History of Methodism in Sichuan

File:American Methodist Episcopal Area in Szechwan.png field in Sichuan]]

The first Methodist missionaries to reach Sichuan were those of the American Methodist Episcopal Mission (AMEM) led by Rev. Lucius Nathan Wheeler,{{sfn|Hart|1917|p=181}} who arrived in Chongqing in 1882. In 1884, Francis Dunlap Gamewell was assigned to this city as superintendent of the West China Mission.{{cite web |url=http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/specproj/dsoninchina/gamewell.htm |title=Reverend Francis D. Gamewell |author= |date= |website=chronicles.dickinson.edu |access-date=21 April 2023}} 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.{{sfn|Baker|1946|p=19}}

File:Methodist Institutional Church, Chengtu.png

The AMEM mission work concentrated within a diamond-shaped area with the cities of Chengdu (Chengtu), Suining, Zizhong (Tzechung) and Chongqing (Chungking) as bases.{{sfn|Baker|1946|p=18}} Apart from being one of the four founding societies of the West China Union University in 1910,{{cite web |url=https://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/exhibitions/vic_in_china/sections/mission_work_education/west_china_union_university.html |title=West China Union University |author= |date= |website=library.vicu.utoronto.ca |access-date=21 September 2022 |archive-date=4 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201104115036/http://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/exhibitions/vic_in_china/sections/mission_work_education/west_china_union_university.html |url-status=dead }} the AMEM had several colleges, schools and hospitals in those above-mentioned cities, as well as an Institutional Church in Chengdu and a Lewis Memorial Institutional Church in Chongqing.{{sfn|Baker|1946|pp=37, 46}}

File:ED Burton, TC Chamberlin, J Beech, YT Wang and RT Chamberlin.jpg (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,{{cite web |url=https://divinity-adhoc.library.yale.edu/ChinaCollegesProject/wesleyan/bios/beech_joseph.html |title=Beech, Joseph, Class of 1899 |last=Russ |first=Johanna |date= |website=divinity-adhoc.library.yale.edu |access-date=22 September 2022 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813143509/https://divinity-adhoc.library.yale.edu/ChinaCollegesProject/wesleyan/bios/beech_joseph.html |archive-date=13 August 2020}} played an instrumental role in founding and running West China Union University. He served as its founding president and later its chancellor.{{cite web |url=https://review.gale.com/2020/03/11/joseph-beech-and-west-china-union-university/ |title=An American Missionary with Two Motherlands: Joseph Beech and West China Union University |last=Yang |first=Liping |date=11 March 2020 |website=review.gale.com |access-date=22 September 2022}}

Ailie Gale served as hospital administrator for five years at Chadwick Memorial Hospital in Zizhong beginning in 1941. She left in 1946 to reunite with her husband, as she recognized escalating political conflict.{{cite book |last=Zaccarini |first=M. Cristina |date=2001 |chapter=Chadwick Memorial Hospital Tzechung |title=The Sino-American Friendship as Tradition and Challenge: Dr. Ailie Gale in China, 1908-1950 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q_FEM2UVyHgC |location=Bethlehem, PA |publisher=Lehigh University Press |isbn=9780934223706}}

During the 1940s, the Church's work in the Chengdu area was directed by {{ill|W. Y. Chen|zh|陳文淵}}, one of the four Methodist bishops in China.{{sfn|Baker|1946|p=19}}{{cite web |url=https://www.bu.edu/missiology/2020/02/28/chen-wenyuan-1897-1968/ |title=Chen, Wenyuan (1897-1968): MEC Bishop In China |author= |date= |website=bu.edu |access-date=21 September 2022}}

File:First Canadian Methodist Missionaries to Szechwan.png 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 ({{ill|Virgil Chittenden Hart|lt=Virgil C. Hart|zh|赫斐秋}}, founder of the mission,{{sfn|Various authors|1920|p=2}} and George E. Hartwell), and two were doctors (Omar L. Kilborn and David W. Stevenson).{{sfn|Kilborn|1910|p=231}} Before their departure, a farewell service was held in Elm Street Methodist Church, Toronto. They left Canada for China on 4 October.{{sfn|Wallace|1903|p=42}}

File:Canadian Methodist Mission in Central Szechwan.png

The party arrived in the provincial capital Chengdu the following year. Work began immediately in the capital, and two years later, in Jiading (Kiatingfu),{{sfn|Stauffer|1922|p=224}} with the establishment of mission stations in both cities.{{sfn|Lü|1976|p=270}} The mission's first church and {{ill|Gospel Hospital, Chengdu|lt=hospital|zh|福音醫院建築群}} were subsequently built in Chengdu. 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.{{sfn|Wallace|1903|p=59}}

