First Anglican missionaries The
Cambridge Seven were Anglicans serving under the
interdenominational society
China Inland Mission (CIM). Four of them were going to be the first Anglican missionaries working in the western province of Sichuan.
William Cassels, was already an ordained priest;
Arthur T. Polhill-Turner, was studying for
holy orders when he volunteered for the mission in China;
Montagu Proctor-Beauchamp, a baronet from the
Proctor-Beauchamp family; and Arthur's elder brother
Cecil H. Polhill-Turner, a
Pentecostal revivalist. They left London for China on 5 February 1885. After studying the local language, the four were transferred to Sichuan in 1887. Cassels held the licence of
George Moule, Bishop of Mid-China, as the Western China district fell within the Mid-China jurisdiction by the time. Arthur was before long ordained both deacon and priest by the same Bishop. Cecil was first based at the capital
Chengdu (Chengtu) and the eastern Sichuanese city
Chongqing (Chungking), but he felt drawn towards the
people of
Tibet. After helping with mission work in
Kalimpong in India in 1896, he moved to
Dajianlu (Tatsienlu), a
Khams Tibetan city of western Sichuan. From there he had laboured on the Sino- and Indo-Tibetan borders since then. In 1893,
Trinity Church was built in
Baoning (Paoning) under Cassels's supervision. As the first Anglican church in Sichuan, the chosen style was in consideration of being more acceptable to the locals. It adopted the style of traditional residential buildings in northern Sichuan, fully blended into the surroundings. The British explorer
Isabella Bird described in her book
The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, that the church "is Chinese in style, the
chancel windows are 'glazed' with coloured paper to simulate
stained glass, and it is seated for two hundred. [...] The church was crammed at
matins, and crowds stood outside, where they could both see and hear, this publicity contrasting with the
Roman practice." . At the close of 1891, the Rev.
James Heywood Horsburgh of
Church Missionary Society (CMS, belonging to the
Church of England), along with his wife Mrs Horsburgh, the Rev. O. M. Jackson, three laymen, and six single women missionaries, entered Sichuan as the first band of CMS missionaries to take up work in that province. By an amicable arrangement with the CIM, the northern part of the province was divided into two districts. The district lies mainly to the north of the capital Chengdu was occupied by the CMS, while the CIM's Church of England district was to the east of that of the CMS. When Horsburgh's party first arrived, they were unable to secure or rent any houses in the principal towns of what was to be the occupied area of their future mission; and they dwelt at first with their fellow-workers of the CIM. It did not take them long, however, to begin itinerant work, staying for days or weeks at local inns, such brief stays not at all fruitless. Among the leaders of this group was an exceptionally gifted woman,
Alice Entwistle, who was largely responsible for the opening of the important town of
Mianzhou (Miencheo), which later became the headquarters of the CMS Mission. By 1894, CMS work had started in Mianzhou (Mienchow),
Jiangyou (Chungpa),
An County (Anhsien),
Mianzhu (Mienchu) and
Xindu (Sintu); the
first CMS church was founded in Jiangyou in 1894. By 1908, CMS alone claimed eight stations in an area of approximately one hundred and fifty square miles, all of which were in the northwest of the province. Meanwhile, the CIM workers, based in Baoning, were also breaking ground in northeast Sichuan. Arthur Polhill spent ten years (1888–1898) in
Bazhou doing
evangelism. In 1899 he moved to
Dazhou (Suiting), where he built a large multi-purpose Gospel Hall in 1904. A number of outstations were established following the building's completion. At that time, Sichuan was the landlocked, westernmost province of China, bordering
Tibet. It was quite isolated, compared with those coastal provinces in
east China. The missionaries scattered, and the persistent state of turmoil of the countryside with war, banditry and general unrest made the work difficult and dangerous. Prior to 1895, CMS mission in Sichuan had been under the direction of
George Moule, the Bishop of Mid-China, but it was quite impossible for him to give adequate supervision to a region nearly 2,000 miles away from his headquarters, and it was therefore decided to create a new
Diocese of Western China (a.k.a. Diocese of Szechwan). With the approval of the
Archbishop of Canterbury (
Edward White Benson) and the CMS, Cassels was consecrated bishop on St. Luke's Day, 18 October 1895, at
Westminster Abbey. That same year was marked by a serious outbreak of
anti-foreign agitation which spread throughout the province. In the capital Chengdu, the property of three Protestant missions and that of the Roman Catholics was destroyed, and in other towns the work of the CMS stations was temporarily disrupted. The missionaries, however, were able to remain at their posts, and despite opposition and occasional waves of intense anti-foreign sentiment, the work continued to go forward until the
Boxer Rebellion in 1900. This unrest did not affect Sichuan so much as some other parts of China, nevertheless missionaries were obliged by consular orders to retire to the coast. During their absence, the local converts defended their faith and carried on all the regular services.
