William Scott Ament

"[2] Ament became prominent as a result of his activism during the Boxer Uprising and controversial in its aftermath because of the personal attacks on him by American writer Mark Twain for his collection of punitive indemnities from northern Chinese villages.

[9] According to Porter, "From that time on he was hearty, aggressive and fearless in meeting those who opposed Christianity, and made the service of Christ the chief thing of life.

[44] Funds were donated to establish on Fifth Street, Beijing, near the Congregational Church's North Chapel, the Emily Ament Memorial School for the education of Chinese girls.

[51] On 4 September 1898, Ament left his wife and son, Willie, in Owosso to care for his mother, and his deceased sister's daughter.

[52] Ament returned to Beijing on 8 October 1898, to confront increased anti-foreign opposition as a consequence of the overthrow of the Chinese emperor in a coup d'état.

As Conger refused to provide the escort as he believed he needed all his troops in Beijing, Ament himself travelled alone and unarmed to Tungchow by train with 16 carts, and facilitated the successful evacuation of 24 members of the missionary community and a number of Chinese helpers.

Ament then organised twenty other missionaries and 60 Chinese to return to the compound to remove as many stores as possible which contributed greatly to their preservation during the siege.

"[69] In 1901 Ament became embroiled in a controversy regarding his activities (and those of other Christian missionaries, including the Roman Catholic Pierre-Marie-Alphonse Favier) subsequent to the Boxer Rebellion.

According to Foner, Twain used the conduct of Ament to "drive home the point that the missionary movement served as a front for imperialism.

According to Susan Harris:“To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” which Mark Twain published in the North American Review in 1901, attacks Western imperialism as it was manifesting itself in South Africa, China, Cuba, and the Philippines.

"Twain's caustic indictment generated, in turn, a defensive apologetics on the part of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Both Judson Smith (born 28 June 1837 in Middlefield, Massachusetts; died 29 June 1906 in Roxbury, Massachusetts), who had been one of Ament's professors at Oberlin College,[81] the corresponding secretary of Ament's sponsoring mission (1884–1906), The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM); and Gilbert Reid (independent missionary, formerly a member of the American Presbyterian mission) claimed that missionary looting was "high ethics," and added that American missionaries had only looted to provide money for the relief of Chinese Christians.

[94] Ament admitted the strain in a letter to his wife on Sunday, 27 January 1901: "I am doing what I do not recall that I ever did before, remaining at home deliberately and missing all the services.

The Times reported that in Ament's own letter he indicated the compensation for the losses of the converts obtained by him had been "by appealing to the sense of justice among the villages where our people had lived."

"[99] In February 1901 Ament and two British subjects were arrested by German and French troops near Tungchow, and charged with trying to extort money from the Chinese villagers.

Ament said that "they ransacked and desecrated a Christian chapel and despoiled the women of their trinkets, even tearing the rings out of their ears and ill-treating them in other ways.

"[104] Ament left Beijing on 26 March 1901 to return to the United States to make his case, clear his name and defend the reputation of the other missionaries.

[105] On 1 April 1901, Ament, refusing to be a scapegoat in the affair, cabled the following to the ABCFM: Nothing has been done except after consultation with colleagues and the full approval of the United States Minister.

The persistency of work like this can only justify the feeling that the root of this un-American warfare is due, not so much to what is seen or known of the deeds of missionaries, but the opposition to Christianity itself.

Fellow ABCFM missionary, Howard Spilman Galt (1872–1948) reported: "Everything seems to be remarkably quiet in the field where Dr. Ament took the first steps in reconstructing the work just a year ago.

"[115] Ament was an ardent advocate for the "federation among Christian forces" in China, and supported the comity principle, whereby mission groups would be assigned their own areas for evangelisation to avoid direct competition with other agencies.

In 1907 Ament, as chairman on the Committee on Church Union and Comity, presented a paper to the China Centenary Missionary Conference held at Shanghai.

[117]From late July 1908, Ament underwent a series of four operations in the seaside town of Pei Tai Ho (now Beidaihe), Hebei to relieve a serious septic medical condition.

He was able to return to Beijing in October, but by 8 November he had developed severe pressure on his brain, necessitating the decision to repatriate him to the United States.

The Aments left Beijing on 24 November 1908, and departed China for the final time from Shanghai on 1 December 1908 on the Nippon Maru.

[118] Despite being "a man of unusual physical endurance, ... after thirty-six years of service and much intense strain",[119] Ament died at the Lane Hospital in San Francisco on 6 January 1909, at the age of 57, with both his wife, and son, Will, with him.

[121] Memorial services were held for Ament on Sunday, 17 January 1909 at Owosso, Michigan; Medina, Ohio; and at the Dwight Place Congregational Church, New Haven, Connecticut.

After many years of most faithful, earnest, painstaking labor, he had just succeeded in getting everything into such shape that, as he faced death, it was not with the sense of duties left undone, but in the calm assurance that now at last he could be spared.

[128]In 1935 William E. Griffis indicated 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?

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.