Early Relations behveen the United States and China. 121 



board September 14, 1842"^ : "I am now permitted to convey to 

 you the glorious intelligence that peace is declared between Great 

 Britain and China, and this land of heathenized infidelity has at 

 last been thrown open ! ! !" Parker, newly returned from 

 America, wrote in November of that year of the less haughty 

 attitude of the people, and that there was "abundant evidence 

 that a new era" had arrived."'' 



In America also, where the events of the war had been fol- 

 lowed with close attention, it was felt that the time had come 

 for an advance movement. Parker spent the two years of 

 hostilities in the United States, lecturing widely, and organizing 

 branch associations in the principal cities to help in the medical 

 work.''' Other returned missionaries added inspiration ; news 

 in the secular and religious journals aroused interest; and the 

 demands for reenforcements which came from the representatives 

 on the field found a ready response. Roberts, who had become 

 a regular missionary"^ of the Baptist Board, Dean, and Shuck 

 urged their board to send three additional missionary families^® 

 and later increased their request to one for each of the treaty 

 ports.''' The American Board missionaries asked for six men 

 for Amoy, and four or five for the other ports. "^ In response 

 to these and other calls, Walter M. Lowrie of the Presbyterian 



"'Correspondence of the A. B. M. U. 



'"' Missny. Herald, 39 : 257. 



*" Stevens, Life of Parker, p. 188 et sqq. See too, Papers Relative to 

 hospitals in China, Boston, 1841, which contain an appeal for Parker's 

 work by a committee of the Boston Medical Association. 



•^ When the opening of the five ports seemed imminent, Roberts wrote 

 to his society, urging that they either incorporate and plan to send out 

 more missionaries, or else become auxiliary to the Baptist General Con- 

 vention. (Corres. of A. B. M. U., Roberts to Roberts Fund Society, Feb. 

 18, 1841.) The latter plan was adopted, perhaps before his letter reached 

 his constituents, and he became a regular missionary of the Baptist Board. 

 (Ibid., Roberts to Baptist Board, April 19, 1841.) Later, in a period which 

 does not here concern us, he played a rather questionable part in the 

 T'ai Ping Rebellion, his sanguine temperament leading him for a time 

 to put too high an estimate on the religious nature of the movement. 



«" July 4. 1842, Corres. of A. B. M. U. 



'° Missny. Mag., 23 : 315. 



"July 31, 1843. Missny. Herald, 40:32. 



