The Making of Manhood Among Swedish Missionaries in China And

Th e Making of Manhood among Swedish Missionaries in China and Mongolia, c. 1890–c. 1914 Studies in Christian Mission

General Editors Marc R. Spindler (Leiden University) Heleen L. Murre-van den Berg (Leiden University)

Editorial Board Peggy Brock (Edith Cowan University) James Grayson (University of Sheffi eld) David Maxwell (Keele University)

VOLUME 36 Th e Making of Manhood among Swedish Missionaries in China and Mongolia, c. 1890–c. 1914

By Erik Sidenvall

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 Cover illustration: Swedish C&MA Missionaries in 1899. Otto Öberg is second from the left , back row; Elisabeth is placed in front of him.

Th is book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sidenvall, Erik. Th e making of manhood among Swedish missionaries in China and Mongolia, c. 1890–c. 1914 / by Erik Sidenvall. p. cm. — (Studies in Christian mission, ISSN 0924-9389 ; v. 36) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17408-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Missionaries—China— Biography. 2. Missionaries—Mongolia—Biography. 3. Missionaries—Sweden— Biography. 4. Masculinity—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title. II. Series. BV3427.A1S53 2009 266’.0234850510922—dc22 [B] 2009010952

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation for the fi nancial support that made this publication possible.

ISSN 0924-9389 ISBN 978 90 04 17408 5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ...... vii Acknowledgements ...... ix Abbreviations ...... xiii Note on Spelling ...... xv

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter One Th e Swedish Missionary Revival in Context ..... 23

Chapter Two A Public Missionary and a Domestic Man— Olof Bingmark, 1875–1900 ...... 47

Chapter Th ree Extending a Male Private Sphere— Otto Öberg, 1869–1917 ...... 69

Chapter Four Th e Making of a Domestic Adventurer— Frans August Larson, 1870–1957 ...... 93

Chapter Five Education and the Problem of Missionary Self-Making—Alfred Fagerholm, 1871–1923 ...... 115

Chapter Six Masculinising Missions—Consequences and Departures ...... 137

Conclusion ...... 159

Appendix ...... 165

Bibliography ...... 173 Index ...... 185

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Swedish C&MA Missionaries in 1899 ...... 90 Figure 2. Frans August Larson in the late 1920s (used with permission from Albert Bonnier Publishing Co.) ...... 109 Figure 3. Alfred Fagerholm c. 1912 ...... 131

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing about Christian missions oft en has a personal dimension. Many of my colleagues in the fi eld have had direct experiences of missionary work, or they may have been brought up in a family where the parents served as missionaries, or they may have received some of their education at a mission school. I do not share this background. Yet, I still can recall that, as a child, it was my worst fear that I was to become a missionary. How could this have happened? I realise, of course, that the subject of missionary work was present when I was brought up during the 1970s. Both my parents, now sadly lost, had been brought up in a spirit of fervent Protestant revivalism. I still can recall how my paternal grandmother, a Pentecostal, did her best to nourish a missionary spirit when she came and visited us; my maternal grandmother, who was a stalwart supporter of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, did her best to further the cause of missionary work in a more quiet way. So the theme of Christian missions is found in my background as well, and, though my vision of missionary work has changed since childhood, I would probably not have been writing this book if it would not have been for the feeling of fear and amazement instilled in me during the fi rst years of my life. A further push towards missionary studies was given by the late Lars Österlin, who had served as Professor of World Christianity at Lund University, and who generously treated me to lunches when I was a doctoral candidate. We spent pleasant hours in discussion together; I was given the opportunity to be tutored by a man who had been born by missionary parents in China and who had been supervised, in his youth, by, ‘the great’, Kenneth Scott Latourette. A more direct impact on this volume has come from Professor Yvonne Maria Werner at the Department of History at Lund University. She organised, and has since acted as congenial co-ordinator of the international ‘Christian manliness’ project within which this book was born. Generous support has been provided by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation; the Tercentenary Foundation has also supported the publication of this volume. An inspiring crowd of people have taken part in our gatherings both in Sweden and in Italy; discussions have oft en been loud and animated, but never boring and unrewarding. Olaf Blaschke, Callum Brown, Anders Jarlert, Inger Littberger, x acknowledgements

Hugh McLeod, Elin Malmer, Alexander Maurits, Marit Monteiro, Anna Prestjan and David Tjeder have all generously contributed with comments on my early draft s. In addition to these valued colleagues a number of experts in the fi elds of World Christianity, Sinology and Imperial studies have contributed with advise or detailed commentary; among these Alvyn Austin, Leif Lindin, David Kerr (R.I.P.), Roy Porter, Dana Robert, Rhonda Anne Semple, Brian Stanley and Gary Tidemann deserves a special word of appreciation. At an early date Anna Maria Claesson, whose dissertation has made my own studies possible, generously contributed with suggestions and advise. Like most works of history this book would not come into being if it would not have been for the skill and ceaseless energy of numerous librarians and archivists. Th e librarians and custodians of Cambridge University Library, Emigrantinstitutet (Växjö), Jönköpings länsmuseum, Missionskyrkans arkiv (Stockholm), Riksarkivet (Stockholm) and the archive of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, have all contributed to making research trips both valuable and enjoyable. Nick Nole of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship granted permission to use sources from its London-based archive; Peter Meadows has authorised my use of sources housed at the Bible Society Library, Cambridge University Library. Permission to use his grandfather’s manuscripts has been granted by Per Fagerholm. Jim Larson and his cousins have with enthusiasm allowed me to make extensive use of the autobiography of ‘the Duke’; Virginia W. Hart has been equally generous in allowing me to quote from her grandmother’s unpublished letters. Axel Odelberg made available his copies of the Larson papers and spared me a trip to the US. A Swedish version of Chapter Two appeared in Yvonne Maria Werner (ed.), Kristen manlighet: ideal och verklighet 1830–1940 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2008); the people at Nordic Academic Press have allowed me to reprint an English version in this volume. During the fi nal stages of my work the people at Brill stepped in with energy and expertise to turn my manuscript into a book. Ingeborg van der Laan, and later Maarten Frieswijk, did not only swift ly and cheer- fully respond to all my e-mails, but also co-ordinated the tasks needed for a book to materialise of which the present writer knows so little. Anonymous readers contributed with encouraging and insightful comments. Th e editors of Studies in Christian Mission deserve my gratitude for including this volume in their prestigious series. acknowledgements xi

At last, I have of course to return again to those closest at heart. Without a family that off er, at the same time, both support and perspective, I would not have been able to conclude this study. In spite of hectic schedules, my in-laws, Jan and Birgitta, have given extra support during times of travel. My wife Erika has with love and patience suff ered the fate of having a writing husband. But my greatest debt is to my children—Elin, Viktor and Clara—for simply being there.

Växjö, 26 February 2009 Erik Sidenvall

ABBREVIATIONS

ABCFM American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions BFBS British and Foreign Bible Society C&MA Christian and Missionary Alliance CIM China Inland Mission IMA International Missionary Alliance SEM Swedish Evangelical Mission SMC Swedish Mission Covenant SMS Swedish Missionary Society SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies, London University

NOTE ON SPELLING

Chinese place names, except in the case of small villages that have not been possible to identify, have been transcribed in accordance with contemporary pinyin. When translations from Swedish have been made, the original is given in the footnotes—except when the quotation consists of only one or two words. For the sake of clarity, the spelling has been modernised in accordance with modern Swedish usage.

INTRODUCTION

We make this appeal on behalf of three hundred millions of unevangelised heathen; we make it with the earnestness of our whole hearts, as men overwhelmed with the magnitude and responsibility of the work before us; we make it with unwavering faith in the power of the risen Saviour to call men into His vineyard, and to open the hearts of those who are His stewards to send out and support them, and we shall not cease to cry mightily to Him that He will do this thing, and that our eyes may see it.1 When Hudson Taylor issued his celebrated call for 1,000 new missionaries for China at the 1890 Shanghai Missionary Conference, the Evangelical world was well prepared to receive his message. Th e expansion of the European (and in years to come, American) empires had created fresh opportunities for Christian missions. Although many Evangelical Christians were to voice objections towards Western imperialism and colonialism, they could not fail to recognise that such political developments seemed to augur the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Christian expansion. As the advocates of foreign missions contemplated the situation of the world, they came to the conclusion that the entire globe was now ‘open’ to the proclamation of the Gospel. At the same time as Western expansionist politics paved the way for missionary advances, the increased prosperity of, above all, the middle classes in most Western countries seemed to promise that the funds necessary for bold moves were available. In the opinion of one of the most infl uential voices of the missionary movement in the US, former Presbyterian minister A. T. Pierson, this was the fateful time of the missionary enterprise. It was a unique opportunity, providential order, during which the Christian forces either were to proceed to victory or retreat into lethargy, leaving the world without the Gospel.2 Th e celebrated motto of the Student Volunteers, ‘Th e Evangelisation of

1 Th e 1890 Shanghai Missionary Conference calling for 1,000 new missionaries to China. As quoted in Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission: Th e Growth of a Work of God (London: Religious Tract Society, 1927), p. 487. 2 See Arthur T. Pierson, Th e Crisis of Missions; or, Th e Voice Out of the Cloud (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1886), passim. 2 introduction the World in this Generation’, neatly summarised much of the heated missionary enthusiasm of these days.3 Th e available statistics of most missionary societies and other com- missioning bodies suggest that this was a period of expansion,4 although the results did not measure up to the expectations and calculations of the principal promoters of foreign missions. New missions were established and many missionary organisations were able to expand their personnel. Hudson Taylor’s own China Inland Mission [hereaft er CIM] (1865) had managed to secure some spectacular recruits during the 1880s, the best known were of course the ‘Cambridge seven’, which were given maximum publicity in order to raise the profi le of this hitherto marginal body. Th ese high-society recruits were accompanied by a host of men and women who fl ocked to the most expansive, entrepreneurial and, to many, the most truly Christian of missions. Th e ideals and ethos fostered by Hudson Taylor’s venture, resonated closely with strong currents within the international Evangelical milieu. Groups that came under the infl uence of the Holiness Movement, a far from homoge- neous phenomenon, belonged to the most stalwart supporters of the CIM and its associated missions. Many of those touched by Holiness teaching in the late nineteenth century celebrated a ‘Christianity of experience’ that went beyond Protestant denominational rivalry;5 they were taught to rely solely on Christ and that sanctifi cation went hand in hand with a Spiritual power for Christian service. To this spiritual mood, within which contemplation and activism were amalgamated, was added a fi ery premillenarian apocalypticism.6 Th rough a variety of

3 For the history and precedents of the Volunteer motto, see C. Irvine, “Notes on the origins of the watchword: ‘Th e evangelization of the world in this generation’ ”, Bulletin of the Scottish Institute of Missionary Studies n. s. 3–4 (1985–87), pp. 7–9. 4 See for example William R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Th ought and Foreign Missions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 104; see also the statistics of the Church Missionary Society presented in Brian Stanley, Th e Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leicester: Apollos, 1990), p. 80. For China, see Report of the Special Committee on Survey and Statistics Submitted to the China Continuation Committee at its Th ird Annual Meeting, Shanghai April 30th to May 5th, 1915 (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1915), pp. 4–5. 5 David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History From the 1730s to the 1980s (London and New York: Routledge, 1995 [1989]), p. 179. 6 Donald W. Dayton, Th eological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 2004 [1987]), pp. 87–172; George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: Th e Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evamgelicalism, 1870–1925(New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 72–80. introduction 3 venues the message, with numerous variations, was spread throughout the Protestant world; through a variety of conferences (for which the ones held at Keswick in Northern England provided the template), wealthy urban churches and impoverished mission halls. To those who had come under the infl uence of Holiness teaching the proclamation of the Gospel to all ‘heathens’ was a sign that the end was near, that Christ was coming and that the Kingdom of God would be established in the near future. In order to save as many perishable souls as possible before the impending doom, the churches, many of which were growing increasingly prosperous, had to exert themselves in order not to be unfaithful to the Lord now when his Advent was near. To those who nourished the idea that the missionary venture was to expand rapidly before the decisive hour of Divine intervention in human history, and who had been taught to rely solely on God for the sanctifi cation of their lives, the CIM idea that religious workers should trust solely on God to provide seemed natural. Th e principle of self-support resonated with a dominant mentality in the transatlantic Evangelical world and seemed to promise a solution to the perpetual problems caused by insuffi cient funding. It was businesslike in keeping costs for overhead at an absolute minimum; in terms of evangelistic effi ciency it gave the hope of placing people where they were needed the most and to be able to quickly redistribute the ‘troops’ when new opportunities presented themselves. Faith mission principles came to be directly applied, imitating the concept successfully tried out by the CIM, in most of the innumerable missionary bodies that came into being during the fi nal quarter of the nineteenth century. Already during the 1870s appeared Grattan Guinness’ Regions Beyond Missionary Union and the Livingstone Inland Mission, but it was during the 1880s and 1890s that the number of such agencies multiplied most rapidly. Just to mention some important agencies: the North African Mission was born in 1881; the International Missionary Alliance [hereaft er IMA] and the Swedish Mission in China in 1887; two years later the South African General Mission. In 1890 appeared the (American) Scandinavian Missionary Alliance; the Africa Inland Mission in 1895 and two years later the Egypt General Mission.7 Without manifest conformity to the faith mission

7 A useful, but far from complete, list of faith missions is found in, Klaus Fiedler, Th e Story of Faith Missions (Oxford: Regnum, 1994), p. 12. 4 introduction template, other bodies were deeply inspired by the ideals that perme- ated Hudson Taylor’s missionary ventures. In fact, the perhaps most remarkable expression of the missionary enthusiasm of the 1880s, the Student Volunteer Movement (1886), was enthused with faith mission ideals during its earliest phases. Several of the men and women that came to infl ame these North American students seized by the missionary spirit can be directly connected with the circles that formulated the rationale of faith missions. For example, the volunteers gathered at the second convention of the Student Volunteer Movement in Detroit 1894 could not only listen to a number of addresses by Hudson Taylor, but also to the voices of Geraldine Guinness, A. T. Pierson and A. J. Gordon.8 Th e Student Volunteer Movement came later to move in another direction, but the fact remains that its initial display of missionary enthusiasm was very much in line with the trends dominating at the time of its origin.

Hudson Taylor’s call for a large cohort of new missionary volunteers for China refl ects not only a heated late nineteenth-century missionary enthusiasm, but also a continued Evangelical concern to enlist new categories of workers. A few years prior to Hudson Taylor expressed his grand vision, prominent US revivalist Dwight L. Moody had called for the ‘gap-men’ to step into Christian service.9 As Virginia Brereton has demonstrated in her work on the American Bible School, Moody’s interest in ‘new’ classes of religious workers was shared by many of his fellow ‘proto-Fundamentalists’.10 In Pierson’s infl uential Crisis of

8 The Student Missionary Enterprise. Addresses and Discussions of the Second International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, Held at Detroit, Michigan, February 28, and March 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1904 (Boston: T. O. Metcalf & Co., 1894). Still during the 1898 convention delegates could listen to papers on ‘self-support’, see Th e Student Missionary Appeal: Addresses at the Th ird International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions Held at Cleveland, Ohio, February 23–27, 1898 (New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1898), pp. 109–38. 9 Dwight L. Moody as quoted in, Gene A. Getz, MBI: Th e Story of Moody Bible Institute (Chicago: Moody Press, 1969), p. 36. 10 Virginia Lieson Brereton, Training God’s Army: Th e American Bible School, 1880– 1940 (Bloomington and Indiana, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 54, 59–60. introduction 5

Missions, readers could fi nd an application of this line of thought to foreign missions: We advocate, without hesitation, a new basis of training for mission fi elds, a shorter course, and one more practical in character. Th ose who are to do good work, at home or abroad, should be sound in doctrine, familiar with the principles of New Testament church polity, and thoroughly trained in the English Bible. Th en they might be sent to their fi elds, under control of trusted brethren, to do such work as they are fi tted for, and spend the time that would have been spent at home in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, in applying themselves to the languages they are to use in their fi elds, and to the study of the people among whom they are to labor.11 If we take a closer look at the history of European and American revivalism we come to realise that such calls had many precedents. Travelling agents, lay preachers and colporteurs had been employed to spread the mood of Pietism, Moravianism and Methodism since the early eighteenth century. Many of the people employed to fulfi l these tasks were recruited from strata of society not normally associated with the word ‘respectable’. Workers, farm-hands and artisans were regularly entrusted with such charges. Th ey came to occupy, just as Moody’s ‘gap-men’, a position between the laity and the clergy, catering to the religious needs of groups that oft en had received little spiritual nourishment. In some cases, and increasingly towards the end of the nineteenth century, women were also to be found among these labourers. It has rightly been pointed out that Moody’s ‘gap-man’ was in fact most likely to be a woman. Furthermore, many of the early missionary societies had regularly fi lled their ranks with men from the lower strata of society (it was widely held that the better candidates for ministry should be employed ‘at home’), oft en providing them with extensive social ‘make-over’ involving seminary training and a suitable marriage-partner, to serve as their agents in ‘heathen’ lands.12 Th ose ‘gap-men’ drawn to foreign missions towards the end of the nineteenth

11 Pierson, Th e Crisis of Missions, p. 340. 12 For the social transformation of missionaries, see in particular Susan Th orne, “Piety and patriarchy: Contested gender regimes in nineteenth-century evangelical missions”, in Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus (eds), Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 67–111; Stuart Piggin, Making Evangelical Missionaries, 1789–1958: Th e Social Background, Motives and Training of British Protestant Missionaries to India (Evangelicals & Society From 1750, 2; Abingdon: Sutton Courtney Press, 1984), pp. 29–32; Andrew F. Walls, Th e Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1996), pp. 160–72. 6 introduction century should therefore be seen as representing, not a novelty in the Evangelical world, but a continued commitment to solicit the services of those normally getting little recognition from social elites. Even though the ‘offi cial’ CIM became increasingly conform to middle- class standards during the fi nal decades of the nineteenth century,13 various minor ventures, some of which were loosely tied to the CIM, attracted people with little education and formal qualifi cation, save their religious zeal. Above all in Scandinavia and on the European Continent, missions composed of men and women drawn from the lower strata of society mushroomed during the fi nal fi ft een years of the 1800s. Th e enlistment of such categories of people, at least without prior training and social reconstruction, was never uncontested within the Protestant missionary movement, but for the time being infl uential voices justifi ed their existence on the grounds of urgency and assigned to them a sub- ordinate position within the missionary hierarchy. Th eir place was not that of the missionary proper or the mission leader, they were to be the lay evangelists or Bible teachers who proclaimed the Gospel where it had not been heard before and thereby paved the way for a more permanent missionary presence. If that was the point of view taken by prominent missionary ideologists, it may rightfully be doubted that this was an adequate refl ection of how these humble recruits, and their supporters, discerned their identity as religious workers. How did they understand their missionary calling? How did their respective backgrounds come to infl uence their missionary lives? How did they respond to the social paternalism that informed the missionary movement at large at this time? Besides religious convictions, what forces had driven them to take this step? Such questions, or rather an inclination to answer them by pointing at anything but ‘pure’ religious motives, may easily lead to accusations of reductionism. Jeff rey Cox has recently pointed at the importance of recognising in full the complexity of the forces that lay behind the decision to become a foreign missionary (or any other kind of religious worker).14 If we are looking for ‘pure’ motives, as missionary organisations oft en did, we are likely to be disappointed, but we are just as likely to miss the point if we disregard religious stimuli altogether. Arguably, religious convictions and a sense of Divine call-

13 Rhonda Anne Semple, Missionary Women: Gerder, Professionalism, and the Victorian Idea of Christian Mission (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003), pp. 206–7. 14 Jeffrey Cox, Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 1–19. introduction 7 ing were important in leading these men and women to volunteer for the mission fi eld (indeed, all new missionaries entering faith mission bodies had to demonstrate that they were ‘soul-winners’ prior to their acceptance as foreign missionaries), but that does not mean that such propelling powers were not intertwined with others that were perhaps more ‘worldly’ in character. Gender historians looking primarily (or sometimes exclusively) at female missionaries have been the one’s most inclined to off er qualifi ed answers to such questions. A majority among these scholars have pointed out that philanthropic endeavours provided outlets, recognised as legitimate in religious circles, for a female urge to seek new roles and to escape the boredom and confi nement that many women tended to associate with domesticity.15 At a time when the ideology of separate spheres had reached its apogee, missions provided an arena where renegotiations of traditional roles became a possibility. Some scholars have even ventured to see similarities with contemporary ‘fi rst wave’ Feminism.16 Even though far from everyone has been willing to go

15 For a brief introduction to this expanding fi eld, see Patricia Grimshaw and Peter Sherlock, “Women and cultural exchanges”, Norman Etherington (ed.), Missions and Empire (Th e Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 173–93. Gender studies of the missionary movement include, R. Pierce Beaver, All Loves Excelling: American Protestant Women in World Missions: History of the First Feminist Movement in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1968); Fiona Bowie et al. (eds), Women and Missions: Past and Present. Anthropological and Historical Perspectives (Oxford: Berg, 1993); Gael Graham, Gender, Culture and Christianity: American Protestant Mission Schools in China, 1880–1930 (New York: P. Lang, 1995); Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty: American Missionary Wives in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989); Patricia Hill, Th e World Th eir Household: Th e American Women’s Foreign Missions Movement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1985); Huber and Lutkehaus (eds), Gendered Missions; Jane Hunter, Th e Gospel of Gentility: American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the- Century China (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1984); Inger Marie Okkenhaug (ed.), Gender, Race and Religion: Nordic Missions 1860–1940 (Uppsala: Svenska institutet för missionsforskning, 2003); Line Nyhagen Predelli, Issues of Gender, Race, and Class in the Norwegian Missionary Society in Nineteenth-Century Norway and Madagascar (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003); Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Sociological History of their Th ought and Practice (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996); idem (ed.), Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002); Karin Sarja, “Ännu en syster till Afrika”: Trettiosex kvinnliga missionärer i Natal och Zululand 1876–1902 (Stockholm: Elander Gotab, 2002); Semple, Missionary Women; Ruth A. Tucker, Guardians of the Great Commission: Th e Story of Women in Modern Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1988). 16 See above all, Beaver, All Loves Excelling. 8 introduction that far, ‘emancipation’ has tended to become the secular paradigm, or metaphor, within which much female missionary endeavour is interpreted. Most of these studies deal with middle-class missionaries and cannot be directly applied to female missionaries drawn from other social strata (unlike their bourgeois sisters, working-class women were little troubled by ‘uselessness’ and ‘idleness’); yet, the general argument of these studies, that foreign missions opened for re-negotiations and transformations of gender roles and expectations, is of much use when looking at missionaries drawn from beyond the fringes of respectable society. But what about the men? Within what contexts should we understand the complex forces that convinced working-class men to off er themselves for missionary work? In most studies dealing with the history of Christian missions they emerge as rather enigmatic and curious beings (although hitherto never studies in detail).17 Andrew Porter has labelled them “immature zealots”.18 Alvyn Austin, a leading historian of faith missions, has chosen to characterise these men either as sweet, gentle, guitar-playing farmhands or as obnoxious trouble-makers.19 Dana L. Robert, in her otherwise excellent biography of Pierson, chooses to

17 As Fiona Bowie rightly has pointed out: the word ‘missionary’ was in reality a male noun for much of the nineteenth century (See Fiona Bowie, “Introduction: Reclaiming women’s precence”, in Bowie et al. (eds), Women and Missions, 1–19 [1]). Yet, masculinity as such seldom emerges in the available studies. Most scholars approaching the question of the construction of masculinity among missionaries, the question of the infl uence of a Muscular Christianity has been of paramount importance. See for example Brian Stanley, “‘Hunting for souls’: Th e missionary pilgrimage of George Sherwood Eddy”, in Pieter N. Holtrop and Hugh McLeod (eds), Missions and Missionaries (Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 13; Woodbridge: Th e Boydell Press, 2000), pp. 127–141. A diff erent approach, however, is off ered in Rhonda Semple, “Missionary manhood: Professionalism, belief and masculinity in nineteenth-century British Imperial fi eld”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36:3 (2008), pp. 397–415. 18 Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), p. 209. Such a view is found already in Kenneth Scott Latourette’s classic history of Christianity in China when describing the work of the C&MA: “As a rule the Alliance representatives had only a scanty education and attempted, with but imperfect adaptation to the Chinese environment, to reproduce the revivalism to which they usually owed their own religious experience.” Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China (New York: Macmillan, 1929), p. 399. 19 Alvyn Austin, “Only connect: The China Inland Mission and transatlantic Evangelicalism”, in Wilbert R. Shenk (ed.), North American Foreign Missions, 1810–1914 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 281–313 [303 and 305]. See also, idem, Saving China: Canadian Missionaries in the Middle-Kingdom, 1888–1959 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), p. 20. introduction 9 introduce these missionaries by calling attention only to the tragic consequences that arouse out of their ‘Divine healing’ practises (which was accompanied with a proportionate disbelief in tropical medicine).20 In fact, these scholars reproduce opinions that were heard already in the late nineteenth century among middle-class supporters of Protestant missions. According to William T. Ellis, one important spokesman for the Layman’s Missionary Movement: [M]ost of the slanderous stories that are told concerning missionaries, and many of the serious blunders in mission work on the fi eld, are due to these “independent” missions. Men and women are sent out by them to the fi eld with no other qualifi cation than a religious fervor, untinged by any adequate knowledge of facts. Th ey are oft en far below par in educational equipment, and in social furnishing.21 A few years earlier Julian Ralph gave the following account of his encounter with a company of such missionaries: On the ship bound for China I was struck by the mediocre mental character of too many of these men. Th ey were oft en villagers and men of the narrowest horizon. It was these who declared what they would do and have and would not have when they reached their stations—as if the Christianising of an ancient, a polished, and a highly cultivated race was to be carried out by a word of command.22 It goes without saying that such comments are of little help if we are to understand their forces of motivation and the ways in which their missionary lives evolved. An investigation into such issues should begin with the insights off ered by gender historians. In all likelihood many of the urges that impelled women to consider missionary work, appeared also among the male recruits, although diff erently expressed. Th e lure of adventure and an inclination to escape disheartening conditions can be found among many, both men and women. But for the men such wishes and dreams were expressed within a context diff erently composed, socially as well as discursively. In the past decades historians of masculinity have monitored the fundamental changes that appeared during the

20 Dana L. Robert, Occupy Until I Come: A. T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World (Library of Religious Biography, 11; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 178–80. 21 William T. Ellis, Men and Missions (London: T. French Downie, 1908), p. 124. 22 As quoted in Chinese Recorder, November 1900, p. 31. 10 introduction nineteenth century within the way in which ‘masculinity’ was con- strued.23 Several of these alterations are important to bear in mind when we now consider the fate and life of the lower-class male missionary during the late nineteenth century. First of all, they experienced their calls to foreign missions at a time when society became increasingly mobile and fl exible. Th e man of the modern world was not seen as constrained by place of birth, family network and position; in the new world of capitalist enterprise he could, and should, make his own fortune and destiny.24 Even though social advancement was far from an unknown phenomenon in early-modern society, the social reality brought about by industrialisation and urbanisation seemed to many to off er new possibilities unknown to their forebears. Many young men and women, driven by dire need away from an increasingly overcrowded countryside, migrated to rapidly expanding cities in quest of a bright new future. Only too many of these people found in the cities a cure that was worse than the disease, but to some their lives became success stories. For the men such an endeavour to advance oneself was given expression and justifi cation in a contemporary discourse on masculinity, in the ideal of the ‘self-made man’. Many were the tales told, and endlessly re-circulated, about the man of humble origin who embarked upon a successful career in the city, with nothing but his bare hands and a good deal of ingenuity to aid him, and fi nally ended his life prosperous and respected among new-found peers. Widely read nineteenth-century male advice manuals pointed out to aspiring candidates what character

23 For the the way in which Christian beliefs came to inform notions of masculinity, see David Alderson, Mansex Fine: Religion, Manliness and Imperialism in Nineteenth- Century British Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Stephen Boyd, W. Merle Longwood and Mark W. Muesse (eds), Redeeming Men: Religion and Masculinities (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996); Andrew Bradstock (ed.), Masculinity and Spirituality in Victorian Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Joseph Gelfer, “Identifying the Catholic men’s movement”, Th e Journal of Men’s Studies 16 (2008), pp. 41–56; Jeremy Gregory, “Homo religiosus: masculinity and religion in the long eighteenth century”, in Tim Hitchcock and Michèle Cohen (eds), English Masculinities, 1660–1800 (London: Longman, 1999), pp. 85–110; Donald E. Hall (ed.), Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); J. A. Mangan and J. Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987); Cliff ord Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Yvonne Maria Werner (ed.), Kristen manlighet: Ideal och verklighet 1830–1940 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2008). 24 A useful introduction to the concept is found in Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (New York: Th e Free Press, 1996), pp. 13–27. introduction 11 traits to foster and which codes of conduct to observe to be able to claim the title, a self-made man, for oneself. Scholars of masculinity have rightly noted that the notion of self-made manhood in reality was “the middle-class’ dream of how society and men should be”.25 Th e road to self-making was oft en fraught with hindrances for men of humble origin. For most men the road to success depended on much more than the ability of the individual to make use of the opportunities at hand. Yet, this was a notion that gave hope of crossing lines of demarcation within increasingly stratifi ed societies to those that otherwise seemed to be destined to a life in poverty and distress. Could religious activism be a road to self-making? The answer depends of course on how we understand this ideal of manhood. If we see in it only a materialistic ideology of fi nancial success, the answer has to be in the negative. Th e fi nancial rewards off ered to the ‘gap-men’ by religious organisations were in general limited; those who struggled to attain riches would have been unwise indeed if they turned to such agencies to fulfi l their wishes (not to say that such men ever existed). But it is questionable that contemporary advocates of male reform understood self-making to be just a question of economic gain and prosperity. As Swedish historian David Tjeder convincingly has argued, the ideal of self-made manhood was more about securing independence than gaining immeasurably rich. Th e goal of self-making was to secure one’s place as a breadwinner and to reach middle-class respectability.26 Furthermore, male advice manuals cautioned young men not to abandon moral standards while pursuing their goals and off ered to aspiring candidates a puritanical code of conduct that involved temperance, diligence and thrift —similar indeed to the recipe off ered by Evangelical moralists to the destitute. To these observers, self-making was linked to the art of moral reform—of transforming and controlling one’s desires, urges and wishes. As E. Anthony Rotundo rightly has remarked: “the nineteenth century was a time of self-making, both in the economic sense and in the sense of shaping the desires and talents of the inner self to fi t the proper moral and social forms.”27

25 David Tjeder, Th e Power of Character: Middle-Class Masculinities, 1800–1900 (Stockholm: Författares bokmaskin, 2003), p. 218. 26 Ibid., p. 206. 27 E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity From the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993), p. 285. 12 introduction

And so, if the goals of self-making were independence and respectability, Evangelical religiosity had in fact much to off er to men aspiring to a new social position. For those working-class men who listened to the calls of the Christian activists, transformation awaited. To become a ‘born again Christian’ was for many a working-class man to begin life again quite literally. Manners and habits had to be reformed; old acquaintances had to be shaken off and the convert was to socialise only with his new-found brothers and sisters in faith. Many a convert would have treasured the “democratic promise”28 hidden in the missionary piety that he now could claim as his. In principle, this was a community in which the Divine blessing, and not rank or social position, was the letter of introduction. Th ey were now all God’s children and their community was not to be one within which power, prestige and privilege made a diff erence. At the same time, it was also a world of middle-class values and habits, of middle-class associations and one that was governed by middle-class networks. Th at the convert now came within reach of these marks of respectability, was one aspect of his experience as an Evangelical Christian. Even though there is always a risk of overstating such observations, but this meant that to put oneself forward for service was not without its rewards for working- class men,29 though the monetary gains were limited indeed. Th ese men, above all those who ‘off ered’ themselves as foreign missionaries, were likely to be admired among many a fellow believer. Th ere were indeed a peculiar kind of self-made men, men of humble origin but who ‘made it’ in the religious world, that the Evangelical world knew and held in highest esteem. Moody is in fact a case in point. However, a majority among Evangelicals would have raised severe objections towards the very idea of people using religious work as a means of social advance. Most men of humble origin volunteering for religious work would probably have eff ectively internalised the concern over ‘impure’ motives oft en expressed within the Evangelical world, but, given the close ties between masculinity and self-making within society at large,

28 Susan Th orne, Congregational Missions and the Making of an Imperial Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 126. 29 Several historians have noted that evangelistic work could be a road away from the world of the manual labourers and into the land of the (lower) middle-classes, see for example Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 111; Stefan Gelfgren, Ett utvalt släkte: väckelse och sekularisering—Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stift elsen, 1856–1910 (Skelleft eå: Artos, 2003); A. D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England. Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740–1914 (London: Longman, 1976), p. 63. introduction 13 it seems reasonable to assume that this produced a confl ict between rival ideals and discourses. On the one hand, a discourse emphasising the primacy of religion and the subordination of human ambitions to a greater Divine cause—the progress of the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, a gender discourse, widely circulated within society, about what true manhood was. It is the argument of this book that this contradiction is essential to our understanding of the lives of the working-class men who volunteered to do missionary work towards the end of the nineteenth century. Indeed, if we see ‘self-making’ as a complex process of individual social reconstruction (and all that it involved in terms of imitation, adaptation and re-negotiation of the manners and identities of ‘respectable’ men), it becomes a term fi lled with content that can be used as an interpretative framework within which to the careers of these workers can be understood. If the concept of the self-made man off ers one view-point from which we can grasp aspects of the lives of these men, it should also be kept in mind that the ability to transform and re-invent one’s social and gender identities, which were fundamental skills of self-making, should also be understood in relation to their rootedness in the communities of their origin. Social historians have shown how patronising Evangelical initiatives to ‘reach’ the working-classes oft en met with vigorous resistance;30 it is unlikely that such sentiment was completely eradicated even

30 Th e inevitable introduction to the subject of the relationship between the working- classes and middle-class religion is still E. P. Th ompson, Th e Making of the English Working-Class (London: Penguin Books, 1991 [1963]). See also E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (New York: Norton, 1959) and E. J. Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Captain Swing (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973). Recent re-assessments of working-class religion include, Th omas Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working-Class Culture 1780–1850 (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1976); Hugh McLeod, “New perspectives on Victorian working-class religion: Th e oral evidence”, Oral History 14:1 (1986), pp. 31–49; idem, Piety and Poverty: Working-Class Religion in Berlin, London and New York, 1870–1914 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1996); idem, Religion and the Working-Classes in Nineteenth Century Britain (London: Macmillan, 1984); Lex Heerma van Voss and Marcel van der Linden (eds), Class and Other Identities: Gender, Religion, and Ethnicity in the Writing of European Labour History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Claudia Hiepel and Mark Ruff (eds), Christliche Arbeiterbewegung in Europa 1850–1950 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003); Th orne, Congregational Missions, ch. 5; Sarah Williams, Religious Belief and Popular Culture: A Study of the South London Borough of Southwark, c. 1880–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For a useful introduction to the vast literature on Catholic working-class organisations, see Lex Heerma van Voss, Patrick Pasture and Jan de Maeyer (eds), Between Cross and Class: Comparative Histories of Christian Labour Movements in Europe, 1840–2000 (International and Comparative History, 8; Bern: P. Lang, 2005). 14 introduction among those who embraced Evangelical religiosity. Th e outlook of the Evangelical working-class enclaves—to be found among Salvationists, Primitive Methodists in Britain and radical Holiness groups in both Europe and America towards the end of the nineteenth century—is a historical site that now, when the interest in Marxist historical narrative has died away, needs to be further explored. How did they deal with the middle-class hegemony within the Evangelical world? How did they justify their endeavour in face of such critical voices as the ones quoted above? It is reasonable to assume that middle-class culture and religiosity were accepted but also that they met with opposition and rejection, especially when class-based prejudice undermined the democratic promise of revivalist Christianity. Th ese comments can be further developed by using French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas about how social identities are created and maintained. Bourdieu has tended to emphasise that such identities come into being, not through conscious endeavours to learn and imitate, but through practise and unconscious repetition. Th e concept of habitus, “the durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations”, is a forceful reminder of how our lives are shaped by the social fi elds within which we live and, above all, of the social habitats of socialisation. According to Bourdieu the habitus is much more than mere ‘habits’ impositioned upon us early in our lives; it is refl ected in minuscule operations, in the ways we feel, in our preferences and in seemingly meaningless bodily gestures all of which speak of the world into which they were once born. Th e habitus is connected to what Bourdieu terms “the social sense”—an unconscious ‘know-how’ to function eff ectively within a given social environment. Th e habitus aids our adaptation to what is ‘our’ world and becomes a given point of reference when we negotiate the diffi culties and changes of our lives; to outsiders our habitus becomes a visible marker of who we are.31 Th e strength of Bourdieu’s theory is that it makes visible the intricate ways in which ‘society’ and ‘history’ becomes present in our lives, minds and bodies, but it has been criticised for making it “diffi cult to understand how one might ever appear, convincingly, to be what one is not”.32 Th is critique reveals a fundamental weakness in Bourdieu’s

31 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Th eory of Practice (trans. Richard Nice; Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology, 16; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 78–9. 32 Terry Lovell, “Th inking feminism with and against Bourdieu”, Feminist Th eory 1 (2000), pp. 11–32 (14). introduction 15 intellectual edifi ce. If our existence is so completely formed by our habitus, how can our lives and identities ever change and our habits ever reform? If understood too rigidly, Bourdieu’s concept makes it diffi cult to understand even mundane alterations in people’s social and gender identities. Yet, I fi nd the concept of thehabitus to be of use as a conceptual tool here. As will be demonstrated in following Chapters, a willingness and an ability to alter one’s social identities are manifest among the ‘gap-men’ missionaries. Yet, during the course of my studies I have come to realise that the lives of these men, both as religious workers and as men in quest of new positions, can be understood as a constant oscillation between prior habits and newly acquired (or much desired) skills and markers of identity. Th e new was constantly shaped by the old, and their cultural/social inheritance was given new meanings through the various social/ideological processes that came to transform their lives.33

Th is book constitutes a fi rst attempt to study these male working-class missionaries on their own terms. A central concept here is that of masculinity, of constructions of male gender identities. It is the contention of this book that if these missionaries are to be successfully studied, they need to be placed at the junction of the middle- and the working- classes, in between the hegemonic forms of masculinity to be found within these respective social habitats.34 Th ey were, to borrow omasTh Winter’s words: “liminal men—men on the make.”35 Th eir lives came to represent independent rejections, rehearsals, adaptations and amalgamations of the various models of manhood to be found in these social circles. Since these diverse models of male identities provided diff erent solutions to questions central to the defi nitions of true manhood (such as, for example, the extent and nature of male and female work), we should expect a great deal of individual variation among this group of

33 It could indeed be argued that the missionary experience in itself made the habitus ‘visible’, see Eric Reinders, Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), p. 17. 34 For the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, see R. W. Connell, Masculinities (2nd edn; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005). 35 Thomas Winter, Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 25. 16 introduction people. Th eir liminal position, that made them such easy targets for contemporary criticism both in religious and decidedly secular circles, was the fountainhead of much of what both contemporary observers and present day scholars have found noteworthy about these men. For example, how can the model briefl y sketched above off er additional explanations to the expansion of women’s roles that oft en occurred in these missions? How can it help us to understand the ‘sentimentality’ oft en to be found among these male workers? Th e focal light is placed here on one group of working-class missionaries active in Northern China and Mongolia towards the end of the nineteenth century. Th ey were all of Swedish origin and were recruited by Swedish-American evangelist extraordinaire, Fredrik Franson, to serve as missionaries under the auspices of the IMA, that in 1897 became the more well-known Christian and Missionary Alliance [hereaft er C&MA], with its headquarters in New York. Th is mission evolved with extreme rapidity; its fi rst workers, ten men and ten women, were dispatched in 1892. In 1899 the number of active missionaries amounted to fi ft y-three. Most of them came to reside in regions that had seen little (or no) Protestant work of evangelism. A majority of its stations were found in the northernmost part of Shanxi province, but its workers were also to settle in Inner and Outer Mongolia, as well as in Hubei and Gansu provinces. One of its representatives claimed in 1899 that the mission was responsible for keeping up Christian work at twenty stations (three of these were located in the town of Guihuacheng and two in Baotou); the number of its baptised members amounted to fi ft y-three, and an additional ninety-nine were listed as inquirers. Th e mission employed sixteen native workers (evangelists, colporteurs and one Bible woman). Ten day schools (with all in all 177 pupils), ten Sunday schools (with no less than 217 participants), one orphanage and at least one opium asylum were all run by this mission.36 Th e central sections of the book consist of a series of micro-biographies of individual male members of this group. Each biography is devoted to a theme central to the understanding of their male gender identities and is founded on research into unique collections of sources. Th e scale of the investigation has been reduced in order to facilitate

36 Emil Jacobson, “Redogörelse för den svenska grenen af Th e Christian & Missionary Alliance”, in Kina konferensen i Stockholm den 4–8 mars 1899 (Stockholm: E. J. Ekmans förlags-expedition, 1899), pp. 224–31. introduction 17 a minute study of details. Th e works of Italian micro-historians have reminded us that a minuscule focus of attention does not diminish the general value and applicability of a study.37 Rather, the reverse is true. A seemingly narrow perspective allows me to reveal and to examine procedures that were more general in character, or to give rise to new sets of questions which to address to similar groups of men. Like many other contemporary historians I have chosen to work with diff erent categories of sources: letters, diaries and autobiographies. By working with not only one group of material, I have been able to see their careers from diff erent, and over-lapping, perspectives. Th is has allowed me to come closer to the actual ‘facts’ of history, but also, and more importantly for the present subject, to understand the inter-locking issues of class, gender and ethnicity from separate angles. It is to be hoped that my conviction that these men cannot be studied ‘on their own’ has already been revealed. Men, qua gendered beings, are here placed at the centre, but this does not mean that women and children are ignored; rather, I see these men’s relations with infants and female partners, or signifi cant others, as one important sight where masculinity emerge. Regrettably, my early intentions to make the relationship between these Western missionaries and Chinese men more visible, and to explore the meaning of this encounter, have been sadly disappointed. Th ere is today little (if any) Chinese archival material available that can help us to do justice to these relationships. It has only been possible to study the Chinese, among whom these missionaries lived and with whom they sometimes enjoyed close relations, through the writings of the missionaries themselves. Th erefore my perspective is limited. It is to be hoped that this unfortunate situation will change in the near future.

