^APR 13 1959 * 
 
 2)’51Z\ 
 
 ■ C74 
 
-isi 
 
 Alread' 
 
 
 Bx 
 
 IraM.Condit 
 
Behold, these shall come from far: 
 And, lo, these from the north 
 and from the west: 
 
 And these from 
 
 THE LAND OF SINIM. 
 Arise, shine; 
 
 for thy light is come, 
 
 And the glory of the Lord 
 is risen upon thee. 
 
 For, behold, the darkness 
 
 shall cover the earth, 
 
 And gross darkness 
 the people: 
 
 But the Lord shall arise 
 upon thee. 
 
 And His glory shall be seen 
 upon thee. 
 
OO ytLy J&zav 
 
 Wko been a true b^lpmeat all these years, 
 i/’bis little volume is affectionately inscribed. 
 
Price for copies 15c. Proceeds to be applied for 
 purchase of Chinese Bibles and Testaments to replace 
 those destroyed by fire- Address 
 
 REV. I. M. CONDIT, 
 
 Pacific Grove, Cal. 
 
 LANGUAGE 
 L IT ERA TURK 
 
 RELIGIONS 
 
 AX J> 
 
 EVOLUT ION 
 
 OF 
 
 CHINA 
 
 REV. IRA M . CON It IT. 9>. 
 
 I>. 
 
 AlTTHOtt OK THE CHINAMAN AS WE SEE HIM,” ENGLISH A? 
 CHINESE READERS ,’ 5 * ENGLISH AND CHINESE 
 
 DICTIONARY,” ^ GREAT TRUTHS,” ETC, 
 
 OAKLAND, CAL. 
 
NOTE 
 
 value whh-h fest passing out from the old into the new. The 
 
 den4d v ew ^hat ft!?” ? re s f u PP osed to have i. in the con- 
 T f;? ?] evi “ at the * v £ lve ot these two phases of her life 
 The first two present a little insight into old China’s history 
 
 r hlethe third «&w. the development oHhV 
 light of modern^ wonderfu11 .'- coming into the 
 
 My friends have some of them been interested in the r»a- 
 pers, and I have thought they might be of benefit to othe P r< 
 and perhaps to the Mission Study Classes, who may wi^h to 
 ^ T f I 1 a 1 i Ut Shel •’ the matters °f which thev treat * 
 fTof ake P^? ure in acknowledging help from the writings of 
 
 en?ly g fdenhfi^ eSe Tt h ^ arj Wh ° has s * ^ng anYprolin- 
 L L ^ dentlfied Wlth China,— Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D. I>. 
 
 Oakland, Cal. T M c 
 
I 
 
 THE 
 
 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 
 OF CHINA 
 
 he Chinese language without doubt is the 
 
 O most ancient one now spoken. With the 
 exception of the Hebrew, it is also the 
 oldest written language in the world. 
 
 The formation of their characters goes back to 
 a Yei' 3 7 early period, which cannot be 
 Origin of less than 2205 years before Christ. 
 Characters orc jer to have a better mode of re- 
 cording facts and ideas than the knotted cords 
 
 then in use, resort was made to an imitation 
 of the various forms of nature. Rude symbols 
 were brst used for the sun, moon, hills, animals, 
 parts of the body, and other objects in nature. 
 The pristine forms are modified to suit the use of 
 pen, ink and paper, instead of the iron style and 
 bamboo tablet first employed. Square forms and 
 angular strokes gradually took the place of round 
 and curved ones. The sun was originally repre- 
 sented by a circle with a dot in the center for its 
 spots, and the moon by tw o curved lines show- 
 ing it at its quarter. The mouth w 7 as represented 
 by a plain circle. Now in these and many others, 
 the circles are squared, and the curved lines are 
 straightened. The character for man is an up- 
 right stroke for the body, branching down into 
 two strokes for the legs. A tree is an upright 
 stroke for the trunk and two cross ones for the 
 
 5 
 
branches. A carriage is an upright stroke for the 
 axle, two cross ones at the end for the wheels, and 
 a square between for the body. A horizontal 
 stroke and three upright ones of unequal length is 
 for mountains. The resemblance between these 
 and the object is quite clear, as is also the case 
 with many others I might cite. 
 
 From these simple object-pictures, the next step 
 was a combination to form ideas. 
 Characters ^ horizontal stroke for the horizon 
 om me an( ] the sun above it, makes the 
 character for morning. Sun and moon combined, 
 is the character for bright. A square for four 
 walls with a man in the centre, is the one for pris- 
 oner. One and man combined — the one man — the 
 Emperor, is the character for great. Another one 
 stroke added — the one great, is the character for 
 Heaven. Two characters for tree combined, is a 
 forest. Mouth and four strokes above it, is 
 A mouth and a dog, is to bark. A pig 
 roof, is the idea of home or family. A 
 beside a pig under a roof, is the idea of 
 marriage for woman. A different character is 
 used for the marriage of man. It is composed of 
 two characters, one to take, and the other, a girl 
 — to take a girl. A woman beside a broom means 
 a wife. A woman under a roof is the idea of rest, 
 and two women, a quarrel. Water and every- 
 where, makes the character for sea. A mouth and 
 a lamb — a lamblike mouth — is the one for good. 
 Words between two dogs is a lawsuit. 
 
 These examples serve to show how the Chinese 
 characters, from the germ of simple objects, have 
 grown up through complex combinations, into a 
 written language expressing all the various con- 
 ceptions of the mind. 
 
 words, 
 under a 
 woman 
 
 6 
 
But while the language had its origin in these 
 primitive objects and their combinations, it would 
 be a great mistake to suppose that this applies 
 to the whole range of characters. Those in which 
 a plain resemblance can be traced to the original 
 objects represented, are only about 600; and only 
 some 840 compose those formed by a combina- 
 tion of the primitive symbols, so as to express 
 ideas and thought. 
 
 At this point those who used the language, 
 either saw how cumbrous this would become, or 
 else their invention failed. So the main bod} 7 of 
 the characters, comprising some 23,000, were 
 formed bv combinations, more or less arbitrary, 
 of those already in use. As the twenty-six letters 
 of the alphabet can form any number of words; 
 so the original symbols were combined to form 
 the great body of Chinese characters. There are 
 two hundred and fourteen Radicals which form 
 the basis of the characters. Each one has its 
 radical, and they 7 are arranged under these Rad- 
 icals in the order of the number of strokes which 
 each contain. These strokes which compose a 
 character, rise in rare instances to as many as 
 fifty-two. 
 
 Number of 
 Characters 
 
 The whole number of characters 
 sanctioned by good usage does not 
 vary greatly 7 from 25.000, though 
 there are many 7 more than this in existence; but 
 even these contain many thousands very 7 seldom 
 met with, so that five or six thousand practically 7 
 cover all that are contained in ordinary Chinese 
 writings. In the Bible only 7 about four thousand 
 are used. 
 
 The language is very 7 meager in vocables. The 
 
dictionary I use only has 707 dif- 
 Sounds and ferent sounds. This defect has giv- 
 Tones en r i S e to a variation in the modu- 
 lation of the sounds. In my dictionary as an 
 illustration, there are 81 different characters pro- 
 nounced kay. To help relieve this sameness, tones 
 are used. Kay is pronounced in six different tones, 
 or modulations of the voice; and each tone repre- 
 sents a different character with an entirely differ- 
 ent meaning. But this is not all. There are twen- 
 tv-two different Kays belonging to one of these 
 six tones, and a less number to the others; each 
 representing also a different character and mean- 
 ing. Which Kay then is used? The context helps 
 material^ m determining, and yet there is needed 
 a sight of the charac ter in order to have an intel- 
 ligent understanding. The same rules apply to 
 all the other vocables, only that some have eight 
 instead of six tones. 
 
 The written language being addressed rather to 
 the eye, it is the spoken language that is inten- 
 ded for the ear. The language is practically a 
 double one. The spoken is considered too coarse 
 for the elegance necessary in the written. Mis- 
 sionaries have reduced the colloquial to writing; 
 but the people, especially the scholars, are very 
 slow in bringing themselves to its use. Many of 
 the same words are used in both, but the setting 
 of them is very different. Many spoken words 
 had no character with which to write them, and 
 characters had to be adapted for this purpose,. 
 
 The same written language is used all over Chi- 
 na as far as characters are concerned; 
 
 Ia ec s but there are innumerable dialects of the 
 spoken language and each pronounce the writ- 
 
 8 
 
ten language ac- 
 cording to their 
 own dialect. The 
 Chine.se never 
 move from one 
 part of the coun- 
 try to another. 
 Generation after 
 generation, they 
 are born, live and 
 die, on the same 
 spot. For this 
 reason local dia- 
 lects have grown 
 up. Even at the 
 distance of fifteen 
 miles different 
 shades of pro- 
 nunciation will 
 be fo u n d; and 
 when two hun- 
 dred miles is 
 reached, it be- 
 THE FORTUNE-TELLER comes difficult to 
 
 understand each other. 
 
 The language is a monosyllabic one, and neither 
 the characters or their names undergo any change. 
 Whether they are used as nouns, verbs, adject- 
 ives, or any part of speech; or in different number 
 gender, or case, they never alter. Still there are 
 certain rules which govern the construction of 
 Chinese, and constitute its real grammar. 
 
 As in the written, so too in the spoken, much 
 confusion arose on account of so many words 
 having the same sound. This has been obviated 
 in several ways. One is b\- joining words having 
 
 9 " 
 
the same meaning but a different sound; like £ ai 
 meaning to see, and keen, meaning also to see: 
 writing the two, £ ai-keen, gives the one idea, to 
 see. Another way is by the use of classifiers. 
 r] Every name of a thing has with it a 
 
 assi xers c ] ags ifi er# Yat-Kan.Ook , Ook is house, 
 
 Yat is one, and Ka?i is the classifier — “one piece 
 house.” This is why in “Pidgin-English,” piecee 
 is used so much. This Pidgin-English grew up 
 from the difficulty of learning Chinese, and an at- 
 tempt to use the two languages together, Rather 
 an amusing instance of its use occured in Shang- 
 hai some time ago. King Kalakau of the Hawai- 
 ian Islands was stopping at a hotel. Two Amer- 
 ican gentlemen called and asked the proprietor if 
 the King was in. He shouted in a loud tone to 
 the Chinese waiter, “Boy, that piecee king top 
 side hab got?” The boy replied, “Hab got.” The 
 proprietor turned to the gentlemen and said, “His 
 majest}' is in. Pray walk up stairs.” 
 
 Another way of relieving the sameness of sound 
 in the spoken language, as I have already said of 
 the book language, is bv using tones. This gives 
 rise to many absurd mistakes. A missionary 
 who had not been very long in China wanted 
 some mutton, and sent his servant to buy 
 three pounds of what he called yeung ma yoke . 
 Absurd servan ^ a ft er being gone a long 
 
 Mistakes ti me > came back with a lot of sheep 
 tails, saying that he had been all over 
 the market, and could not find so many. It would 
 take a good many tails to make three pounds. 
 Instead of using ma, sheep, he used the rising in- 
 flection, ma, tail. 
 
 A 3 r oung missionary who was very anxious to 
 preach the Gospel, in describing the New Jerusa- 
 
 10 
 
lem, spoke of its golden streets and gates of pearl. 
 What was his horror to have one of the audience 
 ask, “Do you really mean to sa3q that the gates 
 of Heaven are made of pork?” This absurd mis- 
 take was caused by the fact that the word for 
 pearl and the word for pork have exactly the 
 same sound and tone— chu. He should have used 
 the classifier, nap, yatnap chn , “one round piece 
 pearl.” But he made a stronger point than he sup- 
 posed, as the prospect of abundance of pork in 
 Heaven was very attractive to a Chinaman. 
 
