Chapter II. English Church Mission to Corea History, 1889-1910

First Bishop--Charles John Corfe, 1889-1904.

Second Bishop--Arthur Beresford Turner, 1905-10.

THE Mission of the English Church to Corea was founded by Archbishop Benson on All Saints' Day, 1889, when he consecrated Charles John Corfe in Westminster Abbey as bishop in charge of the new venture. It sprang out of the older Missions of the Church of England to the neighbouring empires of China and Japan. And, considering the leading and (when we think of opium), it must be confessed, not always creditable part which Great Britain had taken in forcing those old-world empires of the Far East to open their doors to Western trade and intercourse, it was but natural that the Church of England should desire to lend a hand in bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the teeming millions who inhabit them. The annexation by Great Britain of Hong Kong in 1842--an annexation which set the fashion for all the subsequent shameless invasions of the integrity of China by other countries--gave a reasonable pretext, and in 1849 the first Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong) was consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral, this action having been anticipated in 1844 by the consecration of an American bishop, who established himself at the more northerly treaty port of Shanghai. From that day to this the Missions of the Anglican Church (English, American, and Canadian) in China have grown until there are at the present time eleven missionary dioceses, now consolidated into "the Church of China" (Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui), with a following of probably not less than 20,000 native Christians. Similarly in Japan, at the doors of which the American Commodore Perry had first knocked in 1852-3, access had been won for British trade by the Treaty of 1858-9, forced by Lord Elgin on a none too willing Government and populace. And here too commercial and diplomatic enterprise was followed at no long interval by missionary activities on the part of the sister Churches of England and America, although it was not until 1874 that an American bishop was definitely assigned to Japan as distinct from China, and not until 1883 that the first English missionary bishop was sent there.

As in China, so in Japan, the missionary work of the Anglican Church (English, American, and Canadian) has gradually developed, until it now boasts seven missionary dioceses, consolidated into the "Church of Japan" (Nippon Sei Ko Kwei), with a following of something over 15,000 Christians.

The opening of Corea to foreign trade and intercourse by the series of commercial treaties, concluded between 1876 and 1886, had naturally drawn the attention of the Church authorities to this little-known land, which formed, as it were, a bridge or link between its two great neighbour empires. And as far back as 1880 efforts had been made to open work there by our missionaries in Japan, while in 1885 the C.M.S. Mission in South China had sent two Chinese catechists to settle in the port of Fusan. (These were withdrawn on the arrival of Bishop Corfe.) In 1884 the three English bishops in China had sent home proposals for the foundation of a Mission in Corea, and in 1887 the English bishops of North China and Japan visited Corea and forwarded a report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which they begged His Grace "to take steps to ensure the sending of a mission from the Church at home without delay." The answer to that came in the consecration, already referred to, by Archbishop Benson, of Bishop Corfe as missionary bishop to Corea on All Saints' Day, 1889. Both by reason of his previous knowledge of the Far East and of his splendid record of over twenty years' service as chaplain in the Royal Navy, it was felt that the selection of the new bishop was a peculiarly happy one. The Mission was founded with an annual grant of £600 from S.P.G.

Bishop Corfe landed in Corea on Michaelmas Day, 1890, having been busily engaged since his consecration in making the needs of the new Mission known, and in endeavouring to gather a staff round him. The archbishop was very anxious that the Mission should proceed on the principle of trying to create "white-hot foci" rather than "a scattered pastorate." In pursuance of this ideal it was hoped that a small body of picked clergy--priests who would resign their benefices or fellowships as the new bishop had resigned his brilliant prospects in the Navy--might be formed into a small community who would live together under a simple rule, while making a profound study of the manners and customs, and the language and literature of the people, in preparation for such active work as God might in the course of time lead them to undertake.

The answer to the challenge on the part of the English clergy was disappointing, and when the new bishop landed in Corea in the autumn of 1890, he landed almost alone. He was, however, accompanied by two medical missionaries, Dr. Wiles and Dr. Landis, and had, before he left England, secured the services of one priest, the Rev. M. N. Trollope, and three missionary college students, who all followed him in the course of the next six months. Of these, however, one (J. H. Pownall) was invalided home in 1893, and died in 1894; a second (M. W. Davies) retired in 1895 before any active work was begun; and the third, the Rev. L. O. Warner, also retired in 1896, but not before he had done some vigorous pioneer work, of which the Mission has since reaped the fruits. On his way across Canada the bishop had been joined by a priest of some experience, the Rev. R. Small, and a young theological student (S. J. Peake), of whom the latter returned to England a year later, after performing the useful work of putting the mission printing-press into working order, while the former was recalled within a few months to resume his work among the Indians of the Diocese of New Westminster. An ex-bluejacket and old shipmate of Bishop Corfe's (John Wyers), who a year or so later left the Mission to become constable of the British Consulate, completed the original staff.

The work of the Mission since its foundation naturally falls into three sections corresponding with the episcopates of the three bishops to whom its fortunes have been entrusted. And the first and longest of these, Bishop Corfe's episcopate, which extended over fourteen years from the date of his arrival in 1890 to that of his resignation in 1904, as naturally falls into two periods of seven years each. Between these two periods the Baptism of the first two adult Corean converts in November, 1897, forms the natural dividing-line.

It must be remembered that the Corea in which Bishop Corfe and his colleagues settled in 1890-1, was a very different place from the Corea of the present day. It was still the Corea of "ante-bellum" days, before the fountains of the great deep were broken up by the China-Japan War of 1894-5, and except for the recent intrusion of a few "foreigners," the country had changed but little from the days when Yi-tai-jo had founded the reigning dynasty. Railways and regular posts were unknown, Seoul was still a mediaeval city, hardly boasting a single "foreign" building, and still girdled by its ancient walls, whose ponderous gates were locked every night as the old city bell tolled the curfew, warning all men to retire to their homes while the ladies walked abroad, and the nightly beacon fires carried from hill-top to hill-top all over the land and to the king in his palace news of the welfare of his country.

Under the treaties, missionaries and other foreigners only enjoyed a restricted right of residence in Seoul and the three recently opened treaty ports; while travel in the interior was forbidden on pain of deportation, without a passport which distinctly specified "trade or pleasure" as the only two grounds on which such journeys were allowed, and as distinctly forbade the dissemination of any literature "displeasing to the Government"--a prohibition aimed directly against Christian missionary enterprise. Helps to the study of the language were few and far between, and there was no available Christian literature. Even the Bible was as yet untranslated: a recently attempted version of part of the New Testament in Corean, undertaken by a Presbyterian missionary in Manchuria, who had little or no first-hand aquaintance with the language, having fallen still-born to the ground. The first task, therefore, of Bishop Corfe and his staff was to attempt to gain some knowledge of the languages (Corean to speak, and Corean and Chinese to read and write), with a view to some day providing the Christian literature which was an absolutely essential pre-requisite to any active missionary effort.