20th century Following the establishment of the
Diocese of Western China and the increasing number of converts, the
Trinity Church had become too small. Construction of a
neo-Gothic pro-cathedral began in 1913 under the supervision of the Australian architect George A. Rogers. Upon the completion of the construction, Cassels invited the Bishop of
Hankow,
Logan H. Roots, to come and preach a series of sermons in connection with the opening of the
pro-cathedral. This caused some dissension among the foreign staff. As staunch
evangelicals, they were upset by the idea of something to be called a
cathedral. Two of the women missionaries were particularly upset by the presence of two bishops in their
convocation robes, standing posture at the
offertory, and flowers in two handsome vases placed within the chancel rails. They found vent in other spheres of work. In addition, the diocese founded its official newsletter,
The Bulletin of the Diocese of Western China, in 1904. It was renamed several times during its 54-year run, with the last print published in 1958. The growing maturity of the Sichuanese Church was seen in Cassels's appointment of
Ku Ho-lin as archdeacon in 1918. Ku was remarkable as a convert from
Islam, and had been one of those who held the Church together when foreign staff had to leave during the Boxer Rebellion. Overseeing the greatly increased number of congregations was becoming too much for Cassels alone. As early as 1915, he raised with the Archbishop of Canterbury (
Randall Davidson) the question of the division of the diocese. It did not seem advisable at the time, but relief was given by the appointments of an archdeacon and of
Howard Mowll as
assistant bishop in 1922, who was particularly in charge of the CMS district. Cassels welcomed the
Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society (BCMS, seceded from the CMS in 1922) field workers when they approached him, as he had welcomed Rev. Horsburgh and his party many years before. He wrote: "With regard to the BCMS coming into the diocese, I must say I am most thankful to think that there is some prospect of them taking up the work in the
Kwangan,
Yochih and
Linshui region, which is now left without any oversight." In 1921, members of fanatical bands self-denominated "
Divine Soldiers", killed six or seven Christians in
Wan County, eastern Sichuan. The province was also affected by the widespread
Anti-Christian Movement in the 1920s, which had its origins in the
east and
north parts of China, such as
Shanghai and
Beijing. Bishop Cassels died on 7 November 1925. He had served forty years in Sichuan, based at
Langzhong (Baoning), thirty of these years as bishop, and was succeeded by Howard Mowll. It was largely the result of Cassels's work that Christianity in its Anglican form had become well established in eastern Sichuan. In 1885, there was no Christian congregation apart from
Roman Catholics. In a letter written nearly forty years after his arrival in Sichuan, Cassels gave a brief account of the mission's achievements: The mission work mostly concentrated on evangelisation in villages and towns, instead of big institutions and schools. There was, however, a Church hospital at Langzhong. For a time there was also a girls' school, a small theological college and a preacher's training school. The Langzhong Hospital was for a long time the only hospital in northeast Sichuan. Hospitals were also maintained at Dazhou and
Liangshan. In Eastern Sichuan district, the aid came from the CIM and later from the BCMS; in Western Sichuan district the CMS. Anglicanism was much less widespread in the latter district than in the former, although it did extend to
Songpan and
Mao County, practically in the
Qiang and
Tibetan region. A Church hospital was built at Mianzhu, western Sichuan, where Dr.
