The Amoy Mission, by Rev. Wm. Rankin Duryea, D.D.

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           THE AMOY MISSION--Part 2
                          BY THE REV. WM. RANKIN DURYEA, D.D. 1877
(Scanned and edited April 1st, 2008, by Bill Brown, Xiamen University)
Note: It took me a couple of years to find this! I searched abebooks.com but found only a 40-page photocopy at "Book Look" (they list it several times, at different prices, up to $70). I finally found that it was in my copy of Sangster, Mrs. Margaret E., Ed., “A Manual of the Missions of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America,” Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, New York, 1877, pp.170-209            I hope it is useful to you--and saves you a lot of time and $70!
Part 1    Part 2    Part 3      Amoy Mission: Woman in China

WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS.
The one thing to which all are devoted is the worship of ancestors. In every home are found tablets in which the spirit of the dead is supposed to- linger. Before these there is a constant adoration. Chinese people, whether Buddhists, Taoists, or followers of Confucius, are united in this superstition. Offerings of money, food and clothing are continually renewed before the votive shrine of their dead. The poor content themselves with small tablets, placed in some recess of the house, and bearing the names of the dead; but the wealthy pride themselves, on such an ornate and graceful Ancestral Hall, as we see in the illustration.

"The general belief is, that the unseen world is very much like this, only that things are spiritualized. The departed spirits are supposed to need food and clothing and money, just as when they resided in earthly bodies, and pious living friends, consider it a sacred duty to provide for their wants. Real food is placed for a time before the tablets, and when the spirits are thought to have consumed the spiritual part, the material part is eaten by the household. Clothing and money are symbolized by paper, which is devoutly burnt, the fire conveying it to those for whom it is intended. The Chinese think that if they forget or neglect these rites, their departed relatives will be very angry, and bring dire calamities upon them; and their belief in this is ingrained and inwoven with the whole fabric of their lives."
These tablets are the last things which the heathenism of China will yield. The people will turn from Confucius, will leave their temples, will sometimes profess Christianity, but the real test of the convert's truthfulness, usually comes when the "ancestral tablet" is doomed to destruction.

INTRODUCTION OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY.
In the sixth and seventh centuries, Nestorian missionaries are said to have penetrated the bounds of the empire. In the .sixteenth century, devoted Jesuits secured a foothold for a time; but the Romish mixture of political, religious and priestly pretensions, could gain no permanent hold. At last the Empire seemed sealed against all Christianity, and even foreign trade was prohibited. In 1836, the Reformed Dutch Church in America established a mission in Borneo. Some of our missionaries employed much of their time in preaching to the Chinese, who were found thronging all the ports of the great islands adjacent to their populous native land. In 1840, a war broke forth between Great Britain and China, which changed the whole aspect of affairs. The war originated in the selfishness and sinfulness of English traders endeavoring to force a baneful traffic in opium, upon the unwilling Chinese. But wicked as was the war, God turned it to His praise. When it ceased, treaties were made, by which five ports were opened for the free entry of Christian nations. The disciples of Christ hailed the flinging back of the long barred gates, and instantly made preparations for an advance. Among those ports of ingress stood the city of Amoy.

SITUATION OF AMOY.
He who studies the map of China is usually led to mark the great island of Formosa, which lies along the Chinese coast, somewhat like Madagascar, near south-eastern Africa. Formosa is separated from the mainland, by straits, which average seventy-five miles in width, and across those straits lies the city of Amoy. As a trading port and harbor, it had been often coveted by Europeans, and near it one of the foreign "factories" had been established from early in the eighteenth century.

The city is built on a hilly island, at the mouth of a river, and the ground it occupies is closely filled by a population of two hundred thousand souls.

Near it are other islands, on the nearest of which, called Kolongsoo, much more favorable places for foreign residences are found than in Amoy. About thirty-five miles up the river, lies the city of Chiang-chin, and just north of Amoy is found Tung-an, the capital of a Chinese district. Between Chiang-chin and Amoy, Chioh-bey lies, a city with sixty thousand people. In fact, the district of forty-five miles around Amoy is computed to contain nearly three millions of inhabitants, thus supporting a population, perhaps, equal to that of the State of New York, from Lake Ontario to the Hudson.

ORIGIN OF THE MISSION.
Our Mission originated in the wisdom and counsel of one man, whose name will long be tenderly preserved in the hearts of those who love Christ's kingdom, and who is embalmed in the records of the Reformed Church, as one of her best beloved children. The following extract from a letter of the late Mrs. T. C. Doremus, discloses the interest felt at the time in the mission of Dr. Abeel, to Amoy:

NEW YORK, November 25, 1876.
Dear Friend: I am very much obliged to the ladies, and yon, for sending me the certificate of life membership to the Board of Missions. Will you thank them? Dr. David Abeel was the first missionary to China, 1829, invited by the generosity of Mr. Olyphant, of the firm of Talbot, Olyphant & Co., a passage out in one of their ships, and support for a year. Dr. Bridgeman accompanied him. I was on board of the ship to bid them good-bye. At the end of the year, the Dutch Board assumed the charge of Dr. Abeel; the American Board of Dr. Bridgeman. At that time, when the Chinese teacher was instructing them, he kept the door locked, when the officers came to see what the foreigners were doing.. The teacher put the books in a box, and material for making shoes on its top, before unlocking the door, as he feared he might loose his head, if he taught foreigners Chinese. In 1834, Dr. Abeel was in delicate health; the physicians recommended a voyage to his native land.

