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 NOTES ON 
 
 I CHINA AND ITS MISSIONS. 
 
 CONSTANCE F. GORD ON-CUAIAIINC, 
 
 AUTHOR OP “ WASDERI.VGS IK CHIXA,” ETC. 
 
 London : 
 
 CHURCH MISSION'AJIY HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE. E.C 
 
 ISS'J. 
 
Cf)urd) iHi^sionan) J^on'ctp. 
 
 NOTES ON 
 
 CHINA AND ITS MISSIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 CONSTANCE F. GORDON-CUAIMING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF “wAIfDEKIXGS IK CHIITA,” ETC. 
 
 London : 
 
 CHURCH MISSIONARY HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. 
 
 1880. 
 
Contributions to the Church Missionary Society are received at the Society's 
 House Salisbury Square, London; or at the Society’s Bankers, Messrs. Williams, 
 Deacon & Co., 20, Birchia Lane, London. Post Office Orders payable to the Lay 
 .Secretary, General George Hutchinson. 
 
NOTES ON CHINA AND ITS MISSIONS. 
 
 N an Empire of sucli vast extent there is ample 
 space for every variety of physical characteristic. 
 Far away to the north stretch the wide tablelands 
 of Mongolia, while to the west rise the majestic 
 mountains of Thibet, whence two great mountain-ranges trend 
 eastward right across the empire. The northernmost of these 
 is the Thsin-ling, or Blue Mountains. The southern range 
 is the hfanling, a mighty ridge, with j)eaks 12,000 feet in 
 height, which separates the Maritime Provinces from tlie 
 Great Plain, and throws off numerous spurs to the south and 
 east, giving peculiar beauty to the south-eastern provinces. 
 The main range terminates at Ningpo, in the Chekiang 
 Province, but crops up again from beneath the ocean, forming 
 the Chusan Archipelago and many rugged islands all along 
 the coast. 
 
 Between these great ranges lies a vast tract of fertile land, 
 covering an area of 210,000 square miles, densely populated 
 and admirably cultivated. 
 
 In a country where railways are as yet unknown, and roads 
 are few and very far between, a vast amount of traffic is 
 carried on by means of a system of canals, which intersect the 
 land in every direction, connecting many of the chief towns 
 with the great rivers. The Grand Canal, which connects 
 Hang-Chow, in the province of Chekiang, with Tient-sin, the 
 port of Peking, is about 650 miles in length — a mighty water- 
 way constructed to facihtate the internal commerce of the 
 country, and especially to enable the grain-fleet, with its 
 enormous supply of rice for the use of the capital, to avoid 
 the perils of the coast — perils of pirates and of storm. 
 
 A 2 
 
4 
 
 This mighty canal crosses the two greatest rivers, the Yanoc- 
 tse-kiang and the Hoang-ho or Yellow River, but has latterly 
 become comparatively useless owing to the erratic conduct of 
 the said Yellow River, commonly called “ China’s Sorrow,” 
 which is subject to appalling floods, when it bursts its banks 
 and inundates vast tracts of country, finally selecting for 
 itself some totally new channel. From the earliest historic 
 days the Chronicles of the Empire record the ruin ■wi’ought 
 by the freaks of this fickle river, which has changed its course 
 nine times within the last 2500 years. 
 
 For the last five centuries, however, it had proved fairly 
 constant to its self-chosen course, flowing through the Province 
 of Kiang-Su, and pouring its waters into those of the Yellow 
 Sea, about 150 miles to the north of the great Yang-tse River 
 and Shanghai; and the erratic tendencies of the unstable 
 waters had been well-nigh forgotten, when suddenly, in the 
 year 1852, they burst the northern bank about 250 miles 
 inland, flooding the land, drowning multitudes, and spreading 
 desolation as they swept onward in a north-easterly direction, 
 their course being guided by the rocky range which borders 
 the huge promontory of the Province of Shantung, which 
 divides the Yellow Sea from the Gulf of Pe-chi-li. Thus the 
 river was compelled to flow onward till it reached the latter 
 sea, at a distance of fully 500 miles from its old moutli, 
 leaving its former bed a 'level plain of dust, to the despair 
 of all gardeners, farmers, and traders. 
 
 Very soon, however, the survivors patiently resumed work, 
 and, though various serious inundations have occurred, these 
 were accepted as a matter of course in a country where all 
 rivers have an eccentric habit of forming for themselves 
 channels at a level above that of the great plain through which 
 they flow% so that it is necessary to construct enormous 
 artificial embankments to strengthen their natural bed. (At 
 various points along the course of the Canton River, and also 
 of the Yang-tze, these embankments are so high that to reach 
 their summits one must climb sixty or seventy granite stei')s.) 
 
Of course, no amount of human vigilance can always avert 
 catastrophe when excessive rains bring down the waters with 
 unusual impetuosity, and of this an appalling example 
 occurred on September 28th, 1887, when suddenly, at dead of 
 night, the raging Yellow Eiver — fully a mile in width — burst 
 its banks right in the heart of the Province of Honan, which, 
 for its fertility, is commonly called “ Tlie Garden of China.” 
 With awful, resistless rush the escaped torrent poured forth 
 in a deluge about thirty miles wide and twenty feet in depth, 
 till it had transformed an area of about ten thousand square 
 miles into a raging, tumultuous sea, the flood rushing on with 
 such impetuosity that millions of prosperous people who had 
 lain down to sleep in safety and comfort were only awakened 
 by the deafening roar as the surging waters rushed on 
 through the darkness of night, overwhelming three thousand 
 villages and cities ! When morning broke, in place of a 
 smiling exjmnse of richly-cultivated fields, there was only to 
 be seen a boundless waste of stormy waters tossing about 
 wreckage of every description, and thousands of corpses of 
 men and beasts. The three thousand villages lay buried, 
 some ten, some thirty feet beneath the waters, incalculable 
 multitudes of the inhabitants having found a grave beneath 
 their own roofs. 
 
 The Yang-tse-kiang, though springing from the same water- 
 shed, is a more reliable stream, and forms the great highway 
 of commerce across the centre of the empire, while draining 
 a vast basin estimated at 750,000 square miles. 
 
 The lakes of China are few in number. There are only 
 five of any size : of these the principal are Tung-ting-how, 
 in the Province of Ho-nan, which has a circumference of about 
 220 miles; the Poyang-hou, in the Province Kiang-si, which 
 is about ninety miles in length by twenty in breadth ; and 
 Tai-bu, the Great Lake, in the Province of Kiang-su. 
 
 Of course, in speaking of an Empire extending from 18° 
 to 40° N. lat., there must necessarily be a very wide variety 
 of climate ; Canton, the southern capital, being actually in the 
 
G 
 
 Tropics, while Peking is subject to violent extremes of heat 
 and cold — the heat in summer being exceedingly trying — the 
 thermometer often upwards of 100° Fahr., while through the 
 long winter months the cold is excessive, and the city is 
 virtually cut off from the outer world, ice a foot thick rendering 
 the river unnavigable. This severe cold, however, apparently 
 counteracts the evil of excessive heat, for whereas the people 
 of the southern provinces are pale and comparatively feeble, 
 those of the north are stalwart and the children rosy. This 
 is perhaps partly due to the difference of food, the pro- 
 ducts of the northern provinces being those of Northern 
 Europe, so that millet and other nourishing grains replace the 
 invariable rice diet of the south. Besides, the rice-growing 
 districts are inerttably swampy, breeding fever, ague, and 
 dysentery among the Natives as well as among foreigners. 
 Nevertheless, the pleasantest climate is that of the central 
 zone, extending from Fuh-Kien and Shau-tung on the eastern 
 coast to Sze-chuen on the west — a belt which includes the 
 most fertile provinces — the granary of China. 
 
 Sad to say, an ever-increasing proportion of the finest land 
 is being absorbed by the cultivation of poppies for the supply 
 of China’s curse — opium. So enormously has the illegal 
 growth of native opium increased, that it is said it will soon 
 exceed the amount imported. And this is the natural de- 
 velopment of that small beginning when British subjects first 
 smuggled opium into China in defiance of all prohibitions, 
 and then (notwithstanding all remonstrances from the Chinese 
 Government) legalized the traffic by a treaty compelHng China 
 by the peesuasive eloquence of the cannon to sanction our 
 supplying her milhons with the poison which none dares to 
 sell in Britain except it be marked as such. 
 
 From first to last the whole history of this traffic is humi- 
 hating to all who value humanity and honour. It appears 
 that a small amount of opium for medical purposes had long 
 been an article of legal imjiort into China, and the insidious 
 vice of smoking it was a recognized evil early in the eighteenth 
 
century. By the close of the century the import was found 
 to have increased to 1000 chests per annum, and the Emperor 
 Kea-hing resolved to stamp out the danger which threatened 
 his people. So the import was absolutely prohibited, and 
 opium smoking was declared to be an offence punishable by 
 imprisonment or even death, as it is in Japan at the present 
 day, where by law any person inciting another to smoke 
 opium, or any person selling it, is liable to be executed. 
 
 Nevertheless, greed of gain induced Enghsh merchants to 
 continue smuggling the insidious di'ug, till in 1832 a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons decided that it was not 
 desirable to abandon a source of revenue so important as the 
 opium trade. We all know the sequel, and the story of the 
 two utterly unjustifiable wars whereby Christian England 
 not only forced unwilling China to legalize the import of the 
 drug which is ruining millions of her people, but further 
 compelled her to pay heavy war indemnities, — the British 
 official conscience, lulling itself, Cain-like, with the assurance 
 of having no responsibility in the destruction of Chinamen, 
 while gaining a solid advantage in the revenue of about 
 nine million pounds sterling, which has annually enriched 
 the Indian treasury from this source. 
 
