This journey of the great missionary is a classic in its emphasis of the earnestness the Society has always shown to have the episcopacy established in its missions. It is idle to pretend that this project of de Rhodes was due to his own initiative, and was not sanctioned by his superiors. He may, indeed, have suggested it, but no one in the Society undertakes a work from which he may be withdrawn at any moment, except he is assigned to it. Now de Rhodes continued at his task for several years, and evidently with the approval of his superiors.
Apparently unsuccessful though his effort was, it brought about some results. Mme. d'Aiguillon, the niece of Cardinal Richelieu, took the matter up, but even she, with her great influence, could induce the ecclesiastical authorities to do no more than create one little vicariate Apostolic. It was a far cry from the great hierarchical scheme of de Rhodes. One of the Bagotists, Pallu, was appointed, though, for a time there was a question of sending Laval also to the East; but the necessity of having a bishop in Quebec was so urgent that Pallu was sent alone to Tonkin.
Portugal, however, refused to carry him thither, although Louis XIV asked it as a special favor. In 1658 when Pallu attempted to go out at his own risk he reached not Cochin-China but Siam. He was back again in France in 1665, begging protection against the Portuguese, who were arresting his priests and putting them in jail at Goa and Macao. In 1674 he was shipwrecked in the Philippines and carried off a prisoner to Spain, and was liberated only by the united efforts of the Pope and Louis XIV. He set sail again, but was driven ashore on the Island of Formosa and never reached Tonkin.
Meantime the Jesuits had not forgotten Francis Xavier's dream about China. The Dominican Gaspar de la Cruz had found his way through its closed gates, four years after Xavier expired on the island opposite Canton, but he was promptly expelled. It was only in 1581, fully thirty-six years subsequent to the attempt of de la Cruz, that the Jesuits finally succeeded. All that time they had been waiting at Macao, – a settlement granted to the Portuguese in return for the assistance given to China in beating off a fleet of plundering sea-rovers. They had long since seen the folly of attempting to enter a new country under the shadow of some pretentious embassy, for inevitably a suspicion was left lurking in the minds of both the governments and the people that there was an ulterior political motive back of the preaching of the priests. Hence it was that Valignani, though in general believing in embassies to kings and rulers, after the new religion was well understood and accepted in a country, had become convinced that it was unwise to begin the work in that ostentatious fashion. He, therefore, took three clever young Italians, Michele Ruggieri, Francesco Pasio and Matteo Ricci, and after training them thoroughly in mathematics and in all the branches of the natural sciences, ordered them not only to master the Chinese language, but also to familiarize themselves with the literature and the history of the country. Ricci was available especially as a mathematician, having been the favorite pupil of Father Clavius, who was one of the chief constructors of the Gregorian Calendar.
According to Huc (p. 40) they gained access to the forbidden land by taking part in a comedy. A viceroy, he tells us, who lived near Canton, summoned to his tribunal on some charge or other both the bishop and the governor of Macao. This was a grievous insult to those dignitaries, but on the other hand if they refused to appear, the result might be disastrous for the whole Portuguese colony. To extricate themselves from the dilemma a trick was resorted to – one which was quite in keeping with Chinese methods. Instead of going themselves, they sent two persons who pretended to be the bishop and governor. For the former Father Ruggieri was chosen, for the latter, a layman. On the face of it, the story is absurd. It would be impossible to impersonate two such well-known functionaries as a bishop and a governor, and the discovery of such a fraud would inevitably entail condign punishment. Most probably Ruggieri and his companion went simply as representatives of the two functionaries. They were well provided with presents, which had the desired effect of making the viceroy forget his grievances, if he had any. He accepted everything very graciously and suggested a second visit. Then Ruggieri apprised him of the longing he had always entertained of passing his whole life in the wonderful land of China, with its marvellously intellectual people, and was assured that his wish might possibly be gratified later on. But when a hint was thrown out about a wonderful clock which the missionary possessed and was extremely anxious to show such an important personage as the viceroy, every difficulty about a permanent residence immediately disappeared.
