Missions Impossible?

Gardiner appears to have approached his work with a lot of zeal, perhaps even Sino-tailored fire and brimstone.  His first text is said to have been taken from Acts 26:18 with the theme Lei om tsau kwong; “from darkness to light.”  Interestingly enough, the Chee Kung Tong’s motto loosely translates into “Overthrow darkness, restore light.”  It is unclear whether Gardiner the Methodist missionary actually intended to play to this.

Gardiner is recorded as regarding “enslaved life in any form [as] repulsive, whether that slavery took the form of immorality, the use of drugs, or the pernicious gambling spirit.”  He railed against the “deep rooted Oriental customs and pagan vices” to the point that “secret societies whose demoralizing business had been seriously threatened by his efforts” put a price on his head.

It was not just the certain parts of the Chinese population that had a problem with Gardiner’s presence.  Most of the white population was either indifferent or hostile to his efforts.  A Colonist record of a July 1882 meeting of the Anti-Chinese Association sums up the extremists’ views of the Chinese as their greatest evil being that they came without any wives (although many of the early settlers in Victoria did the same), and that the prospect of them becoming English-speaking Christians was a fearsome one, as that would aid the cause of assimilation and the possibility of them taking jobs away from whites.  (Interestingly enough, many members of the Anti-Chinese Association had Chinese in their employ as servants.)

Sources:

Barkerville History (http://www.barkerville.ca/barkerville/chinatown_tongs.html).

Daily British Colonist, 8 July 1882.

Osterhaut.