KOREAN MESSIAH

old, was a local boy, born and raised in this city of nine thousand on the banks of the Ohio River

Moffett & Sons, a fixture on Main Street selling hosiery, gloves, buttons, and other dry goods

he was baptized in the local Presbyterian church and “polished the pew with his little breeches”

out west, settling in Madison in 1847 and marrying the daughter of a wealthy saddlemaker

boulevards, ornate Italianate façades, and orderly gridlike layout hinting at grand aspirations

of five sons became as much a part of the church as its uncompromising brand of theology

that had taken root across the American Midwest in the mid-nineteenth century

he was an elder, deacon, and, for a quarter century, superintendent of the Sunday school

as pastors, including his fourth son, Sammie, born in 1864 at the height of the Civil War

early letters hint at a lifelong curiosity about the world, religious faith, and his family roots

a lifelong devotee of tennis, exchanging forehands with his brothers at the Madison Tennis Club

and home of one of the U.S.’s first college campus Young Men’s Christian Association buildings

only by the thought that they would “soon have to leave these scenes of placid enjoyment”

of biblical authority with his Sunday school teacher at nearby Hanover Presbyterian Church

captured the six-foot-one student looking skinny to the point of gaunt, and less than convivial

to earn his master’s degree, which he hoped would open the way to a career as a pharmacist

the class’s top orator and who was also making plans to devote his life to missionary work

older brother taught Christian evidences and other subjects as a professor at Hanover College

Foreign Missionary Society to raise funds for evangelism in Persia, India, Laos, and Japan

on the North Side of Chicago, a city quickly earning renown as a Presbyterian stronghold

theology took root as the school grew to become America’s largest Presbyterian seminary

leaders feared their strict adherence to the Bible was coming under assault as never before

Moffett and Baird attended daily morning prayer meetings and mandatory worship services

his eight children in tow, challenging Moffett, Baird, and their classmates to join him

who had developed a burning zeal to see the Christian gospel spread around the world

to American missionaries, spoke fervently about the urgency of devoting their lives to missions

“We are willing and desirous, God permitting, to become foreign missionaries”

planet, committing themselves to a cause that would change the fate of an ancient kingdom

Australia, and the United Kingdom, young men and women were signing the same pledge

and Will Baird, the 1870s and 1880s were characterized by a dramatic broadening of horizons

steam engine making it a commercial powerhouse—began asserting itself on the global stage

leaders like Dwight L. Moody, perhaps the greatest preacher of the nineteenth century

Chicago into a nexus of foreign missionary activity, just as Sam Moffett arrived in town in 1886

its emotional climax, one hundred students publicly committed their lives to missionary work

colleges and universities and sparking a zeal for foreign missions that spread “like a prairie fire”

Prior to this period, educated Christians rarely became missionaries

Ivy League graduates and all of them “convinced of the superiority of ‘Christian civilization’”

life as an overseas emissary for Christ—”the last of the heroisms,” in the words of one preacher

in central Africa in the 1860s made him an icon of swashbuckling Victorian Christianity

Why You Should Go to Africa; China’s Millions; The Claims of India; The Needs of South America

urged to preach at least twenty missionary sermons per year—virtually every other Sunday

with a slogan breathtaking in its ambition: “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation”

“all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”

—literally, “good news” in the original Greek—to every last hearer would hasten His return

—”from Greenland’s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand,” as a popular hymn had it

the spirit of the age: the uplifting of the world’s masses with the light of the Christian gospel

over the future of the Philippines, knelt in prayer to ask “Almighty God for light and guidance”

“by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ died”

they regarded as an epochal life-and-death battle with eternal souls hanging in the balance

Moody declared. “God has given me a life-boat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can’”

out the number of people in Asia and Africa dying without salvation, each second, each minute

Western missionaries had begun, in the words of John Mott, “to lay siege to that great Empire”

“Japan, Korea, China, Manchuria…What religion shall dominate these changing people?”

faith, the call of missions was the most noble and important that any human being could heed

Moffett was deeply stirred by the missionary spirit then sweeping through those schools

sermons from American missionaries recently returned from places like Angola and Burma

—and by extension his own ancestors—as the product of the earliest foreign missionary work

“greatest privilege,” Moffett later wrote, extolling “the greatness and the honor of his calling”

met Frank F. Ellinwood, corresponding secretary of the Presbyterian board of foreign missions

“of men,” and Moffett—earnest, and wholly devoted to soul-saving—was precisely that

leaving it to the missions board to decide—perhaps southern China, or somewhere else entirely

“among us,” the local newspaperman wrote—was regarded without exception as a great loss

boasted of the “great gratification” of a beloved alumnus entering the foreign missions field

“If so, they will prove a precious legacy to many a heart,” the Courier offered

“carry the Gospel to the heathen” in a small country on the other side of the world called Korea

“being among them, a hazy notion that it is in the Greek Archipelago cropping up frequently” 

while still others were convinced that Korea was in Arkansas or in Africa or at the poles 

“Procuring a map, I learned that particular island was Corsica,” he later confessed

Anyone hoping for an accurate map of Korea was out of luck

“like a wedge between the seas of China and Japan,” one British writer remarked in 1872

the few books on the country becoming obsolete almost as soon as they were published 

had reached Korea as early as the ninth century, drawn by its gold, ginseng, and porcelain 

imprisoned for more than a decade before sixteen of them escaped and told of their ordeal 

East India Company ship—making him the first Protestant missionary to reach the peninsula 

and medicine, he didn’t stay long and failed in his quest to get a copy of the Bible to the king 

into the “Hermit Kingdom,” as Korea came to be known—but seldom got more than that 

and Korea, in 1886, he peered over into the forests below “and wondered what lay within” 

Where facts about Korea were scarce, half truths and outright fictions filled the void 

so large that “the metallic wealth of Corea will affect the monetary equilibrium of the world” 

population varied wildly to the point of absurdity, from 250,000 people to more than 16 million 

Even the Chinese and Japanese were kept at arm’s length by their aloof neighbor 

-mystical powers, but for most Chinese, the lands beyond the Yalu River were terra incognita 

centuries with Koreans at the southeastern port city of Pusan, but likewise kept their distance 

of trees and maintaining a desolate forty-mile-wide buffer with China along the Yalu River 

which sent back any Koreans found in China, ensured the peninsula’s near-hermetic isolation

required to return to their respective zones, with violators subject “to the severest penalty”

was able, for centuries, to keep the world at bay, allowing it to turn almost entirely inward 

author of one influential book on Korea in 1894. “Corea cannot long remain a hermit nation” 

—the source of the nation’s modern English name—Korea had paid tribute to China 

Korea had embraced with an eagerness that outshone even the old sage’s descendants in China

were transmitted across the Korea Strait to Kyushu and up through the Japanese main islands

Koreans for centuries scoffed at the Japanese, whom they regarded as an inferior “midget race” 

nineteenth century, however, all three countries’ ruling dynasties were showing signs of wear 

establishing a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that ruled nearly half of China in the 1850s 

its days were numbered—“the sick man of Asia,” as the chattering classes in Europe dubbed it 

Korea’s ruling Chosŏn dynasty, if anything, was even sicker

a ruling house, the Yi clan, that had been in power for nearly half a millennium, dating to 1392 

of Korea, which left the royal palace in ashes and wiped out one fifth of the population 

in an even more precarious position—and even less willing to engage the outside world

power, blocking rivals from accumulating wealth and mobilizing spies to sniff out discontent

of Koreans labored with no hope of advancement—a system “indistinguishable from castes” 

But stirrings of major changes were becoming apparent in the Far East 

evident than in Japan, whose shoguns watched China’s Opium War defeats with apprehension

Commodore Matthew Perry’s “black ships,” which sailed into Edo Bay in 1853, causing alarm

fueled by religious groups prophesying cataclysmic events and messiahs claiming deliverance

in an enlightened dynasty to replace the decadent existing one, after five centuries of rule 

particularly in the restive northwest, despite attempts by the Chosŏn court to smother it

Catholicism was beginning to circulate widely, causing further anxiety among the Chosŏn rulers

had brought back books and crucifixes from Jesuit missionaries in the Qing Chinese capital

in subsequent decades to the foreign faith, drawn to its creed of equality before God

Yalu River into Korea; six years later, he was executed after his discovery by the Chosŏn court

priest, ordained in Shanghai, was likewise put to death by Chosŏn authorities in 1846

had launched seven major persecutions against Catholicism, executing thousands of converts

killings only appeared to strengthen the foreign teaching and drive it deeper underground

royal line that stretched back to the founding of the Chosŏn dynasty in the fourteenth century

of the royal family was chosen as the next king, taking the name Kojong upon his accession