John Howard Lechler had worked for thirty years since 1908. For a time,
Montagu Robert Lawrence,
T. E. Lawrence's elder brother, worked there as a locum during Lechler's absence. In 1918, the CMS became a partner in the
West China Union University created by four Protestant mission societies in 1910 in the capital. The Anglicans provided at different times several members of staff for the university, including Dr. H. G. Anderson, who was working at its
College of Medicine and Dentistry. They also provided a hostel for students there. In 1923, during the Anti-Christian Movement, two English clergymen, F. J. Watt and
R. A. Whiteside, were shot to death by brigands among the mountains between Mianzhu and Mao County. One of them was a teacher of a boys' boarding school at Mianzhou. A memorial stele was erected at the foot of the mountain where the two men were murdered. in 1929, from left to right:
Song Cheng-tsi,
Howard Mowll and
Ku Ho-lin. In 1929, Bishop Mowll appointed two assistant bishops for the West China Diocese. Ku Ho-lin (a.k.a. Ku Shou-tsi) was entrusted with the northeast Sichuan district, which owed its origin to the Anglican section of the CIM; and
Song Cheng-tsi with the west Sichuan district where the Church's connection was with the CMS. Ku's consecration took place on 16 June at the
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Langzhong.
Brook Hannah, the
assistant superintendent, served as
litany reader during the ceremony. Song's consecration took place on 29 June at St. Thomas' Church in
Mianzhu. That same year (1929), an
evangelical Anglican missionary,
Vyvyan Donnithorne, was sent to
Hanzhou by the CMS. He served as pastor at the
local Gospel Church until 1949, before being transferred to the
Canary Islands, Spain. During his stay in Hanzhou, he was appointed a member of the
West China Border Research Society and a key figure in the discovery of the archaeological site now known as
Sanxingdui. '' () for use in the Diocese of Szechwan, published in 1932. A Chinese translation of the
Book of Common Prayer was published in 1932, revised and authorized for use in the Diocese of Szechwan. In 1933, Bishop Mowll left to take up his new post as
Archbishop of Sydney and
John Holden was transferred from the Diocese of
Kwangsi-
Hunan to succeed him. The middle 1930s was an extremely difficult period for the Church in Sichuan. The communist armies retreated through Sichuan to
Shaanxi as they were driven out of
Jiangxi by the
Nationalist armies, later known as the
Long March. Church workers had no choice but to temporarily leave their mission centres due to widespread lawlessness and banditry along the armies' retreat routes. Churches, chapels, schools, pastor's homes at
Lifan, (Tzagulao), and the church property of the CMS at Mao County (Maochow) were entirely destroyed by communist troops. During this period, Bishop Holden made considerable advances in transferring authority and responsibility to the locals that were still almost held exclusively by the CMS mission conference by the 1930s. In 1936, the Diocese of Western China was split into Diocese of East Szechwan and Diocese of West Szechwan. Holden continued as bishop of the new Diocese of West Szechwan until being forced to return to England because of ill-health the following year. He was succeeded by Song Cheng-tsi.
Frank Houghton was consecrated as first bishop of the new Diocese of East Szechwan. Ku Ho-lin continued as assistant bishop of East Szechwan until he retired in 1947.
Kenneth Bevan became bishop of East Szechwan after Houghton's resignation in 1940. During this period, in addition to hospitals in Langzhong (Langchung) and
Liangshan, the Church also had middle schools in
Dachuan and Liangshan. Two celebrations were held in 1945, one for the
Golden Jubilee of the Diocese of Szechwan, the other for the
Diamond Jubilee of the start of the Anglican mission in Sichuan. == After 1949 ==