The China Inland Mission (CIM), founded in 1865, was the largest and most influential of Protestant missionary societies in late Qing China. In the 1860s when the CIM entered China, most Chinese people held animosity towards Protestant missionaries due to the issue of the opium trade between China and Britain. The CIM played a critical role in the anti-opium campaign together with other Protestant missions.

To lessen the hindrance for evangelization work, the China Inland Mission launched its opium refuge work in 1876, which was becoming one important feature of the CIM’s lay work. The CIM had set up most opium refuges among all Protestant missions in China. Thus, first, I try to give an overall description of CIM work on opium refuges.

Second, the opium refuges were institutio...[ Read more ]

The China Inland Mission (CIM), founded in 1865, was the largest and most influential of Protestant missionary societies in late Qing China. In the 1860s when the CIM entered China, most Chinese people held animosity towards Protestant missionaries due to the issue of the opium trade between China and Britain. The CIM played a critical role in the anti-opium campaign together with other Protestant missions.

To lessen the hindrance for evangelization work, the China Inland Mission launched its opium refuge work in 1876, which was becoming one important feature of the CIM’s lay work. The CIM had set up most opium refuges among all Protestant missions in China. Thus, first, I try to give an overall description of CIM work on opium refuges.

Second, the opium refuges were institutions focusing on curing opium addiction, where protestant missionaries and opium-smokers interacted with each other. Thus this thesis also examines how missionaries dealt with evangelization work and medical work in opium refuges.

Third, there is a special but important case among all the refuges, that of Hsi Shengmo. Hsi, a Chinese Christian, set up more than fifty opium refuges in Shansi province, which was regarded as remarkable in the eyes of Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), the founder of the CIM. This thesis is also trying to use Hsi’s case to illustrate how the CIM interacted with Chinese Christians, as well as how Chinese Christians did the contextualization work of opium refuges.