—and he wasn’t shy about exercising the privileges that came with his son’s royal mandate

man of iron will—“perhaps the last really strong man to appear on the stage of Korean politics” 

put it, his rule was one of “ruthless slaughter,” sparing not even members of his own family

seeking to solidify his still tenuous influence, closed Confucian schools and destroyed shrines

superstitious regent that the blood of ten thousand people would be required to secure his rule

torture and execution of nine French missionaries—far surpassed that of any of its antecedents 

others trade; some pursued an opening for the Christian gospel, while others came to plunder

Confederate surrender in Durham, North Carolina, effectively ending the American Civil War 

copies of the New Testament translated into Chinese—the written language of Korean scholars

interest in Korea after arriving in Chefoo, a Chinese port city facing Korea across the Yellow Sea

There, Thomas met two ginseng traders from Chosŏn who had converted to Catholicism

Chefoo in September 1865 on a nearly three-month trek along the coast of northwestern Korea

“very hostile to foreigners,” he succeeded only in convincing a few “to accept a book or two”

“the Chinese in the arts. Is it worth while to open such a country? Poor, effete little country”

that first encounter only whetted the young missionary’s appetite for another assay

undertaken against Korea’s Catholics, resulting in the execution of several French missionaries

and signed on to serve as an interpreter for a planned French investigatory expedition

Thomas quickly agreed to join the crew of another Korea-bound ship, the General Sherman

on July 29, 1866, loaded with cotton cloth, glass, tin-plate, and other goods for sale in Korea

pushed up the river to Man’gyŏngdae, a riverside village on the outskirts of Pyongyang 

the Taedong’s notorious shifting tides and end up stranded on a mud flat not far from the city

more numerous Koreans, who had set several boats alight and aimed them at the foreign ship

Chinese-language New Testament onto the shore before he, too, was captured and executed 

the crew of the General Sherman was, perhaps, seeking to ransack the royal tombs nearby

with the nation on a hair-trigger after the execution of the French Catholic priests in February

schooner had erred by ignoring the authorities’ warnings and provoking an angry mob response 

To this day, what happened with the General Sherman remains unknown

hung from the gates of Pyongyang, as a warning to any who would disturb Korea’s peace

No, however, was the only answer that the Korean court of 1866 was prepared to offer

—to issue another edict calling on Koreans to annihilate the foreigners’ faith once and for all

“No quarter was to be given; neither age nor sex nor condition was to weigh in the balance”

holding their headless bodies over the water to pour their blood into the Han River below

Similar bloodletting took place along the Taedong River in Pyongyang 

“river have been defiled,” the royal proclamation read. “Their blood should wash out the stain”

couching his offer as one of “Christiandom”—combined with the threat of force

The Korean government summarily dismissed the offer

Rodgers launched a punitive two-day assault at the mouth of the Han River leading to Seoul

it was an overwhelming victory for the Americans, who killed hundreds while losing only three

“favor making a treaty sell their country. Let this be a warning to ten thousand generations”

General Sherman’s anchor chains still hung from the gates of Pyongyang’s ancient walled city

“veritable wonderland of Alice,” or “to an unknown planet,” as one American missionary put it

April 1885 as one of the first Presbyterian missionaries to the newly opened kingdom of Korea

magnate took an immediate liking to Moffett and agreed to underwrite his work there

December 25, 1889—the first Christmas Day that he would spend apart from his family

future colleague and rival Horace Underwood, by then a four-year veteran in the Korea field

optimism that Japan was on the cusp of a wholehearted embrace of Christianity was in the air

missionary in Korea, who had just sent off Korea’s first diplomatic delegation to the U.S.

aboard a tiny rocking vessel, the band of young missionaries crossed the choppy strait to Korea

at the port city of Pusan, just fifty miles from Japan on the southeastern coast of the peninsula

immediate promise in Korea: it was a barren-looking place, devoid of greenery on the coasts

clad head to toe in white clothing so immaculate it put to “shame pearls and snow flakes”

Few Westerners could forget their first sighting of this distinctive national costume

would later recall his initial impression of the “people in white…like another race of beings”

but it’s unlikely it differed from that of a close missionary friend, who arrived a few years later

now known as Inch’ŏn, on Saturday January 25, 1890—Sammie Moffett’s twenty-sixth birthday

and after a round of greetings, brought the new arrivals back to the capital by chair and pony

almost frozen riding a small steamboat “about the size of a bath tub” across the frigid river

where Moffett spent his first night in the country he would call home for the next half century

alleys of low-rise huts, beating and starching the white cotton robes that so dazzled newcomers

missionary community, was conducted without hymn-singing, for fear of attracting attention

words of Isabella Bird Bishop, who came to know Moffett over her many visits to the country

alleys filled with “vile holes or green, slimy ditches” and “its ankle-deep mud and its foulness”

the lives of many a Western missionary in those early days—not to mention countless Koreans

“only read about”: typhoid, typhus, leprosy, diphtheria, malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox

his arrival in Korea, while the British consul general and vice consul lost three servants to illness

epidemic in 1895, the missionaries in Seoul tallied more than three hundred dead each day

predicted that he and his McCormick Seminary classmate Daniel Gifford wouldn’t last long

“of his kind that you can send the better, but if possible send men of stronger constitution”

In any case, Moffett was more concerned with the spiritual condition of the country

in a letter to Ellinwood three days after his arrival, having moved in temporarily with Gifford

“how the first impression can be aught else than that the people do greatly need the gospel”

Moffett’s assessment was hardly unique among his colleagues

Korea was an utterly areligious place, with no temples of any size in the major cities

heads carved into wooden “devil posts” planted outside Korean villages to ward off evil spirits

“as Satan looked upon his work, there can be no doubt that he pronounced it all very good”

“licentiousness and immorality universal; corruption and oppression everywhere,” one wrote

cloak covering her entire body, as photographed by Jack London in 1904 (Huntington Library)

“are as sheep without a shepherd, lost in the wilderness, ‘faint and hungry, and ready to die’”

“Indolence is a national characteristic. The Korean is content to take life as easily as possible”

to newcomers that Korea itself suffered from a deficiency of civilization and enlightenment

seclusion that the missionaries regarded as stricter than China’s and nearly as austere as India’s

—covered up with just their faces showing—before a midnight bell restored the general order

Bishop, during her four journeys through Korea, never saw a girl older than the age of six

Western resident reasoned, but the average Korean regarded a boy as worth ten times a girl

responsible for preparing meals—and relegated to the most squalid rooms in the house

—underscoring their subservience, with beatings common and silence their “first duty”

as “a useful machine to provide for the wants of the man,” as one early Western visitor wrote

were available for young men, schooling was nonexistent for girls, regarded as a waste of time

a task horse—“a drudge, till she can transfer some of the drudgery to her daughter-in-law”

the regent allowed his son to be paired off with a young woman from the powerful Min clan

ruler akin to Elizabeth I, and others denigrating her as conceited, superstitious, and corrupt

outmaneuver the Prince Regent and formally end his father’s regency and rule in his own name

brother; it exploded upon opening, killing the queen’s brother, mother, nephew, and others

first modern treaties—with Japan in February 1876, and then with the U.S. in May 1882

Germany (1883), Russia (1884), Italy (1884), France (1886), and Austria-Hungary (1889)

Strictly speaking, the U.S.-Korea treaty didn’t allow for missionary work

opened kingdom of Korea, sent $6,000 to the U.S. Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions

Upon receiving the gift, the board sent a cablegram to China with a single word: “Corea”

Horace Allen departed as quickly as he could

-the-world voyage to America and Europe, meeting twice with President Chester A. Arthur

“I have returned into the dark again; I cannot as yet see my way clearly, but I hope to soon”

minister who was so impressed that he donated money to start missions work in Korea

in June 1884, telling King Kojong of the church’s desire to open schools and hospitals in Korea

proved just a short trip, Horace Allen came to stay, arriving in Seoul on September 20, 1884

“with a jutting Wellingtonian nose and peaked, flaming-red, aggressive beard”

“to remain if the American Minister had not appointed Dr. Allen physician to the legation”

And so it was that Allen would serve as a diplomatic physician, rather than as a missionary

as Protestant Christianity’s first evangelist on the Korean peninsula would prove providential

attempt at an official banquet, gravely wounding Prince Min Yŏng-ik, the queen’s nephew

into action, rushing over to treat him and then nursing him back to health over three months

After that, Allen became, in the words of a colleague, “the most famous man in the capital”

radical of Korea’s progressive agitators and strengthening the court’s pro-China conservatives

But for the missionaries, the Kapsin coup proved a godsend

country that had for centuries restricted medicine and education to the sons of the aristocracy

ship also carrying Henry G. Appenzeller, a twenty-seven-year-old Methodist from Pennsylvania

followed in June 1885 by the English-born Presbyterian doctor John Heron and his wife, Harriet

