Background
William Scott Ament was born on September 14, 1851 at Owosso, Michigan, United States. He was the son of Winfield Scott and Emily (Hammond) Ament, of Dutch, French Huguenot, and English ancestry.
(In 1900 in China a peasant movement known as the Boxers r...)
In 1900 in China a peasant movement known as the Boxers rose up and tried to destroy its Western oppressors. The culminating event of the Boxer Rebellion was the siege of the Western legations in Peking. In isolated Peking, a horde of brightly dressed, acrobatic, anti-Western and anti-Christian Boxers surrounded the fortified diplomatic legation compound, and rumors about the torture and murder of 900 Western diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries swirled throughout the foreign media. Scholars agree that animosity toward Christian missionaries was a major cause of the Boxer Rebellion, but most accounts neglect the missionaries and emphasize instead the diplomats and soldiers who weathered the siege and defeated the Chinese in battle. This book gives equivalent attention to the missionaries, their work, the impact they had on China, and the controversies arising in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. It focuses particularly on one of the most distinguished American missionaries, William Scott Ament, whose brave and resourceful heroism was tarnished by hubris and looting.
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(Excerpt from The Giant Awakened: An Important Statement o...)
Excerpt from The Giant Awakened: An Important Statement of Conditions in China The Giant Awakened! Many times this phrase has been used, but the writers seemed to have been a little too ardent. The Giant still slept. This time we think the phrase can be honestly used and can be shown to be historically correct. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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William Scott Ament was born on September 14, 1851 at Owosso, Michigan, United States. He was the son of Winfield Scott and Emily (Hammond) Ament, of Dutch, French Huguenot, and English ancestry.
Ament was educated in the Owosso public schools where he excelled in baseball, being known as "Home-run Ament. " In 1867 he entered Oberlin Academy and two years later Oberlin College, graduating in 1873. In college he preferred sports and athletics to study, but was active in debating and in conducting religious services in the villages of the neighborhood. After a year of teaching school at Richfield, Ohio, he entered Union Theological Seminary in 1874, changed to Andover Seminary in 1876, and graduated there the following year. In December 1898 Ament was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by Oberlin College.
Ament was ordained on September 5, 1877 and in October he sailed as a missionary to China. He was first stationed at Pao Ting Fu but in May 1880 was transferred to Peking. In March 1885 he returned to America and for two years was pastor of a church in Medina, Ohio, where he was active in the work of the Gospel Temperance Union. In August 1888 he went back to China, and the rest of his life, with the exception of brief trips to America in 1897 and 1901, was passed as a missionary in Peking.
The nature of Ament's achievement as a missionary was determined partly by his preparation and partly by his own temperament. He had made no particular study of Chinese culture before he entered upon his work, and he never seems to have made much effort to understand the native religions. He was four years in China before he learned that Taoism possessed any temples; the ritual of Buddhism was to him mere "rigmarole"; he regarded the non-Christian Chinese very simply as "heathen" to be saved. To this task of salvation he brought unusual ardor, energy, and devotion.
During the first year he learned the Chinese language sufficiently well to preach effectively, and later edited a monthly paper, The North China News, written in Mandarin. He traveled thousands of miles on foot and mule-back, strewing the country with small missions.
At the outbreak of the Boxer War, he proved his dauntless courage, when the American Minister could not spare marines for the service, by going alone as an escort with twenty carts which brought in the refugees from Tung-Chow.
Meanwhile an inaccurate account of an interview with him, published in the New York Sun on December 24, 1900, led to strictures on his conduct by several eastern newspapers and to a hasty indictment by Mark Twain in the North American Review for February and April 1901, in which he openly accused Ament of looting and extortion. Upon more careful investigation the charges fell to the ground, and Mark Twain rather than Ament was left in need of exoneration. The latter's indefatigable labors in the missionary cause ended in 1909, when after five months' illness he succumbed to an abscess of the brain.
Ament was most prominent during the Boxer Uprising in China. After the siege was lifted he went about among the native villages, without military attendance, and succeeded in raising indemnities to rebuild burned chapels, and to take care of the widows and orphans of slaughtered converts. He found many occasions to protect the villagers from marauding expeditions of the foreign soldiery.
(Excerpt from The Giant Awakened: An Important Statement o...)
(In 1900 in China a peasant movement known as the Boxers r...)
Quotes from others about the person
"Doctor Ament was the preacher yesterday and held his audience well throughout his rather extended discourse. . .. I suppose there can be little doubt that Doctor Ament is the best Chinese [language] preacher in the city. The people like to hear him. And then, he is exceedingly good in personal work, taking an interest in men individually and winning them. This kind of pastoral work is just as invaluable here as it is at home. . .. In every way, it is a great advantage to have the senior member of the station [Peking] back on the field and at work again. And then, Doctor Ament is a great worker. How he gets through with so much work, I don't know. I was always said that he could do two men's work. .. ." - Charles Ewing
"For the missionaries and diplomatists there were rescue, food, and certain indemnity; but what of the native Christians exiled from their homes and fields, of which only vestiges remained? Where was even food to come from? In such a crisis, brave men, like the American Doctor Ament, went out into the open country. According to justice and immemorial custom in China, he compelled the village elders, who had connived at, or encouraged the Boxers, to furnish supplies of food. From the confiscated property in Peking, money was obtained to support the native Christians until they could be sent home. This action was misunderstood and maligned at home by a popular author. He "caught a Tartar" in attacking Doctor Ament, who showed the true facts. " - William E. Griffis
On August 23, 1877, Ament was married to Mary Penfield, the daughter of an Oberlin professor. They had four children, but their son William was the only child to survive childhood.