The party was conducted back to the boat with great ceremony; and when Ruggieri's return was delayed by an attack of sickness, the viceregal junk was sent to the Island to convey him to Tchao-King; and also to deliver into his hands a formal authorization to establish a house in the town. Valignani, who was then at Macao, hesitated for a time about accepting the offer, but finally consented. On December 18 Ruggieri embarked, taking with him Father Pasio and a scholastic, along with several Chinese. This addition to the party somewhat surprised the viceroy, but Ruggieri told him that being a priest, it was in keeping with his dignity to have an attendant. The others were only servants, but the clock did the work, and the audacious apostles received a Buddhist temple outside the town as their place of residence, and were the recipients of frequent favors in the way of food from the delighted viceroy. He even granted permission to Ruggieri to call Ricci from Macao. Their temple-residence soon became famous, and every one in Tchao-King, from the highest civil and military functionaries down to what we now call coolies, came out to see the occupants.
Unfortunately, the viceroy was deposed and his successor, objecting to the presence of the foreigners, ordered the whole party to return to Macao. They did not obey, but made an attempt to reach Canton, which the former official had given them authority to enter. They succeeded by purposely getting themselves arrested in Hong-Kong. But in Canton no attention was paid to the document they had with them, and so they made their way back to Macao, convinced that there was no hope of remaining in China under the new incumbent. Yet to their great surprise, the very man they feared sent an envoy over to Macao to bring the three missionaries back to Tchao-King. He welcomed them effusively and gave them a beautiful site for their residence, quite close to a famous porcelain tower, which had just been erected and was considered a monument of Chinese architecture. This was the cradle of Christianity in China.
In 1589, however, there arrived a new viceroy who took a fancy to their residence, and without any ceremony dispossessed them. But as they had already won such favor by their maps and globes and astronomical instruments, when they came to Tchao-Tcheou looking for a house, they were received with the wildest demonstrations of joy. They grew more popular every day, and soon the mandarins of Canton invited Ricci to speak in their assemblies. He availed himself of all these opportunities afforded him to inject into his scientific discourses something about religion, and he noted that they showed greater attention when he broached such topics than when he restricted himself to purely human science. Troubles occurred from time to time, but the number of neophytes increased daily, and Ricci, who up to that time had worn the dress of a bonze now discarded it and assumed the garb of a Chinese man of letters.
In 1595 the news came that the Japanese emperor, Taicosama was preparing an expedition against Corea, whereupon, the general-in-chief of the Chinese troops came down to Tchao-Tcheou to consult Ricci. But it was not so much to discuss the military situation as to get him to restore a favorite child to health. Ricci promised to pray for the boy, and in return asked to accompany the general back to Pekin for he was convinced that if he could once convert the educated classes of the capital the rest of his work would be easy. The request was granted, and Ricci was thus, very probably, the first white man to travel through the interior of China and to see the people of the cities and country at close range. At Nankin, however, he noted the deep suspicion entertained for foreigners, and although he went as far as Pekin itself, he thought it wiser not to enter the city, and consequently he returned by the Yellow River to Tchao-Tcheou.
Taicosama's expedition from Japan proved a failure, and the public anxiety about foreigners ceased to be acute. This lull enabled Ricci to establish himself at Nankin, which seemed to have struck his fancy as he passed through it on his way to Pekin. The city was in a fever about the study of astronomy and astrology, and he found a hearty welcome among its learned men. He taught them in his daily intercourse many of the doctrines of the Faith, and got in return from them the real meaning of their ancestor-worship and ceremonies. Hence, he had no scruples at all about taking part in the honors paid to Confucius, who was the great legislator and teacher of China, and he never suspected that there would be later a hue and cry in the Church about the alleged idolatry of these very ceremonies.