Annie J. Ellers, a teacher and doctor from Michigan, arrived the next summer

clustered primarily in the capital and the eastern harbor cities of Pusan and Wŏnsan

physicians to Queen Min—a sign of the royal favor that the missionaries would come to enjoy

mission field, setting up union schools and hospitals and coordinating evangelistic campaigns

heading into the surrounding countryside on itinerating trips to spread the gospel in the villages

threat of disease, the roads were dreadful and the countryside filled with tigers and other perils

several ponies to carry the coinage for buying basic goods—“money enough to sink a ship”

simple singing of a hymn, or by preaching a sermon in broken Korean and handing out tracts

struggled to get a moment of peace from the inquisitive Koreans, even when trying to sleep

“when we fancied ourselves quite alone, to see all those holes filled with hungry eyes”

“When the missionary was seen coming at the horizon, everyone would run to greet him”

had demonstrated, medical work could open doors otherwise closed off to foreigners

by natives seeking relief from their ailments—whether or not they were actually doctors

from its bloodiest Catholic persecutions, however, such hopes remained mostly aspirational

Prince Regent loomed over the political scene, occasionally succeeding in squelching change

“by Tuesday night have their heads cut off,” wrote one American advisor to Korea in the 1880s

like Moffett, were eager to push the envelope—to the dismay of American diplomats

little risk in doing the same, often couching their actions in the language of manifest destiny

difficult a task they faced in presenting their message of salvation through a crucified Christ

obstacles were manifold, not least of which were legitimate fears of persecution and execution

“he would be decapitated if the government knew he had such a book in his possession”

“with one, specially a religion of restraint and sacrifice which has no worldly good to offer”

“of scarce a dozen people…many of us able to stammer only a few words of the language”

treaty port, and urged the establishment of a mission station there “as soon as it is opened”

in the Pyongyang region, led by a French priest disguised as a Korean, living just outside the city

Here, the young Hoosier sensed, was opportunity

in the national mythology than Pyongyang, “the cradle of ancient Korean civilization”

and spread across northwestern Korea and Manchuria, with its capital at Pyongyang

granted a fiefdom and sent to the Korean peninsula as a bearer of enlightened civilization

reforms, introducing metal coinage and teaching the natives agriculture, the arts, and filial rites

with digging was said to weigh more than water drawn from any other well in the kingdom

wrote one early Western missionary-historian of Korea. “He was the King Arthur of Korea”

Though the origin story bordered on fairytale, in some sense, it hardly mattered

making him an object of veneration—and the very foundation for ties between China and Korea

was at least tied to the one that it regarded as the fountainhead of culture and civilization

in the minds of many Koreans over the course of centuries, as the true capital of the nation

riveting drama in the nation’s history, earning it a reputation as “the great battlefield of Korea”

apex of Korea’s geographical expansion—established their capitals in, or near, Pyongyang

setting for a series of dramatic repulsions of invasions that felled an imperial Chinese dynasty

Pyongyang after another assault on the city, thus ending seven centuries of Koguryŏ rule

importance, placed a large garrison in the city, which he decreed his western capital

after the suggestion was rebuffed, the monk launched a bloody rebellion

invaded Korea in the 1590s, his troops made it to Pyongyang before being beaten back

place in the Korean imagination as “the last stronghold” of resistance against foreign invaders

center in Seoul, and thus, according to Confucian precepts, disconnected from civilization itself

to call for a single-minded focus on the city: win Seoul, and the rest of Korea would follow

hinterland where tiger hunters, armed with matchlock guns, killed fearsome creatures

since these people were, after all, “not up to the standard” of the capital’s Confucian elite

dynasty many years to bring the northern fringes of the Korean peninsula under its control

the royal court launched a massive resettlement campaign, starting with slaves and soldiers

clustered along the barren frontier only fixed the typecast against the “suspicious” northerners

Korea’s fiercest warriors, reflecting the soldierly background of many forced transplants

“especially the people of Seoul. The elders always spoke of them maliciously and disparagingly”

thus inadvertently creating a pocket of egalitarianism in an otherwise deeply stratified country

nearly impossible, as in the south, where landlords emerged, dominating poor tenant farmers

low-level migrants, prisoners, and other riffraff, “melded into a great mass of commoners”

through success in the all-important civil service examinations, they would be disappointed

northwesterners were systematically denied prominent positions in government

smuggling, trading, and generally hustling on the edges of legality to earn a living

sent to the northwest in the 1700s, he was stunned by the opulence of the nouveaux riches

Another response was remonstrance and rebellion

“the ancient home of Kija and Tan’gun, a place of refined manners and brilliant culture”

captured eight county seats in the province before the insurgency was quashed

inspiring visitors to rapturous odes—a tradition that continued into the late nineteenth century

plains of “blue and violet melting into a blue haze, the crystal waters of the river…bluer still”

“Great Unity,” and its modestly named tributary, the Pot’ong River, literally “Ordinary River”

a key artery for junks bearing cotton, beans, animal hides, and silk to the Yellow Sea

authorities to set up sentries who would light signal-fires warning of approaching ships

economic, historic, and cultural center of P’yŏng’an province and its 900,000 inhabitants

trees that Kija was said to have planted and that, to this day, line the city’s streets and rivers

at its base and Changdae Hill commanding a prominent position in the center of the old city

-foot-high white-stone city walls, Pyongyang was effectively a fortified castle ringed by a moat

as the traditional front door to the city, standing on a bluff towering over the Taedong River

Pyongyang’s famous lookout points, where ancient wooden structures kept watch over the city

abutting its namesake river, opened onto a fertile rolling plain dotted with apricot orchards

ancient pine trees guarding the grave of the revered sage, was a favorite refuge for reflection

said to have been delineated by Kija himself, running parallel to the Taedong River

selling bamboo-fiber hats, cast-iron rice pots, dried cuttlefish, and several varieties of seaweed

a restaurant selling Pyongyang’s famous cold noodles, sat near the center of the walled city

city from Hideyoshi’s Japanese invaders, with colossal figures placed around the central altar

Taedong River, old proverbs and the names of adulterers were carved into the ancient stone

boatlike outline gave it one of its most common monikers of the period, the Boat City

wells within Pyongyang, which officials hoped would prevent the city from sinking or capsizing

became a hallmark of Pyongyang, leaving its streets in a perpetual state of slippery muddiness

quick to add, consisted of a reputation for wickedness that spanned antiquity and modernity

with its dancing girls, brothels, gambling parlors, and saloons, “the Sodom of Korea”

officials “from the King down to the lowest official…to give fascination to their feasts”

had grown to become “a very rich and very immoral city,” Isabella Bird Bishop lamented

drumbeat of the mudang, or shamanesses, who performed exorcisms on behalf of the ailing

hundreds of people hurling deadly projectiles at one another, causing fatalities all around

“fond of this dangerous sport as Americans are of base-ball,” one missionary wrote

regarding Pyongyang as a “bustling, stirring, man-defying and heaven-defying city”

three times before Moffett arrived in Korea—in 1887, in 1888, and, on his honeymoon, in 1889

“waste of heathenism” with little sense that the people were much interested in their message

It was, Rev. Underwood declared, “the worst city in Korea”

“most hopeless part of Korea…a veritable cage of evil birds from all time…the vilest of the vile”

missionaries, Henry Appenzeller and Homer B. Hulbert, a Congregationalist from Vermont

packed in tight with strangers on the floors of Korea’s grimy, tick-infested village inns

“From this point the view of river, plains and mountains is grand,” he declared

found “bad moral conditions,” a city that very much lived up to its sordid reputation

greeted the first Protestant missionary to reach Pyongyang roughly a quarter century earlier

convinced was his great task for the cause of Christ: “To open and occupy Pyeng Yang”

where—in a Confucian practice adopted by the early missionaries—inquirers could stream in

but quickly thereafter out of a genuine interest in the teachings of this strange visitor

Korean teacher, a Seoul scholar who timidly helped the American answer his guests’ inquiries

found himself “exciting considerable interest”—some of it good-natured, some of it menacing

threw stones as he climbed the hill that would later host the grandest church in all of Asia

remarked in a September 15, 1890, letter, ten days after reaching the old northwestern capital

“to occupy this point just as soon as it is possible,” he told his missions board in New York

wilder, more uncouth, and more entrepreneurial than the Koreans they encountered elsewhere

his conviction that the northwest was where the missionaries ought to devote their attention

—“middle class” Koreans who he predicted would “become the ‘back-bone’ of new Korea”

to convert themselves to the faith, even before he and his colleagues could preach it to them

in Korea for roughly a century despite the best efforts of the Chosŏn court to snuff them out

dozens of Protestant converts awaiting baptism in a village in the northwest—that is, in Sorae

“have become believers in Christ,” Moffett marveled in a letter after returning to Seoul

Manchuria in 1872 as one of the first emissaries of the Christian gospel in northeastern China