 More grievous still for poor China is the suicidal policy 
 which, hoping in some measure to check the import, has led 
 the Government to wink at the enormous and rapidly extend- 
 ing growth of Native opium in almost every province of the 
 vast empire. The profit on a crop of poppies being double 
 that on a similar crop of wheat, it is perhaps no wonder that 
 individual farmers prefer raising poison to food, and some 
 statesmen in China even speak of the expediency of sanctioning 
 this culture as a needful measure of self-defence, in order to 
 undersell the foreign poison and drive it from the field. 
 
 Certain it is that prior to Britain’s “ Opium War ” this 
 domestic cultivation was exceedingly limited, whereas now, 
 though still nominally illegal, in every direction wide tracts 
 of the richest land, which should naturallv be devoted to silk 
 
8 
 
 and cotton, sugar, rice, beaus, wheat, and other grain, are 
 given up to this vile crop — a greed of gain which has already 
 resulted in most grievous suffering. There is no doubt that 
 the dreadful famines which have of late years scourged the 
 north of China, must be attributed in great measure to this 
 cause — the granaries having been left unfilled and no provision 
 made for years of drought. 
 
 From all parts of the Empire conies the same sad story. 
 In the far north, in Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia, this 
 cultivation has increased enormously; and in the great Pro- 
 vinces of Hupeh, Kuei-chow (which has been described as the 
 “Chinese Switzerland”), Sze-chnen, and Yunnan (the latter 
 in the south-western corner of the Empire) tens of thousand 
 of acres are now covered with sheets of poppy-blossom — 
 white, crimson, dark purple, or pink — very lovely though so 
 pernicious. A recent traveller in Kuei-chow tells how he 
 travelled through a succession of beautiful fertile valleys, 
 where for miles together not another crop was to be seen save 
 poppies. It is estimated that in these provinces six-tenths of 
 the arable land is actually given over to poppy culture ! 
 
 The people in these districts affirm that opinm-smoking has 
 only become a habit in the present generation — now nine 
 men in ten smoke it. Dr. Dudgeon gives a similar report 
 of the appallingly rapid spread of “this unmitigated curse” 
 in North China. During twenty years’ residence in Peking 
 he did not see half a dozen people the worse for liquor ; 
 and although eighty per cent, of the men, women, and 
 children smoked tobacco, he never knew them do so to 
 excess. But now one-fifth of the population of Peking and 
 Tien-tsin are slaves of opium, and even high officials, who 
 a few years ago would have shrunk from its use as a pollu- 
 tion, now smoke openly, and offer pipes to their visitors, 
 lie has good reason to believe that there about 3000 opium- 
 smokers within the pi'ecincts of tlie Imperial Palace, and he 
 estimates that amongst Government officials about 40 per cent, 
 smoke, and that about 80 per cent, of their attendants do so. 
 
9 
 
 Mr, Pigott states that throughout the Province of Shansi, 
 where till recently no one smoked opium, it is now used by 
 eighty per cent, of the population, and is slaying its tens of 
 thousands. That it is a dire evil no Chinaman dreams of 
 denying, the most inveterate smokers expressing the deepest 
 abhorrence of the vice which enthrals them. It is admitted 
 by all to be a moral crime, which even the smoker never 
 attempts to palliate ; and while the sorest bar to missionary 
 progress in China is the ever- ready taunt that the British 
 forced the introduction of opium into the Empire, the people 
 fully appreciate the efforts for individual cure at the Mission- 
 ary Opium Refuges, which are now multiplied so far as A'ery 
 slender means admit, and which have helped some poor victims 
 to conquer the craving. 
 
 Another phase of opium-taking is in the case of suicides, 
 of which about 160,000 per annum are now due to this cause. 
 It is, however, noteworthy that few of these are cases of 
 opium-smokers. 
 
 The Government of China is an absolute monarchy, the 
 Emperor being resi^onsible only to the gods, whose earthly 
 vicegerent he is supposed to be ; hence his suggestive titles, as 
 “ Son of Heaven, the Imperial Supreme.” He is regarded as 
 the representative of Heaven, while the Empress represents 
 Mother Earth. The Emperor is assisted in the administration 
 of Government by a Cabinet Council and six supreme 
 tribunals, but the ultimate decision on all points rests in his 
 own hands, his sanction being conveyed by the Imperial Seal, 
 and his remarks recorded by “the vermilion pencil” — in 
 other words, in red letters, red being the emblem of aU good. 
 
 Of all existing nations, none can compare with China for 
 the antiquity of her historical records, which are probably 
 authentic to as early as 2000 b.c. (when they merge into my- 
 thology). The earliest recognized dynasties are those of Hia 
 and Shang, the fathers of agriculture and letters. But really 
 authentic history dates from the beginning of the Chow 
 
 A .3 
 
10 
 
 dynasty, about 1100 B.C., at which time China seems to have 
 been divided into many independent States, though all ac* 
 knowledging the suzerainty of its chief ruler. About 250 
 B.c. the Chow family were superseded by one of the Tsiii 
 family, who having reduced all surrounding states to subjection 
 assumed the title of Emperor, and gave to the consolidated 
 Empire his own name, Tsina or China. 
 
 This first Empei’or built the Great Wall, called Wan-li- 
 chang (myriad mile wall), as a protection against the IManchu 
 Tartar tribes or Huns, who had ever been dangerous neigh- 
 bours, and who continued to make incursions durmg the reigns 
 of the Han (b.c. 206), the Tang (a.d. 608), and the Sung 
 (a.i). 960) dynasties. 
 
 About the year 1269 one of the Sung Emperors was so rash 
 as to appeal to the Grand Khan of the jMongols or Western 
 Tartars to aid him in expelling the Manchus. Accordingly* 
 Xublai Khan arrived at the head of an immense army, and 
 having driven out the Manchus he took possession of the 
 throne, founding the new dynasty of Yuen, the first foreign 
 riilers of China. He afterwards conquered Manchuria, so 
 that his dominions extended from Corea to Asia IMinor, and 
 from the Frozen Ocean to the Straits of Malacca — an extent 
 of territory which neither previously nor since that time has 
 ever been ruled by one monarch. He died at Peking in a.d. 
 1294. 
 
 In 1368 the Chinese succeeded in expelling these usurj^ers, 
 and founded the Ming dynasty, which reigued 246 years, 
 when Imperial misgovernment led to a rebellion, and the 
 throne was usurped by a Chinaman. A general of the deposed 
 Emperor now invited the aid of the Manchu Tartars. These 
 came, and, after a seven years’ struggle, acquired the sove- 
 reignty of the whole Empire. They then estabhshed themselves 
 in Peking in 1644, and placed on the Imperial throne the 
 first representative of the dynasty of Ts'ing, Avhich still reigns, 
 exercising absolute control over all the millions of Chinese. 
 
 The Tartar rule in China is somewhat comparable to our 
 
11 
 
 own in Hindustan, wliei-e, after so many changes of dynasty 
 there arrived about a hundred years ago, from the far British 
 Isles, a handful of "white men, who have acquired supreme 
 power over some two hunrlred millions of the darh-skinned 
 races. There is, however, this very great difference, that the 
 manners and customs of Chinese and Tartars are almost 
 identical, and the same religions and literature are common to 
 all. The most striking difference between the races lies in 
 the method of hairdressing, the Tartars retaining the natural 
 growth, whilst all Chinamen, without excej^tion, shave the 
 front of the head, and cultivate the back hair to form a long 
 plait, of which all seem so proud that it is difficult to believe, 
 what is nevertheless the fact, that this very singular style of 
 tonsure, which gives. employment to such a legion of barbers, 
 is simply the badge of subjugation imposed by the conquering 
 race about two hundred years ago ! The cruel custom of 
 crippling the feet of baby girls is also peculiar to the Chinese, 
 and is of unknown origin. The Tartar women, from the 
 Empress downwards, all retain feet of the natural size, and 
 marvel at the tortures to which their Chinese sisters must 
 submit in obedience to incomprehensible fashion. 
 
 In considering our own relations with the Chinese, we have 
 to bear in mind that till within the last few years, all 
 intercourse with foreigners has been only calculated to excite 
 in the Chinese mind hatred and contempt. So early as the 
 sixteenth century the Spanish and Portuguese aroused their 
 hostility, not only by greed of gain, but by making the ex- 
 tension of the Koman Catholic faith a veil for political intrigue. 
 Then followed the early stages of British trade, which 
 opened a back door for illicit smuggling of opium, and so led 
 to the first Opium War with Britain in 1839. In 1842, the 
 Treaty of Isankin was signed, whereby China was compelled 
 to pay an enormous sum towards the expenses of the war, to 
 cede the Island of Hong Kong to Britain in perpetuity, and 
 to throw open to foreign trade the five ports of Canton, 
 
 A 4 
 
12 
 
 Amoy, Foo-cliow, Ningpo, and Shanghai, at which suitable 
 quarters should he set apart for foreign I'esidents. 
 
 The continuance, of extensive opium smuggling led to the 
 renewal of war in 1856, and in the following year Canton was 
 stormed by the allied French and English forces. The forts 
 at the mouth of the Peiho were captured in May, 1858, and a 
 month later a ti’eaty was signed at Tientsin by wliich China 
 was required to pay another very heavy indemnity towards 
 war expenses, and to British subjects at Canton. She was 
 also compelled to grant protection to all of her subjects pro- 
 fessing the Christian religion, and to throw open for residence 
 of foreigners nine other places of importance, namely, New- 
 chwang, T’ien-tsin, and Chefoo, in the north ; Hankow, Kiu- 
 kiang, and Chin-kiang, on the Yang-tse River; Tai-wan and 
 Takao in Formosa ; and Swatow in the south. 
 
