Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/305

 advantage was taken of this opening and the willingness of all classes to hear the Gospel.

A recrudescence of Boxerism in 1902, which took place at the capital and the regions to the north, east, and south of that city, checked for the time being this movement towards the Church. But it spread to other parts of the province, so that nearly every part of the province has had its turn sooner or later. Missionaries who have been permitted to come in close contact with this movement have been struck with the wonderful organising powers of the leading men, and also by the ability shown by the people to support their own work. Hitherto the funds for carrying on any aggressive work have largely been furnished by the foreign society or the individual missionary, but in this movement there has been an abundant supply of money forthcoming from the Chinese themselves. The basis of their organisations was in most cases utterly opposed to the truths of the Gospel, and the methods adopted for raising the money such that they could not be tolerated by the Church; yet the fact remains that wonderful powers of organisation and self-support have been revealed, which if rightly directed and controlled might greatly accelerate the evangelisation of the millions of, and make the Church in that province to a large extent independent of both foreign teachers and money, an end to be greatly desired.

During this period all missionaries have made great strides in the occupation of the various "spheres" allotted to them, and very many cities, towns, and villages have been opened as centres for preaching the Gospel or as outstations, so that now there are a large number of "light centres" dotted over the length and breadth of the province, and there are few districts where there are not some witnesses for the truth, or where the Gospel is not preached more or less regularly.

The great demand for scientific literature which followed the Boxer outbreak was so pressing that the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge at Shanghai decided