南部基督長老教會設教七十週年紀念寫真帖

“In memory of the 70th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of South Formosa”

Yi-Chieh Chiu, Library Collections Services

During recent cataloguing work at New College Library, this interesting volume was discovered in the open access folio sequences and subsequently moved into New College Rare Books. The book is entitled In memory of the 70th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of South Formosa and there are very few extant copies of the original edition remaining, with only one known copy in Taiwan.

The Presbyterian Church is the largest Protestant denomination and the second oldest Christian church in Taiwan. Its mission work began the year 1865 when Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell (馬雅各, 1836-1921), born and educated in Edinburgh, relocated from Birmingham and established a church in Tainan, a coastal city in the southwest of Formosa Taiwan. Despite his affiliation with the Presbyterian Church of England, Maxwell’s trip to this Pacific island was followed by many other Scottish missionaries and George Leslie Mackay (馬偕, 偕叡理, 1884-1901), a second-generation Scottish Canadian, who settled in a small town in the north in 1872. This small island off the Chinese coast, with a combined area of just 36,193 square kilometres, housed Scottish missionaries in the south and Canadian missionaries in the north.

The Presbyterian churches, both from Britain and Canada, played a formative and shaping role in the modernisation of Taiwan. As they understood the significance of education and medicine, they established schools and hospitals while sharing their religious belief with Han immigrants and Austronesian indigenes. These institutions continue to exist and maintain good reputation there. The Scottish missionaries have also introduced modern concept of modern journalism and process for mass reproducing text. Their emphasis of education, medical care, and knowledge circulation in missionary works, noticeably distinguishes them from other Protestant denominations coming from Mainland China, Europe, and North America in the 19th and 20th century. In addition to their charitable activities, Presbyterians are most respected in Taiwan for their preservation of the Taiwanese Hokkien language and defence of human values, such as religious independence and social rights.

The production of this album must have been an ambitious project for the church because it contains textual, photographic, and statistical records of all the churches in the southwest of Formosa Taiwan in great detail and it even includes those located in remote islets. Editors emphasised the courage and devotion of Taiwanese people to the Presbyterian belief while contrasting their fearless persistence with anti-missionary riots and loots that were frequent in Mainland China and Taiwan until early 20^th century. Religious conversions were mentioned repeatedly and constantly associated with healing of illnesses common in Eastern Asia in those days. In addition to the textual accounts, photographs deserve our special attention because they provide illustrative examples of different architectural styles. While some churches are obviously influenced by Japan’s British-inspired colonial architecture, many others look like townhouses popular in Fujian and other regions in Southeast Asia. There are also many church buildings that are literally a side chamber of Taoist temples or even shabby huts made of organic materials, such as bamboo, animal excrement, and mud.

 

The second half of the book starts with a photographic list of Scottish missionaries who worked in Taiwan since 1865. These Scottish expatriates were called by the editors as admirable predecessors that deserve permanent commemoration and celebration. This list is followed by native ministers and volunteers with a discernible mixture of people with different ethnic, social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. When browsing the list, I was very surprised by a few portraits of aboriginal pastors and I thought they came from British colonies in South and Southeast Asia when I saw them. Apart from my ignorance of my home country, my surprise reveals that the interethnic relationship in religious organisations during the Japanese Period requires more research.

The increasing presence of ministers and pastors with native origin shows Scottish Presbyterians’ attempt to corroborate native force and local autonomy, instead of unilaterally imposing foreign influence coming from the West. It may also suggest Japan’s changing attitude towards Western powers in the 1930’s when the colonial authorities started to actively intervene and even restrict religious activities coming from abroad.

The textual language contains colloquial and literary Hokkien Taiwanese with, understandably, some Japanese influence. When it comes to the visual content, the editors adopted a graphic style related to Japan’s adoption of straight-line illustrations and geometric style popular in contemporary Europe but they also curiously inserted a few images of palm trees and buffalos which were stereotypically associated by Japanese with this subtropical island.

When the book was edited and printed in 1935, it had the participation of many significant cultural figures at the time, including Lin Mosei (林茂生 1887 – c.1947) who wrote the preface to the album. This book was rediscovered in early 1990’s and reprinted in 2004. It is believed that only one original copy survives and it is preserved in a charity organisation there.

