CHEAP MISSIONARIES

China Inland and Mr Hornsby’s church missions—Roman Catholics—Ta-tien-lu—Hong-su-chang—Tachienlu—Protestants at Kiatang—Sufis—Lachow

廉價傳教士

內地會和霍恩斯比先生（Mr Hornsby）的教會傳教—天主教—打箭爐—洪蘇昌—大理—基督教在嘉定—蘇非派—拉州

CHAPTER X

CHEAP MISSIONARIES

第十章

廉價傳教士（CHEAP MISSIONARIES）

The question of missionaries is always a subject of the day in China, and the question of the day before the Boxer uprising was distinctively cheap missionaries. For that missionaries of some sort or other have come, are coming and will continue to come, appears certain. Whether it is better to have one missionary backed by a salary of, say, two hundred pounds a year, or to have four missionaries struggling against the Chinese climate and the difficulties of the Chinese language on a doubtful fifty pounds a year or less is the point debatable. How they do it is the question. The China Inland Mission gives its members house-rent, but they have to find everything else: food, clothes, medicines, travelling expenses, books or tracts to give away, together with salaries for Chinese assistants. Mr Horsburgh says he can live on ten dollars a month. We find our Chinese coolie reckons his food alone costs him $4.65 for a month of thirty-one days. That leaves $5.35 for everything else per month. But how?

傳教士問題在中國始終是熱門話題，而在義和團運動（Boxer Uprising）前，這一討論尤其圍繞著「廉價傳教士」（cheap missionaries）展開。無論如何，傳教士已經來過、正在來、並且將繼續來到中國，這一點是無可置疑的。爭論的核心在於：是讓一位傳教士每年領取約200英鎊的薪水，還是讓四位傳教士每年在不確定的50英鎊甚至更少的薪水下，面對中國的氣候和語言障礙艱苦奮鬥，這仍然有待商榷。他們是如何維持生活的，這是一個謎。中國內地會（China Inland Mission）為其成員提供房租補貼，但其餘的一切開銷，包括食物、衣物、藥品、旅行費用、書籍或傳單的費用，以及支付中國助手的薪水，都需要他們自行負擔。霍斯伯格先生（Mr. Horsburgh）說他每月可以靠10美元生活。我們則發現，一名中國苦力（coolie）僅在31天的月份裡，食物開銷就需要4.65美元。那麼剩下的5.35美元如何能應付其他所有開支呢？

note: At that date a little over ten shillings.

註：在當時約合十先令多一點。

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CHEAP MISSIONARIES 99

English gentleman accustomed to the generous fare of old England is to keep alive even on what sustains a Chinese coolie is again a difficulty. During one summer we had the pleasure of visiting several mission stations in the West of China, both those of the Roman Catholics, to whom most travellers award lavishly the praise they deny to missionaries of their own Church, and those of the China Inland, and of Mr Horsburgh*s new Church Mission. From all alike, it goes without saying, we received much kindliness, besides that inestimable boon to the traveller, hearing in each case a little meed of fairly accurate information about the neighbourhood, such as it would be impossible to wring out of the surrounding Chinese. Amongst the men o[ the different missions — we did not then come across any lady missionaries — it would be most invidious to institute a comparison. Suffice it to say, that those of whom we saw the most impressed us the most highly, which is as it should be, and if there be saints still on earth, one or two of those we met struck us as very like our idea of them. Although there were others, who did not seem quite the best calculated to awaken the Chinese to the lovableness of a new Faith.

一位習慣了英格蘭豐盛餐飲的英國紳士，若要僅靠中國苦力的食物來維持生計，這無疑是個難題。在一個夏天，我們有幸參觀了中國西部的幾個傳教站，既有羅馬天主教的傳教站——大多數旅行者對這些傳教士給予了他們對自己教會傳教士所吝於給予的讚譽，也有中國內地會（China Inland Mission）和霍斯伯格先生（Mr. Horsburgh）新教會傳教站。在所有傳教站，我們不言而喻地得到了許多善意，此外，對於旅行者來說，最無價的恩惠莫過於能夠獲得一些相對準確的當地信息，這些信息從周圍的中國人那裡是無法得到的。在我們遇到的不同教派傳教士之間——當時我們沒有遇到任何女傳教士——進行比較似乎不太公平。簡單來說，我們接觸最多的傳教士給我們留下了最深刻的印象，這也正如我們所期望的那樣。如果現今世上還有聖人，那麼我們遇到的一兩位傳教士，確實很符合我們心中對聖人的想像。儘管，也有一些傳教士似乎不太適合讓中國人感受到新信仰的可愛之處。