Meantime he forwarded information about the observatory of Nankin that quite astounded scientific Europe. Nankin, however, did not satisfy him, and he made constant but unavailing efforts to reach the imperial city of Pekin. Finally, in 1600, after seventeen years of patient waiting, he succeeded. His coming produced a great sensation. He was even admitted to the palace, but really never saw the emperor, though the people at large fancied he had been accorded that privilege. However, it amounted almost to the same thing, for the effect produced and his real missionary success dated from that moment. The greatest mandarin of the court became a Christian and almost a saint, though his name was Sin. Later, Sin went about preaching Christianity. His conversion itself was a sermon, and was the beginning of many others. Meantime the five Jesuits at Canton drew multitudes around them. The upper classes flocked to hear their discourses, and began to take pride in being considered Christians, but it was hard for them to understand why the Gospel was not exclusively restricted to their set. They could not yet grasp the fact, even after baptism, that the lower classes had the same privilege of salvation as themselves. To the Chinese mind it was a social revolution, and they were right, but they were wrong in objecting to it.
Here an interesting episode occurs. Associated with Father Geronimo Aquaviva in the court of the Grand Mogul at Agra was a Portuguese lay-brother named Benedict Goes. Although engaged only in domestic service, he was in great favor with the barbarian monarch, and if the Viceroy of India was saved from disaster, it was due to Goes, who not only persuaded the Grand Mogul to desist from war with the Portuguese, but succeeded in having himself sent down to Goa with all the children who had been captured in the various raids of Akbar's armies into Portuguese territory. While he was at Agra, reports had been coming in that the Fathers had at last entered China – the Cathay of the old Franciscans of the thirteenth century, and it was deemed advisable to try to establish communications with them. Goes was chosen to carry out the project, and, in 1602, he started from Agra, which lies in the northern part of Hindostan, about south of Delhi and west of Lucknow. It meant a journey from the centre of Hindostan, across the whole of Thibet and China, among absolutely unknown nations, savage and semi-civilized, Mohammedans and idolaters, through trackless forests and over snow-clad mountains, facing the dangers of starvation and sickness and wild beasts at every step. But all that was not thought to be beyond the powers of the courageous brother. Disguised as an Armenian, he had a hard time of it from robber chiefs and barbarian princes. He was ill-treated by most of them, for he openly professed that he was a Christian. When he refused to pay respect to Mohammed, he was sentenced to be trampled to death by elephants, but he was finally pardoned and allowed to resume his journey. On he plodded for five years, and just as he was nearing the goal his strength gave out. Fortunately Father Ricci, at Pekin, had heard of his coming, and sent Father Fernandes to meet him. When Fernandes arrived, Goes was breathing his last in the frontier town of Su-Chou. It was then 1607, and the dying man told his brother Jesuit: "For five years I have been without the sacraments, but I do not remember any serious sin since I set out from Agra." He died on April 7, 1607.
In 1606 there was worry in China about certain reports originating in Macao, where the Portuguese were stationed. The Jesuits were accused of aspiring to nothing else than the imperial throne; to prove it, attention was called to the fact that all their houses were built on hills, and could be easily transformed into citadels in time of war. It was said, too, that a Dutch fleet in the offing was at their service, and that arrangements had been made with the Japanese for an invasion. The result was a general panic throughout the empire and not a few apostacies. Threats to kill the missionaries also began to be heard. Coincident with this, came an unwise act on the part of the Vicar-General of Macao, who, because of a decision against him in a dispute he had with the Franciscans, put the whole island under interdict. The result was that the political situation became still more threatening, and Father Martines was arrested at Canton, tortured in the most horrible fashion, and finally executed. This death, however, marked as it was by the heroic courage of the victim, his affirmations in the midst of his sufferings of his own innocence and that of his brethren, quelled the storm. Ricci's influence, also, contributed to calm the excited people, and he became greater than ever in their estimation. He was called another Confucius, and was even empowered by the authorities to establish a novitiate at Pekin. Ricci was well on in years by that time, but continued valiantly at his work, making saints as well as great littérateurs and mathematicians out of his Jesuit associates; he wrote treatises in Chinese on Christian ethics, while continuing his mathematical works, and all day long he was busy with the great mandarins who came to consult him. In 1610 he succumbed under these accumulated labors, and his obsequies were such as had never been accorded to any other foreigner. The funeral procession, preceded by the cross, traversed the entire city, and by order of the emperor his remains were laid in a temple, which was thenceforth transformed into a Christian church.
