applied to his passions rather than to his higher mental qualities." Puh yaou săng ke, Don't bear (or produce) matter" is the common Chinese expression for "Don't get into a passion."

Our English word godly, derived from the name of the Being from whom we hold mind and matter to have proceeded, docs indeed include the idea of what is right and just. It is, however, not a synonym of these two words, and is moreover little applied to the affairs of the world, political or social. But what do we say in English when we want to express that a thing or affair is of serious import,—not to be treated lightly-very important? Why, we say that it is very "mattery," that it is "most material." And to such an extent have materialistic tendencies and views become predominant in English life, that very correct writers apply our names of the ultimate material principle, matter and its paronyms, in a most incongruous way in the purely intellectual and moral regions of human being. So foreign to the Chinese is the identity we have admitted between matter and importance, that the attempt to indicate in their language that a thing or affair is "very important" by saying that it is "very ke" would convey to them no idea at all; while to Occidentals acquainted with the Chinese language the combination is so ludicrous that I am convinced every sinologue must smile as he reads what I have just said. In China the linguists and servants of the foreign merchants render the le by, reason, or "leeson" as they mispronounce it. "No got

leeson, It is unspiritual, unmental" urge they, when their masters insist on something unjust, harsh or absurd being done. The very likely reply is: "It must be done, it's most material."

I give another proof drawn from language. The Chinese equivalent to our words affair, occupation, business is sze,

and comparatively unarmed crowds of men called Chinese soldiers. So also a sergeant's party will in our streets disperse a crowd of comparatively unarmed rioters. Does this latter fact prove that the common Englishman is a coward?

which is also used as a verb in the sense to do, to be busy about anything. This word is compounded of the old pictorial character for the human hand, and the word "she historian," i. e. etymologically rendered it signifies: things which the hand of the historian might record, things worthy of record, recordable things. To this word sze another is frequently added in conversation, "tsing the passions" or, in a good sense," the common feelings of human beings." As formning a compound with sze in the signification of affair or business, this word tsing resembles our word "concern," that which affects or concerns man's feelings. Now when a Chinaman sees a number of people running to one point or looking toward one spot; or sees a man start suddenly or get angry; or marks an unusually dejected or a happy expression in the faces of his acquaintance, he asks: "Shin ma sze, What's the thing worthy of record" or "Shin ma sze tsing, What is the recordable thing and concern of the feelings." The Englishman under the like circumstances invariably asks: "What's the matter?" To his mind it has become natural to assume that curiosity, fright, anger, grief, and pleasure must be all caused by matter, the ultimate material principle.

In addition to the above proofs from that picture of national mind, national language, I could, did time and space permit, prove from their ethics that the Chinese are thorough idealists as compared with the English and French.

As above stated, M. Huc does not stand alone in his misappreciation of the Chinese character in this respect. One of our official sinologues Mr. T. F. Wade published in 1850 a pamphlet entitled "The Chinese Empire in 1849." This is a carefully prepared and informing notice of the palpable occurrences of the period which it deals with. But it is utterly misleading where it generalizes on the then political state of the country, and on the character of the people. It intimated, I may observe, that there was no "ground for apprehending that revolution was on foot within the Flowery

Land;" yet, in the province adjoining that in which those words were being written, that insurrectionary movement had been initiated, which speedily assumed dynastic importance, and which has ever since engaged the whole military energies of the Imperial government. It is however the judgments of the pamphlet on the national character that I feel called on here to notice and oppose. It describes the Chinese as nothing but "short-sighted utilitarians, industrious and gain seeking," and declares that the "national mind” has "become infinitely vicious"; a condemnation of a whole people rather too strong to obtain credence when once attention has been directed to its sweeping and exaggerated nature. As M. Huc speaking of the recorded teachings of Confucius tells us that they contain "un grand nombre de banalités sur la morale"; so Mr. Wade tells us that the Chinese philosophy is "puerile and unattractive when not tamely moral." Is it then wrong to be moral? Must we say of the Chinese, when they conduct themselves properly in the relations between man and man, that they are addicted to morality?

As both M. Huc and Mr. Wade are acquainted with the Chinese language, and as each of them has passed about the same time in China that I have, it will be satisfactory to the reader to have the recorded testimony of another living sinologue, who has, I believe, lived longer in the country than any of us. Speaking of Chinese training, Sir John Davis says-and many passages of similar purport may be found in his writings-: "The most commendable feature of their system is the general diffusion of elementary moral education among the lower orders. It is in the

preference of moral to physical instruction that even we might perhaps wisely take a leaf out of the Chinese book and do something to reform this most mechanical age of ours."

In fact the chief reason why the Chinese have made so little progress in the physical sciences is not a mental

incapacity," or "tenuity of intellect," of which Mr. Wade accuses them, but a disregard or even contempt for things material as opposed to things intellectual or moral. In war, which is more especially a fight of physical or material forces, they paid the just penalty of this undue contempt when they became involved in a contest with the possessors of the highest material civilization the world has yet seen: the British people.

CHAPTER VI.

HUNG SEW TSEUEN, THE ORIGINATOR OF THE REBELLION, HIS EARLY BIOGRAPHY AND HIS ADOPTION OF CHRISTIANITY.

HAVING, as I hope, in the preceding pages thoroughly cleared the ground, and provided against many misconceptions, which I know to be standing, I trust to be able to convey, in a comparatively small space, a clear idea of the nature and progress of recent insurrectionary movements in China. I do not, however, believe that the occidental reader will be benefited by any painful enumeration of dates and multifold narrating of isolated occurrences. Such chronicling is not effective political knowledge, but merely the preparation of matter from which such knowledge may be generalised and elicited. This preparatory operation I have laboriously performed for myself on all the data at command; but I shall in the following pages present the reader with conclusions rather than the materials for original investigation, and speak authoritatively rather than argumentatively. I must however give the warning that those who have skipped" the preceding will not understand what follows, though they may fancy they do so.

Hung sew tseuen, the originator and acknowledged chief of the present religious-political insurrection in China, is the third and youngest son of a poor peasant proprietor. He was born in 1813 in a small village of the Hwa district, about thirty miles north-east of Canton; where his father's few fields were situated. Having early exhibited a marked