Slender as was the staff at Bishop Corfe's disposal, a further heavy strain was put upon it during the first ten years of the Mission's existence by the addition of the large province of Shing King in Manchuria (North China) to the bishop's jurisdiction early in 1891. In those days its chief interest from the Church point of view lay in the fact that this province included the important treaty port of Newchwang, with a very considerable population of English and other Europeans, who had hitherto been under nobody's spiritual jurisdiction. Although Manchuria adjoins Corea to the north (and since the Russo-Japan War of 1904-5 has been brought within twelve hours of Seoul by rail), in those early days it was only accessible by a long round-about sea voyage, and that only during the summer months, the approach by sea being rendered impossible by ice throughout the three months of winter. Great as was the inconvenience, however, Bishop Corfe opened work there in Easter, 1892; and so gallantly did he and his staff serve it during the next decade that, when the readjustment of the North China Dioceses made it possible to hand over Manchuria to Bishop Scott of Peking in 1901, Newchwang boasted a handsome little permanent church and parsonage, a goodly number of communicants, and a sound Church tradition. But the necessity of ministering to this far-away outpost in another land added greatly to the difficulties of the Corean Mission in these early years.

For the first two or three years of its history the members of the Mission hardly stirred--except on occasional the trips of exploration--outside in Seoul the capital, and Chemulpo the seaport (some twenty-four miles distant), save when one or other was temporarily detached to take duty at Newchwang. In Chemulpo, immediately on his arrival, Bishop Corfe had rented a small house for himself and Dr. Landis, the keen young Pennsylvania doctor who had attached himself to the bishop on his journey across America. One room in this house was transformed into a temporary chapel, in which English services were held from the outset for the handful of Europeans living in the port; while another room, fitted up as the doctor's temporary dispensary, soon became a centre of attraction for large numbers of patients.

Later in the year (1890) the bishop was able to secure two very serviceable plots of ground, one just inside and the other just outside the "Foreign Settlement" of Chemulpo. On the former was built, before the year was out, the little brick church of S. Michael and All Angels, together with a very modest parsonage erected out of "the few remaining bricks," and a small building adjoining which was first used as a temporary dispensary for Dr. Landis while his hospital was in building, and afterwards as a school and "parish room." For twenty years and more S. Michael's Church has borne its witness to God and the things of God in Chemulpo; and now (1915), Sunday by Sunday, it is used turn and turn about--as indeed it has been for a good many years--by three relays of worshippers, who offer to God "the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" respectively in the Corean, Japanese, and English tongues.

On the latter of the two sites mentioned above, just between the "Foreign Settlement" and the Corean town, was built about the same time the predecessor of the present Hospital of S. Luke, the land being practically a gift from the Corean Government, and the building fund supplied by those naval friends of Bishop Corfe's who have throughout the history of the Mission done so much for its hospital and medical work. For more than seven years "the little doctor" worked hard at his hospital and dispensary, and at the many other Corean interests--linguistic, literary, scientific, and historical--which filled up his busy life, and then, on April 16, 1898, he was called to his rest, to the unfeigned grief of all.

In Seoul meanwhile the Mission had acquired two properties--one in the western quarter of the city, called the Mission Chong Dong, which adjoined the British Consulate, and one in the southern quarter known as Nak Tong, about a mile distant from the first. The latter was from the outset the head-quarters of the mission staff, who lived a quasi-community life there, and was intended to be the centre of its work among Coreans. To it was attached the Hospital of S. Matthew (for men), the erection of which, in 1892-4, was largely made possible by the generosity of Surgeon-General Wiles, a splendid old specimen of the army doctor, who had volunteered to give his honorary services for two years, to inaugurate the work of the Hospital Naval Fund in Corea; and who, after prolonging his stay a year beyond his original promise, handed the work over to Dr. E. H. Baldock, his successor, in 1893.

For close on twelve years, under Dr. Baldock's care, S. Matthew's Hospital did a splendid work. And it was not until 1904 that the difficulty of staffing and financing hospitals both in Seoul and Chemulpo, coupled with the troubles of the Russo-Japan War, and the knowledge that the munificently-supported hospitals of the American Presbyterians in Seoul were fairly covering the ground, induced Bishop Corfe, much against his will, to close our Seoul hospitals and concentrate in Chemulpo. Shortly after Bishop Turner's arrival in 1905, the Nak Tong premises, having been quite swallowed up in the Japanese quarter, and so become wholly unsuitable for Corean work, this work was transferred to Chong Dong on the other side of the city, and Nak Tong became the residence and working centre of the priest-in-charge of the Japanese work and his lady assistants. And five years later, the increasingly commercial and industrial character of the neighbourhood having rendered it wholly unfit as a place of residence and centre of mission work, it was decided to let the whole property as a building site, and with part of the rents to acquire more suitable premises for the Japanese work of the Mission in a district known as Ch'ang Dong or Ch'ang Kol, a good deal nearer the south gate of the city. Here this important part of the Mission's work is still carried on, and here at present (1915) the bishop--as well as the priest-in-charge of the Japanese work--has his temporary residence.

At Chong Dong, on the other side of the city, adjoining the British Consulate, a small room was opened as a temporary church for English services on Christmas Day, 1891, next door to the little thatched cottage in which Dr. Wiles then lived, and which afterwards for years served as the "Bishop's Palace," and from that day to this the small number of English Church folk living in Seoul has been unfailingly supplied by the members of the Mission with opportunities of worship and with the means of grace. This small temporary church room was supplanted at the close of 1892 by a more roomy and church-like structure (almost fifty feet by twenty-five), built on Corean lines which, as "The Church of the Advent," has become so endeared to the English-speaking residents of Seoul that it is difficult to get them to view with any enthusiasm the plans for erecting a more commodious "Central Church," in which our Corean, Japanese, and English brethren may at least worship God within the same four walls and under the same roof, even though the "strife of tongues" makes it practically impossible for them ever to join in common prayer and praise together.