 But as the French and British Ambassadors were on their 
 way to Peking to ratify this treaty, a final and treacherous 
 effort was made to prevent the foreign barbarians from entering 
 the capital, which necessitated the re-capture of the Taku 
 Forts, followed by that of Peking itself in December, 1860. 
 Unfortunately the allies decided to inflict special punishment 
 on the Emperor himself by the destruction of his beautiful 
 Summer Palace — an act of Vandalism which affected the 
 Chinese people with much the same indignation as would be 
 excited in Euglaird by the deliberate destruction in cold blood 
 of "Windsor, and which to this day proves an ever- ready 
 reproach and hindrance to missionaries, beuig coupled with the 
 forced legalization of the opium trade. 
 
 "While endeavouring to defend herself against foreign ag- 
 gression, China was torn by that most terrible civil war, the 
 Tae-ping Rebellion, which broke out in 1850. This extra- 
 ordinary movement had a semi-Christian origin, and, if only 
 it could have been controlled by judicious teachers in its early 
 stages, it might have proved of very great value, its primary 
 development being the destruction of all idols, the observance 
 of the Sabbath, the printing and circulation of the Holy 
 
13 
 
 Scriptures, and the preachiug- and practice of Cliristianity, 
 so far as the preachers had themselves been able to learn it. 
 Their leader appealed — but, alas ! appealed in vain — for a 
 teacher of the Excellent Way. Being left to his own crude 
 interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, he evolved a rule of 
 action reproducing the most bloodthirsty details of Old 
 Testament history, in combination with observances intended 
 to be Christian Sacraments. 
 
 Very soon, however, all that might have been turned to 
 so much good ran to seed in frightful fanaticism and blas- 
 phemous assumptions of Divine titles. The movement also 
 became political, and assumed the character of a patriotic 
 effort to shake oft’ the Tartar yoke, in token of which the 
 Tae-pings ceased to shave the forehead and wear the long 
 braided queue, but allowed their hair to grow naturally. So 
 widespread was their success that, but for British intervention, 
 chances seemed almost in their favour ; when in 1865 British 
 and American officers were allowed to take command of the 
 Imperial troops. Then the tide of fortune was turned ; but 
 the scenes of horrible massacre and bloodshed rivalled those 
 previously enacted by the Tae-pings, — horrors which roused 
 the indignation of “ Chinese Gordon,” but which he was 
 powerless to prevent. 
 
 Thus the Civil War was suppressed ; but those fifteen bloody 
 and destructive years were not to be quickly forgotten, nor 
 has the Tartar Government been unmindful of the aid afforded 
 in its hour of need. In 1876 it agreed to throw ojDen four 
 new treaty ports, namely, Pak-hoi, on the coast of Kwang- 
 tung; Wan-chow, on the sea-coast, between Fuh-Chow and 
 Ningpo ; the river-port of Wuhu, fifty-five miles above Nan- 
 king on the lower Yang-tse ; and Ichang, about nine hundred 
 miles inland on the same river, — making in all about twenty 
 great centres to which Europeans have access by treaty. 
 From these the preaching of the Gospel can readily be 
 carried on in the Maritime Provinces, and zealous servants 
 of the Master now find it practicable to penetrate to the 
 
u 
 
 remotest provinces. In fact, by treaty, they have the right 
 of access to every part of the Empire, and there are com- 
 paratively few places in the eighteen provinces where it would 
 be dangerous to claim their privilege. 
 
 The Rev. J. Hudson Taylor gives very remarkable details 
 regarding the location of the great mass of the people.* He 
 shows first, that if we draw an imaginary line down the centre 
 of the empire, at 110° E. longitude, we find that the eastern 
 half contains four-fifths of the whole population — a fact of 
 the utmost importance in view of our free access to the whole 
 sea-board of China. Again, subdividing these eastern pro- 
 vinces into north and south at 30° N. latitude, that is to say, 
 a little to the south of Shanghai, we find the population of 
 the northern half to be nearly double that of tbe southern 
 half, showing that nearly half the population of China proper 
 is crowded into one quarter of its territory, and that, the 
 quarter where the prejudice against the Europeans is least 
 apparent, and whei’e intercourse with the people is attended 
 with fewest difficulties. 
 
 Over this vast area only one literature is revei’enced, and 
 one system of education recognized. One of the most 
 remarkable characteristics of the whole race is such veneration 
 for the written character that it is an act of merit to collect 
 and respectfully burn all fra.gments of waste paper on which 
 good words may possibly be inscribed. Printing was invented 
 in the beginning of the tenth century, and in a.d. 932 an Im- 
 perial edition of the Sacred Books was printed. The invention 
 of the characters now in general use is attributed to the 
 Emperor Fuh-hi, who lived b.c. 2852, so they possess what- 
 ever merit attaches to the antiquity of having existed for four 
 thousand years ! The records of still earlier date were 
 inscribed in a sort of hieroglyphic, generally known as “ the 
 tadpole character,” The characters now in use were also 
 
 * “ China’s Spiritual Need and Claims.' 
 
15 
 
 originally hieroglyphic, appealing to the eye by a rude 
 picture of the object to be described. In course of ages, 
 from being more and more rapidly sketched, these forms 
 became conventionalized into groups of symbolic lines re- 
 taining no manner of resemblance to the original forfns. 
 The very learned Chinese reckon the number of these 
 characters at 50,000 ! Happily they are not all in con- 
 stant use, and the man who has acquired a perfect knowledge 
 of four thousand is considered to be respectably proficient. 
 Even to read the very simplest book involves recognizing 
 at sight twelve hundred of these intricate, crabbed characters, 
 but to read the Bible necessitates mastering the four 
 thousand — a task terrible alike to sight and meuiory, and 
 one which generally costs a Chinese student about six years 
 of close study. 
 
 Of course, with all their reverence for literature, a very 
 large proportion of the people cannot attempt such studies ; 
 estimates have indeed been published, assuming that on an 
 average twenty per cent, of the male population in the 
 country districts can read, and perhaps eighty per cent, in the 
 cities. The late lamented Bishop Russell, however, came to 
 the conclusion that of the people of Cheh-Kiang (amongst 
 whom he laboured for upwards of thirty years) only about 
 five per cent, could read intelligibly. He therefore set 
 himself to reduce the language to its alphabetic equivalents, 
 so that it might be represented by our own twenty-four 
 Roman letters ; and in this simple form, with the assistance 
 of the American Presbyterian Mission, he printed a consider, 
 able portion of the Holy Scriptures, and of the Church 
 services, in the vernacular of the province, with the liappy 
 result that the children in the schools, and women, found that 
 within a few weeks they could read and write more fluently 
 than men who had bestowed years of toil in acquiring the 
 ordinary Chinese characters. 
 
 Thenceforth, all students seeking instruction from the 
 Christian teachers in Ningpo have commenced their education 
 
1C 
 
 by learning to read this simple type, which enables poor and 
 ignorant persons to read with as much facility as their 
 venerated literary men. It is, however, necessary that all 
 scholars should continue to learn the elaborate characters in 
 which alone all Chinese books are printed, as any form of 
 education which did not include a knowledge of the Chinese 
 classics would be considered despicable indeed. For the 
 benefit of the common peoide, the Holy Scriptures have now 
 been printed in the “ Komanized colloquial of eight great 
 districts, and thus the holy seed has been scattered in remote 
 corners of the Empire, where in many cases it has germinated 
 and borne good fruit, without the intervention of any foreign 
 teacher. 
 
 Quite recently, the Ecv. W. II. Murray, of the hlational 
 Bible Society of Scotland, has devised a marvellously ingenious 
 application of Braille’s system of embossed dots for enabling 
 the blind to read and write. What with the ravages of 
 ophthalmia, neglected small-pox, leprosy, and dirt, the blind 
 of China are legion, but practically nothing had been done 
 to alleviate the dreary existence of all these sightless hosts 
 till the arrival of this poor Scotch colporteur, who, as he 
 daily mingled with the crowds in the streets of Peking, 
 pondered incessantly over the jierjdexing problem of how to 
 help them. 
 
 In the first place he began by reducing all the sounds of 
 the language to distinct syllables, and discovered that these 
 did not exceed 408— a hajjpy reduction of the 4000 characters 
 in ordinary use. But how to make even these intelligible to 
 the blind seemed well-nigh hopeless, till one day, while lying 
 with closed eyes as if asleep, he saw outspread before him, as 
 clearly as he now sees one of his stereotyped books, the 
 whole system which he has since then so patiently worked 
 out, and moreover, at once perceived with thankful joy, that 
 by this system, Chinese sounds could be rendered so 
 accurately, that whereas to a sighted person, learning to read 
 or write by' the ordinary method, Chinese is the most 
 
17 
 
 bewildering of all languages, it would by this means become 
 one of the easiest to acquire. 
 
 The inspiration which was assuredly vouchsafed in this 
 vision proved, as it were, a chart by which the patient toiler 
 was enabled carefully to work his way through a thousand 
 difficulties extending over eight long years, at the end of 
 which (by most ingenious combinations of numerals and 
 mnemonic letters, represented by embossed dots, grouped on 
 Braille’s system) he was enabled to produce a system which 
 so lends itself to the bewildering intricacies of the Chinese 
 language, that the most delicate “ tones ” are accurately 
 represented. These “ tones,” which by an almost inappre- 
 ciable difference of pronunciation cause one word to convey 
 a dozen different meanings, are the most grievous bugbear of 
 all foreigners, yet, marvellous to relate, this system represents 
 all shades of sound so minutely, that Mr. Murray’s blind 
 students are able by its aid to read even music with the 
 greatest facility. 
 
