"Murder of a Queen, 1890-1895" from To Start a Work: The foundation of Protestant Mission in Korea (1884-1919), chapt. 4

TO START
A WORK

The Foundations of
Protestant Mission
in Korea (1884-1919)

MARTHA HUNTLEY

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF KOREA
SEOUL, KOREA

Copyright @ 1987 by Publishing House
Presbyterian Church of Korea

135 Yunji Dong, Chongno Ku, Seoul, Korea

Printed in the Republic of Korea

CHAPTER IV
Murder of a Queen
1890—1895

In any contest between power and patience,
bet on patience.

— W.B. Prescott

Naturally he will try to take a part that will be to his advan-
tage.

Allen engaged in a little intrigue himself. For instance,
when the King's interpreter came to ask his opinion on the French
government's desire for a treaty clause that would guarantee re-
ligious liberty, Allen said he "thought it my duty to dwell at
length with the subject, and after shunning the workings of
Catholicism in China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain, I said the gov-
ernment would be under the power of the Pope. . . the Catholics
worship and pray to Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, a woman....
Second, we think no one but God can forgive, but they give this
honor to corrupt priests to whom all Catholics must confess their
private thoughts ... .Third, the priests are men with the same
organs and passions as other men. They are not eunuchs. And
we claim it is not safe for women to go and confess to these men
their secret thoughts and faults. This was a great argument with
him and the whole conversation will doubtless produce its
effect."^ The French embassy went home without their religious
liberty clause.^

In addition to advising the King, Allen pictured himself as
a power broker. In the diary of his 1887 trip with the Korean
embassy to the United States, he listed each of the 12 Korean
members with a notation that he "had Min. Pak Chung-Yang made
premier; one other I got appointed premier also and one went as
ambassador to Japan at my suggestion," while a fourth "I had
made governor of Seoul."

The missionaries also played an important role in keeping
the public and especially the board at home aware of the Korean
situation. "You are, as a fact, better informed (concerning
politics and the overall situation in Korea) than our State De-
partment man," wrote Allen to board secretary Franklin Ellin-
wood.^ And it was true.

The other missionaries were also consulted on matters other
than health and religion. The personal element should never be
underestimated in Korean affairs, and the King and Queen gave
every indication of liking and respecting the young Americans.

An instance often cited of the personal interest taken by
the royal family in the missionaries is the 1887 ice-skating
party held at the palace. According to Korean journalist Yi Kyu-
Tae, Koreans were curious about all the activities of the

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Westerners, but "one completely new to them was ice skating.

When the Western missionaries went skating near East Gate, people
would pay for space from which to watch them and food vendors
congregated to sell their wares to the crowd. The ice skating
was christened 'art of ice' or 'art of foot' by the scholars
while the common people called it 'Western foot show.'"® Horace
Allen was a particular favorite with the spectators; though he
was a skillful skater, the audience were more impressed with the
sight of his balding dome and red hair revealed when his hat
would blow off. 9

When the Queen heard the Westerners had shoes which permit-
ted them to walk and glide on ide, she wanted to see this marvel
and a group of foreigners was invited to skate on the royal
lake, while the King and Queen watched from a pavilion in the
middle of the pond.

From the beginning King Kojong had tended to trust America,
to exempt it from the growing number of imperialistic nations
eager to take over his Kingdom. A diplomatic historian has noted
that "not only Foote and Foulk, but other American diplomatic
agents who succeeded them at the American Legation in Seoul from
1887 to 1905 were all very active diplomats and played far more
prominent roles than their government desired them to."^® Min-
ister Hugh Dinsmore gave the reason for this in a letter to
Secretary of State Bayard on June 25, 1887, "I am almost every
day approached for advice which under my plain duty I cannot
give. Yet it is utterly impossible for a true American to re-
main with these people and not become to a degree personally in-
terested in their troubles and natural desire for home rule and
for the development of their country.

Yet there were a number of influential men strongly opposed
to Western ideas, among them Yuan Shih-Kai and the Taewongun.

After the 1884 incident. Yuan had gone to China, but he returned
to Korea on October 3, 1885, as successor to Chen Shu-Tang, tak-
ing charge of Chinese diplomatic and commercial affairs on Novem-
ber 16. As "Director-General Resident in Korea of Diplomatic
and Commercial Relations," he was for the next 10 years the em-
bodiment of Chinese influence.

In September 1886 Yuan memorialized the King that he, as ^

China's representative, was against the erection of a mint,

Horace Allen's government hospital, the establishment of a modern
model farm, the purchase of modem steamers, and the reorganization

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of the Korean ariny.^^ The 1887 embassy to America which Allen
accompanied as secretary departed very much against Yuan’s wishes
and was delayed for several months by his opposition; in 1890
the first Korean embassy to Europe got no further than Hong Kong
because of his contravention.

American Minister Dinsmore described Yuan's machinations
when he wrote Secretary of State that he "memorializes, provides,
dictates, and directs, all under a system of intimidation mixed
with an affectation of disinterested kindness. ”1'^ It was be-
lieved to be Yuan's agents who spread the rumors, many imported
directly from the Dragon Empire, resulting in the 1888 Baby
Riots .

The Taewongun had returned from China with Yuan in October
1885. During these years he resembled a spider, calmly weaving
and re-weaving its web, waiting for something major to happen.

Yet he could exert considerable charm when he wanted to. On
October 10, 1885, Horace Allen paid him a call: "I had the honor

of an audience with the Tywankhun Royal Father. He received me
kindly, kept me for nearly an hour and held my hands most of the
time. He knew me through Min Yong-Ik, and asked me to give him
medicine to make him live long." The next day, "to the surprise
of everyone, he called on me and honored the mission compound
with his presence. He has learned enough of foreigners to re-
nounce his hate for them and now protests that all Americans are
good. I think him a man of strong will and convictions, honest
in purpose, determined, yet with a vein of kindness back of it
all which if one can strike will make him a firm friend. If he
sanctions the missionary work the field will be ours."^^

Although the wily old Taewongun could be perfectly charm-
ing, whenever there was a plot afoot to take the throne from Ko-
jong and Queen Min, the ex-regent seemed to be involved. Thus,
in April 1889 Heron wrote Ellinwood, "Apparently we are on the
eve of political changes. The Ex-Regent who has not been in
the Palace for more than three years has been called in and ap-
pointed one of the King's Chief Counsellors. Rumors from the
Chinese Legation are that the King is to be removed and ex-regent
made King in his place.

Because of the disquieting rumors, Heron urged the mission-
aries to act more circumspectly. The mission, in the absence of
the honeymooning Underwoods, "in view of all these things, have
decided to have the native church meet elsewhere than in front

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of the Underwood house, to cease singing at their services, not
to write letters which could be published which show the govern-
ment we are completely disregarding their order sent through the
U.S. Minister to cease teaching Christianity and opening
schools . ”17

All the American representatives held gradualist views.

When William Parker had first arrived in Seoul, the missionaries
had decided to build a church for foreigners as a preliminary
step in constructing Korean churches. Parker advised against
taking such a step, offering the use of his office for Sunday
worship. He informed the Korean government of the meetings, but
met with no objection. W.W. Rockhill, who followed Parker in
December 1886 (with Foulk filling the three-month interim) be-
lieved that evangelical work in Korea was "premature and danger-
ous.” Hugh Dinsmore, Minister from March 1887 to May 1890, felt
it imperative for the missionaries to proceed with caution.

The evangelistic missionaries began to feel the real opposition
to their work was not from the Korean government, but from the
American legation. There is no record that the Korean King, who

was pleased with the educational and medical work of the mission-
^ 1 R

aries, ever opposed their evangelistic efforts.

Nonetheless, after the prohibition of religious teaching
and the Baby Riots, the boards at home were so seriously concerned
for the outlook of work in Korea that the Methodists considered
transferring all their missionary personnel to other fields.
Appenzeller wrote in January 1889 that "The wild rumors of last
summer showed one thing I was glad to see. The King stated in
his proclamation that foreigners were not cannibals and that ru-
mors to that effect must stop, and they did. It shows the power
of the King. The King is progressive, he is for opening Korea,
and as long as he is on the throne we have nothing to fear from
the 'political situation'. .. .1 am working openly ^ a missionary,
preaching twice in Korean on Sundays and Sunday school, we have
a well attended regular prayer meeting, the school opens daily
with religious services and a number of students have asked to
be baptized and are studying the Bible. High officials call.

The 'course to be pursued?' Keep on exactly in the line we are.
The doors of Korea are opened. We have entered.

Entered, yes; conquered, no. Mrs. Mary Scranton wrote that
suddenly in February 1889, "we were again forbidden to speak at
all or teach in the name of Jesus. ...We obeyed in part. That
is, we discontinued public teaching, but continued the services

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with our women and girls as usual. We told the outside women
they must not come any more.” One woman came anyway, hiding in
a corner in order to participate in the worship service. When
she was discovered, she said, "There is only a little rice at
our house and not much wood and living is very difficult. Com-
ing here and listening to the good words and sweet songs makes
my heart lighter. Won’t you please let me come every Sunday?”

Mrs. Scranton wrote, ”I assure you it was not an easy matter
under such circumstances to obey 'the powers that be,' but it
was not many months before we forgot all about 'laws' and found
ourselves at work in evangelistic lines with more energy than
ever before.”^® Actually, it was in the fall of 1889, after
both Protestant mission boards sent secretaries to Korea who saw
the work and had long, in5)assioned interviews with all the mis-
sionaries and legation people it was concluded that evangelistic
work should be able to advance freely.

In April 1889 Heron wrote in a worried letter that "Many
things just now are favorable for the development of trouble.

First the famine in the South, the scarcity of rice and its high
price; secondly, the scarcity of money; third, the fact that the
King is in debt to foreigners and has stated that they must first
be paid before the officials get any money. Part of the soldiers
have not had any rice for four months. The hospital has not had
any money for three months and can't get any.”^l

The same climate of poverty, fear, and insecurity had result-
ed at mid-century in Choe Che-U's founding what came to be called
the Chondogyo, or Heavenly Way.^^ Although he had been executed
in 1864, he left handwritten copies of poems and essays, a rudi-
mentary organization of local leaders, and a few hundred follow-
ers. For 30 years, his successor Choe Si-Hyong and other follow-
ers carried on the faith underground, meeting quietly to cele-
brate various rites, moving from the home of one believer to the
next, eluding the authorities and transmitting Chondogyo teach-
ings. In 1888, when Choe Che-U's writings were published as the
Chondogyo bible, the Tong Kyong Tai Chon, his influence began to
spread. Until this time, Chondogyo was a gentle religion, a
"melange of magic, mysticism and neo-Confucianism," exhorting
homely virtues and wholesome living. 23 its most revolutionary
element was Choe's teaching that "all men are equal under heaven;"
which Choe Si-Hyong carried further; "Man is heaven and all are
equal; there are no differences among men, so distinctions of
high and low violate God's will. "2^ Tonghak egalitarianism had

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its root in these teachings, but was not central to the movement
until the 1880s, when popular resentment against yangban privi-
lege welled up and overflowed into rebellion.

At this time the administration of the government was any-
thing but exen^jlary. The selling of the same office at short
intervals increased the burden on the people to an almost un-
bearable point. "History shows," wrote Homer Hulbert, "that when
the Korean people are treated with anything like a fair degree
of justice they are loyal and peaceful. So long as the Korean
is called upon to pay not more than three or four times the legal
rate of tax he will endure it quietly and there will be no talk
of seditious sects arising; but the people are well aware that
they themselves form the court of final appeal and when all other
means fail they are not slow to adopt any means of righting their
wrongs . "2^

Why didn't tender-hearted King Kojong do something about
oppressive conditions? A clue is found in a missionary letter
of March 30, 1889: The new boys school is nearly finished but

the King's permission to open it hasn't come yet.... There is a
failure of the supply of rice for the students at the hospital
on account of which the students are leaving. ... The King is
guarded against the approach of news as well as people. The
tyranny of the avaricious officials is what blocks progress here
in Corea. The King hasn't the slightest idea but that everything
is going on outside the palace exactly as it ought to and little
suspects that the appropriation of rice has been 'squeezed' into
the pockets of officials before it can get anywhere near the
hospital .

In 1889 the King got enough of a glimmer of what was going
on to send out a proclamation threatening severe punishment for
bribery and extortion. But the edict had little effect and the
outrages continued. As affairs worsened, potential converts
began seeking out Choe Si-Hyong, enlisting in the Chondogyo
ranks and carrying Tonghak doctrine back to their villages.

Being a proscribed sect, Tonghak believers were often imprisoned
and tortured or subjected to illegal exactions by magistrates.
Corruption by local authorities, always worse when the central
government was weak, had become endemic. In reaction, both fol-
lowers and leaders of Tonghak became more militant.

In 1893 there were insurrections in several northern coun-
ties. In the South, younger Tonghak leaders, especially in the

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Cholla province, or Chollado, mobilized their followers and
attacked several county magistracies during the summer. The
Tonghak movement for religious freedom for themselves fused with
peasant discontent.

After winning major battles in Chonju in the spring of 1894,
the Tonghaks publicized their program of twelve items; calling
for equitable taxation, an end of official oppression, the redis-
tribution of farmland on an equitable basis, burning of slave
registers and abolishment of slavery, the right for widows to
remarry, and punishment of Japanese collaborators.

The Chollado governor agreed to allow the establishment of
overseers or correction offices in the 53 counties of his pro-
vince. A Tonghak staff, under the supervision of their General
Chon Pong-Jun, was to act in an advisory capacity to each dis-
trict magistrate in order to prevent extortion and protect the
farmers* interests. These offices administered the province
during the summer of 1894. Unfortunately, not all Tonghak were
free from corruption either, and after their spring victories
there had been a great influx of persons with mixed motives into
their ranks, so a number of unjust and illegal incidents oc-
curred. Yet the system of overseer offices might have offered
some relief to the entire nation had it been allowed to continue
and able to reform itself. But the brief Tonghak hope, flicker-
ing in the few days of the overseer offices, was doomed. Like
the 1884 emeute, it was to be extinguished by Chinese interven-
tion.

Even before the Chonju agreement had gone into effect. King
Kojong, against the advice of many of his ministers, asked Yuan
Shih-Kai to intervene. This was not only unwise, but tragic.

As has happened so often in Korea, outside aid did more harm than
good. Yuan immediately dispatched 1,500 troops. The Tientsin
Agreement which had been concluded between China and Japan after
the 1884 Incident required each country to inform the other be-
fore sending troops to Korea. The Chinese duly did so, and the
Japanese responded by sending thousands of their own soldiers to
Seoul, supposedly to protect Japanese residents, although the
Korean government reiterated to Japan that the rebellion had
been quelled and their troops should be withdrawn. But it was
too late. Once again Korea was destined to be the battleground
for the confrontation of its "benefactors," China and Japan.

- 148 -

Death and Other Losses

In these years when things in Korea were going from unplea-
sant to unbearable, the young missionaries were having their own
problems. The Presbyterians, weakened by a lack of man and
womanpower, particularly had to struggle to maintain their pre-
carious foothold.

The board secretaries did not ignore the missionaries' re-
peated pleas for help. In the spring of 1888, they issued the
following partisan appeal;

'"Why the difference,' our missionaries in Korea are asking,
'between our Presbyterian Board and that of the Methodist Church?'
The two organizations commenced work in Korea about the same
time. That of the Presbyterian Board was especially favored by
a series of providences which gave it great prestige, and which
placed in its hands a hospital entirely supported by the Govern-
ment. Now the Presbyterian Board has two missionaries; the
Methodists have nine and are expecting to send out two more....

Why this difference, though our missionaries are pleading for
reinforcements? Four or five new missionaries should be sent to
Korea during the coming season. Where are the men? Perhaps a
harder question is. Where are the funds to send them? It is the
Centennial year of the Presbyterian Church. It should be a year
of liberal things. God grant that its missionary work may end
not in humiliation but in rej oicing.