In October, 1891, the Mission forces were strengthened by the arrival of Dr. Louisa Cooke and Miss Heathcote. They settled in a small house on the Chong Dong property--previously occupied by the bishop--and shortly after (1892), with the ever-ready and generous assistance of Dr. Wiles, opened there a small hospital and dispensary for women. This, which was known later as the "Hospital of S. Peter," and which was greatly improved by the erection, in 1895, of two spacious wards generously presented by Mrs. (Isabella Bird) Bishop, the famous traveller, remained under the care of Dr. Louisa Cooke until she retired from the Mission in 1896, when the work was taken up with no less skill and vigour by Dr. Katherine Allan, who subsequently married Dr. Baldock. In 1904, S. Peter's Hospital, like S. Matthew's and for the same reasons, was closed, the "Bird-Bishop Ward" being turned into a temporary church for our Corean worshippers (a duty which it still fulfils), and an amende honorable to the memory of Mrs. Bishop being made by the subsequent transfer of a considerable sum of money from the ordinary mission funds as a contribution towards the erection (1908) of the new women's ward in the Hospital of S. Luke, Chemulpo.

In the autumn of 1892, the Chong Dong property in Seoul had to be enlarged, by the purchase of a large rambling old Corean house, adjoining the original property, to provide the accommodation for the party of Sisters of the Community of S. Peter (Kilburn), who arrived in November of that year. The party consisted of four choir Sisters (Sisters Nora, Rosalie, Margaretta, and Alma); one lay Sister (Lois), and an associate, Nurse Webster.

In their earliest years in Corea the Sisters devoted themselves almost entirely to the work of nursing in the Hospitals of S. Matthew and S. Peter in Seoul. But bit by bit this work devolved more and more on "secular" nurses, who came out as associates of the community, while the Sisters were set free for more definite "mission work." As will be seen by and by, a branch house of the Community of S. Peter was opened at Kanghwa in 1901, and transferred to Su-won in 1908. The head-quarters of the community are still in the original house on the Chong Dong site, which was again enlarged by the purchase of another large rambling Corean property in 1896. This ultimately became the Orphanage under the care of the Sisters, and so continued until, in 1913, it was moved to other premises adjoining the Sisters' branch house at Su-won. One other considerable addition was made to the Chong Dong property, by the purchase in 1909 of an adjoining site, on which it is hoped before long to erect an official residence for the bishop and Seoul clergy. When this has been done and the new "Central Church" erected (partly as a memorial to Bishop Turner) on the ground till recently occupied by the Orphanage, Chong Dong, with which this mission has been so closely associated now for nearly twenty-five years, will become in fact, as well as in name, the head-quarters of the English Church Mission to Corea.

It should be mentioned that the arrival of the Sisters in Corea in November, 1892, was followed within a few days by that of the Rev. F. W. Doxat and his wife. He had already been chaplain to the Sisters in their Woking home, and continued to fulfil that office in Corea, combined with that of priest-in-charge of the Church of the Advent and pastor of the English-speaking flock in Seoul, until the end of 1893. He then went to Newchwang to undertake the chaplain's work there, thus setting the rest of the staff free from the rather exasperating duty of travelling to and fro between Corea and Manchuria. And there he remained until he returned to England in 1897.

While the members of the Mission were still busy with their study of the language, the printing-press, presented to Bishop Corfe by his brother naval chaplains, had been set to work in the Nak Tong Mission House. As already mentioned, the preliminary work of starting it in 1891 had been done by Mr. Peake, who had come from British Columbia in Bishop Corfe's wake. When he went home his place was taken in 1892 by Mr. J. W. Hodge, who greatly developed both the work and plant and continued to work as the Mission printer until 1900. During these eight or nine years the Mission press had done very useful work at a time when printing-presses in Corea were very scarce, turning out in creditable fashion such books of general interest as Mr. James Scott's Corean Manual and Corean Dictionary, as well as the simple religious works, which were the first-fruits of the translation efforts of the bishop and his clergy.

The first and most important of these was a so-called "tract" (it really was a rather large book) published in 1893, on the Life of our Blessed Lord, intended to form the basis of our earliest teaching and preaching, there being as yet no available version of the Holy Scriptures in the Corean tongue. The book, which went by the name of Lumen, or Lumen ad Revelationem Gentium (being the Latin rendering of the Corean title Cho Man Min Kwang) was printed in alternate paragraphs of Chinese characters and Corean On-man, or vulgar script; and was composed of ten chapters, in the words of Holy Scripture, illustrating the Incarnate Life of the Son of God, from the Annunciation to the Ascension, with S. Paul's sermon at Athens as preface, and a postscript describing Pentecost, the Acts of the Apostles, and the foundation of the Holy Catholic Church.

This served its purpose well until, some years later, and bit by bit, a translation of the whole New Testament appeared under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in the production of which members of the Mission took only a small part. Lumen was followed by Catechisms and Litanies, which were based upon the larger work, and then, as the needs of the Mission grew greater, by an increasing number of works of instruction and devotion, a small volume of prayers for catechumens, a systematic catechism for their instruction, an office of admission to the catechumenate, and then (one by one) the Baptism and Confirmation Services, the Litany and Communion Service, and such other portions of the Prayer Book as made their need imperatively felt. But to this day no complete version of the Prayer Book has been issued.

It has already been mentioned that, except for occasional trips of exploration in the interior, the members of the Mission were practically confined to Seoul and Chemulpo for the first few years of its existence. The most valuable of these journeys of exploration were those undertaken at the bishop's direction in 1892-3 by Mr. Warner, to investigate the river systems of Corea, as possibly providing a more convenient method of access into the interior than the ordinary roads. He spent the winter of 1892-3 in a little hired cottage in the river suburb of Mapo, about four miles from Seoul, where the Mission subsequently acquired a considerable property. It was hoped that this might be the head-quarters of the river Mission work; but, as the work ultimately developed along different lines, it has actually never yet fulfilled a higher function than that of rest-house and retreat for members of the Mission living in Seoul. As a matter of fact, the most important result of Mr. Warner's river trip lay in the "discovery" of the island of Kanghwa, which was shortly after adopted as a Mission centre, and has since played such a prominent part in the Mission's activities. Seoul, it must be explained, stands on the banks, or within three or four miles of the banks, of the great river Han, which, after being joined by the river Im-jin, falls into the sea some thirty odd miles to the north-west of the capital. The estuary is screened and almost blocked at this point by the populous and fertile island of Kanghwa, from the lofty hill-tops of which the seaport of Chemulpo is visible some twenty miles to the south. And, in those pre-railway days, the little steam-launches which plied precariously on the circuitous route of sixty miles between Chemulpo and Seoul, running along the shores of Kanghwa and up the mouth of the Han, provided the only alternative to a walk or ride of twenty-four miles between the capital and the port.