 He finds that six or eight weeks suffice to teach any blind 
 lad of average intelligence to read and write fluently, and 
 though his work is as yet in its infancy,* a number of those 
 already trained are working as efficient Scripture-readers, 
 assistant colporteurs, preachers, and church organists (on 
 small American organs). The blind students now prepare 
 and stereotype all books for their own use, and for sale. 
 
 Perhaps the strongest point in the future of this I’emark- 
 able work is its bearing on the admission of Christian influence 
 into the dreary homes wherein about 150,000,000 Chinese 
 women of all ages, live their monotonous lives in strict 
 seclusion. Some of these patriarchal households number 
 fi'om 60 to 100 women, ranging from great-grandmothers 
 down to their female slaves. With the exception of the very 
 few foreign ladies who have been able to make themselves 
 
 * See “ Work for the Blind in China.” By C. F. Gordon-Cumming. 
 Published by Messrs. Nisbet, Berners Street. Price Is. 6d, 
 
 A 5 
 
18 
 
 acceptable to tbeir Chinese sisters, no direct missionary in 
 fluence can possibly find entrance to these jealously- guarded 
 homes. But Chinese women are quite as intelligent as 
 those of other lands ; they grasp a new idea, and ponder over 
 it, and if it commends itself to them, they hold it with 
 surprising tenacity, and endeavour to impress it on their 
 neighbours. Now it is evident that each blind woman who 
 can be taught to read the Holy Scriptures will readily obtain 
 access to these secluded homes, where she will certainly be 
 a centre of unbounded interest, and may become a living 
 power with the wives and mothers of China. 
 
 This Mission to the Blind appeals to two of the strongest 
 characteristics of China’s millions, namely, their reverence 
 for pure benevolence, and their veneration for the power of 
 reading. The latter invariably secures respect, inasmuch as 
 to have attained a certain standard of literary proficiency is 
 the sole passport to all official employment, influence, wealth, 
 and promotion. 
 
 From time immemorial the maxim that “ only the wise 
 and able should rule ” has been acknowledged by all classes ; 
 hence the enormous care bestowed on education, beginning 
 with self-supporting day-schools in every village, and cul- 
 minating in the marvellously elaborate system of Competitive 
 Examinations, which year by year sifts all the intellect of 
 the whole land, giving every opportunity for the son of the 
 poorest peasant to rise to the highest post in the Empire. 
 Hitherto the subjects in which proficiency is required have 
 been those stereotyped by the sanction of Confucius about 
 2400 years ago ; but in the summer of 1887 the Imperial 
 Government announced a totally new feature in its programme 
 — simple enough it may appear to us, but in truth tremen- 
 dously significant and far-refiching in its effects, as carrying 
 the triumphs of recent science, and all the knowledge of the 
 West, into the homes of the hitherto prejudiced people in 
 remotest villages. This marvellous innovation is nothing less 
 than a decision that henceforth philosophy, mathematics, 
 
19 
 
 mechanics, engineering, international law and history, naval 
 and military tactics, torpedoes, and marine artillery, are all to 
 be included in the subjects of examination, though the 
 necessity of being a thorough master of literary composition 
 still holds the foremost place. 
 
 Such is the extraordinary reverence of the Chinese for 
 their own literature that it may be affirmed of a large pro- 
 portion of the educated classes that beyond the worship of 
 their own ancestors, their religion consists solely in acts of 
 homage to Confucius, the great sage who, born B.c. 551, 
 took upon him the herculean task of classifying a mass of 
 manuscripts dating from the remotest ages, and having 
 reference to early Chinese history, religious ceremonies, and 
 scientific discoveries. From these ancient materials he 
 compiled a hundred books, and whatever further knowledge 
 he deemed worthy of preservation was incorporated with 
 his own voluminous writings, which have ever since been 
 recognized as the most sacred heritage of every Chinaman, 
 but which, while inculcating much that is excellent, have 
 fossilized the national mind, the whole race assuming that 
 the highest pinnacle of perfection was attained by Confucius, 
 and that the idea of originating anything new is absolutely 
 sacrilegious. 
 
 His teaching concerned man’s moral duty to his neigh- 
 bour in the practice of benevolence and wisdom, but as for 
 his relation to the spiritual world, that was a subject on 
 which he abstained from comment. Consequently his 
 followers, finding no instructions on the worship of any god, 
 consider that none is essential, and so the pure Confucian is 
 a true agnostic, though he renders to the sage (as to his 
 own ancestors) sacrifices and homage, not to be distinguished 
 from worship. In every city there is a Confucian temple; 
 some of these are very fine, but all are simply ancestral 
 halls, containing only ornamental tablets bearing the names 
 of noted saints. Of these, the most noted was Meng-tse 
 
20 
 
 (■^liom early Jesuit writers call Mencius). He was boi’n 
 B.c. 372^ and was a zealous Confucian missionary. His 
 writings are very highly esteemed. 
 
 Although every Chinaman may be assumed to revere 
 Confucius, the divinely-implanted instinct of worship leads 
 most to at least a nominal adherence to the teaching of 
 either Buddha or Laou-tse. The latter was the contempo- 
 rary of Confucius, but was more imaginative and greatly 
 occupied with speculations about the unseen powers and the 
 human soul. His system has developed into the Taouist, 
 which recognizes the divinity of the five planets as repre- 
 senting the five elements of our globe : Mercury representing 
 water; Venus, metal; Mars, fire; Jupiter, w'ood ; and 
 Saturn, earth. All powers of nature are deified, thunder 
 and lightning, wind and storm, sea-gods and river-gods, 
 many of whom are symbolized by mysterious dragons. But 
 the Taouist temples are full of hideous idols, and its priests 
 deal largely in astrology and the exorcising of devils, and 
 are simply quacks and conjurors living by the sale of 
 charms to the ignorant. 
 
 The national gods of the Empire, chief of whom is Kwan- 
 te, the god of war, are among the Taouist deities, but wm 
 also find their images in great Buddhist temples, together 
 with those of many Hindu divinities ; and in truth, notwith- 
 standing all that has been written about the theoretical 
 beauty of Buddhism, its pure practice is unknown in China 
 as elsewhere, and these various systems of idolatry are inex- 
 tricably blended one with the other, like many-coloured 
 skeins of tangled silks — indeed it is by no means uncommon 
 for one person to be an avowed adherent of all these different 
 religions ! 
 
 But whereas Confucianism and Taouism are indigenous, 
 and their sacred books are written in classical Chinese, 
 Buddhism with its Sanscrit sacred writings was introduced 
 from India by one of those accidents, if we may so call 
 them, which seem to us so perplexing. In a.d. 65 the 
 
21 
 
 Emperor !Ming-te dreamt that a Mighty Teacher had visited 
 this earth, and that he must send messengers westward 
 to learn his doctrine. Obedient to this vision, he sent wise 
 men to inquire what new revelation had been vouchsafed 
 to mortals ; but, alas ! instead of travelling onward till they 
 reached Judsea, his emissaries were captivated by the 
 preaching of the disciples of Buddha, who, in the five 
 hundred years which had elapsed since the death of their 
 founder, had so eflfectually preached his acceptable doctrine 
 of the brotherhood and equality of all men, that multitudes 
 of the caste-ridden Hindus of Xorthern India had accepted 
 his teaching, and indeed Buddhist missionaries had pene- 
 trated to China so early as B.c. 250, though these wise 
 men do not appear to have known of them. Certain it is, 
 that these Chinese seekers for a religion brought back, not 
 the new Gospel of Christ, but the older Agnosticism of 
 Buddha, which inculcates no worship whatever, while 
 requiring of its disciples the practice of the purest virtues 
 without hope of any supernatural aid in acquiring them, 
 and with the certainty that till they do acquire them, they 
 must pass through endless transmigrations, either upon earth 
 or in one of the many heavens, until at last they attain to 
 such absolute perfection, and freedom from any manner 
 of desire, that they arrive at Xirvana, which seems to 
 mean practical extinction. On the other hand, they may 
 pass from bad to worse — from the high estate of a prince 
 to that of a slave, and thence to a reptile or a plant, their 
 condition being always exactly regulated by their conduct, 
 for ^'whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap.” Should 
 they fail to improve during their earthly transmigrations, 
 they have the prospect of passing through 136 hells, with 
 graduated intensity of suffering, and also as regards the 
 length of penal servitude involved, — the shortest term, how. 
 ever, being ten millions of years ! 
 
 Assuredly, of this “ Light of Asia ” we can only say, 
 “How great is its darkness ! ” Though still the professed 
 
 A 6 
 
religion of so very large a number of the human race, 
 Buddhism has absolutely died out in Northern India, or 
 only lingers in its- remotest mountains bordering on Thibet. 
 In China its temples are all falling into decay, and few, if 
 any, new ones are built. Its priests are mostly illiterate, 
 unable to read their own sacred books, and are held in the 
 utmost contempt, not only by the educated classes, but 
 even by those who seem to be the most devout worshippers 
 of the saintly Buddha, and of all the gods and goddesses 
 whose shrines find a place within his temples, though such 
 worship is all at variance with his teaching. One curious 
 difference between the representation of Buddha in China 
 and in Ceylon is, that whereas in the latter country he is 
 generally shown in three attitudes — sitting, standing, and 
 reclining— in the former we frequently find three gigantic 
 images exactly alike, representing the three Buddhas of 
 the past, the present, and the future, 
 
 Taouism has equally little hold over the educated classes, 
 and only retains a hold on the ignoi’ant by the pretended 
 intercour’se with the dead, and exorcising of evil spirits 
 which cause diseases. Its priests are grossly ignorant, few 
 understanding even the principles of the faith they profess. 
 They are most commonly attired in slate-coloured garments, 
 and their wives and families live within the precincts of the 
 temple. The Buddhist priests and monks, on the other hand, 
 are celibates, and are distinguished at a glance by shaven 
 heads and yellow or red robes. 
 