 Another missionary annoyed bv a crowd of 
 boys on the street, turned and said to them, Hui 
 Kwai, He wanted to tell them to go home, but 
 instead of that, told them to go to the devil. 
 Kwai, means home, and kwai, with the rising in- 
 flection. means devil. Another one in speaking of 
 God as Heavenly Father, called him Tui Foo. One 
 of the hearers said, “What does he mean by talk- 
 ing to us about his crazy father?” Tin , Heavenly 
 has an aspirate, but tin , crazy, has no aspirate. 
 
 Skill in writing of their characters the 
 
 Writing Chinese display high skill. They use a 
 painter’s brush of the finest quality; and 
 writing is ranked by them as the highest of thj 
 fine arts. There is no other language on earth 
 so well adapted for a display of skill in penman- 
 ship, and they have used it well. 
 
 There are six different styles of writing the Chi- 
 nese characters. The business style is a free run- 
 ning hand, quite different in appearance from the 
 other more formal styles; well suited to business 
 correspondence and book-keeping, and is famil- 
 iar to those who ma}^ hardly be able to read their 
 classics intelligently. 
 
 11 
 
Printing was discovered in the year 900 A, D., or 
 five hundred years before the art was 
 Chinese known in Europe. As to the Chinese 
 
 rintmg mo( j e Q f printing, the first step is to 
 write the characters on thin paper. Then it is 
 pasted on blocks, face downward. The paper is 
 moistened, and carefully rubbed off, leaving the 
 impression of the characters upon the block. By 
 a sharp chisel, the wood between is cut away, 
 causing the characters to stand out in relief like a 
 stereotype plate, and all is ready for the printers. 
 
 Two pages are always cut on one block. Be- 
 tween them is a column in which is cut the title 
 of the book, the chapter and the page. When the 
 leaf is folded through the middle of this column, 
 the characters appear on the edge, partly on both 
 pages of the double leaf. The Chinese read from 
 right to left, and up and down, instead of across. 
 Metal type is now fast coming into use. 
 
 The Chinese are greatly" given to printing pla- 
 cards, posters and all sorts of advertisements, 
 pasted on walls, or scattered around, as we do. 
 They- are of all sizes and designs. Many of them 
 are illustrated in bright colors. Caricatures of 
 all kinds are common, as the Chinese have a high 
 sense of the ludicrous. Circulating libraries car- 
 ried from house to house, are common, and book- 
 stores abound everywhere, as the Chinese people 
 are great readers. 
 
 A language whose primary idea is a representa- 
 tion of objects of sense, must be an imperfect ve- 
 hicle of abstract thought, and obstruct the high- 
 est exercise of intellect; and yet, beginning from a 
 time long before that of any other living langu- 
 age, they have built up with it a literature 
 
 12 
 
wonderful in its age, m its extent and its char- 
 acter. 
 
 The first book of the Chinese Classics is 
 Records ca ^ e ^j Shu King, or Book of Records. 
 
 Though it contains much that is myth- 
 ological and incredible, it has also some reliable 
 records of a very remote period, Rising out of its 
 fabulous stories, there gradually appear histor- 
 ical facts, which grow more credible and distinct 
 as they come down the stream of time. Some- 
 where about 2205 B. C. marks the beginning of 
 the first real character in Chinese history, called 
 Yu the Great. At that time the people began to 
 emerge from barbarism, writing having been in- 
 vented, and some chronology kept. Yu was the 
 founder of the first dynasty, called the Ha dynas- 
 ty; when the country began to crystallize into 
 more permanent form. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of note, that an eclipse of 
 the sun, appearance of comets, and other astro- 
 nomical data, recorded in the annals of this first 
 dynasty, have been verified by astronomers, and 
 goes far to help pronounce in favor of the trust- 
 worthiness of these ancient records. The great 
 antiquity of the Chinese people: their faithfulness 
 in accurately recording events; their time-honored 
 custom of appealing to history; as well as their 
 practice of recording strange happenings in na- 
 ture, make their records a source of reliable and 
 useful knowledge. 
 
 It was not, however, until the third, or Chow 
 dynasty, beginning 1122 B, C,, that 
 Appear sa £ es appeared, and literature became 
 an important factor in the life of the 
 Chinese people; culminating 551 B. C, in the ap- 
 pearance of Confucius: and soon after, his succes- 
 
 13 
 
sor, Mencius; and about the same time also, 
 Lotsze, the founder of the Tauist religion. Accord- 
 ing to the Chinese mind, with the appearance of 
 this galaxy of sages, civilization reached its high- 
 est point, and until the beginning of this centur\ r , 
 has remained under the rule and ideas of that 
 period. 
 
 China had already accumulat'ed large stores of 
 . their own histor\ r , and various kinds 
 A°Reformer °* literature. Confucius early mas- 
 tered these. He stored his mind 
 with all the books and learning of the ancients. 
 Impressed with the superiorit}- of former times, 
 and sad degeneracy of his own, he entered upon 
 the work of a Reformer. He sought to do this in 
 two ways: by instructing those who became his 
 pupils; and by establishing the example of good 
 government. In pursuance of this latter object, 
 he became Minister of State, at the age of hftv- 
 three, in his own native kingdom of Lu\ for China 
 at that time, was divided into several petty king- 
 doms. So prosperous and improved in morals 
 did it become under him, that it roused the jeal- 
 ousy of rival states. 
 
 To counteract this, they resorted to the strata- 
 gem of sending to the Prince of Lu a band of 
 beautiful girls, who were skilled in music and 
 dancing. These soon ensnared the amorous 
 young Prince, and he forsook the plans of reform 
 to which Confucius had inspired him. The sage 
 was disgusted, and retiring to private life, hence- 
 forth devoted himself to the instruction of 3’outh. 
 His fame attracted scholars of alt ages to sit un- 
 der his teachings. No less than three thousand 
 came under his instruction. Seventy -two of his 
 disciples are now enrolled among the sages of 
 
 14 
 
Chin 
 
 Dynasty 
 
 China. Bv his teaching, and the books that he 
 prepared, Confucius did more than he could have 
 done in any other position to mould the destinies 
 of China. 
 
 This long Chow dynasty, covering the time of 
 Confucius, was one of constant warfare between 
 petty states, which, as I said, then composed the 
 country. One of these feudal states, named Chin, 
 was the most powerful. Its chieftain, 225 B. C,, 
 finally entered the ancient capital of Shigan Fu , 
 and the dynasty of Chow at last came to an end. 
 This Singan Fu is the same ancient capital to 
 which the Empress Dowager fled on the downfall 
 of Peking during the Boxer trouble. 
 
 The dynasty of Chin, which succeeded 
 that of Chow, swept away the feu- 
 dal system, united the nation in one, 
 and gave it the present name of Chin, or China. 
 The scholars of the Confucian school were bitterly 
 opposed to this unifying of the Empire, and 
 longed to go back to the good old times of the 
 feudal system which Confucius praised so much. 
 In order to blot out the very remembrance of this 
 ancient system, Chin ordered every book to be 
 burned, especially the writings of Confucius and 
 Mencius; and nearly five hundred of the greatest 
 scholars of the day were put to death. For this 
 reason, the dynasty of Chin, though it has the 
 honor of giving to China its name, is not the one 
 Chinese love. 
 
 The succeeding dynasty of Han is the 
 one they most highty esteem, and 
 delight to call themselves “The Sons 
 of Han.” This dynasty of Han, running from 
 206 B, C. to 203 A. D. deserves to be called the 
 beginning of modern Chinese history. Delivered 
 
 15 
 
 Han 
 
 Dynasty 
 
from anarchy and t} 7 ranny, the nation entered 
 upon a new career. It was marked by a great 
 revival of letters and cultivation of learning. The 
 classical books were found not to be all de- 
 stroyed, but came out one after another from 
 their hiding places. Confucianism was again 
 raised to honor. The revival of learning demand- 
 ed cheaper writing material than silk or bamboo 
 tablets, and paper was invented, and books began 
 to multiply in great numbers. 
 
 Another ancient book beside the 
 Book of Book of Records is the Yik-King , or 
 
 Book of Changes. This is held in 
 great veneration by the Chinese on account of its 
 antiquity, and the occult wisdom which it is sup- 
 posed to contain; but which no mortal can ever 
 hope to understand. It has in it a species of divi- 
 nation which has done much to bind the people in 
 the chains of superstition; and is to this day the 
 text book of fortune-tellers, as it has been for 
 three thousand } T ears. This curious book is found- 
 ed upon the Chinese theoiw of creation. They say 
 all material things proceed from two great princi- 
 ples or elements — the Yam and the Yeung , the male 
 and the female powers. The male is the celestial 
 element which generates, and the female is the ter- 
 restrial, which is acted upon. By these all mater- 
 ial things are produced. Man was formed by 
 these dual powers, and naturally comes under 
 their influence, together with all the principles of 
 human actions. So upon this fanciful ground- 
 work is built up a system from which anything 
 and everything is deduced. 
 
 The Book of Odes is one of the oldest 
 B ?°J^ , collection of odes in existence, having its 
 ° es origin, at least in part. 1100 B. C. But 
 
 16 
 
its verses have no flights of imagination in them, 
 and are interesting mostly on account of their an- 
 tiquity, and their insight into the Chinese life of 
 their times. 
 
 The book of Rites is a wonderful book 
 B f f/ites * n practical effect which it has had 
 ° 1 es on the Chinese manners and life. It is a 
 
 code of etiquette for court, social and religious life, 
 for all their actions, and for every relation in 
 which they stand. It has been mighty in mould- 
 ing the manners ofthe Chinese, and making them 
 the most tremendously ceremonious people there 
 is on the face of the earth. 
 
 Annals The Annals °f Lu a book which gives 
 of Lu a seiaes of historical incidents extending 
 through some 250 years, previous to the 
 time of Confucius; and seeking to enforce the prin- 
 ciples of good government drawn from the good 
 old times of the ancient rulers, along with many 
 of those practical observations which so disting- 
 uish the writings of the sage. 
 
 These five books which I have mentioned, are 
 Five called the Five Classics, and all refer to 
 Classics the times previous to Confucius; compil- 
 ed and edited by him, and bearing upon 
 them the imprint of the sage’s mind, until he be- 
 comes the spirit of their inspiration. 
 
 Next comes what is called the Four 
 Four Books B 00 ks, containing the personal teach- 
 ings of Confucius and his disciples. 
 They are called The Great Study, The Just Mean, 
 The Sayings of Confucius and The Discourses of 
 Mencius. So full are they of fine theories of virtue, 
 wise and good teachings, that they have been a 
 great power to mould and form the Chinese people 
 socially, politically and religiously. These nine 
 
 17 
 
books form the Chinese Classics, or as they have 
 been called, their Canon of Scripture; and are the 
 basis upon which all their literature, and their 
 peculiar character too as a people, is founded. 
 
