Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

have been exaggerated. In consequence of the practice of polygamy, and other causes, females have not attained that equality in the estimation of the other sex which prevails in Christian Europe; still they appear to enjoy a considerable degree of liberty and influence in their families. Any man in China may have as many wives as he chooses, but the number is generally regulated by a prudent regard to circumstances and station of life. The marriage ceremony is a very simple one, and is entirely of a civil nature, religion having nothing to do with the contract. Filial piety and affection is very strong among this people, and is cherished long after the decease of parents and relatives. Ancestral tablets are kept in their houses and ranged in the temples, and great care is taken in embellishing, and frequent visits are made to, the graves of their kindred. There are generally no fixed places for the interment of the members of a community, but each individual or family selects the site of their grave, according to their fancy. The sides of hills, and the most beautiful spots in valleys are thus often chosen, or gardens or groves adjoining their own residences. Their graves are generally planted with the choicest flowers. A pleasing domestic scene is thus described by Mr. Smith:

:

"The wife came out after a little time, and having modestly paid her respects at a distance, soon retired into an inner room. The old mother was, however, more officious, and brought out her two young grand-children smartly attired. She seemed to be the presiding authority in the family; and it was pleasing to observe the extreme deference universally paid to this elderly class of females. All the inmates of each family appeared to be united in the closest bonds, and to bring together their earnings to a common fand, from which they defrayed the expenses of supplying their daily wants. The old lady of the household acted in the useful capacity of nurse, house-keeper, and adviser, and exercised over the members of the family a general control, which was never resisted. Her word was law, and her influence appeared to be paramount. The teacher was a poor man, earning only six dollars a month from tuition. He seemed, however, contented; and the old lady especially thanked my companion for his kindness to her son. When a grandmother dies, the wife then comes into her full share of influence and the position which she holds in the family circle presents the social condition of females in China, as an anomalous spectacle of mingled degradation and independence."-P. 414.

The Chinese afford a striking moral spectacle among nations. The civilization of many thousand years has done its utmost for them. It has tamed and sub lued the fierce passions, and introduced all those domestic arts which tend to make life agreeable; while the elements of education have been very generally diffused, and a mild and peaceful philosophy, not devoid of the

VOL. VII. NO, XIV,

2 D

general precepts of morality, has been engrafted in the minds of the people; yet nowhere is public and private virtue at a lower ebb. This assertion is not made with regard to any particular locality, or any one grade, but applies to the whole mass of society, from the highest official down to the lowest member of the community. It shows the effect of a utilitarian philosophy, and a moral code of expediency, without the element of some higher and nobler aim to guide and direct the grovelling and ever-wavering mind. Thus, for instance, Confucius teaches, that speaking the truth is a right and proper thing; but then he allows that children, on some occasions, may tell a lie for the good of their parents. Once admit a qualification of this kind, and a parent may think it no great harm to tell a lie for his own benefit, and thus the tide of falsehood flows abroad. No doubt, Confucius holds it a very detrimental thing for society, that one person should murder another; but then some zealous advocate of the "greatest happiness principle," may discover, that by cutting off in the bud-that is, by simply murdering one-half of his babes, he will have a larger support for himself and the survivors. In short, we have exemplified here the result of all those delusive speculations which would teach men to live for their mere appetites and pleasures alone, instead of living for another and a higher state of existence.

In many respects China, as now situated, holds out a most inviting field for missionary labour. The Government has granted a full religious toleration. Missionaries of all denominations have access to the five free cities stipulated in the treaty of peace with Britain. One written language is common to the whole of this immense and populous empire, and already more than one complete translation of the Scriptures has been made. into this language. The educated portion of the people are fond of reading, and receive with great eagerness books and tracts circulated amongst them. This desire of information exists among the higher mandarins, as well as among the lowest class of literati. The Chinese intellect is by no means deficient in acuteness and sound common sense; and the existing religions having but slender hold of their minds, they are but little preoccupied with or prejudiced in favour of any particular doctrines. On the other hand, their temperaments are cold, worldly, and unexcitable. Yet not a few have listened to and become converts to the Christian faith; and He who hath destined this faith ultimately to prevail throughout all the earth, can open up and quicken the hearts even of the coldest and most sceptical.

The first Christian missions to China were undertaken by the Jesuits, at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. They met with various success, were sometimes tolerated, and

Christian Missions to China.

419

sometimes persecuted, according to the dispositions of the reigning monarchs. At present there are 170 Roman Catholic missionaries in the empire, and they are said to have about 200,000 adherents. But Mr. Medhurst observes that there is nothing in the Catholic worship, or in the character of the priests, calculated to give the Chinese a very exalted idea of Christianity. In the former, they witness graven or molten images, processions, tinkling of bells, candles, and incense, exactly resembling their own religious rites, and, in the latter, a number of ignorant and idle monks, professing celibacy, but with indifferent moral characters, shaving their heads and counting beads very much after the fashion of the Budhist priests. A few Catholic missionaries still make converts of the lowest and poorest Chinese, who occasionally appear at the churches, and receive, each of them a small donation of rice, for which service they are sometimes called, in Portuguese, "Rice Christians." The first Protestant mission to China was sent out by the London Missionary Society in the year 1807, and amongst the earliest missionaries was the celebrated Dr. Morrison, who, after a labour of ten years, succeeded in mastering the Chinese language, so as to compose a dictionary of it, and a translation of the Scriptures into the Chinese tongue. Within the last few years a great impulse has been given to missionary enterprise in China. Medical missionaries, both from Britain and America, have gone out, and hospitals have been established in Canton, Shang-hai, and some of the other cities, where relief has been afforded to many thousand native patients; and every opportunity has been taken, at the same time, of circulating tracts and expounding the doctrines of Christianity. These medical hospitals are highly prized by the Chinese. The art of medicine is at a very low ebb with them, and the gratuitous relief so extensively afforded, has been duly appreciated by their naturally kind dispositions, and has tended much to soften the asperities arising out of a national defeat. According to a list given by Mr. Smith, there are at present forty-four missionaries in the different towns along the coast; and others are on their way, both from England and America.