Mr. Gutzlaff, a Protestant missionary in China of modern times, says that "Ricci had spent only twenty-seven years in China but when he died there were more than three hundred churches in the different provinces." Gutzlaff's testimony is all the more precious, because, according to Marshall, his own associates describe him as "more occupied in amassing wealth than in making Christians." Referring to the scientific labors of Ricci and his successors, Thornton (History of China, Preface, p. 13) says: "The geographical labors performed in China by the Jesuits and other missionaries of the Roman Catholic Faith will always command the gratitude and excite the wonder of all geographers. Portable chronometers and aneroid barometers, sextants and theodolites, sympiesometers and micrometers, compasses and artificial horizons are, notwithstanding all possible care, frequently found to fail, yet one hundred and fifty years ago a few wandering European priests traversed the enormous state of China Proper, and laid down on their maps the positions of cities, the direction of rivers and the height of mountains with a correctness of detail and a general accuracy of outline that are absolutely marvellous. To this day all our maps are based on their observations." "Whatever is valuable in Chinese astronomical science," adds Mr. Gutzlaff, "has been borrowed from the treatises of Roman Catholic missionaries."
Ricci's death was a calamity to the Church, for in the following year a mandarin who was in charge at Nankin started a genuine persecution. The missionaries were summoned to his tribunal, publicly scourged and sent back to Macao – and all this with the authorization of the emperor. Matters grew worse, but at the emperor's death in 1620, there was a lull, for the Tatars were invading China and the help of the Portuguese had to be invoked; as that, however, could not be done unless the Europeans were placated by recalling the missionaries, the exiles returned to their posts. The emperor overcame the Tatars, and the tranquillity and good feeling that followed allowed the Fathers, who were scattered all over the empire, some of them 800 leagues from Pekin, to get together and decide on uniformity of methods in treating with their converts. In that congregation the doubts which met them at every step as to what they were to tolerate and what to forbid were settled. They knew the people thoroughly by this time, their ideas, their customs; and their scrupulous love of the Faith guided them in their decisions.
About this time the great Adam Schall arrived. He was a worthy successor of Ricci. His reputation had preceded him as a mathematician, and he was immediately employed by the emperor to reform the Chinese calendar. His influence, in consequence of this distinction, was unbounded in extending the field of missionary work. The pagans themselves built a church at his request in Sin-gan-fou, and he obtained an edict from the emperor which empowered the Jesuits to preach throughout the empire. The extraordinary success of Schall was the talk of Europe; and applications poured in on the General from all sides to be sent out to share the labors and the triumphs of the mission. Great numbers of Jesuits were sent there, but many perished on the way out, for shipwrecks were very common in those unknown seas, and the crowded and unhealthy ships as well as the long and difficult journey claimed throngs of victims.
The work soon became too great for the laborers and then there came a reinforcement from the Philippines, largely from the other religious orders who had been long waiting to enter China, and who now devoted themselves to the work. Not knowing the country, however, they were horrified to see that many of the practices of Confucianism were still retained by the Chinese Christians, and they denounced as idolatry what the old Jesuits had decided, after years of close scrutiny, to be nothing but a ceremonial which had been thoroughly and scrupulously purified from all taint of superstition. But the newcomers would not look at it in that light. They immediately wrote to the Archbishop of Manila and to the Bishop of Cebú that the Jesuits not only concealed from their converts the mysteries of the Cross, but permitted them to prostrate themselves before the idol of Chin-Hoam, to honor their ancestors with superstitious rites, and to offer sacrifices to Confucius. Rome was then informed of it, but some years later, namely in 1637, both the archbishop and the bishop wrote to Urban VIII that on examining the matter more carefully, they had arrived at the conclusion that the Jesuits were right. It was then too late. A series of bloody persecutions had already begun. The first explosion of wrath occurred when one of the new preachers, speaking through an interpreter, told his congregation that Confucius and all their pagan ancestors were in hell, and that the Jesuits had not taught the Chinese the truth. Public indignation followed on this unwise utterance and expulsions began.
