidated its position, mission houses could contemplate, years before Caesar did, a decolonization of their frontier dominions. Thus there was now talk of the political and financial desirability of recalling the spiritual legions. But the "Edinburgh spirit," dogged at the outset by public apathy and the vestiges of an imperial theology, was then assailed by the Great War. The short conflict almost universally prophesied might have done comparatively little damage to mission plans. As hostilities dragged on, however, and as the participants were forced to pledge more and more manpower and treasure to the cause, missions that had sought disengagement from Caesar became almost inextricably involved in the prolonged "national emergency." In spite of the rallying efforts of a John Mott or a J.H. Oldham, Edinburgh's notion of a higher citizenship and the hopes for a worldwide mission comity took a battering.8 Indeed many a missionary was led to ponder the future with dread, especially if their societies also happened to face grave financial peril. To be sure, as the postwar world lengthened out and a measure of "normalcy" and optimism returned, the badly bruised Edinburgh spirit did ultimately revive. But there would have been few in the immediate aftermath of the "greatest conflict in history" who would have dared predict that kind of recovery. In any

2oo Good Citizens

case that later phase of the mission story must be left for other historians and scholars to assemble and analyse. Still, this much can be said about the situation at war's end. The consensus seemed to grow that the war, in spite of its horrendous effects, had toughened the missions' ability to adjust to dramatic change and to overcome unheard-of difficulties. While the SPG tended to look to the past for inspiration and guidance, others, like the BMS, seized the day of the future and armed with lessons learned from wartime experimented with new techniques and strategies to further the cause of evangelization. For its part the CMS read the handwriting on the wall and prepared to divest itself of its property in India and turn it over to "Indian control," a move, shuddered an SPG missionary, that would have "a great influence" all over the subcontinent.9 Some other colleagues did not shudder, however, and looked forward to the day when from the village on up "Indian Christian leaders filled with the ideal of service and understanding" would do much for the modernization of their country.10 Such reflections underscored one cardinal factor. Whatever the missions' relations with Caesar, those relations had added immeasurably to their political education and insight. Arguably, to better understand what they either wished to embrace or conversely keep at arm's length, missionaries had perforce become knowledgeable students of imperial politics and the shifting state of international affairs. Indeed, shorn of its religious allusions, much of what they wrote as good citizens about the bemusing world around them could have passed itself off as sound political commentary. In a sense it reflected the spirit of Henry Venn's mid-Victorian musings on the political involvement of missions. Whether they relished it or not, they still had a role to play in the political order they spent so much time discussing. A generation after the period examined in these pages, a Baptist scholar addressed this point. "It has often been argued," L.H. Marshall observed in the 19405, "that politics is a dirty game which Christians should eschew. But ... the man who plays a true Christian part in [politics] ... is a far nobler type of Christian than the one who avoids politics through fear of being contaminated."11 It could have been a spiritual free trader of an interventionist bent discussing his missionary role at the turn of the century.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

AS Soc. BMS BQ Chronicle CLR CLS CMI CMS CMS A CMS Proceedings GcM IRM LMS MCWMC MF MH MS

PCE, FMC RHL SOAS SPG

Anti-Slavery Society Baptist Missionary Society Baptist Quarterly Chronicle of the London Missionary Society Copies of Letters Received (SPG) Copies of Letters Sent (SPG) Church Missionary Intelligencer Church Missionary Society Church Mission Society Archives (London) Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East General Committee Minutes (BMS) International Review of Missions London Missionary Society Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church microfiche Missionary Herald (BMS) Missionary Sermons: A Selection from the Discourses Delivered on Behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society (London: Carey Press 1924). Presbyterian Church of England, Foreign Missions Committee Rhodes House Library, Oxford School of Oriental and African Studies Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

202 Notes to pages xi-xii WMA WMM WMMS WMN

Women's Missionary Association (PCE) Wesleyan Missionary Magazine Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Wesleyan Missionary Notices, Relating Principally to the Foreign Missions PREFACE

1 In his review of P.G. Robb's study of the British Raj, Ancient Rites and Future Comforts, David Washbrook noted that India's past "has been assailed by revisionist interpretations ... that of policy by theories of discourse: that of administration by analyses of institutional practice. Robb responds to each of these new approaches, seeking to draw out what may be valuable in them but strenuously resisting their wilder flights of fancy. His emphasis on a proper recognition of complexity and the importance of empirical evidence refreshingly reflects 'old fashioned qualities.'" David Washbrook, "Ironies of the Raj/' Times Literary Supplement, (5 September 1997): 28. For his part, John Grigg, the Lloyd George biographer, recently fashioned a general defence of the "traditional" strategies embodied in empirical and narrative methods in "Some Curious Eclipses - Changing Fashions in Historiography," Ibid. (2 May 1997): 13-14. 2 Brian Stanley, " 'Commerce and Christianity': Providence Theory, The Missionary Movement and the Imperialism of Free Trade 1842-1860," Historical Journal 26, no. i (1983): 71-94; and Andrew Porter, " 'Commerce and Christianity': The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth-Century Missionary Slogan," ibid., 28, no. 3 (1985): 597-621. 3 Porter, ibid., 616-19. 4 Regional studies that deal with aspects of this issue are far too numerous to detail here. Among the more notable, however, are the following works, old and new. C.P. Groves, The Planting of Christianity in Africa, 4 vols. (London: Lutterworth Press 1948-58); Roland Oliver, The Missionary Factor in East Africa (London: Longmans 1952); Ake Holmberg, African Tribes and European Agencies: Colonialism and Humanitarianism in British South and East Africa 1870-1895 (Goteborg: Akademiforlaget 1966); J.F.A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 184.1-1891: The Making of a New Elite (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press 1969); Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989); Diane Langmore, Missionary Lives: Papua, 1874-1914 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1989); and Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994).

203 Notes to pages xii-xiii 5 Useful histories of individual missionary bodies include the irreplaceable, fact-filled multi-volume works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as more recent studies. See, for example, Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795-1895, 3 vols. (London: Henry Frowde 1899); Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, Its Men and Its Work, 4 vols. (London: CMS 1899-1916); C.F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the SPG: An Historical Account, 1701-1900 (London: SPG 1901); G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 5 vols. (London: Epworth Press 1921-24); Henry T. Hodgkin, Friends Beyond Seas (London: Headley Bros 1916); and Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society 1792-1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992). To these should be added the more significant general mission histories, such as Charles H. Robinson, History of Christian Missions (Edinburgh: International Theological Library 1915); Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vols. 4 and 5 (New York: Harper 1961,1962); and Max Warren, The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History (London: SCM Press 1965) and his Social History and Christian Mission (London: SCM Press 1967). 6 Dane Kennedy, "Imperial History and Post-Colonial Theory," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 24, no. 3 (1996): 345-63. 7 Ibid., 353. 8 Thus we make use of works such as David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1993) and Johannes Fabian, Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation ofSwahili in the former Belgian Congo 1880-1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986) at strategic points in this book, but do not find them central to the main issue we pursue. 9 For works describing a distinct feminine approach to missionary labour see, for example, F.K. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in NineteenthCentury England (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980); Claudia Knapman, White Women in Fiji 1835-1930; The Ruin of Empire? (London: Allen & Unwin 1986); Helen Callaway, Gender, Culture and Empire: European Women in Colonial Nigeria (London: Macmillan 1987); and a particularly helpful synthesis of much of this in Jeffrey Cox "Independent Englishwomen in Delhi and Lahore 1860-1947" (paper delivered to the American Historical Association, New York, December 1990). 10 Hastings, Church in Africa, 261. 11 Brian Heeney, The Women's Movement in the Church of England 1850-1930 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988), 62. 12 Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty: American Missionary Wives in NineteenthCentury Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1989) xi, 74,126.

204 Notes to pages 3-8 INTRODUCTION

1 Stephen Koss, "Wesleyanism and Empire/' Historical Journal 18, no. i (1975): passim. 2 CMS, G/AC2: C.C.B. Bardsley to Captain Ruxton, 28 Feb. 1911. 3 IRM, 1 (1912):

5-6.

4 W.H.T. Gairdner, Edinburgh 1910; An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier 1910), 84. 5 J. Biggs and I. Sellers, eds., Victorian Nonconformity (London: Edward Arnold 1973), 4, passim. 6 Wilbert R. Shenk, "The Missionary and Politics: Henry Venn's Guidelines," Journal of Church and State, 24, no. 3 (1982): 525-34. CHAPTER ONE

1 BMS, IN44: George Kerry et al. (Calcutta Missionary Conference) to H.L. Harrison (chairman, Calcutta Municipality), 5 May 1881. 2 Niel Gunson, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas, 1797-1860 (Melbourne and New York: Oxford University Press 1978). 3 W.H.T. Gairdner, Edinburgh 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier 1910), 169. 4 Chronicle, Mar. 1892,71. On occasion they acted on those rights. In 1881 an Indian missionary conference successfully challenged a municipal ban on street preaching. BMS, IN44: Kerry to Harrison, 5 May 1881. See also ibid., GCM, U, 21 June 1881,196-7. 5 Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795 to 1^95, vol. 2 (London: Henry Frowde 1899), 661. 6 BMS, CH5: A.G. Jones, Memoranda of Particulars Re (No. I) The Persecution of Christians in China & (No. II) the Position of Isolated Missionaries in China, Aug. 1883,8. 7 A.T. Pierson, "The Market of Missions and the Message of Missions," MH, June 1903, 285-7. 8 Chronicle, June 1910, no. See also MH, Mar. 1901, 74. 9 MH, July 1902,339. 10 Even the reputable Oxford scholar Max Miiller, some of whose best friends were said to be missionaries, could also wield the bromide. See his Collected Works: Last Essays, 2d series (London: Longmans 1901), 320. 11 Chronicle, Sept. 1900, 211-12. 12 MS, 154. 13 Chronicle, May 1903, 99. 14 Ibid., Sept. 1903, 251-2.

205 Notes to pages 9-13 15 LMS, Board Representations to Governments, 1856-1907, Box i: R.W. Thompson to Joseph Chamberlain, i May 1901. 16 Chronicle, Apr. 1895,122-3. 17 Ibid., Mar. 1892, 71. 18 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 7: "Position of the Missionary in Equatorial East Africa," 5 Nov.i886; D.M. Lang to Alexander Mackay, 14 Nov. 1886. 19 PCE, FMC, Box 94: Sir R. Alcock to Lord Stanley, 13 Jan. 1869. 20 Ibid., Alcock to Lord Clarendon, 12 Mar. 1869. 21 Ibid., Mr Wade to Lord Granville, 8 June 1871. 22 BMS, H22, i: T.H. Sanderson (Foreign Office) to A.H. Baynes, 18 Mar. 1893 (printed). 23 RHL, MSS Africa S.ii2, Gerald H. Portal letters: to his wife, 3 May 1889. On this point see H. Alan C. Cairns, Prelude to Imperialism: British Reactions to Central African Society, 1840-1890 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1965), 16-17. 24 BMS, Aig: George Grenfell to Baynes, 13 Apr. 1888. The agent in question was the zealous Graham Wilmot Brooke of the Central London Mission. A genuine Christian soldier, he had been trained at Woolwich before changing course and entering mission work. Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, Its Men and Its Work, vol. 3 (London: CMS 1899), 395. 25 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 9: R.H. Leakey to S. Watt, 4 Nov. 1886; to E.J. Baxter, 4 Nov. 1886. 26 For contemporary mission reaction to this, see Gairdner, Edinburgh, 160-1, and J.R. Mott, The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions (Toronto: Missionary Society of the Methodist Church 1910), chap. 5. 27 LMS, Board Representations: Thompson to G.W. Herbert (Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies), 26 May 1881. 28 CMS, G/AC2, 86: C.C.B. Bardsley to Sir John Kennaway, 2 Jan. 1911. 29 LMS, Board Representations: Thompson to Lord Salisbury, 2 Dec. 1890. 30 Ibid. 31 BMS, HgS: BMS Foreign Secretary to Foreign Office, i July 1914. Yet on the domestic front Baptists had played an active political role in the Nonconformist opposition to the controversial Education Act of 1902. "I wish I were in England to join in the fray," a frustrated Charles Wilson, a BMS missionary, wrote his daughter from India. BMS, 1185, Charles Wilson letters: to Cassie (Wilson), 18 Dec. 1902. 32 CMS, G/ACI, 23: F.E. Wigram to Major Wissmann, 25 July 1890. See also ibid., G3A5: Bardsley to Bishop W.G. Peel, 4 May 1900. 33 RHL, AS. Soc, MSS British Empire 519, Di/8: Travers Buxton to Baron du Teil, 17 Jan. 1911. 34 CMS, G/AC2, letterbook 10: Wigram to Mr Bickerstaff, 18 Aug. 1881; BMS, GCM, Nov. 1883, 379-80.

206

Notes to pages 13-18

35 PCE, FMC, Overseas Box 4: A.B. Neilson to Wm Dale, 11 Jan. 1906. 36 G.H. Rouse, "These Forty Years, 1862-1902," MH, Apr. 1902,131. 37 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Dale, "Our Missions in the Far East," 1907, 56-7. This echoed the kudos of CMS and BMS missionaries in the Japanese home islands. 38 PCE, FMC, Box 418: J.C. Gibson to H.M. Matheson, 19 Nov. 1893; also ibid., 11 Nov. 1894. 39 Ibid., Gibson to Alex Connell, 30 Nov. 1900. 40 Ibid., Gibson to Matheson, 23 Sept. 1882. 41 Ibid., Gibson to Connell, 3 Nov. 1900. 42 SPG, CLR 80: Bishop C.P. Scott to H.W. Tucker, 20 Feb. 1900. 43 BMS, CH2/3: Timothy Richard and Francis James to Sir Henry Perkes, 5 May 1884. 44 Ibid., H22, i: Jones and James to T.G. Grosvenor (charge d'affaires), 5 May 1885. For more specifics, see ibid., J.S. Whitewright to Grosvenor, 5 May 1885; and GCM, X: P.W. Currie (Foreign Office) to Baynes, 3 Feb. 1886. 45 Ibid., CH5: Jones to Baynes, 3 Feb. 1886. 46 See, for example, ibid., Jones correspondence: to Baynes, 6 Aug. 1883. 47 Dale would also collaborate with the SPG in the medical field. SPG, CLS 61: H.H. Montgomery to Scott, 15 Oct. 1906. 48 Ibid., CLS 60: Montgomery to Scott, 2 July 1903; CMS, G/AC2, letterbook 8: Wigram to Mrs Gordon Cummings, 17, 25 June 1880. 49 PCE, FMC: Report, 1905, 28. 50 BMS, GCM,V: A. Jones, North China English Baptist Mission: Conditions, Needs and Claims (n.p., n.d.), 230. 51 Ibid., 225. 52 Ibid., CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 7 Feb. 1884. 53 Ibid., 8 June 1887. 54 Ibid., CH2/3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 12 May 1888. 55 SPG, CLR 22: Lord Kinnaird to Tucker, 10 May 1897 (emphasis added). 56 Chronicle, June 1895,161. 57 Lovett, History of the LMS, vol. i, 339. 58 LMS Home Correspondence, Personal, Box I, S.J.W. Clark Papers: S.J.W. Clark, Confidential Memo, "A Businessman's Notes on a Visit to Missions in Madagascar," 1910. 59 LMS, Board Representations: Thompson to Granville, 14 Dec. 1881. See also ibid., 21 Oct. 1884. 60 Ibid., 14 Dec. 1881, 3 May 1882. 61 Ibid., J.O. Whitehouse to Currie, 31 Dec. 1883; Thompson to Sir Julian Pauncefote (Foreign Office), 23 May 1888. 62 Ibid., Memo on the Case of Rev. John Jones for Salisbury, 31 May 1888. 63 Ibid., Thompson to Salisbury, 19 June 1889. 64 Ibid., 23 June 1888.

2O7 Notes to pages 18-22 65 Lovett, History of the LMS, vol. i, 744-5. 66 For details of the LMS'S early years in Madagascar and its Hova strategy, see ibid., 674-740. The society's court policy is well described by James Sibree, a senior LMS missionary, in LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 13: Sibree to J. Mullens, 14 Sept. 1876. A late overview of the mission is provided by "Outlook in Madagascar," Chronicle, Apr. 1903,84. If a study undertaken for Africa has any relevance here, the successful Hova strategy may well have been exceptional to a general rule, namely, that converting the indigenous ruler did not necessarily guarantee the wholesale conversions of his or her subjects. See Ornulf Gulbrandsen, "Missionaries and Northern Twana Rulers: Who Ruled Whom?" Journal of Religion in Africa 23, no. i (1993): 44. 67 LMS, Board Representations: Whitehouse to Granville, i Dec. 1882. 68 Ibid., Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 13: G.A. Shaw to George Cousins, 16 June 1883. 69 On the Shaw case see ibid., Shaw to Whitehouse, 12 Aug. 1883; and Board Representations: Whitehouse to Granville, 12,18, 24, 31 July, and 30 Aug. 1883. 70 Chronicle, May 1885,140-1. 71 Ibid., Aug. 1886, 353. 72 LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 21: Richardson to Thompson, 6 Jan. 1887. 73 Ibid., James Wills to Thompson, 27 Apr. 1886. 74 Lovett, History of the LMS, vol. i, 792. 75 Chronicle, Sept. 1890, 293. 76 LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 24: Imerina District Committee to Thompson, 2 July 1885. 77 Chronicle, Apr. 1895,122-5. 78 Ibid., June 1886,134. 79 One such recruit was Julie Freydoux, a Swiss national appointed to Madagascar in June 1886. LMS Ladies' Committee Minute Book, i June 1886, 3. 80 Chronicle, Apr. 1896, 78, recounts such declarations made in person to the French Minister for Colonial Affairs on 11 Mar. 1896. 81 LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 27: Imerina District Committee Minutes, 12 Feb. 1897. 82 Chronicle, Aug. 1896,171. 83 Ibid., May 1897,102. 84 Ibid., Mar. 1898, 52. 85 LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 283: Rev. Lord to Cousins, 27 Jan. 1899. 86 Chronicle, Apr. 1897, 86, and June 1897,129. 87 LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 28A: C. Jukes to Thompson, 11 Feb. 1898.

208 Notes to pages 23-30 88 89 90 91 92 93

Ibid., F.R. Johnson to Wills, 9 Feb. 1898. Ibid., C. Ducommen to LMS Board of Directors, 13 May 1899. Chronicle, June 1898,144-8. Ibid., Dec. 1899, 285-6. LMS, Board Representations: Thompson to Lord Kimberley, i May 1895. Ake Holmberg, African Tribes and European Agencies: Colonialism and Humanitarianism in British South and East Africa 1870-1895 (Goteborg: Akademiforlaget 1966), 146. 94 LMS, South Seas Correspondence, Box 45: Ebenezer Cooper to Thompson, 9 Jan. 1899; and S.A. Beveridge to Thompson, 3 Feb. 1899. 95 Ibid., Cooper to Thompson, 9 Jan. 1899. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid., Wm Huckett to Cousins, 10 Jan. 1899. 98 Ibid., 20 Feb. 1899. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., Huckett to Thompson, 20 Mar. 1899. 101 Ibid., J.E. Newell to Thompson, 18 Apr. 1899. 102 Ibid., Huckett to Thompson, 29 Apr. 1899. 103 Ibid., Newell to Thompson, 18 May 1899. 104 Ibid., Beveridge to Thompson, 3 Feb. 1899. 105 Ibid., Newell to Thompson, 19 Mar., 17 Apr. 1899. 106 Ibid., 18 Apr. 1899. 107 Ibid., Mrs Bevan Wookey to Thompson, 16 Apr. 1899. 108 Ibid., Newell to Thompson, 13 June 1899. 109 Ibid., 18 July 1899. no Ibid., Huckett to Thompson, 13 July 1899. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid., A.W. Torlesse to Cousins, 21 Sept. 1899. 113 Ibid., L.C. Stuart to Cousins, 17 Oct. 1899. 114 Ibid., Cooper to Thompson, 21 Nov. 1899. 115 Ibid., Sibree to Thompson, 26 Dec. 1899. 116 Ibid., Huckett to Thompson, 23 Nov. 1899. 117 Ibid., L. Moore to Thompson, 29 Nov. 1899. 118 Chronicle, Dec. 1899, 286. 119 LMS, South Seas Correspondence, Box 45: Huckett to Thompson, 28 Dec. 1899. 120 Chronicle, June 1903,131. 121 For the tangled diplomatic arrangements that led to this, see S.E. Crowe, The Berlin West Africa Conference, 1884-1885 (London: Longmans, Green 1942), part i. 122 BMS, H28,8: Baron Solwyns (Belgian ambassador) to Baynes, 7 Dec. 1877. 123 Ibid., GCM, W: Quarterly meeting, 24 Nov. 1885, 225 ff. For the origins of the mission, consult W. Holman Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo, vol. i

209 Notes to pages 30-2

124 125 126

127

128

129 130

131 132 133 134 135 136

137

(London: Religious Tract Society 1900), chaps. 3 and 5; and Ruth M. Slade, English-Speaking Missions in the Congo Independent State (18781908) (Brussels: Academie Royale des Sciences Coloniales 1959), 78. BMS, GCM, V: Joseph Tritton to Baynes, 9 Nov. 1882, 39-40. Ibid., 21 Nov. 1882, 36. See David Spurr's perceptive The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1993), chap. 6, "Negation." For H.M. Stanley's observations see his In Darkest Africa (London: Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington 1890). For a discussion of this theme, see John W. Griffith, Joseph Conrad and the Anthropological Dilemma: "Bewildered Traveller" (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995), 72. BMS, H27, R32: Bentley to Baynes, 12 June 1888. The highly committed Bentley, like so many of his colleagues, had been motivated to go to the Congo by inspirational missionary literature and the impressive reports of returned missionaries. Ibid., A32: Bentley to BMS Committee, i Feb. 1879. This was a response to a questionnaire. Ibid., GCM, X: 16 Mar. 1886,61-2. For Arthington's contributions, see MH, i Mar. 1882,67-9. The Peace was later joined by the Goodwill. Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 4 May 1902. Grenfell was born a Cornishman but grew up in Birmingham where he lost an eye in an industrial accident. He was converted and baptized in 1865 and later organized the Birmingham Young Men's Baptist Missionary Society, an event that turned out to be the prelude to his own missionary work. After studying at Bristol College, he applied for service in the Congo and was strongly recommended by veteran missionaries and local business people. See BMS, Ri4: Candidates' Board, 5 Nov. 1874; and M.A. Smith, "Peace and Goodwill: George Grenfell on the Congo," i, BQ 35, no. 3 (1993): 142. BMS, A3i, Bentley to Baynes, 6 Apr. 1904. Ibid., A2O, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 6 Dec. 1904. Ibid., GCM, W: Quarterly meeting, 15 July 1885, 334-5. Ibid., Z: 17 Sept. 1889, 218. Ibid., Aig: Grenfell to Baynes, 7 Dec. 1885. Ibid., Grenfell to Baynes, 4 Aug. 1893. This was not an isolated case on the tropical frontier. A fellow Baptist in India, for example, once served as chairman of a municipality, and when that proved too time consuming he settled for being an honorary magistrate. Ibid., IN43, W.J. Rouse correspondence: to Baynes, 13 Oct. 1893. Ibid., Aig: Grenfell to Baynes, 15 Aug. 1891, 9 Apr. 1893. On his expansionist plans, see George Hawker, The Life of George Grenfell: Congo Missionary and Explorer (New York: F.H. Revell 1909), chap. 17; and "BMS: noth Annual Report," MH, May 1902,155-6; May 1903, 262. Helpful

2io

138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

151 152 153 154

155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

165 166

Notes to pages 32-5

insights into expansionism and discovery generally are provided in Morag Bell, Robin Butlin, and Michael Heffernan, eds., Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1995). BMS, Aig, Grenfell correspondence: Joseph Clarke to Grenfell, 20 Aug. 1891. MH, i May 1892,218. BMS, A32: Baynes to Bentley, 31 Jan. 1888. Ibid., Ai9: Grenfell to Baynes, 23 Oct. 1893. Ibid., 23 June 1888. For more, see ibid., Grenfell to General Secretary, 25 Mar. 1890; A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 9 Oct. 1897. Ibid., Grenfell to Baynes, 25 Sept. 1891. Ibid., 23 June 1893. Ibid., GCM, BB: 17 Nov. 1891, 87-8. Ibid., Ai9: Grenfell to Baynes, 23 June 1890. Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 23 Oct. 1896. Ibid., 3 Dec. 1895. Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992), 125. BMS headquarters were constantly on the lookout for economies in its Congo operation, which regularly accounted for nearly a quarter of the society's working budget. BMS, Aig: Grenfell to Baynes, 16 Apr. 1895. Ibid., Grenfell to Thomas Comber et al., 21 Mar. 1881. Ibid., GCM, U: 16 Nov. 1880. Ibid.,W: Quarterly meeting, 15 July 1885, 340-1. When Bentley later prepared his Pioneering on the Congo, he requested and received the full document. BMS, A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 11 Sept. 1899. Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 21 Nov. 1904. Ibid., 23 Jan. 1899. Ibid., Aig, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 6 July 1903,21 Nov. 1904. Ibid., 27 Apr. 1902. Ibid., A32: Baynes to Bentley, 31 Jan. 1888. Ibid., Grenfell to J.H. Weeks, 31 Jan. 1898 (copy). Ibid., A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 13 May 1899. Brian Stanley, "Nineteenth Century Liberation Theology: Nonconformist Missionaries and Imperialism," BQ 32, no. i (1987): 15. BMS, A3i: Grenfell to Baynes, 21 Feb. 1898. Ibid., 23 Jan. 1896. See also Hawker, Grenfell, 503-4. Some CFS officials on the spot did indeed act like the evil force in Joseph Conrad's Congobased Heart of Darkness. See Griffith, Joseph Conrad, 127. BMS, A3i: Grenfell to Baynes, 23 Jan. 1896. LMS, Board Representations: Board to Lord George Hamilton (Secretary of State for India), 10 Nov. 1897.