But to turn from the men to the missions, and to begin with the Roman Catholics, as the longest established We first visited a Roman Catholic village, that had been converted to Christianii some hundred and fifty years ago — Ta-tien-tz There was no church there, no resident prie foreign or Chinese, but a house built by t! villagers at their own expense, by their own ham to receive their priest, when he could come them, with a large entrance hall arranged serve as a chapel. The village supported thi girls' schools — curiously enough we did not heai any boys' schools, but there must have been su One taught by an aged dame reminded us grea of those taught by a village dame, such as noM E ngland only survive on canvas. 1 1 was in a sn room of a large farmhouse, not well attend the children too shy to show off their attainm< to advantage, and the aged dame too dea converse easily. The other two were distin better. The girls read fairly, and then sang £ a fashion; they could not answer question arithmetic, but all had rosy cheeks, dean i and bright, intelligent eyes. These last see indeed the feature of the village, which for 1 could compete with any we have seen in CI Indeed the contrast between it and the surrc ing villages in this respect was most remark as also its comparative cleanliness. Visiting outlying farms we hardly required to heai answer to our question given by an awki looking boy — " No, I am not sealed to the Faith," the Chinese phrase for being baptised, '' I belong to the Three Religions," Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism it is to be supposed, — for the slatternly surroundings sufficiency showed that the inmates belonged to the modem faith of China as regards cleanliness. Whilst in the next village to that of the Christians there seemed to be a regular gathering of bad characters, with such sore eyes, and so filthy, that it was hardly possible even to eat there in passing. A very clean-looking, respectable man, pursuing the same route with ourselves, said he was the owner of an inn further on, and again a Christian, and though the distance was rather too great we immediately decided to push on for dinner, and were rewarded by one of the cleanest rooms we had had occasion to see for many a long day. As it came out that he was brother-in-law of the owner of the inn in the Christian village, and each, though barely more than in the prime of life, boasted of having already more than sixty descendants, it may be that the Christian village owes its comeliness and superior physique to its being chiefly peopled by one large, healthy, good-looking family rather than to its faith. Be this as it may, here is undoubtedly the cheapest way of doing missionary work — to let the people build house and church and support schools — and only send a priest for a fe^ occasional weeks in the year to visit them. Bi for this you must first convert your village.

但是，從傳教士轉向傳教事業，首先來談談歷史最悠久的天主教傳教事業。我們首先參觀了一個天主教村莊——大田子（Ta-tien-tz），這個村莊大約在一百五十年前被皈依為基督教。村莊裡沒有教堂，也沒有常駐的外籍或中國籍神父，但村民們自己出錢、親手建造了一座房屋，供神父來訪時使用，入口大廳被設置為臨時的禮拜堂。村莊還資助了三所女子學校——奇怪的是，我們沒有聽說有男校，但那裡應該有一所。一所由一位年長女士教授的學校讓我們想起了那些現在在英國只留存在畫布上的村莊學校。這所學校位於一座大農舍的小房間裡，學生不多，孩子們太害羞，無法展現她們的學業成績，而那位年邁的老師因聽力不佳也難以進行交流。另兩所學校明顯要好得多，女孩們閱讀水平不錯，還以某種方式唱了歌；她們無法回答算術問題，但每個人都擁有紅潤的臉頰、乾淨的衣服和明亮、聰慧的眼睛。這些女孩的特點似乎成為了這個村莊的特色，該村莊在這方面可以與我們在中國見過的任何村莊競爭。事實上，它與周邊村莊之間的對比非常顯著，尤其是相對的整潔度。

在拜訪了周邊的農場後，我們幾乎不需要聽到一個笨拙的男孩回答我們的問題——「不，我沒有皈依基督教」（中國的表達方式是「我還沒有受洗」），他說：「我屬於三教」，指的是道教、佛教和儒教——因為骯髒的環境已經足以表明，這些住戶屬於中國現代的信仰，至少在衛生方面。而在隔壁的非基督教村莊，似乎聚集著一些惡棍，他們的眼睛受感染，周圍如此骯髒，以至於我們路過時幾乎無法在那裡進食。