THE ENGLISH

PRESBYTERIAN MESSENGER.

CHINA AND THE CHINESE.

(Concluded from page 176.)

Is a former paper we sought to do justice to Chinese civilisation; but, in praising their civilisation, we pay a tribute to their ancestors. For ages China has been almost stationary. Their literature is standing still. The perfection of style is to repeat the phrases and recite the truisms of their old philosophers; and, as common-place is classical, so vigour of thought and originality of expression are regarded as blemishes. Nor do the arts of life make progress. It would be difficult to name the improvement which they have originated since Europeans got acquainted with them. They are now content to tread the footsteps of their more inventive ancestors, and in the stagnation of their other faculties, it is the power of imitation which chiefly survives.† He who has seen one pagoda, one dwelling, one junk, will get no new ideas by exploring a thousand; and he who is acquainted with one Chinaman has seen the 400,000,000. An intelligent observer has summed up his impressions in the single sentence, "They are a large nation of very little men;" and, in studying their contrasted maxims and manners, their great swelling words alongside of their paltry performances, we have been frequently reminded of a horticultural freak to which they themselves are greatly addicted. They will dwarf an apple-tree or an orange, so that its trunk will be mossy with age, and it will blossom and yield a specimen of fruit worthy of any denizen of the orchard, and yet the entire affair is scarcely six inches high, and might be concealed under a quart measure. Of such hoary dwarfs the Chinese empire is one huge forest. Each citizen confined to the flower-pot of a traditional Pharisaism, there is no room left for a free and independent development; but whilst the spectator is alternately vexed and amused with | exhibitions of grey-bearded babyism and pigmy bravado, he is ever and anon startled by some display of innate ability-the solitary apple on the six-inch tree-which makes him long for the day when, the Lord of the Vineyard coming, he will, with his rod of iron, break in pieces these potters'

"Smith's Narrative," 1847, p. 41.

"Of their imitative talent a curious instance may be mentioned. China now supplies itself with Prussian blue. For this it is indebted to a Chinese sailor who caine to England in an Indiaman a few years ago, and watched the process at a manufactory in Southwark, without attracting any notice, or suspicion, and then went home and set up a similar work.”—M'Culloch's Geog. Dictionary, ART., China.

‡ "Impressions of China," by Capt. Fishbourne, R.N., p. 15.

No. 151.-New Series.

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vessels-the flower-pots of Confucius and his followers-and emancipate into a glorious burst of strength and freshness thy cramped and stunted sons, O land of Sinim.

Three religions prevail in China. The first of these was founded by Confucius, in the sixth century before the Christian era, and consequently at a period contemporary with Pythagoras. It is the religion of the literati and of the present Emperor; but there is no reason why it should be called a religion, except that its votaries believe in nothing besides. It consists of a few moral and political maxims, and evades the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. The practical Confucians are the atheists and the philosophic utilitarians of China. Next comes the Taou sect, whose founder, Laou-tsze, lived in the days of Confucius. Unlike the Confucians, who believe in nothing supernatural, the followers of Laou-tsze have peopled earth and air with all sorts of spirits and demons. They deal in magic, and are constantly consulting maniacs and others whom they deem possessed; and it used to be their great problem to discover the elixir of immortality. They are the fanatics of China. And then we have a sect, not of Chinese, but Indian origin, and far more popular than the other two-the Buddhists. The object of their ambition is to lose all personal identity, and be absorbed into Buddha. Contemplation and abstraction of mind are their highest enjoyments; and to lose all contact with earthly things-to live "without looking, speaking, hearing, or smelling," is the nearest approach to perfection. They are the mystics and ascetics of China. And perhaps there is nothing in the history of human religions so curious as the parallel betwixt Popery and Buddhism. Their priests are a separate order. They shave their heads, and are bound to perpetual celibacy. They live in convents and secluded abodes. They use, in their worship, rosaries, candles, incense, holy water, bells, images, and relics. Some of them, with emaciated look and abstracted faces, too enraptured to notice anything on earth-like St. Francis, St. Dominic, and other saints of the Romish calendar-receive divine honours from the wondering by-standers. They offer their prayers in a language which they do not understand-not Latin, but an old Indian dialect—and, instead of iterating hundreds of times "Ave, Maria," their "vain repetition is "O-me-to-Fuh." Like the Romanists, they pretend to miracles, and like them they have invented a purgatory with variations of their own. They allege that disembodied ghosts are hungry, and, in order to feed them, they levy large contributions on the faithful. And to crown the whole, they have a goddess, who is represented as a virgin with an infant in her arms, and whom they style "the Queen of Heaven." Amidst all their atheism and transcendentalism, the Chinese are overrun with images. "Their temples, houses, streets, roads, hills, rivers, carriages, and ships, are full of idols; every room, niche, corner, door, and window, is plastered with charms, amulets, and emblems of idolatry."*

There never was a high morality into which the living God and a bright hereafter did not enter as sustaining elements; and there never was a happy people who had not learned to look on this God as their own God, and this bright heaven as their own eventual home. There is no ever-present God, no sure and certain hope, in the creed of China; and consequently there are no high boundings, no mighty purposes, in the nation's heart. There is no motive of sufficient force to bring out the sublimer virtues, nor even strong enough to restrain the direst crimes. There is the same inspiration in the sayings of Confucius as in the maxims of a sainted Chesterfield; and there

*Medhurst, pp. 217, 219.

is as much moral potency in the tricks and terrors of Buddhism as in the jugglery of an African rain-maker. So far as the formation of character goes, their respective religions have no salutary influence on either refined or vulgar.

