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THE GLORIOUS LAND
SHORT CPIAPTERS ON CHINA, AND
MISSIONARY WORK THERE
BY THE
YEN. ARTHUR E. MOULE, B.D.,
Archdeacon in Mid-China, and Missionary of the C.M.S. in Ningpo,
Hangchow, and Shanghai; Author of "The Story of the Cheh-Kian
Mission," " Chinese Stories, 1 " China as a Mission Field, 1 etc.
WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY,
SALISBURY SQUARE, E.G.
1891.
1991
LONDON :
PRINTED BY PERRY, GARDNER AND CO.,
FARRINGDON ROAD, B.C.
128349
NOV 9 1988
m
M
PREFACE.
Two calls, like trumpet notes, have recently startled
the Churches in Christendom ; the one a demand for
at least a thousand new workers to be sent within
the next five years to China ; the other an appeal
specially addressed to the Church Missionary Society
to send a thousand new labourers speedily into all
heathen and Mahomedan lands. China monopolises
the first appeal, which was one result of the great
Mission Conference held last May in Shanghai ;
and China claims a large share in the second
appeal, which was one result of the recent Keswick
Convention. It is to emphasize these appeals that
this small book has been written. May God use
it to His glory, in the hastening of His kingdom !
Meanwhile, louder and clearer and more persuasive
far than human appeal, should not our Lord s
command and promise be ever ringing in our ears,
the very last words of that beloved voice which fell
on this lower air as He ascended up: " Go, teach
all nations. Lo! I am with you always."
CONTENTS.
PAGK
CHAPTER I. THE GLORIOUS LAND 7
,, II. THE GREAT REBELLION 13
,, III. THE GREAT REBELLION THE STORM
GOING DOWN 23
,, IV. THE GREAT REBELLION AFTERMATH
OF THE HARVEST OF WOE ... 31
,, V. FLOOD AND FAMINE 41
,, VI. RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN CHINA . . 51
,, VII. FOUR SCENES IN CHINESE EVANGELI
ZATION 69
,, VIII. UNEXPECTED AGENCIES 85
,, IX. CHINA OPEN THE FUTURE .... 95
,, X. ALTER EGO A WAKING DREAM . 105
THE GLORIOUS LAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE GLORIOUS LAND,
C
each, and
specimens
had sent
Island of
wards we
with half
HINA was first seen by
me early in August, 1861.
One hundred days of
baffling calms, of howling
cyclones, and of strong fair trade
winds, had brought us in the good
ship Solent from the Downs to the
Straits of Formosa. As the light
airs above and the uncertain
currents below drifted us to and
fro, we caught glimpses of the far-
off coast sleeping under the hot
summer sun. Presently we ran
amongst a large fleet of fishing-
boats with five or six men in
with eager interest we watched these
of the race to which God, we trusted,
us. Soon we sighted the prominent
Video ; and then with a long tack east-
caught the monsoon again, and sailed
a gale of wind round the Saddle Islands
THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and the Chusan Archipelago, and, picking up a pilot,
we reached at last Woosung and Shanghai, in days
from port to port. What was this great land like
whose bare and rocky coast we had seen from afar ;
and whose rich alluvial plains round the mouths of
the River Yangtse now caught our gaze ; flat and
featureless save for the brilliant green of the rice-
fields and the darker hues of the cotton crop, and
the willows and bushes lining the countless water
courses ?
Twenty-nine years have passed since then, and my
acquaintance with the country and the people makes
me wonder less and less at the title given to China
by the Chinese, " The Glorious or Brilliant Land."
China is often called the Flowery Land. This is
not exactly a misnomer, for the hills and plains of
China are fair and fragrant with both wild and
garden flowers. The chrysanthemum and the peony;
the oleafragrans (changing for a few short weeks the
air, heavy with the evil odours of earth, into the sweet
ness of Eden) ; the azalea, red and yellow, covering
the hills for thousands of miles ; the sheets of wild
but almost scentless white and blue and red violets
carpeting the banks of river and canal, all these belong
to China. But they are not sufficient to give her the
distinctive name of the Flowery Land ; for European
wild flowers are sweeter and fairer than those of
China, and the Himalayas are more bowery and
beautiful than Chinese hills. Her true name is
rather the Glorious Land ; the same word in Chinese
meaning both flowery and glorious. And glorious
the land is indeed, with its wide boundaries and
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 9
enormous area. The region of Western China alone,
that magnificent new world now fast opening to ex
ploration and commerce, a region comprising the
three provinces of Szchuen, Yunnan, and Kweichow,
is larger by 20,000 square miles than Great Britain,
Ireland, and France, and contains 80,000,000 inhabi
tants. The gigantic uplands of Thibet, from which
the rivers Brahmaputra, Irawaddy, Mekong, Seluen,
and Yangtse all take their rise, own China s supre
macy ; and the " roof of the world " in Nepaul is in
theory, at any rate, under China s jurisdiction. Her
outer rim is as long in mileage as the overland route
from North China to England. Glorious she is in
her great rivers and streams ; in her mountain ranges ;
in her fruitful plains ; in her countless walled cities
and towns (though these look fairer far from a dis
tance than on nearer inspection) ; glorious in her
love of literature, and in her promotion of education.
Glorious, too, may China be called in her history.
She rose into life and power before all the other great
monarchies of the world; she has outlived them all ;
and now in her extreme old age she is renewing her
strength, and is destined to form one of the great
triumvirate, the Anglo-Saxon race, the Russian, and
the Chinese, which before the next century has gone
far on its course, will perhaps divide the whole world.
It is one of the most interesting features of China s
history to notice how civilised she became at an early
period ; how stationary or retrograde she has been
since then; and how now, during the last years of the
nineteenth century, she is slowly but with increasing
momentum opening her gates for the entrance of
io THE GLORIOUS LAND.
European science and civilisation. It is hard to
believe that the city of Hangchow (not one of China s
most ancient cities it is true, but founded 1,300 years
ago, and with temples dating from 1,600 years back)
became famous in the distant West before the close of
the Middle Ages; European merchants, travellers, and
missionaries having come to view it. Marco Polo,
born about A.D. 1250, describes it as "without doubt
the noblest and finest city in the world." The great
street was paved throughout with stone slabs per
fectly fitted together, and nine cars abreast were
wont to roll along it. Carriages, rare even in
Europe at that time, delighted and surprised by their
numbers and convenience the Western visitors.* All
this glory vanished, and with changes of dynasties,
decay and ruin fell on the magnificence of the great
city. But it lives on ; it has risen from the well-
nigh complete destruction thirty years ago during the
T aip ing Rebellion, and possibly before this century
has closed, its streets may be alive again with
wheeled vehicles ; or, at any rate, the scream and
roar of the "iron horse" and "iron way" maybe
heard.
Fancy is almost paralyzed when looking back over
these centuries ; and when imagining the lives of
the generations which have passed away; their
laughter and their tears ; their evening and morning
hours ; their constant cry and aspiration, " Who
will show us any good ? " the storms which have
gathered and burst over the land ; the blue arch
of the sky when the storm had passed ; flood, and
* " Notes on Hangchow, Past and Present," Bishop Moule.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. n
drought, and famine ; fruitful seasons, abundant
food, and gladness ; and in front of them all death
and the future state. How fascinating, how appalling
is the retrospect ! It affords, however, some slight
relief to the mystery if we remember that, besides
the perpetual witness to the eternal power and God
head of the Creator uttered by the yet voiceless
utterances of the heavens, and by all " things that
are made," Christianity has four times entered
China with the offer of mercy more or less articu
lately given.*
First came the Nestorians under Olopun (A.D. 635),
in correspondence with Syrian Asia, as attested by
the great Nestorian Tablet at Singan-fu, which itself
dates from the eighth century. Olopun brought
with him " The True Scriptures," "The Sacred
Books," and they were translated in the Imperial
Library. These churches flourished till the end
of the Mongol period, about the middle of the
fourteenth century. Secondly, and before the final
disappearance of the Nestorian Churches, in the
thirteenth century, came the Roman Church
under the lead of the Franciscan Bishop, John
de Monte-Corvino ; and this Bishop, to his honour
be it spoken, signalized his advent by the trans
lation into Chinese of the New Testament and
the Psalms. Thirdly came the Jesuits, under
Matteo Ricci (1582), followed by others only second
to him in eminence Adam Schaal, Trigault, Em
manuel Diaz, men distinguished for scientific skill
* " A Brief Account of the Work of the British and Foreign
Bible Society for and in China." (Canon Edmonds.
12 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and devotion to their work, but using science rather
than Scripture as their chief weapon. Finally, all
too late, arrived the Missions from Churches of the
Reformation, eighty-three years ago, under Morrison ;
but not in any numbers or energy for a quarter of a
century after that noble pioneer.
But let us take a more practical method than
a mere musing retrospect, and contemplate the
Chinese nation as it exists to-day ; and try to pass
in review the population of the land. Well, estimate
the population at the lowest suggested number,
250,000,000. Let the nation march past you in
single file, allowing two seconds for each individual
to flash by and be gone. Let them pass on un
interruptedly and without rest day and night ; and
fifteen years will have run out before the solemn
procession has ended. Or if you take the more
probable estimate of 360,000,000, then twenty-
two years will scarcely suffice, and a generation
will be fast dying and dropping out of the ranks,
and a new generation will be advancing through
infancy and childhood, before the mighty march of
the original army is over !
CHAPTER II.
A CHAPTER IN CHINESE HISTORY.
THE GREAT REBELLION : CAUSED AND ABANDONED
BY CHRISTIANS.
" Unless another convulsion like the T aip ing Rebellion
should occur (and this is by no means an impossibility),
throwing over tradition bodily as did the " First Emperor "
(B.C. 220), it will be a long time before China takes that place
in the world to which her numbers, resources, and high
civilisation justly entitle her." Quarterly Review, "Western
China," July, 1890.
THE glorious land which I have briefly described in
my first chapter has been torn and devastated and
convulsed all down the stream of time by dynastic
changes, by civil war, by inroads from hostile tribes,
by flood and drought, and by famine and pestilence.
The Yellow River, " China s Woe," to which I
allude below, may be regarded as a native type of
the nation s history. That great waterway possesses
vast capacities for blessing ; its very name suggests
the rich deposit which it leaves all down its tortuous
course. But though destined to be a fertiliser and
reviver of the land, it continually bursts its bounds
and runs riot over the lower level of the surrounding
country. At certain long intervals it becomes
extremely erratic, and finds its way to another
14 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and more ancient river-bed, leaving its more recent
course dry. Then, influenced by laborious engineering
works, or by some natural impetus of its own waters,
it goes back again to its deserted bed ; sweeping in
these transits past cities which are saved sometimes
with extreme difficulty from destruction by shutting
fast and damming closely the massive city gates.
Similar has been the chequered course of the
nation. With boundless capacities for joy or woe ;
with intellectual power of no mean order ; with a
civilisation of a comparatively advanced type ; with
industries and natural products leading to far-reach
ing commercial relations ; and with a climate of
wonderful variety, yet the Chinese nation has closed
chapter after chapter of its long history in blood, in
desolation, and in woe.
One of these chapters I select for brief narrative,
one of the most recent, and one in which we touch
very closely the great subject of Christian influence
and responsibility and duty. For the T aip ing Re
bellion, which I propose briefly to describe, was in a
certain sense caused and then abandoned by Christen
dom, and its history forms accordingly a solemn and
warning lesson as to the extreme danger of failing to
take advantage of opportunities.
My own personal recollections of the Rebellion as
it affected Cheh-Kiang and touched Ningpo, would
be too long for the limits of this small book. I con
fine myself chiefly to a brief history of the move
ment in its origin and triumphant rise and progress,
till it touched Western skill and power, and withered
away.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 15
Only let me record here, with fervent thanks and
praise, which the flight of years will, I trust, never
chill, my remembrance of the wonderful deliverances
and mercies of those days. It may encourage future
missionaries in China to know how during the crisis
of the Rebellion which we witnessed at Ningpo
(1861-62), and during the long days of unrest and
confusion which succeeded that crisis, God interfered
to protect us. So wonderful was the Providence, so
exactly timed the interference, that it seems in looking
back to have been God s own hand visibly stretched
out to save. And in our darkest hours our Lord was
never out of hearing, nor His Throne of grace hard
to reach. I shall never forget the deep and fresh
meaning which the Litany conveyed to all Christian
hearts, Chinese as well as English, during those days
of danger and alarm. " In all time of our tribula
tion," and in what seemed to be " the hour of death "
at hand, the good Lord delivered us.
Hung-sew-tsuen, the recognised leader of the Re
bellion, was born seventy-seven years ago, in a
village near Canton. The family is said to have
attained to great distinction in former times, and one
of the ancestors of Hung-sew-tsuen fought as gene
ralissimo of the Mings (the last native Chinese
dynasty) in their final struggle with the usurper, and
the memory of this may have stimulated him in his
hostility to the Manchoo Tartars. His father,
though headman of his village, was only a poor
husbandman ; but his son, having shown marked
ability, was carefully educated, and distinguished
himself at the preliminary examinations. He failed,
16 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
however, repeatedly at the final trial for his degree ;
no mark of ignorance or incompetence, indeed, when
one remembers that for the degree of siu tsai (" ac
complished talents," as the lowest of the four literary
degrees is called), there are on an average 1,000 com
petitors at the district cities, and only 30 prizes ;
whilst for the second degree of Kyii jin (" promoted
man ") at the provincial capitals there may be from
10,000 to 15,000 competitors, and only 90 or 100
degrees conferred. Hung-sew-tsuen, however, would
not be comforted by this reflection; and his frequent
failures, attributable as he was persuaded to gross
bribery and favouritism, unsettled and dissatisfied
his mind. Some accounts, indeed, represent him as
successful in obtaining both the first and the second
degrees ; but as continually barred from office by
corrupt and prejudiced superiors.