The island of Kanghwa is about the size of the Isle of Wight, and occupies about as important a position vis-a-vis the capital as the Isle of Wight, would have done if Winchester, and not London, had been the capital of England. It was absolutely virgin soil so far as missionary effort was concerned, and had, moreover, this advantage over the Isle of Wight, that it was only separated from the mainland by a strip of water a few hundred yards wide; though, owing to the racing tide and the masses of ice-floes with which it is choked in winter, this narrow strip of water has often proved to have terrors enough. Kanghwa, moreover, had always been an important centre of government, and had played a leading part in more than one crisis in Corean history. Indeed, for some years in the thirteenth century the old walled city in the centre of the island had been the capital of the country, what time the King and his Court fled there from the face of Kubla Khan's Mongol troops who were then ravaging the peninsula. And at this particular juncture, in 1892-3, the Corean Government had just decided to make it the scene of their new "Naval Academy," which was opened shortly after under the charge of three British officers and instructors. This venture, however, speedily collapsed on the outbreak of the China-Japan War in 1894.

Here, then, Mr. Warner secured a precarious footing in the autumn of 1893 in a tiny cottage in the village of Kapkotchi, on the banks of the narrow arm of the sea which separates the island from the mainland. And here he maintained his foothold, gathering a few inquirers round him, until he went home in 1896, although the suspicions of Government officials, the lack of vernacular literature, and his own still imperfect knowledge of the language, which was shared by all the other members of the Mission, rendered impracticable all schemes for much in the way of aggressive Mission effort for the time being. Matters in these respects became a little easier as time went on. And when, at Christmas, 1896--a few months after Mr. Warner's departure from Corea--the first catechumens of the Mission were enrolled and regular Corean services were instituted, three Kanghwa inquirers were among the number of those thus definitely accepted as candidates for Holy Baptism. And two of these, who were baptized in the following November, were actually the first-fruits of the Mission's long "work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

One other department of the Mission's works in Corea needs to be touched on, in speaking of the things begun in the first half of Bishop Corfe's episcopate, viz., the work among the Japanese residents in Corea. The Japanese settlement in Fusan was an old one, dating back to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was not, however, until the conclusion of the first commercial treaty between Japan and Corea in 1897 that the inhabitants of the island empire began to settle in Corea in any numbers. But their number has been continually growing, side by side with the gradual increase of their political and commercial importance in the country until, now that Corea has become a Japanese dependency, the census shows that there are not less than a quarter of a million of them scattered over the peninsula.

Apart from the language difficulty, there always have been, and probably always will be, two great obstacles in the way of carrying on work among the Japanese immigrants. One is that they are so widely scattered all over the country that it is difficult for any priest even to keep in touch with those of them who are already Christians; the other is that they are so largely "birds of passage" moving about from place to place, or returning to their native land just as the priest is beginning to count on them as regular members of his flock in Corea. Still, as far back as 1891, Bishop Corfe had endeavoured to secure the services of a Japanese Christian doctor to open work in Fusan, and did actually succeed in importing a Japanese catechist to Chemulpo, whence, however, he was shortly recalled by family affairs to Japan. Such work as the Mission did in those early years among the Japanese arose out of a small night-school for teaching English, which was started by Dr. Landis in Chemulpo in 1891, and carried on by Mr. W. H. Smart, who had come from England for the purpose, during the years 1892-4. The school was perforce then closed owing to the excitement of the China-Japan War, and Mr. Smart went to Japan, to qualify for work as a lay-reader among the Japanese in Corea, by devoting a year to the uninterrupted study of their language.

Returning in 1895, he definitely began Mission work among the Japanese in Chemulpo (while occasionally visiting those elsewhere), and carried it on indomitably, and with no little success, for the next five or six years, in spite of the great difficulties attaching to his position as a layman. The work was greatly helped from time to time by visits from the Rev. A. F. King, the Rev. L. B. Cholmondeley, and the Rev. J. T. Imai and other clergy from Japan, while some of the clergy of the Mission--over and above their Corean studies--learned to read enough Japanese to be able to administer the Sacraments in that tongue. The Baptism and Confirmation of five Japanese adults in Chemulpo in September, 1896, was but the first-fruits of a considerable harvest which Mr. Smart was privileged to gather in there during those three years.

Nor were the other Japanese settlements neglected, particular attention naturally being paid to the old Japanese colony of Fusan, where a temporary mission-house was at length acquired, and a Japanese catechist settled at the end of 1900 (though the latter did not remain long), and where, a few months earlier, Bishop Corfe had confirmed two Japanese Christians and celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time.

In 1901 Mr. Smart left Corea to take up work in Japan, where he was ordained to the diaconate by the American Bishop of North Tokyo, under whom he worked for the next twelve years. His place in Corea was filled by the Rev. Christian Steenbuch, who had recently come out from England, and who, after being ordained to the diaconate in Seoul by Bishop Corfe in September, 1900, had gone to spend a year in Japan for purposes of language study. Returning to Corea at the end of 1901, he settled in Chemulpo, was ordained priest in 1902, and carried on the work among the Japanese there and in Fusan and elsewhere until 1904, when he too transferred his services to Japan. And it was not until 1905 that the work among the Japanese was placed on a more solid and satisfactory footing by the establishment of the Rev. S. H. Cartwright in Seoul, as priest-in-charge of the Japanese work all over the country, with, later on, two lady workers to assist him.

In giving the foregoing rapid sketch of the main events in the mission's history during the first few years of its existence, it has seemed best to anticipate to some extent what follows by tracing also in outline the subsequent developments to which they led. But, to prevent confusion, it will now be best to revert to the chronological order.

In the summer of 1894 Mr. Trollope was dispatched to England by the bishop on the business of the Changes in the Mission. And not only was his return retarded (until January, 1896), but the whole work of the Mission was a good deal hampered by the confusion arising out of the China-Japan War, which broke out just after his departure. He reached Corea again in March, 1896, accompanied by Messrs. J. S. Badcock and R. F. Hillary, who had been trained by the Society of the Sacred Mission, and who were ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Corfe in December of that year.

In December, 1896, the Mission received fresh reinforcements in the persons of the Rev. A. B. Turner (subsequently bishop) and Brother Hugh Pearson, of the Society of the Sacred Mission, and was further strengthened in the spring of 1897 by the arrival of Mr. G. A. Bridle (ordained deacon in 1897 and priest in 1900) and Dr. A. F. Laws, who also hailed from the same society.

In passing it should be mentioned that this society, to which not only the Corean Mission but the Church at large of the owes such a great debt of gratitude, had its origin in the Rev. H. H. Kelly's offer of himself to Bishop Corfe as far back as 1890. He was already on fire with those ideals to which he has since given such fruitful expression, and, instead of carrying him off to Corea, Bishop Corfe asked him to remain in England and to devote himself to the training of some of the many young men who were then offering themselves for work in the mission-field. How well he did that work, and how God has prospered it, all the Church knows.

