No. 302.
Mr. Dinsmore to Mr. Bayard.
Seoul Corea, April 21, 1888. (Received June 4.)
Sir: Mr. Rockhill, in his No. 58 of February 5, 1887, called the attention of the Department of State to the efforts on the part of the missionaries [Page 445] in Corea in the prosecution of evangelical work. The matter is of growing importance.
At various times I have gently remonstrated against imprudence and called attention to the danger of injury to the cause they seek to promote from an exhibition of premature zeal.
My admonitions have been kindly and respectfully received by these very worthy people.
In the beginning assemblies for religious worship were only held for the foreign residents, but attended more or less by Coreans without exciting objection from the authorities; now prayer meetings are held for the natives and, as I infer, the services conducted in the Corean language.
Moreover, occasional journeys are made into remote parts of the country, upon passports, with a view, as is now confessed, of religious teaching and administering baptism and other rites. The natives show a high appreciation of the benefits resulting from schools and hospitals, and with the exercise of patience and regard for the laws and wishes of the people on the part of those engaged in them I think they will furnish a sure avenue to religious freedom.
The Methodist mission have a school which is doing excellent work, Although a mission school and entirely independent of government patronage, it has had a name bestowed upon it by the Government in token of its recognition.
For the purposes of this school a large and handsome building, occupying a sightly eminence and built after the western style of architecture, has been erected at an expenditure of several thousand dollars The Coreans watched its progress of construction with great interes and with anxiety. I was frequently asked if the building was intendec for a church.
I have been approached to know if the foreign residents would be authorized in erecting a building purely for a house of worship avowedly for the use only of foreigners. If our people have a right to build churches it must be derived by virtue of “the most favored nation clause of our treaty, from the provision in the English treaty, and perhaps the German and Russian granting “free exercise of their religion. The subjects of neither of these powers have as yet undertaken the building of houses of public worship and the opening of Seoul (Han Yang) to foreign commerce is liable upon the happening of a future contingency to be suspended or rendered inoperative.
The matters herein presented will doubtless have discussion very soon between the Corean and French authorities.
The French missionaries have purchased elevated ground overlooking the palace and in close proximity to an old temple, and are proceeding to erect a building, it is said, for school and religious uses. Becauso of the two facts mentioned in connection with the location, the Coreans are greatly exercised and have protested against the occupation of the ground. For two months the matter has been under discussion and the King has offered, if the missionaries will recede from their purpose, that he will refund the money they have paid for the lots and present them with other ground, to be selected by themselves in the city without price. All overtures, however, have been repulsed thus far and the work is still in progress.
The Coreans look anxiously to the arrival of Monsieur Colin dePlancy, the French representative, who is expected to arrive in June next, for an amicable settlement of the affair.
I have, etc.,