In 1833 he met in Canton a strange-looking
foreigner preaching ; probably it was Morrison him
self, for Morrison did not die till the year 1836.
Shortly after this he received from Leang-a-fah,
Morrison s faithful, estimable, but poorly-educated
convert, some Christian books and tracts of his own
compilation. These books were laid aside for some
years. In 1837 (four years later), after another
failure in the examinations, he fell ill for forty days,
and saw visions which were ever after quoted as the
cause and the explanation of the great Rebellion. A
Divine being appeared to him, so he asserted, with
the command to destroy the idols and the imps
that is the Manchoos but to spare the people.
Twenty-four years later, at Ningpo, we heard the echo
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 17
of those imagined voices. " Don t fear," said the
T aip ing soldiers, as they rushed through the Ningpo
streets with drawn swords ; " we fight only with the
imps and the idols you people need not be alarmed."
The war of 1842 opened the eyes of Hung-sew-tsuen
to the power of the strange foreigners whom he had
formerly seen in Canton. He bethought him of his
long-neglected books, and when he began to study
them he seemed to find a confirmation of his visions
in their pages.
In 1844 his friend and first convert, Fung-yan-san,
an earnest, simple-minded man, helped him to found
in Kwangsi a " Society of Worshippers of God,"
giving up idolatry, and renouncing the glory and
pleasures of this present evil world. These men
were accustomed to meet for worship by night on
the summit of lofty hills. In 1847 Hung-sew-tsuen
applied for baptism to Mr. Roberts, an American
Baptist Missionary at Canton, who later joined
his early enquirer when he occupied Nankin.
Mr. Roberts, however, deferred him, as the hope
of Mission employ was obviously one motive in the
application. Meanwhile the new society attracted
the suspicion of the authorities, partly because of
their zeal in destroying the idols ; and in 1850 the
little band had to stand on their defence against
Imperialist soldiers sent to attack them. They were
successful in their first fight, and having definitely
now taken up arms, the news spread like wildfire ;
large crowds flocked to their standard, the standard
of the Dynasty of " Great Peace " ; and " every one
that was in distress, and every one that was in debt,
B
i8 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and every one that was discontented, and bitter of
soul, gathered themselves together." Defence
turned into attack ; and in three short years they
fought and burnt their way through Kwangsi,
Hoonan (" Hoonan has been trodden in dust and
ashes," says a contemporary Imperial decree),
Hupeh, and An-hwei up to Nanking, which they
stormed March igth, 1853, and occupied for ten
years as the centre of their power. Twenty thousand
Manchoos were slaughtered in the sacking of this
city. At this time the total T aip ing strength was
estimated at from 60,000 to 80,000 trusted adherents,
divided into five armies of 13,125 men each; besides
100,000 at least of non-combatants, doing duty as
porters, trench diggers, and artificers. The whole
movement was doubtless largely swollen by re
inforcements from the " Triad," " White Lily," and
other secret political societies. And it is worth
observing that the accession of these motley crowds,
most of whom were innocent of all religion, or
devoted adherents of the God of War alone, may
have exerted a powerful influence in neutralizing
and at last obliterating the religious element in the
T aip ings themselves.
In 1854 they advanced in two streams of war one
from Ngan-King, one from Nanking northward till
within twenty miles of T ien-tsin, where they were
checked in November by Tartar horsemen. Retiring
slowly, and capturing city after city in Chili, Shan
tung, Shansi, and Honan, they were beleaguered in
Nanking by large Imperialist forces. Here they
were hard pressed, and crippled also by the terrific
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 19
fights amongst the subordinate kings in Nanking,
when 30,000 people were slain by violence and
stratagem. The whole scene reminds one vividly of
the literally suicidal conflicts within the walls during
the last siege of Jerusalem. In March, 1860, the
T aip ings broke suddenly through the cordon ; and
then followed the most brilliant achievements of
their long campaign. They advanced rapidly on
Hangchow ; stormed the outer city ; sacked it ; and
after three days of pillage and bloodshed, described
to me by eye-witnesses as a time of unspeakable
horror, they evacuated the city, wheeled round,
passed at a distance the Imperialist host lumbering
heavily in pursuit ; reached Nanking ; swept away
the Imperialist forts and encampments ; annihilated
for the time the Imperialist power in that region;
and 70,000 Imperialist soldiers joined the rebel
force. Soochow also, with a large part of Kiangsu,
fell under their sway at this time, till the great
Gordon came on the scene, with his colleagues Li
and Tso, of whom the first still survives as the
Viceroy, Li Hung Chang. In 1861, two auxiliary
armies, one apparently from Soochow and one from
the S.W., moving down the Tsien-tang river, invaded
the fair province of Cheh-Kiang, determined, if
possible, to secure their long-felt want of a port
and friendly intercourse with Western powers, which
seemed impossible at Shanghai, from the hostile
attitude assumed by foreigners there. They suc
ceeded. They stormed Ningpo on December gth,
1861, with brilliant dash and courage ; and having
entered into an engagement with the Consuls and
20 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Naval Commanders of the port to respect foreigners
and abstain from reckless bloodshed, they were un
molested and undisturbed during five months. But
their inability to establish any firm and equitable
government, their growing idleness and hostility,
and the paralysis of legitimate trade, caused by their
occupation of Ningpo, inevitably led to a collision.
They refused Captain Roderic Dew s offer of equitable
terms ; they challenged him to a fight, and after a
fierce encounter they were driven out on May loth,
1862. We returned from the north bank of the
river, where we had taken refuge, to our Mission
home and work within the city in June ; but the
enraged T aip ings hung hovering round us for many
weeks, burning and sacking Tsz-ch i, twelve miles
off, and ravaging the great Sanpo plain, thirty miles
away. Gradually driven back to beyond the .thirty
miles radius, suddenly, on September i8th, the news
startled us of the approach of a fresh force nearly
100,000 strong, through the southern passes. The
city was fast shut up ; the people trembled with panic
and despair ; the danger w^as imminent, as the great
circuit of the city walls, five miles in length, was
defended merely by small detachments of blue-jackets
and marines from the British ships in the harbour.
But just as the need was sorest, reinforcements from
Gordon s army were sent down by Admiral Hope,
who followed himself the next day. The siege was
raised, and the T aip ings were beaten in the open
field ; slowly once again they were forced backwards,
and Shaoushing, after desperate fighting, was captured
x>n, March l.5th.. They retired beyond the Tsien-tang,
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 21
and held out in Hangchow for nearly twelve months.
At length they abandoned the great city in the night,
and the war-cloud cleared and passed away from the
desolate^ and more than decimated province of
Cheh-Kiang. The terrors of those days may be under
stood in part from one personal recollection of my
own. I was itinerating some years later in the hills
ten miles from Ningpo. It was a lovely April after
noon, and the lower slopes of the hills were red
with azaleas. I pointed them out to my Chinese
companion. " Ah," he said, " do you see that hill ?
When the T aip ings made their last attack on
Ningpo, the people here offended them in some
way ; they attacked the town ; all fled to the hills ;
and there on that hillside I saw myself dead men,
women, and children lying as thick as the flowers
to-day."
After their repulse in Cheh-Kiang, the T aip ings
swept through Kiangsi into Fuh-Kien ; but Nanking
having fallen, and the basis of their power being
overthrown, and Hung-sew-tsuen having committed
suicide, the great Rebellion passed away. From
first to last at least thirteen out of the eighteen
provinces of China proper felt the power and the
blighting influence of their presence.
"From Canton to the Great Wall," wrote the
North China Herald, Jan. 3rd, 1857, "from the
shores of the Pacific to the mountains of Thibet,
there are no provinces where there have not been
disorders : while in most there is now open
rebellion."
Samuel Mossman, in his story, " The Mandarin s
22 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Daughter," speaks of an area of 726,000 square
miles representing 1,200 miles of latitude and 600
of longitude as traversed by the T aip ings, and of
10,000,000 lives as sacrificed in the struggle.
Was this, then, merely a chapter in China s long
history specially stained with tears and blood ; a
blast of exceptional fury in the long storm of the
" changes and chances " which has raged over this
mortal life of ours ever since sin came in ? Was it
a chapter closed with no interest, save in the mere
narrative, for Christian readers ; a howl and shriek
of the wind which came and went, and which we
hear no more ?
CHAPTER III.
THE GREAT REBELLION THE STORM GOING DOWN.
COMPARATIVELY little, from personal observation, is
known of the religious character of the T aip ing
Rebellion during the years which elapsed between
their first taking up arms and their contact with
foreigners at Nanking, at Soochow, and at Ningpo.
Probably the very fact of taking up arms, professedly
for the violent and compulsory propagation of the
religion of Him who died a violent death voluntarily
to save men from ruin, gradually blighted, as in
such cases generally takes place, and soon well-
nigh destroyed the early Christian element. I do
not touch here upon the question of the lawfulness
of rebellion and revolution. It was the mixture
of the two movements religious reform and political
revolt against magisterial oppression w r hich probably
ruined the enterprise. " They are robbers and
Christians; they are Christians and robbers," said
an irate Chinaman to Sir G. Bonham in 1853.
And yet one cannot refuse to recognise the con
spicuous courage (I had almost written faith) of
the T aip ing leaders in daring to link on to a
popular political movement the profession of the
religion of the unpopular foreigner. This was felt
at certain stages of the movement very strongly ;
24 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and in 1854 a body of 2,000 men from the south,
coming to join the T aip ings, went over to the
Imperialists rather than become compulsory Chris
tians. It is a phenomenon worthy of prolonged
study, that an able and powerful man, setting up a
Chinese dynasty in opposition to the alien family
then reigning, and supported by a large fighting
army, should think it good policy, and likely to serve
his lofty aspirations, to proclaim as his creed the
religion of that alien Western nation which had,
even during the very progress of the Rebellion, so
weakened and humiliated his country by disastrous
and, as many think, dishonourable wars. I cannot
expound the phenomenon ; but it holds out the hope
that when accompanied " not by might, nor by
power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts,"
Christian truth is proclaimed throughout China s
wide provinces, the Gospel will spread with swift
conquering power, and the hold of the people on
their old faiths will be as easily loosened as it was
in these terrible T aip ing days.
Another circumstance should lead us to yield just
meed of praise to the T aip ings. They earnestly
desired the friendship of foreigners ; yet in one thing,
at least would they agree with the hated Manchoos
whom they were extirpating namely, in the avowed
intention to annihilate the trade in opium, so dear in
those days to foreigners.
In its earliest stage this remarkable movement was,
so far as religion is concerned, Protestant in Christian
doctrine, worshipping one God, waging war against
image worship, and observing Sunday ; and opium
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 25
smoking and spirit drinking were ranged under in
fractions of the Seventh Commandment. Abundant
reasons are hinted at in these tenets and principles
for the malignant hatred with which the movement
was regarded by many critics both ecclesiastical and
mercantile. But the comparative apathy with which
the Protestant Churches of Christendom viewed the
movement is not so easy of explanation. There was a
proposal set on foot, and partially carried out in
1857-8 to raise funds for the printing and distribution
of 1,000,000 New Testaments in China, agitated
and convulsed by a semi-Christian movement. But
when the earthquake of the Rebellion was over, con
spicuous amongst the ruins were to be seen, as I saw
with my own eyes, " the idols utterly abolished " by
Chinese hands. The temples were burnt and thrown
down, and not a whole image was to be seen
in city or country for hundreds of miles, save where
by secret heavy bribes some special temple had been
spared. No tongue was raised any more in defence
of idolatry and in praise of idols ; and it was ad
mitted with a sad smile of perplexity and despair
that gods which could not keep their own heads on
their shoulders could not well be expected to pre
serve their worshippers from murder and rapine.
The poor people delivered from the terrible incubus
of the T aip ing inroad, and the equal horrors of an
Imperialist rally, recognised with warm gratitude
their deliverers in Christian England and France and
America ; and with their old beliefs thus shattered
and disgraced, they were ready to listen to the
missionary s voice telling of a better hope, and of an
26 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Almighty Saviour and Deliverer. Why, then, I ask,
and no answer has yet reached me, why was this
supreme opportunity let slip by the Church at home?
It was thus let slip ! The Churches in America were
paralysed by their own momentous life-and-death
struggle ; but in England there was no sufficient
reason for the melancholy and well-nigh appalling
fact that between 1862 and 1864 ^golden days for
occupying the land for our Lord no reinforcement
from the Church of England, and scarcely any from
other Christian bodies reached the waiting land.
Soon, too soon, idolatry raised its head, and reap
peared from the ashes; temples were rebuilt, and idols
set on their pedestals again and repainted. That oppor
tunity passed by, and in such a form will probably
never return ; for now that missionaries are, thank
God, pouring into the land, as they should have
poured in thirty years ago, they find idolatry re
habilitated and strong.