 Of the Ritual State Woksuip, in w'hich the Empei’or alone 
 offers w'orship to the Gods of Heaven and Earth, Land and 
 Grain, Sun and iloon, Genii and divers Sages — each in 
 separate temples, — and of the Ancestoe Worship, which is 
 the one true religion of the empire, we will speak presently. 
 Both are indigenous. 
 
 Mohammedan preachers arrived in China in the seventh 
 century, uncompromisingly declaring the unity of God and 
 the iniquity of . idolatiy. They made many converts, and 
 
the total number of Chinese Mohammedans is now estimated 
 at thirty millions. They are most numerous in the North- 
 Western and Western Provinces^ where about one-third of 
 the inhabitants profess this creed^ to which they rigidly 
 adhere. They have mosques in all parts of the Empire, from 
 Peking to Canton. 
 
 In point of fact, the Chinese are remarkably tolerant of 
 all religions, provided they are not made a cloak for political 
 aggression, and do not interfere with Ancestral Worship. 
 To these two features must be attributed much of the 
 success and all the failures of Roman Catholicism, which 
 at the present time reckons its Native adherents at one 
 million. 
 
 There is reason to believe that the Gospel was preached in 
 China in the first century of the Chi’istian era, and it is 
 beyond question that the Nestorians obtained considerable 
 influence in the seventh century, and, under the sanction 
 of successive Emperors, carried on extensive Chi’istian 
 Mission work until the thirteenth century, when their 
 influence seems to have waned, and gradually all trace of 
 their teaching faded away. 
 
 In considering China as a mission-field, one may well feel 
 staggered by the stupendous extent of territory, and the 
 enormous population of this vast empire, which comprises 
 one-tenth of the habitable world. That the eye may assist 
 the mind to grasp this subject, let us glance at the accom- 
 panying diagram. The two upright lines represent the 
 relative size of China and Europe, the former representing 
 an area of 5,300,000 square miles, the latter, -with its 
 islands, 3,797,256 square miles, showing that the sway 
 of the Chinese Emperor extends over a territory about 
 one-fourth larger than the whole of Europe. 
 
 The oblong diagram shows something like the pro- 
 portions of the great empire contrasted with those of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, with their 120,000 square miles, and 
 
24 
 
 of Scotland with its 
 30,000 square miles. 
 
 Only about two-fifths 
 of this vast area are 
 comprised in the 
 eighteen provinces of 
 China proper, which 
 include the two large 
 islands of Hainan and 
 Formosa. The re- 
 maining three -fifths 
 include Thibet, 
 Chinese Tartary, Mon- 
 golia, Manchuria, and 
 Corea on the north, and 
 Cochin China on the 
 south. 
 
 Though so vast in 
 extent, Thibet, ^lon- 
 golia, and Manchuria 
 contribute a compara- 
 tively small proportion 
 of the population — 
 probably not more 
 than 2.3,000,000,where- 
 as that of the eighteen 
 provinces amounts by 
 the lowest recent com- 
 putation to22 7, 000,000, 
 thus giving a total of 
 250,000,000. But on 
 this subject it is impos- 
 sible to obtain any- 
 thing approaching to 
 authentic information ; 
 the Chinese themselves say that no complete census has 
 
 Great 
 
 Britain 
 
 and 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Scotland 
 
 CHINESE EMPIRE. 
 
 Europe, 3,797,256 square miles. 
 China, 5,300,000 square miles. 
 
 Diagram given by the Rev. J. Hudson 
 Taylor, in ‘‘ China’s Spiritual Needs and 
 Claims.” 
 
25 
 
 been taken since the close of the last century, and although 
 forty years ago the generally accepted estimate was about 
 400,000,000, it is now understood that the wide-spread 
 devastation of the prolonged civil war, and repeated appal- 
 ling famines, floods, and pestilences, have largely reduced 
 that total. Add to these the rapidly increasing habit of 
 excessive opium- smoking, which tells so fatally on the 
 offspring of the smoker, both as regards their numbers 
 and their vitality, and allow also for extensive emigration 
 to many foreign lands, and it is evident that (although so 
 competent a judge as Sir Thomas Wade allowed 320,000,000 
 to pass as a fair estimate in connection with the London 
 Relief Committee at the time of the terrible famine in the 
 northern provinces) there may now be good reason for 
 accepting the reduced calculation. Even this shows that 
 China’s millions constitute nearly one-fifth of the human 
 race — and that, too, a race which seems destined to colo- 
 nize in every corner of the world, so that whatever influence 
 can be gained over it is likely to be far-reaching 
 indeed. 
 
 The most wonderful thing concerning this race, which 
 truly is as the sand of the sea for multitude, is that notwith- 
 standing minor differences between the people of the far north 
 and those of the extreme south, the whole race is essentially 
 one in its leading characteristics. In all alike there is the 
 same strongly marked mercantile sjurit, the same industry, 
 frugality and sobriety (except as regards the recent most 
 lamentable and rapid development of opium-smoking 
 throughout the Empire), the same skill in divers handicrafts, 
 such as ivory carving, wood carving, exquisite embroidery, 
 manufacture of silk, cotton, and linen stuffs, filigree work 
 in precious metals, marvellous casting in bronze, manufac- 
 ture of fine lacquer, of pottery and porcelain, the same 
 reverence for literature, the same care and skill in agricul- 
 ture, the same enslaving dread of mysterious natural forces, 
 the spirits which rule wind and water, land and rivers, and 
 
•26 
 
 especially the dead ancestral spirits to whom propitiatory 
 sacrifices mnst be ceaselessly oSered to secure their good- 
 will or avert their malevolence. Whereas within the 
 boundaries of British India there are no less than 106 
 distinct languages, in China, although there are such 
 differences in dialect that the colloquial language of the 
 north is scarcely comprehensible to the man of the south, 
 there is but one written language, which is current through- 
 out the country, and the classical Mandarin Chinese is 
 understood by all save the people of Fuh-kien, Kwantung, 
 and part of Kwang-si. Over this vast area one Government 
 holds absolute sway ; all are ruled by the same laws, which 
 regulate even such minutiae as the day when winter clothes 
 shall be exchanged for those appointed for summer, or that 
 on which the first furrow shall be ploughed. 
 
 The latter is a very important ceremony, for the Emperor 
 (who in certain very remarkable acts of worship offered 
 to the Supreme God of heaven, acts as High Priest for his 
 people-) likewise ofl5.ciates on certain days at the Temples of 
 Sun, Moon, Earth, and Planets, and also at that of Agri- 
 culture, where, at the beginning of spring (about the fifth 
 of March), having first offered a sacrificial banquet to the 
 God of Husbandry in presence of the great nobles, the 
 Emperor and the Imperial Princes put off their official 
 dress and assume that of peasants, when they adjourn to a 
 field ready for ploughing, and each takes his place in charge 
 of an imperial yellow plough drawn by a buffalo. Each 
 noble ploughman must plough nine furrows, and each is 
 followed by an official whose duty it is to sow the grain in 
 the newly turned earth, while two companies of choristers, 
 robed in festive attire, chant anthems in praise of agri- 
 culture. This remarkable ceremony is said to have been 
 instituted by the Emperor Shun, who reigned about B.c. 
 2200, and was himself a keen practical farmer. When the 
 Emperor has thus commenced work, his example is followed 
 by the great officials in every city throughout the Empire, 
 
27 
 
 and the farmers are then at liberty to commence work in 
 earnest. 
 
 The various acts of Nature-worship in which the Emperor 
 assumes the character of High Priest are very remarkable, 
 and are performed at stated seasons at temples quite unique 
 in character, which are set apart for this purpose, and are 
 never used between whiles.* The most striking of these is 
 the Temple of Heaven, where, prostrate on an elevated and 
 roofless circular platform of pure white marble, the Em- 
 peror kneels in lowliest adoration of Shang-ti, the Supreme 
 Lord of Heaven — his courtiers and nobles kneeling reverently 
 around on lower terraces of the same marble mould — an 
 open-air temple whose only roof is the starry canopy of the 
 midnight heaven. 
 
 Then, escorted by 234 musicians robed in heaven’s blue, 
 and an equal number of dancers, who perform slow and 
 solemn religious dances, and followed by all his princes and 
 nobles, the Imperial High Priest passes on to the altars of 
 sacrifice, namely eight great braziers of iron, and a green 
 porcelain furnace, in which are offered costly burnt sacrifices 
 of beautiful pieces of silk, incense, and slaughtered animals. 
 The ceremonial is very elaborate and very solemn, and 
 concludes with a most remarkable sacramental mystery. 
 While the Emperor has been presenting cups of wine and 
 offerings of food, the musicians have chanted “ hymns of 
 harmonious peace ” w'ith accompaniments of stringed instru- 
 ments, after which there is a great stillness. Then a single 
 voice is heard chanting the words, “ Give the Cup of 
 Blessing and the Meat of Blessing”) whereupon officers 
 appointed for this honour present the Cup of Blessing and 
 the Meat of Blessing to the Emperor, who partakes of each, 
 and again prostrates himself and knocks his forehead three 
 times against the ground, and then nine times more to 
 
 * For fuller details see “ Wauderings in China,” by C. P. Gordon- 
 Cumtning. Published by W. Blackwood and Son. 
 
28 
 
 symbolize his thankful reception of these gifts. All the 
 princes and nobles present exactly follow the example of the 
 Emperor ; then the choir bursts forth in a “ song of glorious 
 peace.” 
 