Fortunately, the persecutions were checked for a while by fresh attempts of the Tatar element in China to seize the imperial crown. The Jesuits kept out of the strife by pronouncing for neither party. Happily, the Tatar element took a fancy to Schall, while Father Coeffler baptized the Chinese empress, giving her the Christian name of Helen and calling her infant son Constantine. The Tatars finally prevailed, and Schall was made a mandarin and president of the board of mathematics of the empire. He was given access to the emperor at all times, and might have made him a Christian had not the empress induced him to resume the pagan practices from which Schall had weaned him. Nor did the death of the troublesome lady mend matters; on the contrary, her disconsolate husband lapsed into melancholia, and in 1661 died, leaving a child of eight as his successor. In pursuance of the emperor's command, Schall was appointed instructor of the prince, but, as was to be expected, that arrangement aroused the fury of the people and especially of the bonzes. They maintained, rightfully from their point of view, that if Schall were left in position during the long minority of the prince, he would be absolute master of the future emperor – a result that must be prevented by crushing out Christianity. Forthwith all the missionaries were summoned to Pekin and thrown into prison. There was now no longer any discussion about the worship of Confucius, for the disputants were all in the dungeons of Pekin or elsewhere waiting for death.
The Christians were without pastors, but Father Gresson, who was in China at that time, tells us in his "History of China under the Tatars" that, during the persecution, the catechists baptized 2000 converts. It is not surprising, for before the outbreak of the persecution, the Jesuits had one hundred and fifty-one churches and thirty-eight residences in China; the Dominicans twenty-one churches and two residences, and the Franciscans one establishment. The total Christian population amounted to 250,000. Up to that time the Fathers of the Society had written one hundred and thirty-one works on religious subjects, one hundred and three on mathematics, and fifty-five on physics.
While the missionaries lay in chains expecting death at every moment, a Dominican named Navarrete succeeded in making his escape. It was lucky for him in one respect, but in all probability it would mean as soon as it was discovered the massacre of all the other prisoners; to avert this calamity, the illustrious Jesuit, Grimaldi, took his place in the prison. Unfortunately, Navarrete had no sooner reached Europe than he began an attack on the methods of the Jesuits in dealing with the Chinese rites. It caused great grief to his fellow Dominicans, and when the news of the publication of his "Tratados históricos" reached China in 1668, the Dominican Father Sarpetri sent a solemn denunciation of it to Rome, declaring that the practice of the Jesuits in permitting such rites was not only irreproachable under every point of view, but most necessary in propagating the Gospel. He denied under oath that the Jesuits refused to explain the mysteries of the Passion to the Chinese, and affirmed that his protest against the charge was not in answer to an appeal, but was prompted by the pure love of truth. Another Dominican, Gregorio López, who was Bishop of Basilea and Vicar-Apostolic of Nan-King, sent the Sacred Congregation a "memoir" in favor of the Jesuits. Navarrete atoned for his act of mistaken judgment later; for when he was Archbishop of Santo Domingo he asked leave of the king and viceroy to establish a Jesuit college in his residential city, and he paid a glowing tribute to the Society.