“as was then practicable, with the object of seeing what could be done to introduce the gospel”

the Gate of Korea, where Chinese and Korean merchants gathered to trade several times a year

to proceed farther, Rev. Ross settled for convincing a Korean man to teach him the language

“Korean valleys” of southern Manchuria, where thousands of Korean migrants had settled

on the Korean peninsula—including in Sorae, where one of Rev. Ross’s translators had settled

up churches of their own; there, the two Scottish missionaries baptized seventy-five Koreans

translations of the Bible freely circulating in southern Manchuria—and on the Korean peninsula

ambitious three-month trip in which Moffett would survey all of northern Korea, his new parish

missionary James Gale and two pack-ponies loaded with blankets, books, and other supplies

“are as yet very suspicious of foreigners and afraid of Christian books,” Moffett wrote

pushed on to the northwestern border city of Ŭiju, on the southern banks of the Yalu River

found himself and his Korean assistants deluged with visitors “morning, afternoon & night”

“that they have heard of it for 20 years…We ought to reap this harvest which is now ready”

aspire toward—a fast-growing body of local inquirers packed into a modest chapel building

For a wide-eyed new missionary barely a year in the field, it was an inspiring sight

“our own work there will be as far advanced as that in Manchuria,” Moffett later recounted

perhaps too inquisitive: “Their curiosity was so great we could hardly get a half hour alone”

“interest, fearing persecution,” while others sought him out only “in order to get financial help”

where he had set up his sarang, and discussed among themselves seizing and beating Moffett

“as our experience with our enrolled membership has been far from satisfactory,” he wrote

the great potential in Korea, the work was difficult, often mundane, and frequently maddening

a near-endless series of pleas from Moffett and his colleagues for New York to send more men

his colleagues, whose sharp elbows and strong personalities resulted in a string of ugly disputes

Moffett, for his part, won over many with his good cheer

“His spirits are always bright,” Baird wrote in 1893, declaring him “an ideal missionary”

Presbyterian mission’s annual meeting in June 1890, Moffett was given a leadership position

once in the field itself, far from the petty squabbles of Seoul, Moffett was much more at ease

mission in Seoul, it was decided to formally open Pyongyang as a new mission station

fellow graduates of McCormick Seminary—William L. Swallen of Ohio and Graham Lee of Illinois

“in Him to open the way and prepare the hearts of the people to welcome our presence”

this time not as transient visitors but with hopes of establishing a permanent presence

checked into a cramped room in a filthy inn, located directly adjacent to a horse stable

quacking of donkeys, dogs, and ducks outside, it was, in Lee’s words, nothing short of miserable

“a beautiful little hill,” in Lee’s description, which could serve as an initial foothold in the city

“garden purposes,” Lee wrote. “We were all on the mountain top over our delightful prospects”

Hall, a newly arrived Irish-Canadian doctor, to secure a house in the old northwestern capital

two houses, and offered one for the Presbyterians to use until they bought their own

Everything, Lee wrote, was “quite comfortably fixed and all seemed quiet and serene”

perhaps countenance short visits by the foreign devils but not any attempt to move in for good

“as large as one’s fist went whizzing past my ear” as he and Lee walked through the streets

demanding that the missionaries leave, prompting Lee to reach for the rifle hanging on the wall

Moffett and his companions soon made themselves scarce, with Moffett returning to Seoul

returned to Pyongyang for a sixth time, “confident that our first repulse was only temporary”

rumblings about a looming confrontation between the Japanese and Chinese armies

he quietly received inquirers, preaching one Sunday in early June to roughly twenty Koreans

for the third time in a year, this time to “perfect arrangements for securing a larger house”

“I am ready to say that while we have not opened it I am ‘occupying’ it,” he told his colleagues

duties in Seoul—“finally,” he exclaimed—so that he could turn his full attention to Pyongyang

to live what he called “a nomad’s life until such time as residence here seems advisable”

to Pyongyang in four years, his sarang was bustling, so much that he felt himself “besieged”

“so it is every day. Just how much of this kind of life I can stand I don’t know,” Moffett wrote

“from early morning until midnight has there been that I could hardly get time to rest or eat”

“to distribute tracts and to make my presence more widely known,” he reported, cheerfully

brave enough to show up to Moffett’s meetings were “marked men in the neighborhood”

to lure him back to the bottle, the innkeeper’s conversion caused a stir across Pyongyang

“this man’s conversion the news of the gospel has been widely scattered,” Moffett wrote

provisional members of the church who could, after a year’s probation, become full members

to a class for boys, while on Sunday evenings his helper conducted another worship service

stretching on and on as the Korean congregants called for more singing and more prayer

and celebrated Communion with his first eight men in Pyongyang—“a joyful day,” he remarked

“The Lord has thus been working even in this the most wicked city of Korea”

and that of Methodist missionary James Hall, had been arrested, imprisoned, and beaten

scrambled back to Pyongyang “post haste,” where he “found things in pretty serious shape”

hurling stones, while rumors swirled that the king had called for the beheading of all Christians

while Moffett’s and Hall’s assistants were bound with a red cord that denoted a death sentence

to disavow the faith: “God loves me and has forgiven me my sins; how can I curse him?”

released, “mangled and half-dead,” the two men were chased home by locals heaving stones

Moffett couldn’t have been happier, regarding the persecutions as temporary setbacks

“There will certainly come a harvest of souls of which I believe we are reaping the first-fruits”

Korea by the early 1890s was a political powder keg

that by the 1890s included Japan, Russia, the U.K., the U.S., and the historical hegemon, China

who feared that a power vacuum on the peninsula could be seized upon by one of their rivals

whom Japan shared a relationship “as close as lips and teeth,” was now hopelessly backward

a military advisor to Tokyo during these years, “a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan”

energetically set about reordering Japan’s politics, military, society, and foreign relations

1877—many of Japan’s new leaders were champing at the bit for a more activist foreign policy

acquiring colonies, and the new leadership in Tokyo sought to learn from the imperial playbook

a high-level diplomatic mission for a two-year study of the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany

of nationhood by rallying the people around the monarch, a concrete symbol of sovereignty

unfamiliar with the rules of the global order as crafted in London, Paris, and Washington

and serve as Japan’s first prime minister—a position he would hold four separate times

Japan’s one major foreign adventure: the Hideyoshi invasion of the peninsula in the 1590s

as long as anyone could remember, had essentially been one of China- and Korea-like seclusion

“or less advanced society or state unable to defend itself against outside intrusion”

and the Russians were nipping not only at the edges of Qing China but also of Japan itself

Japan’s more coolheaded leaders were urging war with Russia over disputed Sakhalin Island

two countries’ relationship would have to change in accordance with the new “law of nations”

with a bitter denunciation: “We no longer consider each other friends but enemies”

questions of the early Meiji years, involving nearly every major figure of this pivotal period

“subduing Korea,” even volunteered to offer himself up in death in hopes of provoking war

plans, with the question quickly shifting from whether to make a move on Korea, to when

landed men at the mouth of the river linking Seoul to the Yellow Sea, in search of provisions

fortifications, killing thirty-five Korean troops and burning down several houses in the firefight

decades earlier, was to push through a treaty rewriting diplomatic ties between the two nations

with sovereign rights—that is, a nation that was no longer under the thumb of China

the European powers—a fact that the Chosŏn court came to realize only after the ink was dry

ties with its peninsular neighbor and establishing Tokyo as the new, unquestioned master

turn its gaze to Korea and urged King Kojong to negotiate treaties with the Western powers

signed its treaty with the U.S. and, by the end of 1883, similar pacts with the U.K. and Germany

Korea, it was decided, could not be allowed to attain its independence independently

startling changes afoot in Japan—steamships, photographs, trains, telegraphs, and Westerners

1881 that led to the establishment of one of Korea’s earliest newspapers, the Seoul Trimonthly

they saw as a betrayal of traditional Confucian values in favor of heretical foreign teachings

the Japanese minister ordered the building set aflame as the diplomats fled for Inch’ŏn

very uprising that necessitated Horace Allen’s medical intervention on Prince Min’s behalf

years, the Japanese legation was burned to the ground as Tokyo’s envoy escaped to Inch’ŏn

ascendant again but feeling the mounting societal pressures, enacted a few piecemeal changes

attempts at reform, including shutting down the Seoul Trimonthly just a year after its founding

strength in Korea, in preparation for a more forceful challenge to China’s grip on the peninsula

intelligence officials came to a startling conclusion: Japan could take on China, and it could win

had to move quickly: Western powers could seize Korea and use it to directly threaten Japan

in 1892, urged caution, preferring to reserve force of arms only for the direst of scenarios

the demise of the increasingly brittle dynasty that had ruled Korea since the fourteenth century

writings and widespread reports of witchcraft, miracles, and ghosts in and around Pyongyang