211 Notes to pages 36-40 167 168 169 170

SPG, CLS 37: Tucker to Archbishop of Canterbury, 3 July 1891. Holmberg, African Tribes, 1-30. Ibid., 95-7. For the background and details of Khama's career, see J. Mutero Chirenje, ChiefKgama and His Times, c. 1835-1923: The Story of a Southern African Ruler (London: Rex Ceilings 1978). For the latest work on this monarch see Neil Parsons, King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1998). 171 Chronicle, Aug. 1895, 203, and Oct. 1895,251. 172 Ibid., Oct. 1895,257. 173 LMS, Board Representations: Thompson to R.H. Meade, (Under-secretary of State for the Colonies), 8 Oct. 1895. See also Chirenje, Chief Kgama, especially chap. 2. 174 Chronicle, Nov. 1895, 281-5,3*6175 Ibid., 296. 176 LMS, Board Representations: Thompson to Meade, i Nov. 1897. 177 Ibid. 178 Gordon Martel, "Cabinet Politics and African Partition: The Uganda Debate Reconsidered," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 13, no. i (1984): 5-24. CHAPTER TWO

1 J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (1938; reprint, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press 1965), 211-16. 2 MH, i May 1892,153. These comments would be strongly echoed in other quarters. See, for example, IRM, i (1912): 8. 3 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 3: Committee Instructions to A.D. Shaw, 21 Apr. 1885. 4 Ibid., G/AC2, 65: H.E. Fox to F.J. Hamilton, 20 Jan. 1899. 5 CMSA, G/AKI (p.): W.S. Standen (?) to F.E. Wigram, 25 Aug. 1890. See also Eugene Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 3 (London: CMS 1899), 30, 288. Some critics, to be sure, were wary of workingclass recruits because they were seen as a "troublesome element" that would be "less self-denying and less easily satisfied than gentlemen volunteers." CMSA, G/AKI (p.): W.S. Price to Rev. Morris, 12 Mar. 1891. Arguably, most missionaries were still being drawn from a "middling class," made up of upwardly mobile skilled workers, budding professionals, and petite bourgeoisie, a combination that defied any easy classification. See C.P. Williams, " 'Not Quite Gentlemen': An Examination of 'Middling Class' Protestant Missionaries from Britain, c. 1850-1900," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31, no. 3, (1980): 301-2.

212 Notes to pages 40-2 6 SPG, CLS 37: clipping from Church Times, 20 Feb. 1885,154. 7 BMS, A2o: George Grenfell to A.H. Baynes, 13 May 1901. Though this has not happened, Grenfell would have been pleased that an Africa propelled by the missionary movement would eventually have more professing Christians than any other continent. See Andrew Walls, "The Evangelical Revival, the Missionary Movement, and Africa," in Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990, ed. M.A. Noll, D.W. Bebbington, and G.A. Rawlyk (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994), 314-15. Walls republished this essay in his The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY and Edinburgh: Orbis Books and T&T Clark 1996), 79 ff. 8 SPG,CLRii7: Grand Demonstration in the Town Hall (on the occasion of the SPG centenary, 1900). 9 For a perceptive analysis of those varied factors, see David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1993). 10 The missionary's contribution to the imperial literary genre is considered in Cheryl McEwan, " 'The Mother of all the Peoples': Geographical Knowledge and the Empowering of Mary Slessor," in Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940, ed. Morag Bell, Robin Butlin, and Michael Heffernan (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1995), 129-30. 11 SPG, CLR 23: W.L. Nanson to H.W. Tucker, 25 Oct. 1899. 12 MH, i June 1892,254. 13 RHL, Lugard Papers, British Empire MSS 544,15: Stehlmann's translation (n.d.). 14 Chronicle, June 1899,141. Or what Max Warren would dub the "Church Imperial." See his "The Church Militant Abroad: Victorian Missionaries," in The Victorian Crisis of Faith, ed. Anthony Symondson (London: SPCK 1970), 64-7. 15 Chronicle, June 1899,145-7. 16 SPG, £43 (Asia): T. Williams' Report, 31 Mar. 1888. 17 See W. Neil, "The Criticism and Theological Use of the Bible, 1700-1950," in Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. S.L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1963), 287. 18 See H. John Field, Toward a Programme of Imperial Life: The British Empire at the Turn of the Century (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1982); and A.P. Thornton, The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies (London: Macmillan 1959), 51-2. 19 J.G. Greenlee," 'A Succession of Seeleys': The 'Old School' Re-examined," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 4, no. 3 (1976): 266 ff.

213 Notes to pages 42-7 20 The author went on to complain, however, that the country still lacked an Imperial historian, "the man who shall do for Seeley what the Herschels did for Newton." A.W. Jose, The Growth of the Empire: A Handbook to the History of Greater Britain (Sydney: Angus & Robertson 1897), vii-yiii. 21 Chronicle, May 1886,197-8. A colleague was similarly moved, waxing eloquent on "our unabated faith in God and His redeeming purpose toward our race ..." Ibid., August 1901,190 ff. 22 MH, Apr. 1902,131. 23 Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1901 (MCWMC) (London 1901), 415. 24 Chronicle, May 1902,104. 25 A.N. Porter, "Late Nineteenth Century Anglican Missionary Expansion," in Religious Motivation, ed. D. Baker (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1978), 349-6526 WMMS, Ninetieth Report (1904), 3. See also James Denney, "The Missionary Motive," MS, 26 Apr. 1911, 229. 27 BMS, CH2/3, Timothy Richard Correspondence: to Baynes, 8 Mar. 1884. 28 Ibid., CH3: Richard to Baynes, 6 July 1896. 29 SPG, CLS 39: Rev. Dodson's speech, 10 Apr. 1907. 30 Quoted in L.H. Marshall, The Challenge of New Testament Ethics (1946; reprint, London: Macmillan 1966), 81-2. 31 Chronicle, Sept. 1895, 235. Another source reveals that in the period 189095, the CMS missionary band, including laymen and women, grew from 279 to 409. CMSA, G/AKI (p.). Even so, the supply was judged inadequate. 32 G.H. Rouse, "These Forty Years, 1862-1902," MH, Apr. 1902,133; and Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992), 223. 33 Chronicle, Aug. 1891, 228. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., June 1891,177. 36 Wesleyan Missionary Notices (WMN), sixth series, vol. 7, for 1892 (London 1892), 91. 37 Chronicle, June 1899,141. 38 CMS Proceedings, 1898-9, Annual Report 1899,41. It should be noted that he gave the speech only months before the outbreak of the South African War. 39 Ibid., Rev. J.S. Perowne, "The Paramount Claims of Foreign Missions," 652-3; also printed in CMi, 23 (Feb. 1898): 84-6. 40 Chronicle, June 1900,153. 41 V. Bartlet, "Imperialism and the Gospel," Chronicle May 1902,103-4. 42 J.G. Greenhough, "The Missionary Obligation," MS, 29 Apr. 1896, 264-5. 43 G.C. Lorimer, "Living and Dying Nations," MH, 27 Sept. 1898,177. 44 Chronicle, June 1900,153. 45 Ibid., June 1899,149.

214 Notes to pages 47-50 46 J.C. Bateman, John Clifford: Free Church Leader and Preacher (London: S.W. Partridge 1904), 204. 47 Greenhough, "Missionary Obligation/' 263. 48 CMS, G/ACI, letterbook 23,107: J.B. Myers, ed., Centenary Volume of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1892 (London: BMS 1892), 73, 76. Methodists were grateful too when the visit of the King-Emperor in 1911 appeared to strengthen the loyalty of the Indian people, thus easing the work of evangelization. WMMS, Ninety-eighth Report (1912), i. 49 MH, i Jan. 1882,4. 50 SPG, CLR 21: A. Brinckman to Tucker, 2 July 1889. 51 BMS, GCM, V: Quarterly meeting, 17 Jan. 1883, 94-5: Report of Serampore College, 30 Dec. 1882 (clipping). 52 SPG, £43 (Asia): A.C. Laughlin's Report, Sept. 1888,61. 53 CMS, G/AC2, 64: Fox to Rev. C. Neil, 5 Oct. 1898. 54 BMS, GCM, W: 16 Dec. 1884,166-7. 55 See Byron Farwell, Queen Victoria's Little Wars (New York and London: Norton 1985). 56 Olive Anderson, "The Growth of Christian Militarism in Mid-Victorian Britain," English Historical Review 86 (Jan. 1971): 46. 57 Chronicle, June 1900,153 (an article by J. King). 58 BMS, H3i, R32, Robert Arthington letters: to Baynes, 9 Dec. 1885. 59 James Culross, "To What Purpose Is This Waste?" MS, 6 Oct. 1885,136. 60 CMS, G/ACI, 22: Extract from a letter from Rev. Dr Koelle, 25 Oct. 1879, 56 ff. 61 Such memorials had been budgeted for but not acted upon - presumably for political reasons - in the Mutiny's immediate aftermath. SPG, CLS 13: Tucker to Bishop of Calcutta, 9 Nov. 1888. The sort of evocation described here did not die with the Victorian age. A full half-century later a CMS publication commemorating the coronation of George VI rejoiced that India had been saved by the Lawrences, thus making possible the society's work in the Punjab. "How the CMS Has Served the Empire," Church Missionary Outlook, May 1937,109-11. For earlier eulogies, see CMS Proceedings, 1898-9, Aug. 1899,656. 62 As to be expected, however, High Churchmen in the SPG looked askance at the Salvation Army's unabashed populism. See SPG, CLR 22: G.H. Westcott to Tucker, 22 Nov. 1895. 63 Owen Whitehouse, "Hidden Victory," Chronicle, July 1900,183-4. 64 Chronicle, June 1899,149. 65 Ibid., Aug. 1891,229. 66 Ibid., May 1902,102. 67 MH, July 1903, 356-7. 68 CMI, 23 (Aug. 1898): 571. 69 SPG, CLS 94: Bishop H.H. Montgomery to Bishop Tugwell, 12 Dec. 1912.

215 Notes to pages 50-2 70 In a sense the concept was a refinement of the "Muscular Christianity" of the mid-century. See Peter Gay, "The Manliness of Christ/' in Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: Essays in Honor ofR.K. Webb, ed. R.W. Davis and R.J. Helmstadter (London and New York: Routledge 1992), 102. 71 George Cousins of the LMS typically contrasted "manly vigour" with "female tenderness" (Chronicle, Jan. 1893,25)/a male conceit that is effectively challenged in Diane Langmore, Missionary Lives: Papua, 1874-1914 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1989), 184. The myth of female invalidism is nicely explored in M.J. Peterson, Family, Love and Work in the Lives of Victorian Gentlewomen (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 1989), 58-68. 72 McEwan, " 'The Mother of all the Peoples,' "125. 73 For an example of Mary Cockin's feistiness, see LMS, Madagascar Correspondence, Box 16: Mary Cockin to R.W. Thompson, 28 Apr. 1881. For Lilly Whyte's impressive career, see LMS, J. Sibree, London Missionary Society: A Register of Missionaries ...from 1796 to 1923. On the general subject of the LMS'S comparatively liberal policy on female missionaries, see Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795 to 1895, vol. 2 (London: Henry Frowde 1899). Some missionary wives could also have qualified for a commendation. See Hilary M. Carey, "Companions in the Wilderness? Missionary Wives in Colonial Australia, 1788-1900," Journal of Religious History 19, no. 2 (1995): 242 ff. 74 see chronicle,1882, 175 and H. Alan V.Clairms brit ish Reactions to Central African Society, 1840-1890 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1965), 25 ff. 75 See Alan Sandison, The Wheel of Empire (London: Macmillan 1977); and Rupert Wilkinson, The Prefects: British Leadership and the Public School Tradition (London: Oxford University Press 1964), especially chap. 9. 76 See Gertrude Himmelfarb, Victorian Minds (New York: Knopf 1968), chap. 10. 77 BMS, IN44, G.H. Rouse's Speeches and Notes: Speech to the Baptist Union, 17 Aug. 1892. 78 CMS, G/AC2,64: Fox to R.M. Smythe (undated). 79 BMS, Ai9, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 8 Nov. 1887. 80 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 3: D. Lang to Bishop Peel, 22 Apr. 1887 (private and confidential). 81 The number of the insignia varied, depending on whether the bearer was a priest, a deacon, or a lay agent. RHL, Coryndon Papers, MSS Africa S. 633,8.17, i: H. Burns to R.H. Leakey, 13 Sept. 1904. 82 "China: Report of the Recent Deputation," MH, i May 1892,196; BMS, cn6: A.G. Jones to Baynes, 26 Dec. 1892. The city in question was Chinan Foo, the reputed birthplace of Confucius.

216 Notes to pages 52-5 83 BMS, n85, Charles Wilson letters: to his mother, 17 Dec. 1894. Understandably Wilson's letters to family and close friends were usually far more candid than his official correspondence. 84 WMN, for 1892, (London 1892), 92-3. The WMMS centennial history, prepared during the Great War, perhaps understandably talked in similar vein about the "Weapons of Our Warfare." Ironically, however, it made no explicit reference to the war itself. G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vol. 5 (London: Epworth Press 1924), chap. 2. 85 BMS, CH2, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 11 June 1885. 86 Ibid., AJI: W.H. Bentley to Baynes, 10 Dec. 1902, (emphasis added). 87 Ibid. 88 Chronicle, June 1883,209. 89 See CMS, G3A5, letterbook 7: Baylis to Rev. Roscoe, 23 Nov. 1893. 90 Ibid., G/AC2,64: Fox to W.H. Priest, 8 Sept. 1898. 91 MH, i Dec. 1892,475. These were the words of Rouse, a biblical translator in India. 92 CMS, G/AC2,65: Fox to KB. Maule, 26 Sept. 1898. Figuratively speaking, this errant agent was a candidate for the mission equivalent of a white feather. 93 Ibid., Fox to Miss L. Bolton, 20 June 1899; to Archbishop of Dublin, 24 Nov. 1899. 94 See CMS Proceedings, 1896-1897, Annual Report, 1-3. 95 BMS, 1185, Wilson letters: to Louie (Wilson), 28 Apr. 1897. 96 Ibid. 97 For an examination of this question see Brian Stanley, " 'Commerce and Christianity/ Providential Theory, the Missionary Movement, and the Imperialism of Free Trade, 1842-1860," Historical Journal 26, no. i (1983): 71-94; and A.N. Porter's revisionist " 'Commerce and Christianity': The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth Century Missionary Slogan," ibid., 28, no. 3 (1985): 597-621. 98 Thus, a Methodist missionary speaking at Exeter Hall recalled how in 1856 he and others had condemned the "narrow, selfish, and secretive" policy of the company that had "cared sharply for revenue" but neglected "absolutely the people of its charge." WMN, vol. i, for 1877 (London 1877), 140. The missionary was Rev. Ebenezer E. Jenkins. 99 SPG, CLS 6: Montgomery to Bishop of Bombay, 30 May 1913. Long aware of this penchant for "financial self-seeking," most societies had taken steps to expose and discourage it. Williams, " 'Not Quite Gentlemen/ " 303-4. 100 SPG, CLS 40: C.F. Pascoe to Canon Dodson, 27 Feb. 1911. 101 Canadian Baptist Archives, McMaster Divinity College: Report of the Canadian Baptist Telegu Mission, 1884, 22.

217 Notes to pages 55-8 102 103 104 105

SPG, £43 (Asia): Report of Wordsworth-Jones (Rangoon), 25 Jan. 1888. BMS, CH5, A.G. Jones correspondence: to Baynes, i Sept. 1884. Ibid., GCM, Z: 17 Dec. 1889, 250-1. RHL, British East Africa, MSS 522/04: Extract from the Minutes of the CMS General Committee of May 13 1889. Indeed some missionaries tended to look upon their stations as so many profitable real estate investments. 106 Ibid., Wigram to Powell Buxton, 11 Sept. 1891; CMS, G/AC2, 65: Fox to R Sellwood, 29 May 1899. 107 CMS, G/AC2,64: Fox to F. Shippain, 18 Aug. 1898. 108 Ibid., 9: Wilkinson to Bishop Clangton, 8 Apr. 1881. 109 SPG, CLS 38: Montgomery to G.H. Smith et al., Oct.-Dec. 1906,431 ff. no W.L. Watkinson, "The Destiny of Israel and of England," MS, 5 Oct. 1897, 205. in RHL, Lugard Papers, b.i55, f.i, clipping: letter to the Times editor from P.M. Hodgson, Colonial Secretary, Gold Coast. 112 Chronicle, May 1887,209. 113 BMS, Ai9, Grenfell correspondence: to the editors of London dailies, 24 July 1888. 114 Ibid., 1185, Wilson letters: to Amy (Wilson), 6 Dec. 1913. 115 For other habits that could have proved off-putting to missionaries, see Valerie Packenham Out in the Noonday Sun: Edwardians in the Tropics (New York: Random House 1985), chap. 4. 116 BMS, 1185, Wilson letters: to parents, 28 Jan. 1895. Bishop Montgomery of the SPG agreed about the inflated salaries of professionals and commercial agents, sourly observing that such people only went to India for the "large pay." SPG, CLS 14: Montgomery to Bishop of Calcutta, 14 Dec. 1900. 117 SPG, 143 (Asia): R.R. Winter to Tucker, 3 Mar. 1888. 118 Chronicle, Jan. 1893, 2; WMMS, South Africa Correspondence, Transvaal 1901: George Lowe to Marshall Hartley, 10 May 1901. 119 "Editorial Notes," WMN, for 1892, 23, 33; SPG, CLR 109: Westcott to Tucker, 25 Nov. 1889, n May 1891; CLS 89: Tucker to Archbishop of Canterbury, 23 Mar. 1895. 120 MH, Aug. 1902,368. 121 LMS, South Africa 1901: Reed to Thompson, 20 Dec. 1900 (MF 971). 122 Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994), 432. 123 IRM, 4 (1915): 46. 124 BMS, H85, Wilson letters: to Wm (Wilson), 13 May 1895; CMS, G3A5, letterbook 4: Douglas Hooper to Leakey, 18 Aug. 1886. For example, the BMS'S spanking new turn-of-the-century quarters in Calcutta came complete with verandahs, baths, and electric lighting. MH, Oct. 1902,458-9.

218 Notes to pages 58-61 125 J.A. Joyce, "What Lancashire Owes to India," Chronicle, Apr. 1903, 77-8. 126 Bateman, Clifford, 218. 127 See Melvin Richter, The Politics of Conscience: T.H. Greene and His Age (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1964). 128 Church Missionary Gleaner (CMS), 27 (i Dec. 1900). 129 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 7: Bardsley to Matthew Wellington, 20 Mar. 1894. 130 Gleaner, 25 (1898), 177. 131 "BMS: mth Annual Report," MH, May 1903, 232. 132 CMSA, G/AKI (p): Report of Sub-Committee (B) on Industrial Work in CMS Missions, appointed 14 October 1890. 133 SPG, CLR 22: Westcott to Tucker, 20 Nov. 1893. 134 Chronicle, Jan. 1904, 8. 135 Jon Miller, The Social Control of Religious Zeal: A Study of Organizational Contradictions (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 1994), 15, 72-3. 136 RHL, AS Soc., MSS British Empire 519, 01/4: Travers Buxton to Powell Buxton, 13 July 1908. 137 BMS, A2O, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 30 Jan. 1906. 138 LMS, South Africa 1901 (MF 972): clipping submitted by an LMS missionary. 139 Times, 25 Sept. 1899,8. 140 E.D. Morel's comments appeared in 1904 in the West African Times and were relayed to Baynes by Grenfell. BMS, Aao, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 10 Feb. 1905. 141 Chronicle, Feb. 1904, 71. 142 T.F. Victor Buxton, "Missions and Industries in East Africa," Journal of the African Society, 6 (1907): 281-7. 143 Stephen Koss, "Wesleyanism and Empire," Historical Journal 18, no. i (1975): 105. 144 Chronicle, Sept. 1887,371-6. 145 Ibid., Nov. 1894, 249. 146 RHL, British East Africa, MSS sw.22,04. But there was another side to the coin. See an undated and unsigned memo on how the British East Africa Company eased the task of the missionary traveller, in ibid., G 5A. 147 James T. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions, vol. i (New York: F.H. Revell 1907), viii. 148 Centenary Volume of the BMS, 123-4. 149 SPG, £43 (Asia): Laughlin's Report, Sept. 1888,57-8; J.R. Hill's Report, 20 Nov. 1888,157. 150 MH, i Sept. 1892, 365. He went so far as to suggest that distinguished academics such as Oxford's renowned Max Miiller were deeply indebted to mission scholarship. It may well have been the other way around, however. As noted, Miiller was often critical of the evangelizing work of

219 Notes to pages 62-3

151 152

153 154 155 156 157 158

159 160

161

162 163 164

missions. All the same, a recent study supports the missionary's view. See Andrew Walls, "The Nineteenth Century Missionary as Scholar," in Missionary Movement in Christian History, 187-98. W. Holman Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo, vol. i (London: Religious Tract Society 1900), preface, 8. Johannes Fabian, Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation ofSwahili in the Former Belgian Congo, 1880-1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986), 2-3. In the course of his philological pursuits, Bentley discovered that the "harsh and uncouth" regional dialects of Central Africa were no match for the lingua franca he came to study in depth, the "highly cultured and beautiful form" of Kongo spoken at the old native capital. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language ..., (London: BMS 1887), xxi. Not surprisingly, the book was dedicated to the BMS'S Congo patron, Leopold II of Belgium. SPG, CLR 23: Edward H. Buck to Montgomery, 21 Dec. 1905. LMS, South Africa, 1901: W.C. Willoughby to Thompson, 30 Oct. 1901 (MF 968, Box 59). SPG, £44 (Asia): T. Williams' Report (Rewan, Lahore), 31 Mar. 1889. CMS, G3A5, letterbook 7: Baylis to A.N. Wood, 28 Feb. 1896. Jan Vansina, "Towards a History of Lost Corners in the World," Economic History Review 35, no. 2 (1982): 166-7. Peter G. Forster, "Missionaries and Anthropology: The Case of the Scots of Northern Malawi," Journal of Religion in Africa 16, no. 2 (1986): 108. For additional insights and references, see Walls, "The Nineteenth Century Missionary as Scholar," 195-6. SPG, CLS 14: Montgomery to Diocesan Secretaries in India, i Mar. 1904. BMS, Aig: Grenfell to Baynes, 24 Feb. 1888. See also Virginia Berridge, "Victorian Opium-Eating: Responses to Opiate Use in Nineteenth Century Society," Society for the Social History of Medicine, Bulletin 22 (June 1978): 12-13. The details may be found in BMS, GCM : 16 June 1885 (312-13), and ibid., Aig: Grenfell to Baynes, 7 Nov. 1887,24 Feb. 1888. This institution, founded by Ronald Ross, was a rival to Patrick Manson's London School of Tropical Medicine. These co-discoverers of the mosquito carrier of malaria had fallen out over personal and methodological issues. For Bentley's thoughts on the treatment of malaria and sleeping sickness, see Pioneering on the Congo, 435-9 (appendix 3); and BMS, A32: "In the Land of the Sleeping Sickness: An Interview with Rev. Dr W. Holman Bentley," Great Thoughts, 360 (clipping). Watkinson, "Destiny of Israel and of England," 209-10. Similar sentiments were expressed in Jose's Handbook, 11 ff. SPG, CLR 22: L. Klugh to Tucker, 30 Jan. 1896. As recorded in BMS, 1198, Memoranda File.