Beginning in Vassall Road, under the shadow of S. John the Divine, Kennington, the Corean Missionary Brotherhood, as it was then called, ere long developed into the Society of the Sacred Mission, and, after a sojourn at Mildenhall, settled into its present quarters at Kelham, near Newark-on-Trent. In 1898 it sent to Corea the Rev. Father Drake, and later in the same year Brother H. H. Firkins, who was ordained to the diaconate when Messrs. Badcock and Hillary were raised to the priesthood in Lent, 1900.

Rather unfortunately, but inevitably, the earlier members of the society in Corea found it difficult to keep pace with the more highly developed life of Kelham, and in process of time it seemed best that they should be released from their obedience to the society, while remaining in the service of the Mission. More unfortunately still, the health of two of the remaining members, Brother Hugh Pearson and Brother Firkins, gave way so seriously that the latter had to leave Corea in 1901, and the former in 1904, when, with the withdrawal of Mr. Drake (who, however, returned to Corea in 1911, after seven years in South Africa), the direct connection of the society with the diocese ceased, though the mutual benefits derived from that connection during so many years will not readily be forgotten.

As already mentioned, on Christmas Eve, 1896, Bishop Corfe had the happiness of solemnly admitting to the Corean catechumenate half a dozen Corean inquirers--the first-fruits of the harvest for which the Mission had been so long preparing. From that day onwards regular Corean services were carried on in Seoul and Kanghwa, though Chemulpo did not become a centre of organized Corean work and worship until some years later, in November, 1900. Moreover, of the six catechumens then admitted, two were baptized (by immersion, a practice which the rigours of the climate and other inconveniences have made it impossible to continue) in the Church of S. Michael, Chemulpo, nearly a year later, in November, 1897, and were confirmed as they came up out of "the laver of regeneration" by Bishop Scott of Peking, who was then on a visit to Corea. One of the two men then baptized (who both came from Kanghwa) was in delicate health, and died not long after; the other has been a pillar of the Church in Corea ever since, and was ordained deacon in 1914.

The admission of these two neophytes to the fold in 1897 may be fairly held to mark the close of the first half of Bishop Corfe's episcopate, and the opening of the second and even more important chapter, in which we mark the gradual growth of the Church thus brought to the birth.

Bishop Corfe himself was, unfortunately, not present at these first baptisms, as he left Corea in March, 1897, to attend the Lambeth Conference. And so exacting were the demands made on him in England that it was October, 1898, before he returned to Corea.

The diocese was administered in the bishop's absence by the Rev. M. N. Trollope, whom he had appointed his vicar-general, and who resided usually in Kanghwa, while the Rev. A. B. Turner had charge of Seoul and Mapo, and Chemulpo was served on Sundays, as far as was practicable, by clergy from one or other of these stations. In Kanghwa during the summer of 1897, the headquarters of the Mission were moved from the waterside village of Kaphotchi to more spacious premises, recently vacated by the English instructors of the defunct Naval Academy, in the city of Kanghwa itself, where also a small boarding school for boys was at the same time opened.

When, therefore, Bishop Corfe returned to England for the Lambeth Conference in 1897, he was able to point, in spite of the vicissitudes through which the Mission had passed, to the following substantial results of the work of the previous seven years (over and above the well-established chaplaincy in Newchwang):--

(a) Churches erected in Seoul and Chemulpo, and regular services provided for the small congregation of English-speaking residents.

(b) Three well-found hospitals in full working order--viz., one in Chemulpo under the care of Dr. Landis; and in Seoul, one for men under the care of Dr. Baldock, and one for women under the care of Dr. Katherine Allan, the two last being supplied with nurses by the Sisters of the Community of S. Peter.

(c) A printing-press in full work, and the completion of a good deal of the translation work, necessary for aggressive missionary operations among the Coreans.

(d) The substantial beginning of Mission work among the Japanese, under Mr. Smart's care in Chemulpo.

(e) The beginnings of regular Mission work among the Coreans in Seoul and Kanghwa.

The whole being under the charge of a staff of four English clergy, which was increased to six early in 1898 by the arrival of Father Drake and Brother Firkins, S.S.M.

The year 1898, however, brought a great disaster in the death from typhoid of Dr. Landis, and within a few weeks of his death the Mission suffered a further loss in the death after prolonged illness of Nurse Webster, who had been working with the sisters ever since their arrival in the country in 1892. The death of Dr. Landis necessitated the closing of S. Luke's Hospital, Chemulpo, just as plans were in hand for the erection of a substantial brick building (made possible by a grant from the S.P.G. Marriott Bequest) in place of that which had done duty hitherto. And though the buildings were proceeded with, and Dr. Garden arrived in September, 1898, to take charge of the work (which he continued to superintend until 1902), it meant a complete break with the past, and beginning all over again with a new doctor, who had to start afresh in acquiring that knowledge of the Corean language and Corean customs in which Dr. Landis had become such an expert.

The absence of the bishop, and the death of Dr. Landis, led to some little dislocation of work in the various stations during 1898. But in 1899 that work started with renewed vigour; and at Whitsuntide in that year our first big batch of adult Corean converts (eighteen in number) was baptized in Kanghwa, in the presence of the bishop, who confirmed them immediately afterwards. In the work of preparing the women among these candidates much help had been given by a visit from one of the Sisters, accompanied by Miss L. Nevile, who had lately arrived from England to help the Sisters in their work, and who remained with them until 1903.

In Seoul, on the Feast of S. John the Baptist, 1899, there was a large Baptism of Coreans (by a coincidence exactly equal in number to those baptized in Kanghwa), who were also confirmed by the bishop immediately after the Baptism.

The year 1900 witnessed a development of the work in Kanghwa, where the southern half of the island was formed into a separate district, and placed in charge of Father Drake, assisted by his S.S.M. brethren (the Rev. H. H. Firkins and Dr. A. F. Laws) of whom the latter promptly opened a dispensary, destined, as years went on, to do a great work in the island.

The head-quarters of this new station were fixed in a village called On Su Tong (about ten miles from Kanghwa City) which subsequently became widely known among friends of the Mission as the scene of the indefatigable labours of the Rev. F. R. Hillary between 1901 and 1910.

The sudden outbreak of the Boxer trouble in China during the summer of 1900 made Boxer itself felt in Corea, whence, at the urgent invitation of the responsible authorities, Dr. A. F. Laws and three of the Mission hospital nurses (Miss Cameron, Miss Unwin, and Miss Mills) were sent to Weihaiwei to help temporarily in the task of caring for the soldiers and sailors who had been wounded in the hastily-organized expedition for the relief of the Peking Legations. The same summer witnessed the return to Corea of the Rev. S. J. Peake, who had spent a year with the Mission in 1891, and who had since not only been ordained both deacon and priest, but also qualified as a doctor. Unhappily, his sojourn in Corea was as short as before, and in September, 1901, he returned to England, afterwards devoting himself to Mission work in South Africa.