The refined quality of this publication illustrates the church’s well-established editing and printing activities which Thomas Barclay Thomas Barclay (巴克禮, 1849-1935) had introduced from Glasgow around 1881. When it comes to photographic production, I am not able to identify the national identity of the photographer but the book was sent to Japan specially to be published there. Very little information is available about how this copy ended up in the New College Library and SOAS Special Collections. A few photographs were cut off from pages by readers without any traceable identification and it remains a mystery library staff are yet able to explain. This book, with many Scottish expatriates active in East Asia for religious and other reasons, awaits more investigations from researchers interested in Scottish people overseas, especially how they maintain the connections with their compatriots at home or elsewhere and also how they responded to changing political and social systems in the adopting countries.

To enquire about access to this item please contact Heritage Collections :  HeritageCollections@ed.ac.uk

Key Figures:

Thomas Barclay (巴克禮, 1849-1935)

William Campbell (甘為霖, 1841-1921)

Carstairs Douglas (杜嘉德, 1830-1877)

Duncan Ferguson (宋忠堅, 1860-1923)

Elizabeth Blackburn Ferguson (宋牧師娘, 伊利莎白醫生, 宋忠堅牧師娘, 伊利沙伯, 宋以利, 1868-1901)

David Landsborough III (蘭大衛, 1870-1957)

David Landsborough Ⅳ (蘭大弼, 1914-2010)

George Leslie Mackay (馬偕, 偕叡理, 1884-1901)

Duncan MacLeod (劉忠堅, 1872-1957)

James Laidlaw Maxwell (馬雅各, 1836-1921)

Campbell Naismith Moody (梅監霧, 1865-1940)

Hugh Ritchie (李庥, 1840-1879)

Elisabeth Turner (1858-1909)

Resources available at the University of Edinburgh

• Holy Bible in Taiwanese Han character / by Thomas Barclay

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma9915529383502466

• Savages, sick & sound : the journal of a month’s medical missionary tour among the Chinese and Amis of South and East Formosa / by James L. Maxwell, Jr. ; with a preface by Alex. Macalister, and an appendix by J.L. Maxwell, Sr.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma998095483502466

• Barclay of Formosa / by Edward Band

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma996831983502466

• The Presbyterian Church of Formosa / by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Formosa

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma9911893773502466

• The saints of Formosa : life and worship in a Chinese church / by Campbell N. Moody.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma996833893502466

• The heathen heart : an account of the reception of the Gospel among the Chinese of Formosa / by Campbell N. Moody.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma996833913502466

• Lan : a short biography of Dr. David Landsborough, medical missionary of the Presbyterian Church of England in Formosa, 1895-1936 / by Marjorie Landsborough.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma996834233502466

• From Far Formosa: The Island, its People and Missions/ by George Leslie Mackay

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/1viuo5v/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9781139097000

• Forward Formosa : four junior lessons / by George Halliday ; some of the lesson material being supplied by Marjorie Landsborough.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma9924088425502466

• More stories from Formosa / by Marjorie Landsborough.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma99683400350246

• China and Formosa : the story of the mission of the Presbyterian Church of England / by Jas. Johnston.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma996309173502466

• Handbook of the English Presbyterian mission in south Formosa/ by William Campbell

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/1viuo5v/cdi_europeana_collections_9200143_BibliographicResource_2000069374940

• The beautiful isle : stories and talks on Formosa / by Elsie L. Spalding, B.A.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma9924060148902466

• The island beautiful : the story of fifty years in North Formosa / by Duncan MacLeod.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma998095493502466

• Formosa : the challenge / by H.D. Beeby.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma996852313502466

• The Life and Legacy of George Leslie Mackay: An Interdisciplinary Study of Canada’s First Presbyterian Missionary to Northern Taiwan (1872 – 1901)/ Jr, Clyde R. Forsberg

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/1viuo5v/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9781443834933

• The Black-Bearded Barbarian : The Life of George Leslie Mackay of Formosa

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/1viuo5v/cdi_gutenberg_primary_1759

• Recollections and reflections / Shoki Coe ; introduced and edited by Boris Anderson.

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma9923984936902466