CIIIXA. 



CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR, SOCIETIES OP. 



, , : .... I--. . -taMi.-h:d in Pekin a school 



a .ia|jane.-e i'iin.'ij:al iii which Chinamen 



.iMaiiitd a library degree can quickly 



'jisn,. i!i .lu| ancsu language, and through the 



ip.ui.-~e tran-laiions ran learn the sciences of 

 ;h,- \\.-t. in.-lnding lii-torv. mathematics, philos- 

 i-j liv. law, an<l IIM (licine. 



AM the viceroys and governors were invited to 

 iulviM- the court as to the reforms that they 

 thought neces>ary. Chang-Chih-Tung proposed 

 an international commission to investigate mis- 

 sionary methods. The missionaries are known to 

 tlu- ( hinoe as the scholars who teach Western 

 doctrines. The Catholics have prospered more 

 than the Protestants, knowing the Chinese lan- 

 guage and assimilating Buddhist symbolism in 

 their worship. Protestants by their charitable 

 protection of infants, their medical skill, and, 

 a hove all. by their instructions in the sciences and 

 practical arts of the West, have won the respect of 

 the intelligent and progressive element, and they 

 arc the principal propagators of Western political 

 id. a-. The Chinaman who embraces Christianity 

 adopts only that part of the Christian moral doc- 

 trines which h finds serviceable and of practical 

 utility. In joining a Christian community he cuts 

 himself loose from Chinese society and enters an 

 illegal secret society, which he will not do unless 

 he obtains compensatory benefits. These consist 

 in financial assistance and in protection. Thus 

 bankrupts, impoverished men, and social outcasts 

 become converts, and thus missionaries find them- 

 selves the head's of associations for mutual benefit 

 and defense of an economic and social character, 

 and tend themselves to become practical business 

 men. 



Hy an edict issued on April 23 the Grand Coun- 

 cil was abolished and a General Board of State 

 Affairs was constituted in its place, with Prince 

 Ching as its president, and as the other members 

 Li-Hung-Chang, Yung-Lu, Kun-Kang, Wang- 

 Wcn-Shao. and Lu-Chuan-Lin, three of the mem- 

 bers Ix-iiig Man -hus and three Chinese. The vice- 

 roys Liu-Kun-Yi and Chang-Chih-Tung, who had 

 already been attached as associate members to 

 the Chinese Peace Commission, were appointed 

 advisory members of this new supreme council, 

 the appointed task of which was to recommend 

 what reforms were needed in China. Their report 

 would be laid before the Empress Dowager by the 

 Emperor, and the changes approved by her would 

 to put into force after the return of the court 

 to Pekin. The Empress Dowager canceled the 

 nomination of Prince Tuan's son as heir presump- 

 tive of the throne. A series of decrees enjoined 

 the protection of foreigners and of native Chris- 

 tians. The responses to the invitation to supe- 

 rior officials throughout China to send in reform 

 schemes were so numerous and so conflicting 

 that the Emperor appointed a commission to ex- 

 amine the various projects and report upon them 

 for the information of the Empress, who would 

 have the ultimate decision. 



In Canton the Viceroy Tao-Mo, with the con- 

 currence of the Tartar general, issued a proclama- 

 tion abolishing the privileges of the Manchus, de- 



inng that they should henceforth be treated 

 similarly to the Chinese in the Kwang provinces. 



10 policy of maintaining the special privileges of 



Manchu colonies in the Chinese cities has been 



nforced more vigorously in Canton than in other 



. and the Tartar braves have been accus- 



>med to terrorize the peaceable inhabitants of 



city, while their own quarter, into which the 



hinese police were not allowed to penetrate, has 



the refuge of the lawless. The new order 



i*hed the special Manchu tribunals, making 



the Manchus amenable to the ordinary courts, 

 invested the Chinese police with the same powers 

 in the Manchu quarter as in other parts of the 

 city, and forbade the Manchu soldiers, as Chinese 

 soldiers are forbidden, to carry arms except on 

 duty. The Yangtse viceroys and several others 

 in their memorials suggested the abolition of the 

 Manchu pensions and of all special privileges of 

 Manchus in the capital as well as elsewhere. The 

 progressive Viceroy of Canton took steps to sup- 

 press opium-smoking among his subordinates, 

 having memorialized the throne in regard to this 

 vice. He also gave encouragement to the estab- 

 lishment of schools of Western learning. Li-Hung- 

 Chang proposed in a memorial that examinations 

 in Chinese classics should be suspended every- 

 where for five years, and that after that they 

 should be combined with examinations in the 

 Western branches. When Li-Hung-Chang, in 

 April, asked the court to appoint a time for its 

 return to Pekin, the Empress Dowager replied 

 that that would be impossible until the guests 

 of the nation had departed. W r hen negotiations' 

 for evacuation were advanced and the departure 

 of the foreign troops w r as in prospect, the date of 

 Oct. 6 was set for the reentry of the court. In 

 Pekin the Chinese officials tried to disguise the 

 ruin caused by the siege and occupation by erect- 

 ing wooden facsimiles of the temples, pagodas, 

 gates, and palaces that were destroyed. The 

 court removed from Singan-Fu to Kaifung-Fu, 

 in Honan, in October, and did not proceed to 

 Pekin at the time set, putting off the d"ate till 

 another year because the Chinese plenipotentiaries 

 had mismanaged the negotiations and allowed too 

 large a foreign force to remain in Pekin. An 

 edict issued on May 30 ordered the destruction 

 of all official documents in the archives in order 

 to do away with burdensome precedents, and 

 directed that the official writers of the six boards 

 of government who were familiar with the old 

 forms and precedents should be dismissed, and 

 that the presidents should draw up such regula- 

 tions for the conduct of future business as would 

 enable them to have immediate knowledge of all 

 transactions. After the documents in all the 

 public departments at Pekin were destroyed and 

 the clerks dismissed, the boards of government 

 were at a loss how to proceed without records 

 or precedents. Proclamations were placarded in 

 Pekin and other cities declaring that a national 

 crime was committed by China in 1900, and that 

 the punishment .inflicted should be a warning 

 against its recurrence. An edict issued in October 

 admonished officials to enforce the reforms de- 

 creed, for the destiny of China was involved in 

 these changes, designed to render her independent. 

 CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR, SOCIETIES 

 OF. The twentieth International Convention of 

 the United Societies of Christian Endeavor, held in 

 Cincinnati, Ohio, in July, was very largely at- 

 tended. The secretary's report showed that there 

 were now 01,427 societies, and called attention td 

 the fact that the figures representing this number 

 were the same as in 1891,, but were arranged in 

 different order, for they read then 10,274, while 

 the nearly 1,000,000 members of ten years before 

 had become nearly 4,000,000. It had been ex- 

 pected each year that a falling off in the increase 

 in numbers would begin, but the time for that 

 'had not yet come. A net increase of nearly 2,000 

 new societies had taken place since the Interna- 

 tional Convention of 1900 in London, with nearly 

 100,000 added members. Unification of local and 

 district unions had advanced during the year, and 

 interdenominational fellowship had been fostered, 

 " The denominational loyalty of Christian En- 