In 1895, a serious outbreak of anti-foreign agitation spread throughout the province. In Chengdu, 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.{{sfn|Various authors|1920|p=42}}

File:The West China Missionary News (January 1909).pdf, printed by Canadian Methodist Mission Press]]

In 1897, the Canadian Methodist Mission Press was established in Jiading, but was moved to the capital city of Chengdu 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.{{cite encyclopedia |title=Mission Presses |encyclopedia=The Encyclopaedia Sinica |year=1917 |last=Couling |first=Samuel |publisher=Kelly and Walsh |location=Shanghai |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s_V5DwAAQBAJ&dq=canadian+methodist+mission+press&pg=PA377 |page=377 |isbn=9789004213463 |access-date=21 September 2022}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://www.clausiuspress.com/conferences/LNEMSS/IEESASM%202019/19IEESASM434.pdf |title=The West China Missionary News and Its Tibet Narrative |last=Zhu |first=Yaling |date=2019 |website=clausiuspress.com |access-date=21 September 2022}}

File:Victoria Eight & Edward Wilson Wallace - L'Envoi.pdf were sent to Sichuan: N. E. Bowles (Chengdu [Chengtu]), H. D. Robertson (Chengdu), W. E. Sibley (Pengzhou [Penghsien]), E. W. Wallace (Chongqing [Chungking]), C. J. P. Jolliffe (Luzhou [Luchow]), and E. W. Morgan (Fuzhou [Fowchow]).{{cite web |url=https://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/exhibitions/vic_in_china/sections/missionaries_and_mission_stations/1900s_the_victoria_eight_.html |title=1900s 'The Victoria Eight' |author= |date= |website=library.vicu.utoronto.ca |access-date=21 September 2022}}]]

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.

After 1900, eight more mission stations were established in Renshou (Jenshow, 1905), Rongxian (Junghsien, 1905), Pengzhou (Penghsien, 1907), Ziliujing (Tzeliutsing, 1907), Luzhou (Luchow, 1908), Chongqing (Chungking, 1910), Zhongzhou (Chungchow, 1911) and Fuzhou (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.{{cite web |url=https://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/exhibitions/vic_in_china/sections/missionaries_and_mission_stations/the_central_stations_of_the_west_china_mission.html |title=The Central Stations of the West China Mission |author= |date= |website=library.vicu.utoronto.ca |access-date=21 September 2022}} They served in the province's Red Cross work during the years 1913–16.{{sfn|Various authors|1920|p=46}}

File:Faculty, students and guests of the West China Union University.png and Middle School. The guests include Bishop Bashford, Rev. Dr. Goucher, {{ill|Hu Ching-i|lt=Fuh|zh|胡景伊}}, Military Governor, and {{ill|Chen Yi (born 1870)|lt=Ch{{wg-apos}}en|zh|陳宧}}, Civil Governor of Sichuan. 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). There they opened their own Hart College, and the university's Medical and Dentistry Departments owed their success to these Canadian missionaries. That same year (1910), the MCC took over Chongqing district from London Missionary Society.{{sfn|Bond|1911|p=147}}

In 1917, the Silver Jubilee of the founding of the West China Mission was celebrated among Canadian Methodists.{{sfn|Hart|1917|p=vi}} On May 27, 1918, the MCC had its first preparatory conference held at Rongxian. At this conference, the first local missionary was appointed and sent to the hill tribes northwest of Chengdu. The personnel of the conference included missionaries, evangelists, probationers, and lay delegates.{{sfn|Various authors|1920|p=23}}

File:West China Mission (The United Church of Canada).jpg]]

File:Canadian Methodist Missionaries and Wives.png

By the end of 1921, the Methodists enrolled almost one half of the Protestant Christians in Sichuan, making it (along with Anglicanism) one of the province's two largest Protestant sects.{{sfn|Stauffer|1922|p=228}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://asc.library.carleton.ca/exhibits/john-william-foster-fonds-lantern-slides/west-china-mission |title=The West China Mission |author= |date= |website=asc.library.carleton.ca |access-date=21 September 2022 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211023215138/https://asc.library.carleton.ca/exhibits/john-william-foster-fonds-lantern-slides/west-china-mission |archive-date=23 October 2021}}