This challenge met with some response, and three new Pres-
byterian missionaries arrived in late 1888: a physician, Charles

Power, and a teacher for the girls' school, Mary Hayden, on
November 19, and a minister, Daniel L. Gifford, on December 15.
Gifford came on the same ship from Japan as a party of three
Canadians, sent out by the Toronto University YMCA — newlywed Mr.
and Mrs. Robert Harkness and James Scarth Gale. Gale, a highly
talented man, would become the most scholarly and imaginative of
the missionaries, but no one knew that when the gaunt, mustached
young man, not yet 26, arrived. Gale had the good sense to be
a learner before he was a teacher, and the good fortune as an
independent missionary not to have to hit the ground running as
those before him had had to do. There was time and space enough
for him to find himself and for his colleagues to discover his
gifts .

- 149 -

Two more Presbyterians arrived on February 16, 1889 — Wil-
liam Gardner and his sister Sarah. Heron extolled them: "Mr.

Gardner seems to be a man of calm and deliberate thought, ear-
nest and careful as a worker...^ great acquisition. Miss Gardner
is just what we need, an earnest, spiritual woman, one who is
gifted with common sense as well as ability."^® But alas, de-
light shortly turned to dismay as within the month the Gardners
submitted their resignations.

Gardner wrote Ellinwood, "It is not practicable for us to
remain and labor here," citing as his reasons the summer heat
and rain, Korean housing, and the filth of the city.29 -jhe
Gardners told the mission they were convinced their health would
not stand up under such conditions. The other missionaries im-
plored them to stay, assuring them of "the superiority of this
climate to that elsewhere in the Orient," and pointing out that
"foreigners have been singularly exempt from sickness."^®

It is curious that the missionaries would argue the health-
fulness of Korea since among their small group Harriet Heron had
been on the brink of death for months, Annie Ellers Bunker's
health leave for lung hemorrhages was delayed for weeks because
she was too ill to travel, both Louise Rothweller and Meta Howard
would shortly be invalided home, as would Robert Harkness and
the Underwoods, Heron would die within a few months, and both
Daniel and Mary Hayden Gifford (who were married in April 1890)
but a few years later.

The loss of the Gardners brings up a point worth consider-
ing: that the missionary force may not consist of the most able

persons because they are not always the ones who are willing to
go to or stay on a foreign field, under conditions not everyone
would choose. The most able may be too intelligent for that.'

The missionary force, therefore, isn't necessarily "the cream of
the crop;" it is simply the crop.

But ability coxjnts too — the ability to be discreet, for
instance — as the Presbyterians learned through their unfortunate
experience with Dr. Charles Power. There had been rumors of
Power's inappropriate behavior on shipboard enroute to Korea,
reports that he had been seen drinking and gambling. But his
coworkers in Korea found him to be good-hearted, hard working
and willing, as well as desperately needed, so when he indignant-
ly denied the charges against him, his expostulations were ac-
cepted. Within six months, however, new rumors were circulating.

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Davies left for a 300-mile trek south hoping to open a station
in the Pusan area. He became sick enroute and barely made it to
the port where he sent a note, "Come at oncel" to James Gale who
was residing there. Gale and his language teacher took Davies
to his lodgings and called in the Japanese doctor who diagnosed
smallpox. Penumonia set in the following day. The Japanese
doctor said quietly to Gale, "Er wird bald sterben" ("He will
soon die"); and less than an hour later, on April 15, 1890,

Davies passed away. Gale and a few Koreans buried him in a lone-
ly grave on a nearby hillside. 33

Davies left two important legacies, however. Accounts of
his death circulated in Australia and inspired the Presbyterians
to send more missionaries to Korea. The Australian mission in
Korea, which has always been marked by small numbers but high
dedication, continues today. Davies' other contribution was his
part in the first union work in Korea. In late 1889 a Council
of Missions had been inaugurated with Davies as secretary; this
was to be the forerunner of the United Council of Presbyterian
Missions which was to act as the governing body of the church
until the organization of the independent Korean Presbyterian
Church in 1907.

John Heron, who had labored for five years without a break,
continued to be overworked. From the time of Allen's departure-
in October 1887 until Charles Power's short tenure beginning in
November 1889 Heron had the full medical responsibility — foreign
and Korean practice, the hospital and the palace — for the Pres-
byterians. Then there was the care and feeding of all the new
missionaries and his chagrin and disappointment over Power and
the Gardners. In addition, he had the care of a critically ill
wife for almost a year, the responsibility of two baby daughters,
and financial difficulties. Underwood was frequently away on
country trips, including his nine-week honeymoon, and was six
months in Japan from November 1889 getting his Korean grammar
published, so Heron had also carried the burden of most of the
mission business, correspondence, maintenance, and translation
work.

Horace Allen and his family returned to Korea with the new
year of 1890. Allen was, he said, "utterly sick of the folly" of
trying to be appointed American Minister to Korea. 3^ He denied
any desire for a government post, but his correspondence clearly
indicated that he had returned to Korea with a government ap-
pointment in mind. For a while, nothing came of his expectations.

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Assigned to mission work in Pusan, Allen quickly found the port
city undesirable and settled instead in Chemulpo for seven
months. Underwood visited him in May and wrote Ellinwood, "I
have seen Dr. Allen and have been much pleased with his evident
attempts to avoid the mistakes he made when here before. He does
seem to me to be trying to do mission work. He is living very
plainly and quietly and is going out in the villages and trying
to do all he can."^^ But Allen was miserable, and wrote the
board secretary, "I seem to be an utter failure this time....
Don't you think I had better leave?"^^

At his lowest point in early July after the deaths of two
patients, one of whom was an official close to the King, he
wrote, "My work has fallen off.. ..Much as I hate to admit it, I
must now confess to you that I seem to be a failure this time.

If I could raise money for the King to help him in his private
amours I would have influence of a kind. There is no patrio-
tism here and everything seems to be tottering. My own govern-
ment persistently ignores the King's requests (to have Allen
appointed secretary of the American legation)....! don't think
you need doctors here any longer....! guess ! had better pull
out and go home....! have no reputation any more. ... Even the
Koreans have turned against me.... About Chemulpoo, you are right.
!t is a poor place for missionary work."^^

While Allen was bemoaning his fate from Chemulpo, John
Heron in Seoul was losing a 20-day struggle with dysentery.
Although delirious most of the time. Heron had lucid intervals
in which he spoke of Christ and heaven with the servants and
Korean friends. He asked his wife to remain on the field and
carry on the work. James Gale and Horace Undervood were among
those around the bed at the last, on July 26, and Gale reported,
"His spirit passed quietly away, without a ripple."^®

Allen had come to Seoul two days earlier to offer his medi-
cal services. According to Underwood, Heron asked three times
to see Allen apparently wanting reconciliation, but Harriet
Heron, embittered and under stress, refused to allow Allen to
be called. So the great missionary feud was never resolved and
Allen commented cruelly that Heron's death "seems a special re-
' ward for past conduct, although at the time he wrote, "It
is a great shock....! regret it more than ! am able to express .

The next pressing concern was Heron's burial. The Presby-
terian missionaries wired their board for funds for the funeral

- 153 -

expenses as Heron had left almost nothing. When application was
made to the government for a burial site, several undesirable
ones were offered. A reasonably quick burial was essential in
the hot, humid July weather, and the American Minister Augustine
Heard consented to temporary interment on the missionary coirpound,
which almost resulted in a riot because no burials had ever been
permitted within Seoul’s city walls. The Foreign Office hastily
set aside a beautiful spot on the banks of the Han River, at a
point then located four miles from the city, as a foreign ceme-
tary. Heron was buried there on July 28, and newcomer Samuel A.
Moffett wrote, "We now have a new interest in the land of Korea.
The first foreign grave here is that of the missionary, who gave
his life to the Korean people.

Harriet Heron decided to stay on, which pleased everyone
but Horace Allen. Moffett wrote Ellinwood that she would be able
to do work "which no one else could do without several years of
training. Mrs. Heron has done more work among the women than
anyone else on the field and has a better knowledge of the lan-
guage than anyone except one of the Methodist ladies.

In contrast, Allen wrote spitefully, "not knowing the lan-
guage and having two children she can’t do mission work yet Mrs.
Heron expects to remain here... there will be no abatement of our
troubles....! don't think she would be a very great expense on
you, as she is a very good looking woman and she would doubtless
marry soon but it would pay you to pension and retire her."^^

But Harriet Heron stayed on.

On July 21, the same week that Heron died, Allen's fortunes
took an abrupt turn. Minister Heard received a telegram from
the State Department announcing Allen was appointed secretary of
the American legation. Allen talked things over with Underwood
and D.A. Bunker and decided to take office. But to leave the
mission meant he was without housing and obliged to repay the
Presbyterian board for his family’s passage to Korea. He offered
to take the government hospital, writing Ellinwood, "Can't you
accept my free services in resuscitating and holding this hospi-
tal for you in lieu of any debt?"^^ After his retuxm to Korea
he had downgraded the government hospital, accusing Heron of neg-
lecting it. On June 11 he had written, "The hospital is in a
wretchedly unkempt condition and is contrasted very unfavorably
with the tidy, flourishing Methodist institution, the doctors of
which devote their time to their work. In the slipshod way in
which the royal institution is carried on little success and

- 154 -

many accidents occur." The day after Heron's death, Allen wrote,
"As for the hospital work, I am not sure it will pay to continue
it.... The hospital has dwindled down to a mere dispensary. And
a very dirty and immoral one too, with 16 petty officers to
'squeeze' the patients and absorb the money. To make the hospi-
tal a missionary success we should get absolute control of it.

You would need to supply $2,000 to $3,000 a year in medicines,
etc., then regular daily Christian work should be done there. If
you can't do this the present is an excellent opportunity for
letting the matter drop."

This was exactly the opinion of the other Presbyterians .
Samuel Moffett had written before Heron's death, "For some little
while we have been acting in the greatest harmony and a better
spirit, a more spiritual tone has pervaded all our work. We have
all felt that we were ready for systematic, conservative, aggres-
sive work and were laying our plans accordingly. As you know Mr.
Underwood made some concessions in his mode of work and Dr. Heron
no longer seeing the necessity for applying the brakes had given
free expression to his desire to push the evangelistic work. For
some time Dr. Heron has been quite restive under his restrictions
at the government hospital and was planning for work which he
could give a more evangelistic turn."^^

Although Heron did not live to see these plans put into
effect, the others in his mission wanted to follow them. They
appointed Horace Underwood a committee of one to investigate the
hospital situation and report on what could be salvaged or what
should be re-begun for more evangelistically-oriented medical
work .

This action incensed Allen who wrote Ellinwood on August 8,
"At the mission meeting last week I offered to attend to the
hospital ... .My offer was not accepted. Discussion followed as
to the advisability of keeping up the hospital or not which I
thought could only be decided by yourselves. I then offered to
go to the hospital, take an inventory, consult with the native
officials as to better religious and financial arrangements, and
report. To my mortification Mr. Moffett opposed this and secured
the appointment of Mr. Underwood. The latter strange to say
really had to explain to Moffett how the hospital was obtained —
a statement that (the new missionaries) seemed not to credit
wholly." According to Allen, he took the hospital over the
objection of the missionaries after being requested to do so by
the Chief Officer of the hospital, the King, and the president
of the Foreign Office.

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In the meantime the mission board cabled Allen to take
charge of the hospital. Allen wrote, "This is fortunate as
it settles matters. It was very humiliating for me to be re-
f jed permission to even look into the condition of the hospital
I started. Interestingly enough, the closer Allen looked,
the better the hospital appeared to him. "The buildings are
fine," he said. "The stock of medicines is large and complete.

The medical stock is not so bad as made out. The officers are
willing to do anything I ask.... I would like to have a house
there. Of course, since he was working at the legation, Allen
could spend little time at the hospital.

"I like this legation work." he wrote. "The Minister
(Augustine Heard) is old and sick most of the time. I will doub-
less be Charge d’Affaires most of the time. It gives me immense
importance with the Koreans. All of which helps the missionaries
with whom I have fully identified myself anew."^®

But the missionaries wrote individually and jointly to pro-
test Allen's remaining in the mission while employed at the lega-
tion. Moffett wrote on July 25, "Dr. Allen has accepted the posi-
tion of Secretary to the U.S. Legation.... I have heard that he
desires to maintain his connection with the Mission and will ask
that we provide a house in Seoul.... I most earnestly trust that
if Dr. Allen retains the political position that he will com-
pletely sever his official connections with the Mission. .. instead
of helping us with the Koreans (his position) will but cause all
the official political actions of the American legation to re-
flect for good or ill upon the Mission. It will be a combination
of politics and missionary effort in which I feel sure the mis-
sionary work will be compromised." Underwood wrote in a similar
vein .

After the board's telegram arrived, Underwood wrote again,
"Allen shows an unwillingness to follow the desires of the mis-
sion and a desire to override our whole action. He said that the
Hospital is not under the mission but was an independent affair,
that it had been placed in his personal charge. "^9 The mission-
aries wrote a joint letter on August 11 to "request that the
Board require him to resign either his position as a member of
the mission or as Secretary of the Legation and thus be the one
or the other."

Two days later Allen resigned, saying "I have made up my

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mind that I cannot work with the Presbyterian Mission of Seoul....
I will starve rather than place myself under these people. ”50

The King placed a house at Allen's disposal and although he '
and the Presbyterian mission officially parted ways, Allen con-
tinued on at the hospital until the arrival of another Presby-
terian doctor. True to his word, for many years Allen used his
influence from the American legation to further the mission
cause. In fact, he wrote that one of his first acts as Charge
d'Affaires was to obtain "a passport for Mr. Moffett to travel
in any and all the provinces of Korea. "5 1 And with that action
a new era began.

Extending the Boundaries

In 1890 both Protestant missions were finally able to make
perceptible progress in striking out from Seoul. The Presbyte-
rians gained one of their greatest assets for going forward in
January with the arrival of Samuel Austin Moffett.

Moffett is a difficult man to pen on paper. No single per-
sonality trait obtrudes on which to hang a portrait. He was
positive, though not so enthusiastic as Underwood; judicial and
discriminating, but not thorny like Allen; quieter in his zeal
than Appenzeller; neither brilliant nor creative in the sense
Gale was, but intelligent, steady, and focused. A marvel of
balance, Samuel Moffett was a genial man, liked by all.

A recent discussion on successful executives posed the ques-
tion, "How do you spot a leader?” and answered, "They come in all
ages, shapes, and conditions. Some are poor administrators, some
are not overly bright. One clue: the true leader can be recog-
nized because somehow his people consistently turn in superior
performances . "52 Moffett, who was bright and an excellent admin-
istrator besides, was a leader from the time he set foot on Korean
soil; a trademark of his career was that any group he was in per-
formed better.

The first mission meeting after his arrival, held on Febru-
ary 11, 1890, was the most business-like and forward looking one
the Presbyterians had had. Although it was a traumatic year,

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riddled by sickness, death, and Allen's resignation, by October
Daniel Gifford was writing, "Our mission policy is taking the
shape of a more aggressive, systematized, evangelical work, "53
and much of this was due to Moffett.

What forces shaped Samuel Moffett, who was the fourth son
of six children in an ordinary, hard working, devout Indiana
family? Moffett's father, a Southerner, was strongly abolition-
ist, while his mother, from Pennsylvania, was secretly sympathet-
ic to the South, which may indicate a certain independence of
thought and perhaps even the ability for united action in spite
of diversity of opinion.

References to his early years are sparse. When he was
elderly and his wife and others urged him to write his memoirs,
he replied, "I have been so busy living the days that I have for-
gotten much of the past and have trouble recalling it. "54 Xo
Samuel Moffett, the past was done, and the present was the time
for energetic, informed work for the future. The Korean Chris-
tians, who gave nicknames to all the missionaries, had a partic-
ularly apt one for him: "The looking up the road man."

At age 21, Samuel Moffett tied for top honors at Hanover
College and gave the salutatory address, on "Agnostic Morality. "55
A chemistry major who studied for a master's degree in chemistry,
he was described by one professor as "scholarly, devoted, and
endowed with common sense. "56 when he applied as a missionary,
he wrote, "My second year in seminary, I faced the question of
the foreign field and after a struggle against selfish plans, I
felt willing to go where the Lord would have me. "57

William Baird, the life-long friend who roomed with Moffett
at Hanover and McCormick, and was to be a missionary colleague
for 40 years, once remarked, "Most of us missionaries didn't
give up an awful lot when we came to the Korea mission field.

