Here’s another bit of text I’ve written from the book I am researching about the lives of my missionary grandparents, Rev. Hugh and Donalda MacMillan.
First, however, some brief context: In 1925, three churches merged to become the United Church of Canada. The Presbyterian Church in Canada was one of them, but that caused a schism in the Presbyterian Church; several congregations chose to stay in the old church, despite the fact that the church’s leaders had committed to union. Most of the foreign mission fields became the responsibility of the new United Church of Canada (such as missions in Japan and Korea), but the mission in north Formosa (today’s northern Taiwan) stayed with the existing Presbyterian Church in Canada. For two years my grandparents and the other missionaries in Taiwan waited for the dust to settle from the merger, even as the months of delay bled staff to other places. And so we move on to the first meetings of the North Formosa Mission Council in January, 1927:
The minutes of the North Formosa Mission Council meetings were written in a factual but never fulsome manner. Much, however, can be gleaned between the lines of the hundreds of carbon copied, onion skin pages. For example, at the January, 23, 1927 meeting the minutes said that the home church’s Foreign Mission Board was sending a Commission to investigate the needs of the mission. The Council responded that it “records pleasure in anticipation, but expresses its hope that the Board will not wait for the report of such commission before making provision to fill vacancies being created by withdrawals.” The minutes, delicately written though they were, indicated the palpable suppressed frustration as well as not a small amount of anxiety about the continued hemorrhaging of 3/4 of the staff to Korea, Japan, southern Formosa and other places.
When the home church’s three-person Commission finally arrived in the fall of 1927, it held a surprisingly frank meeting on November 23 with Hugh, Dr. George Gushue-Taylor and Miss Mabel Clazie. Hugh chaired the discussion and opened by saying that he and his colleagues had “waited impatiently for this visit for guidance as to new plans, policy etc., and now await [a] message from the home base.”
The commission consisted of Mr. C.S. McDonald, Mrs. Daniel Strachan (of the Women’s Mission Council) and Dr. McOldrum. The chair of the commission, Mr. McDonald was a retired businessman who had served as the defacto administrator and fundraiser of the anti-union movement within the Presbyterian Church. He stated rather bluntly (which seems to have been his habitual style) that “speaking for the three and [for] many of his church… they would not have felt antagonistic if all the mission fields had gone to the [United Church of Canada].” He further stated, “Foreign workers are not so easily provided… he was glad that the United Church missionaries were carrying on for a time and would hope that they might do so permanently if possible.” This latter message was aimed directly at the three in the room, who had expressly supported union but who had also indicated their intention to stay in the Presbyterian field of North Formosa. The home church was clearly uncomfortable with having ‘Unionists’ running their mission, but finding replacements for those who had left had become a challenge. McDonald went on to add further insult to injury, advising the mission council not to “use up manpower in Theological College work and sacrifice evangelism”; this despite the fact that the whole reason for establishing the theological college, of which Hugh was the Principal, was to increase the numbers of indigenous clergy to do the work of evangelism!
McDonald’s colleague, Dr. MacOdrum, tartly urged the missionaries on the mission council to “forget unpleasantness and get at constructive work”, adding that he “would want even more workers than ever to go to the savages…” Dr Gushue-Taylor rose to this bait complaining of “bitter and misleading remarks by Presbyterian Church leaders…”.
The minutes note blithely that the meeting ended with a benediction from Hugh.
Much more drama to come…