Th is book consists of six Chapters that oscillate between the micro- perspective of biographies to the macro perspective off ered by social analysis and the contextual perspective off ered by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century religious history. Chapter One begins with

37 For a useful introduction, see Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d’échelles. La micro- analyse à l’expérience (Paris: Gallimard le Seuil, 1996). Inspiration can also be drawn from German Alltagsgeschichte, see Alf Lüdtke (ed.), Th e History of Everyday Life. Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life (trans. William Templer; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 18 introduction a narration of the growth of missionary enthusiasm in nineteenth- century Sweden. Particular attention is given to the 1880s as a turning-point in the history of Swedish missions. Th is section explores the transatlantic dimension of the missionary interest in this Scandinavian nation, revealing the intimate links that existed between Evangelicals in nineteenth-century Sweden and their brothers and sisters in both Britain and America. To some extent this off ers an explanation of the outlook and religiosity of the men studied in Chapters Two to Five. Th e analytical heart of the Chapter targets questions pertaining to the social and family background of the recruits that were drawn to the IMA during the early years of the 1890s. Chapter Two presents a detailed discussion of how notions of domesticity and public activity came to be expressed in one missionary life. Th e centre of attention in this section is Olof Bingmark who was recruited to the IMA in 1892 when he was only seventeen. Once settled in China, Bingmark established a street chapel in Yanggao in Shanxi province, just south of the Great Wall, during the early months of 1893. In his correspondence we encounter not only a story of missionary failures and progresses; a constantly returning theme is his hopes of an ordered domestic life. Th ese dreams came to be fulfi lled when he married a fellow missionary, Elisabeth Eriksson, in 1896. In spite of being representatives of an impoverished rural population, this Chapter establishes that (lower-) middle-class notions came to inform their way of life in China and that Olof, on his own, tried to foster a clerical identity. Whereas the mission endorsed a strategy of identifi cation with the native population, Bingmark and his wife were reluctant to renounce the symbols of coveted European identities. Yet, by placing particular emphasis on the upbringing of their children, this part also reveals that this was a partial adaptation. Unlike many other missionaries this couple gave little attention to fostering a Western identity among their off spring; their exclusivist outlook thereby is put in another perspective. Th e Chapter ends with a discussion of how their heated religiosity may have contributed to the emergence of the contradictions in their lives. Chapter Th ree explores the life of Otto Öberg through the window of his and his wife’s preserved diaries. Öberg came from an agrarian background similar to that of Bingmark. He began missionary work in the same province in 1896. In 1899 he married Elisabeth Jacobson, also a missionary, who was the sister of one of Öberg’s male associ- ates. Th is Chapter explores the construction, and changing shape, of a introduction 19

(homosocial) male domesticity frequently to be found in these circles. Attention is also given to the changes produced by his marriage. He was not, in the same way as Bingmark, a man of letters, but he was a missionary who struggled to come close to the Chinese people. Th is Chapter demonstrates how non-Christian Chinese approached him, not as an instructor or a sage, but as an exorcist and a miracle worker. In these and similar undertakings Öberg explored the possibilities inherent within a male private sphere. In Chapter Four the question of the relationship between these men and the decidedly hyper-masculine adventurer milieu is addressed. Th e focal light is placed on the somewhat irregular missionary career of Frans August Larson. Larson was recruited by Fredrik Franson while he was employed as a construction worker in Stockholm; he travelled to China in 1893. At an early stage in his missionary life he started to work among the Mongolians. He settled in Zhangjiakou where he commenced pioneering work among the tribes living on the nearby plains. While in this city he met American missionary, Mary Rodgers, who soon was to become his wife. His intimate knowledge of Mongolian language and culture earned him a certain reputation; especially aft er the disruption brought about by the Boxer uprising, he was regularly commissioned to accompany Western explorers and adventurers on their expeditions into Mongolia. Larson, now in the employ of the British and Foreign Bible Society [hereaft er BFBS], established himself as businessman with a ranch in Mongolia. A paragraph is devoted to an examination of how Larson used contemporary adventurer genres in his various autobiographical compositions. Th is Chapter argues that a rigid distinction between the ‘faith mission’ men, in spite of their struggle to establish domesticity, and other categories of Western men moving on colonial arenas, cannot be upheld. Larson’s life in China and Mongolia testifi es to the breaking-up of this missionary venture. Prior to the destruction that followed in the wake of the Boxer uprising, disputes between these missionaries and their New York supporters had arisen. Disagreement had begun over matters of fi nance but also over questions pertaining to the organisation of missionary work. Chapter Five is somewhat diff erent in character compared to preceding Chapters. It contains a rudimentary biography of a missionary in China, but its object is not to present yet another ‘type’ of missionary manhood. Rather, it is an exploration of how one man came to revolt against ideals to be found within the IMA/C&MA venture on the grounds that they were unable to create and sustain what 20 introduction he understood as true manhood. Alfred Fagerholm, who had worked as an artisan before his departure to China, belonged to the least successful among this group of missionaries. Unlike the rest of the men that are studied in this book, he was unable to set up a permanent missionary outpost; hence, he was forced into peripatetic existence. Aft er his escape from the violence unleashed by the Boxers, a fl ight that was organised by Larson across the Gobi desert, Fagerholm found a new spiritual home within the rapidly growing Swedish Mission Covenant [hereaft er SMC]. Fagerholm was to return to China as a missionary in the employ of this agency. Th e Chapter is a close and contextualis- ing interpretation of how masculinity came to be a central theme in Fagerholm’s manuscript autobiography. In this narrative the writer turns against the project he had once been a part of. To Fagerholm, the IMA/C&MA suff ered by comparison to the SMC, a body that to him was governed by more orderly, patriarchal, principles; it emphasised the need for education, a secure fi nancial base and an appropriate Christian patriotism. Yet Fagerholm was still moving within the discourse of self-making; his own male ideals were close to those which Bingmark struggled to attain during the 1890s—a middle-class, patriarchal, quasi- clerical identity. Quite paradoxically, it is those very tenets that he sees as impossible to realise in a mission organised in the same way as the IMA/C&MA north-China venture. Th is man’s revolt is of importance since it reveals how self-making could become a disputed topic even within groups of low-class men and not only among more respectable observers; even more importantly, Fagerholm’s narrative uncovers the operation whereby such ideals of male self-making were driven to the margins of the Evangelical world. Th e fi nal Chapter places these men within a larger context where ideals of missionary work and the training of the missionaries were rapidly changing. Many infl uential writers within the missionary world cautioned contemporaries against employing those with little education and social furnishing in the foreign missionary enterprise. It is the contention of the fi nal Chapter of this book that this reaction, and the occasional censuring of these missionaries, should be understood in relation to several inter-locking changes—appearing as a tendency towards rationalisation, professionalisation and bureaucratisation— within increasingly infl uential sections of the Protestant missionary movement. Th ese alterations aff ected the gendered division of labour and the appearance of new models of masculinity within the missionary movement at large. Missionary masculinity was increasingly understood introduction 21 in terms of leadership, effi ciency, rationality and an ability to transcend the divisions of the Protestant world—the profi le of the ‘missionary statesman’ was born. Th is Chapter explores how this change came to eff ect the missionary movement at large, but also, in particular, how this aff ected the social/religious milieus from which the missionaries studied in Chapters Two to Five were drawn.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SWEDISH MISSIONARY REVIVAL IN CONTEXT

To you, Swedish people are now brought their call to join in this work benefi cial to all mankind. Value your fortune that the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee, while elsewhere darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people; so life up thine eyes and see those who are in need of the advantages that have been gained through Christianity. If you are zealous for the true enlightenment of your heathen brothers, and do you take part, together with the rest of Christendom, in this work that is in accordance with the will of God, then thou shall see, and fl ow together, and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the gentiles shall come unto thee.1 It was with words replete with reminiscences of the sixtieth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, a text that served as one of the readings for Epiphany within the Church of Sweden, that the Swedish public was introduced to the idea of forming a Swedish Missionary Society [Svenska missionsällskapet; hereaft er SMS]. In more than one way this notice heralds the beginning of a new era in the history of Christianity in Sweden in January 1835. If we read the names of the signers of this appeal we come to realise that the idea of foreign missions begun as an elite driven project; among the signers we fi nd representatives of the aristocracy and the episcopate, but more importantly also members of the bourgeoisie and two expatriate British Methodists, the one serving as foreign chaplain in Stockholm, the other with an established reputation of being a gift ed industrialist. By using modern means

1 “Till Dig, Swenska Allmänhet, föres nu deras uppmaning, att du ville deltaga i det menniskokära företaget. Wet Du wärdera sin lycka, att Herrans härlighet gått upp öfwer Dig, under det att mångenstädes mörker öfwertäcker jordena och mörker folken, så lyft din ögon upp och se, warkunsamt, omkring dig på dem, som sakna dina genom Christendomen wunna förmåner. Nitälskar Du för dina hednabröders sannskyldiga upply- sning, och deltager Du i den öfriga Christenhetens werksamhet för denna Guds wilja, så skall Du ock en gång se dina lust och utbrista, och ditt hjerta skall förundra och utwidga sig, när den stora hopen wid hafwet wänder sig till Dig, och Hedningarnas makt kommer till Dig.” Swensk Missions-Tidning 1:4 (1835), Appendix, p. 2. Th e text is replete with reminiscences of Isaiah 60.1–5. All translations from Swedish are my own. 24 chapter one of communication (Swedish Missionary Gazette [Swensk Missions- Tidning], begun in 1834, was one of the fi rst religious periodicals to appear in Sweden) these people brought a message of Christian obli- gation to the reading classes. To a nation that had now lost both its Baltic ‘empire’ and its imperial aspirations, they brought the idea of commitment to another, and better, kind of expansion. To a readership that had come to fear that their own country was hopelessly backwards, they conveyed an invitation to join the most advanced of nations in the fi ght for Christianity and civilisation. Fift y years later many of the objectives hidden beneath the surface of the epigraph had been realised. Many observers now found that the poor rural nation was well on its way to being transformed into a prosperous industrial nation. But the new society still experienced ‘birth pangs’: proletarisation, mass emigration and social unrest accompanied the advent of modernity in Sweden as it did in many other parts of Europe. Politically, new liberal-minded elites had started to assume stewardship. Th e old four-estate Parliament had been abolished and new, more democratic, forms of national government had been created. Missionary enthusiasm had been equally ‘democratised’; in the mid-1880s hopes nourished by early aristocratic patrons that foreign missions would be a popular movement had been fulfi lled. Many of them would have regretted that much of this zeal were now to be found outside of the Lutheran establishment; to others the formation of free- church bodies within which missionary piety prospered would probably have appeared as a sign of progress. New categories of men and women had come to regard foreign missions as not only the ‘highest’ expression of Christian charity, but also a fi eld of activity that suited their dreams and aspirations. As seems to have been the universal rule in the Protestant world: the arrival of missionary enthusiasm was coincidental to, and an integral part of, the processes of modernisation. Sweden was no exception in this case. Th e peculiar dynamism and fl uidity it created is necessary to the construction of ‘gap-men’ masculinity. Th erefore, we need to begin with a closer examination of the historical, social and theological contexts within which the enlistment of such men for missionary work occurred. swedish missionary revival in context 25

It was the Moravians that fi rst brought foreign missions to the attention of the Swedish population. Th e Moravian impact on the religious life of this nation dates back to the fi rst decades of the eighteenth century; the teaching of this ‘Pietist’ German group spread above all in the Southern provinces and had considerable a infl uence among the upper strata of society. Although not uncontested, Moravian piety was incorporated into the framework provided by the National Lutheran Church (which was the only possibility given the restrictive nature of Swedish ecclesiastical legislation). Th e news of Moravian missions was spread above all through the dissemination of the Gemein-Nachrichten produced at Herrnhut. Th is ‘publication’ was quite well known, at least among members of the Swedish clergy, before its demise in popularity during the fi rst decades of the nineteenth century. Local studies have also confi rmed that collections to Moravian missions were not an unknown phenomenon even in rural Swedish parishes.3 Leading fi gures struck by Moravian piety were also instrumental in bringing about the Evangelical Society [Evangeliska sällskapet] in 1808 and the Swedish Bible Society [Svenska bibelsällskapet] in 1815. Th ese bodies continued contacts with various Protestant agencies on the European Continent, but were in reality modelled on similar organisations in Britain. Th e latter society received the active support of BFBS. These bodies, composed by members of the aristocracy, the Church of Sweden clergy and people from an increasingly affl uent bourgeoisie, put the reform of manners and of society high on their agenda. A mixture of temperance, Bible reading and suppression of ‘vices’ (a term that covered many forms of unwanted behaviour including many traditional forms of agrarian amusement) was their recipe for future national prosperity. An active interest in foreign missions, as a form of Christian charity,

2 Unless otherwise stated this section is built on the recent multi-volume history of Swedish Christianity, see Oloph Bexell, Folkväckelsens och kyrkoförnyelsens tid (Sveriges kyrkohistoria, 7; Stockholm: Verbum, 2003); Anders Jarlert, Romantikens och liberalismens tid (Sveriges kyrkohistoria, 6; Stockholm: Verbum, 2000); Harry Lenhammar, Individualismens och upplysningens tid (Sveriges kyrkohistoria, 5; Stockholm: Verbum, 2000). 3 Erik Sidenvall, “Association i bondesamhället. En mikrohistorisk studie av mis- sionsintresset i Tygelsjö, cirka 1835–1855”, Historisk Tidskrift [Stockholm] 127:1 (2007), pp. 25–44. 26 chapter one was also propelled by these agencies. Th e fi rst Swedish-language missionary periodical was published under the auspices of the Evangelical Society during the 1810s; although short-lived, it proved to be of much signifi cance for the future. A new chapter in the history of the Swedish missionary revival begun when British Methodist George Scott arrived in Stockholm in 1830. Scott had been sent to Sweden as a ‘missionary’ to spread Methodist teaching and to establish Methodist groups. In order not to provoke unnecessary contacts with the Swedish courts, these objectives had to be concealed and his pastoral activity had to fi nd acceptable forms. Offi cially he became a foreign preacher, ministering to fellow nationals resident in the vicinity of Stockholm. Scott, however, revealed at an early stage that he was not content with such a circumscribed role. Within a year he had started services in Swedish (a measure that was actually prohibited) that were to be enormously popular. Scott’s manifest support for the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society did not stop him from assisting in the formation of the SMS in 1835. Many of the people that had been active in both the Evangelical Society and the Swedish Bible Society were now also found among the principal characters behind this body. Its periodical, Swensk Missions-Tidning was to reach high circulation fi gures in years to come. Its fi rst issues spoke of the breadth of its sympathies. Close links were established with the London Missionary Society, the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, the Basel Mission and the Moravians. Yet, this body enjoyed the support and protection of members of the Swedish episcopate whom actively used their infl uence to promote a more widespread interest in foreign missions. Th e active missionary endeavour of this agency was limited however. During the fi rst years of its life no foreign missionaries were sent out by this agency and most of its collected funds went directly to the support of various foreign societies; the remainder was used to support group of religious instructors to be sent to the native nomad population of northernmost Sweden. A predominantly low-church religiosity, retaining its Lutheran identity while drawing inspiration from both German Pietism and British Evangelicalism, went many times hand in hand with this intensifi ed interest in foreign missions. Th is new religious mood, with its desire for new forms of organisation and its intensifi ed pious practises, lived not in direct opposition to the National Church, though frictions could sometimes be brought into the open. Th e Swedish Church Law restricted the possibility of off ering religious gatherings beyond the swedish missionary revival in context 27 framework provided by ‘normal’ parish activities; even those just aim- ing at modest reform or supplementary devotional conferences had to proceed with extreme caution. Th e decision of the SMS to open for the possibility of forming local auxiliaries proved to be essential for the future development of Swedish Evangelicalism. In 1846 all in all twenty-seven such bodies existed, providing the low-church wing within the National Church with at least a rudimentary organisation outside the metropolis. Th e pan-denominational spirit which this body displayed was soon disrupted by the rising tide of Lutheran confessional feeling in Sweden. Originating in Germany with such names as E. W. Hengstenberg and Wilhelm Löhe, the fi rst prophets of confessionalism, in outlook oft en quite similar to an old-fashioned English High churchmanship, appeared on the Swedish arena towards the end of the 1830s. To some extent this change in climate led to the establishment of an additional missionary organisation, Lund Missionary Society [Lunds missionsäll- skap] (1846) based in southernmost Sweden. In spite of the self-conscious Lutheran position of this body, and its manifest support of the principles of the Established Church, its birth seems to have had more to do with a wide-spread feeling of discontentment at the inactivity of the Swedish Missionary Society (this body was not at all untouched by confessional feeling). Already within two years aft er its formation it had dispatched its fi rst two missionaries to China—Carl Joseph Fast and Anders Elgqvist. Th is mission was short-lived however and during the 1850s the Lund-based organisation de facto merged with the Swedish Missionary Society.4 During the early years of the 1850s we can observe that low church- men were growing increasingly dissatisfi ed with the present ecclesiastical situation. With inspiration from the Free Church of Scotland there were infl uential voices calling for an independent national church. Such bold moves were however stopped; instead, the low-church wing within the Church of Sweden organised the Swedish Evangelical Mission [Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stift elsen; hereaft er SEM] to help spread vital religion in 1856. Th is society took a decidedly Lutheran stand against Baptist influences that were at this stage rapidly gaining ground,5

4 For this short-lived missionary society, see Lars Österlin, Korstågen till Kina. Linjer i prostestantisk Kinamission (Malmö: Sekel bokförlag, 2005), pp. 19–46. 5 Th e Swedish Baptist Church was actually formed in the same year as SEM, see Bexell, Folkväckelsens, pp. 41–2. 28 chapter one emphasising infant Baptism and a general loyalty to the National Church. Th e SEM represented from the outset an attempt to organise the low-church movement from above. Travelling preachers were dispatched in order to spread the Evangelical message even further and to gather the faithful into numerous local ‘mission hall’ congregations. Th e introduction of a limited religious liberty in 1858—which created a legal room for alternative religious gatherings—made such a movement possible. Th ough the Stockholm based governing board took precau- tion to enforce loyalty to the goals of the national organisation, there were many lay preachers and local assemblies that acted on their own. In reality, the mission halls, which were many times run according to democratic principles, became independent bodies providing Swedish Evangelicalism with a network structure that was loosely tied together. Within a decade of the birth of the SEM many of these local groups had been radicalised and the attachment to the Church of Sweden was called into question. Th ese divisions led to the establishment in 1878 of the SMC, in reality a free-church communion. Th ough their main concern was the inner mission, both the SEM and the SMC energetically sought to promote foreign missions. SEM had dispatched its fi rst missionaries to what was then known as Abys- sinia already in 1865 and in 1881 the SMC opened it fi rst mission in the Congo in connection with the Livingstone Inland Mission. Simultaneously the growing concern for a missionary expansion led to the development of a missionary agency within the National Church proper. Th e Church of Sweden Mission was established in 1878 with an aim to be the missionary arm of the entire Church relying on its diocesan structure to promote its cause. Th is agency adopted, and developed, the work in South Indian that the SMS had run in connection with the Lutheran Leipzig Mission and later also begun work in the Natal province in today’s South Africa. During the 1880s the eyes of Swedish Evangelicals were increasingly turned towards China. Swedish groups hoping to establish missions in China turned to the CIM for support, inspiration and training. Some of Hudson Taylor’s works were read in Sweden and the appearance of ‘the Cambridge seven’ was not without repercussions in Scandinavia. Th e fi rst of these ventures originated within circles connected to the Student Missionary Society (1884) at Uppsala University.6 Its fi rst

6 For the connection of this group—that included future luminaries Karl Fries and Nathan Söderblom—to the Student Volunteer Movement and the World’s Student swedish missionary revival in context 29 pioneer and founder, Erik Folke, went to China in 1887 as an independent worker; his mission became later known as the Swedish Mission in China [Svenska missionen i Kina], an agency affi liated to the CIM. Th ree years later the (Swedish) Holiness Union [Helgelseförbundet] (1887)—an organisation with a predominantly rural fl avour inspired by the Holiness teaching of W. E. Boardman—and the SMC had sent its fi rst recruits to the Middle Kingdom. When placed side by side the Swedish Mission in China and the Holiness Union represent what Alvyn Austin rightly has labelled the two ‘faces’ of the CIM: whereas the Holiness Union recruited most of its missionaries from the lower segments of rural and urban society providing them with just a minimum of education, the Swedish Mission in China draw its recruits primarily from ‘respectable’ society. Many of the thirty-two missionaries it dispatched to China before the year 1900 came from the educated middle-classes. Th e members of its governing committee, based in Stockholm, were recruited from even higher social strata.7 Many of these had been brought to Evangelical Christianity by the ministry of Granville A. W. Waldegrave, Lord Radstock, who lived in Stockholm between 1878 and 1879. Th e Swedish Mission in China was to be an enduring legacy of the ‘Radstock revival’ of the late 1870s. Directly responsible for sending the men whom will be studied in Chapters Two to Five was a man called Fredrik Franson, a man whose evangelistic enthusiasm was second to no one’s.8 Franson was born in the mining district of Central Sweden in 1852. In 1869 he and his family found a new home in the US. Aft er a period of spiritual trial he began working as a travelling preacher during the early years of the 1870s. He later was to receive fi nancial support from Moody’s curch

Christian Federation, see John R. Mott, Th e Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (Addresses and Papers of John R. Mott, 1; New York: Association Press, 1946), p. 186; Ruth Rouse, Th e World’s Student Christian Federation: A History of the First Th irty Years (London: SCM Press, 1948). 7 Erik Folke (ed.), Sändebud till Sinims land. Svenska missionens in Kina 50-års berättelse (Stockholm: Svenska Missionens i Kina förlag, 1937), pp. 163–94. 8 Th ere are plenty of hagiographic material on Franson. For a contemporary biography, see Josephine Princell, Missionär Fredrik Fransons lif och verksamhet (Chicago, IL: Chicago-Bladet Publishing Co., 1909). Th e best scholarly study is found in, Emanuel Linderholm, Pingströrelsen i Sverige. Ekstas, under och apokalyptik i nutida svensk folkreligiositet (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1925), pp. 19–47. Edvard Paul Torjesen thesis from 1984 is more readily accessible for an international audience but sometimes lacks in critical rigour, see Edvard Paul Torjesen, “A Study of Fredrik Franson; Th e Development and Impact of His Ecclesiology, Missiology and Worldwide Evangelism”, Diss. Los Angeles International College, 1984. 30 chapter one in Chicago. Backed by his sympathisers he returned to Europe in 1881. For nine years he lived a peripatetic life as a preacher of conversion in Scandinavia and on the European Continent with an oft en heroic schedule of engagements. Much of this time was spent in his native land. Armed with the latest revivalist techniques, perfected by Moody, he brought a message inspired by some of the ideals of the Holiness revival and enfl amed his audiences with his apocalyptic teaching. When Hudson Taylor issued his call for more missionaries Franson was con- ducting a ‘campaign’ in Germany. Th e summon of the founder of the CIM made a decisive impact on the Swedish-American evangelist who, within months, had managed to assemble the German Alliance Mission and dispatched its fi rst men and women to China. Franson was back in the US again in September 1890. With undiminished zeal for the China mission, the recruitment of volunteers for what was to become the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance [today known as TEAM] began among those who participated in a series of two-week Bible courses that Franson off ered to Scandinavian immigrants.9 During these courses male and female recruits studied the texts that Franson considered central for evangelising work, learnt the basic techniques of the revivalist meeting and practised their new-found skills on a short evangelising tour. Franson’s requirements of the aspiring candidates were minimal: a letter of recommendation should be presented, they should be “thoroughly saved and set free” and they should have engaged in evangelistic work. Ideally they were to be between twenty and thirty years of age and they should be physically and mentally fi t.10 Franson manifestly struggled to enlist people of low social position and with little education, but who were zealous in their religion willing to endure the hardships of missionary life in order to convert the ‘heathen’. Th ese classes proved to be highly eff ective leading contemporary observers to talk of ‘Franson fl oods’ that started to sweep over China in early 1891.11 A new opening to enlist even more missionaries appeared when Franson learned that New York minister, A. B. Simpson, was in need of people for his own

9 Th e fi rst years of the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance are narrated in, Vernon Mortenson, God Made it Grow: Historical Scetches of TEAM’s Church Planting Work (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1994), pp. 25–42. 10 Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 564; Chicago-Bladet, 16 September 1890. 11 Austin, “Only connect”, pp. 281–313 [302–3]. swedish missionary revival in context 31 recently founded faith mission venture, the IMA.12 Franson promised that he was able to deliver 200 missionaries from Scandinavia content with living off the sum of $200 a year—even less than the CIM off ered its workers.13 Aft er Simpson had accepted his off er, Franson hurled back across the Atlantic to fulfi l his part of the deal. In the Swedish Evangelical press Franson inserted his call for devoted workers: An American alliance mission [. . .], that has already sent many workers to the heathens, has agreed to my proposal to support a larger group of Scandinavian missionaries in China. Th e number for which the dear brother [Simpson] believes support can be given through this mission, that is called Christian Alliance, amounts to no less than 200. However, all is dependent on God’s blessing through the diligent prayers of the children of God.14 Aft er a period of prayer and contemplation at a Norwegian mountain village, Franson began a series of Bible courses in the land of his birth in late-August 1892 in order to gather and train suitable recruits for this undertaking.

Who were these people that Franson recruited for the IMA? What were their social characteristics? In light of the scarcity of sources it is diffi cult to approach these, and similar, questions. We do not have the advantage of having an abundance of application forms, letters of introduction and mission boards’ decisions and recommendations which to consult in order to get a detailed picture. Th is mission did not keep any formal

12 Th e richest introduction to this faith mission is, Robert L. Niklaus, John S. Swain and Samuel J. Stoesz, All for Jesus: God at Work in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Over One Hundred Years (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1986). 13 Th is settlement, which in fact was a contradiction of ‘faith’ principles, was the source of later confl icts between the sending agency and the missionaries and their Swedish supporters. Th ere were frequent complaints about late or missing salaries, and a general neglect on the part of the offi cials of the C&MA. 14 “En amerikansk alliansmission [. . .], under ledning av den i Skandinavien bekante pastor A. B. Simpson, som redan utsänt många missionärer till hedningarna, har nämligen antagit ett av mig gjort förslag att underhålla ett större antal skandinaviska missionärer i Kina. Det antal, för viket den käre brodern anser att underhåll troligen kan erhållas genom denna mission, som kallas ‘Christian Alliance’, uppgår till icke mindre än 200. Dock är allt beroende på Guds välsignelse genom Guds barns ihålliga böner.” Trons Segrar, August 1892, p. 253. 32 chapter one records of its missionaries,15 and Franson himself paid little attention to their lives prior to their commitment to evangelistic work. In some cases we are left with just the names of volunteers. Since most of them had family names derived from patronymicon (the Swedish ‘-son’) they are virtually impossible to track down without knowing their respective dates and places of birth. Luckily, for a majority of those who began to work for this mission the situation is much better: out of the thirty-three Swedish men who went to China under the auspices of the IMA during the 1890s, it is possible to establish some details, however incomplete, for twenty-nine of them. Regrettably, we know even less about the women who came to be included in this group. For about a fourth of these female missionaries the sheet is a complete blank.16 If we combine the lists presented in the annual reports of the IMA/ C&MA, we can compose a list of all in all sixty-seven men and women involved in the ‘Swedish mission’ of this agency. Th irty-three men and thirty-four women. It has many times been affi rmed that women tended to be numerically dominant in faith missions. To quote Dana L. Robert: faith missions attracted far more women than men—women who were oblivious to denominational structures, who were usually restricted from regular theological education and ordination, but who felt strong calls to ministry and service.17 Yet, in his recent study of the CIM, Alvyn Austin has demonstrated that the quota of men and women working in this organisation during its fi rst decades were in fact more equal.18 Th is group is similar to the early CIM in another respect as well: neither the CIM, nor the Swedish recruits of the IMA, were predominantly young enthusiasts, as has sometimes been alleged. Arguably, some people in this mission were very young at the time of their enlistment, the youngest man only seventeen years (see Chapter Two); others were twice, or even thrice, his age. Eight of the male recruits (c. 28 per cent) were twenty-fi ve or above

15 The archive of the C&MA, today housed in Colorado Springs, contains no records of these men and women. Regrettably, the minutes of board meetings are also missing. 16 Information about these men and women has been gained from Anna Maria Claesson, Kinesernas vänner. En analys av missionens berättelse som ideologi och utopi (Jönköping: Jönköpings läns museum, 2001), pp. 323–43. 17 Robert, American Women, p. 195. 18 Austin, China’s Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society, 1832–1905 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans), pp. 205, 326. swedish missionary revival in context 33 at the time of their enlistment in 1892/1893. Th e average age at which they were accepted for missionary service was 23.3 years.19 In other words, a vast majority were born in the late-1860s or early-1870s. For the women, a higher proportion, 50 per cent, were twenty-fi ve or above in 1892/1893. Consequently, the average age of the female volunteers was slightly higher (26.5 years).20 In terms of the age of its missionaries, this group was not that diff erent from other, more middle-class, Protestant missions. Most missionary boards issued warnings against sending people who were above thirty to the missionary fi elds on the grounds that they would have diffi culties in adapting to a diff erent way of life and, above all, learning a new language. Given the fact that most missionary societies demanded college education, some even further ministerial training at a seminary, the dispatch of missionaries who were in their mid-twenties was quite common. In terms of social background twenty-one male recruits (c. 72 per cent) were rooted in agrarian society; eight were brought up in an urban environment. Th e overwhelming dominance of men originating from rural society is not meant to surprise. For Sweden (and indeed most of Europe and the US) to become a predominantly urban nation was still half-a-century away; in the 1890s, 63 per cent of its inhabitants still worked within the rural economy.21 For those with their roots in an agrarian social environment, twelve (57 per cent) came from families of free-hold farmers, a category of people who decidedly were hardwork- ing, but at the same time modestly prosperous. Seven (33 per cent) had parents who were croft ers or tenant farmers;22 two were brought up in families of rural artisans. Among those who were brought up in the cities only two can be connected to the middle-classes, whereas the rest had a working-class background with fathers mostly employed as unskilled labourers. If we take a closer look at the female missionaries a similar pattern emerge. Just as in the case of the men most women were brought up on the countryside in families of free-hold farmers, but a slightly higher proportion were born in an urban environment. Of the all-in-all twenty-four female workers for whom we know some

19 Th ey were in other words of about the same age as those students found in the early American Bible School, see Brereton, Training God’s Army, p. 79. 20 Compare Alvyn Austin, China’s Millions, pp. 325–26. 21 Sten Carlsson, Den sociala omgrupperingen i Sverige eft er 1866 (Samhälle och Riksdag, 1; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1966), pp. 281, 292. 22 Soldiers are included in this category. 34 chapter one details of their early history, eight had been born into families of city dwellers (33 per cent). Of these four can be said to have had a lower middle-class or middle-class background. As a whole the women tended to be positioned slightly higher within the social hierarchy than the men, even though that diff erence should not be exaggerated. In spite of the spatial distance that eventually came to sever these people from their original families, in spirit they were never far from each other. Links to parents and siblings were nourished through intense correspondence and exchanges of photographs. Th ese pictures became visible links to loved ones ‘back home’ to which were paid almost religious honours. Photographs eased the homesickness many of these religious workers experienced, and, in the words of one missionary: to have a collection of pictures of close relatives was to rec- reate fellowship and to be “in their midst”.23 A similar spiritual glow was not attached to letters from parents or siblings, but the days when correspondence arrived were decidedly red letter days for these people. Family links were present on the fi eld of their work in another, and much more apparent, way as well. We need not examine the particulars of these missionaries in great detail to be able to discover members of the same family becoming involved in this missionary venture. Four couples of siblings came to serve in this China mission together; the available evidence suggest that there were many more who dreamt of being assisted by brothers or sisters. Scholars examining the course of Swedish revivals have noted that these occurrences tended to be spread through groups of close relatives and their dependants;24 the observation above is a clear indication that even calls to missionary service were multiplied along similar lines. Since these men and women in general tended to fi nd loved ones among their fellow-workers on the mission fi eld,25 and hence to get engaged and eventually to marry, this added to the cocoon-like social structure of their missionary community in northernmost China. In such an environment feelings were likely to be both profound and complex. As Andrew Brown-Ray rightly has

23 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Himla Bingmark, 6 February 1894. 24 Jarlert, Romantikens, p. 67. 25 Aft er a few years’ service these missionaries would have been close to what was the average marrying age in their native land, see Christer Lundh, Gift ermålsmönster i Sverige före det industriella genombrottet (Lund: Lund University, 1993), p. 14. swedish missionary revival in context 35 pointed out: “Th e mission fi eld was an intense emotional landscape, the site of desire, separation and loss, for men as well as for women.”26 Powerful emotions only occasionally become visible in the documents left to us by these men and women. We may only guess what kind of wishes and yearnings are hidden beneath ‘innocent’ notes about encounters between young men and women, of how feelings of both satisfaction and of longing were hidden under the surface of narrations of long periods of itinerant evangelism and how mundane descriptions of life at the mission station eff ectively kept out of sight rivalries and struggles for power. To be sure, passions must have thrived within this secluded community. In terms of geography these future missionaries were all born in Southern or Central Sweden. No less than fourteen were born in the Province of Småland. Within this region there was one particular centre of strength: the rural parishes surrounding the municipality of Högsby, close to the Baltic coast, yielded no less than seven missionaries. A number of men and women also came from the regions surrounding Lake Mälar and the Province of Värmland. All, both the women and the men, came from communities where an Evangelical presence was established and within which the mission halls broke the religious unity of this hitherto almost monolithic country. It is however uncertain to what extent they had been drawn into Evangelical Christianity prior to their leaving the parental household. Judging from their own accounts and from contemporary reminiscences, a majority experienced conversion in their late teens or early twenties.27 Of the four men studied in detail in Chapters Two to Five, only Olof Bingmark appears to have found shelter with a local ‘free church’ congregation prior to his departure from his native Gotland. Even though direct connections at this early period of their lives are diffi cult to establish, we may speak of a more indirect infl uence as well. Th eir experiences of being brought up in communities where the fi ery teaching of travelling preachers and colporteurs was impossible to ignore, and in which tensions between

26 Andrew Brown-Ray, “Sex and salvation: Modelling gender on an Indian mission station”, in Amanda Barry et al. (eds), Evangelists of Empire?: Missionaries in Colonial History ([online] Melbourne: University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre, 2008), pp. 33–46 [42]. 27 See for example, E[mil] Jacobson and O[tto] Öberg, De svenska martyrerna i Kina år 1900. Jämte undkomna missionärers räddning och fl ykt (Köping: J. A. Lindblads förlag, 1901), pp. 21, 25, 34, 41, 53, 58 and 63. 36 chapter one the ‘converted’ and mainstream society were mounting, made way for future dedications to Christian life and service. Given the pivotal role that foreign missions played in all mushrooming Swedish ‘free church’ congregations, they would hardly have been completely oblivious of missionary work either. If Bingmark was the only one to have been a member of a local mission hall congregation, all the three men whose lives are explored in Chapters Th ree to Five had had some contacts with revivalist Christianity before departing from their respective places of birth. All of these missionaries had been working prior to their departure for China. For a vast majority of those born into the urban and the rural working-classes during the fi nal quarter of the nineteenth century manual labour begun at an early age. Some of them would have been as young as 12–13 years. Th ough they may have nourished dreams of further education, dire fi nancial need forced them to relinquish such hopes and ambitions at an early age. Sometime soon aft er having fi nished their mandatory schooling most of them would have begun working. Consequently, the men and women of the average age in this group would have been earning a living for more than a decade prior to their decision to become a missionary. At the time of their entry into the ‘adult’ workforce a majority left the parental hearth in search of employment, and/or training in one of the craft s, elsewhere. The cord that tied them to their parents were in most cases only gradually loosened; their fi rst positions may have been found in neighbouring parishes or villages; aft er that experience, most ventured further away. In a rural society that was becoming increasingly crowded, and in which the prospects for adolescents were uncertain to say the least, the rapidly growing industrial centres of Southern and Central Sweden off ered an almost irresistible attraction. Among the men we are presently studying, no less than nine former farm-boys ended up in a city—Stockholm of course proving to be the main source of attraction. A large number of those born into the working-classes stayed within similar social strata prior to their being accepted as missionaries. Out of the twenty-one men for whom we know their occupations before their departure to China, eighteen had been working as unskilled labourers or craft smen’s assistants. Only three men can be said to have lived in vicinity of ‘respectable society’.28

28 Among these we fi nd one lithographer, one clerk and one pharmacist. swedish missionary revival in context 37

Already prior to their involvement in this China mission we can notice a marked tendency among the working-class men to take up religious work. All in all fi ve former workers were engaged in itinerant evangelism in the latter half of the 1880s.29 Th e life of Magnus Bok prior to his departure for China in 1893 may appear particularly harsh, but his experiences were far from uncommon among this group of people. He was born into a family of tenant farmers living on the plains south of Uppsala, near Lake Mälar, in 1861. Already at the age of twelve he began working as a farmhand at a neighbouring village. Like many of the volunteers in this group (three of the men that we will meet in the following Chapters had lost at least one parent) he experienced profound loss early in his life. In 1874 his father died and temporarily Bok returned to the parental household only to migrate to Stockholm during the spring of 1875. At the age of fourteen, eighteen years prior to his commitment to foreign missions, we fi nd him working as an unskilled labourer living in the impoverished working-class district in the northern part of the city.30 Sometime during the 1880s his life shift ed course and he commenced religious work. In the church register for the year 1890 he is mentioned as an ‘evangelist’.31 Another representative of this category was Nils Kullgren who was born as the son of a free-hold farmer at Skillingmark in the Province of Värmland, close to the Norwegian border, in 1869. In his late teens he began working as a blacksmith’s assistant at a nearby village. In 1889 he partook in one of the fi rst Bible courses for evangelists off ered by C. J. A. Kihlstedt of the (Swedish) Holiness Union and henceforth served as a travelling preacher in the employ of that organisation. Th ree years later he moved to Stockholm and begun his studies at the recently established Missionary Training College of the SMC. His training was abruptly discontinued when Franson appeared in Stockholm during the autumn of 1892 and Kullgren was given an opportunity to take a “short cut to missions”, as the register of the SMC dryly states.32 For the women the pattern is again similar but slightly diff erent. Just like the men, women born in rural society tended to have moved to a city prior to their commencement of

29 Th is fi gure does not include those who begun working as evangelists between 1893 and 1896 (see Chapter Th ree). 30 Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet, Microcards 119835:3, 19836:3 and 111944:3. 31 Sveriges befolkning 1890 (database). Accessed 13 September 2007. 32 “en genväg till missionen”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv. Biografi er: Mis- sionärer i Kina, Vol. V, no. 33. 38 chapter one missionary work, but unlike their male fellow-workers a majority was employed in lower middle-class professions.33 Consequently, it should also be noted that the women were the better educated in this group. All-in-all six of them had received some secondary schooling before their enlistment; four had even gone to teacher’s college. By comparison, only two men had received some secondary schooling. Religious work was not unknown to these women either; three of them had worked either as Bible women or Salvation Army offi cers before assuming the identity of a foreign missionary.34 In other words, these people were not unacquainted with internal migration. Some of them appear to have been continuously on the move, and this applies not only to travelling preachers, for some time before their departure for China. If we look at the family patterns of these men and women, it becomes evident that they were no strangers to external migration either. Almost everyone came from families in which relatives had already left Sweden in search of better conditions in the US. Th ey belonged to the same social strata, and were born in the same regions, as were a majority of the emigrants.35 In fact, Swedish emigration had one of its over-all peaks at exactly the same time as these men and women were recruited for missionary service. In 1892 no less than 40,990 men, women and children (out of a population of approximately 4,800,000) left Sweden for the US.36 It was a time when large classes of people had come to realise that their future lay outside of their native land and during which, oft en exaggerated, reports of golden fi elds ahead added to the migratory enthusiasm. With friends and family gone, or contemplating a voluntary exile, the decision to leave Sweden for missionary work may not have seemed so drastic aft er all. It is clear that several of these men had considered emigration prior

33 One woman had worked as a milliner, two as assistants in department stores and four as teachers. 34 Th e nine female missionaries leaving Sweden for China in 1896 were supposed to have been working, at least for some time, as evangelists between 1893 and 1896. Th ese women are obviously not included in the fi gure above. It has not been possible to ascertain any details about their lives as religious workers; only one of them presented herself later to the home audience as an evangelist. See Trosvittnet, 1 October 1896. 35 Sten Carlsson, “Chronology and composition of Swedish emigration to America”, in Harald Runblom and Hans Norman (eds), From Sweden to America: A History of the Migration (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), pp. 1114–48 [1126]. 36 See Bidrag till Sveriges offi ciella statistik, Serie A 1851–1900; Historisk statistik för Sverige, I, Befolkning, Tabell B 2. swedish missionary revival in context 39 to their decision to volunteer for the IMA mission. Franson himself had portrayed mission as an alternative to emigration at his evangelist courses. Instead of going to America, his disciples were encouraged to go to other regions of the world making their home there and thus have the opportunity through daily life to show practically the diff erence between the non-Christian religions and the true Christian life and worship.37 Or in the words of one hopeful missionary candidate: “I am glad to have my America in China and to collect riches for the future life”.38 Missions provided a religious alternative to emigration. To employ the language of migration research: the ‘push’ factors that drove others to America contributed to the decision of these men and women to go to China. Furthermore, it should also be noted that the presence of family members in American added a surprisingly international fl avour to the lives of these people. Th ey belonged to an international, ethnic Swedish, community within which members had acquired cultural expertise in various fi elds, and the ability to move in a transatlantic world.39 American relatives may not always have been able to off er fi nancial assistance, but they did contribute to the settlement of some of the diffi culties that were to haunt this group during the 1890s. For relatively uneducated men and women that were about to encounter a, by-and-large, Anglo-American religious culture, that was decidedly a help. Th ese relatives also came to act as ‘role models’ how to behave in an alien, English speaking, cultural environment. Just like their compatriots in America, several of these missionaries were prepared to alter their family names to render them more in accordance with English usage. Yet, there was a duality in their encounter with the Anglo-American Evangelical world; several of them came to treasure the works of, above all, American religious writers and their (however limited) knowledge of English gave them an advantage in their

37 As quoted and translated in Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 309. 38 “Jag känner mig glad åt att få mitt Amerika i Kina och så få samla skatter för det tillkommande livet.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark (Sr.), 18 December 1892. 39 It is important to keep Ryan Dunch’ view of foreign missions and late-nineteenth century globalisation in mind, see Ryan Dunch, “Beyond cultural imperialism: Cultural theory, Christian missions, and global modernity”, History & Th eory 41 (2002), pp. 301–25. 40 chapter one encounter with Chinese offi cials. As future Chapters will demonstrate, it was far more common that this exchange ended in remorse and an increased commitment to customs and values they had known in their native land. Th is infl uenced their missionary work and made it even more ‘Swedish’ in character: their Chinese converts did not only receive the Gospel, but also a good deal of ‘Swedishness’.