We never would have had anything but small, unimportant churches
and minimal salaries anyway. But Moffett was a person who would
have gone to the top in any field, in the church or out of it. "58

The first Korean Moffett ever met was the 1884 failed revo-
lutionary, Pak Yong-Hyo, in Yokohama. His next Korean acquaint-
ance was Underwood's language teacher and literary assistant.
Moffett recalled that "Prince Pak was in foreign dress; Mr. Song,
in Korean scholar's garb, a novel and striking figure. "59

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What the Koreans saw was a tall (6'1”), lean American with
a friendly, long face, clean shave except for a small mustache,
with a cleft in his chin, who looked simultaneously boyish and
weather-beaten, like a Midwest cowpoke.

At Chemulpo, he and the other Presbyterian newcomer, Susan
Doty, were greeted by Dr. John Heron, Daniel Gifford and Mary
Hayden, most of the Presbyterian mission force. The group ar-
rived in Seoul after the curfew bell had rung, but were able to
squeeze through the West Gate after Dr. Heron's faithful kesu
(private soldier) induced the guard to crack it open.^0 It was
January 25, Samuel Moffett's 26th birthday.

Moffett wrote that his first impression, "deepened as time
goes by, was that the people show an utter lack of positive hap-
piness. They seem to have a look of settled submission to an
unsatisfactory life. The first happy face I saw was that of our
native evangelist and to me the contrast was a marked one and
impressed me very strongly. "61

Another impression was that everyone was overworked — "We
need more men. ...There is work enough now for a dozen men. "62
For this reason, Moffett was immediately given supervision of the
orphanage, and with James Gale's help, managed within a year to
bring order out of chaos and turn it into a functioning boys'
school with Chinese and Bible as the core curriculum and a
strongly Christian emphasis. To avoid attracting "rice Chris-
tians," he weeded out students who had done poorly, the lazy,
and those uninterested in the faith; required students to provide
partial support; and dismissed the inept staff, hiring two compe-
tent, committed Christian Korean teachers.

He began studying the language two days after his arrival,
and his approach to it, as to everything else, was straightfor-
ward. "The language is difficult; but it seems to me that in
three years one should be able to use it quite effectively, but
to do so in less than two years will be very exceptional ."63
Yet, a year later, when Moffett was examined, Horace Underwood
reported, "Mr. Moffett passed an exceptionally fine examination
...has made a very fine start, and bids fair to be one of the
first students of the language. "6^

Although the Presbyterians and Methodists had planned from
the beginning to open stations all over the peninsula, the only

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Protestant missionaries who had yet lived outside the capital
were the Horace Allens who spent seven months in Chemulpo and
James Gale who was 10 months in Pusan.

In the Methodist tradition of circuit riding, however, Henry .
Appenzeller made a yearly trip north and in late summer, 1890,
Samuel Moffett was able to go along on his first trip to Pyong-
yang. The men left Seoul on August 29 and after a stop in Songdo
where Appenzeller met with five men, the beginning of Methodist
work there, they reached Pyongyang in six and a half days. "As
yet it is not open to foreign residence,” he wrote. "Very little
has been done in evangelistic work. The Roman Catholics are said
to number 3,000 with a French priest living as a Korean in a
small place 70 li south of here. The Methodists have had a local
preacher here for some time and at their meeting on Sept. 7 which
I attended there were 18 men present. .. .Their preacher however
proving to be dishonest has just been discharged. They also have
a teacher at An Tjyeu and have begun work in Eui Tjyou. Our own
work consists of three baptized men, three reported believers,
and several interested friends of these. They are without direc-
tion or leadership and have no regular meetings. It is in this
province that a great deal of our colporteurage work has been
done and where Mr. Ross of Mukden and his followers have labored.
Here I have been visited by men from six or seven cities. The
people are larger, hardier, more independent, and have more spir-
it than those in the south.'"

Moffett wrote that his Korean teacher, "boy," and he togeth-
er were managing to live on $1 a day. "I have been here for 10
days, living quietly in a Korean inn — going on the street every
day exciting considerable interest. The people greatly dislike
the Japanese and their manner towards me changes as soon as they
know I am an American and not a Japanese. A great many have
visited me in my room, many of whom have read considerable of the
Bible and some tracts while here; with many I have talked of
Christ and with others my teacher has talked though he is not as
yet a baptized believer but quite well acquainted with the Scrip-
ture truths .

"I intend to stay here several days longer, making sure that
it is practicable for a foreigner to live here several weeks at a
time and quietly do evangelistic work. "65

These were scouting years, and almost every letter of both
Methodists and Presbyterians referred to the opportunities for

- 160 -

expansion and pleaded for more men and money to start work out-
side of Seoul. The boards too were urging their missionaries to
"get somewhere a foothold outside of Seoul. "66

The problem of expansion remained lack of men and means.
Moffett wrote board secretary F.F. Ellinwood Sept. 15, 1890: "In
your letter you say 'we ought not to put all our eggs in one bas-
ket'— but — it depends on how many eggs you have. We certainly
need not less than five men in Seoul for work exclusively in
Seoul and immediate neighborhood. Seoul will always be the cen-
ter of work and the most important point.... We have but three
men and no physician. Of course Mr. Underwood alone has the
language. "

Ellinwood replied ruefully, "If we had no end of funds and
just the right man at hand, we should proceed more rapidly, but
that does not seem to be the way of Providence." Later he wrote,
"The most we can say is that we do as well by Korea as by any
field, and that plus special contributions of the Underwood
brothers

These special contributions were significant; without them
there would have been no expansion of the work, no opening of
Pusan or Pyongyang. Horace Underwood's brothers John T. and
Frederick provided the wherewithal to send out Samuel Moffett in
1890, William and Annie Baird in 1891, and the transportation,
outfit, and salaries for six new workers in 1892; plus funds to
purchase land in Pusan and Pyongyang.

The 1891 Annual Meeting of the Presbyterian mission was de-
layed slightly so that the William Bairds could participate; the
young couple arrived on Feb. 2 and the five-day meeting began the
next day. Gifford reported that "The length was necessitated by
the reading and adoption of the (first) Rules and By-Laws of the
Mission. "68 These by-laws indicated the mission was pulling it-
self together, and Moffett was behind this, hoping "to avoid
friction which has resulted from having no settled policy. "69

In other actions of this mission meeting, Underwood and
Baird were directed to proceed to Pusan to select a site for a
new station; Moffett was authorized to buy property in Pyongyang. ^
"Moffett goes North," wrote Horace Allen, "and as Ping An bids
fair to be opened soon, he has struck in the right direction . "70

Moffett set out from Seoul on February 25, 1891, with James

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Gale who had just applied to join the Presbyterian mission. They
travelled with native evangelist So Sang-Yun ("Mr. Saw"), four
other Koreans, and two pack ponies.

Their accounts of this trip are filled with a sense of exu-
berance as they left mission responsibilities, petty grievances,
and paperwork behind. Their zest for new experiences, apprecia-
tion of the people, and challenges met along the way, as well as
for the beauty of the countryside, shines through; never mind the
bed bugs, sandstorms, and lack of comforts.

Since they were walking, they often had to ferry, ford, or
wade rivers. Sometimes they could find a farmer willing to carry
them across piggyback for a fee. Once Gale, asking such a man at
one river for help, was met with a look of contempt. Gale prompt-
ly jumped on the startled man's back and hung on. "He muttered
to himself awful threatenings , proceeded slowly ... stopping to re-
consider in the middle of the stream, but it was hopeless and he
landed me safely. I apologized. .. expressed the hope that we might
still be friends, adding some extra cash by way of indemnity.

He... stood looking at me in speechless amazement and is standing
so yet for aught I know. "71

At one inn an old grandmother asked if they had books with
them, saying "I know of the western book and I know westerners
are good people and that they have not come to harm us," an im-
mense encouragement after being pointed out for weeks as foreign
devils. Gale had a run-in at this inn when he borrowed the
family fishing pole. The grandfather took exception and called
for him to return it at once. "I pretended not to hear. The
storm would blow over in a little... but a whirlwind suddenly
caught me, in which I lost line, fish, interest, and everything.
When I came properly to, an old Korean, seventy years of age, was
carefully putting a fish-rod back in its place, while an American
was pretending to dig wild onions on the bank of the river, the
village people meanwhile looking on encouragingly ."72

Moffett wrote, "We... have preached the gospel in city, town,
and village all along the way. Our evangelist is a thorough
Christian and a man who commands respect and attention every-
where. He preaches and teaches the plain truths of the gospel
from an experience of 15 years, being one of those who came to us
through Mr. Ross of Moukden. We stayed in Ping Yang five days
having service there on Sunday. The Mission had given me an
authorization to purchase a house there under the $400 appropria-
tion of the Board, but as we have not yet a reliable man to put

- 162 -

in charge the purchase was not made. I am again impressed with
the desirability of having a Christian worker there and have some
hopes that one of the two professing Christians there will devel-
op into a trustworthy man. We found several inquirers, but the
people are as yet very suspicious of foreigners and afraid of
Christian books. "^3

They crossed the Yalu into China, visiting John Ross in Muk-
den. "With the information there obtained we started for the
Korean valleys and I think have satisfactorily settled the fact
that the work can be better done from China than from Korea as
those valleys are almost unapproachable from our side. We spent
two weeks among the mountains of China and North Korea, finding
the region sparsely settled, poor and so nearly destitute of food
that we have given it the name of Starvation Camp as we lived on
boiled oats and millet most of that time.... We came down through
the middle of Korea to the East, reaching Ham Heung, the capital
of the province, and on the way from there stopped at Gens an
(Wonsan), the Eastern treaty port. In this region we found what
we consider the most beautiful and most wealthy and apparently
the most prosperous region of Korea and we feel the importance of
opening work there. .. .From an evangelistic point of view I think
the journey a most successful one. We were able to preach in
cities, towns, and villages to hundreds of people who had never
heard the gospel. We found them ready to listen... and eager to
know more.... We had not an unpleasant experience on the whole
trip, the people and officials being very courteous although
their curiosity was so great that we could hardly get a half hour
alone. The North is open for successful work."^^

On their long trip, the two friends must have shared a good
many confidences. Perhaps they discussed James Gale's affairs of
the heart, for when he began the journey. Gale was engaged to a
girl in Canada. Somewhere along the way, he decided he'd made a
mistake, wrote explaining his feelings, that his heart belonged
elsewhere (to Harriet Heron), and the engagement was broken.
Moffett was an admirer of Mrs. Heron, and may have been in love
with her himself, but after he and Gale returned to Seoul about
May 20, it was Gale who wooed and won her, writing Ellinwood in
September 1891: "I hope to be married the coming year, but not to
the person of whom I wrote you."

The board decided Gale was dangerously fickle. Not only did
they closely question the circumstances of his broken engagement,
but they expressed displeasure with his work plans as well .

- 163 -

Having spent three years in the country, Gale wanted to settle
down and work in Seoul; the mission unanimously wanted him there.
But the board had expected "a man to work in the interior who is
not encumbered with a family. ”75 The board came very close to
rejecting Gale, though the other missionaries wrote praising and
endorsing him. Even Horace Allen wrote, "I congratulate you on
getting Mr. Gale. He is a No. 1 man whether he marries Mrs.

Heron or not. ”76

Correspondence on the matter continued for six months. Mof-
fett wrote in late December, "Your letters of November 19 have
taken us completely by surprise and have been the occasion of
much pain and regret ... .Gale is a thorough Presbyterian, a firm
believer in Scripture, the Calvinlstic system of theology, and
the necessity of the Holy Spirit's presence for success in the
work. He speaks the Korean language better than anyone else on
the field and is just finishing a translation of Acts which bids
fair to be the best translation of any book yet given to us judg-
ing from the Koreans' comments.

"I have the greatest confidence in Mr. Gale's consecration
and in his assertion that both he and his wife are ready to go
anywhere .... A fear that we will be judged before we have explained
conditions and reasons for our actions will make almost any mis-
sionary's life a failure. I could not help believing that it
was this more than overwork, more than anything else that led to
Dr. Heron's death. I have never known a man more thoroughly un-
selfish and more thoroughly possessing a consecrated missionary
spirit--but irritated and worried and goaded beyond expression at
the thought that his motives were questioned, his consecration
doubted and his work misunderstood, his mental conflicts more
severe from the fact that he was proud spirited, wore him out. I
would be spared any more such misunderstandings and so write as
freely as I do.”

Gale's appointment as a Presbyterian missionary was secured,
and he was married to Harriet, a happy match, on April 7, 1892.

When Moffett and Gale had headed north in February of 1891,
Underwood and Baird had started south to buy property to open
" work in Pusan. They were told by local authorities that permis-
sion to sell land would have to come from Seoul. Underwood wired
Allen, who had become secretary of the American legation, and
after many delays and difficulties. Minister Augustine Heard was
able to wrest peirmission from the reluctant Koreans. 77 Heard

- 164 -

wrote Baird, "Your land was the first yielded to foreigners, as
foreigners, by the Korean government ."78

The chief complication was that a French priest, M. Robert,
who had bought a house a few months earlier through a Korean
agency had been mobbed by enraged citizens. He lost all his pos-
sessions, his interpreter was nearly killed, and the priest him-
self managed to make it back to Seoul only with great difficulty.
Allen wrote on March 25, "The French Minister has demanded full
redress and the public punishment of the Governor (who had re-
fused shelter or protection) . As the latter is of the Royal
Family and very powerful, the King cannot do it. The French
Minister is exceedingly firm and has just been supplied by his
government with a war vessel. The outcome is uncertain, but the
foolish opposition will be done away with without doubt. "79 Allen
correctly surmised that it would be the Koreans who would yield.
This case of gunboat diplomacy settled the question of foreign
missionaries' rights to live, work, and buy property outside the
treaty ports .

Realizing the coercion involved, Ellinwood wrote the mission
on May 14, "The difficulties between the French and the Koreans
have been rather roughly handled. I regret the methods of the
French, though sometimes I think we all derive some advantage,
they doing the dirty work and the wicked work. The time will
come (and I hope at an early day) when the European powers cannot
browbeat the Oriental nations." At the same time, he had to ad-
mit that he hoped, "as a result, we may be nearer to the realiza-
tion of liberty of thought."

Besides the problems of when and how and who to start work
outside of Seoul, the Presbyterians had another problem, one
still recurring in missionary circles: how to withdraw from work
once begun. The mission had wanted for some time to reorganize
the government hospital into a truly evangelistic institution, or
failing that, to start in its stead a new mission hospital.
Heron's death and Allen's re-entry into the royal hospital had
prevented them from taking such a step. After receiving a num-
ber of letters from Seoul on the subject, Ellinwood had written
Allen requesting him to turn the hospital over to the mission.
Allen refused to do so until he could pass it on to another phy-
sician. In January 1891 the mission asked R.A. Hardie to take
charge. Hardie and his wife were a newly-arrived couple sent out
by the Toronto YMCA and, like Annie Ellers, Hardie did not actu-
ally have an M.D. degree. According to Allen, "The Koreans abso-
lutely refused to have him after a month.

- 165 -

The government hospital had no doctor for two months until
the April 3 arrival of Cadwallader Vinton and his bride Leti-
tia.°l Vinton began work at the hospital in mid-April, but felt
frustrated from the start that no evangelism was permitted.

Even the religious books, tracts, and gospel portions he left
lying around the hospital were confiscated by the ubiquitous
officials. No government funds ever reached Vinton. More than
half of the hospital appropriations continued to go into the
pockets of the officials. Vinton, "in accordance with the unani-
mous feeling of the mission and the formal advice of its voting
members," severed his connection with the royal hospital, putting
the key in his pocket and walking away. 82

Allen was furious. He wrote Ellinwood on May 13, "It seems
that your first and only success in Korea has slipped through
your fingers. Dr. Vinton came with Mr. Gifford today to inform
me that the mission had decided to drop the hospital — reason,
there was not enough opportunity to do mission work. But as none
of them have ever tried to do such work, how could they know any-
thing about it?" Allen did not attempt a confrontation with the
mission, but besides writing the board he appealed to Minister
Heard to use his influence to urge Vinton to stay on at the hos-
pital.