I have dwelt thus far chiefly on the effects of the
T aip ing Rebellion ; but what shall we say to the
movement itself ? What would have been the state
of China now, were she ruled by a Christian dynasty,
and by statesmen heartily friendly with Christian
Powers ? What might have followed, we cannot but
exclaim, had the strange movement possessed wiser
guides and counsellors ; had they kept the rule laid
down in the Proclamation of 1851 never to go into
the villages to seize people s goods ; had the Bible
been introduced as the text-book in the Public
Service Examinations, bringing with it the study of
the Book in its original languages, as T. T. Meadows
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 27
anticipated in 1857 > na( ^ tne distinct elevation in the
status of woman which, for a time, was observed in
Nanking, spread through the land ; and had the lust
of rapine and the intoxication of success been re
strained ? The arrival of Hung-jin, cousin of Hung-
sew-tsuen, and formerly an evangelist at Hong-Kong
in Mission employ, exercised in 1860 a favourable
effect for a while, both at Soochow and in Nanking.
One clause in Hung-jin s proclamation, issued by
him as the Kan Wang, or " Shield King " of the
Dynasty, runs in hopeful lines : " Foreigners are
never to be called by opprobrious names. Mission
aries are to travel and to live and to preach every
where. Railroads and steamboats, fire and life
insurance companies, and newspapers, are to be
freely introduced for the good of China." Street-
preaching was allowed and was carried on in 1860
round the palace of the " Heavenly King" in Nan
king, and amidst crowds of the Chang-maou, or
" Long-Haired," as the rebels were called, from the
fact of their abandoning the long queue and allow
ing their hair to fall unplaited and unkempt.
Much hope was entertained by some of those who
visited Soochow and even Nanking, of ultimate good
out of abounding evil. But the evil for the time
triumphed. The Shield King himself could not re
sist the force of the tide, and in his latter days he
was guilty of gross cruelty and violence. The opinion
of a sober and at first favourably prejudiced observer,
the late Bishop Russell, was that the rebels at
Ningpo had no religion, were worse than the heathen,
and lacked well-nigh wholly those two bright
28 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
features in Chinese character, education and
politeness.
A few brief reflections on the history and character
of the movement will fitly close this narrative of
the T aip ing Rebellion, (i) The retrospect, even
at a distance of thirty years, is sufficient to make one
shudder at the extreme horror of civil strife. The
T aip ings advancing in triumph, massacred ruth
lessly the people who made the slightest show of
resistance, or who refused to abandon the tail and
the tonsure. The Imperialists rallied and drove back
the T aip ings, and they too in the line of their victori
ous march massacred savagely all found with unshaven
heads, or who were known to have submitted, how
ever unwillingly, to the T aip ings. No wonder that
in these awful days of dilemma suicide abounded,
I have seen myself many ponds in San-po which had
been filled not long before with the bodies of women
who had flung themselves in as the only hope of
escape. In Hangchow from 50,000 to 70,000 are said
to have perished in one week, and a large number of
these from suicide. God in His mercy ward off
from China the repetition of such scenes of horror !
(2) It is possible that this narrative may throw
much light upon the ill-disguised opposition to Chris
tianity manifested so often by Chinese officials and
by the literary class generally. In the year 1858,
San-ko-lin-sin, the Imperialist Cavalry leader, and
in 1860 the Governor of Kiang-si, memorialised the
Throne against Christianity, and stigmatised it as
revolutionary and in league with the rebels. This is
hardly to be wondered at since the gigantic T aip ing
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 29
movement began under a Christian profession, and
Chinese soldiers and civilians could hardly be ex
pected to understand how, even under a political
regime the most galling and oppressive, Christianity
has been emphatically loyal to the powers that be.
" Custom to whom custom is due ; fear to whom fear ;
honour to whom honour. Fear God ; honour the king."
" Christianity," says Mozley, " gave room for
national feeling, for patriotism, for that common
bond which a common history creates ; for loyalty,
for pride in the grandeur of the nation s traditions,
for joy in success." Yet it can afford to abjure all
carnal weapons in its conquering march. " In its
own world war would be impossible ; but it is no
part of the mission of Christianity to reconstruct the
order of the world."
This is abundantly true, but the Chinese did not
know it, and so one could not but welcome the roar
of English guns on May loth, 1862, that first stroke
of the death-knell of the Rebellion. It afforded
a complete answer to the sneer, " You Christians
are in league with our oppressors, the destroyers of
our dynasty, and with no reconstructive power of
their own." "Strange, if so," we replied, that
Christian powers should have driven out their
brethren and allies by force of arms."
(3) But some of my readers may be disposed to
ask why England and France took sides at all in
China s internecine struggle, and whether the expul
sion of the T aip ings from Ningpo and their chas
tisement round Shanghai can be justified by any
principles of international morality.
30 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
There was every inducement on the side of Eng
land to help the T aip ings. The Imperial Govern
ment had been guilty of distinct treachery in 1859,
causing thereby the repulse at the Taku forts. But
England had secured a treaty of amity with the
ruling dynasty, and she declined to be swayed by
feelings of revenge into an unworthy infringement of
this treaty, in effect if not in form, by aiding the
would-be destroyers of the dynasty.
Wherever it was possible, as for instance in the
first capture of Ningpo by the T aip ings, England
stood aside and permitted fair play. But when her
own treaty rights of trade and peaceable residence
were invalidated, and the lives and property of her
subjects on Chinese soil were imperilled, what else
could England do than interpose in assertion of her
legal rights and privileges ?
I have discussed these points thus briefly in order
to meet by anticipation objections which may rise in
the minds of my readers. Two truths at any rate
arise and shine upon us as we close the narrative :
" Not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of
the Lord " alone is His kingdom set up on earth.
But it is the great duty of the Church of Christ to
be ever on guard and on the watch to enter in and
possess in her Master s Name lands thrown open for
the Gospel by the conflicts and revolutions of
nations.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT REBELLION AFTERMATH OF THE
HARVEST OF WOE.
ONE of the most remarkable after-influences of the
T aip ing rebellion was the long succession of
rumours which summer after summer have agitated
the people in Cheh-Kiang, and in other far-off regions
of the empire.
These rumours will probably diminish rapidly in
number and intensity so soon as railways traverse
the land. A great main line from Hankow to
T ien-tsin had already been surveyed, and sanctioned
by Government ; and the able and energetic Viceroy
of Canton had been transferred to Hankow expressly
with the object of pushing forward this great work.
Suddenly the commencement of the railway was
countermanded, apparently with the intention of
executing the whole by native capital, skill, and
steel. The delay, however, is in all probability only
temporary ; and but a natural pause before the
initiation of an enterprise which will produce a real
though peaceable revolution in the land.
The establishment of newspapers and of the
telegraph has already done much to dissipate the
clouds and mists of misconception and superstition.
32 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
But in past times these rumours have done much
to hinder and to blight evangelistic work ; and
the danger has not yet passed away. The
narratives which follow will not, therefore, be with
out interest in connection with Mission work in
China.
The natural history of some of these rumours
is a study well worthy of attention. Supposing,
as was the fact in the cases I am about to mention,
that there is no foundation at all for the rumour,
how is it first set going ? who first invents it,
and why? How came this lying inventor to collect
a credulous audience, and to speak so persuasively
as to set the ball of nonsense rolling, till, as in
North and Mid China, the rumour, growing and
expanding in its course, traversed and agitated and
convulsed vast stretches of country ? And what
accounts for the sudden silence which often falls on
the mischievous clamouring tongues ? The most
plausible explanation is, that these stories are the
work of secret insurrectionary societies with which
indeed in many parts of China society is literally
honeycombed. The minds of the people are excited
by these stones, and are prepared for any startling
surprise. Then, if in addition to alarm and unrest,
foreigners can be involved in suspicion on account
of these magical arts, and onslaughts can be followed
by hostilities between the Imperialist forces and
these foreign powers, the supreme opportunity for
insurrection will have arrived. All these symptoms
occurred in the series of rumours which disturbed
China during the summer and autumn of 1877 ;
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 33
and at that time war was imminent, in consequence
of the treacherous murder of Mr. Margary. It was
a strange but significant coincidence that Ningpo
was agitated by precisely the same rumours more
than thirty years before, about the time, that is,
of her capture by the British forces in the course
of the second great war between England and
China.
One rumour was to the effect that persons were
crushed and suffocated when in bed by paper-men
which were sent aloft by magical influence, and
descended gradually, increasing in size, and changing
into different forms, now appearing as a weighty
black cat, now as a yet heavier and more oppressive
buffalo. At Su-chow, in the province of Kiangsu,
one of the first victims is said to have been a woman,
who struggled violently against the supernatural
oppression, and springing out of bed, discovered on
the floor a paper-man. She fastened it to the
room door ; and the next day a Buddhist priest
appeared, asking for money. The woman refused
to help him. " Well, if you have no money, give
me the paper figure on your door upstairs," he said.
She went upstairs, tore it off the door, cut it to
pieces with scissors, and brought it down to the
priest ; but the priest was dead. This story set the
place on fire ; and the people were so convulsed by
combined terror and anger that, when the rumour
swept into Hangchow, two men were seized on
suspicion of magical arts in a market-town near
the great city, and were burnt alive in the market
place. I passed through that busy town two months
34 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
later ; and even then the agitation of the people was
a most alarming phenomenon.
The wave of rumour and excitement swept down
from the north-west, and crossing the river Yangtsze,
touched Huchow on the great Lake ; it shook and
convulsed Soochow; and with no little anxiety did we
in Hangchow await the approach of this mysterious
visitation. At length, on Saturday afternoon, Sep
tember loth, 1877, we heard that the wave had
entered the great northern suburb of the city, about
five miles from my house ; and at 10.30 p.m., on Sun
day, November nth, as if by a bound, it appeared
close to my own door. It had been a day of specially
laborious duty; and tired with the day s work,
I was pacing to and fro in my verandah, when I
heard first of all a strange suppressed cry, as of one
suffocated and struggling to be free, in the lane
outside my garden wall ; then followed an unearthly
scream, with a sound as of horses trampling on
a boarded floor ; then the sounding of gongs, and
loud shouts, and running to and fro. " It has
come," we exclaimed. "The danger, if danger
there be, has found its way to our very doors."
It seemed the wisest plan to brave the risk of
suspicion, and to go boldly out and see if we
could help the people in their terror. So, carefully
unbarring our gate, I sallied forth with my Chinese
servant, and elbowing my way through the crowd,
I asked what was the matter. " Oh ! he has come,"
they replied in manifest terror. " Who has come? "
I asked again. "The man, of course the paper-
man. He has come and gone." "Well," I replied,
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 35
" never mind the paper-man, for I have my doubts
about him ; but where is the man on to whom you
say he, the paper-man, fell ? "
They led me at once into a silk weaver s house ;
and there, in the middle of the room, panting for
breath and gesticulating, stood a young man. He
told me that he had been in bed only a few minutes
when the curtains were thrown aside, and a heavy
weight seemed to fall on him. I asked him what he
had eaten for supper ; I told him that as his pulse
was high, and his skin feverish, I thought it pro
ceeded from nightmare, caused by a heavy meal, and
following on a day and long evening spent in talking
about these rumours. " At any rate," I said, " what
can be the use of gongs and shouting ? In any fear
or anxiety cast all your care on the great God
of heaven. In the words of your own proverbial
language
" Great Heaven adore, so far, so near ;
High glancing gaze, low stooping ear. "
He thanked me, and went to bed again ; and I too
retired, but not to rest ; for all through that sultry
night, again and again, we heard from the neigh
bouring houses the same unearthly scream, as one
after another was smitten by the curious delusion.
At the same time, but a little earlier in the
summer, the tail-cutting rumour agitated Hangchow
and large districts of Central China. This strange
and in some senses inexplicable phenomenon was
more obviously connected with political intrigue than
the paper- man rumour described above. The tail,
or long plaited queue of the Chinese, is, in a sense, a
36 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
badge of conquest, having been imposed upon the
conquered race by the Manchoos ; and the clipping
off of the tails would be taken by the people as an
intimation from secret political societies that the
day of their deliverance from the Manchoo rule was
at hand. The story was that, without a twitch or
jerk, or any sound of shears or scissors cutting
through the thick plaits of the queue, it would be
severed and fall by some unseen agency ; and terror
was added to the magic by the rumour that the
man who lost his tail would die within three days
at the nearest, or within 300 days at the furthest
limit. Two persons in connection with our own
Mission in Hangchow lost parts of their queues
without any apparent cause. In the one case a
catechist was kneeling in his cottage at prayers;
and when he rose from his knees, greatly to his
astonishment and the dismay of his family, two-
thirds of his tail lay on the floor. We suspected
a schoolboy who was in the cottage at the time
of having mischievously severed his teacher s tail.
But if he was guilty of this freak, sudden vengeance
fell upon him. The next day he called at my
house, and returned at once to his father s cottage.
It was a brilliant afternoon in midsummer ; he saw
no one in the three hundred yards which led to his
home ; he felt no check or touch ; but when he
entered his father s door to his amazement his tail
also was gone. Both man and boy appeared in
church the next day, and the whole congregation
was perplexed by these strange occurrences; but
I trust we all found rest and peace in the love
and wisdom of Him whose hand controls and brings
THE GLORIOUS LAND.