 In none of these temples is there any image to suggest 
 idolatry, the celestial and terrestrial powers being alike 
 represented only by simple wooden tablets, placed upright 
 in stands of carved and gilded wood, precisely similar to 
 those which bear the names of the honoured dead in every 
 ancestral hall throughout the Empire. Every family of 
 any importance has its own ancestral hall, wherein are 
 stored the tablets commemorating all their dead, and the 
 whole country is thickly strewn with temples to the honour 
 of sages, saints, and heroes, all of whom are honoured in the 
 same way. 
 
 No one can understand anything of Chinese life and 
 motive, till he realizes how entirely Axcestral Worship is 
 the keystone of all existence in the Celestial Empire.* It 
 permeates all life, affecting even the most trivial details of 
 everyday existence, and is in influence tenfold more potent 
 for keeping the people in the bondage of gross superstition 
 than all the countless idols of the land, inasmuch as it 
 compels every man to be for ever looking backward instead 
 of forward, in fear lest he should by any action offend his 
 very exacting ancestral spix’its. In short, from his birth 
 to his grave, the chief aim and end of every Chinaman is 
 this constant propitiation of the dead. 
 
 This degrading slavery of the living to the dead involves 
 a system of worship and sacrifices which must be offered 
 ceaselessly, not necessarily from love to the departed, but 
 in order to avert calamity should their displeasure be in- 
 curred by any neglect, or departure from ancient custom. 
 
 * For fuller details see “Wanderings in China,” by C. F. Gordon- 
 Cumming. Published by W. Blackwood and Son. 
 
29 
 
 It is a system of fear, wliicli controls every act of life 
 and all social organization , affecting alike tke Imperial 
 throne and the meanest coolie. However Tartars or China- 
 men, from the far north or the extreme souths may differ 
 on other matters, such as systems of religion, social position, 
 dialect, &c., this is the one point on which all the three 
 hundred millions are agreed — it is the one faith which all 
 alike hold in awe and reverence, and which is indelibly im- 
 pressed on their minds from their earliest infancy. No 
 matter what other religion he professes, Buddhist, Taonist, 
 or Confncian, every Chinaman’s first duty is the care of 
 sacrificing to his ancestors. This was the primitive religion 
 of the land, and from it were derived the systems both of 
 Laou-tse and of Confucius. 
 
 Confucius inculcated filial reverence as the primary 
 obligation of mankind, and the majority of the Chinese 
 obey his precept, but however bad a son may have been to 
 his parents during their lifetime, from the hour of their 
 death he becomes most punctilious in the observance of 
 every detail of ancestral worship, lest the dead who have 
 suddenly become so powerful should return to torment him, 
 accompanied by a multitude of spirits more vicious than 
 themselves. 
 
 The condition of the dead in the spirit world is supposed 
 to depend entirely on the provision made for them by their 
 survivors. These offerings should be presented by the nearest 
 male relative, and it is very important that the relative 
 should be a son. Hence, anxiety to secure a male heir to 
 officiate at the ancestral worship is the true key to very 
 early marriages, and to many domestic sorrows. The little 
 bride may prove childless, and must accept the sons of 
 secondary wuves — a fruitful source of heart-burning. 
 Hence, too, the lamentations which too often greet the birth 
 of a baby girl, who is incapable of ministering to the spirits, 
 and is therefore in many cases not considered worth the 
 expense of rearing. Thus it is that ancestor-worship lies at 
 
30 
 
 the root of the appalling female infanticide of China, a 
 practice which is fully sanctioned by public opinion. 
 Sooner than leave no son to minister at the ancestral 
 altar, a Chinaman will, if possible, adopt one. This substi- 
 tute must of course be younger than the supposed father, 
 and this rule is slavishly adhered to, even at the risk of 
 serious jeopardy to great interests. 
 
 No more striking instance could be adduced than the 
 selection of Kwang-Su, the present Emperor, who, at the 
 time of the late Emperor’s early death, was under four 
 years of age. In the interests of the Empire it would have 
 seemed desirable to confer the Imperial crown on one of the 
 adult princes, but as all these were older than the deceased 
 Emperor, they were incapable of offering the requisite 
 worship, and the only person capable of fulOlling the con- 
 ditions was this little child. But as the young Emperor 
 Tung Chi had left no heir on earth to offer sacrifice to his 
 own father Hien Fung, the infant Emperor was officially 
 constituted heir to Hien Fung, with a promise to the spirits 
 that his first-born son should be the especial heir to Tung 
 Chi! 
 
 One of the principal temples in Peking is that of “ The 
 Imperial Ancestors,” in which are ranged the Imperial 
 tablets of the last ten generations, Emperors and Empresses 
 being arranged in pairs, all facing the south. In secondary 
 halls are stored the tablets of Imperial relatives, loyal 
 officers, and other persons of such distinguished merit as to 
 entitle them to be spiritual guests at the sacrificial banquets. 
 At the great festivals in honour of the dead, large offer- 
 ings of food, incense, lighted candles, pieces of rich 
 silk, and carcases of divers animals are laid before the 
 tablets of each Imperial couple, and the Emperor, on his 
 knees, addresses prayers by name to each of those, his 
 deceased predecessors, both Emperors and Empresses (whose 
 titles in each case number from twelve to twenty words). 
 Then the offerings are burnt, that their spiritual essence 
 
.31 
 
 may float away to the spirit land^ after which follows a sacra- 
 mental service^ if I may so call it, similar to that already 
 described — the Imperial High Priest himself receiving on 
 low-bended knee ‘^the Cup of Blessing ” and “ the Meat of 
 Blessing.” On this occasion, after the Emperor and his 
 nobles have partaken of the sacred elements, the officer in 
 charge of “the Blessed Wine ” places a cup before each of 
 the tablets, representing the Imperial Ancestors, both male 
 and female, that all may share in this communion of the 
 dead. In the course of this solemn service the Emperor is 
 required to kneel sixteen times, and to knock his forehead 
 on the ground no less than thirty-six times. All his nobles 
 are required to do likewise, thus giving to all the people 
 an example of filial piety. 
 
 But this is a mere trifle compared with the amount of 
 head-knocking which forms part of the ceremonial moum- 
 ing during the hundred days after the death of a parent. 
 No matter how important may be the Government office 
 held by the bereaved son, or even grandson, or at how 
 great a distance he may be from his ancestral home, he 
 is actually ohliged to retire from public life for many months, 
 and return to spend upwards of three months in seclusion. 
 During this time visitors are only admitted on certain days, 
 and on these the unfortunate chief mourner must be found 
 before the coffin, crouching on his hands and knees, weeping 
 and howling. 
 
 i\Iany and serious are the expenses to which a family is 
 subjected on the death of one of its members. In the first 
 place they must immediately burn all his best clothes, for 
 though paper representations will do later, genuine articles 
 must be sacrificed for his original outfit, to secure a gcod 
 reception for him in the spirit world. The funeral arrange- 
 ments must all be on the most liberal scale possible, and 
 the survivors often impoverish themselves for years to 
 provide a decent burial. So essential is the provision of a 
 good coffin that the Chinese form of insurance, instead of 
 
32 
 
 havins: reference to the comfort of old asre, coes to entitle 
 the subscriber to a coffin and grave clothes, to secure •which 
 he must for sixteen yeare pay about a shilling annually to a 
 Long Life Loan Company. 
 
 Every man is supposed to have three souls, one of which 
 remains with the corpse in the tomb ; the second watches 
 over the tablet which bears its name in the Ancestral Hall ; 
 while the third goes forth into the world of darkness to 
 undergo trial and punishment at the hands of the judicial 
 rulers of purgatory. Friends who desire to comfort their 
 dead must therefore make separate offerings on behalf of 
 each of his three souls ; so they must by turns visit the 
 grave, the Ancestral Hall, and the temple of Cheng Hwang, 
 the deity into whose jurisdiction the soul has passed, and 
 where it is truly a spirit in prison, subject to all the pains 
 and persecutions which the Chinese have such good cause 
 to associate with confinement in their own horrible prisons. 
 The spirit is supposed to be at the mercy of a multitude 
 of extortionate prison authorities, who must be freely 
 bribed by the living to mitigate the penalties of purgatory ; 
 herein the priests, both Taouist and Buddhist, reap a never- 
 failing harvest from the bereaved relatives, to whom they 
 convey revelations of the agonies which the dead are en- 
 during, and so extract the utmost possible sums in money 
 and jewellery to purchase their release. Troops of priests 
 attend the prolonged funeral rites, and keep up services 
 for the repose of the dead and the exorcising of e'vil spirits : 
 thus the days of mourning often involve an expenditure of 
 thousands of dollars. 
 
 Even when the family are assured that their relative has 
 been delivered, they have no security against being favoured 
 with rene'R'ed revelations from the spirit world, which public 
 opinion would not suffer them to ignore. For the dead have 
 no haven of rest to which they may attain. There is no 
 Lord of INlercy in the world beyond the grave. Theoreti- 
 cally the Buddhist may attain to a blissful Nirvana, but 
 
33 
 
 the three hundred millions of China believe practically that 
 the departed roam at large in a realm where devils and 
 demons rule, and where they are as entirely dependent on 
 the gifts of their friends as are the captives in a Chinese 
 prison. Hence the obligation of ancestor-worship. 
 
 It is believed that in this spirit world there are an incal- 
 culable host of miserable beggar-spirits, who either have 
 left no relations to sacrifice for them, or for some other 
 reason have been neglected. These uncared-for dead avenge 
 themselves on mankind by revisiting earth and afflicting the 
 living with all manner of diseases and misfortunes. There- 
 fore thrice a year propitiatory sacrifices are offered to these 
 wanderers in every provincial town throughout the vast 
 empire. Every family in every city must contribute to the 
 fund, which by appeasing the spirits contributes to the 
 public good. For several successive nights priests from all 
 the temples parade the streets with torches and lanterns, and 
 form picturesque processions of fire-boats on the rivers, 
 inviting the unfed spirits, who may be wandering at large, 
 to come and share the burnt-offering. 
 