Vinton capitulated, writing Ellinwood on July 3, "Today I
am to resume attendance at the hospital upon precisely the old
basis," but he continued to doubt the hospital's value. "It is
not a hospital where severe cases can be relieved and treated to
the best advantage, but a dispensary where the physician must
only expect to give out medicines to applicants, to be used or
misused ."83

Meanwhile the board had written that "We were very surprised
at the suddenness with which the mission terminated the hospital
work. . . .You expect too much in the way of ethics from the Koreans
....We sympathize with the earnest desire to have our medical
work of a more distinctly missionary effort but question that
measures to sever the hospital connection will achieve this end."
The mission was instructed not to surrender the hospital, nor to
take "any important step of this kind" in the future without
first consulting the board.

Allen wrote, "The hospital has been saved entirely by the
action of the American Legation against the machinations of the
Presbyterian Mission.

- 166 -

During the month that Horace Underwood was away with Baird
in Pusan trying to buy property, his wife's health failed alarm-
ingly. The mission doctors said the only hope of her survival
was to go to the States. Six coolies carried Lillies on a long
steamer chair to the boat, and Annie Ellers Bunker and Louisa
Rothweiler, both only recently returned from health leaves, ac-
companied her in case she needed emergency medical attention on
the way. "I can never tell with what regret, shame, and pain I
left Korea," Lillias wrote, "to go now, a failure . to leave my
work scarcely begun, perhaps never to return, was bitter. But
more bitter still was the thought that I was dragging my husband
back from a life of usefulness

Underwood wrote plaintively on May 17 from San Francisco,

"The final decision to return was very sudden. My wife had a
sort of collapse. .. .It was a great trial to us to have to leave
our work. . . .We hope the Lord may have something for us to do in
America. "

Indeed he did. Underwood's dynamic energy was put to excel-
lent use in the States. A compelling and popular speaker, he had
a good story to tell of missionary work begun with impressive re-
sults. His love for the Korean people and his vision of a strong
Korean church, "a light in the East," as well as his contagious
enthusiasm were all communicated. The importance of this cannot
be overemphasized, because there are two sides to missionary en-
deavor, the field and home support; one cannot exist without the
other, and the relative efficiency and enthusiasm on one side
affects the other. Horace Underwood was a spark plug to the send-
ing enterprise.

Very soon after his arrival in the States, his brother John
offered salaries for six men for Korea. Ellinwood wrote Horace
Underwood on September 23, 1891, that the board had agreed to
accept his brother's offer... six men for Korea. "And I don't
know where one of them is to be found." He suggested that Under-
wood visit McCormick Seminary "and plead the cause of Korea. . . .

You can plead as no one else in the country can. I shall pray
for your success."

Underwood made the visit at once, recruiting two students
who would ultimately be indispensable members of the Pyongyang
team — Graham Lee and W.L. Swallen. The next month Underwood
spoke at the Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance which met in
Nashville, Tenn. Student delegates were much moved by the appeal

- 167 -

for Korea given by Underwood and by the address of Yun Chi-Ho,
the 1884 eineute refugee, who after becoming a Christian at the
Methodist Anglo-Chinese College in Shanghai, had gone to the
United States and was studying at Vanderbilt University.

Yun heard Underwood speak twice, and his own tailk was some-
thing of a reply: "You have been told that there are 12 perishing
millions in Korea," he told his audience, "that they hunger and
thirst for the gospel; that they beg you to 'come and help'
them." Yun emphasized that the Koreans were rather "living mil-
lions who don't hunger and thirst after the gospel any more than
children hunger and thirst after the medicine their mother may
give them for their benefit. No one, except maybe other mission-
aries, was begging for missionaries to come.

Yun said he could not ask anyone to become a missionary to
Korea: "Shall I ask you to leave this country where civilization
is nearer to perfection than anywhere else... to bid a farewell to
your fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, last but not
least to your sweethearts and go stay among a people who cannot
understand your language .. .cannot appreciate your motives? No'.

I don't believe in a missionary of human persuasion; I don't
therefore ask or persuade anybody.

"If, however, you realize that your light will shine bright-
er in Korea because of the heathen darkness; that your work which
may be a brick in the temple of God here will be a corner-stone
of the church of Christ in Korea... if the Spirit of God tells you
to go there because of the great need and the few laborers .. .if
these are appeals, if these are calls. ..let them call you. . .my
heart, prayers, and service shall be with you in the common cause
of winning Korea for our Lord. "86

Horace Underwood on this one health leave was eventually
able to recruit seven young people to open the Southern Presbyte-
rian mission, and six persons for the Northern Presbyterians, all
of whom were sent out and salaried with funds provided by his
brother John. Among the latter group were a woman teacher, Ellen
Strong, and an outstanding doctor, O.R. Avlson and his family.

One very unpleasant by-product of Underwood's well-publi-
cized speaking tour was Malcolm Fenwick's attack, printed about
the time the Underwoods returned to Korea in the spring of 1893.

The independent missionary Malcolm Fenwick was a holy terror.

- 168 -

Though Canadian, Fenwick's ancestry was Scotch, one might
say "hot" Scotch. His childhood had been a rugged one, as he was
only five when his father died leaving 11 children. Unable to
attend college, he was heavily Influenced by the Student Volun-
teer Movement and the Niagara Bible Conferences. Studying the
Bible at night and preaching every chance he got, Fenwick said,
"The denominational feature of missions was not strong in my
mind. "87 Without denominational affiliation and backing, without
college or seminary training, he felt unwilling and unable to go
as a missionary, yet continued to feel called by God to Korea,
Finally he was stirred by a missionary from India who said that a
man dying of thirst did not care whether the water was given him
in a fine cut-glass goblet, but would gladly drink from a rusty,
battered can and live.

Fenwick secured financial backing from a group of business-
men in Toronto and arrived in Seoul in November 1889. After 10
months of language study in the capital, he went with Korean
friends to Sorae, built a Korean-style house there and gardened
while continuing to study Korean. It was from Sorae that he
wrote the letter accusing Horace Underwood of exaggerating mis-
sionary success in Korea and of baptizing converts carelessly.

Taking exception to what he had heard of Underwood's
speeches in America, Fenwick wrote a friend, J.H. Brookes, in
1893. The letter was printed in the May issue of a premillen-
arian publication. The Truth, and later reprinted in a book on
missions by Dr. James Johnston, and it sparked controversy for a
decade. Fenwick wrote; "Two years ago a man named Underwood re-
turned from this field to America, and has since been spreading
his exaggerated stories throughout the churches in the United
States... let me give you an account of his converting work in a
village (Sorae) where I afterward lived, as given me by one whom
he baptized on the occasion mentioned. A native who received
mission money was directed by Mr. Underwood to get together at
least 40 or 50 men, and he would be along at such a time. Rather
perplexed by the number demanded, the native set to work to
gather his friends, but could only muster nine. The missionary
arrived, and after exhortation at considerable length, asked the
natives to remove their hats. 'What for?' said one. 'Oh, never
mind,' coaxingly pleaded the native friend: 'take off your hats'
and with the politeness so characteristic of the Easterner, they
removed their hats, and then the Rev. Mr. Underwood, D.D.^^
administered baptism to these nine men, none of whom, with the

- 169 -

possible exception of one, he had ever seen.

-89

The Underwoods and their board were aghast. "(Fenwick)
ought to be trounced," wrote Ellinwood.^^ Lillies called the
story a slander. 91 Truth made partial amends by publishing
Underwood’s letter of refutation with an editorial commending
him. The Toronto committee discontinued Fenwick’s support and
suggested he withdraw from the field.

In August 1894 Fenwick stated in The Missionary Review of
the World, that he was deeply sorry he ever wrote the letter but
claimed his charges were true. "The letter was penned under the
conviction that the Church of Christ in America was given to
exacting glowing reports from missionaries to bolster up their
dishonoring methods of raising money."

The story, whatever its origin, was false. The missionaries
had been very skeptical of easy conversions and attempted to en-
sure anyone baptized knew the essentials of the biblical faith.
This wasn’t always possible — as one missionary wrote, "No one in
these modern days but the Pope lays claim to infallibility of
discernment. That some black sheep have gotten into the church
is evidenced by the fact that we have had to put them out"92 —
but the effort was made. Underwood’s reports may have seemed
overly optimistic but he had experience and facts to support his
claims of the responsiveness of the Koreans.

Fenwick’s letter was significant in that it has influenced
missionary policy up to the present. All the missionaries became
even more cautious about whom they baptized, and a waiting period
of months and even years was required before baptism. During
this probation period, the seeker was required to observe the
Sabbath., study the Bible and church polity, pass examinations on
these subjects and on his personal faith, abstain from alcohol,
tithe, learn to read if illiterate, read the Bible, and introduce
others to Christ. In most Korean Protestant churches today these
remain requirements for baptism.

Fenwick left Korea in 1893 and spent three years in America
where he was ordained by two prominent Baptist ministers. Dr.

.Arthur T. Pearson and Dr. A.J. Gordon. He later secured support
from several individuals and organized an independent mission
along the lines of the China Inland Mission, returning to Korea
in 1896 as its director, settling in Wonsan. With his wife, he
continued missionary work there until his death in January 1936.

- 170 -

A Canandian missionary wrote of Fenwick that "He strongly
criticized the regular missions and churches as being over-
organized, claiming that God was not in the Presbyteries, Assem-
blies, or Mission Conferences, but in the midst of the little
flock, and especially with those who sit alone in quiet commun-
ion with the Spirit. This attitude inevitably led to conflict
with other missionaries. For years he carried on a feud with
Gale and Hardie."93

Samuel Moffett expressed similar views in 1934 when he was
looking back over 44 years of mission work, a period he had
shared with Fenwick. "Another missionary who did much for the
widespread proclamation of the Gospel is Mr. Fenwick....! have
often regretted our inability to win his co-operation. Original-
ly a Presbyterian, with unusual gifts as an instructor in the
Scripture which he unwaveringly accepts as the Word of God,
he had much to do with the training of the early Christians,
notably So Kyong-Jo, one of the first seven men ordained to the
Korean ministry, and Ko Hak-Youn, teacher and helper to Mr.

Baird in opening the station in Pusan and in teaching the early
converts there... for over 40 years Fenwick has carried on an
independent work. As a great Bible student and teacher, he has
been a blessing to many ministers and elders of the Presbyterian
Church. "94 He was undoubtedly a curse to some, too.

In some respects, Fenwick, who adopted a Korean child,

David Ahn, as his son and heir, was ahead of his time. He was
concerned for improving the physical welfare of his "little
flock." In both Sorae and Wonsan he had a model farm and he
was among the missionaries active in importing improved seed,
plants, and fruit trees. He emphasized the use of "native"
evangelists, an idea that was not entirely orginal, but he
also insisted that they be continually on the move (thus the
name of his mission, the Corean Itinerant Mission), and not too
closely allied with church, presbytery, or assembly organiza-
tions. Congregations formed in this way were known as the Church
of Christ in Corea, and the ones that survived the Korean War for
the most part became Baptist. Because of the barriers of lan-
guage, customs, and living standards, Fenwick was convinced that
"The simple hearted believer in any country is God’s most effi-
cient and most economical witness in that country, and compara-
tively few expensive foreigners are needed. "95

James Gale called Fenwick "Fireblower" in The Vanguard , his
novel about the early Korean missionaries. "Fireblower, the

- 171 -

independent missionary. . .was kind-hearted but heady, and set on
one thing, come what may, namely his own way. Cross it and he
would pour scorn on you, yea, mouthfuls of invective, but he
prayed and studied his Bible and lived a lonely, self-sacrificing
kind of life. A strange creature was Fireblowerl

Loue and War

One of the more unlikely missionary romances was that of
doctors Rosetta Sherwood and William James Hall. Hall, a 29-
year-old Canadian, was working in the New York City Mission dis-
pensary when they met. Rosetta, 24, was a highly educated, pain-
fully plain young woman, strong minded and stubborn. Yet when
Hall looked up from his patient at his new assistant, he fell in
love with her at first sight.

Within a month he proposed, but marriage had not figured in
Rosetta Sherwood's plans of becoming a medical msiionary. By the
time Hall proposed again at Easter, she had been appointed to
Korea, signing an agreement that she would not marry for five
years.

Rosetta sailed for Korea in the fall of 1890, with George
Heber Jones' 21-year-old fiancee, Margaret Bengel, a schoolteach-
er. Hall's love letters followed Rosetta and eventually he did
too. Handsome and cheerful. Hall was immensely popular at the
New York slum hospital where he had worked. When he left New
York, famed songwriter Fanny Crosby who wrote a hymn, "Who Will
Go?" dedicated to him, was in the crowd to see him off.

George Heber Jones, who met Hall in Chemulpo on December 16,
1891, was unable to obtain a second pony for the trip to the
capital. Characteristically, Hall took in the situation, said
the pony was too small for his 6' frame and declared himself
happy to walk the whole way. After all, he was on the way to his
be loved I

No one in Seoul knew of their engagement and Rosetta wrote
of the reaction of the first person she told, Louise Rothweiler,
"To say that she was astounded by my announcement does not half
express her surprise. I don't understand it, but it seems to

-172-

have been the general impression here that I would never look
twice at a man. I am surprised n^self at her great surprise; but
oh, she was so lovely to me and she bade me 'Godspeed' with a
kiss upon my brow and tears in her eyes."^^ The Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society was not so imderstanding and sent a sharp
letter, expressing disappointment that she would break her five-
year contract and asking her to repay her passage money.

The Methodists had for some time been wanting to take more
vigorous action toward establishing stations outside of Seoul.
Hall, the prime candidate to open a new station, was asked to
make a scouting trip 350 miles north to Pyongyang and Uiju with
George Heber Jones. The two men left on a raw day in early
March, and after various adventures including eating dog soup and
almost freezing in a blizzard, crossed over the Taedong River,
frozen two feet thick, into Pyongyang on March 14, 1892. Jones
wrote that "from morn till night we were besieged by visitors,
and to one and all we preached the truth, cared for the sick, and
spent a busy, happy week. ... Opening a book counter in an accommo-
dating store, our Korean brethren in one day sold 80 Christian
books. This brought down an edict from the governor of the pro-
vince prohibiting the sale. But this didn't worry us much, and
we kept right on selling. "98

Hall returned on April 18 and in his report to the mission
recommended Pyongyang as the best location for a new station. He
and Rosetta worked together in Seoul until their wedding on June
27. At 9 a.m. they were married at the British legation by Con-
sul General W.C. Hillier and at noon there was a second ceremony
at the Methodist ladies' home. At the reception, given by the
William Scrantons, there was a giant wedding cake baked and dec-
orated by the Chinese chef, E.D. Steward, 99 and a train of don-
keys laden with Korean cash which was distributed to the poor in
good Korean custom. At 2 p.m. , the Halls left for Chemulpo,
Rosetta in a bridal chair while the bridegroom walked or rode
alongside, entertaining her with songs. They had a two-month
honeymoon in Chefoo. Their hopes of working side by side were
dashed at the Methodist Annual Meeting held in August. Rosetta
was assigned to continue work in the Woman's Hospital in Seoul,
while James Hall was appointed to open the Pyongyang station.

On October 18, 1892, Rev. W.A. Noble and his bride Mattie
Wilcox arrived in Seoul. James Hall had known Noble at the New
York slvim mission, and had inspired him to come to Korea. It
was Hall's idea that the two young couples could live together

. - 173 -

and pool their food and funds to save enough money to pay the
salary of yet another missionary, Dr. John Busteed, a friend from
New York. Rosetta and the Nobles had reservations about this
plan, and Rosetta confided to her diary, "I can see that they
both have to fight the same battle that I did before they could
do it. Strange, but it seems to me that the Doctor did not have
to do this. Is it pure selfishness with me and them? We are all
very anxious to do what is right, and what will render us able to
save the most to help others come to the field, but...."^^®
Actually this living arrangement proved to be a happy one; and
when Busteed arrived on the field, he boarded with them.