During the middle 1930s, Church property in Lifan, Maozhou (Maochow), Weizhou (Weikiu), and {{ill|Zagunao|zh|雜谷腦鎮}} (Tzagulao) was largely destroyed by Communist troops, pastors and converts were killed,{{sfn|Plewman|1936|pp=11–18}} and most of the villages between Lifan and Zagunao were burnt by Communists.{{sfn|WCMN|1936|p=11}} 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.{{sfn|WCMN|1936|p=7}} After the Communists left, the Nationalist troops who arrived took whatever they wanted without paying for them.{{sfn|WCMN|1936|p=8}} By 1934, the MCC had joined the Church of Christ in China (CCC);{{cite book |last1=Yrigoyen |first1=Charles Jr. |last2=Warrick |first2=Susan E. |date=7 November 2013 |title=Historical Dictionary of Methodism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aWUYAgAAQBAJ&dq=Methodism+in+Sichuan&pg=PA41 |location=Lanham, MD |publisher=Scarecrow Press |page=41 |isbn=9780810878945}} an annual general meeting of the CCC's Sichuan Synod was held on February 9, 1939.{{cite web |url=https://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/exhibitions/vic_in_china/sections/vics_commitment_to_west_china_missions/victoria_university_honours_its_chinese_missionaries.html |title=Victoria University Honours its Chinese Missionaries |author= |date= |website=library.vicu.utoronto.ca |access-date=22 September 2022}}

{{See also|Protestantism in Sichuan#Current situation}}

After the Communist takeover of China in 1949, missionaries were expelled, most church activities were banned, and all mission schools and hospitals were taken over by the government. Protestant Churches in China were also forced to sever their ties with respective overseas Churches, which has thus led to the merging of all the denominations into Communist-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Church.{{cite book |last=Ferris |first=Helen |date=1956 |title=The Christian Church in Communist China, to 1952 |location=Montgomery, AL |publisher=Air Force Personnel and Training Research Center |page=8 |oclc=5542137}} The China Christian Council was founded at the third national Christian conference in 1980 to unite and provide services for Protestant churches, formulating Church Order and encouraging theological education.{{cite book |last=Bays |first=Daniel H. |author-link=Daniel H. Bays |year=2012 |title=A New History of Christianity in China |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lgS-j2m_0TEC |location=Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |page=189 |isbn=9781405159548}} In 2018, the detention of 100 Christians in Sichuan, including their pastor Wang Yi, raised concerns about religious crackdown in China.{{cite web |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/15/asia/wang-yi-early-rain-church-intl/index.html |title=Detention of 100 Christians raises concerns about religious crackdown in China |last=Berlinger |first=Joshua |date=17 December 2018 |website=edition.cnn.com |access-date=23 May 2023}}

The history of Canadian West China Mission was largely forgotten by both Canada and China, and once suppressed by Chinese government not keen to acknowledge the work of foreign faith workers, until, according to Nathan VanderKlippe's report in 2017, "the past few years, [...] the story of the West China Mission is now being revived with a caveat. The missionaries are not referred to as such. They are, instead, called 'volunteers'."{{cite news |last=VanderKlippe |first=Nathan |date=14 April 2017 |title=China's history with missionaries forms modern Canada relations |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/chinas-history-with-missionaries-forms-modern-canada-relations/article34714775/ |work=The Globe and Mail |location=Toronto |access-date=22 October 2022}}

File:Canadian Methodist Mission Press, Kiating.png|The first Canadian Methodist Mission Press at Jiading, before 1903

File:Canadian Methodist Mission Press.jpg|The new Canadian Methodist Mission Press at Chengdu, April 1905

File:Canadian Methodist Hospital, Chengtu.png|Canadian Methodist Hospital at Chengdu, before 1917

File:Canadian School in West China.jpg|The Canadian School of the West China Union University, Chengdu, {{circa|1918}}

File:The West China Union University.jpg|Canadian Methodists' Hart Memorial College at the West China Union University

File:Canadian Methodist Church at Junghsien.png|Canadian Methodist Church at Rongxian, before 1911

File:Canadian Methodist Church at Tzeliutsing.png|Canadian Methodist Church at Ziliujing, before 1920

File:Canadian Methodist Church at Chungking.png|Canadian Methodist Church at Chongqing, before 1920

File:Interior of the Canadian Methodist Chapel at Chentu.png|Interior of the Canadian Methodist Chapel at Chengdu, decorated for Christmas, before 1903

File:Chancel, Luchow Church.jpg|Chancel of the Canadian Methodist Mission Church at Luchow, 1932

