A Missionary Pioneer in the Far East; a Memorial of Divie Bethune Mccartee
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A Missionary Pioneer in the Far East A MEMORIAL OF ,X DIVIE BETHUNE McCARTEE For More Than Fifty Years a Missionary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presby- terian Church in the U. S. A. EDITED BY ROBERT E. SPEER Secretary, Board.of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church Nsw York Chicago Fleming H. Reveil Company London and Edinburgh A MISSIONARY PIONEER IN THE FAR EAST Dr. Divie B. McCartee and Mrs. McCartee in Japan in the nineties Copyright, 1922, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Ave. Chicago : 17 North Wabash London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street Contents I. The^ Man and His Work : From an Occi- DENTAI, ViE:WPOINT 9 Robert E. Speer. II. The^ Man As He Regarded Himself 27 Dr. McCartee's Own Story. 1. Prefatory 27 2. School and College 30 3. Call to China 39 4. The Ship " Huntress " 44 5. Arrival at Hong Kong 53 6. Visit to Macao 57 7. Return to Hong Kong 65 8. Hong Kong to Chusan and Ningpo 69 9. Ningpo 75 10. First Trip into the Country 80 11. Early History of the Ningpo Mission. ... 88 12. In the Taoist Temple 93 13. Visit of Commodore Biddle; Portuo-uese Pirates 103 14. Consular Experiences at Ningpo Ill 15. Nanking and the T'aiping Rebels 117 5 6 CONTENTS 16. From Nanking to Hankow 125 17. Attempt to Reach Chefoo 132 18. Second Attempt ; Chefoo 135 19. Japan 144 20. First Attempt to Reach Japan 147 21. My First Visit to Japan 149 22. Prolonged Residence in Japan 158 23. Mission Day and Boarding Schools 168 24. Medical Practice and Miscellaneous Notes 181 (1) Medical Practice 181 (2) Deaf Mutes 192 (3) Churches and Chapels 194 (4) Missionaries as Consuls, etc 195 (5) Botany 197 (6) Collections 199 III. Th^ Man As an Oriental Christian Saw Him 203 Woh-Cong-eng, Pastor of the Church of the Bao-ko-tah, Ningpo, China. IV. The Man As a Fellow-Worker Knew Him 217 David Murray, Ph.D., LL.D., Foreign Adviser to the Japanese Minister of Education, I THE MAN AND HIS WORK: FROM AN OCCIDENTAL VIEWPOINT Robert E. Speer. THE MAN AND HIS WORK: FROM AN OCCIDENTAL VIEWPOINT DIVIE BETHUNE McCARTEE was one of the distinctive pioneers in the missionary enterprise of the American Churches in the Far East. His career covered the opening of China and Japan to missionary effort, and it embraced the wide range of activity and service so characteristic of the missionary founders. He was physician, scien- tist, educator, diplomatist, scholar, author, evangelist. His note books and diaries are full of his careful studies in medicine, archaeology, history and botany. His personality was delightfully fresh and original and the reminiscences of his life which he left behind and which are embodied in this memorial are of the highest value, not only as a revelation of his own character and spirit but also as a record of the begin- nings of Christian Missions and civilization in China and Japan. Divie Bethune McCartee was born in Philadelphia on the 13th of January, 1820, as the oldest of ten children. His parents were both natives of New York City, where both of his grandfathers were pros- perous merchants, esteemed as men of wealth, piety and philanthropy. His father, Robert McCartee, was a Presbyterian clergyman, born in 1790, graduated 10 THE MAN AND HIS WORK at Columbia College as A.B. in 1808, who received from that institution the degree of A.M. in 1811 and S.T.D. in 1831. For a time he practiced law, and then in 1816 was graduated at the Theological Semi- nary of the Associate Reformed Church in New York City. He was pastor in New York, Philadelphia and other places, and died in 1865. From 1822 to 1836, when, for his health, he moved to Port Carbon, Pa., Dr. Robert McCartee had charge of the Irish Pres- byterian Church in New York City. In that church he began with a small membership of thirty and brought it up to a thousand, besides building a new edifice. He is said to have been not only pastor, but legal adviser and virtual magistrate of his parish; and in his library, containing many books of law as well as theology, the son from childhood was a pre- cocious and omnivorous reader. Dr. Robert McCar- tee's range of interests also appears in the fact that while at Port Carbon he organized there a Lyceum of Natural History that continued in existence for some years. The family name was originally MacEachen. The paternal great-grandfather of this Robert McCartee was Angus MacEachen, who came with his clan from the Island of I slay, on the coast of Argyleshire in Scotland. This ancestor took a somewhat prominent