Hall was home only 12 days that fall. Returning to Seoul
from Pyongyang in mid-December, he came across two men lying in
the road, one dead, one nearly so. He took the wounded man on
his pony to the inn he had left that morning and persuaded the
innkeeper to take him in, leaving all his own money. After giv-
ing the man medical attention. Hall set out again, penniless,
with the wry thought that should he meet the robbers they would
not get much. Providentially, he met a Japanese doctor friend
on the road and was able to borrow enough funds to get back to
Seoul.

In February 1893 Hall left again, this time with Noble to
be gone until April 13. The painfulness of the young couple's
separations is hinted at in James Hall's letter to Rosetta,
written on March 16; "Your precious letter reached me on Tues-
day. Although it was as long as I could expect, yet while I was
reading it, I was dreading that each page would be the last.
Tonight my whole soul goes out to you in love. I have in you,
ray dear, the desire of my heart. I praise God more and more each
day for giving me such a priceless treasure. You are my perfect
ideal. I could not ask for more in a wife than I have in you my
darling. "101

"God has given me a heart to love," Hall had written, ^02
and this wholehearted love was his outstanding attribute. The
same warmth that could cause a tightly budded girl like Rosetta
Sherwood to blossom attracted the Korean people to him. As a
backwoods boy, Jimmy Hall had "no uncommon abilities or remark-
' able talents;" his outstanding trait was his good natured per-
severance . ^03 He dropped out of school and worked as a carpenter
until he contracted TB and was expected to die at the age of 18.
Instead he experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, recovered
completely, and became an evangelist. He went back to high

- 174 -

school at age 20 and sold books and insurance to put himself
through college, receiving a teacher’s certificate in July 1883.
He taught school for two years to save money for medical school,
but never had much, existing mostly on apples and stale bread
for several years. He did not have funds even for his medical
diploma, but after praying God would provide, he received the
exact sum needed as a gift from a friend on his way to the gradu-
ation ceremony.

A doctor who worked with him in the New York mission wrote,
"My first impressions of him were not very f avorable. . . . He did
not seem brilliant, though he did seem kind. One factor in his
success was his patience. Yet it was not his patience that
struck one; given his character you would expect patience, just
as give a good apple tree you would expect apples. The roots of
patience, humility, and obedience were there. Pride and selfish-
ness, the roots of impatience, were not, or if they were, it was
known only to himself; we never saw them. He often spent the
night in prayer and his fervent ’Praise the Lord’ and ’let us
have a word of prayer’ was associated with him by almost every
friend. Many were better versed in scripture, better versed in
medicine, better educated altogether; but it was his entire self-
abnegation, his preeminence in practical godliness and his never
changing self denial which made all follow his plans.

Although the north was generally considered more open to
Christianity than the south, it was not easy to enter Pyongyang,
which had the reputation of being the most wicked as well as the
oldest city in Korea. On Hall’s fall trip of 1892, taken with
the newly-arrived Presbyterian missionary Graham Lee, Hall had
been able to purchase land and two houses. Samuel Moffett had
been proceeding very cautiously, spending weeks and even months
in Pyongyang, but always as a visitor. But when the Methodists
obtained title deeds to property in the name of their helper You,
Moffett the following spring bought property in the name of his
helper, Han Suk-Jin.

These purchases proved to be premature, however. Shortly
after Hall and Noble left Pyongyang for Uiju in April, the men
who had sold the houses to the Methodists were arrested and im-
prisoned. According to Graham Lee, "Moffett tried to see the
governor in their behalf and tell him that no foreigner had
bought a house since houses were bought in the helpers' names.
Nothing had been done in violation of treaty or Korean law. The
governor refused to see Moffett ... .You was ordered by the govern-
ment to return the deeds to both houses. Here was a pretty mess

- 175 -

for the deeds were in Dr. Hall's possession and Dr. Hall was in
Eui Ju so You made out false deeds and gave them these. . .before
long came the order that deeds in our possession must be returned.
Returned they were... next, 20 unruly men gathered before our door.
Moffett went out and spoke to them, found them friendly enough.

They said they had nothing against us but the magistrate had com-
manded them to get us out and they were afraid to disobey. Moffett
told them we would go for we did not want them to get into trou-
ble on our account. This satisfied the crowd." The next morning
Moffett visited the magistrate who "denied point blank making
the order, but we believe he did. Moffett told him we had done
nothing contrary to treaty and asked that the men who had been
imprisoned on our account be released. The magistrate promised
to do so as soon as we left. "105 The two men returned to Seoul,
but on May 8, Moffett wrote his board, "I am hoping to leave this
week for another visit to Pyongyang, confident that our first re-
pulse was only temporary and expecting to stay a month or so."

Foreigners still did not legally have the right to reside
permanently or to buy property outside the treaty ports. Hall
thought it best to buy land through Korean associates and openly
move in. Moffett walked a finer line. As he wrote American
Minister John Sill, "I have never bought property — never said to
anyone I have bought it — had no intention of buying it. I fur-
nished money to Koreans with which to purchase knowing that when
purchased the house would belong to them, not to me, and would
be subject to Korean law. . . . I have never pretended to be resld-
ing here — have always said that I was merely here for a few
months expecting to travel on to Eui Ju and Seoul, and to return
another time. Have always referred to Mr. Han as the owner and
land-lord of the house and I have stayed there as a guest.... Of
course my intention has been to continue these visits until we
had won our way to the good will of the people and be accorded
the privilege of residing here."^®^

William Swallen, who had accompanied Moffett on this spring
trip, felt it wiser not to attempt to buy property until it
could be done legally. He wrote Ellinwood on May 29, "The
attempt was made through it all to keep from the Koreans that we
had anything at all to do with the transaction, hoping that we
might effect an entrance quietly ... .Why did we fail? I believed
and still do even more strongly that to purchase property in
that way is not to deal frankly with the Koreans ... .When we
speak to each other we say that we bought property. But when we
speak to a Korean we say we did not purchase....! am unwilling

- 176 -

henceforth to open any new station in that way until the Koreans
are willing to have us come and live among them."

The board wrote the mission, "These transactions in real
estate in a foreign land are most perplexing. .. and require great
prudence, a thorough insight into the laws of the land, and a
conscientious adherence to the Bible injunction to avoid the
appearance of evil."^*^^

In September and December 1893 Hall made his fifth and sixth
trips to Pyongyang with his language teacher. No Pyung-Sun. One
day a group of men came to solicit money, telling them it was the
custom for every household to make an annual contribution to an
offering to the spirit of Pyongyang. Hall replied, "We have
nothing to do with your spirit, and we will not give it money,
for we worship the true, living God, who made us and you, and
wants your worship, too. "108 The men left but returned later and
attacked No, who wrote: "When they were through beating me and

let me go, I went to Dr. Hall and told him what had happened, and
ray heart was very angry. He tried to comfort me, and asked me if
I had not read how St. Paul was beaten, but I said I did not
care, that if I continued to do this Jesus doctrine my body would
not last long, and I did not care about the good things I would
get after I was dead, and I told him I would return to Seoul at
once. Then he put his dear, loving arms around me and said, 'Let
us pray, brother,' and we both knelt down and he asked me to pray
first, but I could not pray with my angry heart, so he prayed for
me.... After a little the young boy that also got hurt came in,
and Dr. Hall bound up his wounded leg and paid him for his torn
clothes, and told us he was so sorry we were persecuted for doing
right. After this I became ashamed of myself and got rid of my
angry heart, and felt a good deal happier. .. .Many people continu-
ed to crowd around Dr. Hall like flies around honey, yet at night
the stones would sometimes fly like rain pouring, and we felt we
were sitting out upon ice in the river. But God turned the
wicked hearts kinder every day, and we were protected by his
care. ”109

As James Hall influenced the Koreans working with him,
Rosetta also inspired others, especially the daughter of one of
Appenzeller' s employees who as the most promising of the Ewha
Girls School students had been asked to assist the doctor in her
work. At 16 the Kim girl was considered a spinster and her
mother was most concerned that an appropriate husband be found

- 177 -

for her. When the Halls suggested one of his converts, Pak You-
San, "24 years old, tall and good looking, very gentle and modest
in manner," Esther Kim relented. She wrote Rosetta, "Three
nights I could not go to sleep and feel troubled, because I never
like man, and also I do not know how to sew well; but Korean cus-
tom all girls have to marry. ...If our Heavenly Father send Mr.

Pak here then I shall be his wife though my mother do not like
him. . . . I tell my mother, what use to find he is low or high
(rank) ... .You know I will not get married to one who do not like
Jesus word. I think it will be very queer if I get married. My
heart will get very much different." Rosetta, touched by the
note, recorded it in her diary, adding, "Dear Esther, what les-
sons of consecration she teaches me from day to day. I do love
her. "110 Esther and You-San Pak were happily married on May 24,
1893.

The following month, Rosetta confided her thoughts on her
own first wedding anniversary to her journal, "It seems so
strange that we have been married a whole year. ..it has been the
happiest year by far of our lives. Doctor never tires of tell-
ing me how I have completed his happiness; he is so perfectly
satisfied, and is ever expressing his great love in both words
and 'in actions that speak louder than words '....If a year ago
it was impossible for me to put into words my love for ray Doctor,
it is still more so today, but I can put it into actions better
now than then. "Ill

The Halls' son Sherwood was bom on November 10, 1893, and
six months later they, with baby Sherwood, his nurse Esther, and
You-San Pak left Chemulpo on a small coastal steamer to move to
Pyongyang. They enjoyed the trip until they were overtaken by a
typhoon and forced to shelter for 33 hours from the storm. The
small band of Pyongyang Christians welcomed them but soon huge
crowds gathered, straining for a glimpse of the first Caucasian
woman and child ever to enter the old city. Rosetta estimated
that over 1,500 people crowded into their courtyard to stare at
them the first day. Officials came also, muttering that if for-
eigners brought their families, one after another would arrive
and take over the city.

On May 10, the Halls were awakened at 2 a.m. and told that
their helper, Kim Chang-Sik who had been living and teaching in
Pyongyang, had been cast into prison with Moffett's helper Han
Suk-Jin and the former owners of their houses. Kim was in stocks
and had been beaten and there were threats of more beatings if

- 178 -

the Halls did not send 100,000 cash at once.

At 6:30 a.m. Hall went to the governor, who refused to see
him. Then he went to the prison; the Pyongyang Christian 0 Syok-
Hyong who accon5)anied him was seized and imprisoned on the spot.
Hall spent the rest of the day telegraphing Seoul and trying in
vain to see the governor. In the meantime, hundreds of people
continued to crowd in around the Hall house. At night stones
crashed through their paper windows and Pak You-San was seized
in their courtyard and beaten. That night the first of several
telegrams from American Minister John Sill arrived: "British

Consul General and I have insisted that Foreign Office order the
immediate release of Moffett's and your employees . "^2

The following day Kim Chang-Sik was repeatedly beaten and
moved to a death cell. The Halls feared he would die before
being released. Rosetta wrote, "Doctor cries every time he goes
to see him, it is so terrible. The reason he is treated so much
worse than Mr. 0 and Mr. Han is because vdien they ask him to re-
nounce the Jesus doctrine, he refuses to do so. "1^3 Finally,
after a barrage of telegrammed orders from Seoul, the governor
let the prisoners go.

In the meantime, Samuel Moffett and Canadian newcomer Wil-
liam J. McKenzie travelled night and day and arrived on May 15.
The Presbyterian helper Han was still being threatened by the
governor's servants who were demanding money from him, and Mof-
fett's presence afforded him some protection. Rosetta Hall
wrote in her diary, "Mr. Moffett tells us it is very fortunate
the trouble occurred with Dr. Hall and myself... for it is U.S.
policy to keep out of all religious and political trouble....

U.S. Minister Sill could not give Dr. Underwood a passport to
come up here, and would not give his official consent for Mr.
Moffett to come."^^^

Although the foreigners in Seoul were unanimous in their
concern for Rosetta and little Sherwood';s safety, they held
varying views of the wisdom of taking a woman and baby to Pyong-
yang. Lillias Underwood wrote, "I am glad, for our Presbyterian
ladies, I am ashamed to say, refused to go.... I am ashamed of
such pusillanimity in missionaries , but now, when they find Mrs.
Hall isn't killed they will be more willing to go. I only wish
the first woman to trust God and do her duty had come from our
side, and not the Methodist.

- 179 -

Horace Allen expressed the diplomatic viewpoint in a letter
to Ellinwood: "The Methodists appointed Dr. Hall and wife to go

to Pyongyang. Their house for years had been a notorious broth-
el. They bought it in the name of a Korean in violation of the
treaty ... everyone connected with them and Moffett was imprisoned.
The British Consul aided by U.S. Minister took up the case at
once and got them released .... British Consul wrote a letter to
British subjects — which was concurred in by Mr. Sill, for Ameri-
cans— asking them not to use deception in getting hold of prop-
erty and asking them not to take ladies into the interior.

Pengan is the 'hell hole' of Korea. All the prostitutes come
from there... the government handles them very gingerly and is
careful not to oppose them in matters like this. Further, their
governor is one of the ugliest Korean officials I know. . . . It is
almost a miracle that the Halls were not killed.

Ellinwood' s reply to Allen agreed that it was "preposterous
that wives should go to Pyongyang," but argued that "the compre-
hension which most diplomatic representatives have of the ethics
of this case is not quite correct. There is a vast difference
between an Englishman trying to get a piece of mining property
or buying a concession for a railroad, or even for commercial
purposes, and a missionary securing land for a mission plant....
The missionary property is only one form in which we invest our
own means for the benefit of the people of Korea. This ought to
be understood by Consuls and Minis ters ... and by the people them-
selves . ”117

The Halls were enjoying an almost normal routine when Scran-
ton arrived on May 23, to take Rosetta and the baby back to
Seoul on explicit directions from British Consul General Gardner.
Reluctantly Rosetta packed to leave, but she came down with
dysentery the next day and was put to bed instead. She had re-
sumed her dispensary work when another steamer arrived. This
vessel had been sent hastily as a transport for Pyongyang sol-
diers called to help quell the Tonghak rebellion in the south;
and the Halls left on it June 10. It was the last steamer to
leave before the Sino-Japanese War broke out.

When the Halls arrived in Chemulpo, they counted 13 warships
in the harbor; within days there were 28. By June 25, more than
5,000 Japanese soldiers were entrenched around Seoul. On this
day the Russian, British, French, and American representatives
met to request the Chinese and Japanese to withdraw. But the
Chinese refused to go until the Japanese did, and the Japanese

- 180 -

refused to leave until the Chinese ceased intervening in Korean
affairs and certain political reforms were instituted.

On the morning of July 20, Yuan Shih-Kai, entirely without
escort, made his escape from the city to Chemulpo. Most of the
foreigners, along with the Koreans, were glad to see him go.^^^
Within a week, most Chinese civilians had fled Korea.

On the same day Yuan left, the Japanese Minister Otori sent
an ultimatum to King Kojong giving him three days to accept re-
forms enumerated by the Japanese. The King sent an evasive re-
ply. The following morning at 5, the missionaries and other
residents of Seoul were awakened by the sound of gunfire. Two
battalions of Japanese troops suddenly marched on the Kyong-bok
palace. Japanese soldiers soon held all seven gates of the city,
and after 20 minutes or so of gunfire, took the palace. The
Japanese remained at the palace until August 25, though King Ko-
jong implored that the guard be removed. They were withdrawn in
exchange for a number of trade concessions, and replaced by Korean
soldiers armed mostly with sticks.

The medical missionaries in Seoul suddenly had to exchange
their routine duties for the work of military field doctors.

Battle casualties began pouring into the small dispensaries and
hospitals. At the Methodist hospital. Doctors Scranton and Hall
worked night and day. Scranton wrote, "Hall was called upon to
be surgeon and nurse, druggist and steward, but he had a faculty
for patient and tireless work. .. constantly at his post, when he
might well have remarked on his own weariness, I well remember
how he said and with what a genuine spirit, 'Doctor, how I enjoy
this! I could spend my whole life in this way. It is so good
to help people. '"120

But for most, it was a long and unhappy summer. Crowds of
Koreans, terrified of the Japanese, pushed their way out of
Seoul. The foreigners stayed, and in almost every home there
was sickness. The Halls nursed their son, desperately ill with
dysentery for weeks; the Underwoods' son "Holly" lay close to
death, and the Vintons' three-month-old son Cadwallader died on
August 22.