 Another remarkable book which is not strictly' 
 speaking a classic as, though professing to be 
 written by Confucius, it is not now believed to 
 have come from his pen; yet holds quite as high a 
 place in their literature as the real classics. It is 
 Memoirs the Hau King , or Alemoirs of Filial 
 of Piety. It dates back to the first centu- 
 Filial Piety r y k e f ore Christ, and was reputed to 
 have been found in the wall of a house belonging 
 to a descendant of Confucius. Who the real auth- 
 or is, is not known, but it is so much after the 
 general character of the teachings of Confucius, 
 that I cannot forbear quoting from its first sec- 
 tion. It say's, “Confucius sitting one day at leis- 
 ure, with his pupil Tsang Tsan by his side, said to 
 him, ‘Do you understand how the ancient kings, 
 who possessed the greatest virtue and the best 
 moral principles, rendered the whole empire so 
 obedient, that the people lived in peace and har- 
 mony, and no ill will existed between superiors 
 and inferiors?’ Tsang Tsan, rising from his seat, 
 replied, ‘Destitute as I am of discernment, how 
 can I understand the subject?’ ‘Filial duty,’ said 
 the sage, ‘is the root of virtue, and the stem from 
 which instruction in moral principles, springs 
 forth. Sit down and I will explain this to you. 
 The first thing that filial duty requires of us is, 
 that we carefull}' preserve from all injury, and in 
 a perfect state, the bodies which we have received 
 from our parents. And when we acquire for oursel- 
 ves a station in the world, we should regulate our 
 conduct by' correct principles, so as to transmit 
 
 18 
 
our names to future generations, and reflect glory 
 on our parents: this is the ultimate aim of filial 
 duty. Thus it commences in attention to parents; 
 is continued through a series of services to the 
 prince: and is completed by the elevation of our- 
 selves.’ ” 
 
 The book contains only eighteen short chapters, 
 which school children commit to memory. It 
 makes, as do the real teachings of Confucius, filial 
 piety the co rner stone upon which the whole fab- 
 ric of Chinese institutions is builded. 
 
 To explain and elucidate, both the 
 n ,° d Er J d Memoirs of Filial Piety and the elas- 
 
 sics, no end oi books have been writ- 
 ten. Coming down the stream of time for 3,000 
 years, they have multiplied and increased, until 
 one is lost in the labyrinth of China’s lore. They 
 have a catalogue which contains a synopsis of 
 many of the best books in the language. This cat- 
 alogue numbers 112 volumes of 300 pages each, 
 and contains the names of upward of 20,000 
 works. In the Ming dynasty, over 500 \ r ears ago, 
 a Cj'clopedic digest of the Imperial Library, which 
 contained 300,000 volumes was made. Many lit- 
 erary men, and thousands of copyists were em- 
 ployed on it, and when completed it numbered 
 over 11,000 volumes. Another somewhat similar 
 compilation was made in a later dynasty, which 
 numbered 6000 volumes. But I cannot stop to 
 enumerate their books. They are simply innumer- 
 able: and of many different kinds; commentaries 
 of their classics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, biog- 
 raphies, poetry, dramas, histories, novels, and so 
 forth. 
 
 19 
 
Chinese Chinese history is perfectly enormous 
 History its extent, and vastly beyond that of 
 any other nation on earth. History is 
 not with them as with us, a w r ork of art, but a 
 bare chronicle of events. This is not that they are 
 unable to philosophize on events, but because of 
 the fault in their model Confucius, whose annals 
 are nothing but a diary of events both great and 
 small. They have taken great care to hand down 
 an unbroken record of their national life. It be- 
 gins with the Emperor, noting ever} T word and 
 action of his daity life, and extends to every offici- 
 al, and to every event in the life of each dynasty. 
 
 Dr. Martin tells ot a General, 600 B.C., w r ho 
 took possession of the wife of another. “His sov- 
 ereign in turn deprived him of the facinating beau- 
 ty. The General in revenge killed the prince, and 
 when the court chronicler put on record this chap- 
 ter of infamies, the General put him to death, and 
 tore the leaf from the Archives of State. A brother 
 of the historian renewed the record, and suffered 
 death for doing so. A leaf was again torn out, and 
 a third brother presented himself, pen in hand, to 
 repeat the tale and seal it with his blood. The ty- 
 rant touched by his martyr-like spirit, spared his 
 life, and submitted to the stigma. The incident is 
 handed down as a proof of the unflinching fidelity 
 of ancient historians.” The ponderous histories 
 which have been written out from these annals, 
 I cannot stop to even mention. 
 
 Poetry is a very prolific source of Chi- 
 oe ry nese literature, some may think that 
 the Chinese being so practical in their nature, are 
 not capable of being poetic. Not so. They are 
 a people devoted to poetry, Epic poetry is not 
 to be found, but all other kinds, and especially 
 
 20 
 
the Lyric, abound in quantities without limit. 
 Books of ballads are found in many homes. The 
 women find great delight in singing them to their 
 own music, and ballad singers may be seen and 
 heard in public places. Much of their so called 
 poetry is artificial, where the jingle and length 
 of line is more regarded than the sense. On 
 the other hand they have much that breathes the 
 true poetic spirit, and some even which rises to 
 a high place. Here is a little specimen of four 
 stanzas which were written by a lady of the 
 Court 18 B. C., as an ode inscribed on a fan, 
 and presented to the Emperor. 
 
 Of fresh new silk, all snowy white, 
 
 And round as harvest moon: 
 
 A pledge of purity and love, 
 
 . A small but welcome boon. 
 
 While summer lasts, borne in the hand, 
 
 Or folded on the breast, 
 
 ‘Twill gently soothe the burning brow, 
 
 Ind charm thee to thy rest. 
 
 But, Ah, when Autumn frosts descend, 
 
 And winter’s wind blows cold, 
 
 No longer sought, no longer loved, 
 
 ’Twill lie in dust and mold. 
 
 This silken fan, then, deign accept, 
 
 Sad emblem of my lot — 
 
 Caressed and fondled for an hour, 
 
 Then speedily forgot. 
 
 Poetry reached its greatest height in the ninth 
 and tenth centuries, during the Tang dynasty: 
 and the poems of those times have been published 
 by imperial authority in 900 volumes. 
 
 Drama About the seventh century arose the 
 drama, and the theatre has since held 
 a prominent place in Chinese life. As a people, 
 they have a strong passion for theatricals. The 
 
 21 
 
ACTORS 
 
theatre may be said to be their national amuse- 
 ment. Their passion for the dramatic, shows it- 
 self on many little occasions. When aroused in 
 sell defence, or excited in any way, they will 
 assume the dramatic, and go through the part 
 of an actor both in language and in attitudes. 
 Some of their dramas are open to serious ob- 
 jection on account of their unehastness; but 
 most of their plays are on the side of virtue and 
 morality. The principal part of the performances 
 in their theatres are dramas taken from the 
 higher walks of life; but they also have farces 
 and pantomimes which are much relished by the 
 people. Their dramas are of interminable length, 
 stretched out through many tedious nights. 
 Novels Chinese language abounds in novels. 
 
 They are as a people passionately fond 
 of stories and story-telling. They have profess- 
 ional stor\’--tellers, whom I have often seen on 
 the street reciting to a crowd with dramatic 
 power some story of love, war or magic. The 
 scholar as well as the child relishes a good story, 
 which may be romantic, or historical, or both. 
 The historical novel is no modern invention. Few 
 books in Chinese literature are more noted and 
 popular than the Sam Kwok Che, a historical 
 novel written 1550 years ago. Myriads of works 
 of fiction are found in the language, and they 
 largely form the mental food of the lower classes. 
 A great share of them, especially in the shorter 
 stories, are demoralizing and objectionable on 
 account of their immorality, As to their plot, 
 adventure, heroes, heroines, desperate troubles 
 and happy endings, they are very much after the 
 style of our own A series defect consists in long, 
 minute descriptions of trifling things, carried on 
 
 23 
 
in a conversational style, which soon becomes 
 tedious. 
 
 Chinese 
 that is 
 that of 
 have failed to reduce 
 
 Ethical 
 
 Teachings 
 
 literature has much in it 
 philosophical; especialh* in 
 the ethical character. 1 hey 
 their systems to any scien- 
 tific form, but are found in great nuggets, scatter- 
 ed throughout their writings, Their ethical 
 teachings, are of a high and practical order. 
 Confucious said, “I am not an author but an 
 editor.” His own writings are few. Besides a 
 small compend of history, the only original work 
 which came from his own pen is a short essay 
 called, “The Great Study;” which as I have al- 
 read}- said is one of the Four Books. It is a gem 
 of high morals, and I quote from its opening chap- 
 ter, as showing the gist of the whole. “Those 
 ancients who desire to promote the practice of 
 virtue throughout the world, first took care to 
 govern their own states. In order to govern their 
 states, they first regulated their own families. In 
 order to regulate their own families, they first 
 practiced virtue in their persons. In order to 
 the practice of personal virtue, they first cultivat- 
 ed right feeling. In order to insure right feelings, 
 they first had sincerity of purpose. In order to 
 secure sincerity of purpose, they extended their 
 knowledge. Knowledge is enlarged by inquiring 
 into the nature of things,’ 
 
 Five Confucius made the principle rela- 
 
 Relations tions of the individual to societ 3 ^ to 
 be five; the governmental, paren- 
 tal, conjugal, fraternal and friendship; and the 
 cardinal virtues of moral excellence are also 
 five; Benevolence, Justice, Order, Wisdom and 
 Faith. Their philosophy compared with that ol 
 
 24 
 
Greece and Rome, is far superior in the purity of 
 its teachings, and in the attention paid to the 
 rules governing the common intercourse of life: 
 but is inferior in the depth of its searchings after 
 truth. Confucius never inquired as to, “What is 
 truth?” He always taught on the principle of 
 what is proper or expedient. This unreasoning, 
 dogmatic way of teaching has left its strong im- 
 press on the Chinese mind. They bring every 
 thing to the rule of propriety, custom and tangi- 
 ble realities of life. Tell the Chinese that a thing 
 is proper — is custom, and it is enough. It is the 
 end of all argument. The Chinese skillfully con- 
 nect private morals with political ethics, and ex- 
 patiate beautifully on virtue, but make little 
 inquiry into the nature of virtue and ground of 
 obligation. Confucius and his followers believed 
 in a moral government, but avoided prying into 
 hidden mysteries. He said, “to give one’s self 
 earnestly to the duties due to men, and while re- 
 specting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, 
 in wisdom.” And yet his teachings are not as 
 atheistic as might appear. He called the Sup- 
 reme Being by the vague term of Heaven, yet 
 ascribed to it more of personality than we might 
 suppose. He said among other like things, “The 
 superior man fears three things, and the first is 
 Heaven. 
 
 When it comes to the held of speculative philo- 
 sophy. Chinese literature is far from being silent. 
 The Sung Dynasty ten centuries ago, was a time 
 when much attention was paid to philosophizing. 
 Evolution They anticipated in their speculations 
 many of the theories of modern sci- 
 ence. Evolution is no new thing. The Chinese 
 taught it a thousand years ago. They attempt- 
 
 25 
 
ed to reason out a process in nature, by which, 
 as they said, “the primitive void was transform- 
 ed into matter,” Says one writer, “Heaven and 
 earth, with all they contain, are nothing but 
 transformations of one primitive force,” They 
 sought to explain the evolutionary progress from 
 the imperfect to the more perfect, both in dead 
 and live nature. One of their famous philoso- 
 phers said, “the immensity of space, though 
 called the great void, is not void. It is filled with 
 subtle substance. In fact there is no such thing 
 as vacuum.” Does this not sound much like the 
 so called scientific speculations of to-day? 
 
 Lit r The literary character of the 
 
 Examinations Chinese is seen in the fact that 
 their government is founded on 
 competative literary examinations. We are seek- 
 ing to institute Civil Service. The Chinese had 
 it 2200 B. C. Their system was gradually en- 
 larged and improved until it was established on 
 its present basis a thousand years ago. Every 
 officer in the Chinese government from the high- 
 est to the lowest, has to pass through a long 
 series of severe examinations, in which, among 
 thousands of failures, the happy few who success- 
 fully pass, are raised to office. Not more than 
 two or three per cent are successful; so that the 
 Mandarins of China, almost without exception, 
 are the choicest ones ol the educated classes. The 
 Empire was founded on letters, and during all 
 these long centuries, it has stood as the chief 
 corner-stone. If there was a wider range of sub- 
 jects given to the students in their examinations, 
 their present system, imperfect though it is, 
 would be of great benefit to the people, and be 
 worthy of our imitation, (Presto!! It is done,) 
 
 26 
 
Fifteen centuries ago, there was founded in 
 Peking the famous Imperial Academy, which is 
 the source whence eminates every thing of a liter- 
 ary character connected with the Empire, from 
 the smallest service of writing a name, to the 
 preparing of national histories, and presiding over 
 the governmental examinations of the Empire, 
 Proverbs Chinese literature abounds in pro- 
 verbs, of which the people are very 
 fond. Their style of composition is well adapted 
 to them, in its conciseness and terseness. They de- 
 light in a kind of parallelism, and the expression of 
 ideas in finely balanced phrases. I will close with 
 a few selected proverbs, having you remember 
 that their beauty is greatly impaired when they 
 are put into English. 
 
 Rather die than act contrary to principle. 
 
 One wrong thought may cause a life-long regret. 
 
 When you have fully done your duty, abide the 
 will of Heaven. 
 
 Better be upright and want, than wicked and 
 have superabundance. 
 
 Virtue practiced to be seen, is not real virtue; 
 vice which fears to be seen, is real vice. 
 
 Do not lace your boots in a melon field, nor 
 adjust your hat under a plumb tree. (Avoid Sus- 
 picion,) 
 
 It is man’s to scheme, it is Heaven’s to accom- 
 plish. 
 
 If a little cash does not go, much cash will not 
 come. 
 
 Cheap things are not good, good things are 
 not cheap. 
 
 Take no notice of what you hear said on the 
 pillow. 
 
 27 
 
KWAN TAI — GOD OF WAR 
 
II 
 
 THE 
 
 RELIGIONS OF CHINA 
 
 hinese history conies clown to us moistened 
 
 with the waters of Xoah's Flood. ” It 
 gives us facts which help to corroborate the 
 Mosaic account of the Deluge. In the con- 
 fusion of tongues at Babel, when, “the Lord 
 scattered them abroad upon the face of all the 
 earth,” some must early have found their way to 
 China, and laid the foundation of that nation. 
 
 Of what the religion of the Chinese consisted 
 during those primative ages, we can only catch 
 some glimpses. 
 
 ers — One and Great — “ The One Great." It is one of 
 the simplest characters, and therefore, among the 
 first that was formed. From this we see, that 
 the first Chinese must have had some idea of the 
 One Great Power above. To this day. they use 
 Heaven in much the same way as we do, when we 
 speak of Heaven as the overuling Power above. 
 They say, “Heaven's eye is near.” “Heaven sees 
 into the future.” “If we sin against Heaven, we 
 have no one to pray to,” “And yet, to Heaven 
 the Chinese can hardly be said to have ever given 
 a distinct personality. It is only used by them 
 m the pantheistic sense of the highest power of 
 
 Heaven 
 
 As I have already said, the character 
 for Heaven is made up of two charact- 
 
 29 
 
nature, or some vague power which resides in 
 the visible heavens. 
 
 When the ancient Chinese wished to give 
 Ruler personality to the powers of nature, they 
 ove used the word, “Sheung-Tai,” “Ruler 
 above,’' “Supreme Ruler.’* That most ancient 
 book of the Chinese, the Shu King, which records 
 events that took place over 2000 B. C., sa 3 r s, 
 that when Shun was made Emperor, “He sacri- 
 ficed, with the. ordinary forms, to SheungTai.” 
 In the book of Odes, running back as far as 1700 
 B. C., Sheung Tai is spoken of as the Ruler of Em- 
 perors, who aided the good and punished the bad. 
 When we reach the famous Chow dynasty, begin- 
 ning 1122 B. C..we find an established form of wor- 
 ship; consisting of an altar to Heaven, and also 
 one to Earth; on which sacrifices were offered to 
 Sheung Tai. Down to the present time this wor- 
 ship is continued, and it is, therefore, the oldest 
 form of worship now in the world. 
 
 Tem ie to ^t today amid an immense 
 
 Heaven ° grove of trees stands a Temple and 
 an Altar to Heaven, and also one to 
 Earth. The Temple to Heaven is a lofty dome, 
 ninetA^-mne feet high, representing in form and 
 color, the azure vault of the sk 3 T . No idol is there. 
 Before the Temple is a marble altar, and on it 
 an immense brazen furnace, where a whole bullock 
 without blemish, is offered as a burnt sacrifice, 
 once a 3 'ear, when the Emperor prostrates himself 
 before the Ruler of the Heavens. The people 
 never worship before this Sheung Tai. They con- 
 sider him too great for them to worship. Only 
 the Emperor, as their great High Priest, amid im- 
 posing ceremonies, is worthy to lay an offering on 
 this Altar of Hea\en. 
 
 30 
 
So we seem to find in these ancient beginnings 
 of the Chinese religion, something which resem- 
 bles very much an imperfect knowledge of the true 
 God. We are carried back, amid the smoke of 
 this burning sacrifice of a whole bullock, to the 
 time when Noah first builded an altar after the 
 flood, and offered thereon a burnt offering to the 
 Lord. It looks as though the first Chinese took 
 to China some knowledge of God, and of the an- 
 cient mode of worshipping him by sacrifices. 
 
 But these same ancient books which I spoke of, also 
 show that with the idea of worshipping one Ruler 
 above, there arose too at that early date, many 
 other objects of worship. This seems to have 
 grown out of the Chinese theory of the three 
 great powers, “T'in, Tav, Yan” — Heaven , Earth , 
 Man. As Heaven is above Earth, so, as the high- 
 est power above, he has marshalled under him 
 many spirits which preside over various depart- 
 ments of Earth, as Hills. Rivers, Forests, Clouds, 
 Rain and Wind. The spirits of these different 
 parts of Earth came to be worshipped, as doing 
 service to man in behalf of the Ruler above. 
 
 £ od Thus the Chinese seem to have begun their 
 Lost religion in the monotheistic idea of one God, 
 but soon degenerated into the polytheistic 
 belief of gods in great numbers. Their early 
 books speak of the one Ruler above, not in 
 speculating whether there was such a Being; but 
 as one already known, and of sacrifices being 
 made to him by established rites. Those early 
 books show, not that the idea of a God was de- 
 veloping; but that it was beginning to decay and 
 degenerate, amid the increasing number of spirits 
 demanding religious worship. 
 
 Does this not, as has been well remarked, con- 
 
 31 
 
trovert the theory of Atheists; that man first set 
 out with the belief in many gods, and gradually 
 reduced it to one God; and so are going on to the 
 next step, of only laws of nature, without any 
 personal God? In China new gods are ever multi- 
 plying. While I was there, as white men had im- 
 pressed their power strongly on the Chinese mind, 
 I remember they set up near Canton, a new idol 
 representing a white man. 
 
 The ancient Chinese from first looking above 
 and seeing one Great One in the heavens; and 
 then looking around and seeing innumerable 
 spirits in the earth; next naturally turned their 
 thoughts within themselves. And so we 
 State 6 that the}' early had ideas, not only 
 
 of their origin, but of their destiny. 
 That same ancient Shu King says, ‘‘Heaven gave 
 birth to the people.’ 7 And in the same book is the 
 idea of immortality. It speaks of the death of an 
 Emperor as “being gathered to his fathers.” 
 Other things in their writings show conclusively 7 , 
 their ancient belief in a future state. 
 
 The ancestors believed in, the next step 
 Ancestral was to worship them. They began 
 ors ip to pay homage to the third great 
 Power — Man — the spirits of their fathers. Very 
 early in their history, we find the Chinese wor- 
 shipping their ancestors by means of offerings. 
 These were not confined to simple eatables at 
 first, as they are now. A retinue of slaves and 
 concubines were slain to follow the departed 
 noble into the world of spirits. But some 700 B, 
 C., this was abolished. A Prince died. His wife 
 proposed to give him a grand funeral, by an un- 
 usual number of sacrifices. The Prince's brother 
 then said, “If any one is to be sacrificed, you will 
 
 32 
 
he the first, for he loved no one better than you.” 
 This honor she declined, and from that time the 
 custom ceased. Yet we can see traces of it re- 
 maining to-day, in the comparatively innocent 
 custom of burning paper images of persons to 
 serve the spirits in the other world; and some- 
 times in the more serious custom of the suicide of 
 widows. 
 
 And so in those very early ages of China, an- 
 cestral worship grew up and gradually developed; 
 until 1000 B. C., it came to be practiced with 
 regularly established rites, 
 
 When Confucius appeared on the stage then, 
 551 B. C., ancestral worship was already in ex- 
 istence. Yet its influence at that time was com- 
 paratively small. Even he did not know the 
 burial place of his father, who died while he was 
 an infant; and did not seek it out until the death 
 of his mother when he was twenty-four years old. 
 Yet to him more than an} r other is due the power 
 of this religion. He did this by making Filial 
 Piety the basis and cementing bond of his whole 
 system. 
 
 Filial * cannot attempt to enumerate all that is 
 Y\ety meant by Filial Piety. It requires that a 
 son should reverence and serve his parents 
 while they live, and worship them when dead. 
 A practical instance of filial devotion to living 
 parents is related of a lad whose parents had no 
 mosquito nets. At the age of eight he was in the 
 habit of going to bed very early, and lying quiet 
 all night, without even a fan, in order that the 
 mosquitoes might gorge themselves on him 
 alone, and allow his parents to sleep in peace. 
 Instances are mentioned of sons whose extreme 
 filial devotion led them, on the death of a parent, 
 
 33 
 
FII/IAI, PIETY 
 
 to build a hut 
 near the grave 
 and going- to live 
 there during the 
 three 3'ears pre- 
 scribed as the 
 time of mourning. 
 
 Confucius says, 
 “Filial duty ' is 
 the root of virtue, 
 and the stem from 
 which instruction 
 m moral princi- 
 ples springs 
 forth." It seems 
 to take the place 
 of piety to God 
 with us. The 
 principle is not 
 confined to the 
 family, but rest- 
 ing on the broad 
 principle of obedi- 
 ence and rever- 
 ence to all superi- 
 ors, it extends 
 from the family 
 circle as its centre 
 out into every de- 
 partment of life, 
 as the basis of all 
 society and of all 
 government. The 
 Empire is a cast 
 family, of which 
 the Emperor is 
 
 34 
 
the father on earth, and Heaven above is his 
 Father — the Emperor being called the Son of 
 Heaven. He is supposed to rule the people on 
 the principle of paternal, moral power, rather 
 than material. 
 
 While this Utopian idea has been far from being 
 realized, yet it has had a mighty influence in 
 making the nation the most ancient and populous 
 in the world. This has largely come from the 
 fact of Filial Piety rising up and developing into 
 the great religion of Ancestral Worship, until it 
 has long grown to be the very heart of the re- 
 ligion of China. 
 
 Confucius said, “If funeral rites are performed 
 with scrupulous care, and remote ancestors duly 
 recognized, the virtues of the people will be 
 sti'engthened.” On these words as a foundation, 
 has grown up the religious policy of the Chinese 
 nation, until ancestral worship has become inter- 
 woven with every other religion of the land, and 
 with the whole social system of the 
 R e fl government. it enters into every 
 
 e lgion thing. It is far more powerful than 
 all other religions combined. Other forms of re- 
 ligion may be observed or not, but this is binding 
 on all, from the Emperor down to the very lowest 
 of the people. Its hold upon the people is indeed 
 tremendous, until it is true as has been well said, 
 “that the living are in the grip of the dead.” 
 