220 Notes to pages 63-5 165 KB. Welbourne, "Missionary Stimulus and African Responses," in Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960, vol. 3, Profiles of Change, African Society and Colonial Rule, ed. Victor Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1971), 322. 166 BMS, GCM, V: A.G. Jones, North China English Baptist Mission: Conditions, Needs and Claims (n.p., n.d.), 224. Post-modernists who belittle attempts by one culture to appropriate the "voice" of another would have little time for Jones's notion. For a discussion of this factor, see Clifford Geertz, "Culture War," New York Review of Books 42, no. 19 (1995), 4-6. 167 BMS, A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 11 Dec. 1902. 168 Ibid., A 19: Grenfell to Baynes, 23 Oct. 1893. 169 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 8: F. Baylis to et al., 22 Oct. 1897; letterbook 10: to Bishop Peel, 7 Dec. 1908. 170 LMS, Field Correspondence, Madagascar, Box 28-A: Wm Cousins to Thompson, 16 Jan. 1898. 171 Chronicle, Apr. 1905,136. 172 BMS, Aig: Grenfell to Baynes, 23 Oct. 1893. 173 Ibid., 28 Nov. 1885. 174 Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 17 Apr. 1898. 175 Ibid., A 19: Grenfell to Baynes, 22 Aug. 1890. 176 Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 8 Nov. 1898; 28 Feb. 1899. The point was also conceded by the SPG. SPG, CLS 93: Montgomery to R. Pemberton, 29 Mar. 1912. 177 The background to the proposal is presented in a file marked "Comments on the Congo Missions (Question No. 15)," BMS, 1127, R32. 178 MH, Jan. 1903,6. See also BMS, A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 27 Dec. 1902. 179 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 3,1886. 180 BMS, A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 18 Jan. 1906. 181 Ibid., 21 Mar. 1905; CMS, GJAJ, letterbook 7: Bardsley to Tucker, 29 Sept. 1893. 182 CMS, G/AC2,64: General Committee Resolution, 13 Dec. 1898; Committee of Correspondence, 6 Dec. 1898. 183 BMS, A2o: Grenfell to Leopold II, 10 Aug. 1903. 184 Meeting of the General Committee, WMMS, 27 May 1885, WMN, fifth series, vol. 3, for 1885 (London 1885), 217; SPG, CLS 88: Tucker to Bishop Mackenzie, 25 June 1885. 185 Brian Stanley, "Nineteenth Century Liberation Theology: Non-conformist Missionaries and Imperialism," BQ 32, no. i (1987): 14-15. For some, however, this amounts to hair-splitting. In addition to Stanley, consult Langmore, Missionary Lives, 211-18; Niel Gunson, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas, 1797-1860 (Melbourne and New York: Oxford University Press 1978), 142; Ake Holmberg, African Tribes and European Agencies: Colonialism and Humanitarianism in British

221 Notes to pages 65-7

186

187 188 189 190 191

192

193

194

195 196 197

198 199

South and East Africa 1870-1895 (Goteborg: Akademiforlaget 1966); and Max Warren, The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History (London: SCM Press 1965) 73-5. SPG, £44 (Asia): W.H. Elton, "My First Year ... i889"(3o Sept. 1889), 877. Other missionaries were only too mindful of what could happen if law and order broke down. Thus when Methodist missionaries learned in 1885 that their ally, the forceful Sir Charles Warren, was to be recalled from Bechuanaland, they immediately feared for its hard-won tranquillity. General Committee Meeting, WMMS, 14 Oct. 1885, WMN, vol. 3, 1885, 307-8. Chronicle, Oct. 1894, 226. Ibid., June 1893,170. BMS, H3i, R32, Arthington letters: to Baynes, 6 May 1883; to LMS, BMS, Free Church of Scotland, 5 Dec. 1887. CMS, G/AC2,64: Fox to Archbishop of York, 4 Oct. 1898. For similar Baptist sentiments, see BMS, GCM, AA: 17 Feb. 1891, 208-9. BMS, GCM, Z: 18 Nov. 1890,68 ff. A decade later the Baptist Union adopted a resolution to appoint a committee to report on the desirability of "promoting a closer union between the Baptists of the Colonies and ourselves ..." Baptist Union Committee Minute Book, 15 Jan. 1901, 31. Eventually, out of this and other initiatives, predictably spearheaded by the likes of John Clifford, came the formation of the Baptist Colonial Society on 27 April 1910. For the details, see W.H.T. Gairdner, Edinburgh 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier 1910), 13. A case in point was the convening in the late 18805 of the General Conference of Foreign Missions, to which the BMS, the WMMS, and the CMS sent delegates. BMS, GCM, X: 14 Dec. 1886, 246 ff. The same missionary, however, made the hard-nosed point to the SPG secretary that such get-togethers might at least ensure that "we would never act against each other." CMS, G/AC2, 66: Fox to Tucker, 28 Dec. 1899. PCE, FMC, Box 99: Report, 1905,10. Gleaner, 25 (1898), 170. The quote is from Byron Farwell, Mr. Kipling's Army: All the Queen's Men (New York and London: Norton 1987 ed.), 79. General Committee Meeting, WMMS, WMN, vol. 3,114. See also ibid., 66, for references to Methodist work among army and navy personnel generally. See Anderson, "The Growth of Christian Militarism," 48. CMS, G/AC2, 65: Fox to J.K. Lethbridge, 24 May 1899. For a somewhat different view of the officer's priorities, see Farwell, Mr. Kipling's Army, chap. 4.

222 Notes to pages 67-72 200 SPG, CLR 22: H. Whitehead to Tucker, 2 Jan. 1894. 201 C.I. Hamilton, "Naval Hagiography and the Victorian Hero," Historical Journal 23, no. 2 (1980): 386-8. 202 Bateman, Clifford, 217. Clifford was among those attending the Baptist World Congress in 1905 who also urged the establishment of a "Baptist Colonial Society." Graham W. Hughes, "Jubilee of the Baptist Commonwealth and Colonial Society," BQ, 14 (1951-52): 253-4. 203 BMS, IN44: Rouse to Baynes, 6 Apr. 1881; N.Y. Fullerton, "The God and the Heathen Also," MS, 300-1. 204 Sir James Marchant, Dr. John Clifford: Life, Letters and Reminiscences (London: Cassell 1924), 99. 205 The quoted phrase appeared in Centenary Volume of the BMS, 155. See also MS, 155-6. 206 BMS, IN44, Rouse correspondence: to Baynes, 28 July 1900. 207 Ibid., 14 Dec. 1897. 208 SPG, CLR 23: Nanson to Tucker, 26 Apr. 1900. 209 Baptist Union of Scotland, Presidential address, 1900, Scottish Baptist Year Book, 1901,118. 210 BMS, CH2/3, Richard correspondence: Mary Richard to Baynes, 4 Sept. 1887. 211 K.W. Clements, "Baptists and the Outbreak of the First World War," BQ 2.6, no. 2 (1975): 85. CHAPTER THREE

1 Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994), chap. 7. 2 SPG, CLS 88: H.W. Tucker to Bishop of Pretoria, 21 June 1881. 3 Ibid., £44 (Africa): W.H.R. Sevan's Report, Bloemfontein Diocese, 3 Sept. 1889 (emphasis added). 4 Ibid., CLS 88: Tucker to Bishop of Pretoria, 20 Dec. 1883. 5 Ibid., CLR 109: G.W.H. Knight Bruce to Tucker, 11 May 1891. 6 On this subject see ibid., 25 Nov. 1889; 17 Mar. 1891. 7 Ibid., Wm Capetown to Tucker, 6 Jan. 1891 (printed). 8 Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795 to 1895, vol. i (London: Henry Frowde 1899), 581. 9 Ake Holmberg, African Tribes and European Agencies: Colonialism and Humanitarianism in British South and East Africa 1870-1895 (Goteborg: Akademiforlaget 1966). 10 LMS, South Africa Correspondence, fiche 19: W. Gates to R.W. Thompson, 7 Apr. 1900. See ibid., 18 Aug. 1900. (Hereafter LMS, 19). 11 SPG, CLR 116: Bishop of Capetown to Tucker, 11 Jan. 1897.

223 Notes to pages 72-5 12 See A.N. Porter, Origins of the South African War (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1983); and Thomas Packenham, The Boer War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1979). 13 WMMS, South Africa Correspondence, 13, Transvaal 1899-1901, W ... to P ...,5 June 1899. 14 Ibid., S. Morris to Marshall Hartley, 25 Sept. 1899. 15 SPG, CLR 117: Capetown to Tucker, 21 June 1899. Similar forbodings appeared in ibid., T.F. Lightfoot to Tucker, 4 Oct. 1899, on the very eve of hostilities. 16 LMS, 19: Howard Williams to Thompson, 27 May 1899. 17 WMMS, H.W. Goodwin to Hartley, 17 Oct. 1900 (MF 1090, Box 331). 18 Weavind had started his mission duties in 1871 at what was then the "small country village" of Pretoria. Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church 1901 (MCWMC) (London 1901), 639. For other details, see "Obituaries," ibid., 1916 (London 1916), 188. 19 WMMS, George Weavind to Hartley, 25 June 1899. 20 Ibid., 2 Oct. 1899. 21 LMS, 19: A.J. Wookey to Thompson, 19 Sept. 1899. 22 Ibid., Williams to Thompson, 29 Sept. 1899. 23 WMMS, R. Appelbe to Hartley, 17 July 1899. 24 Porter, Origins of the South African War, 146,262-3. 25 WMMS, F. Crewdson to Hartley, 25 Sept. 1899 (emphasis added). 26 Times, 11 Oct. 1900,13. The book also troubled Anti-Slavery Society officials who thought it rejected "any sort of equality" between Europeans and natives. RHL, AS Soc., MSS British Empire 519, DI/I: Thomas Buxton to R.N. Cust, 9 Apr. 1900. 27 J. P. Fitzpatrick, The Transvaal from Within: A Private Record of Public Affairs (London: Wm Heinemann 1899), 24-5. 28 SPG, CLS 89: Tucker to Bishop of Pretoria, 6 Oct. 1899. 29 J.M. Robertson, Patriotism and Empire (London: Unwin 1899), 13&- F°r an analysis of the phenomenon in a particular context, see Penny Summerfield, "Patriotism and Empire: Music Hall Entertainment, 1870-1914," in Imperialism and Popular Culture, ed. John M. Mackenzie (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1986), 24. 30 J.A. Hobson, The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects (London: Nisbet 1900), 11-12,189-90. 31 For the details, see John W. Auld, "The Pro-Boers," Journal of British Studies 14-15, no. 2 (1975): 95; Arthur Davey, The British Pro-Boers 1877-1902 (Cape Town: Tafelberg 1983); and Bernard Porter, Critics of Empire: British Radical Attitudes to Colonialism in Africa, 1895-1914 (London: Macmillan 1968), chap. 6. 32 LMS, 19: clipping in J.S. Hultzer to Thompson, 29 Sept. 1900.

224 Notes to pages 76-9 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Hobson, The War in South Africa, 286-7. Chronicle, July 1900,164-7. I*M, 4 (1915) 1177. WMMS, Edwin Bottrill to Hartley, 20 June 1901 (MF 1097). Ibid., Wm Eacott to Hartley, i Apr. 1899 (MF 1081). Ibid., Appelbe to Hartley, 15 Aug. 1901 (MF 1099). SPG, CLS 89: Tucker to L.W. Olive, 10 Nov. 1899. CMS, G3A5, letterbook 8: C.C.B. Bardsley to colleagues, 9 Mar. 1900,444. CMI, 24 (Nov. 1899): 921. CMS, G/AC2, 66: H.E. Fox to G. Heywood, 9 Nov. 1899. Ibid. Ibid., Fox to Bishop of Rupert's Land, 12 Jan. 1900. Given Canada's contribution to the war effort, it was an appropriate message for this cleric. 45 MCWMC 1900, (London 1900) 405. 46 T.A. Gurney, "Modern Imperialism and Missions," CMI (July 1902): 483. For more of the same, see CMS Proceedings, 1901-2 Annual Report 103, Apr. 1902,44. 47 MCWMC, 1900,408. 48 Sir James Marchant, Dr. John Clifford: Life, Letters and Reminiscences (London: Cassell 1924), 145-7. On Stead's unpopular decision see Neil Berry, "The Napoleon of Newsmen," Times Literary Supplement, (10 April 1898): *549 Speaking of Britain's early military reverses in South Africa, a fellow Baptist in India hoped that if they could bring "the nation back from its mad Jingoism ... they will not have been endured in vain." BMS, IN43: W.J. Rouse to A.H. Baynes, 15 Feb. 1900. 50 So did many others, including a contemporary writer for the periodical, The Christian (see note 118 below), and future Baptist leaders such as Sir Herbert Janes. As an impressionable teenager, Janes had been profoundly affected by the war. In the 19305 this prominent layman, who prospered in the building industry, joined the Empire League and became a strong proponent of a white Commonwealth. To the chagrin of many fellow Baptists, he also warmly applauded Britain's Suez intervention twenty years later. David H. Kennett, letter to author 18 Feb. 1976 (from Worthing, England). Mr Kennett was then preparing a biography of Janes and kindly shared much of his information. 51 On the face of it this seemed a reprise of Lord Durham's assimilationist program for French Canadians. For Durham's impact on the South African situation, see Ged Martin, The Durham Report and British Policy: A Critical Essay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1972), 84-9. 52 Marchant, Clifford, 145-7. 53 MH, Nov. 1903,507-8 (a sermon by Rev. W.T. Whitley). 54 BMS, n85, Charles Wilson letters: to Cissie (Wilson), 18 Dec. 1902.

225 Notes to pages 79-83 55 J.E.B. Munson, "The Education of Baptist Ministers, 1870-1900," BQ 26, no. 7 (1976): 232; K.W. Clements, "Baptists and the First World War," BQ 26, no. 2 (1975): 85-6. 56 Baptist Union Committee Minute Book, GPC, 19 Apr. 1900,18. 57 Chronicle, June 1900,123. 58 Ibid., July 1900,161. 59 Ibid., Dec. 1899, 279. 60 LMS, 19: J.S. Moffat to Thompson, 30 Jan. 1900. 61 Ibid., David Mudie to Thompson, 18 Feb. 1900. 62 Chronicle, June 1900,123. 63 LMS, 19: James Good (Cape Town) to Thompson, 31 Oct. 1899. 64 Ibid., Mudie to George Cousins, 18 Oct. 1899; to Thompson, 8 and 14 Nov 1899. 65 WMMS, George Lowe to Hartley, 7 Feb. 1900 (MF 1084). 66 Ibid., Lowe to Hartley, 16 Dec. 1899 (MF 1083). On Bryce, see H.A.L. Fisher, James Bryce, vol. i (New York: Macmillan 1927), 310. Clifford bluntly remarked that it "was dead as a nail." Marchant, Clifford, 147. 67 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 7 Feb. 1900. Later he may have learned through the home papers that a Boer pastor in a receptive Paris had condemned Chamberlain as a criminal and promised Le Figaro's readers that the war would be fought to the bitter end. Times, 10 Oct. 1900,3. German hostility was also plain at the time. 68 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 7 Feb. 1900. 69 Ibid., E.J. Williams to Hartley, 22 Feb. 1900. 70 Ibid., Goodwin to Hartley, 13 May 1900 (MF 1086). 71 Ibid., H. Hardy to Hartley, (28?) Mar. 1900. 72 LMS, 19: John Brown to Thompson, 10 Mar. 1900. 73 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 22 Nov. 1899. 74 Ibid., Weavind to Hartley, i Nov. 1900. 75 Ibid., Goodwin to Hartley, 17 Oct. 1900. 76 Ibid., Weavind to Hartley, 5 May 1900. 77 For a sample, see ibid., Eacott to Hartley, 28 Feb. 1901; F.J. Briscoe to Hartley, 26 Oct. 1900. Others talked not only of Weavind's "devotion" but of his "self-obliteration," that is, a tendency to downplay his considerable accomplishments as a missionary. G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vol. 4 (London: Epworth Press 1922), 343-4,347-8. 78 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 23 Mar. 1900. Both of Weavind's sons were called up to serve in the Transvaal's forces, which doubtless raised eyebrows in mission circles. But it also came to light that another burgher preacher, too old for military service, undertook to minister in an abandoned Methodist church, much to the relief of its mainly Dutch congregation. Ibid., Bottrill to Hartley, 12 Dec. 1900 (MF 1092, Box 331).

226

Notes to pages 83-6

79 Ibid., Goodwin to Hartley, 9 Jan. 1902 (MF 1101, Box 837); Weavind to Hartley, 4 Feb. 1902. The military may have been needled too by Weavind's complaints about their lack of consideration for his mission's interests. Ibid., Weavind to Hartley, 3 Jan. 1901 (MF 1093, Box 837). 80 See, for example, the Times, 11 Oct. 1899. 81 WMMS, Hardy to Hartley, 28 Mar. 1900 (MF 1085). 82 LMS, 19: Mudie to Thompson, 18 Feb., 20 Feb., and 28 Feb. 1900. 83 Ibid., 20 Mar. 1900. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid., J.T. Brown to Thompson, Feb.-Mar. 1900. 86 Ibid., 17 Mar. 1900. 87 Ibid., 26 Mar. 1900. 88 Ibid., E. Lloyd to Thompson, 12 Feb. 1900. On Lloyd's gradual change of heart, see ibid., Mudie to Thompson, 7 Apr. 1900. 89 SPG, CLR 117: Bishop of Capetown to Tucker, 9 Jan. 1901 (printed). 90 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 26 May 1901. 91 Examples abound in LMS, 19: D. Carnegie to Thompson, 11 Nov. 1901; Wookey to Thompson, i Jan., i Feb., 3 Apr. 1901; J. Tom Brown to Thompson, 14 Feb. 1901; WMMS, Wainman to Hartley, 13 Mar. 1901 (MF 1094). 92 WMMS, R.L. Rogers to Hartley, 10 Mar. 1900. 93 SPG, CLR 117: Archbishop of Capetown to Tucker, 6 Feb. 1900. 94 LMS, 19: John Brown, clipping, i Jan. 1901. 95 Ibid., Wookey to Thompson, i Feb. 1901. 96 Ibid., J. Tom Brown to Thompson, 14 Feb. 1901. 97 Ibid., James Good to Thompson, 18 Sept. 1901. For the controversial concentration camps, see Packenham, Boer War, chaps. 38 and 39. 98 For a description of this experience, see a multi-page letter written by Brown during his confinement. LMS, 19: J. Tom Brown to Thompson, Dec. i899~Mar. 1900. The insane fellow in question was one Bevan Wookey who was, to say the least, a victim of poor timing. After being shipped off to Samoa for a form of rest and recreation he arrived there only to be greeted by a bloody civil war. 99 LMS, 19: Brown to Thompson, i July 1901. 100 Ibid., 6 Aug., 16 Aug. 1901, and J. Tom Brown to Thompson, 6 Aug., 21 Aug. 1901. 101 Ibid., Brown to Thompson, 16 Sept. 1901. See also Brown to Cousins, 16 Aug. 1901. 102 See Hobson, The War in South Africa, 282. 103 LMS, 19: Moffat to Thompson, 4 Mar. 1900. 104 Ibid., 17 Apr. 1900. 105 Ibid., 30 Jan. 1900. 106 Ibid., Oates to Thompson, 7 Apr. 1900; Mudie to Thompson, 24 Dec. 1900.

227 Notes to pages 86-90 107 Ibid., John Brown to Cousins, 16 Aug. 1901. 108 Ibid., Mudie to Thompson, 7 Apr. 1900. On Rhodes and the raid, see also ibid., Moffat to Thompson, 30 Jan. 1900; James Richardson to Thompson, 14 Feb.1900. 109 Ibid., John Brown, clipping, "The Power of the Purse in South Africa," The Advertiser, 18 Sept. 1900. no This usage was common during the period. See CMI, 23 (Mar. 1898): 172. 111 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 10 May 1901 (MF 1095). Lowe scornfully singled out a private group known as the Rand Rifles Control Association, which offended religious sensibilities by staging shooting matches and other reprehensible activities on the Sabbath. Johannesburg's varied sins were also excoriated in the WMMS'S centennial history. See Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 4, 352-3. 112 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 15 Nov. 1901. 113 IRM, 4 (1915): 187. 114 LMS, 19: Carnegie to Thompson, 8 Jan. 1900. 115 Ibid., Gates to Thompson, 7 Apr. 1900. 116 WMMS, G.S. Eva to Hartley, 19 Apr. 1900 (MF 1086). 117 For a sample see LMS, 19: Moffat to Thompson, 30 Jan. 1900; Mudie to Cousins, 20 Feb. 1900; G.C.H. Reed to Thompson, 13 Apr. 1900; Wookey to Thompson, 6 May 1900. 118 Josephine E. Butler, "For the Missionary Cause," The Christian, 18 Jan. 1900,18. 119 LMS, 19: J. Tom Brown to Thompson, 17 Mar. 1900. This view was strongly endorsed by the society's Matabele District Committee in a resolution adopted at its April 1900 meeting. See ibid., Matabele District Committee Minutes, 21-5 Apr. 1900. 120 LMS, 19: John Brown, "Lessons From Home," Advertiser (clipping found in July 1900 correspondence). 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid., Moffat to Thompson, 9 Apr. 1900. 123 See ibid., Mudie to Thompson, 7 Apr. 1900. 124 Chronicle, June 1900,148. 125 Ibid., July 1900,182. 126 LMS, 19: Mudie to Thompson, 28 Feb. 1900. 127 Ibid., Wookey to Thompson, 28 Nov. 1899. 128 Ibid., H. Williams to Thompson, i Nov. 1899; later reprinted in the Chronicle, Feb. 1900,41. For more on Khama, see J. Mutero Chirenje, Chief Kgama and His Times c. 1835-1923: The Story of a Southern African Ruler (London: Rex Collings 1978), 52-3. 129 Letter of 5 Feb. 1900, reprinted in the Chronicle, May 1900,113-14. 130 LMS, 19: W.S. Willoughby to Thompson, 9 June 1902. 131 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 5 July 1901 (MF 1097, Box 837).