File:Bowles, Morgan, Jolliffe, Sibley, Robertson, Wallace.jpg|Six of the Victoria Eight, l to r: N. E. Bowles, E. W. Morgan, C. J. P. Jolliffe, W. E. Sibley, H. D. Robertson, and E. W. Wallace, sailed in 1906

File:Canadian Methodist missionaries sailed from Vancouver to Szechwan in 1908.png|New mission group of the MCC, sailed in 1908

File:Forward Movement, Missionary Conference, Chengtu, 1908.jpg|Forward Movement, Missionary Conference, Chengdu, 1908

File:West China Mission Annual Conference, Chungking, 1914.jpg|Canadian West China Mission Annual Conference, Chongqing, 1914

File:重慶一位華西會議牧師的葬禮.jpg|Funeral of one of the West China Conference pastors held at an American Methodist Episcopal church in Chongqing, between 1900 and 1930

File:Methodist Episcopal Church, Chungking.png|American Methodist Episcopal Church tower, Chongqing, between 1900 and 1930

File:Gospel Church (Jiangbei District, Chongqing).png|American Methodist Gospel Church at Chongqing in 2019

{{div col}}

• Christianity in Sichuan
• Church of the East in Sichuan
• Catholic Church in Sichuan
• Protestantism in Sichuan
• Anglicanism in Sichuan
• Quakerism in Sichuan
• Baptist Christianity in Sichuan
• Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sichuan
• Anti-Christian Movement (China)
• Anti-missionary riots in China
• Antireligious campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party
• Denunciation Movement
• House church (China)
• :Category:Methodist missionaries in Sichuan

{{div col end}}

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite magazine |author= |date=April 1936 |title=The Church in the Tribes Country: Report of a Journey to Weikiu, Lifan, Tzagulao, October 1935 |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AThe_West_China_Missionary_News_(April_1936).pdf&page=5 |magazine=The West China Missionary News |location=Chengtu |publisher=West China Missions Advisory Board |ref={{harvid|WCMN|1936}}}}
• {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Richard T. |date=1946 |title=Methodism in China: The War Years |url=https://archive.org/details/methodisminchina00bake |location=New York |publisher=Board of Missions and Church Extension}}
• {{cite book |last=Bond |first=Geo. J. |author-link=George John Bond |date=1911 |title=Our Share in China and What We Are Doing with It |url=https://archive.org/details/ourshareinchinaw00bond |location=Toronto |publisher=Missionary Society of the Methodist Church}}
• {{cite book |last=Hart |first=E. I. |date=1917 |title=Virgil C. Hart: Missionary Statesman, Founder of the American and Canadian Missions in Central and West China |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Virgil_C._Hart_-_Missionary_Statesman.pdf |location=New York |publisher=George H. Doran Company}}
• {{cite book |last=Kilborn |first=Omar L. |author-link=Omar Leslie Kilborn |date=1910 |title=Heal the Sick: An Appeal for Medical Missions in China |url=https://archive.org/details/healsickappealfo00kilbuoft |location=Toronto |publisher=Missionary Society of the Methodist Church}}
• {{cite journal |last=Lü |first=Shih-chiang |date=1976 |title=晚淸時期基督敎在四川省的傳敎活動及川人的反應（1860–1911） |trans-title=The Evangelization of Sichuan Province in the Late Qing Period and the Responses of the Sichuanese People (1860–1911) |url=http://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw:8080/server/api/core/bitstreams/e47341c7-5f8e-4467-8a14-8e1035537d96/content |language=zh-hant |journal=History Journal of the National Taiwan Normal University |location=Taipei |publisher=National Taiwan Normal University Department of History}}
• {{cite magazine |last=Plewman |first=T. E. |date=January 1936 |title=The Red Terror in the Tribes Country |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AThe_West_China_Missionary_News_(January_1936).pdf&page=13 |magazine=The West China Missionary News |location=Chengtu |publisher=West China Missions Advisory Board}}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Stauffer |editor-first=Milton T. |date=1922 |chapter=The Province of Szechwan |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/thechristianoccupationofchina00shan/page/n247 |title=The Christian Occupation of China |location=Shanghai |publisher=China Continuation Committee}}
• {{cite book |author=Various authors |author-link=Various authors |date=1920 |title=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 |url=https://archive.org/details/ourwestchina00stepuoft |location=Toronto |publisher=Missionary Society of the Methodist Church}}
• {{cite book |last=Wallace |first=Edward Wilson |date=1903 |title=The Heart of Sz-Chuan |url=https://archive.org/details/heartofszchuan00walluoft |location=Toronto |publisher=Methodist Young People's Forward Movement for Missions}}

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