Methodism in Sichuan

American Methodist Episcopal Mission field in Szechwan

The first Methodist missionaries to reach Sichuan were those of the American Methodist Episcopal Mission (AMEM) led by Rev. Lucius Nathan Wheeler,[2] who arrived in Chungking in 1882. In 1884, Francis Dunlap Gamewell was assigned to this city as superintendent of the West China Mission.[3] Their early efforts encountered strong resistance and riots that led to the abandonment of the mission. It was not until 1889 that these Methodists came back and started the mission again.[4]

American Methodist Institutional Church at Chengtu, before 1946

The AMEM mission work concentrated within a diamond-shaped area with the cities of Chengtu, Suining, Tzechung and Chungking as bases.[5] Apart from being one of the four founding societies of the West China Union University in 1910,[6] the AMEM had several colleges, schools and hospitals in those above-mentioned cities, as well as an Institutional Church in Chengtu and a Lewis Memorial Institutional Church in Chungking.[7]

Joseph Beech (third from left) with (l to r) E. D. Burton (American Baptist biblical scholar), T. C. Chamberlin (American geologist), Y. T. Wang (interpreter) and R. T. Chamberlin (T. C. Chamberlin's son) at Santai, Sichuan, during an exploratory trip through China in 1909 as part of the Oriental Educational Investigation Commission.

The Rev. Dr. Joseph Beech, a Wesleyan University graduate and member of Psi Upsilon and Phi Beta Kappa,[8] played an instrumental role in founding and running West China Union University. He served as its founding president and later its chancellor.[9]

Ailie Gale served as hospital administrator for five years at Chadwick Memorial Hospital in Tzechung beginning in 1941. She left in 1946 to reunite with her husband, as she recognized escalating political conflict.[10]

During the 1940s, the Church's work in the Chengtu area was directed by W. Y. Chen, one of the four Methodist bishops in China.[4][11]

First Canadian Methodist missionaries to Sichuan, sailed in 1891. From left to right, standing: Rev. G. E. Hartwell, Mrs. Hartwell, Rev. O. L. Kilborn, Mrs. Kilborn. Seated: Rev. V. C. Hart, Mrs. Hart, Dr. D. W. Stevenson.

In 1891, a West China Mission group of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church in Canada (MCC) was formed in Toronto, consisting of four missionaries and their wives. Two of the men were ministers (Virgil C. Hart, founder of the mission,[12] and George E. Hartwell), and two were doctors (Omar L. Kilborn and David W. Stevenson).[13] Before their departure, a farewell service was held in Elm Street Methodist Church, Toronto. They left Canada for China on 4 October.[14]

Canadian Methodist Mission in Central Szechwan

The party arrived in the provincial capital Chengtu the following year. Work began immediately in the capital, and two years later, in Kiatingfu,[15] with the establishment of mission stations in both cities.[16] The mission's first church and hospital were subsequently built in Chengtu. On April 16, 1893, the missionaries welcomed their first convert, a woman. She impressed the missionaries with her straightforward manner, a rare trait in a Chinese, and by her remarkable progress in learning to read.[17]

In 1895, a serious outbreak of anti-foreign agitation spread throughout the province. In Chengtu, all the MCC mission property was entirely destroyed; and all missionaries of all missions, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike, were thankful to escape with their lives.[18]

The West China Missionary News, printed by Canadian Methodist Mission Press

In 1897, the Canadian Methodist Mission Press was established in Kiatingfu, but was moved to the capital city of Chengtu in 1903. This press produced publications mostly in English, Tibetan, Chinese and Hua Miao, but also printed language lessons in French and German. In addition to printing for the various missions in the western province, a certain amount of work was done for local schools and non-missionary foreigners.[19] Notable among its printings was The West China Missionary News, first published in 1899, being the first and longest-running English-language newspaper in Sichuan province.[20]

Six of the Victoria Eight were sent to Sichuan: N. E. Bowles (Chengtu), H. D. Robertson (Chengtu), W. E. Sibley (Penghsien), E. W. Wallace (Chungking), C. J. P. Jolliffe (Luchow), and E. W. Morgan (Fowchow).[21]

In 1906, eight Victoria College students formed the Victoria Eight, nicknamed "The Missionary Gang" to China and Japan. They left Canada in November. Acta Victoriana celebrated their departure by publishing in the November 1906 issue the students' graduating photographs on the journal's frontispiece, and a poem titled "L'Envoi" by Edward Wilson Wallace, one of the Eight. Six of these men were sent to Sichuan, where they arrived in 1910 after two years of language learning.[21]