Industry, filial piety, and reverence for age, are the best of Chinese virtues ; but they are balanced by great infirmities and crimes. Like the Cretans, the Chinese are 66 always liars." Their ingenious stratagems, their painstaking dishonesty, their calm and consistent lies, have long defied the trader's sharpness, and baffled the vigilance of the "barbarian's" single eye.* And like the "slow-bellied " Cretans, the Chinese are a sensual people. Though generally subsisting on a diet sufficiently simple, it is not choice but necessity which makes them so temperate; and had they only the means of indulgence, the practice of the wealthier citizens shows that they would all be gourmands and gluttons; and the reader needs not to be reminded of the myriads who in opium seek a voluptuous death, or a daily-renewed insanity. We only add one other proof that, despite its apparent advancement, China is one of the earth's "dark places,”-it is "full of the habitations of cruelty."+ Amidst all their apathetic mildness and benevolent maxims, the Chinese are a hard-hearted people. In proof of this we might appeal to the studied hideousness of their legal punishments. We might refer to the fact that foundlings are picked up by speculators in mendicity, and their eyes put out, that they may wander the streets blind beggars, and bring their masters the gains of their misery. We might tell how the sick and the dying are carried to the squares and temples, and suffered to famish and expire unnoticed, whilst gamblers are playing cards and priests are chattering prayers beside them, in a land where, instead of sympathy, sickness awakens contempt and disgust. But any one who, on the one hand, recollects the frequency of infanticide in many of its towns and provinces, or who, on the other hand, recalls the wholesale butcheries perpetrated at Amoy and Canton by the victorious imperialists, a few years ago, without waiting to have his feelings harrowed by more dreadful details, will be prepared to concede that the tender mercies of these polished heathen are cruel.

The truth is, that in China the fear of God has faded from men's minds and left selfishness supreme. "No Chinaman ever yet thought that by stealing or bearing false witness he was offending against the King of Heaven or Buddha;" and even their vaunted politeness, as it now exists, is a mere sham, the hollow tradition of a better time. "The Chinese peasant has no notion of courtesy. He never makes you a salutation in passing; he never moves out of your way, or even deflects from his straight course, without looking to see whether you will get out of his way. The higher classes keep all their politeness for great occasions. For those occasions they have a

"Of these the readers of the earlier books of travels will remember too many instances. A scientific countryman of our own gives an amusing account of his own labours in search of a yellow Camellia, and the pains which Chinese gardeners took to make him believe that a white one was yellow."-Fortune's Wanderings in the Northern Provinces. "With all their civilisation, envy and malice, deceit and falsehood, to a boundless extent, with a selfish, ungenerous prudence, and a cold, metaphysical inhumanity, are the prevalent characteristics of the people of China. Their well-known backwardness to assist persons in imminent danger of losing their lives, by drowning or otherwise; the cruel treatment of domestic slaves and concubines in families; the torture both of men and women before conviction in public courts; and the murder of female infants, connived at, contrary to law, are the proofs I offer of the truth of the latter part of my accusation."-Memoirs of Dr. Morrison, vol. ii., p. 273. The existence of a few hospitals is some set-off to the above description, but does not disprove it.

G. Wingrove Cooke, p. 13.

ritual of ceremonies, and this ritual is a sharp satire upon their daily practice. As their stage plays recall the events of extinct dynasties, so their ceremonial politenesses are histrionic representations of extinct virtues. Humanity, self-denial, and that true courtesy which teaches Western nations that it is a part of personal dignity to respect the feelings of others, are in China dead in fact, and alive only in pantomime. The life and state papers of a Chinese statesman, like the confessions of Rousseau, abound in the finest sentiments and the foulest deeds. He cuts off ten thousand heads, and cites a passage from Mencius about the sanctity of human life. He pockets the money given him to repair an embankment, and thus inundates a province, and he deplores the land lost to the cultivator of the soil. He makes a treaty which he secretly declares to be only a deception for the moment, and he exclaims against the crime of perjury."