On July 22, a Chinese troopship was sunk in Asan Bay, some
50 miles from Seoul, with over 1,000 Chinese drowned and many
taken prisoner. This was followed by a land battle at the vil-
lage of Asan on the 28th and 29th of July, which the Japanese won.

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One unexpected neutral casualty was' the French priest Jozeau,
murdered by Chinese soldiers. Although the Japanese didn’t get
around to declaring war on China until August 1, transport after
transport of Japanese troops crossed over to Korea, disgorging
their men, who began marching toward Pyongyang.

The Japanese were meanwhile pursuing a vigorous war of di-
plomacy in Seoul. On the 16th of August, Korea was forced to
give notice of her renunciation of the Conventions with China,
thus denying all claims to Chinese suzerainty. With this act,
the Dragon Flag went down in Korea. On August 26, a Provisional
Treaty was signed with Japan, making Korda a reluctant "ally” in
the unwanted war.

Before the Battle of Pyongyang, most foreigners, including
the Asian treaty ports press and H.N, Allen, thought the Chinese
would win. Allen wrote that the war "was the first intimation
the world had of the excellence of the Japanese military organi-
zation...we, who knew China well, had no doubt that when China's
millions began pouring over the' Yalu, they would shove the
Japanese into the sea.

A more astute observer was sharp-eyed Isabella Bird Bishop,
who was in Mukden when the war broke out. After the Japanese
had taken control of the sea, the Chinese troops were forced to
march south to Korea through Manchuria and she saw that the sol-
diers, 1,000 of them a day, were "straggling along anyhow, every
tenth man carrying a great silk banner, but few were armed with
modem weapons. I saw several regiments of fine physique with-
out a rifle among them!" Instead, they carried "antique muzzle-
loading muskets, very rusty, or long matchlocks, and some car-
ried only spears, or bayonets fixed on red poles. All were
equipped with such umbrellas and fans as I saw some time later in
the ditches of the bloody field of Phyong-yang. It was nothing
but murder to send thousands of men so armed to meet the Japanese
with their deadly Murata rifles, 'and the men knew it." Mrs.
Bishop had been in Korea earlier and had seen the Japanese troops
arriving; "every man looked as if he knew his duty and meant to
do it." In contrast to the ragged Chinese army, she called the
Japanese "a miracle of rigid discipline and good behavior. "122

Mrs. Bishop also pointed out;‘ that "The Tonghak movement,
though lost sight of in the presence of more impassioned issues,
was of greater moment... and had such definite and reasonable
objectives that at first I was inclined to call its leaders

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'armed reformers' rather than ' rebels . '"123

The Japanese were playing a double game with the Tonghaks.

At the same time they used the rebellion as a pretext to invade
Korea to put it down, they were covertly making advances to the
Tonghaks. The Japanese Minister sent an inspector to Chollado
to assess the situation. He had secret instructions to prolong
his inspection as much as he could and finally to report the
rebels were still active. At the same time, secret agents were
sent to the province where they contacted Chon Pong-Jun, the
Tonghak leader, and tried to convince him that the Japanese were
on his side against the corrupt and oppressive government. The
Japanese also extended various kinds of aid to encourage the
Tonghaks to keep fighting. Japanese extremist groups such as
the Genyosha (Black Ocean Society) were said to have infiltrated
Chon Pong-Jun 's camp, hoping to provoke not Tonghak victory, but
justification for Japanese military response. 1^^

The Chinese held Pyongyang. Most of the Koreans fled, going
to relatives in the country or living in mountain caves and huts.
The men who remained were in danger because Japanese spies dressed
in false topknots as Koreans had been discovered. The Chinese
grabbed the topknot of any man they saw and "the heads of Japanese
and Koreans alike adorned the entrance to the city gates. The
Chinese soldiers were astonished to find groups of Koreans weep-
ing before the gruesome spectacle. 'Alas!' the people said,

'how terrible is the kindness of our friends.

Samuel Moffett left Pyongyang in mid-August. As he came
down the road he saw the four-man chair of the governor lying
in the ditch where carriers had tossed it when they abandoned
that official to his fate in the general panic. 126

The Battle of Pyongyang was fought on September 15 and 16,
1894. Two weeks later, James Hall, Graham Lee, and Moffett re-
turned to Pyongyang. One of the earliest accounts of the battle
was Lee's, who wrote that the Japanese had kept up a cannon de-
monstration from across the river in front, and while the atten-
tion of the Chinese was turned that way, two divisions of the
Japanese army marched around to the rear of the city and got in
readiness. At dawn on the morning of September 15, a combined
attack was begun from three sides. Under these conditions, it
was more of a slaughter than a battle. James Gale wrote,
with some literary license, that "The Chinese in hopeless confu-
sion, fifty thousand of them at once, trampled each other in a

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wild rush for the North Gateway, intending to take the shortest
and surest route to China. But soire one had lost the key and
there was no egress. Back they came for the South Gate like so
many beasts in stampede, only to be mowed down in all directions .” ^^8

Lee wrote that "The Chinese were armed with good guns, as
the Krupp cannon, and modern rifles... but they were also loaded
down with a lot of trumpery which was worse than useless in time
of battle. As a trophy of this battle-field I picked up a large
two-handed sword, which had a blade about two feet long and a
handle about four ... clumsy and awkward and absolutely useless as
a weapon in these days of the magazine rifle and Gatling gun.

Also scattered about I saw many bamboo pikes with rough iron tips
...and two lumps of cpium which must have weighed seven or eight
pounds .... Such things showed that the Chinese army was several
hundred years behind the times. "129

"Some of the sights to be seen," wrote the missionaries of
their visit to the battlefields, "were horrible in the extreme.

The dead that fell near the city had mostly been covered, but
those killed some distance away were lying all unburied. In one
place I counted over 20 bodies literally piled on top of another
just as they had been shot down. In another place where a body
of Manchurian calvary ran into an ambush of Japanese infantry
the carnage was frightful. Several hundred men and horses, lying
as they had fallen, made a swath of bodies nearly a quarter of a
mile long and several yards wide three weeks after the battle. "^20

The missionaries had arrived to find the city a Japanese
camp, with hardly a Korean in sight. The Pyongyang Presbyterians
had remained when "bullets were whistling and exploding," but
after the Japanese began looting the area and forced their way
into the inner quarters, snatching family possessions from the
women's hands, they had fled to the country. Of Moffett's be-
longings nothing was left but a smashed stove and a few tracts.

Samuel Moffett came across some Japanese soldiers sorting through
the debris and carrying off the last of the wood he had laid up
for the winter. Hall's property fared better; the Methodists
had remained and a Japanese Christian doctor had discovered
their presence, and at their request was living with them; an
^rmy officer, he was the best insurance against looters.

Moffett wrote, "We were glad to meet the Christian Japanese
quartered there and to realize that there is also a Christian

Japan. "^21

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It was gratifying to the missionaries to see what confidence
the news of their arrival inspired. "From all surrounding vil-
lages people began to come back, coming straight to the chapels,
with their little loads on their backs .... Their houses are stripped
of everything, (even) doors and windows are gone, used tor fire-
wood. Japanese merchants are in possession of their business
places, while block after block of houses is a smouldering ruin
and dead cattle lie in the streets. All is confusion while Korean
officials and people find themselves in the hands of a foreign
power... our little flock are scattered through many villages
where I trust they are carrying news of the gospel .... The city
will not likely be reinhabited for many months or a year. This
is well for the atmosphere is foul from the decomposition of
the dead bodies of horses, cattle, and men slain in battle, many

lying unburied ^^2

Moffett and Lee began cleaning up and repairing. They were
able to buy back the fields they had been compelled to return
the previous year plus another house. Lee returned to Seoul to
bring back more supplies and money. Moffett moved in with Hall.

A few days later, he was bedridden with malaria and dysentery
and credited the doctor's care in getting him on his feet again.

He wrote, "I thank the Lord I can still look after my work
here. . . .We wish to be here to do all we can to reassure the
Koreans, to comfort and help them, and point them to Christ dur-
ing these days of their trial and despair. "133

Hall had more than he could do caring for the sick and
wounded. The Japanese had field hospitals, but the Chinese had
no means of medical care for their casualties. Hall used his
own bamboo cot for a stretcher, and his fellow Christians served
as ambulance staff. He even managed to re-establish his boys'
school and held religious services each night with the Koreans,
but this trenuous schedule took its toll on his own health.

Moffett wrote, "We all suffered from malaria, and as this seemed
to have taken a more serious hold upon the doctor we arranged to
leave for Seoul by Japanese transport ... carrying some 600 sick
soldiers, who were suffering from dysentery and various fevers. "^34

Hall's malaria improved, but he came down with typhus fever.
The men made it back to Seoul on November 19. Rosetta Hall
wrote, "I hastily picked up our little boy and ran to meet him.

He was too sick to stand alone, and had to be carried to his bed.
Nearly his first words, 'I have known what joy wife and home are
in health; now I am to experience what a comfort they are in

- 185 -

sickness . ' ”

"He would try to tell me how much he loved me, and that it
was a love that would last through eternity," wrote Rosetta, who
was seven months pregnant. "He asked after the little unborn
one." James Hall died on November 24, 1894, at sunset. His
last attempts to talk were to tell his wife that he loved her,
and not to regret his going to Pyongyang; "I did it for Jesus'
sake . " 135

Ashes and Bones

After the battle of Pyongyang, the Chinese-Japanese War
swirled northward, where the Chinese continued to lose. In
April 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki ended the war and began
the building of the Japanese Pacific empire. In Korea, mean-
while, the Japanese waged equally ruthless warfare on two fronts,
engaging the Tonghak militarily and the Korean government diplo-
raatica lly.

The Tonghak general. Chon Pong-Jun, waited until the autumn
harvest was over in 1894 and then called for insurrection against
corrupt magistrates and the Japanese army. Tens of thousands of
farmers answered his call; even the Tonghak spiritual leader,

Choe Si-Hyong, who had counseled peace all these years, came out
of hiding to encourage the rebels. Tonghak leaders in every
province mounted 85 attacks during the following months.

After a major defeat at Kongju, Chon pulled south to his
stronghold in Chollado, and fought and lost again and again.
Finally he was betrayed to the government and executed. Choe
Si-Hyong and his appointed successor. Son Pyong-Hui, managed to
escape to Kangwondo, taking refuge in Tonghak homes. Choe, too,
was betrayed and executed in 1898; Son lived on to reorganize
the movement as the Chondogyo . ^36 Tonghak remnant ceased

resistance and faded away to obscurity for another decade.

Isabella Bird Bishop returned to Korea in January 1895;
travelling alone to Seoul on horseback, through a steady snow-
fall, she found Japan "had a large garrison in the capital, some
of the leading men in the cabinet were her nominees, her officers

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were drilling the Korean army; changes, if not improvements, were
everywhere . "137

A few days after Mrs. Bishop's arrival in Seoul, she wit-
nessed a singular ceremony. The Japanese demanded that the King
publicly renounce the suzerainty of China and take an oath that
he would govern according to enlightened principles. Kojong, by
exaggerating a trivial ailment, had for some time delayed thi-s
step which was repulsive to him, but he couldn't keep putting it
off. The oath, which included a clause that Queen Min would no
longer figure in political life, was taken in circumstances of
great solemnity at the Altar of the Spirits of the land, the most
sacred in Korea, in the presence of the court. "Old and serious
men had fasted and mourned for two days, and in the vast crowd
of white-robed and black-hatted men... there was not a smile or a
spoken word. The sky was dark and grim, and a bitter east wind
was blowing; "138 a suitably gloomy day for a ceremony that was
ashes in the mouth of the King and Queen and most Koreans.

The Japanese aim of "enlightenment" wasn't achieved over-
night. One of the sights Isabella Bishop saw in early January
1895 was the heads of two Tonghak leaders, "in the busiest part
of the Peking Road, a bustling market outside the Little West
Gate, hanging from a rude arrangement of three sticks like a
camp-kettle stand. Both faces wore a calm, almost dignified
expression. Not far off two more heads had been exposed in a
similar frame, but it had given way and they lay in the dust of
the roadway, much gnawed by dogs at the back. The last agony
stiffened their features. A turnip lay beside them, and small
children cut pieces from it and presented them mockingly to the
blackened mouths. "139 Within days, however, a decree went out
abolishing beheading and "slicing to death" and such grisly spec-
tacles were relegated to the past.

An edict in February ordered that rank should go to men of
character and attainments; this decree was a popular and hopeful
one. A more controversial sign of the times, for the Korean
populace, was the tearing down of the ancient arch outside the
West Gate where Koreans had received ambassadors and paid tribute
to China for five centuries.

On February 12, 1895, Yun Chi-Ho returned home after nearly
10 years in China and the United States. Cultural shock hit
hard. Writing in his diary in Chemulpo, he said, "I have seldom
been as sad as I am. .. .Welcome, ten times welcome, to anybody.

- 187 -

Christian or pagan, who may do something for the amelioration of
the condition of Corea." He wrote that his hotel room, the best
in the city, was full of dust, mats, and odors of the vilest
kinds, and was furnished with an "ill-smelling urine pot, a dirty
pan for tobacco ashes, and six or more blocks of wood of the
ugliest shape for pillows," and that the only bright thing in
Chemulpo was the Japanese women and children. 1^0

But the next day his arrival in Seoul was sweetened by warm
welcomes from his mother, Horace Allen, the Underwoods, and So
Kwang-Bom. He was not very encouraged by his call on Pak Yong-
Hyo , who assured him he would be appointed to office but warned
him to expect to be merely a figurehead. Yun wrote, "I care not
for office except as far as it may enable me to do good," and
wondered what good he could possibly accomplish. In the follow-
ing days he caught up on the family news, learning that his
father, harrassed by Tonghaks bent on extortion had had to hide
out in the mountains, suffering much from hunger and exposure.

His mother asked him not to talk publicly about Christiani-
ty. Yun replied that he must "remain faithful to Christianity
and Christian missionaries that have made me whatever I am. "1^1
He attended the Methodist school chapel where a Korean was preach-
ing: "His illustrations were too windy. Yet it made me feel

good to be among the followers of our common Savior in my own
count ry . "

Though many of the reforms being promulgated consisted of
such things as shortening the length of pipes and sleeves, one
genuine effort was to seek out talented persons for office. Yun
remarked that "Everybody in Corea is hunting after smart or able
men. But what Corea wants is not ability or smartness but patri-
otism and honesty. "1^3 Korea may have needed honest patriots,
but it still did not much want them. Pak Yong-Hyo's tenure in
office lasted less than a year. Homer Hulbert wrote that "It was
about the 20th of August that Pak Yong-Hyo was brought to Seoul
incognito by the Japanese .. .he had been treated with great consid-
eration by the Japnese who rightly saw in him a man of strong
personality, settled convictions and a genuine loyalty to the
best interests of his native land. His worst enemies would prob-
ably grant that he falls below none in his desire to see Korea
prosperous and enlightened. In December 1894 Pak was raised
to the post of Prime Minister. He retained the enmity of the
Taewongun, however, and earned that of the Japanese who found to
their surprise that, obligated as he was to them, he put Korean

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interests first. Distrusted by his fellow countrymen, who be-
lieved him to be a tool of the Japanese, Pak was also disliked
by the Japanese because he refused to do all they wanted. A con-
temporary wrote that he was "too honest a man to have many parti-
sans . "145

Though Pak had many enemies, including the Russians, he
blamed Queen Min for his downfall. "The Queen had always hated
Pak," wrote Philip Jaisohn to a missionary friend, "but could not
do anything for fear the Japanese might resent it, but as soon
as she heard that the Japanese were not interested in him she im-
mediately ordered his arrest. However, Pak got away from Korea
for the second time before he could be captured . "146 He managed
by going to the Japanese legation for asylum. On July 7, 1895,
he was hustled out of Seoul under an escort of Japanese soldiers
and policemen, and whisked off again to Japan. He left warning
his countrymen if they were not careful Japan would destroy them:
"If Japan establishes a protectorate over Korea," he said, "she
will eventually absorb or control the country. "147

In August 1895 Samuel Moffett commented, "Korea will never
again be what it has been. Each day sees the inauguration of
changes which materially affect not only the outward appearance
of the people, its capital, and the country but changes which
radically affect the inner life of the Koreans. "148 gut because
the reforms and changes had not issued from the Koreans but had
been imposed on them by the Japanese, most were bitterly resent-
ed. The majority of the Koreans, including the King, endured the
situation, bided their time and appeared to accept the reforms,
but there was growing unease over Japanese presence and inten-
tions . Two foreigners who were deeply suspicious of Japan as
early as 1894 were American Minister Augustine Heard, who ex-
claimed, "If Korea falls into the hands of Japan, God help us I"
and English Bishop Charles John Corfe, who wrote, "To us who know
the Japanese as they really are in Corea, it is strange that
Japan should for so long have deluded European nations and govern-
ments into believing that she is a civilized Power, or desirous
of becoming one."^^"

Queen Min never trusted the Japanese. She tried to under-
mine their control by seeking out friends among the other foreign
nations in Korea, probing to find someone she might trust.