37
to confusion the devices and magic of men. During
many days in Hangchow, especially when the rumour
began to gain credence that the foreign missionaries
were in league with the plotters and the magicians,
men would tightly grasp the end of their tails held
over the shoulder, or wind them securely round
their heads,
and sidle
across the
streets so as
to avoid
our touch.
Meanwhile
Bud dhist
and Taoist
priests im
proved the
opportunity
by the sale
of special
charms, and
by the ar
rangement of
long proces
sions with
gongs and lanterns all the night through, and till
the sun was actually up, for which they expected
liberal fees and donations to their temples. The
sound of the gong was supposed to alarm and
put to flight the workers of these magical arts.
Upon which, in Su-chow, every gong was sold;
and in Hangchow the price for a small hand-gong
rose from two shillings to fourteen. Umbrellas also
CHINAMAN WITH QUEUE WOUND ROUND THE HEAD.
38 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
were opened indoors as well as in the open air to
intercept these falling paper-men ; and the umbrella
shops were speedily well-nigh emptied of their whole
stock-in-trade. A week s darkness darkness that
could be felt was prophesied to commence on
September i8th, 1876 (the sun, however, on that
day shone with unclouded splendour). Insurrection
was to break out on September 25th, 1876 (but the
day closed in peace). Meanwhile the students for
the great triennial examinations, 10,000 and more
in number, were crowding into the city from the
whole of the agitated province. They came up full
of the rumours and of the consequent panic with
which their country homes had been shaken. At
all times ready for mischief, and causing anxiety to
the mandarins during their stay in the great city,
they came now fired with animosity against the few
missionaries (the only foreigners) residing in the
city. It was a time of grave alarm and serious
danger ; and very special prayer was offered up for
God s gracious help and the interposition of the
might of His arm. Suddenly and unexpectedly the
answer came. The high mandarins, alarmed at
the agitation in the country, issued simultaneously
four proclamations, signed and sealed by the Viceroy
of Nanking, by the Governor of Cheh-Kiang, and by
the Prefects of Su-chow and Hangchow, commanding
the people to " be quiet, and do every man his own
business ; attempting nothing rashly." The rumours
were denounced as foolish imaginations. The crime
of their circulation and of magical arts, if they
existed at all, was laid to the charge of the " White
Lotus " political society, one of the numerous illegal
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 39
combinations amongst the Chinese. The beating of
gongs was prohibited, and it was expressly stated
that the whole affair was " totally unconnected with
the European sects of the Lord of Heaven (Roman
Catholic) and of the Holy Religion of Jesus (other
Christians)." Thus spoke the Governor of Cheh-
Kiang; and the Viceroy of Nanking, with no
preconceived prejudice in favour of Christians,
but rather the reverse, added in his official utterance
the assurance that Christian Chinese were as orderly
and law-abiding as any under his jurisdiction.
Where were these proclamations posted? Con
spicuously on the great gates leading to the vast
examination enclosure at Hangchow, with its broad
central street ; and its lanes running at right angles
on either side ; a hundred sentry boxes or cells in each
lane, with a seat and a table-board in front ; the whole
giving accommodation for 10,000 at least. Through
these gates the long stream of students must of
necessity pass on their way to their weary session of
three days and three nights, thrice repeated, in those
close cells during the most unhealthy season of the
year; and as they passed, they read, to their astonish
ment and chagrin, the complete vindication of the
honour and integrity of those foreigners, and of that
religion which they had denounced and longed to
exterminate.
So in very truth did God " make the wrath of man to
praise Him, and the residue of wrath He restrained."
It must be remembered that in addition to the dis
traction of mind and positive danger caused by
these spasmodic outbursts of superstitious folly,
Missions in China have to contend with a chronic
40 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
state of superstition ; an atmosphere from the folds
of which it is hard wholly to lift the minds even of
sincere converts. The foolish story, which not long
ago prevailed from Pekin to Canton, and frightened
into unbelief and hostility countless hopeful in
quirers, was to the effect that at the death of con
verts the foreign missionary insisted on being present
in order to remove the eyes and liver of the departed,
which, by a refinement of ironical folly, were traced
to Western lands, compounded with opium, and sent
back to bewitch and poison the living. I have heard
and seen myself over and over again the fatal effects
of this story (possibly an extravagant guess at the
accompaniments of extreme unction) ; but it seems
scarcely conceivable that an intelligent people like
the Chinese should be thus swayed by insensate
folly. Another powerful engine in the great adver
sary s hands for the hindrance of interest and inquiry
is supplied by the prevalent belief in witchcraft ; and
oftentimes after a Christian s sun has set in peace,
leaving a bright afterglow of example and consistent
conversation, a witch has been hired by some opponent
of Christianity. She pretends to call up the departed
saint, and to ascertain from the spirit how he fares
in the unseen world. With groans and laments in
the mouth of this lying agent, the dead Christian
is made to bewail his folly, for he can obtain no
admission into the ancestral temple by front or back
door ; and misled by this lie, relatives and friends
turn back and walk no more with us.
CHAPTER V.
FLOOD AND FAMINE.
SINCE the great earthquake of the T aiping Rebellion
China has suffered repeatedly from drought and
famine, and these appalling calamities have affected
not remotely the work of evangelization. In some
quarters the frequent repetition of appeals for
charitable help from Western lands creates the
impression of the unreality of the suffering, as if
China were in a chronic state of flood. It must be
remembered, however, how vast the area of the
Empire is, and the peculiar arrangement of its
water-ways. Even local and occasional disasters of
this kind affect great multitudes of people. The
sudden rush of water down the slopes of the
Dorset hills, near Cerne, last summer, whether
caused by water-spout or thunder-shower, endangered
the lives of only a few school-children out for their
picnic. In China, many villages would have been
overwhelmed. The bursting of the great reservoir
at Johnstown, in America, was an appalling disaster
indeed, but in China, with her dense population, and
fewer appliances for relief and rescue, the terror and
the destruction would have been tenfold greater.
The Yellow River, " China s Woe," as it is called,
though able, with right direction and control, to be
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 43
China s blessing, is never to be trusted. Freshets,
caused by the melting of the snows in the moun
tains, and by the summer rains, break down again
and again embankments raised by the patient and
persistent toil of the Chinese, and inundate vast
stretches of the low-lying country on either side. A
series of artificial lakes, in addition to the natural
lakes along its course, is suggested by engineers as
necessary to hold and retain the overflow, and prevent
its devastating march over the land.
Terrific must be the scenes accompanying some of
these floods. I witnessed, on a very small scale, the
possibilities of flood in China a year ago, when spend
ing a short time during the extreme heat of summer
on the hills near Ningpo.
The Chinese believe that the dragon is the " Rain
King," and to the sceptical on this point they would
say, "Observe his tail." And there, sure enough,
when a water-spout hangs over the sea, or more
rarely moves over the land, let down from the bulging
cloud above, sucking up and lashing in mad sport
the water below, or breaking loose and rushing in
havoc across the fields, you see the dragon s tail.
The Dragon King s lineage is thus traced : A toad
resides in a hill, and expands there in size and
wisdom. At certain special seasons, great torrents
of rain fall to commemorate and signalize the coming
event. The hill-sides slip in long lines of stone and
sand ; the toad escapes, and passes out to sea on the
flood to compete in "the examination for the degree
of dragon ;" so literary are the Chinese, even in their
most foolish superstitions. The name for landslip
44 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
at Ningpo is " the escape of the frog," or "the escape
of the dragon." This outward sign of the mysterious
Rain King s evolution was conspicuous in the course
of the flood which I describe below, for the bursting
springs and rushing avalanches of stone ani sind
furrowed the hills on every side. The weather was p^ -
feet for Chinese summer days during the first three
weeks of August. The cuckoo was still in full song
during the morning and evening hours. (I have heard it
sing indeed as late as August 2ist, after which it flies
southwards, and winters in the island of Formosa.)
And though the flowers had nearly vanished under
the extreme heat, the green of the hills, covered as
they were with brushwood, with dwarf-oak, and fir-
woods, and groves and forests of feathery waving
bamboo, refreshed and rested the eye weary
with the hot glare of the cities. One afternoon we
reached, after a hot long climb, the last slope of the
fine Sih-san, or Pewter Hill, 2,000 feet above the
sea. From the point where we rested we could see
afar many of the stations on the Ningpo Mission
field. There lay the great city itself, with 400,000
souls ; a brown blotch on the shining landscape, and
out of the brown mass rose, like a dark pencil, the
pagoda, 140 feet high. The reaches of the river inland
and seawards wound like silver threads, and below
the city like a broad silver ribbon. There lay the town
of Tsz-chi, or " Mercy Stream," nestling amongst
the northern hills. There ran the sea-line, with
the gleam of the sea and the outline of the Chusan
archipelago beyond. There slept in the sunshine
the Loh-do-gyiao region, where not a few souls, as I
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 45
describe below, have been turned from darkness to
light, and from the power of Satan to God. Face
southwards, and the lake shines like a shield where
the hills, which encompass it, slope and dip in their
undulations. Dzang-ko lies there in the centre of
the plain. Tsong-ts eng, Da-le, Gao-san, Zah-ling
(names, however grotesque to the English reader,
full of the hopes and sorrows of evangelization to
the Ningpo workers) are all in sight from the
summit of Sih-san, and beyond the northern hills we
can imagine Kwun-hae-we and Ming-ngoh-dziang.
A sudden squall prevented our reaching the actual
summit ; so we started homewards along the narrow
ridge of the great spur of Sih-san, which after
a three miles stride reaches the Ningpo plain near
O-K6.
The plain looked beautiful and luxuriantly fertile
in the evening light. The second crop of rice was
beginning to ripen ; and was gilded now by the
beams of the setting sun. Presently, on the banks
of the mountain stream in the higher valley, we were
enchanted at finding whole sheets of the " bride
groom flower," scarlet and white.
Three days passed ; and the whole of this rich plain,
thirty miles long and twenty wide, stood four feet
deep in water. The hills, so peaceful that afternoon,
were torn and scarred in a hundred places by land
slips ; and the beautiful bowery course of the moun
tain stream, which had been bordered with flowers,
was unrecognizable amidst the mass of great boulder
stones and sand and trees prostrate and barked
white by the rushing torrent. The catastrophe
46 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
came on slowly. First some early showers on the
morning after our walk ; showers with bright in
tervals between. Then steady and continuous rain,
which after some hours swelled a little the mountain
streams. Then a quiet half-day of overcast and
ominous skies. Then wind and thunder and sheets
of rain ; and so portentous a gloom at mid-day, so
dense a darkness, that our messenger from Ningpo
having reached the hillside with extreme difficulty
from the flooded plain, dared not move, but cowered
under a rock the whole afternoon and following
night, as he could not see his way. Amidst this
gloom, and above the roar of wind and thunder, we
heard from time to time a crashing sound, which we
thought to be only some louder thunder-clap, but
which was in reality the rush of the avalanches of
stones close to us. Suddenly the deeply-cut water
courses on either side of the house lost all control
over the streams, which now fell like a cataract upon
us, and began to undermine the outer walls. Part
of the wall fell inwards, and we were obliged hastily
to abandon that wing of the house. Saturday
evening closed upon us in gloom. We could not
but feel gravely anxious at the very near and great
danger. Another six hours heavy rain would
probably have caused the entire collapse of our
dwelling, and the sweeping of its ruins into the
valley below. I thought at one time, when the
danger seemed nearest, that we might be obliged to
escape higher up the hill, rinding our way as best we
could through the storm and darkness to a shed
erected over a Buddhist priest s tomb. I had often
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 47
sat there with our children on spring and summer
days, enjoying the view of the great plain and the
mountains beyond. I thought that we might manage
to cower under this poor shed till daybreak. The
very proposal seemed, however, to add to the terror
of our situation, and to our children s alarm. It was
well that, through God s mercy, we did not attempt
the walk ; for between us and that tomb an avalanche
of earth and sand and trees and huge boulder stones
had fallen right across the pathway; and if it had not
overwhelmed us, it would at any rate have com
pletely blocked the passage. At eight o clock,
through God s mercy, the rain abated ; and at
midnight the perpetual dropping from the eaves
had ceased. A keen northerly breeze sprang up,
and as we watched through the night, the air, for
August, felt bitterly cold. I woke early on Sunday
morning and mounted the hill at the back ; and
turning my gaze towards the plain, it looked like the
open sea ; one great expanse of water stretching from
the foot of the hills on which I stood to the southern
hills twenty miles distant ; the taller trees alone
traced some of the waterways, and the situation of
the towns and hamlets. There was no sign of life
for some hours. Then at last we saw a few boats
moving about in deep water, where fields and paths
and bridges should have been seen. As the day
advanced, and the water began slowly to subside,
partly under the blast of the northerly wind, partly
by the gradual current setting seawards, we saw a
green gleam spread over the floods. It was the
luxuriant rice-plants which had been wholly sub-
48 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
merged, and were now slowly reappearing as the
waters fell.
It was impossible for three days to procure boats
to escape from our precarious situation and reach
Ningpo. Had we started a few hours earlier our
route would have been over instead of under many
of the bridges. Along the twelve miles of canal
we saw again and again the water like a mill-
race rushing into the poor people s shops and
houses. Yet, though up to their knees in water,
and everything soaked and spoiled by the damp,
they were plying their trades with patience and
sometimes with merry laughter. There was no loss
of life in the plain, but amongst the hills the sudden
outburst of the flood caused many deaths. In one
beautiful upland village, " Under Stream," as it is
called, seventy were drowned out of a total popula
tion of only 120. The village lay near the head
of a narrow valley, above and by the side of
which wound the course of the mountain stream.
