Internal Divisions

Not only did the China Missionary groups compete with each other for customers in their ethereal free market economy, they also managed to conjure up all kinds of internecine disagreements amongst themselves.  

From his Wikipedia Entry

In the case of Herbert Sowerby, his own particular entry into controversy resulted from the proposed appointment of the Rev. William Jones Boone as Missionary bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of China. 

This episode spawned an entire published volume of correspondence objecting to the appointment and the ‘wretched management of the church’ more generally.

Boone was accused again and again of ritualistic practices (akin to Catholicism) and all manners of other incompetence that clearly rendered him unfit for the position, and as the letters concerning the appointment bounced forwards and backwards some rather interesting positions regarding the whole Protestant Episcopal Mission enterprise reveal themselves. Herbert Sowerby seems to have made just one contribution to the debate, probably one that he came to regret, and which may have been another contributory factor in the decision of the family to leave China.