But the great event of the year was the dedication, by Bishop Corfe, of the big Church of SS. Peter and Paul in Kanghwa City on November 15, 1900. The congregation there had long outgrown the accommodation of the temporary church room, which had been several times enlarged. And a handsome gift of £500 from the Marriott Bequest Fund in the hands of S.P.G. had made it possible to erect this striking building, which, albeit the most prominent structure in the old city, harmonizes well with its surroundings, a fairly successful endeavour having been made to adopt the old Corean style of architecture to the purposes of a Christian Church.

The first six months of 1901 were spent by the bishop on a second visit to England, the development of the Mission having made it necessary to complete its home organization, and to place its financial matters on a more satisfactory footing. He had hoped that it would be possible for his Visit of vicar-general, Mr. Trollope,

Bishop Corfe during his absence, to make a simultaneous beginning of diocesan organization in Corea, by summoning a diocesan conference at Eastertide. A variety of circumstances, however, unhappily combined to frustrate this latter intention, to the great disappointment of the bishop. On his return in July he found that it had been necessary to send Father Drake to Newchwang (where he remained until that post was definitely transferred to the North China Diocese in October, 1901), as Mr. Turner had been sent home on sick leave to England, whence he was unable to return until November, 1902.

The straits to which the Mission with its rapidly-developing work was reduced in the latter part of 1901 may be imagined, when it is remembered that in August Mr. Trollope had been sent home on what it was hoped would be a short furlough, while in September Mr. Peake also left, in company with Brother Firkins, S.S. M., whom the doctors pronounced to be unfit for further service in the Far East. Mr. Trollope had only been in England a few weeks when he was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to become the Bishop of the new Diocese of Shantung, recently severed from the jurisdiction of Bishop Scott in North China. After prolonged consideration he found himself unable to accept the offer. But for a variety of reasons, which he did his best to explain to the friends of the Mission in the pages of its Magazine, the Morning Calm, he also came to the conclusion that he ought to ask Bishop Corfe's permission to "suspend indefinitely" his return to Corea. And on this permission being granted he accepted the wholly-unexpected offer of the Vicarage of S. Saviour's, Poplar, recently vacated by the death of Father Dolling. Thus, after over ten years' service in the Mission to Corea (broken only by his furlough in 1894-5), he found himself engaged again in parochial work in England, where (except for a visit to Corea in 1908) he remained as Vicar, first of S. Saviour's, Poplar, and then of S. Alban's, Birmingham, until ten years later, in 1911, he was called upon to return to Corea as bishop, on the death of Bishop Turner.

In May, 1901, the Sisters of S. Peter had opened their branch house in Kanghwa,
where it was of inestimable service to the growing work. And it is hardly too much to say that, with the rapid development of the work here, the centre of gravity of the Mission had practically shifted to this station. After the departure of Mr. Trollope, the charge of Kanghwa City had devolved upon Mr. Badcock, assisted by Brother Hugh Pearson, S.S.M., who was busy with the printing, bookbinding, and other industrial departments of the school, while at On Su Tong, in the south of the island, Mr. Hillary had charge of the growing work, in which he was much helped by Dr. Laws and his highly-valued dispensary.

On the other hand, although the two Mission hospitals in Seoul (S. Matthew's for men and S. Peter's for women) continued to flourish--until they were closed in the summer of 1904--under the care of Dr. and Mrs. Baldock and the Sisters, the evangelistic and pastoral work, both there and in Chemulpo, with its rather tiresome duplication of English and Corean services, was from one unavoidable cause or another so constantly changing hands between the Rev. Father Drake, Mr. Bridle, and (after his return in November, 1902) Mr. Turner, that much steady progress was not to be looked for. Meanwhile, the staff of the Sisters' helpers was increased at the close of 1902 by the arrival of Nurse Hudson (whose health did not allow her to remain more than a year) and Miss Alberta Pooley (who is still, in 1915, at work in the Mission); but the necessity of closing the Hospital of S. Luke at Chemulpo in the autumn of the same year, owing to the difficulty of finding a successor to Dr. Carden, was a bitter grief and disappointment to the bishop and all concerned.

Partly with the earnest desire to fill up the serious gaps in his staff, both clerical and medical, and partly with the view of placing the finance of the Mission hospitals, so long supported by his naval friends, on an assured footing, Bishop Corfe felt bound to pay another visit to England. Leaving the diocese, therefore, to be administered by Mr. Turner, he left in February, 1903; and only returned, after a year's heart-wearing search for men, in February, 1904, to find the whole Far East thrown into confusion by the outbreak of war between Russia and Japan. After the first few weeks, however, the tide of war rolled so far north into Manchuria, that it made little difference to Corea, except so far as the rapidly-growing predominance of Japan in the internal affairs of the country altered existing conditions.

Two or three months before the bishop's return the hearts of all members of the Mission had been gladdened by the arrival (December, 1903) of the Rev. W. N. Gurney; and a few weeks after his return the bishop had been able to welcome Dr. and Mrs. Weir, who set to work to restore the fallen fortunes of S. Luke's Hospital, Chemulpo. These were indeed worthy fruits of Bishop Corfe's last visit to England. Mr. J. S. Badcock and Mr. G. A. Bridle were thus enabled, after respectively eight and seven years' work in the country, to get away to England for a short furlough, though their absence sorely taxed the powers of those remaining behind. Father Drake went to take up the work left by Mr. Badcock in Kanghwa City, where he had, therefore, the companionship of his S.S.M. lay brother Hugh Pearson, until both retired on the withdrawal of the society from the diocese in the autumn of 1904.

Meanwhile, however, Bishop Corfe, feeling that the strain of the Mission, for which he had been responsible for nearly fifteen years, was more than he could continue to bear--especially in view of his inability to master the spoken language--had in a letter of singular dignity and pathos, dated from Chemulpo on S. James's Day, 1904, announced the fact that he had tendered his resignation to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Shortly afterwards it became known that the resignation was accepted, and that the archbishop had selected the Rev. A. B. Turner to be his successor.

The resignation of Bishop Corfe and the appointment of Bishop Turner as his successor brings us to the close of another chapter in the history of the Mission. And it is just worth while to glance summarily at the position which had now been attained.