When Schall was brought up for trial there was, at his side, another Jesuit named Ferdinand Verbiest, a native of Pilthem near Courtrai in Belgium. He had come out to China when he was thirty-six years old, and was first engaged in missionary work in Shen-si. In 1660 he was summoned to Pekin to assist Father Schall, and in 1664 was thrown into prison with him. In the court-room, Verbiest was the chief spokesman, for Schall, being then seventy-four years of age and paralyzed, was unable to utter a word. The charges against the old missionary had been trumped up by a Mohammedan who claimed to be an astronomer. They were: first, that Schall had shown pictures of the Passion of Jesus Christ to the deceased emperor; secondly, that he had secured the presidency of the board of mathematics for himself in order to promote Christianity; thirdly, that he had incorrectly determined the day on which the funeral of one of the princes was to take place. It was an "unlucky" day. Verbiest had no difficulty in proving that the accused had been ordered by the emperor to be president of the board of mathematics, and furthermore, that he never had anything to do with "lucky" or "unlucky" days. The charge about the pictures of the Passion was admitted, and that may have been the reason why, in spite of the eloquence of Verbiest, who was loaded with chains while he was pleading, Father Schall was condemned to be hacked to pieces. In this trouble, however, the Lord came to the rescue: a meteor of an extraordinary kind appeared in the heavens, and a fire reduced to ashes that part of the imperial palace where the condemnation was pronounced. The sentence was revoked, and the missionaries were set free. Father Schall lingered a year after recovering his freedom. When Kang-hi came to the throne in 1669, an official declaration was made denouncing both the trial and the sentence as iniquitous, and although Schall had then been three years dead, unusually solemn funeral services were ordered in his honor. His remains were laid beside those of Father Ricci. The emperor himself composed the eulogistic epitaph which was inscribed on the tomb.
Schall had given forty-four years of his life to China, when at the age of seventy-five, he breathed his last in the arms of Father Rho, who, like him, was to hold a distinguished position as mathematician in the imperial court. Rho had preluded his advent to China by organizing the defense of the Island of Macao against a Dutch fleet. He had new ramparts constructed around the city; he planted four pieces of artillery on the walls, and when the Dutchmen landed for an assault he led the troops in a sortie and drove the enemy back to their ships. In his "Promenade autour du Monde" (II, 266), Baron de Hübner gives an enthusiastic description of the Jesuit Observatory at Pekin.
"Man's inhumanity to man" is cruelly exemplified in a foul accusation urged against the venerable Schall, a century after he was buried with imperial honors in Pekin. In 1758 a certain Marcello Angelita, secretary of Mgr. de Tournon, the prelate who was commissioned to pass on the question of the Malabar Rites, published a story, which was repeated in many other books, that Schall had spent his last years "separated from the other missionaries, removed from obedience to his superiors, in a house which had been given him by the emperor, and with a woman whom he treated as his wife, and who bore him two children. After having led a pleasant life with his family for some years, he ended his days in obscurity." If there was even the shadow of truth in these accusations the Dominican Navarrete, who knew Schall personally, and who wrote against him and his brethren so fiercely in 1667, would not have failed to mention this fact to confirm his charges about the Chinese Rites. But he does not breathe a word about any misconduct on the part of the great missionary. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the vigorous Father General Oliva, who governed the Society at that time, would have tolerated that state of things for a single instant.
The foundation upon which the charge was built appears to be that the old missionary used to call a Chinese mandarin his "adopted grandson" and had helped to advance him to lucrative positions in the empire. The libel was written forty years after Schall's death, and was largely inspired by the infamous ex-Capuchin Norbert.
Possibly the mental attitude of Angelita's master, de Tournon, may also account in part for the publication of this calumny. De Tournon was known to be a bitter enemy of the Society, and he took no pains to conceal it when sent to the East to decide the vexed question of the Rites. Although on his arrival at Pondicherry in 1703, the Fathers met him on the shore and conducted him processionally to the city, he interpreted these marks of respect and the lavish generosity with which they looked after all his needs as nothing but policy. Not only did he refuse to give them a hearing on their side of the controversy, but he hurried off elsewhere as soon as he had formulated his decree. When he arrived in Canton, the first words he uttered were: "I come to China to purify its Catholicity," and before taking any information whatever, he ordered the removal of all the symbols which he considered superstitious. The act created an uproar, as it was only through the influence of the Fathers that de Tournon was permitted to go to Pekin; and although they managed to make his entrance into the imperial city unusually splendid, he immediately informed the emperor of a plan he had made to reconstruct the missions but, expressed himself in such an offensive fashion that the emperor immediately dismissed him. He then repaired to Canton, and on January 28, 1707, issued the famous order forbidding the cult of the ancestors, with the result that the emperor sent down officials to conduct him to Macao, where he was reported to have died in prison, on June 8, 1710.