单选题 The sources of anti-Christian feeling were many and complex. On the more intangible side, there was a general pique against the unwanted intrusion of the Western countries; there was an understandable tendency to seek an external scapegoat for internal disorders only tangentially attributable to the West and perhaps most important, there was a virile tradition of ethnocentricism, vented long before against Indian Buddhism, which, since the seventeenth century, focused on Western Christianity. Accordingly, even before the missionary movement really got under way in the mid-nineteenth century, it was already at a disadvantage. After 1860, as missionary activity in the hinterland expanded, it quickly became apparent that in addition to the intangibles, numerous tangible grounds for Chinese hostility abounded.
In part, the very presence of the missionary evoked attack. They were, after all, the first foreigners to leave the treaty ports and venture into the interior, and for a long time they were virtually the only foreigners whose quotidian labors carried them to the farthest reaches of the Chinese empire. For many of the indigenous population, therefore, the missionary stood as a uniquely visible symbol against which opposition to foreign intrusion could be vented.
in part, too, the missionary was attacked because the manner in which he made his presence felt after 1860 seemed almost calculated to offend. By indignantly waging battle against the notion that China was the sole fountainhead of civilization and, more particularly, by his assault on many facets of Chinese culture, the missionary directly undermined the cultural hegemony of the gentry class. Also, in countless ways, he posed a threat to the gentry"s traditional monopoly of social leadership. Missionaries, particularly Catholics, frequently assumed the garb of the Confucian literati. They were the only persons at the local level, aside from the gentry, who were permitted to communicate with the authorities as social equals. And they enjoyed an extraterritorial status in the interior that gave them greater immunity to Chinese law than had ever been possessed by the gentry.
Although it was the avowed policy of the Chinese government after 1860 that the new treaties were to be strictly adhered to, in practice implementation depended on the wholehearted accord of provincial authorities. There is abundant evidence that cooperation was dilatory. At the root of this lay the interactive nature of ruler and ruled.
In a severely understaffed bureaucracy that ruled as much by suasion as by might, the official, almost always a stranger in the locality of his service, depended on the active cooperation of the local gentry class. Energetic attempts to implement treaty provisions concerning missionary activities, in direct defiance of gentry sentiment, ran the risk of alienating this class and destroying future effectiveness.
单选题 In a vague way, anti-Christian feeling stemmed from ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析]文章分析的是近代中国人对基督教的反对及其根源。本题属于细节题,答案对应于第一段第 二句:On the more intangible side... of the Western countries,其中的intangible对应于题句中的vague,而intrusion则对应于A中的invaders。
单选题 The author would agree that ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 分析推理题。文章第一段第二句后一分句首先用an external scapegoat(外部的替罪羊)表明作者认为中国内部的混乱与西方没有直接关系,然后用most important... 后的部分指出由于种族优越感的传统,中国人早就对(外来的)佛教不满,只是在17世纪后这种不满集中到了西方基督教身上。由此可以推知,作者认为中国内部的问题源于其本身而不是西方国家,选B。
单选题 Which of the following statements would the author agree?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。答案信息对应于第一段第二句。参见上题分析。A虽与该句中a virile tradition of ethnocentricism相符,但作者对它是持否定态度的;C在文中没有提到。
单选题 Missionaries ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 分析推理题。文章第二、三两段说明了基督教传教士招致中国人攻击的原因。其中第三段后面三句的内容分别对应于A、C和B项,都是作者的观点,因此选D。
单选题 Provincial authorities ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 分析推理题。文章最后两段说明的是中国地方官员的态度对基督教在中国传播的影响。其中最后一段指出,由于官员对自己的治所一般不熟悉,所以要依赖于地方的地主阶层;而前文中已经说明,地主阶层对传教活动是持反对态度的,所以地方官员在执行条约和朝廷的命令时总是很拖拉(dilatory,见倒数第二段)。由此可以推知B、C两项正确,选D。