(a) The chaplaincy of Newchwang had been handed over in 1901 to the Bishop of North China, but both in Seoul and Chemulpo regular services had been maintained for the English-speaking residents, whose numbers, small enough as a rule, had frequently been swollen for months together by the presence of a guard of British marines in Seoul.

(b) The two hospitals in Seoul had been kept in thorough working order until the spring preceding Bishop Corfe's resignation, when with great regret they were finally closed, partly in consequence of the difficulty of replacing Dr. and Mrs. Baldock who left in 1904, after giving respectively twelve and eight years' devoted service to the Mission, partly in consequence of the impossibility of properly financing these hospitals (which would also have required rebuilding) as well as the hospital at Chemulpo. This last, which had led a chequered existence for the last six years, had taken a new and vigorous lease of life, which has since been well sustained under the inspiring guidance of Dr. and Mrs. Weir, who arrived just as Dr. and Mrs. Baldock were leaving in 1904.

(c) The Mission printing-press, though carried on on a smaller scale than heretofore and worked as a department of the boys' school in Kanghwa, had continued to supply the Mission with the vernacular literature required, until it was closed on the retirement of Brother Hugh Pearson of the S.S.M. at the close of 1904. Printing-presses having greatly multiplied in recent years in Corea, the costly expedient of maintaining a separate Mission press was no longer necessary.

(d) The work among the Japanese, especially in Chemulpo and Fusan, had been carried on with increasing vigour, and showed now a list of some sixty Christians, with thirty communicants.

(e) The work among Coreans, which had started with two adult Christians in 1897, had so developed that in 1904 the number of the baptized was over two hundred, including some hundred communicants. Of these, however, nearly three-fourths were in the two Kanghwa stations, the churches in Seoul and Chemulpo having suffered seriously from lack of continuous supervision and encouragement, owing to the constant change of clergy.

Arthur Beresford Turner was consecrated second missionary Bishop of Corea in Westminster Abbey on the Feast of the Conversion of S. Paul, 1905, having returned to England for that purpose. He reached Corea again in May, and took over the charge of the diocese from Bishop Corfe, by whom it had been administered pending his arrival. His all too short episcopate of a little over five years, of which we now proceed to give some account, witnessed a great development of the work of the Mission. Doubtless the rapidity of this development which carried its own dangers with it, was largely connected with the changes--political and other--through which the country was passing. The close of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 had left Corea at the mercy of Japan, who promptly proceeded to make her suzerainty a reality, taking complete control of all foreign relations and, to an ever-increasing extent, undertaking also the direction of the internal affairs of the peninsula. The Emperor of Corea maintained a precarious hold of the throne until 1907, when he was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, who was himself deposed when the country was formally "annexed" by Japan a few weeks before Bishop Turner's death, in 1910.

These events, and much which went before and followed them, created a profound feeling of discontent and "unrest" among the Coreans. And for at least two years, 1907-9, the country was the scene of a miserable guerilla warfare, and of rather ruthless punitive expeditions. In the general break-up of the old political and social organization, there was a widespread movement towards Christianity on the part of the Coreans which, while it brought much encouragement with it, also sowed the seeds of a vast crop of difficulties.

Side by side with the political upheaval, Corea also witnessed at this time the strange work of religious "revival," which attracted so much attention and to which reference was made in the series of letters contributed to the Times by Lord William Gascoyne Cecil, on the occasion of his visit to the Far East in 1907. This movement, however, chiefly affected the northern parts of Corea (in the neighbourhood of Ping Yang) and the American and Presbyterian Missions which are very strongly represented there.

Last, but not least, it is not too much to say that the country was practically transformed by the laying of the great Trunk Line Railway (running from north to south through the whole length of the country), which was opened about this time, and which, a few years later, brought Corea into direct railway communication with China, as well as with Russia and the rest of Europe, at one end, and by an excellent daily service of steamers with Japan at the other. It was, therefore, practically a new Corea--or at least a new Corea in the making--in which Bishop Turner was called upon to work.

Naturally the work amongst the Japanese under these altered circumstances, claimed Work a large part of the new bishop's amongst attention, and claimed it early head-quarters of the Japanese work were fixed in Seoul, where part of the old Nak Tong premises were adapted for the purpose, and where Mr. Cartwright was joined in 1907 by two English lady workers, Miss Grosjean and Miss Elrington, as well as by a Japanese mission woman. A catechist was established in Fusan, to be replaced in 1910 by a Japanese priest, the Rev. A. N. Shiozaki, and thither too, at about this latter date, Miss Elrington removed.

Before Bishop Turner's death a suitable site for the Mission premises was purchased here and occupied by a temporary "church room" as well as by residences for the workers, while plans were made and a fund was opened for the subsequent erection of a permanent church. About the same time a residence was built for a Japanese catechist, adjoining S. Michael's Church in Chemulpo, and shortly after it was found possible to place both a catechist and a Japanese mission woman there also, while Miss Pooley, who was acting as dispenser at S. Luke's Hospital, prepared herself by the study of Japanese to devote herself to this branch of the work. On Mr. Cartwright's death, in 1909, his place was filled temporarily by the Rev. H. Walton of Yokohama, and then by the Rev. A. L. Sharpe, who had also been engaged in Mission work in Japan.

Although the work still largely retained its sporadic character, which prevented any very rapid development, by the time of Bishop Turner's death the number of Japanese Christians had risen to over one hundred and fifty.

The hospital work, meanwhile, which had now been concentrated at S. Luke's, Chemulpo, prospered greatly under the guidance of Dr. Weir, who had arrived shortly before Bishop Corfe's resignation. This work rapidly developed, and by 1908 it had become both necessary and possible to add a women's ward to the original building. When Dr. Weir went on furlough in 1908, his place was temporarily filled by Dr. Laws, who had spent the two years since he went home in studying for a degree in the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia. On the return of Dr. Weir in 1909, Dr. Laws removed to Chin Chun, the most recently-opened station in the interior (about eighty miles south of Seoul), where he was enabled shortly after to erect a hospital and to build up a hospital dispensary practice, which has proved of great service to the Mission. Just before Bishop Turner's death the Mission had also secured the services of a lady doctor, Dr. Borrow, who, however, was not able to begin active work until after the arrival of his successor.

The clerical staff, meanwhile, was strengthened by the arrival, at the end of 1905, of the Rev. F. Wilson, who, having been ordained deacon before he left England, was ordained priest in 1906, and who spent the greater part of the next seven years in Kanghwa, working first under Mr. Badcock and then under Mr. Hillary, until after the arrival of Bishop Trollope in 1911 he was put in charge of the newly opened Mission station at Paikchun, on the mainland to the north of Kanghwa, from which it was an off-shoot.

