Roberts’s colleague, J. Lewis Shuck, wrote to the Baptist mission in the United States: Parker and company “have no converts, no churches and no extensive militant missionary operations, yet they regard it as interference for Baptist missionaries to come to Canton or Macao. Interfere with what?” One thing all the missionaries agreed upon, however, was that China was sick. Even as Roberts thundered against Chinese idolatry on the streets of Guangzhou, Parker was at the forefront of recasting the Chinese image in the United States.