Secure even amidst the roar of the waters after the
great thunderstorms of a hundred summers, the
village was not alarmed till, like a Niagara wall,
the mass of the flood poured down upon them.
The people clambered on to the roofs of their
houses, or climbed in haste the trees near; but
seventy corpses lay along the valley the next day.
Whole families were drowned together ; amongst
them the relatives of some of our Christian converts.
Two of the survivors of that awful catastrophe
have been baptised during the present year ; and we
cannot but hope that God will bring mercy from this
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 49
great judgment. Far into the hills every bridge was
carried away and hurled down the roaring stream.
On many of those bridges I have preached in past
years, and I remember well the shrines filled with
guardian deities which in many cases crowned them.
All went down before the flood. The " images,"
things which, as the Hebrew word implies, "may be
rolled about as senseless logs or lumps,"* were
trundled down the stream. Our Mission chapel at
Gaosan was partly carried away ; but the inner
room, with the Lord s Table, was unhurt.
No such flood had occurred in those beautiful hills
within the memory of man. Yet this was but a
small local catastrophe, and in no sense comparable
with the tremendous devastations of the Yellow
River.
Famine is the sure accompaniment of these
greater devastations ; for in those cases the food
supply is swept away, and the seed for next year s
sowing as well; whilst the ground is in many regions
rendered unfit for cultivation by the drift and silt of
stones and sand. And famine was within a few days
march of us in Kiangsu and Cheh-Kiang, shortly after
the flood which I have described above. The later
rice was half-ruined by continuous rain, and the poor
people actually went about the fields in boats tying
the heavy sodden rice-ears to high sticks, so as to lift
them out of the water and give them a chance of
drying. In this way by patient and persistent toil,
about three parts in ten of the rice and cotton were
saved. Another week of rain, however, would have
* See in Jeremiah 1. 2, Cambridge Bible for Schools.
D
50 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
ruined the whole ; and prices were rapidly rising to
famine rates when a northerly gale sprang up, and
clear weather, through God s mercy, set in.
One effect of these great calamities is to lead some
people to regard famine relief, and philanthropic
alleviation of suffering, as the one great outlet for
Christian charity towards China ; to the obscuration,
for the time at any rate, of the yet greater and more
imperative charity of "saving souls alive."
On the other hand the generous and ready re
sponse to China s appeals for temporal relief has
produced from time to time a profound impression
both on the rulers and people. In the words of one
of our Consuls during the great famine of 1877, " the
heroic courage of the almoners of the charity of
Christendom amongst the famine-stricken Chinese
has done more to break down the walls of prejudice
and opposition than years of diplomacy could have
done."
And as a consequence of this a prejudice in favour
of the religion of these philanthropic foreigners has
been in a measure created.
Surely the brief sketch which I have given of one
of the least of " China s woes" may sound like a
trumpet call to us, urging us to send to the Chinese
the message of salvation before a greater flood comes
" and takes them all away."
CHAPTER VI.
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND PRACTICE IN CHINA,
THE singular and perhaps unique phenomenon meets
us in the study of Chinese religious thought and
profession, that the same individual will himself be
lieve and practice, or approve of the practice in his
family, of all the three great religions in the land,
Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
In a curious tract, entitled " A Guide to True
Vacuity," written evidently by a Taoist, whilst " the
way " (Taoism) is praised, and its cultivation incul
cated, the true decorum of " the school" (Confu
cianism) is held up as all essential ; and at the same
time the recitation of Buddha s name is strongly
recommended. " The canonical books of the three
religions," says this anonymous writer, " are truly
mysterious/ *
And the spectacle is often to be seen of a rich man s
funeral being conducted by a posse of Buddhist and
Taoist priests, with their differing vestments and
ritual ; the departed having been without doubt a
Confucianist.
Does not this phenomenon emphasize the necessity
* See Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society, vol. xxiii., 1888. Article by Bishop Moule.
52 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and the solemn duty laid on each one of us of telling
or sending at once to these poor dreamers as to the
Way, the Truth, and the Life, the knowledge of Him
who in Himself gives them the great three-fold
Reality ?
I proceed to give a brief account of each of these
religions.
I. CONFUCIANISM.
" Of heaven and hell I have no power to sing ;
I cannot ease the burden of your fears ;
Nor make quick-coming death a little thing;
Nor bring again the pleasures of past years."
The Earthly Paradise.
The word of the truth of the Gospel." Col. i. 5.
An orderly and systematic digest of Confucian
teaching is beyond the scope of these brief chapters.
Literature, whose first germs lie certainly 3,000 years
back, would have to be described and quoted for such
a purpose.*
I can offer merely a sketch of some of the lead
ing features of this great system. It is difficult to
call it a religion ; and yet it is the only thing like a
respectable and authorised religion in China. Re
ligion it is not, for it may be regarded as a supreme
effort at being " good without God, and moral with
out a religion." Yet so inextricably is the bent of
the human mind " bound up " with the idea of God,
that Confucius himself is worshipped ; and the wor
ship of ancestors, which Confucius found fully estab
lished before his day, and which he confirmed and
*Dr. Faber s "Systematic Digest of Confucian Doctrine,"
page 28.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 53
blessed, satisfies in ordinary Chinese minds some of
the cravings of this religious tendency. The dead
are not merely canonized ; they are deified, as the
powerful instruments in some far-off Supreme Hand
for good or for evil ; for the Supreme Being is
regarded as out of hearing and out of reach for
ordinary mortals. The dead are supposed to be
aware of what goes on in the world, and to reward or
punish in accordance with the reverence and dutiful
care accorded to their shades by the survivors.
" There must be wisdom with great death.
The dead shall look me through and through."*
Love and fear, the two mightiest motors in the
human heart, join forces therefore in this religious
observance : love, not seldom true love, for the dead ;
and fear, for the most part omnipotent fear, of the
vengeance of the unseen spirits. And when to these
you add superstitious additions to these old customs;
as, for instance, the idea that the departed soul de
pends for subsistence on the food offerings of the
living, and that any interruption in the line entails
loss and discomfort on the generations past, it is not
difficult to estimate the force of this system. I
remember well a sudden, and at first inexplicable,
cessation in an old woman s inquiry after the truth.
She had welcomed us with eager interest on many
succeeding visits. She had apparently received the
truth in the love of it ; when suddenly she was " not
at home " when I called. I was so certain that she
was at home, that I waited patiently but persistently
* Tennyson.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 55
till, with much hesitation and many protestations,
the old woman was brought in to see me. " What
is the matter ? " I asked. " Nothing," she replied.
" Nothing ! Was all your interest in the love of the
Lord Jesus nothing, then ? Will you abandon your
hope of heaven for nothing ? " "I will tell you what
is the matter/ interposed a bystander. "Our old
mother has been told that if she becomes a Christian
her son will not worship her spirit, or make offerings
at her tomb : and she does not like the prospect of
being starved." Doubtless this was a somewhat
gross and outspoken instance ; but doubtless, also,
such fears underlie, though inarticulately, the
thoughts about the future world in most Chinese
minds.
Yet when these hopes and fears are analysed they
are found not to be essentially Confucian at all. The
lines which I quote above, from Morris Earthly Para
dise, describe with singular and mournful accuracy
the negations of Confucianism.
" Of heaven and earth I have no power to sing."
<l I know little enough about this life," said Con
fucius, in answer to eager questions from his disciples ;
" how can I tell you what comes after death ? " " AV
power to sing ! " No note : no whisper even about this
eternal world, of which, nevertheless, the Chinese
mind dreams and speculates !
" / cannot ease the burden of your fears, ,
That spectral terror which rises whenever conscience
awakes the fear of retribution in the future ; the
expectation of a good place of beatitude for the
56 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
good, and of an evil place for the wicked; and the
suspicion that their common proverb may prove true:
" There are but two good people : one dead ; one not
born." No cure for their burdening fears could
Confucius suggest, for he thought that if you sin
against Heaven there is no place for prayer ("Analects"
iii. 13 (23).
11 Nor make quick-coming death a little thing.
The narrative of the death of "the Master," Con
fucius himself, which bears authenticity on the face
of its brief ancient story, is well calculated to make
" quick-coming death " a terror indeed, or at best, a
prospect of calm despair. In the year B.C. 478, early
one morning, very shortly before his death, he got up
from his couch, and with his hands behind his back,
dragging his staff, he moved about his door, repeating
the sad words :
" The great mountain must crumble ;
And the wise man withers away like a plant."
Confucius does not ridicule death. He does not
minimise its solemnity. He does not silence fear by
the idea of annihilation, or absorption, or eternal
sleep ; but still less by the hope of eternal life after
death. Death draws near to the Confucianist solemn,
terrific, and alone.
Nor bring again the pleasures of ast years.
There is no hope of "the restitution of all things "
in Confucianism. Even ancestral worship, which
produces loudly a belief in the continued life of the
soul after death, gives no glimpse of resurrection and
conscious reunion with the departed. The hope of
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 57
the most enlightened heathen is indeed but despair.
" The whole system of Confucianism offers no com
fort to ordinary mortals either in life or death."* Yet
this is for China the religion of " the Truth."
II. BUDDHISM.
" Like as the wind is, such is human life,
A moan, a sob, a sigh, a storm, a strife."
Light of Asia.
" Thy saving health among all nations." Psalm Ixvii. 3.
Buddhism I must treat in the same summary
manner, not attempting to analyse or describe at
length its philosophy and history ; but merely
mentioning some of its salient features as affecting its
claim to be one of China s religions.
Buddhism takes the second place in a China
man s threefold code of religion : Confucianism,
Buddhism and Taoism. Essentially a foreign
creed, and introduced from abroad seventeen cen
turies and more ago, it claims our interest and
admiration as a great missionary enterprise which,
though now in decay, and destined to eclipse
by the uprising of the Light of the World, yet,
as a light in Asia s darkness, has exercised an
influence of well-nigh unparalleled magnitude. This
creed is interesting also as depriving the Chinese of
their argument against Christianity from the fact of
its appearing as a foreign religion. If the Chinese
can receive and profess an avowedly foreign creed
like Buddhism with foreign objects of worship ridi
culed by their own great Emperors K ang-hyi and
* Faber s " Digest of Confucian Doctrine."
58 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Yung-ching ; if they can welcome and eagerly con
sume the foreign smoke of opium, though denounced
by the moral voice of the land, and resisted to the
very blood by China s fleets and armies, how can
they reject, unheard and untasted, a doctrine which
comes originally not from the West but from Heaven
itself ; and a creed which is not poison, but the very
bread and wine of the soul ?
This great religion of Buddhism has, when ana
lysed, no more right than Confucianism to be called
a religion at all. Buddhism is avowedly atheistic,
setting Dharma, or Law, above all gods and goddesses;
and giving man the hope of salvation without the
intervention of God. Yet Buddhism as well as Con
fucianism affords in its history a fresh evidence of the
irresistible tendency of the human heart to worship.
Buddha, the Teacher, is now Amidabha, the God.
Buddha s temples are crowded with idols. Kwan-
ying, now the Goddess of Mercy (for twelve centuries
the God of Mercy), is more popular than Buddha
himself, being in fact one of his avatars.*
Just so in Christendom, the shrine of the Virgin
Mary in many Roman Catholic Churches is far more
frequented than the shrine of the Divine Saviour.
" It was, indeed, a strange irony of fate," remarks
Sir M. Monier- Williams, "that the man who denied
any God or any being higher than himself and told
his followers to look to themselves alone for salva
tion, should not only have been deified and wor-
*"The word avatara means the incarnation or rather the
descent of some Divine Being." Cf. Monier- Williams " Bud
dhism," p. 165.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 59
shipped, but represented by more images than
any other being ever idolized in any part of the
world."
Moreover, the Nirvana of pure Buddhism be
comes in Northern Buddhistic teaching a palace of
light and joy in the Western heavens. Yet when we
search behind these modern additions, we find in
the words which I have quoted above the ground
and motive and explanation of Buddha s teaching.
" He despaired of life," and his remedy was not a
" better land," a life to come free from sorrow,
change, and death, but rather the " Great Renun
ciation " of personal identity and conscious existence.
Buddha taught that the natural yearning after life
is an ignorant blunder. And Taoism speaks in much
the same way, " It is the destiny of the living to be
finite ; so that the desire to prolong life, and to do
away with one s end, is a misunderstanding of one s
destiny." Nirvana, the " passionless bride, Divine
tranquillity," is not conscious joy ; neither is it con
scious sorrow. It is the " state of a blown-out
flame."* Now, if this meant the blowing out
and away of all evil passions and lusts, it would
be good news indeed. Or if it meant the annihi
lation of the selfishness of self, that, too, were
indeed a gospel. But it means the extinction of in
dividual existence ; of all action, will, and con
sciousness. " Christianity," says Sir M. Monier-
Williams, " demands the suppression of selfishness
Buddha demands the suppression of self. In the
: This is the original meaning of Nirvana, Cf. Monier-
Williams "Buddhism," p. 139.
6o THE GLORIOUS LAND.
one the true self is elevated. In the other it is
annihilated."