Lillies Underwood wrote, "During the fall and winter of '94 and
spring of '95 the queen sent for me very often, asking many
questions about foreign countries and their customs, and chatting

- 189 -

affably....! think that in this time, when her nation’s helpless-
ness and weakness were emphasized, the queen sought to strength-
en friendly relations with Europeans and Americans. She gave
several formal audiences to European and American ladies, and all
who met her felt her powerful magnetic charm and became at once
her friends and well-wishers. Twice during that period the queen
bade me ask all my friends to skate on the pond in the palace
gardens During this winter, Lillie was able for the first

time to speak to the Queen of religious matters. The missionary
described heaven as "a land without sin, pain, or tears; a land
of endless glory and joy. 'Ahl' exclaimed the queen, with un-
speakable pathos. 'How good it would be if the king, the prince,
and myself might all go there. ’*'151

Isabella Bishop had four audiences at the palace between
January and February 1895. She sketched a memorable word por-
trait of the 44-year-old Queen in the last year of her life: "a
very nice-looking slender woman, with glossy raven-black hair and
very pale skin, the pallor enhanced by the use of pearl powder.
The eyes were cold and keen, and the general expression one of
brilliant intelligence ... .As soon as she began to speak, and
expecially when she became interested in conversation, her face
lighted into something very like beauty.

"The King is short and sallow, certainly a plain man, wear-
ing a thin mustache and a tuft on the chin. He is nervous and
twitches his hands, but his pose and manner are not without dig-
nity. His face is pleasing, and his kindliness of nature is well
known. In conversation the Queen prompted him a good deal....

The Crown Prince is fat and flabby, and though unfortunately very
near-sighted, etiquette forbids him to wear spectacles ... .He was
the only son and idol of his mother, who lived in ceaseless anxi-
ety about his health, and in dread lest the son of a concubine
should be declared heir to the throne. To this cause must be
attributed several of her unscrupulous acts, her Invoking the
continual aid of sorcerers, and her always increasing benefac-
tions to the Buddhist monks. During much of the audience mother
and son sat with clasped hands. "152

Mrs. Bishop summed up her impressions of the royal family
^ as "simplicity, dignity, kindliness, courtesy, and propriety . "153
In contrast, she found the 84-year-old Taewongun "able, rapa-
cious, and unscrupulous, his footsteps ... always blood stained"
but was much impressed "by the vitality and energy of his expres-
sion, his keen glance, and the vigor of his movements, though he

- 190 -

is an old man.

"154

The seclusion and narrowness of the royal couple's life is
hard to realize. Except to visit the ancestral shrines they
hardly left the palace grounds. The Queen told Mrs. Bishop that
she knew nothing of Korea first hand, even of Seoul, except along
the route between the palaces and the royal graves and altars.

From this cramped vantage point she felt she must learn all she
could of the outside world, the customs and ambitions of other
nations .

An American diplomat wrote of Queen Min that "Men who knew
her said she was not anti-foreign, that she realized the need of
government reform and of adaptation to certain Western things if
her country was to survive and live in peace with Western nations,
but that she dreaded, in her inexperience, the complications so
sure to follow. She did not know how to trust foreign nations.

All she wanted was that her country should be free and prosperous
and her husband a happy King. ”155 And her son after him, it
might be added. But these things were not to be.

No one knew the Queen's good and bad points better than Yun
Chi-Ho. He described her life as a storm; her death a hurricane.
One member of her court attributed 2,867 deaths directly to her
orders . 156

Annie Ellers Bunker, in a happier time, saw the Queen in a
gay and mischievous mood. Shortly after her marriage in 1887,
the young missionary was called to the palace by the Queen and
instructed to wear her wedding dress. She was conducted into one
of the Queen's private apartments and Her Majesty minutely exam-
ined each piece of her apparel, "even to the innermost." A week
later, Annie was summoned back to the Queen's rooms where she
found the Crown Princess in her wedding dress, worn at her nup-
tials a few years earlier, standing "as on her wedding day with
eyes sealed, red spots on cheeks and forehead, and the hair on
her brow plucked just right." At the invitation of Queen Min,
Annie examined the Korean style of wedding dress, "even to the
innermost" — and how the Queen laughed '." 157

The King and Queen were increasingly chafing under Japanese
pressure. Yun's March 20, 1895, diary entry read that "His
Majesty has tried to induce the English, the Russian, and the
American ministers in turn to deliver him from the Japanese. But
the U.S. representatives told him that the Republic could not

- 191 -

involve itself in war with Japan or with anybody else for matters
Corean." Kojong sat back to digest this disappointment, but
Queen Min showed in a thousand small ways that the Japanese would
never have her co-operation. Little by little, the Japanese came
to realize that her attitude was and would remain that Japan
would control Korea only over her dead body. Indeed, the pros-
pect of the Queen's dead body became more attractive to the
Japanese, as three successive ministers were foiled in their
efforts to Impose their will upon Korea. They were finding Queen
Min more difficult to defeat than the Chinese army. Otorl recog-
nized his mistake in installing the Taewongun, of all people, to
head a sweeping reform program; he quickly learned the old man
was Interested only in grasping power and purging his opponents.
The Queen not only saw him very shortly removed again from gov-
ernment participation, but also managed to bring about the arrest
and banishment of his beloved grandson, Yi Chun-Yong , in April
1895 on charges of conspiring with the Tonghak. Round one to
Queen Min. Otori was replaced by the more astute Inoue Kaoru,
who brought Pak Yong-Hyo with him in August 1894 to help inaugu-
rate reforms Japan wanted and the Queen did not. But Pak was
rather handily shoved out the following July while Inoue was
absent from Seoul. Round two to Queen Min. The third minister,
49-year-old General Miura Goro was neither a gentleman nor a
scholar. "By profession a soldier," he announced in a September
5, 1895, interview in the Japan Mail just prior to departing for
Korea, "I have had no experience in diplomacy." Careerists "took
pity" on him and offered advice, said Miura, but "I declined all
their well meant offers, being content to rely on my own resources.
I have a diplomacy all my own, which I propose to try in Korea."
Even a pro-Japanese historian charged that Miura' s appointment
"was one of the worst of the many blunders which Japan committed
in Korea. "158

Horace Allen helped Inoue to obtain an audience with the
King and Queen the summer before Inoue left Korea. In a report
to his government, the Japanese Minister said he had done his
best to allay the royal couple's suspicions of Japan: "I ex-

plained that it was the true and sincere desire of the Emperor
and Government of Japan to place the independence of Korea on a
firm basis, and in the meantime to strengthen the Royal House of
Korea." He had especially assured the Queen that in the event
of treason, "the Japanese Government would not fail to protect
the Royal House even by force of arms... and their anxiety for the
future seemed much relieved . "159 Later the Queen privately asked
Allen if she could believe Inoue. Allen assured her that Inoue

- 192 -

had not lied, and Her Majesty could lay aside her fears; there was
no danger. "The Japanese had come to the conclusion that bullying
did not pay," he asid. Later Allen was haunted by his own words
which had given the Queen a false sense of security. Believing
him, she did not flee when she could, as she had done in 1882.
Although Allen and Count Inoue were innocent of duplicity, their
assurances helped lead Queen Min to her doom.

Almost Miura's first act in the capital was to insult the
royal family by appearing in ordinary dress at a formal banquet.
From the beginning, he supported Korean officials who were hated
at the palace, and entered into a confidential relationship with
the Taewongun. Within a month of his arrival, his conversations
with the ex-regent had developed to the point of plotting the
assassination of the Queen. But the Japanese had learned by this
time that the Taewongun, though a useful ally, could be a very
slippery one. They insisted on his signing a statement pledging
to refrain from interfering in the actual administration of the
country, and granting the Japanese certain commercial and polit-
ical privileges. Not only the Taewongun, but also his son
(Kojong's brother) and a grandson signed this extraordinary docu-
ment .

The plan they agreed upon on October 3 was to attack the
palace, take the King prisoner, install the Taewongun as regent,
and kill the Queen. To quote the Japanese official report, "It
was resolved that this opportunity should be availed of for tak-
ing the life of the Queen, who exercised overwhelming influence
in the Court." The whole affair was to be disguised as a clash
between discontented soldiers of the Japanese-trained kunrental,
who had been threatened with disbandment, and the palace guards.

At 3 a.m. on October 8, 1895, a party of Japanese accompa-
nied the Taewongun form his home outside West Gate to Kyongbok
palace. On their way they were joined by the kunrentai and a
number of Japanese civilians, "hired guns" called soshi . Queen
Min was given the code name of "the Fox," and the Japanese mili-
tary adviser Okamoto who appears to have been in charge of the
attack, gave orders that after entering the palace, "the fox
should be dealt with as exigency might require.

' The palace was supposedly guarded by a group of trusted
soldiers called the Old Guard, under Col. Hyon In-Tak who had
helped the Queen in 1884. During the first week in October,
however, these soldiers had been reduced in number, useful

- 193 -

weapons had been withdrawn and ammunition removed. Preparations
had been carried out very quietly, but the royal family sensed
impending danger. The King advised Queen Min to go to a place of
safety, but she said she would go only if his mother, the elderly
Queen Dowager also left, and the latter refused. One factor in the
the Queen's decision to remain was Allen and Inoue ' s assurances
that she was safe. These were deliberately reinforced by a trai-
tor, Chong Pyung-Ho, an official the Queen had herself raised to
power, who repeatedly insisted she was in no danger.

There were two Westerners in the palace the early morning of
the 8th — General William Dye, a retired American soldier who was
instructor of the Old Guard, and a Mr. Sabatin, a Russian tempo-
rarily employed to see the palace sentries were at their posts.

Dye, 64, had been in Korea as a military adviser since 1888, and
was described as "useless ,"1^2 "old and feeble, "163 and "rarely
sober, but a remarkable man. The drunker he got, the more lucid
he became. "164 a contemporary historian wrote, "Neither of these
men came out of the affair with enhanced reputation. General Dye
was a very charming old man, skilled in growing apples, but of
little use in protecting his Royal employers . "165 Dye himself
had gathered a few good rifles and had even fished up ammunition
that had been dumped at the bottom of a royal lake. But even
this little arsenal of his had been discovered and removed before
the 8th. If neither Dye nor Sabatin were very helpful in the dawn
melee, they had very little chance. Their chief contribution was
in being able to give eye-witness accounts which showed the attack
for what it was, making it impossible for Miura and the Taewongun
to pass it off as an Intramural Korean army affair as planned.

When heavy sounds of battering came from the palace's main
gate. Dye attempted to rally the palace guard, which was as he
said "by no means perfect" in the best of circumstances. The
front gate was opened at 5:30 a.m. to the attacking forces, which
streamed in largely unimpeded, though eight of the palace guard
were killed, mostly from excited misfiring. Many palace offi-
cials stripped off their uniforms and left the grounds; they had
received previous instruction from on high not to resist the
attacking force, which they had been told would be headed by the
Taewongun .

One soldier who did resist at the gate was Col. Hong Kye-Hun.
Although he was the commander of the kunrentai, he had also been
instrumental in the Queen's 1882 rescue. The trustworthy, loyal
old soldier was cut down at the gate and shot repeatedly. Eight

- 194 -

bullets were found in his body.

The ordinary palace soldiers, however, broke in such a rush
that they swept Sabatin back with them to the gateway of the roy-
al quarters, almost half a mile from the main front gate. All
was chaos. As the attacking force rushed in, servants, runners,
and palace guards rushed out. Another 100 Japanese soldiers came
in over the back gate, while the Koreans inside were swarming up
the back walls to escape. Japanese troops formed in smart mili-
tary order around the courtyard of the King's house and gates to
protect the assassins. The King, apparently in a futile attempt
to buy time for Queen Min to make her escape, was bold enough to
stay in plain sight in a front room. Some of the Japanese soshi
crowded into the royal quarters brandishing swords and shoving
His Majesty about. Palace women were knocked down, beaten, and
dragged around by their hair. The Crown Prince too was manhan-
dled. He was threatened by assassins demanding that he take them
to his mother, but he managed to break through to King Kojong's
side and refused to budge. Col. Hyon In-Tak, commander of the
palace guard, had been seized. His hands bound, he was dragged
before the King and beaten by Japanese civilians and soldiers to
get him to tell the whereabouts of the Queen. Sabatin was treat-
ed similarly. About this time, the Taewongun arrived at the
King's quarters and took charge.

Yi Kyung-Jin, Minister of the Household, had taken a stand
before the royal apartments. Blocking the doors with out-
stretched arms, both his hands were slashed off and numerous
other wounds inflicted, but he managed to drag himself into the
King's presence where he was stabbed to death.

There were some 26 soshi , half of whom had been given expli-
cit instructions to find and kill the Queen. These men and
others ranged through the inner rooms, beating and shoving palace
women in order to locate her. They accomplished their purpose
within an hour. Yun Chi-Ho heard of the tragedy from the second
prince, Kojong's legitimized son Prince Uihwa, the same after-
noon. A band of Japanese with drawn swords "hunted after Her Ma-
jesty— killed two or three waiting maids with great cruelty,
apparently to make sure of the Queen. They seized the Crown
Princess by her hair, kicked her, beat her, dragged her forcing
her to tell them where the Queen was. Refusing to answer, they
threw the young lady down among the dying and dead soldiers ....

In the meantime nearly a hundred women huddled together with
fear — the Queen came in — She cried out that she was not the Queen

- 195 -

. . . .The assassins kicked her until she was insensible or perhaps
dead. Then the murderers dragged her to an apartment," forcing
some of the palace women into the room with her. The horror on
their faces was enough to convince the murderers that their vic-
tim was indeed the Queen. Another account said that the
Queen's last words were to ask if the Crown Prince were safe, and
then a Japanese "jumped on her breast and stabbed her through and
through with his sword. "167 The actual murderer was said to be
Okamoto, who as military adviser had been on the palace payroll.
No efforts were made to ascertain whether the Queen was dead or
only unconscious; her slight form was wrapped in a silk quilt,
laid on a plank, where it was doused in kerosene and set afire.
The blaze continued until nothing was left but ashes and a few
small bones.

- 196 -

110

111

112

113

llA

115

116

1

2

3

4

Ibid., p. 36

Ibid., p. 37.

Underwood, L. ,
Underwood, L. ,
Underwood, L. ^
Underwood, L. ,

Underwood of Korea . p. 64.
Fifteen Years, p. 56.
Underwood of Korea, p. 89.
Fifteen Years, p. 43.

Ibid., p. 42. Another intrepid Victorian traveller, Isa-
bella Bird Bishop, had her own anti-vermin method when in
Korean inns: "After the landlord had disturbed the dust,

which he sweeps into a corner with a whisk, Wong put down
either two heavy sheets of oiled paper or a large sheet of
cotton dressed with linseed oil on the floor and on these
arranged my camp bed, chair and baggage. This arrangement,
and I write from 20 months' experience in Korea and China,
is a perfect preventative." Pat Barr, A Curious Life for
± — The Story of Isabella Bird Bishop , ^ Remarkable

Victorian Traveller (New York, Doubleday, 1970), p. 283.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER IV

Allen to Ellinwood, October 28, 1886.