 Once in ten years these festivals for the consolation of the 
 dead are held on a very grand scale, and continue for seven 
 consecutive days, during which time the Buddhists and 
 Taouists unite their forces to make more showy processions, 
 the images of Buddha and Laou-tse, the founders of the two 
 faiths, being carried in highly-decorated chairs, escorted by 
 their respective priests — the Buddhists in their yellow robes, 
 scarlet mantles, and shaven heads, the Taouists in robes of 
 gold-brocaded green satin, with their hair plaited and rolled 
 up, and fastened with a tortoise-shell comb. 
 
 Besides these public offerings, many persons burn laro’e 
 offerings at their own doors, to insure the spirits gmng them 
 full credit for their alms, and so refraining from molesting 
 them. As to the family offerings to their own relatives, 
 that is simply a never-ending business, and the manufacture 
 of paper models of every conceivable object for transmission 
 
34 
 
 to the dead forms the sole work of a multitude of men and 
 women ; and while all this lamentable waste of substance 
 is going on, the starving beggars find it hard to extract the 
 smallest coin wherewith to purchase a handful of rice ; for 
 fear, not charity, is the ruling motive in all this display. 
 
 Of course, this is a subject on which it is impossible to 
 obtain accurate statistics, but enough is known to prove that 
 the sums annually expended throughout the Empire are 
 simply astounding. A very careful and apparently moderate 
 estimate of the average expenditure in all villages and towns 
 throughout the Empire runs up a grand annual total of 
 3150,000,000, or 32,0O0,000Z. English ! 
 
 As a matter of course, this whole system is the greatest 
 bar that could by any possibility be devised to check the 
 adoption of Christianity. It is firmly believed that the 
 Chinaman who confesses himself a Christian, and refuses 
 to perform the accustomed acts of Ancestral Worship, 
 thereby consigns all his ancestors for the five previous 
 generations to a state of perpetual beggary. He brings on 
 himself the curse, not only of all his kinsmen, friends, and 
 neighbours, but of all the mighty dead, whom he is most 
 bound to revere and care for, and whose curse it is indeed 
 terrible to incur. Even if he so fully realizes the teaching 
 of Christianity as to be convinced that his dead ancestors 
 require no aid from him, still it is hard to be scouted and 
 misjudged by all, condemned by his superiors, and, worst of 
 all, beset by the entreaties of all his female relatives, 
 with one accord pleading for the unhappy dead. 
 
 The most terrible form in which such family opposition is 
 occasionally displayed is when parents have deliberately 
 informed their son, who inclined to become a Christian, that 
 should he so disgrace the family they would at once commit 
 suicide. The sting of this threat lies in the fact that, by 
 Chinese law, a man who by his misdeeds drives his parents 
 to kill themselves is a malefactor worthy of the most igno- 
 minious of all deaths, namely, decapitation, a far-reaching 
 
disgracej wliicli ensures liis signal punisliment in the next 
 world, where headless spirits are treated with peculiar 
 contumely. So, as by becoming a Christian the son would 
 unfit himself for the performance of the rites of ancestral 
 worship, his life was not worth preserving, and his parents 
 might as well he avenged of so unworthy a son ! 
 
 From this summary of a most intricate and far-reaching 
 subject it is evident that any one desiring to understand 
 China and the Chinese must bear in mind how potent and 
 all-pervading is this influence. In one form, indeed, the 
 di’ead of thwarting the dead is for ever coming to the surface 
 in regard to the mysterious natural powers alluded to as 
 Feng-Shui, w’hich, literally interpreted, means only Wind 
 and Water, but which apparently has special reference to 
 the repose of the dead, and the influence of the mighty host 
 of disembodied spirits upon the welfare of the living. It is 
 almost impossible for a foreigner to arrive at any exact 
 understanding of this great over-ruling belief of the Chinese 
 millions, and yet no one can be many hours in the country 
 ere the term becomes so familiar as to make its solution a 
 matter much to be desired. Whether it is a proposal to 
 make a railway or to build a top storey to a house, this 
 vague shadowy spirit of evil forbids the work. As regards 
 the railway, the whole country is dotted with ancestral 
 graves, and there is danger that making a railway w'ould 
 stir up the spirits of countless past generations, and let loose 
 on the country a whole army of malevolent ghosts. On the 
 other hand, to raise a ■wall may arrest the course of kindly 
 spirits, or of the shadowy great dragon who brings 
 blessing. Or to pull down an existing wall may allow the 
 approach of evil spirits from an unlucky quarter ; — all of 
 which sounds exceedingly foolish, but is nevertheless a 
 deeply rooted belief in the minds of the whole Chinese race. 
 tSo that at any time a cry of Feng-shui, raised by the literati, 
 w'ill inflame the deadliest superstitions of the populace, who 
 accept it as a warning that something is being done which 
 
36 
 
 may annoy their dead ancestors^ in which case they "will 
 inevitably begin by taking vengeance on the offender. Con- 
 sequently the very word suffices to incite them to all manner 
 of mischief. 
 
 Thus Fear of and Reverejjce for the Dead^ combined 
 with the myterious Fexg-shui, form the ruling principle of 
 all existence in China. They are the twin giants whose 
 power all acknowledge, and against whom all resistance 
 seems useless. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the great numerical success 
 of Roman Catholic Missions in China is in a lar^e measure 
 due to their sanction of something closely akin to Ancestral 
 Worship, in the form of Masses for the Dead — services 
 scarcely to be distinguished from those which the convert 
 has ever believed to he the highest form of worship — together 
 with a similar teaching regarding Purgatory, and highly 
 realistic pictures of the toi’tures of a material Hell. 
 
 Bat apart from deep-seated care for the dead, all that 
 custom, has endeared to the outward senses of the Buddhist 
 he may retain in the Church of Rome. How easy is the 
 transition from the worship of the Goddess of Mercy Avith 
 the young Child, and either the Dragon or the Serpent under 
 her feet, to that of the Holy Mother with the infant Saviour 
 standing on the Serpent’s head. As to the whole company 
 of Buddhist saints, with the golden glory circling every 
 head, their appearance is scarcely to be distinguished from 
 the saints of Christendom. There is the same use of images, 
 incense, holy water, ringing of consecrated bells, prostra- 
 tions, multiplied fasts, reiteration of short prayers, a gor- 
 geously vested and shaven pi’iesthood, monasteries, and 
 convents. The total suppression of the second command- 
 ment in the abridged form of the Roman Decalogue obviates 
 difficulties regarding the use of graven images,” and as 
 the Roman Catholics have never published any Chinese 
 translation of the Holy Scriptures, their converts are in no 
 
37 
 
 danger of discovering too much on this or any other 
 snbject. 
 
 According to the Roman Catholic Register of Hong Kong 
 the statistics of Roman Missions in the Empire are as fol- 
 lows : — Bishops^ 41 ; European priests, 664 ; native priests, 
 559; colleges, 34 ; convents, 34; native converts, 1,092,818. 
 
 Long ere China had begun to sanction foreign intercourse 
 ■with her people, devoted Jesuit missionaries, in the dress of 
 the country, had contrived to effect an entrance, and in the 
 16th and 17th centuries, having secured a footing by reason 
 of their scientific attainments, were able to preach ^Hth 
 much acceptance, making many converts. Had they 
 adhered to religious teaching, their converts would doubtless 
 have been legion, but the usual rash meddling with politics 
 soon aroused fear of foreign aggression, leading to violent 
 opposition and terrible persecution, which have been repeated 
 with every fresh scare of undue political influence. Hence 
 those terrible massacres in Southern Annam in the autumn 
 of 1885, when the number of victims was estimated at 
 35,000, only 6000 of the Christian population of an entire 
 district being saved ; churches, schools, convents, hospitals, 
 and asylums were burnt to the ground after they had been 
 pillaged, and the Roman Catholic Mission, which had taken 
 so many years to create, was totally crushed. 
 
 All this bloodshed was due simply to the political con- 
 nexion between the Roman Catholics and the French, Avho 
 claimed jurisdiction over all such, and also their exemption 
 rom taxation. It is this arrogating of temporal authority 
 which has so incensed the Chinese, and which accounts for 
 much of the hostility to missionaries and converts of all 
 Christian churches and denominations, as the ignorant 
 masses naturally could not discriminate between Protestants 
 and Roman Catholics. Hence, in the Edict of Toleration 
 proclaimed in 1886, the Imperial Government deem it ne- 
 cessary to state that men who may embrace Christianity do 
 not cease to be Chinese, but as such are entitled to all pro- 
 
38 
 
 tection from tlieir own Government, to wliicli alone they 
 owe obedience. The promulgation of this Edict followed 
 immediately on the decision of the Pope to send a Papal 
 Legate to the Court of Peking to represent him as the sole 
 Foreign Power interested in the Chinese Roman Catholies, 
 thereby totally diselaiming all political protection from 
 Prance. 
 
 This Edict promises to mark an altogether new era for 
 Christian work in China. Just before the year of Queen 
 Victoria’s Accession, in 1887, when there were scarcely a 
 dozen Protestant Christians in the Empire, the Emperor of 
 China fulminated an edict against Christianity. To-day 
 there are upwards of a hundred thousand recognized 
 members of different Protestant bodies, and of these 
 twenty-two thousand are communicants, and that, not as a 
 matter of course, as may too often be the case in countries 
 where Christianity is the recognized badge of respectability, 
 but as a sure pledge of being thoi'onghly in earnest, and 
 ready to endure persecution in many bitter forms. And 
 truly the majority of these converts have not only confessed 
 their faith in Christ at the imminent risk of their lives, 
 but have also striven with patient perseverance to bring 
 others to the same knowledge and love, so that almost every 
 convert has proved a leavening influence among his own 
 neighbours. 
 