And this, the practical negation of God s action and
presence, is Buddha s gospel for man, of whom St.
Augustine so truly and nobly says, " Fecisti nos ad
TE, Domine ; et inquietum est cor nostrum donee
requiescat in TE." "Thou hast made us Lord for
Thyself; and our heart is restless till it rests in Thee."
And this, the promise of Nirvana, which only by a
refinement of sophistry can be distinguished from the
extinction of life and consciousness, is Buddha s
gospel for man ; of whom Tennyson, in one of his
latest poems, sings :
" And men have hopes, which race the restless blood,
That after many changes may succeed
Life, which is life indeed."
Words capable of a manifold interpretation, but
most vividly describing the love of life which is inex
tinguishable in the human heart. And this hope
Buddha shatters with the promise of " life which is
not life at all."
" If any say Nirvana is to cease,
Say unto such they lie ;
If any say Nirvana is to live,
Say unto such they err."
And Buddha, just when dying it is said after eat
ing too much dried boar s flesh (a story the bathos of
which is so startling as hardly to admit of the theory
of fabrication, as Sir M. Monier-Williams points out)
spoke thus, " Look not to anyone but yourselves as a
refuge. Everything that cometh into being passeth
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 61
away. Work out your own perfection with diligence ;
that is, your own cessation of conscious being."
The ordinary Buddhist of the present day thinks
little, however, of Nirvana, because it is beyond his
comprehension and reach. The hope of the mass of
Buddhist worshippers is to escape one of the eight
hells, and to be born and die again, either as human
beings on this same earth in a somewhat higher
sphere; or by transmigration to enter some other
bodily form, and in some other world.
And yet this is for China the "Religion of the Life."
III. TAOISM.
" There is a way that seemeth right unto a man."
"That THY way may be known upon earth."
" Man, on the dubious waves of error toss d,
His ship half founder d, and his compass lost,
Sees, far as human optics may command,
A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land ;
Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies;
Pants for t, aims at it, enters it, and dies."
COWPER, Truth.
Taoism, which some one has called " Buddhism
in a Chinese dress," began much in the same way as
Buddhism ; not as a religious system, but as a philo
sophic system of morals. No special object of wor
ship was held up by Lao-tsu, the reputed founder of
the religion (B.C. 604). His great principle not
ignoble in conception, though impracticable in opera
tion was that man, in order to be pure and upright,
should not so much set himself to obey law ; but
that "time should run back and fetch the age of
\
J
62 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
gold; " and that man, getting behind all formulated
law, should be moral without effort, constraint,
direction, or prohibition.
" There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them : who in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth.
Glad hearts, without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work, and know it not."
WORDSWORTH S Ode to Duty.
Was this a far-off dream, backwards and forwards;
of Eden in the past, and of " the law of Christ " in
the future : the righteousness of the law fulfilled and
glorified in the new nature ? Some have imagined,,
and not wholly without reason, that Lao-tsu em
bodies in his philosophy remains of Divine truth,
learnt originally through possible commercial inter
course in Solomon s time between East and West.
Taoism in its early days was indeed notable for
pure speculation, rather than for any elaboration of
religious ceremonies or rites. The search for the
elixir of immortality absorbed the attention of Impe
rial Taoists 2,000 years ago, notably so in the case of
the founder of the Ch in dynasty, B.C. 202, who burnt
the ancient books, and built the great wall of China ;*
and also in the case of the Emperor Wu, in the
% succeeding Han Dynasty, B.C. 100. And alchemy has
been a favourite study of the sect. But speculations
of a far deeper and higher nature occur. In the
writings of Lieh-tsu (Licius circa B.C. 400), whom some
* See Balfour s "Leaves from my Chinese Note-hook,"
pp. 86, 109.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 63
suppose to be a mere " supposititious personage,"
but who is generally described as one of Lao-tsu s
earliest disciples, speculations of the most interest
ing character occur ; but they are speculations, and
no more. Here we have, for instance, an anticipa
tion in ancient days of the profound and absorbing
study of the origin of life. " There is Life/ says Lieh-
tsii, "which is uncreated. The Uncreated alone
can produce life. The Uncreated stands alone.
His duration can have no end." Again, we
have speculations as to what is after death ;
anticipations, are they, of modern theories with
reference to conditional" existence? In a con
versation ascribed to Confucius by this Taoist
writer, death is represented as "rest for the
virtuous, and a hiding away of the bad." " The
superior man death brings to rest, the low ones
to submission." But there is no promise of
awaking from the rest for the good ; or of emerging
from the plunge into the darkness of annihilation for
the wicked.
It is difficult to imagine how any professor of such
a creed can be cheerful. Yet the phenomenon is
not an uncommon one in these latter days. It
is said of Harriet Martineau that her faith in the
progressive happiness and welfare of mankind
(albeit that mankind individually she destined in
thought to annihilation) seems to have served her
in lieu of every other hope in futurity. She passed
her latter years in buoyant cheerfulness, when she
mentally consigned herself and her dearest and
closest ties on earth to an everlasting separation.
64 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Infinitely brighter and more buoyant is the Christian
hope
" Say not good-night, but in some higher clime
Bid me good-morning." *
Lao-tsu s future for the soul was absorption into
Nature; as Buddha s Nirvana is absorption into the
Absolute. Modern Taoism, therefore, with its many
gods of Heaven and Earth; with its Lares and
Penates ; with its geomancy and necromancy ; with
its table-turning (a pencil hanging through a hole
in a board suspended over a tray of fine sand being
supposed to trace characters in the sand moved by
unseen mystic powers), with its gigantic system
of Fung-shuy " the wind and water " influences
which are supposed in lucky or unlucky sites and
surroundings to sway the fortunes of the living
and dead; all these are not true Taoism at all.
But both the original philosophy and its after-
developments afford the Chinese only a "blind leading
of the blind " instead of the true " Religion of the
Way." t
There is one consideration which still further
tends to lift Christianity out of the reach of com
parison with some of these religions. It is this.
Whereas the whole tendency of modern research
is to place the date of the books of the New
Testament near to the very time on earth of our
Lord Himself, the canonical writings connected
with Confucius and Buddha seem to be separated
from these great men, be they historical, or be they
* Edinburgh Review, July, 1890.
t The word Tao means Reason, Word t a.ud the Way or Method.
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 65
mythical, by a formidable hiatus, by long stretches
of time, or by doubtful genuineness and authenticity.
The burning of the books by the Emperor Shih
Huang-ti (B.C. 213), notwithstanding the current
stories as to the recovery of certain copies, seems
to loosen one s hold on the sure possession of genuine
literature. The Lun yii or Analects" of Con
fucius, from which most of the details of his life are
drawn, could not, thinks Dr. Legge, have been
written by Confucius immediate disciples, but he
believes that it might have been compiled by the
disciples of those disciples. Confucius was not
specially honoured for 250 years after his death ;
and it was only in the year A.u. i that he was
canonized as the " Illustrious Duke Ni ; lord of
completed praise."
Before our Lord s death it was said by His
enemies that " the world had gone after Him."
Within a year of the Crucifixion, Stephen was
glad to die for his Lord. And soon after this all
through Asia Minor Christ was worshipped as God :
and the temples of the gods were reported by Pliny
to be well-nigh deserted.
With reference to Buddhism, though Buddha
was born 500 years before Christ, " there is not
a single Buddhist manuscript in existence which
can vie in antiquity and undoubted authenticity
with the older codices of the Gospels."* The
supposed Christian elements in Buddha s life, which
have so dazzled and confused many weak-sighted
people in recent times, are all of comparatively
* See Eitel s " Lectures on Buddhism."
E
66 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
modern date. The most ancient Buddhist classics
contain scarcely any details at all of Buddha s life ;
and none whatever of these so-called Christian
elements. Hardly any of the legends about Buddha
can be proved to have been in circulation earlier than
the fifth century A.D. A writer in the Quarterly Review
for April, 1890, noticing Sir M. Monier-Williams
great book on Buddhism, and Oldenburg s "Buddha,"
writes thus, " In the Jataka commentaries, the
generally-received life of Gautama Buddha, a docu
ment apparently older than Christianity, we notice
an entire absence of anything at all like Christian
history. It may be truly said that the events in the
life of Gautama, so far as we can trace it in an
historical sense, present an unbroken series of
contrasts to the life of Christ, except in the one
particular that he went about preaching."
With reference to Taoism the case is different,
but it is noteworthy that the present Taoist system
was founded by Chang Tao-ling (A.D. 34 157),
although Lao-tsu was born B.C. 604. One of the most
popular Taoist books, " The Book of Rewards and
Punishments," dates only from the fifteenth century
A.D. The celebrated Tao-Teh-Ching is probably
much older Dr. Legge, indeed, ascribes to it the
date B.C. 517. But the remark of a writer in the
Quarterly Review on the Sacred Books of the East
is worthy of consideration. " In those early times a
book was seldom or never composed in the shape in
which it has come down to us. It was not made, it
grew."
This cannot be said of the separate Gospels and
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 67
Epistles of the New Testament. That book was
made. It was complete by the end of the first
century A.D. It was accepted by the Church as
canonical before the end of the second century.
I cannot close this cursory review of these three
religious systems of China without noticing the
high excellence of many of their moral precepts, and
the comparatively high tone of their moral code.
Confucius exhorts to self-examination. Talents
without a moral basis are, he says, not worthy of
consideration. The good man is watchful over his
conduct when alone. The " golden rule " is given
negatively, and in a measure positively,* for " all
men within the four seas " are declared to be
"brethren." Confucius showed deep pity for suf
fering, both in man and beast. He laments over
the appalling fact that there exists no holy man ;
no good man ; nobody who loves virtue as he
loves beauty or sensual pleasure ; nobody who
strives to carry out Tao or the Ideal Way. Con
fucius was a humble and teachable, and not a
self-asserting man. Buddha and Lao-tsu both
reach a higher level still. Confucius could not see
his way to reward injury with kindness; for how
then, he asks in a puzzled tone, how can I recom
pense kindness ? But Buddha and Lao-tsu launch
out more boldly. " The good man should even love
the man who is not good, and reward illwill with
virtue." Injuries should be recompensed with kind
ness. (Tao-Teh-Ching, ch. Ixiii). " Pity the mis
fortunes of others, and rejoice at their well-being."
* Cf. Faber s " Digest."
68 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
And in one word of noblest tone. Lao-tsu, if he
be the author of the saying, asserts that if he must
choose between his life and righteous dealing, he will
let go life and hold fast to integrity.*
. The final verdict as to these three systems must
be, that they supply no Mediator and Redeemer from
sin, which meanwhile they do not deny or explain
aw r ay. They speak much of fear ; but they breathe
no word of love to the eternal God.f They know of
no Regenerator who can restore human nature to its
high original, the image of the Creator.
The review which I have given above of the re
ligions of China has been brief and imperfect ; but
it will suffice, I trust, to leave deeply engraven on
the minds of my readers the contrast between the
Christian s hope and the despair of the heathen ;
between the full-orbed light of Christian knowledge,
and faith, and hope, and the darkness which may
be felt of heathen ignorance and superstition. Surely
God has been merciful to us in Christendom ; He has
blessed us ; He has in the face of Jesus Christ
caused His face to shine upon us. And why ?
" That His way may be known upon earth ; His
saving health among all nations." And wilful or care
less neglect of the duty and privilege of spreading
the light of the Gospel may withdraw that light
from our own souls, and lead to the removal of the
candlestick of Gospel light from England s homes,
and parishes, and churches.
* This saying rather belongs to Mencius.
1 See " Present Day Tract." (Dr. Legge.)
CHAPTER VII.
FOUR SCENES IN CHINESE EVANGELIZATION.
I. LINE UPON LINE.
IT is a spring day thirty years ago in Mid-China.
The great alluvial plain of San-po, to the north of
Ningpo, shone on by the warm sun, and swept by the
breezes of spring, is fair and pleasant. The beans
are in flower, and the wide breadths of these, one of
the staple crops of San-po, make the air fragrant.
Large stretches of wheat are in ear ; wheat harvest
falling at the time of our early hay harvest. Here
and there the rice seed-beds shine like patches of
emerald. The clover in flower has just been plowed
into the half-inundated rice-fields for manure ; and
these fields are dotted over with labourers breaking
up the clods of earth with their heavy hoes. Sud
denly there is a shout, and every hoe is thrown
down, for the rumour of the arrival of a foreigner
in this secluded plain passes from mouth to mouth.
The foreigners have just left their boat near Ming-
ngoh-dziang, a picturesque town at the foot of lofty
hills, where the C.M.S. have now a flourishing
school and a small body of Christians under the
pastoral care of the Rev. Sing Eng-teh, who lives at
Kwun-hae-we, five miles to the northward. Then pro-
70 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
bably for the first time in their lives these countrymen
see with their own eyes the foreigner ; feared, disliked,
suspected, and yet not without true courtesy wel
comed oftentimes on these early exploratory journeys.
Probably, I say for on the dangerous coast hard by,
some years previously, a British ship had been
wrecked ; and the captain s wife had been carried to
Ningpo and exhibited in a cage, our good native
pastor, Mr. Sing, then but a lad, forming part of the
staring crowd outside this lady s prison. Now is this
foreigner, they ask, in very deed a white demon a
foreign "imp"? Is he like some mythical being,
or one with flesh and blood like us ? They crowd
round attracted by the Western clothing and paler
faces of their visitors. Some handle inquisitively
their coats and umbrellas ; some shout incoherent
questions ; some simply stare with open-mouthed
inarticulate amazement. Amongst these eager gazers
was a husbandman named Kying-ming. " He took
his eyes," as he said when describing the scene to
me in after-years. He stared and glared ; and the
overwhelming fascination of the sight in the flesh of
the long-rumoured Western strangers rendered him
deaf to their voices and absolutely inattentive to
their message.
The preaching is over now. The Gospel has been
proclaimed. Tracts are distributed to those who can
read ; and with many bows and farewells, the mis
sionaries embark in their small boat and turn her
head westwards towards Yii-yiao by canal, and
thence by river to Ningpo. Kying-ming goes back
fo his work, He picks up his hoe ; and as he strikes
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 71
the clods vigorously to make up for lost time, he
shouts to his fellows, in the loud voice which these
sea-side San-po men have acquired, his astonishment
at the sight which has so stirred the plain to-day.
What did the visit mean ? Are these the foreigners
who brought opium to China, and who extract eyes
from the dying and dead ? Yet they seemed to wish
to be courteous. They were not overbearing or vio
lent. They asked for no money. They brought no
wares for sale. They actually distributed good books
gratis ! Strange fellows are these Western bar
barians !
Days pass by. Most of the harvest is over ; the
wheat is long ago gathered, and the early rice cut
and carried. The pleasant days of October have come
with cool breezes (though the sun still blazes fiercely
above) ; breezes now sweet everywhere with the scent
of the oleafragrans. The cotton, which is the second
staple of San-po, is ripe, and the fields are full of busy
labourers again. Again the word is passed that the
foreigners have come. Off runs Kying-ming to gaze
once more on the sight which had so fascinated him
in the spring. But now he takes his " ears as well
as his eyes." He listens as that strange figure opens
its lips and talks. Talks ! Yes, there can be no mis
take about it. He is talking, not Western gibberish,
but their own Ningpo speech ! That discovery once
more engrosses and absorbs the man s thoughts. He
hears nothing of the text, the message, the argument,
the invitation, the warning. He merely hears, and
is amazed to hear, a foreigner talking Chinese.
The discourse comes to an end. The missionary
72 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
enters his boat once more ; and Kying-ming goes
home, astonished and perplexed, but wholly unen
lightened and unmoved. Well was it for him, and
well for the foreign workers, that they were not con
tent with one visit or two. They were not satisfied
with the perfunctory execution of their commission,
and the bare heralding of the Gospel. " Line upon
line," they felt, " precept upon precept," were neces
sary. They must go again and seek for Christ s
sheep. So in the bright days of early December
they were in San-po once more, before the great cold
with frost and snow had set in, and when the crops
being all off the ground, you can walk across country
and avoid many a weary twist and bend in the raised
stone pathways. Kying-ming is at hand once more,
and now with eyes fixed and ears attentive, and with
his heart opened by the Spirit of God to receive the
truth, he hears not the language only, but the
message of salvation, and he believes in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Many years ago after this event I was preaching
myself in that same beloved plain, with Kying-ming
as my helper. We had had a day of much dis
couragement ; doors slammed in our faces ; careless,
frivolous, inattentive hearers; much scoffing and no
apparent reception of our message. As day declined,
weary and sad, I proposed a walk up the hills over
looking the sea and the plain. As we mounted higher
and higher, I spoke to my companion of our dis
couraging day. " Be of good cheer," he said, " I
know this plain well. I was brought to God down
there. I was once as deaf and as obdurate as the
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 73
people seemed to be to-day. But we must go again
and again to the same places. I should never have
found the Saviour if the missionaries had given up
the work in despair at our stupidity on their first
visit. My eyes, my ears, my heart were opened one
after another; and here I am to-day, helping you,
sir, to preach the Gospel. Let us try again to
morrow in God s strength ! "
I went down to my boat from that hillside, reproved
and cheered by my old friend s autobiography.
II. PILGRIM PREACHING.
In the neighbourhood of Ningpo there are several
sacred places to which yearly pilgrimages are made.
The most celebrated of these is a hilltop some
fifteen miles to the eastward, named Ling Fong.
On this hilltop lived and died, or (as the belief is) was
translated into the state and rank of Lohan or expec
tant Buddha, a celebrated man with the surname
Keh. He flourished about 1,500 years ago ; and on
his birthday, the tenth day of the Chinese fourth
month (generally coinciding with the early days
of our month of May), pilgrimages are made by
the people of Ningpo, and from far-distant parts of
this province, to climb this rugged hill and worship,
and buy charms in the temple on its summit.
These charms are a curious feature in Buddhist
superstition. They are said to have been invented
in their present form, in this very city of Ningpo,
about 1,000 years ago. During the Song dynasty
Ningpo was stormed and the inhabitants all put to
the sword, with the exception of a few hundreds who
74 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
were saved, so the story runs, by the chief priest of
a temple still existing near the south gate of Ningpo.
He invited the terrified inhabitants to take refuge in
his courtyard, sold them tickets, and set them to
their prayers. He then placed a bowl of spring
water on the temple roof; and when the blood
thirsty soldiers came in pursuit, by his incantations
he so affected the enemy that they could not see the
temple ; the only appearance was the gleam of
falling water, and the only sound the mysterious hum
of the Buddhist chant. The refugees were saved ; and
ever since these prayers have been in high repute.
They may be bought at any temple, but those
purchased at Ling Fong are the most efficacious.
They are largely used in cases of serious sickness,
and are then burnt as charms whilst the priest is
praying. But their chief use is for the unseen
world. They are supposed to supply the spirit with
passage money to the place of the departed ; and
with a competency when that abode is reached.
These papers are purchased for fifteen or twenty
copper cash (from three farthings to one penny) ;
and some of them are said to be worth in the spirit
banks hereafter 1,000 dollars or so, that is 200.
The weather, therefore, on Keh s birthday, being
generally fine, and the air balmy, the hills being
carpeted with flowers, and the country green with
the spring crops, a holiday being at all times
pleasant, and thousands of dollars procurable at so
small an outlay, the day of the Ling Fong festival
draws vast crowds to the hills. I have visited the
chief temple ; and also the smaller branch temples
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 75
in other places, bearing the same name, and with
the same pretensions.
Let me briefly describe the scene at one of these
" Little Ling Fong" temples in the year 1865.
It was a perfect May day,
"The bridal of the earth and sky."
Thick dewdrops hung from leaf and flower as we
mounted the hill in the early morning. Azaleas
made the hillside red, and westeria in festoons hung
over the jutting rocks; roses too abounded, and
huneysuckle was budding. Birds were singing, the
cuckoo and blackbird reminding me of home. We
were accompanied, as we ascended, by a dense
crowd ; and a thick stream of returning pilgrims
met us. Alas ! how many of these were the " sweet
and virtuous souls " of whom Herbert sings ? The
people told us that about 10,000 persons visited the
little temple on that day. Old women were there,
panting and groaning under the exertion of the
toilsome climb ; some are said to die in the attempt.
When we reached the summit we found that it was
useless and well-nigh impossible to force our way
into the temple ; so we stood and preached under the
shade of trees near the entrance. Presently one of
the priests came out and scowled at us. We spoke
to him of the sin of deceiving 10,000 people simply
for the lust of gain. "Not 10,000" said he, "only
6,000 ; and it is only once a year ! " Suddenly a
new actor appeared on the scene ; and my equanimity
and the thread of my discourse were by him
seriously disturbed and broken. A madman ran
round us, shouting and brandishing his bill-hook
76 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
close to my head. Some, however, listened to us
and received our tracts, and one man vowed never to
climb the hill again on so bad and barren an errand.
As we descended the hill, the madman went before
us, capering like a wild goat. " Ah," said the
catechist, " these poor people are all as mad as he."
We preached again in a village at the foot of the
hill. A man who had just returned from the short
pilgrimage listened attentively, and promised to
destroy the charms which he had bought as soon as
we had left. We expressed doubts as to his sincerity,
and he immediately tore them up before our eyes.
The surrender of these charms, and of the Buddhist
rosaries is a most decisive proof, especially in the
case of women, of the sincerity of applicants for
baptism.
III. Too LATE.
Many years ago I was itinerating in the great San-
po plain with Sing Eng-teh, who is now our senior or
dained pastor in charge of the churches in that plain.
We had been preaching from early morning, and it
was now the late afternoon. We were on the out
skirts of a great town with some 20,000 inhabitants.
We had visited different parts of this important
country town, and were wending our way to our
boat.
As I passed a courtyard near the bank of the canal,
an old man stood at the entrance ; and, saluting him
with the usual polite phraseology, " What is your
honourable name ? " " Have you partaken of your
evening rice ? " " What is your distinguished age ?".
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 77
we were astonished to find that he was go years of
age, and his wife 88. He courteously accepted our
offer to enter the courtyard and talk awhile. Chairs
were brought, and the old man sat down and listened.
His eldest son was dead. His second son came up
to look at us, an old man past 70 ; and looking older
than his father. The whole family, now reaching to
the fourth generation, was living in one large court
yard, with separate establishments, but as a family
still ; and, turning round, I saw the daughters and
granddaughters-in-law gazing at me with anything
but friendly looks ; evidently suspecting me of mis
chievous intentions towards their aged chief. But
the old man himself was more than friendly. He
listened eagerly and intelligently to our message.
He followed with the utmost interest the narrative
of our Lord s birth and life ; His miracles of mercy
arresting his closest attention. But when the death
of shame and of pain followed, he could not restrain
his indignant remonstrance. " It cannot be true,"
he exclaimed; " shame on those wicked men ! They
ought to have died for Him, not He for them ! "
We explained carefully to him that that death was
necessary for this very reason, that men are wicked ;
and that sin cannot pass unpunished either in the
person of the sinner or of his merciful Substitute.
But the old man continued his indignant exclama
tion, " Shame on them ! shame on them ! "
Then he asked us to- go inside, disregarding the
scowls and warning gestures of the women. We
entered ; and there sat the old mother, almost beau
tiful after her 88 winters ; with silver hair, and an
78 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
intelligent, placid face ; active, and busily winding
cotton with her own hand, and directing the house
hold. She ordered tea at once ; and the daughters-
in-law, however unwillingly, obeyed. Then I began
to talk to the courteous old lady. She shook her
head. " I am deaf," she said. I turned to her hus
band, and begged him to repeat to his wife what we
had been saying to him. " It is of no use," the old
man said. " She is stone deaf, and never hears a
word we say to her. She has been so for some years
past." " Well, you try," I said to the catechist who
was with me, and who had in those days a stentorian
voice, which I have often heard ringing above the
hubbub of a Chinese market-place. He tried, but
wholly in vain. There sat the old woman, friendly
and courteous ; and we, with our message of salva
tion, had reached her too late. She could not read.
It was hopeless at her age to teach her. The sight
was one of most moving pathos. Had we come ten
years earlier, it might have been in time. Too late
now ! Was it possible this side the grave ? We
turned once more to the old man and entreated him
to accept the Saviour s love ; and to do all he could,
by any means he could devise, to teach his wife and
his whole family. I visited him often after this. He
lived to the age of 99, and his wife nearly as long.
He was never baptized ; but he accepted Christian
books; and kept continually up his sleeve for use a
simple prayer. I cannot but hope that these cour
teous friends, through God s abounding mercy, may
have found entrance to the home above ; even as they
welcomed the least of Christ s followers to their home
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 79
below. But I can remember no more moving warn
ing to Christian workers. " Beware, lest you come
with your message too late ! "
IV. LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.
My scene changes now to the southern side of the
Ningpo hills. Here the population is so great ; and
the towns and villages lie so thickly scattered,
that it was possible sometimes during the hours of
a long day, beginning to preach at 7 a.m. and going
on till nightfall, to deliver our message and distribute
Christian books in ten or twelve different places,
varying in size from, for instance, the city of Tsz-chi,
with 30,000 inhabitants, down to little villages of a
few hundred souls. One of these busy days was
drawing to a close. I told my Chinese assistants
that there was time to preach once more before dark ;
and I proposed to press on to a large village of 2,000
or 3,000 people (Ts ing-shu-wu) half a mile in front.
" Sir," they replied, "is not our commission to every
creature ? Why should we pass by this little village
of Din-wu." I had hardly noticed the place ; it was
so small. But I gladly yielded to their suggestion ;
and we entered the courtyard. Here we found
several men and women sitting in the open air : the
men smoking, the women winding cotton. The yard
was crowded with straw ricks, and with noisy pigs
and poultry. The poor people welcomed us ; and
chairs were placed for us to sit on ; and soon from
three corners of the quadrangle trays, each contain
ing eight or ten cups of scalding tea, were brought
out for our refreshment. As soon as I began to speak,
8o THE GLORIOUS LAND.
an old man came and took a seat just in front of me,
holding his hand to his ear, as he was deaf. I spoke
in a loud voice, and as simply and clearly as possible.
I told him of the Saviour s majesty and glory; and
of His love in dying for our sins. When I paused,
I asked the catechist to follow, taking up and enforc
ing what I had said. He did so with admirable clear
ness and power; and the old man, as he caught from
us point after point, clapped his hands in an ecstasy
of delight. He told me that he had for many years
been anxious about his soul, and about the mysterious
future world. He had wandered from temple to
temple seeking rest and finding none ; rejected and
ejected by the priests because he had so little money
to offer; and now the news of his being justified freely
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus
seemed too good to be true ; and he clapped his hands
again for joy.