part on the losing side in the battle of Culloden, which was fought on the 16th of April^ 1746; and in 1757 this led to his leaving Great Britain for Amer- ica. Belonging to the same racial stock and fighting on the same side of that famous battle at Drummossie Moor, the great-grandfather of David Livingstone FROM AN OCCIDENTAL VIEWPOINT 11 was killed—David Livingstone, who in the same year of 1840 with Divie McCartee took his medical de- gree to become a missionary pioneer, and who, more- over, had first desired to go to China. The two men had much in common. Had Livingstone gone to China and McCartee to Africa it may be fairly sup- posed that the career of each would strongly have resembled the actual career of the other. Angus MacEachan first made his residence with his family at a place in New Jersey called Kakiet, afterward known as " English Neighborhood," now Englewood. But having been annoyed by the Indians he removed to New York City, where, being a po- litical refugee, he saw fit to change his name to Mc- Cartee. His son was Finlay MacEachan ; and his son, Peter McCartee, grandfather of Divie Bethune Mc- Cartee, became one of the leather dealers of the local- ity called " the Swamp," and lived at 12 Jacob Street. He was a ruling elder in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Murray Street, under the pastorate of the distinguished Dr. John M. Mason, who also for awhile was Provost of Columbia Col- lege. The wife of this Peter McCartee was Mary McDowell, daughter of Sir James McDowell, sur- veyor of the colony of New Jersey. The maternal grandfather of Divie Bethune Mc- Cartee was Divie Bethune, a native of Dingwall in Rosshire, Scotland, of Huguenot line, whose name was derived from a small town in Artois. " The Bethune line of Picardy " was an ancient family whose name, according to Chesne, " often occurs in the most glorious pages of French history since the 12 THE MAN AND HIS WORK days of Hugh Capet." One of these, Conan de Bethune, led an army under Godfrey de Boulougne in the first crusade. Another was the celebrated Duke of Sully. When Henry the Fourth of France con- formed to the Church of Rome, his minister, Maxi- milien de Bethune, Due de Sully, maintained his own connection with the Protestant Church in which he was a ruling elder when he died. After the Revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes the Protestant branch of the Bethune family emigrated to England and Scot- land. (See Histoire de la Maison de Bethune, 1636; also La France Protestante.) Divie Bethune gave up a position under his elder brother in Jamaica, W. I., on account of his dislike for the form of African slavery prevailing there at that time. He settled in New York, taking a leading place among its merchants until his lamented death in 1824. His wife was Joanna, daughter of Dr. John Graham, a British army surgeon ; and she was born at Fort Niagara. By a former wife Dr. Graham had two sons, both of whom were army officers and one of whom afterwards became Sir Samuel Graham, commander of Stirling Castle. Mrs. Isabella Graham, wife and widow of Dr. John Graham, and mother of Mrs. Divie Bethune, was founder of the first orphan asylum in the United States ; and together with Divie and Joanna Bethune, was identified with the begin- nings of organized charity and missionary effort in this country. Isabella (nee Marshall) Graham was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 174,2, came to New York in 1789, and died there in 1814. While yet in Scotland she originated important charities. Her FROM AN OCCIDENTAL VIEWPOINT 13 biography and letters, published first in 1816, went through many editions in Great Britain, a London issue appearing as late as 1838. In America have been printed more than 50,000 copies, besides a biog- raphy of her daughter Joanna. The exalted faith and effective philanthropy of Isabella Graham have de- scended to the fourth and fifth generations of her children, and through them have been reproduced in the lives of many others. Three children were bom to Divie and Joanna Bethune. Their daughter, Jessie, was the mother of Divie Bethune McCartee. She was the author of several poems that were published and admired in the anthologies of her time. Another daughter, Isa- bella Graham Bethune, was the wife of the Rev. Dr. George Duffield (1795-1869) of Detroit, an early leader of the new school Presbyterian body. Her only daughter, another Isabella Graham, who died in 1888, was wife of the physician, Dr. Morse Stewart, of that city, and was a leading organizer of its public charities, a woman who exemplified in character and influence the best traditions of her lineage.