Chŏnggam and its ominous prediction of the Chosŏn dynasty’s demise sometime around 1892

blended elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism with bits of Chŏnggam prophecy

arrested and ultimately executed in 1864, it was on suspicions that he was a Christian convert

—though Tonghak also promised followers invincibility from bullets and from death

encountered the Western faith were drawn to it because of its likeness to Tonghak doctrines

the removal from government of the Min family, whom they blamed for opening up Korea

a particularly large following, ordered the arrest of anyone “studying strange doctrines”

the golden opportunity that Meiji leaders had been seeking to expand their influence in Korea

send troops in the spring of 1894, the Japanese responded by dispatching soldiers of their own

sent troops to occupy Seoul, seize King Kojong, and establish a new, pro-Japanese government

with Chinese and Japanese reinforcements flowing into Korea, a full-blown war had ignited

become clear to the Western missionaries in Korea that the Tonghak crisis was growing dire 

“has been wild with excitement,” Moffett wrote his missions board secretary from Pyongyang

however feeble, as the provincial governor arranged for the city’s kisaeng to flee the city

“of a vehicle, animal or boat, on which to escape before the Japanese should surround the city”

“to occur I am sure I know not. People here are getting scared and fleeing by the hundreds”

While he declared himself “not…scared a bit,” Moffett certainly didn’t have a death wish

remained cloistered indoors “for fear of being taken for a Japanese and shot on the spot”

“done all I could and that they desired that I should leave in order to secure my own safety”

make the perilous journey across the battle lines, reaching Seoul to the cheers of his colleagues

“personal danger, and would not leave his little ‘flock’ until sure he had the Lord’s orders to go” 

diplomats in Seoul explicitly forbade the missionaries from preaching the gospel in Pyongyang

Chinese empire and the brash Japanese upstarts would end in certain victory for the Qing

“mean…probably a much better state of things for Korea,” William Baird wrote that summer

countryside, raiding Christian churches and beating one Scottish missionary to death

they regarded as befitting of the high ideals of civilization that Tokyo frequently invoked

established themselves in the city weeks earlier, allowing them to lay elaborate earthworks

But when the better disciplined Japanese troops arrived, none of that mattered

hours, resulted in a stream of troops scaling the northern city walls and streaming into the city

before the fighting began and only returned months later to survey the wreckage with Moffett

“merry with the dancing girls of Ping Yang” right up until the evening before Japan’s assault

They proved no match for the efficient Japanese 

the plain to the main road linking Seoul to Beijing, many with their favorite kisaeng in tow

In all, roughly 5,000 Chinese men were killed, versus just 250 on the Japanese side

wrote one Western diplomat. “The strongest city of Corea had been taken in a day”

arriving on October 6, 1894, three weeks after the showdown in the old northwestern capital

“battle and you can imagine how horrible must have been the sight and how fearful the stench”

Moffett, for his part, was devastated

more would die from disease as the war dead, left in the sun, fed an outbreak of typhus fever

which by this point was polluted by dead soldiers and animals, spreading the pestilence further

“The city will not likely be really re-inhabited for many months or a year,” Moffett wrote

where they had left their belongings, it was “as if a Wester cyclone had passed through it”

behind and even welcomed in a Japanese Christian doctor attached to the advancing army

“it never looked so hopeful as now. I am so glad we are here, and know God will protect us”

He contracted typhus on the ride home and died on November 24, 1894

his colleague Graham Lee there, word spread quickly through the city and into the countryside

The Westerners, eyed with suspicion before the war, were now seen in a new light

“had only a speaking acquaintance with Mr. Moffett, seemed overjoyed to see us,” Lee wrote

become home to the largest Presbyterian missionary compound the world would ever see

“the war is over and the people return to the city, there is going to be a grand opportunity”

in mid-January 1895 with aspirations of making their long-hoped-for move to the city

the death and devastation that, five months after the Battle of Pyongyang, still filled the city

“a few hundreds,” and filled with a toxic stench that Moffett called “the poison of Pyeng Yang”

by how, surrounded by desolation, the Koreans of Pyongyang had flocked to the foreign faith

“groups round the candles on the floor, groups in the doorways, and every face was aglow”

squeeze in ever more people, while snapping up properties in the city as they became available

“crowding us beyond our power to look after it properly,” Graham Lee wrote in October 1895

whose eagerness to spread the gospel far outstripped their ability to administer the work

villages across northwestern Korea pleading for more teachers, each signed by dozens of men

Review of the World in November 1895. “The work is growing faster than we can follow it”

“know how I have longed for this and I cannot say how grateful I am that it is accomplished”

faith in the country, inaugurating a period of church growth virtually unrivaled in history

show for it; by the end of the following decade, that number had exploded to more than 12,500

“were snowballing. The beginning of a tremendous indigenous movement was under way”

by a spontaneous force, to sing the doxology—“Praise God from whom all blessings flow”

that simply becoming a church member was “quite an ordeal,” sometimes taking many years

“enter the church at home,” one American church leader remarked after a visit to the country

twice during this period, they “put to shame a multitude of the Christians of the West”

the zeal of the Korean Christians, particularly in the northwest, dispelled this first impression

“to be made for the Gospel and the Gospel for the Korean Christian,” one missionary remarked

“revived, but this is exactly what happened,” added another. “Everywhere people are praying”

scriptures, reading the Bible in its entirety dozens of times and memorizing large swaths of it

to Korea, pronounced the Christians there “among the greatest Bible students in the world”

and old, male and female, Christian and otherwise—with their first taste of a formal education

to attend the largest and best-known conference at Pyongyang’s Central Presbyterian Church

Gospel of Mark, rendered into a difficult language that they were only just learning themselves

Korean was finished by John Ross, the Scottish Presbyterian missionary in Mukden, in 1887

missionaries and Korean believers in 1900; a version of the full Bible followed a decade later

wares by sharing stories “about Christianity and the Bible and the world outside their village

broadly among Korean converts, who were, in the words of one missionary, “born preachers”

“in the groups of believers springing up all over the territory and organize them into churches”

the conversion of a family patriarch often led the entire extended clan to attend church

“not able to withstand the ‘persecution’ as they called it of being constantly urged to believe”

possessions to the church with such enthusiasm that some reduced themselves to poverty

sanctuary, yelled out their pledges while standing outside in biting temperatures of 0°F (–18°C)

to the subcontinent, “some of the women sending their solid silver rings to be turned into cash”

—some of whom had earlier insulted them, scorned them, or even plotted their murders

one became the first missionary sent out by Korea’s own indigenous Presbyterian church

-haired seventy-seven-year-old in Pyongyang’s Central Presbyterian Church in August 1899

legendary nationalist who won nationwide renown for his gruesome murder of a Japanese man

exulted in the conversions of mudang, or shamanesses, and kisaeng, the infamous dancing girls

“all his life, but now he knew that they were wicked spirits, and he was serving the true God”

the spiritual capital of a country quickly earning a reputation as a “modern Holy Land”

now home to the world’s largest Presbyterian mission station, wrote missionary James Gale

“weeping, singing. The world had gone mad over a religion that the fathers had never heard of”

Church, visible from any point in the city and a tangible symbol of the faith’s explosion there

“The building was packed to the doors, every available inch of space being occupied”

“the soil like the mushrooms in the balmy springtime,” in the words of one Pyongyang Christian

Presbyterian Church, just outside the city’s South Gate, to be overseen by Rev. William Swallen

the problem. “Even before we finish the second building we need a third,” Moffett wrote 

been completed on the north side of Pyongyang in December 1905 than another was required

F. Bernheisel, an Indiana native and graduate of Hanover College and McCormick Seminary

a few more years, the Presbyterians had seven churches in the city, all crowded to overflowing

up on Pyongyang’s main thoroughfare became a bustling gathering place for curious passersby

“reading room, class rooms, etc.,—a work shop for Christian activity,” in Moffett’s words

centered around a large church with a belfry, “which can be seen as well as heard from afar”

Presbyterian missionary compound, situated outside Pyongyang’s West Gate to the northwest

grounds, and Western-style residences for roughly a hundred missionaries and their families

where “a person could be found, saved, healed, educated, ordained, married, and buried”

with “big beautiful houses over there with glass windows dazzling in the morning sun”

“the new religious life” sweeping across Korea, in the words of one Japanese newspaperman

“you can shut your eyes and almost imagine you are standing on Brooklyn Bridge at 10 A.M.”