228 Notes to pages 90-4 132 Ibid., 16 Aug. 1901 (MF 1098, Box 837). 133 Ibid., 18 Oct. 1901 (MF 1100); LMS, South Africa Correspondence 1902: John Brown to Thompson, 24 Jan. 1902 (MF 974). 134 Chronicle, July 1900,182. 135 LMS, 19: John Brown to Thompson, Mar. 1900. 136 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 24 Nov. 1900 (MF 1091, Box 33). 137 SPG, CLR 117: Capetown to Tucker, 19 Mar. 1900. 138 LMS, South Africa Correspondence 1901: J.T. Brown to Thompson, 3, 12 Oct. 1901; Brown to Lt Col R.L. Milne, 3 Oct. 1901. 139 Canadian troops may have been among the culprits. Though acquitting themselves well enough on the battlefield, they were sometimes accused of looting shops and shooting up bars in "Wild West fashion." Carman Miller, Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War, 1899-1902 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1993), 232,282. 140 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 7 Apr. 1900 (MF 1086). 141 Gleaner (CMS), 27 (i Mar. 1900). 142 LMS, 19: John Brown to Thompson, Mar. 1900. 143 BMS, IN43: WJ. Rouse to Baynes, 15 Feb. 1900. 144 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 24 Nov. 1900 (MF 1091, Box 331). 145 LMS,19: Moffat to Thompson, 30 Jan. 1900. 146 Ibid., John Brown to Thompson, Apr. 1900. 147 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 24 Nov. 1900 (MF 1091); LMS, South Africa Correspondence 1901: Richardson to Cousins, 26 Dec. 1901 (MF 972); Chronicle, May 1901, no. 148 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 24 Nov. 1899; 17 Aug. 1900 (MF 1082). 149 Chronicle, May 1901,108-9. 150 Ibid., June 1902,148. 151 LMS, 19: A.J. Gould to Thompson, i June 1900. 152 Ibid., H. Williams to Thompson, 6 Feb. 1901. 153 Ibid., Richardson to Thompson, 26 Apr. 1901. 154 Chronicle, July 1902,161. 155 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 25 Aug. 1900 (MF 1088). 156 Ibid., 24 Jan. 1902 (MF 1101); 12 Aug. 1902 (MF 1103); LMS / South Africa Correspondence 1900: Willoughby to Thompson, 27 Aug. 1901 (MF 965, Box 59). 157 WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 19 Aug. 1902 (MF 1103). 158 See SPG, CLR 116: Capetown to Tucker, 30 Oct. 1880. 159 WMMS, Crewdson to Hartley, 28 Sept. 1901 (MF 1099). 160 SPG, CLR 109: Knight Bruce to Tucker, 6 Apr., n May 1891. 161 The following were the figures cited: Dutch Reformed Church: 298,000 (220,000 Europeans) Church of England: 139,000 (69,500 Europeans) Wesleyans and Methodists: 109,000 (22,000 Europeans)

229 Notes to pages 94-8

162 163 164

165

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174

175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182

Ibid., CLR 116: Capetown to Tucker, 6 Jan. 1892 (privately printed statement). All the same, "Wesleyans and Methodists" could still claim marginally the largest number of non-European members. For earlier ambitions see SPG, CLR 116: Capetown to Tucker, 3 Jan. 1893; CLR 117:14 Nov. 1898. Ibid., Capetown to Tucker, 19 Mar. 1900. J. du Plessis, "The Missionary Situation in South Africa," IRM, 4 (1915): 573. Du Plessis was the author of the extensive History of Christian Missions in South Africa, first published in 1911 and reprinted in 1965 (Cape Town: Struik). WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 26 Oct. 1900 (MF 1090); 29 Mar. 1901 (MF 1094); LMS, 19: Carnegie to Thompson, 28 Feb. 1902 (MF 976); J.P. Ritchie to Thompson, 11 Mar. 1902 (MF 977). WMMS, Lowe to Hartley, 11 Jan. 1900 (MF 1084) (emphasis added). RHL, AS Soc., 519, DI/I: Buxton to Mr Arlen(?), 25 May 1902. CMI, 27 (Aug. 1902): 609. Ibid., 562-3. LMS, South Africa Correspondence 1902: M. Wookey to Thompson, 5 June 1902 (MF 981). Ibid., Wookey to Cousins, 5 Aug. 1902 (MF 984). CMI, 27 (Aug. 1902): 609. University of Birmingham Library, Joseph Chamberlain Papers/18/137 4: R.R. Rudd to James Stead, 26 Apr. 1903. LMS, South Africa Correspondence 1901: Richardson to Thompson, 8 Dec. 1901 (MF 971, Box 59); J.H. Walton to Thompson, 7 Feb. 1902 (MF 974, Box 60). SPG, CLR 117: A.G. Grant to Capetown, 12 May 1902. Ibid., CLS 90: H.H. Montgomery to Lord Milner, 4 Dec. 1903. Ibid., Capetown to Montgomery, 27 Dec. 1902. WMMS, C.W. Mowson to Hartley, i Nov. 1900 (MF 1091). Chronicle, Feb. 1903,44-5. SPG, CLR 117: Capetown to Tucker, 9 Jan. 1901. Ibid., CLS 92: Montgomery to Bishop of Zululand, 17 Mar. 1910. For an outline of the British concessions on native rights, see John W. Cell, The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982). CHAPTER FOUR

1 SPG, CLR 80: C.P. Scott to H.W. Tucker, 5 June, 6 Aug. 1900. 2 See BMS, CH5: A.G. Jones, Memoranda of Particulars Re (No. I) The Persecution of Christians in China & (No. II) The Position of Isolated Missionaries in China, (Aug. 1883).

230 Notes to pages 98-101 3 Ibid., CH3, Timothy Richard correspondence: to A.H. Baynes, i Oct. 1886. 4 Letter from W.T.A. Barber (Teh Ngan, China), 21 May 1885, Wesleyan Missionary Notices (WMN), fifth series, vol. 3, for 1885 (London 1885), 256. 5 BMS, CH3: Richard to Baynes, 4 July 1891. As it happened, Roman Catholics had borne the brunt of this particular thunderclap. But this came as no surprise. According to LMS statistics compiled in 1877, there were in China over 400,000 Catholic converts as opposed to fewer than 14,000 Protestants. Consequently the former were bound to suffer in greater numbers from undifferentiated anti-mission attacks. See Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795 to 1895, vol. 2 (London: Henry Frowde 1899), 521. 6 PCE, FMC, Overseas, Box 416: J.C. Gibson to H.M. Matheson, 12 May 1895. 7 R Boden, "The Troubles in China: Anti-Christian Literature" (i Oct. 1891), WMN, Vol. 3, 15.

8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18

19

20

21 22

PCE, FMC, Overseas, Box 413: Gibson to Matheson, 30 Sept. 1895. Ibid., 12 Nov. 1895. Ibid. Ibid., 14 Sept. 1896. See, for example, CMS, G/ACI, 22: Henry Wright to Sir Julian Pauncefote (Foreign Office), 18 Mar. 1880; BMS, CH2: Jones to Baynes, 7 May 1883. BMS, H22, i: Baynes to brothers, 4 Mar. 1892 (regarding Salisbury letter of 2 Feb. 1892). Chronicle, Oct. 1901, 225. This formed part of a series of "Lessons." See also CMS, G/AC2, 50: D. Wilkinson to Miss Jackson, 28 Sept. 1894. Chronicle, Oct. 1901,225. SPG, CLS 60: Tucker to Sir J.H. Sanderson (Foreign Office), 21 Mar. 1893. WMN, vol. 3,257. These included S.W. Williams' The Middle Kingdom, James Legge's Life and Teachings of Confucius, S. Beale's The Dhammapada, and John Chalmers' Lautze, Founder of Taoism. See BMS, GCM, V: 18 Dec. 1883,401-2. BMS, CH2/3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 6 Mar. 1886. On one typical occasion he gave a paper on Buddhism to the Peking Oriental Society, which held its meetings at the British legation. Ibid., Richard to Baynes, i Feb. 1889. The importance he attached to comparative religion is spelled out in ibid., 2 Feb. 1893. Ibid., H2i, 5: "Requirements for Missionary Life and Action among the People of the Chinese Empire at Present" (Peking 1880); ibid., CH 2/3, Richard, "Higher Missionaries for China" (1885). MH, i Sept. 1892, 381. BMS, GCM, V: A.G. Jones, North China English Baptist Mission: Conditions, Needs and Claims (n.p., n.d.), 223,225.

231 Notes to pages 101-5 23 Ibid., cnS, A.G. Jones correspondence: to Charles Williams, 26 May 1883. 24 To get some idea of the missionaries' agitation, consult a series of articles by Rev. James Sadler on the "Women of China" in Chronicle, Apr.-June 1882, 87-9,115-17. 25 BMS, GCM, V: Jones, North China English Baptist Mission, 224. 26 Ibid., CH2/3: Richard to Baynes, 26 Sept. 1887. On one occasion an unhappy Jones alluded to the "Do it my way or die" philosophy of a youthful medical missionary. Ibid., 0115: Jones to Baynes, 3 Oct. 1885. 27 PCE, FMC, Box 4iB: Gibson to Matheson, 2 July 1890. 28 Ibid., Sophia A. Lyall to Wm Dale, 18 Apr. 1902. 29 BMS, H2i, 5: "The Cause of the Riots in the Yangtze Valley, A 'Complete Picture Gallery'" (Hankow 1889). 30 Meeting of the General Committee, WMMS, 13 Apr. 1892, WMN, sixth series, vol. 7, for 1892 (London 1892), 137-8. 31 BMS, CH4A: Mrs Richard to Baynes, 15 Aug. 1895. 32 Ibid., CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 27 Jan. 1899. 33 SPG, CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 25 Mar. 1895. 34 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 14 Aug. 1899. 35 SPG, CLS 60: H.H. Montgomery to Wm Dale, 8 Apr. 1903. H.E. Fox of the CMS was equally blunt. "When it comes to a question of evidence," he wrote a colleague, "probably most of us would prefer to take that of an English gentleman to that of a Romish priest, whose church teaches him the lawfulness of lying when occasion requires it." CMS, G/AC2, 66: Fox to Canon Hodgins, 7 Nov. 1899. And while Timothy Richard occasionally enjoyed the company of Catholic priests, he deplored their "immoral teachings." BMS, CH4A, Richard correspondence: to wife, 10 Apr. 1896; CH3: Richard to Baynes, 17 Dec. 1877. 36 BMS, CH7: Jones to Baynes, 8 Apr. 1897. 37 For the specifics of these varied moves, which have been barely summarized here, see D.K. Fieldhouse, Economics and Empire, 1830-1914 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1973), 422-37. 38 SPG, CLR 61: Rev. Burne to Montgomery, 19 Feb. 1910. 39 For the CMS'S position, see CMS, G/AC2, letterbook 8: D. Wilkinson to Archbishop of Canterbury, 22 Mar. 1880. 40 J.B. Myers, ed., Centenary Volume of the Baptist Missionary Society, 17921892, (London: BMS 1892), 148. 41 Letter from Barber, 21 May 1885: WMN, vol. 3, 258. See also G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vol. 5 (London: Epworth Press 1924), 427-8. 42 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 31 Aug. 1899 (enclosure). 43 Ibid., 27 Jan. 1899; CH4, Richard correspondence: to wife, 12 July 1895. 44 Ibid., CH7: Jones to Baynes, 8 Apr. 1897.

232 Notes to pages 105-9 45 Ibid., CH3: Richard to Lord Beresford (n.d.)46 Ibid., Richard to Baynes, 11 Mar, 22 May 1899; Timothy Richard, The China Problem Settled by the Universal Peace Union (1898). 47 Ibid., CH4A, Richard correspondence: to wife, 8 Feb., 15 Mar. 1895. In view of all this it is easy to see why futuristic war literature was becoming all the rage. 48 Ibid., CH4: "Fifteen Years of Missionary Work in China: Address by Rev. Timothy Richard at the Annual Meeting of the Baptist Missionary Society, Exeter Hall" (30 Apr. 1885). For a full treatment of his program, see Wm E. Soothill, Timothy Richard of China (London: Seeley, Service 1924), chaps. 15 and 19. 49 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 22 Feb. 1895. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., CH2/3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 8 Mar. 1884. 52 Ibid., CH5: Jones, Memoranda of Particulars, 3. 53 Ibid., CH2/3: Richard to Baynes, 8 Mar. 1884. 54 Ibid., 6 July 1896. 55 MH, July 1902, 338,349-50. Predictably, other mission publications also made much of this. See, for example, IRM, i (1912): 13. 56 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 21 May 1897; 18 (?) 1897. This may have come as news to the CMS. 57 Richard Lovett, History of the LMS, vol. 2,462-3. 58 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 15 Apr. 1897 (enclosure). 59 Ibid., CH5: Jones to Baynes, 7 Jan. 1878; for more of the same, see ibid., 21 Dec. 1877; CH4: Richard to General Committee, 4 Mar. 1887. 60 WMN, vol. 3,257. 61 PCE, FMC, Box 416: Gibson to Alex Connell, 13 July 1898. Connell had been convenor of the FMC since Feb. 1898. For the reform impulse and its background, see John King Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 18001985 (New York: Harper & Row 1987), especially chap. 8. 62 See Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992), 199-200. 63 BMS, CH4A, Richard correspondence: to wife, 22 Nov. 1895. 64 Thomas J. McCormick, China Trade: America's Quest for Informal Empire (Chicago: Quadrangle Books 1967), 156. 65 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 4 June 1900. See also Soothill, Richard of China, 248-9. 66 Chronicle, July 1900,161. 67 PCE, FMC, Box 4iA: Gibson to Connell, 2 Aug. 1900. For Methodist difficulties, see Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 5,448. 68 PCE, FMC, Box 418: Gibson to Connell, 16 and 22 Aug. 1900. 69 Ibid., 22 Aug. 1900. 70 Ibid., 3 Nov. 1900.

233 Notes to pages 109-12 71 SPG, CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 5 June 1900 (printed). 72 On interventionism see S.C. Miller, "Ends and Means: Missionary Justification of Force in the Nineteenth Century," in The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, ed. J.K. Fairbank (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1974). 73 SPG, CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 5 June 1900. The SPG casualties are detailed in C.F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the SPG: An Historical Account, 17011900, (London: SPG 1901), 711 a, h, j. 74 SPG, CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 5 June 1899. 75 Ibid., 14 July 1900. 76 Ibid., 6 Aug. 1900. 77 Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 200-1. The WMMS centennial history bitingly remarked that the martyred Chinese were hardly the "Rice Christians" constantly pilloried in the Western press. Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 5,486-7. 78 PCE, FMC, Box 418: Gibson to Connell, 22 Aug. 1900. 79 SPG, CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 31 Aug. 1900. 80 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 19 Sept. 1900. The American minister's predecessor had also praised the missionary endeavour in China. See Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the SPG, 7iib, and Z. Chas Beals, China and the Boxers (New York: M.E. Munson 1901), 105. 81 MH, May 1902, 212. 82 See chapter i, pages 13-14. 83 PCE, FMC, Box 4iA: Gibson to Connell, 29 Dec. 1900. 84 SPG, CLS 60: Tucker to Fox, 3 Dec. 1900. 85 Ibid., Tucker to Scott, 14 Feb. 1901; CLS 62: Montgomery to G. Currie-Martin, 11 Apr. 1912. 86 Ibid., CLS 60: Tucker to R.W. Thompson, 18 Sept. 1900. 87 Ibid., CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 20 Feb. 1900. 88 BMS, H85, Charles Wilson letters: to Amy (Wilson), i Dec. 1907. 89 Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1900 (MCWMC) (London 1900), 410. 90 noth Annual Report, BMS; MH (May 1902), 212 (emphasis added). One bitter missionary survivor made no bones about calling Boxers and their mandarin allies "fiends" and "monsters" and their uprising one of the "greatest crimes" of the nineteenth century. Beals, China and the Boxers, 7. 91 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 2 Oct. 1900. 92 Ibid., 10 July 1900. 93 Soothill, Richard of China, 253. 94 BMS, H3O, R32: Thompson to Baynes, 14 Dec. 1905; CH5: Jones to Baynes, 15 Oct. 1879. Typically, "The Sphere and Scope of Missions" was presented by the BMS'S Richard Glover to a joint meeting of the two societies

234 Notes to pages 112-15 in the City Temple (24 Apr. 1901). The speech was subsequently printed in MS, 161-72. 95 BMS, H22,3: Thompson to Baynes, 21 Sept. 1900. 96 LMS, South Africa Correspondence, fiche 19: Thompson to Salisbury, 10 Oct. 1900. 97 BMS, H22,4: Baynes to Salisbury, 16 Oct. 1900. 98 SPG, CLR 80: Scott to Tucker, 14 June 1900. 99 Chronicle, Oct. 1901,225. 100 Ibid., Sept. 1900, 208. 101 SPG,CLs6i: Resolution of the Standing Committee, 2 May 1907; Montgomery to Scott, 22 Nov. 1909. 102 All the same, to calm the squeamish the society announced that buildings so constructed could still meet presumably more exacting Western sanitation standards. Ibid., CLS 62: Montgomery to Bishop of Shantung, 9 June 1915. 103 CMS Proceedings, 1901, Annual Report, 17. 104 Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, Its Men and Its Work, vol. 4 (London: CMS 1916), 546. 105 BMS, H2i, 4: W. Gilbert Walshe, "Lord Salisbury on Foreign Missions" (28 July 1900). 106 Alex Connell, "Our Chinese Missions and the Present Crisis," unidentified clipping found in PCE, FMC, Box 94: China 1900. 107 Gleaner, 27 (i Aug. 1900), 113. 108 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 2 Aug. 1900. Walshe was a close associate of Richard's and active in the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge (SDCGK). 109 BMS, cn6: Jones to Baynes, 4 Mar. 1892. no CMS, G3A5, letterbook 8, Francis Bertie (Foreign Office) to CMS secretary, 13 Jan. 1897. 111 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 17 June 1901. 112 CMS, G/AC2,50: Wilkinson to J. Disney, 12 Oct. 1894. See also ibid., 10: F.E. Wigram to R.N. Cust, 23 July 1881; and Max Miiller, Collected Works: Last Essays, 2d series (London: Longmans 1901), 319. 113 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 17 June 1901. 114 Ibid., CH5: Jones to Baynes, i Apr. 1880; 6 Aug. 1883. Some missionaries were also in the habit of applying English class distinctions to Chinese society. Thus, Baptist Charles Wilson remarked that the "style of dressing the hair of younger [Chinese] women is ... very like the most vulgar of English coster mongers ..." Ibid., 1185, Wilson letters: to Amy (Wilson), 18 Sept. 1907. 115 As reported in Chronicle, Jan.-Feb. 1901, 6-8,25. 116 Ibid., 209. 117 MH, Jan. 1902,18.

235 Notes to pages 115-19 118 See, for example, the Times, 8 Sept. 1900, 8; Chronicle, Feb., May 1901,356,95; Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the SPG, /na-c; and Beals, China and the Boxers, 131 ff. 119 CMS, G/AC2, 64: Fox to (?), 12 Aug. 1898; to H.C. Wisdom, 14 Sept. 1898. 120 Gleaner, 25 (Apr. 1898). 121 Lawrence Barmann, "Confronting Secularization: Origins of the London Society for the Study of Religion," Church History 62, no. i (1993): 22-3. See also Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975). 122 BMS, n85, Wilson letters: Amy Wilson to Charles Wilson, 31 Aug. 1907. 123 See, for example, CMS Proceedings 1900-01, Annual Report 1901,395. 124 Chronicle, Sept. 1900,208,211-12. See also Beals, China and the Boxers, 17. 125 See, for example, BMS, GCM, W: Special Committee, 19 Jan. 1886 (453-5); and also CMS Proceedings 1901-02, Annual Report 1902, 344. 126 MCWMC, 1900,410. 127 SPG, £44 (Asia): W. Brereton's report, 30 June 1889. 128 See Chronicle, March 1901, 75. 129 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 29 Apr. 1901; Timothy Richard, Some New Conditions of Missionary Work in Pacified China. 130 BMS, CH3: Richard to Baynes, 4 June 1900. For details, see Soothill, Richard of China, 248-9. 131 BMS, 1185, Wilson letters: to Cassie (Wilson), 6 Oct. 1907. 132 PCE, FMC, Box 416: Gibson to Connell, 3 Nov. 1900. 133 PCE, Women's Missionary Association (WMA), Box 18, file 2: The Work of Our WMA (1912) (booklet), 11. 134 BMS, CH3, Richard correspondence: to Baynes, 11 June 1903. 135 Ibid., 2 Aug. 1900. 136 Ibid., 6 May, 17 June 1901. See also Soothill, Richard of China, chap. 23; and "Rev. Timothy Richard: An Appreciation," MH, Jan. 1902,16-18. 137 Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 202. 138 MH, May 1902, 210. 139 BMS, CH3: Richard, Some New Conditions of Missionary Work. 140 SPG, CLS 61: Rev. Sketchley, acting secretary, to editor of Morning Post, 18 Mar. 1911. 141 CMS, G/AC2, 85: C.C.B. Bardsley to W.B. Soule, 11 Nov. 1910. See also Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4, 513. They included Sir Ernest Satow, a former ambassador to China, and Sir Walter Hillier, until recently the legation secretary in Peking. 142 BMS, CH4: Timothy Richard, "The China Problem from a Missionary Point of View" (May 1905) (emphasis added). 143 "A Vicar in the Diocese," "Annual Subscribers to Foreign Missions in an English Diocese," CMI, 24 (Sept. 1899): 732-3. 144 Chronicle, Sept. 1900, 208.

236 Notes to pages 121-3 CHAPTER FIVE

1 BMS, A2i, Roger Casement correspondence: to George Grenfell, 22 Oct. 1903. 2 Ibid., Grenfell to A.H. Baynes correspondence: 7 Dec. 1896. 3 Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 25 Nov. 1896. 4 Ibid., A3i: Grenfell to G.W. Macalpine, 25 Nov. 1905. 5 Ibid., GCM, AA: 26 May 1891 (336-7) (emphasis added). 6 Ibid., A2o, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 31 Aug. 1903. 7 Building on his own business experience as an accountant, Baynes had long helped to shepherd BMS finances. He had also undertaken extensive tours of the East and acted in a quasi-diplomatic capacity in the Cameroons and the Congo. J.B. Myers, ed., Centenary Volume of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1892 (London: BMS 1892), 81. 8 BMS, H28, Correspondence and Reports,i9O3: Baynes to Leopold. 9 Ibid., A3i: W.H. Bentley to Baynes, 13 Aug., i Oct. 1901. For more on this award see The Christian, 18 Jan. 1900; and BMS, A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 16 June 1898. 10 This matter was brought to Bentley's attention by remarks in MH, Mar. 1904. For the background see E.D. Morel, The Affairs of West Africa, 2d ed. (London: Cass 1968). 11 BMS, A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 26 Apr. 1904. 12 Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 10 Mar. 1903. Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher have written extensively on this theme. See Gallagher's The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982), 79. 13 BMS, A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 23 Jan. 1903. 14 MH, Apr. 1903,187-8. 15 George Hawker, The Life of George Grenfell: Congo Missionary and Explorer (New York: F.H. Revell 1909), 491. 16 BMS, A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 30 Mar. 1896. 17 Ibid., Grenfell to Vice Governor-General Boma, 3 Aug. 1903. 18 Ruth M. Slade, English-Speaking Missions in the Congo Independent State (1878-1908) (Brussels: Academic Royale des Sciences Coloniales 1959), 271. 19 In his Pioneering on the Congo, Bentley had already extolled the CFS'S "brilliant achievement." (See, for example, vol. i, 7-9). 20 BMS, A2i, various correspondents: Grenfell to Grattan Guinness, 20 Mar. 1905. 21 Ibid., Bentley to Macalpine, 20 Nov. 1905. For a sample of Fox Bourne's allegedly extremist criticism, see ibid., H.W. Fox Bourne to Macalpine, 21 Nov. 1905. 22 Ibid., A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 5 Dec. 1904.