Ibid. Lee Yun-Bok in his book Diplomatic Relations . p. 139,
states that Chinese viceroy Li Hung-Chang confided to Judge
Owen Denny that it was Yuan who had been entrusted to carry
out China's scheme in which the Peking government, urged on
by the British representative there, planned to make Korea
a province of China. The King, Queen, and Crown Prince
were to be removed and in their place the Taewongun would
temporarily rule until Korea was absorbed as a new province
in the Chinese Empire. Allen disrupted the plans and may
have indeed saved Korea.

Allen to Ellinwood, July 9, 1886.

Allen, H., Things Korean, p. 123.

- 575 -

5 Allen to Ellinwood, July 9, 1886.

6 Allen was apparently anti-Catholic in principle, but liked
and respected individual Catholics. He wrote Ellinwood on
June 20, 1886, "I have just brought one of the priests
through a severe attack of typhoid. They seem very grate-
ful, but disheartened at the failure of their ambassador to
get the concessions they so much long for. The priests
certainly lead a very self-sacrificing life in their native
disguise." Even so, the Catholics’ situation apparently
improved from this time. Father Eugene Jean Georges Coste,
a missionary priest who entered Korea in late 1885 wrote
that "in 1887, when the French treaty was ratified, we were
able to breathe the fresh air, and the cassock made its ap-
pearance in the streets of the capital. This date marks
the resurrection of our dear Korean Church, which emerged
little by little from its tomb, as the Church of Rome came
forth from the catacombs," Korean Repository, vol. 3, April
1896, p. 151.

7 Allen to Ellinwood, July 11, 1887.

8 Yi, Modern Transformation , p. 220.

9 Ibid.

10 Lee, Y.B., pp. 195-196.

11 Ibid. , p. 184.

12 Deuchler, Conf ucian Gentlemen, p. 216.

13 Lee, Y.B. , p. 155.

14 Ibid., pp. 169-170.

15 Allen diary, October 11, 1885.

16 Heron to Ellinwood, April 28, 1889.

17 Ibid.

^18 Lee, Y.B., p. 119.

19 Appenzeller to Reid, January 28, 1889.

20 Scranton, "Women's Work," p. 6.

- 576 -

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

Heron to Ellinwood, April 28, 1889.

An excellent study on the Chondo^yo and Tonghak movement is
Susan S. Shin's "The Tonghak Movement: From Enlightenment

to Revolution," The Korea Studies Forum, winter-spring
1978-79, pp. 1-60.

Shin, p. 31.

Ibid. , p. 32 .

Weems, Hulbert ' s History, p. 246.

William Gardner to f:ilinwoo4, March 30, 1889.

Samuel H. Moffett Collection.

Heron to Ellinwood, February 17, 1889.

Gardner to Ellinwood, March 11, 1889.

Ibid.

Thirteen-page report of the committee appointed May 31,

1889, "to investigate the truth of certain rumors afloat
among foreigners and Koreans affecting the character of Dr.
Power as a missionary," Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia.

Underwood to Ellinwood, August 27, 1890; L. Underwood to
Ellinwood, July 30, 1890; Gifford to Ellinwood, September 9,
1890; Moffett to Ellinwood, October 20, 1890.

Rutt, James Gale, p. 16.

Allen to Ellinwood, October 28, 1890.

Underwood to Ellinwood, May 29, 1890.

Allen to Ellinwood, July 4, 1890.

Allen to Ellinwood, July 2, 1890.

James S. Gale, Korean Sketches (Nashville, Fleming Revell
Co., 1898), pp. 250-251.

Allen to Ellinwood, August 13, 1890.

- 577 -

AO Allen to Ellinwood, July 27, 1890.

A1 Moffett to Ellinwood, July 29, 1890.

42 Ibid.

43 Allen to Ellinwood, August 8 and August 13, 1890.

44 Allen to Ellinwood, August 11, 1890.

45 Moffett to Ellinwood, July 24, 1890.

46 Allen to Ellinwood, August 8, 1890.

47 Allen to Ellinwood, August 11, 1890.

48 Ibid.

49 Underwood to Ellinwood, August 4, 1890, postscript August
10, 1890.

50 Allen to Ellinwood, September 18, 1890.

51 Allen to Ellinwood, August 27, 1890.

52 Robert Townsend, U£ the Organization, Knopf.

53 Gifford to Ellinwood, October 21, 1890.

54- Background on Moffett from materials in Samuel H. Moffett

57 collection.

58 Interview, Richard Baird, February 1980.

59 Samuel A. Moffett, "Fifty Years of Missionary Life in Korea,"
in The Fiftieth Anniversary, pp. 36-49.

60 Moffett to Ellinwood, March 18, 1890.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid.

64 Underwood to Ellinwood, March 27, 1891.

-578 -

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

Moffett to Ellinwood, from Pyongyang which he spelled
"Hpyeng Yang," September 15, 1890; Ellinwood replied thank
him for "Your good letter from an unnamable place."

Ellinwood to Baird, October 1, 1891.

Ellinwood to mission, February 3, 1891; May 19, 1891.

Gifford to Ellinwood, February 9, 1891.

Moffett to Ellinwood, February 11, 1891.

Allen to Ellinwood, February 23, 1891.

James S. Gale, "A Trip Across Northern Korea," Korean Repos-
itory. vol. 4, March 1897, pp. 83-84.

Ibid . , p. 88.

Moffett to Ellinwood, March 25, 1891.

Moffett to Ellinwood, May 21, 1891.

Ellinwood to Underwood, May 11, 1891.

Allen to Ellinwood, October 23, 1891.

Allen to Ellinwood, February 23, 1891.

Heard to William Baird, copy to Ellinwood, July 29, 1891.
Allen to Ellinwood, March 25, 1891.

Allen to Ellinwood, February 23, 1891.

The Vintons were married just before embarking for Korea.

In 12 years Letitla Vinton bore eight children; she died
from childbirth complications on December 4, 1903. Four of
the Vinton children died; C.C. Vinton resigned. in 1907.

Vinton to Ellinwood, May 20, 1891.

Vinton to Ellinwood, August 27, 1891.

Allen to Ellinwood, July 3, 1891.

Underwood, L. , Fifteen Years, p. 102.

- 579 -

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

Yun, Diary, vol. 2, October 23, 1891, pp. 223-224.

Fenwick, Church In Corea . p. 12.

In the summer of 1891 the University of New York conferred
the Doctor of Divinity degree on 32-year-old Horace Under-
wood. Though he was highly pleased and honored, Underwood
had a missions speaking engagement elsewhere and was not on
hand to receive it.

Paik, Protestant Missions , p. 222.

Ellinwood to Underwood, May 8, 1893.

Underwood, L. , Underwood of Korea, pp. 127-128.

Gifford to Ellinwood, July 22, 1893.

William Scott, "Canadians in Korea: Brief Historical Sketch

of Mission Work in Korea" (1975), pp. 20-21.

Moffett, "Fifty Years," p. 38.

Fenwick, p. 92.

Gale, J. , Vanguard . pp. 134-135.

Hall, S. , With Stethescope, p. 91.

Rosetta Sherwood Hall, ed . , The Life of William James Hall .
M.D. , Medical Missionary to the Slums of New York, Pioneer
Missionary to Pyong Yang . Korea (New York, Eaton and Mains,
1897) , pp. 129-130.

E.D. Steward was a Chinese gentleman named Eu Don, who had
a long and close relationship with the pioneer missionaries.
He had been ste^i^ard of the ship on which Lucius Foote had
arrived, hence his name "E.D. Steward." Foote persuaded
him to enter his employ; Steward watched over Horace Allen's
goods and house when the doctor returned to China in the
fall of 1884 to bring his family to Korea. During the 1884
emeute Steward administered anesthetic for Allen on at least
one occasion for an eye operation. "An affable person of
considerable enterprise, E.D. Steward had run the hotel in
Chemulpo where for years missionaries stopped," Hall, S.,
With Stethoscope, p. 101. He also established a grocery
store which was the sole supplier of Western goods to the
foreign community in Seoul.

- 580 -

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

Hall, S., With Stethoscope . p. 105.
Ibid., pp. 111-112.

Ibid.

Hall , R. , p . 16 .
Ibid., p. 112.

Lee to Ellinwood, April 13, 1893.

Moffett to J.M.B. Sill, May 25, 1894.

Benjamin Labaree to Korea Mission, June 21, 1983.

Hall, R. ,

pp. 396-398.

Ibid.

Hall, S.,

With Stethoscope

Ibid. , p.

116.

Ibid. , p.

136.

Ibid . , p.

137.

Ibid . , p.

142.

115.

L. Underwood to Ellinwood, May 28, 1894.
Allen to Ellinwood, May 16, 1894.

Ellinwood to Allen, June 14, 1894.

Only Isabella Bird Bishop had a good word on his behalf:

"He possessed the power of life and death over Chinamen,
and his punishments were often to our thinking barbarous —
he was a Chinese mandarin! — but the Chinese feared him so
much that they treated the Koreans fairly well, which is
more than can be said of the Japanese," Isabella Bird Bishop,
Korea and Her Neighbours (Seoul, Yonsei University Press,
1970. Reprint of 1898 edition.) , pp. 44-45.

F.A. McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea (Seoul, Yonsei Univer-
sity Press, 1969. Reprint of 1908 edition.), p. 49.

-581 -

120

Hall, R. , p. 283.

121 Allen, H. , Things Korean, pp. 245-246.

122 Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours , pp. 208-209.

123 Ibid., pp. 179, 183.

124 Han Woo-Keun, The History of Korea, trans. Kyung-shlk Lee,
ed. Grafton K. Mlntz (Seoul, Eul-Yoo Publishing Co., 1970),
p. 412.

125 W. Arthur Noble, Ewa. A Tale of Korea (New York, Young
People's Missionary Movement of the United States and
Canada, 1906), p. 157.

126 Moffett to Elllnwood, November 1, 1894.

127 Graham Lee, "A Visit to the Battle Field of Pyeng Yang,"
Korean Repository , vol. 2, January 1895, p. 11.

128 Gale, J. , Korean Sketches . p. 83.

129 Lee , G. , p . 12 .

130 Ibid.

131 Moffett to Elllnwood, November 1, 1894.

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid.

134 Ibid.

135 Hall, S., With Stethoscope . p. 158.

136 Shin, p. 51.

137 Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours . pp. 245-246.

. 138 Ibid. , p. 247.

139 Ibid. , p. 264.

140 Yun, Diary, vol. 4, p. 19

- 582 -

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

Hall, S., With Stethoscope . p. 105.
Ibid., pp. 111-112.

Ibid.

Hall, R. , p. 16.

Ibid., p. 112.

Lee to Ellinwood, April 13, 1893.

Moffett to J.M.B. Sill, May 25, 1894.

Benjamin Labaree to Korea Mission, June 21, 1983.

Hall, R. , pp. 396-398.

Ibid.

Hall, S., With Stethoscope . p. 115.

Ibid. , p. 116.
Ibid. , p. 136.
Ibid., p. 137.
Ibid. , p. 142.

L. Underwood to Ellinwood, May 28, 1894.

Allen to Ellinwood, May 16, 1894.

Ellinwood to Allen, June 14, 1894.

Only Isabella Bird Bishop had a good word on his behalf:

"He possessed the power of life and death over Chinamen,
and his punishments were often to our thinking barbarous —
he was a Chinese mandarin! — but the Chinese feared him so
much that they treated the Koreans fairly well, which is
more than can be said of the Japanese," Isabella Bird Bishop,
Korea and Her Neighbours (Seoul, Yonsei University Press,
1970. Reprint of 1898 edition.) , pp. 44-45.

F.A. McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea (Seoul, Yonsei Univer-
sity Press, 1969. Reprint of 1908 edition.), p. 49.

-581 -

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

Hall , R. , p . 283 .

Allen, H. , Things Korean , pp. 245-246.

Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours , pp. 208-209.

Ibid., pp. 179, 183.

Han Woo-Keun, The History of Korea, trans. Kyung-shik Lee,
ed. Grafton K. Mintz (Seoul, Eul-Yoo Publishing Co., 1970),
p. 412.

W. Arthur Noble, Ewa. A Tale of Korea (New York, Young
People's Missionary Movement of the United States and
Canada, 1906), p. 157.

Moffett to Ellinwood, November 1, 1894.

Graham Lee, "A Visit to the Battle Field of Pyeng Yang,"
Korean Repository . vol. 2, January 1895, p. 11.

Gale, J. , Korean Sketches, p. 83.

Lee , G. , p. 12 .

Ibid.

Moffett to Ellinwood, November 1, 1894.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Hall, S., With Stethoscope . p. 158.

Shin, p. 51.

Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours . pp. 245-246.

Ibid., p. 247.

Ibid. , p. 264.

Yun, Diary, vol. 4, p. 19

- 582 -

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

Ibid. , p. 22.

Ibid., p. 27.

Ibid. , p. 34.

Weems, Hulbert * s History, vol. 2, p. 274.

McKenzie, p. 56.

Avison, "Memoirs," p. 147.

McKenzie, p. 56. Pak Yong-Hyo left his 12-year-old daughter
behind in Mrs. Scr.anton’s Ewha School. In a conversation
with George Heber Jones, Pak said, "Christianity will inevi-
tably become the religion of the Korean people. We need the
the moral power and help which Christianity alone can give
us." (Jones manuscript, "The Rise of the Church in Korea").

Samuel H. Moffett collection.

Harrington, God , Mammon and the Japanese , p. 249.

Underwood, L. , Fifteen Years, pp. 114-115.

Ibid.

Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours . p. 253. The Crown
Prince at this time was 21 years old; Yun Chi-Ho wrote that
a courtier of the Queen told him the Prince had slept from
"childhood up to the last day of the Queen under the same
cover with his royal parents." Diary, vol. 5, p. 9.

Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours , p. 260.

Ibid. , p. 256.

Sands, Undiplomatic Memories . p. 63.

George T. Ladd, In Korea with Marquis Ito (New York, Scrib-
ner, 1908), p. 284.

Bunker, A., "Personal Recollections," p. 65.

Longford, Story of Korea, p. 335.

Inoue's reports to Japanese Parliament, quoted in Weems,

- 583 -

Hulbert * s History, vol. 2, pp. 287-288; McKenzie, pp. 57-58;
Harrington, p. 262; and I. Bishop, p. 270.

160 Harrington, pp. 262, 266.

161 Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours . p. 271; accounts of
the Queen's murder can be found in Horace Allen's letters
to the Secretary of State, October 10, 11, 13, lA, 1895;
in Korean Repository . vol. 2, October 1895, pp. 386-392;
and in vol. 3, March 1896, pp. 118-lAl, the official report
made by the Korean Vice-Minister of Justice to Yi Pom-Chin,
Minister of Law; I. Bishop, pp. 260-276; McKenzie, pp. 58-
75 , 263-267>; and Homer Hulbert, The Passing of Korea (Seoul,
Yonsei University Press, 1969. Reprint of 1906 edition.),
pp. 129-1A7. A translation of the official Japanese inves-
gation report is found in several of these accounts.

162 Yun, Diary, vol. A, p. 55.

163 Bishop, I., p. 279.

16A Sands, p. A9.

165 McKenzie, p. 62. Dye's explanations of the failure of the
palace guard are in a letter to the Korean Repository , vol.
3, May 1896, pp. 216-221, and his response to Mrs. Bishop's
remarks are in Korean Repository , vol. 5, pp. A39-AA2.

166 Yun, Diary , vol. A, October 8, 1895, pp. 69-70.

167 Bishop, I., Korea and Her Neighbours , p. 27A.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER V

1 Harrington, God , Mammon and the Japanese , p. 267.

2 Weems, Hulbert ' s History, vol. 2, p. 297.

3 Gale to Ellinwood, February 18, 1896.

A Ibid.

5 Underwood, L. , Fifteen Years, pp. 157-158.

- 584 -