After 1900, eight more mission stations were established in Jenshow (1905), Junghsien (1905), Penghsien (1907), Tzeliutsing (1907), Luchow (1908), Chungking (1910), Chungchow (1911) and Fowchow (1913). The MCC missionaries travelled through the province building churches and residential compounds with missionary houses. They rented or bought local buildings to run services, prayer meetings and Bible study classes. They preached in markets and church halls, established day schools and boarding schools at the primary and high schools for both boys and girls, besides opening orphanages. The medical missionaries opened clinics, dispensaries, and hospitals.[22] They served in the province's Red Cross work during the years 1913–16.[23]

Faculty, students and guests of the West China Union University and Middle School. The guests include Bishop Bashford, Rev. Dr. Goucher, Fuh, Military Governor, and Chʻen, Civil Governor of Szechwan. 1915 or 1916.

The MCC was one of the four mission societies responsible for the creation of West China Union University in 1910, together with American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (American Baptist Churches USA), American Methodist Episcopal Mission (Methodist Episcopal Church), and Friends' Foreign Mission Association (British Quakers).[6] There they opened their own Hart College, and the university's Medical and Dentistry Departments owed their success to these Canadian missionaries.[22] That same year (1910), the MCC took over Chungking district from London Missionary Society.[24]

In 1917, the Silver Jubilee of the founding of the West China Mission was celebrated among Canadian Methodists.[25] On May 27, 1918, the MCC had its first preparatory conference held at Junghsien. At this conference, the first local missionary was appointed and sent to the hill tribes northwest of Chengtu. The personnel of the conference included missionaries, evangelists, probationers, and lay delegates.[26]

West China Mission of the United Church of Canada

Canadian Methodist missionaries stationed in Szechwan by 1920

By the end of 1921, the Methodists enrolled almost one half of the Protestant Christians in Sichuan.[1] Following the merger of the Methodist Church of Canada into the United Church of Canada in 1925, the latter assumed responsibility for the MCC. At that time, the MCC was the largest mission of the newly-founded Church. There were 10 central stations, 8 hospitals, 10 dispensaries, 10 higher primary schools, 2 middle schools and 126 lower primary schools, as well as 214 Canadians, both men and women, working as mission staff. Each station executed missionary work in three forms: evangelistic, educational, and medical. As a whole, the mission created a Christian community of about 10,000 people. In 1927, many Canadian missionaries were ordered to evacuate Sichuan due to communist uprisings and the subsequent Chinese Civil War. This evacuation led to a number of staff resignations which caused a decline in the West China Mission work.[27]

During the middle 1930s, Church property in Lifan, Mao County (Maochow), Weizhou (Weikiu), and Zagunao (Tzagulao) was largely destroyed by communist troops, pastors and converts were killed,[28] and most of the villages between Lifan and Tzagulao were burnt by communists.[29] When the soldiers evacuated the Lifan valley, they destroyed the people's homes and dumped surplus food into cesspools as they could not carry off.[30] After the communists left, there arrived the regular troops (i.e. Nationalist Kuomintang army), they helped themselves to whatever they wanted and never thought of paying for anything.[31] By 1934, the MCC had joined the Church of Christ in China (CCC);[32] an annual general meeting of the CCC's Szechwan Synod was held on February 9, 1939.[33]

• "The Church in the Tribes Country: Report of a Journey to Weikiu, Lifan, Tzagulao, October 1935". The West China Missionary News. Chengtu: West China Missions Advisory Board. April 1936. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
• Baker, Richard T. (1946). Methodism in China: The War Years. New York: Board of Missions and Church Extension.
• Bond, Geo. J. (1911). Our Share in China and What We Are Doing with It. Toronto: Missionary Society of the Methodist Church.
• Hart, E. I. (1917). Virgil C. Hart: Missionary Statesman, Founder of the American and Canadian Missions in Central and West China (PDF). New York: George H. Doran Company.
• Kilborn, Omar L. (1910). Heal the Sick: An Appeal for Medical Missions in China. Toronto: Missionary Society of the Methodist Church.
• Plewman, T. E. (January 1936). "The Red Terror in the Tribes Country". The West China Missionary News. Chengtu: West China Missions Advisory Board. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
• Stauffer, Milton T., ed. (1922). The Christian Occupation of China. Shanghai: China Continuation Committee.
• Various authors (1920). Our West China Mission: Being a Somewhat Extensive Summary by the Missionaries on the Field of Work during the First Twenty-five Years of the Canadian Methodist Mission in the Province of Szechwan, Western China. Toronto: Missionary Society of the Methodist Church.
• Wallace, Edward Wilson (1903). The Heart of Sz-Chuan. Toronto: Methodist Young People's Forward Movement for Missions.