“it has been a long time since I have heard one in any of the villages out near the compound”

through door-to-door evangelism, they found 40 percent of residents were already Christian

had nearly all been shut. “The business has become unprofitable,” one missionary wrote

leaders back home in America, who traveled to Korea to see the storied church for themselves

“anywhere else in the world. The churches are crowded; the opportunities are unlimited”

Pyongyang missionary remarked, “we are almost afraid that the walls will begin to bulge out”

it allowed for worshippers to be squeezed in “like sardines in a box,” as one missionary wrote

with their faces to the floor and singing a rousing hymn that could move a missionary to tears

city’s most renowned pastor, a former mystic with a strong tendency toward the otherworldly

working alongside Samuel Moffett to turn the northwest into a stronghold of Christendom

and launched a personal crusade against smoking, drinking, gambling, and other vices

and frequently did so with the Book of Revelation—“hundreds of times,” one missionary said

of civic pride, after centuries in which Pyongyang’s natives had been spurned by the Seoul elites

the Presbyterians decided to hold its annual meeting for the first time in Pyongyang, not Seoul

1901, the natural home for it was in Pyongyang, with Moffett serving as the founding dean

in 1907, it, too, was based in Pyongyang, with Moffett elected the inaugural moderator

the first translations of the Bible into Korean were done in the distinctive northwestern dialect

in September 1894 and the cholera that followed scattered believers across the region

was living in the country’s northwest, making it “the heartland of Korean Protestantism”

“with the truth of divine grace and almost every village has heard the message of divine love”

of Moffett’s Central Presbyterian Church and all of them funded by Koreans’ own savings

“and, against open persecution, sometimes in danger of his life, set up the cross of Christ”

Sŏnch’ŏn, a small village of three thousand that exploded as another unlikely center of the faith

one convert doubted that a revival would even be possible in a city with so few unbelievers

Yalu, a vibrant church of 1,500 believers had emerged—without a single missionary in the city

settlement, with all but two of the community’s sixty households having converted

coastal city of Wŏnsan, 80 percent of the Christians were migrants from the northwest

buildings were the newly constructed Catholic cathedral and First Methodist Church

homes, fusing their love of God and nation to establish, in 1903, Korea’s first YMCA

in vain to cram 1,200 or more worshippers into a building capable of seating at most 400

the pews from predawn hours until after dark, their singing of hymns audible for miles around

service carrying paper kerosene lanterns “like fireflies coming down toward the church”

“and our grief that we cannot even reach and teach many who are beseeching us to do so”

could barely leave his inn, receiving inquirers from dawn until midnight—and often, later

effectively reach the entire population in the common cause of winning the country to Christ

“is demanding attention. We are simply swamped by the demands upon us,” Moffett wrote

“We are simply unable to take advantage of all the opportunities presented”

teach, examine local inquirers, settle disputes, discipline backsliders, baptize, marry, and bury

“evangelize Ohio from Indianapolis, or New Jersey from New Haven,” wrote one Presbyterian

“to the strain of properly supervising this great work,” Moffett wrote Ellinwood in June 1898

“millions” at stake. “We have heard God’s order to advance; the reserve corps is needed”

on the ultraconservative end of the theological debates then raging within the American church

on any shows of emotion in church—at one point putting a stop even to rhythmic handclapping

brought with them were downright revolutionary in the context of late Chosŏn dynasty Korea

period. “To this, Christian thoughts, unheard of in former ages, brought a powerful stimulation”

like cigarettes and alcohol—often to a degree that exceeded that of church leaders back home

America, the missionaries in Korea insisted that converts strictly observe the weekly day of rest

converting to the faith was thus aware that the decision would come with a steep social price

aside traditions, and steered converts away from changing their hairstyles or other customs

a preacher positioned at the corner could be seen by women on one side and men on the other

were particularly assertive, and effective, was in elevating the place of women in Korea

after they were baptized, frequently invoking virtues like mercy, faith, love, and patience

early convert declared in 1896, in what was a radical statement for a denizen of Chosŏn Korea

after serving the men, as had been the practice for as long as anyone could remember

—not least the women themselves, whom the missionaries eagerly took under their wings

B. Scranton, to Seoul in 1885, making them two of Korea’s earliest Protestant missionaries

had established Korea’s first school for women—a concept widely ridiculed at the time

to 120 students, including the first Korean doctor to study and perform Western medicine

the same sphere as men, and prompting other churches across the peninsula to do the same

South Korea’s inaugural cabinet in 1948 and become the first woman elected to the legislature

the religion, enjoying positions of prestige otherwise inaccessible to them in broader society

to move into a village and start prayer and Bible study groups among the other women there

deacon, whose ranks would include the mother of a boy later known to the world as Kim Il Sung

The missionaries’ egalitarian tendencies in Korea extended beyond women

society meant engaging the 90 percent of Koreans that didn’t belong to the aristocratic class

For those who weren’t noblemen, the appeal of Christian teachings was powerful

to the lowest class of all in Korea—butchers, shunned for centuries for handling raw flesh

the butchers and the other remaining congregants in a singing of “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know”

encountered the Korean language, they found the grammar and syntax exceptionally daunting

they agreed, of Korea’s cultural independence from its neighbors, and its creative potential

characters; after all, these scholars scoffed, even housewives could read and write vulgar script

“trashy, and miserably printed novelettes and books of songs” were published in the vernacular

heaven-sent gift granting them—and Korea’s illiterate masses—access to the written language

mission fields, they framed it as a decision to promote “a pure Korean, free from Sinicisms”

use of the vernacular, benefited from their leading role in elevating this long-disparaged script

Sunday school lessons in the vernacular, which were then distributed around the country

vernacular, rendering their sacred scriptures in the earthy language of the lower classes

credited the missionaries with having given the Korean alphabet “its dignity and universality”

Koreans began to refer to the script as the “national script,” rather than as the “vulgar script”

altogether in two of the daily editions that it published: one in English, one in pure Korean

one prominent Korean nationalist historian asked in 1908, “can we still call them Korean?”

did come—with the arrival of the Japanese, and with more interaction with the outside world

by the standards of Korea’s neighbors, the missionaries’ reforms were nothing short of radical

becoming clear to Horace Underwood that Korea was undergoing a “sort of mental revolution”

who became a fervent advocate of the Christian faith—though not necessarily a convert himself

“We are not commissioned to introduce Western Civilization, but Scriptural Christianity”

to the Student Volunteer Movement in 1900: “Korea can be evangelized within a generation”

of Western dignitaries and church leaders flocked to Korea to witness the boom for themselves

Fairbanks, President Theodore Roosevelt’s vice president and a prominent Methodist layman;

William H. Taft, Roosevelt’s secretary of war and successor in the Oval Office;

Roosevelt’s own celebrity daughter, Alice;

Heinz, David B. Gamble, and J. C. Penney, all avid donors to Presbyterian or Methodist causes;

William Jennings Bryan, a three-time Democratic presidential nominee and Presbyterian elder;

Henry W. Luce, a China missionary whose son would found Time magazine;

Herbert Hoover, a Quaker who later became president;

and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, a devout Baptist

“is an inspiration to the entire Christian world,” one wrote after his visit to Korea in 1910

century AD, in the years immediately following Christ’s crucifixion, were frequent and generous

he had faced in Pyongyang to the stoning of Stephen, the New Testament’s first martyr

the missionaries as “the Battalion of Life,” taking possession of Korea “in the Name of the King”

in the words of one Korean pastor, “accepted the Christian religion as no other race has”

missionaries turned to divine explanations for Christianity’s astonishing successes in Korea

which they believed served as divine preparation for the Christian message of redemption

“of the same coin,” with the Western faith not negating Confucianism but rather enhancing it

association with all that was Western and new, at a time of intense craving for modernity

the world’s nations in being introduced to Christianity unaccompanied by imperial ambitions

or otherwise, could find himself leading the church as an evangelist, a deacon, or an elder

hands of Korean converts also meant that growth wasn’t limited by the number of missionaries

were innate to the Korean people could explain the country’s receptivity to Christianity

the people must have “found it fundamentally fitting to their morality and temperament”

trade ties to neighboring China—had created especially fertile conditions for the foreign faith

time in northwestern Korea in 1897, following several years in the unresponsive southeast

include a generation of Christian nationalists, including the father of the future Kim Il Sung

missions board to send William Baird, his “most intimate friend,” to join him in Pyongyang

a network of churches and schools that was becoming the envy of missionaries the world over

leader of the Presbyterian church, “the senior member of the largest station in the world”

as well as by his fellow missionaries. His judgment is good, he is tactful and a man of faith”

of northwestern Korea. “I have for some time regarded him as the father of the Korean church”

early days in Pyongyang, went even further: “Moffett is a rare man—one in ten thousand”

“of all our evangelists,” and the more facetious nickname, the “Archbishop of Pyengyang”

up a generation of Korean men and women that would shape the church and the nation

“in the length and breadth of all Korea which that man Moffett hasn’t a hand in somehow”

fascination, his early devotion to language study having paid off in near-native Korean fluency

“that I could go to Me-Gook some day and come back as a missionary to my native country!”

to the train station to send him off with the singing of hymns and a gift of two silver medals

back in Indiana, he was promptly elected as moderator of his home presbytery in New Albany

