A Study Of The New Novel Collection In The Late Qing Dynasty From The Perspective Of Christianity

In1895, British missionary John Fryer regarded Chinese normal essay，opiumand foot-binding as the three abuses that obstructed the development of China atthat time, and he thought that the novel has the function to change the custom, sohe published an essay contest advertisement on the 《CHURCH NEWS》No.77to askpeople write novels with the themes of Chinese normal essay， opium andfoot-binding and suggest some good ideas to save the society. In the next year, JohnFryer published the result on the 《CHURCH NEWS》No.86. He had received162works in this contest. This event was one of the contributions of John Fryer for Chinabesides the western science.But we could not find these novels manuscripts for a very long time, whichmade it difficult for researchers to do a deeper study. Fortunately, these manuscriptshave been found in the Library of Eastern Asia in University of California, Berkeley inJanuary,2007and been arranged and published as 《New Age Novels of the LateQing Dynasty》, which has a great value for the scholars to study the society andliterature of late Qing Dynasty.Because John Fryer is a missionary and there are much content aboutChristianity in the collection of novels, so my paper concentrates on the viewpoint ofChristianity. I will combine the Christianity content from the novels with the spreadsituation of Christianity in China at that time, and then analyze the influence ofChristianity as a foreign religion on different aspects of Chinese society in late QingDynasty.Besides the preface and the conclusion, there are three chapters in my paper.The first chapter contains an introduction of the historic background of the novelcontest arranged by John Fryer and the discovery and the publishing of the collection.In the second chapter, I will analyze the content of Christianity from the novelcollection, and this part will be involved in the argument between Confucianism andChristianity. I try to discuss what the scholars thought about the penetration ofChristianity into traditional Chinese culture. The third chapter will show us how the novels tell us the Christianity doctrines and believers helped the Chinese people togive up opium, to reform the education system and to liberate the women. And I willdiscuss these contents with the history of that time to show the advantages anddisadvantages of the Christianity influences on the late Qing Dynasty.The paper hereis based on the study of former scholars, and focus on the 《New Age Novels of theLate Qing Dynasty》, and analyzes the influences and effects of Christianity on religion,reformation and development of Chinese society in late Qing Dynasty by the methodof combining literature and history. So we can have a deeper understanding of thesocial and culture value of this novel collection.