III

Th e manifold links that tied these people to Swedish emigrant communities in the US are of importance also when we consider their theological profi le. As has been mentioned, Franson had been deeply inspired by American revivalism and through him, and several other travelling Swedish revivalists, these missionaries were connected to the transatlantic Evangelical world. News and movements travelled fast within this environment and much of late nineteenth-century Swedish revivalism drew inspiration from contemporary currents within Evangelical circles in Britain and North America. Th is observation leads us to consider how the theological profi le of these recruits refl ected contemporary currents within this international Protestant community. Did they share the doctrinal preferences of groups that were socially akin in the Anglo-American world? Should they even be counted among the ‘proto-Pentecostals’ (a term oft en associated with the C&MA)? The doctrinal preferences of this missionary company are just as diffi cult to chart as their social characteristics. Th ey wrote and published few statements of what could be regarded as declarations of a common faith; they composed no major works on Christian doctrine and none of their sermons have survived to posterity. Th is does of course not mean that they had no theology, only that we have to consult diff erent sources than we normally do when engaging in similar undertakings. Th e doctrinal notions that tied these people together (and which they had in common with sympathisers at home) and propelled their missionary enthusiasm permeate their published reports and their private letters. It is to these sources that we must turn when locating them within the contemporary Evangelical world. Th e fact that this company of missionaries composed no major theological studies or statements of faith is not just a testimony to their relative lack of education; rather, their unwillingness to engage in such tasks should in itself be understood in relation to some of their swedish missionary revival in context 41 fundamental beliefs. Just like their American sponsors these Christian workers believed in the alliance of all true (Protestant) Christians. Denominational boundaries were considered to be of little importance and the doctrinal diff erences that separated Christians from each other were in general regarded as of little importance. Th eir ideal was a pan- Protestant alliance of true Christians within which a degree of variance was permitted. While in China discussions of contested theological topoi, such as the question of infant Baptism, were in general avoided at their conferences. Th e only real exception to this rule is found in their attitude towards matters of apocalyptical speculation. A pre-millenarian understanding of Christian eschatology and a fervent expectation that the end was near fuelled their missionary zeal. To some of them, the anticipation of the imminent return of Christ turned out to be an all- consuming preoccupation. Th e available records of their conferences (however incomplete) reveal that such issues were regularly debated among these men and women; these discussions reached a peak in 1898, the year in which, according to Franson’s predictions, Christ would return. Th e frustration of such hopes did not alter their fundamental understanding of the proper interpretation of the consummation of human history however, although some of their most heated enthusiasm appears to have been somewhat dampened. Fundamental to the ideal of a Christian alliance was the notion that it should be composed of those who had been ‘born again’; Evangelical conversion was the rite of passage that opened the door to this imagined world-wide community of Christians. In a typical Evangelical manner these men and women recorded in great detail the time and place of this event and the circumstances that had surrounded it. It was the authenticity of this experience that was their foremost qualifi cation for religious work and the one thing that tied them most intimately to their supporters back home. According to their Evangelical creed, conversion involved both a recognition of human depravity and an acceptance of the believer’s total dependence upon the sacrifi ce of Christ for his/her salvation. Th is theological interpretation of the fundamental turning-point in their lives deeply infl uenced the ways in which they understood their evangelistic calling as foreign missionaries. At least during the fi rst years of their work, cultural diff erences were not considered; the Evangelical message of sin and redemption was simply considered to be the classic and unchanging Christian message. Th eir desire to spread this message among their listeners arguably created a great deal of confusion among their Chinese audiences, and a great deal 42 chapter one of impatience vis-à-vis Chinese codes of civility and general curiosity of foreign customs and ways of living (see further comments Chapters Two and Th ree). Given the facts that these men and women did co-operate closely with missionaries belonging to an organisation explicitly endorsing a Holiness theology, and that their social profi le resembled that of radical Holiness groups in the US and elsewhere, it may be worth while to try to establish the extent to which their religious outlook can be said to refl ect the concerns prominent in Holiness circles. Apart from their interest in apocalyptic speculation, connections can easily be established by examining their views on Divine healing. Never a central concern to the Holiness revival at large, the belief that human health could be restored through Divine intervention or that pre-emptive medicine, such as vaccinations, was unnecessary for the true believer, loomed large among radical Holiness groups.40 In Sweden the belief in Divine healing was at this time quite wide-spread, mostly through the infl uence of Boardman whose books had made a profound impact on many infl uential voices within the national Evangelical world. A majority of Swedish missionaries working in China towards the end of the nineteenth century appear to have regarded the use of medical aids as incompatible with Christian healing practises (such as prayers and anointment with oils). In the organ of the SMC, Missionsförbundet, we can fi nd the following narration, composed by one of its early China missionaries, of how they understood the topics of sickness and health: However, my wife wished that we should pray for her and anoint her with oil in the name of the Lord. Together with another brother I knelt by her bed and did in accordance with Jac. 5.14–15. Already while we were praying the illness diminished in strength and, to our great joy, her health improved signifi cantly. Th e medicine arrived while we were praying for her, but since we had entrusted this entirely into the hands of the Lord, we did of course not use it.41

40 For useful studies of the role of Divine healing among American proto-Pente- costals, see Raymond J. Cunningham, “From holiness to healing: Th e faith cure in America, 1872–1892”, Church History 43 (1974), pp. 499–513; Dayton, Th eological Roots, ch. 5. Th ere is a regrettable lack of studies dealing with the rapid growth of healing practises in Sweden. 41 “Emellertid önskade min hustru, att vi skulle bedja över henne och smörja henne med olja i Herrens namn. En annan broder och jag knäföll vid sjukbädden och handlade enl. Jak. 5: 14, 15. Redan under det att vi bad, vände sig sjukdomen, och hon begynte att betydligt förbättras till vår stora glädje. Medicinen anlände, medan vi just höll på att swedish missionary revival in context 43

Such convictions resonated closely with the teaching of A. B. Simpson, founder of the IMA, who understood belief in Christ as healer to be a part of the ‘full’, ‘four-fold’, Gospel.42 Consequently, the IMA, unlike the CIM, allowed its workers to proceed to their respective fi elds of labour without the protection off ered by vaccinations. Lack of medical preparations did not trouble the Swedish parties that were headed for the northernmost regions of Shanxi province. Th eir failure to recognise the merits of Western medicine did produce some tragic results; on at least one occasion there was a major outbreak of smallpox among these workers. It should be noted however that their belief in Divine healing powers did not stop them from using some medical aids in their ministry among the Chinese. At their opium asylums, for example, they relied on a mixture of prayers and drugs to aid those seeking their assistance.43 Th ough references to a strong belief in the power of healing are frequently to be found among these workers, allusions to a ‘second blessing’ following conversion, the foremost distinguishing mark of the Holiness movement, are not to be found. Franson had explicitly stated that sanctifi cation, in classic American Holiness teaching associated with the second experience of the Spirit,44 should be understood as a “normal walk or growth in grace, not as some new experience or some new status”.45 Th e Swedish evangelist here clearly followed Moody who appears to have showed little interest in doctrine of entire and sudden sanctifi cation.46 But at the time when Franson had started to recruit workers for the IMA, sanctifi cation was not the only interpretative framework within which the second outpouring of the Spirit was understood in Holiness circles. For those inspired by the ideas emerging from the annual Holiness conferences at fashionable Keswick, the second blessing had become associated, not directly with

be över henne, men klart är, att vi ej alls använde den, då vi helt överlämnat vår sak i Herrens hand.” Missionsförbundet, 1 September 1891, pp. 194–95. 42 Dayton, Th eological Roots, pp. 106–8 43 See Chapter Th ree. It should be noted that, unlike the early Pentecostals, they did not interpret Divine healing (and similar signs) in terms of missiology. Compare Gary McGee, “Pentecostal Missiology: Moving beyond triumphalism to face the issues”, Pneuma 16 (1994), pp. 275–82. 44 Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 25–7. 45 Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 317. 46 Stanley N. Gundry, “Demythologizing Moody”, in Timothy George (ed.), Mr Moody and the Evangelical Tradition (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), pp. 14–29. 44 chapter one sanctifi cation, but with an empowerment for Christian service.47 During the 1880s this understanding of the second blessing had gained widespread acceptance even among those with little knowledge of the Lake District meetings; the notion that the Spirit could provide the power necessary for Christian activism resonated with the energetic Zeitgeist of the era. Th e idea of a spiritual empowerment, although vaguely understood and associated with the primary experience of the Spirit at conversion, is a central and motivating belief among this group of Swedish missionaries. Most people drawn to revivalist circles in late nineteenth-century Sweden were inclined to believe that every born- again Christian was called to service and divinely endowed to fulfi l this task. Th e egalitarianism hidden within this notion of empowerment, that to a middle-class audience could be used to justify that religious workers were recruited from beyond the fringes of respectable society, were radicalised among these missionaries. It did not only justify their missionary task in the face of the suspicious and contemptuous opposition they sometimes met; in their writings we can see how the notion of a Spiritual empowerment merged with the radical notion that within the Spiritual world social hierarchies were turned topsy-turvy. It was not those with connections, education and a refi ned taste who were the ones best suited to fulfi l the Lord’s task. Christian service was best carried out by those of little social signifi cance, who, through their oft en troubled lives, had come to realise that they needed to rely solely on God’s grace. And so the language of humility became a language of spiritual worth. Otto Öberg’s comment about the companions that were to follow him to China is typical: “Th ey did, and do, not make a great impression, but if the Lord is allowed to lead and keep us down in humility something may come of us. For the Lord can create from what is not.”48 E. P. Th ompson has rightly said that: [C]lass happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are diff erent from (and usually opposed to) theirs.49

47 Anderson, An Introduction, pp. 28–30. 48 “Det såg och ser ej mycket ut men får Herren leda och hålla oss nere i ödmjukhet kan det nog ändå bliva något av oss ty Herren kan ju göra något av det som intet är.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 2. 49 Th ompson, Making, pp. 9–10. swedish missionary revival in context 45

With that classic defi nition in mind, we may even say that what is typical of this group is the way in which their interpretation of Christian humility became a class-like consciousness. Th is ideological expression of a collective identity could even provoke censures of those who questioned their inclusion into the missionary force. Th eir belief in the importance of humility actually turned into suspicion of those who did not come from the lower strata of society. In the opinion of the future superintendent of this mission, the always ecstatic Emanuel Olson, writing from Nanjing in the early 1890s aft er having met the fi rst group of Scandinavian Alliance workers: Even here there are probably some who grumble and ask what will become of this great host of simple but spirit-fi lled workers [. . .]—while we bless and praise God, who goes before us, and those who are faithful join in [italics added].50 People of ‘good birth’ and a solid education were not always welcomed among these men and women. When one of the ‘Franson missions’ enlisted a couple of solid upper-class pedigree, it was evidently necessary for Franson to point out to their companions-to-be that they were “real Hallelujah-Christians”.51 Th e vision of inverted hierarchies also infl uenced the ways in which they understood their missionary task. Franson had pointed at the actual situation in China: Some say that one must be very educated in order to win the educated Chinese. But it is in general not the educated Chinese any more than it is the educated Germans whom we must concentrate on winning, but the lowly ones of this world, those who are nothing. So it is here, and so it is in China.52 Th ey were to target not the elites, but those of little signifi cance—their social equals in China. Th is conviction even led Emanuel Olson to begin a tour of parts of Northern China. Accompanied by a party of Chinese evangelists he was to teach the missionary community at large the true way of the Lord: that it was His desire to save the poor and the destitute

50 “Många murra nog även här och undra vad som skall bliva av denna stora skara enfaldiga men andefyllda arbetare [. . .]—men under tiden lova och prisa vi Gud, som går före oss, och de som är av tron de gör så med.” Trons segrar 2, June 1891, p. 127. See also Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 618. 51 “riktiga Halleluja-kristna”. Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet, MS Hilma Anderssons arkiv. Hilma Andersson to Alfrida Andersson, 23 August 1898. 52 As quoted and translated in Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 481. 46 chapter one and that all the previous failures of Protestant missions were due to their aspiration to infl uence the upper crust of Chinese society.53 In conclusion, this was a group of Christian workers who embraced, at least during the fi rst years of their missionary endeavour, much of the ethos that prevailed in faith mission circles. Yet, in an international comparison, it was a company that was prone to favour some extreme views. Th e reasons for this radicalism remain obscure. It is most likely that some of their views should be understood in relation to the ways in which late nineteenth-century Evangelical thought was received in Sweden, but, just as has been discussed above, their theological views can also be interpreted as a vehicle to express (and create) a collective identity among a group of people who were painfully aware of their social marginality in the missionary world. When we now, in the following Chapters, proceed to consider identity processes among four individual members of this group, the ways in which some of their beliefs came to inform their understanding of who they were is important to bear in mind. Indeed, it could be argued that the ways in which their lives later were to be transformed reveal the frailty of this ‘proletarian’ Christian identity in the face of middle-class hegemony. For some of them their commitment to such notions was indeed transitional.

53 See Trons segrar, July 1892, p. 234. Letter dated 8 April 1892. Th is was probably the eccentric Swedish missionary Eva Jane Price encountered in July 1892, see Eva Jane Price, China Journal 1889–1900: An American Missionary Family During the Boxer Rebellion (New York: Scribner, 1989), p. 82. CHAPTER TWO

A PUBLIC MISSIONARY AND A DOMESTIC MAN OLOF BINGMARK, 18751900*

Daddy has not so much time to spend with little Elias for he has to study and return again to the chapel and sometimes travel to the villages. In the last couple of days daddy has begun to translate from English and arrange a guide to assist the Chinese in their studies of the Bible.1 Th ere were millions of middle-class men in Europe and American who, during the nineteenth century, could have expressed similar sentiment (save the religious nature of the work described) as the one captured in the epigraph. Th e adult man caught between the demands of the domestic sphere and the requirements of public life. It expresses in short the position of a man living within respectable society within which the concept of separate spheres tended to be regarded as essential. While the public sphere was the man’s domain, and, consequently, the private sphere a female responsibility, this division of gender specifi c roles did not exclude men from performing important tasks within the household. Even if the social context of the epigraph can easily be established, its exact sub-texts are complex and contradictory. Men tended to respond in a variety of ways to the roles to be performed in both the private and the public spheres. Th e home was everything from a sanctuary that could save men from the ugly demands of the outside world, to a prison where free spirits succumbed to the demands of female protocol. As Graham Dawson rightly as remarked:

* An abridged version of this Chapter has earlier been published by the Nordic Academic Press. 1 “Pappa har bara ej så mycket tid med lilla Elias, ty han måste studera ibland, åter igen ut i möteslokalen och någon gång till byarna, och på senare tiden har pappa börjat från engelska översätta och arrangera en hjälpreda för kineserna att studera Bibeln”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 27 November 1897. 48 chapter two

Th e intensity of feelings evoked by a wife and children might well under- cut a family man’s interest and competence in public life, and separation anxiety could transform the world into a ‘barren desert without them’.2 Contemporary advisers as to the nature of true manhood pointed at the delicate balance between the demands of the two spheres that all men needed to maintain; but the equilibrium was easily disturbed and excesses on both sides were frequently to be found. Th e man responsible for writing this introductory quote was Olof Bingmark, a former Swedish agricultural labourer who between 1893 and 1900 served as missionary in Shanxi province. Within his own life history this statement illustrates his own attempts at social advance, his appropriation of a Western middle-class ideology while living within Chinese society and his eff orts to combine such struggles with being a burning Christian spirit. In this Chapter we will follow how this man resolved these issues during his brief missionary life. Th e main source to this Chapter consists of the fi ft y-fi ve preserved letters which Olof and his wife sent back to his family who were still living on the eastern coast of the Baltic Swedish island of Gotland. Th ese letters have been supplanted by a lesser number of reports of Bingmark’s hand that were inserted into the Swedish Evangelical periodical Trosvittnet. To some extent additional information has been gained from other surviving documents related to the group of missionaries to which Bingmark belonged.

Olof Bingmark was born 19 March 1875 at Gothem, the fi rst-born of Niklas and Anna Bingmark. Aft er Olof two girls were born into the family: Hilma, who was to be particularly close to Olof, in 1876, and Anna in 1879. Socially the family belonged to the expanding segment of free-hold farmers. Th e Bingmarks appear at fi rst to have been reasonably well-off , but the step between modest prosperity and poverty was not a long one in late-nineteenth-century Sweden. In 1879, Olof’s father died and the family economy suff ered severely. Olof’s mother remarried two years later but not even that move could halt the decline of the family economy. In 1883 the church books record that she, together with her

2 Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure. Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 66. a public missionary and a domestic man 49 new husband, was living in a tiny cottage in a neighbouring village. Just like other proletarised rural youth the Bingmark siblings started working at early age. Soon aft er having fi nished their primary schooling, Olof was sent away to earn his living as a farm hand and Hilma began as a domestic servant.3 Th is experience stayed with Olof throughout his short life and was a constant reference in his refl ections about life in his native land. In what appears to have been a dark moment in his missionary career, Olof later testifi ed: “If the Lord did not support me, I would much rather wish to return home and [. . .] pick sugar-beets”.4 In most cases, however, his life in China gives witness to somewhat greater social ambitions than a mere return to the life of an agricultural labourer. At an early age Olof appears to have come to the conclusion that his options in Sweden were limited indeed. In 1890 a revival occurred at Gothem. Olof and Hilma were drawn into these Evangelical circles, and joined the nascent local mission hall congregation affi liated to the SMC. Th e third sibling appears not to have been lacking in interest, but was less inclined to attach herself to this group of people. In his letters home Olof frequently urged his youngest sister to take the decisive step and join the congregation of believers. In his fi rst preserved letter home he encourages Anna “to give your heart to Jesus, so that you may no longer serve the devil. Time is short, and when I get your next letter I want to hear that you are saved”.5 In spite of her brother’s wishes, Anna appears to have lin- gered on the fringes of Evangelical religiosity. From time to time this appears to have poisoned the relation between brother and sister; as a fervent revivalist, Olof could not suff er to have an unconverted sister, and she may very well have got tired of her brother’s religious rhetoric. Little is known of the kind of Evangelicalism Olof was fi rst drawn into. As a national organisation, the SMC decidedly belonged to the more organised and more tempered branches of Swedish revivalism, but conditions could of course vary greatly at the local level. Judging from his own comments, Olof appears to have been attracted to a more fi ery kind of Evangelical Christianity. His letters home speak of a fervent

3 Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet. Microcard 31510. 4 “Om ej Herren uppehöll mig skulle jag hellre önska mig hem och [. . .] hacka vitbe- tor”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 19 August 1895. 5 “lämna Jesus ditt hjärta, så du slipper att tjäna djävulen. Tiden är kort och när jag får brev vill jag höra att du är frälst”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark (Sr.), 5 November 1892. 50 chapter two apocalyptic expectation and a dualistic view of contemporary society.6 His early religious rhetoric is centred on notions of ‘sacrifi ce’ and the need for a continued and strenuous eff ort, on the part of Christ’s disciples.7 In one of his later letters he also mentions that, to him, revivalist Christianity became a road away from social inequality and servitude under priestly authority.8 His conversion experience seems to have involved a calling to become a foreign missionary. Here his involvement with the SMC became a problem. Contrary to several other branches of Swedish Evangelicalism, the SMC wanted missionaries who had received some schooling, pref- erably at its own Missionary Training College. Olof was too young to enrol at this institution at this stage (he was about fi ft een years of age) and the prospect of postponing his missionary dreams for several years was evidently too much for his youthful fervour. Olof consequently had to turn elsewhere in search of someone who could appreciate his enthusiasm; he appears to have found a sympathetic ear in local preacher Frithiof Söderdahl who urged him to turn to Fredrik Franson.9 We do not know if Olof himself had read Franson’s call to the ‘faithful’ of Sweden (see Chapter One). Regardless of how the information reached him, Olof became one of the many aspiring candidates that gathered in the town of Jönköping in Southern Sweden in November 1892 to partake in the activities off ered by Franson and a local Evangelical chapel congregation. Olof does not mention Franson in his letters back home. Even though they appear to have been kindred spirits, all attempts at defi ning the impact of this encounter on Olof’s nascent missionary identity is mere conjecture. Judging from his letters, what appears to have made an impression on this young man was the religious life off ered in Jönköping, a city that already at this time had developed a reputation for being the leading revivalist city in Sweden.10 What seems

6 See for example Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark (Sr.), 5 November 1892; Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark (Sr.), 19 November 1892. 7 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark (Sr.), 18 December 1892. 8 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark, 19 August 1895. 9 K.-G. Vestergren, “Olof Bingmark—ett missionärsöde”, Gotlands julnummer (1960). See also Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 5 November 1892. 10 For an insightful study of the religious arena of this city, see Göran Åberg, Från Åttital till Åttital—kyrkligt liv i Jönköping under hundra år (Växjö: Växjö stift shistoriska sällskap, 1988). a public missionary and a domestic man 51 to have caught his attention was above all the sense of ‘brotherhood’ that he saw dominating in the lives of the ‘believers’.11 Aft er having fi nished the course and done his mandatory preaching tour of the rural hinterland, Olof became one the successful candidates who were selected to begin life again as missionaries in China. He partook in the farewell meeting off ered by the local congregation,12 and sailed in January for Southampton and few weeks’ training in what was, in these circles, seen as the prime language of all missions—English. On 5 March 1893 he left the shores of Britain for China.

What could Olof have known about China at this stage? We know that the congregation he met in Jönköping for some time had been developing an interest in China. Svenska Posten, a religious journal produced in that town, gave a lot of attention to foreign missions, China in particular. Several publications produced by the CIM were read by members of this group both in the original but also in Swedish translation. In November 1889, Hudson Taylor even had made a brief appearance. Th is congregation had also close links with the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance.13 Members of the Jönköping assembly expressed a view of China and the Chinese that prevailed among Evangelicals throughout the Western world. Th e Chinese, like all other ‘heathens’, were to be pitied. They suff ered from the conditions that seemed to be the necessary outcomes of non-Christian society—cruelty, ignorance and oppression. But it was their spiritual state, above all to fervent pre-millenarians like Olof, that was their main concern. Without the Gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection, they were in the imminent danger of eternal condemna- tion. Th e need of the ‘heathen’ was a call to European and American Christians to go out and save their fellow men from that awful fate.14

11 See for example Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark (Sr.), 18 December 1892. 12 Th e farewell service in Jönköping is briefl y described in, J[acobsson] and Ö[berg], De svenska martyrerna, pp. 39–42. 13 Claesson, Kinesernas vänner, pp. 52–67. Hudson Taylor’s visit is mentioned in Taylor, Hudson Taylor, pp. 474–77. 14 Claesson, Kinesernas vänner, pp. 75–99. See also Kenneth Nyberg, Bilder av Mittens rike. Kontinuitet och förändring i svenska resenärers kinaskildringar 1749–1912 (Göteborg: Historiska institutionen, 2001), pp. 108–14. 52 chapter two

As has been pointed out, this Evangelical vision of other cultures, with its manifest Christian universalism, diff ered from more secular, ‘orientalised’, images.15 Everyone, regardless of ethnic origin, could be counted among God’s children. Nevertheless, this did not entail that the Westerners of this religious sentiment could not express more than a degree of cultural superiority. Even though they stressed that everyone was in need of conversion, Asian and European alike, and that Christianity should be separated from ‘civilisation’, they would recognise the benefi cial impact centuries of Christianity had had on Europe and the US;16 occasionally, the ‘character fl aws’ created by ‘heathen ignorance’ became suspiciously similar to racial characteristics. In his fi rst letter home from China, Olof reveals some of the tensions within this Evangelical frame of mind: Th e Lord is a wall around those who belong to him in the midst of a crooked and perverse kind, who do all sorts of mischief (like at the funeral, going on right now, during which they drum and blow all kinds of pipes and make a terrible noise, whereas people in Sweden show a certain degree of sacred seriousness at such occasions).17 What may have been more important for Olof’s early view China than his brief encounter with the Evangelicals of Jönköping, were the reports on Swedish missionary work that by now had started to appear in the religious press. Olof was probably not ignorant of the letters and reports written by Swedish missionaries already present in China. In these communications the readership could follow the missionaries on their way to China, how they were received in the new land and how they, eventually, began missionary work. Some probably read with interest the more adventurous stories describing the life of an itinerant evangelist in inland China. It was an unfamiliar landscape, spiritu-

15 Cox, Imperial Fault Lines; Lauren F. Pfi ster, “Rethinking mission in China: James Hudson Taylor and Timothy Richard”, in Andrew Porter (ed.), Th e Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 183–212; Andrew N. Porter, “‘Cultural Imperialism’ and Protestant Missionary Enterprise, 1780–1914”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 25:3 (1997), pp. 367–91; Stanley, Th e Bible and the Flag. 16 Hutchison, Errand to the World, pp. 112–18. 17 “Herren är en mur om de sina ibland ett vrångt och horiskt släckte, som har sina alla möjliga tänkbara hyss (som vid begravning, som just pågår, så de trummar och blåser i ett slags pipor och för ett förfärligt oväsen, då de i Sverige däremot har ett visst heligt alvar [sic] vid sådana tillfällen.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 20 August 1893. Olof is here quoting Fil. 2.15. a public missionary and a domestic man 53 ally, socially and geographically, which these workers encountered in distant Asia, but by using images already known to their readers they tried to make the foreign know to their supporters back home. Images from rural Sweden were used to introduce Chinese geography, climate and agricultural landscape.18 In order to make the crowded places of Chinese towns comprehensible to their readers, the image of “a large auction” could be used.19 However, nothing of what was written by these men and women could have prepared Olof and his companions for the scenes and the events that awaited in Shanghai. As one of Olof’s fellow travellers later recalled: I had read in school about the Chinese, how many there were, and that all men wore a long pigtail down their back, but I had not thought much about that. When we landed in Hong Kong there was the Chinese with the pigtails sure enough, and when we landed in Shanghai and saw the crowds, I began to realize that there were many.20 Th eir fi rst encounter with China, though this took place in Shanghai which was much more ‘European’ than the towns they were later to inhabit, must have been a chock and just as dramatic must their welcoming have appeared. Aft er the steamer had anchored the newly arrived were escorted to the comfortable headquarters recently erected by the CIM. While in Shanghai the male members of this group had their heads shaven; dressed in Chinese garments, which included a cap and a fake pigtail, they were immortalised for the benefi t (and curiosity) of the home audience. With a humorous twinkle Olof sends a letter back to his sisters that included a photograph of “a Chinaman”.21 In spite of the eff orts all faith missions devoted to transforming the outward appearance of their recruits, the traces of the ‘Westerner’ were not so easily eradicated. We need not doubt that his sisters recognised the poorly disguised farm boy that appeared on the picture, and the Chinese were only too aware that the big noose and blue eyes did not belong to one of ‘their own’.22 Th ere is something farcical about these

18 See for example Missionsförbundet, 16 March 1891, p. 67. 19 “en stor auktion”. Missionsförbundet, 1 April 1891, p. 75. 20 Quote taken from August Larson, “Autobiography” (copy with the author). Compare Austin, “Saving China”, p. 11. 21 “en kines”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 4 November 1893. 22 For the ‘spectacle’ of the missionary in nineteenth-century China, see Reinders, Borrowed Gods, pp. 175–90. 54 chapter two attempts at transformation and mimicry; yet, at the same time, they give testimony to the missionary theory of identifi cation which these men and women were supposed to embrace. In theory, their lives were to resemble as closely as possible the conditions of the ordinary people to whom they were sent to minister. For a short time before the return of Christ they were to live among the Chinese as a native, without the status and the protection granted to other Westerners, in order to save as many as possible from Divine wreath and judgement. Even though we can present many examples of how these faith missionaries came to live in close contact with local society, we have to ask ourselves if the members of this group ever were truly comfortable with this missionary ideal. Olof’s letters written during his fi rst months in China reveal an unwillingness to understand the cultural traditions of his new fi eld of action that eventually turned into an intense dislike of the Chinese. In spite of his missionary enthusiasm, in years to come Olof did have diffi culties in accepting Chinese customs and his recognition of the superiority of Western civilisation and way of life seems to have been growing. Furthermore, to be forced to conform to the outward habit of the native population touched the fundamental strata of their identity. To rapidly be forced to renounce the markers of their cultural habitat was met with resistance; most of the documents these men and women have left us reveal their increasing support of manners and habits that they understood as ‘Swedish’. Most of them came to modify their Chinese dress and introduce some details that reminded them of home and, at the same time, marked distance towards the native population. Olof abandoned already the following year at least one Chinese custom and had his “hair in a Swedish manner”.23 Did the men among this group also understand the traditional Chinese dress they were forced to wear initially as inherently ‘feminine’? It is diffi cult to fi nd direct references to such a view in the various documents produced by these missionaries, but that does not necessarily mean that notions of gender did not inform their revolt. Th eir frequent allusions to nationhood when they justifi ed their departure from what was the prescribed code within these circles can be seen as incorporating the very notion of manhood. To them it went without saying that it was decidedly more manly to be a Teutonic Swede than a Chinese, and therefore more direct references

23 “håret på svenskt manér”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, n.d. [1894]. See also Austin, China’s Millions, p. 357. a public missionary and a domestic man 55 to gender, and possibly a much dreaded eff eminisation, were not called for. Nationhood was an eff ective container of manhood. Now dressed as Chinese they were henceforth to travel to their destination as Chinese—another ordeal for which these workers were ill prepared. From Shanghai they were to go north by steamer to Tianjin. In order to avoid unnecessary expenses the leader of the group decided that they were to go “third Chinese class”.24 From Tianjin they travelled on foot fi rst to Beijing, where passes to the inland were secured, and aft er that the long way to Salaqi in Inner Mongolia. Immediately upon their arrival at this destination their language training begun. Assisted by fellow Swedish missionary Nathanael Carleson, of the (Swedish) Holiness Union, and by Chinese tutors they were to acquire the new language as quickly as possible. In February 1894 Olof informed his siblings that he had passed the fi rst of the all-in-all seven exams in the CIM system and was in training to gain his second degree. As a part of their education they were expected to use their classroom knowledge for evangelistic purposes as speedily as possible. Even though he realised that his language skills so far were limited he had, nevertheless, been able “to witness occasionally, conduct prayer-meetings and gather the children to Sunday school” he informed his sisters.25 In another letter Olof also states that he, together with a more experienced companion (possibly a man called P. E. Ehn, who had been in China since late 1892), had briefl y tasted the life of an itinerant evangelist.26 But already a month aft er he wrote these comments, Olof and his partner had rented a house and opened a mission of their own.27 Th e strategy of the IMA was to set up missionary outposts in hitherto un-evangelised localities; sent out two by two (in the manner of Mark 6.7) from a regional centre, the missionaries were to acquire a house and start gathering a congregation—a system to organise the work that may have been cost eff ective but demanded the utmost of

24 “tredje Kines-klass”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 13. 25 “vittnat någon gång och ledit [sic] bönemöten samt samlat barnen till söndags- skolan”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 6 February 1894. 26 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 9 April 1894. Th is journey is actually briefl y mentioned in Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly, 29 December 1893. 27 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 9 April 1894. 56 chapter two entrepreneurial skills on the part of the missionaries themselves. Th e two Swedish missionaries began their work in the town of Yanggao, just south of the northern arm of the Great Wall, in Shanxi province. Given both European and Chinese notions of propriety, and as long as the missionaries stayed unmarried, men’s and women’s missions were separated. Th erefore Olof and his companion formed an all-male household, and, without doubt, shared many domestic duties between them. In spite of such divisions between men and women, their life as missionaries provided plenty of opportunities at socialising with members of the opposite sex. To travel to a nearby station in order to visit fellow workers of the other sex appears to have been a much valued diversion—they were, aft er all, most of them of the marrying age. At the time Olof arrived in China the IMA was a loosely organised body. In theory they were to be divided into companies of ten who worked under the supervision of a superintendent, a more experienced missionary “who can speak and write English”;28 in reality his responsibility was to be much more extensive. In 1894 that post was occupied by Emanuel Olsson, a young University graduate who had been in China since 1890.29 Neither this man, nor his successor, Emil Olson, had the capacity to lead this enterprise. Th e contacts between the superintendent and the local missionaries appear to have been limited; at one stage Olof even mistook Hudson Taylor, whom he had met at a conference, for the ‘real’ superintendent.30 Th is meant that the steering function of this mission came to rest with the conferences which these workers organised among themselves. Th e centre of their activities was later to be located to the town of Guihuacheng in Inner Mongolia and it was here that their annual conferences were to take place. We know not much about what was discussed during these meetings. We know that services in both Swedish and Chinese (and occasionally also in English) were held, that matters of discipline and some theological issues were discussed. Th at the male members occupied the most prominent positions, and always played the leading roles, did not entail that the women were completely silent. It appears also that questions of the relocation

28 Th e Missionary Crusade: Annual Report of the International Missionary Alliance (New York: n. p., 1892), p. 20. 29 For this man, see August Karlsson, Meddelanden från Kina angående Fil. Kand. Em. Olssons missionsverksamhet och död därstädes (Helsingborg: N. Jönssons boktryckeri, 1894). 30 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 2 May 1895. a public missionary and a domestic man 57 of the ‘forces’ were resolved at the conferences; this gave this mission a markedly more ‘democratic’ fl avour than, for example, the CIM, where the ordinary members were moved around like chessmen with few opportunities at infl uencing decisions as to their whereabouts. Th at Olof and his companion were able to start a new mission was a testimony to the fact that they had managed to fi nd their way through a transitory phase that to others became a diffi culty;31 their real task of creating a Christian congregation now laid before them. In spite of this victory it is evident that Olof did not fi nd every aspect of missionary life as easy as hoped for. To his sister he confessed: “It is burdensome to be one’s own and to take care of everything. For my part I have always enjoyed being a part of a larger family, because I love family life above all else.”32 Such remarks are in many ways typical of most male Swedish missionaries at this time. In terms of masculinity it was the image of the married man and his position within his family that occupied the foremost position. Within the missionary world there was little room for the playfulness and irregularity of the “young man’s masculinity” that historian Ella Johansson has found among Swedish workers at this time; the ideal was the mature and responsible domestic man.33 Th ese workers wanted to have a secure base in their lives and a small, but steady, income from their fi nanciers (I have found no evidence that indicate that the members of this group had embraced the ideal that they were to live of ‘faith’, trusting that God will provide). But their concerns were not only confi ned to the purely material; they were also motivated by considerations of the importance of reaching a proper family position. Even though Olof never complained of his companion, he was not satisfi ed at living in a homosocial household. In a letter he apologised for the circumstances under which he was living at present: If I get, by-and-by [sic] [. . .], a nice maid [Olof actually uses the Swedish “kammarjungfru” (chambermaid) here], I will give thanks to God and

31 See for example, Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”. 32 “Det är ju påkostande också att vara sin egen och man får lära sig att hålla i ord- ning allt. För min del så tyckte jag bättre om då jag var en av de många i en familj, ty jag älskar familjelivet framför allt annat.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 9 April 1894. 33 Ella Johansson, “Arbetare”, in Jørgen Lorentzen och Claes Ekenstam (eds), Män i Norden. Manlighet och modernitet 1840–1940 (Möklinta: Gidlunds, 2006), pp. 112–32. 58 chapter two

hope that I will live in much better conditions than at present, and invite you to come and visit.34 Olof had of course much more than a mere sojourn from his favou- rite sister in mind when he wrote these comments. In a later letter he pointed out that if she chose a missionary life, she “could bring the happy message to many an un-enlightened sister here”. What may have been equally important for Olof himself was that, as his sister, she could live with him at the station.35 Th ese hopes for a partially united family in China came to nothing; nevertheless, a few months aft er he had invited his sister (in February 1895) his domestic dreams came one step closer to materialising, even though the eventual outcome may not have been exactly as he had imagined it. At a conference in May 1895 Olof became engaged to Elisabeth Eriksson, a fellow missionary nine years his senior. Elisabeth Eriksson remains a rather shadowy fi gure. She was born outside Falun in Central Sweden in October 1865 and she seems to have shared many social characteristics with her future husband. Before she went to China she served as a domestic servant in Stockholm. It is interesting to note that Olof, unlike some of his brothers in the much more organised board missions,36 married someone who was his social equal. Olof appears at fi rst to have been lukewarm in his attachment; he confessed: “As a matter of fact, she has been much more devoted to me than I to her; it would not have been her if it just had depended on me.” Nevertheless, he saw the betrothal as inspired by God and expressed a feeling of being satisfi ed at this opportunity to be able to reveal the merits of a “sanctifi ed family life” in “this land of sin and heathendom”.37 In other words, a respectable domesticity became a missionary strategy—their married life was a part of their ‘witness’ to the ultimate truth of Christianity—and thereby its importance was

34 “Får jag by-and-by [. . .] en liten trevlig kammarjungfru så tackar jag Gud och hoppas då att ha det bättre att bjuda dig att hälsa på här än vad jag har nu.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, n.d. [1894]. 35 “Du kunde bringa det glada budskapet till mången förmörkad syster här”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 27 February 1895. 36 Line Nyhagen Pirelli and Jon Miller, “Piety and Patriarchy”, in Huber and Lutkehaus (eds), Gendered Missions, pp. 67–113. 37 “Men egentligen har hon varit mera fästad vid mig än jag vid henne, ty det hade nog inte blivit hon om det i allt skulle bero på mig.” Second quote: “helgat familjeliv”; third quote: “detta syndens och hedendomens land”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 12 July 1895. a public missionary and a domestic man 59 further underscored.38 His feelings of uneasiness however towards being united to this woman did not die away quickly. Even though he praised the merits of his wife-to-be in his letters home, and thereby trying to convince himself, occasionally, his correspondence seems to suggest that she was in reality a compromise.39 At the same time as Olof’s domestic aspirations were rapidly ripen- ing, we can also see signs that his attachment to Western culture, and Swedish customs in particular, was growing. Even though he asked Hilma to tell his supporters back home that he “felt like one of the Princes of the King of Heaven”,40 in more personal communications he could complain greatly. If possible, Olof’s fi rst hand experience of China made him even more hostile to the Chinese at large, “this half- civilised people of heathendom”.41 Furthermore, his evangelistic work did not live up to his expectations. To convert the ‘heathen’ was not as easy as hoped for. Sometime during 1895 he eff used: You have to realise that it is not so joyful here as many believe. We, I speak of the entire company now, have now been here for two years and have not yet fully learned the language. Indeed, we have a grounding that is not to be despised, but then it is diffi cult to get the people to come to the meetings.42 In such a situation we should not be surprised that Olof nurtured his ‘Swedishness’. Occasions when he was given an opportunity to meet fellow Swedes, such as the periodically returning conferences of IMA missionaries,43 and journeys to nearby mission stations, were valued as

38 Th ere is a lack of studies aimed at understanding the Christian family as missionary theory. A most fortunate and recent addition is found in Dana L. Robert, “Th e ‘Christian home’ as a cornerstone of Anglo-American missionary thought and practice”, in Dana L. Robert (ed.), Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706–1914 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 134–65. 39 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 27 August 1895. 40 “jag mår som en av den himmelske konungens prinsar”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, n.d. [1894]. 41 “detta hedendomens halvciviliserade folk”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 27 December 1895. 42 “Du må tro det är ej alltid så glädjande här som många kan tro. Vi, jag talar om oss i allmänhet, har nu varit här i över två år och har icke ännu på långt när fått språket till fyllest. Visserligen har vi en ej så liten underbyggnad i språket nu, men då är det svårt att få folk att gå till mötena.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, n.d. [1895]. 43 Th e minutes of one such conference are published in Th e Christian and Missionary Alliance Weekly, 4 November 1899. 60 chapter two times of spiritual recovery.44 But what Olof appears to have treasured in particular were those events—such as Christmas and birthdays—during which the traditions of his native land could be brought to life. Porridge, coff ee and sponge-cake were welcome delights, reminders of what life could be like at home. At such times even the presence of native helpers—even his Chinese evangelist—was seen as an unwanted intrusion.45

III

In March 1896, Olof Bingmark turned twenty-one. He had at that time been in China for two-and-a-half years; in May that year he was to be married to Elisabeth. Olof had now reached, several years earlier than most men of his social background, the coveted position of the married man.46 Aft er the ceremony the couple took up residence in Yanggao; together they now assumed responsibility for the work previously carried out by Olof and his male colleague. In his letters home he frequently described how much he enjoyed ‘real’ domestic life.47 But the life of the recently married couple was not only joyfulness. In October, Elisabeth had a miscarriage and just a few days later Olof was forced to embark on a seven week long preaching-tour that took him as far as Beijing.48 Even though Bingmark enjoyed such opportunities to preach, sell Bibles and distribute tracts, the letter he composed just aft er he returned is fi lled with his aversion towards the hardships he had endured while travelling. To be with his wife again was a relief. As you probably would have guessed, when I came back home my old lady had made things nice and neat, a properly made Swedish bed et.c. and a real Swedish woman from Dalecarlia, yes, that was the best of all.49

44 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 2 May 1895; Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 2 May 1896. 45 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Anna Bingmark, 25 March 1895. 46 Lundh, Gift ermålsmönster i Sverige, p. 14. 47 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 29 June 1896. 48 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 5 October 1896; Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 28 November 1896. 49 “Då jag kom hem förstod du nog att gumman min hade det nätt och trevligt eft er vanligheten, en riktig svensk uppbäddad säng m.m. och vad mera en riktig svensk gumma a public missionary and a domestic man 61

A few months later this convinced pre-millenarian confessed that he had started to think: “It would be fi ne if Jesus could just wait a few more years so that I may enjoy this heaven that Elisabeth and I have within our four walls.”50 In August 1897 the fi rst of Elisabeth’s and Olof’s two children, Elias, was born. Even though the young father enjoyed the company of his son, his missionary tasks diminished the time which they could spend together. For Elisabeth one may have expected that the appearance of a child would have entailed that her domestic duties were even more emphasised (see further comments below on their relationship with the children). Th e available evidence suggest that she did not willingly relinquish all her missionary responsibilities. Already two months before Elias was born she told one of her husband’s sisters: “I will not do less for the Lord now as a married woman than before, because Jesus is soon here and will bring his reward.”51 Numerous scholars have remarked that much female missionary work was founded upon the idea of an extension of the ‘private sphere’; their work as missionaries was but a natural outfl ow of the caring role of the mother and wife within the family. However, most scholars have hitherto not paid suffi cient attention to the fact that this pattern was located primarily within certain strata of society; at this time the ideal of gender specifi c roles was to be found above all among members of the urban middle-classes and not in the same way among the rural population. Even if nineteenth- century agrarian Sweden knew a division between the public and the private (and hence also a division between the male and the female) the boundaries between these arenas were fl uid; the rural population was in general less inclined to favour a dichotomised division of labour between men and women then were the urban middle-classes.52 An agrarian gender order may also help us understand Elisabeth’s decision to continue working aft er her marriage. Th at was only what the married

från Dalom, ja, det är ju det bästa av allt.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 28 November 1896. 50 “Det vore bra om Jesus dröjde än några år så jag fi nge något njuta av den himmel som vi, Elis och jag, har inom fyra väggar.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 15 June 1897. 51 “Jag vill icke göra mindre för Herren nu sedan jag blev gift än förut, för Jesus är snart här och har sin lön med sig.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Elisabeth Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 23 June 1897. 52 Ann-Catrin Östman, “Bonden”, in Lorentzen och Ekenstam (ed.), Män i Norden, pp. 77–111 [110]. 62 chapter two women within a farmer’s household was expected to do; the apocalyptic milieu within which she and her husband worked only enforced such a decision. It is evident that this fl uid rural gender order to some extent governed the activities of this couple: Elisabeth continued her task as a street-chapel evangelist and Olof was not unwilling to perform domestic duties in order to facilitate his wife’s work. Towards the end of their life in China the following account was given in a letter: Aft er ten to twenty minutes I noticed that the congregation (about ten men) lost track of what I was saying. We then sang another hymn and the Chinese started. I seated myself outside on the street and my ‘seekers of truth’ [. . .] asked me if we, in my country, lived of agriculture et cetera. We are in the Middle Kingdom, said another. I was then forced to talk about geography and that China was a country on the eastern fringes of the earth. Another said: Are you and the Catholics not one? I had then to explain the great diff erences that separate us. I continued in discussion with them, and since they were willing to listen, I almost forgot that Elisabeth was having a party on behalf of Jonatan Vigidius, our second son, for some of the local women. [. . .] Aft er the meal the women had a long conversation with Elisabeth.53 Though this quotation reveals the partnership that tied these two workers together, it also demonstrates how a middle-class ideology of gender specifi c roles infl uenced their lives. Elisabeth appears not to have renounces responsibility for the male Chinese (the available