"The present lamentation," says Mr. Hamilton, in his spirited little tract on Chinese Missions," is, that China does not contain the power which can evoke the highest goodness or allay the most abandoned vice. The Emperor cannot do it,-the ancient laws cannot do it, the maxims of the sainted Confucius cannot, -the magic of Taouism cannot, the miracles of Buddha cannot, and we may add, the Madonna cannot,-the priests with their Latin prayers cannot,-the monks who are to sail from Marseilles this summer, with their cargo of crucifixes and beads and dead men's bones, cannot. But the Gospel can! The Gospel can

open the fount of tenderness in bosoms where it has forgot to flow. It can pluck the deadly drug from the opium-smoker's skinny hand, -it can wrench the infatuating dice from the gambler's delirious clutch,-like the Egyptian princess it can snatch the drowning babe from the whelming stream, and rescue the outcast infant from the vagrant's blinding steel :—and it can put truth in the trader's inward soul, and give new meaning to his language,-it can make the Chinese yea be yea, and their nay be nay. All this the Gospel can effect; and, with the help of God, all this the Gospel will. And it is the true ennobler of the affections and sublimer of the feelings. Let but its gladness thrill through spirits which in the apathy of ages hardly know what gladness is, and with what a grasp of earnestness will brother seize the hand of brother! With what a look of admiring affection will the Christian husband recognise that Christian partner, whom he now despises as a cipher and oppresses as a drudge! And with what starts of wonder will the quickened spirit view the glorious things of creation, and the blessed things of life issuing in rapid resurrection from under the tomb-stone of old custom, from their long burial in the grave of ancient commonplace! That Gospel is mighty; and let but its clarion-peal-let but its jubilee-reveille echo through the sleep of these enchanted ages-let its omnipotent blast dispel the nightmare of these supine but uneasy years, and the millennium of misery end in the vision of a Saviour present and Divine ;-and oh! what a shout of power will bespeak the nation born! what a song of praise that proclaims the three hundred millions alive again!"

[ocr errors]

ART. VI.-THORNTON'S History of British India, Vol. VI.

THIS volume has come out at an awkward juncture, when the events to which it relates have lost the freshness of news and not acquired the interest of history. Mr. Thornton might have taken "Incedo per ignes" for his motto, and so indeed might we-for we find the task of reviewing to be only second, in point of difficulty and delicacy, to that of writing a history of contemporary transactions. The influence of the feelings under which we suspect this volume to have been written, becomes from the first perceptible in the author's hanging as it were in the wind, and loitering through a hundred pages over questions of no very exciting or enduring interest, instead of rushing on, as was his wont, to tales of war and battle.

Though we cannot follow exactly in his footsteps, and may spare room for lengthened notice of only one of the topics touched upon in these preliminary pages, we think it well to mention

[blocks in formation]

what they are, that our readers, if they wish for it, may know where to seek for information.

The volume opens with the controversy in 1833 between the Court of Directors and the Board of Control, when the latter threatened to send the former to jail, but thought better of it. The particulars of this most amusing case are given in the first twenty pages, and may be recommended to the attention of all who question the use of having a permanent body of independent gentlemen, like the Court of Directors, interposed between our Indian empire and the ever-fluctuating administration of the mother-country.

The next matter noticed is the removal of Lord Heytesbury in 1835, on the sole ground of contrariety of party views, from the post of Governor-General; and here we would call attention to the remark of one of the most accomplished members of the Court, cited at page 37, that "India was of no party, and the Court of Directors were considered to be perfectly independent of all political influence."

The account commencing at page 74, of the attempt made at Lucknow in 1837, on the death of the King of Oude, to defeat the arrangement resolved on by our Government with regard to the succession, is well worthy of perusal, though justice is there hardly done to the conduct of the Resident Colonel Low; who, while separated from all support, and surrounded by a furious mob, some of them with drawn swords and others with pistols pointed at his head, trying in vain to intimidate him into performing obeisance to the lad whom they had seated on the throne, preserved his serenity amid the most imminent danger, and thus extricated himself and saved the palace and the city from becoming the scene of massacre and pillage.

If any of our readers have ever been induced to attend the meetings occasionally got up in London by the agents of the Ex-Rajah of Sattarah, they will be able to appreciate the justness of the following remark of Mr. Thornton on that chieftain's case :

"Of all the powers of India, that of the Mahrattas is the least calculated to call forth honest sympathy; and a foreign apologist can scarcely be listened to with patience, because it is scarcely possible that he should be believed to be sincere. If the misguided princes of the East, who lavish large sums in the purchase of European agency, were aware of the precise value of that agency, they would soon withhold their useless liberality, and retain in their coffers the wealth they so dearly prize, but which in such instances they dispense so foolishly." -P. 93.

We come now to the only one of these preliminary topics upon which we can afford to enlarge, and that is the Press.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »