fyxmll Hmmsiitg | lil$tm^ THE GIFT OF A.;a8(b«b^ u\rr!\,,t Cornell University Library OS 709.M92 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023225950 Tlie Western Lake at Ningpo. NEW CHINA AND OLD PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS OF THIRTY YEARS BY THE VEN. ARTHUR E. MOULE, B.D. C. M. S. MISSIONARY IN NINGPO, HANGCHOW, AND SHANGHAI, AND ARCHDEACON IN MID CHINA With Thirty-one Illustrations LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED ESSEX STREET, STRAND 1891 h.^8C8(fl 1 PREFACE. The investigation of subjects connected with the Empire of China does not, as some suppose, resemble the mere discovery of ancient fossils. We are not occupied simply and solely with the description of a civilization, and of manners and customs, fixed and petrified long ago. No longer can it be said of China that there are scarcely any signs of advance and reform and development. The great Empire may not indeed be, like her neigh- bour Japan, wide-awake ; as the brochure of the lamented Marquis Tseng seemed to imply ; yet most surely she stirs and turns in her sleep ; and awakening is close at hand. And we may notice something like the opening of earliest spring after a long winter ; though each budding tree and expanding flower stands still in the ancient soil, and has fossils thickly strewn round the roots. My life as a messenger from the Church of England to China during the past thirty years has enabled me to notice some of these signs of upheaval and rejuvenes- cence. The alteration in the attitude of China towards * vi Preface. Western Powers (signalized quite recently by a com- paratively cordial recognition of the right which the Ministers of Western Powers should possess of audience with the Emperor) ; and the expansion in the thoughts and ambition of her statesmen (notably in the recon- struction of the navy, and in the growing persuasion that China must be traversed by railways) — all these are symptoms of life and growth and energy which it is hard to mistake. I have endeavoured in the following pages to describe my own personal recollections and observations in connec- tion with the several subjects discussed, such as politics ; city and country life ; official and private residences ; philosophy ; literature, education, and religion. I may almost claim to touch old China as well as the new within the limits of my personal experience ; for China was old and decrepit in 1861, clinging tightly to her established regime and to her ancient traditions ; though so rudely shaken by foreign war and internal rebellion. But China in 1891 is almost hke a new- found land, notwithstanding the fact that the process of renovation is slow, and checked again and again by inroads of the old spirit. My multifarious duties as a Missionary in three great cities and centres of work, even had I possessed natural aptitude for the work of an explorer, would have left me little time for such minute observation and investigation as must have given higher value to my book. But I have endeavoured honestly to narrate what I have myself seen and heard ; and to answer by anticipation Preface. vii many questions with reference to the habits and thoughts of the Chinese which Western readers may desire to have answered ; and which are perhaps too often over- looked by travellers or residents in Eastern lands. I shall not be misunderstood if I add that my highest ambition in this book is to enlist the sympathy of my readers in that which I deem the noblest of all enter- prises, namely, the task of bringing to China the bright beams of the knowledge of Him who is in very deed the Light of Asia— the Light of the World. Arthur E. Moule. Lewisham, April 1 891. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE CHINESE EMPIRE. CAUSES OF ITS COHESION I II. AN INLAND CITY. HANGCHOW ... 35 III. AN OPEN PORT. SHANGHAI 75 IV. COUNTRY LIFE ... ... 107 V. THE HOUSE OF A MANDARIN ... ... ... 136 VI. BUDDHISM AND TAOISM AS THEY AFFECT CHINESE LIFE VII. ANCESTRAL WORSHIP VIII. SUPERSTITIONS IX. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE X. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN CHINA 163 223 240 285 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Tlie Western Lake at Ningpo — Frontispiece. Chinhai at the mouth of the Ningpo River The Ming Tombs. Colossal figures of men Mule-travelling in the North of China Honorary Portals The Pagoda of the Six Harmonies . . . Pa, or Portage, on the way to Hangcliow Chinese Gentlemen with Favourite Birds Sedan Chair The Ts'ien-tang River near Hangchow Chinese Punch and Judy Show Temple Stage at Ningpo Kiteflying Opium Smokers Ploughing with a Water Buffalo In the Rain Street Theatricals A Chinese Gentleman and his Family Entrance to a Yamun Buddhist Temple near Hangchow Buddhist Priests Lohan Shrine near Hangchow Buddhist Rock Sculptures near Hangchow Temple of Confucius, Peking Ningpo; Canal, and Temples guarding the approach 2 14 36 38 42 46 47 54 58 69 70 71 94 III 112 116 120 142 164 168 176 182 216 228 Xll List of Illustrations. Interior of a Gentleman's House ; in Mourning Pavilion on the Lake at Hangchow Archery Practice Tablets in memory of " Senior Wranglers " " Tsin-s " A Tea Plantation in Chuki Group on the Bridge of Everlasting Prosperity (an average audience for open-air preaching) PAGE 244 260 266 282 308 Note, — The small cuts in the text are from pictures lent by Eugene Stock, Esq., illustrating trades, drawn by a Christian Chinese artist, Matthew Tai. The frontispiece, and the engravings facing pp. 2, 36, 42, 46, 58, 70, iib, 142, 164, 176, 182, 228, 244, 282, 308, are from photographs kindly placed at my disposal by tlie Rev. W. L. Groves, formerly a Church Missionary Society's Missionary at Ningpo. NEW CHINA AND OLD CHAPTER I. THE COHESION OF THE CHINESE EMPIRE. During the month of August in 1862, I mounted the Great White Hill, which rises eastward of Ningpo, to a height of two thousand feet above the sea. Below the hill, surrounded by woods and dense jungle, in former years the haunt of leopards, lies the monastery of T'ien T'ung. These wooded hill-sides had been nearly fatal to the enterprising botanist and traveller Fortune th'rty-five years before. The neighbourhood abounds with wild pig, and the peasants construct pitfalls to catch these destructive animals, which ravage their beds of arti- choke, Indian corn, and sweet potato. Deep holes are dug with a narrow mouth, and as the top of the pit is convex, and the lowest part concave, it is impossible for captured man or beast to scramble out even should the heavy fall itself not prove fatal. The mouth is carefully concealed by boughs ; and into one of these funnels Fortune had nearly fallen. 2 The Chinese Empire. when he recovered his foothold by a desperate effort. Knowing the dangerous nature of these beautiful hills, I secured a guide on my first ascent, and ascertained from him the safe paths on either shoulder of the hills which surround the great coombe where sleeps the monastery. It was a cloudless, breezy summer afternoon ; and through the clear air I could watch the city of Ningpo and the many windings of the tortuous river till it fell into the sea at Chinhai, The T'aip'ing rebels had been driven out of Ningpo only two months before by Captain Roderick Dew. They still hung round the neighbour- hood ; and occasionally the boom of a gun reminded me of the possible proximity of the foe. I could discern indeed in the north-west the outline of the hills near the city of Yii-yao, which was at that very time being besieged by the English gun-boats and trained Chinese troops. Two days later I ascended the eastern spur of the hill by moonlight. As I left the monastery at three a.m. the monks were being summoned to early matins ; and the sharp echoing blow on the wooden fish i was the only sound to disturb the deep repose of that summer night, save the call of a roaming deer, and the occasional clack of the watchers against wild boar, or the creak of the all-night-long revolution of the pumps in the rice-fields far below. I reached the summit with the first flush of dawn. My object was to see sunrise over 1 A hollow piece of wood in the shape of a fish ; struck to awaken the attention of the god to the prayers and incantations which follow. In Danger from Civil War. 3 the wide Chusan Archipelago and the sea. The sky was somewhat overcast ; but the view was magnificent, and well repaid the toil of the long climb. And what thoughts of China's possibilities did those two prospects suggest — the summer afternoon gaze at the distant T'aip'ings ; and the morning survey of Chusan ! Six weeks later the T'aip'ings suddenly reassembled their forces, and swooped down on Ningpo a second time, 100,000 strong, vowing vengeance against foreigners whom they had respected on the occasion of their first inroad. Some of our native converts, hiding in terror up to their necks in water amongst the rushes by the canal side, heard the host pass by ; a long, ceaseless tramp of twelve hours' duration. We were fast shut up in Ningpo, and in great danger for some days ; and we were saved only just in time by a detachment from General Gordon's trained troops at Shanghai. That great Rebellion almost ruined the reigning Manchu dynasty ; and the break up of the provinces and their distribution amongst the great powers of the West, seemed only a question of time. Whence comes this power of recuper- ation and cohesion which has raised China from the dust, and lifted her within a quarter of a century to a fore- most position amongst the coming powers of the earth .? Then glance once more before we descend the Great White Mountain at the beautiful outline of the Chusan Archipelago ; the last dip of the long spurs of the Himalayan range into the Eastern Sea. Watch that fair cluster of rocky islands which lies half-way up the coast, and includes the emerald gem P'u-du, the sacred 4 The Chinese Empire. centre of -Buddhism in the far East. With a com- paratively equable climate, very much might be done to develop its resources ; but apart from this, its position (dominating China north and south, and watching the mouths of China's chief artery, the Yang-tse) would give to any foreign possessor of Chusan control over the destinies of the Empire, and constant menace to Japan as well, scarcely two days' steam to the eastward. Now Chusan was actually captured and held by England for many months, and it was exchanged for Hongkong only on the express condition that it should never be ceded to any other foreign power. What would have been the fate of the Empire had England with a power- ful squadron and a strong garrison held that place of supreme advantage during these last twenty-five years .■" The Chinese with characteristic wiliness pretended to despise the place when Tinghai its capital was held by England. A native historian, describing the " Opium War," calls Chusan " a solitary island, not worth de- fending at the cost of weakening the mainland armies." A piece of special pleading this, for a time of special distress and perplexity ; for most assuredly English power, planted and consolidated in Chusan, must have meant the control well-nigh of a suzerain over the Chinese Empire ! And yet, as if to throw out all reasonable calculations as to the destinies of this strange land, Honcrkong is described by the same Chinese writer as " occupying a prominent and central position in Canton waters • and if fortified by England," he remarks, "it would be a Vei Unbroken. 5 perpetual menace to Canton." With reference to this island the old Emperor Tao-Kwang vowed in words, echoed by actors in more recent warfare, that not one cent of money would he pay for the confiscated opium, and not one inch of territory would he yield to England. Yet Hongkong has been held and fortified by England for many long years ; and this without affecting Chinese independence, or disturbing the consolidation of the Empire. And we ask what is the secret of the solidarity and uniformity of this vast and cumbersome Empire .-' In her long history we see centrifugal and centri- petal energies at work ; and by some strange magnetic power, the discordant and inharmonious elements in the Empire, disintegrating and flying off from time to time, seem ever drawn back again and reunited. The intrepid French explorer M. Bonvalot, who, ac- companied by the equally adventurous traveller Prince Henri d'Orleans, has recently traversed the stupendous uplands of Central Asia, is reported by an interviewer to have spoken as follows — " China is not in a position to resist a European power. There is no cohesion. I maintain that a force of 10,000 men armed in European style, could march through China without encounter- ing serious resistance. The natives have no idea of patriotism. Their only serious idea, and it is one always present, is to find enough to eat." Now whether we regard these sentences as sober deductions from prolonged observation, or as hasty conclusions from insufficient data, they are at first sight distinctly con- tradictory of recent events. Three particulars are 6 The Chinese Empire. mentioned in which China is supposed to be wholly deficient — fighting power, patriotism, and cohesion. I take these points one by one as themes for brief discussion. France is " a great European power " ; and yet five years ago China showed herself by no means indisposed to measure swords with so formidable an antagonist. It is true that war was never actually declared ; but hos- tilities were actively engaged in. Taken at a disadvantage in the river Min, the Chinese squadron was annihilated, but in no sense disgraced ; whilst on the Formosan coast the Chinese forces managed to beat off the vacil- lating and uncertain attempts of the enemy to effect a landing ; and the forts at Chinhai defied the French .squadron five miles off, and were unharmed by their random fire. An extraordinary exhibition of ancient Chinese tactics, side by side with modern methods of warfare, was to be seen during that struggle. As we steamed up the river Yung from Chinhai (which commands its mouth) to Ningpo, every bend of the winding river, and every hill within range, was swarm- ing with Chinese troops working in long lines like ants upon the earthworks and batteries. Every one of these mud forts could have been assaulted and captured with ease from the rear. China's more ancient mind is unable to realize the possibility and the fairness of so cowardly a proceeding as a strategic movement from behind. Meanwhile the Tower Hill at Chinhai, and the lew rocks which guard the narrow entrance, fortified with great skill and under the guidance of modern Chivalry. -j science, and armed with European ordnance of heavy calibre, kept the French fleet at bay. The great danger for foreigners in Ningpo lay in the certain expectation that as soon as the forts were silenced and the mouth of the river forced, the whole of the Chinese land force would run ; and falling back on Ningpo first, would plunder and massacre in their mingled rage and terror. But by not a few European observers, signs were discerned during this strange anomalous struggle of a change coming over China. Chivalrous actions, worthy of the best days of her gallant enemy, were not unknown on Chinese soil. The tiny French colony at Ningpo, consisting of the French Bishop, with the priests and sisters of mercy, was scrupulously protected from insult and violence by the Chinese authorities, notwithstanding the tension of the political situation, and the strong indignation against the French manifested by the coast land populations. Meanwhile in the harbour of Shanghai a strange and well-nigh unique drama was being enacted. A solitary French man-of-war remained in port, after negotiations were broken off, and after desultory warfare had com- menced. The port of Shanghai lies twelve miles up the river Hwang-p'u. Near Woosung, where the Hwang- p'u joins the gigantic Yang-tse, and flows with it to the outer sea, the river is crossed by a bar, which the Chinese call the " Heaven-sent barrier " ; and the narrow channel they were now preparing to close. Beyond the bar again, dominating both the Hwang-p'u and the Yang-tse, frown the celebrated Woosung forts, armed with the 8 The Chhiese Empire. heaviest Krupp guns, and built witli great strength and solidity. The Frenchman lay moored off the city of Shanghai. He was requested to leave the port, but declined to do so ; and threatened to shell the city if he was molested. The Chinese replied by moving up three Armstrong gunboats, "the terror of Western nations," as one of them was called ; anchoring them on either side of the Frenchman. Meanwhile the ship was duly supplied with provisions from the shore. At last, as the conflict between France and China was imminent, and the relations between the two countries were hope- lessly strained, the Frenchman expressed his willingness to leave if he was guaranteed safety in passing the Woosung forts. The Shanghai authorities responded by placing some of their own officers on board the French man-of-war, and by accompanying her with a gun-boat of their own. The two vessels steamed down the river, and passed unchallenged the sullen, silent forts. The Chinese saw their inimical guests safely to the mouths of the Yang-tse, bowed to them, and stepped on board their own vessel. The Frenchman passed out to sea ; the Chinese returned to Shanghai ; and most surely the palm of chivalrous courtesy fell to the Chinese. It is easy to reply that this was an act merely of pru- dential and politic prevision ; but this very power of self-control, and the refusal to seize the opportunity for hasty reprisals, afford no uncertain marks of civiliza- tion ; and prove also the power which the authorities can exercise when they please over the unthinking hordes of the excited populace. Patriotism. 9 This French embroglio proved further the existence, or possibly signalized the birth, of real patriotism amongst the Chinese. M. Bonvalot's reported dictum to the effect that the Chinese nation has no idea of patriotism, may have been true in former times, when news travelled with extreme slowness, and when the nation had no means whereby to express its patriotism. But the telegraph wires stretch now and hum across vast regions of China, and the newspapers and magazines published in Shanghai, T'ien-tsin, Hankow, Foochow, and elsewhere, convey recent and current news both from the Empire itself, and from the great West, to large numbers of intelligent readers. And these newspapers had at this time a very clear ring of patriotic resolution to maintain the honour of the Central Realm against the masterful and domineering French aggressors. Patriotism probably has never been really extinct in China ; and during the wars with England, which marked the first half of this century, individual cases of patriotic utterance and self-devotion were not unknown. On the other hand, the want of patriotic feeling was curiously shown during the T'aip'ing rebellion, by the friendly and fraternizing temperament of the T'aip'ing forces at Ningpo, while the English and French Admirals, Hope and Protet, and General Gordon were daily fight- ing them only one hundred miles off. round Shanghai, and were slaying the brethren of the same Heavenly Dynasty of Great Peace which was triumphant and friendly at Ningpo. This state of selfish isolation in the provinces is, I believe, passing slowly away. TO The Chinese Empire. But whatever opinions may be held as to the warlike character of the Chinese, and as to their patriotism, it seems strange to deny the cohesion of the different elements in the gigantic Empire. These elements have been in the past discordant, and the discord still exists ; yet an element of fusion and cohesion seems to be immanent in Chinese character and in the nation's history. Semi-historical China goes back as far as the year B.C. 2249, when the first astronomical observations, verified by modern calculations, are recorded in Chinese annals. Supposing the original Empire, within narrow northern limits, to have been united under one ruler, discord soon appeared. Dr. Edkins, one of the highest authorities on Chinese history and literature, believes the capital of the Empire to have been fixed about thirty-five cen- turies ago at Hweite Fu in Honan (the garden of China at that time). The Chow dynasty (B.C. iioo — 250) under which Confucius flourished (born B.C. 551, died B.C. 478), was a feudal kingdom, with dukes, marquises, earls, counts, and barons, accepting investiture from a king, as in European mediaeval days ; and that king was oftentimes a nonentity, leaving the feudal princes to internecine quarrels, and the country to misery, con- fusion, and unrest. Against this deplorable and ap- parently hopeless state of anarchy, Confucius toiled and preached mostly in vain ; wandering from state to state with varying fortunes, and with a close full of gloom and despair. Later on followed a similar period when Diplomacy. \ i the central power had lost its control, and vassal states engaged in a ceaseless struggle. Three Chinese works relate the story of this period — Tlie History of the Warring States, The National History of Sze ma Chien, and a romance forming an expanded history of the feudal ages. These warring states, mean- while, were awed by the shadow of the great north- western house of Ch'in, and their mutual quarrels for leadership (though none aspired to the Imperial yellow) were absolutely suicidal in the presence of such a danger. This period gave scope to diplomacy of the highest order. Su-ch'in and Chang-i were statesmen full of energy, and with antagonistic views and methods of action. The first laboured to unite the discordant states in a confederacy against the dreaded north-western power. He succeeded, and was able to launch at the Prince of Ch'in a copy of the sixfold league. For fifteen years the armies of Ch'in were held at bay by the strange harmony of such inharmonious elements ; a harmony which was the fruit of the talent and energy of one man. He accomplished the well-nigh superhuman task of serving six states at once, and promoting equally the interests of all. Chang-i, with talents of a similar order, but stimulated by envy or revenge, devoted his energies only too success- fully to undo the welding work of Su. Flattered and menaced by turns, the six states one by one left the confederacy, and sought the favour of the Prince of Ch'in. When Chang-i died, they revolted again ; until at last, in the year B.C. 220, the house of Ch'in under 12 The Chinese Empire. its energetic and unscrupulous head, Shih Hwang-ti, usurped the Imperial throne, swept away these belligerent states, and made China one and indivisible from the deserts of Tartary to the borders of Burmah, and from the foot of the Himalayas to the shores of the Eastern Sea.^ The very name of the Empire of China is supposed by some to owe its origin to the name of this great conqueror's house. Shih Hwang-ti shut China in from incursion by the 1250 miles of the Great Wall ; and he aimed at shutting ancient China out by the destruction of the ancient documents of the race, compiled, edited, and transmitted by Confucius. The memory and rising influence of the Sage lay like a high barrier across the ambitious path of the usurper. The design of pulling down old China, and rebuilding the Empire as a new realm, to be inscribed with his name as its founder and head, was checked and foiled so long as the works and memory of this great laudator temporis actl stood in the way. Then followed the burning of the books ; but the books and the fame of Confucius rose from the ashes ; and we shall find in the sequel that this same magic influence now, as in those ancient days, has done much to unite old China to the new land, and to bring cohesion in the place of disruption or forceful union. The rule of the Ch'in dynasty was short-lived, and the Han dynasty succeeded, during which and while " Ping-ti " the "Emperor Peace" was reigning, HE was born who is called even in the great Imperial Dictionary of the ^ See Diplomacy in Ancient China, Dr. W. A. P. Martin. History. 1 3 Emperor K'ang-hyi, (the standard dictionary of China,) the "Saviour of the World." This dictionary was published during K'ang-hyi's long reign, A.D. 1661 — 1722. A few years pass, and from A.D. 184 to 265 we find China again broken up into three warring states ; and the history of that eighty years' war forms the subject of a standard book of stirring interest But these states were united again under one rule, A.D. 265 ; and under the great Tang dynasty (founded A.D. 620) we find China once more one and undivided. The Empire of China is still called by some the great Tang country. The Mongol Tartars usurped the supreme rule A.D. 1 269, and under Kublai Khan attained great magnificence and power. These Mongols were invited by one of the Sung Emperors to assist him in expelling the Manchus, who had made incursions into the Empire. They came with alacrity to assist the Emperor ; and then seated themselves calmly in the peaceful and steadied throne. The chagrined and astonished Emperor had caught a Tartar indeed. During this regime the elder Polos and their celebrated son Marco (A.D. 1275 — 90) visited China, and resided at Court. Peking was made the capital of the whole realm (A.D. 1408), under the Ming dynasty (the restoration of which purely native line forms the dream of many a secret society and petty insurrection ; a dream fostered by plays which the Manchu Govern- ment, with politic forbearance, tolerates and ignores). Then in A.D. 161 8 came the Manchus. Even in these early days the masterful character of England was felt by the Chinese ; and the forts of Canton were bombarded 14 The Chinese Empire. and stormed in A.D. 1637 ; the first warning of the louder cannonade and more staggering blows which 200 years later resounded from Canton to Nankin, and opened China finally (August 29th, 1842) to European trade. Canton indeed was visited by Western traders as early as the third century ; so that that much-enduring city has been afflicted by the barbarian presence for 1600 years. Then once more the great and apparently unwieldy Empire, shaken by foreign and disastrous war, was rent asunder by the T'aip'ing rebellion ; the uprising of the Heavenly Dynasty of Great Peace. Calamities followed fast and thick on the decrepit Manchu power. Peking was occupied by the English and French in 1 860 ; and in 1 86 1, the T'aip'ings, who had previously occupied Nankin, swooped down and captured by a gallant rush the port of Ningpo, which brought them at once into close contact and semi-friendly relations with foreigners. China seemed so entirely without cohesion — the ruling dynasty tottering to its fall, and the usurping T'aip'ings devoid of governing power — that the tripartite division of the Empire between Russia, England, and France, appeared imminent to very many careful observers. And then partly through the intervention of foreign skill and energy under Admiral Sir James Hope, General Gordon, Captain Roderick Dew, and other illustrious leaders, but largely also through her own indomitable patience and resolution, the tide turned ; the T'aip'ings were vanquished ; the storm-cloud cleared ; and since then the great Empire, one and undivided, has been slowly Re-unioti. Consolidation. 15 renewing her youth. She has consoHdated her power, crushing with stern and relentless severity the two Mahometan insurrections in Kashgar and Yunnan ; she has centralized her control over her fleets and armies, making them national instead of provincial forces ; although gross cases still occur of semi-independent policy on the part of Chinese Viceroys ; independent on the one side of Imperial edicts, and selfishly inde- pendent on the other as regards the wants and woes of a neighbouring Viceroyalty.^ She has purchased abroad in Germany and England a large ironclad fleet of formidable ships of war ; she has secured the eminent services of an English captain for the organizing and training of her northern squadron (an adviser and instructor from whom with surely suicidal haste the Government has recently parted) ; China builds in her own great arsenals at Shanghai, Foochow, and elsewhere vessels of formidable dimensions ; and in the same arsenals, supplemented by many branch establishments in Hangchow, Nankin, &c., she provides herself with large supplies of ammunition. The army is largely trained on European models ; and though these navies and squadrons have had only small opportunity for test- ing their strength, and will probably need for some years to come foreign oflScers and advisers to ensure efficiency, yet even the engagement in the river Min, mentioned above, was sufficient to show that in discipline and cool courage the Chinese cadets had not been taught in vain. In a recent number of a Chinese newspaper (the 1 Cf. North China Daily News, Sept. 27th, 1890. 1 6 The Chinese Empire. Kuavg-pad) the following very rose-coloured views of the development of manufactures in China appear — " In the last twenty years China has learnt to turn out steamers, ironclads, torpedoes, and fire-arms of the best quality ; and she will soon surpass foreign countries in the new rifle which is now being made in Shanghai, the bullet of which will penetrate a steel plate of a quarter of an inch in thickness at one hundred yards. It is also proposed that China shall make her own steel ; " (preparatory to the development of the great railway system). Dr. Edkins believes indeed that the rich men of China will give their money for the construction of railways as freely as they do now for the construction of bridges or the repair of paths, if once they are per- suaded that the unseen powers of nature, which they imagine as ordering the weal or woe of men, will favour the opening of railways. " Copper mines in Yunnan," continues this Chinese enthusiast, " iron mines in Kiangsu, and gold mines in the north, are being developed ; and very shortly China will be independent of foreign coun- tries as far as materials for ironclads and great guns go." And the article concludes in those terms of unnatural excitement which incline many observers to regard the Chinese as largely insincere and unreal — "The joy the editor has experienced at the prospect prevents his sleeping ! " But in sober reality we may say that China, which was lying prostrate before the powers of Europe for tripartite division thirty years ago, may contemplate ere long the possibility of the whole world being open Consolidation and Expansion. 17 to her for tripartite division with her gigantic friends or rivals, Russia and the Anglo-Saxon race. She is over- flowing with ever-increasing rapidity. And in Lord Wolseley's opinion — an opinion it must be confessed much ridiculed and controverted, but an opinion not without weight — China is the coming power in the world. Not that a sudden growth of military ardour amongst the Chinese, or an armed irruption westwards of the great nation is to be feared. The Chinese now are as the Chinese of old — "From age to age resolved to cultivate Peace, and the arts of peace." But the exigencies of population, and the dead weight of her enormous reserve strength, may make China before long not merely an important element in the Eastern politics of Russia and England, but a leader and arbiter as well. It is hard to believe in M. Bonvalot's imputed words that " in China there is no cohesion." The Chinese Empire is about 12,000 miles in circuit. It contains a population of about 360,000,000 souls. It is divided into eighteen provinces, north and south of the Yang-tse, which river formed indeed the southern boundary of the more ancient Empire. Some of the southern and western provinces, such as Fuhkien, Kwangtung, and Yunnan, are still regarded as foreign lands by the central and northern Chinese ; since in the days of their older history, these regions were in- habited only by barbarian aborigines (who still survive in the Miao-tsze of S.W. Chehkiang and of Fuhkien). 1 8 The Chinese Empire. Chehkiang, however, though lying south of the Yang-tse, was more closely allied with ancient China ; and within the boundaries of this province lie the scenes of some of the earliest semi-historical events of the dim past. I have walked myself by the hillside near Yii-yao, where the Chinese Cincinnatus (the ancient Emperor Shun, B.C. 2000) was following his elephant yoked to his plough when the call reached him. And the reputed tomb of the Chinese Noah (Yu, B.C. 2356) is still shown near Shaouhying in the same province. The river Yung, which washes the walls of Ningpo, is called in its upper reaches now Yaou, now Shun, the names of China's earliest mythical rulers. Now these great and wide-spreading provinces have no common link between north and south and east and west in speech — that music of home which, heard far off in foreign lands and with foreign jargon round you, draws heart to heart, and clasps hand with hand. The Mandarin 1 dialect is spoken in several of the provinces by many millions of people ; and it is the Court and official dialect for the whole Empire ; but it affords no welding and consolidating influence between northern and southern China. A Cantonese is well-nigh as un- intelligible to a Ningpo or Shanghai fellow-countryman as a foreigner would be ; and " in Yangchow he would be as much an outsider as a Spaniard in Berlin." Two Chinese nurses serving English families met not long ago with their perambulators on the sands at East- 1 Mandarin, fro n the Portug-uess mandar, to command, is the title generally applied to Chinese magistrates. Language. 1 9 bourne. They eagerly hastened forward to salute one another, but they found their dialects absolutely unin- telligible to each other ; they were practically strangers and foreigners ; and the mongrel talk called pidgin English was their sole means of communication. Neither do dress and social customs possess any inherent power of attraction between provinces, when distances are reckoned in thousands of miles, and land communication is calculated by weeks of toilsome travel. The very queue of the Chinaman, which might tie the tribes and provinces together, is not Chinese at all, but the badge of Tartar conquest ; and the T'aip'ing rebels, the Changmao or Long-haired, repudiated this badge, and wore their hair long and shaggy. The difficulties of cohesion are still further increased by the situation of the Central Government in Peking, close to the far-off northern boundary of China proper, and shut in by ice and snow for three months of every year. The back-door is open thus for the Imperial family to escape ; as escape they did in 1859, beyond the wall to their native steppes ; but without railway communication, and, till the last decade, without the telegraph, the solidarity of the Empire governed thus from one corner .seems at first sight inexplicable. It must be remembered, however, that the Manchus have strong points of observation and of control arranged throughout the Empire. Every provincial capital has a Tartar garrison in addition to the local troops ; and these bannermen, as they are called, are lodged in an inner city enclosed by its own walls and gates, within 20 The Chinese Empire. the circuit of the larger city. Inter-marriage between Tartars, and Chinese is not unknown ; but for the most part, the Tartars Hve as a separate army of observation, and must exercise a real power for espionage and for the suppression of incipient insurrection throughout the vast Empire. But there must be other forces at work to account not merely for the control of the Central Government, but for the unity of the Chinese race, and its continuance as one nation amidst long centuries of upheaval, and shock, and change. One of these attractive influences is supplied by the one language, through which in writing and to the eye Chinaman can communicate with China- man all over the world. However numerous the varieties of speech may be, with some ten main divisions, and two or three hundred subdivisions of dialects, all the educated and partially educated Chinese communicate interchangeably by letter, by newspaper, by proclama- tion, and by their large literature, in the one language, wen-li. This language has in all probability never been a tongtie, but always a dead, unuttered, yet living and powerful means of communication. And when to this common language we add the great thesaurus of this language in the ancient and well-nigh adored literature of the land ; the compilations and utterances of Con- fucius — (the ancient History, Poetry, and Divination of the Old Empire ; the Doctrine of the Mean ; The Great Learning, and the Analects, together with the Philosophy of Mencius) — and when we remember further that these ancient writings form the subjects for periodical ex- Competitive Examinations. 2 1 aminations at the departmental and provincial cities — examinations free and open to the poorest peasant in the land, and leading after successful competition to the highest offices in the civil and military services— a bond of union is discovered, a common communication, and a common interest in the stability of the Government. The eyes of all the students in China are turned towards the capital, where the final examinations are held ; and whence with oft-concealed person, but with far-reaching power, the Emperor, Heaven's Son, rules. These examinations are in theory and largely in practice above suspicion. Favouritism on the part of the ex- aminers, or dishonest work on the part of the candidates, would be punishable by degradation and expulsion. Here is the report of the literary chancellor of Shantung on examinations held by him in 1890: — "The examin- ations were conducted with the usual strictness, so as to prevent any collusion with the examiners, or otlier malpractices on the part of the students ; and the memo- rialist, who presided in person, observed no attempt to pass off substitutes or to obtain surreptitious help." In the province of An-hui later in the year, the literary chancellor states that throughout the examinations " the memorialist took every precaution to guard against any irregularities on the part of the candidates, and made their guarantors exercise the utmost vigilance in prevent- ing all attempts at fraudulent impersonation by substi- tutes." He admits that at Ying-chow-fu, eight individuals were detected perpetrating this kind of fraud ; and three at Feng-yang-fu ; two others being arrested for receiving 2 2 The Chinese Empire. bribes. But this very admission seems to imply the normal purity and honesty of the examinations. Now any insurrectionary movement, and any serious proposal to subdivide the great Empire, would be met at the out- set by the strong protest of the most influential class in China, the educated, whose professional aspirations would be rudely dissipated for years to come by such a dis- ruption. These competitive examinations, which give to the subjects of a great autocratic Empire, democratic force and influence, have existed for more than 1200 years ; and are sufficient to account in some large measure for the cohesion of the Empire. The universal interest in the stability of the Govern- ment inspired by this open avenue to office and emolu- ment, is further confirmed by the ideal of Chinese rule. " O vast and distant Heaven, who may be called our Father " so sang one of China's ancient poets 2700 years ago. "We are born and fed from Heaven," say the Chinese in common proverbial philosophy. The Emperor is the Son and Representative of Heaven ; and as such he is the father of the people. The Mandarins, too, in their courses are supposed to reflect and exercise this paternal idea. A few years ago I was obliged to apply to one of the district magistrates for advice and assistance in a case of threatened violence and persecution ; and acting under the directions of my Chinese attendant, I addressed him as "Father and Mother." Now the supreme duty of obedience to parents is enshrined in all Chinese moral literature, and engraven on the con- Government on the whole just. 23 sciences of the people ; so that insurrection and revolu- tion and division would be regarded by the people generally not as insurrection and division in the State merely, but as insubordination and disobedience and unfilial conduct in a great family. It is difficult to assert that the practice of filial and fraternal piety is general in China. Oftentimes it is flagrantly absent. But the principle underlies the thought and teaching and jurisprudence of China ; and perhaps for this reason — " their days have been long in the land which the Lord their God has given them." It is exceedingly difficult to gauge the mind of the Chinese with reference to their system of government. But I imagine that on the whole the masses, of the people have a deep-rooted persuasion that they are well governed. There are indeed some atrocious blots in their code of laws. In cases of parricide, or of ordinary murder, committed by a lunatic, Chinese law refuses to accept an unsound mind as any excuse or palliative. The system of torture, still resorted to in all important criminal cases ; the lingering process of the death penalty by slicing and maiming before the death stroke ; and the power of life and death over his children placed in a father's hands, are all recognized by Chinese law. In the province of Kweichow, a few months ago, a district magistrate arrested some highwaymen ; decapi- tated the two ringleaders without authority ; killed a third by exposing him in a cage till he died of hunger and cold ; and cut the tendons of two others to prevent their escape. The magistrate was cashiered ; but not 24 The Chinese Empire. for torturing his victims so much as for illegal torture ; and the men maimed for life were to be dealt with " as tenderly as possible." Even in Shanghai, the centre of European influence, and with the search light of public opinion flaming upon him, the district magistrate dealt thus with a young woman whose life was rendered intolerable in her mother-in-law's house. She had fled in despair to her own mother's house, and steadfastly refused to return. "At my mother-in-law's house," she urged, " they want to hang chains round my neck, and put me to death ; it is for this I am afraid to return." The magistrate made no inquiry into the alleged cruelty ; but finding the wqman obstinate, he ordered her to be beaten cruelly on the mouth, face, and back. She was then remanded, with the threat of a second beating if she persisted in her resolution ; and if, after this further torture, she remained obdurate, she was to be officially sold as a secondary wife, or as a slave. (Domestic slavery exists in China, but to a very limited extent.) These cases are, however, we would hope, rare. The Peking Gazettes abound in Imperial reprobation of unjust and oppressive magistrates. There are legally appointed censors who, sometimes with their lives in their hands, find fault with the Dragon Throne itself; and now that by the telegraph and the press injustice is dragged to the light, these influences may soon de- velop into the wider, vaster power of public opinion. Yet all the while the people are not far wrong in their belief that the governors of the land rule for the most Popular Power of Appeal. 25 part justly. The poor people are seldom ground down by excessive taxation, nor as a rule are they vexed by the extortion of the officials. The country people particularly have an ugly habit of rising and mobbing an oppressive Mandarin. An encounter may follow if his soldiery are called out. Life is lost ; heads come off ; the Emperor hears of the disturbance ; and a magistrate who values his post and promotion, will think once, twice, and thrice before he risks Imperial censure. And this power of making the popular voice heard is scrupulously secured to individuals as well as to the masses. Every Yamun has in its courtyard a bell or a gong ; and persons in desperate trouble, through violence or injustice or oppression from the rich, are allowed to rush in and strike it loudly ; till the magis- trate comes out in person, and perforce gives an informal audience to the suppliant. One of our Christian con- verts in Chehkiang was subjected, some years ago, to a diabolical outrage which nearly cost him his life. I had done what I could to draw the magistrate's attention to the dangerous state of things, a clan fight being im- minent ; but the Mandarin, partly excusing himself by a heavy snowfall, and partly from fear of the truculent rioters, put us off with vague promises. I was in my boat outside the city when I heard a voice calling me from the bank. There stood the eldest son of the half murdered man. " I am going to the Yamun," he said, " to shout and beat the gong." He went quite alone ; and obtained the desired audience, and was reassured by the Mandarin's promises. 2 6 The Chinese Empii'e. A few days later, when the Mandarin ventured down in person to investigate the affair, the wife of the injured man took advantage of another recognized custom, and threw herself before the official's sedan- chair, undaunted by the "lictors" and chair-bearers, and by her importunity she extorted fresh promises of redress. "About 1300 years ago" (we read in a Chinese book of moral tales referred to below, chap, viii.), " an officer was unjustly accused of treason by a brother officer, and was condemned to death. His son, who was only fifteen years of age, went in boldly and beat the drum to claim an audience, entreating to be allowed to die for his father. The Emperor thereupon set the man free." This custom, however, may be carried too far. In the Peking Gazette for March 4th, 1890, it is stated that "a petition having been presented to US by the road-side, by a widow woman named Ma Yiang-ship and her son Ma-k'eo, let these individuals be handed over to the Board of Punishments, and subjected to a vigorous interrogation." It is when lawsuits come on that the injustice and barbarity of Chinese courts appear. " If you have right on your side, and no money," says a common proverb, " don't go in at the Yamun gate though it stands open wide." The porter must be bribed ; the long row of secretaries and under-secretaries likewise ; and though the Mandarin is not seldom immaculate him- self, yet when badly underpaid, no wonder that much money passes and repasses behind the magisterial chair. If the people can only keep clear of disastrous law- suits, the great majority of them are, notwithstanding Easily Governed. 27 its many defects and plans, conscious of a beneficent and just Government. Not long ago a large landholder near Peking extorted to the full rack rents from his tenants, though drought had entirely destroyed their crops. The Emperor heard of this, and severely censured and punished the oppressor ; and during the present year the Viceroy Li Hung Chang has petitioned that all Manchu landholders in the parts of China affected by famine — the princes, dukes, and other members of the Imperial family — will be good enough to reduce in each case the rents of their tenants, and to make no demand for arrears so long as the distress lasts. The Chinese are notoriously more easily governed than any other civilized nation ; and it is hardly a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon to assert that it is their nature to be phlegmatic and philosophic and patiently enduring. It is truly remarked by a recent writer on Chinese contentedness, that the people are not satisfied with their own individual circumstances, but with the system under which they live ; that is, the pre- dominance of moral over physical force, and the govern- ment of the Empire by the most fit. And the most fit are the most virtuous and the most able ; and these are selected by the long sifting process of competitive examination, and service in lower positions. The curious formality of Mandarins requesting the Throne to deal out punishment on themselves for negli- gence in duty may raise a smile from Western readers, but to the Chinese public must emphasize their per- suasion that justice is alive and active. In the Peking 28 The Chinese Empire. Gazette for Nov. i, 1890, we are informed that the two vice-presidents in charge of the Peking granaries petitioned that they themselves as well as the super- intendents of the granaries may be handed over for punishment to the Board of Revenue, in consequence of their neglect in failing to discover the large deficit in the stock of rice stored in the Lumi granary. Before dismissing this interesting subject, dare we look forward, and imagine the great people under the touch of Western influence, imitating with slow and deliberate steps our vaunted modes of government ; even as Japan with almost feverish haste has clothed herself anew, and is trying now the experiment of a parliamentary system ? Is it possible that China may be spared the excitement and temper and exaggeration inseparable from the representation of the people by majorities ? Can the sharp disruption in towns and villages and homes caused by antagonistic politics be avoided ? Is it possible that that dream may be realized in China which has been lately in the thoughts of not a few of England's larger-minded politicians, weary of party strife, where triumph of the party and not the good of the State is the supreme object — a dream of one patriotic party, representing the whole realm, by which truth shall not be suppressed and falsehood condoned ; but by which, with due watchfulness and free criticism, all energies shall be bent to help the Government of the day ? If such a system can come for China, let it come soon and with power. But if she must groan under the squabbles of contested elections, and the turmoil of Religion as a Bond of Union. 29 political strife, and the verbosity and obstruction of parliamentary debates, then let her alone with her old government, her contented ness, and her cohesion. " Saepe et multum hoc mecum cogitavi, bonine an mali plus attulerit hominibus et civitatibus copia dicmdi." But this cohesion after all is more the cohesion of China's outer world — a corporate union, than the cohesion of the individuals of the nation — a union of hearts. It has been said indeed that a common religion is the only bond that can long unite a nation. At first sight this seems inapplicable to China, from the simple reason that they have three religions — Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The Chinese indeed speak of these almost as a three in one ; and the strange pheno- menon is very commonly met with of the same individual professing and practising in person, or through the members of his family, the tenets and observances of all three of these creeds. But they are not always thus dovetailed together ; neither do they always live in union and harmony. Sze-ma-Ch'ien, writing in the second century B.C., says that " Confucianism and Taoism discountenanced and discouraged each other, not being able to walk together through want of agreement in their fundamental principles," verifying the saying, " Parties whose principles are different, cannot take coiunsel together." In the year A.D. 845, the Taoist Emperor Wu-tsong persecuted the Buddhists ; and in the celebrated sacred Edict, a remarkable collection of moral essays (the subjects of which were given by the Emperor K'ang-hyi, and the essays written by the Emperor 30 The Chinese Empire. Yung Ching at the close of the seventeenth and in the early days of the eighteenth centuries), Buddhism and Taoism are reckoned in the category of unorthodox religions. The great Viceroy Tseng Kuo-fan, in his posthumous letters to his son, published in 1890, enumerates three things not to have faith in — first, Buddhism ; secondly, Taoism and all superstitions ; and thirdly. Medicine. There is little therefore in Buddhist or Taoist observances to weld the nation together ; and though both Buddhism and Taoism have been patronized by individual Emperors, yet Confu- cianism alone is recognized and adopted as China's great moral and religious system. Religion it is not in itself; but partly through the distinct sanction given by Confucius, ancestral w^orship is generally identified with Confucianism ; and this system without doubt does much to make the Chinese one and undivided. Were it possible from geographical considerations to break up the eighteen provinces into three or four auto- nomous kingdoms ; or were the natural breadth of the Yang-tse to cleave modern China even as it formed the southern boundary of the ancient Empire, yet with the probability of these becoming warring states, and mutually exclusive and hostile, the Chinese, scattered as they are in so many provinces far from their ancestral homes and tombs, would not willingly assent to the disintegration of the country, and their consequent banishment from home. Hangchow, for instance, the fine capital of Chehkiang, was well-nigh depopulated, during the Sung dynasty, 700 ^ See below, cap. viii. Can China hold together? 31 years ago, by the bandit Fang ; and was repeopled from the distant province of Honan. Every year, on the twelfth day of the seventh moon, the inhabitants of Hang- chow invite with solemn service their ghostly ancestors to a six days' silent feast. Were China divided, this inter- course and chain of communication might be broken ; at any rate, periodical visits to distant tombs might be impossible ; and dire calamity might fall on the survivors. I have ventured on a forward look into the possible parliamentary system of future China ; but a far greater question remains as to the very existence of the mighty Empire itself. An Ernpire which has not merely survived the tre- mendous earthquake of the T'aip'ing rebellion, but has risen from ruin with renewed and yearly expanding life and energy, may, so far as normal conditions are con- cerned, well survive future upheavals. But to this most ancient of countries, and for long centuries and with but rare though illustrious exceptions the most exclusive and self-contained of countries, the telegraph, the " iron horse," the study of Western scientific literature, and the closer and warmer touch between East and West, must be regarded as abnormal conditions. Will the shock and energy of these forces produce a break up in the central power, a disintegration of the Empire, and a complete change in the system of government >. Or will the progress and triumph of Christianity in China, which not a few thoughtful ob- servers and workers confidently expect, produce not a revolution in the spiritual world of religious belief 32 The Chinese Empire. merely, but a disruption in China's social and moral order, by introducing new sanctions, motives, and rules of morality ? Why should such a change be anticipated ? The Chinese Empire collectively, and its myriad people individually, would gain nothing by disunion and separ- ation. Railways and telegraphs should help to consoli- date power, and hence to make the supreme rule more feasible over so vast an area. And Christianity, though so often the pioneer of civilization and geographical exploration and social elevation, is never willingly or designedly the pioneer of revolution and discontent. " Ca]m as the ray of sun or star Which storms assail in vain, Moving unruffled through earth's war," not without sympathy, not without contact and loving touch of good cheer, but as becomes the kingdom which cannot be moved, Christianity interferes not with the shifting phases of earthly politics, so long as Christian principles are not directly challenged. Her influence will be felt. She, or, if you please, the Western civilization which owes its very birth to Christianity, will shame from the Chinese code the excessive cruelties which disfigure it. Compassion, charity — divinest virtue — and justice — not stiff and stereotyped, but bold, impartial, and unsullied — must come in with the advent of true Christianity. And such will mould the Government, but it will not dethrone it ; and the Government, in the presence of such a power, will of necessity adopt a policy no longer of ill-disguised hostility or mere neutral toleration, but of direct friendliness. The Injltience of Christianity. 33 It is difficult, I think, to discern through the mists of the unknown future any reasons why the great Empire of the nineteenth century should be smaller or less cohesive in the twentieth. It is possible indeed, but hardly probable, that the history of the old Roman Empire may be repeated in China. The loss of religion is the sign of a nation's decay. The Roman Empire had lost her faith ; and casting about for some other bond of union and element of cohesion, she deified the Emperor, and enjoined sacri- fice to him on all her subjects. Tolerant to other creeds, and willing to admit any object of Worship into her Pantheon, she was fiercely intolerant in this particular. And against this forceful union was arrayed the super- natural bond and energy of the Christian faith, with the result that the Empire disappeared, and the Church lived on. In China also the Emperor is in a sense Divus Imperator ; and though his worship is not enjoined on the people generally, yet his empty chair, as the emblem of majesty, is worshipped on New Year's morning by the Viceroys and high officials ; and Marco Polo describes the adoration of the Emperor as a god on New Year's day, A.D. 1263. The worship in these cases, both in idea and intent, goes much further than e.g. bowing to the Queen's throne in the House of Lords. China is tolerant of other creeds, if they are content to be companions and not rivals. And possibly the sanctions and requirements of ancestral worship, which I describe below, may become so forceful and oppressive as to take the place of the Roman sacrifice to the D 34 The Chinese Evipire. Emperor. If so, the Christian faith will once more rise triumphant over the shattered temporal power. But so far, at any rate, persecution on this account, and enforced conformity, are not national or governmental, but per- sonal and local acts and requirements, and need not precipitate any national disruption or decay. CHAPTER II. AN INLAND CITY. My first visit to a great inland city in China was paid in the month of May 1865. I describe in what follows the mode of travelling generally adopted in Mid and South China, unchanged for the most part on this route by the lapse of a quarter of a century. In the north (Chihli, Shantung, and other provinces) travelling is quite as tedious and far more inconvenient. You may elect to take your place in a springless Peking cart, a kind of box or cage, with no seat. The traveller is obliged to squat on the floor cross-legged, or to sit with legs stretched out at right angles to the body. As the cart jolts over great stones, or through the deep ruts in the road, the passenger is liable to be bruised black and blue. Or you may prefer a mule-litter. This consists of an oblong box slung between two mules, which never keep step, and not unfrequently quarrel, and the swaying unsteady motion is as bad as a ship in a heavy swell. Or, finally, you may select a donkey with backbone 36 An Inland City. like a razor, and probably with no saddle, and a single rope for a bridle.^ I left the port of Ningpo in a native boat, carrying a single bamboo mast with a square sail, which can be struck and lowered rapidly when passing the numerous bridges spanning the canals. The boats are roofed with movable tilts, and are decked aft and sometimes in the fore-part of the boat as well. We passed north-west- wards up the river Yung, and through the creeks, till we reached and crossed by a " pa " or portage the river Tsao-ngo. The apparatus at these passages is simple enough, but slow and tiresome in operation. There are no locks for the most part on Chinese rivers ; and boats passing from canal to river-level must cross the high embankments. At certain important points custom- houses are appointed ; and near these windlasses are erected, roofed in, and fitted with strong cables made of bamboo split and twisted together. The labour is often supplemented by extra cables worked by buffaloes and men. The boats come up and touch the foot of the incline in turn, and as a boat of heavy draft will take half an hour and more to cross the portage, the sight of a fleet of, say, forty sail, waiting their turn in front of you, is a sight of despair to a traveller in a hurry. But then the Chinese never are in a hurry. When at length my boat, either in due order, or pre- suming a little on foreign exigency and pressing past others, has reached the shore, the noose of the hawser 1 Cf. "Boy Life in the Flowery Land"— F. H. Balfour in the Boys' Own Paper, Boat-Travelling in Mid China. 