53 “Eft er en tio-tjugo minuter förmärkte jag att foket (ett tiotal) började på och ej vara med i tankarna. Vi sjöng då en annan sång och kinesen började. Jag satte mig utanför på gatan och mina sanningssökare [. . .] började fråga mig om vi i vårt land levde av lantbruk m.m. Vi är ju i mittens rike, sade en. Jag fi ck då anledning att tala om geografi och att Kina var ett land på jordens östra gräns. En sade: Är inte Ni och katolikerna ett? Jag måste då förklara för dem de stora skillnader som fi nns. Jag kom så in att samspråka med dem, emedan de var villiga att höra, så jag glömde att Elisabeth hade en bjudning å Jonatan Vigidius vägnar, vår andre son, av några bekanta kvinnor. [. . .] Eft er måltiden hade gummorna ett långt samtal med Elisabeth.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 24 March 1899. A fascinating parallel to this discussion is found among the published papers of R. Harold A. Schofi eld: “Among other very common questions are the following: Have you any sun in your country? Any social distinctions? Any domestic animals? Do you plough and sow, as we do? Do you grow opium there? One man said, ‘Why, we can understand their language’; another answered, ‘You silly fellow! Don’t you hear they are speaking our language?’ [. . .] Aft er answering many such questions, and when their curiosity is partly satisfi ed, it is possible to interest them in the old, old story, so new to them, of Jesus and His love. Th ey are always interested in the story of His miracles of love and mercy.” See A. T. Schofi eld, Memorials of R. Harold A. Schofi eld (2nd edn; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1898), pp. 195–6. For the presence of Catholics in this region, see Jean Charbonnier, Histoire des Chrétiens de Chine (Paris: Desclée, 1992), pp. 247–52. a public missionary and a domestic man 63 sources do not give defi nitive answers at this point), but her primary task was to minister to the local women.54 She thereby, at least partly, came to be in conformity with what had become the respectable ideal of female missionary work—women’s work for women.55 Her work among the Chinese women actually seems to have been much more successful than her husband’s ministry. By targeting a network of women that were somehow connected to the mission, she appears to have made their fi rst converts, or at least interested listeners.56 With his wife taking charge of the work among the women, Olof came to assume primary responsibility both for working among the men and for the public realm that the street-chapel represented. Judging from his letters it is evident that Olof struggled to assume a ‘priestly’ identity; he read avidly, mostly theological literature in both Swedish and English. Before his marriage he claimed in one letter that half his ‘salary’ was used to by “foreign [i.e. English] books”.57 He also composed essays in controversial theological subjects,58 and his colleagues later recalled that he tried to master what was at this time seen as one of the foremost evidences of priestly learning—New Testament Greek.59 During the fi nal years of Olof’s ministry in China his letters indicate a growing feeling of solitude. Due to fi nancial diffi culties several of his former companions in the vicinity had by then returned to Europe. Olof and his wife were among the few Westerners left in this region. “Our

54 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 27 November 1897. A report on this work, written before Elisabeth took up residence at this locality, was inserted in Trosvittnet, 15 May 1896, p. 77. 55 Compare Robert, American Women, pp. 204–5. 56 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 27 November 1897. Th is image should be contrasted to a recent detailed study of Protestant convert communities in southern China, see Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Th e Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860–1900 (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 74–6. For the relationship between Chinese women and female missionaries, see Hunter, Gospel of Gentility, pp. 261–63; Kwok Pui-Lan, Chinese Women and Christianity 1860–1927 (American Academy of Religion series, 75; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 18–23. For the obstacles hindering women to approach Christian missions in contemporary China, see idem, “Chinese women and Protestant Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century”, in Daniel H. Bays (ed.), Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 194–208 [199–200]. 57 “utländska böcker”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark till Hilma Bingmark, 9 April 1894. 58 His published essays can be found in Trosvittnet, 1 October 1896; 1 April 1899; 1 May 1899 samt 1 July 1900. 59 Robert Coventry Forsyth, Th e China Martyrs of 1900 (London: Religious Tract Society, 1904), p. 465. 64 chapter two fi eld is quite empty now”,60 was his laconic remark in one letter. Judging from his correspondence he longed for companions, and even though he realised that life in Sweden could be diffi cult, his homesickness was growing. When his Chinese co-workers tried to comfort him by saying that “you are now at home here” this was evidently not helpful. Yet, his dispatches also speak of a resigned acceptance of his position as a ‘foreign Devil’ in China. In the fi nal months of his life Olof was still complaining about the distance that separated him from the Chinese;61 in other respects it is evident that this foreign family had now become a part of local society. Olof’s preserved letters mention that he and Elisabeth also engaged in farming activities.62 Th eir aim was probably to secure supplies if the support from New York was to come to a ces- sation, but their decision also speaks of a willingness to explore new possibilities, farmers’ children as they both were, within the Chinese economy. Furthermore, their two boys were clearly brought up with Chinese children of their own age, and though their parents ensured that they received adequate religious education,63 they seem not to have stressed the need for a Western cultural training too much. In fact, their sons seem not to have been able to speak the native tongue of their parents at all. To Hilma Olof frankly admitted: “We have yet not cared to teach him Swedish because it is easier for him to learn a language that he every day hears the Chinese speak”.64 With a humorous twinkle Olof tells his sister in his fi nal letter home, when their return to the homeland evidently seemed to be imminent, that they had at least to teach their eldest son “so much that he can at least greet his aunt when

60 “vårt fält är riktigt tomt nu”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 28 December 1899. 61 Quote: “nu är jag hemma här”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 12 March 1900. One of Olof’s companions was later to express a similar and ambigous attitude towards the Chinese: “I had come to know my yellow-skinned fellow humans much better and got a much deeper view of their need of Jesus Christ as their Saviour.” “Jag hade också fått lära känna mina gulhylta medmänniskor bättre och lärt mig att allt djupare se deras behov av Jesus Kristus såsom deras frälsare.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 53–4. 62 See for example, Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 7 October 1899. 63 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark till Hilma Bingmark, 24 juli 1899. 64 “Vi har icke ännu brytt oss om att lära honom svenska, ty det faller sig lättare att lära honom det språk han dagligen hör kineserna tala.” Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 24 July 1899. a public missionary and a domestic man 65 they meet”.65 Th is condition calls for an explanation. How could Olof and his wife, who both evidently treasured their ethnic identity, have failed to instruct their sons in what was their fi rst language? In light of what we know of the preferences and prejudices of other Westerners on colonial (or in this case semi-colonial) arenas at this time this becomes even more puzzling.66 A majority among missionary children appears to have gained a not insignifi cant knowledge of the local ‘lingo’, but to not be able to converse with parents in their native tongue seems to have been rare indeed.67 Cast out in a remote Chinese town it is only to be expected that this couple lacked the support and the assistance which the presence of fellow nationals could have provided at other locations; even so, does not the primary language training take place when parents and infants interact? Th is appears not to have happened. Does this indicate that Olof and Elisabeth conversed in Chinese even in private? Or, which is far more likely, does this suggest that neither one of them made the training of their children their foremost priority, their missionary work always being their main concern? In order to allow Elisabeth to carry on parts of her ministry we know that the family hired a Chinese nursemaid. Maybe it was this woman who came to be the primary adult contact of the Bingmark children? We can here only speculate about the reasons for their failure to supply their sons with this fundamental cultural training. It seems likely that their Chinese-speaking sons may bear witness to the intensity of their apocalyptic beliefs. Priorities that to others may have seemed natural may be regarded, within such a frame of mind, as lacking in importance. Th eir priorities, when it came to the education of their sons, also suggest

65 “så pass mycket så att han kan hälsa god dag på faster då han träff ar henne”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Olof Bingmark to Hilma Bingmark, 12 March 1900. 66 See for example, Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s ‘History of Sexuality’ and the Colonial Order of Th ings (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 95–116. Th e close encounter between the missionary and the native population seems to have triggered such responses at an early date, see Neil Gunson, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas 1797–1860 (Melbourne and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Price, China Journal, p. 70; Semple, Missionary Women, pp. 179–81. For an analysis of a much more common way to organise the missionary home, see Karina Hestad Skeie, “Building God’s kingdom: Th e importance of the home to 19th century Norwegian missionaries in Madagascar”, in Okkenhaug (ed.), Gender, Race and Religion, pp. 175–202. 67 For missionary children, see Linda Clemmons, “ ‘Our children are in danger of becoming little Indians’: Protestant Missionary Children and Dakotas, 1835–1862”, Michigan Historical Review 25 (1999), pp. 69–90. 66 chapter two that the domestic ideal was disintegrating from within. When Christian activism became the foremost priority of husband and wife, the very ideal of the Christian marriage (at least as conceived by respectable social strata during the nineteenth century) was seriously threatened and the home as a safe refuge from the outside world ceased to exist.

Th e long expected reunion between the three Bingmark siblings did not occur. In February 1901, Hilma received a letter from Alfred Fagerholm, one of Olof’s former companions who had managed to escape China. With savage honesty he conveyed the message that “Olof, Elisabeth and two dear little boys had been murdered by having their throats cut” in the Boxer uprising.68 At that time Hilma and Anna Bingmark would probably have lost all hope of seeing their brother and his family again. Th e C&MA had lost all-in-all twenty-eight missionaries in these atrocities, a majority from Scandinavian countries. Th eir heroism and martyrdom were celebrated in the Evangelical press; the January edition of Trons segrar—another Swedish religious periodical with connections to these missionaries—had black margins to honour the departed,69 and Christian and Missionary Alliance Weekly published several detailed reports of what had happened to “our Swedish missionaries”.70 To what kind of life would Olof and his family have returned if they had managed to escape the wrath of the Boxers and, once returned home, would have abandoned missionary life? Th ough the Swedish rural landscape provided the backdrop against which many of Olof’s refl ections were elaborated, I fi nd it hard to believe that he would have returned to the life of the small-scale farmer. First of all, even if Olof would have desired to take such a step he could hardly have managed to acquire the capital needed for such a venture. Th e fi nances of this group of missionaries were always strained, and even if expenses could be kept at a minimum in China, they would probably have come home virtually penniless. What awaited Olof in such a situation was a return

68 “blivit mördade genom att skäras halsen av, både Olof, Elisabeth och två små rara gossar”. Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Alfred Fagerholm to Hilma Bingmark, 21 February 1901. 69 Trons segrar, January 1901. 70 Christian and Missionary Alliance Weekly, 27 October 1900, 19 January 1901 and 16 March 1901. a public missionary and a domestic man 67 to the work of a farmhand (and eventually emigration?). Yet, Olof should not have re-settled without a capital, though his resources were of a diff erent kind. Th e education he had received in China, together with his self-studies, would probably have laid the foundation of a career that was radically diff erent to what could otherwise have been expected. Furthermore, the esteem with which Swedish Evangelicals in general regarded former missionaries would probably have opened many doors to a man of Olof’s ambitions. We have seen how he had incorporated aspects of the male middle-class identity that dominated in the missionary movement at large while in China. He was at least partly in conformity with the image of the respectable man who combined a struggling public persona with a tender private side. Th is tendency towards self-making by way of religious work was one important aspect in his making of an adult male identity. Yet, both Olof and Elisabeth still demonstrated their fundamental attachment to key concepts of an agrarian gender order, rooted in the collectivist teaching of orthodox Lutheranism, where the lines of demarcation between the male and the female ‘spheres’ were still fl oating. Olof’s attempt to construct a ‘priestly’ persona also can be traced back to a traditional way of the male country-side youth to advance themselves in the world. Before the late nineteenth century provided the rural youth with new and more attractive opportunities, it had been an established ‘truth’ of rural life that the best way forward for the gift ed farmer’s son was to join the clergy.71 In Olof’s life we still can see a faint refl ection of that idea. Th e ‘in-between’ position of Olof and Elisabeth, living in two worlds at the same time, makes them diffi cult to capture in a simple formula. Th ey lived in the void where the ideals of the petit bourgeoisie met the old-fashioned standards of Swedish rural society—they were true representatives of the gap-men and women.

71 Sten Carlsson, Svensk ståndscirkulation 1680–1950 (Uppsala: J. A. Lindblads förlag, 1950), pp. 99–101.

CHAPTER THREE

EXTENDING A MALE PRIVATE SPHEREOTTO ÖBERG, 18691917

Elisabeth told me that while she sat with the women and spoke [with them] they said: “How can she understand us so well?” One of them explained this remarkable problem in the following way: “She is so kind towards us and is like one of us since she is a Chinese foreigner and not a foreign foreigner who rebel and wage war against us.”1 It was with apparent amusement that Otto Öberg, one of Bingmark’s companions, recorded this incident in his diary. Elisabeth [née Jacobson] had for a few months been his wife and together they had worked at the mission station at Fengzhen in Inner Mongolia. It is also evident that Otto was not only entertained by such a gift ed blending of categories as the one produced by this un-named Chinese woman; he was pleased to see that at least one section of the local population had discerned his, and his wife’s, attitude towards missionary work. Th ey had come in peace to live among the Chinese as one of them. Since they had a diff erent errand they were not like other foreigners. Th e fi rst, and perhaps most diffi cult, step had been taken on the long way that needed to be traversed before the men and women at this location could receive the Gospel. When placed next to Bingmark, this man seems to be the very opposite; as this Chapter will demonstrate, these two activists displayed two diff erent ideals of missionary work. In this respect Öberg appears to be more in line with what is commonly believed about faith mission men, but, as we are about to see, these two men had also much in common. In this Chapter we will come closer to the mundane world of this missionary company. Its empirical foundation consists of the diaries

1 “Elisabeth talade om, att under det hon satt med kvinn.[orna] och talade [med dem] sade de: Hur kan hon förstå så bra våra ord? Någon annan förklarade detta märkvärda problem så: Varför hon är så vänlig mot oss och som en av oss är emedan hon är en kinesisk utlänning och ej en utländsk utlänning, vilka göra uppror mot oss och kriga.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 7 December 1899. 70 chapter three

Otto Öberg kept, with only minor periods of silence, from his departure from Sweden in 1896 until his death in 1917. Unlike Bingmark’s letters, where relevant information oft en has to be extracted by a good deal of ‘reading in between’, these are sources that pay minute attention to detail. Most of the entries deal with his missionary work, sometimes these remarks were written as memorials to be used when later composing letters to supporters back home, but these diaries also reveal a writer with a keen eye not only for religion but also for ordinary events and decisions. Undoubtedly, the domestic world that we encounter in Öberg’s diaries was a domain that was shared by all of these missionaries (at least as an ideal) and of which Bingmark (and the two men we will encounter in Chapters Four and Five) also took part. Th is Chapter will therefore reveal the contours of an every-day world, not easily perceived in other sources, and thereby also outlining the basic grid which supported the masculinity of all of these men.

Otto Öberg was born at Rudskoga in the southernmost parts of the Province of Värmland in Central Sweden in 1869. His father was forty-one at the time of Otto’s birth; Otto was born as the forth child. At Rudskoga his father worked as a tenant farmer but already before the third birthday of their youngest child the family was on the move. Otto’s father had been born at the village of Ödeby, close to the extensive mining districts of Central Sweden; this village was less than thirty kilometres away from the town of Lindesberg where the Öberg’s now took up residence. Here Otto’s father began working in the mining industry as an unskilled labourer. When Otto was eleven his mother died and his father, now aged fi ft y-two, continued life as a widower. Th e family was further diminished between 1883 and 1885 when all the three eldest children left Sweden for the US. Otto however was to remain with his father. According to the church records he stayed within the parental household until 1890. Even though it is not possible to ascertain his occupation during this period of his life, we may safely assume that it was not spent in idleness. It is quite likely that he was working in the mining industry together with his father.2 In terms of religion this

2 Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet. Microcards, 18302 and 18300. extending a male private sphere 71 period of his life was not without fateful events; he later recalled that his conversion took place at the age of seventeen while still living at Lindesberg. Th e first of February was to have a special signifi cance for this man: it was the day of his conversion but it was also a day kept in remembrance of the loss of his mother.3 Th at these two events, highly emotionally charged, coincided was hardly a coincidence. When Otto left Lindesberg in 1890 he settled as a gardener’s apprentice at Hovsta,4 a small community located at about forty kilometres’ distance from his parental home. His change of location appears not to have diminished his religiosity. In late-January 1893 he was one among the more than 100 men and women attending Franson’s Bible course in Örebro. Among the partakers in this event no less than c. thirty were selected to serve as IMA missionaries in China.5 At this time the two fi rst groups of volunteers had already sailed for China and a third party was in the process of making their fi nal preparations.6 Given the speed with which this enterprise had evolved hitherto, Otto may at this point reasonably have expected to be in China before the end of the summer. However, the IMA board was now beginning to show concern. Th e dispatch of further missionaries was postponed indefi nitely. Th ere were several reasons for this decision. Th e economical crisis in the US threatened the fi nances of most missionary organisations at this time, but the IMA had also come to realise that this missionary venture was actually too rapidly developing. With no prior missions in Shanxi province, how were these missionaries to receive adequate training? How were they to be given suffi cient support and supervision? A few months later A. B. Simpson stated in Th e Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly: Immediately aft er the departure of the fi rst party our Alliance Board became anxious respecting the arrangements for the reception of the missionaries in China, and some other matters, and were forced to consider [. . .] the advance of further parties for a time.7

3 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 11. 4 Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet. Microcard, 18124. 5 Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 575. 6 Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 576. 7 Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly, 30 June 1893. 72 chapter three

It was later rumoured that the real reason behind this delay “was that leading men in this society had begun to see that it would be unwise to send so many and so uneducated missionaries at one time”.8 Otto and his companions were kept in the dark as to the reasons for their pause. Franson did make an eff ort to keep up the interest among the candidates and to use this interlude to provide them with additional training. Otto was to remain in his native land for three years before he could fi nally begin the journey that was to take him to China. Even though he later recalled how the Apostles “for about three years followed Jesus in the cities and villages” and how this prepared them for the “great deed that was commissioned to them at the time of Jesus’ departure”,9 his fi rst reaction must have been one of disappointment. During the summer and autumn of 1893, Franson off ered Bible courses in English (which must have seemed strange to say the least), but also arranged for an introductory Chinese language course. Towards the end of 1893 the remaining candidates were sent out as evangelists in various parts of Sweden.10 Otto appears to have been working as an itinerant preacher in the vicinity of the town of Linköping in the Province of Östergötland.11 In spite of what was rumoured in Sweden, the board of the IMA had not abandoned all plans of sending more men and women to its ‘Swedish mission’ in northernmost China. During the autumn of 1894, Henry Wilson, who at that time was a member of the board of the IMA, spent a few weeks in Sweden in order to inspect the quality of the missionaries gathered by Franson. It is interesting to note how Wilson resorted to a heavily gendered language when he described the qualifi cations of the Swedish missionaries; in the rather lengthy report of his journey to Sweden in 1894 that was printed in Th e Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly later that year, he described his encounter with the Swedish population in the most positive of terms.

8 Quoted from Josephine Princell’s biography of Franson, as translated in Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 581. 9 First quote: “i omkring tre år fi ck följa Jesus is städer och byar”; second quote: “det stora verk de vid Jesu bortgång fi ck mottaga”. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 2. Th e fi rst quote contains an allusion to Math. 9.35. 10 Torjesen, “A Study”, pp. 585–88. 11 Claeson, Kinesernas vänner, p. 342. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, pp. 31–5 includes numerous references to sermons he had heard in this region. extending a male private sphere 73

He portrayed men of primitive Christian faith that lacked the refi nement of culture but were in possession of a robust muscularity. It was this religious, yet decidedly physical, manhood that was to ‘conquer’ the Chinese for Christ. Swedes belonged to the “strong, vigorous people of northern Europe” who love their freedom and yet respect authorities. Th eir history and their way of life actually made them into ideal missionaries: Free from the dominion of Rome and of every other ecclesiastical tyranny, out and out Protestants in their abhorrence of it all, Lutherans in their principles of faith and practise, they are to my mind models of respect for authority and of willingness to serve anybody for God. Breathing pure air, simple in their food, frugal in their habits, modest in their attire, willing to work hard and long for moderate wages, and better than all, Christians in the best sense of the word, they struck me as a people specially raised up and fi tted by God to go out and carry with them to the ends of the earth the Gospel of the Lord Jesus in its simplicity and power.12 Wilson is here clearly trying to convince those who had started to call the quality of the Swedish stock, and the wisdom of sending them to China, into question.13 Yet his choice of words is strangely revealing. Contemporary discourses of gender and race are here amalgamated to motivate why a Teutonic, primitive, manhood should be bearers of the Gospel to the heathen.14 In spite of his appreciative view and his public rhetoric, Wilson proved to be a critical examiner of Franson’s hopeful candidates. About half of the men and women who were waiting to begin their missionary work were rejected by Wilson and during late-January 1896 sixteen volunteers left Sweden in order to provide additional strength to this pioneer mission. Otto was included in this party.

12 Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly, 7 December 1894. Th is report was read by the Swedish missionaries in China, see Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly, 8 May 1895. See also Trosvittnet, 15 February 1896. 13 Torjesen, “A Study”, pp. 581–84, 588. For reactions in Sweden, see Trosvittnet, November 1895, p. 8. 14 Anthony Rotundo has identifi ed the “Masculine Primitive” as one of the “ideals of manhood” that informed a white middle-class in the late-nineteenth-century US. Rotundo characterises this as a purely secular ideal, distinct from the somewhat old- fashioned model of the “Christian Gentleman”. Wilson’s comment reveals how easily such notions were transplanted within a decidedly Christian discourse on gender. See Anthony Rotundo, “Learning about manhood: Gender ideals and the middle-class family in nineteenth-century America”, in Mangan and Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, pp. 35–51. 74 chapter three

Unlike the fi rst two parties of IMA missionaries, this group did not go to Britain for English language training. Th e instruction they had already received was probably considered adequate enough and such unnecessary delays (and expenses) were to be avoided in this case. Th e company gathered in Gothenburg on the Swedish west-coast and travelled from there to Germany. In Bremen they boarded the steamer Preußen that was to take them to China. On board the ship they engaged in frequent religious activities; time was set apart for daily prayers, Bible studies (in both English and Swedish) and Sunday services. Th ese activities were led by the male members of the group; only occasionally did the women step forward to fulfi l a more conspicuous role as religious leaders. In spite of the fact that they belonged to a religious tradition that in principle encouraged and valued female activity, while going to China these women conformed to a more ‘respectable’ pattern and exchanged evangelistic work for needlework.15 Th eir commitment to religious activities did not lead them to miss the opportunities such long-distance travel off ered. Th ey gaped not only at wonders they experienced on more distant shores but also took every chance at experiencing the various European ports they called at. Th e diary that Otto kept during this journey, clearly written for the consumption of the home audience, reveals the eagerness with which he embarked upon such opportunities to do a little bit of sightseeing. Th e thrill he gained from this experience may even have been so great that he started to suspect that it was actually a sin. But Otto was able to justify this innocent amusement: “We now went into the city [Antwerp] to have a look around, and I do not believe it is wrong unless you look at it in such a way that one forgets to see Jesus.”16 Th is diary is fi lled with such little pious musings triggered by what he was observing. When they were passing the island of Capri, the sight of a strange rock formation

15 In Elisabeth Jacobson’s diary female witnessing is explicitly mentioned only aft er they had landed in China. See Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary of Elisabeth Jacobson, p. 14. For their needlework and how it was accompanied by male ‘entertainment’, see ibid., p. 2. 16 “Vi gick nu ut i staden för att se oss omkring, och jag tror icke heller att är orätt bara man ej ser på det så att man glömmer att se på Jesus.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, pp. 7–8. extending a male private sphere 75 cased him to eff use: “All bore witness of him who governs all things”.17 And it was with such an assurance that he travelled to what was to be the land of his calling. Th e sea-journey to China did not only cause Otto to refl ect upon the wonders of nature and their baring on his Evangelical creed. While on board the Preußen he encountered Chinese people for the fi rst time. Already in Bremen he noted that among his fellow travellers there were to be found two Chinese men. He described them as “reasonably well-dressed, although in a Chinese way”, and he claimed that they had conversed briefl y in English.18 Present on the ship was also a large Chinese workforce composed of chimneysweepers and cleaners. Apart from the details of their outward attire, Otto made few notices of the activities of these men. It was not until they were to leave Singapore during the beginning of March that he was to seriously refl ect upon the diff erences between the Europeans and the Chinese. Like so many of his fellow Swedish missionaries it was their sheer numbers that caused his fi rst reaction: On board the ship were now 300 Chinese who were assigned places on the deck and on the cargo hold. I have never before heard or seen people making such a noise. Th eir desire not to be left behind and to make room for their belongings seemed to make them incapable of thinking of anything else.19 A few days later when they were approaching the port of Hong Kong he remarked, much in a similar vein: “I have now come to realise that the Chinese are most energetic in all that they do.”20 Like so many other Westerners endeavouring to express a favourable view of the Chinese population at this time, Otto concentrated on their industriousness.21

17 “Allt predikade om honom som över allt ting råder”. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 20. 18 “någorlunda snyggt klädda, fast på kinesiskt vis.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 8. 19 “På båten var nu komna ombord omkring 300 kineser vilka fi ck sina platser på däck och nere i lastrummet. Jag har aldrig förr sett eller hört människor hålla sådant väsen. Deras iver att komma med och få sina saker på deras platser tycket [sic] frånta dem all tanke på något annat.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 29. 20 “Kineserna har jag nu lärt känna vara ett mycket ivrigt folk i vad de taga sig för med.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1896, p. 29. 21 Jerome Ch’en, China and the West: Society and Culture 1815–1937 (London: Hutchinson, 1979), pp. 47–8. 76 chapter three

If the Chinese in general displayed many an imperfection, and suff ered by being under the heel of a cruel and backwards elite, their diligence was their hope for the future. We know little of how this process of understanding, interpretation and recognition of both diff erence and similarity proceeded with this man. Otto had still a long way to go before he could lay any claims to even approach an understanding of the people that he hoped to convert to Christianity, but in contrast to Bingmark, his encounter with the people of the Middle Kingdom seems not to have ended in a wholesale rejection of everything Chinese (see further comments below).

III

Unlike Bingmark, and the two men we will meet in Chapters Four and Five, Otto was not headed for a mission that had, in a sense, not yet begun. When this company landed in Shanghai on 15 March 1896 the two fi rst groups had been in China for three years. Th e organisational structure was now much more developed and their brothers and sisters had managed to create a network of stations on which the newly arrived could begin their work. Immediately upon their arrival they were transported to the missionary home of the CIM where they received a warm welcoming. Th ey spent ten days in Shanghai and on March 25 they boarded the steamer that were to take them to Tianjin where they were supposed to meet their superintendent, Emil Olson, who had succeeded Emanuel Olsson upon his death in 1894. On April 7 they arrived in Beijing, and a week later, aft er having spent some time in the Chinese capital, they reached Zhangjiakou. Th eir journey had not ended yet; aft er an additional ten days of travel they fi nally reached their destination, Guihuacheng in Inner Mongolia, on 25 April.22 Since 1893 this town had emerged as the most important centre for this branch of the IMA. Sometime during the early 1890s the CIM left this ‘fi eld’ to the workers dispatched by the (Swedish) Holiness Union.23 Annual conferences had been held here in 189424 and in 1895.25 During

22 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Elisabeth Jacobson diary, pp. 11–17. 23 Jacobson, “Redogörelse”, pp. 224–31. 24 Trons segrar, 1 April 1894, pp. 124–25. 25 Trosvittnet, October 1895. extending a male private sphere 77 the latter meeting Fredrik Franson, who at that time was visiting those whom he had been instrumental in bring to China, was present.26 It was at this location that the newly arrived begun their language training in May 1896. We know nothing of the initial activities of this group; the fi rst part of Öberg’s diary ends before the party reaches Shanghai. Otto begins composing a diary again on 1 January 1897 and from that time until March 1900 we have a complete set of records. When we meet Otto again during the fi rst days of 1897 he is still posted in Guihuacheng. At this time there were about fi ft een Swedish missionaries present (the high number is explained by the fact that they had gathered to this town to celebrate Christmas and the (Western) New Year together). Not unexpectedly the diary entries reveal that Otto was still hard at work trying to master the foreign tongue; on 24 January he records with pride that he “for the fi rst time read a text and preached in Chinese”.27 But his life was not only devoted to studies and religious activities. With quite a large company of fellow nationals present these men and women were provided with an opportunity to engage in social activities. Otto’s diary mentions regular visits and dinner parties among the members of this group, with the women frequently inviting the men to join them in various social activities. As was stated in a previous Chapter, the lives of these unmarried missionaries were not without its romantic overtones. Already at this stage Otto had become attached to Elisabeth Jacobson, younger sister of Emil Jacobson who was the informal leaders of this group, whom he mentions in the diary as his special “friend”.28 Th e relationship between these two missionaries was eventually to end in their marriage in May 1899. But in the meantime, before their bond was consummated, his feelings were to cause Otto a lot of pain and misery. During mid-February Otto permanently left Guihuacheng and joined the workers at Fengzhen.29 At this location he and Oscar Forsberg, another recent arrival, worked under the supervision Karl Johansson

26 Torjesen, “A Study”, p. 617. 27 “Första gången jag läste någon text och talat över på kinesiska.” Jönköping, Jönkö- pings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 24 January 1897. 28 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 23 January 1897. 29 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 16 February 1897. 78 chapter three

Hill and his wife who had both been in China since 1893.30 He was to remain at this town until aft er the annual conference of the IMA missionaries that took place during the fi rst week of June that year. Th ese three-and-a-half months that were spent together with more experienced colleagues became his real introduction to missionary work. It was by observing and by working closely with this couple that his training was to be completed. In June 1897, a little more than a year aft er he had fi rst set his foot on Chinese soil, it was decided that he, together with Johan H. Swordson, who had been in China since 1893, was to set up a mission station in the town of Liangcheng. Immediately aft er the conference, Otto travelled to his new fi eld of work and was apparently satisfi ed with what he saw: Having reached the top of the hill I saw the town beneath me on the plain and it looked really inviting. Found lodging at an inn not far from the gates. Everyone seemed friendly towards us and we got a nice room all for ourselves in a back yard.31 Th ough his missionary identity was to evolve in future years we can already during this early period observe some of its fundamental traits. If Bingmark emphasised the public side of missions, committing himself to studies and engaging in religious controversy, Otto placed accents somewhat diff erently. Th e notes in his journal and his published reports reveal little of the doctrinal eagerness of Bingmark and his studies appear to have been much more limited in scope. His diaries frequently mention times of reading, but his inclination seems to have been directed mainly towards Bible studies and activities that improved his language skills (he appears to have read little beyond what was required for the diff erent CIM ‘sections’).32 Otto appears also to have placed greater stress on the private side of the missionary undertaking. Street-corner evangelism and evening meetings in the street chapel received much less attention in the diary than private interviews and conferences. Even though the need for public oratory was greatly emphasised in late nineteenth-century missionary discourse, Otto appears to have found

30 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 22 and 28 February 1897. 31 “Kommen upp på kullen fi ck jag se staden nere på slätten mellan bergen och han sig riktigt inbjudande ut. Tog in på ett inn ej långt inne i staden. Alla syntes vara så vänliga mot oss och vi fi ck även ett bra rum för oss själva på en bakgård.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 29 June 1897. 32 For the CIM sections, see Austin, China’s Millions, pp. 250–54. extending a male private sphere 79 such meetings of only limited value, above all during the fi rst years of his missionary life. Th e main problem was of course communication. Preaching, especially by recently arrived missionaries, was much more likely to become a source of curious amusement than a time of edifi - cation to the Chinese listeners. Otto marked the occasions when his Chinese hearers actually appear to have understood some of what was said. During the spring of 1897 he commented: “Had a meeting in the chapel this aft ernoon. Th e Lord was with us. Two young men listened carefully and understood some of what was said.”33 He noted also with resignation some of the occasions when he failed completely. On 12 December 1897 he confi ded the following to his diary: Meeting and read Math. 15.21. Quite a few people present. At last a salesman appeared and he begun to read to them about the birth of Jesus and that he was born of Mary by the Holy Spirit. Read aft er that about Joseph in front of Pharaoh. I thought it was better to be silent since they seemed to understand him much better than me.34 Th us, as eff ective evangelistic venues, public meetings were only of limited value. With much more satisfaction Otto mentions the encounters that took place in the privacy off ered by the ‘mission station’ i.e( . the rented Chinese house). Face to face communication, supplanted by alternative communicative strategies—involving a mixture of tract distribution, guitar-playing, medical aids and fi nancial support—were missionary methods that suited this man much better. Otto noted the details of such encounters. Private meetings did not only become venues for satisfying Chinese curiosity; from time to time these interviews became arenas on which intellectual discussions took place. On May 19, while still present at Fengzhen, he was visited by a local offi cial who wanted to enquire about the ‘doctrine’ of the missionaries. A discussion ensued and Otto gives the following summary in his diary: “He wanted to defend Confucius and argued that the teaching of Jesus and theirs

33 “Hade på ef.m. möte i kapellet. Herren var med. Två ynglingar lyssnade noga och förstod även något av vad som sades.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 1 April 1897. 34 “Möte och läste Mat 15:21. Rätt många människor var med. Till slut kom en hand- lare och han började att läsa för dem om Jesu födelse och att han blev född av Maria genom den helige Ande. Läste sedan om Josef inför Farao. Jag tänkte att det var bäst att vara tyst emedan de förstod honom bättre än mig.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 12 Dec 1897. 80 chapter three

[i.e. Confucian doctrine] was similar.”35 A few months later a discussion with a Chinese Muslim, whom appears to have been a regular and friendly visitor, ended in a highly emotional tone: “During our talk [. . .] I became very upset and was ready to cry. I beseeched him to leave himself to Jesus. He probably sensed a force touching him.”36 A part of the ‘private’ aspect of his missionary work was the special attention that was devoted to the permanent or temporary staff of the station; the diary mentions regular ‘family prayers’ at the mission station that were also attended by the Chinese servants. Otto’s accounts of some of these devotions and the conversations that followed aft erwards reveal the diff erences that could exist between the message ‘delivered’ and that which was received. On one evening he asked the painter, who also temporarily served as cook, if he was praying in the kitchen. Aft er the question had been answered in the positive, the following conversation ensued: “What do you pray for? Th at God will give me riches, good food and nice clothes. You pray and are now rich. He pointed at the room and the gown I was wearing.” In a vein typical for this man, the account ended with a prayer: “Teach me, o Jesus, that I may be wise!”37 In future years, with an increasing ability to communicate with the people, he evidently found the public meetings at the street chapel to be an easier task, but this did not alter the focus of his missionary work. It was the private meetings and chance encounters that were his foremost priorities. Th e quotation above points also at the ways in which this man’s missionary work created direct contacts with the popular beliefs and aspirations of the local population. It is only to be regretted that we know so little of the ways in which the Chinese population responded

35 “Han ville försvara konfusius [sic] något och menade att Jesu lära och deras var lika.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 19 May 1897. 36 “Under samtalet [. . .] blev jag mycket upprörd och var färdig att gråta. Jag bad honom enträget att lämna sig åt Jesus. Han kände nog en kraft röra sig.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 17 November 1897. For a general survey of China’s Muslim population at this time, see Michael Dillon, China’s Muslim Hui Community: Migration, Settlement and Sects (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999), pp. 53–74. Regrettably, Dillon pays little attention to contacts between Christian missionaries and local Muslims. 37 “Vad ber du om? Att Gud skall ge mig rikedom, bra mat och fi na kläder. Ni ber ju och är nu rika, också pekade han i rummetsamt på rocken jag hade på mig. Lär mig, o Jesus, att jag må bli vis.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 26 September 1897. extending a male private sphere 81 to the message of these missionaries. Even though Otto’s diaries are of limited value when it comes to understanding those whom he hoped would embrace Christianity, his detailed rendition of their responses, making their way to his diary probably since they seemed so erratic or surprising, nevertheless allows us to make some observations about how local folk religion and missionary work could interact and sometimes amalgamate. Within the faith mission community the attitude towards the religious practises of the Chinese was one of universal condemna- tion. Like the rest of his brothers and sisters, Otto harshly censured the religious practises he observed, yet, popular beliefs could become openings for Christian action. It was above all popular views of sickness and of death that provided these interfaces of contact. Already during his fi rst months of missionary work he made the following entry in his diary: During the aft ernoon or the evening four people came: two men, one old lady and one young girl. A girl, who had visited here together with some other women a while ago, now had become ill and they came to look for her soul that they believed was here. As they said: “tiu-liao”. Th e evangelist and J. [Emil Jacobson] talked to them and prayed together with them and so they returned.38 To be praying for the sick came natural to these missionaries, but remarks found in Otto’s diaries also suggest that he was willing to engage in more unusual practises. In April 1899, when he had returned to the Fengzhen station, he was contacted by a man from a nearby village who wanted the missionary to perform an exorcism on a “woman who was possessed by an evil spirit”.39 Th e missionaries’ cook, who apparently also served as evangelist, had previously soothed the distress of this woman by praying “in the name of Jesus” over her (by which was probably meant an act of exorcism).40 Now, when the condition had returned, members of her family turned to the missionary. Otto was apparently willing to respond to this call and to enter the Chinese spirit

38 “På ef. eller kv. kom fyra personer; två män, en gumma och en ung fl icka. En ickafl vilken en tid sedan var med några andra kvinnor här har blivit sjuk och de kom nu för att söka hennes själ vilken de trodde vara här, som de uttryckte: ‘tiu-liao’. Evangelisten och J. talade med dem och bad med dem och så vände de om.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 1 May 1897. 39 “en kvinna som var besatt av en ond ande”. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 18 April 1899. 40 “i Jesu namn”. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 13 April 1899. 82 chapter three world (assisted by, or under the guidance of, the cook), just like Pastor Hsi, one of the fi rst CIM converts in Pingyang County in Southern Shanxi, as an exorcist. Th e opportunity to visit this woman did not come until a few days later however. He confi ded the following to his diary: I heard from Mao-ü-keo that the possessed woman was again tormented. She had said (or rather the devil through her) that if they built him a temple to live in and performed an opera he would leave her. Th ey took her to another place or village, but within short the spirit came to her and said to them that they should feed his horses that stood outside the gate [. . .] and that she should return home or otherwise he would strangle another woman in that village instead. [. . .] Went there in the aft ernoon together with the cook, but when we arrived they had already built a little temple on the roof and they did not want us to come in for she was better now they said.41 We may only speculate about the causes that had given rise to this occasion. Otto’s comments, although he clearly did not grasp the full religious context of this incident, seems to suggest a disruption in traditional religious observances. Th e fact that the condition from which the woman was suff ering is ascribed to the work of a demon and that the eventual construction of a shrine mediated this situation, indicate that this rupture may be understood in connection with a departure from the custom of honouring departed ancestors by which their passage to the realm of the blessed spirits was eased.42 Otto and his future wife had been successfully negotiating the establishment of a mission school in this village a few days prior to this incident.43 Th is expression of spiritual distress therefore may have been connected to fears that

41 “Fick höra från Mao-ü-keo att den besatta kvinnan var åter plågad. Hon hade sagt (eller rättare djävulen genom henne) att om de byggde ett tempel åt honom att bo uti och spelade teater skulle han lämna henne. De fraktade så henne till en annan plats eller by, men eft er en stund kom även den ande över henne där och sade till dem att de skulle fodra hans hästar som stod utanför porten [. . .] samt att hon skulle vända hem ty eljest skulle han strypa en annan kvinna i den byn istället. Gick ef.m. tillsammans med kocken dit, men då vi kom var redan ett litet tempel byggt på taket och de ville ej att vi skulle komma in, ty hon var nu bättre sade de.” Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 24 April 1899. For the contested position of the opera in contemporary Shanxi, see Roger R. Th ompson, “Twilight of the gods in the Chinese countryside: Christians, Confucians, and the modernizing state, 1861–1911”, in Bays (ed.), Christianity in China, pp. 53–72. 42 Stephan Feuchtwang, Th e Imperial Metaphor: Popular Religion in China (London & New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 43–7. 43 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 13 April 1899. extending a male private sphere 83 had arisen in connection with the work of the missionaries and not to direct departures in traditional religious practises. Judging from Otto’s comments, the family clearly was divided over which religious ‘expert’ was best suited to deal with the situation at hand: the missionary or the Daoist priest. Th e anonymous caller at the mission station clearly thought that the cure was to be found among the foreigners while other members of the clan clearly preferred more traditional practitioners. Otto’s own response to this call is perhaps the more remarkable. He actually appears to have been willing to step into a role provided by a local Chinese cult and to try his luck as an exorcist, albeit claim- ing powers of a Christian origin. Since such incidents were never communicated to the home audience (not even family members), we know little of how widespread such actions were among this group of workers. Otto may have found a strange resemblance here between his own beliefs and those of the surrounding ‘heathen’ population. Among the various documents that can be related to this group of missionaries (and many others of similar spiritual sentiment) references to the works of fi endish powers, above all among those who tried to resist the message of the missionaries, are frequently found. It is diffi cult to fi nd direct statements of the belief in demonic possession of individual men and women, but for people who espoused a literal understanding of the Bible such an interpretation may not have been too far fetched.44 Th ough Otto this time went home without having tested his spiritual powers this incident reveals ways of contact and of interacting that lay beyond what was proscribed by missionary ideology. Once again we see how the ideal of identifi cation took bodily form in this man.

Th e task of setting up a mission station at Liangcheng did involve many responsibilities that were not of a religious character. A house had to be rented in which the missionaries could live and receive visitors. Swordson and Öberg appear to have had few diffi culties in fi nding such

44 For missionaries performing exorcisms, see Austin, China’s Millions, pp. 260–64. It is profitable to compare their attitude with that of early US Pentecostals, see Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (paperback edn; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 91–2. See also Walter J. Hollenweger, Th e Pentecostals (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988 [1972]), pp. 377–84; Linderholm, Pingströrelsen, pp. 212–17. 84 chapter three a location; within less than a week aft er their arrival they had managed to secure a lease-hold contract on a “farm house” outside the town that seemed to meet their requirements.45 With an operational base at hand, further practicalities had to be resolved. Local men were hired to do the necessary repairs on the exterior;46 the task of getting the inside in order became the responsibility of the two missionaries. Neither of them were strangers to manual labour (Swordson had been a painter prior to his departure for China) and the tasks at hand appear to have given them little trouble. A few European necessities were added to the house in which they were to live: window-glasses were attached, the stove rebuilt and Swordson added a wooden fl oor to the kitchen.47 Th e two men built a few pieces of furniture (presumably in a rural Swedish style) themselves,48 but most of the necessary appliances were bought from local Chinese salesmen.49 Without the support normally provided by women, Swordson and Öberg had to perform tasks that were not typically ‘male’. Otto mentions in his diary that he sewed curtains and other cloth decorations,50 and when not assisted by their servant, the two men prepared their meals together.51 Th e local population responded with a curious suspicion at the establishment of a permanent Christian mission in their town. Otto recorded numerous visitors during the fi rst months’ work at this location. Unlike Olof Bingmark, Otto emerges here as a friendly observer of the local population. He recorded not only what was seen as bad habits, but also men “who made a good impression” and were “very polite”.52 Th ough fairly amicable relations appear to have been established, there was a vast distance that separated the two Swedes from Chinese society at large.