For the coldness, the cupidity, and the untruthfulness of Chinese character, there is only one remedy. It is that same specific of which we have so often witnessed the success amongst ourselves. There are cold and selfish natures in Europe; but when the Comforter comes and sheds abroad in them the love of God abundantly, they grow warm and expansive. There are spirits mean, sordid, and unscrupulous here in England; but when the grace of God visits them, bringing salvation, the churl becomes bountiful, and the base-born nature thrills with a heaven-descended chivalry. There are people here at home dishonest, false, and cunning; but when the great Transformer puts truth in their inward parts, they need the mask no longer, but with transparent mien and manly bearing they conciliate universal confidence, and make truth-speaking easier to all around them. It is this which China wants. To cure the canker of covetousness, it wants the pearl of great price. To cure deceit and fraud, it needs before its eyes the fear of God; the fear of a God as holy as he is all-pervasive and almighty. To fill the hollow in its heart-that chasm in its creed which occasions such a blank in its future-it needs to be filled with the hope full of immortality; and both that immortality and this little life, its vestibule, need to be filled with the presence of that Saviour who says to every believer, "Lo, I am with you alway." To create its life anew and usher it on the career of glory and virtue, to solve its doubts and heal its sorrows, it needs to know what Confucius could not tell: it needs to know the love of God in Jesus Christ: it needs to have the peace-procuring sacrifice and the peace-proclaiming Gospel brought home to its heart and conscience by the peace-imparting Spirit, the Comforter.

At the commencement of the present century China was almost unknown to Britain. A few had read the travels of Marco Polo, and Macartney's Embassy had attracted some attention; but in as far as they influenced the thoughts and actions of British Christians, that moiety of Adam's family might as well have had their dwelling in the moon. Sir George Staunton was the only Englishman who understood their language; and shut up in the double seclusion of their mysterious tongue and jealously-guarded territory, no Protestant had ventured to invade these self-contained celestials. The first who ventured was Robert Morrison, the son of a God-fearing Scottish elder at Newcastle; the grace which early touched his heart inclined him to volunteer on this hard and all but hopeless service. He went forth in 1807, and in 1813 he was followed by the Rev. W. Milne. Through their united exertions the Scriptures were translated, and by the industry of

* Wingrove Cooke, p. 11.

Dr. Morrison, who, in 1821, completed a dictionary in six quarto volumes, the way was pioneered for other missionaries.

But it is only within the last eighteen years, when the first Chinese war was concluded, or rather, perhaps, we should say, since the imperial rescript of 1845, which rendered it no longer a capital crime to profess Christianity, that the door has been at all open to the evangelist. But in that brief period how much has been accomplished! Through the care of the late venerable Medhurst and his colleagues, an improved version of the entire Scriptures has been prepared at Shanghai, and upwards of 1,000,000 of Testaments have been thrown off for circulation amongst the "inner people." There are now four chapels at Hong Kong, two at Amoy, seven at Canton, besides others at Ningpo, Shanghai, and Foo-chow-foo, where thousands of people hear the Gospel; and around most of the open ports extensive districts are open to the evangelist and the tract-distributor. Hundreds of Chinese children are under Christian training; and in Amoy, and the towns and villages adjacent, the church members have, in a few years, increased from eight or ten to several hundreds.

Nor is it a mere nominal profession. It would be well if, in our own favoured land, all showed an equally intelligent perception of essential truth. For instance, Dr. Medhurst quotes the following language of a convert endeavouring to illustrate the futility of human merit: "How can a man trust in his own righteousness? It is like seeking shelter under one's own shadow. We may stoop to the very ground, yet the lower we bend our shadow still is under us. But if a man flee to the shadow of a great rock, or of a wide-spreading tree, he will find abundant shelter from the rays of the noon-day sun. So human merits are unavailing, and Christ alone is able to save those who come unto God by him." Again, a native preacher, addressing his countrymen, thus urged the folly of idolatry: "You worship idols, and neglect the true God. Suppose a visitor comes into your shop, and bows to all the coolies around, but takes no notice of you, the master. You ask him, 'What brought you here?' 'Oh,' he says, 'I came here to pay my respects to the coolies.' Instantly you cry, 'Out, out with you.' And so God is much displeased with those who worship the creature and not the Creator." Nor will any one who heard Mr. Burns relate it, readily forget the boy's reply, so apt and so like one to whom the Spirit had shown the mind of the Good Shepherd, when his converted father was telling him that he was too young to make a public profession: "Oh, but the lambs are handy to carry." And many of them have stood the test of persecution and severe privation for Christ's name's sake. Children have been beaten by their parents, shopkeepers have been deserted by their customers, scholars have been turned out of the village schools, and farmers have had their crops plundered by their heathen neighbours; but, reviled and oppressed, buffeted and imprisoned, they have not only retained their constancy, but, through the good confession they have been enabled to witness, they have not unfrequently gained the respect of their unconverted countrymen. Nor is it a small tribute to their consistency and intelligence that, following in the footsteps of Leang-Afa, a considerable number are now associated with their European teachers in the work of instructing and exhorting their brethren at home; whilst others have been sent to act as evangelists amongst the Chinese emigrants at Singapore, and in the gold-fields of California and Australia.

In the history of China another great crisis is at hand. The present summer is not likely to pass without throwing that mighty empire more open than ever, and very anxious is the question, Who shall enter in? Christ or Mammon? The Protestant, with his Bible; or the Papist, with his monks,