 The power of ancestral worship lies practically 
 in the belief of the conscious existence and pres- 
 ence of the spirits of their ancestors. They think 
 that there are three parts to the spirit. One goes 
 with the body into the grave. One, either as- 
 cends as vapor to heaven, or is carried off to 
 purgatory; and a hole is often made in the roof 
 
 35 
 
of the house to help the exit of the spirit; and also 
 a piece of silver is put into the mouth of the dead 
 for the spirit to use in paying toll. A third part 
 remains present in the tablet erected in their 
 homes. While we often, as has been said, banish 
 the portraits of our grandfathers to the garret, 
 the Chinese erect a tablet to theirs, back four gen- 
 erations, in the principal room of their home. 
 Before this every member of the family prostrate 
 themselves twice a month, at the new and full 
 moon. All important events of the famil}- are 
 celebrated before the ancestral tablet. Besides 
 this, one tribe or clan, numbering sometimes a 
 whole town of 20,000 people, have a common 
 grand ancestral temple, which is the gathering 
 place of the clan. Every year in the second and 
 third months, all the cities and towns and villages 
 throughout the Empire pour forth their mass of 
 people, going out to the cemeteries to renew 
 their family graves, and lay their offerings upon 
 them. 
 
 The true root of this worship of filial piety 
 seems to be a mixture of those two powerful mo- 
 tives, fear and self-love. The practice brings, they 
 think, not only happiness to the deceased spirits 
 themselves, but also averts calamaties from the 
 living, which the spirits have power to inflict, if 
 made angry through neglect; and also brings 
 down blessings, which the spirit hovering over 
 them as a protecting power, has the ability’ to 
 bestow. This is the reason why the bones of so 
 many Chinese who die abroad are sent home to 
 China for burial. They desire to lie where their 
 descendants can visit their tombs, and perform 
 those rites, without which they would have no 
 food or clothing, or friends in the spirit world. 
 
 36 
 
What miserable, forlorn, poverty-stricken spirits 
 they imagine they would be with no one to wor- 
 ship at their tombs. 
 
 . In all this we see the reason why 
 
 offspring the Chinese are so desirous for off- 
 
 spring. Mencius said, “There are 
 three things which are unfilial, and to have no 
 posterity is the greatest of them.” They want 
 children to keep alive the family altar, and cause 
 peace to come to their own spirits when gone 
 from earth. And this again is a reason for the 
 enormous population of China. All sons are re- 
 quired to marry early, and it is no uncommon 
 thing for a man to be a grandfather at thirty-six. 
 This belief too is a powerful stimulus for living 
 and acting as in the sight of their ancestors. 
 The war cry on their field of battle, and school 
 cry in their halls of learning is, “Reflect glory on 
 v our ancestors.” 
 
 But these theories and beliefs about deceased 
 spirits, did not come from the teachings of Confu- 
 cius. The}" have come in since from other sources. 
 He believed in a future existence, but refused to 
 teach anything as to the condition of the soul 
 after death. He said, “If we know not life, how 
 can we know death?” He inculated the rites of 
 ancestral worship rather as a part of his grand 
 doctrine of Filial Piety, but taught nothing about 
 the gods. The reason is that Confucius never 
 pretended to teach a religion, but only a system 
 of positive, practical philosophy. 
 
 And yet from this has grown Confu- 
 The Gr eat cianism, which is a religion, and the 
 great religion of China. On this sys- 
 tem has grown, not only ancestral worship, but 
 also the worship of Nature, of deified Sages and 
 
 37 
 
Heroes, among whom Confucius himself holds the 
 first place. Not only have his sayings become 
 the household words of every family, and his 
 writings the text book of every school, and his 
 doctrines the principle of government in every 
 part of the Empire; but beautiful temples areerect- 
 ed to him all over the land, and images of him 
 set up in all the school-rooms, before which every 
 boy must worship on entering school. Every 
 official of the nation, from the Emperor down, 
 must worship him twice a year. In their Ritual 
 is a pean to him in these words: 
 
 Confucius! Confucius! How great is Confucius! 
 
 Before Confucius there never was a Confucius! 
 
 Since Confucius there never has been a Confucius! 
 
 Confucius! Confucius! How great is Confucius! 
 
 Tauism ^auist sect > like Confucianism, is 
 
 native to the soil of China. It sprung 
 from Lautsz, who was contemporary with Con- 
 fucius. He wrote a remarkable little book of five 
 thousand characters, which contains his philos- 
 ophy. This is a historical fact. But fabulous 
 story says, that his name is called Lautsz, mean- 
 ing “Old Bov, 7 ' because his mother carried him in 
 her womb eighty years, and he was then born 
 with a white beard. After living 808 years, 
 when about to withdraw from sight, he was re- 
 quested to write a book; which he did, and it 
 is his philosophy. After that, the last that was 
 seen of him, was his riding westward on a 
 black ox, of which bronze figures may be •seen 
 all over China. 
 
 His book is full of mystic sayings and absurd 
 speculations, Confucius once met him and com- 
 plained, he could not understand him. No won- 
 der, for no one could. There is very little con- 
 
 38 
 
nection between the philosophy of his book, and 
 the religion which sprung from it. The name 
 Tauism comes from the word To, which means 
 Reason. So Rationalism or materialism, might 
 be applied to the philosophy, but not to the re- 
 ligion; for it is Spiritualism, with all the attend- 
 „ . _ ants, of mediums, rappings, com- 
 
 H mumeations, and table turnings, 
 
 of which our modern Spiritualism can boast. 
 Yet this spiritualistic religion seems to have 
 sprung from the materialistic philosophy of 
 its founder. That is, that the soul is material — 
 of the same substance as the body, only more 
 refined. The soul naturally would perish; but 
 it, and the body even too, by a course of disci- 
 pline, may be saved from destruction — etherial- 
 ized, and wafted away into a state of corporeal 
 immortality, and live amid the abodes of the 
 Fairy Genii. In this way all space about us 
 was filled with immortals: peopled with good 
 and evil genii, which presided over nature, and 
 had a powerful influence over the destinies of 
 man. Some wandered at will through all space, 
 and some rose to the heavens, and presided 
 among the stars and divinities. 
 
 might immortality be attained, but 
 
 Not only 
 
 also long life in this world. So this belief early 
 became veiw popular. The medicine of immortal- 
 ity, the Elixir of life, came to be eagerly sought 
 for. An Emperor, 300 B. C., fitted out an expe- 
 dition to search for the isle which was supposed 
 to be the land of immortals, and bring from hence 
 the herb of immortality. 
 
 About the time of Christ, or before it, China 
 was filled with the superstitions of this Tauism. 
 While some of its absurdities may have been mod- 
 
 39 
 
Magicians 
 
 ifiecl in the course of time: yet, its belief in spirits 
 and their interference with men, is very powerful 
 still. For mercenary reasons, Tauism seems to 
 change all the spirits of the dead into maleovlent 
 spirits. And so the Chinese think that hosts of 
 them, though we see them not, swarm all about 
 us seeking to inflict injury'. They haunt houses. 
 They lurk in dark places. Every wood and 
 mountain, river and street are filled with ghosts. 
 Their weird sounds may be heard in the darkness 
 of the night, when the wind is howling about. 
 They may assume the form of some animal, or of 
 a man or a woman, in order to entrap the un- 
 wary'. They may take demonical possession of 
 their victim, and produce pining sickness or frenzy'. 
 
 So it was, that an order of Magici- 
 ans early' arose who pretended, that 
 not only the Elixir of life could be found, but that 
 they' had connection with, and control over, the 
 unseen world of spirits. 
 
 The first of these magicians was one Chang, 
 who lived in the first century' after Christ, and 
 dwelt in the Lung Fu Mountains. He had, they' 
 thought, all power over spirits — was their repre- 
 sentative in the world; and so the Pope of Tau- 
 ism on earth. Now for 2000 years nearly', he 
 has continued to live in these mountains. The 
 spirit of the first Pope has transmigrated from 
 one Chang down to another, to the present day. 
 This Pope has power to imprison the spirits; 
 and is said to have in his mountain home thous- 
 ands ofjars in rows, all holding demons which he 
 has shut up there. Every' magician has more or 
 less power over evil spirits, and carries on quite a 
 thriving business in preparing amulets and 
 charms of various kinds for 
 
 40 
 
 warding them off. 
 
A few years ago many were startled by the sudden 
 and unaccountable disappearance of their cues. 
 There was a panic. It was the work of evil spi- 
 rits. There was a run on the charm magicians, 
 who were likely its real cause. It was found that 
 four characters mysteriously woven together and 
 wrapped up in the cue, effectually warded them 
 off. This fear of spirits gives rise to a large 
 amount of worship being offered them, in order 
 •to appease thor anger and gain their favor. The 
 Chinese act largely on the principle that it is not 
 so important to worship good spirits, who will 
 not harm them anyway; but it is very important 
 to be on good terms with the devil. 
 
 A great superstition of Tauism is the famous 
 one of “Fung Shui” — Wind and Water. It is an 
 invisible, intangible, but all-pervading force, 
 which is as real to the Chinese as the air he 
 breathes. The theory is that certain influences in 
 the configuration and exposures of the surface of 
 the earth affect the locality. So due regard must 
 be paid to a great many different kinds of influ- 
 ences in selecting sites for houses, and especially 
 graves. The doors and windows of a house must 
 be so arranged as to keep out evil influences and 
 be in harmony with Fung Shui, A certain viceroy 
 issued an edict in opposition to the European 
 houses on a certain hill, because the dragon upon 
 which the foundation of the city rested, had his 
 veins and arteries under the hill, and the weight 
 of the houses would hurt him. In locating graves, 
 if a coffin is interred in a wrong place, the spirit 
 of the dead is unhappy, and revenges itself by 
 causing sickness and calamaties to come upon the 
 living relations. They have Geomancers who 
 often get large sums for their supposed skill in lo- 
 
 41 
 
eating a grave. 
 
 Tauism, during the centuries before Christ was 
 not a religion, but only a crude mass of indigest- 
 ed superstitions. In order however to compete 
 with Buddhism when it was introduced into 
 China, it established temples, priests, ritual of 
 worship, and all the paraphernalia of a full-fledg- 
 ed religion. It established a purgatory, sotne- 
 p what similar to that of the Buddhists. 
 
 urga ory ma( j e to be located at the bot- 
 
 tom of the ocean, which lies down in the depths 
 of the earth. From the courts of this purgator- 
 ial region, a code of laws was published and 
 sealed by their great god Yu Yai, and circulated 
 on earth by spirits. This document set forth 
 the future rewards and punishments of men. In 
 some temples, pictures of the terrible punishment 
 of the ten courts of this Purgatory are exibited in 
 what is called, “The Chamber of Horrors.” All 
 who have a balance of evil against them when 
 they die, have to pass through the fires of purga- 
 tory, and then be born again on earth to pass 
 through a second trial. Then if they behave well, 
 they may enter into some happy state; but if not, 
 then they are dragged hy horrid devils through 
 all the courts, suffering the torments, ol having their 
 bones beaten, muscles and tongues drawn out, 
 hearts ground in a mill, dogs eat their intestines, 
 and so on, until, at last, they have to be born 
 again on earth in some horrible form, and at 
 death suffer eternal tortures. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that when Confucianism 
 and Tauism were the sole religions of China, 
 idols were unknown. After the image of Buddha 
 was introduced, then the}^ began to appear. 
 From that time they multiplied fast, until now 
 
 42 
 
they are innumerable. As Tauism is material in 
 its character, man}’ of the most popular gods, if 
 we may draw a iine, belong to this school, as the 
 god of fire, of wealth, of war, of rain, of medicine, 
 of the kitchen, and so on. While the Chinese 
 make a distinction of gods in name, they make 
 little in fact. The god of war is just as likely to 
 be worshipped for rain as the rain god, and the 
 goddess of mere}' may take the place of either. 
 Dr. A. H. Smith tells of the principle character in 
 All Gods one novels, as being a monkey 
 
 Alike hatched from a stone; and gradually 
 
 developed by evolution into a man. 
 In some places this imaginary being is worshipped 
 for rain to the exclusion of all other gods. In the 
 Chinese mind no distinction is made in the spirit 
 world between the real and fictitious, between 
 cause and effect. 
 