237 Notes to pages 123-6 23 Ibid., A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 29 July 1903. 24 Ibid., Grenfell to Dhanis, 9 Mar. 1896; to Robert Arthington, 25 Feb. 1899; to Baynes, 29 July 1903,4 June 1904. 25 Ibid., A2i, Grenfell to Bentley correspondence, 1883-96: 22 Jan. 1883. 26 Ibid., Grenfell to Baynes, 12 Aug. 1903. 27 For this subject see S.J.S. Cookey, Britain and the Congo Question, 1885-1913 (New York: Longmans 1968); Jean Stengers and Jan Vansina, "King Leopold's Congo, 1886-1908," in Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 6, ed. Roland Oliver and G.N. Sanderson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985). See also Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992), 137-8. 28 BMS, A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 29 Nov. 1888, 29 Apr. 1889. 29 Ibid., A2o, Grenfell correspondence: to Baynes, 27 Apr. 1904. 30 Ibid., 4 June 1904. 31 See W. Holman Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo, vol. 2 (London: Religious Tract Society 1900), 426. 32 BMS, A3i: Bentley to Baynes, 26 Sept. 1905. 33 See, for example, CMS, G/AC2,66: H.E. Fox to Dr G. Horder, 16 Oct. 1899. 34 BMS, A3i: Bentley to Grenfell, 14 June 1905, 9 Apr. 1906. In 1989 both the medals and a covering letter were discovered in a disused safe when the BMS departed its Gloucester Place quarters. For an account of the episode, see Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 137; and M.A. Smith, "Peace and Goodwill: George Grenfell on the Congo," 2, BQ, 35, no. 4 (1993): 198-9. 35 Bernard Wasserstein, Herbert Samuel: A Political Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992), 70-4. 36 BMS, A2i: Grenfell to Herbert Samuel, 30 Oct. 1905. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., Baron de Wahis correspondence, 1896-1906: Grenfell to Baron de Wahis, 30 Oct. 1905. 39 MH, Jan. 1902,19. 40 RHL, AS Soc., MSS British Empire 519, (AS Soc. 519) Di/8: Travers Buxton to Rev. J. H. Ritson, 25 Dec. 1906. 41 Felix Driver, "H.M. Stanley and His Critics: Geographical Exploration and Empire," Past and Present, no. 133 (Nov. 1991): 164-6. 42 BMS, H27, R32: Arthington to Baynes, 21 June 1887. 43 Hawker, Grenfell, 490-1; BMS, A2i: Grenfell to de Wahis, 30 Oct. 1905. 44 BMS, A31: Grenfell to Macalpine, 25 Nov. 1905. 45 Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 138-9. See also AS Soc. 519, 01/10: Buxton to J.H. Harris, 4 Mar. 1912. All the same, it would appear that Home Secretary Charles Wilson, the former India agent, did not fully sympathize with the Anti-Slavery Society's rigorous Congo investigations. He feared that they would compromise Baptist missionaries on the ground.

238 Notes to pages 126-9

46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Ibid., DI/ 8: Travers Buxton to Powell Buxton, 8 Feb. 1911; to Charles Wilson, 17 Feb. 1911. Chronicle, Aug. 1907,162. AS Soc., 519, Di/4: Buxton to Harris, 27 Apr. 1909. Chronicle, Mar. 1908,42. AS Soc., 519, Di/9: Buxton to Noel Buxton, 2 Aug. 1911. Chronicle, Aug. 1909,141. A leading Baptist and MP, Sir George White, certainly obliged in his speeches in the House in the summer of 1908. See Parliamentary Debates, 193 (fourth series), Session 1908,1836-42. Chronicle, Sept. 1909,161; Oct. 1909,182. RHL, British East Africa, MSS British Empire 522,04: H.W. Tucker to Travers Buxton, 9 Mar. 1910. AS Soc., 519, Di/4: Buxton to Dighurst, 8 Apr. 1908. SPG, CLR 117: G.B. Beak to Bishop Montgomery, 10 Oct. 1909. AS Soc., 819, Di/4: Buxton to Harris, 27 Mar. 1908. Jean Stengers, "Belgium," in Decisions for War 1914, ed. Keith Wilson (New York: St Martin's Press 1995), 152. The SPG had an interest in serving the predominantly British community in the region. See SPG, CLR 11: G.H. Hodge to G.H. Knight Bruce, 28 Sept. 1908. Chronicle, Nov. 1909, 219-20. AS Soc., 519, Di/8: Buxton to W.M. Eccles, 9 Jan. 1911. Johnston's "Report on Uganda," featured in the July 1901 issue of CMS Proceedings, had luridly described the wholesale killing, torture, and destruction carried out in those "pagan" East African lands beyond the Christian pale. For other examples, see SPG, £43 (Asia): Laughlin's Report, Sept. 1888,57-8; J.R. Hill's Report, 20 Nov. 1888,157. AS Soc., 519, Di/9: Buxton to Gooch, 5 Dec. 1911. Ibid., 01/3: Buxton to Mrs King-Lewis, 25 Oct. 1907; 01/4: Buxton to Albert (?), 21 May 1908. SPG, CLS 90: H.H. Montgomery to Bishop of Pretoria, 5 May 1904. AS Soc., 519, 01/3: Buxton to (?), 22 Mar. 1906. Chronicle, May 1904,126. T.W. Pearce, "Chinese Coolie Labour in South Africa," ibid., Sept. 1904, 226-8. Matthew Stanley, "The LMS and Chinese Labour," ibid., Nov. 1904,281-2. R.F. Horton, "The New Way Which is the Old," ibid., Jan. 1903, i. PCE, FMC, Box 62: Wm Dale to J. Steele, 25 Oct. 1905. Chronicle, June 1905,189-90. WMMS, Sixty-sixth Annual Report (1880), i. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, (WMN), fifth series, vol. 3, for 1885 (London 1885), 273-4. "Editorial Notes," ibid., sixth series, vol. 7, for 1892 (London 1892), 73.

239 Notes to pages 129-33 73 See, for example, Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 226-7; Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 4 (London: CMS 1916), 477; and Chronicle, June 1895,153-6; April 1896, 79; and May 1896, 98. 74 For the details, check Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4,476-80. 75 Ibid., 29. The precise figures cited by Stock are 811 missionaries in 1899 as opposed to 1018 in 1906 and 942 in 1913, with growth to 975 in 1915. The 1910 recruitment is recorded in CMS, G/AC2,86: C.C. Bardsley to G.R. Bullock-Webster and Lt Col Seton Churchill, 8 Mar. 1911. 76 Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4,480-4. 77 C.F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the SPG: An Historical Account, 1701-1900 (London: SPG 1901), 832. 78 Chronicle, June 1906,127-9. 79 Ibid., Apr. 1906, 93. 80 On the average income, see ibid., June 1911,119. On average expenses, see ibid., Feb. 1912,49. 81. Ibid., June 1913,129. The debt was £71,000 compared to the CMS'S £74,000. 82 Ibid., 132. 83 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Foreign Missions Report to Synod (1905), 71. 84 Ibid., Box 62: Dale to Clerk of Deacons' Court, 8 June 1910. 85 Ibid., Foreign Missions Report (1913), 4. The deficit was reduced to a mere £180 by 1913. 86 "Notes of the Month" (Jan. 1912), Wesleyan Missionary Magazine (WMM), 1912,3. 87 W.H. Findlay, "Living Questions: Our Foreign Missions on the Eve of Their Second Century," ibid., 1909, 573. 88 For specifics see BMS, R32: Letter to John Town regarding the prospective shares of the BMS and the LMS, 23 Jan. 1906; and Chronicle, July 1905,205; Jan. 1906,4; July 1906, 50. For more on Arthington, see Smith, "Peace and Goodwill," i, 141-2. 89 WMMS, GCM, 14 Jan. 1885, WMN, vol. 3,44. 90 Findlay, "Our Foreign Missions," 522. 91 PCE, FMC, Box 416: J.C. Gibson to Alec Connell, 13 July 1898. 92 Chronicle, June 1903,124. 93 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Wm Dale, Our Missions in the Far East (London: FMC Publications Committee, 1907), 44. 94 Ibid., Foreign Missions Report (1905), 3. 95 LMS, Home Personal Correspondence, Box I, Sidney J. Clark Papers: Sidney J. Clark to F. Hawkins, 16 Nov. 1907. 96 BMS, GCM: 15 Nov. 1892,474. 97 PCE, FMC, Box 416: Gibson to Matheson, 11 Nov. 1894. 98 Chronicle, Feb. 1906,50.

240

Notes to pages 133-7

99 Ibid., Feb. 1905, 74. The minister in question was Rev. D. Macfadyen of Highgate. 100 Ibid., Feb. 1905,68-71. 101 See, for example, F.R. Johnson to Dale (8 Aug., 20 Nov. 1903) on the soaring costs in Formosa. PCE, FMC, Overseas Correspondence, Box 4. On the revaluations see ibid., Secretary's letters, Box 62: Dale to (?), 20 Sept. 1906; and Box 99: Foreign Missions Report (1913), 17. On the rupee revaluation see B.R. Tomlinson, The Political Economy of the Raj (London: Macmillan 1979), chaps. 3 and 4. 102 For the complete details of this conference, see Chronicle, Feb.-June 1905, passim. 103 Ibid., Feb. 1905,68-9. 104 Ibid., Apr. 1906, 93-4. 105 Ibid., 93. 106 Ibid. 107 CMS, G/AC2,9: RE. Wigram to J. Piper, 27 Apr. 1881. 108 BMS, Ai9: Grenfell to Baynes, 10 Feb. 1894. 109 LMS, Home Correspondence, Personal, Clark Papers, Box I: Clark to Hawkins, 16 Nov. 1907. no Ibid., 1907 (n.d.). in Ibid., "A Paper on LMS Policy, Organization and Administration in China," by S.J. Clark (1909). 112 Ibid., Outward Correspondence, Box 2: R.W. Thompson to George Oliver Jones, 3 Feb. 1910. 113 Ibid., Thompson to F. Ledward, i June 1909. 114 Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1911 (MCWMC) (London 1911), 434. 115 PCE, FMC, Box 62: Dale to Miss Matheson, 15 Oct. 1906. 116 Chronicle, June 1903,126. 117 PCE, FMC, Box 62: Dale to Rev. Hope Moncrieff, 21 Nov. 1906. 118 Ibid., Dale to All Missions Council and Committees, 6 July 1906. 119 Indeed in a good many cases they were successful. See Morag Bell, Robin Butlin, and Michael Heffernan, eds., Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 129-30. For the popular distractions, see John M. Mackenzie, ed., Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1986), chaps. 2, 3, and 4; and Jeffrey Cox, The English Churches in a Secular Society, 1870-1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1982), 83 ff. 120 SPG, CLS 89: Tucker to Bishop of Georgetown, 15 Nov. 1904. 121 Totally unthinkable, of course, were Freud's ruminations, which found no scope for religion whatsoever. See Charles R. Elder, "The Freudian Critique of Religion: Remarks on Its Meaning and Conditions," Journal of Religion 75, no. 3 (1995): 437 ff.

241 Notes to pages 138-42 122 Chronicle, June 1903,125. 123 MCWMC, 1901 (London 1901), 415-16. 124 John E. Wakerley, "Living Questions: Our Present Opportunity," WMM, 1909, 663. 125 "Notes of the Month" (Feb. 1912), ibid., 1912, 81. 126 On this point see G.I.T. Machin, Politics and the Churches in Great Britain, 1869-1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1987), 16-17. 127 F.R. Swan, "Foreign Missions and the Social Problem," Chronicle, Mar. 1906, 70. 128 Chronicle, May 1906,112-14. 129 Ibid., Apr. 1912, 79. 130 Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 227. 131 MH, Feb. 1903,65-6. 132 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Foreign Missions Report (1910), 1-2. 133 For the details see ibid., Box 62: Foreign Missions Report (1911). 134 Chronicle, Feb. 1905,48. 135 Ibid., Jan. 1909, 7-9; and May 1909,81. 136 Ibid., June 1911,119. 137 Ibid., Apr. 1906, 93-4. 138 Ibid., Apr. 1907, 78. 139 IRM, 3 (1914): 127. 140 LMS, Outward Correspondence, Box 2: Thompson to Wm Green, 16 Jan. 1910. 141 MCWMC, 1900 (London 1900), 404. 142 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Foreign Missions Report (1910), 79. 143 Chronicle, June 1904,130. 144 Ibid., Feb. 1905, 73; and Nov. 1909, 216. 145 LMS, Outward Correspondence, Box 2: Thompson to Rev. A. Sutherland, 17 June 1909; Chronicle, Dec. 1909,235. 146 Chronicle, June 1913,132. 147 PCE, FMC, Home Correspondence, Box 62: Dale to All Missions Council and Committees, 6 July 1906. 148 Chronicle, Mar. 1905, 77-8. 149 For the details on Papuan Industries Ltd see LMS, South Seas Correspondence, Papuan Odds, Box 2: passim. 150 MCWMC, 1911,

434.

151 PCE, FMC, Secretary's letters, Box 62: Dale to Steele, 25 Oct. 1906. 152 Chronicle, Mar. 1905,78; Feb. 1905,70; LMS, Home Correspondence, Personal, Box I, Clark Papers: Clark, "Paper on LMS Policy in China," 11; LMS, Outward Correspondence, Box 2: Thompson to Sutherland, 17 June 1909. 153 Findlay, "Our Foreign Missions," 573. 154 W.H.T. Gairdner, Edinburgh, 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant,

242

155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177

Notes to pages 142-6

Anderson and Ferrier 1910), 10-11. Of course non-missionaries like the intellectual Henry Adams were equally stunned. "It is," Adams wrote in 1904, "the greatest event that has taken place in our time, as a catastrophe, - greater than the war of 1870, and the catastrophe of France ..." Keith R. Burich, " 'Our Power Is Always Running Ahead of Our Mind': Henry Adams's Phases of History," New England Quarterly 62, no. 2 (1989): 183. John R. Mott, The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions (Toronto: Missionary Society of the Methodist Church 1910), 25-6. Gairdner, Edinburgh, 10-11. Arthur Judson Brown, The Why and How of Foreign Missions, (Toronto: Canadian Council, Laymen's Missionary Movement 1909), 4. MH, i Jan. 1892,3. Chronicle, Jan. 1908,5. MCWMC, 1910, 457-60. Chronicle, Jan. 1905,3 (emphasis added). Wm Temple, The Church Looks Forward (London: Macmillan 1944), 2. At about this time, with the Second World War still raging, a Baptist theologian sanguinely believed that it is "finally dawning on even the most hard-boiled imperialist that the days of a dominion based on bombs and bullets" were over. L.H. Marshall, The Challenge of New Testament Ethics (1946; reprint, London: Macmillan 1966), 82. James S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions, vol. i (New York: F.H. Revell 1897), xvi. Ibid., vol. 2, vii-viii. Ibid. SPG, CLR 23: R.G. Milburn to Montgomery, 17 Apr. 1907. Ibid., CLR 22: F.H.T. Hoppner to Tucker, 12 June 1894; 2 July 1895. BMS, IN43, W.R. Jones Correspondence: to Baynes, 27 May 1894. Chronicle, Feb. 1908, 23. Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4, 27. CMS, G/AC2, 64: H.E. Fox to E. Stowe, 19 Aug. 1898. He said much the same to B.F. Buxton a year later. See ibid., 65: 9 Feb. 1899. Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4, 27. IRM, i (1912): i. J. du Plessis, "The Missionary Situation in South Africa," IRM, 4 (1915): 573Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4, 26. See also Machin, Politics and the Churches, 17. See J.R.H. Moorman, A History of the Church in England (London: Adam and Charles Black 1953), 403. To which a CMS participant responded in kind, remarking that since the lions depended on the Daniels, "it was no good talking about eating them." Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4, 559 and note.

243 Notes to pages 146-9 178 For some sense of the depth of this anti-sacerdotalism, see CMS, G/AC2, 50: D. Wilkinson to Mrs Vallings, 31 Aug. 1894; and ibid., 64: Fox to Mrs Arbuthnot, 22 Dec. 1899. 179 Ibid., 85: Bardsley to J.H. Oldham, 23 Nov. 1910. 180 Ibid., Bardsley to W.H.T. Gairdner, 8 Oct. 1910. 181 C. Howard Hopkins, John R. Mott, 1865-1955: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans 1979), 348-9 and passim. His influential Evangelization of the World had appeared in 1900. See also Kenneth S. Latourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age (New York: Harper 1961), 504; and Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4,26. 182 BMS, GCM, no. 14, July 1916. For a Baptist view of unity, see MS, 250. 183 MCWMC, 1910,480. 184 It was printed in ibid., 458. 185 Gairdner, Edinburgh, 84. See also G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vol. i (London: Epworth Press 1921), 195; vol. 5 (London: Epworth Press 1924), 558. 186 By contrast, fully a third of the delegates attending the Jerusalem World Conference in 1928 were from native churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. See Mott, The Present-Day Summons to the World Mission of Christianity (Nashville: Cokesbury Press 1931), 126. 187 Gairdner, Edinburgh, 184. 188 Dale, Our Missions in the Far East, 73. 189 Chronicle, Nov. 1908,204-6. 190 Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4,177. 191 Mott, Decisive Hour, 159. A chilled Findlay passed on a Chinese participant's "caustic" comment that "We in China are not interested in sectarian differences." Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 5, 504. See 559 for a similar statement. 192 LMS, Outward Correspondence, Box 2: Thompson to M. le Pasteur A. Boegner (Paris Missionary Society), 31 Mar. 1910. 193 Johannes Voigt, Max Muller: The Man and His Ideas (Calcutta: Firrna K.L. Mukhopadhyay 1967), 28-9. 194 For a good analysis see Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 279-80. 195 "Sir Andrew Fraser on Missions in India," MH, Oct. 1903,508-9. For many missionaries as well of course, writes one scholar, "The practical way of expressing an attitude to [other] religions came to be that, while elements of good remained, the systems stood condemned." Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY and Edinburgh: Orbis Books and T&T Clark, 1996), 65. 196 C.H. Robinson, A History of Christian Missions (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1915), 506; and IRM, 4 (1915): 670. 197 For a discussion of the missions' reaction to the issue, see Elizabeth Susan Alexander, The Attitudes of Protestant British Missionaries towards Na-

244 Notes to pages 149-53 tionalism in India with Special Reference to Madras Presidency, 1919-1927 (Delhi: Konark 1994), 8-12. 198 Joseph Passmore, "Foreign Missions and Christian Literature," WMM, 1909,854. 199. On the opening day of the conference, Findlay had conducted a "united intercession" on behalf of India, from which these words are taken. Ibid., 1910, 934. 200 Chronicle, Aug. 1907,142; and LMS, Outward Correspondence, Box 3: Hawkins to Oldham, 25 July 1912. 201 Chronicle, July 1908,129. 202 BMS, IN44, G.H. Rouse Correspondence: to Baynes, 20 Feb. 1888; Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 5,416-17. 203 Brown, Why and How of Missions, 3-4. 204 Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4,333. 205 "Meeting at Exeter Hall," WMN, vol. i, for 1877,139. 206 Gairdner, Edinburgh, 157. 207 Ibid., 158-9. 208 Ibid., 176-7. 209 CMS, G/AC2,85: R.C. Cooke to W.C. Harris, 25 Nov. 1910. 210 Chronicle, June 1911,117. 211 IRM, 4 (1915): 105. Again, see Hopkins, Mott, chap. 7, parts 9 and 10. 212 Chronicle, Jan. 1911, 7. All the same, some Chinese participants, to the dismay of British Methodists in attendance, expressed "their sense of bondage and oppression in no uncertain terms." This reinforced the points made by Asian delegates at Edinburgh. Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 5,558. 213 Chronicle, Apr. 1912,92. 214 John R. Mott, "The Continuation Committee," IRM, i (1912): 62 ff. 215 See John E. Kendle, The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1975), chap. 4. 216 Mott, "Continuation Committee," 77. For a contrary view, however, see SPG, CLS 61: Montgomery to Bishop Lea, 21 Sept. 1910. 217 See John E. Kendle, The Colonial and Imperial Conferences, 1857-1911 (London: Longmans 1967), especially the conclusion. 218 See SPG, CLR 117: Archbishop of Capetown to Montgomery, 8 Jan. 1902. 219 Robinson, Christian Missions, 500-1. For the theological discussion, see 501. 220 SPG, CLS 102: Montgomery to Bishop King, 11 Mar. 1914; CLS 16: Montgomery's "Memo regarding Educational Problems in Asia," i July 1914. 221 Ibid., Montgomery to G. Currie-Martin, i Jan. 1912. 222 Ibid., CLS 61: Montgomery to Lea, 21 Sept. 1910. 223 Ibid., CLS 75: Montgomery to Bishop of Singapore, 14 July 1910. 224 Bardsley hints strongly at this in CMS, G/AC2, 85: Bardsley to H. Gresford Jones, 2 Dec. 1910.

245 Notes to pages 153-8 225 Stock, History of the CMS, vol. 4,412-14. 226 LMS, Outward Correspondence, Box 4: Hawkins to H.E. Wooton, 22 Mar. 1912. 227 Chronicle, Feb. 1911, 29. 228 Mott, Decisive Hour, 26-7. 229 Charles Bone, "The Future of Missionary Work in China," i WMM, 1912, 307. 230 Chronicle, Dec. 1911, 222, 224. 231 PCE, FMC, Box 62: Report 1913, 9. 232 Chronicle, Jan. 1912,11. This issue of the magazine was wholly devoted to the Chinese Revolution. 233 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Women's Missionary Association, 1912, 73; and Frederick Brown, "Christianity in China and the New Regime: An Historic Incident," WMM, 1912,444-6. Brown was a member of the American Methodist Episcopal Church. 234 SPG, CLR 62: Montgomery to Chinese Ambassador, 19 Apr. 1913. 235 PCE, FMC, Report 1913, i, 3. 236 Bone, "The Future of Missionary Work," 311. See also Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the WMMS, vol. 5,449. 237 On the "lack of human support" see Rev. J.D. Jones, "The Present Situation," Chronicle, Oct. 1913,218. For a Methodist opinion see MCWMC, 1911,433. 238 See Chronicle, July 1914,157; LMS, Outward Correspondence, Home Office, Box 3 (1911): Hawkins to I.E. Mitchell, 4 May 1911. 239 Chronicle, June 1913,124. 240 "Notes of the Month" (Mar. 1912), WMM, 1912,161. CHAPTER six 1 SPG, CLS 92: Bishop H.H. Montgomery to Archbishop of Capetown, 14 Jan. 1910. 2 "Notes of the Month" (Nov. 1913), Wesleyan Missionary Magazine (WMM), 1913, 801. 3 Chronicle, June 1918,61. 4 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Foreign Missions Report: 1916,5. 5 Chronicle, Nov. 1913,256. 6 On these themes see I.F. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War ... 1763-3749, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992), chap. 2; David French, "Spy Fever in Britain, 1900-1915," Historical Journal 21, no. 2 (1978); and M.E. Humble, "The Breakdown of Consensus: British Writers and Anglo-German Relations, 1900-1920," Journal of European Studies, 7 (1977): 41-68. 7 BMS, CH2: A.G. Jones to A.H. Baynes, 12 Dec. 1894.

