The following article was published in the August 18, 1900, issue of The Living Church, in the most intense period of the 1899-1901 Boxer Rebellion.
The Latest from the Shanghai Mission
The following from our Bishops of Shanghai and Tokyo, kindly communicated from the Church Missions House, will be of interest to Churchmen everywhere. It will be remembered that a later cable dispatch from Bishop [Frederick R.] Graves, dated July 25th, already published, declared that all remaining workers in the American mission had been ordered to Shanghai.
The latter is the latest information that has been received.
From the Bishop of Shanghai
Shanghai, July 6th, 1900
Since writing a week ago the situation has changed considerably. The exodus from Shanghai has continued steadily, and the feeling that trouble is in the air has been deepening. On Sunday night we learned that the news of the killing of the German Minister had been confirmed, and we also learned that we were living in China with an imperial decree to exterminate all foreigners hanging over our heads, and only not executed from the fact that the Yang-tsze Viceroys stood out against doing so. In such a case of deep-seated popular disturbances even they could not guarantee that safety would continue.
I therefore, on Monday morning, telegraphed to Hankow to send all our ladies to Shanghai. I also sent a message by wire to Lindstrom in Nganking that he and Dr. Woodward should go to Wuhu, there being no escape from Nganking in case of trouble. During the week things have gone from bad to worse. I felt that it was too much of a risk to keep the children at St. Mary’s here longer, after calling on the United States Consul and ascertaining that we were so far out that we were outside the defense scheme. We had already lost a fourth of the boys, though some had begun to return, and the disorganization among them and the fear was so great that it was decided to send the boys home also and dissolve the College. Then came the news of the general massacre in Peking, and also news of the trouble of Soochow. If that trouble broke out, St. John’s would be in a very exposed situation. After consultation with the gentlemen here it was decided to send all the foreign children and some of the ladies to Japan.
I feel very badly that our schools here have been broken up, and for the general confusion entailed, but it seemed unwise to take any risk at such a time. The orphans are in Shanghai in the Woman’s Hospital, which we have had to close to accommodate them.
No one can foresee the future, but there are signs that the revolution cannot be confined to the North and will involve the South also. At any rate, even if we are spared the frightful experiences of the North, we shall see a period of the deepest unsettlement. As for work in the country, that is stopped. To meet in the city will be to make the people a mark for their persecutors, so that outside of Shanghai all the churches will suffer. The Northern missions seem almost to have been swept away. I hear that though some Christians recanted, the most preferred death.
One very serious feature of the situation is that if our property is burned we shall lose it entirely. The personal property of the missionaries and the buildings and belongings of the mission are on the same footing. The loss will be total. Insurance does not cover destruction by war or riot, and when this business is finished there will apparently be no government left from which to claim an indemnity. I feel, as you may suppose, exceedingly anxious, and we men will in all cases remain to protect the property so long as there is the slightest chance of doing so. But we trust that it will not come to that, and that our Mission, with the other missions in southern and central China, may be spared such a blow.
We ask your prayers and the prayers of the Church. Do not let them be discouraged. Out of all this confusion will come peace. Have in mind that when all is settled there will be a chance of a greater work than we have ever dreamed of, and tell young men and women to stand ready to step in and do it.
Bishop [John] McKim [of Toyko] has been good enough and far-seeing enough to make arrangements for a party from China, and we feel very grateful to him. If no trouble comes, the ladies, who can do no work here in the present state of things, will return ready for work as soon as the way opens. If trouble does come we shall be thankful enough that the women and children were not here.
All are sorry to go, and no fear has been expressed by any of the ladies, married or single. They go under orders. I hope that I can send you better news next time.
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) F. R. GRAVES,
Bishop of Shanghai and the Lower Yang-tsze Valley
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From the Bishop of Tokyo
Tokyo, July 16th, 1900
My Dear Mr. Kimber,
Fourteen ladies and seven children of the China Mission arrived here yesterday. They are being cared for at present at St. Luke’s Hospital and the houses of the missionaries.
As soon as they are rested some of them will probably go to the hills, and others will remain here. The situation in China grows darker daily. Only the Omniscient Father knows what is in the future. Intercessions are offered daily for our brethren, native and foreign, in China. We shall do all in our power to make our friends who have come to us comfortable. The hospital is at last doing some good and we are not sorry that it is here.
The ladies and children now with us are: Mrs. Graves and two children, Mrs. Pott and four children, Miss Cartwright with Mrs. Cooper’s two children, Miss Dodson, Miss Richmond, Miss Osgood, Mrs. Ridgely and her mother, Mrs. Ogden; Dr. Glenton, Miss Huntington, Miss McCook, Miss Warnock, Miss Wood.
(Signed) John McKim
Bishop of Tokyo
The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-imperialist uprising, launched by a secret society called the Order of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, that broke out in northern China in October 1899. The Boxers targeted foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians, who they blamed for a series of natural disasters. About 32,000 Chinese Christians and over 200 foreign missionaries and members of their families were killed, including two British Anglican missionaries. There were anti-foreigner scares in southern China, including rumors that a mob planned to burn down the Episcopal school in Soochow (Suzhou) in June 1900.
That month, the Boxers besieged the Legation Quarter in Beijing (Peking), where thousands of foreign diplomats, missionaries, and soldiers and a large group of Chinese Christians were sheltering. An army of 20,000 troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance (the U.S., Austria-Hungary, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) invaded to break the siege, and China’s Empress Dowager Cixi declared war on the foreign powers.
The Eight-Nation Alliance’s army eventually crushed the Boxers and the Chinese Imperial Army in a campaign marked by many incidents of brutality. The conflict severely weakened China’s imperial government and intensified foreign control over its commerce and diplomacy.
Episcopal mission work in China began in 1837 under William Boone, who became the first non-Roman Catholic bishop to lead the church there in 1844. It was headquartered in Shanghai, while the Church of England’s mission work, mostly led by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, was focused in northern China.
The two mission efforts were eventually merged in the 1912 founding of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, or Holy Catholic Church in China, which eventually included 13 dioceses. It ceased operations in what is now the People’s Republic of China in 1958, but the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (the Anglican Church in Hong Kong) and the Episcopal Diocese of Taiwan are its heirs, and the Diocese of Taiwan’s St. John’s University in New Taipei is the successor of the one founded by Episcopal missionaries in Shanghai.
Bishop Frederick R. Graves of Shanghai (1858-1940) was the longest-serving Anglican bishop in China, occupying the see for 44 years, from 1893 to 1937. He was known as the “statesman-bishop” for his role in steering the mission through the Sino-Japanese War, the Anti-Imperial Revolution of 1911, and the Japanese occupation of the 1930s, as well as the Boxer Rebellion.
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and also writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.
