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MUCH has been written of the sufferings of foreigners in the recent Boxer uprising and correspondingly little of the conduct of the Chinese Christians. At a recent meeting of the North China Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church it was decided to inquire minutely into the persecutions from the standpoint of the natives, in the belief that a more adequate understanding of their heroism would be a stimulant to the faith of the Church. A committee was therefore appointed, and the native pastors were requested to gather up and forward reports of such cases as might be considered representative of the persecutions as a whole. To these reports were added such incidents in the lives of certain of the members as would contribute to a proper estimate of their character, and thus enable the reader to see the persecutions in their proper settings. Some of these accounts were put in story form, others were strung together in the order in which they happened, and nearly all are given in the words of those who suffered. We need not add that all were not equally faithful; but as the world is not interested in human failure, but only in success, we felt safe in recording only the experiences of those who were true to the faith they professed, and assuring the reader that but a small proportion of the persecuted played the part of the coward— most of these under circumstances which would have tested the courage of either the reader or the writer. I. T. H. Peking, July, 1902 |