37 is caught on their boat-hooks by the boatmen, and dragged all dripping with mud and water, to be slipped over the stern, or on to the ends of a special spar fixed for the purpose across the boat near the prow. Then, in response to the boatmen's signal, the capstan is spun round with a shout, and we start. Smoothly and swiftly the boat travels for a few yards till the steep of the incline is reached. Then there is a pause and a check ; the ropes slacken ; the boat settles down into the mud ; and it requires a dozen men with their backs under the gunwale swaying and shaking the unfortunate craft, before there is way on once more. The men work now with a will to avoid a second stoppage, and we reach tlie summit of the embankment. Here there is a pause, while the boatmen wrangle with the " pa " men about the fee, as they often try to extort more from foreigners than from natives. Possibly the customs officer may wish to examine the boat in a superficial manner ; and at last with a good-humoured nod the men say " bon voyage," " fair wind " ; they give the boat a shove, and we glide down the smooth mud incline, and splash into the canal below. My large passage-boat had crossed thus the Tsao-ngo en route to Hangchow, and had entered the Shaou-hying plain. It poured with rain — a heavy, thunderous, summer storm. I read and wrote for some time ; and about noon the downpour ceased, the sky began to clear, and pushing back the sliding division of the tilt of the boat, I stood up on the cross-bench and gazed over the magnificent plain of Shaou-hying. Some of the larger 38 An Inland City. cargo-boats in this plain have as many as fourteen or fifteen divisions in the tilt, slightly overlapping, and, with the exception of two movable lengths at either end, they are all firmly fitted in, though the whole can be lowered or removed when required. The city of Shaou-hying was called by Marco Polo the Venice of China, traversed as it is in all directions by fine canals. As the storm cleared off, the fine mountains near and beyond Shaou-hying to the south and south- west, which I had now long passed, came out in clear, deep, blue outline. We pushed on rapidly, and passed the Hsien city of Siao-shan ; and after three miles more reached the terminus of the canal at Si-hyin. These three miles of canal are lined on either bank, and more thickly on the western shore, by a remarkable and, I imagine, unique succession of " pai-lows," or honorary portals. Such cannot be erected without direct Imperial sanction ; and the holy will, that is the Emperor's per- mission, is cut or painted on the topmost horizontal stone. There must be hundreds of these near Siao-shan, many of them being of great age, and in various stages of picturesque decay. Virtuous widows ; or girls who were betrothed, and whose aflSanced husbands died before marriage, and who refused to marry again and change the name of the deceased ; or men distinguished for filial piety ; or old men of high character living on to an advanced age — all are celebrated in this strange open- air sanctuary. Some years ago I made the acquaintance of an old couple near Ningpo, who lived to the ages of ninety-nine and ninety-five respectively. The Emperor's ;««',«',<.'. '-,!» ,f i Honorary Portals. %^ permission for the erection of a pai-low to my old friend's memory was being negotiated, whein he died before he had actually reached the required century. One of the chief reasons for the Emperor's glance of approval was the fact that the old people had managed to keep their whole family of four generations together as one ; living indeed in separate houses, but all under one long roof and in one compound. The Peking Gazette of Sept. 15, 1890, contains a memorial to the Throne from the acting governor of Turkestan. He requests permission for the erection of an honorary portal in commemoration of the virtuous conduct of two aged widows. They were both over sixty years of age ; and for more than thirty years they had remained faithful to the memory of their deceased husbands ; supporting their families by needlework till the children were all established in life, and carefully tending their respective mothers-in-law as long as they lived ; thus gaining the respect and admiration of the whole neighbourhood. When we reached Si-hyin we left the boat, and fear- ing to miss the last ferry-junk across the Ts'ien-tang river, we hurried on foot, our baggage following along the sandy waste leading to the ferry. This great free ferry is a remarkable specimen of Chinese charities. Free ferries are indeed often to be met with, but few on the scale of this really munificent institution. Across this river passes the great stream of intercourse between Ningpo, the commercial centre of Chehkiang, and Hang- chow, the civil capital ; and for commerce, business, pleasure, arts, and arms, the intercourse is incessant, 4o An inland City. and of the first importance. Instead of allowing fares to be charged in the ferry-junks which ply to and fro from sunrise to sunset, the gentry of Hangchow, the gentle- men-merchants of Ningpo, the gentlemen-merchants of Shaou-hying, the Custom Office, and the Salt Department at Hangchow, and a great banker, since then bankrupt and dead, subscribed a large fund, from the interest of which the twenty or thirty junks are fitted out, repaired, and manned ; and the crowds of people, rich and poor alike, pass free. The only occasions on which I have known money asked for, were the great campaign against Yakoob Bag, led by the Viceroy Tso, and the disastrous famine of 1877. The banker mentioned above was treasurer both for the patriotic fund to supply Tso with the sinews of war, and for the Shantung famine fund ; and under the orders of the treasurer and com- mittee, the ferry-boats were not allowed to start during these weeks of distress and pressing want, till each passenger had contributed, say one cash, or the twentieth of a penny, to these funds. This fine ferry forms not an unworthy approach to the great city. From A.D. 1127 — 1278 Hangchow was the metropohs of the whole Empire, and it is Imperial still in its partial fall and decay. As the tide was out, we had to avail ourselves of buffalo-carts in order to reach the ferry-boat. These carts are most rickety and unstable vehicles. You sit leaning forward on the broad rail to avoid a jerk backwards. A Chinese in a cart near the one I rode in, entranced by the sight of a foreigner, incautiously turned to gaze, and in an instant Approaching Hangchow. 41 he was on his back in the mud, and was greeted with a roar of laughter from his unfeeling compatriots. Once on board the ferry-boat, I had time to look about me ; and there beyond the broad Ts'ien-tang lay the dark mass of the great city, scarcely distinguishable, save in one or two of its prominent features, from the haze still hanging over the drenched and steaming country. Opposite to us, on the further shore, standing now fully four miles beyond the city walls, but formerly in all probability within their vaster circuit, loomed the grand Pagoda of the Six Harmonies, founded A.D. 950, and built in its present form A.D. 1200. The long white line of the suburb stretches almost to the promontory on which this pagoda stands ; the end of the suburb being marked by a small but graceful " needle " pagoda, twenty-five feet high. Under the T'ang dynasty, A.D. 891, the more ancient and original city wall, (built during the Sui dynasty, A.D. 606, and ten miles or thirty-six Chinese // and ninety paces in length,) was enlarged to seventy li, or twenty miles. In the twelfth century (A.D. 1159), under the Southern Sung dynasty, the walls seem to have stretched to their greatest length of one hundred Chinese miles (according to IVIarco Polo), or nearly thirty of our miles. Under the Mings, who succeeded the Mongols during the latter half of the fourteenth century, they were once more contracted to twelve miles, or nearly the original circuit of the city. Partly within these walls, but crossed on one slope by their line, rises the sacred City Hill, covered with temples ; 42 An Inland City. and through a dip in its shoulder, another majestic monument lifts its head, the Lui-fung T'ak, or Pagoda of the Thundering Peak. This massive brick structure was built, so legend says, by a rich lady named Hwang Fei, A.D. 954, in order to suppress and confine the malicious energies of a white snake. This ancient lady intended the pagoda to rise far higher than it does at present (about 170 feet). She had planned an Eiffel tower of thirteen stories, 1000 feet high, but funds were not forthcoming. The enormous mass of brick-work is supported on eight huge claws, or fingers as of a hand, in imitation some say of the strange but fragrant freak of nature, the lemon called Buddha's fingers. The pagoda stands on a low promontory on the shores of the fair and renowned Si Hu, or western lake ; but the waters of the lake were hidden by the city hills as I stood on the deck of the ferry-boat. One more pagoda attracted my attention : the ancient needle pagoda (Pao-shuh, founded A.D. 936), on the northern shore of the lake. Its tapering iron point rose clear against the sky, far beyond the masses of the city walls and houses. To the eastward, far down the peace- ful stream of the great river, small islands near its mouth seemed lifted by the mirage of the brilliant mirror of its surface clear above the parallel outlines of the land, with a shining band of burnished water beneath them. As we approach the city shore, the hills to the westward of the city above and around the Six Harmonies' pagoda reveal their different faces ; and marks of the Summer Palace and pleasure-grounds of the Sungs, ruined and Earthly Paradise. 43 grass-grown now for 600 years, are discernible, with the gradients in the turf of the winding roads which led up to the mountain-top. I am reminded, as we near the city landing, that Hangchow and Soochow (the capital of the adjoining province of Kiangsu) are to the Chinese heavenly paradises — " Heaven above ; Hangchow and Soochow below " ; and in truth on that warm summer afternoon, Hangchow looked from a distance like a glimpse of celestial regions. Before we draw nearer and watch its intramural life, and before we leave the tranquil surface of the Ts'ien- tang, look at the river once more. We have crossed without incident or accident. The thirty or forty Chinese passengers sitting on the boat-side, or crouching in the bows or on the decks, have smoked and talked contentedly. Some well-to-do people, men and women in sedans, have remained seated in the chairs suspended over the hold of the vessel, the long poles resting on the gunwales. They have stared at me, and several of the passengers have responded civilly and with interest to a few words of salutation and inquiry ; and after a brief explanation of our message of salvation and peace, they have accepted Chinese tracts and books. The boat, poled through the shallow water which stretches a long way across, and rowed by two or three long oars in the deeper water, (the boatmen calling from time to time for volunteers from amongst the passengers,) has reached again the shallows, and is nearing the landing. Some- times, however, the passage, which took us twenty-five 44 ^n Inland City. minutes, is more perilous and eventful. The wind blows from the N.W. suddenly, after a sultry day, with fierce gusts ; and not seldom, alas ! boats founder with all on board. But a danger more to be dreaded, though generally avoidable, arises from the periodical advent of the tidal wave — the Hangchow Bore — one of the most remarkable of these singular phenomena. This great wave is sucked from the outer sea beyond Chusan, and joined and strengthened by the wash of the Yang-tse. It is then forced through the funnel-shaped, narrow mouth of the Ts'ien-tang at Haining, thirty miles below Hangchow. It varies from the mere swell of the incoming tide, to a great wall of rushing water, eleven or twelve feet in sheer height, with a stretch of a mile and a half in width, and a graceful crest of falling foam like a horse's mane. It sweeps up the river with a velocity of fourteen or fifteen knots, striking the shore and leaping up, as I have seen it more than once, twenty or thirty feet into the air, swaying and rocking violently the junks and boats moored close to shore, out of reach of the wall of water, but touched by its wash and current. On it dashes past the city, agitating as by a storm the floats of timber which form one feature of the port of Hangchow ; and woe to the free ferry-boats if, by a moment's forgetfulness, they have miscalculated the hour for the bore's arrival ; or if, through a strong easterly breeze behind it, the bore is half an hour too soon in passing. They can hardly hope to live under the stroke of that watery battering-ram. Past the Six Harmonies the tide sweeps on, washing away large lumps of soil Catight by the Bore. 45 from the bank, exposing the white roots of the mulberry- trees above, and oftentimes toppHng into the river tombs built too near the river's brink. The people bow down and worship as the river god goes by ; and at certain seasons the magistrates of Hangchow go out in solemn procession to the S.E. city gate, called "Waiting for the Tide,'' to prostrate themselves and offer sacrifice. On one occasion I was actually caught by the wave during a missionary journey ; but not on the main river. The shock was, however, formidable enough on this smaller river, the Tsao-ngo, a feeder of the Ts'ien-tang. It was a calm October day. I had crossed one of the portages described above, and had slid down into the river. I took up my book again, which had been knocked out of my hand by the bump and jar of the passage. I sat quietly reading, when the boatmen eagerly asked the time. I told them that it was just noon. They disappeared from the boat-head, jumped ashore, and began to tow with all their might. Sail too was set, but there was no wind. " What's the time ? " they shouted once again. " Ten minutes past twelve," I replied. On they toiled against the rushing ebb. Our progress was slow. The " pa " on the further shore was in sight, but a mile up stream ; and at this pace half an hour would not suffice to reach it. " The time ! " they shouted once more. I rose vexed at their impor- tunity, and shouted back, " 12.30— what is the matter .?" Without a word, they hauled the boat in, jumped on board, and pushed out into the mid channel, and headed the boat down stream ; only just in time, for I heard 46 An Inland City. then such a roar and a rush as I had never heard before, save perhaps in the autumn of 1865, when, after a five months' drought, the wild duck and teal, in flights which darkened the sun, crossed and recrossed Ningpo in search of water, with a rush as of a whirlwind. I turned to see the cause of the noise. The boatmen shouted ; and round the river's bend came careering along the wall of the tide. It was not a time for careful measurement, but it certainly stood four feet high at least. Had our boat run before it, we should have been pooped ; or had we made for the bank, the wave would have dashed us to pieces, as it stretched from shore to shore. But by heading it, we rode over the first wave safely. Down into the narrow channel between the first and second waves our boat dipped ; and having no time to recover, the head was knocked in and the fore-sheets flooded. Then one more great wave passed, which we weathered ; and suddenly, on the full bosom of the tide, we were at peace. My men, old sea fishermen, told me that it was worse than a squall on the wide ocean, and loud were their thanksgivings for our deliverance. We watched the progress of the wave far into the country ; racing up the river, and seizing and swaying the tall masted junks which were sailing down. A boat near us was dismasted, unroofed, and some of the cargo scattered on the tide. But the danger on this smaller river is of course far less than on the broad Ts'ien-tang. Thankful therefore for our safe passage across, we land at Hangchow ; traversing a long and somewhat rickety plank, and stepping ashore on the muddy path- L audi no; of Ilaiior/io'cC. 47 WAX. Long- streams of people meet us, and pass, or ac- companj- us. Some are well-dressed in silks and satins ; some are already donning the graceful summer dress, long white silk or linen robes, with light or dark blue tunics. Umbrellas are used b}^ some again.st the scorching sun ; W'. -"'7i>r ':i,A^' /( ^^si: ■ ■<■:■ • • fc^-y.' ^-.'^f tvA-^'-^^Xs- ^ Chinese Gentlemen with favourite Birds. for though a Chinaman's skull is abnormally thick, and the sun, which would strike an Englishman dead from heat apoplexy, flames in vain on a Chinese husband- man's cranium, )'Ct they prefer to be cool ; and every one is fanning himself Young exquisites, some of the students perhaps already assembling for the summer's 48 An Inland City. special reading with private tutors in these historic and literary shades, stare at us with mingled curiosity and affected contempt. Some of them near the city gate are carrying singing-birds in cages ; a favourite amuse- ment for the dilettante gentry. They hold the cages at arm's-length in the wind, or hang them on the low boughs of a tree, and stand or sit smoking and listening to the cheerful and melodious notes of the " yellow eye- brow," a loud-voiced thrush ; and of the lark which abounds on the flats of the Ts'ien-tang. Buddhist priests go by with shaven heads and unwashed vestments, bound for the famous monasteries beyond the head of the western lake. Taoist priests pass us with a tuft of hair on the crown of the head, and a square hat through a hole in which the tuft of hair appears. But the vast majority of the throng consists of merchants, coolies, agricultural labourers, and artisans. Here, too, we see the first specimens of the great race of Hangchow beggars ; a race not unknown at Ningpo ; but specially numerous and ubiquitous in the capital. We have been passing, during the two miles walk from the landing to the city gates, through streets of mud cottages, thatched with straw and reeds, or roofed with tiles. Not only the suburban cottages of Hangchow, but many of the great buildings with which the city abounds are built of mud. The soil here is a specially adhesive earth, which makes good and 'serviceable walls. The found- ations and first courses are of stone and brick ; and then at a height of from two to four feet above the ground the mud wall begins, welded and stamped into con- Rtiins. 49 sistency. Parallel boards are firmly lashed together, forming a kind of narrow case round the prepared wall. The earth is poured in and moistened with water, and the builders squeeze in between the boards, and stamp or knead the mud with their feet, or ram it down with long pestles. When the work is finished the boards are removed, and the walls are roofed and tiled and plastered- If left exposed to heavy rain or to frost they split and collapse. During the first twelve years of our residence in Hangchow, the danger from these falling walls was very great indeed. The city had been taken and retaken several times during the T'aip'ing struggle ; the two con- tending parties vying with one another in eager demoli- tion of the houses in the city. This was not altogether ruthless destruction, for they were in desperate want of firewood, and would demolish a whole wall in order to get at a beam embedded within. In consequence of this destruction the city lanes and side streets were lined with isolated bits of lofty wall, without support or prop ; and ready, after any sudden thunder-gust or sharp nip of frost, to fall without warning on the heads of the passers-by. But now we are fast approaching the city, and numbers of beggars, ragged and indescribably dirty, run out of the mud-huts and pursue the foreigners with their un- daunted and unceasing cry, " Charity, your excellency, charity — charity ! May your fortune increase ! May you live a hundred years — charity ! " Or if the foreigner seems deaf, or perchance does not understand their talk, " Cash then ! " they shout ; the little bare feet of the 50 An Inland City. children pattering along right up to the majestic city gate which now rises before us. This is the very gate over which the governor of the city, in 1861, when the city was stormed by the T'aip'ings, hung himself in despair, and as a kind of solemn immolation. This act of the despairing governor was regarded by the Chinese as one of the noblest evidences of loyal devotion possible for an official to exhibit. By a strangely perverse interpretation of some of the sayings of Confucius, this self-destruction when the State is in danger is regarded as the highest merit in " the complete man." " The perfect man," says Confucius {A nalects, xiv. 13, and xix. i and 2), "is one who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life.'' " The scholar trained for public duty, seeing threatening danger, is prepared to sacrifice his life." One would have imagined the giving up and sacrifice of life to mean the bold and unflinching encounter to the very death with over- whelming odds ; the undaunted leading of a forlorn hope when the day seems lost. "Duke et decorum est pro patria mori ; " but surely not to throw away a life which might longer serve the beloved country, just at the supreme time of need. Yet this is the Chinese interpretation ; and acting upon this, even the great Tseng-Kuo-fan twice threw himself into the Yang-tse- kiang, with the hope of thus dying for his sovereign and country, and setting an example of fidelity to his children. With something akin to awe we pass under the shadow of the great gate, and are inside Hangchow. The gate- way rises in a fine true arch twenty-five feet overhead, The City Gates and Walls. 51 and above that courses of brick and stone lead up to the parapet and embrasures ; and over all stands the guard- house of the gate, a large shed open to the south, and boarded in to the north. Through the embrasures the mouths of some rather antiquated cannon gape at us. Except wTien hostilities are imminent, or a new governor is expected, the defences of Chinese cities are neglected in the most slovenly manner. One of the curved corners of the guard-house roof is knocked off and in ruins ; so it may stay for years. The uprights are rotting ; the cannon dismounted and rusted. The very brick parapets of the twelve miles circuit of the walls, with piercings for gingal or rifle, may be kicked down and fall into the moat, and the authorities care not. But if the rumour spreads of a rising of hill-men thirty miles off, or the official announcement is received of a change of governor, the masons and carpenters hurriedly appear, and in a superficial manner they patch up the roof, daub the posts, repair the breaches ; and the soldiers with sudden zeal remount and burnish the old guns, and make the walls' circuit bright with brave fluttering flags. Chinese city walls are formidable obstacles even to modern artillery. They are simply earthworks of a massive construction, broad at the base, and slightly tapering upwards, and they are faced with granite. They are wide enough on an average to allow six or seven men to march abreast along the paved summit of the wall, and under cover of the parapets. During the bombardment of Ningpo by Captain Roderick Dew on May 10, 1862, we watched the fight 52 An Inland City. from the further shore ; and I fancy that the idea of breaching the walls by direct fire from the heavy guns of the fleet was abandoned, as a useless expense of time and ammunition, and the fire was restricted to the demolition of the flimsy brick parapets. Once within the outer gate we are safe — safe so far as entrance is concerned. There is a strict rule in these provincial capitals as to the shutting of the gates at sundown. As soon as the westering sun dips below the horizon, a red tallow candle is lighted in the guard- house, and allowed to burn itself out. This will take on an average, say half an hour ; and directly the candle- flame flickers and expires, the great gates are shut and barred ; and no persuasion or bribe or menace, not even the arrival of Mandarin or rich gentry, will procure the opening of that gate till to-morrow's dawn. Occasionally some special courier may be drawn up in a basket by the soldiers ; and late mails are let down over the walls. During the busier times of the year, the gates specially frequented by the poor country people are left open longer ; but the rule is for the most part strictly observed ; and more than one of our Missionaries in Hangchow has had to spend the night in some miserable shanty outside the gate, finding the guard civil but inexorable. The gates of other cities, large or small, yield for the most part to a loud knock, not unaccompanied by a handful of copper cash ; but if you wish to share in the secure and dignified repose of the capital, you must come home betimes. The city gates consist of two leaves, wooden, and City Gates. 53 sheathed with strips of thin iron. They are secured within by a massive bar, let into strong sockets on either side, and secured to the folded gates by a padlock. Wherever Chinese cities are accessible and traversable by canals, there are special water gates near the dry gates. These are shut with equal promptness, sometimes indeed earlier than the city gates. A kind of portcullis with open iron-work is let down to within six inches or so of the water's edge, too small a margin to allow of even the smallest wherry to wriggle through, but not too low to forbid some adventurous foreigner on a summer night diving underneath, and so surreptitiously entering the sealed city. We pass now through the first gate, and traverse the large barbican between this and the inner gate. Most Chinese cities have these outer defences. The wall circles round it ; and the area seems designed for the massing of troops to defend the outer gate. Then when hard pressed the garrison can retreat behind the inner gate, and renew the defence there. This inner gate is also crowned with a guard-house. As we pass in, some of the garrison are practising at a mark with bows and arrows along the inner face of the wall. To-day, in consequence of the state of the tides, we have landed near to one of the city gates. Some- times the crossing must be made far higher up ; and our walk would have been not through streets of mud huts, but through a busy suburb, with shops on either side, and paved streets. Once through this city gate we reach a noisy and crowded thoroughfare. The traffic is great 54 An Ill/and City. and continuous ; and above the hum and the murmurs of the people's voices you hear incessantly the louder shout of the sedan-chair-bearers, as they call to the dense masses meeting them, " Chair coming ! " — " Mind yourselves ! " — " Beware of a knock ! " — and with reason, for the wooden poles of the chair, carried on the bearers' Sedan Chair, shoulders, stretch some way in front, and might stun or kill a short-statured individual by a blow in the eye or on the side of the head. Above the hubbub ring out also the shouts of the scavengers, carrying the sewage of the city in open buckets to their country boats moored by the moat. We wonder how the inhabitants of this Drainage. 5 5 great city survive the multiform and most evil odours which assail them from these carriers at all times of the day, and in all parts of the town. Yet it is the only pretence to scavenging ; and the city would be infinitely worse off without it. On one occasion a bucket carried by one of these scavengers struck by accident the chair of a Mandarin. The man was arrested, and threatened with punishment. The whole of the scavengers' com- munity struck work ; and the groaning city was obliged to intercede for the culprit and procure his release before the unsavoury work was resumed. On either side of the street run shallow gutters ; and as you tread on a loose paving-stone in the centre of the street, the stone yields and rebounds with a sharp thud, you are splashed by the surface water, and secure also a gruesome glimpse of the sewer beneath your feet full of black mud and water. These branch sewers when choked are emptied by large ladles, the paving-stones being temporarily removed, and the sewer exposed all black and reeking for an hour or more in the densely-crowded street. The main sewers are supposed to be flushed from time to time ; but there is no remedy for stoppage, and con- sequent decay and disease, when drought lasts long, or when by sudden storm the passages are glutted. The outfall is generally directed into the city moat, but many sewers empty thenselves into the canals within the city ; and here every Chinese housewife who is within reach of the water's edge, brings her rice and her greens to be washed before boiling, in water black or verdant from stagnation and sewage. 56 An Inland City. Yet the results are perplexing for the most part to sanitary science ; for the epidemics, the disease and death, which should be chronic from these chronic abominations, are very often in abeyance. The Chinese authorities occasionally bethink them of their duty to the city and its myriads of inhabitants, and the canals are cleaned out after long accumulation of filth. But these spasmodic efforts are generally made at the worst possible time of the year. I have seen in the city of Ningpo heaps of black and offensive canal and sewer mud, brought from the magisterial boats and spread to dry on an open space of ground within the city, and within a stone's-throw of the most crowded street, and this too under the blaze of an August sun, and with deadly September at hand. Yet comparatively speaking but little harm results. " They are surface smells," say the Chinese, "they will evaporate." And our English experience emphasizes the truth that nothing in the world is so dangerous as defective underground drainage ; and if there is no certain guarantee for the Chinese against such defects, they are better left alone for the present with their mere apology for drainage, and with * their provoking ignorance of all sanitary science. The city of Hangchow is well off generally speaking for water supply ; though no public measures of any kind are taken to secure this inestimable boon for the people. Every man his own water-company, and every man fixing his own water-rate — such seems to be the prin- ciple adopted. The Chinese here and elsewhere depend largely on rain-water for drinking purposes ; catching it The Shops. 57 from the roofs by bamboo shoots, leading into large earthenware jars, containing twenty-five gallons or so apiece. They are covered over in fine weather with bamboo shields, which keep insects and dust from the water. For cooking and washing they use well-water, which is clear but brackish in Hangchow ; and in times of drought drinking water is supplied from the west lake, which is fed by streams from the surrounding hills. Now as we press forward, the shops on either side attract our notice. This is not the fashionable quarter of Hangchow, but the shops are gay and interesting. The prettiest of all are the fruit shops, with open fronts ; and the counter and floor of the buildings are strewn with baskets, or heaps of nuts and fruit, and some vegetables. The back of the little room is adorned with pyramids of fruits according to the season. Large pommeloes perhaps form the foundation, with oranges and apples ranged above. In the spring, about the end of April, the " bi-ba " or loquat appears in pale yellow piles ; then small cherries and apricots ; and as the summer advances, peaches and plums. In September, grapes hang round in festoons ; some of them home- grown, but most of them imported from the northern provinces. Then follows the luscious persimmum for which Hangchow is specially famed ; and as winter approaches, the cumquat (a diminutive lemon-orange) covers the counter ; and then oranges and pommeloes from Foochow, Canton, and Amoy come in again. These shops are gay also in the autumn with the red 58 Aft Inland City. sanch'd-berries, which the Chinese string together as necklaces for the children ; and from these berries a very eatable jelly is made. Next door to the fruit shop is an establishment entirely devoted to hams. They hang in long rows ; skinny, dry, thin, with but the remotest resemblance to their Yorkshire relatives, yet not altogether unpalatable. Then comes a noisy black- smith's forge ; and a gold and silversmith's shop with beautiful work in purest metal, exposed in little glass boxes on the open counter. Then a row of hat and cap shops, where you can buy a Mandarin's button, red or blue or white ; and hard by a tailor and outfitter displays his silks and satins, and blue and green cloth. The fur-lined and wadded robes are put away now (it is early summer when we enter Hangchow), to preserve them from moth and the moist heat of the warm weather. Here we pass a bird-fancier's shop, with canaries from Japan, larks from the banks of the Ts'ien-tang, a parrot or a parraquet, pigeons, tiny rice-birds, and perhaps a squirrel in a large cage. Then a shop for the sale of pipes which make a brave display, with their longer or shorter bamboo handles, some being fully four feet long ; their bowls of brass or white metal brightly burnished ; and the elaborate water pipes all of brass shining brightly also. Then a medicine shop ; and a grocer's establishment well stocked with goods from the eighteen provinces, and specialities from Peking and Canton. Then a row of bookshops ; (the Chinese are fond of grouping their trades together — the book- sellers' lane, the cobblers' street, and so on, being well- The Shops. 59 known localities). The books are piled away neatly and orderly in shelves ; some of them in separate paper- stitched volumes ; some enclosed in boards, plain or varnished, and tied by silk or cord strings. Scrolls in different colours, and with pictures and mottoes inscribed upon them, may also be purchased in these shops ; but boo'.csellers are seldom stationers. For paper, plain or ornamental, and envelopes (some of them most taste- fully illuminated), and for pens (the Chinese hair-pencil) and ink, (fragrant and prettily ornamented sticks,) you must resort to a special stationer's shop. Then with short intervals we meet a succession of rice shops, where peas and wheat and millet are also displayed for sale. Now as we hurry along there is a loud clanging, for we are passing a brazier's shop, who is hammering and tinkering his goods ; and here, too, is a musical instrument seller, with purchasers testing his gongs and horns and cymbals. And so first towards the city hill towering above us, and then, turning north-eastwards, we press through the crowded, busy streets, till at length after long struggling and pushing we emerge into quieter scenes. Now we walk under a long, white, dead wall ; with umbrageous trees throwing their branches over the outer pathway, and mistletoe tufting some of the boughs. The wall is broken now by the gateway leading into one of the chief Yamuns, or magisterial residences and offices in the city ; a mixture of meanness and grandeur well in harmony with Chinese character. The gates are in tolerable repair, but the official poles within are some 6o An Inland City. of them rotten ; some half-blown down by a recent gale. These poles rather resemble masts with yards, and with boxes like cross-trees, which are the favourite resort of jackdaws and the Chinese starling. The courts are well paved ; and as one sign of the blending of the classes in China, the poor neighbours go in unchecked and dry their wheat and paddy or their clothes in the great man's yard. It is evening by the time I have reached our Mission House in a lane turning out of the Horse-market Street. The sun has set behind the fine hills to the westward ; and night settles down over the great city. No glow goes up to the sky, like the lights of London luring and welcoming from afar the country adventurer. There is no glow of electric light, like pale Aurora, which far off at sea marks Shanghai below it. The streets are cheerful with the oil-lamps of the shops till nine or ten o'clock ; then the doors are closed, the shutters are fastened into their sockets with a bang and thud, the lamps are extinguished in the shops, and there is no sign of life except gleams through the chinks of the house-doors. At long intervals lamps with dim uncertain flame appear in the streets, provided either by subscription, or by the charity of some individuals ; and the steep ascents of the numerous bridges are lighted in this way. But if the night be wet, you may walk into countless pools of water, and trip over countless un- seen paving-stones, in the intervals between the lamps. The foot-passengers, still numerous, though it is nearly The City at Night. 6i eleven o'clock at night, all cany lanterns, in accordance with the proverb — ' Bright shines the moon, say you ? but list, my son, Hear my advice, and wallv not out alone ; Or if alone, on duty, you must go,. Forget not the red lantern's light to show." Then a little later the business parts of the city are wrapped in sleep ; and the sounds which break the night air are the dull rap of the watchman on his hollow bamboo, accompanied every two minutes by strokes on his gong noting the watch of the night. The first watch begins at about seven p.m. ; and the five watches, with two hours for each, last till five a.m. During the busy season of the year the weavers work far into the night, and the measured stroke of their treadles is heard. A blacksmith's forge also clinks and glows till midnight. A solitary footstep passes along our lane, and every loose paving-stone shakes under the man's tread. The opium shops are full still ; and thieves are abroad, and beggars hasten shivering to their miserable beds under the parapets of the bridges, or in some shed open to the winds, and scarcely protected from rain and snow. The streets are not policed or watched according to our Western ideas ; but these watchmen have a kind of roving commission to look out for thieves ; and in some cities a detective follows the watchman at an interval of a few hundred yards, and sometimes pounces on a sprightly thief, who thinking himself secure has begun his work immediately the watchman and his gong have 62 An Inland City. gone by. In case of serious theft or burglary, the ti- pao or tipstaff of the neighbourhood is sent for, and he makes inquiries more or less earnest according to the capability of the accuser to pay him well. Should he fail to arrest the thief or recover the lost articles, the mo-kw'ai or chief of police is sent for, and he adds his experience in the search. This is generally invaluable, for following the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, the Commissioner of Police has generally been a trainer and leader of thieves, and in some cases he carries on both operations at the same time ; even as the Chinese fleet at Ningpo, when I arrived in 1 86 1, was notoriously pirate rover half the year, and revenue cruiser the other half I watched on one occasion, from my window at Ningpo, one of these commissioners training his thieving apprentices, and sending them over a low wall to steal a piece of blue cloth spread out to dry in the sunshine. Should nothing be recovered, and no clue given as to the whereabouts of the thief and his booty, the shopkeeper or householder, if he can afford it, will send information to the Chehsien, the district magistrate ; and when some pressure is applied, the m6-kw'ai is sent for, and bambooed there and then, and ordered to produce the thief and the goods, under threat of a future beating. Seldom if ever is there a mis- carriage of justice under these circumstances. The first search of a Chinese policeman for stolen goods will be of course in the small pawnshops. These places, which abound in Chinese cities, bear a very bad reputation, both as receptacles for stolen goods, and Morning. 63 also as places where exorbitant usury is exacted. There are, however, large pawnshops, some of them of great extent, which bear a high character, being above sus- picion of dishonesty, and charging very moderate rates of interest. But now the thieves' opportunity is passing. The cock shakes his feathers and crows. He is answered from half a dozen courtyards near us. The gloom deepens again, but for a short while only. The dawn has appeared now ; and soon after daylight the city too shakes itself together and awakes, and life begins once more. Doors creak and open ; coolies going to meet early boats on the river are early astir, with their ropes and poles. Men come out at their doors, and look up the street and down it again. Smoke appears from the low chimneys, and one great event in Chinese daily life approaches — the rice is boiling and simmering, and the early meal is ready. All but the very poor manage to have three meals of rice every day ; flavoured by some caviare, such as seaweed, cabbage, beans, turnips, or little bits of salt or fresh fish, or of pork. But in times of distress, two meals, or even one only, and that of the coarsest description, is all that the poor people can afford. Notwithstanding M. Bonvalot's opinion that the one serious thought in a Chinaman's mind, and that which is constantly before him, is how to find enough to eat, there is strangely little pauperism amongst the masses of this great inland city. The distinctions between the very rich and very poor are not sharply marked — not for instance with so vast a gap as between 64 An Inland City. West and East London— a gap, thank God, filling now with philanthropy and practical help, but leaving the distinction between riches and poverty, between high life and low life, as broad as ever. The next day after my arrival in Hangchow we sallied forth to see the greater sights of the city. We visited the great Kung-yuen in the northern quarter of the city — a vast arena for examinations when the second degree is competed for — with its official lodgings, its quarters for clerks and native police ; with its transcribers' and printers' offices, its temple and watch-tower, its kitchens, and its 10,000 cells for the candidates. We visited next the large Tartar parade-ground under the shelter of the north-east wall, where consider- able bodies of troops can be exercised and reviewed. From thence we passed on to the Tartar city, one of those grasps of authority which, as I have described above, the dynasty has laid here and there on the wide- spreading Empire. This inner city lies on the north-west side of Hang- chow ; and for some distance the main wall forms the boundary wall of the Tartar city also. This garrison town extends towards the heart of Hangchow as far as the main street, which is the great artery of the city, and stretches some distance westwards towards the city hill, but stops short of the great Yamuns of the governor, of the mayor of Hangchow, the military commandant, and other high officials. The Tartar city is well drained, and washed by pure running water ; and the houses of the garrison are arranged after the A Tartar Centurion. 65 model of a camp. The square, whity-brown faces of the men, and the fantastic head-dresses and long red stock- ings of the Tartar women, attract our notice as we walk through their city, or meet them marketing in the great street. These Tartar garrisons have shown at times true heroism and devotion ; and when Hangchow was stormed by the T'aip'ings in 1861-2, the garrison fell to a man at their posts. The word Tartar, or Tatar, meaning " tributary," is erroneously applied now to the Manchus, the rulers of the Chinese Empire. Their original home is Manchuria, including the provinces of Shing-king, Kirin, and Tsitishar, with an area of 700,000 square miles. Both in religion and in literature and speech the "Tartars " have been largely influenced, like the Goths in Europe, by the conquered race. One of our Mission rooms was opened in 1877 in the main street near this Tartar quarter. It was soon visited by soldiers from the garrison, some of them with rough manners and no education. After a while, how- ever, one of their officers, a centurion, wandered in, and sat reading for some hours. He first took up some magazines and scientific books ; but soon his attention was arrested by the New Testament. He read on and on, and found there what he had been searching for elsewhere in vain. He had in years past borne a bad character. He was known as a drunkard and an opium- smoker, and as a man of violent temper, feared and disliked by his men. Suddenly he resolved — he knew not by what influence — to reform. He left off both wine and opium. His temper changed to gentleness 66 An Inland City. and kindness, and he won the devotion and confidence of his men. But all this while he was ill at ease, dis- satisfied with his morality, conscious of his past sins, and of a nature out of harmony with right and law. Here at last in the Atonement of the Lord Jesus, and in the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, he found what seemed to satisfy all his wants, and he became an eager and intelligent inquirer. Then after a while, longing to learn more, and to give more time to religion, and finding himself hampered by his official duties, he peti- tioned the General commanding to allow him to resign his command, with its ;^8 monthly salary, and to take his place in the ranks with a salary of £.2 instead. The centurion's wife, who had made no objection to her husband's change of religion, was exasperated now by his voluntary poverty, and announced her vehement opposition to the plan. The General also, so soon as he heard the cause of this extraordinary renunciation, refused to allow the officer to resign his command, and sent him away at once on distant provincial service, so as to remove him from our influence, and I saw my friend no more. But I hope to meet him again with the Captain of our Salvation, who will not have forgotten or have abandoned His true-hearted servant. We pass now out of the Tartar city by the very gate which my military friend so often traversed on his visits to our Mission house ; and the sight of the great street under the bright sunshine of the breezy May afternoon is wonderfully picturesque. The great street is said to have been paved 600 years ago from end to end with The Great Street. 67 stone slabs, so perfectly fitted that nine cars were wont to roll abreast over a way smooth and straight as an arrow. The street is far narrower now, but still fine and broad for a Chinese city. On either side, glittering in the sun, sway to and fro in the wind countless sign- boards with every variety of colour. Some have a ground of black, or red, or blue varnish, with gilt letter- ing ; some have a red ground with black lettering ; or white with red ; or a specially handsome variety, dark green with gilt. The lettering is sometimes the mere sign of the shop, and sometimes a description of the goods sold within is given on the board. Here we are in the very West End of Hangchow, and amongst the celebrated silk and satin shops and warehouses ; and plum-coloured silks, and scarlet, and crimson, and Oxford or Cambridge blues, and the palest imaginable pink, and many more, are brought out with unstinting hand if you are a likely purchaser. But you cannot beat down these great shopkeepers. They have one price ; whereas in curiosity shops and in other establishments the offer of half the price demanded is a safe approximation to a just figure, and perhaps too great a concession to the seller. What shall we say now of this great busy typical Chinese city, before we leave it for the country and for a coast port .' Four brief observations suggest themselves to my mind. (i) The people enjoy a wonderful amount of freedom in their daily life, and seldom find themselves hampered -by restrictions, or oppressed severely by taxation and tyranny of officials. Social customs bind them much 68 An Inland City. more tightly than Imperial laws ; and many a family lives out a long generation without ever coming into contact with public law and its administrators. (2) The people are for the most part cheerful and contented, and this notwithstanding the grinding ex- actions of supply and demand. Their religions enjoin no periodic sacred day of rest ; and without such a sanction, the idea of the physical necessity for such a day has not much troubled the Chinese mind, and would not convey any moral sanction. The ordinary Chinese tradesman, certainly in most retail shops, will have his shop open every day in the year from the third or fourth days of the first month up to the next New Year's eve. These three or four " Sabbath " days are occupied in many shops and private houses by observances which to English ears seem to imply an exuberance of insanity, and which are unconnected with any special idolatrous or superstitious function. Young men and old assemble together, the shopkeeper and his apprentices or children, and shut their doors and windows fast, and bang drums and gongs and cymbals, and every article which will give forth any sound, indefatigably and absolutely with- out harmony or melody of any kind, all day long and some way into the night. The shopkeeper gets no other holidays ; he secures no exercise ; he never closes his shop early on Wednesdays or Thursdays ; he claims no Bank Holiday, or Saturday half-holiday. He lives for his shop and in his shop ; he is busy, but not bustling ; diligent, but seldom in a hurry. Possibly once or twice a year he will visit some special temple for worship ; or once Amusciucuts. 69 a year he may repair to the ancestral tomb on the country hill-side in April or May for the inside of a day. And that is all. (3) The cheerfulness and contentedness of the people are not fed or satisfied by much in the way of public amusements. Punch and Judy shows are exhibited in Chinese Punch and Judy Sliow. the streets ; and theatricals in the temples, or more rarely on movable stages in some thoroughfare. In theory, and as a rule in practice, plays are put on a stage built in the court}'ard of most large temples, either Buddhist or Taoist. The stage is near the idol hall, so 70 An Inland City. that the gods sitting in silence in their shrines may see and enjoy the performance. The human spectators are in the court below, and some favoured persons in the galleries round. The plays are performed generally in the day time, as an all-day-long performance ; and they are seldom prolonged into the evening, except in market towns. One of the strongest objections raised in Shanghai to the theatres opened within the foreign settlements, arises from the fact that they are allowed to remain open till 12.30 a.m., which would be considered a grave offence against morals in a Chinese city. Resemblances between China and Greece are not many ; but one is reminded by this custom of Chinese theatricals in their temple-yards, that the great dramatic performances at Athens were connected with the worship of the god Dionysus, and took place in a theatre named after him. Besides other mental excitements, the Chinese find some vent for their cheerfulness and hopefulness in tlie spring. Then the air resounds with the iEolian notes of paper kites, fitted with tight drawn strings ; or of pigeons wheeling and darting aloft with little strung bows under their wings. The paper kites are multiform ; some like the bird so called, some like a magnified mosquito, or a dragon, or a centipede ; some in the shape of a Chinese picture-word, such as " sun," or " spring," or " good luck." At night, with the strong and warm south-east wind of spring blowing, the sky is bright with lanterns attached to these kites, and soaring to a great height. The boys on their return from school fly the kites ; and the gray- headed grandfathers, seated demurely on bamboo chairs, Loi'c of Flou crs. V hold the kite-string- in one hand, and smoke their long tobacco-pipes in the other. The monoton}' of the uneventful lives of Chinese business people and artisans is broken only by some birth or death in the family, or by the advent of their favourite flowers. Each month has its special flower. ^^^ - 1>; Kite Flyinf^^ To enumerate only one in Hangchow's calendar, and beginning with February, in the early daj-s of which the Chinese New Year's day usually falls, we have the camellia, the apricot, the peach-blossom, roses, the red pomegranate, the lotus, the balsam, the Quey Hwa, or Olea Fragrans (an evergreen shrub, which clusters its 7a An Inland City. twigs with small golden or silver flowers with fragrance specially grateful and delicious after the heat and evil odours of the summer) ; then the aster and chrysanthe- mum, the hibiscus, the lammey or wax almond, a very fragrant flower which gleams often through the snows of December and January ; and finally, the white and pink varieties of the double almond or apricot, which opens and breathes its sweet smell at the end of January.^ Sprjgs of these flowers in the shops of the industrious Chinese, cheer and refresh them, and make life less monotonous. (4) Christianity is to a great extent tacitly acquiesced in as a feature now of the daily life of Hangchow. As I describe below, it is not merely tolerated by Chinese treaties with the West, it is mentioned also with distinct approbation. And there is no restriction on public Christian preaching, either in wayside Mission halls, or in the open air, if the place be carefully selected, so as not to interfere with traffic, nor needlessly to hinder the business of the wayside pedlers. Such a system of daily preaching by the different Protestant Missionaries in Hangchow, acting in harmonious concert, was carried on without opposition for two years and more. Toler- ation, however, has not always characterized the attitude of the Government towards Christianity in Hangchow. The Jesuits, whose Mission is situated in the northern corner of the city, received the site originally by Imperial grant in the sixteenth century. They were subsequently ejected by the Emperor Yungching (a.d. 1730), and were ^ See Flower Ballad, translated by Bishop Moule. Story of the Chehkia7tg Mission, p. 157, sgrg. Sudden Hostility. 73 not reinstated till the time of the T'aip'ings (1860-64). In the year 1872-3 a serious covert attack was made on Protestant Missions in Hangchow. The Chinese principals and middlemen connected with the lease or sale of plots of ground on which our Mission houses and churches stand, were suddenly arrested and imprisoned. The high Mandarins attempted at first evasion, pretend- ing that these men were arrested on other grounds, and for charges with which foreigners had nothing to do. But the real cause soon transpired. One of the American Missions had erected houses on the famous Capitoline hill, the sacred hill not of the city only, but of the whole province, and on a site which overlooked the Yamuns of all the chief Mandarins. During the days of confusion following on the T'aip'ing rebellion, ground changed hands with great facility ; and this airy and healthy situation having been offered to the Mission, they too readily accepted it ; not reckoning on the vitality of prejudice which would be sure to revive with reviving prosperity ; nor on the power of the Chinese principles of geomancy, fung-shui. The mother and son of one of the high Mandarins fell ill and died — something was wrong with the luck of the house ; and the geomancers when called in pointed unhesitatingly to the gables of the foreign house desecrating the sacred hill, and in- sulting the desolated Yamun. Hence the sudden raid on all Chinese who had dared to lease or sell land to foreigners. The difficulty, after some intricate and anxious negotiation, was amicably and honourably arranged. The Mission houses were removed ; but full compensation for 74 An Intanct City. the expense and inconvenience of removal was granted, and a new site within the city walls was given with the fullest official sanction. Since that date Missionary- residence and work in Hangchow has been practically unmolested and undisputed. There are signs in every shop of the great city of the influence of idolatrous superstition. The god of wealth,^ with a red face, sits in his gaudy gilt box or shrine in some conspicuous corner of almost every shop ; and the duties of the day begin with the offering of incense and the invocation of his blessing on the trade of the day. At New Year tide the god of the soil, who is supposed to guard and control the approaches to each house, is .worshipped and invoked by special offerings ; and the doors of shops and houses alike are bright with mottoes and charms prepared and sold by indigent scholars, or mendicant priests. Yet this clinging to superstition and folly, and to their ancient religions, does not steel the hearts of the Chinese altogether against the new doctrine from the West. Politeness and intelligence combine in many cases to secure a hearing for the Missionary. Supercilious con- tempt, the pride of imaginary superiority, and the consciousness of an ancient civilization, and of hoary religious systems, combine in many more to prevent the acceptance of the gospel ; till that Divine mysterious power intervenes. Whose touch changes the whole atti- tude of the human soul, and in due time changes the whole history of the believer's life. 1 See below, cap. vi. CHAPTER III. A CHINESE PORT. We now leave the great inland city of Hangchow and embark for Shanghai, the largest and most considerable of China's open ports. The distance between Hangchow and Shanghai is about 1 60 miles. The northern customs barrier of Hangchow forms the terminus of the Grand Canal which stretches eastwards as far as Kashing, and thence northwards. It crosses first the river Yang-tse at Chin- kiang-fu, and then the river Hwang-ho (the Yellow River) ninety miles distant, at a point about seventy miles from its mouth. It then stretches northwards to Lintsing-chau in Shantung, its proper terminus, and further on to T'ien-tsin near Peking by narrower waters. The total length is about 650 miles. On either side of the two great rivers the level of the canal is higher than that of the river current, so that the canal is carried through by sluices. This Grand Canal, which was projected and finished by the great Kublai Khan (a.d. 1280), varies much in width and depth. Its finest and most picturesque portion is that which we are now traversing near its southern terminus. The ordinary passage-boats plying between Hangchow 76 A Chinese Port. and Shanghai (the Wu-sih Kw'ai or "fast boats of Wu-sih"), are flat-bottomed] with a broad beam, and with a top-heavy deck-house which monopolizes most of the space, but leaves room at the stern for the crew of five or six men and women to eat and sleep by turns, and at the bows as well for poling, or for an extra scull if necessary. It is quite possible to make oneself comfortable in such a house-boat ; but the length of passage is, or used to be, an unknown quantity. The luxury of steam-launches is being introduced on these canals now. During the month of February 1890, through the kindness of the secretary of Admiral Lang, who was then in Shanghai, I went with him in a good launch to Hangchow, and returned in the same way. The difference in the passage was extraordinary. We ran the 460 li, or 160 miles, in twenty hours, and returned in sixteen. Bends in the canal or river which I had been accustomed to contemplate from afar for hours before the creeping boat could reach and pass them, we now sighted, touched, and flew past as by magic. But this is not old China, it is rather one of the startling signs of her awaking and rehabilitation. I have made the run in a large native boat in three days and two nights, or in two days and three nights. I have also taken stx days and nights' on the Weary transit. A fair wind, good and willing boatmen, and clear weather, shorten the journey marvellously; a persistent head wind, and opium-smoking, cross-grained boatmen, with rain or snow filling the air, prolong it indefinitely. On these waters the boatmen, as clearly River Piracy. 77 stated on their tickets, do not travel at night ; and some crews, taking advantage of this condition, anchor as soon as the sun is down, and sleep on to broad daylight the next morning before they will start. Other boatmen will work on till eleven p.m. and be off again soon after the fourth watch is set — that is between three and four a.m. We travel sometimes \)y foot-boats, which are propelled by one long oar pulled and feathered by the boatman seated in the stern. He has a board to lean his back against, and a short paddle under his left arm to steer and steady the boat, and he seizes the long oar with both feet and gives a strong and vigorous stroke, sending the crank craft rapidly through the water. From the waving and wriggling motion, these boats are called "snake boats" sometimes by foreigners. They are so narrow and crank that the passenger cannot stand up in the boat, and must sit quietly, and trim the boat with carefully-adjusted balance of himself arid his goods during the passage. As these boats consent to travel by night, the passage can be made in thirty-two or thirty-six hours. The alleged reason for the night stoppage is river piracy ; an imaginary danger for the most part, but very real about New Year's tide, when merchants return home with goods and money, or when specially heavy mails are despatched, and rhake it worth the amateur pirates' while to watch through the snowy night. Some of the reaches on the Grand Canal, which carries us on its bosom half-way to Shanghai, are long and solitary. The banks of the canal slope steeply to a height of fifteen or 78 A Chinese Port. twenty feet above the water. These banks are beautiful in the spring with rich crops of peas and beans and wheat, and with the tender green of forests of mul- berry-trees ; and the pheasant is calling on all sides ; and little fleets of skiffs with patient fishermen come back late at night to their homes in dwellings on piles by the canal edge (much like the ancient Swiss lake dwellings). But on a dark winter night, for nearly five miles of canal, you may not see a living being, or a light from cabin or hall ; and in case of an attack in one of these solitary regions, you would be quite out of hearing, and beyond the reach of help. Several years ago, before the country had quieted down after the T'aip'ing rebellion, one of my Missionary friends was attacked on this canal. Quite suddenly small boats shot out from the darkness of the shores and with long bamboo boathooks began to hammer in the tilt of the boat. The boatmen seeing resistance hopeless, abandoned the craft and swam for shore. My friend followed their example. The pirates hastily rifled the boat and abandoned it again ; and when, wet and nervous, the crew and their passengers returned, they found most of their property gone ; but my friend's waistcoat, with his watch in it, had been overlooked, and was hanging up where he left it. On the 27th of November, 1890, two ladies travelling in a native boat between Shanghai and Soochow, were attacked- by pirates armed with bayonets and fire-arms ; and were robbed of their bedding, and of the most valuable clothing in their trunks. Mail Boats. Postal System. 79 Occasionally, but rarely, another danger attends boat navigation. Nine years ago, I was hurrying from Hangchow to Shanghai in a foot-boat. It was bitterly cold, but we had made good progress, and reached Ka-shing (the half-way city) in sixteen hours, when we suddenly ran into a pack of thick ice. After vain attempts at breaking a passage with their short paddles, my boatmen abandoned the hope, and we had to lie to, and wait for morning. When the sun was up, large cargo-boats in front of us formed a pro- cession, and at length broke up the formidable barrier with long mallets. Late that night, near the city of Sung-kong, I ran into a similar danger, and we were obliged to turn back, and go round by a different route, so as to reach the canal where the tidal wash disturbed the ice. The mails are generally carried in these foot-boats over this route. The postal system is remarkably regular and reliable. It is not a governmental enter- prise ; and so far as I know the different private offices which conduct its operations receive no official subsidy. Yet money and valuables can be entrusted to these offices, and the letters are as a rule delivered with great regularity. In Hangchow, which we have just left, and where a purely Chinese system is in operation, there are two deliveries every day ; and twice also the postman calls most obligingly for letters. Newspapers and parcels arrive a post or two later, but letters are delivered within three days between Hangchow and Shanghai or Ningpo. These private offices are more 8o A Chinese Port. liberal, perhaps more audacious, than H. M. Postmaster- General. A bank draft for, say, 500 dollars is sent by post. You inscribe on the outside of the envelope the amount of the draft ; you pay double postage, one hundred and twenty copper cash, or say 5|^., instead of sixty cash, or 2\d., and the office holds itself responsible for the whole amount. But now we have left the mazes of the fine canals round Sung-kong, and have dropped into the river Whang-p'u. Down the seven mile reach we race with a strong fair wind, and meet beating up and tacking against the breeze some vessels of the Shanghai yacht club. A sharp run now to the east-north-east carries us past the Kiangnan arsenal, whose amazing manufactur- ing exploits, as I described above, had caused the editor of the Kwan-pao so many sleepless nights. The tall chimneys are in full blast, and both artillery and rifle practice afe going on at the butts on the river-bank. Now the river swoops northward, and we pass the higher docks, and enter the forest of junks. These picturesque but ungainly craft are most of them sea-going. They are moored in lines so as to leave clear channels for navigation. Queen Elizabeth's fighting ships must have been in build not unlike a modern Chinese junk. Each vessel carries two wooden eyes in the prow, " for how," ask the old-world Chinese, " how can the ship see its way without eyes ? " And this is the people, remember, Who discovered the mariner's compass long before it was known in Europe, and who are by no means timid or Btay^at-home navigators. Chinese Jitnks. 8 1 The polarity of the needle was early known in China, and is msntioned by a writer named Kwei Ku-tse in the fourth century before Christ. The compass was used by the Buddhist and Taoist geomancers in their feng-shui investigations as early probably as A.D. 324 ; and in A.D. 1122 the mariner's compass is mentioned by Sii-king, ambassador to Corea, as used on board his ship, ante-dating by at least one hundred years any other mention of the compass on board ship in native or foreign books of travel. The stern of a Chinese junk rises high and towering, and the deck slopes with a steep ascent towards the deck-house, and with a gentler gradient towards the prow. The gunwales are high and strong ; and below in lines round the ship, the province and department and port from which the junk hails are inscribed, and the vessel bears some name or motto at the stern — " The Flying Dragon," "The Azure Stork," or simply the words, "Fair wind and tide." The sailors are stretching their ochre- red bamboo sails to dry in the wind and sun as we pass ; and in a sheltered corner of the deck some of them are squatting in circles eating their midday meal. They ges- ticulate with their chopsticks, and point at us as we pass ; but foreigners are no longer a " sight " in Shanghai. We have come down with the very first of the ebb. Many junks have already weighed and are dropping down the river ; others are getting up anchor ; and as we pass one after another a loud clash and roll of gongs and drums nearly deafens us ; crackers are let off at the bows ; and what is called by foreigners joss-paper, or paper used 82 A Chinese Port. in worship and incantation, and passed by burning into the spirit world, for the use of the dead, is set on fire and cast into the river. Candles and sticks of incense are lighted, so far as the blustering wind will allow, and wine and cakes are offered to the goddess of mercy, Kwan-yin, the sailors' patron saint, " that has looo arms and looo eyes, and a merciful heart." The junk is moving now ; and as she drops down the river more crackers are discharged, till with all sail set and a fair tide they stop their devotions, and contentedly smoke their pipes, and hope for a prosperous trip and a quick return. Now the rows of junks thicken. Here we are off the east gate of the native city, and we can trace beyond the crowded suburbs a glimpse of the circuit of the city wall. High above the masses of Chinese houses and temples towers the heavy roof and large cross of the Roman Catholic cathedral. In this cathedral one Christmas Eve several years ago, a Missionary friend of mine heard the simplest possible gospel sermon from the lips of a French priest, and given in good and idiomatic Chinese. " O si sic semper ! " But Mariolatry is taught as baldly and as uncompromisingly in China as in Naples. " She is kinder than her Son," said a Chinese Roman Catholic Christian to me, " and therefore we are encouraged to pray to the Blessed Virgin." Large numbers of Chinese sailors at Shanghai are said to belong to this Church ; and they showed their courage and devotion in a remarkable manner during the French troubles described in my first chapter. In- stead of cowering before the popular indignation against The French and English Settlements. 83 the country of their spiritual teachers, the poor Christians rather gloried in the distinction, and carried aloft at their mast-heads the French flag and the sacred symbol. These Roman Catholics do not belong, so far as I know, to the larger sea-going junks, but to the fleets of smaller craft plying up the Yang-tse. As we drop further down, an occasional steamer lies at anchor amongst the crowd of junks. Now we are near the little east gate, and close to the highest limit of the French settlement, which skirts the river- bank for three-quarters of a mile, and then winds inland, following the line of the city wall. Here the fleet of fine river and coast and ocean steamships, moored to the wharves, or anchored mid stream, strikes the eye. The English flag largely predominates ; but here too the flags of all nations are represented from time to time, and the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company has its yellow dragon flag flying at many a fine steamer's yard-arm. For nearly half a mile the warehouses of this Company extend, parallel with the wharves and landing-stages. Then passing what is called Defence Creek, spanned by an iron bridge, we enter the limits of the English settlement. A fine boule- vard stretches before us, fringed with trees on either side. The road is smooth and kept in excellent repair, and it is lively with carriages, and dog-carts, and jinrickshas, and wheelbarrows, and crowds of foot-passengers. The "jinricksha," or "man-power carriage," has been introduced into China from Japan now for ten or twelve years, and its use is spreading fast to the Straits 84 A Chinese Port. Settlements and to Ceylon. The ordinary jinricksha is a small vehicle wide enough to seat only one passenger with comfort. It runs on two wheels, and is drawn by a coolie grasping the shafts in front. A tilt supposed to be waterproof can be raised at will. Double jinrickshas are sometimes seen, and an extra coolie will push behind. Iron stays are fixed behind to prevent a sudden tilt backwards ; and the shafts are sometimes fitted with the same to prevent a too sudden deposit of the passenger forwards. The long line of almost palatial buildings, the club house, the banks, the merchants' stately ofifices, the old Custom House, the Masonic Hall, and the lofty houses occupied by some of the steamship companies, stretch on the left hand, and to the right all is open to the river ; and beyond the broad footpath a beautiful green sward slopes to the river, and rows of luxurious seats are placed there for the accommodation of foreigners and Chinese. The charm of this green grass on hot summer evenings cannot well be exaggerated. Meanwhile our boat, from the deck of which we have had this glimpse of Shanghai, has come to an anchor near the public gardens. We are surrounded by a little fleet of ferry-boats, dancing on the choppy water, and sculled with great speed, though with a most unrestful wriggle and pitch, by the strong arms of the Ningpo boatmen. On the jetty crowds of porters and jinricksha or wheelbarrow coolies are waiting for our landing with shouts of proffered help. The public gardens, hard by this landing-stage, form The American Settlement. 85 an oasis in a wilderness ; the wilderness being the rush and heat and noise of the crowded streets of this great centre of eastern commerce ; the oasis— a garden with green lawns and gently sloping banks, and one con- tinuous succession of sweet English flowers, bordered with Chinese shrubs. In the spring and early summer and in mid-autumn the beauty of these gardens in sheets of hyacinths, narcissus, tulips, roses, and chry- santhemums, is a joy as of home on a foreign shore. During six or seven months of the year an excellently trained band plays good music in these gardens. Beyond this oasis, and separated by a wide bridge spanning the Soochow creek, a feeder of the Hwang-p'u, lies the American settlement, in which many Portuguese and Japanese also reside. This settlement, called Hongkew, stretches westwards and eastwards along the water's-edge, and into the flat, featureless country to the northward, where lie the rifle-butts, the practising-ground of the local volunteers. Here begin again the docks and wharves, and the long stately row of merchant steamers stretching a mile and more down the river seawards. The river bends eastwards here ; and both in this reach, and also opposite the English settlement, which is the centre of business and fashion and life, guard-ships of war — Enghsh, American, French, German, Austrian, Italian, and not seldom Chinese cruisers also — lie at anchor. This eastward reach of the river extends to " the Point," half-way to Woosung, which guards the mouths of the Yang-tse and of the Hwang-p'u. It was once a dismal and dreary line of shore, with half-finished buildings, 86 A Chinese Port. " follies " born of enterprise without sufficient capital. It is now all alive with manufactories and works in full operation ; paper-mills, and glass- and water-works, and cotton-cleaning mills, and cotton cloth works, and a large brewery ; and further down a large Chinese garden with a menagerie of wild beasts, patronized by crowds of people in fine weather. Here we are outside the limits of the harbour ; and the signal-guns from the look-out on the Eastern shores of the Hwang-p'u, fired when the mail is coming up, are discharged directly the tender crosses the boundary of the harbour. The mag- nificent steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental, and Messageries Maritimes, and German Lloyd, mail lines, often anchor for a few hours at Woosung, sending the mails and passengers up to Shanghai in tugs or tenders, till the water is deeper on the bar, and the great floating towns can cross without danger. We have reached Shanghai in broad daylight. The arrival at night is hke a fairy scene ; the long line of the "bund" is brilliant from end to end with electric lamps, the light of which amongst the rich foliage of the trees is singulariy soft and beautiful. The streets, which run with great regularity at right angles to the bund, and others parallel with it in six or seven bars of traffic, are also lighted for the most part with electric lamps, or with good serviceable gas. The bund and the side streets are crowded also, and lined in all directions with wires, some of them telegraph lines to Europe and America, or inland through China ; some of them tele- phone wires, which are connected with all the chief Country Houses. 87 houses of business, with the physicians' residences and offices, and wit'i many country houses — for Shanghai has stretched now far into the country. The bounds of the settlements extend only to the Horse Bazaar bridge, a short mile from the river ; but beyond this he country houses surrounded by charming gardens, with tennis- lawns and shrubs and flower-beds, reminding one of suburban gardens at home. These houses stretch four or five miles into the country, west-ward and eastward ; and a ride or drive of ten clear miles may be enjoyed between the two extremities, where one meets with all the refinements of civilization and warm hospitality. In the late autumn and through the winter, till the spring crops appear above the ground, cross-country riding^ drag hunts, and paper-chases are largely patronized. The country people are sometimes truculently mis- chievous, and curse the riders ; but patience, and scrupulous regard for the just rights and wants of the poor husbandmen, will avoid unnecessary friction. The boundary of the settlement westwards is a narrow tidal canal called Defence Creek. During the perilous days when the city of Shanghai was held by the soldiers of the Triads, one of the numerous secret political societies with a revolutionary object, and when it was occupied also by the T'aip'ings for a while, the country round was held by the disorderly soldiery of the Imperial authorities. The foreign settle- ments were threatened thus by a double danger from invader and possessor alike ; from the T'aip'ings in the city and the Imperialists in the neighbouring country ; 88 A Chinese Port. and this creek formed the most important outwork against the foe, running parallel with the city wall from east to west, and fringing the south-west face of the settlements till it joins the waters of the Soochow Creek. Beyond this creek lies the broad expanse of the re- creation-ground, including the green sward of the race- course, which affords to favoured pedestrians a glorious stretch of a mile and a half of the most perfect turf. There is also an inner practising course, and an expanse of broken ground which may be improved some day by trees and landscape gardening, but which is useful now for practice in rough riding. Here too the local volunteers, consisting of four companies of infantry, a small but effective troop of light horse, and a strong and well- manned battery of artillery — the guns presented by her Majesty's Government — have their annual review and periodical exercises. Dense masses of eager Chinese spectators line the outer barriers of the great area at race time, or on days of military displays. In the inner circle of this large recreation-ground is the cricket-ground with its pavilion ; an expanse of turf with a pitch as true as English soil can show. The cricket-club reckons nearly 200 playing members. The recreation-club has a separate ground for cricket and football and athletic sports ; and the young Englishmen at Shanghai, and their elders as well, have in healthful exercise, and in the delights of Hterature, music, debate, and scientific research, as well as in the Hghter pleasures of the stage, almost all that Europe could offer. The depressing earth-tying effect of the unbroken The Seitleinents Police. 89 plain in which Shanghai stands, without one glimpse of hill or mountain-peak, save from the tops of the highest buildings, does not suffice to suppress or chill the stir and life and gaiety of the place. The streets of the settlements are carefully drained, and the scavenging is under foreign superintendence. The settlements, French, EngHsh, and American, with a population of nearly 200,000 Chinese, and 3000 or 4000 Europeans, though on Chinese soil, and these Chinese all subjects of the Emperor, are by an international arrangement governed by French and English Municipal Councils elected annually by the European ratepayers. The streets are admirably policed by sixty or Seventy English sergeants from the London Metropolitan force ; by as many stalwart Sikhs ; and by a body of 200 or 300 short-statured but useful Chinese policemen ; the whole force being controlled by a captain-superintendent with assistant inspectors. The order in the densely- crowded streets is singularly good ; cases of drunkenness and riotous assault being unfortunately confined for the most part to European or American sailors on leave from the ships in port, and maddened by the poisonous drugged drinks supplied by many of the low grog- shops which form one of the plague-spots of Shanghai. Another desperate evil — which seems to be so coqstant a concomitant of the congregation in seaport towns of many nationalities -i=-arises from the long rows of brothels, in the back streets of the settlements, and along the banks of the creeks and inner waters of the harbour, in close proximity to opium-smoking dens, which are go A Chinese Port. legion, and to the low liquor-shops which I have mentioned above. Such open and unblushing vice would not be tolerated in a well-governed Chinese city. It does not follow by any means that the forcible suppression of moral evil will stifle and eradicate the plague. It rfiay merely drive the evil inwards ; and intensify its malignity. But it is most fervently to be hoped that in these settle- ments, familiarly called " model settlements," and looked upon by young China as slices of Christian Europe, vice may be year by year more and more distinctly discountenanced and suppressed. Within the walls of the city of Shanghai meanwhile ancient China sleeps on, although the city shares with the settlements the trade and bustle of this great port, and is separated from these settlements only by its moat. Narrow streets, poorly lighted, ill-drained and ill- scavenged, lead into the heart of the city. Towards the river and the harbour the streets are continuous, and densely crowded from morning to late night Westwards there are large open spaces, with vegetable gardens and some fine trees. But quiet, and antiquated, and un- touched as the city is, with evil smells and sights innumerable, yet the stir and the electric touch of the life outside cannot but penetrate within the walls. The water supply is the great problem for Shanghai ; for the wells are very brackish, and the rain-water they do not much admire. They depend on their beloved river, well called the Yellow, for drinking and cooking purposes. Water-carriers wait by the edge of the moat for the Wafer Supply. 91 incoming tide, with its fresh but turbid vokime. They naturally enough stand as near the city gate as possible ; but here too the main sewer of the city has its outfall. This does not daunt them. So soon as the tide has made a little way, and the black scum of the sewer is partially hidden by the stream, they fill their buckets, and hurry with a rapid run and a loud shout into the streets and lanes of the city, splashing the paving-stones as if from a heavy fall of rain. These men charge about a halfpenny a load, or more if the distance be great. On a recent occasion the departmental magistrate of the city was consulted as to the carrying of the Shanghai Water Company's pipes into the native city, with its constant and bountiful supply of pure water. The old magistrate replied that he had spent seventy years in these parts ; that he had always drunk the water from the moat ; and that for his part he preferred water with some body in it. And up to this date the old man's taste is still gratified. It must be confessed, however, that the people of Shanghai diminish the danger by putting alum into their water-jars, and so precipitating the " body." Now what is the effect of this close contact on so large a scale between Europe and China in this great port .' Have they learnt to understand and to respect one another .? One general statement may be made as to the character of Chinese business men. It used to be a common dictum that the word of a Cantonese Hong merchant was worth as much as another man's bond. And two years ago, the manager of the Hongkong 92 A Chinese Port. and Shanghai Banking Corporation, when leaving , for England, and receiving warm tokens of esteem, not from his fellow-countrymen only, but from prominent Chinese citizens as well, boldy avowed the fact, that in the course of a long experience he had never known, so far as his bank was concerned, a Chinese defaulter in money transactions. And I believe that not a few firm and true friendships have been formed between English merchants and Chinese gentry. Not long ago a foreigner travelled all over China, leaving with native traders quantities of his goods for sale, informing them at the same time of the name of the firm in Shanghai to whom remittances should be sent. Many of these traders were in out-of-the-way places ; but so far they have regularly remitted the proceeds of their sales. One man at T'ientsin had credit to the extent of one thousand dollars. He has since then retired from business ; but he regularly remits money to the Shanghai agents in liquidation of his debt. Moreover, the Chinese have as a rule a high idea, not only of the honesty and integrity of individual European merchants and bankers, but also of the justice of Eng- lish law courts. The Chinese mixed court in Shanghai, presided over by a Chinese petty judge, with English or American assessors, tries cases both criminal and civil between foreigners and Chinese, and the presence of the European on the bench without doubt assures the Chinese of far more direct justice than a Chinese law court could provide. And occasionally, as in the case of collisions in the river or at sea, the Chinese, if accusers,. opium-smoking. 93 will cany the case to a British Court of Naval Enquiry, or to the English Supreme Court, or will even appeal to the Privy Council in England, with a clear persuasion that justice and not expediency will guide the decision. Shanghai is unfortunately notorious for opium-smoking. In one of the streets of the French settlement, the largest opium shop in all China is to be found. It may rather be called an opium hotel, to which all classes of the Chinese community resort to learn with fatal facility the delusion of this fascinating vice, and to return after two or three visits fast bound in its well-nigh inextricable toils. Women are to be found her6 as well as men ; and this is but the head-quarters of a system which poisons and disgraces the streets and by-paths of the settlements and city alike. The loud moral protest against England's part in the introduction of opium sounds now from Chinese lips, when it sounds at all, with a hollow, dishonest ring ; because the growth of the poppy over an immense acreage of China's best soil is notorious. The quantity of native opium produced in the year 1881 amounted to 226,000 piculs. The quantity of foreign opium imported in 1882 amounted to 66,900 piculs, or only a bare third of the native crop. And during the year 1890, the growth of native opium, which had hithef to been regarded as illegal and subject to grave risk from the spasmodic uprooting energy of individual Mandarins, has been legalized by Imperial decree. This decree, however, takes while it gives ; for native opium is henceforth to be subjected to the same taxation as that imposed on 94 A Chinese Port. the foreign drug. Nevertheless the protest was a real one in the past ; and the moral ground of this Chinese protest formed one of the most damaging libels on Christianity which the history of the Christian Church has had to deplore. Libel it was ; for when Christianity could speak, she has protested loudly against England's high-hahded treatment of China's apparently moral objections. But it was none the less deplorable and inimical to the claims and to the progress of Christianity in the land. The time has probably gone by when Englahd could have righted herself in the eyes of China and of Christendom by an act of high-souled reparation. China has adopted the poppy as one of her staple crops. She finds the revenue from the trade too large, and the hold of the vice on the people too closely riveted, either to care for the abolition of the traffic, or to hope for the eradication of the habit. But the harm inflicted on thfe nation by the vice, and the blot on the fair name of a Christian country, cannot be obliterated by the exposure or by the deterioration of the accuser's character. What then is the measure of England's blame from 1 78 1 to i860.? The history of the poppy in China has been recently traced in an official pamphlet prepared and published by order of the English Inspector-General of Foreign Customs in China ; and the following brief summary of its statements and conclusions will be of interest while we contemplate the opium-dens of this great centre of commerce, Shanghai. The poppy was probably unknown in China previous opium in China. 95 to the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618—907). It was then introduced by Arab traders as a soporific drug ; and the plant, either as a handsome garden flower, or as a useful medicine, is repeatedly mentioned down to the seven- teenth century. At that time tobacco-smoking and tobacco cultivation were introduced from the Philippine Islands (A.D. 1620). In the time of the last Ming Emperor (A.D. 162S — 1646) tobacco-smoking was as vigorously denounced and prohibited as opium-smoking 100 years later. The Chinese have found the first habit far less dangerous than they imagined, and the second a far greater plague than they had feared. Various ingredients were mixed with tobacco, such as arsenic with the tobacco used in water-pipes, and opium. -Thus in all probability opium and tobacco-smoking are closely allied. The first Imperial decree against opium-smoking was issued about 100 years after the Chinese counterblast to tobacco, namely, in A.D. 1729. Opium-smoking was known in Java before this time, and is described by the famous traveller Koempfer. It must have been a different habit from the more placid Chinese vice, for Koempfer ascribes to this the " hamuk," or " running amuck," not unknown in these modern days. Formosa seems to bear on her fair name the brand and disgrace of having been the original den of opium-smoking. In two native works on Formosa, published in A.D. 1746, descriptions are given of the habit and of its results. " The opium is boiled in a copper pan. The pipe is in appearance like a short club. Depraved young men without any fixed occupation, 96 A Chinese Port. meet together by night and smoke ; and it soon becomes a custom. Fruit and sweetmeats are provided for smokers ; and no charge is made the first time, in order to tempt men to enter the dens. After a while they cannot stay away ; and will forfeit all their property in order to buy the drug. Soon they find themselves beyond cure. If they omit smoking for a day, their faces become shrivelled, their lips stand open, and they seem ready to die. Another smoke restores vitality ; but in three years they all die. This habit has entered China about ten or more years." Already a decree against opium of the most stringent character had been promulgated, and the Chinese Government found itself ■face to face with a dangerous social evil. Meanwhile the poppy had entered Western China, probably intro- duced by the Mahometans, who had cultivated the plant in Arabia, Persia, and India, and who were a power in Yunnan before the eighteenth century. The East India Company under Warren Hastings took the monopoly of opium into their own hands in A.D. 1781, and determined to make it pay. At this time, as we gather from the Report of the English House of Commons (A.D. 1780), " the importation of opium was forbidden on very severe penalties. The opium on seizure was to be burnt the vessel carrying it confiscated, and the Chinese salesmen were punishable with death." In the face of this prohibition, which was well known, trusting to the cupidity and corruptibility of the execu- tive of the Chinese Government, the first venture of this trade, destined to expand to vast and deadly proportions, The Indian Opium Trade. 97 was made by ships armed to the teeth as if for some warlike or piratical enterprise. The coincidence of the supposed necessity for such an outlet for British com- mercial enterprise, with Chinese exclusiveness based on morality and largely strengthened by a jealous protec- tive policy, was, to say the very least, unfortunate. And to this period of the commencement of the more active British Indian opium trade can be traced most distinctly a great and strong stimulus applied to the destructive habit. The spectacle is half pathetic, half grotesque, of the loud denunciation of the trade and of the habit by the Emperor and by individual censors, and the connivance at the trade on the part of Viceroys and Governors ; till at last, with a desperate effort at the annihilation of the evil, the war of 1841 was forced on by the high-handed but disinterested action of Lin Tso-hsu. And now the plague has spread so widely as to have become fashionable instead of being a disgrace, and open and unabashed instead of hiding in dark corners of the city. Instances which have come under my notice make me think that opium-smoking is already taking the place not of abuse of alcohol, (which it has hitherto held,) in Chinese moral estimation, but of the use of alcohol ; and that it is becoming possible to take the drug in moderation. If so, though apparently innocuous for a time, it will imply far greater risk than that which can accompany the moderate use of wine or spirits in England. But should this be so, England's philanthropic attempts at grappling with China's vice will be met at once with H 98 A Chinese Port. the retort, " Physician, heal thyself ; q. d. we can take opium in moderation, as you take wine in modera- tion. If you would prohibit our opium, abolish your alcohol." . Is then the habit so deleterious as many assert, and as some deny .■" I have quoted Chinese opinion above. Hear another witness. " Of late years," writes the author of a botanical work published forty years ago,' " opium has spread through the Empire ; a universal poison!' Mr. H. A. Giles, H.M. Consul at Shanghai, in his China Sketches, while protesting against exaggera-. tions on the subject, writes thus — " If your servant smokes opium, dismiss him!' Dr. Daly, in charge of a Mission Hospital at Ningpo, writes thus in his latest report — " The use of opium is rapidly extending. Opium-smokers beget few and unhealthy children ; and although the habit does not to any great extent lead ta violent crime like drink, yet indirectly it is the cause of appalling misery." And Dr. Edkins, an eminent and veteran Missionary and scholar, in the pages of the Imperial Maritime Customs Memoir on Opium, quoted above, remarks that "the mischief caused by opium- smoking is without doubt great beyond computation!' We turn away therefore from the contemplation of Shanghai's countless opium-shops with grave appre- hension and alarm. The intercourse between Shanghai and the West, and . the increasing tide of emigration, leads one sometimes to wonder how far the return of Chinese from foreign parts, with new knowledge, new ideas, and an enlarged - A Returned Etnigrant. 99 apprehension of the outer world, may be influencing the people at large. Perhaps these are early days to expect any definite result of this kind. Certainly an instance which came under my notice about four years ago was not a very encouraging one, if it be regarded as in any sense typical. I was informed on my return home one afternoon, that a Chinese gentleman with his baggage was await- ing my arrival. I went out to meet him. A tall man with a fairly intelligent countenance rose to return my salutation. He was unspeakably dirty — I presumed from his long travel. His dialect was absolutely unintelligible both to myself and to my Chinese catechists and servants, and we could converse only by writing. His story was strange and almost romantic. He was a native of the far west (Yiinnan) ; and at the time of the Great Rebellion thirty years before, he found his way vid Hongkong to British Guiana. Here he settled down in business. He became a Christian, and described to me the baptismal service. He brought with him letters demissory from the Anglican clergyman at his adopted home. His wife died there ; and his two daughters were married to respectable Cantonese mer- chants in British Guiana. He had collected a small fortune of a thousand dollars ; and suddenly possessed with the desire to see the old country once more, he took passage to Hongkong. There he was welcomed by the German Basle Mission ; and he held a receipt from that Mission, with thanks, for a donation which he had left behind him. From thence he found his way to loo A Chinese Port. Yiinnan, and reached his old home. Most of his friends, and relations were dead and gone ; but some recognized him, and cheerfully relieved him of a good many of his dollars. He now determined to let his light shine — and he purchased a house and a parcel of ground on which he designed to form a Christian Mission. He purchased also a wife for a small sum ; for in consequence of the desolation and decay of his native province after the murderous suppression of the Panthay power, wives were cheap. He then started across China, leaving his young bride at home. He struck at last the great Yang-tse, and dropped down to Ichang, where, as well as at Hankow, he was kindly treated by Missionaries ; and from Hankow he came by steamer to Shanghai, and armed with letters of character and introduction, he presented himself at my door. "What is your honourable business," I asked, " in coming so far } " " I have come," he naively replied, " to purchase a Manilla lottery ticket. If I draw a prize, as I hope to do, of say $io,ooo, or even $5000, I shall devote this sum to the extension of the gospel in Yunnan." " Do nothing of the kind," I urged. " Don't you know that this is regarded by your own people as gambling, and is denounced by your own authorities ? A Christian, as you profess to be, should be the last to engage in such a game of chance." Such a view had not suggested itself to his mind, and he would like to try. He drew a dismal blank ; and with a face blank, demure, and perplexed, the poor fellow left me on his way back to Professor Drum^nond on Missions. loi the far West. I helped him in his passage-money as far as Hankow, where he had friends. But I saw him no more. I mention this case as one which came under my own observation ; but one would wish to regard it as exceptional and not typical in the question under consideration. And now in this great Shanghai, the metropolis of commercial and manufacturing enterprise, this great focus of pleasure, gaiety, and moral good and evil, are we able to present to the Chinese any adequate picture of our common Christianity .■• Not so, in the opinion of Professor Henry Drummond. " The band of Mission- aries in Shanghai is," he says, " no steady phalanx set in a fixed campaign ; but a discordant band of guerillas recruited from all denominations, wearing all uniforms, waging a random fight, and possessing no common programme or method. Besides being confusing to the Chinese, this means great waste of power." It is not always given to a traveller, tarrying at a place a few days only, or even a few weeks, to form correct ideas as to the country and its inhabitants. And I am not sure that even so keen an observer as Professor Drummond has succeeded better than the majority of tourists. There are few Christians in the world who do not fervently desire the time when "we shall all be one," in accordance with our Lord's last solemn prayer, and with the result that " the world may believe that the Father has sent the Son." St. Paul's ideal of union and unity at Corinth is also the ideal at which the Christian Church is now aiming—" that we may I02 A Chinese Port. all speak the same thing ; that there be no divisions ; that we be perfected together in the same mind, and the same judgment." Both the inward principle of union and its outward manifestation are defined in these words. And nothing less than this is the final goal of the Church. But it does not follow meanwhile that there is no " unity of spirit, or bond of peace, or righteousness of life," manifested by the Church even amidst her manifold outward divisions, in Shanghai and elsewhere. That can hardly be called " a random fight " which is a daily protest against moral evil ; a daily enlighten- ment of the Chinese mind by systematic teaching of boys and girls in boarding- and day-schools ; by daily preaching to all comers in chapel and Mission room, and by constant distribution of religious and instructive literature. Those men and women deserve some better title from the learned Professor than " a discordant guerilla band," "without any common programme or method," who believe in and proclaim one only plan of salvation ; and who appeal to and distribute one Book only as the standard of the faith. Is it no mark of " a fixed campaign," when, though with different uniforms and in different divisions. Missionaries know one rally- ing cry alone — Jesus Christ our Lord ; when the}' all acknowledge and realize one object in their work, the hastening of the time when in that Name every knee shall bow ; and when they look forward to one triumph — outward organization and Church govern- ment and ritual passing away, and merged in the Uniformity. 103 glory of the day when every tongue shall confess that their common Master is Lord, to the glory of God the Father ? But my readers may be disposed to treat this as mere rhetoric, and may ask for some practical evidence of the fact that Missionaries in Shanghai and elsewhere do lament their unhappy divisions. My reply is two- fold. And first I notice that on every possible occasion Missionaries in Shanghai and in other great centres of work, do show their unity of spirit, and the strength of the bond of Christian charity, by frequent meetings for prayer and praise, both at the New Year, and in some places weekly ; and by periodical assemblies for consult- ation with reference to their common work — work more- over in which mutual concession, consideration, and as far as possible division of the field, are manifested. And not only do the Missionaries of different societies meet thus to discuss the details of their work, but the Chinese Christians also of the different Churches meet from time to time for prayer and for friendly intercourse. A year ago the European and American Missionaries in Shanghai invited the adult Christians of the several Missions to tea. The women were first entertained with foreign delicacies, and the ladies of Shanghai then showed them albums with landscapes and portraits. About 200 women and elder girls assembled. The next day nearly 300 men were entertained in a similar manner ; short addresses were delivered after tea, and a capital magic lantern exhibition closed the meeting. I04 A Chinese Port. A month later the Chinese Christians acted as hosts, and invited their foreign friends to a social entertain- ment. The warmest expressions of thankfulness to God for the harmony and practical union of spirit amongst Christians in Shanghai were uttered by the Chinese speakers at these meetings. But in the second place, if something more than this is demanded, and if the necessity of showing before the world our literal amalgamation and the abolition of outward differences is insisted upon, the reply is un- fortunately very simple. Forcible fusion will almost inevitably imply confusion. And if this be admitted, and voluntary fusion alone be contemplated, then I ask, who is prepared to commence the welding operation by abandoning his own most dear and sacred observ- ances, and suggesting some other Christian body as a rallying-point } I honestly believe in the historical Church of England ; and I am persuaded that she touches with a clear line of early if not primitive order and doctrine the earliest Church of Christ on earth. I maintain that with her most noble and scriptural Articles of Religion, with her creeds, and sober and solemn Liturgy and ritual, she forms a link which you search for elsewhere in vain between the venerable past and the restless eager present ; and that no better rallying-point can be found for Christians who reject the proud pretensions of the Church of Rome than this Church of our forefathers. And I long for the possibility of all Protestant Christians in Shanghai iinding room, and a welcome, and a glad Christian Diversity. 105 expression of their heart's devotion in the services of our Church under the roof of our noble cathedral ; and I should rejoice as in something not impossible or un- lovely, were all the manifold ramifications of Mission work amongst the 500,000 Chinese in Shanghai to be carried on in harmony and communion with this central Church. But I am not so enthusiastic or so unreason- able as to suppose that the other Christian bodies will abandon and close their own Union Church or other buildings for English service, or accept my views and conform at once to the Anglican Church. And I have never yet heard, even amidst our frequent and earnest discussions on this subject in Shanghai, a whisper of an answer to the question. Who will take the first step in carrying out this self-denying ordinance } Then, finally, how does Professor Drummond know that the present state of things is "confusing to the Chinese " .? Who told him this .? Not, I think, Chinese Christians ; and not, I fancy, the heathen. Some of our more sharply-marked points of divergence may — indeed must — perplex the Chinese ; but they accept, I believe, with common-sense readiness, the fact of differences in national and individual prejudices and idiosyncrasies. They recognize our common love and our common object. It may be, as Professor Drummond asserts, that it implies waste of power to have so many organizations. It may, on the contrary, be one means for the scattering of the light. From our Babel tongues of difference, modulated and controlled by His grace, who on the io6 A Chinese Port. first Pentecost repaired part of Babel's mischief, the whole earth may be overspread by the Gospel mes- sage ; till, after a yet greater Pentecost, we once more speak the same thing, and are one flock in the eternal fold. CHAPTER IV. COUNTRY LIFE. There is a wonderful charm in the freshness and openness of the country in China at almost all seasons of the year ; and new life and vigour seem to come to the European sojourner in either the great inland city of Hangchow or at the busy seaport of Shanghai with the breezes and the quiet and the beauty of the country. The Chinese, however, do not share in this enthusiasm. The countryman is important enough in theory, for society is divided into four classes arranged according to the order of dignity and usefulness — sz', nung, kung, shang — scholars, husbandmen, artisans, traders ; but a countryman considers himself much nearer to com- petence or fortune in a small country town or city shop, than when tilling his father's fields in the wild hill country or on the broad cultivated plains. Two years ago a great sorrow fell on one of our Christian famihes amongst the western hills of Cheh- kiang. A little boy five years old, their joy and pride, suddenly fell ill and died, whilst he was with his father at our Ningpo Mission house. The highest and deepest io8 Country Life. of all consolations soothed the weeping father ; but amongst minor sources of restful thought came this, that his little boy had the distinguished honour of being buried in a cemetery within sight of Ningpo, and within the bounds of the great city. To us it seemed that a hundred verdant spots might have been found close to his father's mountain home ; where, under the waving bamboo, or some fir-tree with the sound of the sea in its branches, with the cuckoo calling all round the hills, and the thunder echoing from peak to peak, high up in the " gorge of the hills," the little one might have slept and waited for the dawn. But no ; this damp ground, flat and half covered sometimes by the high tides of the muddy river Yung, this was near the city — and was it not nearer heaven too ? The country people are as a rule fresher and more healthy than those in the city ; though the most beautiful and remote upland villages are by no means exempt from the epidemics of cholera or low fever which sometimes sweep through the country. The greater excitement, and improved facilities for securing the necessaries of life, and the sense of greater protection by night within the closed gates of the walled city, lead Chinese husbandmen perhaps to prefer town to country. And there is little appreciation of the sweet sounds and sights of a country life. The same, however, is probably true of thousands of the rural population in England. The Chinese respond indeed readily to an Englishman's exclamation of rapturous delight when the hills 2000 feet high glow before him from base to summit red and Country Scenes. 109 yellow with carpets of azaleas. But the beauties of nature are seldom suggested for an Englishman's notice by his Chinese companion. My experience of country life in China has been somewhat varied. I have traversed by night and by day the rich rice plains and tea-clad hills within the Ningpo district ; and I have lodged in houses and temples in country towns and remote highland villages ; I have visited also and stayed in the mountainous regions of Chuki towards the centre of the province, which is also one of the chief silk-producing districts of Central China ; and the great alluvial plain round Shanghai is familiar also to my travels. The life of a Chinese country gentleman, or farmer or farm-labourer, is a monotonous one for the most part, but not unbroken by strange and sudden excitement. How fair beyond description is a morning in April or early May in the fields or on the slopes of the hills near Ningpo ! The sun is up, and is fast dispersing the low white mist over the land. The sharp metallic cry of the pheasant is heard ; and looking from the boat-head, there, almost glorious in the sunshine which lights up every dewdrop on the grass round him, the great red bird is standing flapping his wings and rejoicing in the morning air. The beans are in full bloom, and as the sun warms the flowers, and the breeze wafts the odour, the air is deliciously fragrant. The wheat is tall and luxuriant, as it is only one month from harvest-time. Great masses of red clover are in flower, and ready to be ploughed into the half-submerged soil, which is being I lo Country Life. prepared for the rice crops. We pass brilliant emerald patches, the seed-beds for the. early rice plants, which will soon be transplanted into the wider acres of the prepared ground. Narrow raised paths run round each field ; and the country is traversed by larger paths, paved with rough round pebbles or slabs of stone. Almost every iield or garden farm encloses one or more family tombs, which thus absorb a large space of ground. A high grass mound is raised over the coffin, which is placed on a slab, and round the tomb evergreens are planted. The lines of the water-courses which in countless ramifications traverse the plain, are shaded with trees — willow, or pride of India, or large camphor- trees, or the tallow tree so brilliant in the late autumn with scarlet leaves and snow-white berries. Fine trees shade also the water-pumps, which are now taken out of their winter shelters in temple-yard or shed, and are fixed for the summer's ceaseless toil along the canal banks. The yellow oxen, which blindfolded turn the flat wheels of these pumps, are enjoying rest and fresh pasture now on the low hill-sides, or amongst the clover and buttercups which clothe the tombs ; and as our boat nears the hills, red bunches of azaleas hang from the bank and mirror themselves in the water of the inundated rice land below. The hills are in all their full-orbed beauty. Besides the great carpet of azaleas, wistaria crowns the rocks, and sometimes camphor-trees, thirty or forty feet high, are festooned from the summit to the ground by branches of this beautiful and fragrant creeper, falling and trailing CoicHt7y Scenes. II I amongst the brilliant green of the young camphor leaves. Single camellias also abound, and blue borage ; and the fir-trees are in bloom ; and women and girls are busy amongst the trees gathering the bloom to mix with cakes. And now " I hear a charm of sons; through all the land." Plougliing with a Water Baffalo. The blackbird and the Chinese yellow-eyebrowed thrush make the hills resound with melody, the wood- pigeons murmur, and the soaring cry of rooks and the croak of the raven are heard ; besides many sweet notes peculiar to these beautiful hills and plains of China. 112 Country Life. Meanwhile the patient but doubtful-tempered water buffalo, urged by incessant shouts from the ploughman, is plunging and toiling through the deep mud of the rice- ground ; first with the simple plough, which is so light that it can be carried on the shoulder ; and then, when the soil is thoroughly upturned and the clods are broken up, the rough harrow follows, the ploughman standing on its frame and driving the buffalo before him. But plain and hill are not always beautiful to the eye. A month later the summer rains, on which the harvest depends, set in, and with steady, relentless downpour continue day after day, broken only by occasional hot, steamy, and oppressive intervals. The fair outline of the hills is blotted out, and everything indoors is covered with damp and mildew and clamminess. Yet it is a most "useful trouble of the rain." Some years ago in May and June the skies gave no water, and the me-t'ien, or " mildew weather " as the rainy season is called, was out of course. The vast stretches of rice-ground, recently dotted over with the tender plants from the seed-beds, now looked hard as iron. The canals were dry ; relays of men were working night and day digging for water in the damp central channels of the streams — and almost in vain. The rice-plants were sickening fast, and were turning yellow with drooping blades. Famine or grave disaster stared the poor people in the face, when the weather changed just in time with thunder-showers, and then a steady downpour ; and I have never since those critical days murmured at the troublesome rain. Chinese husbandmen forecast the excellence of their rice crops Thunder-storms. 113 partly by the amount of thunder-showers, which they rightly consider to be more nutritious than ordinary rain. " He maketh lightnings for the rain " (Psalm cxxxv. 7). "To be in attendance on the rain," writes Dr. Kay, commenting on this verse ; " one of the most striking arrangements in the great laboratory of Nature. The fall of rain is owing to an alteration in the electrical tension of the vapour-drops. It is ascertained that the rain from a thunder-cloud is more fertilizing, because richer in ammonia than other rain. It is thought that this ammonia is due to the action of the electric current in combining the nitrogen of the atmosphere with a portion of the hydrogen of the vapour." ^ With the return of the inundation of the fields, the whole face of the country is changed. The expanse of the plain looks for a while like a great lake ; and the effect of a thunder-storm at night breaking over the rice- fields is very fine. The flare of the lightning blaze and every fork or chain of the electric fluid is reflected in the fields below. Now too awakes that incessant music of the country by day and by night, and loudest of all during the hot nights of June and July — the croak of the innumerable frogs and toads which people the inundated ground. One could imagine at times that the concert is under the control of some conductor of age and dignity. It is not merely that a shout or sharp blow of a stick on the paving-stones will produce silence in the frog parliament ; but the whole chorus of croakers ceases and begins again sometimes without any external influence. I Rev. J. Slatter, quoted by Dr. Kay, z« loco. 114 Country Life. During the night of May 8th, 1862, when we were watching by turns against the anticipated attack of the T'aip'ings, who held the city of Ningpo, and occupied the country all round the foreign settlements, I felt sure that I heard the shouts of the host advancing to the attack. The sound was singularly deceptive ; and I was on the point of rousing the house in alarm, when I perceived that it was a specially loud concert of toads and frogs, borne to mc on the freshening south- east breeze. Chinese husbandmen have other and more doubtful data to go upon when forecasting the harvests of the year, than the amount and character of the rainfall. The country people from long distances round Hang- chow go up in boats or on foot, men, women, and children, partly to worship at the imposing temples embosomed in woods beyond the western lake, and partly to visit the Lui Fung pagoda on the south shore of that lake ; and to break off small portions of the brickwork to mingle with their manure, and so ensure a good harvest. Besides this superstition, something like the vague forecasts of Zadkiel, with, it is said. Imperial sanction, are displayed by an object lesson in every city of the Empire. On the first day of spring, which generally occurs during the first half of February, the celebrated clay ox is exhibited with civic honours, and then tumultuously broken to pieces by the people. The current belief is that the colours of the animal, by which the prophecy for the year is guided, are fixed and dis- tributed over its surface by supernatural agency in The Clay Ox. 1 1 s Peking, at the close of every year, and are thence promulgated officially throughout the Empire. A colour- less model in flour is kneaded together and wrapped in straw, and then enclosed, with a brush and colours by its side, in an empty room belonging to the astronomical board in Peking. When the door is opened the next morning, some unseen spiritual hand has traced the destiny of the Empire for the coming year on the different limbs of the ox. Another account places the brush in the hands of a blind man, who unguided and unprompted colours the figure. Here are the measurements and illuminations of a prophetic ox about twelve years ago. It was four feet high and eight feet long. Its tail turned to the right. Its mouth was shut. Its head was green ; and this be- tokened illness, and high wind. Its body was black ; and this meant heavy and disastrous rain. Its belly was red ; and this implied fiery heat and incen- diarism. Its tail too and hoofs were red ; and this was a further sign of heat. Its legs were white ; which, by a strange perversity in the Chinese Zadkiel, was, as well as the black body, a prognostication of wet weather. A disastrous beast in very deed, for there appeared no trace of yellow, which generally betokens plentiful harvests. In the preceding year both the body and back of the ox were yellow. Copies of this model are made in clay throughout China, and are coloured ac- cording to the Imperial order ; and after being displayed in a temple courtyard, one of the city magistrates touches it with his wand ; and the crowd, consisting ii6 Country Life. chiefly of husbandmen, rushes in and demolishes the animal, eagerly seizing on portions of its carcase to mingle with their manure-heaps and ensure a lucky harvest, as with the visitors to the Lui Fung T'ak. Busy as the countryman is with his beans and his wheat, with his rice crops, (four varieties are grown in the Ningpo plain,) and with his cotton ; and the hill- man busy with his bamboo and timber cutting, with his Indian corn, with the bundles of his siim, or succulent shoots of the bamboo tied together for the market, they yet find intervals for the weis or idolatrous country wakes ; with the vigorous and hearty performance of which they connect good harvests, and immunity from pestilence and disorder. On fine spring days the whole country is alive with these foolish processions. Dragons are made, with bamboo hoops for bones, and gaudy paper for skin and hide. Their heads with gaping mouths are gaudily gilded. Some of these dragons are of great length, and take eighteen or twenty men or boys to carry them on short poles at intervals of two or three yards. The bearers perambulate the country paths, accompanied by the blare of horns and primitive bagpipes. They visit the local temples, many of which have no official connection with either of the three religions, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism ; but are erected to the memory of local heroes, or for the worship of the deities of the soil. Along the route of these processions, stages are erected for theatricals ; and the people don their holiday clothes, and watch or accompany the procession in dense crowds. One of Superstitions. wj the most curious of Chinese observances accompanies these weis — a kind of adumbration of the doctrine of substitution for sin. Lads are seen, and sometimes women, dressed partly or wholly in red, and with imitation manacles on their wrists or ancles. They are bearing and confessing the faults of some parent or near relative, whose sin is manifested, they suppose, by a serious attack of illness ; and the children show their dutiful care by desiring thus to avert dire calamity and death from the sinner. In some parts of the country these processions are accompanied by a good deal of immorality ; and in order to check this, the local magis- trates forbid from time to time the appearance of lads in girls' clothes, or of girls walking on stilts and dressed as boys, which used to form a special attraction in the play. Superstition underlies most of the customs of the people in the country as well as in the city. A long, straight, unbroken line of canal is seldom seen. Such an avenue is supposed to give too much scope for the free passage to and fro of evil spirits ; and an artificial island is often formed to break the continuity, and puzzle the spiritual influences. In a village near Shanghai, a few weeks ago, there was a serious outbreak of epidemic sickness. A small porcupine was caught in the neighbourhood, and the foolish and cruel villagers, in their fear and alarm, determined to hold the poor animal responsible for their calamities ; and with much refinement of cruelty they beat it to death. The towns and villages in the rice plains of Ningpo Ii8 Country Life. are for the most part featureless and uninteresting ; but some of the hamlets on the hills are picturesque enough, climbing as they do tier after tier up the hill-sides, and with the bamboo forest, fringed itself by a clear tumbhng mountain stream, fringing one side of the steep street. The plain is dotted over with rich men's houses, sur- rounded by lofty walls ; and in the case of families distinguished by some member of the clan having won the degree of Kyii-jin, marked by lofty poles before the entrance-gates. Some of these stretches of wall enclose a whole colony. The houses are arranged in quadrangles, and are substantially built, with well-paved courtyards shut in to the northward, but with large doors open to the south and south-west, to catch the summer breeze and the winter sun. The inhabitants of these little towns are all members of the same family ; with a few hired farm-labourers, and occasionally a girl who helps in the house as a kind of domestic slave. There is no attempt at drainage in the large breezy courtyard. A stagnant and evil-smell- ing pool occupies the centre, the mud of which, when it runs low, is stirred from time to time by the snouts of pigs, or by noisy geese. The surface-drains round the house are choked ; and yet the people, well-educated men, well-dressed women, and healthy, merry children, sit and smoke and gossip and eat and drink in sight of these drains, and with table or stool over their very surface. I have often preached in such courtyards, and have been nearly stifled by the odours, which seemed in no sense to inconvenience the constant resident. Country Houses. 119 Round the three sides of the court a broad, open verandah is made by a sloping roof, supported on wooden pillars, and with its upper line almost touch- ing the sills of the bedroom windows above. In fine weather the people live all day long" in this verandah. Inside over a high door-step you pass into a room fitted up with more or less care as a reception-room. Scrolls are arranged in pairs on the three faces of the walls of the room. It opens towards the court, with a board partition, and a good-sized window and door ; the window framed perhaps now with glass, which is fast making its way in China ; or with stiff white paper. On either side of the room two sets of "tea poys" with accompanying arm-chairs are placed ; and opposite to you, as you enter the room, the place of honour is reserved for the guest, namely, the right side of the oblong or square table — the eastward corner. Sometimes there are low lounges arranged round the table, and the guests half recline as they converse together. Cups of tea, and cakes, or melon-seeds, are placed on the table ; and conversation flows easily and continuously. Your host smokes, after first offering tobacco to his friend ; and he emphasizes each important point in his argument by a vigorous knocking out on the floor of the ashes from the shallow bowl of his pipe. The children trot or waddle in according to the amount of clothing which the season requires, and their consequent powers of locomotion. They inspect the Western stranger ; and even make so bold as to handle his umbrella and his hat. Behind this reception-room stands the kitchen, and perhaps a I20 Country Life. down-stairs sleeping-room ; but most of the family sleep up-stairs, ascending by a precipitous staircase, not always provided with a rail. There is little enough of comfort up-stairs or down- stairs in Chinese houses, rich or poor. Bitter and biting as the cold of winter often is in Chehkiang and Kiangsu, as much as nineteen degrees of frost being occasionally registered, fires are never lighted except for cooking purposes in Mid and South China. Small braziers of yellow brass for warming the feet, and smaller ones of red copper for the hands, with live charcoal, are used by the older members of the family, and the beds are warm enough with thick, double-wadded coverlets. In the houses of the lower middle class of country folk there is no pretence to neatness or order or comfort ; yet at the same time there is no actual want. One of the truest and most loyal friends whose acquaintance I have made in China was a hill-man living about twenty-five miles from Ningpo. A thorough gentleman in feeling and in courteous manner, his friendship was absolutely disinterested, and the offer of money as a return for his many friendly acts would have been resented with grieved surprise. I have more than once stayed at his house. It lay perched far up the richly-wooded hill-side, near the head of the large mountain village called the " valley of the Mao family." Crossing the fifth small bridge which spans the mountain torrent, and threading my way through the tortuous windings of the lane, I reached the small courtyard in front of the house. My friend's wife and daughter-in- A Hill Village. 121 law were busy spinning cotton under the eaves. They rose to welcome me, and a nephew was sent to call the old man, who was cutting wood some way up the side of the mountain. They urged me to step inside ; and I entered the main room of the dwelling. Kitchen and receptacle for wood-cutting and agricultural tools were all in one. The younger woman at once lighted the fire to boil the kettle, and to prepare cakes. The chimney-flues are very narrow, and most of the wood- smoke filled the room, half blinding the eyes both of the cook and of the guest. The room was very dark ; and leaving the women there, with pigs grunting and poking about ; with cocks and hens making themselves much at home ; and with a gathering crowd of neighbours pouring in to gaze ; all free to come and go as if in a great family house — I was ushered by my host, who had now arrived, into a small ante-room which he had built, so he told me, on purpose to accommodate such guests as myself. The room was furnished with a low bedstead, a table, and three or four chairs. The floors of Chinese houses are seldom swept clean, still more rarely washed, and never scrubbed. Some floors are of mud or con- crete, and those in superior houses are tiled or boarded. From the window of my chamber the view of the wooded mountain peak, nearly lOOO feet above the village, was enchanting, and the voices of the wood birds most musical. At nightfall a candle was lighted and the crowd of neighbours, having listened long to my preaching and exhortation, was at length induced to make a show of leaving, and the room-door was 122 Country Life. shut. But I was conscious of eyes peering through every cranny and hole in door or in wall. At ten o'clock we all retired to rest ; the family going creaking to bed up the narrow staircase, and my old friend coughing all the night long, as the boarding of the outer walls of his bedroom afforded every imaginable inlet for the cold night wind. Early the next morning I received the most minute and elaborate assistance in my toilet. Scaldingly hot tea was brought in as soon as I was awake ; and later on a bountiful breakfast of eggs, which seemed to be innumerable, and of rice which was exhaustless. There are houses, both in the country and in the city, far poorer and less furnished than this small cottage ; but there is comparatively little abject poverty. The soil is wonderfully productive ; the succession of crops is carefully arranged ; the moss-strewn floor of the bamboo forests teems with the shoots of the young trees, which form a -vvholesome and palatable vegetable ; every pool and stream in the plains is full of fish ; and the neighbouring ocean swarms with finny tribes of all kinds, as if for the supply of the special need of the thickly-peopled land whose shores it washes. The wants of the people meanwhile are not many. The poorer classes seldom eat meat, except their own home-fed pork. Beef is never killed by the people of Mid China for their own consumption. This would be considered a crime and a profanation. The ox, which is the garden farmer's best friend, and his helper in ploughing and flooding his fields, is doubly sacred in the farmer's eyes, Food. 123 first for his usefulness, and secondly for the fear born of the Buddhist doctrine of transmigration, lest by killing his useful beast he should also kill some respected ancestor temporarily inhabiting the carcase of the ox. Beef is, however, largely consumed by the Tartars in the north ; and in Mid and South China both sheep and goat mutton are exposed for sale. Fasts from all animal food are sometimes proclaimed by official decree in time of flood or drought, and are observed rigidly by the people. In times of special distress, the people, through their head men or by deputation, petition the Mandarins to remit their taxes, or beg for more sub- stantial help in money or in food. And the large houses in the country are in danger of mob violence, if the gentry are unwilling to contribute for famine relief Only a year ago, when travelling in the neighbourhood of Ningpo, where both the cotton and rice crops had failed, my brother. Bishop Moule, witnessed an attack on the high gates of one of the large country houses described above. Disorganization was rapidly setting in ; and lawlessness and rapine would soon have gained the upper hand, when just in time relief committees were formed by the magistrates and leading country gentry, and the day for the first distribution of the relief funds was placarded. This announcement of definite plans for relief sufficed on that occasion to calm the tumult, and to enable the magistrates to reassert their authority. Beggars occasionally haunt country towns and villages ; but chiefly in the warm weather. The whole tribe of the greatly unwashed, guided by a beggar king. 124 Country Life. resorts to the great cities, when winter draws near; and the king or his officers will offer terms to the shop- keepers. If they compound by a small annual tax, the shop is exempt from the molestation of these professional beggars, and a paper to this effect is prominently pasted near the counter. If the shopkeeper refuses this tax, his life is a burden to him. The beggars, singly or in families, daily visit him ; and un- daunted by shouts, or oaths, or shavings thrown in their faces (greater violence than this few would dare to offer), continue their drawling appeal, till the shop- keeper in despair tosses them a copper cash (the twenty- fourth part of a penny) ; and they leave, but only to return the next day, or the next week at the furthest. The chief harvest of country beggars is on the occasion of some great procession, or in connection e. g. with the pilgrimages to the Hangchow temples. At that season of the year (April and May) the country, which would be in its fairest attire, is rendered foul and loathsome and terrible by the avenues of decrepit and decaying beggars through which you must pass. Wounds and deformities inconceivably horrible and grotesque are paraded and almost forced upon your attention as you walk hastily by ; and the poor country people hope to add to the merit of their visit to the temples by the relief of misery en route ; especially since- these mendi- cants preface every appeal for alms with a pious repetition of Buddha's name. Yet, though under warm and cloudless skies, and with a bowl full of cash a beggar's life in China is miserable enough ; and in wet Cramped Feet. I2cr and snowy days it is, as the Chinese themselves call it, " a hell upon earth." In the country as well as in the city the women still cramp their feet. A Chinese lady who was here last year spoke almost passionately of the tortures caused by this practice ; of the miserable wailing of the children ; of the lifelong suffering which accompanies this de- formity; and of the needless pain suffered for cen- turies by the millions of Chinese women. However gradually and carefully performed, the long process must of necessity be a painful one to the httle girls. The arching of the foot, which when thus curved is galled the " golden hook " ; the gradual snapping of th^ instep ; the crowding of the toes, all but the great toe, under the foot till they grow into the sole ; and then the tottering, painful walk on great toe and heel, as if on short stilts — all these are indeed a cruel penalty to pay for a mere social custom. But it is a social custom ; and in many places a natural uncramped foot in a woman is a sure mark of degradation or of an immoral life ; and it is an anxious question how far, except in the case of Mission boarding-schools, where girls are adopted and fed and educated free of cost, and where the Mission stands in the place of parents, any inter- ference with the custom is possible or desirable on the part of Missionaries. Such a reform will best follow from the general enlightenment of China. And there are signs of coming emancipation for Chinese feet. In the Kwangtung province a native Society has been formed for the discountenancing of this foolish custom. 1 26 Country Life. The gentry who have joined the league undertake to arrange marriages between members of their families without reference to the " deformity " of a natural healthy foot in the bride. And sheet -tracts exposing the folly of foot-binding in rough but vigorous rhyme,, composed it was said by some ladies, (Buddhist devotees,) are distributed in Hangchow. One of the sights of the country is the strong inde- pendent walk of the female barbers, who have natural feet. They belong to the disenfranchised caste of the Chinese, a tribe whose early history is lost in the mist of legend, but who are said to have been degraded thus in consequence of their implication in some ancient revolt. The young men of this race are not allowed to compete in the public examinations. The men arc sedan-chair- bearers, or barbers, or actors ; and the women, generally strong and healthy, perambulate the country on their well-formed feet, distinguished by their peculiar head- dress and blue checked handkerchiefs. Besides their occupation as barbers, they are indispensable' at wed- dings, where they officiate as practical if not ornamental bridesmaids ; and accompany the bride not only during the weary ceremony, but also for a few subsequent days when she visits her parents and intimate friends. Every posture or gesture or movement or statuesque attitude of the bride is arranged and suggested by these practised attendants. These women arc distinguishable also by their peculiar head-dress. False hair, woven between two oval whalebone hoops, is fastened to the back of the head. These two projections are shaped and Marriage Customs. 127 arranged like gently folding wings of a dragon-fly, and meeting in a small cushion, are fastened thus round the head. They are called by foreigners " butterflies' wings." It is a curious indication of the possibility of change even in stereotyped and stagnate Chinese life, that these wings were worn by Ningpo ladies and peasant women alike twenty-five years ago ; and now they are scarcely ever seen except behind the heads of these female barbers and attendants on the bride. A Chinese wedding in town or in country is a function most elaborate and noisy and uncomfortable. I was requested some years ago to marry a young couple, children of Christians, but not themselves bap- tized. Their parents had been baptized when past middle age; and these children were by this time grown up and long ago betrothed. They wished, however, for Christian rites ; and the family hall was lent and suitably arranged for the service. I fixed the hour of eleven a.m., and enjoined punctuality, since I had a long journey before me the same afternoon. I arrived at 10.55 a.m., and I was received with great respect and cord'ality by the bridegroom and his friends. I was informed that the bride was not quite ready ; but that if I would partake of a little refreshment, all would soon be arranged. I did so, though with a sceptical mind ; and as soon as the repast of tea and cakes and nuts was over, I announced my intention of proceeding to the hall for service. The polite hosts interposed, entreating me to exercise patience, and throwing out the hint that the bride was still in bed, and could not 128 Country Life. be induced to rise. It was now nearly mid-day ; and to calm my mind, and to occupy' the half-hour or so which seemed to be required for the final preparation, I went outside and strolled to the top of a low hill. On my return I was met with the same story ; the bride was in bed, and obdurate, and the family was in despair. Would I be good enough to partake of another repast ? I resigned myself to my fate, and after nibbling at some nuts severely for a few minutes, I went again into the country, and mounted a more distant hill to cool my brow and compose my mind. The afternoon wore slowly away. The sun went down. Five o'clock struck j and my onward journey was out of the question. Once more I ventured into the house ; and at length, when darkness had fallen, with a shout and a shuffling and a noisy crowd accompanying, the bride, who had risen, she said, early out of regard to my prejudices, was pushed in, and the service proceeded. They then informed me that this bed-ridden affecta- tion was considered etiquette and true decorum on the part of the bride. Extreme reluctance and dislike and fear ai'e the true marks of a happy and lively wedding ; and had I not been present, she would have remained in a recumbent posture till nine p.m. or later ; and even then would only have risen by compulsion. In theory, and very often I imagine in reality, the bridegroom never sees his bride till the marriage ceremony is over. He is supposed to have nothing to do with the selection of his bride ; that is a matter for the parents to nego- tiate and decide. When the marriage-day arrives, at Debt after Weddings and Funerals. \ic) whatever hour the actual ceremony may take place — forenoon, afternoon, late evening, or even midnight (which is a usual time in some country places near Hangchow) — the bride's face is invisible, being shielded by a veil of thickly-woven beads. When all is over, and the knot is finally tied, the veil is lifted ; and there are accounts, apocryphal and legendary we will hope, of bridegrooms starting back with a cry of pain and despair when the face of the fair bride was revealed. But history and romance alike seem dumb as to the other and more reasonable side of the tragedy — the blank dismay which must fill the mind of the trembling bride when she sees the rough and ugly features of her husband. According to Chinese law, the legality of marriage is contained in the interchange of papers, and the pay- ment to the bride's parents of the sum fixed at the betrothal. This is hardly purchase-money, for the sum is in theory expended on the bride's trousseau, and is thus returned eventually to the bridegroom's family. The worst feature of Chinese weddings is the wholly unnecessary expenditure on outward display. The very poorest peasants have a certain family dignity which they must not disgrace. And to meet the expenses of the wedding they borrow money on usury, which they will probably never repay in the principal. Even honourable and respectable Chinese families contem- plate a personal unpaid debt as calmly and complacently as we Englishmen reflect on our national debt. This is a serious blot on Chinese morality, and one so ingrained K 130 Country Life. in their natures that we find it frequently reappearing in Christian hearts and homes. Still more sad is the heavy load of debt which Chinese mourners think it necessary to add to the weight of sorrow when parents or children die. Massive and costly coffins ; elaborate tombs, if possible of stone ; a large expenditure of gun- powder in explosions every ten minutes through the day, which shake the houses and nerves of the neigh- bours ; hired wailing in the intervals of quiet ; music which till you see white instead of red in the procession it is difficult to distinguish from marriage music ; sumptuous feasting of relatives and neighbours ; and this not for the day of the funeral alone — all combine to run the family heavily into debt. It must not be imagined, however, that Chinese mourning is all hired and formal and insincere. Certainly it seldom touches the depth of hypocrisy painted in Dickens' funeral scene. "Such affectionate regret, sir," says the under- taker, " I never saw. I have orders to put on my whole establishment of mutes ; to provide silver-plated handles of the very best description, ornamented by angels' heads of the most expensive dies ; to be perfectly profuse in feathers ; in short, to turn out something absolutely gorgeous. Anything so filial as this, any- thing so honourable to human nature, so calculated to reconcile us to the world we live in, never yet came under my observation." Suddenly over the joys and sorrows of Chinese country life, widespread calamities fall from time to time. A deadly pestilence will decimate the villages. Floods. 131 A sudden rainfall bursting the hill-springs, and beyond the control of the deep water-courses, rushes in sheets to the foot of the mountains, and swells in a few hours' time the already full canals. These canals overflow, the low bridges are submerged, the water rises higher, and the rice crops are drowned. The countless farm- steads and villages and busy towns in the great plain, thirty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, stand four feet deep in water. The high strong walls of the rich men's houses form some kind of breakwater; but the flood finds its way under the door-sills, and every house is invaded ; and however fast the flood may subside (sucked out by the seaward-setting currents, or hastened by a strong drying wind), many days of damp and dis- comfort and fever must result, even should the people be spared actual loss of life. Yet the cheerful content- edness of the rustic population of China is never long disturbed even by the direst calamities. The monotonous routine of daily rural life is some- times rudely broken in another manner. The peaceful inhabitants of the unwalled villages and country towns have had, during my thirty years' residence in Mid China, three times over, a shock to their tranquillity which spread panic through the land. In the provinces of Kiangsu and Chehkiang there is but little big game to reward a sportsman's toil ; though wild fowl and pheasants abound, and a few hares are to be met with. Wolves are occasionally seen, but they have little chance of working their ravenous will in packs amongst the densely-populated regions in Mid China. Bears 132 Country Life. are reported in the south-west districts of Chehkiang ; and leopards in former years, with large and fierce wild cats and wild dogs also, were not unknown. But tigers do not haunt the wooded hills of Chehkiang. Three times over, however, magnificent beasts nine or ten feet long have quite suddenly appeared close to the suburbs of busy and populous Ningpo. The great beasts must have come from a long distance, travelling by night, probably in pursuit of deer which roam over the hills ; and lying down by day in some remote and thick covert, they escaped observation ; for in neither case was there any fore-warning of their approach, till, as with a mighty spring, the great cat appeared in the very heart of a densely-peopled plain, and close to a city of half a million of souls. I have seen the lime-burner's shed into which -the first tiger of the three was chased, and then blinded and killed by the excited countrymen. The second poor beast ran into a half-finished temple, which I have also visited. Up the narrow stairs he rushed to escape from his pursuers. The rooms were not yet boarded ; and the tiger, leaping on to the cross-beams, lost his footing, and fell amongst the crowd of rustics shouting below, who despatched him with their heavy hoes. The last visitor, about fifteen years ago, was found in a thicket near a village close to which I had passed at midnight not many days before. He had killed at one stroke a poor countryman, roused by whose dying scream the villagers turned out, and drove the beast away. They imagined that in the dusk the unfor- tunate man, coming home from tending his ducks in Tigers. 133 a little skiff, and seeing what he supposed to be a cow drinking, gave it a poke with his pole, and was seized and killed by the enraged tiger. Word was sent to the city Mandarins four or five miles distant, and the Com- mander-in-chief advanced with a large force of foot- soldiers and two field-pieces to the attack. They found and surrounded the tiger. He charged several times, and badly mauled some of the men, till after much shouting and random firing he was at length done to death. Then arose a hot and anxious dispute between the civil and military officers. The Mayor of the city claimed the tiger as slain within his jurisdic- tion ; the Commander-in-chief claimed it on practical grounds. " It is my duty," quoth he, " to be brave. What better recipe can you suggest for courage than soup made from tiger's bones ? The beast is mine 1 " A compromise was effected. The head was sent to the Governor of the province, the skin was given to the Mayor, and the flesh and bones to the valiant General. For many weeks after this strange incident the country-side was agitated and uneasy from innumer- able stories of bears and wolves and other strange beasts carrying off children, or making off with oxen on their backs. It was dilificult in after days to realize the possibility of serious danger recurring, when traversing by night and by day the hills and plains. Such travel is, generally speaking, wonderfully safe and easy, though not very rapid, through vast regions of China in the present day ; especially if the traveller can converse with tolerable 134 Country Life. freedom in the vernacular. The country people round Shanghai bear an evil reputation in some quarters for incivility, and even for rough treatment of foreigners. But it is not always so; and perhaps would be very seldom the case, if the people themselves received more uniformly courteous and considerate treatment from foreigners. About five years ago I was returning to Shanghai from Hangchow by foot-boat. When I entered the river Whang-p'u after traversing the inner canals, the warm south-easterly breeze suddenly chopped round to the north-west, and blew with almost hurricane force. The cold strong gusts raised the calm river into a choppy sea, which my little crank craft would not weather. After being nearly swamped we ran into a creek for shelter. I was due at Shanghai on important business the next morning. It was now five p.m. ; and I ordered the boatman to land and ask if there was no road, with wheelbarrows for hire, by which I could reach Shanghai. He returned shivering to the boat, to say that there was no broad pathway, and no wheelbarrows to be hired, and that the villagers declined to guide me by the cross paths to Shanghai ; which nevertheless they represented as being only ten miles off. I then jumped on shore myself, and when they found that I could converse with them, the villagers gradually dis- played a disposition to treat ; and after an hour's parley and delay, caused by their evening meal which had to be despatched with deliberation, and the fitting on of sandals and lighting of lanterns, we started at seven p.m., A Night Walk. 135 one guide in front witii a lantern burning, another behind. Darkness came on. It was bitterly cold. The wind blew in dangerous gusts ; and again and again I had t^ pause and steady myself as I was caught on the summit of narrow wooden bridges with no hand-rail, by a fierce blast, and almost blown into the canal. The country was quite unknown to me, and the guides were complete strangers. They might have taken me into any trap, and have attempted robbery and violence, but they were more afraid of me than I was of them. They- missed the way indeed; but not intentionally. We walked more than twenty miles in the dark, and in the teeth of the gale, before I reached a point which I at last recognized, and that still seven miles from my home. But they did their best for my comfort; obtaining access for me near midnight to tea-shops long closed, and procuring not merely a cup of tepid tea, but opportuni- ties also for declaring my message in these out-of-the- way villages. No incivilities were offered, except by the watch-dogs, which abound in the country, and which were rendered specially fierce by the sound of a strange footstep in the -darkness. And when my guides parted from me to wend their weary way back again, they were more than satisfied with a small remuneration, and my hearty thanks ; and I delight to record my experience of the amenities of Chinese country life, even in such rough and uncivil regions. And so with the pall of night still over the land, but with dawn not far off, I close my description of rural life in China. CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF A MANDARIN. May-day 1878 is vividly imprinted on my memory from my having spent the night and part of the day in an unusual lodging for an English Missionary, the Yamun, or official residence of a Chinese Mandarin. An interesting and almost romantic chain of circum- stances brought me thither. Just a year had passed since Christian truth and belief had entered the wide- spreading district of Chuki, over which my Mandarin friend presided. A native of that mountainous region, eighty or one hundred miles south of Hangchow, was on a visit to friends in the provincial capital. He had never heard of Christianity, and had never seen a Christian book or tract. Early one morning as he passed by to the market, he caught sight of the red paper over the door of a small Mission room in the suburbs of Hangchow. This is what he read there — " The Holy Religion of Jesus." He paused to inquire what these things meant ; and as the room was closed at the time, and the preacher absent, he was directed to the catechist's house and our Mission house, two A Visit to the Magistrate of Chitki. 137 miles off within the walls. During two hours of earnest conversation and reading of the New Testament with the catechist, this stranger apprehended with marvellous intelligence the outlines of the gospel story, and ac- cepted the new faith with eagerness. He remained as my guest for a fortnight, daily reading and praying over the Gospels. He then returned to his distant mountain home, trembling lest his brothers and neighbours should violently resent his adoption of a new faith, but stead- fastly resolved to hold fast that faith. He arrived on a Saturday evening. He crept up-stairs to his room, hoping to avoid notice ; and he spent Sunday alone, with his New Testament, Prayer-book, and Hymnal. It was fine May weather, when the inhabitants of those mountains and plains are specially busy with silk culture ; the feeding of the " precious ones," as they call their silk-worms, with the tender spring leaves of the mulberry groves, which extend almost in forests through all that region. There is a second crop of leaves, larger and coarser, which they use for fodder. The fruit of the mulberry is not much noticed by the Chinese. It is smaller and less luscious than the European mul- berry, but still pleasant enough to the taste. But the whole attention of the people is absorbed by the leaves, on which the hope of a good silk crop depends. Sometimes very serious damage is done to the leaves and to the silk-worms by the spring dust-storms, swept, some think, from the banks of the Yang-tse by the north- west wind, darkening the sun for three or four days together, and leaving a sediment of fine sand on 138 The House of a Mandarin. the mulberry leaves. At this season also the crops of wheat and of Indian corn amongst the Chuki hills require special attention. This new Chinese convert owned some hill land ; and when his brothers, who had heard him return on Saturday night, found that he did not appear the next day on the hill-side, they presumed that he was ill or weary with his long journey. On Monday morning early they came to inquire ; and then, as prevarication and concealment were impossible, he boldly related his tale ; and instead of angry remonstrance, his brothers and friends begged leave to share in his knowledge of the new religion, and they joined him every evening in Bible study and prayer. The result was the formation of a Church in the Chuki region, which, after many vicis- situdes of hope and fear, of joy and sorrow, still stands, and is spreading now far to the south and south-west. Very early in the history of Christianity in those mountains a great trial of persecution fell upon the infant Church. In February 1878, in consequence of the refusal of the Christians to join in the idolatrous ceremonies and procession at New Year tide, a sudden and violent attack was made upon their dwellings and persons, and many of them had to fly to Hangchow through snow and bitter wind. The attack was public and general, and not domestic and private ; and we felt it necessary to make representations to the district and departmental magistrates. The district magistrate of Chuki was ordered to inquire about the assault ; and urged on by the local gentry, whose influence for good A Visit from the Mmidarin. 139 or evil is paramount in these remote regions, and whose favour the magistrate must secure if he is to gather in his taxes in peace, he added fuel to the fire by openly insulting the new religion, and declining to protect the Christians. After long delay, and much alarm and loss, and after the country people had become so excited as to set a price not only on the Chinese Christians, but also on the Missionaries' heads, the higher Mandarins interfered, and compelled their sub- ordinate — the Chuki magistrate — to do justice. He despatched officers to negotiate at Hangchow, and soon after, he followed in person, paying me a semi-official visit of state at our Mission house, so as to emphasize his friendly action, and to cement if possible personal good feeling. I received him as best I could in my very unofficial residence. The Mandarin was courteous and friendly, and so far descended from the high pedestal of formal etiquette as to ask permission to take off his heavy official hat, as the weather was oppressively hot. The common skull-cap, or the more official hat, are all kept on indoors. Women wear, as a rule, no bonnets or hats, but a broad band of silk or satin or fur round the forehead, adorned with pieces of jade or of tinsel. My Mandarin friend, with true Chinese nonchalance and calm diplomacy, conversed long and earnestly first of all about any and every subject but the one which had brought him to my house. His questions about England and Europe were many and interesting ; the overland route ; the climate and productions of the West ; our manners and customs, 140 The House of a Mandarin. and mode of government. Then almost with a start, as though he had forgotten one small point of trifling importance, he said that he understood a little difficulty had arisen on matters of religion between some of his subjects in Chuki. Possibly I might have heard of the affair. It was a mere bagatelle, and had been satisfactorily arranged ; and he hoped — in fact this was one amongst his many objects in doing himself the pleasure of a call on me — he hoped that the arrange- ment which he would describe would be deemed by myself also honourable and just. Might he see a man named Chow, the ringleader, in his private opinion, of this new religious sect, which in fact had caused all the disturbance .' I demurred to this representation of the case; and I reminded him that Mr. Chow^ had been guilty of no crime ; that he had broken no law ; that the Christian religion which he professed was recognized officially in treaties of amity and peace as one which seeks to benefit mankind ; and that the Emperor himself proclaims to the Chinese world that any of his subjects may follow this religion without let or hindrance. The Mandarin admitted the justice of this view ; and I then summoned Mr. Chow into the room, and the magistrate explained all the arrangements which he had made for the peaceable and honourable restoration of the refugees to their homes. Then he called in his servants, and insisted on my * Sien-shang, "early or prior-born,'' corresponds to our Sir or Mr. ; Hau-shang, " after or later-born," means a young man. Interchange of Presents, 141 accepting his present — some small chests of tea, and packages of dates and oranges. He then chatted in a kind and friendly way with our children, and we escorted him to his official chair. That same evening we sent our return present to the inn where the great man was tarrying. It is equally opposed to Chinese etiquette to refuse a friendly present in toto, or to fail to send an equivalent in return. We meditated long and anxiously on the form which the present should take. We were assured that something foreign would please our friend best. So a cake, as richly compounded as our inland Missionary home would allow, was baked, and sent with a card of compliment and salutation. The Mandarin was entertaining three or four friends ; and overjoyed at the arrival of this foreign confectionery, they attacked it there and then, and consumed the whole at one sitting ; the Mandarin himself disposing of a very large share indeed. My messenger, who witnessed the scene, returned somewhat alarmed ; and I felt grave apprehension lest this surfeit on rich and strange food should prove fatal to our friend. If he died, the obvious conclusion would be that he was poisoned ; my cook's head would have been in immi- nent danger, and our own lives imperilled. I sent a secret message of inquiry the next morning ; and I was greatly reassured by hearing that our friend had survived the cake, and had expressed the warmest admiration for our cook. Soon after this the Mandarin took his departure for his own city ; the poor Christians were escorted home ; 142. The House of a Mandarin. and I proposed, 011 my first visit to their hills, to return the Mandarin's call, as I must needs travel past his city. I started on April 29th, in one of the uncomfortable flat-bottomed boats suitable for the navigation of the Ts'ien-tang river, with its bore, its shallows, and its rapids. Open as they are from end to end, it is exceed- ingly difficult to secure any comfort in these boats in rough weather. We started with a fine sky, and a strong S.E. wind dead against us. We made slow pro- gress the first night ; and I was awakened at four a.m. on the 30th by a solemn and magnificent thunder-roll which echoed amongst the hills, through which the winding stream was now leading us. The storm, now near, now far off, continued for twelve hours without intermission, accompanied by torrents of rain. The stream began to swell, and the strong current seriously impeded our progress. I had hoped to reach the city by noon, and to have been on my way to the Christian villagers in the early afternoon. The sun, however, fast westering, was just looking for the first time from behind the thunder-cloud, when the city at length came in sight. We took some time in mooring the boat, and I then landed, and hastened with all speed into the city to leave my card at the Yamun, and to pay my respects to the great man ; so as to start if possible at once, and enter the hills by night, as the rain had ceased, and the paths were, we hoped, fairly passable. My call was expected, and I was received at the Yamun gates, and conducted through a short covered way to the reception- hall. The gates of a Chinese official residence are The Yaniun. 143 adorned with large paintings of human figures in fall costume. Outside the main gates, and opposite to them, stands a dead wall, with a high palisade running from the ends of the wall to the main building. This palisade consists of thick movable posts fitted into sockets. There seems to be a right of way for foot passengers through the open gates of the palisade and past the Yamun door ; but it is customary for equestrians to dismount, and to lead their horses round at the back of the dead wall. This wall is adorned with rough and grotesque frescoes ; dragons or gigantic birds being portrayed in blue and green and red colours. The wall and the large wooden screens which are always met with inside the entrance-doors of Yamuns or houses of any pretension are of geomantic significance, warding off evil influences from the dwelling. Near the e;itrance- gate, under the cover of the porch, stands the magistrate's official sedan-chair ; and close by are placed, resting against the wall, the long bamboos trailed by his lictors as they run and shout in front of the procession. A deep gong is struck from time to time, and then the cry of the runners warns the people in the streets to make way for the great man. As he mounts his chair, gunpowder on the ground is fired, or crackers are exploded ; and the same ceremony is observed when the procession returns. Oftentimes when dwelling in the heart of Chinese cities, the glare of fire has startled us at midnight. The alarm is given, and the Chinese fire-brigades, with their hand-pumps, or "fire dragons," turn out with commendable alacrity. It is the duty of 144 The House of a Mandarin. the city district magistrate to attend in person ; and one sure token of the fire being under control was the distant boom of the salute as the Mandarin returned to his Yamun. Some of the attendants carry in front of the Mandarin's chair, when he goes out, broad tablets with his office and rank painted on them. The entrance - court, with each successive doorway as you go inwards, is hung with red lanterns. The inner court of the Yamun is planted with arbor vitae, or shrubs of different kinds ; and an umbrageous camphor-tree spreads its branches over the roof. The reception-room of my friend's Yamun at Chuki was furnished and arranged much like the rooms in a gentleman's house described in my last chapter; only on a larger and more elaborate scale. We waited for a moment or two ; and then, with commendable prompt- ness, the Mandarin, arrayed in his oiificial robes, and with much ease and dignity of manner, came in from an ante-room, and motioned me to a place of honour. I explained to him my circumstances. I told him that I had planned a much earlier call, but that wind and current and storm hindered me. I begged him to excuse so brief a call, as, if he would allow me, I must say farewell, and start at once on my long journey. He quite shouted with amazement at my proposal. " Impossible ! " he said. " The floods are out. No chair-bearers will go down to-night. I must take it upon myself to forbid the attempt." I rejoined that I could at any rate start and spend the night in a wayside inn, half-way to the hills, as I The Mandarin s Parlour. 145 had done on a previous occasion. He would not hear of it. " I have your room prepared," he continued. " You must spend the night here as my guest ; and make yourself at home." Just then the thunder-storm, which had been "calling and moaning" at a distance, broke once more over the city, and seemed absolutely to prevent my starting. So I submitted, only stipu- lating as courteously as I could for the permission to start as early in the morning as possible. The Mandarin now led me into an inner room — a kind of parlour not far from the reception-hall. This room was simply but tastefully fitted up, and looked out on a small court-yard, in which stood a large bush of white banksia rose in full bloom and with delightful fragrance. Here we sat and talked for more than two hours. I tried to lead the mind of this singularly intelligent man from this one work of God, the sweet rose ; and from that other mightier wonder, the voice of the echoing storm to God Himself; and from that high thought yet further to the mystery and the truth of the life and death on earth, for him who was listening to me and for all mankind, of the Mighty Maker incarnate. At length he grew tired. He was suffering from illness ; and after I had offered him a simple remedy from my basket, and had thanked him warmly for his hospitality, he withdrew for his official duties. The Yamun officers told us that partly from the late habits formed by opium-smoking, and partly from the customs of the place, the court is open in the late evening for justice, and not in the daytime. 146 The House of a Mandarin. At eight p.m. dinner was served ; the Mandarin's son, a pleasant and polished young man who had just taken his first degree, acted as host. It was a simple, whole- some repast, consisting of vermicelli soup, followed by well-boiled fowl, and rice and bamboo-shoots, and sweetmeats and fruit. Native wine made from rice was brought in hot, and poured out of a pewter jug with a blue stone on the cover. This wine is used very generally in China ; and the city of Shaou-hying, in which department Chuki is included, produces the best "brands" of this rice wine. At weddings or funeral feasts it is sometimes taken to excess ; but intoxication is by no means one of China's vices. Strong spirits are distilled from sorghum or millet. My experience of Chinese dinners has not always been so satisfactory as in the Chuki Yamun. I was invited once, with a Missionary colleague, to dine in the house of a rich man in the city of Hangchow, He was convinced, so he told me, that the slow progress of Christianity in China might be traced to the want of friendly intercourse between Missionaries and the upper classes ; and he wished to inaugurate a new state of things by inviting us to his house. The day and hour were fixed, Feb. loth, at five p.m. ; and as supper-time drew near, he sent his servant to say, " Ccme, for all things are now ready"— and lest there should be any mistake, he followed in person to remind us of the hour, and to announce sedan-chairs for us to ride in. It was a bitterly cold afternoon ; and the long room, though well-furnished, was terribly chilly. We arrived precisely A Chinese Dinner. 147 at the hour appointed, and were bowed to our places of honour — two high and most unrestful chairs — and the business of the evening commenced. We began, as in duty bound in things Chinese, at what appeared to us the wrong end. Dessert was brought in first, and we nibbled at nuts and melon-seeds for half an hour. Then, balanced with amazing skill by the solitary servant on the one small dining-table, dish after dish was brought in, and after a while removed to make room for the following crowd. VVe counted thirty- seven large dishes, besides entries. Fish appeared, both fresh and dried ; some from the sea, thirty miles distant ; some from the river hard by. Then followed fowls, ducks, geese, pheasants ; pork and ham, and goat mutton ; soup of different kinds; and vegetables — bamboo-shoots, sweet potatoes, sour cabbage, fine white cabbage from Shantung ; seaweed, specially selected ; frogs' legs ; ducks' gizzard ; sea slugs ; venison ; even a piece of very dry beef for our special delectation ; and innumerable articles more or less suspicious, but with reference to every one of which, when placing specimens on our plates seized by the chopsticks just extricated from his own mouth, our host would calm our fears by the assur- ance that everything had been selected and bought under his own eye, and could be guaranteed as nutritious and wholesome. Thus incessantly were we plied with food (most of which I contrived surreptitiously to lose under the table) till nine o'clock struck. We had had opportunities indeed for much interesting talk with one of the city 148 The House of a Mandarin. bankers, who had been invited to meet us at dinner. A little boy and girl, the younger children of my host, were allowed to run in and watch us from time to time ; but the lady of the house was not visible. She was, in fact, superintending the dinner in the kitchen hard by ; and the host would shout to his wife from time to time to hurry up the dishes. At length my patience was exhausted, and as it was time for evening prayers at my Mission house, I rose to leave ; but I was com- pelled with many protestations to sit down again, for, said our host, " Dinner is about to commence"! The fact was that the crowning dish of all, the rice, had not yet been brought in ; and a smoking bowl of this staff of life appearing at this moment, we were obliged to swallow a small quantity before we were allowed as a special favour to leave so early in the entertainment. Chilled through and through, and with a racking headache, I left ; but it was worth all the weariness if only more cordial relations could thus be established. A few weeks later we invited our courteous host to our Mission house, and regaled him with a foreign repast, much to his interest and satisfaction ; and he made a far poorer figure with a knife and fork than we had done with chopsticks. But to return to the Chuki magistrate's house. Later in the evening I was conducted to my room, a simple compartment opening into another courtyard, and fitted with a table and chairs and stools, and a bed-tressle and stretcher made of twisted palm cord. I had brought The Sorrows of a Mandarin. 149 my own travelling bedding with me, and was quite comfortable for the night. One of the officers was deputed to attend to my wants ; and my request to be called in good time, so as to start at six a.m., was acceded to. I was sceptical, however, as to the early rising of the officer, since he was an opium-smoker, and talked far into the night with my attendant before he began his opium. So I called out the hours of the latter part of the night myself; and as my watch had gone astray, and had gained a clear hour during the storm, I was cruel enough, however unwittingly, to rouse the unfortunate official at four a.m. instead of five o'clock, and to summon the porters to open the Yamun gates at five a.m. instead of at six o'clock. The life of a Mandarin in the position of my friend at Chuki is not a restful or enjoyable one. During his conversation with me he lamented more than once his hard lot in so turbulent a region. The people of Chuki are notorious for their love of law-suits, or of more hieh-handed disagreements which take the form of clan fights. And the bold, independent character of the people is shown by the fact that oftentimes a murderer will not abscond or hide from justice, but will march to the Yamun alone, and deliver himself up to be dealt with according to law. The Mandarin's official sedan-chair had often been mobbed and insulted by the riotous country people; and but for the help of the all- powerful gentry his post would have been intolerable. He had just returned, so he told me, from a turbulent scene ; where, over a half-closed coffin, and the dead 1 50 The House of a Mandarin. man's face almost visible through the broken lid, two divisions of a clan had carried on a free fight about some disputed ground, and had finally decamped, leaving the Mandarin and his lictors alone with the unburied coffin. The people of Chuki consider themselves in a sense invincible ; and shortly before the time to which my narrative belongs, they had placarded the walls of their city with the following heroic announcement — " The valiant inhabitants of Chuki, whose stubborn resistance to the T'aip'ing marauders is bruited throughout the world, will never allow this foreign barbarian intruder (the Missionary Mo) to obtain a foothold in their city." I have often passed near the white walls of a rough fortress (Pao-ts6ng) commanding a pass through the mountains, where the peasantry with one antiquated field-p'ece, and their own rough weapons of war, are said to have kept the T'aip'ing hosts from Hangchow at bay for weeks, and to have killed 10,000 of them before they themselves were overwhelmed and put to the sword. The retinue of my Mandarin friend would consist of a considerable number of secretaries and attendants ; but the troops at his disposal would hardly exceed in number, and would fall very far below in efficiency, the police of a small country town in England. Such a Mandarin would probably have only one wife. Polygamy is not, as a rule, resorted to by persons of respectability in China, unless year after year passes without the birth of a son, and the danger becomes thus imminent of a break in the family line, and conse- Religion. 151 quent calamity falling on the generations past as well as on the living representatives. Possibly for the sake of form my Mandarin friend may have so far interfered in the education of his chil- dren, as to instil into their minds Tseng-kuo-fan's great preceptive words, addressed, as we learn from his post- humous letters, to his son, the late Marquis Tseng — (i) Readiness for the Examinations; (2) Weaving, a word for the women and girls ; (3) Early rising ; (4) Cleanliness within and outside the house ; (5) Reading ; (6) The culture of vegetables ; (7) The care of fish and swine. But numbers three and four would receive scant attention in such a family. The religion of my friend it would be hard to define, without more intimate acquaintance than my one night's sojourn under his roof afforded. Of one profession he would never be ashamed, namely, the Confucianist faith. The belief openly or in secret of the other creeds of China would not necessitate at all the abjuring of Con- fucianism. But is Confucianism a faith at all t Is it not rather a negative philosophy .? Negation, we find, of the existence within the range of the experience of Confucius of a really good man (Mencius, who followed Confucius at a distance of seventy-nine years, formed a more optimistic view of the goodness of human nature at any rate). Negation also of all knowledge as to a future state and a future world is ascribed to Confucius ; or rather a frank admission of ignorance. Negation again as to knowledge of the supernatural ; though here too the negation is rather a confession of ignorance as to subjects 152 The House of a Mandarin. which he would fain understand, than a self-satisfied setting aside of subjects he does not care to know about, and can well dispense with. Yet all that Confucius does sanction or recommend would be observed carefully and ceremoniously by a Mandarin — such as the cult of ancestors, and reverence for the ancient literature and customs of the Empire. And at the same time, if we take the Peking Gazette as our guide, it cannot be doubted that religion does largely pervade every act of official life in China ; and this without condemnation from any orthodox Confucian authority. The duality of heaven and earth, and of the sun and moon, the stars, the wind, the clouds, the rain, and thunder ; the ocean, mountains, and rivers (in their presiding deities) ; the four regions, the four seasons, the year, and months and days — all share in official worship, or superstitious fear and recognition ; and yet the Mandarin continues Confucianist Agnostic still. Perhaps in his private capacity he will be for some years satisfied with this. Agnosticism alone. If his rule proves fairly lucrative for himself, and fairly popular with his subjects (a combination very rarely realized in China) ; if he has prosperity in his family, sons and grandsons to perpetuate the name and fame of his clan ; if disease and death have not yet darkened his door — to be a Confucianist is enough ; and no one, not even a Buddhist or Taoist professor, can brand him as irreligious so long as the ancestral rites are duly performed, and the memory of Confucius duly honoured. But Confucius has left an aching void in the religious heart of China Religion. 153 which something must fill. And when the New Year arrives, with its hopes and fears ; or when birthdays come round, especially the great epoch of the fiftieth year or the sixtieth year, and so on by decades ; or once more when calamities fall — the illness of his aged mother, or flood and famine invading his district — then either in person, or with his full cognizance by the members of his family, Buddhist or Taoist rites will be resorted to. " Some communication," he will argue, " inust be attempted between the seen and unseen world. Surely the two are nearer than we sometimes think. What if the changes and chances of this mortal life are after all governed and controlled by the powers of the supernatural .' What if there be spiritual beings of more than human nature and intelligence, appointed by the Supreme who reigns aloft and out of the reach of human joy or sorrow, to superintend by secret but potent touch mundane affairs .' Who knows but that this placid, ascetic Buddhist priest, or this clever, garrulous Taoist necromancer, may have the secret of such intercourse in charm and incantation and solemn prayer .-' Will it not be wise to be on the safe side, and to ward off the possible evil influences of offended powers by ceremonies which my ancestors for long generations have observed t " And in his magisterial capacity, this Mandarin will not be unmoved by the description of the spirit world which these teachers have given him. His small hall of justice, emblazoned with mottoes enforcing strict adherence to law and right ; and loud-voiced on every cross-beam and wall and pillar as. to the certain inexorable sequence 1 54 The House of a Mandarin. of virtue and reward, and of crime and punishment ; may be but a tiny eartlily model of the judgment-hall to come ; when all actions shall be weighed ; and in some transmigration of the soul retributive evil, long avoided, shall fall at last on the wicked. There are few Confucianists whose "sacred passion of the second life " is whol!y stifled by this faith of theirs. And the strange spectacle often meets us of a Chinese Confucianist being at the same time openly or secretly Buddhist and Taoist as well ; and this without any necessary contradiction or clashing between the respect- ive tenets of the three creeds. A devout Buddhist at Sioh-Chuo in the province of Fuhkien urged on Mr. Wolfe, some years ago, the reasonableness of Christianity accepting the same generous terms of toleration which allowed Taoism and Buddhism to live side by side with Confucianism. He would gladly have believed in so noble and pure a Being as the New Testament represents Jesus Christ to be, if he might be allowed to believe in Buddha, and Lao-tsu, and Confucius as well. In these three religions the code of morality may be described as Confucian. Suggestions for the fortunate carrying out of the events of daily life, or for the special crises of the family history, are supplied by Taoism. The upward tending path of the soul towards some better state in the spirit world, free from sensation, passion, desire, and change — or if that semi-annihilation be too abstruse and unlovely for the Chinese imagina- tion, then a higher life in a western heaven of light — all these are supplied by Buddhism. The family of my Mati and Wife. 155 Mandarin friend, as well as the families of the gentry and of the lower peasant, are glad to learn from the Taoist fortune-teller and geomancer, where and when, with all fortunate influences of the stars above, and of the hills and streams below, they should build house or tomb — when, through the weaving changes of the heavenly bodies, it is well to betroth, to marry, to start on a journey, and to be buried. Hints on these subjects are embodied indeed in the Imperial Almanack, which is largely tinged with Taoist astrology ; but the assistance of local practitioners is largely utihzed as well. Affection between man and wife is not unknown either in official, gentle, or middle and lower life in China ; and the wife in many cases, especially if she has borne sons, has not merely great influence and dignity assigned to her in the household, but she shares also the real affection of her husband. The Chinese, however, are so phlegmatic a race that it is hard to measure the depth or reality of their emotions. And the process of marriage having never been dictated by love, and very seldom even by preference on either side (a rule which may have exceptions, but which is nevertheless undoubtedly a rule), it is hard to believe that such formal arrangements can often develop the " union of hearts " which should ever exist between man and wife. Woman is not degraded in China ; but she is most certainly dethroned. She is always of secondary im- portance. The birth of a boy is welcomed with loud 156 The House of a Mandarin. congratulations ; the birth of a girl in silence, or with half-hushed formal words of greet'ng. It is not from inferiority of character, or deficiency of intellect. More than once women have ruled China with masterful force ; notably so between 1862 and 1889. But seldom is it known in China that woman " sets herself to man Like perfect music unto noble words." I heard little of the melody of the voice or convers- ation of the lady in my Mandarin friend's house. He did not even allude to his wife from first to last. A favounte daughter in high life is often educated in classical literature ; but whereas every gentleman will educate his boys as a matter of course and of highest duty, the education of girls is a mere question of caprice and fancy. Girls are called in Chinese proverbial philosophy, " good bamboo-shoots springing up outside the fence " — an allusion familiar enough to Chinese eyes and ears ; for the bamboo, that most graceful and useful of trees, strikes its roots laterally underground, and shoots up through the soft mossy mould some way from the parent stem, and forms there a new tree and a new family— fair, graceful, useful, but with a new name and new interests. The life of a Mandarin varies greatly in facilities for enjoyment. In some cities or country districts official life is busy enough ; requiring much activity in super- vision, and daily attention to the intricacies and responsibilities of his law court ; or through the turbu- Low Pleasures. 157 lence of his subjects, calling for incessant vigilance and forethought. In more peaceful and easy-going incum- bencies, the Mandarin, if fond of literary pursuits, or devoted at all to the culture of flowers, may, with companions of similar tastes, pleasantly wile away his abundant leisure. But inferior pleasures have invaded and poisoned far too many of the Yamuns even of high officials in China ; and opium-smoking and gambling with no counteracting influence from active outdoor exercise of any kind, undermine the health and too often the character of Chinese Mandarins. There are many honourable exceptions ; the present leader of Chinese thought and progress, the great Li Hungchang, is a sworn foe to opium-smoking ; and experience of its evils amongst his companions in office has intensified his feeling. The position and honours of a Mandarin are not hereditary. Nobility is not, as a rule, an hereditary rank in China. It is in its ideal always the consequence of merit ; and the transference of Imperially-bestowed honours to one or more generations of descendants is one of the overflows of such merit. Even in the case of the great Tseng-kuo-fan, his earldom is continued only to his grandson. These five ancient orders of nobility, kung, hau, peh, tsz' and nan — ''duke, count (or marquis in modern days), viscount, baron, and baronet," as they may be rendered — are conferred without distinction on Manchus, Mongols, and Chinese alike, both of civil and military rank, for such meritorious reason as the Emperor may deem sufficient. The only perpetual hereditary titles 158 The House of a Mandarin. amongst the Chinese, according to WilHams, are that of the "ever sacred duke/' held by the direct descendants of Confucius ; and the " sea-quelling duke," held by the descendants of Koxinga, who in 1657 expelled the, Dutch from Formosa, and long held out against tl;e usurpation of the Manchus. The titular nobility of the. Empire seems confined to members of the Imperial house and clan alone. But though theititles are hereditary to a certain extent, they are unaccompanied by power, land, wealth, office, or influence. By a grotesque yet most interesting freak of Chinese belief in the real existence of the soul after death, and in the realities of life in the unseen world, such honours are made retrospective as well as prospective ; and the hero's or philanthropist's ancestors for one or more generations past are ennobled at the same time. And most surely such an idea of referring merit in its source backwards, viewed as a principle of action alone, and apart from the teaching as to the disembodied and transmigratory state which underlies the idea, is at least as true to nature and as reasonable as the idea of transmitting merit forwards. How much of the strength of character, and fortitude of purpose, and breadth of intellect, and integrity of motive, in the man whom the Emperor delights to honour, is due to the training and discipline and example of the dear and venerated parents and grandparents who have long ago entered the spirit world } " Palmam qui meruit ferat." So thought the young Greeks in ancient story, — the two brothers both crowned in the games on the same day, and taking the crowns off their own heads to Can a Christian be a Mandarin? 159 place them where of right they should rest, on their father's brow. But to make this idea a practical reality, the Chinese assume calmly that the Emperor's authority touches the springs of jurisdiction and order in that spirit world ; and that he can convey, by his sacred will, honours to those souls which cannot come back in bodily form to receive the gift from the Emperor's mortal hand. So far as I know the question has not yet been fully tested, as to what would be the fate of a Mandarin should he become an intelligent and consistent Christian. What, for instance, would have happened to my friend, the magistrate of Chuki, had he listened to our message ; and had the Word of God, which we presented to him, found entrance with light into his soul ? Theoretically, there is no legal obstacle in the way of a Christian holding office. Christianity is more honourably men- tioned now in official documents than Buddhism and Taoism. It is true that Roman Catholic Christianity, the only form with which the Imperial Lecturer was acquainted, is denounced in the Sacred Edict, where it treats of false creeds, as roundly as either of those other religions. But these utterances are nearly 200 years old, and have been superseded, in letter at any rate, by subsequent treaties of amity, in which Christ- ianity is described as a religion whose reigning principle is loving others as you love yourself; and as a religion whose proclamation and profession is open to all, and on account of which profession, persecution is expressly forbidden. It would seem to follow, therefore, that 1 6o The House of a Mandarin. magistrates who are bound by law to protect their Christian subjects from persecution for conscience' sake, should thennselves be protected from degradation or disgrace in the event of their professing Christianity. There are certain official acts directly connected with idolatry which an earnest Christian could not conscien- tiously take part in. But Mahometans, who are at least as steadfast in opposition to idolatry as Christians, have held high office in China, and some arrangement must have been tacitly acquiesced in by the Government for the relief of conscience. And the prejudice against Mahometans, from the comparatively recent rebellions in Kashgar and Yunnan, must be nearly as strong as the prejudice against Christianity, which is deemed a Western aggressive creed, and to be suspected on that account if for no other. The real difficulty in the way of a Christian holding office in China would lie not on the surface of law, or in any well formulated objection. The com- petitive examinations, which form the great avenue to office, are open to all without restriction of religion. It is only the notoriously vicious, the degraded classes, and the seditious, who are excommunicated. Christians have won both the first degree of Siv-tsai, and the higher degree of Kyii-jin. But the frequent occurrence of the examination days on Sundays, and the connection of the examination routine with idolatry and superstition (the ceremonies commence with special acts of idolatrous worship, abstinence from which on the part of Christians can only be Great Difficulties. i6i connived at by specially friendly Mandarins), com- bine to render the entrance of Christian scholars a question of grave doubt and difficulty. But supposing the possibility of a Christian contending at these examinations, so far as law and conscience are con- cerned, there would remain the boundless resources which the Chinese possess for concealing their real charge, and inventing and parading side issues and false accusations. My friend at Chuki would have become a marked man at once had he professed Christianity. " This Western proselyte," they would have muttered, " must be got rid of." Faults in his administration of justice in days long gone by would be unearthed ; and errors of judgment which would have passed unnoticed and uncondemned in other cases would be exaggerated and emphasized in his; and censors, dumb before, would be loud-tongued now in denouncing the rapacious and unjust judge of past days, however completely he might have reformed his procedure. Injustice would be the ostensible charge, Christianity the real griev- ance, and no one in high rank would venture to plead his cause. There are few in Chinese official circles who could stand like Daniel the beating of the fierce light of criticism, and the daily gaze of enemies at their official life — few of whom it could be said, "They can find none occasion nor fault as touching the kingdom ; for- asmuch as they are faithful ; neither is there any error or fault to be found in them." The time will surely come when the King of kings " shall reign in righteous- ness ; and all His princes in all lands shall rule in M J 62 The House of a Mandarin. judgment" — but the time has not yet come in China for even the removal of such religious disabilities, and the repeal of such theories of uniformity, as stand at present in the way of a Christian sitting in the seat of authority and judgment. CHAPTER VI. BUDDHISM AND TAOISM AS THEY AFFECT CHINESE LIFE. From what I have stated in the preceding chapters it will be seen that, except in some special cases of Imperial favour or repression, the three religions of China agree very harmoniously to differ, and even attempt to supplement one another's deficiencies. Confucianism dominates China, and rules as by some great innate impulse of decorum the minds of the Chinese. But there are many individuals who adopt, with all the zeal of proselytes and not with the per- functory devotion of hereditary observance, one or other of the " superstitions " of China. I answered an advertisement not long ago in China. I was busily engaged in fitting up a Reading-room for Chinese in Shanghai ; and I noticed in the columns of the native newspapers, two of which appear every morning, that terrestrial and celestial globes were to be bought from a Chinese gentleman at Hankow, manufactured by himself, and sold for £2 \os. the pair. I ordered two globes ; and a receipt for the 164 Buddhism and Taoism. money arrived, accompanied by a courteous letter from Mr. Yang, in which he promised himself the pleasure of paying us a call on the occasion of his next visit to Shanghai. He arrived not long after, and called both at my house and at our Reading-room. He was a man of singular grace of manner, and possessed of much general information. He had travelled widely, having lived long in France, besides spending some months in England, which country had pleased and interested him much. He was a well-educated and well-read man, and a devout and enthusiastic Buddhist. I have met with large numbers of Buddhists, both clerical and lay, in China; but it was unusual, so far as my experience went, to find a man prepared to defend intelligently not the follies but the philosophies of Buddhism. He was as courteous and polite as the most polished Chinaman could be. He listened with patience and eager interest to our statements and arguments ; but he was ready also, with real eloquence and lucid arrangement of thought, to defend Buddhism, not as a companion religion, but as pre-eminently the truth. He had a clear and strong hold on the great principles which seem to underlie Buddhist philosophy, and which in their legitimate issue make it not agnostic but atheistic. " Look," he said, " at the misery of the world ! You tell me that it was made and is upheld by God. How is this possible if God is good? If God be not good, it were infinitely better surely to be without the Deity altogether. If God be good, this poor world of ours must be beyond His cognizance. And are we A Buddhist Apologist. 165 not driven thus,'' he continued, " to the great principle of our Holy Buddhist f.iith, namely, that happiness exists for man solely in the cessation of all sensation ; in the eternal repose of deliverance, not from the burden of the flesh alone, but from the burden of the changes and perturbations inseparably connected with conscious existence. And man must and may work out this salvation for himself!" The idea of probation and of human responsible free-will, being indispensable to all but mechanical and automatic virtue, seemed new to him ; and the pardon and renewal and progressive sanctification in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God, seemed to him like new and incomprehensible mysteries. It is not often that we find the speculative side of pure Buddhism so undaunt- edly professed by a Chinaman, and so ably vindicated. Mr. Yang told me that he had been a student of Buddhism for thirty years, and that he was at that very time engaged in writing up to date the history of Buddhism in China. I ventured to ask my friend whether he would be disposed to devote one year to a study of Christianity as zealous, as thorough, as thoughtful, as his study of Buddhism during the past thirty years .■' "Less than that will sufifice," was his striking reply, " if only some man will guide me." I cannot tell what was in his mind when he used these words. They sounded almost like a sudden inspiration. I could simply assent to his suggestion ; and as he accepted with thanks some Christian books, we urged upon him the duty of reading these sacred books, not with bent 1 66 Buddhism and Taoism. head and eager poring over the pages by the light of the midnight lamp, but on bended knees, seeking guidance and inspiration from the Divine Author of the Revelation. The most intelligent Chinese Buddhists are not the ordinary denizens of the numerous monasteries and smaller country temples — men too often of the worst character, opium-smokers, and guilty sometimes of gross immorality ; men of little or no character, and who perform their elaborate ritual in a drawling tone without devotion, or fervour, or thought, and whose mendicant wanderings are unaccompanied by any enlightened moral teaching of the people. But sometimes a well- educated merchant, resolving to retire from the world, is welcomed into a monastery, and brings with him the influence of wealth and scholarship. Such a man, elevated to the rank of abbot, we used to meet with in the great T'ien T'ung Monastery near Ningpo. In one of the celebrated temples, thirty or forty miles from Hangchow, in far recesses of the wooded hills, we dis- covered some years ago, in the person of the intelligent and scholarly head of the monastery, a quondam Mandarin, who. had abandoned his post during the T'aip'ing rebellion, either from fear or compulsion, and had adopted in this sacred and well-nigh inviolable asylum the disguise of the Buddhist tonsure and dress. Such men contribute adventitious lustre to the Buddhist monastic system, which is generally held in contempt both by magistrates and people. A Buddhist priest as a rule has no odour of sanctity about him, but the Buddhist Priests. 167 reverse ; and his opinion and teaching carry with them simply no weight at all. The succession of priests in. Buddhist monasteries, as celibacy is strictly enjoined, is kept up largely through the poverty of the land. Poor parents in country districts will commit to the care of a neighbouring temple the little boy whom they cannot afford to feed and clothe. He is trained thus from childhood in the ritual and observances of the monastery. He helps the priest in sweeping the temple, and in the cultivation of the temple lands ; and when his friend and teacher dies, he succeeds to the dignity and emoluments of the place . I have watched this succession now in two generations connected with a small temple amongst the Western hills near Ningpo. When we first visited the place, the incumbent priest had lately adopted a boy from the neighbouring valley. The little fellow was mis- chievous, and was occasionally detected appropriating the eggs from our fowl-yard, and he received a severe hiding from the senior priest. This little boy now rules the temple, the elder priest having retired to the plains ; and he in his turn has adopted a little lad to be his son and successor. It shows the laxity and indifference, within certain limits, of Chinese religion, that this priest will allow the little novice, his acolyte and apprentice in idolatry, to learn prayers to the true God, and sacred words about Jesus Christ whom He has sent. It is difficult to trace accurately the influence of Buddhism on Chinese commercial life. The vast r68 Buddhism and Taoism. majority of Buddhist devotees in China consists of women ; and they sometimes spend large sums on their religion. I knew a woman some time ago in the neigh- bourhood of Ningpo who spent every year nearly eight pounds sterling in incense and candles and offerings presented at various temples ; at least fifteen times more than the average contributions per head in that Buddhist neighbourhood. This woman spent some time in our Mission house ; and when she was ques- tioned as to the prospective advantages to be expected as the result of her piety and devotion, she was staggered by the enquiry ; and at last said that she hoped possibly to be born again as a man, which would be esteemed by her high promotion ; or perchance to enter the body of some animal or bird, which would be a step downwards, but still far from the Buddhist hells. Another woman, a beggar at Ningpo, full of gratitude for kindness shown her by one of the Missionaries, and casting about for some possible way of manifesting her gratitude, exclaimed at last under the guidance of Buddhist teaching — " Sir, I can never repay you in this life ! In the spirit-world you will be born again a rich Mandarin ; I, poor sinful and wretched soul, have no hope of reaching a higher form of existence than a dog. But as a dog I will find you out, and keep thieves from your honour's door." A Chinese shopkeeper or rich merchant in town or country, if a Buddhist devotee, would spend more than ordinary people on Buddhist rites, at the New Year, at Buddhist Miracles. 169 the feast of the solstices, at the opening of a new shop, or on the occasion of any special event in his family. Some temple would be honoured with his patronage, and the priests, if clever and plausible, would find many methods by which to persuade the merchant to spend his money in devotion. But such a profession would add little to his Confucian code of morality, neither would it diminish therefrom. It is immensely to the honour of Chinese religions that no object of their reverence or adoration, no sage of old, no deified man, no supposed incarnation of the deity, is in any sense an example or patron of immorality. Sir M. Monier Williams, however, in his great work on Buddhism, informs us that examples occur sometimes in China, of images which do not represent Buddha as the ideal of a man who has conquered his passions ; but rather with the figure and features of a self-indulgent libertine. Such cases are rare, so far as my experience goes ; unless Sir Monier refers to the obese and merry-looking image in gilded red which sits cross-legged in the entrance portico of Buddhist temples. Sir M. Monier Williams notices further the miraculous images of Buddha discovered inside oyster-shells in China. The neighbourhood of Ningpo is a favourite field for these miracles ; but the explanation of the marvel is notorious. Buddhist priests insert small bas-relief images inside the living fish, which covers them with a coating of mother-of-pearl. Such is merely a specially clever specimen of the feeble attempts of Buddhist and Taoist priests to effect the miraculous. 170 Buddhism and Taoism. So far from Buddhism influencing morality in any- consistent and powerful manner, special donations to Buddhist temples are relied upon as an atonement for unjust or immoral practices. A rich man, whose name and residence shall be nameless, as he is long dead and gone, was notorious while he lived for possess- ing a harem of more than thirty concubines ; a disgrace in the eyes of China's moralists. But his weaknesses were condoned by large charity to the poor, and by munificent contributions towards the rebuilding of Buddhist monasteries. The sacred island of P'u-du, one of the Chusan group, used to be regularly visited by Chinese pirates, who made special oflferings in the great temples on the island, and invoked the blessing of the sailors' goddess, before proceeding on some mur- derous expedition. Spanish and Italian banditti in old days were remarkable also for their piety and devotion at special seasons of enterprise and adventure. In a country like China, so practical, so positive, so materialistic, it is difficult to distinguish between Buddhist orthodox observances and such apocryphal superstitious glosses as the character and condition of the people have evolved. The goal of the consistent and orthodox Buddhist is Nirvana ; and Nii-vina, accord- ing to orthodox interpretation, is "the great deathless state, which is tranquil, and free from birth, decay, sickness, grief, and joy." The word Nirvana means originally " the state of a blown-out flame." The three- tongued fire thus extinguished consists of lust, ill-will, and delusion ; and the blowing out of the flame means Northern Buddhism. 171 a total cessation of all evil passions, and all desires good and bad alike ; especially the desire for individual and conscious existence." " Nirvana is a state neither of consciousness nor of unconsciousness ; individuality is gone, and the desire for life is an ignorant blunder." A yet h'gher state remains, that of Pari Nirvana, where complete extinction is obtained of all the elements or seeds of bodily existence. It seems that not merely the northern Buddhists in China, Thibet, and Japan, but even the more orthodox southern Buddhists in Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam, decline to accept this doctrine of prac- tical annihilation. And later Buddhism, constrained by this revolt, has elaborated a system of twenty-six tiers of heavens ; the lower levels being full of light, purity, and placid contemplation, and thus lying more within the reach of immortal but conscious spirits ; and the higher soaring stages are ignored by popular Buddhism. The doctrine of the Paradise of the Far West is directly connected with Amidabha Buddha ; a name and a variety (if I may use such a term) unknown to orthodox Buddhists in Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam at the present day ; and a dogma which appeared first in A.D. 167, that is to say, 700 years, or by another reckoning 417 years after Buddha's death. Now in China every Buddhist monk or nun, and every devout worshipper, repeats morning, noon, and night, the name of Amidabha, as the great charm against evil ; the sure way of access to the heaven of light where Amidibha sits in glory discoursing on religion. " Good morning," says a priest. " Amidabha " [fl niee 172 Buddhistn and Taoism- do full). " Have you had your rice ? Amidabha." " What is your honourable age ? Amidabha." " It looks like rain. Amidabha." " I have a severe head- ache ! Amidabha." " If you wish to reach the city quickly, take the first turn to the right and the second to the left. Amidabha." " Farewell ! Amidabha ; " and (aside), " A queer fellow, that foreigner ! Amid&bha." This special Buddha, and his western land of bliss and of beauty, with purest, sweetest, softest, freshest water, pellucid over golden sand, surrounded by pavements and pavilions of precious stones and jewels ; with lotus flowers floating on the surface, each flower being as large as a carriage-wheel, and possessing and exhaling enchanting fragrance ; with music of birds, and har- monious voices of the winds; and all this realm securely fenced in by seven rows of trees, and silken nets, and railings and balustrades; — this is popular Buddhism; this forms one great dream of heaven for many Buddhists. Yet even this reformed and reconstructed Buddhism does not satisfy the practical Chinese. Their souls, cleaving to the dust of the demand and supply of this mortal life, scatter thick dust from their wings when they rise to the contemplation of another life, and make heaven itself earthly, avaricious, profane. And to a Buddhist merchant or tradesman, the idea of modern popular Buddhism, to the effect that heaven is only earth over again, with more money and more luxury, must be specially attractive and sympathetic. His chief object of worship is the god of wealth, represented either by a paper inscription or by an image ; and the ideal of The Spirit World, 173 heaven being the acquisition of more money in the spirit- world, the practical nature of the Chinese leads them to make preparations for this happy consummation while still below. And here is the opportunity for the priests. The merchant himself, though secretly believ- ing in the superstitions, may perhaps, to save appear- ances with his less devout friends, pass the responsibility of the transaction on to his wife. The priests of certain temples in the neighbourhood especially of Ningpo, have a kind of monopoly of the sale of paper money for the use of the dead in the spirit-world ; — a remembrance possibly of the days of the Mongol dynasty described by Marco Polo, when such money was issued by the Government under Kublai Khan in great quantities, and then repudiated by his successors, shaking the credit of the Imperial house from that day forward. A Chinese bank-note is exhibited in the British Museum issued in the reign of Hung-wang (a.d. 1368 — 1399). This was about 300 years earlier than the use of paper money in Europe. The great Amsterdam Bank of 1609 issued no paper money ; but the Bank of England, imme- diately after its establishment in 1694, instituted a paper currency. The "Goldsmith notes" were somewhat earlier. These " spiritual notes " are sold at almost every temple, but they are specially valuable at certain places, called the Lin-Fung shrines ; and on the day when the birthday of the deified hero of the shrine is observed. They are sold singly or in bundles ; a single note would cost about three-halfpence ; and for the devout and con- sistent Buddhist it will be cashed in the spirit-world for 174 Buddhism and Taoism. about one thousand times the original cost. In order to become available for the use of the soul, the notes must be spiritualized by burning ; and the fortune for the other world of a Buddhist devotee, consisting of chests filled with these flimsy papers, will be solemnly burnt after death, and be thus wafted into the unseen. Imitation dollars made of pasteboard and covered over with thin foil, and paper imitations of silver ingots, are also purchasable in the shops, and are guaranteed by the priests as a sure medium of transferring money for the use of the souls in the other world. This theory of the spiritualizing of things material is carried further. Houses with bamboo framework and paper structure, and filled with paper furniture, are transferred whole into that world. A lady died at Shanghai not long ago. In her lifetime she had developed a taste for European furniture ; she possessed a piano, and was specially fond of a foreign poodle dog. When she died the funeral ceremonies were very elaborate ; and at one stage of the long ritual an exact model in paper of her house, with piano, poodle, and all, was brought out and burnt for her soul's delectation. The Buddhist doctrine of purgatory also deeply impresses the Chinese mind, and empties somewhat rapidly the otherwise tightly-closed Chinese purse. The possibility of the rescue of souls from purgatory by the mediatorial incantation of the Buddhist or Taoist priesthood (for both religions profess to exercise this special power), excites with an almost hysterical and fanatical zeal the minds of the survivors. Sometimes by the priest's own pretended necromantic . The Spirit World. 175 power, but generally by the agency of some witch or Taoist wizard (the special professors of the art), the spirits of the departed hold communication with the living, and describe their agony in the place of torment. " Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O my friends ! " is the doleful cry. I passed by a low hut one day among the hills, before which a great crowd stood, some of them pressing through the dark door, but most of them listening and watching outside. The crowd moved as I approached, and I saw a young man swaying to and fro in great emotion, and mutter- ifig some incomprehensible words. He was possessed, they told me, by the soul of a man recently dead ; and with hushed and almost awestruck interest they were listening to the words from the under-world. Now imagine the rescue to be attempted of some dear relative from one of the eight Buddhist hells. The scene is almost tragic in the intensity of interest. The priest acts his part well. "Your grandfather is struggling to be free ! More money is required, if you are to com- mand our prayers which alone can, help the soul in its upward struggle ! " The money is paid. Then the priest grows more vehement ; and, as if in sight of the tragedy, he exclaims, " One more struggle, and he will be free ! Listen to his cries, and groans, and shrieks ! Are you so niggardly as to refuse a little more money to save a soul ? " And' the family, wrought up' to a fever-heat of emotion, pay to the full the priest's demands. The struggle is over, and the monastery coffers are the richer for the victory. 176 Buddhism and Taoism. I have spoken thus far of the deviation from the original philosophy in matters concerning the unseen world which modern Buddhism has exhibited. The objects of worship also are strangely different from those originally supposed. Buddha was not atheistic, for he adopted some of the existing gods of Brahmanism into his system ; only these gods are altogether inferior to the Buddha, that is to self-deified man, and therefore worthy of far less honour and adoration than Buddha. " Do you worship the gods ? " asked Bishop Heber of a priest in Kandy. " No," he replied, " the gods worship me.'' <• Yet Buddha repudiated worship, and encouraged man, even the lowest and poorest, with the idea of reaching the same exalted but impersonal state of Pari Nirvana without the aid of God or any one outside himself. Northern Buddhism, however, true to the religious instincts of man, quietly ignores the high-soar- ing philosophy, and, as Sir Monier Williams points out, Buddha, the despiser of gods and of divine worship, is met by the irony of his fate, being worshipped in 10,000 idol forms. The Chinese viust fall down and worship some God, and images of any kind are deified at once in their imagination. Adjoining the beautifully situated temples of T'ien-coh and Lin-yin, beyond the western lake at Hangchow, a long red-walled building has been erected. I entered, on the occasion of my first visit, at the chief gate. The air was thick and heavy with clouds of incense, and with the fumes of burnt-out tallow candles. This great hall contains Lohan. 177 500 images, each one of nearly double life-size, arranged on either side of a long nave, with side-aisles ; and cloisters on a higher level. The nave was broken here and there by the shrines of images of special dignity and worth, with a canopy over their heads, and a light- throwing shield of glory behind the shrine. There they sit in every imag-nable posture — some in rapt contem- plation ; some with a broad smile of pleasure on their well-wrought faces ; some with the great protuberance on the forehead which is supposed to betoken super- human intelligence ; some in an ecstasy of excitement play a flute ; some few appear in a threatening or defiant attitude ; some again are in a state of evolution or transformation, half the old face remains, and half the new face is ready to pass slowly over the old ; and from the breast of some a small and complete image of Buddha is emerging. These are Lohan ; expectant Buddhas ; men who have risen by ascetic observances and devotion and prolonged contemplation, from man to the state of genii, and from genii to Lohan, and are now waiting for transformation into the final state of Buddha. And by the country people, the pilgrims from far distant districts, these images (all men and not gods at all in Buddhist theory,) are worshipped, and candles and incense are lighted before each one. In this great human pantheon Marco Polo and the Emperor Kienlung both have seats, and share in the people's adoration. There have been no additions, however, in more recent times. The question of supreme importance remains, how N 178 Buddhism and Taoism. far Buddhism as a religion affects the morals of the Chinese. The Quarterly Reviewer of Sir M. Williams' Buddhism, and of Oldenburg's Buddha (April 1890), asserts that "the ineffectiveness of Buddhist motives and sanctions is too amply borne out by the facts observed in Buddhist countries, in which a varnish of good humour and good temper covers too often extreme untruthfulness, a shocking indifference to purity, and great spitefulness and cruelty. Lying and stealing are characteristics of Buddhist people. Buddhists stand first in the list of homicides, not only in Ceylon, but perhaps in the world " {Report on the Administration of Police in Ceylon, &c.). Now it is a fact that the Chinese, gentle and content and patient as they seem to be, are yet a cruel people. Buddhism, if it affects them at all, has not abolished cock-fighting, or grasshopper pitting ; it has not taught mothers and nurses that it is wrong to tie a string to cockchafers' wings, and place the tortured, fluttering insect in a baby's hand as a delightful plaything. It has not prevented the cutting off of cats' tails to pre- vent their wandering to other houses ; nor the slow and deliberate hanging of discarded cats on low trees to avoid ill luck if they are destroyed in any other and more speedy manner. I watched with astonishment one day an old man of high character and good educa- tion catch a frog, take off a leg to be fried for his breakfast, and let it go again, without the slightest qualm of conscience. And to rise higher — yet from a Buddhist point of view not necessarily higher in the Infanticide. 179 scale of life — ^judicial torture continued and uncondemned by the moral sense of the country ; the atrocious bar- barities of Chinese pirates, many of whom are wor- shippers at Buddhist shrines ; the eager interest shown by the populace in the periodical horrors of Chinese executions ; and the crime (perhaps it must be called the national crime) of infanticide — all are carried on by a nation, two-thirds of the population of which has been under Buddhist influence for nearly eighteen centuries. Infanticide, however, so far as my personal observation goes, must be regarded rather as a local and spasmodic crime, than as a chronic and national evil. In some parts of Southern China it is reported to be terribly and widely prevalent. In the Chang-chow and Tsiuen-chow departments of the Fuhkien province, a full fourth of the female infants were put to death at the time of the special investigation carried on by Mr. Abeel about fifty years ago. In the Cheh-kiang province of Mid China, however, its prevalence is distinctly connected with special pressure of want from flood or famine or civil war. Female infants alone are done away with, generally by drowning immediately after birth ; and the friends of the poor parents are often more directly responsible for the crime than the parents themselves ; and probably from the obtuse moral reasoning of the relatives it is esteemed more a charity than a crime to rid their poverty-stricken friends of an encumbrance. I knew a family amongst the western hills near Ningpo which had lost two girls by this deliberate " charitable " murder. The poor mother, in after years and with i8o Buddhism and Taoism. Christian enlightenment, could not bear an allusion to the deed for which she was certainly not personally- responsible. During the years of unspeakable unrest and misery which accompanied the T'aip'ing rebellion, this crime prevailed to an alarming extent. I have often heard Scripture repeated by a girl whose life was at- tempted more than once on the day of her birth. The little thing refused to drown, and struggled back so vigorously into life that they thought it fated for her to live ; and live she did, and is still living. But if neither of the religious systems of China protests officially against the crime, the moral sense of the people will not be wholly stifled. Mr. Ah Hok, a prominent Christian at Foochow who recently died, won special official recognition from the Government on account of his charitable efforts to suppress this crime. He announced his willingness to give an allowance of rice for a certain time to every mother who, proposing to destroy her un- welcome female infant, would abstain from doing so ; and during some years of special distress he has actually saved as many as five hundred lives by this voluntary charity. Great care would of necessity be exercised in such cases as to the genuineness of the circumstances calling for the charity. There exists in the city of Ningpo a Society supported entirely by the gentry of the city and surrounding country for the suppression of infanticide. The secre- tary and treasurer of the Society called on me one day ; and from him I ascertained many particulars as to the prevalence of the crime, and the working of the Society. How far responsible? i8i Large funds are collected by subscriptions and dona- tions, and are well invested. Agents are appointed in different districts who, with semi-detective power and authority, investigate the circumstances of the people, and watch for cases of anticipated or actual infanticide. If they hear of the birth of a girl in some specially poor family, the agent is authorized to make a small monthly grant for the support of the child. If the crime has been actually committed, the agent has power to punish the parents by fine. One particularly aggravated case was mentioned to me by this intelligent official. A poor labouring man had ten girls born to him one after another, and patiently struggled with his burden. But when the eleventh daughter arrived, despair seized on the father, and he consented to the destruction of the little thing ; whereupon the agents pounced down upon him, and mulcted him in part of his small landed property. Is it fair, however, to judge a religion by the acts of those who, though morally under its control and acknowledging its name, are in no sense hearty and professed believers 1 It is true that Buddhism and Taoism have had a vastly long2r probation in China than Christianity has enjoyed ; and it is high time that the influence for good of these two creeds, if it exists at all, should be evident to the eyes of the world. But if we judge Buddhism and Taoism by certain crimes of certain classes, logical and just deduction will demand a similar inquisition into the claims and in- fluence of Christianity, which also has had long life in 1 82 Buddhism and Taoism. these Western lands. Vast numbers of people in Christendom, and with the Christian name and a certain pretence to Christian profession, are in their lives and character and example wholly unchristian, and a disgrace to any religion at all. The very crimes which I have been describing on Chinese soil, appear also in Christian countries — cruelty, immorality, child murder. But every reasonable and well-informed critic will admit, that Christianity must be judged by the lives of those who avowedly and deliberately accept its sway ; and not by the lives of those who, in Chinese phraseology, "have mouth indeed but no reality." And here at once the absolute superiority, the triumphant and overwhelming pre-eminence of the Divine creed is demonstrated. Christianity, in its doctrine and precepts, and by the lips and in the heart and soul of every true professor, protests continually and consistently and articulately against moral evil. The protest of modern Buddhism and Taoism is feeble, suppressed, inarticulate. Christian sincerity again is not content with protest alone. Every true Christian is ready to rescue and restore, if it may be, to virtue, the slaves of sin and Satan, by active service ; and if not so, then by willing and systematic help in money or influence. Christian worship is offered by the true believer, with the heart and not with the lip only. Christian charity is practised by the true Christian philanthropist, without thought of self and with loving thoughts of others. Can you find in Buddhist ranks, or amongst the devotees at Taoist shrines, anything to be compared, by any honest and Selfishness. 183 sensible mind, with the peerless examples, and untiring self-devotion, and inspired worship, to be met with abundantly in Christian biographies, and in the lives lived now by Christians before the eyes of the criticizing and unfriendly world ? I think not ; and the reason is not far to seek. Buddhism, with the appearance of humility and self- renunciation, is essentially proud and self-righteous. " Every man his own saviour." Christianity demands as the first requisite in its disciples, the reality of humility ; the renunciation of all self-merit and personal righteous- ness as a plea before God ; and the belief in another, a Divine Saviour. Buddhism, as a consequence of this absorbing thought of self-salvation, speaks only of the salvation of one's self; and though it may point out the way of fancied salvation to others, the individual can find no time to help others heavenward. (It must be remembered, however, with all due recognition of their energy, enterprise, and devotion, that the great Chinese travellers, the Buddhist priests Fahien (a.d. 400) and Hieuen-tang (a.d. 629 — 645), wandered over Central Asia and India to investigate the fountain and sacred places of their faith.) Dr. Eitel speaks of Buddhist morality in these strong words — "Though professing to destroy self, the system is pervaded by a spirit of calculating selfishness. Its social virtues are essentially negative, and strikingly unfruitful in good works." " Christianity," says Sir M. Monier Williams, " demands the suppression of selfishness ; Buddhism the suppres- sion of self; with the one object of extinguishing all 184 Buddhism and Taoism. consciousness of self; not for the good of others, but for the extinction of the illusion of personal identity." " Glory to God in the highest ; good-will toward men," is the double Christian note of praise ; and the definition of life worth the living. But the glory from Buddhist lips is ascribed to man alone ; and yet that man himself in his highest development of glory is destined to extinction, oblivion, the eternal repose of nonentity. There is, in fine, motive of the most energetically influential character in the facts of the Christian faith. And in the teaching of the Buddhist faith there is no motive of love or gratitude, or uplifting in knowledge and moral perfection for immortal man. And the same, only with a yet more profound despair, is surely true of Taoism. All that is worthy of the name of religion in Taoism is its original and well-nigh forgotten philosophy. But its speculations as to human nature, and its dissertations on the true pathway of the soul to ultimate absorption into the great soul of Nature, or of Reason, are not likely to exercise any very power- ful influence on the moral resolves or acts of a Taoist merchant, artisan, or peasant. The reputed founder of this religion lived and thought and wrote 2500 years ago. Born, as legend has it, an old man eighty years of age, he was called Lao-tsu, " The old boy," or Lau- Kiun, "The venerable prince." He meditated much, and travelled widely. Some stories represent him as reaching the much-disputed land of Ta-tsin, were it Italy or Judaea. He composed the remarkable treatise, Taoism. 185 the Tao-teh-King, or "Memoir on the Way and Virtue " ; and he disappeared from sight through a pass in the mountains, B.C. 523. Some of his most celebrated disciples, Chwang-tse and Lih-tse (in the fourth century before Christ), wrote more voluminously than their master, and developed some of his remarkable germs of philosophic principle, and indulged in much ridicule of " the Master," Confucius. The Taoist system, however, rapidly degenerated into a system of superstition and extravagant spiritualism. Alchemy, the search for the elixir of immortality, and researches into astrology engrossed the attention of more than one early Emperor ; and even the great Shih-hwang-ti himself — the con- structor and devastator of the Empire, the builder of the 1250 miles stretch of the great wall, and the burner of the ancient books — was an ardent Taoist ; and the Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (B.C. 140-99) was for years infatuated by the idea of discovering the Isles of the Immortals. Then came Buddhism early in the Christian era, and about the time of the first Taoist " Pope," Chang Tao-ling ; and Taoism, in order to keep pace with the ritual and solemn surroundings of this new faith, invented and inaugurated its own pantheon, with Yu-hwang as its chief god : with its Trinity of Pure ones — the Perfect, the Highest, the Greatest — in imitation of the Buddhist Trinity of precious ones — Buddha, the Law, and the Church ; or the past, present, and future Buddha. Taoism therefore divides itself into three periods — the philosophy of the early days, with the Tao-teh-King 1 86 Buddhism and Taoism. as its exponent and expression ; the superstition of the undeveloped days of the system ; and thirdly, the full- blown idolatry of the later period ; though in truth some traces of the earliest stage, and the whole system of superstitious rites of the second stage, are embodied in modern Taoism. The first germs of the system of Lao-tsu are not without interest broad and profound. " Emptiness or freedom from pre-occupation is an indispensable requisite for the reception of truth. Emptiness is necessary to usefulness. What is emptiness .' A freedom from all selfish motive or purpose centring in self." A noble tone is struck here by this ancient teacher — nobler than Buddha's straining after self-obscuration ; a process which requires so much concentration of thought on self and self alone. All fussiness, or display, or heralding of motive or of purpose are to be discarded ; and the calm, easy, natural performance of righteousness is to be aimed at, working without effort and without con- straint. Nature, taught Lao-tsu, was originally good ; and man wrought good without law. Law came in to restrain and to guide. Virtue and vice were originally unknown terms. Good was the simple result of exist- ence. And the introduction of definitions of virtue, such as humility, equity, filial piety, and integrity, marked the beginning of the downward grade in human nature. Law is not evil in Lao-tsu's estimation ; but the best and most rational way for the soul is to penetrate once more behind law, and do good as a matter of course — ■ "to conduct affairs without feeling the trouble of them." Taoist RIoral Motives. 187 Admirable are some of the moral sayings of this ancient treatise ; gentle compassion, economy, humility, are his three precious things — a noble trinity of graces — and Lao-tsu would have you return good for evil. It is true, nevertheless, that neither modern popular Taoism nor mediaeval Taoism has exercised any real influence over China's moral life and character. A Taoist Emperor (there have been many such, notably in the Mongol Yuen dynasty), a Taoist Mandarin, a Taoist shopkeeper, farmer, labourer, or artisan, is not likely to be awed or encouraged in the conflict with evil, and the performance of good, by the assurance that he was born under a fortunate or unfortunate conjunction of stars ; that the day of his marriage was selected in accordance with the best rules of astrology ; that the aspect of his house or shop corresponds to the require- ments of P"ung-shui, the great "Wind and Water" geomantic system. The " Pearly Gemmeous God " is too far off to excite much love or fear ; and " all the gods of the heavens '' sway not Chinese moral principles of action. Taoism appeals indeed to the lower wants of the Chinese. It invents deities to promote the physical well-being of the people — such as the gods of riches and of longevity, of war and of disease. But these deities do not affect or control morality. The effect of Taoist superstition is shown by the solemn announcement in the Peking Gazette of Nov. 13, 1 891, to the effect that it had become absolutely necessary to erect a shrine to the guardian spirit of the Yellow River in the provincial capital of Shantung ; because 1 88 Buddhism and Taoism. for thirty years the river has selected the bed within the confines of that province for its outflow. The temple was erected, the autumn freshets passed without accident (a drought of lOO days having prevailed in North and Mid China), and the Emperor is requested to place a tablet in this shrine in recognition of the divine favour. Meanwhile no effective measures are taken by the application of recognized foreign engineering skill to restrain and guide the erratic river, " China's Woe." The precepts of Taoism, however, contained in the Tao-teh-King, mentioned above, and in a book yet more popular though far less ancient, the Memoir on Rewards and Punishments (written in the twelfth century A.D.), undoubtedly do much to mould the conscience if not the outward lives of the people. There is one of the countless superstitions and idola- trous practices of modern Taoism which must be excluded perhaps from the list of vain and profitless observances. The god of the kitchen, represented either by a small image, or by an inscription on paper, is placed over the oven. This god is to be met with in every house in China ; the poorest peasants and working-men have them ; and the middle classes and the rich the same, only with images more substantially constructed and more gaudily adorned. The belief is that this deity watches and notes every day the proceedings of the family ; especially observing the talk of the women while they work and gossip. On New Year's Eve the god is supposed to ascend to the courts above, with a report of the family under whose roof he tias spent the year. The Kitchen God. 189 On this night special offerings are presented before the little shrine, with the hope of conciliating the god, and inducing him to give as favourable a report as may be consistent with his notions of veracity. On the second or third day of the New Year he comes down again, and is received with special honour and welcome for another twelve months of watching and careful inspection, and of blinding smoke and steam from the kitchen. The removal of this god from the kitchen shrine, and the tearing off of the " door gods " — sheets of brightly-coloured pictures on the entrance-gates of the house — form some of the surest signs of a China- man's hearty acceptance of Christian truth, and expose him oftentimes to special obloquy and persecution. It is easy to imagine, however, that such a superstition may exercise very considerable deterrent influence on the conduct of a devout family. The superstitious charms and signs of both Buddhism and Taoism will be seen not only in private houses, but also in shops and warehouses ; not wholly unlike the horse-shoes nailed still over stable-doors in England. The looms of the silk-weavers in Hangchow would have some idolatrous paper affixed ; and the rooms in which troops of women and girls wind silk by hand, or work patterns in silk and satin ; and the tea-firing factories at Ningpo ; and the cotton-cleaning mills now largely introduced at Ningpo and Shanghai and elsewhere, will be adorned by some such talismen. Even the large silk filatures under foreign superintendence will, if the Chinese can manage it, have some charm in some I90 Buddhism and Taoism. corner ; but as factories are enlarged, and machinery comes more into use, such superstitions will lose their frequency and influence. And even if they continue, such influence is surely not religious influence. There is indeed a dreary absence of real religious feeling amongst Chinese operatives or amongst the poor. The struggle for existence is so keen, so incessant, that it is a matter for surprise that any of the working-classes are religious at all. Wages vary considerably in different places. A carpenter and a mason in Ningpo would receive about tenpence a day. In Shanghai the rate would be raised to fifteen pence. Tailors in Ningpo receive fourteen pence a day ; in Shanghai far more ; say from twenty pence to half-a-crown a day. Peasants in the country receive about sixpence a day ; and at harvest-time double wages are given, with food as well. Numbers of the small manufacturers, such as bone- turners and cutters, earn little more than farm-labourers ; and the daily incessant toil of these men in the dark, close, un- savoury streets of Shanghai or Ningpo, without holidays, or amusements, or change, is a pathetic sight indeed. Considering the cheapness of rice, and of other neces- saries of life, and the simplicity of Chinese manners, the scale of wages suggested above does not represent ex- treme poverty or want, but rather the verge of poverty ; with no great philanthropic agencies, or prompt and well-considered municipal or governmental action at hand to ward off some great catastrophe. And under such circumstances one wonders that the religious instinct is not wholly smothered. Strikes and Guilds. 191 Strikes are not often resorted to. I have witnessed only two during my residence in China — the strike of the scavengers in Hangchow described in my second chapter ; and a strike of wheelbarrow men in Shanghai three years ago. An attempt was made by the municipal authorities to diminish the number of these useful but cumbersome vehicles, by doubling the license fee. The men struck ' in hundreds, and the unloading and loading of the line of ocean and river steamers was seriously affected ; as the men carry enormous weights on the two ledges of their barrows, balanced and roped round on either side of the wheel. They were unable, however, to prolong the struggle, as most of them were poor countrymen, coming in every morning from some distance, and returning at night, living from hand to mouth, with no trades union or amalgamated societies to back them up with funds ; and after three days they resumed work ; but not till a fair compromise had been arranged. Some of the Chinese artisans are able to combine more effectively for the redress of real or imagined grievances ; and in Shanghai and Ningpo, the coal merchants, and purveyors of ice, partly through pressure from above, and the imposition of Government taxes, combine to force the prices upwards to the inconvenience of helpless cus- tomers. China is not altogether bereft of forethought and provision for the future. Many workmen belong to guilds, which make grants to members in case of sick- ness ; and there are burial-clubs as well, and foundling establishments for girls under magisterial inspection ; 192 Buddhism and Taoism. and the private distribution of warm clothes in winter, and of fans in the summer, to the poor. Infinitely broader and deeper and warmer will be the charities of this great land, and immeasurably happier the condition of its myriad people, when, instead of the influence of the superstitions and follies of modern Buddhism and Taoism, the plans and action of rulers and people alike are guided by the strength and vigour and tender sympathy of Christianity, with a bright hope of a better land beyond the grave. CHAPTER VII. ANCESTRAL WORSHIP AS IT WAS, AS IT IS, AND AS IT MAY BE. I WAS on my way by steamer from Shanghai to Ningpo one beautiful autumn afternoon about five years ago. As soon as we had slipped our moorings, and were steaming fast through the shipping in the lower harbour, I ascertained from the steward that my only fellow- passengers in the saloon were two Chinese Mandarins ; and that they had expressed their intention of sitting at table with us, and partaking of foreign food. We had passed the Woosung forts, and swept out into the broad and more troubled waters of the Yang-tse, before the gong for dinner sounded. Partly through the exigencies of navigation, partly — so captious passengers sometimes imagine — from a mischievous intention to diminish the appetites of the diners, this repast is seldom announced on these trips till the steamer is in waters which, with any wind blowing, make her pitch or roll in an unrestful manner. But on this afternoon all was peaceful over- head and on the surface of the waves. Delusive calm it seemed to the Chinese, for their troubles with the French O 194 Ancestor Worship. were beginning, and my Mandarin friends were on their way to Ningpo in connection with the defence of that port. One of the two was the Ti-tai, or Commander-in- chief of the forces ; the other was the Salt Commissioner, a very important official in connection with the supply of the sinews of war. These gentlemen chatted plea- santly at the table ; and after dessert the captain went on deck ; the Mandarins lighted their cigars, and lounging in easy-chairs they proceeded with courteous familiarity to catechize me on politics and religion. After a while the heroic Ti-tai dozed and snored ; but his more lively and intelligent companion talked long and earnestly. He assured me that educated arid thoughtful people in China entertain no hostile feelings towards Christianity as a religion ; and that they esti- mate highly the moral standard and benevolent action of Christians. But, he added, there were two stumbling- blocks in our way, which, if removed, would take with them all causes for friction between the two nations. "Why," he asked, "have you Christians brought to us, and well-nigh forced upon us, the dangerous drug opium } And why do you make it an indispensable condition of discipleship in a Chinaman that he shall abandon the ceremonials and reverence due to his ancestors .' This forms, in the hearts of educated and thoughtful Chinese, a grave cause for suspicion and dislike. Why is it that you will insist upon the abandonment of this most innocent and most praiseworthy observance 1 " In reply I pointed out to him, first of all with refer- ence to opium, that so far as Christianity has been able A Mandarins View. 195 to influence international morality, the protests against the methods adopted in the promotion of this trade have neither been few nor feeble. "But how can we protest any longer," I asked, " when vast stretches of Chinese soil are covered by the poppy plant ? With reference to ancestor worship," I proceeded, " surely in its ancient institution and modes of celebration it implies, if not divine adoration, at any rate the idea that the dead form' a kind of intermediate rank and order between living men and the Supreme ; that they are intercessors for us with God ; and that they must be propitiated by sacrifice and offerings. Such an idea is altogether opposed to our belief in one God, and one Mediator between God and man — the Man, the God, Christ Jesus. The system seems to us distinctly to divert from God the honour due to Him alone ; and it gives to men with faults and failings like ourselves, a semi-divine character and authority which most assuredly they cannot possess." " Sir," he rejoined with much emphasis, " you are mistaken. Ancestor worship is not idolatrous. It has not the high significance which you imagine. It implies merely a reverential and affectionate rite in memory of the departed, whom we desire to serve in their absence as though they were still present with us." I could not be so rude as to contradict my friend. I could only ponder his words with longing desire that they might prove true, and possible of acceptation. On my arrival at Ningpo I repeated my conversation to a Missionary friend of very long experience ; and this whole-hearted Christian, after nearly forty years' experience of Chinese 196 Ancestor Worship. life and intimate acquaintance with their customs and modes of thought, assured me that this view of ancestral worship was at least a possible view, if not altogether the truth on this much-debated point. During the Missionary Conference in Shanghai, May 1890, a case similar to the one which I have described above was cited by the Rev. J. Ross. A Chinese Taotai had said to him that the one thing which pre- vented many Mandarins from entering the Church was the position of the Church with reference to ancestral worship. And a Corean prince, brought to China some years ago, and imprisoned at Pao-ting-fu, had seen there Christian books. He returned eventually to Corea, and assured his attaches that if Protestant Christianity would in some way adapt ancestor worship so as to ex- clude idolatry and superstition, and retain the principle of the observance, he saw no reason why Corea should not be a Christian country in three years. It is manifest, therefore, that in ancestor worship we have reached the central point of conflict between Christianity and the old faiths in China. " I think we can scarcely realize sufficiently," said one of the speakers at the Shanghai Conference, "that when we tell a literary man that ancestral worship is wrong, we seem to him to sap the foundations of all morality. He is shocked through and through. It is as if a Chinese were to assure us that we are doing a wrong and foolish thing in worshipping God." A convert from Buddhism and Taoism may be ex- posed not improbably to violence and persecution ; but Shock to Moral Sense if abandoned. 197 not because of any great shock to the moral instincts of the persecutors. They are annoyed with him because, for conscience' sake, he has withdrawn his subscription towards the village procession in honour of the local deities. But the transference of the worship of Amidabha Buddha, or the goddess of mercy, or the god of wealth, to the Eternal God who made the heavens and the earth, does not sap, in any tangible sense, the foundations of morality. Intelligible prayer in their own local speech, accompanied by solemn and reverent forms of worship, if substituted for the meaningless repetition of the name of Buddha, or for the mumbling of transliterated Sanscrit prayers which neither priest nor people understand, could not shock any deep religious instinct of the Chinese mind. And the com- mitting of each step on the pathway of life to the Almighty and All-wise God, with the sure expectation that He will direct that pathway, if it takes the place of the peeping and muttering and occult arts of the village geomancer, would not seem in any sense impious to a devout Chinese. When, however, the Christian convert refuses to join in the worship of the dead, that which may be called the great religious instinct of the Chinese soul is wounded and scandalized. It seems to the non-Christian as unreasonable and as immoral as it would be for children to refuse to join the rest of the family circle in honouring and reverencing and loving their parents. The intellectual Chinese, and there are very many such, are able to follow the stream of Christian evidence igS Ancestor Worship. with much clearness of apprehension. The mark of design in nature, that ancient but by no means anti- quated proof of the presence and wisdom and power of the Designer, at once arrests their attention. The double strain in man's nature — the possibility of com- munion with God, and the far-off remembrance of the fatherhood of God — side by side with the marks of some great fall, and the consequent sorrows and disorder of the world, are acknowledged by Chinese thinkers. The mysteries of Revelation, the Incarnation of the Son of God, the atoning death of the Saviour, the Resurrection, the Ascension — yes, even the transcendent wonder of the Holy Trinity — do not offend the reason- ing powers of Chinese thinkers. The demand for the credentials of our faith, and for the proofs of the historical truth of the great events on which that faith rests, is met by the appeal to our sacred books. The appeal is accepted ; and if the demand -be pushed farther back, and the credentials of the very credentials are asked for, the Chinese mind is abundantly able to follow the backward steps which lead us through manuscript and version and quotation, to the very times of the Apostles who had seen and heard the Lord, and by His promised Spirit had been " guided into all truth," and had " remembered," by that miraculous prompting; " all things whatsoever He had said unto them." The intelligent Chinese student will at once admit that the ipsissima verba of the Saviour of the world are nearer to us by contemporary record, and far more strongly attested, than the ipsissima verba of Confucius. And Christian Evidences^ 199 the Chinese Agnostic must needs be doubly sceptical about his own sacred books, if he enters on an ex- haustive process of doubt and critical assault on the Christian Bible. . I venture to think that the Chinese are too sensible to challenge the testimony of credible witnesses ; or to doubt the absolute necessity of relying on such testimony in a thousand questions which can never be tested by the positive, but to others not more conclusive, evidence of personal observation. It is well that it is so. It is well that the Chinese mind is so sober and so reasonable. We have not, as the Apostles had, the credentials of miraculous powers, showing the presence and the sanction of the Almighty. Neither have we in China the appeal which Christendom possesses ready to hand — the great and standing miracle of the birth and growth and existence of the Christian Church ; a proof of the crowning miracle of the Resurrection of the Lord, which alone can account for the Church surviving and outliving the catastrophe of the Crucifixion. We cannot in the utmost East appeal to the Churches of the far West as a proof of Christianity ; for these Churches are out of sight, and at present they so feebly influence the East. But the appeal to a sacred book, and the request that that book may be read and studied, cannot be deemed unreasonable by an intellectual Chinese. When, however, we pass from evidence to directions as to practical life, the Chinese regard as most un- reasonable the demand to abandon their most sacred religious observance, the cult of ancestors. And it is 200 ■ Ancestor Worship. abundantly worth the while to discuss briefly this supremely important subject in the light of recent events ; for it is a subject which links more than any other influence New China with the Old. Against the universal persuasioii of non -Christian Chinese that ancestral worship is right, we must set the remarkable phenomenon that Christian Chinese are almost unanimous in their persuasion that ancestral worship is wrong ; and, if unbiassed by foreign training, they surely are the best judges of the system. The Rev. Y. K. Yen, a Chinese clergyman at Shanghai, stated broadly that no Christian would countenance Chinese worship of ancestors, because it is mixed up with idolatry. He would hardly venture to have in his house even a picture of his parents. Perhaps the truth may be stated thus. To thought- ful Chinese contemplating Christianity from afar, the abandonment of ancestral worship looms before them as an inseparable barrier to the acceptance of the faith. To thoughtful Chinese, enlightened and permeated with the truth of the Christian faith, ancestral worship looms before them as a great obstacle to the worship of the Eternal. It is a remarkable fact that the controversy about the true significance of these rites, though it is 250 years old, shows no tendency to final settlement and resolution. Early in the seventeenth century the dispute arose. Ricci, who died in 1610, had left rules for the direction of the Jesuits, in which he described these ceremonies as merely civil and secular; and Roman Catholic Action. 201 as such to be tolerated in their converts. Morales, a Spanish Dominican, opposed this view, declaring these rites to be idolatrous and sinful ; and they were con- demned by the Propaganda, which sentence was confirmed by Innocent X. in 1645. In the year 1656, Alexander VII., persuaded by Martinez and the Tribunal of Inquisitors, accepted the view that ancestor worship was merely of a civil nature ; and his decree, though cautiously and diplomatically worded so as not ex- pressly to contradict that of Innocent, was in fact opposed to it and reversed it. In 1665 a Conference of Jesuits was held at Canton ; and they thankfully accepted Alexander's decision, "as thus the dire calamity would be avoided of shutting the door of faith in the face of innumerable Chinese, who would abandon our Christian religion if forbidden to attend to these things, which they may lawfully and without injury to their faith adhere to." The dispute was soon renewed ; and in 1693 Maigrot, Bishop and Vicar-Apostolic, issued a decree on his own authority in opposition to the decisions of the Pope (Alexander) and of the Inquisition. In 1699 the Jesuits brought the matter before the Emperor as an appeal against Maigrot. In 1700 the great K'ang-hyi replied, affirming the civil and non-religious character of ancestral rites. Pope Clement XI. refused, however, to accept this Imperial decision, and issued a Bull approving of Maigrot's decree. The Emperor on his side refused to submit to the Pope; and in 1706 he announced that he would countenance those alone who 202 Ancestor Worship. preached the doctrines of- Ricci ; and that he would persecute those who followed Maigrot. Tournon, who had arrived as Apostolic Vicar and visitor, was rejected at Court ; imprisoned at Macao by the Roman Catholic Bishop of that place ; and actually died in confinement. These disputes led for a time to the rapid advance of the Roman Catholic faith under Imperial patronage ; but they formed in reality the gravest crisis which had ever befallen the Mission ; and severe repression and persecution followed fast under both K'ang-hyi and his son and successor Yung Ching. Ancestor worship is not now permitted by Roman Catholic Missions in China; but thoughtful Chinese may well ask why our Western ancestors, the saints of the Church, are worshipped and invoked, and their honoured ancestors in China are consigned to neglect, and dethroned from their ancient seats of honour and dignity. Wherein then consists the harm of ancestral worship ? The following enumeration of the main features of the system, given by Dr. Ernst Faber, a learned and thoughtful scholar, at the recent Missionary Conference in Shanghai, would form a damaging indictment indeed, if unaccompanied by any modifying considerations. "(i) Ancestral worship presupposes that disembodied souls are subject to the same desires and wants as souls living in the body possess. (2) It demands real sacri- fices (even bloody sacrifices) in the sense of ceremonial: of supplying the wants of the departed ; of propitiating them ; of removing calamities ; and of gaining special blessings. (3) It presupposes the happiness of the dead The Case against Ancestral Worship. 203 as depending on the sacrifices of their living descend- ants. (4) It imagines the human soul after death as breaking up into three souls : one going to the grave (holes being left in the brick covering for the egress of the soul at pleasure) ; one going to Hades ; and one residing in the Ancestral Tablet — this last soul being specially attracted and propitiated by the sacrifices. (5) It supposes departed souls not thus favoured with sacrifices to turn into hungry ghosts, causing calamity to the living. (6) It implies an intercourse with the world of spirits, and with the powers of Hades, or of darkness, forbidden by the Divine law. (7) It is destructive of a belief in future retribution, adjusted by God's righteousness. Rich and poor are distinguished, but not the good and bad. (8) It places the Imperial ancestors on a level with heaven and earth, and rates the common gods or spirits {shen) as two degrees lower. (9) It is the source of geomancy, necromancy, and other superstitions. (10) It is the source of polygamy, and of much unhappinessin Chinese family life. (11) It has developed an extreme view of parental authority, which crushes individual liberty." Mr. Muirhead, a veteran Missionary of wide experi- ence and yet longer service than Dr. Faber, fully corroborated the view as to the idolatry involved in ancestral worship ; and he emphasized the point which is of first importance, to the effect that Chinese Christians allow this worship to be inconsistent with the principles and practice of Christianity. On the other side Drs. Martin, Edkins, and Williamson, 204 Ancestor Worship. and the Rev. Gilbert Reid spoke in substance thus — " The uncompromising dogma that ancestral worship is essentially and wholly idolatrous is the great bar to the conversion of many in the literary class to Christianity. Why be intolerant to those elements in ancestral worship which are not necessarily idolatrous or superstitious .' At its peril indeed will the Church condone either idolatry or superstition ! But at its peril again will the Church close a door which is not fast shut by the Bible, our one infallible guide ! Does not the expression Ancestral Worship prejudge the whole question .'' Does rever- ence, does even prostration, imply necessarily divine worship and adoration .'' Is there no %iia media by which, steering between idolatry and reverence, we may provide a Christian rite which shall retain the good and purge out the evil of this system .' We touch here the very foundation-stone of this great Empire, and of all its institutions ! Ancestor worship had its origin, doubt- less, in true filial piety ; and these rites have exercised a very beneficial effect on China. They have tended largely to consolidate and perpetuate the nation. The dynasty comes and goes, but the family remains from year to year, binding the people together. Again, it has kept up, in a very marked manner, the morality of the people, and keeps it up still ; so that socially and morally China presents a very different aspect from all other non-Christian countries." Yet this same speaker. Dr. Williamson, adds — "Ancestral worship is nine-tenths idolatry, and an error from top to bottom ! " The question arises then, Cannot this " submerged Present Observances not Primitive. 205 tenth'' be rescued from the overlying weight of superstition, and the foundations be relaid in the fair colours of filial piety ? There is no need, at any rate, for a crusade against the system. The truth about God, and the soul, and the unseen world, as it spreads in China, will cause error to fall off, and the basis of true morality will remain. " There is something noble and beautiful," said Dr. Edkins, " in ancestral worship. The essence of it was filial piety, which is a part of the Decalogue ; and let it not therefore be called idolatry and superstition pure and simple. It seems probable that the present system of ancestral worship belongs to a comparatively recent period, the Sung dynasty, only 1000 years ago; and the Chinese ancestral worshipper of the present day can be convicted of grave deviation from primitive forms and principles." One of the most touching of Chinese ancestral rites, the feast of Ch'un ming, is modern and not primitive. The Romans at their feralia, held a little earlier in the spring than the Chinese feast, performed sacrifices and adorned the tombs with garlands. The Chinese do the same, and sweep and garnish the grave, planting or replacing shrubs ; and in the case of the poor, new bamboo covers are put over the coffin. A table is then spread before the tomb ; a paper, imitating a tablet, with the name of the departed, is put on the table ; candles are lighted, incense burnt, and dishes of various kinds are set in order. After an interval, the chief performer (the eldest son of the family) prostrates him- self repeatedly before the tablet, with silent prayers or 2o6 Ancestor Worship. vows. Crackers are then let off ; the viands and tables are replaced in the boat, and the whole party returns — the hair of the women and children adorned for the nonce with azaleas and other wild flowers. A certain acreage of arable or wood land is very often held by Chinese families, a legacy of ancient times, and in im- mediate connection with the family tomb and the per- petuation of the sacrifices. The ground is cultivated by the different branches of the family in rotation ; and. the parties to whom the land falls undertake to provide for all the ancestral ceremonies, and for the repair of the tomb, during the year of their tenure. These ex- penses are seldom heavy ; and the tenant will be able to reserve for his own use at least eight-tenths of the proceeds after meeting all statutory claims. And here, at once Christianity and ancestral worship come into conflict. Piety and self-interest combine to resist the demand for abandonment of the system. The eldest son — suppose — becomes a Christian, and cannot con-' scientiously sacrifice at the tomb. The result is a= monstrous crime in Chinese eyes. The high priest- fails in his duty. The continuity of ancestral worship and of consequent blessing is broken; and added to the reproaches of his relatives, the young man has to face grave pecuniary loss ; for the clan refuses to allow him any share in the ancestral lands, if he repudiates the worship which they were devised (in part at any rate) to endow. But much of this is modern, and neither primitive nor orthodox. We come then once more to the question, whether The Apocrypha on Ancestral Worship. 207 reformation or abolition is the right and true policy of the Christian Church with reference to ancestral worship. Shall we, like Shih Hwang-ti, sweep away all records of the past, and consign the good and bad alike to condemnation or oblivion ? — or shall we, sweeping away indeed superstitious accretions, take with tender reverent hand the precious from the vile ? Ancestor worship, we must remember, is not peculiar to the Chinese, and its observance in other lands may guide us in forming an estimate of its true significance in China.^ In the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom (xiv. 1 5) ancestral worship is directly charged with being the original fount of idolatry — an anticipation perhaps of Mr. Herbert Spencer's favourite idea (recently en- countered with much vigour by Professor Max Miiller) that ancestor worship is the origin of all religion. "For neither have idols existed from the beginning, neither shall they last for ever. For a father afflicted with untimely mourning, when he hath made an image of his child soon taken away, now begins to honour him as a god, which was then a dead man ; and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices. Thus, in process of time, an ungodly custom grown strong was kept as a law, and graven images were worshipped by the commandment of kings." This passage possibly refers to Buddhistic idolatry ; for Marco Polo states that "at Buddha's death (aet. 81) his body was brought to his father ; and the old man, 1 On the whole subject see articles in the C. M. Intelligencer, June and July 1881. 2o8 Ancestor Worship. distraught with sorrow, caused an image of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people to adore it ; and they declar3d him to be a god, and so they still say." But however true this analysis of idolatry may be, and however curious the fact that amongst the canonized saints (the ancestral worship roll) in the Greek and Roman calendars, St. Josaphat, who is none other than Gautama Buddha himself, has his sacred day of com- memoration and adoration (November 27), it is hardly fair and logical to condemn a custom, harmless perhaps in itself, because of its degradation and abuse. The illustrious Washington appears in the lararium of every American drawing-room. Westminster Abbey, " that temple of silence and reconciliation," as Macaulay calls it, must seem to Chinese eyes far more idolatrous than one of their great ancestral temples ; for the Abbey is full of images, and ancestral halls have none. I remember an ancestral hall far up amongst the mountains of Chuki, where, in the vulgar belief, the souls of their ancestors, for hundreds of years back, repose in the rows of tablets, which on tiers of shelves reach almost to the roof. But no image was to be seen. The people of Malmesbury in Wiltshire have a yearly festival, at which they drink to the health of King Athelstan, in grateful recognition of the munificence of that ancestral monarch in granting free lands to the town for ever. Are we forced then to accept the drastic resolution of Mr. Yen ; and from the fear of possible or even probable idolatrous or superstitious developments banish Roman and Chinese Observatices compared. 209 from our homes photographs, or oil paintings, or statues of departed parents, children, or friends ; and sweep from all churches of the land bust, or image^ or repre- sentation in stone or glass, of ancestral hero, worthy, or martyr ? We are, I think, shut up to this resolution if, with consistency of conduct ourselves, we refuse to tolerate Chinese reverence of the departed, because it has notoriously evolved idolatrous worship of human spirits. And the only practical question is this — Can such a harmless and praiseworthy original principle as that, the existence of which my Mandarin friends on board the Ningpo steamer asserted,tbe discovered in the past history of the Chinese, or be extricated from the modern practice of ancestral worship ? In some respects Chinese practice corresponds very closely to the observances of the ancient Romans, which were confessedly idolatrous. The Chinese rever- ence the manes of their ancestors, which the Romans worshipped and propitiated under the title of lares. The lares were with the Romans all of human origin, like the Chinese ancestor spirits. The pejtates included some at least of the great deities — e.g. Vesta — though admitting deities of human origin as well. The lares were worshipped by the Romans in the form of small waxen images clothed in the skin of a dog. The Chinese have pictures but seldom images of their ancestors. But the coincidence between Chinese and Roman usage in this double worship of lares and penates is remarkable, for in Chinese house-shrines the tablets of some of the greater Taoist gods stand side by side with family P 2IO Ancestor Worship. ancestral tablets ; the first being on the left — the place of honour — and they are called " great gods " ; the latter on the right, and entitled " family gods " ; but the cere- monies and reverence offered to each are identical. The Romans divided the manes (origina'ly called lemures) into lares or manes ; and larvae — the souls of the good or bad. The Chinese also speak of every one having three wen and six pah, (three lares and six larvae') the wen being apparently the good part, and \hs.pah the bad ; only all united in one individual. They have a proverb which says, " The wen go upwards, the pah go downwards " — and the pah seem to be dissipated at death, It startles one to hear that this worship of lares in heathen China was still to be found in Christian Genoa during this nineteenth century. Almost every house has its lararium, or shrine for its household god ; and the penates (or, as it would be in China, the image of the god of wealth,) are conspicuous in every shop. Only in ancient Rome, and probably in modern Genoa, a distinction would be observed between the worship of lares and penates, of men and of gods ; the things per- taining to manes were religiosae ; the things pertaining to the gods sacrae. The Roman Catholic distinction between divine worship, XaTpeia, and saint worship, bovXfia, is somewhat similar to this. Thus far in our investigation of ancient and modern observance we seem to see little that is nol idolatrous in ancestral worship. And the attitude of the early Christian Church in Europe with reference to these idolatrous rites of Rome is singularly interesting and Ancestral Commemoration. 2 1 1 significant, when the question of the Church's duty in China is discussed. In Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, under the article "The Family," we read that the abnegation of idolatry caused a dis- placement of the household and heathen gods, (the penates and lares of the Romans,) together with all rites which savoured of idol worship, and the substitution of Christian observances in their stead. It was the custom of religious Romans in pagan times to begin the day with prayers offered in the lararium; and so family prayer appears to have had its place from the beginning of the new religion. Clemens Alex- andrinus speaks of the two or three meeting in the Saviour's name as meaning husband, wife, and child, and he mentions prayer and Scripture reading in Christian families. Neander, however, tells us further, that with the true spirit of conservatism which should guide and regulate all sound reform, " the memory of departed friends was celebrated by their relatives on the anni- versary of their death in a manner suited to the spread of the Christian faith and Christian hope. It was usual on this day to partake of the Holy Communion under a sense of the inseparable fellowship of those who had died in the Lord ; and a gift was laid on the Holy Table in their name, as if they were still living members of the Church. And later still the ' birthdays ' of martyrs, their ' days of release,' were celebrated by whole communities. Great care was bestowed on the provision for their funeral obsequies and the repose of their bodies. This all too soon exhibited symptoms of 212 Ancestor Worship. the degenerate and heretical customs which afterwards sprung up, not merely of prayer for the dead, but of prayer to the dead ; of excessive and idolatrous vener- ation, and of trust in their merits and intercession." But this efflorescence of idolatry and superstition did not prove by any means that the whole system of memory and reverence should be destroyed root and branch. Thus far, however, we observe for our guidance that early Christian practice appears to have passed through two stages — uncompromising repudiation of all that savoured of idolatry in the first place ; and then a gradual accommodation of Christian rites so as to con- serve what was true and noble in the principle of ancestral reverence. Now, still further extending our research into parallel systems, we find that the Egyptians did not pay divine honours to heroes ; yet they allowed a king to pay divine honours to a deceased predecessor, or even to himself — his human nature doing homage to the divine ; and this double nature in some senses the Chinese Emperor is supposed to possess. The Malayan races also vie with the Chinese in their elaborate ceremonials for the dead. They will live themselves in poor and mean structures of clay and bamboo, but the tomb of the dead must be of stone. The living will wear coarse and cheap material, but the dead must be shrouded in the silk " lamba." The Chinese do the same. Mourners appear in sackcloth and unbleached calico, but the dead must He in full dress of silks and satins and wadded garments, with cap and pipe as in life. The Malays Ancestor Worship in other Lands. 213 also build their tombs close to their houses, and the Chinese turn their gardens and garden fields into bury- ing-grounds. In Fiji the observances are singularly- like those of the Chinese. The Chinese believe in the temporary aberration of the soul even during lifetime, " The soul is frightened away," they will exclaim when, by some sudden alarm, a person becomes dazed and still. I have sometimes met persons in China with candles burning, and a gong gently sounding, and in- cantations muttered in a low tone, walking thus to and fro in the country paths, anxiously searching for the escaped spirit. The Fijians do the same ; and some- times the ludicrous scene is witnessed of a man lying at full length, and bawling loudly for his own soul to return. All honour to the Chinese, however, in this comparison, that the atrocious customs of the Fijians and Dahomians, of the ancient Peruvians and Aztecs, are unknown in Chinese ancestral worship. The Fijians supply wives and slaves, and sometimes parents as well, for the deceased, by strangling these voluntarily immo- lated mourners. The custom is called loluku, and the bodies of the murdered friends are called " grass for the grave of the dead." But free as Chinese rites are now from such wholesale cruelty, this terrible product of misdirected affection, joined with wrong notions of a future life, has not been quite unknown in the past. Ministers were buried alive with the ruler's corpse under Duke Ching, B.C. 630. Sixty-six persons were buried alive at the Duke's death; and 170 with his successor Duke Mah. Confucius strongly condemned 2t4 Ancestor Worship. the practice ; and it has not lived on with long-Hved Chinese ancestral worship. One more curious point of correspondence between Chinese practice and that of other lands is worth noticing before I leave this branch of the subject. The Chinese go outside the house of mourning, and at the north-west corner cry to the spirit yet hovering ftear to return. Sometimes the return is acted by the relatives of the dying or dead man. I was awakened vei-y early one morning in Shanghai before it was light, by a strange unearthly cry, gradually drawing nearer. Listening closely, I heard at last this sharp sad, cry answered in a low tremulous tone, slowly increasing in strength as the first voice grew in eager intensity. This first cry was from a relative calling to the departing soul to return — " Come, come ! " — and the second voice Was from another man simulating the answer of the soul — " I come, I come 1 " The passing bell in England, rung out twelve hours after death, owes its origin to the idea that the soul does not finally leave the body for twelve hours. The ancient Romans had a similar custom, and called the dead by name just after death, to bring back the spirit, if possible. In Latin the expression' Conclamahim est came to be a proverb for an occurrence in which no hope remained. • This second stage of inquiry into Chinese ancestral worship as compared with that in other lands, both in modern observance and in very ancient practice, seems to stamp it again' with deep marks of idolatry and superstition, if not with still worse characteristics. JVkai did Confucius and Menciits teach ? 215 And now, once more pushing our researches into Chinese customs and regulations alone, and seeking for a possibly innocent original to which modern practice may be conformed, we ask what the leaders of ancient Chinese thought taught on this great subject. Con- fucius, cautious Agnostic as he was, while conforming to the practice, which existed long before his time, of " sacrificing to the dead as if they were present," would not dogmatize on the state of the dead. " If I were to say that the dead have such knowledge of the piety and devotion of their surviving friends, I am afraid that all dutiful sons and grandsons would injure their substance in paying the last offices to the departed. If: I were to say that they have not such knowledge, I am afraid that unfilial sons and grandsons would leave their parents unburied. There is no urgency on the point ; one day you will know for yourself In the Book of Rites Confucius is represented as saying — " Woe is me ! that the dead should be thought to use the things of the living ! It is almost as bad as human immolation." " The things of the living " are the sacrificial vessels, and human food and drink. And it seems that Con- fucius condemned the practice of sacrificing, a practice unknown in the Hia dynasty (B.C. 2204 — 18 17), but used in the Yin or Shang dynasty (B.C. 1765 — 1153). One of the disciples of Confucius named Ts'ang is quoted, however, with approval both by Confucius (B.C. 560) and by Mencius (born, B.C. 371 ; died, B.C. 288) — " When parents are alive they should be served accord- ing to propriety ; when they are dead they should be 21 6 Ancestor Worship. buried according to propriety ; and they should be sacri- ficed to according to propriety — this may be called filial piety." " Let there be careful attention to perform the funeral rites of parents, and let them be followed when long gone with the ceremonies of sacrifice ; then the customs of the people will resume their proper excellence." And once more observe that though Confucius and Mencius govern Chinese thought, and to them probably the ultimate appeal would be made, yet China was ancient 2500 years ago ; and we ask what did ancestral worship mean in the " old time before them " ? Travel backwards nearly as far behind Confucius as we are before him, and we find Shun, the ancient heroic Emperor of China, reigning about the time of Terah (B.C. 2254), going to the temple of "his accomplished and cultivated ances- tors," and " offering a bullock." His Minister of State was called " The arranger of the Ancestral Temple " — and the practice of ancestral worship seems to have come down from the earliest times ; springing from the belief that the spirits of the departed have a knowledge of mundane affairs ; and that they have power to affect them. Events of importance therefore were communi- cated to them before their shrines. Prayers and vows are mentioned as presented before the altars of Imperial ancestors during the Chow dynasty (B.C. 1122-235), and in all probability they were regarded as mediators or intercessors. " Heaven was the most honourable " (writes Dr. Legge), "and the ancients did not dare to approach it abruptly ; so they depend on their sympa- thetic ancestors to present or second their requests in Superstitions in Ancient Days. 2,17 heaven." Plato held that every demon, or departed spirit, is a middle link between God and mortal men. If this applies at all generally to Chinese ideas of their ancestors, peasant as well as Imperial, the rejection of the practice runs parallel with the rejection of Mari- olatry and saint worship. " There is one Mediator, and one alone," appointed and required " between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus." But does ancestral worship go yet further than this, and become not erroneous superstition merely, but abso- lute idolatry .' One of the Kings of the Shang dynasty (b.c. 1765 — 1 153), when sacrificing to King T'ang, the founder of his line, sings thus — " Permanent are the blessings coming from our ancestors, Repeatedly conferred without end. By these offerings we invoke his presence without a word : He will bless us with the eyebrows of longevity." And later, in B.C. 821, King Seuen, the last of the legendary Emperors, speaks of " Our great ancestors, They will reward us with great blessings, — Long life, years without end." And in another ode ascribed to the time of King Yen (B.C. 780), we read — " The spirits enjoyed the wine and viands, And will cause you to live long." All these passages seem to imply direct and not merely ministerial power to bless or to curse ; and such is without doubt idolatrous ; and anything approaching to this cannot be tolerated in the Christian Church. ii8 Ancestor Worship. " All worship is prerogative, and a flower Of His rich crown, from whom lies no appsal At the last hour : Therefore we dare not from His garland steal, To make a poesy for inferior power." (Herbert. To all Saints and Angels^ But in one of the sayings of Confucius, comment- ing on the filial piety of King Woo and the Duke of Chow, we come to the very heart of the discussion. He defines filial piety thus — " It is the skilful carrying on of the undertakings of parents and ancestors. The filial pious reverence those whom their fathers honoured — that is, their ancestors ; and love those whom they regarded with affection. Thus they served the dead ai tliey ivould have served them when alive. By the cere- monies of the sacrifices to heaven and earth, they serve God ; and by the ceremonies of the ancestral temple they sacrifice to their ancestors." On this passage the Jesuits mainly based the defence of their action in allow- ing their converts to continue the sacrifices to ancestors- In Confucius Sinarum Philosophiis, the work of Intor- cetta and others, we read — " On the supposition that anything divine is meant by these rites, why does. Con- fucius say, ' They served the dead as they would have served them when alive ' ? " Dr. Legge calls this " inge- nious reasoning." It seems to me absolutely conclusive reasoning, so far as the particular passage under consid- eration is concerned. The fallacy of the Jesuits consisted in making this one passage cover and condone all the idolatrous and superstitious elaborations of the ancestral rites. But the utterance, though quite incapable of such Compromise expounded. 2 1 g an office as this, may perhaps form a principle orthodox, and absolutely beyond criticism from the educated Chinese, to which the system of ancestral worship may be referred and reduced ; and upon which, or by the side of which, for the Christian dead a Christian ances- tral rite may be instituted which shall fully satisfy all Chinese longing for the past, and shall fully justify Christianity against the charge of undutifulhess. Mr. Yen thinks that the idea of worship in Chinese- ancestral rites is in the Chinese brain itself But on the Authority of Confucius himself we may ask — Is then the idea of zvorship, when reverencing parents, in the Chinese brain ? It is true that in the Sacred Edict, the Imperial Lecturer, ridiculing Buddhist and Taoist idolaters, urges the devotees to go home and worship the two gods sitting there; namely, the father and mother of the family. But this is mere rhetoric. No Chinaman regards his parents as gods ; and worships or prays to them for Divine aid. " Serve then the dead," we would say, " as you serve the living. Imagine them as vividly as you please to be still with you. Keep, if you like, a vacant chair for the beloved who have vanished from youi* sight ; and place food for them daily, if you please, with the loving fancy that they are here to share it with you. Think that you hear them still speaking, and treasure up and obey, as though they were present, the words of counsel and advice of voices that are still. In the words of the Book of Rites — 'Although your father and mother are dead, if you propose to yourself any good work, only teflect how it will make their names illustrious. 220 Ancestor Worship. and your purpose will be fixed. If you propose to do what is not good, only consider how it will disgrace the names of your father and mother, and you will desist from your purpose.' Or, as we have it in the Odes — ' Think always of your ancestors : Talk of and imitate their virtiies.' But do not go beyond this ! Do not sacrifice to your ancestors with the idea of propitiation. Turn not love into fear. Can it be filial to imagine your ancestors as coming back to plague you ? Filial piety may become thus unfilial and well-nigh impious. The power of conferring rewards and punishments rests with God alone." This principle, in the very words of the great Sage himself, may suffice for enquirers amongst the heathen. Christians also, if they care to avail themselves of it, may apply the principle to their own non-Christian ancestors. But we must offer to the Christian Church a true and a more genuine substitute for their ancient and all- powerful rite. The principle which I have suggested does not touch on the state of those who have died without the knowledge of salvation. It implies nothing more and nothing less than reverence for the dear memory of the departed. But for those who have de- parted hence in the faith of the Lord of Life, something more than mere loving remembrance may be supplied. Besides and beyond the Burial Service of the Church of England, so resonant with hope and assurance for all "who sleep in Him," words made mournfully colourless Christian Observances. 221 in the American Prayer-book, Christian Chinese should be encouraged in every way to care for their burial- grounds and tombs. Round those blessed places of calm repose, hymns of faith and hope should be sung, not over the just closed graves merely, but on tlie anniversaries of the departures for the better land ; and a " bidding prayer," calling for thanks to God for His grace bestowed on those who sleep beneath, should accompany the songs of praise and expectation. Prayer both /or the dead and to the dead was probably un- known in the Primitive Church. "The Christians of Smyrna'' (in the narrative of Polycarp's death, c. xvii.) " draw a careful distinction between their love (ayaTrwfMev) for the martyrs, and their worship (a-f^iaOai-TTpoa-Kwov^ev) of the Saviour." And although in the later liturgies of Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and others, there are prayers /or the saints — and the Roman Catholic Church has perverted this into prayers io the saints — we must in the Church of Christ return to primitive practice, and repudiate both the one and the other, unless it be the noble words of thanksgiving and prayer in our Burial Service — " Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity ; we give Thee hearty thanks,' that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this Thy servant out of the miseries of this sinful world ; beseeching Thee, that it may please Thee, of Thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect." a 22 Ancestor Worship. " Near to the place of death his body lies Buried by us. Oft round the blessed grave (If so the persecutor's wrath permit) We mean to gather when the shadows fall, Or noontide stillness consecrates the field, To sing our praises ^ — not to the dear dead. Though venerable, but rather to His Name Who is our Life and Victory." ^ " Oft round the blessed grave " — these words written of St. Paul's place of rest — may be adopted now in China ; and the union between the ancient principle of imagining the dead as with us still, and noble Christian services, loud-voiced with the hope full of immortality, may relieve the Chinese of the incubus of superstitious fears and foolish idolatries ; and may conserve and ennoble all that is pure and right in their filial piety and ancestral reverence. ' LMudatio fiinehris — Xoyoc mvra^mq, as the Greeks and Romans called such orations. ^ Seatonian Poem. " The victory that overcometh the world.' H. C. G. MOULE. CHAPTER VIII. SUPERSTITIONS. The following brief chapter on the superstitions of the Chinese may best be introduced by drawing attention to the courteous but significant expression bei.cnhaLij.ov- e'ore/jos, used by St. Paul of the Athenians in his speech on Mars Hill. That speech is often appealed to as a model of faith- ful courtesy when a Christian addresses a non-Christian audience. And most certainly respectful sympathy should guide our thoughts with reference to a nation tied hand and foot indeed by the bonds of superstition, but uttering, amidst its toils, a continual testimony to the reality and the existence of the supernatural and the unseen. The word used in Acts xvii. 22 is cognate to the noun in Acts XXV. 19, "certain questions of their own super- stitions," which last word the Revised Version translates " religions " ; " and which might be employed " (says Pro- fessor Lumby) " by any one without offence in speaking of a worship with which he did not agree. Addressing Agrippa, Festus would not wish to say a word that 2 24 Superstitions. might annoy, and addressing the Athenians, St. Paul would not use a word which might irritate." The word undoubtedly has a double meaning of " religious," or a God-fearing attitude of mind, in a noble and reverent sense, and " superstitious," where fear of gods or demons becomes a suspicious anxiety, and a startled expectancy. St. Paul would have preferred the nobler meaning of the term ; in which case the comparative form which he uses would be rendered, " very religious as compared with others." This would be in accordance with the testimony of Pausanias — " The Athenians are more eager in their reverence of the gods than others." But not wishing to give unqualified praise, St. Paul pro- bably uttered the word in its inferior sense, but largely modified, as our Revised Version renders it, " somewhat superstitious," or " much inclined to a reverence for unseen powers." And then, after this gentle censure, he proceeds to tell them a more excellent way.^ Now it seems to me that all this is directly applicable to the Chinese. They are possessed by the idea of the presence and power of gods and spirits in that other world which they imagine to be almost in contact with the seen and palpable world. And in the instances of superstitious belief and observance which I enu- merate below, the solemnity of some of their practices will strike the reader, whilst the puerility of others in so wise and enlightened a people may astonish him. A very large proportion of these beliefs clusters round death, and the grave, and the abode of the ^ Cambridge Bible for Schools. The Acts, in loco. Fung-shiii, 225 departed. But the changes and chances of this mortal life also are minutely handled and controlled by the powers imagined in these superstitions. The well-nigh gigantic system of Fung-shui, to which I have alluded more than once in the preceding chapters, unites in a measure these two departments of superstition, since on its due observance both the fortunes of the living and of the dead are supposed largely to depend. The word means literally " wind and water," and some say that it is so called " because it is a thing like wind, which you cannot comprehend ; and like water, which you cannot grasp "; "■ — a description true enough of the system, for its ramifications are indeed hard to comprehend. But the explanation is vague and improbable. The formulated system of Fung-shui has four divisions — Li, or the general order of nature ; Su, her numerical proportions ; K'i, her vital breath, and subtle energies; Hing, her form, or outward aspect. The harmonious blending of these four would seem to contribute a perfect Fung-shui ; the contrary will produce calamity. Three principles are laid down by the professors of this art, in which truth and error religion and superstition, strangely mingle, (i) That heaven rules the earth. (2) That both heaven and earth influence all living beings ; and that it is in man's power to turn their influence to the best account for his own advantage. (3) That the fortunes of the living depend also on the good-will and influence of the dead. In direct connection with this third point comes in the Q 2 26 Stiperstiiions. superstitious part of ancestral worship, which 1 have described at length in my preceding chapter. Under Li, or order in nature, the Chinese believe in the Reign of Law, and make much of the number 5. There are 5 elements ; S planets (Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury) ; 5 viscera ; S colours ; 5 kinds of happiness ; and S relationships, namely, that between prince and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger, and friend with friend. As to Sic, the numerical proportions of nature in ancient and modern Fung-shui literature are at variance. At the time of the Yih-king, the most ancient of the Chinese classics, they recognized instead of S> 6 elements. The modern system of Fung-shui, formulated by Choohe (the great commentator on Confucius), and by others during the Sung dynasty (a.d. 1126 — 1278), endeavoured to harmonize the two ; and taking 10 or twice 5 as the sacred number for heaven, and 12 or twice 6, (or 8 + 4, the number of the two sets of mystic diagrams known to the ancients) as the sacred number for earth, they constructed 10 heavenly stems, and 12 ter- restrial branches, and from their combination composed the cycle of 60 names, which is used now to designate successive years. A clever geomancer, well versed in this intricate but meaningless array of formulae, imposes with ease on his ignorant and superstitious customers. The Chinese think that the soul of man is of a two- fold nature. They distinguish between an animus and an anima; the first being the breath of heaven, and returning thither ; the second being the material or animal .Fzing-shtiL 227 element, and returning to earth at death. The common people, modifying this distinction, suppose that the dead are chained to the tomb by the material soul, and that the spiritual nature hovers round the old home ; and therefore, as there must be action and reaction of the two souls on one another, the comfort of the corpse makes the earthly soul complacent ; and flashing com- placency to the spiritual soul as well, prosperity to the house of the living is secured by some unseen influence. And here comes in the art of the Fung-shui geomancer. He is entrusted with the selection of a site for the grave. He must secure for it a right aspect, guarded from noxious northern influences. Trees are planted round and hillocks are raised to ensure this ; there must be water in front, as an emblem of wealth and affluence ; and straight lines in paths and watercourses must be avoided as giving too free access to possible evil influences. Each village has its Fung-shui — some lucky tree or mound ; and the hand of the man who would cut down a tree of this kind is said to be paralyzed and to wither on the spot. Some years ago I requested one of my catechists, on his way to Ningpo, to cut a few branches of holly from a tree which I had marked, and to bring them to me by Christmas Eve, as I had no time to go myself. He reached the tree, and set to work with his knife, when the villagers ran out gesticulating and shouting. "You destroy our tree ! " they exclaimed. "Don't you know that it is the Fung-shui of the neighbourhood .' " My good friend, being of ready speech, answered them 2 28 Superstitions. quietly ; and by a clever question or two he gained their attention, preached them a short sermon while he went on cutting the holly, and finally brought it up in triumph to me. Only a year ago, at the back of our College in Ningpo, the lopping off of a few small boughs which interfered with our boundary-wall was objected to as endangering the Fung-shui of the district. The arrangement of houses also is ordered by these geomantic rules. As you enter a Chinese court-yard, the houses to the right are called the green dragon, and those to the left the white tiger. Should the tiger's head be lifted, by design or by accident, higher than that of the dragon, the luck of the place is gone. One of our chief Mission churches in Ningpo is built on the left hand, or in the white tiger's domain, as you enter a lane turning out of the main street. On the right- hand side of the lane stands a I'ich man's house, in the green dragon's region. Our church has a high-pitched roof and a small bell-turret ; and the people declare that the fortunes of the rich man's family have steadily declined since the erection of our Christian church, which has overtopped the dwelling-house of the Chinese citizen. I was obliged actually to suspend repairs on one of our humbler Mission chapels in a country town some time ago, because the door which I proposed to open southwards would have given to our white tiger building an undue advantage over the dragon. The Chinese are, however, not altogether devoid of a sense of humour ; and a serious outbreak of discontent was allayed on one occasion by the ready wit of Mr. Teleg7-aph and Railways. 229 Russell, one of our earliest Missionaries at Ningpo. The elders of the neighbourhood in which our Mission house stood, assembled to protest against the erection of a small single-roomed turret, built with the hope of catching a little fresh air above the close atmosphere of the unsavoury city. " Our luck will be ruined by this tower," they said. Mr. Russell met them in solemn conclave. "What is Fung-shui?" he asked. "Is it not wind and water? Well now, let us arrange ^n amicable and reasonable compromise. I will give you the water, if you will leave me the air." The wise men laughed, and the meeting broke up in good-humour. This truly universal superstition in China is perhaps more a spectre which requires to be vigorously laid, than a belief which must be slowly eradicated. It seemed at one time destined to oppose a stern front to the con- struction of railways and the erection of telegraph-posts through the Chinese Empire. The " iron way " would desecrate myriads of graves, and damage the Fung-shui of ten thousand cities and towns. A riot would rage at every half mile or so along the course, till the baffled and bewildered engineers gave up the work in despair. The telegraph-posts erecting new and usurping claims to luck, and ruining the old " aspects " of town after town and village after village, would be thrown down as soon as erected. This was 'actually done in many parts of China in the early days of telegraphic enterprise. The short line between Shanghai and Woosung (ten miles by road) was attempted twice over in vain. And the American Company which, nearly twenty years ago, 2 30 Stiperstihons. proposed to unite Pekin and Hongkong by telegraph, failed conspicuously for a time, from the fear of popular prejudice and violent outbreak. But so soon as the Government thought fit to interfere, and to stamp each post with the Imperial will, and to hold the villagers contiguous to each post responsible for its safety, it was astonishing how rapidly the dream of Fung-shui was dissipated. So also with railways. The line laid down some eighteen years ago by British capital, and perhaps too energetic enterprise, between Shanghai and the Woosung anchorage, though largely patronized by the people generally, was deeply resented by the land-owners and some influential Chinese. On the day of opening, a soldier was bribed by the promise of one hundred dollars to be given to his family if he would throw himself before the engine. He did so, and was killed ; with the result that in the minds of most of the spectators the railway was devoid of good Fung-shui, and doomed to calamity from the very first. The line was eventually bought by the Chinese Government, and after a year's interval, torn up and demolished. When, however, the Chinese authorities take up the railway question in earnest (as they seem disposed to do in the near future), and commence, with their own capital and with native metal, the trunk line already surveyed and sanctioned between Hankow and T'ien-tsin, the whole tribe of geomancers and professors of Fung- shui will i-etire ; the sale of land, after a few protests and petty disturbances, will be rapidly negotiated ; and the Witchcraft. 2 3 1 better Fung-shui will come in with improved intercom- munication, and the inroad of truth and enlightenment_ It is a curious fact that the profession and practice of this great and popular system of Fung-shui is denounced in the Sacred Edict as a capital crime. Then separating again the two fields through whicli superstition ranges in Chinese thought — this life, and the existence after death — the Chinese have a curious idea as to the connection between soul and body. A man who has only one son, or who has lost sons by death, and now has another born, will endeavour to bind soul and body together, by a collar of thick silver wire worn round the neck till the boy has grown to the verge of manhood. In every village amongst the hills of Chuki, lads are to be seen thus adorned. Witchcraft, another capital crime according to the Chinese statute-book, and not a mere ignorant superstition, is largely practised and believed in. Witches are consulted by the friends of the departed as to the condition and circumstances of the spirits in the other world. And from my own personal observation I am inclined to believe that amidst a great preponderance of deliberate imposture for the sake of gain, there is as much positive intercourse with the darker regions of the nether world as that professed or possessed by the Jewish witches of old. One of these women, before her marriage, set herself deliberately to oppose Christianity by feigned messages from the spirit world, describing the misery of Christians in Hades ; frightening back many an earnest inquirer by these Oianufactured messages from the unseen., 232 Sii,perstitions. Sometimes again she would announce that if the Christians from her village went up to Ningpo on Saturday for Sunday's services, their houses would catch fire in their absence. They felt certain that this witch would not have hesitated to set a light to the houses herself, in order to verify her prediction, had she not been watched. After her marriage, her husband, whom I had known as a pleasant and friendly man, became affected like his wife, and professed to be a medium of spirits in the other world. At last both husband and wife came humbly to me to beg for a note of introduction to our Mission hospital, as they were suffering from ophthalmia. On their return from the hospital they called at the Mission house to thank me ; and as it was late in the day, they begged permission to spend the night on my premises. I demurred, and asked how I could possibly admit those who held communication with the spirits of evil to remain under my roof, bring- ing doubtless their spiritual associates with them. The woman replied with earnestness, and apparent honesty. She was conscious, she said, of much falsehood and deception on her part ; but it was not all deception. " It is a real malady," she protested. " The spirits do enter and possess my soul; but sure I am that they will not trouble us here in this Christian atmosphere, if you will only do us this great kindness." Oracular intercourse with the spirit world is carried on, as I have briefly noticed above, by something like the table-turning and spirit-rapping of the West. The Ghosts. 233 Chinese strew a table with flour or sand, and either suspend a pencil so that the point may touch the table, or fix it into the rim of an inverted wicker rice-basket, which must be balanced on the fingers of two persons sitting opposite to each other. In either case, after patient waiting, the pencil will begin to move, and will answer any question which may be put by writing on the sanded table. So great is the mystery, or, if you please, so clever is the trick, that some of the oldest and most wide-awake of foreigners have been unable to explain it away, though performed under their own eye and on their own table. Intimately connected with these supposed transactions between the seen and unseen worlds, is the belief in ghosts and in haunted houses. A house in Hangchow has this reputation. It stands close to an ancient scarred and withered camphor-tree. No one seems to prosper in the house ; and the neighbours declare that a man comes out at night, in the dress of the Mings, 300 or 400 years ago, and walks about thus in silence. I was perplexed on one occasion by the alacrity with which a landlord of a country town offered me a house for Mission purposes, and at an unusually low rental. We noticed that the house had been long untenanted, and on inquiry we found that it had the reputation of being haunted ; and in consequence of this no one dared to live there. In another house in a neighbouring town, which we rented and occupied for the Mission, the Catechist'g 2 34 Superstitions. wife declared that she frequently saw at the head of the stairs the figure of a man appear and vanish away. A singular instance of the realization of a superstitious forecast occurred at the time of the death of the late Emperor of China. A transit of Venus over the sun was announced by Western astronomers; and when the Chinese astrologers heard of it, they expressed a fear that it might denote great danger for the Emperor, lest over his face, who is the sun of China's heaven, some spot of calamity should pass. Just at the time of the transit, we heard, (though news from the seclusion of the palace is rare and not wholly reliable,) that the Emperor had been seized with the small-pox, and when apparently convalescent, he had a relapse and died. Then passing to superstitions more immediately con- nected with death and its consequences. Tlie Chinese wear white instead of black for mourning; and the white of a foreign linen surplice, though much purer and brighter than the dull white of their unbleached calico, seems to them too funereal for weddings and other special occasions, unless relieved by a scarlet hood or some other colour. Possibly for the Chinese Church of the future other vestments may be devised, with em- broidered collars such as are worn by graduates. White seems associated frequently with death. I remember once during a short sea trip from the Northern ports to Shanghai, noticing the deck of the steamer lined with coffins containing the bodies of Chinese who had died when away from, home, and were being taken back for The White Cock. 235 burial in their ancestral tombs. Each coffin had on the lid either a live white cock in a cage, or an imitation of a bird in white paper. The idea seems to be that by this bird, sacred to such uses, one of the three souls of the dead is decoyed and enticed back from the foreign clime where the man had died, to the tomb ; and that in this way rest for the dead and peace for the survivors will be ensured. The Chinese admit that they cannot trace the origin of these superstitions. Socrates remem- bered just before his death that he owed a cock to Asklepios. The cock was the bird which heralded the return of light and life to the darkened earth ; and Asklepios was, in Greek fancy, the great healer whose voice brought back the dead from the grave. "And so," says Sir George Cox, " with the consciousness that the life here is the portal of the life hereafter, passed away the man who, in the words of his disciple, was the most excellent, the most wise, and the most just of men." Is it possible that in the Chinese funeral bird we have a trace of a forgotten sign of an ancient belief in a resurrection, " whether at cock-crowing or in the morning " of the eternal day .? It is a curious evidence of this desire to be buried at home "amongst mine own people," that at one time the steamers running to San Francisco from Shanghai were under bond to bring back again the corpses of any Chinese who might die on the transit; and empty coffins for this purpose formed part of the cargo. The Chinese are very anxious to procure the best possible coffins for the dead. To be buried in a thia 236 Superstitions. " charity coffin," and under the city wall, i.e. in "charity ground," is considered a mark of almost abject poverty and degradation. The price of a coffin varies from five dollars to five hundred. The more expensive ones are very thick and massive, and are elaborately carved, varnished, and gilded. Shortly before the T'ai'ping assault on Ningpo, in December 1861, a terrible panic prevailed in the city ; and my brother gave permission to our little band of Christians to bring for safe keeping in our Mission house, a few articles such as they deemed of special value. Our Chinese washerman, gratefully accepted the offer ; and he appeared next day with a quantity of well-seasoned planks. " What are these } " we inquired. " They are for my mother's coffin," he replied. " She is in good health ; but wood is cheap in these panic times ; and it will be a special gratification to her to know that her home is ready." The old lady came herself to take refuge with her coffin, on our premises, and she lived for some years subsequently. On one occasion I was summoned to the hills near Ningpo to visit a Christian who was dangerously ill. As I drew near to the village I paused for special prayer ; and then turning round the last bend of the path, the village came in sight ; and to my horror I saw carpenters at work on a coffin in front of the Christian's house. I scarcely ventured to ask the question, " How is Veng- we ? Surely he is not dead ! But whose coffin are you making .' " " No," they replied ; " he is not dead ; he is rather better to-day ; but we have spare time, and we thought he would be glad to know that all is com- Coffins. 237 fortably arranged for his funeral." The sick man heard the noise of hammer and plane below his window with much satisfaction ; and he recovered, and lived for some years afterwards. Before Ningpo was stormed the greater part of the population had fled to the country or to Shanghai ; but numbers of the poorer people remained in the city. Amongst them was a beggar woman, well known in the streets, and who had amassed nearly a hundred dollars by her miserly habits. She could not make up her mind to leave her hovel, and her beloved silver, and she dared not carry so much money with her if she fled. So she consulted with herself, and took the dollars, and deposited them inside her coffin, which she had bought long before and kept ready in her house. She felt sure that no thief would look there for money. But a mis- chievous and ill-natured neighbour saw through the cracks in the partition what she was doing ; and after bargaining with the T'aip'ing soldiers (who had mean- while stormed the city) for a share in the spoil, he guided them to the house. They went straight up to the coffin, and disregarding the tears and execrations of the old woman, they took the whole away. In utter despair she then left the city, and died soon after in great misery. " Where her treasure was, there her heart was also." A Christian women in Hangchow expressed great joy when her daughter had managed to purchase, after long delay, a large coffin, which was brought home and deposited as a most honoured article of furniture, half 238 Superstitions. filling her tiny room ; like Nelson's coffin made from the planks of the French battle-ship L' Orient, and kept in the state cabin of the Victory. I was walking once with a Chinese Christian along the hills near the sea-coast of Chehkiang. He pointed down the hill-side at a new-made tomb. " There," he said, " is my body's house all ready and prepared ; and there," pointing heavenwards, " is my soul's home, eternal in the heavens." Some of the Chinese superstitions connected with the dead are singularly pathetic. It is the custom for the corpse to be kept a long time in the house, till some specially fortunate day for the funeral shall have arrived. Their massive coffins, carefully sealed down and cement- ed, enable them to do this without serious risk. If this be arranged, in the case e.g. of a father's death, the sons of the family take it by turns to sleep by the coffin, so as to keep company with the dead. In the early morning hot water is brought in ; and later on a meal of rice ; and when day closes, with bursting tears they say good-night to the silent dead. This goes on for periods varying between forty-nine, sixty, and one hundred days ; after which they seem gently to hint to the dead that he must really provide for his own daily wants in the spirit land.^ The night after our youngest and dearly loved child died in China, September 1887, his faithful Chinese nurse, heart-broken with grief, asked if she should not sleep by the dead to keep him company. , ' Cf. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese. Their Pathos. 239 There is an ancient story related in the book from which I have quoted above, about a man named Lee. His mother when ahve was very timid, and trembled greatly in a thunder-storm. When she died Lee buried his mother amongst trees on the hill-side ; and when- ever the sky lowered and thunder rolled, he hurried to the tomb; and sitting down by the side of the grave, he said, " Mother, don't be afraid — your son is near you." Surely this brief sketch of a very few out of the well nigh exhaustless field of Chinese superstitions must make one desire for this great but deluded people to hear, amidst the darkness and gloom and anxious fears of this mysterious life, and with the air peopled by shapes and phantoms of the other world, the sound of that voice which alone can calm the soul and scatter the darkness — "Be of good cheer. It is I ; be not afraid." CHAPTER IX THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE CHINESE. A SMALL red paper lies before me. It is the visiting- card of a Chinese gentleman named Chin Yung Ling, and these words are inscribed on the card — "Reverently transmitted, with thanks for two dollars." An interest- ing history is connected with this piece of paper ; and it illustrates well some of the peculiar features of the educational system of China. Mr. Chin was a pupil in one of our Mission schools about thirty-two years ago. The son of parents, if not poor, yet at best with very moderate competency, he came to our school to begin his education ; and learnt there the rudiments of the language. He has now risen by open competitive examination to the highest possible pinnacle of literary ambition. He has taken his " doctor's " degree, that of " tsin-s " or " entered scholar " ; and he has been ad- mitted into the Han-lin, " the forest of pencils " — the Imperial Academy in Peking. Returning to his country home not long ago to receive the congratulations of his friends, he distributed copies, bound in scarlet, of the A Chinese Graduate. 241 essays which had won this high distinction, and he pre- fixed to the essays a list of his schools and school-masters. The first on the long' list was the Christian master who had first bent his boyish mind to study. Mr. Chin, though not a professed Christian, was honest enough to acknowledge his debt ; and he was also polite enough to present copies of his essays to my brother, Bishop Moule, and to myself, as those who had known the school in days gone by. Such a gift on such an occasion could not be received without some complimentary gift in return ; and accordingly I sent two dollars to this great but (he would have you believe) poor scholar, with my congratulations and best wishes ; and this receipt with thanks was returned to me. I am not aware of any special interest or favour which can have won for this man his successive degrees ; and his is probably a genuine case of what I have described in my first chapter, namely, the fact that the avenue to office and emolument is open to the lowest peasant in the land. It is true that degrees can be purchased, but the purchase- money for the first degree alone amounted not long ago to some £40 or .^50. This would have been quite beyond his means, and much larger sums would be required for the higher degrees. In a recent memorial to the Throne, a B.A. {siu-tsat) of Wu-chang in the Chehkiang province, named P'ang Yuan-ch'i, is recom- mended for permission to compete at once and per saltum for the highest degree. He had contributed 30,000 taels, or about ;£'9000, towards famine relief; and it is stated in the memorial that charitable gifts to R 242 Language and Literature. the amount of 10,000 taels, or ;£'3000, are supposed to merit the second degree of M.A. [kyii-jin). Mr. P'ang was permitted to take his degree of M.A. at once without examination, and to proceed, with the certainty of suc- cess, to the degree of Doctor {tsin-s). Such gifts would have been of course altogether out of the question for Mr. Chin and his poor relations ; and the more disre- putable ways of acquiring honour by bribery or false impersonation, could hardly have been attempted by him. Let us watch Mr. Chin then in his literary course from early childhood to middle age and full-blown honour. His first master died long ago ; and I was unable to question him as to his remembrance of the little boy who came to him as a timid cringing scholar in the early days of March 1859. In this Christian school several of the usual observances would be dis- pensed with ; but in his subsequent schools he would have been obliged to conform to them all. Scholars are admitted as a rule only at the New Year; there being no recognized break in the scholastic year, except a holiday of a month or six weeks, from the fifteenth day of the twelfth moon till the twentieth of the first. Occasionally, however, changes are made in the school after the fifth day of the fifth moon, which is an im- portant feast, and one of the chief pay days of the year. The father brings his son to school, with some present in his hand for the master. They then, if in a heathen school, all three .vorship before the picture or shrine of the god of literature or of Confucius ; and the boy alone then prostrates himself before his masters, and knocks School Fees. 243 his little shaven head on the school-room floor, in token of his awe, and reverence, and promised obedience. No difficulty arises here for a Buddhist or Taoist devotee. His son is not transgressing any requirements of those religions. Such adoration and worship would wound a Christian conscience ; but no conscience clause is re- quired or claimed by Buddhist or Taoist. The school fees vary widely indeed in different parts of China. In the South, scholars pay from two dollars to five a year, "and the schools on an average contain from a dozen to twenty pupils. In Mid China I know many country schools where the master receives scarcely more than thirty or forty dollars per annum, as the total emolument of his office. Private tutors are engaged by rich men for their sons, and the salary will vary from $150 to $350 in Canton. In Mid China the rates are lower, and since the great catastrophe of the T'aip'ing rebellion, many a good scholar, who has won his first or even his second degree, would be thankful for a permanent post at half the Canton scale of payment. Reading parties are formed sometimes, under the guidance of scholars of repute, in preparation for the triennial examinations for the degree of kyil-jin. About thirty miles from Hang- chow some fine hills rise, well wooded and surrounded by small lakes. This is a favourite resort for these literary parties ; and the great temples beyond the western lake at Hangchow afford accommodation for such parties, in their long suites of guest-chambers. But young Chin Yung Ling has entered now his first school ; and after saluting his master, he has joined in 244 Language and Literature. his first act of worship before the God of heaven, instead of the usual adoration of the sages of old. His studies begin with the Trimetrical Classic ; and with a Christian version of this, the horn-book which is put into the hands of every Chinese scholar in the Empire. The original book was composed about looo years ago by Wang Pih-Hao. It contains 1068 words, arranged in 178 couplets with three words in each line. The book treats of the nature of man, and the importance of educating that nature, and is followed by a dissertation on filial and fraternal duties. It gives details also as to the powers of heaven and earth, the seasons, the com- pass, the elements, the virtues, the vegetable and animal kingdom ; and a list is appended of the books to be read by a ripe student, with an enumeration of the dynasties of the Empire ; and it concludes with examples of successful study and honourable service.^ This book is learnt by rote. The master shouts out the first sentence, each word being carefully enunciated, intonated, and explained. The boys, standing in front of the master, in chorus repeat the same sentence, and after a while they return to their seats, and swaying their bodies to and fro, declaim the passage they are learning as loud as they can. In fact in a Chinese school-room noise is a sign of diligence and application ; silence — an ominous symptom of slumber and idleness. At certain intervals they are called up again, and turning now their backs on their master, and with measured tread rolling from one leg to another, they repeat the lesson as well as they can. ' See Williams' Middle Kingdom. Method of Teaching Books. 245 They pass from this Trimetrical Classic to the Millenary Classic, a larger book with a similar arrangement of subjects. This consists of 1000 distinct words ; no two characters or word-signs being alike in form or meaning. It was compiled in A.D. 550. From this book they pass to the great literary treasures of the Chinese language, the Four Books and the Five Classics. The characters or signs representing the individual words (Chinese is monosyllabic) are learnt one by one (to quote Dr. Williams), as one would learn mineral specimens in a museum, by sheer memory. There is but little clue to the sound or meaning of the character to be gathered from the shape of the arbitrary sign. Little red squares of paper with characters written on them are dealt out day by day to the scholars. They are pronounced by the master ; and the boys then gaze at them, and shout at them by the hour. The afternoon is generally occupied in learning to write ; first of all by tracing characters on thin paper placed over well-printed copy- slips, and afterwards by more independent exercises in caligraphy. The correct order of the dots and lines and perpendiculars, and hooks, and spikes, and sweeps, and strokes, and dashes, which constitute Chinese characters, correspond in a measure to correct spelling in English ; although the eye of the onlooker alone can detect the wrong order during the actual process of writing. The error is not necessarily discernible in the completed copy, as with us ; but the right order of the strokes and dots greatly facilitates the elegant com- position of the whole picture character. The boys write 246 Language and Literature. with the hair pencil of the Chinese, which was invented by Mung Teen (B.C. 246—205). The learned Mr. Wylie, in his Notes on Chinese Literature, hazards the tlieory that the Chinese words Yuh, Puh-leuk, or Fuh, being variants of the same word meaning pencil, are allied to the Turkish pupula, French plume, Enghsh brush, and point to a feather as the original writing instrument in China. The paper used now is made from bamboo reduced to a pulp. The original writing material of the Chinese consisted of tablets of hard bamboo written on with a stylus. Close-woven silk was used for writing on about B.C. 300. In the year B.C. 105, the " Marquis" Ts'ai invented the manufacture of paper from the inner bark of trees, ends of hemp, old rags, and fishing-nets. The ink used by the Chinese is made from the soot of oil and of burnt pine and fir, glue and isinglass being afterwards mixed with it ; and then the cakes are for the most part scented. The magnitude of the task before Chinese school-boys may be estimated from the fact that the Nine Sacred Books contain 4601 different characters ; and this implies the learning by heart, and the retention in the memory, of 4601 signs, more or less complicated (some contain as many as thirty strokes and dots). There are supposed to be 200,000 words in Chinese ; but vast numbers of these are antiquated. The great Dictionary of K'ang-hyi contains 44,449 of these characters. These words are arranged under 214 keys or radicals. These signs or characters were first pictorial, then symbolic ; afterwards compounded, and finally arbitrary. The Four Books. 247 Now the four books which the young scholar must study after his Millenary Classic, consist first of all of the Va Hioh, or Great Instruction ; the plan of which is a dissertation on the two stages in education and moral regulation — namely, the individual self and the family ; the State and the Empire. The second book is the Chung Yimg, " The Invariable Medium," composed by the grandson and worthy successor of Confucius. This book treats of human conduct, as distinguished from its motives and sources discussed in the Great Instruction. The third is the Lun- Yu, or Miscellaneous Conversations of Confucius ; a book full of disappointing pettiness, and full also of noble sententious sayings and high-toned morality. " Do not do to others what you would not have others do to you." " I have never yet met with a man who loved virtue as much as he loved pleasure." " How can I lay claim to the perfection of goodness and benevolence .' " " I am but a transmitter, not a maker." The fourth of these sacred books con- sists of the philosophy of Mencius — who was born B.C. 371, and died B.C. 288, and who became a disciple of the grandson of the sage. A courageous and well-nigh audacious thinker, Mencius was far bolder and broader in speculation than his " Master," Confucius. He taught the original virtue of man, and described human nature as surely disposed to good even as water is sure to flow downwards. Force alone, and strong temptation, can drive water upwards, or drag human nature downwards. If for nature we read conscience ; and if we expound Mencius' teaching as descriptive of man before the Fall, 248 Language and Literature. the doctrine is not speculative, but true. One of the noblest sayings in the whole range of pagan literature was uttered, if I remember rightly, by Mencius. " I love righteousness, and I love life. But if I cannot hold fast by both, I will let life go, and retain integrity." A later philosopher, named Seun-tsze, taught with great clearness the depravity of human nature ; and his views were admitted as of equal importance with those of Mencius, till Choo He, the great literary light of the long Augustan age of Chinese literature (A.D. 960 — 1333), sided with Mencius, and condemned Seun-tsze. The Five Classics which next demand our young friend's attention, consist of (i) The mysterious Yih- king, the Book of Changes, composed about the year B.C. 1150, as an elaboration of the diagrams bequeathed by the mythical Emperor Fuh-he (B.C. 2852) ; some occult meanings are supposed to reside in the permu- tations of these diagrams ; and they are largely used in divination. (2) The Shu-king, in twenty-eight chapters ; "the Historical Records" which narrate the history of China from B.C. 2350 to B.C. 770. This book was edited by Confucius, and contains many noble passages of high moral sentiment ; and, as Dr. Williams observes — " The knowledge of the true God by the ancient Chinese, under the appellation of Shangti, is not obscurely inti- mated in this book." (3) The She-king, or Ancient Odes of the Empire, collected and edited, and possibly em- bellished and revised, by Confucius. There are 311 Odes in all, arranged in four divisions — " The Charac- teristics of States,'' " The Lesser Eulogium," " The The Odes, 249 Greater Eulogium," "The. Songs of Homage." One account of the Shi-king speaks of 3000 ancient poems, from which Confucius selected about 300, and sang them over and over again to his lute as an expurgated edition of the old pieces. Dr. Legge doubts this story ; and thinks that Confucius edited and transmitted the whole of the existing odes ; and that his great part in the history of this classic consists rather in stimulating the study of the odes, than in recension or alteration. In the ancient poetry of China, four words (mono- syllabic) to a line is the rule. Sometimes we meet with as few as two words and as many as eight in a line. During the Han dynasty (B.C. 202 — A.D. 221) three words or five often occur. Lines of six mono- syllabic words are very rarely met with in Chinese poetry ; but seven words are frequently employed, and are much affected by posts of the present day. Eight words are uncommon in a line. During the T'ang dynasty (a.d. 618 — 907) five or seven words were used ; and each poem was restricted to sixteen lines. The normal characteristic of a Chinese ode may be briefly described thus. Each stanza consisting of four lines commences with a picture from nature, slightly varied in the different verses. And this is followed in each case by a narrative of human joys or woes, or hopes or fears ; not necessarily, though not unfrequently, in harmony with the picture from nature. Occasionally a refrain without variation follows the varied descrip- tions of natural scenery in each verse. Here, for instance, is an ode of the simplest character written about the 256 Language and Literatu7'6. time of Solomon, in which the refrain occurs without change in the original ; though I have shuffled the words in my translation. Peach tree so fair ! Thick thy flowers bloom ; Deftly to rule, Goes the bride home. Peach tree so fair ! Fruit loads thy boughs ; Deftly to rule, Home the bride goes. Peach tree so fair ! Leaves thy stem hide ; Deftly to rule, Home goes the bride. The feebleness of the rhymes in the iirst two verses not inaptly represents the uncertainty of even the authorized rhymes in Chinese. In this ode indeed the rhymes in stanzas two and three seem disposed to disappear altogether. Rhyme in Chinese poetry repre- sents probably the earliest appearance of this graceful adjunct of verse. It might be imagined perhaps that as Chinese poetry is all written in wen li, or the language of books, and as that language is addressed to the eye and not to the ear, rhyme would be unappreciated, if not impossible. But it must be remembered that the written language can be enunciated ; ■'^ and that it is as a matter of fact constantly declaimed in repetition or quotation. For intelligent apprehension on the part of the listener, it will require (as I have described elsewhere) 1 See below, p. 258. The Odes. 251 translation into the colloquial ; but for the apprehension of the ear, the mere rhyme and rhythm can be expressed by the voice. The written language is indeed enunciated according to the local pronunciation of the reader and listener ; but, as Dr. Williams points out, rhymes in the original which might be vitiated by local sounds, are fixed by the exigencies of the Kwan-hwa, or Mandarin dialect, with which the educated classes throughout China are more or less familiar. It is an evidence of the great antiquity of this speech, that the rhymes in odes twenty- centuries old, were evidently fixed by the same Kwan- hwa which is spoken to-day. Here is an ode of a more elaborate character, though still in the stiff, tight-laced metre of four line verses, with four words in a line. The extreme difficulty of rendering this concise antique verse into English of the same rhythm and metre is caused by the monosyllabic character of the Chinese language. Our epithets, e.g. for flowers or foliage (the nouns as well being mono- syllabic), such as gorgeous, splendid, luxuriant, fragrant, umbrageous, and the like, are represented in Chinese by words every whit as expressive, but every idea packed tightly into one syllable. The verse therefore is of necessity far fuller and more expressive than English within the same compass could hope to become. In the short poem given above, " Deftly to rule," is a rough rendering of the four words in Chinese which mean literally, "she will set in order her chamber and her house." The verses which follow are ascribed to Duke Chow 252 Language and Literature. (B.C. 1 100), and have a pathetic interest from the legend that they were written by him in an hour of distress and remorse because of the severe treatment he had felt constrained to deal out on his fractious brothers Kwan and Ts'ae. I give only five stanzas out of the eight which compose the poem. Cherry flowers fair, Wagtail so lone ! Gorgeous they bloom ! Brothers so poor ! With brothers' love Good friends stand round, Naught can compare ! Sigh, and no more ! Death comes and fear. Firm front without, (though) Brothers draw near ; Quarrels within. Lost in the wild, Friends all about ! Brothers will seek. Like mist their aid. Music most sweet (of) Mother and son : Brothers' true love Perfects the tone ! The allusion to the wagtail in .stanza three would not require an annotation in a Chinese edition of the poets. Chinese readers would recognize at once the emblem of brotherly love ; for do^not the head arid the tail of the pretty graceful bird nod and wag in brotherly harmony and union ? Here is one more specimen of these ancient odes — in stanzas of six lines, with four words still to a line — descriptive of the desolation and despair of a patriot, when contemplating the confusion and anarchy of China (B.C. 718-696). Both metre and rhyme are fairly ex- pressed in the translation. The Odes. 253 North winds 1d1ow cold ! Thick falls the snow, Lovers and friends Joha hands and go ! All false, all vain, Haste, haste away ! Moans the sad wind ! Thick drifts the snow 1 Lovers and friends, Home let us go ! All false, all vain, Haste, haste away ! Red fox for flowers ! Black crow for gloom ! Lovers and friends Ride with me home ! All false, all vain. Haste, haste away ! The last stanza seems to imply that the country was so completely mantled in snow, that a fox crossing the white fields, or a crow perched on a snow-wrapped tree, supplied the only colour, or any sign of the flowers and shade of summer — a picture doubtless of the desolate state of the anarchy-plagued land, and of the absence of hope in the outlook. (4) The fourth book of the five classics studied by our friend is the Li-ki, or Book of Rites, composed probably during the Chow dynasty (B.C. 1122-220). It consists of six chief divisions — the Decorum Ritual, the Domestic Ritual, the Calendar of the Hea dynasty — containing an astronomical document, 3900 years old ; and the Ritual of the senior and junior Tai. This book contains the most minute directions for sitting, standing. 2 54 Lafigiiage and Literature. eating, sleeping, talking, weeping, &c., and is inter- spersed with many excellent observations on the duty of mutual forbearance and kindness. (S) Then follows in the list of the classics the Ch'un Ts'ew, " The Spring and Autumn" Annals. This book contains Confucius' own supplement to the Historic Classic ; and brings down the history of China from B.C. 770 to the time of the writer, B.C. 560. The text of Confucius is accompanied by a commentary written by Tso, one of his disciples. Mencius asserts "that the world had fallen into decay, and right principles had dwindled away. Confucius was afraid, and made the Ch'un-ts'ew." " He completed the book ; and rebellious ministers and villainous sons were struck with terror." "By this book men will know me," said Confucius, " and by this they will condemn me." Yet these thread- bare chronicles, for such in truth they are, without elaboration of detail, without judgment or word of praise and blame, can hardly have excited emotion in the hearts of contemporaries, even as they fail to move, save with the emotion of weariness, modern readers. Nevertheless in the mere enumeration of these events twenty-five centuries old, there is a strange fascination. Under Duke Ching, who ruled from A.D. 692 — 661, we read, " In the eighth month we buried the Duke's third daughter." No more ! Yet in fancy we see at a distance of 2500 years, that young life fading away; and we watch the funeral procession passing to the unlighted tomb. A month later the sun was eclipsed, and they beat drums and offered victims at the altar — a signifi- spring and Aui?imn Annals. 255 cant token of special terror, for offerings of silk were more usual. This eclipse has been verified. It took place on August 21, B.C. 663. An earlier eclipse took place during the same ducal reign, on May 18, B.C. 668. This too is recorded in the annals. During that year "the Duke's eldest daughter was married" — and the rejoicings and mournings over the two sisters sound to us across the centuries from the far off past. " In the autumn of the same year, great floods devastated the land." And a few years later, B.C. 573, in the reign of Duke Ching, "It rained," we read, "and the trees became encrusted with ice" — a phenomenon rare but not wholly unknown in England — and we can watch in fancy the trees of old China bending beneath the weight of the frozen rain ; and then erect once more, and bursting into leaf under those ancient skies. " In the year B.C. 5 14, there appeared a comet," we read ; and a deprecatory sacrifice was ordered by the reigning Duke. One of his ministers remonstrated in words which sound from afar with delightful freshness of independent thought. " It is of no use ; you will only practice delusion. There is no uncertainty in the ways of Heaven. It does not waver in its purposes." And if these words savour of fatalism, and speak of^the reign of law as of some impersonal, inexorable deity ; the minister goes on to point out the true objects of heavenly warnings. " If there is a ' broom star' (the Chinese name for a comet), it is for the removal of dirt, O Prince." The books which I have enumerated above are learnt by heart by Chinese students, and the commentaries of 256 Language and Literature. Chufutse (composed about 1000 years ago, and generally though not universally accepted as authoritative), are printed with the editions in use, and are committed to memory as well as the text. It is interesting to notice the uncertainty of the text of most of these ancient classics. The Yik-Kying alone was spared by Shih Hwang-ti, who was a great believer in magic and divin- ation, when he burnt the books B.C. 220 ; and the text of this work with the exception of three sections may be deemed genuine. The Shookying, however, ancient China's history, was destroyed with special zest by the man who aspired to the task of refounding the Empire. A blind man named Fuh-seng is said to have repeated twenty-eight chapters of the classic from memory ; and this repetition forms what is called the modern text, to which Choo He (Chufutse) has given his imprimatur. In the year B.C. 140 the house of Confucius was pulled down, and the Shookying with other documents was discovered. This is called the ancient text, and both versions are printed now and studied. The Shekying -wdiS also burnt ; but poetry might be more easily remembered with accuracy than prose ; and, as Dr. Legge remarks, "wood and bamboo and silk might blaze in Shih Hwangti's fires, but memory could not so easily be consumed." The Li-ki, as embodying the ritual of the Chow dynasty, was the object of fierce hatred from Shih Hwangti ; but this also has been restored, probably from copies concealed by scholars, and brought to light when the tyrant's oppression was over. It is a curious The Btirning of the Books. 257 coincidence that in two cases the restoration of these sacred books is attributed to women, who have but Httle share in the literary pursuits and aspirations of the men. Three sections of the Yihking were found by a girl in Honan, and one chapter of the Shookying was recovered also by a girl. The Classic of Music, which was arranged by Con- fucius, and is mentioned in ancient times as one of the Six Classics, is quite lost ; possibly no really lamentable event after all ; but it throws an air of probability over the story of the recovery of the other books, that no attempt has been made in this case to introduce a substitute for the lost work. The Book of Filial Piety (in twenty-two chapters), containing conversations between Confucius and Tseng Ts'an, was concealed in the Sage's house wall, as well as the book called R Ya, or, Literary Expositions of the Terms used in the Classics, composed by one of Confucius' disciples. These are both included within the sacred area of the Classics of China ; but are not included in the subjects for the public examinations. Many lads remain at school in China only for a short time ; some of them only for one or two years ; their parents being unable to afford a regular education for them. So short a time admits of no proficiency ; and they will hardly touch the skirts of the Classics. They will be able when they leave school to write clumsily a bill or brief note; but they cannot compose an elegant letter, and still less an essay. They could read, with much stumbling and many mistakes, a notice of the opening of a new shop, or parts of a proclamation ; but s 258 Language and Literature. hard work in the fields or at some handicraft will soon obliterate their small stock of learning. Boys, however, like young Chin, who show an apti- tude for study, and whose parents can afford to keep them at school, pass onwards from the elements, and from mere repetition by rote, to learn from their masters the orthodox meaning and the hidden beauties of the sacred books. For these books are, it must be remem- bered, all composed in wen-li, or the book language of China ; a language which differs very essentially from all the dialects of the vast Empire ; and which is not a tongue at all ; but is designed for the eye alone, not for the ear. This language can be sounded and enunciated indeed, and it will be thus enunciated by the school- masters throughout China, with its hundreds of dialects, each one in accordance with the sounds peculiar to the district in which he lives. But as a rule the meaning is not conveyed by the sounds of the words. That mean- ing must be apprehended by individual study of the silent language expressed by these signs ; or it must be explained by oral translation into the colloquial of the scholar or listener. So that a boy learning to read this wen-li, will gather nothing of the meaning of what he reads from the talk which he has acquired from conver- sation at home or in the street, or from his master's ordinary speech. Every word must be explained and translated by his master in that colloquial ; or its mean- ing must be gathered from the dictionary ; and every sentence must be thus expanded or elucidated; and when the language of books becomes more familiar to Wen-li. 259 the student, he himself by the hghtning speed of thought will apprehend the meaning of the wen-li imperceptibly- transferred to the colloquial of his mind. The genius of this language may be further illustrated by noticing that whilst every word of conversation in the colloquial of a place will be intelligible as it is uttered and without explanation to the hearer ; it is abundantly possible in the case of wen-li to enunciate half a dozen words or more with precisely the same sound and tone, which yet reveal to the eye when the book is held up to the listener, six or more perfectly different characters, or hieroglyphics, with six or more perfectly different mean- ings. The eye detects this difference in a moment. The ear is completely at fault, except in some cases where the context may suggest the true meaning. Chin Yung Ling may have obtained admission into one of the endowed free schools, which in some parts of China are conducted on an extensive scale ; but I do not remember noticing such schools in Chin's native plain, every corner of which I have visited. The ability and character of the masters in these schools will depend a great deal on the amount of the endow- ment. One of the first acts of persecution, described in my fifth chapter, was the expulsion of all Christian boys from the ancient endowed schools of the village. There were two such in this comparatively small place (Great Valley Stream) with scarcely 600 inhabitants. At last, when about nineteen years of age, Chin Yung Ling competes for his first degree. The competitive civil examinations of China were instituted by Taitsung 2 6o Lano-uaee and Literatiwe. in the T'ang dynasty, about the year A.D. 6oo, and a similar system has been adopted by the present dynasty, for the supply of officers for the army. Such officers can gain the degrees of Shi-tsai, and Kyii-jin ; but the subjects of examination are not, as we should have supposed, engineering, fortification, gunnery, or tactics. Arcliery Practice. The nation which discovered and adopted the use of gunpowder long before the roar of artillerj'' was heard in Europe, makes no mention of such methods in her competitive system. Trials in archery, on foot or on horseback ; and trials of strength in brandishing heavy swords, and putting heavy weights, constituted, till quite The First Degree. 261 recently, the only subjects for competition. Now, how- ever, both artillery and musketry drill and practice are continually going on in garrison towns ; and before long such subjects, at any rate, if not the higher branches of the art of war, will invade the old routine ; even as Western science is threatening to disturb the far more ancient and time-honoured routine of the civil examina- tions. The examinations for the first degree of Siu-tsai (or flowering talent) are threefold ; the first, a kind of "little go," is held before the district magistrate (in Mr. Chin's case this will have been the Chehien of Yiiyao of Ts-ch'i, or perhaps of the seaport town Chin-hai ; since his native plain San-poh is divided between these three jurisdictions). The second trial is in the depart- mental capital ; that is, in our friend's case, Ningpo ; and here the prefect and literary chancellor preside. At the third trial in the provincial capital, the literary chancellor presides alone ; and confers the degree of Siu-tsai on the successful candidates. Each under- graduate candidate must be provided with securities from amongst the rank of graduates, who are respon- sible for the truth of his representations as to birth and state of life. Large numbers of candidates fail in these examinations year after year ; and cases have been known of grandfather, son, and grandson competing together for the same degree. Men go on occasionally to extreme old age in the vain struggle; and octoge- narian candidates are generally reported to the Emperor, arid are consoled by an honorary degree. An aged friend of mine competed for the second degree of 262 Language and Literature. Kyu-jin till he reached the age of seventy. It was his last attempt ; for he lost his footing on the stairs of his lodging, and shook himself so severely by a tumble down the ladder, that he never ventured again to the provincial capital. Mr. Chin, after winning his Siu-tsai degree, exercised and perfected his scholarship by attending the periodical examinations held by the literary chancellor in his prefecture. These examinations are merely for practice, and do not confer any additional honours ; but those who neglect them are disqualified from competing for the second degree. The bachelors are lifted by their success out of the ranks of the common people into the privileged class. They are exempt from corporal punishment. They can claim trial before their peers ; namely, the court of the literary chief of the graduates in their district. And their influence, especially in the country districts, is sometimes dangerously great. The examinations for the second degree of Kyu-jiil, or "promoted man," occur once in every three years, and are held in the capital cities of each province. Bachelors alone can compete in these examinations. As the candidates are gathered from the whole province, and as they represent the cream of the talent of half a century amongst a population of say 20,000,000, the number is often very great, and the competition very keen. These degree examinations in China correspond rather to competitive examinations for scholarships in England, or for vacancies in the civil or military services ; Examination Halls. 263 because the number of degrees is limited. On the occa- sion of the Siu-tsai examinations, with say 2000 com- petitors, there will be only thirty vacancies. For the Kyii-jin degree, with about 10,000 competitors, ninety degrees only will be available; unless on some auspicious occasion the Emperor, by an act of grace, temporarily increases the number. In the examination premises at Hangchow there are 10,000 cells, or sentry-boxes, or cattle-stalls (they have been supposed to resemble either of these structures). This enormous enclosure, with its various offices, was founded on its present site in A.D. 1460. It is sur- rounded by a high mud wall. It contains official lodgings, and rooms for clerks, and for the police ; offices also for transcribers and printers ; and a temple and watch-towers. The cells run in lanes to the east and west of the broad paved path which leads through the area from north to south. Each lane of cells has a separate kitchen, and an official cook. The candidates are confined to the cells day and night, for three periods of two days each, with an interval of one day between each session. The examinations occur about the middle of the Chinese eighth month ; that is, in the hot and most unhealthy days of September. The cells have neither window nor door, but are open to the south ; and a tornado from that quarter would beat in mercilessly upon the student and his papers. On one occasion far more candidates presented them- selves at Hangchow than could be squeezed into the cells ; and those who could not get in were accom- 264 Language and Literature. modated in sedan-chairs, with a broad board in front to write upon. This would have been about the time that Mr. Chin was competing for his master's degree ; and it lifts the sedan out of the region of prosaic loco- motion, to imagine it as the home and vehicle of poetic aspiration and composition, and as wafting our friend to the higher regions of the "promoted man." The fatigue and exposure of these days are, however, so great as to cause the death of some of the candidates on every occasion of this triennial competition. The candidates are carefully searched before the examin- ation commences ; and if " cribs," in the shape of miniature copies of the classics, are found on their persons, or if they are convicted of personating others, they are disgraced by long kneeling at the door of the arena, by degradation from their previous degree, and sometimes by even more severe punishments than these. The examiners-in-chief for this degree consist of the Imperial Commissioner (who comes direct from the Emperor, and is accompanied by a vice, who takes his place in case of illness), the Treasurer of the Province, the Taotai or Intendant of Circuit, the Lieut.-Governor of the Province, and the Provincial Judge. The ex- amination papers bear the stamp and seal of all these magistrates. On the arrival of the Commissioner, he is care- fully secluded till his solemn entrance with the other examiners into the great literary arena. Once in, he is "barred and sealed" in till all is over. The Com- Examinations. 265 missioner has a committee of eighteen Mandarins, known as good scholars, who sift the work for him. Hundreds of copyists, an army of type-cutters and printers ; besides cooks, and "gyps," called euphemistically on this occasion " princes," and a number of soldiers re- tained as police are within the enclosure. Sometimes in the arena at Hangchow 25,000 men have been collected. The Commissioner now gives out the themes, which the Emperor himself has chosen. They are instantly cut on blocks and struck off; and after being certified- by the seal of the five Mandarins, they are distributed , to the 10,000 or more candidates. The competitors bring their own ink and inkstands, but they are supplied with Government paper of a regulation shape and size. The first paper on the Four Books usually decides the fate of the candidate. This paper would be after the model of the following brief sketch of papers set about seven years ago. First of all the date of the examination is given. Then follows a theme for an essay, chosen from the Analects, such as this somewhat abstruse sentiment — ■ " The man who though entering late gives himself to the study of the Rites and Music, is a superior man ; and by making use (of this) I following him may enter early." Then comes a text from the Due Medium, as for instance — " All men eat and drink ; but few are able rightly to discern flavour." Then a text from Mencius — " If the examination at the customs' barriers and 266 Language and Literature. markets is lax, there will be no way of suppressing the importation of contraband spirits, &c." It is a curious fact, illustrating the force of superstition even in a literary atmosphere, that themes are never set at this examination in Chehkiang from the Great Learning, in consequence of a belief that some great conflagration will follow. These essays must be written according to accepted models of composition. They are then handed in, copied in vermilion by official scribes, and so passed into the examiners' hands. Then follows a theme for verse, accompanied by careful rules for rhythm and allowable rhymes ; and elaborate general regulations are added, enjoining a careful note of each alteration, erasure, or addition, and warning the candidates that 100 alterations will pluck a man. The papers for the second stage are on themes from the Five Canons, or Classics — as for instance — " Clouds follow the dragon, winds the tiger ; but the perfect man spies out everything." Or this — " Grain and millet have no (fragrant) reputation to be compared with that of eminent virtue." At the third session the subjects comprise questions on literary criticism ; on antiquarian literature ; on the hydrography of Chehkiang — the rise, course, and outfall of its rivers ; and on the coast defence of Chehkiang.^ The third degree of tsin-s, " entered scholar," which may be called the LL.D. degree, is competed for in the ' Taken from a set of examination papers in the Dorset County Museum, with annotations by Bishop Moule. The Top of the Tree. 267 capital of the Empire. These, like the Kyii-jin exam- inations, are triennial ; and duly accredited candidates receive a grant from the provincial treasurer towards their travelling expenses. The examination is similar to that for the previous degrees ; the subjects for the essays and poems are all taken from the canonical literature — the four books and the five classics. The examiners, however, are of higher rank, and the successful candidates are intro- duced to the Emperor ; the three highest on the list receiving special honours from the Emperor's own hand. (During the T'ang dynasty there were six degrees conferred, namely — siu-tsai, ming-king, tsin-s, min-fah, sku, and stvdn. The custom of designating rank by buttons on the cap was sanctioned by the present dynasty about the year A.D. 1730.) Our friend Mr. Chin has climbed then to his high position by the old time-honoured methods. The same books ^have been studied by him as by forty generations past ; the same committed to memory ; the same style has been adopted in treating the subjects proposed for prose and verse ; the same narrow horizon has bounded his intellect and knowledge and aspira- tions which had sufficed for the intellects of the millions of scholars and graduates now underground. And he is congratulated according to the old proverb — " Our neighbour has won his degree and his feather, Let us be glad and rejoice then together." Strangely unprogressive China has been during these 268 Language and Literature. 1 200 years of competitive examination. There are no new grammars or histories. It is not with Chinese' parents as with distracted EngHsh fathers and guardians. Five or six years will suffice in England to superannuate^ such books ; and though not worn in binding, or blotted and blurred in page, they are useless for the younger boys, and unsaleable in second-hand book-shops. But in China too an awaking is at hand ; and change is perceptible in education, and in the subjects for ex- amination. The old literature is diligently reprinted and indefatigably and universally read; and the land in which printing was probably known long centuries" before Europe was shaken by that wonderful but most simple discovery, is now fast adopting the most modern methods of reproduction. These very classics gave the first clue to the discovery of printing, for so early as A.D. 177 they were all engraved on stone, and impres- sions taken from thdm. Block-printing was known in the Suy dynasty (ad. 581 — 618), practised in the T'ang (a.d. 618 — 910), and adopted for the printing of the nine classics by Imperial order AD. 952; or 470 years before the birth of Caxton (a.d. 1422). And block-printing was probably practised in both Japan and in Corea earlier than in Europe. Specimens of Japanese and Coi-ean printed books, both in the Chinese language, dated A.D. 1448 and 1501 respectively, are exhibited' in the British Museum. And even metal types were used as early as A.D. 1680 by Imperial order; but the fount was purloined and ruined. Now in Shanghai and in other centres of trade and enterprise, the anciejit Western Science. 269 -literature of China is being reproduced in large and .cheap editions by photography and electrotype, And there are signs of approaching change in literature and ^education, as well as in mechanical reproduction of such literature. Questions in high mathematics have been suddenly propounded at the provincial examinations in Nanking. Not that the Chines: are ignorant of •mathematics. A book ascribed to the Chow dynasty (closing B.C. 221), is looked upon as "the original treatise on Trigonometry." The Chinese were well versed in trigonometry both plane and spherical ; but the science of geometry, as handed down from the. time of Euclid, was quite new to them. But mathematics do not enter into the nine sacred books; and any new subject for essay or poem is a startling innovation. Scientific questions on mining and geology are also rumoured from some quarters; if not in the public examinations, most certainly in public competition for prose essays offered by high Mandarins, such questions are being freely discussed ; and there is a growing demand for translations of Western scientific books, in order to provide the stereotyped mind of Chinese scholars, with information for their essays. The memories of the Chinese are phenomenal. In addition to the herculean task of committing the whole of these nine books to memory, with the accompanying commentary, Chinese scholars learn also the Sacred Edict by heart. And in some of the public examinations, the scholars are tested in their remembrance of this remarkable work. It consists of 270 Language and Literature. sixteen brief sermons on texts suggested by the great K'ang-hyi, and composed by his son and successor Yung Ching (a. D. 1723). The sixteenth of this remarkable series of moral essays is on the text, " Settle animosities ; that lives may be duly valued " — and the Emperor speaks thus ; and one could imagine that he was posing as a temperance lecturer, and well performing his part-^" If misery arise not from former animosities, it proceeds from momentary anger. The original causes of this^are indeed not confined to a few. But that in which the soldiers and the people more easily offend, arises in many instances from indulging in the use of spirituous liquors. While guest and host are taking a glass to- gether, they proceed from mirth to drunkenness. Then one improper word leads to laying hold of daggers, and encountering each other ; or probably a cross look creates an offence which could have been as easily settled at first as the melting of ice." And the para- phrase of the Imperial sermon, by Wang Yu Pi, one of Yung Ching's high officers, speaks thus — "Spirits, though distilled from the wort of grain, when drunk possess in a high degree the power of disordering the human passions. From of old it has been said, 'Wine can complete an affair, and wine can ruin an affair.' I have seen few things that wine can complete ; but many that it has ruined." ^ It seems a possible explanation of Chinese pheno- menal memories, that the great tax on memory, from the exigencies of their educational system, has evolved ^ Mylne's translation. Chinese Memories. 271 such a power in their natures. And it is a remarkable fact that women as well as men have this power. In our small boarding-school for girls at Ningpo, four or five of the children, under twelve years of age, and with no previous mental training, had learnt by heart, and retained in their memories at the end of two and a half years' study, the whole of the four Gospels in Chinese. These little girls not only repeated any chapter or por- tions of chapters selected at random, with accuracy and precision, but they were able to answer most intelligently questions on the Sacred History. It is supposed that at least half of the Chinese nation is uneducated; but this must mean half of the men, for there is no regular system for the education of girls in China. The proportion of readers to the whole population varies very widely in different districts. In Nanhai, near Canton, nearly all the men could read, the exceptions being fishermen, gardeners, and coolies. In the city of Canton four-tenths of the men could read. In the city of Ningpo twenty per cent. The number of educated people in China has doubt- less been largely over-estimated, but the remarkable fact remains, that in almost every village in China you find one or more fairly educated residents. It is singularly emblematic of the character of the Chinese that superstitions, the most foolish and puerile according to our Western ideas, are connected with the literary contests which I have described above. On Sept. 30th, 1890, the Viceroy, Li Hungchang, reported the completion of the new Examination Hall at Cheng- 272 Language and Literature. ting fu. This building stood originally at the north-west corner of the city ; but being found liable to floods, it was removed in the reign of Kien-lung, A.D. 1736 — 1796, to a site in the south-east quarter. During the 100 years which have passed since then, the building has fallen into a ruinous state ; besides which it was found that very few students had been successful at the higher examinations since the change of locality. The geomancers with one accord declared that this was due to the situation being an unlucky one from a geomantic point of view, and the site was accord- ingly altered ; apparently with the approval of the Viceroy. During the occupation of Ningpo by the T'ai'ping rebels, the foreign settlement, which stands on a penin- sula with a very narrow neck scarcely a quarter of a mile across, was fortified against sudden assault by cutting a canal through this strip of land, and defending the canal by two small forts. The canal, besides its strategic advantages, added not a little to the salubrity of the place, and it was undisturbed and unsuspected for three or four years. Then there arose a rumour of popular dissatisfaction. Twelve miles to the westward lies the city of Tse-ch'i, a city with an ancient literary fame ; but the scholars of this city had fallen largely into idleness and opium-smoking, and they failed repeatedly in the competitive examinations. In order to cover their own supineness and incapacity, they hired geomancers who pointed to Captain Roderick Dew's canal as the open mouth which had let in ill luck upon their fair and Sttperstition. 