“Witness the massacre of American missionaries at Lienchow in the Canton province.  I am not going to enter into the details of that shocking atrocity, nor to dwell on it further than to point out that although the boycott was ended on September 14, the people in that district were in such a state of exasperation that the missionaries felt themselves in danger fourteen days after that date.  In the New York Sun of November 5 I find part of a letter from one of the victims, the Reverend Mr. [Page 248] Peale, written exactly one month before the tragedy.  Allow me to read it along with an introductory paragraph.

“’PRINCETON, N. J., Nov. 4.—­A.  Lee Wilson, a student in the Princeton Theological Seminary, received a letter a few days ago from John R. Peale, the missionary who, with his wife, was killed in Lienchow, China, on October 28.  The letter was dated September 28, and reached America at the time that Peale and his wife were murdered.  It gives a clue to the troubles which led to the death of Peale.  The letter says in part: 

“’"The interest in the boycott is vital to the missionaries.  Heretofore the Americans always enjoyed special favour, and to fly the American flag meant protection; but it is different now.  No personal violence has been attempted, but the people are less cordial and more suspicious.  People in China are not asking that their coolies be allowed entrance into the States, but they only ask that the Americans cease treating the Chinese with contempt and allow their merchants and students the same privileges that other foreigners receive.”

“’Peale graduated from the Princeton Theological Seminary last May.

“Is it not evident that whatever spark caused the explosion, the nitro-glycerin that made it possible came from the boycott?

“Not only do they boycott ponderables such as figure at the custom-house, but they extend the taboo to things of the head and heart.  The leader of the whole movement was formerly an active supporter of the International Institute, an institution which proposes to open gratuitous courses of lectures and to place Chinese men of intelligence on common ground with scholars of the West, He now opposes the International Institute because, forsooth, it is originated and conducted by Dr. Reid, a large-minded American.

“After this, will you be surprised to hear that your own publications, the best text-books for the schools of the Far East, have been put on the index expurgatorius? A number of such books were lately returned with the excuse that they were forbidden because they bore the stamp of an American press.