There were no American ships in port; a kind English captain invited him to go in his ship to London; while there he was the guest of Mr. Suter. Dr. Abeel founded the "Society for Promoting the Female Education of the East," to send ladies to teach the women of India and China. He brought me the programme, and a meeting was called in the parlors of Dr. Matthews, in the South Dutch Church, then Garden, now Exchange, street. The meeting for final arrangement, was at the house of Mrs. Bethune, Dr. Bethune's mother. Dr. Abeel opened the meeting, and then remarked that he had a message for them; at that time, the Dutch was auxiliary to the American Board. "The secretary, Dr. Rufus Anderson, wished the ladies to defer." "What!" said Mrs. Bethune, "are the American Board afraid the ladies will get ahead of them'" Some were for going on: others, out of respect to Dr. Anderson, were willing to wait; and Dr. Abeel, with tears rolling down his face, exclaimed, "What is to become of the souls of those who are ignorant of the offers of mercy and the Bible?" That English society invited us to Calcutta, the Woman's Union Missionary Society. In twelve years, 10,000 of the high caste have been .taught in Calcutta, besides the lower caste.

MRS. T. C. DOREMUS.
To Secretary of Woman's Board.
Burning with missionary zeal, David Abeel went out to China in 1829, intending to labor as a chaplain among seamen. Soon after his arrival at his post, he was transferred to the American Board of Foreign Missions, and under directions from home, he made a survey of the field for missionary efforts in eastern Asia. After a visit to Europe and the United States, he returned to the east, and was laboring in Borneo when the British treaty opened the gates of the Celestial Empire. He sailed in 1841, from Borneo for China, and with Bishop Boone, of the American Episcopal Church, he located himself on Ko-longsoo in 1842. Instantly, he began to press the claims of Amoy upon the denomination to which he was most closely attached. His appeals were so earnest, that at last our General Synod approved of the transfer of two more missionaries from Borneo, the Rev. Elihu Doty and the Rev. William J. Pohlman. These brethren joined the pioneer in 1844. Six months after their arrival, David Abeel returned, in failing health, to America, and died at Albany in 1846, at the age of forty-two years. Had he no other monument, the living stones which have been built into the temple of Christ in Amoy, would perpetuate his memory more grandly than St. Paul's of London tells the value of the great architect whose dust lies mouldering beneath its dome.

PROGRESS OF THE MISSION.
In 1847, the Rev. John V. N. Talmage joined the little band, and in 1848 a church for the converts was built the first church for native Christians which was erected in China after Protestant missions were there established. In 1850, Dr. James Young, a physician, under the direction of the English Presbyterian Church, came to Amoy, and was closely associated with our own missionaries. The devoted William C. Burns joined Dr. Young in 1851. He came from his native Scotland, filled with the same zeal which the Holy Spirit had so wonderfully blessed by revival after revival in the churches to which Mr. Burns had ministered. Soon after his arrival, a remarkable outpouring of God's grace occurred in Amoy and the neighborhood.

Churches were organized, in which, a spirit of consecration prevailed, and new points were taken for greater effort. From that day to this, the missionaries of the two churches have worked in loving harmony, and the grand result is seen in a Chinese Classis or Presbytery which is managed by the representatives of the native churches. So remarkable was the early progress of the Christian work in Amoy, that, in 1853, the Missionary Herald referred to it as "far more successful than any mission in China." It has never lost its ground. In 1854, there was an accession of over fifty members; and, on the year following, seventy-five persons were received into the native church.* A school for girls was started at an early day, though under heavy discouragements; and two prayer meetings, for women, were sustained by the converts, under the guidance of the faithful wives of our missionaries.

*The figures are as nearly exact as I can make them, but there may be slight mistakes. W. R. D.

In January, 1849, the second of the "first three," the Rev. William J. Pohlman, perished by shipwreck as he was returning from Hong-Kong. The Rev. Elihu Doty was spared to labor fifteen years in his chosen field, dying on ship-board in 1864, when only a day or two separated him from the native land to which he was hastening. The Rev. Dr. Talmage has already passed thirty years of constant service among the Chinese. May God long spare his useful and consecrated life, and permit His servant to behold yet larger blessings, before the final summons from toil to rest is given.

We need not give the whole list of those who, since 1847, have sought to labor for the Master in distant Amoy. Twenty-five godly men and women have, at various times, been sent forth by our Board of Foreign Missions, including in this number, the names of David Abeel and his associates. Nine of these have been compelled to give up the work on account of their health, and have returned, to remain in their native land. Eleven, out of the twenty-five, have died while in the harness; sometimes, at the very beginning of their career, stricken mysteriously down. Especially do we recall the Rev. John E. Watkins and his wife, who, sailing from New York in 1861, were never heard from after the vessel had gained the open sea. The treasure-house of God is wide, and in earth or sea, we know He guards His saints, and watches over their precious dust. But though the workmen in the field we consider have thus been subject to change, and have often been called away, God has carried on the work to a higher and higher plane.

PRESENT STATE OF THE MISSION--1877
Of our own missionaries, there are found on the ground to-day, the Rev. Dr. Talmage and his wife, their daughter, Miss Mary E. Talmage, and the Rev. Leonard W. Kip and his wife. The Rev. Daniel W. Rapelje, who began his labors in 1859, is now in this country regaining his strength after years of service. Miss Helen M. Van Doren is also at home, but hoping soon with renewed health to return. This little band, blessed abundantly in the past, is appealing earnestly for re-enforcement. Dr. Talmage began his labors in 1847, Rapelje in 1859, and Kip in 1860. Surely such toilers have a right to be heard, as they ask for new associates from home.
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