 There is no other people on the face of the earth 
 who are so much under the bondage of supersti- 
 tion and credulity. The noble teachings of Con- 
 fucius have not been able to keep its followers 
 from the fear of spirits, of devils; and from all 
 kinds of absurd beliefs with which Tauism 
 abounds. The learned scholar, and wealthy mer- 
 chant, says Dr. Smith, may be seen worshipping 
 the fox, the weasel, the snake and the rat, which 
 are styled, “Their Excellencies,” and are supposed 
 to exert important influence over man’s destiny. 
 Not many years ago, he savs, a great statesman 
 fell on his knees before a water snake, because it 
 was supposed to be an incarnation of a god which 
 once had power over floods of waters. 
 
 The god of fire is very much feared. Business 
 men worship him with expensive ceremonies, as 
 
 43 
 
we take out insurance policies to protect against 
 loss by fire. A fire some years ago burned many 
 stores in Shanghai. Those who escaped, raised 
 two hundred dollars, as a thank-offering to the 
 god. In a few weeks another fire destroyed all 
 their stores, and they were so enraged that they 
 vowed never again to worship the god of Fire. 
 It was a very bad Insurance Company. 
 
 The Chinese do not always show high respect 
 for their gods. In time of drought, after the god 
 of Rain has been long prayed to in vain, it is a 
 common thing for the people to take the image 
 out of his temple, and set him in the hotest place 
 they can find, that he may fully understand how 
 greatly the rain is needed. The Kitchen god, who 
 at the end of the year, is supposed to ascend to 
 heaven, and give a report of the conduct of the 
 family, often ha§ his mouth covered with 
 glue, to prevent his giving an account of the bad 
 things which have been done. I remember often 
 seeing a god in one of the temples of Canton, 
 having his mouth all smeared over with opium. 
 It had been done by devotees of the drug, think- 
 ing it would be a pleasing offering to the god. 
 
 But turning from Confucianism and Tauism, 
 and their utter failure to do for the people what 
 they need, we come to the other great religion 
 of the nation — Buddhism, which is certainly 
 D better than cold, heartless Confuci- 
 
 amsm, or coarse, material Tauism. 
 It is a foreign religion which was brought from 
 India in the year 65 A. D. The Emperor Ming, 
 in response to the reputed saying of Confucius, 
 ‘‘that the Holy One was to appear in the west, 7 ’ 
 and that a divine teacher of marvelous wisdom 
 and power, who was probably Christ, had ap- 
 
 44 
 
pearecl in the 
 west; sent an 
 Embassy to 
 make inquiries 
 concerning hirm 
 On reaching 
 India, the Em- 
 bassy met with 
 the Buddhists; 
 and thinking 
 Buddha was 
 the one they 
 sought: they 
 brought back 
 some priests 
 and images of 
 Buddha. What 
 might have 
 been if they r 
 had gone fur- 
 ther, and found 
 
 Him who is indeed the Holy One! 
 
 These Buddhists were received with great favor 
 by the Emperor, and their religion spread rapidly 
 in China. It filled a great want which had long 
 been felt, as their own religions had failed to sup- 
 ply the want of their spiritual nature, and gave 
 no hope beyond the grave. Confucianism reduced 
 the religious element to its minimum, and could 
 not satisfy the cravings of the soul. It dealt only 
 in the social, civil relations and duties; shunning 
 every thing of a supernatural kind, and leaving 
 the problems of the spiritual world all unsolved. 
 Tauism, it is true, revealed a world full enough of 
 spirits, and raised a superstitious dread of the 
 future, but gave no satisfactory solving of the 
 
 45 
 
great question of immortality. So Buddhism, as 
 spiritual in its nature, supplied the lack of the 
 other two; holding out the hope of gaining future 
 happiness, and escaping future woe. 
 
 Its philosophy is laving up merit by many repe- 
 titions of the sacred name, and by many acts of 
 mercy and charity. In this way the pleasures of 
 sense cease to allure; and at last, there is attain- 
 ed an utter extinction of conciousness and absorp- 
 tion into nothingness. According to Buddhism 
 ‘:The greatest of evils is life, and the highest good 
 is the nothing.” This, however, requires long 
 ages of suffering, and an infinite amount of merit, 
 which few can hope to reach. The Chinese are a 
 practical people, and seek for little more than to 
 escape the suffering in Buddhistic hells, of being 
 sawn asunder, or boiled in a cauldron of oil, or 
 pounded in a mortar, or of being saved from the 
 doom of coming back to earth in the form of some 
 low animal; and perhaps reaching some of th£ 
 thirty-three Buddhistic Heavens, and dwelling in 
 the beautiful palaces of “The Happv Land of the 
 West.” 
 
 ^ . Transmigration of souls is one of the 
 
 gra^on 11- great beliefs of Buddhism. When a 
 person dies, he merely passes into an- 
 other state of existence; and starts out on an end- 
 less round of transmigrations, either up or down, 
 depending on the conduct of his previous state. 
 If he has lived a wholly bad life, he will have to 
 pass into hell at once, and suffer forever without 
 hope. If he has a balance of good in his favor, he 
 will be entitled to reward. But if the bad pre- 
 vails, after atoning for sin by suffering, he will 
 come into the world again and be born a worm, 
 a horse, an ox, or a woman, depending on what 
 
 46 
 
liis character has been. If a physician has caused 
 the death of a patient through ignorance, he will 
 be changed into a donkey. A missionary tells of 
 an old man in China who had favor shown him 
 by the Emperor, and was assured b} r a priest that 
 he would be born again as one of the Emperor’s 
 horses, but if he worked well, ate little, and was 
 patient, he would excite the compassion of the 
 gods, and be born again into the world as a man 
 of rank. He afterwards accepted Christ, think- 
 ing he would rather be a Christian than a horse. 
 
 China abounds in temples. Those dedicated to 
 Buddha, along with the pagodas and shrines of 
 of this sect, are more numerous than all others 
 put together. Some of the temples and monaster- 
 ies are very large and grand, while others are 
 small, filthy and neglected. The priests and nuns 
 who inhabit them, live an indolent life and com- 
 mand little respect from the people. Nevertheless 
 they are patronized in times of sickness and 
 death. 
 
 Among the idols that fill the temples, 
 Goddess of none i s so popular as Kun Yum, the 
 goddess of Mercy, or Queen of Heav- 
 en, as she is often called. The state of absorption 
 into nothingness was too ideal and subtle for the 
 practical Chinese mind, and so Buddhism produc- 
 ed this goddess. Just as she was ready to enter 
 the unconscious state of Nirvana, she declined, 
 and chose to remain where she could hear the 
 cries of distress, and help suffering ones in their 
 trouble. In a Buddhistic temple of Canton, con- 
 taining five hundred life-sized bronzed images, I 
 noticed that the goddess of Mercy, with her many 
 arms to help, and holding an infant as sign of her 
 readiness to grant the blessing of offspring, show- 
 
 47 
 
ed all the marks of holding the highest place of 
 all, in the hearts of the worshippers. 
 
 Between the three sects of Confucianism, Tau- 
 ism and Buddhism, there was at first conflict. 
 But lines of distinction gradually gave way, and 
 each fell into its own place. Each one came to 
 serve its own end So they are practically blend- 
 ed into one creed. The people are not divided up 
 as belonging to one of these different sects. They 
 are Confucianists first of all, and then Tauists 
 and Buddhists too, all at the same time. As in 
 medicine the Chinese mix together a dozen differ- 
 ent kinds, so as to be sure and hit the right 
 remedy; the}' mix the different religions together, 
 in order to get all the good they can from eacn. 
 They worship their ancestors, and perform 
 marriage rites by Confucianism, they protect 
 themselves from evil spirits, locate their graves, 
 and seek for success in business, by Tauism; and at 
 death perform burial services by Buddhistic rites, 
 and com mitt their souls to its keeping. 
 
 But in all their religions, there is nothing cheer- 
 ful or hopeful. Sad gloom overhangs all, which 
 nothing but the Blessed Gospel of Christ can 
 dispel. 
 
 48 
 
MRS. CONDIT’S BIBLE CLASS 
 
Ill 
 
 THE 
 
 EVOLUTION OF CHINA 
 
 / 7 HINA, perhaps more than any other coun- 
 , try, is commanding the attention of the 
 world. 
 
 From the dark cycles of the past, she has been 
 slowly, but is now with remarkable rapidity, evol- 
 ving into a nation of light and progress. After 
 long, long ages it has been interesting to watch 
 the old Dragon gradually waken from sleep, and 
 turning over with its face toward the dawning 
 d ay . 
 
 Since thousands of years before Christ, down to 
 the Nineteenth Century the Chinese continued to 
 bear the same unchanging and un- 
 China’s Long changable character. It has been 
 eep well said, “The Chinamen of 3000 
 
 B. C.,are the identical Chinamen that greeted us 
 at the opening of the Treaty Ports. If Confucius 
 had returned to China a thousand 3 r ears after 
 his death, he would have found everything sub- 
 stantially as he left it.” 
 
 The cause of China’s long inertia may be ac- 
 counted for in part by her isolation. Mighty 
 stretches of deserts behind her, a vast ocean before 
 her and gigantic mountains rising at her side, 
 long preserved her from invasion. Add to this 
 her immense area, her rich, inexhaustible natural 
 
 51 
 
resources, and her enormous population, we can 
 easily see how it gave her a complete life of her 
 own, and made her free from any dependence 
 upon the rest of the world. 
 
 Thus situated during the long ages which passed 
 over her, she developed her own civilized and 
 Self national life; which made her un- 
 
 Development like other countries that have had 
 their intellectual, social and moral 
 civilization modified very greatty by their contact 
 one with another. Not so China. She owed 
 nothing to the outside world. Her literature, 
 social customs, ethical teachings and national 
 characteristics are all her own. Beginning before 
 the existence of any other nation now upon the 
 earth, she grew and developed into a colossal 
 nation without being dependent upon any other 
 country for anything. Surrounded by people 
 vastfy her inferior, she learned nothing from them, 
 but taught them all they knew, whether it was 
 “the bright Japanese, 7 ’ or “the phlegmatic 
 Korean . 77 This made the Chinese with much 
 reason regard themselves as superior to all other 
 people, and to be indeed “The Middle Kingdom,” 
 with the rest of the world only “outside barbari- 
 ans.” In this way she was filled with overween- 
 ing pride, and overwhelming self-conceit. 
 
 When other nations came showing claims 
 to be her equal and able to teach her many things, 
 her pride was sadly shocked, and her antagonism 
 tremendously aroused. The growth of long cen- 
 turies coukl not be overcome in a*- day. It was no 
 easy matter for her to be convinced of her weak- 
 ness and take up with new things, in preference 
 to her own institutions which had grown up with 
 the strength of hoary antiquit}". Nothing but 
 ~ 52 
 
time and many rude shocks could make her see 
 the madness of her intolerable pride, and to know 
 the place of her real standing in the world. 
 
 These severe blows came. They began in 1842, 
 at the close of the Opium War, in which Great 
 Britain forced the opium trade upon China. By 
 „ this war she was compelled to open 
 
 Disturbed the ^ ve P or ts of Canton, Foo Chow, 
 Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, and cede 
 to England the island of Hong Kong. But this 
 weak contest, which revealed China’s utter power- 
 lessness to cope with Western arms, had no effect 
 whatever in opening her ej^es to a sense of her 
 weakness, or in changing her policy of seeking to 
 keep her gates closed against the world. She 
 blindly rushed into another war with England 
 and France, until the Treaty of Teinstin in 1860 
 was ratified within the sacred walls of Peking. 
 This was the 3 r ear of my going as a missionary 
 to China, and well I remember that the allied sol- 
 diers were still holding Canton. 
 
