Contents: Preface by J. Heyndrickx: Joseph Van Oost: Musician, Writer, Missionary in Inner Mongolia -- Introduction.
1. The Climate, Praying for Rain in the Desert -- 2. Chinese Beliefs and Customs, Dragon Kings, Selling Daughters, Money, and Death -- 3. The Scheut Mission in the Ordos, Missionaries in the Field -- 4. Protecting the Flock, Looting Soldiers, and Political Bandits -- 5. China in Transition, Politics and Intrigues -- 6. Towards a Uniform China, Bureaucratic reforms -- 7. International Relations, War, Diplomacy and Railroads -- Conclusion.

Publishers note: This book introduces Joseph Van Oost's three-volume missionary chronicle, covering the years 1915-1921 when stationed in Inner Mongolia. The author has provided a thematic reading of the chronicle, divided into seven separate chapters. Relevant passages referring to each of these seven themes are selected and annotated as to render the reader familiar with the general background and immediate context. This book does not offer a critical study checking the recorded facts as to their historical accuracy. Rather, it gives a voice to a vivid past, which enables the reader to envisage a picture of every day life in Inner Mongolia, as experienced by the European missionary and the Chinese peasant communities in the early years of the Chinese Republic. Selected themes are as follows: 1. Climate; 2. Chinese customs; 3. Scheut community and an illustration of the outbreak of the plague (1917); 4. Chinese banditry as a socio-political phenomenon; 5. Political developments in Republican China; 6. Bureaucratic reforms, illustrated by the opium policy; 7. International Relations (World War I) and China's modernization. In appendix, the book offers a list of Joseph Van Oost's numerous publications. Bibliographic references, a glossary of Chinese characters and transliterations, a list of Chinese proverbs translated into English and French, and index are included. Illustrations and an excerpt from the handwritten manuscript complete the book.

"Han-Mongol Encounters and Missionary Endeavors traces the history of the Belgian Scheut mission within the ecological, geopolitical, socioeconomic and ethnocultural context of the Mongol-Han borderlands during the height of European colonialism and the collapse of the Qing dynasty.The main subjects of this study are over 100 Roman Catholic Missionaries form the Low Countries (Holland and Belgium) who worked in the Southwest Mongolia apostolic vacariate. The vicariate constitutes the geographical boundaries of the study. The timeframe extends from the origins of the mission in 1874 until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912."
"The study describes the origins of the Southwest Mongolia vicariate byeond the Great Wall and along the Yellow River Bend during the transition period from Lazarist missionary activities in the 1840s up to the endeavors of the Scheutists in the early 1870s.The author outlines the historical development of the Ordos Mongols and Chrisitan missions within their respective Qing imperial and European national contexts. The text also analyses not only the European background, the double ecclesiastical and religious organization of the mission,,but also the realtions between domestic and overseas mission fields, and the missionary motives within the late Qing socioeconomic context, and the life of localized Catholic communities. These are described within the ethnocultural context of the Han-Mongol mixed-living area of the Ordos, and as seen mainly through the eyes of the missionaries. The desertification of the Ordos steppes, as well as the aftermath and impact of the popular Boxer movement in Inner Mongolia on the development of the Scheut mission and the local church are also summarized."--publ. note.

Introduction – Prologue -- Fragile Equilibrium or Lost Harmony -- Chapter 1. Ordos Mongols and the Qing Empire -- Chapter 2. Christian Mission and European Nation-States -- Chapter 3. North of the Great Wall: Winds of Change -- Chapter 4. Missionary Vignettes and Institutional Growth: The Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary -- Chapter 5. Socioeconomic Woes and Missionary Motives: For the Greater Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls -- Chapter 6. The Ethnocultural Kaleidoscope: Mongol and Han Catholic Communities -- Chapter 7. 1900: The Boxers United in Righteousness: Christian Adversity and Militancy -- Epilogue: From the Ashes of the Foreign Mission to the Sprouts of a Local Church – Bibliography – Annexes – Index.

The history of the relations between the Low Countries and China in the Qing era (1644-1911) / edited by W.F. Vande Walle ; co-editor, Noël Golvers.
Revised papers from at a conference held in September 1995 sponsored by the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation.
Includes bibliographical references.
"The genesis of the present colume was a conference entitled 'The History of the Relations between the Low Countries and China in the Qing Era (1644-1911),' which was organized by the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation in Leuven in September 1995."—p. [4] of cover.

Preface – Introduction / W.F. Vande Walle.
I. Some Lesser Known Contributions of Ferdinand Verbiest Verbiest, Spathar and Chrysanthos: The Spread of Verbiest's Science to Eastern Europe / E. Nicolaïdis -- An Evaluation of F. Verbiest's Account of his Journey to Manchuria in 1682, its Errors and Problems / T. Pang
II. Antoine Thomas and the Society of Jesus in China Antoine Thomas's and George David's Maps of Asia / E. Lo Sardo -- The Role of Antoine Thomas, SJ, (1644-1709) in Determining the Terrestrial Meridian Line in Eighteenth-Century China / J.W. Witek -- Antoine Thomas, SJ, and his Mathematical Activities in China: A Preliminary Research through Chinese Sources / Han Qi -- Thomas and Tournon: Mission and Money / Cl. von Collani -- François Noël, SJ, and the Chinese Rites Controversy / P. Rule -- Deux Lazaristes, originaires de la région de Chimay, émissaires de Louis XVI à la cour impériale de Pékin: 1785-1812 / M.-J. Ghislain.
III. Dutch Qing Connections Missionaries, the Low Countries and their Dependencies, as Described in Xie Sui's Manchu "Pictures of Tribute-Bearers" / G. Stary -- Qing Dynasty China in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Literature: 1644-1700 / E. van Kley -- The Dutch Foundations of the Gützlaff Mission in China: 1823-1851 / J.G. and R.G. Lutz -- Missionary Relations between the Dutch East Indies and China: 1807-1942 / K. Steenbrink -- Shandong Missions and the Dutch Connection: 1860-1919 / R.G. Tiedemann
IV. Scheut in China The Spread of the CICM Mission in the Apostolic Vicariate of Central Mongolia (1865-1911): a General Overview / S. Lievens -- "The Most Unfruitful Mission in the World" : CICM Fathers Frans and Jozef Hoogers in Xinjiang: 1895-1922 / B. Gorissen -- Virgins in Central Mongolia / R. Renson -- The Religious Case of Fengzhen District: Reclamation and Missionary Activities in Caqar during the Late Qing Dynasty / P. Taveirne
V. Belgium and Chinese Modernization Belgian Treaties with China and Japan under King Leopold I / W.F. Vande Walle -- Sino-Belgian Relations during the Reign of Leopold II: A Brief Historical Account Based on Chinese Documents / Lin Jinshui -- The Bejing-Hankou Railroad and Commercial Development in North China, 1905-1937: A Case-Study of the Impact of Belgian Investment in China / Chang Jui-te -- Les étudiants chinois en Begique de 1900 à 1940 / Cl. Soetens.

Shengmu Shengxinhui 聖母聖心會 (Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae, Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary).
New Cath. enc., 1981, c1967 (Immaculate Heart of Mary, Congregation of the, commonly known as Scheut Missionaries or Immaculate Heart Missioners; the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM) is a society of priests and brothers who take simple vows and who are under the authority of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith; the society, f. by Theophile Verbist at Scheut (Brussels, Belgium) in 1862, was originally limited to recruiting Belgian and Dutch missionaries for China, but it became international in 1947 when members from other nationalities were accepted)--LC auth. rec.