“of Pyengyang” should be there to represent the Christian world’s most shining success story

minister who would prove her husband’s equal in devotion to the missionary cause

and Moffett boasting of marital bliss “as happy…as I think it is ever given to mortals to enjoy” 

son, James McKee Moffett, who had “rejoiced our hearts and brought sunshine into our home”

setting up a tennis court in the compound, where the foreign missionaries held tournaments

a brutal war between Japan and Russia then playing out across Korea and Northeast Asia

in northern Korea to cover the hostilities as a correspondent for the San Francisco Examiner

found that Moffett’s Korean nickname—“Ma Moksa”—worked wonders everywhere he went

a naïve challenger to the “Celestials,” as the newspapers labeled China’s Qing rulers

in northeast China, capturing the general mood in the region at the outbreak of the conflict

The Battle of Pyongyang in September 1894 changed everything

merely the tactically and technologically superior of the two, but also the far more dynamic side

Chinese back over the Yalu into Manchuria, where the stampede continued toward Beijing

“full and complete independence and autonomy of Corea” and surrendered control of Taiwan 

deaths, while the Japanese got to within 300 miles of Beijing having lost just 1,100 troops

by the Japanese to the shrine of his ancestors to proclaim his “independence” from China

“little they are beginning to have to realize it but it is an awfully bitter pill for a Korean to take”

explored the city in September 1890, there was but a modest Japanese commercial presence

up in vacated storefronts and houses to sell sake, tobacco, and sugar to the victorious army

at least more disciplined than the Chinese had been during their recent occupation of the city

The Japanese set about remaking the ancient city in the style of its great cities back home

“shops into large, light, airy, dainty Japanese erections, well stocked with Japanese goods”

set up an office inside the Taedong Gate, not far from Moffett’s Central Presbyterian Church

as Bishop described it during her four visits to Korea, between January 1894 and March 1897

“was thick with rumors of more to come,” she wrote after her first visit to a ruined Pyongyang

known as the Kab’o reforms of 1894, enacted by the Korean court with backing from Japan

the changes that the Christian missionaries had been promoting over the preceding decade

their faith not merely as a personal decision but as a mandate to enlighten and uplift Korea

conviction that the Western faith could help Korea survive in an increasingly perilous world

As Yun Ch’i-ho put it, “Christianity is the salvation and hope of Corea”

to a more gradualist approach that aimed to enlighten and elevate the Korean people

“Gate” on the site in Seoul where Korean officials used to receive visiting Chinese envoys

shot to fame after delivering a stirring address condemning the corruption of the Chosŏn court

draw crowds of thousands as he blurred the line between religious sermon and nationalist rally

king on affairs of state and hosting what one scholar has called “a miniature People’s Assembly”

“should be permitted to gather together,” or “Christianity should be the national religion”

“Asia and make use of the Creator’s beautiful soil for the good of His people the world over”

for reforms through public demonstrations in the capital not being appreciated by the king

Still, the club’s spirit marked a watershed after years of sclerosis under the Chosŏn dynasty

facetiously, that Korea’s antiquated customs “will, before long, be ‘improved’ out of existence”

Koreans, they were a source of consternation to the country’s still powerful conservatives

Japanese made them inherently suspect to Koreans who were wary of anything tied to Japan

city—though others could sense there, as Bishop wrote, “a hatred three centuries old”

for his jingoistic conservativism than for his diplomatic experience, which was precisely zero

ambitious Russia, while giving Korean nationalists a rallying symbol for years to come

the Chinese in her battle against her father-in-law, making her an obstacle to Japan’s designs

to an extreme, organizing—apparently without Tokyo’s knowledge—the murder of the queen

walls and killed the minister of the royal household before infiltrating the queen’s chamber

her corpse into the courtyard, pouring kerosene on her body, and setting the queen alight

Only a finger, it was said, remained to be buried

recalled Miura to Japan, where he and forty other Japanese were arrested and put on trial

reviled as she was respected—into a unifying figure for the nascent Korean nationalist cause

American military advisor and several missionaries, including Samuel Moffett and William Baird

that, simply by harboring the king, announced its arrival as a new force in peninsular politics

triviality was in fact far more traumatic for many Korean men than the murder of Queen Min

had been a marker of manhood and identity, a near-sacred embodiment of ancient traditions

break with the past, the royal edict imposed on every Korean man fell “like a thunderbolt”

“imprisonment of their King, found the attack on their hair more than they could stand”

Japanese and the suicides of many Korean men who chose death over the loss of their topknots

As the common cry went: “Cut off my head, but my hair—never!”

were dragged through the streets of Seoul and beheaded as pro-Japanese traitors

enough to reemerge from the Russian legation, moving back into his freshly restored palace

hiding out for a year in a foreign legation did little to inspire confidence among his subjects

Empire, putting Korea—at least on paper—on an equal footing with China, Japan, and Russia

Korea’s own imperial family in disarray, a new sense of uncertainty settled over the peninsula

long before Russia, Korea’s third neighbor, sensing its moment, made its move for control

and half a century later a border was delineated between the Tsardom of Russia and Qing China

string of border incursions, St. Petersburg forced a pair of treaties on China in 1858 and in 1860

strip of land along the Tumen River in the far northeastern reaches of the Korean peninsula

and St. Petersburg through the construction of an ambitious continent-spanning railroad

—to declare his desire for a port that didn’t freeze over in the winter, perhaps in Korea

view the Russians as a threat—a sentiment that only grew with the construction of the railway

perhaps with a demilitarized zone in between—though the talks never came to anything

upper hand sputtered, it appeared to many observers that the two rivals were destined for war

of Manchuria, from the flailing Qing government, thus removing Russia’s need for a Korean port

in Korea in exchange for implicit recognition of Russia’s interests in southwestern Manchuria

apprehension about Russia’s designs reached a fever pitch as the twentieth century dawned

from Korea, the Japanese responded by demanding Russia remove its troops from Manchuria

in 1902 when Japan stunned the world by forging an alliance with Russia’s great rival, the U.K.

than after the Russians could build up a military presence, accelerated preparations for conflict

of all the Russians; as with China a decade earlier, nobody thought Tokyo would be so foolhardy

potentially disastrous implications for Korea and for their own work of spreading the gospel

“That war is inevitable I have no doubt,” Graham Lee wrote from Pyongyang in March 1900

“think all the world against it,” Samuel Moffett’s wife, Alice, wrote her father in February 1903

off their books of prophecy again, as the prospect of another conflict grew increasingly clear

Arthur and downing two Russian warships in Inch’ŏn harbor—all before formally declaring war

Washington’s top diplomat in Seoul, about the possibility of seeking asylum in the U.S. legation

five weeks into the war and three weeks after the arrival of the Japanese army in Pyongyang

While Pyongyang emptied out, most of the Christians, again, had stayed

“yesterday of about 800 Christians and much of our work goes on as usual,” Moffett wrote

frenzied atmosphere and the high anxieties to stage large-scale evangelistic meetings in the city

morning, February 28, 1904, that ended with a Russian retreat—a foretaste of things to come

dramatic reading of The Call of the Wild, for the benefit of the local YCMA, at Will Baird’s home

northward, had crossed the Yalu, knocking the Russians deeper and deeper into Manchuria

as a force of modernization, a stark contrast to the corrupt and reactionary Romanov dynasty

Japan as a fellow non-Western power and one that was preferable to Russian dominance

“alienating the sympathy of the whole people and of turning them from friends into enemies”

whatever land was needed to “guarantee the independence and territorial integrity” of Korea

the Japanese had convinced Korea to turn over its postal, telegraph, and telephone systems

ties with St. Petersburg, thus binding Korea’s fate ever closer to the Meiji government

advisor in Seoul; shortly thereafter, it dispatched Durham W. Stevens, a pro-Japanese American

In early 1905, Japan took over the policing of Seoul and put an inspector in each province

with diplomatic feelers put out well in advance to ensure the Western powers didn’t balk

to Korea and didn’t close the peninsula off to the economic interests of the Western nations

the fate of the Korean people over to Japan, it certainly wasn’t leading to many sleepless nights

the British consul in Seoul wrote in 1897, “is a privilege she is not fitted to enjoy”

“civilized race taking over the management of these kindly Asiatics for the good of the people”

the bloody crackdowns of January 1905 further weakened morale on the war front

dire for the Russians, the tsar began to explore the possibility of an end to hostilities

it the duty of enlightened nations like the U.S. to lead the way for benighted nations like Korea

to adopt Western ways, could serve as a guide for its backward neighbor, Roosevelt believed

said, though even then the president fretted about an eventual military clash with Tokyo

forced to acknowledge Japan’s “paramount political, military, and economic interests” in Korea

was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, America’s first, though it won him few friends in Korea

terms of which were being decided by outsiders, it was even worse than they knew at the time

Tarō, giving Tokyo a free hand in Korea in exchange for U.S. domination of the Philippines

appealing to America’s pledges of goodwill in their 1882 treaty establishing diplomatic ties

“attempt to do for the Koreans what they were unable to do for themselves,” he reasoned

The U.S. would be the first country to recall its diplomats from Seoul

developed what could be described as a mutually respectful relationship with Emperor Kojong

Kojong’s ministers were to sign over Korea’s sovereignty to Japan at the imperial palace

With few options at their disposal, the Korean emperor and his cabinet quickly folded

an “act of naked aggression,” and a wrenching moment in the history of the Korean nation

of Koreans assembled in front of the imperial palace to weep and wail in remonstration

of Queen Min, who fainted several times and vomited blood after learning of the treaty

“in the streets, wailing with tears streaming down their faces,” in the words of one observer

officials and former officials signed a petition calling for the treaty to be ripped up, to little avail

go down to Seoul to die fighting, refraining only after the missionaries urged them against it

“the days of Tan’gun and Kija have perished in a single night. Alas, fellow countrymen! Alas!”