45 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 5 July 1897. 46 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 7 July 1897. 47 See entries in Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 6 July 1897, 15 July 1897 and 16 July 1897. 48 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 23 July, 21 September and 9 October 1897. 49 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 7 July, 14 July and 11 September 1897. 50 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 13 October, 5 November 1897; Diary 1898, 8 February 1898. 51 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 16 January 1898. 52 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 9 and 21 November 1897. extending a male private sphere 85

Th e missionaries were hesistant to befriend unconverted Chinese and, although tolerating their presence, the Chinese were hardly motivated to be observed socialising too much with these foreigners. Th e only regular contacts were found within their own household—with servants and the native evangelist. Swordson and Öberg found nothing strange in coming close to their domestic servants; we can fi nd references to shared meals and amicable conversations in Otto’s diary.53 From the domestic servants Otto learnt about Chinese customs and also got some ‘feedback’ as to how local society perceived them.54 Th ese men were for the most part the only visitors at their ‘public’ meetings. Apart from the members of their ‘staff’, the two missionaries also had regular contacts with their landlord, a Muslim, and one of their neighbours. When the fi nancial situation had become diffi cult for the two missionaries during the autumn of 1897, these men stepped in and provided them with a few basic necessities.55 Otto’s sojourn at Liangcheng was to last for not more than a full year. At the annual conference in June 1898 his companion had been married to Hilda Larsson who had come to China together with Otto. It was decided that the newly weds were to continue the work at Liangcheng and Otto was instead to return to the more established station at Fengzhen. Even though he seems to have enjoyed Swordson’s company, this change in habitats was profi table to Otto; especially since it allowed him closer contacts with the love of his life. During the past year his romantic attachment had given him some trouble. On 14 September 1897 he recorded having “a bitter night” aft er a rendezvous with Elisabeth. She was at this stage inclined to discontinue their connection. During the following morning Otto “wept for breakfast”.56 Th e next few weeks were spent in apathy and despair, but Otto did continue wooing this woman seeking every occasion to converse with her. His pursuit even led him to take part in some of Elisabeth’s ‘female’

53 See for example, Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 28 November and 14 December 1897. 54 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 1 October 1897; Diary 1898, 29 January 1898. 55 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 13 November and 7 December 1897. Th eir landlord also brought gift s to Swordson aft er his marriage, see Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 4 May 1898. 56 First quote: “en bitter natt”; second quote: “jag grät till frukost”. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 14–15 September 1897. 86 chapter three duties.57 In the end, his endeavours were successful and when he settled at Fengzhen, he and Elisabeth were an ‘item’ again; within half-a-year they were engaged to be married.58 Before his marriage however Otto was to inhabit the station together with M. Carl York, a man of Danish origin who had travelled to China with the 1896-party. York was also new at this position and the two men “took charge of the household and domestic cares” of the station on 25 June 1898.59 Save a few domestic duties that clearly were beyond their fi eld of expertise,60 they appear to have been involved in most of the household chores of the station. Otto took an early interest in the garden and spent some time trellising fl owers;61 he also put in stoves in some of the rooms of the rented houses.62 But the domestic life of these two men was riddled with diffi culties. Otto recorded frequent fall-outs in his diary: In the morning I had a dispute with Mr. York and the beginning was only a trifl e. Because I left for T.s.p. we had prayer [sic] together and I asked him to forgive me, because I was perhaps speaking too loud.63 Th e reason for their frequent disagreements remains unclear; they may have been diff erent in terms of ‘temperament’ or maybe the prospect of living in close relation with another man in the end turned out to be too much for both of them. Th eir relationship with the Chinese however appears to have been much more cordial. Unlike the station at Liangcheng, the Fengzhen station had been open for some years and the missionaries who had been working here had managed to assemble a company of native converts. With these people Otto established close

57 Öberg diary, 19 April 1898. 58 For their engagement, see Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 19 November 1898. 59 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 25 June 1898. Öberg composed his diary in English during 1898. 60 See for example when Öberg’s fi ancée appeared in August to make jam together with the cook. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 18 August 1898. 61 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 9 July 1898. He also cultivated pot-plants, see Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 26 June 1899. 62 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 1 and 7 November 1898. For his visits to a Chinese carpenter who made their furniture, see Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 19 and 20 October 1898. 63 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 29 October 1898. extending a male private sphere 87 and amicable bonds. On one occasion, when he returned from a journey, he confi ded his feelings to his diary: “It was nice to return home and to see the Chinese again.”64 Without attaching too much attention to such events, his diary records frequent invitations to dine together with these Chinese families.65 Especially aft er his marriage this Swedish missionary responded to the hospitality of the Chinese by inviting them to dinner parties at the mission station.66 His diary even records that they spent the Christmas of 1899 in the company of these men and women—something that was rare indeed in these circles.67 At the same time the visible marks of his Western identity were becoming increasingly important. Th e entries in his diary revel that Chinese furniture and domestic equipment were gradually exchanged for Western ones.68 In terms of clothing and outward appearance it is evident that Otto had “his hair in a Swedish manner”, to borrow Bingmark’s phrase, and on certain occasions wore Western style clothing. To try to appear like a Chinese was a missionary strategy and a statement of commitment; it was not meant to signal a complete identity transformation. It is clear that these missionaries consciously upheld their Western identity; the occasions when they convened provided opportunities not only to solve problems that had arisen in connection with their missionary work but also to pledge allegiance to that cultural identity. Furthermore, in the reforming days of the late-1890s the position of a Westerner and the cultural capital he or she possessed were not necessarily to the detriment of missionary work. Among the local population there were evidently some men who sought useful European knowledge from the missionaries. Th is openness to the new did have repercussions on the ways in which missionary work was carried out, and a close analysis of these encounters reveals how easily even these missionaries came close to the model of the civilising mission.69 Even the knowledge acquired by an

64 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 26 June 1898. 65 See for example Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 13 April, 16 August and 9 October 1899; Diary 1900, 13 February 1900. 66 See for example, Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 2 November 1898; Diary 1899, 16 June 1899. 67 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 24 and 25 December 1899. 68 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 26, 27 and 29 June, 2 August and 20 September 1899; Diary 1900, 6 January 1900. 69 Compare Cox, Imperial Fault Lines, pp. 240–42. 88 chapter three uneducated missionary, such as Otto, put him in a position that was appealing to the local leadership. On 25 August 1898 he was contacted by the son of the mandarin at Fengzhen who wanted to receive tuition in English by the Swedish missionary. Otto was evidently reluctant to respond to this specifi c call,70 but other entries reveal that he did off er instruction in English to local boys.71 To teach a foreign language, one which Otto did not know very well himself, appears to have been a side-track in his educational endeavours, but other peculiarly Western topoi were given great attention in his work. In early-1898 a school was established by the mission at Fengzhen. A Chinese teacher was given responsibility for most of the subjects taught at this institution; the missionaries took charge of the religious instruction and the task of introducing their alumni into a Western vision of global geography. Comments about these educational eff orts frequently appear in his diary.72 We know little of what was taught on these occasions, just that the curriculum did include much more than teaching the students the details of the map of the Chinese Empire.73 Already in Chapter Two we saw how geography could become a contested sight in the encounter between one of these missionaries and the local Chinese. Th e geography taught by the missionaries had as its object to counter the Chinese imperial vision of the world. Th eir aim was not just to tutor their students in what lay beyond the fringes of the Celestial Empire; by gaining knowledge of the ‘world outside’, mediated through a Western mapping of the globe, China as the ‘Middle Kingdom’ was to be dethroned and given suitable position on the margins of the ‘real’ centres of human civilisation and progress that lived under the aegis of Christianity.74 Geography therefore became an integral part of a civilising mission bent on teaching not just Christianity but Western

70 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1898, 25 August 1898. 71 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 5 September 1899. 72 See for example Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 31 July and 20 December 1899; Diary 1900, 5 January 1900. 73 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 20 December 1899. 74 See Fred W. Drake, “Protestant Geography in China: E. C. Bridgman’s portrayal of the West”, in Suzanne Wilson Barnett and John King Fairbank (eds), Christianity in China: Early Protestant Writings (Harvard Studies in American East-Asian Relations, 9; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 89–106 [89–91]. extending a male private sphere 89 modernity. Th e globe that we sometimes can fi nd on the writing-desks of missionaries in contemporary photographs was a testimony to their adherence to a Western view of the world and the power relations that came hand in hand with such a vision.

When Otto married his beloved Elisabeth at a conference of C&MA workers on 9 May 1899,75 aft er only having been engaged for six months, most of the ‘irregularities’ of his bachelor life came to an end. Once married, Elisabeth moved in with Otto at the Fengzhen station and assumed responsibility for most of the household duties, but her new state as a married woman did clearly not deter her from continuing her religious work. With no children of her own to attend to (the fi rst of Elisabeth’s and Otto’s children was born in 1905) she was free to continue her work among the local women, to teach the children at Sunday school and to witness at the street chapel.76 ‘Proper’ domestic arrangements meant that Otto could devote more attention to his religious work, but the altered circumstances of his life did not deter him from horsing around with the school children and occasionally assisting Elisabeth in her domestic tasks.77 Elisabeth and Otto survived the horrors which most of their companions suff ered during the Boxer uprising. Together with Larson and Fagerholm (see Chapters Four and Five) they managed to escape Shanxi by crossing Mongolia and eventually by going by train to Europe. Otto was later to produce an account of their escape which was published as instalments in Trosvittnet.78 Th e Boxers eff ectively put an end to this branch of the C&MA; its missionaries who had worked in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia were scattered to the four winds. Most of them

75 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 9 May 1899. 76 See for example, Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 30 June, 30 July, 26 September and 24 October 1899; Diary 1900, 29 February 1900. 77 Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1899, 9 June 1899. 78 Trosvittnet, 1 September, pp. 133–34, 15 November, p. 175, 15 December 1900, pp. 194–95; 1 February, pp. 22–3, 1 March, p. 39, 1 April, pp. 53–4, 15 April 1901, p. 63. 90 chapter three

Figure 1. Swedish C&MA Missionaries in 1899 Otto Öberg is second from the left , back row; Elisabeth is placed in front of him extending a male private sphere 91 however were to continue working as missionaries. Hardly surprisingly, this couple belonged to those who were to remain within faith mission circles; about half of those who later returned to China (thirteen out of twenty-seven) came as members of organisations espousing such ideals.79 Just like Otto and Elisabeth most of these joined another ‘Franson mission’ (all of which were agencies that continued to be active in this region). Th e recently established Swedish branch of the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance (later Swedish Alliance Mission) declared its inclination to support no less than seven of the returned workers at its annual conference in October 1901. Elisabeth and Otto belonged to this group.80 Half-a-year later, Otto was back in Inner Mongolia again, and in August 1903 the mission had acquired a house at Salaqi. It was decided that the Öbergs were to assume responsibility for the reconstruction of the orphanage that had been opened by Swedish C&MA workers already prior to the Boxer uprising. In 1905 this institution supported no less than fi ft y-seven children; a few years later their number had more than doubled. To the orphanage was attached a boy’s and a girl’s school in order to provide the inmates with both appropriate education and Christian instruction. Elisabeth’s and Otto’s mission turned out to be highly successful. Th eir orphanage was a respected institution to the people of Salaqi and their friends at home were not unaware of their ‘victories’; when Otto died in 1917, Trosvittnet cried out in bold letters that “our dear brother of Saratsi [Salaqi] has died”.81 Otto and Elisabeth, together with their returning companions and co-workers in the Swedish Alliance Mission, actually managed to create an enduring legacy of the once hastily created IMA/ C&MA mission in Inner Mongolia. Th e orphanage survived until 1949. Still in the 1990s one could fi nd men and women who remembered and treasured the memory of Otto and Elisabeth. In spite of previous heavy-handed onslaughts by the Communist authorities, the Protestant community has survived and is today rapidly growing.82

79 Figures gathered from Claesson, Kinesernas vänner, pp. 323–43. 80 Trosvittnet, 1 November 1901, p. 166. 81 “våre käre broder av Saratsi har dött”. Trosvittnet, 15 February 1918, pp. 57–8. An insightful study of Elisabeth’s and Otto’s later careers is found in Anna-Maria Claesson, “Elisabeth från Sammekulla—sänd av Gud till dödsskuggans land”, in Väckelsens folk (Jönköping: Jönköpings läns museum, 1998), pp. 77–99. 82 Claesson, Kinesernas vänner, pp. 221–27. 92 chapter three

Th roughout his missionary life Otto was to remain an exponent of the kind of missionary manhood that we can see in his early career. He and Elisabeth lived close to Chinese society (Elisabeth’s diaries are, for example, riddled with transcribed Chinese catch-phrases)83 and to enjoy amicable relations with the local population—Christians and non- Christians. Yet, they struggled at the same time to uphold their Western identity. We need only take a brief look at the interior of their house at Salaqi to discover that this was a couple who, in the privacy of their own home, did strive to remain Swedes at this far away place. One is easily led to emphasise the diff erences that separated Otto Öberg from Olof Bingmark. Th e one placing great stress on a ministerial identity, doctrinally combative and contemptuous of the Chinese; the other committed to mission in the privacy of his room, who wept when he heard an emotive sermon,84 who relished in the company of native converts and who was even prepared to meet Chinese folk religion ‘half-way’ by appearing as an exorcist. Yet, the diff erences between these two men should not be exaggerated. In spite of manifest diff erences in terms of outlook, priorities and ideals about missionary work, both activists had much in common. When settling at this unfamiliar location they rehearsed familiar models of masculinity derived from the Swedish agrarian culture, combining them with elements from the lower middle-class world of the missionary revival. Both men appear to have been content with working within the parameters provided by this mission and to explore the options that were available to them. Other missionaries belonging to this group were not equally complacent. In the next Chapter we will encounter a man who came to depart from this milieu and how his migration also came to be a transformation of manhood.

83 See for example, Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Elisabeth Öberg Diary, Diary 1904, 12 February 1904. 84 See for example, Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 6 June 1897. CHAPTER FOUR

THE MAKING OF A DOMESTIC ADVENTURER FRANS AUGUST LARSON, 18701957

Th en a couple of fellows I knew said they were going to Stockholm as one of them had to return to the Army, he was in the service. I did not know anything about Stockholm except I had a married sister there. So one fi ne morning we 3 boarded a small steamer and went to Stockholm. We took a look at the city walking the streets up and down, then went to a café on the outskirts of the city to get something to eat and drink. At a table near to us were 3 fellows drinking and we noticed they were talking very loud, and aft er a few minutes 2 of them came over to our table and asked where we came from. I suppose we looked like outsiders. Th en they said if we gave them some drink they would show us the city. We said we did not need them. One fi nally knocked my teacup over. I did not get angry but my newly trained muscles itched a bit. When he fi nally knocked down a chair I got him by the neck and the seat of his pants and threw him on the window. Whether I was a little too strong or the window too rotten or both, the whole window frame went with the man out on the street. I told my friends to scoot, put on my hat and walked out down the street. By that time several café people were out yelling for the police. I met one cop running and pointed over my shoul- der and said, there is a fi ght at the café. When I got around the corner, I hurried on and jumped into a little steamboat that runs around in the bay of Stockholm. Th e boat was full of people talking and laughing and I felt safe and in good company.1 Undoubtedly quite a few readers will be surprised to learn that this short narration is found in the manuscript autobiography of a former missionary, Frans August Larson, from 1892 until 1900 IMA/C&MA missionary in Northern China and Inner Mongolia, and from 1903 until 1913 representative of the BFBS in Mongolia. Although missionary biographies oft en contain instances of perilous experiences, and borrow narrative patterns from contemporary adventurer novels, expressions of violence (on the part of the missionary that is) and of robust masculinity, are rare to say the least. Frans August, however, in

1 Frans August Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 13. 94 chapter four his various attempts at self-writing, willingly explored his own physical manhood. In all likelihood he was not the only missionary who had had experiences of bar fi ghts (particularly among those drawn from the environment of working-class adolescents), yet his decision to include this episode indicates that he abandoned the generic rules guarding missionary biography in order to include literary components that were much more likely to be found in pulp magazines.2 Yet, this story points not only at the blending of genres, but also at the various ways in which male identities could combine in the missionary world. In Frans August’s three books, all of which contain fragments of autobiography, the reader is confronted with a man of working-class origin, who got interested in missionary work and followed his calling to far-away lands. Once settled in Asia he combined his religious endeavours with adventures, diplomacy, gold mining, ranch life and lucrative business. Th is was a man who could wear several hats at the same time and make them all fi t—or at least that is how he wanted it to appear. To be sure, Frans August Larson was a remarkable man who lived an unusual life—he was the self-made man par preference among Franson’s recruits. Frans August’s career forces us to consider anew our own conception of the relationship between domestic missionary manhood and the type of manhood frequently to be found among Western explorers and adventurers. Many observers lacking an over-all commitment to Christian missions have been prone to presuppose a remarkable degree of conformity—sometimes without due consideration as to the possibilities of diff erences—between missionaries and other agents of Western expansion.3 Yet, when we look at the relationship between missionary men and other men entering colonial arenas towards the end of the nineteenth century, we may call into question the reason- ableness of such an assumption. A decade ago British historian John Tosh argued that towards the end of the nineteenth century colonial arenas were seen as providing an escape for domesticated Western

2 For an insightful study, see Erin A. Smith, Hard-Boiled: Working-Class Readers and Pulp Magazines (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press), ch. 5. 3 See the critique off ered in Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff , Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (2 vols; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991–1997), vol. I, p. 10. the making of a domestic adventurer 95 men.4 In other words, the very concept of male domesticity, which had been central to the conception of missionary manhood, motivated some men’s departure from Western society. Even though we may doubt that there was a general fl ight from domesticity at this time,5 the free life of adventure and of exploration certainly became a remedy for men increasingly feeling dissatisfi ed by the codes and demands of ‘Victorian’ respectability. We may therefore come to the conclusion that there was a rift separating missionary men from this new breed of self-conscious he-men moving on colonial arenas. But was this really the case? Th e ways in which the boundaries between diff erent forms of manhood in reality overlapped and amalgamated in the colonial world seem not to have been seriously studied.6 Many a man who publicly revelled in the freedom and the opportunities of the colonial world, was in reality a happily married man; numerous missionaries (both male and female) subscribing to the domestic code found numerous opportunities at adventure and redefi nition of gendered identities that could sometimes be found in juxtaposition to their religious work. Th e case of Frans August Larson will enable us to approach the question of how diff erent forms of manhood blended in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China.

To write a biography of Larson with some claim to historical accuracy is not an easy task.7 In spite of the fact that he published three books fi lled with reminiscences from his life in China and Mongolia, wrote numerous letters to members of his family and occasional reports to missionary societies, he was not a man of letters. Frans August also emerges in the writings of other more famous Western explorers, for example in Roy Chapman Andrews’ Across Mongolian Plains, and in the numerous interviews he was to give in his mature years. If viewed separately, contrasting images of Frans August appear in these diff erent

4 John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 174. 5 A view convincingly put forward in A. James Hammerton, “Pooterism or partnership? Marriage and masculine identity in the lower middle class”, Journal of British Studies 38 (1998), pp. 291–321. 6 Even though masculinity is not explicitly mentioned, numerous valuable insights can be gained from John M. MacKenzie, “Missionaries, ecience, and the Environment in nineteenth-century Africa”, in Porter (ed.), Imperial Horizons, pp. 106–30. 7 Th e best biography of Larson is Axel Odelberg, Hertig Larson. Äventyrare, mis- sionär, upptäckare (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 2003). 96 chapter four categories of sources. Yet, the very contradictions that seem to arise from combining these groups of sources need not to be eradicated, but highlighted; they are the refl ections of the fl uid nature of masculinity as expressed in the life of this one man.

Frans August Larson (or Larsson as his surname was spelt before it had been anglicised),8 was born at Tillberga in Central Sweden, close to the borders of Lake Mälar and within reach from the capital. He was only a few months older than Alfred Fagerholm (see Chapter Five), and just like the two missionaries we previously have encountered, he came from a family that was not unaccustomed to fi nancial diffi culties, losses and hard work. With some success Frans August’s father had served as a farmhand at Hällby manor; in his mature years he had risen to the rank of a foreman. But the year before the birth of Frans August he had retired at the age of fi ft y. Following his retirement the family settled as croft ers on the premises of the manor. Th eir new-born had six elder brothers and sisters born within wedlock. His oldest sister, Edla, was about to turn seventeen in 1870 and had already left the family in order to fi nd a suitable position in Stockholm. Within a few years Edla was to marry a private contractor; this new-found social position enabled her to support her siblings who tried to make it in the world.9 When Frans August was four years, his father died at the age of fi ft y-four. Th e family was forced to leave the cottage and settle

8 Th ere was a certain fl uidity in the identity of the self-made man. Th ey were men who had little inherited social capital; they had forsaken the social environment of their childhood and their entry into the adult workforce became for them a time of transition. Th ey prided themselves of having been able to transcend the social circumstances into which they had been born. Paradoxically, that was not the only way in which they were to regard their pedigree. Th eir own humble origin could also be a source of embarrassment and the presence of family members could be just a painful reminder of the instability of their acquired identities. No wonder that cultural historians have been prone to fi nd a constant need for affi rmation dominating in the life of self-made men, see Kimmel, Manhood in America, p. 23. Th is produced in the missionaries a need to place the mark of permanence on their acquired missionary identities by altering their names. Many exchanged peculiar sounding Swedish names to fi t Anglo-American preferences (‘Karl’ became ‘Charles’; ‘Svärdsson’ was altered to ‘Swordson’), others substituted the traditional patronymics of rural society for names that to a Swedish listener sounded much more bourgeois (for example, Carl Pettersson becoming Carl Blomberg). 9 Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 13. the making of a domestic adventurer 97 at the poorhouse of Hällby. Five years later, when Frans August was nine, his mother died, fi nally succumbing to the hardships she had been forced to endure in order to care for her family.10 As his legal guardians were appointed Miss Emma Olsson, the local schoolmistress, and the landlord Erik Tersmeden. Frans August was always secretive about his parents and the conditions he lived under during his childhood. In his autobiographical writings, their manners and habits are discussed only too briefl y and possible family devotions are not mentioned at all. Both his parents belonged to a class of people that we occasionally fi nd in Swedish revivalist congregations, but in all likelihood it was not within the family home that his religious views were born. A link to popular Evangelicalism is found, however, in the person of one of his guardians. Emma Olsson appears in the church books as a school- teacher and “crippling”, but also as a Baptist.11 We can only speculate about her infl uence on her young warden; whereas Frans August did stay in touch with at least one member of the aristocratic Tersmeden family, he appears to have lost contact with Emma Olsson at an early stage. Maybe she was of little signifi cance to him and in the decisions that eventually made him leave his native land, but it is just as possible that her network of contacts with co-religionists in the region was of some importance when Frans August choose to leave Tillberga at the age of nineteen. Aft er having fi nished school in his mid-teens, Frans August supported himself by serving as a farmhand for a few years. His brothers and sisters had by then already left Tillberga. One brother had left for America, and Frans August contemplated taking a similar step. In his old age he remembered that he had wanted to go to Brazil, but that his older sister, Edla, persuaded him to remain in Sweden until he had turned twenty-one.12 Instead of crossing the Atlantic he travelled to the other side of Lake Mälar and started to work at a smithy at another Hällby, outside Eskilstuna. We know that one of his future companions, Alfred Fagerholm, also was working as a blacksmith’s aid at this location at about this time. Were they in fact working for the same,

10 Larson, “Autobiography”, pp. 10–11. Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet. Microcard 112608. 11 Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet. Microcard 112608. 12 Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 12. Th ere were no less than 2,000 Swedes drawn to Brazil in 1891, a majority of whom came from the Stockholm region, see Carlsson, “Chronology and composition”, p. 126. 98 chapter four

Baptist, employer (see Chapter Five)? Frans August later remembered this as the site at which he built his own ‘he-man-like’ physique: “I then went into an Iron factory where they made forest man’s axes and hammers[.] Th at was hard work but it created muscles in my arms so I got real husky.”13 Frans August was not to remain at Hällby for long. He left for Stockholm during the autumn of 1890 and in November that year he was registered as living in Adolf Fredrik parish in the northern part of the city.14 In Stockholm his family connections got him a job as a construction worker. His sister seems to have had plans for her youngest brother that involved education and a proper professional career; Frans August recalls how his relatives suggested that he was to join the Royal College of Engineering with an aim to become an architect.15 When he was still waiting to be accepted as a student, he got much interested in Mission work, a Swedish Mission wanted a man to build a Mission station for them and do other business for the Mission. I hesitated, I thought if I had to do a building job I might just as well do it at home aft er I fi nished school.16 Such considerations did not stop his commitment to missionary work; he had not even been two years in the Swedish capital, when he enrolled in the Bible class off ered by Franson in September 1892. On a number of points, Frans August’s autobiographical sketches diff er from established Evangelical patterns. One of these is their lack of a clear conversion narrative. It is, however, a mistake to jump to the conclusion that he had not had such an experience, and that he, at one stage in his life, had valued it as a formative event. All of these renditions were written quite late in his life (the earliest was composed in 1929 when he was fi ft y-nine); the memory of youthful religious zeal may then have been more or less forgotten, ignored or simply seen as lacking in relevance. But much more important, the literary genres in which Frans August was writing had little room for religious emotions and experiences. To insert an Evangelical narration of a conversion experience would decidedly have been strange in what were, by and large, stories of adventure. Maybe his religiosity diff ered from that

13 Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 12. 14 Sveriges befolkning 1890 (data base). Accessed 13 September 2007. 15 Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 13. 16 Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 13. the making of a domestic adventurer 99 which was frequently found among faith mission men, but we know that he passed the ‘test’ that all of Franson’s missionaries had to go through. If the faith mission ideal that Franson represented could rightly be accused for neither providing adequate education for their recruits, nor placing suffi cient means at their disposal, the standards were high when it came to religious zeal. We know that the candidates had to prove themselves as evangelists before they could be deemed suitable for foreign missions; furthermore, it is hardly imaginable that either one of them would have been selected for this important task if they had not demonstrated that they had the right ‘spirit’ (see below). At this stage Frans August evidently was of the right ‘stuff’, and in January 1893 he took the step he may have dreamt of for several years: starting life again on a diff erent Continent. Frans August’s early life is another testimony to the strong connection between missionary work and emigration in contemporary Sweden.

Even though Frans August seems to have shared the feelings of des- peration and of homesickness that several of his companions suff ered during their fi rst months in China, he also demonstrated a remarkable capacity to adapt and to fi nd new opportunities in this environment. Together with his companions he was transported to Inner Mongolia and settled for language training and missionary work in Baotou. He recalled that within a few months of his settlement in this city, he sent a letter to the board of the IMA suggesting that he instead should commence missionary work in Mongolia.17 Frans August gives various explanations as to his willingness to leave China, go across the border further into the unknown. In one account, he mentions that he heard of the Mongolians already from “a minister in Sweden” (by which he must have meant Franson) and become fascinated with this horse- loving people.18 It is extremely unlikely that Franson had mentioned the Mongolians at this stage. When it came to foreign missions his

17 Already in the Annual Report of the IMA delivered in October 1894, the proposal to organise a pioneer mission among the Mongolians is mentioned. See An Annual Report of the International Missionary Alliance (New York: n. p., 1894), p. 38. 18 Frans August Larson, Larson, Duke of Mongolia (Boston, MA: Littlle, Brown & Co., 1930), p. 265. 100 chapter four focus was always on China during the early 1890s, and it was in order to gather people for missionary work among the ‘unoccupied’ regions of the Chinese Empire that he toured Sweden in 1892/1893. In another account Frans August remembers that he met Mongolians already in Beijing; his settlement in Baotou would have meant further chances to encounter these people. In a phrase that is reminiscent of the youthful adventure novel of the age he recalled that: “One day we travelled over Mongolian territory and I saw gay coloured men dash about on their small horses and said to myself: ‘that’s the life’.”19 (See further comments below.) Somehow Frans August and a few of his colleagues had managed to get permission to be included in the train of the local mandarin that was travelling to the wedding of a near-by Mongolian prince. He recalls that this was due to the favour they had incurred from the relief work they had done in Baotou.20 For the missionaries this must have seemed to be a chance to fi nally gain access to this territory in which little Protestant work, save that of London Missionary Society pioneer John Gilmour, had been done before. Sometime during the late spring of 1894, Frans August sent a letter to the supporters of the mission in Sweden, one of the few letters of Frans August that was ever to be published in a missionary periodical. Th is document reveals that he had already gained some knowledge of Mongolian society, religion and customs; it is also a clear indication of how deeply submerged he was in the religiosity that prevailed in these circles: During the conference we have now had in Pao-teo [Baotou] we have discussed what needs to be done in regards of the evangelisation of Mongolia. One of the best ways to strive for Mongolia, and for all other places, is prayer; therefore I would like to besiege the dear friends at home to take an active part in this branch of the work. Pray in faith for these nearly 10 million heathens. Pray also for me when I now go to sow the noble seed among this people.21

19 Larson, “Autobiography”, p. 4. 20 In his “Autobiography” Larson recalls that the fi rst duty of the missionaries in 1893 was to off er relief for those who suff ered from a famine. I have not been able to establish that there was a famine in this region at this time. In a letter published in Trosvittnet in September 1894 the relationship with the local mandarin is described as ‘friendly’, see Trosvittnet, September 1894, p. 6. 21 “Under den konferens, som vi nu haft i Pao-teo, hava vi samtalat om vad som bör göras för mongoliets evangelisering. Ett av de bästa sätt att verka för Mongoliet, liksom på alla platser, är bön, varför jag nu vill lägga de kära vännerna i hemlandet på hjärtat att deltaga i denna gren av arbetet; bedjen i tro för dessa nära 10 millioner hedningar. the making of a domestic adventurer 101

When Frans August was writing this letter, he was in the process of preparing for a journey that was about to take him and a Norwegian colleague to Ulan Bator. Th e BFBS had provided them with tracts and Bibles that were to be distributed among the Mongolian population that they encountered.22 Little is known of Frans August’s activities during this stay. Th e annual report of the IMA for 1894–5 states that he was posted in “Uago” [by which must have been meant Urga, the contemporary name of today’s Ulan Bator] in Mongolia.23 Frans August’s later recollections of this period contain few references to actual missionary work, but a fair share of adventure stories.24 Th ere is no reason to believe that Frans August’s sojourn in the Mongolian capital did not contain instances of Bible distribution and of evangelism; a considerable amount of time, however, must have been spent in language training. When he returned from Mongolia and took up residence in Zhangjiakou during the summer of 1895 in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Sprague,25 missionaries in the employ of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions [hereaft er ABCFM], he quickly gained a reputation for his new-found linguistic skills. His arrival in the city resulted in renewed activity on the part of the American missionaries to reach the nomads that inhabited the plains north of Zhangjiakou. In 1896 he demonstrated his growing fascination with the cultural conditions of Mongolia in a letter inserted in Th e Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly. His perspective was still that of a missionary looking for rapid conversions: We have much to thank God for. Th ere are signs of light on the black horizon of Mongolia. We believe there will be “fi re in the East, and fire in the West,” as my beloved friend, Mr. Roberts, says. I am more than thankful to God, that I have two of these lamas, who used to pray to the “Living Buddha,” now every day at our morning prayers praying to the “Living Christ”.26 But it was not the renewed possibilities at missionary work among the Mongolians that were to be the most important outcome of his decision

Bedjen även för mig, då jag nu går för att så den ädla säden bland detta folk.” Trons segrar, 15 August 1994, p. 254. 22 Trosvittnet, September 1894, pp. 6–7. 23 A Week of Years: Th e Eighth Annual Report of the International Missionary Alliance, 1894–5 (New York: n. p., 1895), p. 102. 24 See for example Larson, Larson, pp. 3–45. 25 See Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 95. 26 Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly, 8 May 1896, pp. 435–36. 102 chapter four to stay in this Chinese outpost. Here he met Mary Rodgers, another missionary in the service of the IMA, the woman that eventually was to become his wife. Mary, of solid Presbyterian stock, was born in Albany, in up-state New York. Th e IMA had intended to send her to Beijing in 1894,27 but due to the Japanese attack on China that year she had been forced to fi nd shelter among her compatriots in Zhangjiakou. Within just a few weeks, a romance had started to grow between Mary and Frans August and a possible engagement was being discussed. On 7 July 1895 she wrote to her mother, revealing her growing attraction to the tall Swede: He is a great strong boy/man and very earnest and simple in his life as a Christian. He wears Chinese clothes and is quite a picture in his big hat lined with blue. [. . .] He is like a young giant and has roughed it. He goes with us on our trips when Mr. Sprague is along of course gentleman [sic] and enjoys the mountain climbing very much. He runs down and up hills and was very happy when he succeeded in rolling an immense stone down the mountain Saturday.28 But Mary’s epistle is not just a description of her future fi ancé’s bodily strength; a little later she writes of his enthusiasm for missionary work among the Mongolians.29 In March 1897 they were married in Beijing.30 Th ey now assumed responsibility for the work of the C&MA in Mongolia; their fi rst summer as a married couple was to be spent doing missionary work among the nomads. Th e enthusiasm of the writer of the Annual Report of the C&MA in 1897 is apparent when he (or she) is informing the audience of the future activities of the Larsons in Mongolia: Th is year they will be travelling over the country with the tribes and trusting to secure a home before the winter. It is a wonderful mission, and we want new workers for this hard and diffi cult fi eld.31 Th e story of the pioneer Mongolian mission contained both adventure and the hope of the conversion of the ‘heathen’ Mongols.

27 An Annual Report of the International Missionary Alliance, p. 30. 28 Växjö, selection of Larson family letters. Mary Rodgers to Mrs Rodgers, 11 June 1895 (copy with the author). 29 Växjö, selection of Larson family letters. Mary Rodgers to Mrs Rodgers, 11 June 1895 (copy with the author). 30 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 96. 31 Report and Retrospect of the Work of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (New York: n. p., 1897), p. 41. the making of a domestic adventurer 103

In April 1898 their fi rst child, Mary Louise, was born. Th e expansion of the family, however welcome it was, meant declining opportunities at joint work of itinerant evangelism. Yet, just like in the case of Elisabeth Bingmark, the motherhood of Mary did not deter her from continuing some missionary work. In Zhangjiakou she was responsible for the ABCFM Sunday School; in order to facilitate her task, Frans August stayed at home and cared for their new-born. Th ey continued working together with a translation of the Bible into Mongolian language, but eventually the presence of a young child entailed that Mary had to discontinue her active evangelistic work. Th e 1900 Annual Report of the C&MA gives us a rare glimpse of what was to be a permanent feature of the Larson household: Th ey seldom see the face of a foreigner or a friend, and they oft en are separated from each other, while the lone wife and her little babe waits in her tent while her husband is far out on the plains in itinerant work.32 Th e Larson family still lived, or tried to live in, a Western model of domesticity, but already as a missionary, Frans August life-style entailed that this was always domesticity under strain.

III

As the Larsons settled in Zhangjiakou, their house became the refuge for Western men journeying or working in Northern China. Among others, future US president, Herbert Hoover, and Swedish explorer, Sven (von) Hedin, enjoyed the hospitality of Mary and Frans August during the latter half of the 1890s.33 Just like the rest of the C&MA missionaries working in this region, the Larson family experienced fi nancial diffi culties. It is reasonable to assume that Frans August’s considerable entrepreneurial skills manifested themselves already at this time. His unique knowledge of the region was not only an asset for the missionary enterprise; it could just as well be turned into the

32 Christian and Missionary Alliance: Annual Report of the Superintendent and Board of Managers Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society May 4, 1900 (New York: n. p., 1900), pp. 19–20. 33 The two men had probably already met in Guihuacheng in February 1897, see Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diary 1897, 15 February 1897. See also Herbert Hoover, Th e Memoirs of Herbert Hoover 1874–1920 (3 vols; New York: MacMillan, 1951), Vol. I, pp. 40–2. 104 chapter four basic know-how that eventually enabled Frans August to settle as a businessman exporting Mongolian goods. Within a few years his former missionary companions had become suspicious of the additional incomes he gained from selling furs and horses and acting as ‘business agent’ for Westerners travelling in this region.34 One of his assignments however was to prove useful to some of his missionary companions. By chance he encountered the British diplomat, C. W. Campbell, on the Mongolian plains in July 1899. Campbell was then on a minor scientifi c expedition and Frans August assisted him in his measurements. Th e two men must have discovered a shared interest and a possibility for mutual assistance; Frans August was commissioned to organise a new expedition that was to take place the following summer.35 Th ough he regretted the additional expenditure involved in making the necessary arrangements, the presence of an already organised expedition in June 1900 must have seemed ordered by providence. By having the equipment and the means of transport necessary for crossing the Gobi desert ready at Harausa, in the vicinity of Zhangjiakou, Frans August saved the lives of several of his companions fl eeing for their lives in the summer of 1900. Frans August’s later repute as a heroic character is by and large derived from his leadership of this fl ight. As captain of this ‘expedition’ he became known to both European and American audiences for his bravery, marksmanship, bold riding and leadership.36 Aft er a long and troublesome journey the company landed safely at Kiachta in Siberia in August 1900. Th e Larsons were then expecting to leave Asia and travel with the rest of their company fi rst to Sweden, and aft er that to cross the Atlantic to unite with Mary’s parents in the US. Th eir hopes for a reunion were soon thwarted. Within a few days Frans August had got a rather lucrative off er from the French-Russian

34 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 169. One of the captains of this group, Emil Jakobson, later expressed the opinion that Larson “is not spiritual enough” (In the original: “är för litet andlig”). Stockholm, Riksarkivet, Svenska Mongolmissionens arkiv, E5:1. Emil Jacobson to Prince Oscar Bernadotte, 19 April 1901. 35 Due to the dangerous situation created by the Boxers, this expedition had to be postponed until the summer of 1902. See C. W. Campbell, Travels in Mongolia, 1902: A Journey by C. W. Campbell, the British Consul in China (London: Th e Stationary Offi ce, 2000). 36 Th ese narrations include, James H. Roberts, A Flight for Life [from Tientsin] and an Inside View of Mongolia (Boston, MA: Pilgrim Press); Mark Williams, Autobiography; and, Across the Desert of Gobi (Madison, WN: M. Eccles, 1982). the making of a domestic adventurer 105 company, Société Anonyme Minière des Aimach de Touchotukhan et de Setsenkahn en Mongolie, that was operating a goldmine in this region. Mary’s reaction to her husband’s acceptance of this off er was far from positive; yet, she realised that this was a job that suited her husband perfectly.37 Like many other similar places at this time, the goldmine was an international workplace. It was run by American engineers and gold miners; men from China, Russia and Mongolia provided the workforce. Frans August was to serve the company as an interpreter, but in reality he became a kind of foreman in charge of transports.38 Th e goldmine provided an environment that was in many ways diff erent from what the Larson family had known in Zhangjiakou. In terms of gender, and to our conception of the boundaries between missionary manhood and other types of contemporary masculinity, this shift is of much signifi cance. Th e mine was a homosocial location, the sight of a ruffi an manhood, and likely to be riddled with inter-racial violence.39 Yet, Frans August blended in very well in this environment. Even Mary, in spite of her early objections, seems to have found a new vocation in providing a minimum of domestic comfort to the Western men working at this place.40 Th eir sojourn at this North Mongolian mine may seem just like an insignifi cant episode in the life of this family, driven, not by a manifest will to leave the missionary world, but by dire need. Consequently, their experience, which undermines so many of our preconceived ideas about missionary life at the turn of the twentieth century, can be brushed aside as just exceptions to the rule. Yet, Frans August enjoyed working for this mining company. In 1901, aft er fi nally having been able to visit Mary’s parents in the US, he tried to get his old position back, only to fi nd a closed mine. Furthermore, he was not the only missionary in the employ of this company; a few months aft er the Larsons had settled in the log-cabin provided by Frans August’s employer, N. J. Friedström, a Swedish-American missionary who had also managed to

37 Växjö, selection of Larson family letters. Mary Larson to Mrs Rodgers, 6 June 1902 (copy with the author). 38 Larson, “Autobiography”, pp. 12–3. 39 Keith Breckenridge, “Th e allure of violence: Men, race and masculinity on the South African goldmines, 1900–1950”, Journal of Southern African Studies 24:4 (1998), pp. 669–93. 40 Växjö, selection of Larson family letters. Mary Larson to Mrs Rodgers, 6 June 1902 (copy with the author). 106 chapter four escape the Boxers, took up a similar position.41 Frans August may have been uncommonly keen to embrace an adventurous lifestyle, but his experience was far from unique—above all when incomes were both small and insecure. Although such activities were oft en silenced due to contemporary notions of propriety, many a missionary man supplanted his meagre stipend by side-line jobs or tried to enrich unrewarding work by engaging in more thrilling practises.42 It was not that they apostatised from their missionary calling altogether (even though we know quite a few of those cases), but they combined these seemingly incompatible activities in a most ingenious way. In terms of gender this indicates that it is a mistake to impose a rigid barrier between the domestic missionary man and other kinds of Western men moving in the colonial world of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-centuries. In reality the boundaries were much more fl uid. Th e following decade in Frans August’s life provides us with yet another example of such a fl exible state. When he fi rst returned to Ulan Bator in June 1901 it was not to do missionary work. To continue in the employ of the C&MA seems to have been far from the minds of both husband and wife. Yet, Frans August longed to return and was hired as caravan leader by two Swedish engineers planning for a possible extension of the trans-Siberian railway, over Ulan Bator, to Beijing.43 Due to the unstable political situation this venture was abandoned, and Frans August, was without job again once the party had landed in Beijing. By chance he met George Henry Bondfi eld, agent of the BFBS in China, in Tianjin. Bondfi eld suggested to Frans August that he was to serve as the Society’s colporteur in Mongolia. To the board in distant London Bondfi eld remarked: “Th e society has never had such an opportunity for work in Mongolia before, and it may never have such an off er again.”44 Aft er a prompt decision, Frans August settled, once again, in Zhangjiakou as the outreached hand of the BFBS to the Mongolians. He remained on the payroll of the BFBS until February 1913 when his extensive knowledge of Mongolian society earned him the position of

41 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 117. 42 Even such a luminary as George Sherwood Eddy had engaged in elephant hunting to relieve the dull of missionary work in India, see Stanley, “ ‘Hunting for souls’ ”, pp. 127–141. 43 Wilhelm Olivecrona, Ingenjör i mittens rike (Malmö: Forsells, 1960). 44 Cambridge University Library, Bible Society Library, BFBS/Foreign Correspondence Inwards 1901, A.-D. G. H. Bondfi eld to J. H. Ritson, 7 October 1901. the making of a domestic adventurer 107 counsellor to the Chinese government. Th e available records suggest that Frans August thought of this as just a temporary position, and that he was to return to his colporteur duties aft er his assignment had been completed. Such a move however seemed inappropriate to the governing board. One Bible Society offi cial tersely remarked: “There was some feeling against Larson for entering the service of Chinese Gov[ernmen]t.”45 But already prior to his leaving the missionary scene, Frans August had embarked upon a business career. In 1902 he established a horse ranch in Mongolia; the incomes he gained from horse-breeding supplanted the meagre wages from the BFBS. Th is, at times lucrative, enterprise was to remain a permanent source of income to the Larson family until the late 1910s. Yet, even though such business ventures were regarded with suspicion in orthodox Evangelical circles, he could still emerge as a dedicated Christian worker. Th e long interview with Frans August that was published in Th e Bible and the World in August 1909 presented him as a conscientious missionary, albeit working at a remarkable location.46 Other contemporary observers were less inclined to see him as a Christian activist. In addition to his missionary life he was “a sportsman”,47 who had donated a T-Ford to Bogdo Gegen, the Living Buddha residing in Ulan Bator, sealing their friendly relations. Yet, even aft er Frans August was defi nitely ‘lost’ to secular business, he stayed in close contact with the missionaries who worked in this region. Indeed, Frans August, together with the other early pioneers of the IMA/C&MA venturing further into Mongolian territory, helped to pave the way for the Protestant missions, several of which were of Scandinavian origin, which began to take up work in Mongolia during the fi rst decades of the twentieth century. Above all in the annals of the Swedish Mongol Mission, Larson emerges as an important protector and point of contact with Mongolian society.48

45 Cambridge University Library: Bible Society Library: BSA/D2/14/33 Dr. Ritson’s Black Books: China, p. 331. Larson was present at the Continuation Committee meeting in Beijing in 1913, see Th e Continuation Committee Conferences in Asia 1912–1913: A Brief Account of the Conferences Together with Th eir Findings and Lists of Members (Published by the chairman of the Continuation Committee, New York, 1913), p. 293. 46 Bible and the World 5 (August 1909), pp. 231–25. 47 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 198. 48 Th e Swedish Mongol Mission has recently been treated in, Karin Johansson, “De vågade sig ut: en studie av Svenska mongolmissionens missionärer och verksamhet 1910–1938”, Diss. Lund University, 2008. 108 chapter four

Among the representatives of this society he and his wife found many friends; occasionally, these people even accompanied Frans August on his various secular ventures.49

In the early-1920s, Frans August had a solid reputation in both Mongolia and in Northern China. His fame was increasing, above all in his native land, but also in other parts of the Western world. Following his resignation from the position he had held with the Chinese government in 1914, he settled as business agent of the Danish-American fi rm, Anderson, Mayer & Co., with bases in Zhangjiakou and Ulan Bator. In 1920 he was rewarded for the services he had rendered Mongolia in past years by being elevated to the lowest rank of the Mongolian aristocracy, enabling him to add to his various titles—Duke of Mongolia. In 1923 he served as caravan leader to American explorer, Roy Chapman Andrews, and four years later, to Sven (von) Hedin. All this added to the aura that surrounded this former pauper from Central Sweden. In his late-fi ft ies he could easily claim that he had, so far, lived an extraordinary life. At this time, a man of Frans August’s stature, called for a biography, or at least a published memoir. Frans August knew this very well, and following his 1927 expedition, Hedin had been in contact with one of the most reputable Swedish publishers in order to have Frans August’s memoirs published.50 Th e problem was only that Frans August was not writing man. Th is situation was solved when Nora Waln, who was about to publish Th e House of Exile in 1933, was commissioned to be his ghost-writer. In 1929 this book appeared in Sweden, and the following year in the US as, Larson, Duke of Mongolia. In spite of its title, this book is much more a prose description of Mongolia, its history and social customs, than a regular biography.51 Yet, by way of informing his readership of Mongolian habits, adventure emerges, and with it contemporary discourses of masculinity and of race.