273 proud city. The clamour on these geomantic grounds was further augmented by complaints of the country people, that this new channel for the tide forced the salt water further inland than before, and injured the crops ; and eventually the British authorities withdrew their opposition, and the canal was filled in. This brief review of the literature and educational system of the Chinese will not be complete without some reference to subordinate but most powerful agencies in the formation of the character and thoughts of the people, namely, their Proverbial Philosophy, and their Moral Tales. Here is a proverb which may fitly close the consideration of the literature and examinations of the Chinese — "Thorough acquaintance with the four books and five classics procures for the whole family emolument from heaven." And another proverb places a high ideal before those who, like Mr. Chin, climb to the highest posts of all — "The Prime Minister's heart is so large that you can ply a boat in it" Some of these old sayings have a noble ring, both with reference to heaven and earth ; and one would like to know their authors and origins ; though no literature is, I suppose, so largely anonymous as the literature of proverbs and aphorisms. A well-known proverb speaks thus — " If heaven approves me, then let man despise ; Loss and reproach are blessings in disguise." And again — " If a man has done nothing to wound his T 274 Language and Literatilr&. conscience, a knock may come at dead of night, and he will not start in alarm." Here is a generous warning against insatiable revenge — " Your knife of vengeance may be sharp and keen. But not to slay your enemy who comes to treat, I ween." And again more simply thus — " In everything let forbearance have her perfect work." Here we have encouragement to the good, and warning to the evil — " Good deeds are like fresh leaves in spring Unfolding day by day ; Bad deeds are like the grindstone hard Which slowly wastes away." Here is a special encouragement in time of calamity and distress — " Trouble assails you like a brigand bold ; But from the shock good fortune will unfold." Here is a warning as to the fickleness of human friendships — " A thousand friends will drink your wine when fortune's sun shines bright ; Not one remains to sympathize when falls disaster's night." And this too more bluntly describes the uncertainty of all earthly things — " The best and strongest man in the world finds that he cannot escape the two words, No continuance'.' Here again we have good advice against uncharitable thoughts and words — "When you are sitting quietly, Proverbs. :5 75 and alone, think of your own faults ; when conversing with others, do not talk of the faults of others." Or thus — "Think of your own faults the first part of the night " (when awake), " and of the faults of others the latter part of the night " (when asleep). And once more with reference to the general depravity of man, the ancient sigh of Confucius — " Woe is me ! I have never yet met with a man who loved virtue as he loved sensual pleasure," sounds in Chinese proverb thus — " There are but two good people, one dead, one not yet born." ^ These proverbs quoted above, which are but little specks of gold-dust out of a mine of wealth, will be sufficient to show what a power for instruction and warning Chinese proverbial philosophy may supply. Besides this the Chinese are familiar with large numbers of moral tales relating to ancient worthies. The stories of the early training of Mencius, and of his mother's anxious and minute care to provide her son with a wholesome " environment," are perpetually quoted by the Chinese. Some of the noblest of these stories occur in an illustrated book, in two volumes, contain- ing I02 tales. This book is frequently reprinted for gratuitous circulation. I give three specimens — " About 1600 years ago, in time of civil war, a general named Woo collected an army and made head against the rebels. He had only just recovered from an abscess in his back, and in consequence of his energy and ' See for an exhaustive treatise, Chinese Proverbs, by the Revr Arthur Smith, T'ien-tsin. 276 Language and Literature. exertions he died. His two sons who accompanied him fell by the sword of the enemy. ' Home they brought her warriors dead ' ; and the widowed mother laid her hand gently on the corpses and wept, and said, ' Come, come, no time for lamentation now ! The father was a loyal officer ; the boys dutiful sons ' ! " And the old historian or novelist adds his own reflections — " The death on one day of father and sons seems the greatest of sorrows ; but for faithful and dutiful conduct to spring up side by side like tufted grass, this is the greatest of joys." Here is another ancient tale — "A great officer, named Yang, served his mother most dutifully. In the springtime he used to carry her up and down on his back amongst the wealth of flowers ; and he would frisk and gambol about whilst his mother enjoyed the fragrance and shade. The old lady died at the age of 104." Once more we read — " Two brothers, named Shang and Dzen, went to- gether to the war. One day during a skirmish Shang's horse was struck by an arrow and fell. His younger brother Dzen instantly dismounted, and gave his horse to Shang. Shang exclaimed, 'Why don't you save yourself ? ' Dzen replied, ' To forget oneself, and to say / am not, is right ; but one must never forget one's brother, and act as though he was not.' " ^ The classical literature of the Chinese which I have described in this chapter is comparatively familiar to ' See Chinese Stories, Seeley & Co. Sketch 0/ Chinese Literature. 277 European students, but few are aware perhaps of the wide range which Chinese literature covers. There are treatises extant, more than a thousand years old, on painting, writing, music, engraving, archery, and dancing ; and Chinese books still read and studied by scholars, stretch backwards for 3000 years ; whilst native literature has beea constantly enriched in the later centuries and down to the present time. For a full and exhaustive treatment of this subject, I refer my readers to Notes on Chinese Literature, by the late lamented Alexander Wylie, one of the least-asserting, but truest and soundest of modern sinologues. I append here a brief digest of Mr. Wylie's investigations. And first of all with reference to the Dictionaries of the language. These are of two kinds ; some are arranged according to the radical parts of the word-signs ; and these radicals have varied in number from time to time. As early as the year A.D. 100, a dictionary of this kind was published, arranged under 540 radicals. Another appeared in A.D. 543, with 542 radicals. Another in A.D.*8oo, with 544 radicals. Under the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368 — 1644) the number of radicals was reduced by combination to 360, and subsequently to 214, which has now been definitely fixed as the orthodox limit. This number is followed in the great dictionary of K'ang-hyi, published during his long reign (A.D. 1661^ 1722). A dictionary arranging the characters under initials (36) and finals (160), was published in the seventh century, its introduction being ascribed by some to the Buddhists ; and in A-D. 1771 another was published with 278 Language and Literature. Imperial sanction under 36 initials and 106 finals, and marking the five tones — namely, the upper and lower ping, or even tone ; and the three tsih (deflected) tones, namely, the shang (ascending), kil (departing), and 72/2 (entering). More correctly, each division has its lower and upper variations, making eight tones in all. These tones are applied to every word, and have nothing to do with accent or emphasis. They are an essential part of the enunciated word ; and (as Dr. Williams assures us) unlettered natives, even children and females, detect a mispronunciation as readily as an educated man: Dictionaries in the Dialects also have not been un- known; though, with the exception of the Mandarin dialect, colloquial literature is practically non-existent. Native dictionaries have been published in the Canton dialect, and also in the Changchow and Fuhchow dialects of the Fuhkien province. With reference to Histories, besides the great Histo- rical Classic edited and sanctioned by Confucius, the Chinese have annals of the different dynasties, complete records, and miscellaneous official records. We pass next to Biographies, and find a complete biography of an ancient worthy, Gen-ying, who was a disciple of Mihcius, the opponent of Mencius. A bio- graphical series of lives of famous women was published early in the Christian era. A memoir of Confucius is extant, with notices of other distinguished scholars, and records of distinguished men who lived under the present dynasty. Books of Travel are very num.erous, A five months' Books. 279 journey from Szchuen to Hangchow in the year A.D. 1717 is narrated at length. A narrative also is published of the journey of 300 Buddhist priests to India in search of relics. The lives of 312 MatJtematicians, down to the year 1799, are given in another book. The list includes foreign names such as Euclid, and Ricci ; and this book has been reprinted, and brought down to 1840. In Geographies the Chinese language is very rich. Topographies of the most minute description are pub- lished, giving the astrological divisions of provinces, prefectures, departments, districts, and even of small towns, such as the little market town of Lung-hwa, five miles from Shanghai. There is a special memoir on the Chaou-paou hill, near the mouth of the Ningpo river, brought down to the year A.D. 1845. This hill has very often borne the brunt of assault during the long history of China's internecine and foreign wars. Buddhist priests, lazy and idle as they appear to be in these days, have been in the past active explorers ; and they published in the year A.D. 644 an account of 138 countries in Asia. A geographical description of the world, a book written under Jesuit guidance, was published in A.D. 1623. A special treatise on Tides was published in the year A.D. 1781 by a Chinese inhabitant of Hae-ning, a town at the mouth of the T'sien-tang river, past which the great bore periodically rushes. An account of England and her people, of a gro- tesquely ignorant nature, was published in 1841 ; and a aSo Language and Literature. far more enlightened treatise on the same subject by the Governor of Fuhkien, in i853- Catalogues of Chinese literature have been published from time to time ; one in 200 volumes was printed under Imperial sanction, 100 years ago. Commenced in 1772, it was not completed till 1 790. A treatise on Military Tactics was published by a soldier named Sun-woo, in the sixth century before Christ ; and this was reprinted both in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries A.D. A Legal treatise was published in the seventh century B.C. ; and in A.D. 1829, a legal book for the special guidance of coroners appeared. A treatise on Ploughs was issued during the T'ang dynasty, 1200 years ago. In the year A.D. 1210, the justly celebrated Kung Chih foo she was published by Imperial order. It contains forty-five pictures with illustrative verses ; and describes the growth and pre- paration of tea and silk. A work on the Silk-worm was published by Kublai Khan in A.D. 1273. In the year 1640 a thesaurus of treatises on Agriculture was pub- lished under Jesuit guidance, including a dissertation on Hydraulics ; and in 1844, another treatise on the Silk- worm was issued by Imperial command. A Medical treatise is ascribed to one of China's mythical Emperors, Hwang-ti, B.C. 2697. It is entitled Soo-wen, or " search and enquiry." Though this ancient date is probably incorrect, yet it was doubtless written many centuries B.C., since in the eighth century B.C. a commentary on this book was issued. Acupuncture was discussed in the year A.D. 1027, and Books. 281 the Pulse is treated of in a book published in the third century A.D. ; a treatise reprinted A.D. 1840. The celebrated Pun-ts'ao, or materia medica of China, was published during the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368 — 1644. A treatise on Cholera appeared, A.D. 1675 ; and Small-pox was long ago known in China and discussed in print. Inoculation has been practised for 1000 years or more. Vaccination was introduced into China by foreigners, A.D. 1805. Astronomical treatises representing the earth as spher- ical, and ascribing the variations of temperature and the length of the day, to latitude, were published during the Chow dynasty (B.C. 1122-220). A treatise on Trigottometry, describing the properties of right-angled triangles, was published at the same time. Astronomi- cal and mathematical science generally sank low in the days of the Mings, and prepared the land to receive the superior science of the Jesuits. A simple Arithmetic was published in the sixth century A.D. Not a few Chinese scholars are devoted to mathematical studies ; but the result of their labours is seldom given to the world. In the year 1856 the Governor of Kiang-su published a work on higher mathematics ; " exhibiting," says Mr. Wy lie, "originality of thought, and a complete familiarity with his subject." A Chronological Table of the Emperors from B.C. 2637 to the present time has been published. Divination and Geomancy have been discussed by Chinese writers ; and a Book of Fate was published more than 2000 years ago. 282 Language and Literature. A treatise on Painting was published in the fifth century A.D. ; and directions for' painting pictures of the bamboo were pubhshed in the eighth century. In the fourteenth century a critical notice of 1 500 painters was issued. Ci^/if^ra//^/ was discussed during the Sung dynasty; and in the twelfth century another treatise on the same subject, with some Imperial autographs, was published. In the ninth century a treatise on the Drum was written ; and in the tenth a book on the Drama and Dancing appeared, with an appendix containing twenty- eight Chinese airs. The origin of the present drama does not date back further than the seventh century A.D. The Playing of the Lyre was discussed in a book published A.D. 1533. Archery, porcelain, jade, tortoise- shell, ivory, mother-of-pearl, all are discussed in published treatises. A pamphlet called the Tea Classic was published in the eighth century A.D., and treats of the cultivation of the tea-plant. A treatise on Ink was published A.D. 986. Botany was written upon during the Tsin dynasty, B.C. 200 ; and a botanical work was published by Imperial order, A.D. 1688. The Peony and Chrysanthe- mum were very early discussed by Chinese essayists ; and the Culture of Fish as early as A.D. 1059. The great Ricci published essays on the character and attributes of God, in the year 1601 ; in which, with a very insufficient statement of the Gospel, he vigorously attacked the Buddhists. His book was criticized by a Books. 283 Hiingchow Buddhist ; and a reply was published by Ricci ; and the three essays were subsequently printed as one pamphlet. Cydopcedias appear in the fifth century A.D., and also in the eighteenth century. Fiction is not unknown in China, but it is not highly esteemed by native scholars. The historical novel called the Tliree Kingdoms, in 120 chapters, by Yuen-dzu, treats of the period A.D. 168 — 265. The Dream of the Red Chamber, in 120 chapters, was published in the early days of the present dynasty. Romance and fiction appear also from the eighth to the third centuries B.C. A story called The Wonderful History of the Twin Phcenixis was published during the Han dynasty, 1800 years ago. A Tartar marauder demands from the Chinese Emperor his favourite wife as the price of peace. The Emperor yields from dire necessity ; but his wife, on her way to the Tartar camp, commits suicide. Such is the plot of this ancient novel. Poetry is largely cultivated by the Chinese. The Dragon Festival, on the fifth of the fifth month, to which I have alluded above, is in memory of a poet named Yuh Yuen. He flourished in the first century B.C., and having been degraded from his post of merit in the Court, he drowned himself in the river Mih-lo. His chief poem was on the dissipation of sorrow. China's two greatest poets are Soo-Tung-p'oo, who flourished in the eleventh century A.D. (his poems and miscellaneous works are published in 115 books); and Li Tai-peh, in the ninth century, who drowned himself 284 Language and Literature. like Yuh Yuen. His works are published in thirty volumes. The Emperor K'ang-hyi published poems of his own, as well as a large number of miscellaneous works. Poets of both Soochow and Hangchow in the present century have published their collected works ; almost all of these poems are written in double quatrains of heptameter verse. In 1830 a Buddhist priest, living on an island in the Yang-tse, published a volume of poems. Chinese authors as a rule publish their works at their own expense and at their own risk ; but some of the large printing establishments in Shanghai are busily engaged now in reproducing on their own account superior editions of the ancient and modern literature of the land. This brief survey, imperfect as it is, will suffice to show how devoted the Chinese have been, in all ages of their history, to almost all the branches of literature. And they afford the sure hope that a welcome of ever- increasing heartiness will be given by the Chinese to the more exact knowledge on these subjects which their Western visitors are now offering to them in trans- lation and in original treatise. Above all, such literary tastes should lead the great people to study with rever- ence and care the great Book of God, given to them as it is now in both classical Chinese of the purest style, and in colloquial versions. CHAPTER X. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN CHINA. The Missions of the Church of Christ in China are a phenomenon worth studying before we bid farewell to the ancient Empire. Antiquity ; civilization ; a venerable literature ; a wide- spread scheme of education ; priority in the path of discovery and invention ; vastness of area, and density of population ; a great moral system which commands the respect if not the adhesion of all classes.; and religions which are widely professed and observed, — these various features in Chinese life and character, which have passed before us in the preceding chapters, combine to make such enterprises as those of Missions from this little Island of ours in the Far West, to the great world of China in the Far East, an impertinence and a presumption not only in proud Chinese eyes, but also in the estimation of not a few unsympathetic English critics. But apart from that which I have noticed in my sixth and seventh chapters, namely, the grave deficiencies. 286 Christian Missions. and in some cases the serious faults, of the reh'giouS systems of China, the command of the King of kings is so clear, and rings so loud above the murmurs of hesitation and debate, that any discussion as to the duty or utility of Christian Missions cannot detain us here. I propose in this closing chapter rather to give some brief but comprehensive view of the methods and machinery employed, than to examine the principles and sanctions which direct and energize such work. Morrison arrived alone as a messenger from the Churches of the Reformation in 1807 ; and he proposed to himself the high hope that China's brazen walls would be brought low ; her rough places made plain, and her crooked things straight ; and that all the provinces of the wide Empire would see the salvation of God. And the answer to the pitying sneer levelled at his enter- prise is Morrison's own — " Do you really expect, Mr. Morrison, ever to convert the Chinese } " " No, I do not," was his reply ; " but I expect that God will do so." The great object of Christian Missions has been well described as a " loving effort to show the Chinese that human life is better than a brief struggle for a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse " — an effort in fact to lead the great practical and busy nation, with its guesses at something beyond the limits of time, to the " godliness which has promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.'' Briefly summarizing the present agencies at work, and the scale on which Missions are carried on, I may Roman Catholic and Protestant Missions. 287 mention that the most recent statistics of Roman Cathoh'c iVIissions in China and its dependencies, give European Missionaries, 625 ; native Missionaries, 335 ; Christians, 541,720. Of these, China Proper absorbs — European Missionaries, 589 ; native Missionaries, 323 ; Christians, 496,544. Another list, published in the Roman Catholic Register of Hongkong, gives the following, numbers — Bishops, 41 ; European priests, 664; native priests, 559; colleges, 34; convents, 34; native converts, 1,092,818. The statistics of Protestant Mis- sionaries in China Proper and Manchuria, reported at the Conference in May 1890 give — Missionaries, 589 ; wives of Missionaries, 390; and single ladies, 316 — or a total of 1295 European and American labourers. The native communicants are given as 37,287 ; and the native adherents (which title includes all Christians with their children, and all inquirers and catechumens who, though not actually baptized, have abandoned idolatry and conform to the Christian faith) number nearly 100,000. The pupils in Mission Schools number 17,000; ordained Chinese ministers are given as 209 in number ; unordained evangelists and school-masters as 1260 ; and Bible women as 180. These figures represent a very remarkable advance in the thirteen years which have passed since the last general Con- ference of Missionaries in Shanghai. In 1877 the com- municants were returned as 13,000; the adherents as 40,000 ; and only as many Missionaries were working throughout China in 1877 as actually assembled in Shanghai in 1890. 288 Christian Missions. The wide area over which Missionary operations are now carried on is another subject of great interest. There are twenty-two ports open for foreign trade and residence, including Chungking, the commercial capital of the vast province of Szchuen, i20o miles from the coast. In each of these ports Missions are working. But far from the ports, and far from foreign prestige and protection, in all the provinces, with the exception of Kwangsi and Hunan, Missions are estabUshed ; and even in Kwangsi and Hunan itineration and evange- lization are carried on, though foreign residence has not yet been achieved. In Missions carried on over so vast an area, there are of course varying degrees of success ; not directly traceable to the many diversities in the natural charac- teristics of the people; but no doubt affected to a certain extent by such diversities. There seems to be an almost invariable rule throughout China, showing far greater success in the country than in the large cities. This phenomenon is all the more remarkable from the fact that persecution on account of the faith is not nearly so likely to break out in a city as in the country villages. The inhabitants of the cities are more independent of class and family surveillance and control than in the country. They are in a sense concealed from notoriety by the very noise and bustle of the great concourse of people. And the influence of the gentry is neutralized to a large extent in the cities ; whereas in the country, as I have described above, one man of education and of substance becomes a kind of autocrat ; and can Success in the Country. 289 organize and vigorously carry out persecution against trie new faith. The phenomenon, however, cannot be regarded as derogatory to Christianity, for there is little difference between the average intelligence of a towns- man and a countryman. It seems, so far as outward influences are concerned, to be attributable rather to the distractions and absorptions of business ; the want of time ; the absence of leisure for quiet thought. Bishop Burdon goes so far as to say that there seems to be something in the very atmosphere of a Chinese city opposed to the claims of religion. In the Fuh-kien Mission of the Church Missionary Society, after long and apparently fruitless labour ex- tended over eleven years, very large success has been granted — the Christians numbering between 7000 and 8000 ; but in the city of Foochow, the head-quarters of the Mission, the Christians are very few indeed ; and hardly any progress is made from year to year. Christians can live now in many parts of China un- molested and respected ; and though they do not yet represent a Church in sufficient numbers to produce a perceptible effect on society at large, there arc many neighbourhoods both in town and country where Christian residents are a power for good, and a strong witness against immorality and worldliness. A Chinese Christian was mentioned by Dr. Wherry of Peking at the recent Mission Conference, who is a private steward of the president of the Tsung-li Yamun (the Board of Foreign Affairs) in the capital. Not only is he unmo- lested on account of his Christianity, but in consequence 290 Christian Missions. of greater diligence in business since he became a Christian, he has been put in the Hne of promotion. Sometimes in days of calamity or peril, Christian advice is followed, and Christian comfort welcomed. A great drought prevailed in Mid China about twenty years ago ; and the Christians in the alluvial plain of San-po met, with the knowledge of the heathen neigh- bours, for fasting and prayer and the invocation of God's mercy. The remarkable fact of a heavy thunder- storm breaking just as the service closed, greatly im- pressed the people. In the year 1885, during the hostilities between China and France, cholera raged with terrible virulence in a large town to the south- west of Foochow, near the coast. The population was decimated by the plague, and the people in despair implored and urged and even threatened their local deities, demanding the expulsion of the demon of sick- ness. In times of drought or of excessive rain in China the populace often expose their idols to the scorching sun or to the drenching showers in order to quicken their sensibilities, and hasten their intervention. In the case I am now describing, the plague only increased in violence notwithstanding the frantic appeals of the people. It was a time when, from the extreme irritation of the popular feeling against the French, no European could venture into the country. But a solitary Christian catechist residing in a neighbouring town heard of the distress in this cholera-smitten district ; and he went over at once with true Christian heroism to see what he could do to help the people in Christian Influence. 291 their time of dire necessity. He had with him a small supply of foreign medicines, which he distributed to a few specially urgent cases. He exhorted the people to draw near to the true God, ■" in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways." He assured them of the absolute inability of their local deities, or of any idol or sage of old, to exercise power over life and death. Whereupon, as though another Jonah had entered and passed through Nineveh once more, the whole population as one man gave heed to the simple preacher's words. They arose ; they piled their idols in the streets, and burnt them ; and every man, woman, and child in the place outwardly protested their belief in the Christian faith, for to their amazement not a single fatal case of cholera occurred after that eventful day. Meanwhile from afar they could see the French men-of-war passing along the coast ; but not all their fear and hatred of foreign Christians could disabuse their minds of the persuasion that Christianity was the truth, and " mighty to save." The sequel of such sudden and wholesale conversions was not unnatural or unexpected. About half the population grew cold and indifferent, though not unfriendly, towards their hastily adopted faith. The rest continued steadfast ; and idol- atry, when I last heard news from that distant place, had not been re-established. There without doubt Christianity exercised for a time, at any rate, a mighty influence over the lives and thoughts of the inhabitants. The uncertainty of such sudden movements is, however, strikingly illustrated by 292 Christian Missions. the action of many inquirers in the Hok-Chiang district of Fuh-kien who, in 1888, " went back to their idols, because God did not seem to protect Christians from pestilence, as they had hoped ; and because they feared, that the idols, angry at being deserted, had perhaps caused the plague." ^ The numerous Medical Missions scattered now in so many parts of China exercise a very real and far- reaching influence. From Canton in the south, where the earliest medical work was attempted by Protestant Missionaries, to Peking in the north, where an English medical Missionary was the first non-ofificial European to obtain in these later years the permission to reside, medical work is largely used as a handmaid of the utmost utility ; and oftentimes as a pioneer and opener of doors for direct evangelistic agency. At T'ientsin a hospital for fifty in-patients, with a large dispensary, has been built, largely assisted by the Viceroy Li Hung Chang, in grateful recognition of services rendered to members of his family by the late Dr. Mackenzie and by other medical Missionary practitioners, both men and women. In Hangchow a large Mission hospital of the Church Missionary Society (built and endowed through the liberality of the late Mr. VV. C. Jones) stands in the centre of the city, and is well known to all the Mandarins of that great provincial capital ; and is highly valued by them. Access has been obtained through this agency to the Yamuns of the officials, and ^ See Story of Church Missionary Society's Fuh-kien Mission, Eugene Stock. Medical Missions. 293 to the houses of the rich ; and both foreign and native teachers are welcomed where otherwise doors would have been closed, and the attempt to penetrate within would have been met by supercilious contempt, if not by hostile demonstration. Not a few of the more recent developments of direct Mission work owe their origin to medical Missions. Amongst the T'ai-chow mountains south of Ningpo a Church has been formed within the past four years of lOO baptized converts, who exhibit singular earnestness and sincerity of belief. The first Christian from that place heard of a hospital at Ningpo where he could be cured of opium-smoking which evil habit he had recently contracted. He found his way to the hospital, distant from his home about 200 miles. He was received as an in-patient; cured of his opium-smoking ; and whilst in the hospital he heard and received the truth of the Gospel, and carried the good tidings to his far-off village. During the year 1865 I experienced very serious difficulty in renting a suitable place for a Mission chapel in the city of Tse-ch'i. The resident gentry and leading shopkeepers warned all landlords against negotiating with foreigners ; and various rumours were current as to our supposed intentions, and as to the evil effect of our presence on the fortunes of the proud city. The re- membrance of the capture of the city by Sir Hugh Gough twenty-five years before may have intensified their hostility. One of the older Christians at Tse-ch'i has often described to me the action, of which he was himself an eye-witness. The astonishment and dismay 294 Christian Missions. of the citizens and of the garrison, when they found the walls surrounded by the British troops ; the bugles sounding and echoing from the circling hills hard by ; the rockets hissing and glaring over the houses ; and then the headlong flight of the Chinese soldiers, pursued by the British, till they were hurled over the " Long Stream Pass" ; and the temple at its summit, near which they attempted a rally, was burnt. All these events had hardly faded from the memories of the people of Tse-ch'i ; and why should they lease a house to this English Missionary ? At last, in my perplexity and anxiety, an American Presbyterian Medical Missionary, Dr. M'Cartee, volunteered his services, if I could provide a room and the necessary drugs; and when the object was made known by placard, a house was placed at our disposal. For three months in succession I accompanied the Doctor once a week to Tse-ch'i. On each occasion nearly 200 patients were treated ; and at the close of the experiment all hostility had disappeared, and I secured at once good premises for our Mission chapel from willing negotiators — premises on the site of which now stands a substantial Mission church. The function of medical work is so well recognized by some societies, that so long as medical volunteers are so few, and the demands for such work so numerous, they have resolved to send Missionary doctors only to places where doors of utterance seem shut. In propor- tion, however, to the high reputation which this form of philanthropy enjoys, the danger of miscarriage in any serious surgical operation is very great and real. And Medical Students. 295 a similar danger will attend anything like a wide extension of foreign medical practice in China, from the possible uprising of the native doctors clamouring that their craft is in danger. And the eclipse of the fair sunshine of Christian philanthropy by the suspicious cloud of rival practice and money-making enterprise, is no mere fancied danger. In connection with some of the larger Mission hospitals, Chinese medical students are receiving careful and systematic training in Western medical and surgical science ; and it is proposed to station these students, under effective foreign superin- tendence, in country districts. The experiment, if judi- ciously and cautiously carried out, may be a very great blessing to the Chinese, both in the cure and prevention of disease ; and in the scattering of the thick mists of ignorance on all that concerns the anatomy of the human frame, which cloud the minds of Chinese practitioners. The effect of such enlightenment on the reception of Christianity may become direct and powerful ; because men so skilled in handling the visible and tangible maladies of the body, and so willing to exercise their skill from charity, and not from the mere desire of gain, will be credited also with superior knowledge in dealing with the mysterious invisible maladies of the soul. But anything like rivalry with the native doctors on the part of the Christian medical Missionary, rivalry for gain under the cover of charity, will damage the reputation of both the physical and spiritual cure. Not that medical science need be taught with bated breath ; or the spread of light and knowledge on such subjects be 296 Christian Missions. judiciously checked from fear of offence ; but so far as medicine is used as an evidence of Christian philan- thropy, and as a handmaid to Christian evangelization, most surely the utmost care should be exercised. This experiment of training medical students in Mission hospitals, with the view of their preaching amongst their own people, has been tried with considerable success at T'ientsin, where two of the late Dr. Mackenzie's pupils are employed — the one as surgeon to a large hospital, the other as consulting physician of the seventh prince in the Imperial house. I speak here exclusively of medical work as a branch of Christian Mission agencies. With reference to the more general subject of medical education and enlightenment in China, it is interesting to learn that Chinese students, trained in Hongkong by Dr. Myers, were examined not long ago in Shanghai, by the English, American, and German physicians and surgeons of that port, and they passed a very rigorous and thorough examination with remarkable brilliancy and success. This experiment has attracted the notice and hearty recognition of the Chinese Government. Another branch of Mission work which exercises a strong influence on the Chinese, is the establishment of schools and colleges, where the English language and Western science are taught, combined with distinct Christian teaching and Bible instruction. The Chinese Central Government and the provincial magistrates think highly of these training-schools ; and the high- class colleges at Tungchow, Shanghai, and elsewhere turn out scholars only too rapidly. In connection with Mission Schools. 297 one school with which I am acquainted, the demand for EngHsh-speaking clerks to serve on board the Chinese navy, or in the customs department, or in the telegraph employ, or at the mines, is so great that scarcely any young men can go through the prescribed course of study before the summons for service arrives. With the advent of railways, the demand for such students will be at once very largely increased. Pupils enter these schools, and pay willingly the fees demanded ; not of course in the first instance for the religious teaching, but in order to acquire English or some other foreign language, and qualify themselves for some lucrative post. This fact makes the introduction of English into schools and colleges, designed chiefly for the training of native evangelistic and pastoral agents, (which are institutions of the very first importance,) very doubtful policy indeed, from the strong temptation which such knowledge will bring with it, to enter some secular employ. And the reason for this caution is not without significance, when the motives of the Chinese in embrac- ing Christianity are analyzed and criticized ; for such secular posts as those described above are far better paid than any Missionary office of pastor, evangelist, or teacher. Schools established, however, for general education, and for the training of young men with a view to re- .spectable secular offices may become powerful factors in far-reaching Missionary enterprise, if they are at the same time avowedly and designedly Christian schools. Then side by side with education, very strenuous effijrts have been made to supply the reading and 298 Christian Missions. thinking Chinese with translations of reliable books on Western science. A Society exists in Shanghai for the diffusion of religious and general knowledge. Its chief organ is a high-class magazine published monthly. It contains articles on such subjects as astronomy, geology, and mines, with chapters of the histories of lands outside the " Central Realm." A summary is given of the telegraphic news of the preceding month ; and each number contains at least one article oh the doctrines and evidences of Christianity. A companion magazine is published by the same Society for younger readers, and both periodicals are well illustrated. Besides these, and similar literary enterprises carried on by one of the veteran Missionaries at Shanghai, with a direct Christian tone and object, the minds of the educated Chinese -are being enlightened to no small extent by translations of a large number of educational and scientific treatises and primers, by gentlemen in Government employ, and under the auspices of the committee of the School and Text-book series, which was planned at the General Missionary Conference in 1877. The spread of scientific knowledge must of necessity slowly undermine the belief of the Chinese in the superstitions of their religious systems ; so far at any rate as those superstitions embody or depend upon false science. The gigantic and tyrannical system of Fung-shui must vanish before such light and know- ledge. And theories as to the influence favourable, or the reverse, on the physical constitution of man from Christians a very Small Minority. 299 the harmony or discord of the five elements, King, Mnli, Shwny, Ho, Too — metal, wood, water, fire, earth ; and from the propitiation of the deities which preside over these elements, must of necessity be dissipated. Already the working of coal-mines has been thrown open to the people without any reference to the will of the earth- dragon, or to the disturbance of the luck of any special district. A proclamation was issued by the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung in 1890, which runs thus — "Let all people know that they are at liberty to select and work the best coal-fields " — and there seems to be no allusion to geomantic considerations, or to the invocation of any genius or god of the soil. Much of the influence described above is rather an effect of the machinery of Christian Missions than of the force of Christian life and example. Perhaps in a country where only one in 4000, or, including Roman Catholic as well as Protestant Christians, one in 700, is a Christian, any visible or tangible effect on the moral tone of the country is hardly to be looked for. The influence of the faith on individual hfe is strong, and as evident as in the case of genuine profession in Christen- dom. Gentleness taking the place of hasty or violent temper ; truthfulness for prevarication and deceit ; loving care for others instead of self-seeking alone ; and up- rightness and purity in the place of dishonesty and profligacy — these are to be seen in China as the fruits of faith, by the power of the Divine Spirit to the glory of God. The force of old habits, and the poisonous atmosphere of superstition and sin in which the new 300 Christian Missions. convert was born, and in which he still lives his new life of faith in the Son of God, cannot but assert their presence from time to time. But the Cross has not lost its power over individual souls ; and as the number of Christians increases, Christian profession will become more and more a moral influence of great power in a land where conscience is to a remarkable extent awake, and where the differences between right and wrong are so well known, and so keenly observed. On Christmas Day 1890, a Chinese deacon was ad- mitted to Priest's orders by the Missionary Bishop in Mid China, at his Mission church in Hangchow. The ordination sermon was preached by a Chinese clergy- man, pastor of one of the " parishes " in the city of Ningpo. The sermon occupied forty-five minutes in its delivery ; but those who listened thought it had lasted only twenty minutes, so enchained were they by the power and ability of the discourse. It consisted of an exposition and application of St. Paul's exhort- ation to Timothy, " Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus " (2 Tim. ii. i) ; and though devoid of any adventitious aids from mere oratory or declamation, it was delivered with such quiet dignity of manner, and force of illustration, and spiritual fervour, as to excite the deepest interest in both foreign and Chinese listeners. The preacher was, at the time when I reached China in 1861, a lad of sixteen, a timid and retiring pupil ; and the newly-ordained priest was then a child scarcely four years old ; and the develop- ment of Christian character and active usefulness in. The Higher Classes. 301 the lives of the elder and younger brethren in the Church of God, afforded to the Bishop and to all who knew the history of these brethren, an inspiring view of the power of Christian truth when received in sincerity and in the love thereof It will be observed from what I have stated above that very great efforts are made to reach and influence the upper, that is the educated, classes in China. And as I have related in Chapter VII., those classes are not altogether hostile to the claims and truths of Christianity. But thus far the crucial difficulty of ancestral worship, and the pride and advantages of literary rank and emoluments, have kept the literati of China, with some few notable exceptions, out of the visible Church. The success of Missions in these latter days has been very similar to that in apostolic and post-apostolic times — " Not many wise after the flesh ; not many mighty, not many noble" — but chiefly individuals from the lower orders are received as catechumens, and subsequently as baptized Christians. And probably the normal course of natural growth upward from the lower to the higher level will be observed in China as elsewhere. Success is perhaps chiefly met with where the people are already devout in their superstitions. I have never failed to obtain earnest attention from women attending Buddhist temples as devotees. About thirty years ago two Chinese catechists from Ningpo, when travelling amongst the mountains, came across a party of these devout women worshipping at a hill shrine. These preachers respectfully begged for the attention of these 302 Christian Missions. worshippers ; and they read to them from the tenth and seventeenth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. The women became deeply interested ; and they re- sponded so eagerly to the exhortations and invitations of the Gospel, that one of the catechists felt sure that St. Paul would have baptized them all without delay. It is very generally the case indeed that the women are far more devoted to idolatry than the men ; and they are the most ready listeners to the word of the truth of the Gospel. They readily admit also the unfairness of their nation rejecting Christianity as a foreign religion, when they welcome the notoriously foreign creed of Buddhism, and smoke the notoriously foreign drug of opium ; and at the same time the supernaturalism of the Bible does not in itself excite the suspicion or shock the prejudices of men and women who with Agnostic Confucian exterior are deeply imbued with Buddhist and Taoist supernatural fancies. The methods employed in Missionary labour are very numerous. First, and in every sense foremost, we desire to present the great credentials of our faith in a style worthy, so far as human language can serve, of the Book of God ; and the Bible is recognized by both Christian and heathen as our one rule of faith and final appeal. It is interesting to notice that the Nestorian Christians who reached China in A.D. 635 brought with them in Syriac, " The True Scriptures, the Sacred Books " — and that they were translated into Chinese under the roof of the Imperial Library. The celebrated Nestorian tablet at Si Ngan Fu bearing the date A.D. 781, The Ne5to7'ian Tablet. 303 describes the arrival of Olopun, from T'a Tsin (probably meaning Judaea), under the rule of the Emperor T'ai Tsung (A.D. 627—649). It speaks further of the accept- ance of the Divine doctrine by the Emperor, and of its rapid spread through the Empire in consequence of Imperial favour. It contains a summary of Christian doctrine, remarkable for its fulness ; and remarkable also for its unaccountable omissions. " Was not this our Eloah ; three in one, the unoriginated, the Lord ">. A virgin brought forth the Holy One. A bright star celebrated the auspicious event. Persian saints came to adore. The doctrine was for the people of the four quarters — as signified by the sacred symbol of the cross. A vessel of mercy was launched for the salvation of men " (" The ark of Christ's Church "). Then without mention of Crucifixion or Resurrection, the inscription proceeds — " At noonday He ascended in splendour to the heavens." The customs and ritual of Nestorian Christianity are then described — " Bearing with them the seal of the Cross, they turn ceremoniously to the East ; and hasten on the path of life and glory '' — an interest- ing indication as to one of the early ideas of eastward turning. Probably the Nestorian Christians did not turn westwards towards Jerusalem, as Christians do now in those far-distant lands (eastward of the sacred East), during the repetition of the Creed or in other paris of the service. They turned still eastward, still hasten- ing towards the sunrising. Every seventh day they held divine service. They brought with them images (probably crucifixes); and 304 Christian Missions. the Emperor having carefully examined the scope of this doctrine, and finding it "mysterious, admirable, and requiring nothing (special ?) to be done," decreed "that it have free course through the Empire." The Emperor's remark on " requiring nothing to be done '' is a curious and perplexing utterance. Does he mean St. Paul's high doctrine, " to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness " .? Or does he imply that Olopun was ready to condone idolatry and super- stitious practices in Christian proselytes .? In the year A.D. 845, the Taoist Emperor Wu-tsong persecuted the Buddhists ; and probably the Nestorians shared in the oppressive wrath of the Emperor ; and the monument of A.D. 781, discovered prostrate by the Jesuits in A.D. 1625, was probably overthrown by Wu-tsong's order ; and remained in the dust for 800 years. After 1625, when the Jesuit report excited great interest in Rome and in Christendom, the monument was again neglected till its re-discovery by Dr. Williamson and other travel- lers thirty years ago. It had been restored to its original position by a Hangchow scholar, who had cut the memorial of his own good deeds over the Syriac characters at the side of the monument. The chief interest of this monument, apart from its testimony to the early entrance of Christian truth into China, lies in the record of the translation of the twenty-seven sacred books into Chinese, No trace has however been found, so far as I know, of this early version of Holy Scripture. In the year A.D. 1200 the Franciscan Bishop, John de Early Bible Versions. 305 Monte Corvino, arrived at the Chinese Court, and set himself to the noble task of translating the Psalms and the Gospels into Chinese. In the year A.D. 1798, Moseley, an earnest and large-hearted Christian, drew attention to a manuscript version of the New Testament in Chinese which he had discovered in the British Museum. This discovery directed the thoughts and plans both of the Church Missionary Society (founded in 1799), and of the British and Foreign Bible Society (founded in 1 801), towards China. Morrison, who was sent out in 1807 by the London Missionary Society, had copied this manuscript with great labour. It consisted of a Harmony of the Gospels, and a translation of the Acts, and of St. Paul's Epistles, by an unknown hand. This treasure greatly assisted Morrison in the chief labour of his long Missionary life, namely, a complete translation of the Bible into Chinese classical style. This was finished and published in 1823. In the year 1842, by the Treaty of Nankin, five of the coast ports of China were opened for foreign trade ; and through these doors the Bible also found an entrance. In i860, when the right to travel in all parts of China was granted, a great stimulus was given to Bible circulation. These early versions were revised by a committee of Missionary Delegates in 1847-50; and this version in Chinese wen-li, of well-nigh faultless excellence of style, has been very largely circulated and sold since that date. Framed with a special view to distribution amongst non-Chi'istian readei's, the translators have been tempted in some places, by the 3o6 Christian Missions. exigencies of Chinese idiom, or by fancied unintelligi- bility in the original, to offer a paraphrase instead of an accurate rendering ; but the whole work is one of extreme value. In order to attain this same great object of intelligibility to ordinary readers both non- Christian and Christian, versions of the New Testament and also of the Old, in whole or in part, have been produced within more recent years, both in a simpler form of wen-li, and also in the Mandarin colloquial, and in the dialects of such great centres as Ningpo, Shanghai, Foochow, and Canton. Both the British, American, and Scotch Bible Societies have devoted much money and much labour to the task of giving the Bible to this great literary people. It is hoped that one result of the General Conference of Missionaries held last May in Shanghai, may be the unification and consolidation of the hitherto independent work of the many labourers in this field ; and it is proposed to prepare and publish, with the joint imprimatur of the three Societies, the whole Bible in three versions — high wen-li, easy wen-li, and Mandarin colloquial — and it is suggested that from these standard versions all translations of the Bible into the local dialects of the provinces should be made. Meanwhile, it is a sober statement of simple truth, that through twenty-two degrees of latitude, from Moukden, where in winter the streams are frozen for weeks together, to Hainan, which is far within the tropics, the Word of God has had, amidst alien influences, free course, and God has blessed it. And now with the Rule of Faith in their hands, and Btble Distribution. 307 with these great credentials to lay before the people, Missionaries are fast extending their work through China ; using everywhere such methods and agencies as seem most useful, ever placing in the forefront of indispensable machinery the oral proclamation of the Gospel, in city, or country town, or village, or hamlet, in the open air, or in Mission rooms, going everywhere preaching the Word. The agencies described above, such as medical work, educational establishments. Christian literature, and especially Bible distribution, are in the eyes of the Evangelist of extreme importance. But he cannot allow anything to supersede the promul- gation of God's plan of salvation by the preacher's own lips, and " in the language understanded of the people." " The poor have the Gospel preached unto them," was the climax of the wonderful things which John the Baptist's disciples heard and saw. And this is our chief agency ; but in order successfully to carry out this work, a ready tongue and a quick ear, and adaptation to Chinese tone and posture and mode of thought and utterance, are essential. Such facility of speech can of course be acquired only on Chinese soil, and from a Chinese teacher. But even with the language of books little is done by most Missionaries in England before they go out to China. Possibly with the advantages now afforded in Cambridge, Oxford, and London, by the veteran scholar and diplomatist, Sir T. Wade, and by Professors Legge and Douglas, time might be employed to advantage in acquiring information and instruction as to the structure and 3o8 Christian Missions. genius of wen-li, and as to the complicated formation of the signs by which it is expressed. Three or fonr years on an average must pass before a Missionary can speak with real fluency and accuracy of idiom ; though some with special readiness of speech can preach within their first year, A courageous ignoring of timidity, which is greatly facilitated by Chinese politeness, and their refusal to laugh at the egregious blunders of a beginner, will help greatly in the more rapid acquisition of the spoken languages. Some few Missionaries, frOm lack of ear and inaptitude for language, have failed almost entirely in learning this difficult but not impossible speech. Some Missionaries again have acquired so thoroughly the tone and utterance of the Chinese, as to be mistaken by both Chinese and foreigner's for native speakers, when out of sight but within hearing. Few foreigners, however, are able to write or compose in classical Chinese so freely and accurately as to deceive a reader, and lead him to think that a native- born Chinese scholar is the writer. If our Missions were better manned, and a full complement of workers were attached to each department of labour, it might be possible for some to acquire sound and accurate scholar- ship, and at the same time to become ready and idiom- atic speakers. But at present the paucity of labourers in the Mission field, and the great pressure of multi- farious work, renders it well-nigh impossible for men and women to do what Premare has laid down as his noble ideal of a Missionary student — to learn Chinese as' the Chinese do ; to go to school once more ; to Testimony to Missions. 309 become children again ; if only we may thus " save some." " Repuerascendum nobis est si volumus Christum Jesum his gentibus cum fructu annunciare. Quern amabo, laborem, talis spes non leniat." The testimony by the correspondent of the Times, writing from T'ientsin in North China, is not without strong significance in these days of shrewd observation and keen criticism. "-The good effected by Missionaries," he writes, " is by no means to be measured by a list of conversions. They are the true pioneers of civilization. It is to them we have to look to carry the reputation of foreigners into the heart of the country ; and it is on their wisdom, justice, and power of sympathy that the Renascence of China very largely depends." A high honour this, and a responsible trust ! And far higher still is the office, far nobler the responsibility which Missionaries, if faithful to their calling and promise, exercise and bear — the hastening of the return of Him whose right it is to reign over China and all lands — ^the King of kings and Lord of lords. Many years ago, when I was living in the city of Ningpo, I watched through a small telescope a total eclipse of the moon. It was remarkable for the long duration of the totality — lasting nearly forty-five minutes. A quarter of an hour before the darkness had passed from the surface of the moon, I saw diamond specks of light appear from out the gloom, as the sun's rays caught the higher peaks of the mountains. 3IO ChHstian Missions. Meanwhile the great city was resounding with the roar and clang of innumerable gongs and bells, and with the incessant explosion of fireworks. The people hoped in this manner to frighten away the dog who was, in their superstitious fancy, devouring the fair satellite. Is not this a picture of the present state of China, and of the position and prospects of Christian Missions ? '' Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." It seems indeed almost like total eclipse. Meanwhile, with the incessant hum of Buddhist or Taoist incantation, and with the delirious noise of super- stitious ceremonial, and with the deceptive music of pleasure or of the hope of gain, the Chinese try to make the darkness pass, and in vain. But Christianity has come, though at present scarcely perceptible when compared with idolatry and unbelief. Yet the true light shines, like stars amidst the gloom. And it will most surely grow and expand, till " Out of the shadow of night, The world rolls into light. And it is daybreak everywhere." INDEX. Agriculture, 109 — 114. Amusements, 69, 70. Ancestral worship, 30, 31, 193 — 222 ; importance of, 196, 204, 205 ; evils of, 202, 203 ; possible reform of, 219 - 222. Ancient monuments, 38, 39. Beggars, 49, 124. Birds, 108, 109, III. Boat travelling, 36, 37, 134. Books, classical, 247 — 257; general, 277 — 284. Bore on the Ts'ien-tang, 44, 45, 279. Buddhism, 170 — 172, 183, 184. Buddhist priests, 166, 167. China, epochs in history of, 10 — 14. Chinese classics, 247 — 257. Chinese Empire, extent of, 17. Chiistian Missions, effect of, 31 — 34, 287, 290, 291, 309 ; work of, 288. Christian profession, 159 — 162. Clay ox for divination, 115. Cohesion, causes of, in China, 20 — 23, 30- Competitive examinations, 21, 22, 265—267. Confucianism, I5I» 152. Confucius, 215, 2i8. Country houses, 87, 119— 121. Country life, 107 — 135. Country scenes, 109 — 117. Cramped feet, 125. Degrees, civil and military, 240 — 242, 259, 260, 266, 267. Dialects, 18, 19, 258. Dictionaries, 246, 277. Diplomacy, 11. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, quoted, 238. Drainage, 55, 56. Drummond, Prof. H., on Missions, lOI. Education, 242 — 259. Emigration, 98 — 100. Examinations, 21, 22, 259, 262, 265 — 267. Examination Hall, 263 — 265. Flowers, 71, 72, no, in. Food, 122, 123, 146 — 148. Foot-binding, 125. Fruits, 57. Funerals, 130, 234—237. Fung-shui, 225 — 231. Geomancy, 188, 228, 229. Ghosts, 233, 234. Government, 23, 26 — 29, Hangchow, 41, 74. History of China, 10—14, 17, 18. Honorary Portals, 38, 39. Idolatrous processions, 116, 117. Infanticide, 179— 181. Junks, 80 — 82. Language, 20, 258, 259 ; difficulties of learning, 308. Literature, classical, 247 — 257 j 312 Index. general, 277 — 284 ; Christian, 298. Lohan, 176, 177. Mandarin, a Chinese, described, 136—145. Marriage customs, 127 — 129. Medical Missions, 292 — 294. Memories, 269 — 271. Mencius, 247, 248. Missionary methods, 302, 307. Nestorian Tablet, 303, 304. Ningpo, 36, 56 ; country near, 109 —114. Nobility, 157, 158. Opium smoking, 93, 145. Opium trade, 94—98. Pagodas, 41, 42. Piracy, 77, 78. Poetry, 249—253, 283. Police, 61 — 63, 89. Postal system, 79, 80. Poverty, 63, 122. Printing, 268. Progress, signs of, 16, 17, 299. Proverbs, 273 — 275. Railways, 230, 231. Rebellion, 2, 3, 14. Religion, 29, 30. Sacred Edict, 269, 270. Schools, native, 242 — 246 ; Chris- tian, 296, 297. Settlement?, foreign, 83 — 86, 89. Shanghai, 82 — 91. Shaou-hying, 37, 38. Shops, 57-59- Suicide, ideas about, 50- Superstition, 117, 223, 224, 271^ 273- T'ai-p'ing Rebellion, 2, 3, 14, 19. Taoism, 184 — 189. Tartar centurion, 65, 66. Tartar garrisons, 19, 20, 64, 65. Theatricals, 69, 70, 116. Tigers, 132, 133. Translations of the Bible, 305, 306. Union and unity, 103 — 106. Water supply, 56, 57, 91. Wild beasts, 131 — 133. Williams, Midtlle Kingdom, quoted, 244, et passim. Williams, Sir M. Monier, quoted, 169, 183. Witchcraft, 23 1 — 233. Word signs, 245, 246. Wylie, Alexander, quoted, 246, 277. THE END. Richard Clay &> Sotis, Litnited, London 6* Btingay. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE STORY OF THE CHEH-KIANG MISSION. Fourth Edition (shortly). CHINA AS A MISSION FIELD. 6d. THE GLORIOUS LAND. is. London: Church Missionary House. SONGS OF HEAVEN AND HOME. Second Edition. \s. 6d., cloth. CHINESE STORIES. Third Thousand, is. London : Seeley and Co., Limited. REASONS OF THE HOPE THAT IS IN US. Short Essays on Christian Evidences. (Shortly.) London: Hodder AND Stoughton. By the Rev. H. C. G. MOULE. THOUGHTS ON CHRISTIAN SANCTITY. Thirty- third Thousand, is., cloth. THOUGHTS ON UNION WITH CHRIST. Twenty-fifth Thousand, is., cloth. 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