Japan’s first resident-general to Korea, naturally, was Itō Hirobumi

Korea could catch up with the modern world—if only it pursued its own Japan-style reforms

throw off its centuries of misgovernment and pull itself up by its bootstraps, as Japan had done

“new knowledge and technology that would make them strong,” in the words of one historian

—one that started with Korea and Manchuria and would eventually encompass all of Asia

“swarm of penny capitalists and carpetbaggers” lured by promises of instant riches

quadrupled in just five years following the establishment of the protectorate, to 171,000 people

a chicken led a Japanese man to burn down a village and take possession of another one nearby

to Korea—part of a larger campaign to “erect a bulwark for our state” on the Asian mainland

promised not only easy riches but the “golden opportunity” of autonomy and upward mobility

up roughly 2.7 percent of all of Korea’s cultivated land—to the consternation of the Koreans

42 Japanese houses, 119 Japanese people, and a Japanese-run candy shop and drugstore

Pyongyang city walls, where plans had been made for a railroad to come into the ancient city

the new arrivals pushed the locals, and the Presbyterians, off some of the best land in the city

“up property right and left in the city, and outside the city,” Moffett wrote in a July 1904 letter

modern waterworks that would replace the water carriers that had long sustained the Boat City

“the strange sight of a locomotive in the old city of Pyongyang. Verily civilization is coming”

for a bright future—provided Korea had the appropriate guides to lead them to enlightenment

protectorate government found plenty of willing partners among the native population

noted, “the Koreans were strong, patient, and enduring: in sum, perfect beasts of burden”

level schooling for Koreans—“good enough to perform menial tasks in the Japanese language”

or being occupied by the Western powers—was subjugation by their hated island neighbors

as a nation of inferior “dwarf slaves,” stretching back to the Hideyoshi invasions of the 1590s

“massacred in the most horrible manner. Cities and hamlets were burned down to the ground”

men had cut off and taken back as trophies to Japan during the second of the 1590s invasions

between Koreans and Japanese…one of the most striking phenomena in contemporary Chosen”

“of some other kind than this detested nation whose connection with Korea is written in blood”

In other words, of all the possible colonial masters, Japan was the most distasteful

much by a hatred of the Japanese as by a love of nation—and, frequently, a Christian convert

adherents of the Western faith who drew inspiration from the teachings of the missionaries

his wife, among Tokyo’s myriad misdeeds, in meetings that “crackled with mutual animosity”

Kojong called for a joint international protectorate to rescue Korea from Japanese vassalage

that establishing the protectorate was but a waypoint to wholesale absorption by Japan

“of a nation,” one American missionary wrote in 1906, already foreseeing the inevitable

more likely, it simply reflected Itō’s own longstanding impulse toward imperial restraint

would annex Korea outright in three years; Stevens responded with a forecast of five years

“a protectorate, and yet to avoid assuming the responsibilities of a governing power”

of all domestic Korean affairs to Japan; and on July 31, it disbanded the Korean army

case before the Western powers at a peace conference set to start in June 1907 at The Hague

the newly completed Trans-Siberian Railway with a letter pleading for Korean representation

since Korea, now a protectorate of Japan, would be represented at the conference by Tokyo

—but they also served to inflame the passions an increasingly restive Korean population

announcement that Kojong had renounced the throne, Korean mobs began rioting in Seoul

mental ailments made him a far more pliable puppet than the increasingly troublesome Kojong

arrival was greeted with lavish spectacles at every stop—parades, fireworks, and banquets

Japanese really hit a nerve when they tried to disband the Korean army at the end of July 1907

than a hundred wounded, while more despairing Korean officials were driven to ritual suicide

known as “righteous armies” that would afflict the colonial administration for years to come

“herself stripped of her dignity as an independent nation and was humiliated beyond measure”

it to within ten miles of Seoul’s ancient East Gate in December 1907 before being repelled

last stand at the graves of their ancestors, in a symbolic display of devotion to their forefathers

the noble-sounding name, the righteous armies were generally more ragtag than regimented

armies, fighting 141,815 guerrillas in the four years between August 1907 and June 1911

taking to Itō’s vision of reform and modernization under the tutelage of their new protectors

resisting the new rulers or you were a collaborator, or at least in danger of being branded one

“a man’s head in those times to take sides with either party,” recalled one American missionary

especially once Tokyo sent three cavalry regiments to Korea beginning in October 1907

and the Japanese quickly learned that stamping out dissent would take years, not months

villages to rubble they were also intensifying many Koreans’ hatred for their new protectors

who had devoted their lives to Korea were genuinely moved by the pathos of its political plight

including Kim Il Sung, would draw inspiration from the righteous armies and their fearless spirit

nationalist and Christian convert from the Pyongyang area known for his soaring rhetoric

promoting Korean industry and initiating training for a possible armed confrontation with Japan

prestige to winning Koreans to Japan’s cause—and, by all accounts, his approach was in tatters

against his attempts to coddle the Koreans, and began sharpening the knives for his removal

had run out of time, resigned with the hope of “removing himself as an obstacle to annexation”

Minister Katsura Tarō and his foreign minister laid the groundwork for the inevitable next step

shot to death as he stepped off the train at the railway station in the Manchurian city of Harbin

The murder of Itō, by a Korean nationalist named An Chung-gŭn, sent shock waves across Asia

against the hated Japanese, but in reality his views toward Japan were far more complex

What was little in doubt was An’s commitment to his faith

Catholic priest in Seoul in 1895, An learned French and was baptized two years later as Thomas

Korean settlements in Manchuria and then Siberia in 1907 in hopes of joining a militant group

in Manchuria that An, conspiring with a Protestant convert, plotted Itō’s assassination

a Protestant church offered An Chung-gŭn its basement for him to practice his pistolwork

the Catholic church attempted to withhold his last rites, considering him no longer a Christian

—almost all of them Christian converts—to find political salvation in the barrel of the gun

who could kill Yi Wan-yong, a pro-Japanese senior Korean official, and other “national traitors”

Pyongyang had shot and killed Durham Stevens, the American advisor to Japan, in San Francisco

Korea on December 22, 1909, as he stepped out of the Catholic cathedral in Seoul

father of modern Japan and a close confidante of the Meiji emperor, was on a different level

view at the time: “The worst thing Koreans ever did for themselves was to assassinate him”

unyielding demeanor and a missing right hand lost in battle, Korea’s fate appeared to be sealed

“bringing with him the expectation of annexation,” missionary James Gale wrote in August 1910

“as chilled steel. Where Ito had beaten men with whips, he would beat them with scorpions”

signed the annexation papers himself at Resident-General Terauchi’s residence in Seoul

the two nations and told Prime Minister Yi that Japan and Korea ought to become “one body”

snuffed out, formally deposing a dynastic line that had ruled Korea since the fourteenth century

Seoul, and the last crown prince of Korea was married off to the daughter of a Japanese prince

extinguished dynasty, while Seoul and Pyongyang were renamed Keijō and Heijō, respectively

for some time, and few Koreans were taken by surprise when the formal declaration was made

with which the new colonial rulers set about remaking the peninsula took many of them aback

shut down almost all forms of civil society, which they regarded as potential threats to its rule

of their land, while in the cities they occupied all the best buildings on the main boulevards

teachers and civil servants, too—all the better, Terauchi said, “to control a primitive people”

In the villages, the men, drunk with despair, cursed the day itself as “doomsday”

and of the country’s very existence as an independent entity, was akin to national death

Christians, annexation was a specific form of death, amounting to nothing less than crucifixion

NoteHugh Cynn (Sin Hŭng-u 申興雨 1883–1959), a leading Korean Christian nationalist of this period, attended the Methodist-run Paejae Academy in Seoul before graduating from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.