246

Notes to pages 158-61

8 Ibid., CH3, Timothy Richard correspondence: Richard's "Appeal to the Arthington Committee" (enclosed with Richard to Baynes, 21 Apr. 1905 [?])• 9 See "Notes of the Month" (May 1912), WMM, 1912, 322. 10 CMS, G/AC2, 96: C.C.B. Bardsley to Miss M.H. Huntsman, 11 Mar. 1914. 11 See, for example, WMMS, Annual Report, 1914, "A Statement of Policy ... April 29th, 1914," vii-xv. 12 For this subject see Alan Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War (London: SPCK 1978), 10-12. 13 CMS, G/AC2, 86: Bardsley to Boys of St Lawrence Grammar School, 14 Feb. 1911. 14 James Denney, "The Missionary Motive" (26 Apr. 1911), MS, 230. 15 "Notes of the Month" (Nov. 1913), WMM, 1913, 801. 16 Katie W. Armstrong, "In Memory of Edward the Peacemaker," McMaster University Monthly, 20 (Oct. 1910): 6. 17 CMS, G/AC2,85: Bardsley to J. Hodges, 8 Nov. 1910; 86: Bardsley to A.W.T. Perowne, 10 Mar. 1911. 18 RHL, AS Soc., MSS British Empire 519 (AS Soc. s 19), Di/8: Travers Buxton to Rev. J.H. Harris, 17 June 1911. Buxton was referring in this instance to the coronation preparations of 1911. 19 Chronicle, July 1902,161. 20 CMS, G/AC2, 85: Bardsley to Hodges, 8 Nov. 1910. 21 Ibid., Bardsley to Arthur Lankester, 3 Oct. 1910. 22 G.H. Rouse, "These Forty Years, 1862-1902," MH, Apr. 1902,134. 23 Douglas M. Swallow, "Transitions in British Editorial Germanophobia: A Case Study of J.L. Garvin, Leo Maxse and St Leo Strachey" (Ph.D. diss. McMaster University, 1980), chaps. 3 and 5. 24 D.M. Schurman, "Historians and Britain's Imperial Strategic Stance in 1914," in Perspectives of Empire: Essays Presented to Gerald S. Graham, ed. John E. Flint and Glyndwr Williams (London: Longman 1973), 179. 25 J.A. Mangan, " 'The Grit of Our Forefathers': Invented Traditions, Propaganda and Imperialism," in Imperialism and Popular Culture, ed. John M. Mackenzie (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1986), 120-1. 26 BMS, GCM, V: A.G. Jones, North China English Baptist Mission: Conditions, Needs, and Claims (n.p., n.d.), 224. 27 CMS, G3A8, letterbook i: Bardsley to Archdeacon D.J. Rees, 27 Oct. 1911. 28 BMS, GCM, X: 7 June 1887. 29 Ibid., CH2/3: Richard to Baynes, 24 June 1886. 30 Stewart J. Brown, " 'A Solemn Purification by Fire': Responses to the Great War in the Scottish Presbyterian Churches, 1914-19," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45, no. i (1994): 84. Wm Robertson Smith, the influential voice of the "Critical Scholarship" at the Aberdeen Free Church College, had been one of them. See J.W. Rogerson, The Bible and Criticism in Victo-

247 Notes to pages 161-3

31 32 33

34 35

36 37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

rian Britain: Profiles of ED. Maurice and William Robertson Smith (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), chap. 5, "The German Connection." K.W. Clements, "Baptists and the Outbreak of the First World War/' BQ 26, no. 2 (1975): 78. Wilkinson, Church of England and the War, 21-2. Bernard Semmel, The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire: Theories of Imperialism from Adam Smith to Lenin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1993), 5 ff. Not surprisingly the book was warmly greeted in the Methodist publication "Notes of the Month" (May 1912), WMM, 1912, 322. P.M. Kennedy, "Idealists and Realists: British Views of Germany, 18641939," Transactions, Royal Historical Society (fifth series), vol. 25 (London 1975), 140 ff. G.M. Trevelyan, A Layman's Love of Letters: Being the Clark Lectures Delivered at Cambridge, October-November 1953 (London: Longmans 1954), 108-9. D.W. Bebbington, The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics, 18701914 (London: G. Allen & Unwin 1982); Stephen Koss, "Wesleyanism and Empire," Historical Journal 18, no. i (1975). SPG, CLR 80: Bishop C.P. Scott to Bishop H.W. Tucker, 21 Feb. 1898; Albert Marrin, The Last Crusade: The Church of England in the First World War (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1974), 87. University of Birmingham Library, Joseph Chamberlain Papers 5/76/62: Karl Blind to Joseph Chamberlain, 3 Sept. 1893. Johannes H. Voigt, Max Muller: The Man and His Ideas (Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay 1967), 64-5. L.H. Gann and Peter Duignan, The Rulers of German Africa, 1884-1914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1977), 53-5Herr (Bernhard) Dernburg, "Germany and England in Africa," Journal of the African Society 9, no. 34 (1910): 114,116. Peter J. Yearwood, "Great Britain and the Repartition of Africa, 1914-19," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (JICH) 18, no. 3 (1990): 316. Dernburg, "Germany and England in Africa," 119. BMS, GCM, W: 17 Feb. 1885,218-23; 16 Sept. 1884,105-6. Not surprisingly, Baptist missionaries were blamed in turn for inciting natives to resist German rule in the Cameroons. CMS, 03A5, letterbook 3: D.M. Lang to J.W. Handford, 15 Dec. 1885. For the background for the Samoan situation, see the discussion in chapter i of this volume. AS Soc., 519, 01/14: Travers Buxton to J.C. Van Notten, 12 Mar. 1914. Yet there may have been another side to the coin. Some time earlier unconfirmed reports had circulated that British troops in neighbouring Nigeria had been "shooting down natives after attracting them by a phonograph." Ibid., DI/II: Buxton to W.G. Shephard, 3 June 1912.

248

Notes to pages 163-4

48 Donald M. McKale, "Weltpolitik versus Imperium Britannica: Anglo-German Rivalry in Egypt, 1904-14," Canadian Journal of History 22, no. 2 (1987): 203-5. 49 W.H.T. Gairdner, Edinburgh, 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier 1910), 159. 50 See Prosser Gifford and Wm Roger Louis, eds., Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (New Haven: Yale University Press 1967), 340-1; Kenneth Mackenzie, "Some British Reactions to German Colonial Methods, 1885-1907," Historical Journal 17, no. i (1974): 166; and Roland Oliver, The Missionary Factor in East Africa, 2d ed. (London: Longmans 1970), chap. 3. 51 W.R. Louis, Britain and Germany's Lost Colonies, 1914-1919 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1967), 16. 52 Mackenzie, "Some British Reactions," 165-75. 53 CMS, G/ACI, 23: letter to Sir John Kirk, 16 July 1885; Dr E.J. Baxter to Bishop James Hannington, 15 June 1885. There were other complaints. "These Germans," Bishop H. Parker was told, "seemed disposed to ignore the usual courtesies of savage rule and to adopt a high and mighty policy toward [the chiefs] - the consequences of which must be collision and possible disaster at least to our Mission work ..." Ibid., G3A5, letterbook 4: letter to Bishop Parker, 22 Feb. 1888. The CMS would also be apprehensive about a planned Austrian colony, many of whose members would be "aggressive" Roman Catholics. Ibid., letterbook 7: F. Baylis to A.G. Smith, 16 March 1894. It would be an ongoing problem. See ibid., G3A8, letterbook i: G.T. Manley to E.W. Doulton, 25 Oct. 1912. 54 George Orwell, of course, was convinced that Kipling's notorious "lesser breeds" referred to the Germans, not non-Europeans. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds., The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 2 (London: Seeker & Warburg 1968), 184-5. On the equally reprehensible habits of British settlers, see H. Alan C. Cairns, Prelude to Imperialism: British Reactions to Central African Society, 1840-1890 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1965), 28,55-7. 55 CMS, G3A8: Church Missionary Society: Memorandum on the Mission in German East Africa (for consideration of Committee of Correspondence on October 20,1908), i. 56 Ibid., vol. 9, Eastern Equatorial Africa: Baylis to Bishop W.G. Peel, 2 May 1902. 57 Ibid., G3A8, Baylis to Herr J. Stursberg, 10 Mar. 1902. 58 Ibid., G/AC2, 85: Bardsley to B.M. Johnstone, 17 Aug. 1910; to A.R. Ebbs, 26 Sept. 1910. 59 Ibid., G3A8, letterbook i: Baylis to Peel, 24 July 1908; to Doulton, 8 Jan. 1909.

249 Notes to pages 164-8 60 Ibid., G3A5, letterbook 10: Baylis to Peel, 8 Jan. 1909. 61 AS Soc., 519, 01/14: Buxton to Charles Wigan, 20 July 1914. 62 Mackenzie, "Some British Reactions," 172-3. For more on the nature of German rule, see Doug Munro and Stewart Firth, "From Company Rule to Consular Control: Gilbert Island Labourers on German Plantations in Samoa, 1867-96," JICH 16, no. i (1987): 24-44. 63 Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church (MCWMC), 1901 (London 1901), 432,434,436. All the same, Marshall Hartley, former secretary of the WMMS, hoped that the "great mass of sober opinion" on both sides of the Channel would see the virtue of promoting friendly AngloFrench relations. Ibid., 438. 64 BMS, 1185, Charles Wilson letters: to Louie (Wilson), 28 Apr. 1897. 65 LMS, Board Representations to Government, Box I: F.H. Hawkins to Sir Edward Grey, 6 Feb. 1912. 66 BMS, A3i: W.H. Bentley to Baynes, 10 Dec. 1902. 67 Ibid., A2o: George Grenfell to Baynes, 5 Dec. 1898. 68 Ibid., Aig: 3 Dec.i895- See also A2o: Grenfell to Baynes, 6 Dec. 1904. 69 AS Soc., 519, DI/II: Buxton to J.C. Wason, MP, 21 June 1912. 70 Ibid., Di/8: Buxton to A.K. Langridge, 8 May 1911; 01/9: 31 Aug. 1911. 71 Ibid., Di/9: Buxton to J.C. Wason, 16 Nov. 1911. 72 Ibid., Buxton to J.G. Alexander, 21 Nov. 1911; to KG. Bowie, 31 Oct. 1911. 73 Ibid., Di/3: Buxton to Alexander, 2 Mar. 1908; to E.D. Morel, 4 Mar. 1908; to KB. Harris, 27 Mar. 1908. 74 BMS, GCM, no. 13, Mar. 1915,18-19. 75 MCWMC, 1915 (London 1915), 102; and ibid., 1916 (London 1916), 106-7. 76 Peter J. Cahalan, "The Treatment of Belgian Refugees in England during the Great War" (Ph.D. diss., McMaster University, 1977), 8-9. This helpful work was particularly good on the the volte-face. 77 Clements, "Baptists and the First World War," 75. 78 AS Soc., 519, 01/14: Buxton to Mrs G. King Lewis, 5 Aug. 1914. 79 Ibid., Buxton to Miss Platt, 16 Sept. 1914. 80 BMS, GCM, no. 13, July 1915,138; Nov. 1915,178; no. 15,17 Jan. 1917, 20; Nov. 1917, 76. 81 Ibid., no. 14, Jan. 1916,18. 82 AS Soc., 519, 01/14: Buxton to Alexander, 27 Oct. 1914. 83 Herbert Adams Gibbons, The New Map of Africa (1900-1916): A History of European Colonial Expansion and Colonial Diplomacy (New York: Century 1917), 151,152. 84 See John A. Moses, "State, War, Revolution and the German Evangelical Church, 1914-18," Journal of Religious History 17, no. i (1992): 50-3; and also Julian Jenkins, "War Theology, 1914 and Germany's Sonderweg: Luther's Heirs and Patriotism," Ibid., 15, no. 3 (1989): 292 ff. 85 Moses, "State, War, Revolution and the German Evangelical Church, 1914-18"; Jenkins, "War Theology."

250 Notes to pages 169-71 86 AS Soc., 519, 01/3: Buxton to Secretary General of the Anti-Slavery Society of France, 30 Apr. 1906. 87 LMS, Board Representations: R.W. Thompson to Grey, 24 Apr. 1913. 88 AS Soc., 519, 01/14: Buxton to Pierre Bernus, 18 Mar. 1914; to Rene Claparede, 30 Mar. 1914. 89 Bebbington, Nonconformist Conscience, 126. 90 CMS, G/AC2,98: "Influence of the War on the Witness for Christ of the Missionary," farewell meeting address (1914). 91 Ibid., Bardsley to H. Dallimore, 10 Sept. 1914. 92 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Women's Missionary Association (WMA), 1914, 85. 93 MCWMC, 1916,494. 94 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the WMA, 1914, 85. 95 SPG, CLR 25: Bishop of Calcutta to Montgomery, 17 Aug. 1914. 96 Robert Wohl, The Generation 0/1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1979). See also Brian Bond, War and Society in Europe, 18701970 (Leicester: Leicester University Press 1983), chap. 3, "The Approach to Armageddon." 97 They were composed by H.M. Butler for War in a Christian Spirit (1879). Gerald H.S. Jordan, "Popular Literature and Imperial Sentiment: Changing Attitudes, 1870-1890," Report, Canadian Historical Association, 1967,149. Continental artists and writers in Britain, particularly the socalled vorticists and futurists, had talked freely of the remedial and glorifying effects of war and violence. See Malcolm Smith, "The War and British Culture," in The First World War in British History, ed. Stephen Constantine, Maurice W. Kirby, and Mary B. Rose (London and New York: E. Arnold 1995), 172-3. 98 MCWMC, 1915, 475. This point was stressed in an address to the American Methodist Episcopal Church. 99 Brown, "A Solemn Purification by Fire," 89. 100 SPG, CLS 16: Montgomery to Bishop of Calcutta, 21 Aug. 1914. 101 Clements, "Baptists and the First World War," 75. 102 Brown, "A Solemn Purification by Fire," 84. 103 "The Address of the Conference to the Methodist Societies," MCWMC, *9*5/ 453104 The argument is reinforced in John Home and Alan Kramer, "German 'Atrocities' and Franco-German Opinion, 1914: The Evidence of German Soldiers' Diaries," Journal of Modern History 66, no. i (1994): 1-33. See also Wilkinson, Church of England and the War, chap. 3. 105 A.J. Hoover, God, Germany, and Britain in the Great War: A Study in Clerical Nationalism (New York: Praeger 1989), chap. 2, "The Sins of Germany According to Britain." 106 Kennedy, "Idealists and Realists," 147.

251 Notes to pages 171-5 107 W. Neil, "The Criticism and Theological Use of the Bible, 1700-1950," in Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. S.L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1963), 284-5. Nor had the study of the higher criticism led to any serious schisms within denominations. 108 MCWMC, 1901,414. 109 MH, Nov. 1903,590. The admittedly controversial Wm Robertson Smith none the less rejected the more radical notions of the Leiden school that made no distinction between Christianity and other living religions. See Andrew R Walls, "William Robertson Smith and the Missionary Movement," in William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment, ed. William Johnstone (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), 101. Again, see Rogerson, The Bible and Criticism in Victorian Britain, chap. 5. no In 1892, Baptists had played a leading role in organizing a Bible league to combat the higher criticism. BMS missionaries served prominently in the league's development. Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992), 377. in Hoover, God, Germany, and Britain, chap. 3, "The Roots of German Madness." On this point, see Brown, "A Solemn Purification by Fire," 85. 112 Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys 1989), xv. 113 The educational ramifications of this theme are discussed in J.E.B. Munson's "The Education of Baptist Ministers, 1870-1900," BQ 26, no. 7 (July 1976): 326-7. 114 BMS, GCM, no. 12, Sept. 1914,160. 115 CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to A.J. Brown, 5 Oct. 1914. The ever-optimistic Thompson entitled his address "The New Coming of the Kingdom through the War." 116 David Waters, "What Sort of War?" Chronicle, Nov. 1914, 242. 117 Chronicle, Sept. 1914, 200. 118 CMS, G/AC2, 66: H.E. Fox to J.A. Lightfoot, 18 July 1899. 119 Ibid., 97: Bardsley to Mrs D. Cruddas, 7 Sept. 1914. 120 Chronicle, Sept. 1914,193-5. 121 Ibid., Oct. 1914,213. 122 SPG, CLS 42: Montgomery to A. Groves, 9 Sept. 1915. 123 Ibid., CLS 6: Montgomery to Bishop of Bombay, 13 Oct. 1914. 124 CMS, G/AC2, 98: Bardsley to Sir John Kennaway, 14 Sept. 1914. 125 Ibid., Bardsley to Herbert Gresford Jones, 13 Oct. 1914. For the Scottish Presbyterian response, again see Brown, "A Solemn Purification by Fire," 86-7. See also MCWMC, 1915,454. 126 BMS, GCM, no. 13, March 1915, 39. 127 CMS, G/AC2, 98: Bardsley to T.G. Rogers, 23 Oct. 1914. 128 PCE, FMC, Box 99: Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the WMA, 1914, 97.

252 Notes to pages 175-9 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140

141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154

Ibid. SPG, CLS 95: Montgomery to Bishops of Africa, 12 July 1916. CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to Dallimore, 10 Sept. 1914. Chronicle, Sept. 1914,196. SPG, CLS 42: Montgomery to Canon Smith, i Dec. 1915. Chronicle, Sept. 1914,196. PCE, FMC: Minutes, 22 Sept. 1914. Ibid., WMA Minutes, 1903-19, Box i, Missionary Letter for Oct. 1914. SPG, CLS 6: C.F. Pascoe to E.J.D. Hellier, 15 Nov. 1915. CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to D.H.D. Wilkinson, 16 Oct. 1914; to C.D. Smith, 18 Nov. 1914. SPG, CLS 95: Montgomery to Bishops of South Africa; to Bishops F.L. Norris and G.D. Iliff (India), 8 Oct. 1914. W. Charles Johnson, Encounter in London: The Story of the London Baptist Association, 1865-1965 (London: London Baptist Association 1965), 64. BMS, GCM, no. 12, Sept. 1914; Meeting of Special Emergency Conference, 6 Aug. 1914; Various Committees Book, No. i, 215-20. SPG, CLS 95: Montgomery to George Evans, 27 Jan. 1916. See Wilkinson, Church of England and the War, 39. PCE, FMC: Report of the Foreign Missions Board, 1916, i. H. Harwood, "Are Foreign Missions Patriotic?" Chronicle, Jan. 1916,43. Chronicle, Sept. 1916,177. SPG, CLS 62: Montgomery to Bishop Iliff, 15 July 1915. CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to Kennaway, 11 Sept. 1914. Ibid., Bardsley to Jones, 13 Oct. 1914. SPG, CLS 41: Montgomery to M. Pascall, 6 Nov. 1914. Ibid. CMS, G/AC2, 98: Bardsley to Dr Ronald Walker, 10 Nov. 1914. BMS, GCM, no. 15, Nov. 1917 (after 95). MCWMC, 1915,454. BMS, GCM, no. 13, Mar. 1915.

155 MCWMC, 1915,

455.

156 WMMS, iO4th Annual Report (1918), 10. 157 W.E.F. Ward, Fraser of Trinity and Achimota (Accra: Ghana Universities Press 1965), 124-5,126, (emphasis added). 158 There were only a handful of anti-war dissenters in the ranks of the Scottish Presbyterian ministry. See Brown, "A Solemn Purification by Fire," 90. 159 CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to PC. Adams, 14 Oct. 1914. 160 Ibid., Bardsley to H.N. Tubbs, 22 Oct. 1914. 161 SPG, CLS 95: Montgomery to Bishop A.G.S. Gibson, 14 Mar. 1917. 162 See Wilkinson, Church of England and the War, 49-51.

253 Notes to pages 179-82 163 BMS, 1185, Wilson letters: to his parents, 19 Aug. 1915. 164 Ibid., CLS 83: Pascoe to F.C. Cleaver, 18 Apr. 1917; to Mr A.H. Elgie, 21 Aug. 1917. On the dislocation of shipping at the outbreak of war, see MH, Nov. 1914 in BMS, HOC, Box Hi8. 165 Pascoe's letter of consolation to the widow of one fallen ex-missionary appears in SPG, CLS 83: Pascoe to Mrs (G.B.) Brown, 4 Oct. 1916. 166 Ibid., CLS 95: Montgomery to Pvt. Kenneth A. Johnson, 6 July 1917. 167 Ibid., CLR 25: Oswald Younghusband to Montgomery, 31 Aug. 1917. 168 Ibid., CLS 95: Pascoe to Bishops of South Africa, 8 Oct. 1914. See also MCWMC, 1915,452. 169 MCWMC, 1916,508-9. See also E.A. Payne, The Baptist Union: A Short History (London: Carey Kingsgate Press 1958), 180. 170 Marrin, The Last Crusade, 135. 171 SPG, CLS 63: Montgomery to Bishop Norris, 27 Apr. 1917. There is no indication that the plan was ever carried out. 172 IRM, 4 (1915): 3. 173 CMS, G/AC2, 98: Bardsley to A.C. Headlam, 23 Oct. 1914. 174 WMMS, io2nd Annual Report (1916), 59-60. 175 CMS, G/AC2, 98: Bardsley to Canon C.H. Robinson, 22 Sept. 1914. 176 Ibid., 97: Bardsley to Eugene Stock, 8 Aug. 1914. 177 Chronicle, Nov. 1914,251. 178 CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to Mrs Leggatt, 9 Oct. 1914; to W.F. Trench, 12 Oct. 1914. 179 Ibid.: Bardsley to Miss R Williams, 27 Nov. 1914. 180 Ibid.: Bardsley to Mr Panton, 18 Nov. 1914. See also MCWMC, 1901,434. 181 Charles E. Bailey, "The Verdict of French Protestantism against Germany in the First World War," Church History 58, no. i (1989): 67-8. 182 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 10: G.T. Manley to K. St. A. Rogers, 12 Aug. 1914; H.E. Staples to Rogers, 21 Aug. 1914. 183 IRM, 4 (1915): 4in. 184 WMMS, loist Annual Report (1915), 5. 185 Both interpretations appeared in A.D. Roberts, ed., Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 7,/rom 1905 to 1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986), 41,174. Still another historian argues plausibly that in some cases the war actually eased any tension that may have plagued the Africanwhite relationship by leaving African Christians "much freer to get on with things in their own way." Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994), 490. 186 For an account of the East African campaign, consult Roberts, ed., Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 7,664-71. 187 CMS, G3A8, letterbook i: Manley to R. Banks, 20 Dec. 1915. 188 Quoted in Yearwood, "Great Britain and the Repartition of Africa," 320. 189 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 10, Manley to V.V. Verbi, 10 Aug. 1915.

254 Notes to pages 182-5 190 BMS, GCM, no. 16, Apr. 1918, 32. This could be seen perhaps as another sign of the Baptist wish to escape marginalization and gain proper acknowledgment of their patriotic credentials. 191 Ibid., 1198: Memoranda File, Miscellaneous Reports (Cmd 8689). 192 Chronicle, Nov. 1914, 250. 193 AS Socv 519, Di/4: Buxton to Hugh Richardson, 8 Oct. 1914. 194 BMS, H98: Memoranda File, Miscellaneous Reports (Cmd. 8689); see Cairns, Prelude to Imperialism, 48-9, 235. The sentiment, of course, had a long pedigree. For example in 1788, some years before most missionary societies were founded, a bemused official could write the following: "To imagine that White People are ... willing to degrade themselves so far, as to work in the Field with Negroes, is being very ignorant of Men & things." British Museum, Liverpool Papers: Additional MSS 38416, 68 ff. 195 BMS, 1198: Memoranda File, Memorandum on the Position of German Missionaries in British Territories (1914-15), 3. 196 Humble, "Breakdown of a Consensus," 44. For Montgomery's reaction, see SPG, CLS 16: Montgomery to F.H. Hawkins, 9 Oct. 1914. 197 CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to W.P. Cannell, 22 Oct. 1914. 198 A few days after Britain declared war, Bardsley had offered words of comfort (and some amateurish military opinions) to an alarmed churchgoer who gave hints of having read The Riddle of the Sands. "In naval warfare," he wrote her, unprophetically, "reckless firing on an ordinary population is the height of improbability [since] the greatest possible care has to be taken to use munition only when it pays best, or is essential." Ibid., 97: Bardsley to Mrs Laight, 7 Aug. 1914. 199 BMS, H98: Memorandum on the Position of German Missionaries, i. See also IRM, 4 (1915): 28. 200 SPG, CLS 42: Montgomery to Bishop Norris, 15 July 1915. 201 Ibid., CLS 16: Bishop of Chhota Nagpur to Montgomery, 23 July 1915. 202 Ibid., H.H. Montgomery's "Memorandum on German Missions in India, June, 1915." 203 Ibid. 204 SPG, CLR 25: India Office statement, 16 Aug. 1916. 205 BMS, ngS: Memoranda File, Memorandum (formulated by an Inter-departmental Conference of representatives of the Foreign Office, India Office, and Colonial Office ... 1917). 206 Ibid., The Interdepartmental Memorandum, Queries (1917) (2) (typescript). 207 SPG, CLS 16: Montgomery to Sir Arthur Hertzel (India Office), 15 June 1916. 208 Ibid., Pascoe to R.F. Bevan, 5 Dec. 1913. Perhaps this should come as no surprise if one Assam missionary's complaint was typical: "This is the

255 Notes to pages 185-9 most expensive District in the most expensive province of the Empire to live in." Ibid., CLR 23: M. Rainsford to Montgomery, 2 Apr. 1901 (extract). On this subject, see also letter to H.W. Tucker, ibid., 10 Aug. 1899. 209 Ibid., CLR 25: Extract from Bishop of Assam's Report (1915). 210 Before the war, the appointment of a West African native missionary rather than an Englishman to Portuguese Angola was recommended because the latter "could hardly avoid being strongly influenced by the [local] planters." AS Soc., 519, 01/2: Buxton to Cadbury, 15 June 1903. 211 spc,CLSi6: Montgomery letters among copies in Church Papers, written from Delhi, 4 Dec. 1913. 212 BMS, GCM, no. 13, Sept. 1915; no. 14, Mar. 1916. 213 N. Bitton, "To the Last Ounce," Chronicle, Aug. 1917,114. 214 Chronicle, Mar. 1915, 51. 215 Ibid., June 1915,117,129. 216 MCWMC, 1915,475. Indeed 1916 itself saw the greatest financial contribution to missions in the WMMS'S history. Ibid., 1916,494. 217 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 10: Baylis to Peel, 27 Nov. 1908; to Rogers, 9 June 1911; to H.G. Jones, 7 Apr. 1911. 218 Ibid., G/AC2, 98: Bardsley to Bishop A. Lea, 12 Nov. 1914. 219 SPG, CLS 61: Montgomery to Bishop Wilkinson, 3 Nov. 1909. 220 Ibid., CLS 43: G.L. King to F.V. Dawkins, 16 July 1919. 221 Stanley, Baptist Missionary Society, 383. In 1917 the once cloudy London picture cleared when the finances of the local Baptist association began to shine. Johnson, Encounter in London, 64. 222 When not thriving as a banker, the versatile Tritton composed religious poetry and lectured on the church circuit. Who Was Who, 1916-28 (London: A.& C. Black 1929), 1055. He also wrote a well-received history of the Congo Mission. BMS, GCM, W: Committee, 17 Feb. 1885,213-14. 223 Chronicle, May 1915,108; June 1915,117. 224 Ibid., Mar. 1916,42. 225 Ibid., Apr. 1916, 67-8. 226 Ibid., June 1918, 63; Apr. 1917, 61. 227 See C. Howard Hopkins, John R. Mott, 1865-1955: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans 1979), 433 ff., for Mott's varied wartime exertions on behalf of mission unity. 228 BMS, GCM, no. 14,1916,120.