49 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, pp. 201–22. 50 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 307. 51 Th is book was still in the 1950s mentioned as one of the authorities on Mongolian life, see Robert J. Miller, “A selective survey of literature of Mongolia”, American Political Science Review 46:3 (1952), pp. 849–66 [861]. the making of a domestic adventurer 109

Figure 2. Frans August Larson in the late 1920s 110 chapter four

Unlike many other adventure stories and narrations of the lives of ‘foreign’ people written at this time, this was not a story in which the Mongolian population emerged as brutal barbarians or as the feminised others of Western orientalist imagination.52 Rather, it was the image of the ‘noble savage’ that Frans August presented to his readers. Traditional Mongolian life contained an inherent primitivism and closeness to nature that was a welcome relief to the harmful conditions that prevailed in the cities of China, Europe and America. Mongolia represented a colonial ‘periphery’ along which adventure still was possible. Th e life that could be found on the plains of this part of Asia was an escape from the city life of white-collar workers (of which Frans August decidedly had limited knowledge). Frans August’s account resonates closely with a contemporary discourse on masculinity in which the harms of the city was constantly being discussed.53 Consequently, it comes as no surprise that the contrast between these two modes of life is brought out by the use of explicitly gendered language: Th e Mongolian people are never overworked, because their needs are few. Th ey never rush or hurry over anything, but take the full joy out of every hour as it passes. Th ey never have any exciting telegrams, express letters, or newspapers. Th ey have no trains to catch, no offi ce hours to keep. Th ey are not weakened by overheated rooms, luxurious furniture, soft beds, or big dinners at which the stomach has to digest innumerable kinds of rich food. Th ey have no narrow streets and no troublesome traffi c regulations. Th ey never suff er nervous breakdowns.54 Th e Mongolian race is described in the most positive of terms; they are “tall, lithe and strong. Th ey have a dashing, slightly devil-may-care grace, and a quick humor which twinkles in their eyes.”55 Th ey are still worthy descendants of their war-lord forebear, Genghis Khan, who ruled the earth, but “never moved into the cities [he] captured”.56 Mongolian women are seen as equally ‘manly’ in their demeanour. Even though their licentious behaviour was censured by Larson,57 they are

52 For masculinity and adventure novels, see for example Dawson, Soldier Heroes; Phillips, Mapping Men; Lynn Stewart, “Bodies, visions, and spatial politics: a review essay on Henri Lefebvre’s Th e Production of Space”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13:5 (1995), pp. 609–18. 53 See for example, Kimmel, Manhood in America, ch. 4. 54 Larson, Larson, p. 47. 55 Larson, Larson, p. 48. 56 Larson, Larson, p. 46. 57 Larson, Larson, p. 71. the making of a domestic adventurer 111 commended for their riding skills,58 their unfailing attachment to life in the wild and their capability of “managing their aff airs”. In Frans August’s account, this manly nomadic people are far superior to the eff eminate Chinese, or, even worse, those of “mixed blood” living on the Mongolian boarders.59 Th e Mongolian people are not to be avoided by adventurous Western men trying to escape the eff eminising conditions of modern life; for anyone who is freedom-loving their company is to be solicited. His characterisation of Mongolian men off ered a point of identifi cation for Teutonic manhood: “Sons of the high altitude and of the open life of the plains cannot live healthily in the crowded artifi cial cities.”60 Frans August recalls that upon his arrival in China, the sight of the Mongolians was a welcome relief and a reminder of life in his native land (by now greatly idolised). “I was very homesick in those days. Th e Mongols seemed more akin to me than any other folk near.”61 Hence, his decision to leave Northern China appeared, not just to be an expression of missionary expansion, but also as a journey into a land in which manhood could be fulfi lled. He remembered that already as a missionary he tested his ‘manly’ skills against those of the Mongolians. Sometime during the 1890s he was invited to join the attendants of the Living Buddha during the festivities that were held at some distance from the capital. Th is assignment turned out to be a test of masculinity: When I had told a friend in Urga of my invitation to be one of the escort he had expressed doubt as to whether I should be able to keep up with the Living Buddha’s party, who were all noted as very fast riders. I felt that the invitation was a challenge to Swedish horsemanship, and that I must prove that I young Swede could ride with the best young Mongol. Th e Duke of Hanta had also been chaff ed by his Mongol friends when he told them that I was to come along, and he desired very much to prove me a good fellow to his companions. He had made special provision for me by adding his own favorite white horse to the Buddha’s herd for my particular benefi t. Th e white was a powerful animal and had no intention of being left behind the rest of the gay party. He was a beautiful animal to ride, intelligent and responsive, so that all I had to do was to sit in

58 Larson, Larson, p. 67. 59 Larson, Larson, pp. 148–49, 259. 60 Larson, Larson, p. 29. 61 Larson, Larson, p. 4. 112 chapter four

the saddle and enjoy his glorious movement as we swept forward well at the head of the party.62 In fact, in all of Frans August’s literary outpourings the Mongolians are used as idealised refl ections that were used to confi rm his own manhood. By pointing at his close contacts with, and fondness of, traditional Mongolian society his was able to present himself as a man’s man who loved “life in the open”.63 In reality, his own contacts with Mongolian society were not always as relaxed as they appeared in his books and there were aspects of his own life, silently passed over, that did not measure up to the model he was presenting to his readership. First, in Larson, Duke of Mongolia he emerges as someone with intimate contacts with all strata of Mongolian society. He moves easily from top to bottom, enjoying universal respect. In his various ventures he acts a bit paternalistic, but always in their best interest. In his mature years contemporaries oft en testifi ed to the remarkable reputation Frans August enjoyed in Mongolian society,64 yet he had been, as we have seen, in the employ of both the Chinese government and of a French-Russian company bent on exploring the natural resources of Northern Mongolia. His own opinion of Mongolian political shrewdness was low, to say the least; in a memoir he composed in the early 1910s, the Mongolian people emerge as childlike and incapable of governing themselves.65 Th ough he never was a man particularly prone to violence, some of Frans August’s visitors recalled derogatory remarks and incidences of violence towards native servants.66 In spite of his willingness to associate himself with the Mongolians, he was not that far from a typical Western man moving in a colonial setting. Secondly, it is an understatement to call his own attachment to the free and robust way of life off ered among the Mongolians ambigu- ous; incoherent may in fact be a better description. In Larson, Duke of Mongolia he recalls that: When I was younger I believed implicitly in the civilization of the West as superior to anything else in the world. I have spent hours talking to Mongolian princes and commoners, attempting to persuade them to build railways, start postal services, and found newspapers.67

62 Larson, Larson, pp. 117–18. 63 Larson, Larson, p. 236. 64 See for example, North China Daily News, 19 May 1937. 65 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, p. 206. 66 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, pp. 138–39. 67 Larson, Larson, p. 47. the making of a domestic adventurer 113

Even though such opinions are located in the past, it is evident that Frans August never had abandoned such ‘civilising’ projects and that he strongly believed, just live early nineteenth-century missionaries, in the ‘saving power’ of commerce. As a businessman he tried to carve out a bit of gold for himself in the fi eld of opportunity that Mongolia seemed to him. In Larson, Duke of Mongolia he pointed at the business opportunities still available and encouraged Western companies, in spite of the growing power of the Soviet, to settle in Mongolia.68 In Sweden he tried to create an interest in business contacts with the Mongolian people; he even suggested that expatriate Mongolians were to settle in his native land in order to start business ventures of their own.69 Even though the lucrative exports of which Frans August still was dreaming required that traditional Mongolian society survived intact, he recognised the need for modern means of transportation and of communication. His business proposals therefore became locked in a ‘Catch 22’ of an explorative economy. His attitude towards agricultural settlement in Mongolia was equally fi lled with contradictions. On the one hand, the establishment of Chinese farms in Inner Mongolia was regretted; on the other hand, Frans August suggested that the plains of Mongolia could off er relief to the people living in the over-crowded cities of Japan.70 In real life he had even supported a group of Danish adventurers who tried to live of the land in Northern Mongolia in the early 1920s.71 He also paid compliments to the agricultural mission of the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance, headed by his friend from his mining days, N. J. Friedström, that run “model farms, where the tillage of the soil and the care of the cattle by modern scientifi c methods are demonstrated to both Chinese and Mongols”.72

“I can only remember now, the time when I tied a blanket behind the saddle on my horse and was off far anywhere”.73 Frans August had

68 Larson, Larson, ch. ix. 69 Odelberg, Hertig Larson, pp. 379–80. 70 Larson, Larson, p. 269. 71 For the life of this community, see Henning Haslund-Christensen, Jabonah (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1932). 72 Larson, Larson, p. 269. 73 Växjö, selection of Larson family letters. Frans August Larson to Mary Walker, n.d. 1953 (copy with the author). 114 chapter four reached old age when he wrote this comment to his eldest daughter in February 1952. He was increasingly incapacitated and had this day been enjoying the sun while reading Western novels at his son’s house in Altadena, California. Th is comment can be read, not only as the expression of an old man’s longing for a lost past and youthful vigour, but also as an expression of postcolonial nostalgia for the adventure that was once available on the fringes of the colonial world.74 Frans August had stayed in Mongolia until 1939; the outbreak of WWII meant that both his assets and his adventurous life-style were lost. In his old age he tried to earn a living by engaging in various business enterprises, most of them failures, in both Sweden and the US. Like most men and women of his generation the Duke of Mongolia lived the last years of his life supported by his children and a few close friends. To be sure this man had explored in full the possibilities available to Western adventurers in regions like Mongolia and incorporated the eventual result of his various endeavours in his creation of a self. Frans August was the one to come closest to the ideal of the self-made man (here understood in a strictly economical sense) among his missionary companions. His ambitions and his inclinations (and indeed his talents) were eventually to force him to relinquish the life of a missionary, but it was neither his sideline jobs nor his adventurousness (which, as we have seen, was celebrated in the missionary press) that eventually forced him to leave the missionary world. In all likelihood, if Frans August had been allowed to chose for himself, he would have remained a missionary for much longer. For, in spite of all his ‘odd’ traits, he was in conformity with many of the ideals that prevailed in missionary circles throughout his life (being for example a supporter of teetotalism); in many respects he was much closer in outlook to many of his former companions than we are at fi rst glance led to believe. If we rephrase such observations in terms of manhood we may discover in him an amalgamation of several of the ideals of manhood that prevailed in the colonial world—we may call the Mongolian duke a self-made, domestic, adventurer.

74 Graham Dawson, “A lament for Imperial adventure: Lawrence of Arabia in the post-colonial world”, in Christopher E. Gittings (ed.), Imperialism and Gender: Constructions of Masculinity (Hebden Bridge: Dangaroo Press, 1996), pp. 98–112 [109–10]. CHAPTER FIVE

EDUCATION AND THE PROBLEM OF MISSIONARY SELFMAKINGALFRED FAGERHOLM, 18711923

To travel to the missionary fi eld a second time is in many respects dif- ferent. To the inexperienced all voids could be completely fi lled with a burning enthusiasm during the fi rst journey. Th e bright hope of the imminent conversion of the heathen to the teaching of the Gospels was almost the pillar of fi re aft er which one marched. Parents, siblings, friends and a beloved fatherland did not, at that time, occupy a large space in one’s emotional world, for the predominant feeling of zeal for the conversion of the heathen fi lled one’s soul. On the second journey one have a more sober perception of missionary work and the circumstances under which one lives.1 In Chapters Two and Th ree we met men who, in spite of hardships and missionary failures, were successful in creating a way of life in China that was in conformity with their modest ambitions while living as IMA/ C&MA missionaries. Alfred Fagerholm, who wrote the epigraph, was one of those who failed in that regard. Several of the men and women who had gone out as ‘Franson missionaries’ in connection with the IMA were later to complain greatly about the conditions under which they had been forced to live; most of them would blame the Americans for failing to provide them with what they saw as rightfully theirs. Even though the way in which Bingmark and Öberg managed to live seems to suggest that this critique may have been at least exaggerated, we should bare in mind that Bingmark gave a polished picture of life in China to his sisters and Öberg’s diaries decidedly have their blind spots. Events that may have seemed disturbing—such as the illnesses

1 “Att resa ut till missionsfältet för andra gången är i många avseenden, olika mot att resa ut för första gången. Den oerfarne men brinnande hänförelsen uppfyllde totalt alla tomrum då man reste ut första gången och de ljusa förhoppningarna om hedningarnas snara anslutning till evangeliförkunnelsen var då nära nog den eldstod eft er vilken man tågade ut. Föräldrar, syskon, vänner och ett älskat fosterland hade då icke så särdeles stor plats i ens känslovärld, ty den allförhärskande känslan av nitet för hedningarnas omvändelse fyllde ens själ. Då man reser ut för andra gången, har man fått en mera nykter syn på saker och ting som beröra både en själv och missionsarbetet.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 47. 116 chapter five that aff ected the missionaries and disasters that took the lives of count- less men and women in northernmost China—were not mentioned. Hints they gave about fi nancial troubles are in reality forceful reminders of the strained relationship between these missionaries and their New York based fi nanciers. In 1899 the annual report of the C&MA acknowledged that: Some misunderstandings have arisen during the year, chiefl y in regard to the question of allowances, but these have all been amicably settled by a conference with a representative from the mission who visited us last October, and the relations between the mission and the Board are harmonious and satisfactory.2 Undoubtedly, several of them, most likely those without a family to support, would at that time have lived of an income that did not enable them to live comfortably. Yet, the complaints on the part of the Swedish missionaries may have sounded strange to the leadership of the C&MA; like all other faith missionaries they were expected to trust that ‘the Lord will provide’. To speak of due wages in such an environment was an infringement of a silent understanding. Just like the Öbergs, Fagerholm returned to China during the early 1900s, but unlike the Öbergs he chose to abandon the faith mission world and instead joined the SMC. What is of particular interest here is the way in which he criticised the kind of self-making that we can fi nd in Bingmark and Öberg but also, at the same time, explored some of its underlying tendencies while composing his autobiography.3 Th is document was composed sometime before that commencement of the Great War (possibly in 1913), written when Fagerholm was in his early forties.4 Like most other Evangelical autobiographies this text was written as an account of a spiritual journey where the experience of Divine grace at conversion and a subsequent calling to become a missionary are important landmarks. As a description of missionary activities and personal life during his time as an IMA/C&MA missionary, this account leaves much to desired. Yet, Fagerholm’s autobiography is a

2 Second Annual Report of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (New York: n. p., 1899), p. 22. 3 A fi rst brief autobiographical presentation was written already during the late 1890s and inserted into Trosvittnet, 1 January 1899, p. 5. 4 Since this document suddenly comes to a stop, aft er having gradually been transformed to resemble diary notices, in 1913, it seems reasonable to assume that it was composed about that time. education and the problem of self-making 117 valuable source since it reveals with much clarity some of the ultimate consequences of the social/religious struggles we have examined in previous Chapters.

Th e social and family background of Alfred Fagerholm was similar to those of Bingmark, Öberg and Larson in many respects. He was born in 1871 in the small town of Högsby on the Swedish mainland. In spite of its modest size, Högsby prospered by being the centre of a rich and developed agricultural region in Southern Sweden. At the time of Alfred’s birth, his father worked as one of the local master blacksmiths. Since the least affl uent segments of rural Swedish society hardly ever produced large batches of children at this time, it is safe to assume that the all in all ten children that were born into this family, of which Alfred was the fourth, are testimonies to a modest respectability. A series of moves, the fi rst of which took place in 1879, seem to suggest that the family economy experienced some kind of setback in the latter half of the 1870s. Alfred later accredited this to “speculations” done by his father.5 For the Fagerholm children this meant that hopes for further education did not materialise at this time. Alfred recorded that he started working at the age of twelve at his father’s workshop, “already before his confi rmation”6—a rite that was generally viewed as an initiation into adulthood at this time. When he describes the religion of his parental home he conforms to yet another Evangelical pattern—whatever piety existed in the household of his birth, this was due to the infl uence of his angelic mother who struggled to teach her children religion and morality. His father on the other hand was an unruly character that infl uenced his off spring in quite another direction. His mother was described as “devout”. She was the one who taught him “to lift his eyes to God”, to say grace before every meal and to conclude each day with a prayer. In Alfred’s reminiscences her pious guidance was balanced and undermined by his father. He recalled that his “father’s infl uence in the home was of a completely

5 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 3. 6 “redan före sin konfi rmation”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 3. 118 chapter five worldly nature and quite frequently he sacrifi ced his hard-earned money on the altar of Backhoes”.7 His fathers smithy was described as a place of “drunkenness, swearing and indecent language”, an environment that corrupted the young man and led him away from God.8 Yet, if the text is read carefully, it becomes obvious that his father should not be regarded as a completely secular fi gure. Obviously, there was a clash between the middle-class Evangelicalism Alfred later came to espouse and the traditional artisan culture of his father. But this confl ict had also a religious dimension. Alfred mentions that his father demanded that those children who had excused themselves from worship should instead listen to a sermon that was read aloud at home (presumably by the male head of household).9 At the time he composed his autobiography he still remembered how he, as a boy, had been with his father to the town church to listen to Peter Fjellstedt, former missionary to India and at that time the most celebrated missionary protagonist in Sweden.10 It is also evident that the family owned not only a hymnal and a Bible, but also religious literature of an old-fashioned pietistic fl avour.11 It is not unreasonable to assume that his father conformed to a ‘high church’ Lutheranism that did not bother so much with such niceties as teetotalism but emphasised the need to conform to the ordinations of the National Church. Together with a secular socialism, it was exactly this kind of sentiment that many Swedish Evangelicals tried to combat; Alfred’s evaluation of his father’s religion owed at least a bit to the vitriol produced by this clash. In the descriptions that Alfred off ers of the religious conditions of his home and of the county in which he fi rst lived there are certain features missing: from other sources we know that this was a region from which a number of both male and female evangelists and missionaries were

7 First quote: “blicka upp till Gud”; second quote: “Faderns infl ytande i hemmet var av helt världslig natur, och icke så sällan off rade han av sina hårt förvärvade slantar på Bacci altare.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 1. 8 “Superi, svordomar och snuskigt tal”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 4. 9 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 1. 10 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 7. 11 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 1. education and the problem of self-making 119 recruited. Prominent Swedish female Holiness preacher Nelly Hall had visited Högsby at least twice before Alfred left his home. Th is young blacksmith may not have been included among those who fl ocked at the local mission hall to listen to this celebrated revivalist preacher. But his exclusion may also have been due to the fact that Nelly Hall had become a rather suspicious character to Swedish revivalists in the early 1910s due to her association with Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We need therefore not be surprised that she is left out of this account. What is more startling is his failure to mention that two of his sisters, Hilda and Paulina Fagerholm, whom he mentions as born-again Christians,12 had been inspired by Hall and worked themselves as lay evangelists.13 Alfred’s failure to mention these activities on the part of his sisters, of which he must have been aware, is intriguing. Are their activities simply seen as lacking in relevance? Or can this lacuna be interpreted as a conscious attempt to keep ‘irregular’ female activities out of sight by a man of quasi-clerical stature (see below)? At the age of seventeen Alfred left home for the fi rst time in search of work elsewhere. At that time his brothers had grown old enough to be able to take his place at the family workshop. He recalled that his mother tried to convince him to take a Bible with him, “but he did not fi nd such company appropriate for a young man who wanted to taste what the world had to off er”.14 A suitable place of work was found at a tilery at Eskilstuna, an expanding industrial city in Central Sweden, south of Lake Mälar; Alfred soon exchanged this job for a new position with a local blacksmith at Hällby, a village on the outskirts of Eskilstuna.15 Th is move may have been much more important for his religious development than he later were able to recall or willing to acknowledge. His new employer, August Bergman, was a Baptist and it was probably he who persuaded his apprentice to start visiting

12 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”. 13 Gunilla Gunner, Nelly Hall—uppburen och ifrågasatt. Predikant och missionär i Europa och USA 1882–1901 (Studia Missionalia Svecana, 62; Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2003), pp. 129–30, 195–209. 14 “men han tyckte ett sådant sällskap icke passade för en ung man som ville smaka vad världen hade att bjuda honom på”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 4. 15 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 4–5. 120 chapter five the nearby Baptist chapel. As is the case in most Evangelical autobiographies, the circumstances surrounding his conversion experience is recorded in great detail. Alfred recalled that he was present at the local chapel on 4 January 1892 to hear John Walborg, at that time a student at the Baptist seminary in Stockholm, preach. Th is sermon touched him deeply and “Alfred sank down in remorse under a fl ood of tears”. Assisted by the preacher, he “called upon God to forgive his sins” and found that “the peace of forgiveness was beginning to fl ow into the heart of the young man”.16 If Alfred’s narrative is read carefully, we realise that this episode was but the fi nal stop on a much longer religious journey. For some time he seems to have been drawn to revivalist Christianity, but this profound experience intensifi ed and deepened his religiosity. He mentions that he now started to live a rigorous devotional life and that he paid frequent visits to several local Evangelical congregations. Among these he appears to have found the Salvation Army particularly attractive: In their testimonies and holiness meetings he found much that appealed to his tender heart. Th eir zeal for the salvation of others and their way to attend to the needs of those deepest fallen in sin seemed attractive to the recently converted young man, who was burning with a sanctifi ed desire to deepen in holiness and to do something for the salvation of others.17 Sometime during the spring of 1892, Alfred enrolled as a soldier in this organisation. His evangelising zeal and youthful enthusiasm probably made him an attentive listener when Fredrik Franson appeared at Eskilstuna in late-August or early-September 1892. Franson’s aim was to convince young men and women to take part in the Bible course he was about to off er in Stockholm, and ultimately to recruit new missionaries for China. Alfred vividly describes a burning speech on the urgent need

16 First quote: “Alfred sjönk ner i bänken under det att ångsens heta tåresvall fl ödade”; second quote: “anropat Gud om förlåtelse för sina synder”; third quote: “förlåtelsens outsägliga hjärtefrid började strömma in i den unge mannens hjärta”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 5. 17 “i deras vittnesbörds- och helgelsemöten fann han mycket som tilltalade hans varma sinne. Deras iver för andras frälsning och deras sätt att ta sig an de djupast fallna slog också mycket an på den nyomvände ynglingen, som brann av ett heligt begär att själv bli mera helgad samt att kunna göra något för andras frälsning.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 6. education and the problem of self-making 121 of the Chinese and the responsibility of every Christian to listen to the missionary call. Franson summoned those “young men and women who had thought of the heathen and who had felt the call of God, to come forward for continued discussions aft er the congregation had been dismissed”.18 Alfred remembered that he rather hesitantly stayed with this group who carried on conversing until late at night. Aft er a few days of hesitation the decision had been made: he was to leave his work at Eskilstuna to join the other aspiring students who gathered in Stockholm hoping for a future on the mission fi eld. Th e section in which Alfred describes this short, but fateful, period in his life is sadly missing. All we know is that Alfred, aft er a few weeks’ intense training, was included among those who were seen as fi t for missionary work. With pride he recalls that out of all the candidates that he had known from his Eskilstuna days, only he and Frans August Larson remained.19 Together with, among others, Olof Bingmark, he left Sweden for Britain in January 1893. In early March he was on-board the steamer bound for China. One may have guessed that Franson’s heated missionary enthusiasm should have bore the brunt of the burden for the troubles that lay ahead of this company of young men and women. Instead, transformed by Alfred’s imagination, this celebrated Swedish-American evangelist becomes a mere agent, sent out only to fulfi l the wishes of the New York based IMA. It was their defective ideas concerning missionary training and equipment, and not Franson’s well-meaning enthusiasm, which was the source of the ultimate failure of this mission. In reality, Franson’s missionary radicalism by far surpassed that of his US backers.20 To be absolutely fair to the agencies brought to life by A. B. Simpson, it has to be pointed out that they too realised the need to give missionary workers at least a rudimentary training. Already in 1883, Simpson had established the New York Missionary Training Institute (now Nyack College), the fi rst of the numerous Bible Schools that were

18 “unga män och kvinnor, som hade haft och hade någon tanke på hedningarna och som känt Guds maning, skulle gå fram och sätta sig på de främsta bänkarna, ty han önskade få ett särskilt samtal med dem sedan det övriga folket skingrats”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 8. 19 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 8–10. 20 It should be noted however that Franson had issued a particular call to the educated to join this China venture. See Trons Segrar, August 1892, p. 254. 122 chapter five to appear in the US during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, to equip those who were sent to preach “a complete saviour and a full Gospel”.21 To Alfred, however, the IMA did not care much for any kind of education but was merely on the look-out for candidates “who were not pampered, but who, in addition to being God-fearing, were in possession of physical strength so that they can endure the hardships of a missionary life”.22 For him such physical primitivism and mental simplicity were never suffi cient qualifi cations, neither for a missionary, nor for a true man.

Unlike Bingmark and Öberg, Fagerholm produced an account in which his missionary life in China during the 1890s was seen as, at the same time, absurd, adventurous, tragic and fruitless. Bingmark and Fagerholm were in fact fellow-travellers for more than half-a-decade, yet, it is as if they were describing completely diff erent experiences. In Alfred’s reminiscences, aft er a pleasant journey on board the Norddeutscher, a long and arduous path to inland China takes its beginning. With a morbid attention to detail Alfred records the gruesome realities of travel in China and how they covered long distances on foot because their superintendent was an “indefatigable pedestrian” who wanted to save the mission’s resources.23 He also recalled that there was an outbreak of smallpox among the missionaries due to their being forced to live at a miserable guest-house in Beijing. Alfred consequently arrived in Baotou, where he was about to start his language training, down-spirited and with chafed feet, still weakened from the disease he had contracted in the Chinese metropolis.24 Once settled, their leader’s fervent belief in the imminent return of Christ resulted in inadequate language training. Th e study of the written language was deemed unnecessary, they were just to learn to speak Chinese as quickly as possible in order to

21 Brereton, Training God’s Army. Quote taken from a contemporary report on the courses given at this institution, see Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly, 1 May 1895. 22 “som icke vore bortklemade utan som jämte gudsfruktan var i besittning av fysisk styrka, så att de kunde uthärda en missionärs vedermödor”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 8. 23 “outtröttlig fotgängare”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 15. 24 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 13–5. education and the problem of self-making 123

“teach the masses who had not heard of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus”.25 Alfred describes how, aft er only six weeks of training, the recently arrived missionaries were sent out to practise their skills as itinerant preachers. Accompanied by a little band of native ‘helpers’ they were to “empty all their theoretical knowledge of the language in front of a staring street crowd”.26 Alfred evidently, and far from surprisingly, is critical of this method. In one of the few letters, written in the 1890s, that has survived, he mentions that without knowledge of the written language and the Chinese characters, any Christian enterprise will become “a tourist mission”.27 In his reminiscences he points out that such a disregard of preparations will undo the founding of a permanent Christian settlement.28 What appears to have been more troublesome to Alfred, and probably an even greater source of discontent, was his failure to secure placement at a permanent mission station from which he could operate. His autobiography mentions repeated and unsuccessful attempts to rent a house for this purpose in several villages in Shanxi province. Contrary to Bingmark, who may have been given a special treatment in this respect since he was the youngest of the missionaries, Alfred was forced to live the peripatetic life of an itinerant evangelist with only brief sojourns at the stations of his colleagues. He appears to have become a kind of helper who performed the duties other missionaries were unable, or unwilling, to fulfi l. For example, he was commissioned to assist and guide Fredrik Franson when he visited the Chinese mission during 1895. Even though Fagerholm tried to be fair and glories in the memory of Franson as a man of prayer, one cannot escape to observe that Franson is here portrayed as a rather ridiculous character who showed a great deal of squeamishness, and lack of good sense, when encountering the realities of Chinese life.29 At the time of writing it is evident that such

25 “stora skaror som icke läst om frälsningen i K[ristus] J[esus]”. Stockholm, Missions- kyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 16. 26 “tömma ut all vår teoretiska kunskap i språket inför en begapande folkhop”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. Alfred Fagerholm to Eskilstuna missionsförening n.b. [1895?]. Intended to be included in the autobiography. 27 “turistmissionering”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. Alfred Fagerholm to Eskilstuna missionsförening n.d. [1895?]. 28 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 16. 29 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 19–22. 124 chapter five a task appeared to Fagerholm as yet another distraction that tore him away from studies and real missionary duties. A large part of this section of his autobiographical notes is fi lled with narrations of his rather adventurous journeys, most of which took him to still uncharted nearby desert areas.30 Alfred was in all likelihood writing at the time the reputation of the celebrated Swedish explorer Sven (von) Hedin had reached its apogee, both nationally and internationally. Fagerholm was back in China when this noted explorer was triumphantly received in Stockholm in 1909, but he cannot have been unaware of the immense interest with which Sweden received the stories of the adventures of one of its now most illustrious sons. In his autobiography, Alfred is not only targeting a religious readership that desired to come close to the life of a missionary, but also a more general public that had developed a taste for reading fi rst hand accounts of adventurous lives. Such a move could have provided Fagerholm with an opportunity to claim the same kind of colonial hyper-masculinity that Larson so willingly espoused. Yet, he failed to do so. As we are about to see, Fagerholm’s own ambitions and his ideal of true manhood drove him in a completely diff erent direction. What to other men would have seemed like an investment in true masculinity was for Fagerholm just an unwanted obstacle. For all his willingness to write adventure stories, he cannot disguise his immense dislike of this peripatetic existence. Even worse, at hindsight he had come to regard such a missionary life as lacking in signifi cance, not yielding the rewards that could have been harvested if he had been living under more orderly conditions. Sum- ming up his fi rst fi ve years in China he came to the conclusion: My work had hitherto been like “throwing one’s bread in the lake” and to “sowing beside all waters”. I had crossed rather large parts of the provinces of Shiti [Hubei], Shansi [Shanxi] and Kansuh [Gansu]. I had ventured to preach, to talk to the people, to sell Bibles and other Christian books, though much of my time was spent travelling. My work had defects, but it was the Word of God that I had sown among the hoards of heathens whom I encountered. [. . .] To me was not given to stay and cultivate what had been sown; others have been sent to do that. But on the Day

30 Th e longest, and best, of these is the description of his spectacular escape from the Boxers in 1900, see Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 30–42. education and the problem of self-making 125

of the Great Harvest the one who has sown and the one who has reaped shall rejoice together.31

III

In 1899, Alfred, together with several of his missionary brothers and sisters, had got tired of working in connection with the C&MA. Th e relationship with the New York committee and its Swedish missionaries then seems to have reached a new all-time-low. In his autobiography Alfred describes a situation that was rapidly becoming much more desperate for every month. Th e Swedish group, that was lacking support, turned to Hudson Taylor in their need; a proposal that the CIM was to take responsibility for the C&MA’s work in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, was turned down by the New York committee. As a last resort one of the Swedish missionaries were to be sent to the US in order to plead their case face to face with the board. With much resentment Alfred describes how his colleague Emil Jacobson was sent to New York for an interview with Simpson. According to Alfred’s account this was a brief aff air; Simpson snubbed Jacobson, and the Swedish missionary was sent back on the street again without even having been off ered accom- modation. What ever happened at Simpson’s offi ce, it is interesting to see how Alfred interprets this in terms of manhood. Th e encounter between the powerful missionary organiser and the humble on-the-fi eld worker becomes an image of masculinity called in question. But it was not only the recollection of an incident in which one of their own had been humiliated by another man that Alfred found particularly off ensive and unjust; the entire situation in which they, in reality, were forced to beg for their existence clashed with contemporary notions of male autonomy and self-support.

31 “Mitt arbete hade hittills varit som att ‘kasta sitt bröd i sjön’ och att ‘så vid alla vatten’. Jag hade genomrest ganska stroa delar av provinsen Shiti, Shansi och Kansuh, men trots att mycken tid åtgick till resor så försökte jag dock vart jag kom att predika, samtala med enskilda personer, sälja bibeldelar och kristna böcker och fastän många brister oft a vidlådde [sic] mitt arbete så var det dock Guds ords säd jag fi ck utså bland de skaror av hedningar jag under mina resor kom i beröring med. [. . .] Mig var det icke givet att stanna och vårda den sådd som jag fi ck så ut utan ha andra kommit att få göra detta. På den stora Skördens dag skall dock den som sått och den som skördat tillsammans glädjas.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 25. 126 chapter five

Alfred’s riposte to such eff eminising conditions was to engage in an activist strategy. During the autumn of 1899 he wrote to the chairman of the SMC in Stockholm, E. J. Ekman, asking to be included in their growing body of missionaries in China. Alfred’s decision to associate himself with this agency had obviously a dimension of rational calculation; as a rapidly expanding religious organisation that off ered education and a fi xed salary to its missionaries, the SMC was a good choice for a disheartened, but still zealous, missionary stranded on foreign soil. It could also be seen in terms of a quest for something more ‘orderly’ than the fragile structure provided by the C&MA (see further comments below). Th e SMC was not prepared to take him in its employ without an interview and without further training; he was asked to return home in order to establish a fi rst hand contact and to demonstrate his dedication and ability.32 Alfred must have been aware of the educational demands that the SMC imposed upon its missionaries, so he was probably not expecting to return in the foreseeable future when he left his fi eld of work in early June 1900. He had planned to go to Shanghai by way of Beijing and Tianjin, but the clamour produced by the Boxer uprising forced him to retrace his steps and instead of going south, go further north and cross the border into Mongolia. At Harausa, north of Zhangjiakou, Alfred and a handful remaining Western missionaries—a company which included Elisabeth and Otto Öberg—met the convoy that Larson had prepared. Th e convoy was now at the disposal of Larson and his fellow missionaries.33 “So we came to realise that God, in advance, had prepared this convoy for us, without which we could not have travelled into the desert”.34 Th e passage to Ulan Bator took the company more than thirty days; in the Mongolian capital they were assisted by the Russian consul who enabled them to continue to Kiachta in Siberia. Alfred recalled that they entered Russian territory on a Sunday at noon, at about the time the Liturgy had ended. When Alfred looked back on these events, the sight of friendly Christian

32 Th e correspondence between the SMC board and Fagerholm has been impossible to retrieve in the still un-organisaed archive of the SMC at Riksarkivet in Stockholm. 33 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 29–33. A brief account is included in, A. J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, 7; It’s Not Death to Die! (Sevenoaks: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989), p. 335. 34 “så insåg vi att Gud i förväg berett denna karavan för oss, förutan vilken vi ej hade kunnat bege oss ut i öknen”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 33. education and the problem of self-making 127 faces and the awareness that they now were completely safe from the Boxers, made Siberia seem like “Canaan”.35 Aft er a few weeks of rest, the company continued on their way to Sweden and 23 September 1900 they landed in Stockholm.36 Th e returned C&MA missionaries were hailed as heroes in the national press.37 Together with the rest of the missionaries Alfred stayed in the vicinity of Stockholm for a few days; among other events they visited the annually returning Holiness conference at Södertälje (twenty miles south of Stockholm)—an event of the magnitude of Keswick to many Swedish Evangelicals.38 Alfred recalled: O, how lovely it was to sit down and listen to the word of God in the native tongue aft er all anxiety, a tiresome passage of the desert and a hurried journey in a foreign country. It was a foretaste of the peace and tranquillity that awaits all men aft er a happily ended pilgrimage.39 At this stage in the narration, Fagerholm’s nationalism, always a sub- theme, becomes fully developed. His love for his native land, for speaking Swedish and for enjoying the company of compatriots is a constant theme of this section in the autobiography. To be sure, his new-found spiritual home, just as Swedish society at large during the years before the Great War, resounded with nationalism.40 It is only to be expected that such popular sentiment added to Alfred’s hostility towards the Simpson mission. Whatever had been the reason for his dislike of the C&MA in the fi rst place, at the time of writing it is evident that he resented the Americans in part, at least, for not being Swedish. In

35 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 39. 36 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 40–3. 37 See for example Dagens Nyheter, 24 September 1900. 38 For the Södertälje conferences, see Ulrik Josefsson, Liv och över nog: den tidiga pingströrelsens spiritualitet (Skelleft eå: Artos, 2005), p. 55. Regrettably little scholarly attention has been devoted to these conferences. 39 “O, hur ljuvligt att eft er oro och tröttsam ökenfärd samt jäktande resa genom främ- mande land få sitta ner och på modersmålet få lyssna till Guds ord. Det var en försmak av den ro och vila som väntar alla jordevandrare eft er lyckligt ändad pilgrimsfärd.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 43. 40 See Ingmar Gustafsson, Fred och försvar i frikyrkligt perspektiv 1900–1921: Debatten inom Svenska Missionsförbundet (Uppsala: Uppsala university, 1987). See also Fagerholm’s opinion of the English businessman who served as Swedish vice-consul in Central China, Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 52. 128 chapter five

Alfred’s view, the lesson to be learned from the experiences he and his missionary brothers and sisters had made in China was simply that a foreign organisation should not be trusted. In spite of the international rhetoric of the Evangelical world, everyone looked out for their own in the fi rst place; foreigners were always given second rank. As a result, only national agencies could be depended upon; it was only such organisations that could be trusted not to let their missionaries suff er unnecessary hardship and to force them into becoming mere beggars at the mercy of their benefactors. It has been noted that nationalism and patriarchy oft en goes hand and in hand. Nationalism in general gives “supportive, symbolic, oft en suppressed and traditional roles” to women,41 and thereby assigning a central position to men in the building of nations, empires and organisations. As an organisation infl uenced by early twentieth-century nationalism, the SMC certainly demonstrated the truth in such an interpretation. If the Swedish Evangelical revival at large had displayed some ‘irregularities’ in terms of the gendered division of roles, as a national organisation the SMC represented a return to patriarchal ‘normality’. At the turn of the twentieth century, women were denied lay rights, and consequently could not be elected board members; female preaching, that was quite common in other strands of Swedish Evangelicalism, was prohibited by the central leadership of the SMC.42 One may wonder if Alfred’s choice to join the SMC, and his nationalism, also can be said to represent a desire to return to institutionalised patriarchy? His autobiography gives at best circumstantial evidence in support of such an interpretation. He never mentions the need for a patriarchal organisation and a ‘proper’ division of roles between men and women directly, but such things do not necessarily need to be spilled out in a man’s biography at this time. Th ey were simply taken for granted as the normal state of aff airs. On the other hand, he never singles out the way in which women operated in the ‘Franson mission’ for criticism, but, as we have seen in previous Chapters, the departures from bourgeois norms were never as great as has sometimes been imagined. Yet, his quest for patriarchy was primarily aimed at securing domestic respect-

41 Joane Nagel, “Masculinity and nationalism: Gender and sexuality in the making of nations”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 21:2 (March 1998), pp. 242–69 [253]. 42 Elin Malmer and Erik Sidenvall, “Christian manliness for women? Contradictions of Christian Youth Movements in early-twentieth-century Sweden” [unpublished paper]. education and the problem of self-making 129 ability and a clerical identity for himself. It was with hopes that such dreams were to be fulfi lled that he had turned to the SMC.