 From the day the Allies entered Peking and put 
 the torch to the Emperor’s palace, China’s long 
 prestige ended, and she began to enter upon a 
 new era. By this treaty, new ports and the great 
 Yang-tsz River were opened to trade. Foreign 
 Legations for the first time were permitted to 
 reside at the capital. Schools were established for 
 the learning of Western knowledge, and youths 
 were sent abroad to be educated. An Embassy 
 was sent to foreign countries to open diplomatic 
 intercourse with the Western world; at the head 
 of which was that broad-minded man, Anson 
 Burlingame, our first minister to Peking. But no 
 attempt was made to reform China’s internal 
 institutions. These were held too sacred to be 
 
 53 
 
The Manchus 
 
 touched with the sacreligious hand of change. 
 Having after all been forced into relations with 
 Break the res ^ *he wor ^» while she sought 
 Treaties i n a treasure to adapt herself to the 
 new state of things, she continued at 
 the same time “to muddle on” in much the old 
 way. The Chinese failed to keep the treaties 
 which she could not escape from making, and 
 through a long series of years man}^ anti-foreign 
 riots occured which manifested their hatred, and 
 their desire to throw off the yoke of foreign 
 bondage. 
 
 Right here we need to draw a broad distinction 
 between Manchu rulers and the native Chinese. 
 In the seventeenth century the Manchus, hy force 
 and treachery, had taken the Em- 
 pire, and were themselves a foreign 
 people. Being an alien race, small in numbers in 
 the midst of so vast an Empire, they suspected 
 other nations of a desire to supplant them. For 
 this reason they have sought to keep their gates 
 closed, and yielded nothing which was not wrung 
 from them b\ r force. The native Chinese on the 
 other hand, did not originally have a feeling of 
 hatred toward the outside world. It only grew 
 up and became well learned, through their ignor- 
 ance of the facts, and because of the misguiding in- 
 fluence of the Manchu rulers. This feeling of hat- 
 red too, was one which foreign powers themselves 
 were instrumental in creating l:> 3 r the way in 
 which they treated the Chinese. The Western 
 Powers have ever acted on the principle that the 
 Chinese had no rights in their own county which 
 am r were bound to respect, and he who was 
 strong enough might take what he pleased. 
 
 The war between China and Japan in 1894, laid 
 54 
 
China's pride low in the dust. It was the inevita- 
 ble outcome of their long hatred of each other. 
 
 The Chinese had great contempt for 
 War With “the dwarfs,” and determined to chas- 
 apan tise the insolent pigmies; while the 
 
 Japanese were bent on administering punishment 
 for a long series of insults. The result was the 
 most humiliating blow that had yet come to the 
 Chinese. They were compelled, at any cost, to 
 conclude a treaty with the nation they had so de- 
 spised. 
 
 Just here the Russo-French Alliance, backed by 
 Germany, stepped in and warned Japan that the 
 natural results of her victory over China would 
 not be allowed. She had to give up her demand 
 for Port Arthur and Manchuria, and be content 
 with the island of Formosa, and an indemnity of 
 money. It soon became clear why the European 
 powers stopped Japan. They wanted the spoils 
 themselves. Russia had long had her eagle eye on 
 China and Korea. She stretched out that mighty 
 arm of the Siberian Railway across the desert for 
 a purpose; and not being satisfied with the ice- 
 bound port of Vladivostock, proceeded to go fur- 
 ther. She soon adroitly compelled the Chinese to 
 allow her to build her Road across Man- 
 Sliced c ^ ur i a » an d police it with an army of 
 soldiers; to lease to her Port Arthur as a 
 powerful fortress of defence, and the magnificant 
 Bay of Taleinwan as a terminus for her Road. 
 
 France demanded large concessions in the fine, 
 rich territories which she had wrested from China 
 in the South. And what shall I say of Germany? 
 Under the pretence of satisfaction for the murder 
 of two priests, she outrageously seized the finest 
 harbor of the Coast — Kaioehow Bay, and a large 
 
 55 
 
portion of ad- 
 joining* land, as 
 well as d e- 
 manding other 
 valuable con- 
 cessions in the 
 province of 
 Shan-Tung. 
 
 Great Britain, 
 horrified at the 
 way m which 
 her rivals were 
 carving up the 
 heart of China, 
 took what she 
 could get, the 
 next best port, 
 
 W a i-Hai-W a i, 
 together with 
 a great slice of 
 the K o w 1 i n g 
 Peninsula, op- 
 posit e H ong 
 Kong. It looked as if the time of the Empire’s 
 doom had come, and the Break-up of China was 
 at hand. The ambition of Russia without doubt 
 reached further than the railway and military 
 occupation of Manchuria. Her purpose was to 
 hold the country permanently, seize Korea, march 
 on to Peking, and carry out her long-cherished 
 plan of being Ruler of the East, 
 
 Before it could be accomplished, and China rent 
 in pieces, a number of reasons conspired to stop 
 this carving business, and save China from the 
 vultures of the world. Mutual fear and jealousy 
 of each other, among the various nations, was one 
 ; 56 
 
 C. E. BANNER. 
 
potent influence. The Spanish war, bringing the 
 United States into the position of a Pacific, 
 Asiatic and world-wide power, was another factor 
 in the salvation of China. And just here Japan 
 loomed up as a power to be reckoned with. She 
 saw that to prevent the aggression of Europe, 
 and save her own kingdom from destruction, 
 China must be saved. The end of China would be 
 the beginning of the down-fall of Japan. They 
 must stand or fall together. For this reason 
 Tapan reversed her course and took sides with 
 China. 
 
 The ignominious defeat of China bj r the Japan- 
 ese made a far deeper impression upon her than 
 that which any European power could possibly 
 have done. She began to ask how a nation so 
 inferior in the past had now become so powerful, 
 excepting by the adoption of Western methods. 
 A new spirit of inquiry began to arise, and reform 
 clubs were openly established at the capital. 
 
 These sentiments aroused the alarm of 
 Empress old conservatives, at whose head 
 
 owage was rem arkable woman known 
 
 to the world as the Empress Dowager. For half 
 a century and more she has been directly or indi- 
 rectly, at the head of governmental affairs. 
 Before she was twenty years old, as the beautiful, 
 talented and well educated secondaiw wife of the 
 Emperor Hien Fung, a son was born to her, who, 
 on account of the childlessness of his first wife, 
 became heir to the throne. On the early death of 
 Hein Fung, in 1860, her son became Emperor, and 
 she as Regent, was the virtual ruler of the Empire. 
 Her son dying at an early age, the Empress suc- 
 heeded in having a sister’s son, then only four and 
 a half \^ears old, placed upon the throne under the 
 
 57 
 
title of Kwong Sui, Illustrious Successor. In this 
 way she continued to rule until this nephew was 
 grown and became in reality the Rider. 
 
 Western ideas, which had already found enter- 
 ance into the palace, early took hold of the young 
 Emperor. Although posessed of a delicate body, 
 he had at that time an active mind, 
 Reform which soon showed an earnest purpose 
 
 gu in seeking to accommodate the govern- 
 ment to the new civilization of the West. His 
 conversion into an Ardent reformer was due more 
 to a Cantonese doctor, Kang Yu Wei, than to 
 any other one cause. Under his inspiration rapid 
 strides were made in every direction. Schools, 
 colleges and universities were establshed. The old 
 fitness for office, of elegance in penmanship and 
 beauty of rhvthmatic style, was to be set aside 
 for rigid examinations in sciences and practical 
 arts. Scientific and religious books, as well as 
 newspapers and magazines, were published. 
 Time-worn theories, old stagnant ideas, were to 
 be discarded. A new condition of things was 
 leavening the thought and moulding the minds 
 of some of the best people of the Empire. It look- 
 ed as if the time for the transformation of China 
 had really set in. 
 
 However, these reformers moved too rapidly 
 and too radically. Reaction speedily came to a 
 nation so deeply set in her old, immovable ways. 
 Some strong old conservatives horrified at the 
 greatness of a number of the radical changes pro- 
 posed, petitioned the Empress to return to power, 
 depose the Emperor and destroy the reformers. 
 She, with her marvellous gift of seizing opportuni- 
 ties, denounced the Emperor to his face, took 
 from him his Seal of State, made him a virtual 
 
 58 
 
prisoner in his own palace, and once more assum- 
 ed the reins of government. 
 
 „ , The Empress had formerly been 
 
 Old Ways known as a moderate conservative, 
 and now professed to be actuated by 
 no hostility to reasonable progress. But her in- 
 sincere professions were soon apparent in her 
 undoing all she could of the Emperor’s work of re- 
 form, and pursuing to the death those who were 
 engaged with him in canwing it out. Kang Yu 
 Wei, and some who were associated with him, 
 being warned by the Emperor, made good their 
 escape; while six martyrs willingly yielded up 
 their lives for their country’s sake; and their 
 blood will yet prove to be a part of the seed of 
 the new China that is coming. 
 
 The Empress Dowager’s vindictive spirit did 
 not end here. Each act of the foreign powers in 
 wresting their countr\- from them, seemed to add 
 fury to her hate. Is it to be wondered at? They 
 but confirmed her in her purpose to drive every 
 foreigner from the land, and go back to the good 
 old ways of the past. 
 
 When at this time the Boxer 
 movement appeared in sight, she 
 hailed it with delight, and welcomed these agita- 
 tors as patriots raised up by high Heaven to free 
 their land from the foreign 3^oke. The Boxers 
 were not realty a new body formed for the occas- 
 ion. The Chinese have great talent for organiza- 
 tion, and their land is honey-combed with various 
 kinds of secret societies. In some unknown way 
 these joined together, and brought into existence 
 the I-Ho-Kuen, or “Fists of Righteous Harmony,” 
 from which came the name of Boxers. With its 
 secret orders coming from the very throne itself, 
 
 59 
 
 The Boxers 
 
CONDIT CHURCH, CHINA 
 
 and aided by the pretence of supernatural powers, 
 it spread with wonderful rapidity. It is still 
 fresh in our minds how many missionaries and 
 native Christians suffered death at their hands. 
 The whole movement finally" centered in the Siege 
 of Peking, where were cooped up the Ministers of 
 eleven nations, along with missionaries and other 
 foreigners, to the number of a thousand men, 
 women and children; having under their protec- 
 tion two thousand native Christians. As the 
 Empress Dowager and her court escaped from the 
 city through the Western gates, almost at the 
 same time the Allied deliverers entered at the 
 Eastern gates, and were hailed with unspeakable 
 joy by that little beseiged company which had al- 
 most despaired of rescue from the horrible fate 
 which stared them in the face. 
 
 After the return of the Empress to Peking, she 
 began to show a marked change of heart, and has 
 
 60 
 
since shown her old time power of adapting her- 
 self to circumstances. All those stirring events 
 made a profound impression upon the Chinese 
 mind, and was the turning point toward a new 
 life. Under Kwong Sui the Chinese, had wakened 
 to the need of our Western civilization; but deceiv- 
 ed and misguided b\ T the Empress, they had fallen 
 back again. That now began to be succeeded by 
 a resurrection to life on a broader scale. 
 
 The Great The war between Russia and Japan 
 Awakening bad a marvelous effect upon China. 
 