229 230 231 232 233 234 235

Chronicle, Oct. 1915,194. Ibid., Sept. 1915,178. Ibid., Aug. 1917,109-10. Ibid., Oct. 1917,138. Ibid., Nov. 1915, 213. IRM, 4 (1915): 21. SPG, CLR 25: 23 Mar. 1917 (excerpt from YMCA report).

256 Notes to pages 189-94 236 Ibid., Memorandum from the secretary for the India Sub-Committee, 23 Mar. 1917. 237 Ibid., CLR 25: Norman H. Tubbs to Pascoe, 13 May 1919. 238 For the BMS experience, see BMS, GCM, no. 15,1917, 8,47 ff., 64, 74; no. 16,1918,18,57. For the SPG'S, see SPG, CLS 3: Montgomery to Undersecretary of State, Foreign Office, 13 Dec. 1916. 239 SPG, CLS 63: Montgomery to Bishops Norris and Iliff, 15 Jan. 1917. 240 SPG, CLS 16: Montgomery to Bishops of India, 12 July 1916. 241 As they had in the South African War, Methodists also lauded the "noble colonial contingents" that came to Britain's aid. MCWMC, 1915,478-9. 242 SPG, CLS 95: Montgomery to Commissaries of Dioceses Overseas (circular letter), 14 Aug. 1916. 243 Chronicle, Apr. 1918,38. 244 SPG, CLS 42: Montgomery to Canon G.H. Smith, 4 Jan. 1918. 245 Chronicle, Dec. 1918,31. 246 CMS, G3A8, letterbook i: Elgie to Doulton, 23 July 1920. 247 Ibid., G3A5, letterbook 11: Manley to Rogers, 17 Nov. 1919. 248 SPG, CLS 16: Pascoe to Metropolitan of India, 11 May 1917; CLS 63: Pascoe to H. Kenney, 7 Jan. 1918; CLS 42: Montgomery to A.F. Gardiner, 16 Nov. 1917. 249 Ibid., CLS 43: King to Bishop of Madras, 18 June 1919. 250 Instances of this are spelled out in CMS, G/AC2,98: Bardsley to H.S. Smith, 4 Nov. 1914; SPG, CLS 41: Montgomery to Bishop of Madras, 6 Apr. 1915; CLR 25: Bishop of Calcutta to Montgomery, 24 Aug. 1917. Before the war Montgomery had declared that it would be difficult for the SPG to combine with the CMS in India. He talked darkly of the latter's "narrow-minded supporters." Ibid., CLS 15: Montgomery to Bishop of Calcutta, 29 Mar. 1912. 251 SPG, CLS 6: Montgomery to Canon Hicks, 25 May 1915. Montgomery agonized over the prospect of the SPG'S "being mistaken for those who work on the same lines as the CMS." 252 Ibid., CLS 16: Montgomery to Bishops of India, 8 Feb. 1915. 253 MCWMC, 1916,508. 254 It appeared in the society's publication, The Monthly Meeting, for 16 Apr. 1915, a copy of which was enclosed in SPG, CLS 19 (between 414 and 415). 255 SPG, CLS 42: Montgomery to Bishop of Madras, 6 Dec. 1918. 256 BMS, GCM, no. 16, Mar. 1918. 257 Ibid., n86: Mrs Charles Wilson's Diary, 15/7/1919. 258 MCWMC, 1916,495. 259 Ibid., 117. On the WMMS'S brave postwar outlook, see G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vol. i (London: Epworth Press 1921), 195. 260 BMS, H85, Wilson letters: to his mother, 29 June 1919.

257 Notes to pages 195-200 CONCLUSION 1 The sundry components of the "White Missionaries' Burden" are outlined in CMS Proceedings, 1900-01, Annual Report, 1901, 375, and IRM, 3 (1914): 289-90. 2 WMMS, Eighty-fourth Annual Report, 27, (1898), 8. 3 CMI, 23 (Mar. 1898): 162. 4 CMS, G3A5, letterbook 3: R.H. Leakey to J.W. Handford, 15 Dec. 1885. 5 For a Baptist experience with the problem, see BMS, GCM, no. 15, Nov. 1917, after 95. 6 Typical were a consul-general's musings to his wife after he disclosed that he was getting on well with the CMS missionaries in his East African bailiwick. "This is a result," he confided, "of a good dinner or two with a few good cigars with the chief pillars of the church here. One must be a humbug at times dearest, and I confess that it amuses me, at the same time, when they lay aside their professional manners, and the sad sing-song voice affected by missionaries." RHL, Gerald H. Portal letters, MSS Africa 8.112: to his wife, 29 May 1889. 7 See Chronicle, Feb.-May 1901,27, 75-6,94. Bishop Montgomery was among those who feared that Curzon was "terribly afraid of the Mission question." SPG, CLS 19: H.H. Montgomery to Bishop of Colombo, 7 Feb. 1902. 8 Even so, efforts were made to keep it alive, war or no war. Thus the China Continuation Committee, an offshoot of the main Edinburgh Committee, continued to receive the active support of, among others, the BMS. Still, that society was warned that funds spent on the committee's work would have to come out of the general budget of its China Mission. BMS, GCM, no. 13, Sept. 1915 (135). 9 SPG, CLR 25: Norman H. Tubbs to C.F. Pascoe, 13 May 1919. 10 Ibid., CLR 25: Minutes of the Conference on the Educational Needs of the Mass Movements, 18 Jan. 1917. This interdenominational conference was attended by representatives of virtually all the missionary societies operating in India, including significantly the SPG. 11 L.H. Marshall, The Challenge of New Testament Ethics (1946; reprint, London: Macmillan 1966), 182.

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Note on Sources

The archival research in England was undertaken in repositories in Birmingham, Oxford, and London. In each place the authors were gratified though not surprised by the availability, the scope, the organization, and, not least, the well-preserved state of the documentation they requested to see. The Archives of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) is a particularly rich lode. Over the past twenty years most of it has been transferred from its original premises in London to the Library of the University of Birmingham. When the material was examined in the library's Heslop Room in 1989-90, the transfer operation was still in progress though fortunately the bulk of what was required was already in place and available to researchers. The collections consulted included Group 3 (Africa) and Groups i and 2 (Asia) for the pre-1935 period. In addition a very extensive letterbook archive of outward-bound and incoming correspondence was examined, especially those volumes that covered the period affected by the major flashpoints singled out in this study: the scramble for Africa, the South African War, the Boxer Rebellion in China, the move to achieve mission unity, culminating in the international conference held at Edinburgh in 1910, and, finally, the Great War of 1914-18. The material ranged over the whole gamut of missionary stragegy and policy making geared to the concept of "good citizenship," and afforded valuable insights into the relations between Mission House and evangelizing agents in Africa and the Far East at a time of hectic imperial rivalry among the great powers of the day. When we researched it, not all of this material was actually housed in the Heslop Room itself. Indeed much of it was in a storage facility elsewhere on campus to which we paid a productive visit in the company of Miss C.L.

260 Note on Sources Penney, the Heslop Room's custodian. Thanks to her and the vital assistance of Miss Rosemary Keen of Partnership House in London (home of the present United Church Missionary Society), we were directed to shelf after shelf of relevant CMS letterbooks. Tables were set up for us so that we might select in recce fashion those volumes that we thought would be helpful to our cause. Then, to make a start on things, we were allowed to take back whatever we could carry to the greater comfort of the Heslop Room. Miss Penney served above and beyond the call of duty by kindly shouldering part of this scholarly burden on the return trip. In due course the other tomes we had earmarked were delivered to the Heslop Room. Apart from the letterbooks we also consulted the CMS Proceedings, its Annual Reports, and the CMS Register of Missionaries and Native Clergy, all essential to an understanding of the society's operations. Complementary material, which had not yet been transferred to Birmingham, was later researched at Partnership House on London's Waterloo Road, again under the expert and cheerful guidance of Miss Keen. During our visits to the Heslop Room we were constantly made aware of Birmingham's own Joseph Chamberlain, whose august portrait dominates the room's office, which houses his papers. The moving spirit behind the university's foundation, "Pushful Joe" was also, of course, at the very heart of Britain's imperial experience for much of the period we examined. Naturally we took advantage of the opportunity to consult some relevant portions of his papers during our Birmingham sojourn. In Oxford the Rhodes House Library of the Bodleian made available the voluminous papers of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). Incoming correspondence (Copies of Letters Received [CLR]) and outgoing (Copies of Letters Sent [CLS]) proved invaluable for our purposes. While much of it, to be sure, like comparable missionary documentation elsewhere, dealt with routine matters such as daily life and work on a mission station, there was more than sufficient material to illuminate the society's response to the varied international crises that confronted it during the late nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth. In any case, it was well worth the hunt. Again a veritable gold-mine of information on a great variety of topics can be dug out of the E series of SPG volumes. These are detailed and lengthy reports from agents in the field that often go beyond the parameter of official correspondence. Besides the conventional evangelical mandate, they addressed subjects ranging all the way from ethnography and geography through linguistics and philosophy to early ventures in what amounted to comparative religion - in effect, revealing the missionary as scholar, explorer, and observer, as well as evangelist. The same, it should be added, holds good for many of the varied and voluminous reports submitted by the SPG'S evangelical counterparts in the Baptist, Church, and London Missionary Societies.

261 Note on Sources The perceptive writings of the BMS'S Timothy Richard spring readily to mind. As the reader may have noted, some examples of this literary and scholarly productivity are deployed in the book. The stint at Rhodes House Library also enabled us to consult other documentary collections, notably those of the British Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which in 1909 had merged with and, to all intents and purposes, absorbed the venerable Aborigines Protection Society. In a number of important instances the Anti-Slavery Society documentation - in particular the correspondence of its principal secretaries (C-Series) - supplemented the submissions from missionaries in the field when, say, humanitarian concerns (such as those in the Congo) came up for discussion. Other material examined at Rhodes House included the wry correspondence of Gerald H. Portal, the British diplomat in East Africa who had his own chequered dealings with missionaries. In the intervals between examining archival sources, we savoured the periodical literature that abounds on the open shelves of Rhodes House. The Journal of the African Society, for example, was an obvious target of our interest. Another Oxford institution, the Angus Library of Regent's Park College, made available the extensive records of the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS), a preview of which had been provided by the Southern Baptist Historical commission, which had been given permission to microfilm them. The manuscript materials in this impressive archives embrace correspondence from the field and from mission headquarters (H or HO series), minute books - notably those of the General Committee of the BMS and of the Baptist Union - and designated collections of correspondence from individual missionaries such as Richard, George Grenfell, W.H. Bentley, and Charles Wilson. Most of this correspondence is lodged in the A (for Africa) and CH (for China) series. Mrs Susan Mills, the Angus's librarian, made certain that we were acquainted with what was deemed essential for our purpose. Thus, in addition to wideranging manuscript sources, she and her staff produced a variety of printed materials, including annual reports, missionary pamphlets, and statements from the mission field such as A.G. Jones's North China English Baptist Mission. It was all made to order for our project. In London the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is home to the records of the Wesley an Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) and those of the Council for World Mission, which include the archives of the London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Foreign Missions Committee of the Presbyterian Church of England (PCE, FMC). The bountiful holdings of the WMMS, which run to some 1300 boxes, were consulted with particular emphasis on the 18905 and intensively for the period encompassing the South African War. Virtually all this material is available on microfiche as well as in its original form. Extensive use was also made of printed material, much of which was found closer to home in the United Church of Canada Archives in Toronto. Especially helpful were the comprehensive and detailed Wesleyan

262 Note on Sources Missionary Notices and the Wesleyan Missionary Magazine, both of which spoke volubly to our concerns. Also very useful were the Minutes of the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. The Council for World Mission Archives, in addition to much published matter, includes over 1600 boxes of manuscript material. Most of this is available on microfiche and the vast bulk of the collection represents the massive legacy of the LMS. Certain blocks of papers proved especially fruitful. Thus the "incoming" letters in the Madagascar series (boxes 13-28) allowed us access to the reactions of LMS agents on the spot as French influence grew on the island from 1880 to 1900. The same was true of incoming items from South Africa as we followed the tides of missionary opinion from the Jameson Raid to the end of the Boer War (boxes 50-60). Once again committee minutes and incoming correspondence in the South Seas series helped us to understand the divided responses of local LMS agents to the Samoan imbroglio of 1899-1900 (see especially box 45). A large cache of "Home: Outgoing" letters exists for the entire period. These range from copies of letters from the foreign secretary to missionaries around the globe, to communications with all sorts of private persons and agencies external to the LMS. It is here, for example, that much of Thompson's correspondence with the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society during the long crisis in Madagascar is to be found. Another class of papers, "Board Representations to Governments 1856-1907," was invaluable to us. These bound volumes hold copies of LMS formal communications with the British government and its worldwide representatives. Under "Home: Personal," there were a few treasures. Thus while Thompson's personal papers were rather thin, those of Sidney J. Clark, renegade turn-of-the-century member of the board of directors, were both candid and incendiary. All told, the rich holdings of the LMS more than repaid our innumerable visits to Russell Square. As a guide into the sprawling LMS repository, we read each issue of the members' journal, the Chronicle, for the period under review. A forum for debate, a record of events, and a newsletter crammed with reports and observations, the Chronicle is a vital source in itself. Much the same can be said for the magazines and serials of the other missionary societies. Reference has already been made to the Wesleyan Methodists' contribution to this genre. It was clearly matched by the Baptists' Missionary Herald and the CMS'S Church Missionary Intelligencer and Gleaner. These well-illustrated publications, together with such offerings as the BMS collection, Missionary Sermons, provided, like the LMS'S Chronicle, revealing insights and reflections that often helped to illuminate the archival sources. No researcher can afford to ignore them. The works inspired by the Edinburgh Conference of 1910 could also be grouped in this category of quasi-primary material. In the van were W.H.T. Gairdner 's Edinburgh, John R. Mott's Decisive Hour of Christian Missions, and a new kind of "scientific" periodical, the International Review of Missions.

263 Note on Sources To return to the holdings at Russell Square, the archives of the PCE, FMC proved equally rewarding. A small collection, it runs to some 140 boxes for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries together. Comparatively little material, however, has been preserved for the period before 1900. Yet that which survives is well worth a look and the documentation for the fifteen years before the Great War is excellent in quality. Moreover the history of the FMC for the Victorian period can be reconstructed to a considerable extent out of extremely detailed retrospective reports available in boxes 94 and 99. Especially useful in this regard is the typescript of William Dale's Our Missions in the Far East 1^47-1907, which runs to some 90 pages (box 99). For our purposes the true gems of the collection were boxes of incoming correspondence from FMC missionaries in Formosa and South China, especially those that recorded the views of John C. Gibson between 1874 and 1903 (boxes 41, 413, and 4ib). Equally helpful were the letterbooks of those home authorities who responded to the likes of Gibson. The FMC Executive Committee Minute Books were also detailed and revealing for the period 1905 through 1918. Wherever we went we also delved, at times very deeply, into the records of female missionaries who, by 1900 or so, constituted roughly half of the field force of most missionary organizations. Approximately four full months were spent probing the activities of the Ladies Committee of the LMS. Its exquisitely detailed minute books date from 1875 and include outgoing letters to women in the field as well as records of the home organization. There are also revealing files on the training and selection of candidates, whose members increased rapidly in the 18905. Correspondence from the field agents is scattered throughout the general LMS archive. As well several months were invested in close study of the files of the Women's Missionary Association, the female counterpart to the PCE, FMC. Founded in 1878, the WMA is best documented after 1900; however, the diary of its first missionary, Catherine M. Ricketts, survives to help provide insight into its early years. Several detailed retrospective reports also allow for the partial reconstruction of the late-nineteenth-century experience of this body. Similarly, a search of the records disclosed, for example, the extent of the time-consuming and laborious zenana work carried on in India by the women of the BMS and the CMS and the ambitious plan to extend it to China. After the turn of the century, archival sources reveal that female missionaries of all stripes were in greater demand, and this was as true of the SPG, which had its own Committee of Women's Work, as it was of the evangelical bodies. Much less is heard of the patronizing and condescending male conceit that had sometimes disfigured the earlier period of missionary endeavour. Yet when all is said and done, the evidence in general clearly indicates that women missionaries, for all the sensibility and commitment they brought to

264 Note on Sources their work, had little power to influence policy making at the executive level or in the field where relations with the state were concerned. Indeed in most instances their attitudes to such matters differed little from the ambivalent and shifting ones displayed by their male colleagues. GENERAL

HISTORIES

Readers interested in specialized secondary sources employed in the writing of this book are referred to our endnotes. Full bibliographical references are provided for the first citation of each work in the notes to every individual chapter. For the moment we would simply draw attention to some of the inescapable general histories that provided so much useful grist for our particular mill. Primary sources in themselves, the older "official" histories of individual missionary bodies remain priceless starting points for investigation, crammed as they are with facts as well as contemporary biases. See, above all, the following: Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society 1795-1895, 3 vols. (London: Henry Frowde 1899), a tome that caused no small fuss among some missionaries in the field who felt Lovett misunderstood South African developments in particular. Eugene Stock chronicled the development of the CMS in his The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, Its Men and Its Work, 4 vols. (London: CMS 1899-1916). See also C.F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the SPG (London: SPG 1901); G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, A History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 5 vols. (London: Epworth Press 1921-24); and J.B. Myers, ed., Centenary Volume of the Baptist Missionary Society (London: BMS 1892). For a much more detached and scholarly study, see Brian Stanley's The History of the Baptist Missionary Society 17921992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1992), a rich secondary source to which we returned time and time again. There is no general study devoted specifically to the FMC, but the archives of that body, although small, should provide a sufficient base for one. On a broader scale, Charles H. Robinson's History of Christian Missions (Edinburgh: International Theological Library 1915) is itself a monument to the struggle to work out the full implications of the Edinburgh Conference of 1910. Kenneth Scott Latourette's A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vols. 4 and 5 (New York: Harper 1961-62) remains unsurpassed in its breadth but is rather difficult to use. The venerable Max Warren brought critical but sympathetic insight to the story of British missions in his impressionistic The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History (London: SMC Press 1965), and in his Social History and Christian Mission (London: Penguin 1967). Finally, Stephen Neill offered a sweeping general survey of expansive Christianity from Roman to modern times in his A History of Christian Missions (London: Penguin 1964). Although "regional" in nature, Adrian Hastings has recently outdone all the above in his carefully researched and critically probing The

265 Note on Sources Church in Africa, 1450-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994). Along the way he provides a splendid bibliography that ranges well beyond purely African affairs. As for more specific works, we owe, of course, a great debt to Andrew Porter, Brian Stanley, Roland Oliver, Ake Holmberg, J.F.A. Ajayi, Susan Bayly, and many more scholars who have directly tackled elements of the political theme we have explored in this book, as our endnotes will readily demonstrate.