During the year 1908 Mr. Trollope, then Vicar of S. Saviour's, Poplar, came out and spent six months in Corea, while Bishop Turner went to England for the Lambeth Conference; and at the end of that year the Mission staff received a further accession in the person of the Rev. A. C. Cooper, till then assistant curate of S. Oswald's, West Hartlepool, who immediately went to the help of Mr. Bridle in the newly-opened station of Suwon.

Again, later in October, 1909, the Rev. F. Weston arrived and went to give needed help in Kanghwa, while in December the Rev. G. E. Hewlett also came, and having been ordained deacon, went to assist Mr. Gurney in his newly-opened station at Chin Chun. The Rev. C. H. N. Hodges and the Rev. G. S. Dallas, who had been accepted for work in Corea during Bishop Turner's lifetime, did not arrive until after his death. The same was true of the Rev. F. R. Standfast and his wife, who, moreover, had to return to England before the arrival of the new bishop, owing to the difficulty of supporting the largely increased staff out of the limited funds at the disposal of the Mission. The Community of S. Peter had suffered a serious loss by the death, in Kanghwa, in May, 1906, of Sister Alma, and by the retirement through ill health of Sister Margaretta in 1909. Its forces were, however, increased by the arrival of Sisters Cecil and Edith Helena in 1907, and Sister Constance Irene in 1908, a year which was also made memorable by a prolonged visit from the Reverend Mother of the Community.

The responsibilities of the Mission were largely increased in October, 1905, by the opening of the new Mission centre of Suwon, an important provincial city, some twenty miles south-west of Seoul, with a station on the Seoul-Fusan Railway. Mr. Bridle was placed in charge, being moved from Chemulpo, which for the next eight years lacked the services of a resident priest, Dr. Weir adding the duties of lay-reader to those of medical officer, while Bishop Turner and the other clergy visited the post at intervals for the administration of the Sacraments. At Suwon, where Mr. Bridle was joined by Mr. Cooper in 1908, the work grew by leaps and bounds, stretching forty or fifty miles down the railway line into the next province, where the work developed to such an extent that it became ultimately necessary to form another and separate Mission district with its centre at Chunan.

At Suwon itself a temporary church was opened at Christmas, 1905, to be replaced by a more permanent structure in 1908, in which year also it was found possible to open both a boys' and a girls' school, the latter being in charge of the Sisters of S. Peter, who had recently moved their branch house thither from Kanghwa. A number of district chapelries were also opened between 1905 and 1910 in the same district, which at the time of Bishop Turner's death numbered, in its then undivided state, over 700 Christians and nearly 500 communicants.

Meanwhile, in our older station of Kanghwa the work had been extending with almost equal rapidity. Mr. Hillary, greatly helped until 1906 by Dr. Laws and his dispensary, still had charge of the southern half of the island, with its headquarters at On Su Tong, where in November, 1906, Bishop Turner dedicated the handsome Church of S. Andrew, a worthy companion to its compeer, the Church of SS. Peter and Paul in Kanghwa City, ten miles to the north. In the city Mr. Badcock, assisted by the Sisters of S. Peter, remained in charge until he was recalled to England by family affairs in the summer of 1907. Bishop Turner then placed both halves of Kanghwa Island under the charge of Mr. Hillary, who was assisted by Mr. Wilson, as well as later on by Mr. Wes-ton, and shortly after the Sisters were removed to Suwon, leaving the women's work in Kanghwa to be taken in hand by Mrs. Hillary, who had originally come out as Miss Robinson to work with the Sisters in Seoul.

In August, 1909, the work suffered a great blow in the death of Mrs. Hillary, but before long lady workers were found to take her place in the persons of Miss France, Miss Bourne, and Miss Borrowman, who all arrived during the year 1910. During these five years nearly a dozen chapelries were built in Kanghwa to serve districts some distance removed from the central Churches of SS. Peter and Paul and Andrew, and at On Su Tong very useful schools were opened for both boys and girls. The result of all this development was that Kanghwa, which had started with two Christians in 1897, numbered at the time of Bishop Turner's death, in 1910, a roll of over 1,100 Christians, of whom about 750 were communicants, while the work had spread not only to neighbouring islands but to Tong-chin on the mainland to the east, and to Paikchun on the mainland to the north. And in this latter place the work throve so well that on the arrival of Bishop Trollope, in 1911, it had to be created an independent station with a resident priest in charge.

In Seoul, as heretofore, the Corean work continued to suffer from the constant change of priest and the burdensome necessity of duplicating services for English and Corean worshippers. Both in Seoul and the surrounding country Mr. Gurney did some vigorous work during the years 1906-8, at the end of which time he handed the charge on to Mr. Badcock. The women's work meanwhile was well looked after by the Sisters, whose little orphanage continued to thrive in the shadow of S. Peter's Mission House, under the excellent care of Sister Nora and Lay Sister Barbara; but, for the reasons above given, so slow was the progress of the general Mission work in Seoul, as compared with the country districts, that at the time of Bishop Turner's death the total number of Corean Christians was still under two hundred, with about fifty at Chemulpo, of whom also the priest in charge of Seoul had the oversight.

It was while priest in charge of Seoul that Mr. Gurney undertook the series of missionary journeys to the east and south of the capital which finally resulted in the opening of the nourishing Mission centre at Chin Chun, some eighty miles to the south of Seoul. Here a property was acquired, and a temporary church dedicated by Bishop Turner in the winter of 1907-8. But it was not until the end of the latter year that Mr. Gurney was able to take up his permanent residence there. Here too the work grew with great rapidity, and extended over a quite unmanageable area of country, necessitating the erection of a number of outlying chapelries. And by the time of Bishop Turner's death in 1910, the priest-in-charge was able to report a total of over 500 baptized persons, of whom over 400 were communicants.

In the summer of 1910, Bishop Turner, whose constitution had never taken kindly to the climate of the Far East, was taken seriously ill, and after some weeks of lingering sickness in S. Luke's Hospital, Chemulpo, under the sympathetic care of Dr. and Mrs. Weir and their staff, he passed to his rest on the Feast of S. Simon and S. Jude, to the unfeigned grief of all both in and out of the Mission, and was laid to his rest in the Mission Cemetery at Yang-Wha-chin near Seoul--thus bringing another chapter of the Mission's history to a close. During the interregnum, Bishop Montgomery, Secretary of S.P.G., paid a brief visit to Corea, in the course of which he ordained Mr. Weston and Mr. Hewlett to the priesthood. And in the following May (1911) it was announced that the Archbishop of Canterbury had appointed the Rev. M. N. Trollope, then Vicar of St. Alban's, Birmingham, to be the new bishop.

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