 And now, just before Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, the Im- 
 perial Government issued the aforesaid new proclamation, 
 explaining to all the people that the Christian religion 
 teaches men to do right, and should therefore be respected. 
 Consequently it calls on the people to live at peace with 
 Christian missionaries and converts. 
 
 Such is the record of progress in the flrst fifty years of 
 Protestant Mission work in China. 
 
 It was not till a.d. 1807 that the very first awakening effort 
 of Protestant Christianity resulted in the London Missionary 
 Society resolving to send Dr. Robert Morrison to endeavour 
 
no 
 
 to commence work in China. But in those days the route 
 to the East lay practically in the hands of the merchants 
 forming the East India Company, by whom such difficulties 
 had been thrown in the way of the missionaries proceeding 
 to India that it was deemed expedient not to apply to them 
 for a passage, but to adopt the then difficult route via 
 America. Thus he reached Canton in 1808. Once there, the 
 Company were glad to secure his great linguistic services, 
 and he was appointed translator to their factory at Canton, 
 and thus, at their expense, at a cost of 15,000Z., was 
 published his great Chinese dictionary. This, however, was 
 not ready till 1822. In 1814 he published the first Chinese 
 version of the Hew Testament, half of which was trans- 
 lated by himself, and the other half was revised from a 
 manuscript found in the British Museum. With the 
 assistance of Milne, he next prepared a complete trans' 
 lation of the Bible, which was published in 1818. He 
 also established an Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca for 
 English and Chinese literature. Thus for twenty-seven years 
 he toiled unceasingly, preparing the way for those who 
 should follow, and during all these years only three fellow- 
 workers came to his help. The first convert was baptized 
 in 1814, but it was not till about 1842 that any perceptible 
 progress was made. In 1834 this persevering pioneer 
 died at Canton, and his body was carried to the Portuguese 
 settlement at Macao, there to be laid beside his wife and 
 son in the Christian burial-grround — now grrass-errown and 
 
 o o o 
 
 neglected. 
 
 In 1830 the American Board of Foreign Missions sent its 
 first emissaries to commence work in China; and by 1838 
 three other American societies had followed suit. 
 
 In 1836, the Church Missionary Society sent Mr. 
 E. B. Squire to ascertain whether it were possible to 
 establish a Mission in China ; but little was done till after 
 the Treaty of Nanking, in 1844, which gave foreigners the 
 right of residence at certain ports. About this time an 
 
40 
 
 anonymous donor offered 6000Z. to start a China Mission, 
 and in 1845 the Society commenced work at Shanghai. This 
 was relinquished in 1867, but renewed in 1870. Ningpo 
 was occupied in 1848, Fuh-chow in 1850, Hong-Kong 
 and Peking {after the taking of the city by the allied 
 English and French forces) in 1862 and 1863, Hang-chow 
 in 1865, Shaou-hing in 1870, Canton in 1881, Pak-hoi 
 in 1886. 
 
 As regards Episcopal jurisdiction, the Empire was in 
 1872 divided into two vast bishoprics, Horth and South 
 China. The latter is under the Bishop of Victoria, Hong- 
 Kong. Its first Bishop, Dr. G. Smith, and the third, the 
 present Bishop (Dr. Burdon), were C.M.S. missionaries, and 
 the second, Dr. Alford, an active member of the Society at 
 home. Bishop Burdon joined the Shanghai Mission in 
 1853, and six years later started as a pioneer to see whether 
 there was any possibility of commencing a Mission at Hang- 
 chow, where he remained for some months, first living in 
 a boat outside the city, and afterwards sharing small 
 rooms in a Buddhist monastery with Mr. Nevius, of the 
 American Presbyterian Mission. In 1861 he again started 
 as a pioneer, and established himself in the great city of 
 Shaou-hing, a hundred miles to the west of Ningpo, where 
 he held his ground till driven back by the advance of the 
 Tae-ping insurgents. In 1862 he accompanied Bishop 
 Smith to Peking, to judge whether it were possible for the 
 C.M.S. to commence work in the northern capital, where 
 Dr. Lockhart, of the London ]\Iission, had been the first to 
 enter and commence medical work. From that far north 
 Mr. Burdon was called to be the Bishop of Southern China. 
 
 The C.M.S. continued to work in Peking till 1880, when, 
 on the division of North China into two separate dioceses, 
 the appointment of Bishop Scott of the S.P.G. to the 
 Bishopric of North China, and his residence at Chefoo, 
 suggested the wisdom of resigning that field to the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
 
41 
 
 Tlie first Bishop of the original diocese of North China 
 ■was Dr. Russell of the C.M.S., who was consecrated in 
 Westminster Abbey in 1872. His centre of work was at 
 Ningpo, in the Che-kiang Province. The progress of mission 
 work, both in Che-kiang and Fuh-kien, has been remark- 
 able, the more so as the people of these provinces, and that 
 of Kwan-tung, have strongly-marked characteristics com- 
 mon to the inhabitants of hilly countries. They are said to 
 be the most restless and enterj^rising of the Chinese, and 
 have been described as “the Anglo-Saxons of Asia.” 
 
 It was amongst these that Bishop Russell worked -Rdth 
 marvellous patience alone and despised for many years ere 
 he was rewarded by making any converts. But he lived to 
 see the fruit of his labours, and to find himself revered by 
 all the Chinese who came within his influence. On his 
 death. Dr. G. E. Moule was consecrated first Bishop of the 
 new see of Mid-China, which comprises the eight provinces 
 Keang-sn, Nganh-wei, Che-kiang, Keang-si, Hupeh, Hunan, 
 Szechuen, and Kweichow, — an area of about 350,000 square 
 miles, with a population of 100,000,000 souls. It is un- 
 necessary to enumerate the provinces included in the north 
 and south sees, which of course comprise all the rest of the 
 Empire. 
 
 Of the work carried on by other Christian societies, it is 
 of course impossible here to speak in detail. It must suffice 
 to say that within the last quarter of a century a tardy 
 interest in this vast mission-field has begun to awake, and 
 about forty difl'erent religious societies have now sent 
 representatives to do what little they can, amounting to a 
 total of about 500 missionaries, and perhaps 600 wives and 
 unmarried women — British, American, and German. These 
 are assisted by about 150 ordained native ministers and 
 about 1300 lay helpers. But, contrasting these few hun- 
 dreds with China’s millions, and reflecting on the mere 
 physical difficulties which any one man, unaided by a choir, 
 or even efficient assistants, experiences in even collecting 
 
42 
 
 an attentive audience of a few hundred persons, and in 
 addressing them on a subject of which they have no pre- 
 vious knowledge, and with which they have no sympathy, 
 we can only say, “ "VYhat are these among so many ? ” 
 
 It has been calculated that such evangelists as Messrs. 
 iMoody and Sankey (with their fellow-workers of every 
 description, aided by Christian books and papers) might, by 
 preaching twelve times a week to congregations of five 
 thousand persons, address every person of London’s five 
 millions once in the course of twelve years — and to do this 
 would cost unremitting united labour, and large pecuniary 
 outlay. At this rate it is shown that if every missionary, 
 male and female, in China were physically capable of 
 reaching 100,000 souls, there would still remain a surplus 
 of about 200,000,000 beyond the possibility of hearing of 
 the gift which .those who received it 1800 years ago were 
 commissioned to offer to all mankind. To realize what this 
 number of 100,000 means, we may observe that the popula- 
 tion of Manchester is 341,508, and that of Glasgow 511,532 ; 
 so it is as if three and five preachers endeavoured to evan- 
 gelize these two cities ! In our own little isle of Great 
 Britain 35,000 ministers of the Church and of all Christian 
 denominations complain of their inability to reach a large 
 section of our comparatively small population of about 
 30,000,000, although their work is supplemented by that 
 of a host of schoolmasters, Sunday-school teachers, and 
 assistants of all sorts. 
 
 Well has it been said, Our Master has taught us that 
 if even one sheep out of a hundred be lost, we are to leave 
 the ninety-and-nine, and seek the strayed one, whereas, 
 looking at the proportion of shepherds and sheep, teachers 
 and taught, in China and Britain, the care seems lavished 
 on the one sheep at home, while the ninety-and-nine are left 
 unheeded on the mountains.” 
 
 Considering the fewness of the evangelists, the very great 
 disadvantages under which they have hitherto worked, and 
 
43 
 
 the extreme slowness of the average Chinaman to accept new 
 ideas, the progress of the last quarter of a century must be 
 accepted as satisfactory, the more so as every genuine 
 convert becomes a leavening principle, almost invariably 
 endeavouring to influence others to accept the same Saviour. 
 Moreover it must be remembered that Mission influence 
 extends far beyond the circle of actual adherents — that pre- 
 judices have been modified, and confidence won from 
 multitudes who as yet give no sign of any personal leaning 
 to the Christian faith. 
 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of 
 earnestly prosecuting the work in this field. The vigour 
 and intellectual strength of a race which year by year 
 multiplies as the sand of the sea, asserting its right to 
 colonize in every quarter of the globe, the patient per- 
 severance and determination by which thoy triumph over 
 all obstacles, and their staunch adherence to whatever they 
 accept as the true faith, — these are qualities which make 
 every grain of Christian influence which can be brought 
 to bear on the Chinese doubly important. It is very certain 
 that they will continue more and more to overrun the earth, 
 exerting a very definite power for good or for evil ; there- 
 fore, were it only from self-interest, it behoves all nations 
 of the earth to help in conveying to China a knowledge of 
 “ the more excellent way.” 
 
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