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Index

Aborigines Protection Society (APS), 122,123, 126 Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 10 Anglicans. See CMS and SPG Anglo-French entente (1904), 142,165; missionary dividends, 169 Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902), 142; effect on missions, 13 Angola, 32,127 Anti-Slavery Society, 12, 126-7,12^' 159/ a^4' and Belgium, 168; support for missionaries, 166; on the use of native troops, 183 Army Missionary Fund (SPG), 67 Army Scripture Readers' Society (WMMS), 66 Arthington, Robert, 30; on mission unity, 66 Arthington Trust, 131-2 Assam, 185 Baker, Sir Samuel, 60, 61 Balfour, Lord, 151

Bamangwato, 36. See also Khama Baptist Missionary Society (BMS), 41,45,48,148,184, 188; and Arthington Trust, 131; on Biblical scholarship, 171-2; and Boxer Rebellion, 111; and Boxer Indemnity, 112; China policy, 100-1; Congo Mission (see Congo Mission); converts (India), 44; criticisms of Congo policy, 114,120,122,126; denationalization of Indians, opposition to, 150; at Edinburgh Conference, 147; finances, 56,129, 139,187; on good citizenship, 7,12,14-15; Great War, response to, 170, 171-2; mission-state relations, 58,168; missionary complement, 44,139; origins, xvii; postwar outlook, 193; relations with the CFS, 34,35,64; relations with French, 166; relations with Germans

to 1914,161,163; relations with Germans after 1914,170; relations with German missions, 185; relations with other missions, 64,144,146; wartime Congo policy, 168 Baptists. See BMS Baptist Union, 79,123,170 Barber, W.T.A. (WMMS missionary, China), 98-9 Bardsley, C.C.B.(CMS Secretary), xx, 159,160,180; on Boer War, 77; at Edinburgh Conference, 146, 153; on Great War's duration, 177; on Great War's influence, 146; on Great War, responses to, 173,174,178; on international peace, 158; on mission-state relations, 11-12,176; and relations with German missions, 180-1 Bartlet, Vernon, 46 Basle Mission, 59, 60,183 Baynes, A.H. (BMS secretary), xx, 29, 30, 34-5, 108,114,116,125; and

268 Index Boxer Indemnity, 112; Congo strategy, 32; relations with Leopold II and CFS, 31,121 Bechuana, 36 Bechuanaland, 36, 37,38, 53'93 Bechuanaland Protectorate, 37, 71 Bell, Edith (WMA, PCE, FMC), 175

Bentley, W.H. (BMS missionary, Congo), 30,31, 197; Congo atrocities, reaction to, 123,124; Congo strategy, 53; critics of, and his response to, 122-3; no~ nours given by Leopold, 121-2; Pioneering on the Congo, 62; and protection of Congolese, 121; relations with CFS, 34 Berlin Missionary Society, 191 "Bible and Plough" evangelism, 5,58-60,133,199 Bitton, Nelson (LMS Home Secretary), 185-6,188 Boden, Frederick (WMMS missionary, China), 99 Boer War, 39,159,172,198; creates mission divisions, 74, 77, 80, 82,89; impact on missions, 70, 74-5, 84; missionary criticism of British spending on, 93; missionary views on origins, 70, 71, 72,74; postwar situation, 96-7; pro-Boers and missions, 75, 79, 85, 89 Borup, K., 60 Boxer Rebellion, 98,102, 114, 117,120,132,198; Boxer Indemnity, 11012; defeat of Boxers, 109-10; impact on missions, 70,108, no; origins, 103,108 Bright, John, 41

British South Africa Company, 37, 38, 71 Brown J. Tom (LMS missionary, Bechuanaland), 84, 85, 88 Brown, John (LMS missionary, Taungs Reserve), 82, 84, 85, 86, 87; on British military, 91, 92; opposed to pro-Boers, 88-9 Bryce, James, 81 Buchan, John, 50 Bulawayo, 87 Bullers, Sir Redvers, 81, 92 Burke, Edmund, 41,133 Cape Colony, 36,38,39,71, 81, 87, 96 Cape Town, 36 Casement, Roger, 123-4, 168 Chamberlain, Austen, 185 Chamberlain, Joseph (Colonial Secretary) 8, 9, 67, 73, 85,162 Chotta Nagpur, 184 "Christianity and Commerce" (missionary slogan), xi, 41, 55 Chronicle (LMS), 112,127, 132,139,187; on Boer War, 80, 92; Boxer Rebellion, 115; and British wartime spending, 94; Chinese coolie labour in South Africa, 128; Congo question, 126; and Great War, 188,191; on wartime criticism of missions, 176-7 Church Missionary Gleaner (CMS), 58,113-14 Church Missionary Intelligencer (CMI), 95,118-19 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 39-40, 49, 52, 127,163; academic scholarship, 62; Biblical scholarship, 173; commerce, 56; in East Africa, 164,191; East African expansion, 61,

64, 65; at Edinburgh Conference, 146, 151, 153; and Empire, 45, 54; finances, 44,56,129,130, 186; Great War, reaction to, 173; industrial missions and companies, 59,60; on mission unity, 144-5; on mission-state relations, 63-4; missionary complement, 44; origins, xviii; and preGreat War relations with Germany, 160-1,164; relations with military, 66; and relations with SPG, 144,146,192; in Uganda, 53; wartime fate of East African missionaries, 181 Clarendon, Earl of, 10 Clark, S.J.W. (LMS Director), 17, 32,141; critique of LMS, 135-6 Clifford, John, 8, 81, 89, 97, 119,180,196; Boer War, 78-9, 95; British characteristics, 67; Congo problem, 123; on Empire, 58, 67, 68, 69, 77, 79; and Germany, 161; "God's Greater Britain," 47 Cobden, Richard, 41 Cockin, Mary (LMS missionary, Madagascar), 51 Comber, Thomas (BMS missionary, Congo), 8, 29/33 Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur, 127,128 Conference of British Missionary Societies, 180, 181 Congo, 29, 35,53,59, 70 Congo atrocities, 120,121, 128,167,168; investigation of, 123-4 Congo Free State (CFS), 120,121; becomes Belgian colony, 126; criticism of Belgian policy, 126,127; criticism of,

269 Index 126-7; origins, 29; relations with BMS, 30,34, 35' 64 Congo Mission (BMS), 49, 52,61,168; critics of, 126; differing strategies, 32; origins, 29-30; relations with Catholic missions, 30-1; relations with CFS, 30, 34,35, 64 Congo Reform Association (CRA), 122,123,126 Congregationalists. See LMS Connell, Alex (PCE, FMC Convenor), xix, no, 113 Cooper, Ebenezer (LMS missionary, Samoa), 25, 28 Coulton, J.J., 75 Cousins, George (LMS editor), 141,147 Cousins, Wm (LMS missionary, Madagascar), 64 Cranborne, Lord, 45 Cromer, Lord, 64 Curzon, Lord, 198 Cust, R.N., 9,114 Daily Mail, 115 Dale, Wm (PCE, FMC Corresponding Secretary, China), xix, 129,132,137, 139,140; on mission unity in China, 15,141; on mission unity in India, 148 Davidson, Randall (Archbishop of Canterbury), 146,152-3,179 Dawson, J.W., 143 Denationalization of Christianity, 188-200. See also entries under various missionary societies Dennis, J.S., 143-4; Christian Missions and Social Progress, 143 Dernburg, Bernhard (German Colonial Secretary), 162-3, *64

Dilke, Charles, 47,67 Dutch Reformed Church (South Africa), 71-2 Edinburgh Conference (1910), 120,128,156,163, 188; Asian participation, 148; difficulties facing, 151; and duties of Britain in India, Continuation Committee, 152,153, 155,188; and missionstate relations, 150-1; "National Christianity," 148; origins and purposes, 145-6; scope, 146, 147; "Pan Protestantism," 146 Empress Dowager (China), 107,108 European Baptist Congress, 163 Eva, G.S. (WMMS missionary, South Africa), 88 Exeter Hall, 127 Fashoda crisis, 166 Female missionaries, 29, 51,100,102,117,165; finances, 175-6; reaction to Great War, 174-5; role, xii-xiii Fiji, 65 Findlay, G.G., 148 Findlay, W.H., 149 Fitzpatrick, J.P., 81, 95,96; The Transvaal from Within, 74 Formosa, 13 Fox, H.E. (CMS Secretary), xx, 56, 77,144,173 Fox-Bourne, H.R. (APS), 123 Fraser, Alek (CMS missionary), 178 Friends (Quakers), 3,8,19, 169 Froude, J.A., 43, 51, 67,139 Gairdner, W.H.T., 142,146, 163; Edinburgh, 1910,146 Gallieni, General, 22

Gardiner, A.G. (LMS), 137 Garvin, J.L., 160 Gatacre, Sir Wm, 92 Gaunt, Lewis (LMS), 46-7, 54 General Conference of South African Missionaries, 145 Gibbons, H.A., 168 Gibson, J.C. (PCE, FMC missionary, Swatow, South China), 99,101,106,113, 117,132; and Boxer Rebellion, 108-9,11G/ British diplomacy, 99,100, 119; China policy, 107; on good citizenship, 1314; interventionism and the use of force, 14, 53; on PCE, FMC finances, 132-3; on preparation of young missionaries, 101-2; relations with mandarins, 15,16; responses to Chinese assaults, 99-100; sensibilities about women, 102 Gladstone, Wm, 41 Gleaner. See Church Missionary Gleaner Gold Coast, 183 Good, James (LMS missionary, South Africa), 81 Gordon, Gen. Charles, 63 Gould, A.J. (LMS missionary, Bechuanaland), 93 Granville, Lord, 10,17 Great Trek, 75 Great War, 156,174,196, 199; Belgium's plight, varied responses to, 167; British relations with German missions, 180i; impact on missions, 175-6,180-5; mission reactions to, 169-75; missionaries on active service, 178,179,186, 189-90; use of native troops, 183

270 Index Greenhough, J.G. (BMS missionary), 46, 47 Grenfell, George (BMS missionary, Congo), 8, 29, 40,52, 53,135; critics of, and reaction to, 1223,125; defence of Leopold, 124; on Empire, 64, 65; forward policy, 32; honours given by Leopold, 121; and industrial training, 59; on ivory trade, 56-7; on mission-state relations, 63, 64; political activities in Congo, 31-2; and protection of Congolese, 121; relations with CFS, 34, 35, 64; relations with French, 166; response to Congo atrocities, 33-7 Grey, Sir Edward (Foreign Secretary), 126,165,166, 169 Gurney, T.A. (CMS), 78 Haggard, H. Rider, 50 Hallowes, J.F.T., 42, 43; on mission unity, 65,143 Hamlin, Cyrus, 8 Harnack, Adolf, 44 Hartley, Marshall (WMMS Secretary), xx, 72, 73,249 (n.63) Harwood, Hardy (LMS), 176 Hawkins, EH. (LMS coForeign Secretary), xx, 166 Hay, John (U.S. Secretary of State), 116-17 Henty, G.A., 50,52, 79 Hobhouse, Emily, 75, 85 Hobson, J.A., 39,40,81,87; and Boers, 76; antiSemitism, 75; on missionaries, 75-6 Home, C.S. (LMS missionary), 61 Hong Kong, 103,155 Horton, R.F. (Congregational Union), 128-9,157

Houghton, W.S. (LMS Director), 134-5 Hova. See Madagascar mission (LMS) Howells, George (BMS, India), 148-9 (Soul of India) Huckett, Wm (LMS missionary, Samoa), 25-8, 29,53 "Imperial Christianity" (missionary slogan), 39, 46,47,51,65, 70,190. See also "true imperialism" India Office, 184 Indian Mutiny, 48, 49 International Association for Comparative Jurisprudence and Political Economy, 62 International Review of Missions (IRM), 3,140,149, 152; on Indian autonomy, 189; origins, 145; reactions to Great War, 180 Islington College (CMS), 176 Jameson Raid, 38, 87 John Bull, 117 Johnson, A.N. (LMS Home Secretary), 133,134,147 Johnston, H.H., 12,127 Johnston, James, 60-1 Jones, A.G.(BMS missionary, North China), 55, 101,197; British characteristics, 63, 67; dealing with mandarins, 15,16; on mission-state relations, 14; need for peace in China, 105; Russian expansion, 103 Jones, John (LMS missionary, Mare), 17,18 Journal of the African Society, 62 Joyce, J.A. (LMS missionary), 58 Jubilees, 39, 54, 68

Kamerun (Cameroons), 183 Katanga, 127 Keswick Convention, 40 Khama, Chief, 36, 37, 90 Kikuyu Conference (1913), 153 Kimberley, Lord, 24 King, Joseph, 46 Kinnaird, Lord, 15 Kipling, Rudyard, 43, 51, 164 Kitchener, Lord, 85, 92 Kruger, President Paul (Transvaal), 72, 74, 82, 83-4, 87 Lenwood, Frank (LMS coForeign Secretary), xx, 147 Leopold II, 29, 30, 69-70, 120; critics of, 121,125, 126; relations with BMS, 3i Liberal-Imperialists, 75 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, 63 Livingstone, David, 58, 61, 144 Lloyd, Edwin (LMS missionary, Matabeleland), 84 Lobengula, 37 London Missionary Society (LMS), 36,106,162; Arthington Trust, 131-2; Biblical scholarship, 173; on Boer War and after, 79-80, 96, 97; and Boxer Indemnity, 11112; and Boxer Rebellion, 108; China policy, 100; and Chinese coolie labour, 128; collaboration and competition with other societies, 64, 94; and criticism of missionaries, 115-16; at Edinburgh Conference, 147,152; "Faith or Business" controversy, 1346; finances, 92, 93, 97,

271 Index 129,130-1,132-6,139, 157; on Indian autonomy, 189; industrial mission (Tiger Kloof), 76,140; Madagascar and Samoa missions (see separate entries); Mare mission, 17-18; on mission unity, 148; missionstate relations, 35, 64; and native church, 141; opposition to Boers, 712, 75, 81, 86; origins, xviii; postwar outlook, 190-1; reduction of fields, 140,157; relations with French, 165-6; relations with Germans, 163,165; response to Congo atrocities, 126; responses to Great War ("War of Reconciliation"), 158-9,172-3, 185-6; social reform, 139; sources of support, 137-8; and South African native policy, 73, 87, 89; Tahiti mission, 16, 18; on war profiteers, 173; wartime affluence, 186,187 Lorimer, G.C. (BMS missionary), 46 Lovett, Richard (LMS official historian), xii, 59 Low, Seth, 151 Lowe, George (WMMS missionary, South Africa), 81-2, 87, 96; on British military, 90, 91, 92; reaction to Boers, 84; relations with G. Weavind, 83; views on natives, 90; WMMS expansion in South Africa, 95 Lucas, Sir Charles (Colonial Office), 166 Lugard, Sir Frederick, 11 Lyall, Sophie, 102 MacAlpine, A.G. (Scottish missionary), 62

Mackay, A.M. (CMS missionary), 57 Mackenzie, John (LMS missionary, Bechuanaland), 24,36, 53, 71 Madagascar, 16, 35, 37, 51, 153-5,165-6 Madagascar mission (LMS), 18-23,64; number of converts, 18; relations with Hova court, and Franco-Hova conflict, 19-21; relations with French and Catholics, 21-3 Mahan, Admiral A.T., 151 Majuba Hill, 70, 71, 92 Malua (Samoa), 28 Malua Seminary (LMS, Samoa), 23 Manchus, 154 Mare mission (LMS). See LMS Matabele, 37 Matabeleland, 36 Mathews, Basil, 139 Maxim, Sir Hiram, 118 Melanesian mission, 166 Methodists. See WMMS Methuen, Lord, General, 85 Milner, Lord, 72, 73, 74, 96, 119; and Chinese coolie labour in South Africa, 127-8 Missionaries: on active military service, 178, 179,186, 189-90; antimilitarism of, 158,159, 160,170,180; "Bible and Plough" evangelism (see "Bible and Plough" evangelism); and Boxer Rebellion, 108-10; on British diplomacy, 100, 151,166-7; Chinese opposition to, 102; classconsciousness, 164; on comparative religion, 149; on the Congo question, 126; criticism of Empire, 118,119; criti-

cism of, 115-16,117-18; decolonization, 189-90; Edinburgh Conference (see Edinburgh Conference); finances, 129-36, 153; on future of China, 154; on good citizenship, 6-7,195-6; imperial unity, 63,67-8,77-8, 95; industrial missions, 140-1; inter-societal competition and collaboration, 93-4,144, 145; and materialism, 140; medicine, 62-3; mission unity, 65-6, 69,102,141, 153; mission-state relations, 4,10-11,13,61,69, 99-100,159,196; mixed response to Belgium's 1914 plight, 167; native churches, 97,140,141, 147,148; opium traffic, 104,116; opposition to Indian denationalization, 150; reactions to Great War, 169-75; relations with France, 151, 165-7; relations with Germany and its missions, 161, 165,169, 171; relations with military, 66, 67; reorganization, 137; response to international crises, 141-3, 158, 162; scholarship, 61-2; on secularism, 115, 140; social reform, 138; support for Empire, 40-8, 49-51, 60, 63, 68; use of military metaphors, 489, 50, 52-3,160,175; on use of native troops, 183; versifying, 49-50; views on Japan, 13, 150; wartime economizing, 175-6; wartime fate of, 181-5; wartime lay criticism of, and mission reactions, 176,177-8; wartime relations with German missions, 180-1

272 Index Missionary Herald (MH) (BMS), 47,57,64,106, 125; on Boxer Rebellion, 115; defence of BMS and Congo missionaries, 122 Moffat, Robert, 36, 61 Moffatt, J.S. (LMS missionary, South Africa), 80,86, 89 Montgomery, Bishop H.H. (SPG Secretary), xx, 55, 96,157,191; on Catholics, 103; conscientious objection to war, 178-9; at Edinburgh Conference, 146,152-3; on German missions, 184; on native Chinese church, 190; postwar plans, 192; reactions to Great War, 170,174,177,179; and relations with evangelical missions, 192-3; wartime Imperial unity, 190; welcomes Chinese Republic, 154-5 Moore, Lizzie (LMS missionary, Samoa), 29 Morel, E.D., 122,126 Morning Post, 117-18 Mott, J.R., 142,148,154, 155; and Continuation Committee, 152; Decisive Hour of Christian Missions, 152; role at Edinburgh Conference, 146-7; wartime activities, 188 Mudie, David (LMS Treasurer, Cape Colony), 80, 83, 86-7 Miiller, Max, 114,148,162 National Missionary Council, 184 National Missionary Society of India, 148 Neilson, A.B. (LMS missionary, Formosa), 13 Newell, J.E. (LMS missionary, Samoa), 26-7, 28 New Hebrides, 166,169

Rhodes, Cecil, 36, 38, 57, 60, 71 Rhodesia, 127 Richard, Mary, 68,102 Richard, Timothy (BMS missionary, North Oldham, J.H. (CMS), 145, China), 98, 99,106,114, 146,176-7,188 132,151,197; and Boxer Rebellion, in; on Chinese modernization unPapuan Industries Ltd, xx, der Christian auspices, 60,140 44,105-6,108-9,116, Paris Evangelical Mission, 22-3,181 117; his "Comparative Theology," 100-1; critiPascoe, C.F. (acting SPG Secretary), 55,180,191 cism of Western governPassmore, Joseph, 149 ments, 116; dealings with mandarins, 15,16, Pearce, T.W. (LMS missionary), 128 107; interventionism in China, 108, in, 116-17; Philip, John, 36, 71 need for world peace, Phillips, Charles (LMS missionary), 56 104-5,158' response to Salisbury's criticism, Portal, Sir Gerald, 11 Presbyterian Church of 118; Russian expansion, 103; views on Catholics, China, 147 Presbyterian Church of En103 gland, Foreign Missions Richardson, James (LMS missionary, South AfCommittee (PCE, FMC), rica), 93 113; and Boxer RebelRichmond College lion, 117; criticism of, (WMMS), 81 10; finances, 129,131, 139,157,175-6; native Rickett, J.C., MP, 8 Roberts, Lord, Field Marchurch, 140,141; orishal, 92,159 gins, xviii-xix; reactions Robertson, J.M., 75 to Great War (WMA), Robinson, Charles, 149 174; reaction to Salis(History of Christian Misbury's criticism, 113; resions) duction of fields, 140; Rosebery, Lord, 11, 38 reorganization and Russo-Japanese War, 142 publicity, 137; response to Chinese Revolution Sadler, Michael, 60 and Chinese Republic, 154,155; views on Japan, Salisbury, Lord, 12,99,102, 112,117,118; criticism of 13 missions, 113-14,119 Presbyterians. See PCE, Salvation Army, 49 FMC Samoa, 16, 35,56,165 Samoa mission (LMS), 23Radicals (Liberal Party), 29; relations with Ameri75' 76, 77, 78, 81, 86, 89 cans, 27-29; relations Ranavalova II, queen of with Germans, 24-6, 28Hova (Madagascar), 19 Rara tonga, 17 9 Samuel, Herbert, MP, 125 Reay, Lord, 45

Nonconformist Conscience, 38, 75, 83 North Borneo, 65 North China Herald, 106-7, 108

273 Index Scott, Bishop C.P. (SPG missionary, China), 98,103, 104,112,113; and Boxer Indemnity, 110-11; on Boxer Rebellion, 109-10; on interventionism in China, 109 Scottish Baptists, 68 Scottish missions, 51,60, 144 Scottish Missions Industries Ltd, 60 Sebele, Chief (Bechuana), 90 Seeley, J.R., 43, 56; Expansion of England, 42,47,65 Serampore College (BMS, India), 148 Shanghai Mission Conference, 143,148,150,152 Shantung (China), 104,113 Sibree, J.W. (LMS missionary, Madagascar and Samoa), 28-9 Sino-Japanese War, 103, 105,142 Slessor, Mary (Scottish missionary), 51 Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge (SDCGK), 106 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), 19, 41,49,128,137,185,189; aims, 40; attitude to Catholics, 103; and Boer War, 84; and British military, 91; competition with other societies, 94; critical of Edinburgh Conference, 152-3,155; expansion in China, 104; finances, 56, 71,157; on Indian autonomy, 189; and industrial missions, 59; Madagascar situation and relations with French, 153-4,169; origins, xvii; post-Boxer policy, 113; postwar finances, 191-2; postwar outlook, 191; postwar

situation, 97,113; relations with Cecil Rhodes, 71; relations with CMS, 144,146,192; response to Boxer Rebellion and Indemnity, 110-11, 113; responses to Great War, 170; Salisbury's criticism of, 113-14; scholarship, 62; in wartime Assam, 185; wartime finances, 186-7; work in South Africa and early relations with Boers, 70 Soldiers' Christian Association, 91 South Africa, 57, 78, 97, 120,145 South African War. See Boer War Spurgeon, C.H., 39, 79 Stanley, H.M., 30,123,125 Stanley, Matthew (LMS missionary, Hong Kong), 128 Stead, W.T., 78, 88 Steyn, President Marthinus (Orange Free State), 74 Stock, Eugene, xii, 113 Stuart, Capt. L.C. (RN), 28 Sturdee, Capt. J. (RN), 27 Sun Yat Sen, 155 Swan, F.R., 138-9 Swann, Alfred (LMS missionary, Griqualand), 12 Tahiti, 16,165 Temple, Wm (Archbishop of Canterbury), 143,156 Thompson, R.W. (LMS Foreign Secretary), xxi, 41, 42, 54, 71, 73, 85,169, 196; on autonomous native churches, 148,150; on Boer War, 80,106; and Boxer Indemnity, 111-12; China policy, 106,112; commerce, 57; criticism of S.J.W. Clark, 136; critics of, 89,197; at Edinburgh Conference, 147; "Ethiopianism,"

96-7; falling support for missions and reduction of fields, 139-40; French and "Jesuits," 16; on future Boer policy, 89-90; on good citizenship, 6, 9,11,12; influence of, 126,147, 186; interventionism and use of military force, 8-9; LMS finances, 129,134,135; Madagascar mission, 19-23; and Mare mission, 18-19; on mission unity, 141; mission-state relations, 24, 36,128; on phases of mission development, 133; reaction to Great War, 172-3; relations with Cecil Rhodes, 36, 37, 38; response to Congo atrocities, 126; Samoa mission, 23-6; South African native policy, 89 Tiger Kloof (LMS industrial mission, Bechuanaland), 76,140 Torlesse, Capt. A.W. (RN), 28 Transvaal, 36,70,71,75,81, 85, 88, 95, 98 Tritton, Joseph (BMS Treasurer), 56,187 "true imperialism" (missionary slogan), 41, 66, 69, 78, 90,196 Tucker, Bishop H.W. (SPG Secretary), xxi, 15,70,71, 72, 74,109; Boer War, 77; Boxer Indemnity, 11011; on British imperial expansion, 65 Uganda, 38, 53, 64,126 Uganda Company Ltd (CMS), 60 Uitlanders, 74, 75, 87,89 Union of South Africa, 97 United Church of South India, 148

274 Index United Missionary Training College (Selly Oak), 152 Universities Mission to Central Africa, 164,181 Vanderkemp, J.T., 71 Venn, Henry, 4,6,7,38,200 Vereeniging, Treaty of (1902), 95 Viner, A.J. (LMS Director), 135 Wakerley, John, 138 Walker, F.W. (Papuan Industries Ltd), 60 Walshe, W.G. (CMS missionary), 114 Wareham, H.E. (LMS missionary), 183 War Emergency Committee (BMS), 176 Weavind, George (WMMS missionary, Transvaal), 72-3, 74, 81; criticism of conduct during Boer War, 82-3 Weeks, J.H. (BMS missionary, Congo), 34, 35,168; exposes Congo atrocities, 123-4 Wei-hai-wei (China), 104, 116 Wellington, Matthew, 58 Wesley, John, 138 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society

(WMMS), 72, 81; antiSemitism, 76-7; and Biblical scholarship, 171; and Boer War, 78, 82; on British expansion, 65; and Chinese Revolution and Republic, 154,155; competition with other societies, 93-4, 95; and Edinburgh Conference, 147,149; and Empire, 159; finances, 129,131, 132,141,157; Imperial unity, 78; on Japan, 150; on mission unity, 143; native churches, 141; opposed to denationalization of Indians, 150; opposition to Boers, 734,84-5; origins, xviii; postwar outlook, 193; postwar situation, 96; pre-Great War attitude to foreign affairs, 158-9; reactions to Great War, 169, 170,171, 180; relations with Cecil Rhodes, 57; relations with France, 165; on social reform, 138; Transvaal Department, 81; wartime finances, 186 Whitehouse, J.A. (LMS missionary, Tahiti), 19, 49 "White Missionary's Burden" (missionary slogan), 195

Whitley, W.T., 79 Whyte, Lilly (LMS missionary), 51 Wigram, F.E. (CMS Secretary), xxi, 12, 56,135 Williams, Howard (LMS missionary, South Africa), 72, 90,93 Willoughby, W.C. (LMS missionary, Bechuanaland), 37, 76, 62, 91 Wilson, Amy, 115 Wilson, C.E. (BMS missionary and Foreign Secretary), 57, 58, 60, 115; on Empire, 54, 79 Women's Missionary Association (WMA, PCE, FMC), 117,174-5,175~6 Wookey, A.J. (LMS missionary, Bechuanaland), 73, 85,90 Working Men's Association (SPG), 40 World Missionary Conference, 1910. See Edinburgh Conference YMCA, 174,178,189 Younger Clergy Union (CMS), 39-40 Zululand, 65