At the time Alfred arrived in Sweden the studies at the SMC Missionary Training College had already begun. In order to earn a living before he could begin his studies, this former China missionary now returned to the vicinity of the family home and took up the position of assistant preacher at Mönsterås on the Swedish east-coast. Alfred remembered this as a time of hard ministerial work, but he also recalled how his past experiences continued to haunt him. Th e aft ermath of the dramatic ter- minus of his fi rst period in China seems to have turned into something similar to what is today called post-traumatic stress disorder: Due to my seven years of work in China and the arduous journey through the desert, I would have needed a few months of complete rest [. . .] Th roughout the winter I experienced repercussions from the escape and the nervous system was aff ected from time to time. Frequently, I had the most terrifying nightmares in which I was trying to escape the Boxers. I woke from such dreams in a state of anxiety and it took me a little while until I could ascertain that I was out of danger.43 Alfred ended his ministry at Mönsterås in May 1901. In September that year he fi nally enrolled as a student of the Missionary Training College in Stockholm. It is evident that Alfred saw this as a decisive step in his life. It seemed perhaps like a late spring to the writer, a time to live, perhaps for the fi rst time, the life of an adolescent. Alfred recalled this as “a time of few sorrows”, even though he found it strange “to be at school again at the age of thirty”.44 Like in most students’ reminiscences, Alfred fi lled his account with loving and humorous depictions of what school life was like. Eccentric teachers, codes of conduct and

43 “På grund av både en hel sjuårsperiod s arbete i Kina och sedan den långa och tröttande resan genom öknen hade jag bättre behövt några månaders fullkomlig vila [. . .]. Jag hade hela vintern eft erdyningar eft er fl ykten och nervsystemet led rätt oft a. Ofta hade jag de mest uppskakande drömmar, då jag tyckte mig vara förföljd av boxare, vilka jag sökte undkomma, och jag vaknade oft a under dessa drömmar förskräckt och orolig och det tog mig en god stund innan jag kunde förvissa mig om att jag verkligen befann mig utom den fara jag tyckte mig sväva uti.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 44. 44 First quote: “ett sorgfritt liv”; second quote: “att sitta på skolbänken igen då man hunnit 30 år”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 44, 46. 130 chapter five of language are recorded in great detail, oft en with the covert object of illustrating his main point: ‘theoretical knowledge’ was needed for successful missionary work.45 His attitude should not only be understood as the expression of a particular view of missionary preparation; it was simultaneously a mild gloss over the peculiar kind of independent self- making through intellectual endeavour that we can fi nd in Bingmark’s life. Implicit in Alfred’s remarks is the belief that it was not enough to try to reach new levels through ‘self-help’. What was needed was education and the habits and prestige it awarded among your fellow men if you were to attain to true manhood. Yet, they both aspired to a male clerical identity. Just like in the case of Bingmark, hidden beneath Fagerholm’s middle-class dreams and aspirations we still can fi nd the ideal that the ‘clergy’ (albeit, in this case, in a communion that had seceded from the ecclesiastical establishment) is the highest ambition imaginable for a young man from the country-side. It was perhaps an unconscious literary strategy, but a central section of this autobiography thus becomes structured as a story of growth, maturation and a re-negotiated identity. If Emil Jacobson’s treatment in New York becomes the most appalling expression of the childlike emasculation that the ‘Franson missionaries’ suff ered in China, Alfred’s schooldays in Stockholm represented a time of advance that prepared him for entering full manhood as a proud, and educated, missionary of the SMC. As a further confi rmation that his life had now reached maturity, Alfred introduces the story of his engagement to Lydia Olsson, who eventually was to follow him to China as his wife: Another circumstance, that for all my future life would be of indefi nite signifi cance both for myself and the missionary work, was that during this time in my native land I found that part of my own humanity which according to God’s ordinances was to complete the half life that every solitary human lives. I found my God-given aid when he brought in my way that noble woman who has made my life so rich and happy. I had certainly felt the disadvantages of loneliness and the half human’s unfi lled longing aft er its divinely appointed twin-soul when I had done missionary work in China. Th ough my searching eye long had been looking for that person, I found her during this stay in my native land. Shortly before I went out as a missionary for a second time, I became engaged to Miss Anna Lydia Olsson from Stockholm.46

45 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 44. 46 “En annan omständighet, som för hela mitt fortsatta liv skulle bli av omfattande betydelse både för mig själv och för missionsarbetet var den att jag just under denna tid education and the problem of self-making 131

Figure 3. Alfred Fagerholm c. 1912 132 chapter five

Alfred did not mention that his “searching eye” already had found a companion in China; in the letter Alfred sent to Bingmark’s sisters, he mentioned that his fi ancée (possibly Miss Emelie Erikson) also had been killed by the Boxers.47 For some reason, that important detail is left out when he composed his reminiscences. Maybe it seemed inappropriate to talk about lost sweet-hearts at the time of writing, but the omission may also have been produced by the narrative structure Alfred imposed on his life. To hint at the possibility of marriage and a nascent domestic life while being in China for the fi rst time, would have gone against the image of a chaotic experience he was trying to convey. For all in all, as the quote above reveals, the ideal of married life was central, both to Alfred’s idea of true manhood, and to his conception of missionary work. Even though he enjoyed the company of his fellow missionaries with which he worked upon his return to China in 1904, it is evident that he, just like Bingmark and Öberg, regarded male homosociality as a transitory, unsatisfactory phase.48 Marriage even assumed spiritual connotations since Alfred regarded it as being of equal importance to “birth, conversion and calling to be a missionary”.49 His union with Lydia in 1907 meant that a new page was turned for the blacksmith’s son: “Now commenced in many respects a new life for me”,50 he recorded in his autobiography. Lydia Fagerholm was to be his companion in China from 1907 until Alfred died in 1923. Her mother’s house outside Stockholm was to become their refuge in Sweden while on furloughs. It has also to be pointed out that his commitment to this woman could be seen as put-

i hemlandet fann den del av min egen människa som enligt Guds bestämmelse skulle fullkomna det halva liv som varje ensam jordevandrare lever. Jag fann min Gudsgivna hjälp, då Gur förde i min väg den ädla kvinna som gjort mitt liv, så rikt och lyckligt. Jag hade nogsamt kännt ensamhetens och den halva människans otillfredsställda längtan eft er den av Gud betsämda tvillingsjälen , under de sju år jag varit ute i missionsarbetet i Kina, och fastän mitt spörjande öga länge sökt denna person, så fann jag den dock först nu under denna vistelse i hemlandet och strax innan jag reste ut för andra gången, ingick jag förlovning med fröken Anna Lydia Olsson från Stockholm.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 47. 47 Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers. Alfred Fagerholm to Hilma Bingmark, 21 February 1901. 48 Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, pp. 48–9. 49 “födelse, omvändelse och kallelse till missionär”. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 50. 50 “Nu började i fl era avseenden för mig ett nytt liv.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 51. education and the problem of self-making 133 ting a seal on the social advance Alfred by now had reached.51 Lydia’s father, who had died already in 1883, had run his own business as a private contractor. Th rough her mother, Lydia could even trace her pedigree back to an older bourgeois family. Like many contemporary women belonging to these social segments, she had received some education and had had a professional career both as a teacher and as a clerk at the publishing agency that was run in conjuncture with the central offi ce of the SMC.52 In China she was to assist her husband in his various assignments as language instructor and head of the congregations in, fi rst, Wuhan, and later, Hangzhou.53 Five children were born into the family (of which one died at an early age); the published reports that appeared in the SMC periodical, Missionsförbundet, reveal that the family lived a well organised and settled middle-class life in China.54 For all his respectable leanings, he was not immune to the world of enthusiastic revivalism that had once driven him to China. When the fi rst signs of a Pentecostal revival occurred in China a few years before 1910, he communicated his favourable impressions to the home audience.55 Mr. Goforth, who has been the appointed visible means of this profound revival that has swept like a mighty wind over the Christian congregations of Manchuria, has communicated his experiences in a series of meetings that were held during one week. Heart-rendering were his portrayals and soul-searching his candid presentations. Fervent shouts of prayer and sighs of the heart have therefore risen to God that a breeze from the wing-stroke of the Holy Spirit may reach the Christians in Central China.56

51 It is profi table to compare Fagerholm’s experience with those of male missionaries in the Norwegian Missionary Society, see Line Nyhagen Predelli, “Marriage in Norwegian missionary practice and discourse in Norway and Madagascar, 1880–1910”, Journal of Religion in Africa 31 (2001), pp. 4–48. 52 Information about Lydia Olsson can be found in Biografi skt album för Svenska Missionsförbundet (Stockholm: Missionsförbundet, 1954), p. 89; Stockholm, Missions- kyrkans arkiv. Biografi er: Missionärer i Kina, Vol. V, no. 36. 53 K. W. Engdahl, “Missionär Alfred Fagerholm”, Ansgarius 18 (1923), pp. 119–23. 54 See for example Missionsförbundet, 15 June 1909, 13 October 1910. 55 See for example Missionsförbundet, 15 November 1908. 56 “Mr Goforth, som fått vara det synliga redskapet till denna genomgripande väckelse, som likt en mäktig vind svept sopat fram över de kristna församlingarna i Mandschuriet, har meddelat oss sina erfarenheter i en serie möten, som anordnades under en veckas tid. Hjärtegripande voro hans skildringar och rannsakande hans okonstlade framställningar. Innerliga bönerop och hjärtesuckar ha på grund därav uppstigit till Gud för en fl äkt av den Helige Andes vingslag över våra kristna i Central-Kina.” Missionsförbundet, 15 November 1908, p. 344. 134 chapter five

Yet, the attraction of Pentecostalism never made him abandon the SMC and the life-project that he had seen fulfi lled within that body. Summing up his second seven-year period in China, which ended in 1911, it was not his missionary work nor his religious leanings but his domestic life that came to occupy the foremost place in the mind of Alfred: I had been given a beloved wife by the hands of God, a precious treasure of eternity, who had gone before me to the heavenly home, and a little eternity creature who had stayed in our small family circle. I could not but feel my heart being fi lled with thankfulness to God for his mercy during the past seven-year period.57

Among those who had once enrolled in the IMA during the 1890s, and who had managed to escape the Boxers, no less than fi ve (Fagerholm included) entered the SMC.58 Th e protracted confl ict with the American sending agency and the miserable condition under which some of them had been forced to live during their fi rst period in China probably made some of these men and women reluctant to once again throw themselves in the arms of organisations that seemed to be run along similar lines. Did they share Alfred’s ideological views on missionary training? Did the male members of this group concur with his views on male self-making? Th ere is no way of giving these questions a defi nitive answer, but they open for some theoretical refl ections over the creation of missionary manhood. As scholars of masculinity have argued—to be a man is to be accepted as such by other men.59 He has to possess (or he has at least to try to demonstrate that he possesses) the very qualities that his peers recognise to be the attendants of manhood. Marriage had always been a fundamental component in missionary manhood—the male missionary was the pater familias in his own household and, as a

57 “Jag hade ju också av Gud fått en älskad hustru, en dyrbar liten evighetsskatt, som gått före mig till det eviga hemmet, samt en liten evighetsvarelse som jag ständigt hade i vår lilla familjekrets och jag kunde icke annat än känna mitt hjärta fyllas av tacksamhet till Gud för all nåd under den gångna sjuårsperioden.” Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv, MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”, p. 54. 58 Claesson, Kinesernas vänner, pp. 323–43. 59 For male homosociality, see Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). See also Kimmel, Manhood in America, p. 7. education and the problem of self-making 135 consequence of this, within the community of native converts—and, as has been noted before, social advance had oft en been secured by way of fi nding a suitable partner. Moreover, in upward-looking working- class circles education was oft en highly rated as a safe road to a secure (and manly) social position. Yet, as we are about to see in the following Chapter, at the time when Alfred was writing, the educational demands on prospective missionaries were rapidly rising. In the train of such changes followed new ideals of missionary professionalism as well as altered standards of manhood. In order to be accepted as a true male missionary at such a time, it was of course essential to elevate educational standards. But to Fagerholm it was still a by now old-fashioned ideal of the clerical missionary that loomed large in his dreams about fulfi lling his male destiny.

CHAPTER SIX

MASCULINISING MISSIONSCONSEQUENCES AND DEPARTURES

Woe to the man who pities the worker, not woe to the worker; I am not sorry for him; I am sorry for the man who pities him. Life means more, infi nitely more, than idleness, and the most certain way of failing to have any pleasure, of failing to gain any pleasure worth gaining, is to set yourself down to pursue pleasure as your occupation in life. Th e life worth living is the life of the man who works; of the man who does; of the man who strives; of the man who, at the end, can look back and say, “I know I have faltered, I know I have stumbled, I have left things undone things that should have been done, and much that I have done had better been left undone, but as the strength was given to me I strove to use it; I strove to leave the world a little better and not a little worse, because I had lived in it.”1 New York, April 1900. Carnegie Hall was fi lled to the last seat. The doors had been closed already an hour before the assembled delegates of what was to be the largest missionary conference yet were to listen to the welcoming addresses of the President of the United States and the Governor of New York. According to a report in Th e New York Times: “at the doors outside there yet remained a multitude large enough for an overfl ow meeting as strong in numbers as this one”.2 Th e representatives of the US political establishment were given an enthusiastic welcome by the delegates assembled to address the problems and the opportunities of the missionary movement. Punctually at eight o’clock an outburst of cheering at the rear of the stage betokened the approach of President McKinley [. . .] making his way to the platform, the whole audience rose, cheering him vociferously, and saluted him with the waving of handkerchiefs and hats.3

1 Ecumenical Conference New York, 1900. Report of the Ecumenical Conference on Foreign Missions, Held in Carnegie Hall and Neighboring Churches, April 21 to May 1 (2 vols; New York: American Tract Society, 1900), vol. I, pp. 42–3. 2 New York Times, 22 April 1900. Th e Christian World, 26 April 1900 claimed that no less than 16,500 attended the fi rst day’s meetings. 3 Ecumenical Conference, vol. I, p. 38. 138 chapter six

But it was not the president’s address that was to make a lasting impression on the missionary supporters present. Aft er the ‘Star spangled banner’ had been sung, the chairman of the evening introduced Th eodore Roosevelt who were to preach, with all his rhetorical might, to the conference on the solace that could be found in the strenuous life—the only “life worth living”.4 Th e impact Roosevelt made on the audience was immense. Of all the eloquent speeches and papers given at this meeting, all of which addressed issues more central to the missionary endeavour at large, few were to be so frequently mentioned in the organs of the missionary movement during the coming months. Not only in the US, but across the Atlantic as well, extracts of his speech were reprinted.5 Within a year, Roosevelt was to take up offi ce in the White House, but according to one of his biographers, he was already at this stage ‘the most famous man in America”.6 For more than a decade, Roosevelt had struggled to establish a solid reputation, not only as a skilled political leader, but also as a ‘man’s man’ by reinventing himself as a frontiersman; his celebrated leadership of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American war only serving to reinforce that image. Returning in persona to the political arena in 1898, he stepped forward as a prophet of an activist and self-conscious masculinity. As Gail Bederman convincingly has demonstrated, the message Roosevelt conveyed to the American audience was about the nature of manhood, but also about the agency of white American men in the progress of ‘civilisation’. It was a heavy stew of imperialism, racism and crude Darwinism.7 Even though muted in this speech, it was not completely devoid of such references. Roosevelt’s willingness to assign a role to missionaries in his—oft en violent—conception of the victory of ‘civilisation’ over barbarism was not only driven by a desire to fl at- ter his audience. A year later, in one of his most celebrated political addresses, Roosevelt pointed out that: “Th e missionary, the merchant,

4 Ecumenical Conference, vol. I, p. 43. 5 See for example Trosvittnet, 15 March 1901, p. 42. 6 Edmund Morris, Th e Rise of Th eodore Roosevelt (New York: Ballantine, 1979), p. 665. 7 Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (paperback edn; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 187–90. masculinising missions 139 and the soldier may each have to play a part in this destruction, and in the consequent uplift ing of the people”.8 To be sure, Roosevelt was not alone among early twentieth-century prophets of masculinity to recognise the merits of the missionaries. A few years later R. S. S. Baden-Powell, the creator of the Boy Scouts, were to include the missionaries among the “frontiersmen of all parts of our Empire” who displayed the most manly character, the one’s whom the young Scouts should struggle to copy: Th e “trappers” of North America, hunters of Central Africa, the British pioneers, explorers, and missionaries over Asia and all the wild parts of the world, the bushmen and drovers of Australia, the constabulary of North-West Canada, and of South Africa—all are peace scouts, real men in every sense of the word.9 One may wonder about the meaning of the manifest enthusiasm with which missionary supporters embraced Roosevelt’s message. Did he meet a desire to be placed at the centre, and not on the margins, of Western colonial and imperial expansion?10 Should it be seen as an expression of delight at being taken seriously by a leading politician among a group of people whose presence oft en was an embarrassment to colonialists, imperial offi cials and Western parliamentarians? Was it an indication of the truth of Edward Said’s statement about the omnipresence of a racial discourse in Western societies?11 Or was it Roosevelt’s self-styled image of a really manly man, and his willingness to embrace the missionaries as “my brethren”,12 that had a peculiar message to convey to a ‘feminised’ missionary milieu? None of these suggestions should be ruled out, but it is as an indication of an increased emphasis on masculinity within important strands of the Protestant missionary movement during the early twentieth century that it is to be treated here.

8 Th eodore Roosevelt, “National Duties”, in Th e Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (Th e works of Th eodore Roosevelt, 13; New York: Scribner, 1926), pp. 469–80 [478]. 9 R. S. S. Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys (London: Horace Cox, 1908), p. 3. 10 For a discussion of missionary marginality in relation to the imperialist narrative, see Cox, Imperial Fault Lines, pp. 7–9. 11 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 204. 12 Ecumenical Conference, vol. I, p. 42. Italics added. 140 chapter six

One explanation as to why Roosevelt’s address turned out to be such a success is the various ways in which his own belief in the need for a new progressive manhood also was shared by many a missionary enthusiast. Th ough a little bit weak on the Christian side, his vision of activity and physical vigour as the attendants of both spiritual and social progress was at this time to be found among many a supporter of foreign missions. To be sure this was not a new phenomenon suddenly appearing out of nowhere in the year 1900. Among British advocates of missionary outreach the rhetoric of a Muscular Christianity had been in vogue for some time. We can easily discover this when we look at, for example, the publications celebrating the recruitment successes of the CIM during the 1880s—of which the ‘Cambridge seven’ are still the most well-known. Th e Evangelisation of the World, in which a digest of many of the speeches and newspaper articles produced in the wake of this event were reproduced, Muscular Christianity was omnipresent. Missionary veteran Hugh Price Hughes exhorted “Young men with physical courage should devote themselves to useful work for God”,13 and in an extract, taken from the revivalist Th e Christian, readers could fi nd the following: Students, like other young men, are apt to regard professedly religious men of their own age as wanting in manliness, unfi t for the cricket-fi eld, and only good for psalm-singing and pulling a long face. But the big, muscular hands and long arms of the ex-captain of the Cambridge eight, stretched out in entreaty, while he eloquently told out the old story of redeeming love, capsized their theory.14 Th ough such sentiment was also to be found across the Atlantic (and also, it may be added, at least in a rhetorical form, among missionary supporters in Scandinavia), US missionary protagonists were also to transfer the rhetoric of the ‘West’ and the ‘closing frontier’ to the missionary world. Consequently, pioneer masculinity became a powerful template for missionary manhood. Jane Hunter has observed that early twentieth-century male American missionaries in China were oft en to

13 Benjamin Broomhall (ed.), Th e Evangelisation of the World. A Missionary Band: A Record of Consecration, and an Appeal (2nd edn; London: Morgan & Scott, 1888), p. 12. 14 Broomhall (ed.), Evangelisation of the World, p. 1. masculinising missions 141 see themselves as the descendants of the pioneers of old.15 Eventually this led to such extreme expressions as American missionary Harry R. Caldwell who used his “rifl e as a calling card”, and who another man’s man, Roy Chapman Andrews, called “a real ‘he-man’.”16 Still one may wonder about the signifi cance of such trends, notori- ously diffi cult to pinpoint with any claim to scholarly precision as they are. What did the increased emphasis on Muscular Christianity/pioneer masculinity really ‘mean’? How does it relate to the expansion of women’s roles within foreign missions that has been observed at about the same time? Do they signal a male ‘back-lash’ in the face of female advances? Or can they be said to represent a more general social change and a re-organisation of the gender order within the Protestant missions taking place at this time? In order to answer such questions we need to begin with establishing the social locus of these forms of manhood. A number of scholars have pointed out that both Muscular Christianity and the image of pioneer masculinity were types of manhood to be found (or at least cherished) predominantly within elite and/or middle-class circles, used to establish male social hegemony in late nineteenth-century society.17 As such the Protestant missionary venture has oft en been described as a concern of the middle-classes, or at least as a project within which middle-class notions and tastes came to prevail. Such trends were visible already in the early nineteenth century and therefore it is hardly justifi ed to say that the appearance of these forms of manhood signal that we can see an increased middle- class dominance towards the end of the nineteenth century. Rather, the appearance of new forms of manhood should be seen as representing a shift in middle-class’ ideals of missionary training, finance and organisation. Let us begin with the altered educational profi le of the missionary. If the old stock missionary worker (oft en coming from lower segments within the social hierarchy), above all in main-stream denominational societies, had primarily been an ordained man, this ideal was now

15 Hunter, Gospel of Gentility, p. 173. 16 Harry R. Caldwell, Blue Tiger (London: Duckworth, 1925), pp. vii and 1. 17 See for example Martin Green, Seven Types of Adventure Tale: An Etiology of a Major Genre (University Park, PN: Th e Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), ch. 5; John M. MacKenzie, “Th e imperial pioneer and hunter and the British masculine stereotype in late Victorian and Edwardian times”, in Mangan and Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, pp. 176–98; John Tosh, Manliness and Masculinity in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London: Pearson, 2005), ch. 9. 142 chapter six gradually giving way to a new type of worker—the trained men and women representing the modern middle-class professions.18 With the expanded educational opportunities available in late nineteenth- century Europe and America, and with the manifest internationalism and enthusiasm the generation coming of age in the 1880s and 1890s displayed, such a development may seem natural. But we should not underestimate the importance of the American Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions in further advancing and institutional- ising this development.19 Originating at a Bible camp hosted at Moody’s Northfi eld in the summer of 1886 it rapidly grew into a student’s mass movement. Th e legendary hundred young men who took the ‘volunteer pledge’ during the Northfi eld convention was later accompanied by a host of thousands of male and female American college students—and numerous others drawn to student’s missionary societies in Europe. Th ough never uncontested,20 to many a missionary enthusiast this movement seemed to herald a bright future for missionary work in all parts of the world. At the 1900 New York missionary conference it was declared that “Colleges in America [. . .] will double the number of missionaries in fi ve years if means be furnished”.21 Such hopes were more or less fulfi lled. Th is movement—among whose adherents we can fi nd such illustrious names as John Mott, George Sherwood Eddy and Ruth Rouse—has been accredited with “sending out eight thousand college-educated men and women between 1886 and 1920”.22 Among the numerous publications that were to emerge from Student Volunteer circles the need for proper education, and the preferences that one was supposed to have acquired aft er such intellectual preparation, were

18 Th ere is a vast literature on the professionalisation of the missionary workforce, see for example Cox, Imperial Fault Lines, pp. 175–9; Kwang-ching Liu, American Missionaries in China: Papers from Harvard Seminars (Harvard East Asia Monographs, 21; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966); Semple, Missionary Women; John R. Stanley, “Professionalising the rural medical mission in Weixian, 1890–1925”, in David Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls. Missions in Asia and Africa (Clio Medica 80; Amsterdam and New York, 2006), pp. 115–36. 19 Paul A. Varg, Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats: Th e American Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890–1952 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), pp. 59–63. 20 Th e most powerful of these critics was eminent German missiologist Gustav Warneck who attacked the Student Volunteer motto for espousing a pre-millennial enthusiasm. 21 New York Times, 28 April 1900. 22 Austin, China’s Millions, p. 293. masculinising missions 143 constantly being stressed. In 1894 Judson Smith, at that time secretary of the ABCFM, eff used: Education and mental culture are indispensable to any great undertaking. All our civilized life in these later days and in all former time rests upon this basis. It is the continual eff ort in every condition of advanced life to fi nd wise men, to secure leaders, to call up to the high places those who have been prepared for their great tasks.23 A few years later S. H. Wainright stated poignantly: ‘Whatever may be said in favor of the employment of uneducated men in the ministry at home or from among natives on the mission fi eld, it is certain that a candidate for foreign missionary service should have a special training for his vocation, based upon a full collegiate education.’24 At that time such calls had started to become common-places within the missionary world at large. “Only the best should go”, was an opinion frequently expressed by those supporting a ‘forward movement’ (a term frequently used in contemporary journalistic jargon) on the missionary fi eld. Delegates assembled to a Student Volunteer gathering in Liverpool in 1896 were told: Long ago it used to be thought that if a man was not good enough for the home ministry he might be sent out as a missionary. Th ank God that day has gone, and the question to-day is not “Is he good enough to stay home?” but, “Is he good enough to go out?”25 “Th ere is no grade of talent in any home land too good to be utilized in bearing the Lord’s commission to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death”, the readers of Th e Missionary Review of the World were told a few years later.26 John R. Mott, in one of his most well-known publications, did not keep his readers in the dark as to the demands placed on the missionary of the future:

23 Student Missionary Enterprise, p. 20. 24 World-Wide Evangelization the Urgent Business of the Church (New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1902), p. 68. 25 “Make Jesus King.” Th e Report of the International Student’s Missionary Conference, Liverpool, January 1–5, 1896 (London: Student Volunteer Missionary Union, 1896), p. 33. 26 Missionary Review of the World 13 ns (1900), p. 240. 144 chapter six

Th e missionaries who are sent out to evangelize the world should be men of the highest qualifi cations. Th e success of the undertaking depends even more upon the quality of the workers than upon their number.27 Such tendencies were later endorsed by the 1910 World Missionary Conference, and thereby gaining additional weight in future considerations of the training and recruitment of missionaries: Across the whole front of civilisation opposing forces are set in array, and the Church of Christ is called upon to consider deeply and to exert in zeal and power a decisive infl uence at every point of contact. Th is great task can only be fulfi lled by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost Himself and under the rule of Jesus Christ our Lord. It calls not only for incessant prayer, but also for the off ering of the noblest and best of our gift s. To it the best youth of Christendom must be given, and for it be prepared.28

In many ways the emphasis that was placed on education around the year 1900 met the demands of the missionary movement. As Michel Parker rightly has pointed out in his study of the Student Volunteer Movement: to heighten the demands placed on the missionary was not meant to repel, but to attract those who now seemed most suited to such a task. By raising the expected standard the profi le and the reputation of a missionary were to be elevated.29 Yet, it was not just a move aimed to promote foreign missions and the status of the missionary within an increasingly professionalised Western society. Mission fi eld demands seemed to point in the same direction. First, the expansion of the missionary workforce and the subsequent growth in the number of com- missioning agencies, created problems that needed to be addressed. Most observers were by now painfully aware of the fact that a general sense of Protestant spiritual affi nity did not stop missions from compet- ing, imposing themselves on the ‘territory’ of others and quarrelling over such issues as infant baptism and matters of church discipline. During

27 John R. Mott, Th e Evangelization of the World in Th is Generation (New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1900), p. 164. 28 World Missionary Conference, 1910: Report of Commission V: Th e Training of Teachers (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910), pp. 13–4. 29 Michael Parker, Th e Kingdom of Character: Th e Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (1886–1926) (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998), pp. 20–4. masculinising missions 145 the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were added also the increased tension between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’; such frictions divided many a sending agency into two camps and thereby rendered eff ective work more diffi cult.30 How to organise peaceful relations within and among diff erent missions and how to create practical solutions as to the problem of the distribution of missionaries, were issues that now had to be addressed. It was generally believed that it was men of education and broad horizons that were the ones most qualifi ed for such a task (see below); contrariwise, it was oft en thought that the lower-class missionaries, i.e. those who lacked education, were the ones destined to cause problems. To be sure, the mission to which Bingmark, Öberg, Larson and Fagerholm belonged was not free from such allegations. Th e region in which they were active was offi cially the ‘dominion’ of the CIM; primary responsibility for missionary work in this part of China had been given to its associate, the (Swedish) Holiness Union.31 In January 1896 the China Council of the CIM declared: It was thought advisable that Mr. Taylor write to Dr. Simpson of the Int[ernational] Missionary Alliance, urging the importance of missionary comity being observed, by the members of his Mission who are also working in North Shan-si [Shanxi].32 With the picture painted in previous Chapters in mind of the cordial and intimate relation between the missionaries of the Holiness Union and of the IMA/C&MA, we should ask ourselves what such fears really represented. Did they signal a ‘real’, on-the-fi eld, missionary problem? Or did they indicate a break-down in communication between Swedish speaking missionaries and an English directorate in remote Shanghai? It could even be that such worries had arisen out of more class-based fears as to what these un-educated workers really were doing in the wilds of the border region. Secondly, it was not only the problem of co-operation that had arisen in connection with the missionary expansion that seemed to demand a more educated cadre of missionaries. In advanced nations, such as Japan and in China aft er the Boxer uprising, there was a trend among missions

30 Hutchison, Errand to the World, p. 112. 31 Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, vol. 7, p. 124. 32 London, SOAS, CIM London Archives, File 73. Minutes 1896, Session 29, 6 January 1896. Copyright Overseas Missionary Fellowship (formerly CIM). Used with permission. 146 chapter six at large to divert their energies away from ‘simple’ evangelism (which, at least according to missionary directors, had been the primary responsibility of the untrained missionaries) and instead to take up educational, organisational and medical work. With a degree of remorse one female CIM missionary recorded that aft er 1900 they all, “accepted the calling of teachers, and allowed ourselves to be tied to the numberless claims and responsibilities of institutional life”.33 Evangelism was identifi ed as a task more suited to members of the native church who could more easily bridge the gap between Christianity and local culture; the foreign missionary was to provide education and strategic leadership for such enterprises. In a widely circulated booklet Luther Wishard had already in 1895 devised a scheme according to which thirty thousand Western missionaries were to provide guidance for “newly Christianized” messengers who “can fully explain to every creature the meaning of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ”.34 Th ose with mental capacities to direct such a project in general were thought to be found among the graduates of Colleges and Universities. Missionaries were receding into the background of Christian work; in China ideals of a ‘self-supporting’, ‘self-governing’ and ‘self-propagating’ church carried such ambitions one step further. Finally, these new initiatives and re-directions within the fi eld of evangelism were accompanied by the construction of what was to become some of the most astounding pieces of missionary ini- tiative. In 1919 the Association of Christian Colleges and Universities in China had no less than fourteen member organisations doing “full College work”.35 To staff such projects, and in order to render them attractive to prospective native students, professional educators as well as men and women trained in the sciences were in high demand. Th e expansion of Western forms of education in the Far East proved to be a blessing as much as a curse to the missionary movement. On the one hand, during the reforming decades of the early twentieth century, especially aft er the fall of Imperial Government, when the attraction of Western thought and custom were in high demand in China, the

33 Mildred Cable as quoted in Austin, China’s Millions, p. 427. 34 Luther Wishard, A New Programme of Missions. A Movement to make the Colleges in All Lands Centres of Evangelization (New York: F. H. Revell, 1895), p. 14. 35 Th e Christian Occupation of China: A General Survey of the Numerical Strength and Geographical Distribution of the Christian Forces in China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 419. Th e evolution of Christian higher education in China at this time has been studied in, Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges 1850–1950 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971), ch. IV. masculinising missions 147 education off ered by the missionary institutions of higher education was to render the Christian message increasingly attractive. To many young students, learning the Christian way went hand in hand with gaining other mental benefi ts, needed for the creation of a new China, off ered by Western agents. When missionary leaders George Sherwood Eddy and John R. Mott toured China in 1912 and 1913 they were to address huge crowds of students. Everywhere they seemed to fi nd attentive and interested listeners. For many such sights augured well for the future of Christianity. Maybe the dream of Christian China was to come true. According to Th omas Cochrane, writing in the recently launched International Review of Missions: It would be impossible to over-estimate the importance for the world of the new era which is dawning in China. China’s problems are serious enough in all conscience, but her resources and her potential wealth are enormous. Th e coming years will, we believe, see remarkable progress in every direction in this old empire, whose vitality is being demonstrated before our very eyes, and if in our mission work we take opportunity by the hand there is no reason why we should not rapidly complete our task and so see the conquest of China for Christ.36 On the other hand, with new opportunities came new anxieties and diffi culties. In the mind of W. E. Taylor: “Young China will turn in one of three directions: toward Christianity, toward a revival of some patriotic form of her old religion, or toward agnosticism and infi del- ity.”37 Whereas Christianity hitherto in China had had little diffi culty in presenting itself as a progressive creed for a still un-enlightened Empire, the expansion of Western learning in the early 1900s entailed that such claims were increasingly contested.38 New generations of Chinese scholars, abandoning Confucian learning for the thought of

36 International Review of Missions 1 (1912), p. 294. See also the testimony of American missionary Calvin Mateer as quoted in Irwin T. Hyatt, Our Ordered Lives Confess: Th ree Nineteenth-Century American Missionaries in East Shantung (Harvard Studies in American-East Asian Relations, 8; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 230. 37 As quoted in John R. Mott, Th e World’s Student Christian Federation (Addresses and Papers of John R. Mott, 2; New York: Association Press, 1946), p. 319. 38 See Hao Chang, “Intellectual change and the reform movement, 1890–8”, in John K. Fairbank and Kwang-Ching Liu (eds), Th e Cambridge History of China 2: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 274–338 [278–80]; Benjamin A. Elman, On Th eir Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 281–352; Li Yu-ning, Th e Introduction of Socialism into China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971). 148 chapter six

Europe and America, were soon to discover that Christianity did not reign supreme among the modern nations. Philosophical radicalism in every form—Socialism, Positivism and Social Darwinism—found followers within student circles. According to the China Centenary Missionary Conference, held in Shanghai in 1907: Th e young men of the country take up very eagerly with the agnostic and materialistic explanations of the universe. Th e doctrine is current that religion is in no way necessary and that a country can become prosperous by accepting the material side of Western civilization.39 Such a development of course was not welcomed among the missionary workforce. If missionaries hitherto had devoted most of their energies towards drawing people away from the ‘idols’, they now discovered that the same foes against which many of their supporters contended ‘at home’, were also to be found on the mission fi eld. A war on two fronts only added to the diffi culty of missionary work. Especially those missionaries working among the students of the East had to have a fair knowledge of Western philosophy of a non-Christian orientation in order to contest the claims of Chinese radicals. Th e situation should not arise when the Western learning of a Chinese scholar was greater than that of the missionary. Consequently, once again the demands of the mission fi eld seemed to require that more educated workers were dispatched by the missionary societies. “A thorough education is essential in order to meet the present conditions in China”, was the terse recommendation of one missionary gathering.40 John R. Mott aptly summarised the situation: Th e present changing and plastic condition of the non-Christian nations, the forces at work which tend to make the progress of Christianity increasingly diffi cult, and the rising spiritual tide observable in many parts of Asia and Africa combine to constitute an irresistible call to the Christian Church to carry the Gospel to all the non-Christian world before the present opportunity passes away.41 Of course, such advances did not come for free. How to fi nance missionary outreach had been a problem that constantly tended to haunt

39 Records: China Centenary Missionary Conference, Held at Shanghai, April 25 to May 8, 1907 (Shanghai: Centenary Conference Committee, 1907), p. 62. 40 Continuation Committee Conferences in Asia 1912–1913, p. 335. 41 John R. Mott, The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions (New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1911), p. 99. masculinising missions 149 the boards of missionary societies. Dependant on the regular generosity of the faithful at home for the upkeep of an expanding workforce of foreign missionaries (together with their dependants), for the acquisi- tion of missionary property, the reproduction of literature to be used on various linguistically diverse mission fi elds and the training of future workers, proved to be a formula that kept many a society constantly on the verge of bankruptcy and many a secretary on the threshold of a nervous breakdown. It was not just that the ‘on fi eld’ demands were great; foreign missions also had to compete with various other venues of Christian work for the attention and benevolence of potential giv- ers. Towards the end of the nineteenth century several schemes had been devised which promised fi nancial security for the future; the faith mission ideal of ‘no solicitation’ and no fi xed salaries for the workers should be understood as one such way of solving the problem of insuffi cient funding. Missionary giving may not actually have been declining, but now when many men and women, in the optimistic era ante-dating the Great War, dreamt of hitherto un-seen Christian advances and successes, radical new methods were needed. At the 1900 New York conference, a special meeting for Christian ‘laymen’ (i.e. businessmen and professionals) had been organised,42 but even before that the support of such men, of whom it was widely believed that they represented a resource still unexplored, had been solicited among the Student Volunteers.43 A. T. Pierson, who has elsewhere in this book fi gured as being among those who supported the inclusion of the simple believers into the missionary workforce, understood the signifi cance of such new beginnings at an early date. At the 1891 Student Volunteer Convention he asked: Why should not we show a spirit of enterprise in the Church such as the world shows in all business schemes? What is the matter with the Church, that in this nineteenth century she has scarcely one of those great master agencies which men use to carry their inventions to the ends of the earth?44

42 New York Times, 28 April 1900. See also Ecumenical Conference, vol. II, p. 370. 43 See for example, “Make Jesus King”, pp. 262–63; Th e Student Missionary Appeal, pp. 176–82. For the early beginnings of such eff orts to organise businessmen interpreted in terms of a conscious way to ‘reclaim’ manhood, Margaret Lamberts Bendroth, Fundamentalism & Gender, 1875 to the Present (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 16–24. 44 As quoted in Parker, Kingdom of Character, p. 34. 150 chapter six

In years to come high hopes were placed on these men to solve, forever, the problem of missionary fi nance. In 1907 a Layman’s Missionary Movement came to life in the US and was soon organised into an eff ective, popular, pressure group;45 organisations adopting a similar ethos were within short to be found elsewhere in the English-speaking world.46 Within a few years the Laymen’s Movement had become one of the most highly acclaimed novelties within the missionary world.47 At the World Missionary Conference the Commission dealing with the ‘Home Base of Missions’ did not only see the hand of Providence behind the appearance of the Laymen’s Movement but recommended that the adoption of its “principles and the methods” was essential to future missionary success.48 With businessmen becoming increasingly vocal within the missionary movement came a new way to talk about fi nance and a new insistence that the principles of economic rationality should penetrate every aspect of missionary work. In these years the formula “missions need to be conducted on business principles”, as former student volunteer Harlan P. Beach phrased it, was frequently heard.49 Among the adherents of this movement ‘facts’, ‘bigness’, ‘effi ciency’, ‘stewardship’ and ‘world citizenship’ were constantly rehearsed tropes. According to Samuel B. Capen:

45 Th e essential introduction to the Laymen’s Movement is still to be found in Valentin H. Rabe, Th e Home Base of American China Missions, 1880–1920 (Harvard East Asian monographs, 75; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). See also Andrew F. Walls, “Th e American dimension of the missionary movement”, in Joel A. Carpenter and Wilbert R. Shenk (eds), Earthen Vessels: American Evangelicals and Foreign Missions, 1880–1980 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 1–25. 46 It should be noted that it was mush less successful on the European Continent and in Scandinavia. An attempt to introduce it in Sweden was made by Karl Fries in 1914. See Joh. Hedengren and Karl Fries, Männens missionsrörelse (Uppsala: J. A. Lindblads förlag, 1914). 47 Varg, Missionaries, p. 65. 48 World Missionary Conference, 1910: Report of Commission VI: Th e Home Base of Missions (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910), pp. 282–83. W. H. T. Gairdner described the attitude of the Conference as follows: “With how little of system the science of the Home Base of Missions has been studied as a whole may be concluded from the modest claim of the Chairman of the Commission in presenting the Report, that aft er all their labours they had not perhaps attained to a science of the Home Base, but they had at least cleared their way to a position from which a true science might now begin, and increasingly continue.” See W. H. T. Gairdner, Edinburgh 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910), p. 239. 49 Harlan P. Beach in “Make Jesus King.”, p. 262. See also Varg, Missionaries, p. 64. masculinising missions 151

My experience during the last six years as president of the ABCFM has shown me conclusively that what business men want to know are the facts relating to missionary work and its results. Th ey are not asking for more rhetoric, but for more facts. It is not more exhortation, but more education, that they need.50 Th is was decidedly a masculine movement; it tried to muster the support of men and it upheld some very defi nitive standards of masculinity.51 One sympathetic observer remarked that men were drawn to the Laymen’s Movement because it was “big, businesslike, interdenomina- tional, and enthusiastic”.52 Within these circles ideals of ‘male’ leadership and grand vision were highly acclaimed. A Laymen’s periodical outlined a method according to which men “by the road of plain facts of the Modern World Situation” could also grasp what was needed for the missions successfully to operate.53 With more than a bit of “implicit misogyny”54 it was frequently said that one of the great failures of the past century was that missionary supporters had just been “playing at missions”55 instead of, with a gigantic manoeuvre, settling the ‘problem’ once and for all. According to one infl uential voice speaking for the Laymen’s Movement: Th is undertaking is too great to be maintained on a foundation of petty, pathetic, or heroic stories adapted to arouse the interest and sympathy of the emotionally sensitive. Unless it be established on a fi rm basis of principle and purpose by men who have the vision and courage and resourcefulness to plan tremendously and persist unfalteringly, the missionary work that the conditions imperatively demand cannot be successfully accomplished.56 Now was the time when men (or, spelling out the meaning, a new category of men) were to assume their rightful responsibility—to take charge of the entire missionary enterprise. Such ambitions had of course consequences for the position of female supporters of missionary work.