 Nothing can be more significant or 
 impressive than its unmistakeable result in a- 
 wakening this people to national consciousness. 
 We had been trying for scores of years to wake 
 them up, and now it is done. China can never 
 again be the same as in the ages gone by. She 
 has at last turned her face from the past, toward 
 the rising sun, and can never shrink back into the 
 night. The working of the leaven of a new civil- 
 zation among the masses, is causing, and must 
 cause ferment; but the agitations that will go on, 
 are not the death struggles of a dvfing nation. 
 Thev r are the signs of the new life of a national 
 spirit which will no longer tolerate foreign ag- 
 gression, or submit to the unjust treatment which 
 has been hitherto forced upon her. Her cr\ T of 
 ‘‘China for the Chinese/' is not as before, the anti- 
 foreign sentiment of wanting nothing to do with 
 foreigners, but the feeling of their a.bility to 
 take care of themselves, without the assistance 
 of outsiders. There will be no more surrender of 
 one-sided concessions to those who have held the 
 whip over her. They are fast learning to develop 
 their own resources and manage their own affairs. 
 
 New ideas, new ambitions, and new methods 
 61 
 
are rapidly freeing China from her old, antiquated 
 ways. The irresistible tide of progress is surely 
 undermining former beliefs, and eausing man}" of 
 them to fall into irrecoverable ruin. As a small 
 illustration of this, a missionary writing from 
 Paotingfu, of changes there, says, “To show 
 how little the\ r care for the heathen gods, when 
 needing the small temples for police stations, 
 the\ r east the gods out into the moat, where one 
 can see them in crossing the bridge, broken and 
 discarded. The temples of Peking and other cities 
 are fast disappearing, and being converted into 
 schools. 
 
 Western Western learning has become a real 
 
 Education passion, and I look upon the intel- 
 lectual uprising of the Chinese as 
 one of the most wonderful ever seen in the life 
 of any nation. Only eight short years ago, the 
 Empress Dowager treated new plans of reform 
 with scornful hate, and drove the }^oung Emperor 
 from his throne for advocating them, Nov/ 
 among other amazing changes, comes this aston- 
 ishing one. By her imperial decree, the ancient 
 s\ r stem of examinations is clear gone forever, and 
 Confueian classics relegated to a back seat. 
 The great Examination Hall of Peking where for 
 long centuries China’s Rulers were made, has 
 been transformed into a Naval College. The only 
 pathway now open to the Chinese scholar for 
 advancement, is Irv the way of Western education. 
 Colleges abound everywhere. In the one province 
 of Chili for example, fourteen have been establish- 
 ed, which are to help furnish students for the 
 grand, governmental university at Teintsin; and 
 five thousand primary schools have been estab- 
 lished in the province to feed these colleges. Not 
 
 62 
 
less than eleven thousand are in the colleges and 
 universities of Japan; a thousand in Europe; and 
 still larger numbers in their own land. Thous- 
 ands would come to the United States if they did 
 not have to go through the humiliating indigni- 
 ties which await them her in order to enter our 
 country. We are losing golden opportunities of 
 educating those who are to be the future rulers of 
 China. 
 
 Newspapers and all kinds of printed matter, by 
 the aid of cheap postage, are flooding the land. 
 Where there were one hundred post offices four 
 3'ears ago, to-day there are nearW two thousand. 
 Through this means, papers are being read in all 
 parts of the Empire by a people who are not only 
 able to read, but eagerly thirsting for knowledge. 
 The native press has taken rapid strides in help- 
 ing to guide the affairs of the country. Says a 
 native paper, “A good newspaper is worth many 
 gunboats at the present time." 
 
 China has a woman's daily paper edited by a 
 woman! Is there an\ T thing like it under the sun? 
 The paper stands out clear and strong for every 
 kind of reform, and a club of prominent Chinese 
 women has been formed in Peking for the reading 
 of this paper, and the study of social subjects. 
 Foot-binding is doomed. An imperial decree has 
 been issued, that no father shall be employed in 
 government service, whose wife or daughter, have 
 their feet bound. 
 
 China has her military schools, where the 
 brightest of her young men are being educated for 
 service on land and sea. Being trained for gener- 
 ations to peaceful, plodding industry; they can- 
 not become warlike in a dat\ But the time is 
 fast coming, if not already here, when they will 
 
 63 
 
assert themselves, and joining with Japan, will by 
 commercial and industrial, even more than by 
 armed force, hold all Asia in their hands. An 
 army of a million men will ere long, be ready to 
 be put in the field, and equipped with all the ap- 
 pliances of modern warfare, by which the nation 
 will be able, not only to protect itself in no un- 
 mistakable manner, but also do aggressive work. 
 There is no limit to the number of men which she 
 can furnish. And the Chinese have long been 
 known, when properly drilled and officered, to 
 make the most efficient kind of soldiers. They are 
 fatalists who do not believe it possible for one to 
 die before his time comes. This makes them fight- 
 ers, who are fearless of death, and full of active 
 courage. 
 
 The Chinese are possessed of great 
 Qualities physical vitality, as their age-long en- 
 durance abundently testifies. Aside 
 from the vice of opium they have shown no signs 
 of race decay — And as the Japanese by law have 
 exterminated opium from their land, I believe his- 
 tor} T will record the wonderful feat of the Chinese 
 by the same drastic measures, freeing themselves 
 from the deadly grasp of this monster. The Chi- 
 nese are not guilty of the crime of race suicide. 
 God’s command, “Be fruitful and replenish the 
 earth,*’ some one has said, is one which has been 
 obeyed, and the only command of God that ever 
 has been obeyed. This is certainly true of no coun- 
 try more than China. 
 
 She has not only the physical qualifications, 
 but other kinds which eminently fit her for the 
 new national life upon which she is entering. 
 They are a people who are intelligent, teachable, 
 capable, and law-abiding. They can learn anv- 
 
 64 
 
thing and do anything. They are the most up- 
 right of merchants, with the commercial instinct, 
 which makes them keen, far-seeing business men. 
 They are the best of artisans and workmen, in all 
 kinds of skilled and unskilled labor. They are too 
 good for us. “We first invited them to our shores, 
 but now for decades of years, have treated 
 them as criminals because, forsooth, of their un- 
 fortunate industry, economy and sobriety. 
 
 One of the very first things which an awakened 
 Chinese saw, was the injustice and unreasonable- 
 ness of our Exclusion Law against them. Our 
 treatment of them under this law makes the 
 blood of every intelligent Chinaman to boil with 
 righteous wrath. We have done everything we 
 could to insult and outrage their feelings, and 
 arouse against us a national indignation. They 
 would not object to a decent kind of intelligent 
 exclusion, but treating them as we would not 
 dare do an}'' other self-respecting nation under 
 the sun, they will stand it no longer. No wonder 
 they at last struck back at us with the Boycott, 
 until we deeply felt its smart. Though it seems 
 to have ended; yet the anti-American feeling still 
 lives and rankles in their hearts. Nothing but a 
 reasonable modification of the Exclusion Law 
 would seem able to prevent serious trouble from 
 arising against us in some form. 
 
 The past two years or more mark 
 Trouble marvelous advance which arouses our 
 
 i< 
 
 astonishment. Even now they are be- 
 ginning to agitate and look forward to the es- 
 tablishment of a Constitutional Government. 
 For this, however, and for many other changes 
 which are going on, the mass of the people are 
 scarcely prepared; and times of reaction may yet 
 
 65 
 
follow. There is great unrest in China, and it is 
 a critical time. It is impossible now to say what 
 the future will bring forth. The all-mastering, 
 peace-loving character of the Chinese people may 
 carry them through; or will the new life bring 
 them into scenes of riot and bloodshed? Will re- 
 forms stand the test of opportunity for power 
 and ambition? Judging by the past history of 
 China and of other nations, we may look for 
 troubled times. Row absorbing the interest 
 which gathers around the coming years in China. 
 May it be years of evolution and not of revolu- 
 tion and anti-dynastic anarchy. 
 
 Whatever may be the outcome of China’s pres- 
 ent mighty changes, it is certain that we should 
 seek to have the principles of Christianity enter 
 into the new structure that is being built. In the 
 past it has borne an unmistakable part. 
 Chi r na ian ^adty handicapped though mission 
 work has been by having to follow in 
 the wake of treaties imposed upon the Chinese by 
 force, and of being associated in their minds with 
 the many wrong acts of so called Christian na- 
 tions; still in spite of this it has borne a noble 
 share; which those who have known best the facts, 
 have been the most glad to acknowledge. That 
 eminent Viceroy, Tuan Fong, who stood so nobly 
 by foreigners in the Boxer troubles, said while in 
 New York, “Missionaries have borne the light of 
 Western civilization into every nook and corner of 
 the Empire. They have rendered inestimable ser- 
 vice in China by the laborous task of translating 
 into the Chinese language, religious and scientific 
 works of the West. They help us to bring happi- 
 ness and comfort to the poor and the suffering by 
 the establishing of hospitals and schools. The a- 
 
 66 
 
wakening of China which now seems to be at 
 hand,” he says, “may be traced in no small meas- 
 ure to the hand of the missionary.” 
 
 In the brighter outlook which is looming up be- 
 fore China, to the Christian, there is one dark 
 cloud hanging over the horizon. Japan has an 
 immense and growing influence in the educational 
 as well as political affairs of China. Nearly all 
 their civil and military schools and colleges are 
 manned by Japanese, and their hand is back of 
 almost every movement that is going on. While 
 we believe they are honestly striving to do for 
 China what they have done in their own country, 
 yet this means a civilization only on the side of a 
 materialistic and scientific education, lacking the 
 Christian and ethical basis which gives to it its 
 true power. If it is to be a purely secular educa- 
 tion, destitute of, or antagonistic to, Christian 
 teachings, it will produce incalculable harm. 
 Western civilization in its self is destitute of the 
 moral qualities and force necessary to regenerate 
 the heart. With the old, wornout Chinese ideals 
 shattered in pieces, there must be the new ideals 
 of Christian principle to replace them, or the 
 whole structure will fall in ruins. 
 
 But we hope for better things. In Japan there 
 is a body of people growing up and spreading 
 abroad, who are possessed of deep Christian con- 
 victions. While tfien the Japanese are pouring in 
 their progressive influence upon China, the Christ- 
 ian element will be there to go with it. 
 
 In China itself too the mission work 
 Work° n * s ma ki n g a deep impression. A native 
 church is spread over the land which 
 numbers to-day one hundred and fifty thousand 
 communicants, and probably a half million more 
 
 67 
 
who are convinced of the truth of Christianity, 
 but have not courage to profess their belief. Men 
 of the highest intellectual and official standing are 
 showing favor to the missionary and his work; 
 while the people, though they make little of reli- 
 gion, do not oppose its progress. The missionary 
 is attacked b3' mobs in China, not because of his 
 religion, but for the reason that he is a foreigner. 
 Christianity will have an open door and untram- 
 elled chance to reach the minds and hearts of the 
 Chinese. One of the latest and most startling 
 events is the introduction of the New Testament 
 into the public schools of the provinces of Hupeh 
 and Hunan, where eight years ago missionaries 
 could not reside nor teach, only at the peril of 
 their lives. Now comes the amazing decree of 
 the viceroy, declaring, that Western nations hav- 
 ing sources of power that China does not possess, 
 and believing it lies in the superiority of the 
 Christian's Bible, he orders that the Bible shall 
 take a place beside the writings of Confucius in 
 the instruction of Chinese boys. We are standing 
 face to face with the greatest problem and gravest 
 responsibility that has ever come before the 
 Christian world. 
 
 Alas, as a nation we have been following a 
 short-sighted policy. It has been well said, “We 
 once professed that all mankind are created free 
 and equal, but the Chinese have not the remotest 
 idea that we ever held such a sentiment.” Let us 
 put ourselves in a position to give the Gospel to a 
 great people, whom God has raised up and kept 
 intact so long, for a grand destiny in the ) T ears 
 to come. 
 
 68 
 
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