Good Citizens: British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918 9780773567528

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Origins of the Missionary Societies
Secretaries of British Missionary Societies
Introduction
1 The Politics of Spiritual Free Trade
2 "God's Greater Britain"
3 Citizenship in Crisis I: The Boer War
4 Citizenship in Crisis II: The Boxer Rebellion
5 "Higher Citizenship"
6 Armageddon
Conclusion
Notes
Note on Sources
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
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Y
Z

Citation preview

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