50 Students and the Modern Missionary Crusade: Addresses Delivered Before the Fift h International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions Nashville, Tennessee, February 28–March 4, 1906 (New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1906), p. 161. 51 Winfred Garrison and Alfred T. DeGroot, Th e Disciples of Christ: A History (St. Louis, MI: Christian Board of Publication, 1948), p. 427. 52 Mott, Decisive Hour, p. 148. 53 Men and Missions [London] 1:3 (1913), p. 1. 54 For this term, see Tjeder, Power of Character, pp. 282–83. 55 Capen as quoted in Students and the Modern Missionary Crusade, p. 165. 56 Ellis, Men and Missions, p. 45. 152 chapter six

C. A. Rowland, at the 1906 Student Volunteer Movement conference in Nashville, claimed that businessmen had been reluctant to assume responsibility for foreign missions since it had “not been laid before them in a business-like way”. Th erefore, they have relegated it to the pastors and the women; so that the missionary cause to-day is suff ering, because this work is looked upon as a work of the women. Not that the women are not doing their part, but this very fact is keeping the men from doing all that they should.57 Th e consequences of such an attitude, frequently to be voiced among the supporters of the Laymen’s Movement, need hardly be explained in great detail. Dana Robert has rightly pointed out that during the first decades of the twentieth century many women’s missionary societies were amalgamated with male counterparts. In the name of ‘effi ciency’ (ironic, since these women’s boards tended to be highly cost-eff ective) men now assumed responsibility for what had hitherto been independent female work—for women, staff ed by women and led by women.58 Such acts of reorganisation were not the only ones to be performed within the missionary movement at about this time. Th ere was a constant call for co-ordination and ‘ecumenical’ co-operation between the various sending agencies. Many dreamt that in the future workers, fi nances, buildings and other resources should be arranged and distributed according to a great master plan that was to guarantee as eff ective an organisation as possible.59 For such a future to materialise, the missionary organisations themselves and their traditional leadership were in desperate need of modernisation. Consequently, the internal operation of many societies was modifi ed along more bureaucratic lines during the fi rst decades of the twentieth century.60 ‘Amateur’ Christian gentle-

57 As quoted in Students and the Modern Missionary Crusade, p. 629. 58 Robert, American Women, pp. 304–5. 59 It should be noted that the Laymen’s initiatives sometimes did clash with the ideals of the missionaries. An example of this can be found in J. Campbell White’s call on missionaries to provide him with fi gures of what resources were needed for the swift Christianisation of China. Th e missionaries’ answer must have been a disappointment to the American businessman committed to missionary work: “It was pointed out that spiritual forces cannot be reckoned in terms of men and money, and that the principal burden of evangelizing China must rest on the Chinese themselves.” As recorded in International Review of Missions 1 (1912), pp. 175–76. 60 See for example, Rita Smith Kipp, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man? Bureucratic contradictions in the Dutch Missionary Society”, in Huber and Lutkehaus masculinising missions 153 men, or ladies of ‘good birth’, who had served on numerous committees and boards were increasingly ostracised; gradually the old paternalistic organisation—in which the home secretary or men like Hudson Taylor who had been fatherly fi gures to every missionary—was giving way to a new more and more rational missionary enterprise. In that situation, when the missionary endeavour was becoming increasingly complex, when the opportunities and dangers seemed to be multiplying, when principles of bureaucracy and of business were used to gain new insights into the fi eld of missionary fi nance, it was hardly surprising that hand in hand with the demand for more educated missionaries came new ideals of missionary leadership. Future missionary leaders were the men of whom it was believed that they could steer the enormous enterprise of foreign missions, who could grasp its complexity and bridge diffi culties and tensions in order to render the work more eff ective. Th e profi le of the ‘missionary statesman’ was born. It was not just the abilities and the glow of the charismatic leaders that were in high demand; though the ‘great’ mission leaders could be greatly idolised among pious supporters—and their abilities sometimes greatly coveted among the ‘minor lights’—it was not primarily their extraordinary gift s that were in demand. Th e offi cial report of the World Missionary Conference (probably with degree of exaggeration) stated poignantly: “Th e unanimous call from every mission fi eld at this moment is for men with a special capacity for leadership.”61 For all the infl ated talk about the importance of true leadership that was heard during the fi rst decade of the twentieth century, what was needed the most was management skills—men who could lead increasingly formalised and professionalized organisations, men of the same stock as the typical YMCA-secretary.62 To be sure, missionary supporters were not the only ones to place great stress on leadership and the need for new rational organisations at this time. Th e name of F. W. Taylor is today associated with creating

(eds), Gendered Missions, pp. 145–77; Russell E. Richey, “Organizing for Missions: A Methodist Case Study”, in D. H. Bays and G. Wacker (eds), Th e Foreign Missionary Enterprise at Home: Explorations in American Cultural History (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2003), pp. 75–84. 61 World Missionary Conference, 1910: Report of Commission V, p. 197. 62 Compare Shirley S. Garrett, Social Reformers in Urban China: Th e Chinese YMCA, 1895–1926 (Harvard East Asian series, 56; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 33. 154 chapter six the theory of ‘scientifi c management’ which marked a new beginning in industrial leadership and rationality; a closer examination would reveal that a host of other writers, though with less impact, had addressed similar topics.63 In the US the ideal of a new way to organise missions and to solve the problem of fi nance can be seen as the outcome of the same frame of mind that also had created the great industrial trusts.64 To some extent, those missionary protagonists calling for reform and a new leadership were just children of their own time—and it was an era virtually obsessed with the questions of governance and of control. Problems outlined by John R. Mott were in some ways peculiar to foreign missions, yet the very way in which he conceived of these issues brought him discursively close to others who pondered the effi ciency of the modern factory and the working of the modern state: No movement more than that of foreign missions demands the ablest leaders. Th e magnitude of this enterprise calls for men of large capacity to lead it. Th e peculiar complexity and diffi culty of the problems to be solved, concerning as they do so many races, religions, and social conditions, can be met only by men of vision and of great directive power.65 To a considerable extent the new mission leader, the ‘statesman’, was a fulfi lment of the dreams of the Laymen. Qualities assigned to the new middle-class professional mission organiser were decidedly associated with the male sex in the essentialist gender discourse of the day. He was to espouse ideals of prophetic vision, effi ciency, businesslike manners and an ecumenical agenda.66 Th erefore, the fundamental and interlocking shift s that occurred within several of the leading missionary agencies between 1880 and 1914 may be said to have produced, in the end, a discursive ‘masculinisation’ of missionary work.

63 Daniel A. Wren, The History of Management Thought (5th edn.; Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004), chs 6–7. See also Alfred Dupont Chandler, Th e Visible Hand: Th e Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1977), pp. 484–514. 64 Rabe, Home Base, pp. 13–14. 65 Mott, Decisive Hour, p. 128. It should be noted that Mott’s book appeared during the same year as Taylor’s legendary Th e Principles of Scientifi c Management. 66 See the elaborate profi le given in, John R. Mott, Th e Present World Situation: With Special Reference to the Demands Made Upon the Christian Church in Relation to Non-Christian Lands (London: Student Christian Movement, 1915), ch. 3. masculinising missions 155

III

Such an explanation as the one outlined above, which in a sense seems to indicate that ‘masculinisation’ was but a “pragmatic reaction to necessity”,67 fails to take into account how these reforms also created new opportunities for women, and how such female advances in themselves also triggered male responses. It is only too easy to say that the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century missionary movement was ‘masculinising’ also in the sense that it curtailed women’s work;68 yet the ideal of the missionary professional created a new rationale for female endeavour. Gone was the time when female activists were mostly seen as assisting the real (male) missionaries; professional women were missionaries in their own right, whose services were in high demand and who worked side by side with the men. In a sense this evened out gendered hierarchies and produced a degree of partnership between male and female workers.69 Seen from a theoretical perspective it is only to be expected that such a democratic re-organisation of the gender order produced a repercussion. With men and women, in some respects, becoming more equal, the need for a new male leadership was more strongly felt. It promised to secure male superiority and the keeping apart of activities that were gendered ‘male’ and ‘female’ at a time when men and women increasingly were drawn together horizontally.70 We need to point out that this process of change produced not only the re- subordination of women, but also the exclusion and/or marginalisation of certain groups of men. Th e category of humble, uneducated men, to which Bingmark, Öberg, Larson and Fagerholm belonged, decidedly should be counted among the ‘losers’ in this transaction. R. W. Connell

67 Quote taken from Rabe, Home Base, p. 48. 68 An interpretation put forward most clearly in Robert, American Women, pp. 302–7. 69 A development hinted at in Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, “Th e manly pursuit of a partnership between the sexes: the debate over YMCA programs for women and girls, 1914–1933”, Journal of American History 78 (1992), pp. 1324–46. Its ultimate consequences became fully visible in the inter-War period, see Ruth Compton Brouwer, Modern Women Modernizing Men: Th e Changing Missions of Th ree Professional Women in Asia and Africa, 1902–69 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002). Th e real-lfe dilemma faced by many professional missionary women is well captured in, Inger Marie Okkenhaug, Th e Quality of Heroic Living, of High Endeavour and Adventure: Anglican Mission, Women and Education in Palestine, 1888–1948 (Studies in Christian Mission, 27; Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 281–85. 70 Yvonne Hirdman, Genus—om det stabilas föränderliga former (Malmö: Liber, 2001), pp. 59–69. 156 chapter six has argued that the establishment of a dominant ‘hegemonic masculinity’ presupposes the subordination of both women and ‘deviant’ men;71 such a twin-move seems to be occurring with the professionalising missions at this time. Given these social changes we may ask ourselves what room there were for men (and women) sharing the social/educational background of the Swedish IMA/C&MA within the missionary service in years to come? As we have seen, the demand for such workers had never been great, and the functions they were to fulfi l had never been far-reaching; nevertheless, their position was now even more circumscribed. Granted that the World Missionary Conference stated that the fundamental equipment of any missionary was a “fervent Christian conviction, and an earnest desire to bring men to Christ”, it nevertheless underscored that every worker needed “to develop such a character and acquire such an intellectual equipment as we have seen to be necessary to effi ciency”.72 Th e completely uneducated were to be avoided altogether and those lay workers of limited intellectual attainment were to be employed either as low-ranking evangelists or as ‘industrial missionaries’ (not so much in China and Japan as in other parts of the world), though the Conference voiced some hesitation as to the wisdom of employing such men altogether.73 To be sure, people sharing the social characteristics of the men studied in this book were to be found on the missionary roster in future years. Th ey did not disappear altogether but continued to be drawn to missionary circles and still found in this type of Christian activism an outlet for their ambitions—both secular and religious. Some middle- class professionals drawn to foreign missions during the fi rst decades of the twentieth century, were in fact sons and daughters of working- class parents; just like Fagerholm they took the long road of education in order to reach their social destination. For a majority among those aspiring to missionary work such demands were however too high, both in the sense that they would have been unwilling to enter long courses of study and the fi nancial insecurity that followed in its train,

71 For the interconnections between securing “the legitimacy of patriarchy” and the subordination of deviant men, see Connell, Masculinities, p. 77. 72 World Missionary Conference, 1910: Report of Commission V, p. 125. A similar attitude was expressed in Förbundstidningen, November 1914, p. 83. 73 World Missionary Conference, 1910: Report of Commission V, pp. 127–29, 130–33. masculinising missions 157 but also since they many times tended to see the need of the ‘heathen world’ in a diff erent way. Instead they fl ocked to the Bible Schools and low-ranking Training Schools where evangelism still was seen as the highest Christian duty and the gender order of the nineteenth-century lower bourgeoisie was still intact. In other words, the heightened demands drove these people to the ‘radical’ margins of the Protestant missionary moment. It is hardly a co-incidence that, at the same time as the operation of Protestant foreign missions was remoulded, Pentecostalism appeared. From a social perspective this further radicalisation of the ‘left -wing’ of the Holiness Movement makes perfect sense.74 If the ideals, dreams and aspirations of the humble missionary enthusiast were circumscribed step by step by the professionalisation of missionary work, their objectives were given ample scope among Pentecostal groups.75 Almost instantaneously aft er the Azusa Mission’s founding in Los Angeles in 1906, Pentecostal missionaries were found in various parts of the world in need of the promised blessings of the end times. Th at pattern was repeated wherever the Pentecostal message got a foothold—whether it was in self-proclaimed Pentecostal sects or in religious bodies open for new spiritual blessings (such as the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance within which the Öbergs found shelter aft er 1900). Th e requirements placed on these preachers of the Holy Spirit were similar to Franson’s educational standards; of the fi rst members of Cecil Polhill’s (who had once been one of the Cambridge Seven) Pentecostal Missionary Union it was demanded “a fair knowledge of every book of the Bible and an ‘accurate knowledge of the Doctrine of Salvation and Sanctifi cation’.”76 With their institutionalised, almost dogmatised, aversion towards the

74 For the radicalisation of the Holiness Movement, see Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disenharted: Th e Making of American Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1979), pp. 28–61; Vinson Synan, Th e Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 1–83. 75 Previous interpretations of the Pentecostals as being primarily a movement of the dispossessed have been convincingly challenged, see Grant Wacker, Heaven Below, pp. 197–216. Similar observations concerning early Pentecostals in Sweden have been made in, Josefsson, Liv och över nog, pp. 391–99. 76 Cornelis van der Laan, Sectarian Against His Will: Gerrit Roel Polman and the Birth of Pentecostalism in the Netherlands (Studies in Evangelicalism, 11; Metuchen, NJ and London: Th e Scarecrow Press, 1991), p. 177. See also Hollenweger,Th e Pentecostals, p 34. It should be noted however that educational standards within this organisation were soon to change, Alan Anderson, Spreading Fires: Th e Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007), pp. 263–64. 158 chapter six need of higher education in matters spiritual and their willingness to support the work of the socially humble, the Pentecostal missions provided outlets for enthusiastic members of the working classes bent on spreading the good news to their fellow humans. Ideals of “personal autonomy”, “hard work” and family life continued to be highly rated among these workers,77 and hence, the traditional agenda of self-making (and the belief that up-wards mobility was possible in increasingly stratifi ed societies) was incorporated into the mental universe of the early Pentecostals.78 It may even be said that their missions, imbued with a spirit of explorative religious entrepreneurship, preserved for the future the very modus operandi that had prevailed not only among the Franson missionaries, but also among their predecessors who had once been sent out by the early Methodists and Pietists in the eighteenth century.

77 Walker, Heaven Below, pp. 212–16. 78 It should also be noted that early Pentecostal mission aff orded ample scope for independent female missionary work, see Anderson, Spreading Fires, pp. 271–76. For a more critical evaluation of how patriarchy eventually came to dominate in Pentecostal missions, see Willem A. Saayman, “Some reflections on the development of the Pentecostal mission model in South Africa”, Missionalia 21 (1993), pp. 40–56 [44]. CONCLUSION

In what ways did missionary work and male self-making coincide during the late nineteenth century? What new insights can be gained from this study? Preceding Chapters have given ample evidence of the omnipresence, but also to the fact that it was a contested sight, of the theme of social advance among these workers. Instead of abandoning the hypothesis that their lives can be understood through the prism of self-making, on the basis that it rests on a reductionist assumption, we should say that it was a diff erent kind of self-making, one with a logic of its own. If male advice manuals had been talking about the gains that could be made in the modern world by being dextrous and conscientious, the missionary world, at least during the latter half of the nineteenth century, pointed at the importance of the respectable (i.e. bourgeois) Christian marriage. Granted that faith missions emphasised the importance of evangelism and the need for unusual eff orts to reach the still un-reached, they simultaneously understood (just like most other missions at this time) the Christian family to be an important means of Christianising the ‘heathen’. Together with their children, husband and wife were supposed to become a tangible witness to the blessings of the Christian home (and the gains of Western civilisation). Th ey were to observe the rules of Western propriety, making their house a sober, chaste, clean and well-furnished refuge in the midst of a chaotic idolatrous world; a place to be coveted by the native population. It was above all by emphasising this middle-class concept of the Christian home that the themes of social advance and self-reform did become integral parts of the life the male missionary. Whatever was his background, he was supposed to be in conformity with this pattern and to alter his tastes and his behaviour accordingly. Even the recruits of the IMA/C&MA studied in this book, who had been given little training and had not imbibed the humble lower middle-class air of the Missionary Training College, struggled to make this ideal their own. It is evident that this incentive towards being in conformity with middle-class patterns also produced other results; some of these men’s yearning to acquire for themselves a ‘priestly’ identity (within a religious environment that championed the spiritually endowed lay preacher) may be seen as another example of such a tendency. 160 conclusion

To a considerable extent the seizure of such middle-class patterns, some of which were not only sanctioned but prescribed by the anonymous authority of Protestant missionary discourse, harmonised with the modest ambitions frequently to be found among such men and women. Th is close correspondence between desires and demands may explain, to a considerable extent, the relative invisibility of their prior working-class/rural habitus. Some of their ‘irregularities’—in particular relating to the division of work between the men and the women—have here been explained by reference to the order of rural life, but apart from that the ‘normality’ of the urban lower middle-classes prevailed. Is the concept of habitus of any use when trying to understand these people? It is decidedly of much help when we try to understand their increased commitment to Swedish cultural traditions while in China; to rehearse their ethnic identity was their habitual response to being forced to live in a radically alien society. Like many other missionaries they succumbed to the temptation (and the painful need) of turning their homes from models of Christian life into European refuges; they too found it diffi cult to alter their way of life and appear like the Chinese. Seen from a class perspective, it is wise to be thinking of their habitus as not only an innate ‘conservative’ tendency, but also as a mental state that incorporated the very concepts of change and advance. In rapidly industrialising Sweden, within which old customs and established ‘career paths’ were replaced within the new social order, members of the ‘lower orders’ simply had to prepare themselves for changes in order to survive. It is not unreasonable to assume that such a mood was an integral part of their habitus and therefore may have helped them to prepare for the reforms that were demanded of a missionary. From what has been written above we may easily assume that their road to middle-class life met with few obstacles. Contrary to what has oft en been assumed, these missionaries did behave very similar to other, and much more respectable, workers in China. Th ey should not be understood as farm-hands for which the garb of a Western missionary never was made to fi t. Th e idea that these lay workers represented an inferior (or better) kind of missionary has therefore to be called into question. If they were odd it was since they tended to be a little more attached to old-fashioned ideals rooted in Swedish rural life.1

1 Th eir ideal of manhood may be compared to the ‘fi ghting masculinity’ in early fundamentalism, see Bendroth, Fundamentalism & Gender, pp. 13–30. conclusion 161

Nevertheless, the diff erence is not greater than we can safely say that they treasured similar values and methods, and that they experienced the same temptations and inadequacies, as did other missionaries at this time. In the life of Frans August Larson we see how they too felt the attraction of the world of exploitation and of adventure (which appears to have been silently accepted by the missionary authorities) and even could drift away from missionary life altogether. Larson’s career should not be seen as just being an exception to the rule; rather, it reveals the impossibility of enclosing even these spirits, anxious for respectability, within the concept of domesticity. As Martin Francis rightly has remarked about the male species at this time: they “were continually seeking to reconcile and integrate the contradictory impulses of domestic responsibility and escapism”.2 Just as Larson struggled with the concept of family life so did probably his colleagues from time to time sense the call of the ‘wild’ that was within their reach. Th ere was an inherent instability in their self-made identity. Th e rationale that had motivated their departure for China was built on the ideas of humility and of a ceaseless Christian activism before the return of the Lord. As we have seen, these very ideals could undermine the domestic standard to which they were supposed to be in conformity. Th e incentive to this kind of self-making could therefore also produce the ruin of the domestic ideal of manhood. But their enthusiasm could become problematic in diff erent ways as well. In his mature years, Alfred Fagerholm described what he saw as the defects of the campaign that had been his fi rst experience of missionary life. Th eir missionary operation was ill-conceived. It lacked not only planning and support, but the fundamental defi ciency was the lack of training among its workers and what he saw as the irregularities of their lives. Even though Fagerholm did not say so outright, but he also, implicitly, conveyed the idea that their self-making in a sense was ‘fake’. What was needed in order to enter missionary respectability was proper training and a suitable marriage; only such characteristics could together put an enduring stamp on their new, and acquired, male identity.

2 Martin Francis, “Th e domestication of the male? Recent research on nineteenth- and twentieth-century British masculinity”, Th e Historical Journal 45:3 (2002), pp. 637–52 [643]. 162 conclusion

Th e reforms that had begun already prior to the enlistment of this group of workers, and were to become incorporated into a ‘mainstream’ missionary agenda before the beginning of the Great War, fundamentally altered the preconditions of this kind of male self- making. In future years the ideal missionary was to be a properly trained professional. Th e missionary workforce was to be fi lled with educators, nurses, medical doctors and the occasional clerical leader. For the socially humble this meant an increasing pressure, not only to be in conformity with certain standards of behaviour, but also to educate themselves. Self-making was no longer a question of the skill of the individual to resettle himself socially as well as culturally; a formalised education became the universally accepted road upwards in society. More important however was the way in which the prior domestic paradigm was pushed aside by this new ideal. Protestant missions in general did not explicitly abandon the domestic ideal of missionary work, yet the increased importance of professional work carried with it the seeds to a new gender order. If the missionary household had been organised in accordance with the separate spheres’ ideology, the new professional standard produced a platform for partnership (and some new male hierarchies) between men and women in missionary work. Consequently, with the diminishing importance of domestic arrangements, the logic of the missionary self-making that has been studied here was distorted. To simply say that the older model gradually and universally was replaced by a new one is much too simplistic. Older forms lived on in combination with new standards, and new amalgamations and contradictions between these two arose. Furthermore, traditional patterns were incorporated into the missionary agenda of the emergent Pentecostal (and in future years other conservative and/or fundamentalist) missions. One may even wonder if the road to self-making provided by such an organisation of missionary work actually further contributed to its enduring popularity among these missions. It is possible that it continued to be an accepted and endorsed road to advance for recruits of humble origins (who were to be found, albeit not exclusively, in Pentecostal missions) and therefore served more than one purpose. Yet, when such missions had established themselves, the ideal of the self-made man had started to become rather old-fashioned within society at large. New standards of what it was to be a true man had presented themselves, but that did not necessarily mean that the real- life experience self-making (especially when ‘institutionalised’ as it conclusion 163 once had been among the missionaries) had waned. In what ways has missionary self-making, and the kind of manhood it produced, been preserved among these missions? It lies beyond the parameters of this study to give any defi nitive answers concerning manhood as it emerged (and still emerges) in Pentecostal and/or fundamentalist missions. Th e available studies of masculinity among groups of Pentecostals (and other conservative Protestants) demonstrate the importance of this fi eld of study. If anything, it is my hope that this book has contributed to our understanding of the gender dynamics that was to be found among the men and the women who paved the way for this today rapidly growing branch of Christianity.

APPENDIX Th is Appendix is founded on the information on Swedish missionaries in China prior to the year 1900 given in Claesson, Kinesernas vänner, pp. 323–43. Some details have been added by me (mostly by checking available church records) and some minor faults in Claesson’s list of missionaries have been corrected. appendix 167 Comments Orphan SMC Missionary Training College, 1887–88 Evangelist course in Örebro 1892 Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 Evangelist course in Jönköping 1892 Orphan; Evangelist course in Jönköping 1892 emigration within family Uncle to the US in ? Marriage Known (née ?) 1897 Carl Söderbom 1895 Mary Johnsson Palm Hasselberg Eriksson Hansson Ögren to China Year of going 1893 IMA; 1901 SMC 1893 1893 1899 SMC 18961893 1898 August 1893 Emma 1896 Elisabet 1893 1898 Per Alfred prior to Occupation missionary work Preacher 1893 IMA; Preacher 1893 Matilda Book er Father’s occupation Lengthman Clergyman Teacher 1893 place Birth 1867 Hammarro 1865 Skövde 1870 1871 Gåsinge Croft 1895 Gothem Farmer 1873 Mörlunda Waiter1862 Stockholm Evangelist 1896 1898 Laura birth Year of Alsterlund, Anna Andeer, C. J. Anderson, Ingeborg Andersson, Albert Andersson, Anna Andersson, Edvin Berg, HelenaBingmark, Olof 1841 Blomberg (née Pettersson), Carl Blomberg, Olivia Book, Magnus 1859 Löt (Uppsala) 168 appendix Comments Brother to Martin and Otilia Ekvall Brother to David and Otilia Ekvall Sister to David and Martin Ekvall Evangelist course in Sundsvall 1892 emigration within family To the US in 1883 in 1883 To the US in 1883 Sisters to the US in ?; brother in 1889 Marriage Known 1895 Nils Kullgren Lundberg ? Bingmark 1907 Lydia Olsson to China Year of going 1893 IMA; 1904 SMC 1893 1896 Charles 1893 1893 IMA; 1904 SMC 1894 1892 Emma Ek? To the US 1892 1893 IMA; 1900 AMCFM 1893 1904 SMC prior to Occupation missionary work Shop assistant 1896 Father’s occupation place Birth Högerum 1874 Gävle 1865 Falun1871 Högsby Farmer Blacksmith Blacksmith Servant 1893 IMA; 1893 1896 Olof birth Year of Book, Matilda Brandt, Paulina Anna Brolin, Augusta 1872 Sundsvall Eagle, Alida Ehn, P. E. 1861 Linde Ekvall, David P. 1871 Högerum Ekvall, Martin 1866 Högerum Ekvall, Otilia Eng, Mary Erickson, H. Erickson, P. E. Erikson, Emelie 1868 Eriksson, Elisabeth Fagerholm, Alfred Appendix ( cont .) appendix 169 Comments Evangelist course in Karlstad 1892 Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 Founded an orphanage in Inner Mongolia Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 Evangelist course in Gothenburg 1893 Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 Evangelist course in Jönköping 1892; sister to Emil Jacobson emigration within family Brother to the US in ? Marriage Known Lindqvist 1895 Erik Pilqvist 1895 Lotten Nordberg Andersson 1896 Hilma Oxelqvist Öberg to China Year of going 18961893 IMA; 1903 BFBS 1898 Anna 1893 1893 1893 1893 IMA; 1899 Swedish Mongol Mission 1896 18931901 SMC 1897 Edvin prior to Occupation cer in the missionary work evangelist Offi Salvation Army Offi cer in the Offi Salvation Army Father’s occupation worker place Birth 1862 Mörlunda 1872 Norrköping Lithography 1864 Skara1866 V. Harg Farmer Farmer Evangelist 1893 IMA; 1870 Rumskulla Farmer Teacher 1896 1899 Otto birth Year of Gran, Ida Forsberg, Oscar 1871 NorGustafsson, Alida Farmhand Carpenter; Gustafsson, Elin Hall, KlaraHelgeson, H. 1849 Mjölby Helleberg, Karl Gottfrid Hansson, Laura 1871 GothenburgHasselberg, Bookbinder Emma Hill, Karl Johansson Jacobsson, Elisabeth Appendix ( cont .) 170 appendix Comments Had been active as evangelist in Germany prior to his departure for China; brother to Elisabeth Jacobson SMC Missionary Training College, 1892, 1901–2 Orphan Evangelist course in Jönköping 1892 emigration within family Brother to the US in ? Brothers to the US in ? Family to the US between 1887–1896 Marriage Known Nyström 1895 Albert Andersson 1895 Anna Brandt 1895 Mary Rodgers 1898 Johan H. Swordsson Brolin to China Year of going 1894 IMA; 1901 SMC 1893 IMA; 1899 SMC 1893 IMA; 1901 SMC 1893 IMA; 1903 BFBS 18931896 IMA; 1903 Swedish Baptist Mission Yes 1896 1896 Oscar Forsberg prior to Occupation missionary work Teacher 1896 1898 Martin evangelist worker Labourer 1893 Ida Skoglund Father’s occupation place Birth 1870 Tillberga Foreman Construction 1867 Tjärstad Farmer Painter; evangelist 1893 1896 Augusta 1862 birth Year of Jacobson, Emil 1859 Rumskulla Farmer Clerk Johansson, Anna 1870 Korsberga Johnsson, Anna c. 1860 Kristinehamn Kullgren, Nils 1869 SkillingmarkLarson, Frans FarmerAugust Blacksmith; Appendix ( cont .) Larson, Charlotte Larson, Hilda 1863 Högsby Lindblad, Anna Lindqvist, AnnaLundberg, 1872Charles Ludvig Nässjö Farmer Lundquist, Charles F. appendix 171 Comments Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 Sister missionary Brother to Martin Nyström Evangelist course in Gävle 1892; brother to Karl Nyström Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 Evangelist course in Stockholm 1892 emigration within family To the US, together with his family, in 1882 Marriage Known Malmström Nordling 1895 K. G. Hellenerg sjöberg 1897 Albertina Noréen Johansson Sjölund Rolander 1896 Karl Johansson Hill to China Year of going 18961893 IMA; 1899 Swedish Mongol 1896 Carl Mission 1893 1893 IMA; 1902 CIM 1895 Augusta 1893 1895 Fritiof 1901 SMC prior to Occupation missionary work apprentice Shop assistant; evangelist Evangelist 1896Dairyman 1898 Anna 1893 1890 Hanna Father’s occupation preacher preacher place Birth 1871 Dingtuna1870 Björnlunda Farmer Farmhand; Upholsterer’s 1873 Nora1869 Teacher birth Year of Nordling, Carl 1869Noréen, UppsalaWilhelm Nyström, Karl (Charles) ProfessorFrithiof ApothecaryNyström, Martin 1872 Björnlunda 1893 Farmhand; Olsson, AnnaOlson, Emil 1869 1896 Sally 1867 Malmström, Sally Nordberg, Lotten Oxelqvist, Hilma 1871 Stockholm Plater Milliner 1893 IMA; Appendix ( cont .) 172 appendix Comments Attended Elsa Borg’s Bible women’s home in 1885 Orphan Evangelist course in Jönköping 1892 emigration within family To the US in 1889 Siblings to the US between 1883–85 Marriage Known Andersson Olson Noréen Olsson Lundqvist 1898 Hilda Larsson 1897 Anna Ahlsterlund 1899 Elisabeth Jacobson 1898 Oliva Blomberg to China Year of going 1893 1890 Emil 1893 1895 William 1893 Charles F. 1893 IMA; 1902 Swedish Baptist Mission 1893 IMA; 1901 SMC 1896 IMA; 1902 SMC 1899 CIM prior to Occupation missionary work Farmhand 1893 Barber’s assistant 1893 1895 Anna Painter’s apprentice Gardiner’s apprentice Carpenter 1893 IMA; Father’s occupation labourer (mother) worker place Birth 1869 Hakarp 1870 Stockholm 1870 Dannemora Pauper 1874 Sandseryd Factory birth Year of Palm, AugustRolander, Hanna 1871 1861 Täby Ramkvilla Tailor Tailor; evangelist 1896 1898 Anna Sandberg, August Sjölund, Fritiof 1866 Stockholm Sjöberg, Augusta 1864 Yggesbo Carpenter Skoglund, Ida Swordson, Johan H. Öberg, Otto 1869 Rudskoga Farmer; Söderbom, Carl G. Ögren, Per Alfred Örn, Kristina 1867 Ryd Soldier Teacher 1899 Appendix ( cont .) BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscripts

Cambridge University Library, Bible Society Library, BFBS/Foreign Correspondence Inwards 1901, A-D. BSA/D2/14/33 Dr. Ritson’s Black Books: China. Jönköping, Jönköpings läns museums arkiv, MS Otto Öberg papers. Diaries; Diary of Elisabeth Jacobson. MS Emil Jacobson papers. Diary. London, SOAS, CIM London Archives, File 73. Stockholm, Missionskyrkans arkiv. Biografi er: Missionärer i Kina, Vol. V. MS Alfred Fagerholm papers. “Självbiografi ska anteckningar”; Alfred Fagerholm to Eskilstuna missionsförening n.b. [1895?]. Stockholm, Riksarkivet, Svenska Mongolmissionens arkiv, E5:1. Växjö, Emigrantinstitutet, Microcards. MS Hilma Anderssons arkiv. Växjö, Frans August Larson, “Autobiography” (copy with the author); Larson family letters, selection (copy with the author). Visby, Landsarkivet, MS Bingmark papers.

Periodicals

Th e Bible and the World Chicago-Bladet Chinese Recorder Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly Th e Christian and Missionary Alliance Weekly Th e Christian World Dagens nyheter Förbundstidningen International Review of Missions Men and Missions [London] Missionary Review of the World Missionsförbundet Th e New York Times North China Daily News Swensk Missions-Tidning Trons Segrar Trosvittnet

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Unpublished theses and papers

Johansson, Karin, “De vågade sig ut: en studie av Svenska mongolmissionens mis- sionärer och verksamhet 1910–1938”, Diss. Lund University, 2008. Malmer, Elin and Erik Sidenvall, “Christian manliness for women? Contradictions of Christian Youth Movements in early-twentieth-century Sweden” [unpublished paper]. Torjesen, Edvard Paul, “A Study of Fredrik Franson; Th e Development and Impact of His Ecclesiology, Missiology and Worldwide Evangelism”, Diss. Los Angeles International College, 1984.

Electronic resource

Sveriges befolkning 1890 (database).

INDEX

Abyssinia, 28 British and Foreign Bible Society Across Mongolian Plains (Andrews), 95 (BFBS), 25, 106–107 Africa Inland Mission, 3 British Methodism, 25, 26 agrarian gender order, 61–62 American Bible School, 4 Caldwell, Harry R., 141 American Board of Commissioners for Cambridge seven, 2, 29, 140 Foreign Missions (ABCFM), 101 Campbell, C. W., 104 American Student Volunteer Movement Capen, Samuel B., 150–151 for Foreign Missions, 142–143 Carleson, Nathanael, 55 Anderson, Mayer & Co., 108 China Centenary Missionary Conference Andrews, Roy Chapman, 95, 108, 141 (1907), 148 apocalypticism, 2–3, 41 China/Chinese Association of Christian Colleges and Christian China, 147 Universities in China, 146 early missions, 28–29 Austin, Alvyn, 8, 29 insight gained into, 85 as “Middle Kingdom,” 62, 88 Baden-Powell, R. S. S., 139 religious practices, 81–83 Baotou, 16 views of, 51–52, 75–76, 92 Basel Mission, 26 China Inland Mission (CIM) Bergman, August, 119–120 and C&MA, 125 Bible Schools, 157 dominion, 145 Bingmark, Anna, 48, 49 early missions, 2–3, 29 Bingmark, Elias, 61 middle-class standards of, 6 Bingmark, Elisabeth (Eriksson), 58, policies, 57 60–63, 66 publications, 51, 140 Bingmark, Hilma, 48, 49 Christian and Missionary Alliance Bingmark, Jonatan Vigidius, 62 (C&MA). See also International Bingmark, Niklas and Anna, 48 Missionary Alliance (IMA) Bingmark, Olof and Boxer Rebellion, 89–91 arrives in China, 53–57 and CIM, 125 childhood, 48–49 deaths of missionaries, 66 children, 61, 62, 64–66 demographics of missionaries, 32–33 conversion and training, 49–51 evolution of, 16, 31 death of, 66 gender roles in, 103 domestic situation, 57–58, 60–62 living conditions, 115–116 early religiosity, 35–36 working conditions, 125 engagement and marriage, 58, 60 Christianity, 147–148 and Fagerholm, 122 Church of Sweden, 27 prospects in Sweden of, 66–67 Church of Sweden Mission, 28 solitude and homesickness of, 63–64 city life, and masculinity, 110 sources, 48 clerical identity, 130, 135 Swedishness, 59–60 Cochrane, Th omas, 147 views of Chinese, 51–53 confessionalism, 27 Boardman, W. E., 29 Congo, 28 Bok, Magnus, 37 correspondence, 34 Bondfi eld, George Henry, 106 Cox, Jeff rey, 6 Bourdieu, Pierre, 14–15 Crisis of Missions (Pierson), 4–5 Boxer Rebellion, 66, 89, 126 cultural superiority, 52 186 index

Divine healing, 9, 42–43 Free Church of Scotland, 27 domesticity, 84, 86, 95, 103, 160 Friedström, N. J., 105–106

Eddy, George Sherwood, 142, 147 “gap-men,” 4, 5–6 education, of missionaries, 129–130, Gemein-Nachrichten, 25 135, 142–144, 148, 162 gender roles Egypt General Mission, 3 domesticity, 84, 86, 103 Ehn, P. E., 55 maternal piety, 117–118 Ekman, E. J., 126 and professionalisation of missionary Elgqvist, Anders, 27 work, 155–158 Ellis, William T., 9 public and private spheres, 47–48, emigration, 38–39 61–62 Erikson, Emelie, 132 geography, 62, 88 Eriksson, Elisabeth, 58, 60–63, 66 German Alliance Mission, 30 Eskilstuna, 119 Gilmour, John, 100 European expansion, 1 Gordon, A. J., 4 Evangelical Society, 25, 26 Guihuacheng, 16, 76–77 Th e Evangelisation of the World, 140 Guinness, Geraldine, 4 evangelism, 146, 157, 159 Guinness, Grattan, 3 exorcism, 81–83 habitus, 14–15, 160 Fagerholm, Alfred, 66 Hall, Nelly, 119 abandons faith mission, 116 Hällby, 97 activism, 126 heathens, 51–52, 59 conversion, 119–122 Hedin, Sven (von), 103, 108, 124 domestic life, 134 Hengstenberg, E. W., 27 and Frans August Larson, 97–98 Hill, Karl Johansson, 77–78 harrowing return to Sweden, Högsby, 35, 117, 118–119 126–128 Holiness Movement, 2–3, 14, 30, 42 itinerant preaching, 123–124 Holiness Union (Swedish), 29, 38, 55, living and working conditions, 122, 145 125–126 Hoover, Herbert, 103 marriage, 130–133 Hovsta, 71 nationalism, 127–128 Hsi, Pastor, 82 sources, 116–117 Hughes, Hugh Price, 140 summary of missionary work, 122, 124–125 identity, self-making, 11–12, 114, training and preparation, 122–123 159–163 travel to China, 122 India, 28 youth, 117–119 International Missionary Alliance Fagerholm, Hilda, 119 (IMA). See also Christian and Fagerholm, Lydia (Olsson), 130–133 Missionary Alliance (C&MA) Fagerholm, Paulina, 119 demographics of missionaries, 31–34 Fast, Carl Joseph, 27 development of missions, 71 feminism, fi rst-wave, 7–8 dominion, 145 Fengzhen missionary station, 86–87 origins, 3, 16 Folke, Erik, 29 strategy, 55–56 Forsberg, Oscar, 77 Franson, Fredrik Jacobson, Elisabeth, 77, 82, 85–86, Bible courses, 72 89–91 in China, 123 Jacobson, Emil, 81, 125 recruitment, 16, 29–32, 43, 45, 50, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 119 98–99, 120–121 Jönköping, 50–52 index 187

Kihlstedt, C. J. A., 37 McKinley, William, 137–138 Kullgren, Nils, 37–38 methodology, 16–17 middle-class respectability, 11–12, 14, Lake Mälar, 35, 37 141–142, 159–160 Larson, Duke of Mongolia (Larson), migration, of missionaries, 38–39 108–113 misogyny, 151 Larson, Edla, 96, 97 missionaries/missionary fi eld Larson, Frans August changing women’s roles, 155–158 adventurous lifestyle, 104–106 dangers of, 66 conversion, 98–99 doctrinal issues, 40–41 entrepreneurship, 103–104, 107, 113 dress and appearance, 53–55 and Fagerholm, 121 education, 129–130, 135, 142–144, language training, 101 148 leaves missionary work, 106–107 fi nance, 149–150 marriage to Mary, 102–103 geographical origins of recruits, 35 physical manhood of, 93–94, 98, language training, 51, 55, 59, 64–65, 111–113 123 sources, 95–96 leadership, 152–154 transport to Mongolia, 99–101 living conditions, 115–116 youth, 96–97 marriage and, 132, 134–135, 159 Larson, Mary Louise, 103 middle-class representation among, Larson, Mary (Rodgers), 102–103, 105 141–142 Larsson, Hilda, 85 motivations of recruits, 6–15 Layman’s Missionary Movement, 9, professionalisation and reorganisation 150–152, 154 of, 144–154 Liangcheng, 78, 83 and socioeconomic status, 4–6, 8–9 Liepzig Mission, 28 Western identity of, 59–60, 87–88, Lindesberg, 70–71 112–113, 127–128 Livingstone Inland Mission, 3, 28 women’s motivations, 5, 7, 9–10, 32 Löhe, Wilhelm, 27 women’s participation, 33, 38 London Missionary Society, 26 Th e Missionary Review of the World, low-church movement, 26–28 143 Lutheran confessionalism, 27 Missionary Training College (SMC), 37, 50, 129–130 married life, 132, 134–135 modernisation, 24–25, 33 masculinity and manhood, missionary Mongolia/Mongolians, 108–111 dress and appearance, 53–55 Moody, Dwight L., 4, 12, 30, 142 education’s contribution to, 130 Moravians, 25, 26 feminising city life, 110–111 Mott, John, 142, 143, 147, 148 Laymen’s Movement, 151 Muscular Christianity, 8n17, 140–144 leadership issues, 152–154 male homosociality, 18–19, 57, 105, National Lutheran Church, 25 132 nationalism, 127–128 marriage and, 132, 134–135, 159 New York Missionary Training Institute, motives of missionary recruits, 10–15 121 Muscular Christianity, 8n17, 140–144 noble savage, 110 Öberg’s missionary manhood, 92 North African Mission, 3 public and private spheres, 47–48 Roosevelt’s conception of, 138–139 Öberg, Elisabeth (Jacobson), 77, 82, self-making of, 11–12, 114, 159–163 85–86, 89–91 in society, 139 Öberg, Otto vs. adventure manhood, 94–95, 105 attitude towards missionary work, 69, Wilson’s assessment of, 72–73 84–85 188 index

birth and youth, 70–71 Salvationists, 14 communication issues, 79–80 sanctifi cation, 43 doctrinal concerns, 79–80 Scandinavian Missionary Alliance domestic work done, 84, 86 (American), 3, 30, 51, 91 emphasis on private meetings, 80 scientifi c management, 153–154 English tutoring, 88 Scott, George, 26 establishes mission at Liangcheng, self-making, 11–12, 114, 159–163 83–84 servants, 85 exorcisms performed, 81–83 Shanghai, 76 marries Elisabeth, 89–91 life in, 53 missionary manhood of, 92 Shanghai Missionary Conference (1890), Salaqi mission, 91 1 sources, 70 Simpson, A. B., 31, 71, 121, 125 training and preparation, 71–72, Smith, Judson, 143 76–77, 78 social advancement, 10–12, 159–163 travel to China, 74–76 Société Anonyme Minière des Aimach Western identity, 87–88 de Touchotukhan et de Setsenkhan en Ödeby, 70 Mongolie, 105 Olson, Emanuel, 45 socioeconomic status, of missionaries, Olson, Emil, 56, 76 4–6, 8–9 Olsson, Emanuel, 56 Söderdahl, Frithiof, 50 Olsson, Emma, 97 South African General Mission, 3 Örebro, 71 Sprague, Mr. and Mrs., 101 Stockholm, 36 pan-Protestant alliance, 41 Student Missionary Society, 29 patriarchy, 128–129 Student Volunteer Movement, 1–2, 4, Pentecostal Missionary Union, 157 142–144, 149 Pentecostalism, 133–134, 157–158 Svenska Posten (journal), 51 photographs, 34 Sweden Pierson, A. T., 1, 4–5, 149 advent of modernity in, 24, 33 piety, maternal, 117 Swedish Bible Society, 25, 26 pioneer masculinity, 140–144 Swedish Church Law, 26–27 Polhill, Cecil, 157 Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM), Porter, Andrew, 8 27–28 postcolonial nostalgia, 114 Swedish Mission Covenant (SMC) Primitive Methodists, 14 C&MA refugees, 134 public and private spheres, 47–48, 61–62 early mission work, 28 Fagerholm joins, 116 Radstock, Lord, 29 Fagerholm’s petition to, 126, 128 Ralph, Julian, 9 Missionary Training College, 37, 50, recruitment, 29–46 129–130 motivations of recruits, 6–15 patriarchy in, 128–129 women’s motivations, 5, 7, 9–10, 32 and Revivalism, 49 Regions Beyond Missionary Union, 3 Swedish Mission in China, 3, 29 religious liberty, 28 Swedish Missionary Society (SMS), 24, revivalism, 5, 40 26, 27, 28 Robert, Dana L., 8 Swensk Missions-Tidning, 26 Roosevelt, Th eodore, 138–140 Swordson, Hilda (Larsson), 85 Rouse, Ruth, 142 Swordson, Johan H., 78, 83, 84 Rowland, C. A., 152 Russell, Charles Taze, 119 Taylor, F. W., 153–154 Taylor, Hudson, 1, 2, 4, 29, 51, 56, 125 Salaqi mission station, 91 Taylor, W. E., 147 Salvation Army, 120 Tersmeden, Erik, 97 index 189

Tillberga, 97 Wilson, Henry, 72–73 Training Schools, 157 Wishard, Luther, 146 women missionaries Ulan Bator, 101 domesticity, 103 United States, emigrant communities in, and masculinisation of missionary 39–40 work, 155–158 Uppsala University, 29 missionary work as work of, 152 in missions, 5, 7, 9–10, 16, 32–33, 38 vaccinations, 42–43 and patriarchy, 128–129 Värmland Province, 35, 37 public and private spheres, 61–62 working-class recruits, 10–15, 33, 36–37 Wainright, S. H., 143 World Missionary Conference (1910), Walborg, John, 120 144 Waldegrave, Granville A. W., 29 Waln, Nora, 108 Yanggao mission, 56 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, York, M. Carl, 86 26 Western identity, 59–60, 87–88, Zhangjiakou, 103 112–113, 127–128