" We clap our hands, exulting
In Thine Almighty favour ;
The love divine, that made us Thine,
Shall keep us Thine forever."
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and look
ing up I saw an old woman standing behind me.
" Give it to him!" she said, pointing to the old man.
" Lecture him well ! He is my brother, and a bad
brother he has been indeed ! His tongue is never
quiet ; quarrelling and reviling ! " The old man,
deaf as he was, knew well enough what his sister
was saying, and he looked up with a twinkle in his
eye. After long and earnest conversation we left,
the old man accompanying us on our way for some
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 81
little distance, eagerly protesting his faith in this
new doctrine, and promising to come on the follow
ing Sunday to church at Tsdng-gyiao, some four or
five miles distant. He kept his promise, and Sunday
after Sunday he appeared with great regularity, and
became an earnest and intelligent inquirer. After a
while he asked for baptism, and I at once questioned
him about his unruly tongue. " Oh ! " he said,
" that is past cure ! It has grown old with me, and
I fear that I cannot change." " Well," I replied, "if
this is so, you cannot be baptized. Baptism means
union with the Lord Jesus Christ and with His
Church : and for those who are thus really joined to
the Lord by the regenerating power of the Holy
Spirit, old things pass away, slowly sometimes and
partially, but surely and gradually ; old habits, old
sins, old tempers must go, and all things must become
new." " I will try," he said, and he did try; but
failed from time to time. " I shall ask your sister
about you," I said. I did so, and the old woman
shook her head significantly ; " He is no better," she
said ; " his tongue is as bad as ever." Still the old
man persevered in keeping Sunday holy ; he learnt
more about the new religion, and begged for bap
tism. At last, after several months delay, as I
was calling one day at the Tsong-gyiao Chapel on my
way to the distant country districts, I found my old
friend waiting for me. He came forward with eager
pleasure. " I have done it," he said ; " I think you
will baptize me now ! " " Well, sit down," I said,
"and let me hear your story." He then told me
that his younger son, who was a rough young fellow,
F
82 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and not very dutiful to him, had lately come home
from Shanghai, with a strong antipathy to foreigners.
He was very angry at the idea of his old father
following the foreigners religion. One day this son
set a hen on thirteen eggs ; while he was out in the
fields at work, the old man lifted basket and hen and
all into the sunshine under the deep eaves of the
house. Presently it came on to blow and rain, and
the basket was lifted indoors again. Then the son
came in, and they sat down to their mid-day meal.
When he had done eating, the old man rose from his
chair. Without thinking he stepped back into the
basket and broke several of the eggs. His son
swore and stormed at his father for his carelessness ;
" and time was " (said the old man to me) " when I
would have given him back oaths and angry words
more than he gave me. But I never moved my tongue.
1 felt that I had been careless, although I did not do
it on purpose. I knew it would only make matters
worse to answer my son; so I asked the Holy Spirit
to help me, and, will you believe me, I never moved
my tongue." " Enough !" I said. " That is just
the kind of thing I wanted to hear. Now we will
fix a day for your baptism." And with deep thank
fulness to God, I soon after baptized him by the
name Simeon.
And indeed " his eyes did see God s salvation
before he departed in peace." His was a joyful
active Christian life, though it lasted only eighteen
months. He set himself at once to influence others
for God. He brought his relatives and friends to
church, and so great was the interest excited by the
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 83
old man, that I felt obliged to open a new outstation
nearer to his home for the sake of the many inquirers
to whom eight or ten miles walk on Sunday was no
small difficulty.
One day the catechist called on Simeon ; and saw
on his wrinkled wrist, actually burnt in with a hot
iron, a cross. " What does this mean ? " he asked.
"Oh," replied Simeon, "it was my own idea.
No one suggested it ; but my memory is short and I
am but a stupid old man. I want to remember my
Saviour s love at all times. So I burnt a cross on
my wrist to remind me."
Soon after this he was laid low by malarial fever,
aJid died. The catechist who called to see him found
him sinking fast ; but clear in mind and steadfast in the
faith. He gave directions about his funeral ; that no
idolatrous or superstitious rites should be practised ;
for I die a Christian," he said. And to his eldest
son who waited on him, he said " Son, if you wish to
meet your father again, you will find me in heaven
with the Saviour. Follow Christ, as your old father
has tried to do."
And so "he departed in peace." The catechist
who brought me the news burst into tears. "Simeon
is dead ! " he said. " He is gone ! What shall we
do ! His earnest, whole-hearted zeal for Christ
stirred us all up. Alas, that he has left us ! "
This happened seventeen years ago. The son
became a Christian ; and he too is now in Paradise
with his father ; and the memory of old Simeon is
still green and fresh at Ningpo, as of one
who was a triumph of God s grace, and a bright
84 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
example of what even the humblest may do for God s
glory. Thank God for these evidences of His power
working with us, and confirming His word. Will
not those who read these narratives ask God to raise
up many more such in Ningpo and all over China,
who shall be " workers together with Him," and with
us ; and that, filled with the Holy Spirit, they may
mightily testify to the grace of God ?
=_
MOH-TS-IN, C.M.S. STATION ON THE EASTERN LAKE.
CHAPTER VIII.
UNEXPECTED AGENCIES.
IT is a fact both solemnising and encouraging that
God sometimes takes the work of evangelization out
of the hands of the ordinary and normal worker,
and
" Moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."
It seems as though He would remind us from time
to time emphatically that the excellency of the
power is of God and not of man.
"The heavens declare the glory of God;" yet with
these ethereal preachers "there is no speech nor
language." " Their voices cannot be heard." Even
the uprising of the sun in his strength, and his
coming forth from his chambers in the East, strikes
no audible harmony now from the lips of Memnon.
And by other voiceless, inarticulate preachers God
still speaks.
To Judas also was committed the message of
salvation and the power of healing ; and from his
lips the Lord may have caused His own message,
" The kingdom of heaven is at hand," to sound as
clear and with as rousing tones in the hearts of
Jewish hearers as from the lips of St. Peter and
St. John.
86 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Let me illustrate these two points from brief
narratives of modern evangelization.
I.
The history of the Great Valley and Chu-ki
Mission was familiar to the students of missionary
literature twelve years ago ; but so rapidly do events
come one upon the other, and so many are the
changes in the great battlefield of the Church, that
the origin of that Mission may be forgotten altogether
or unknown to my present readers. If only the
repetition of the story may lead to more fervent
and effectual prayer for the whole of the Chu-ki
region, I shall not have written in vain. Since
the earlier years of courageous faith, and of valiant
testimony for Christ, many clouds of disappointment,
and decline, and barrenness have gathered over
that Church. Some of the elder Christians have
given way to grave inconsistency and to dissension ;
and more tears than smiles have been bestowed on
Chu-ki. Yet the work stands ; and of late years
it has expanded far beyond its original limits ; and
we believe that much people will yet be added to
the Lord from those beautiful hills. And very special
prayer is asked for in connection with the different
aspects of the Chu-ki Mission thus briefly described ;
prayer for " those who have gone far astray like lost
sheep ;" prayer for those whose " souls cleave to the
dust," and who have given way to the temptation
of apparent pressing need and work now on Sunday ;
prayer for those who have "lost their first love,"
in Great Valley, in Si-dang, and elsewhere ; prayer
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 87
that all Christian workers in Chu-ki be " of the
same mind in the Lord ; " and prayer that all through
that great region " everyone who names the name
of Christ may depart from iniquity," and " adorn
the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things."
But how was the Gospel first carried to those
comparatively remote regions ? Not by itinerating
preacher ; not by Bible colporteur ; not by the
distribution of Christian literature and the establish
ment of hospital or school. The soil was unturned,
unploughed, unharrowed, save by the long past
T aip ing troubles. The name of Jesus had never
been heard there. The " beautiful feet " of those
who preach the Gospel of peace had never been
seen there ; when suddenly, unexpectedly, well-nigh
miraculously, the time of visitation arrived for
Chu-ki.
In one of the smaller suburbs of Hangchow, out
side the Periwinkle Gate, we had opened, early in
1877, a humble room for preaching to the passers-
by, and for quiet talk with inquirers. This special
room was opened in consequence of the energetic
and faithful work of a catechist and two Chinese
theological students. The room was low and dark ;
and furnished merely with a small table and some
benches ; and over the door, almost hidden by the
deep eaves, in black letters on a red ground, the
words were written, " The Holy Religion of Jesus."
The room was opened two or three times a week
through January, February, and March, with little
or no encouragement. Hardly anyone came in to
listen ; and our eager hopes seemed wholly dis-
88 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
appointed. One morning early in April a man
named Chow Pao-yong was hastening along the
raised causeway which runs past the door of the
chapel. He had been staying with friends near,
and had started to go into the city marketing. As
he passed our door, there was nothing to attract
him. The door itself was shut and bolted ; the
shutters were up ; as it was not the usual day
for preaching. But happening to look round as he
passed, he caught sight of the new red sign paper
over the door, and he read the strange word JESUS.
He stood still to read it over again ; and as our
landlady was standing in the sun next door,
Mr. Chow saluted her courteously, and asked her
if she could tell him what the religion of Jesus
might mean. " I am but a stupid woman," she said,
"and though I have heard something about it, I
cannot clearly describe to you its meaning. You
should go into the city and call on Mr. Tai, the
Chinese preacher, and on Mr. Moule, the foreign
missionary." Mr. Chow, with his interest aroused,
asked the way ; and the old woman offered to guide
him. She did so, and landed him safely at 10.30 a.m.
at Mr. Tai s house. A few words of salutation and
inquiry showed Mr. Tai what had brought him
there ; and with faithful zeal he at once, without
circumlocution or vague talk, opened his New
Testament and took his guest to the Gospel narra
tive ; reading to him for two hours about the
Lord s incarnation, and life, and death, and rising
again.
Mr. Chow appeared to drink in the truth there and
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 89
then ; and at 12.30 the two men called on me ; and
scarcely waiting for the usual inquiries as to name
and age and occupation, Mr. Chow at once repeated
to me with singular clearness the leading events in
the wonderful life of which he had just heard.
So clear was his narrative that I asked him at
once where in previous years he had heard the
Gospel.
" Never before," he replied ; " never till Mr. Tai
read to me out of the Sacred Book." He remained
in my house as a guest and diligent student of the
Bible for two or three weeks, and then went to his
far-distant home in the mountains of Chu-ki
with Bible, Prayer-book and hymn-book. He
went trembling lest his elder brothers should beat
him and revile his faith ; but he went also eagerly
declaring his heartfelt belief in the Lord Jesus. We
committed him to God and to the Word of His grace
which was able to build him up. And when he was
unable to " hide his light under a bushel," as in his
timidity he had proposed to do, and when he felt
strengthened and compelled to declare the truth,
instead of beating their younger brother, the elder
men, together with some nephews and neighbours,
sat at his feet hearing the Gospel. Catechists from
Hangchow were sent down to help him, and after a
few months of instruction and preparation, nineteen
men, women, and children were baptized. Subse
quently, through God s great blessing on the faithful
testimony of some of the Christians, and on the
evangelistic work of the Chinese catechists, stimu
lated also and spread far and wide by violent
go THE GLORIOUS LAND.
persecution, the work extended rapidly ; and more
than 100 were baptized within the first two years.
Christians are now to be found in many parts of
the Chu-ki region far beyond the original centre of
the work, Great Valley; and in nine or ten places
Divine worship is held every Sunday. A native
ordained pastor, the Rev. Nyi Liang Ping, cares for the
Christians; aided by the visits of Mr. Elwin and the
Bishop. But I must not attempt here to follow the
chequered history of that Mission, nor to dwell on
its present state and on its hopes for the future.
Only observe how powerful was the yet voiceless
name of Jesus over our chapel door ; even as the great
sun which shone down on our humble mission-room
that April day was eloquent in God s glory, though
without " real voice or sound." It surely encourages
us to go forth with that name which is above every
name on our lips, knowing that there is-power in the
name alone to arrest and bless. Here in Chu-ki,
without any movement or previous preparation, the
man was arrested, and we trust brought to God by
that name alone ; and a great work was begun,
which through God s grace shall bear fruit to life
eternal.
II.
Many years ago a miserable beggar used to haunt
the Kwun-hae-we mission-house in San-po. He
repeatedly asked for baptism, but was deferred on
account of his notoriously evil life. He succeeded,
however, in securing a copy of the New Testament in
Chinese, and being able to read, he took it with him
on his wanderings, and in each village he would
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 91
read a verse or two, and then close his book
and beg.
The man died in misery by the wayside ; we fear
without evidence of true repentance. He had passed
away from our memories, when his life and character
were brought before us again in a remarkable manner.
The catechist in charge of one of our stations at
the eastern limit of the San-po plain was preaching
one summer afternoon at his chapel door. A man
passed by with a pack on his back. He paused when
he heard the preacher s voice, and sat down for a few
minutes to rest and listen. Then he rose and trudged
on, a weary walk of seven miles, across a rugged ridge
of hills down into the plain in which the city of
Ning-po stands.
He entered a village and took down his pack, dis
playing his store of silks and threads, needles and
looking-glasses, to the women who gathered round.
Gossiping with them, he told them of the old man
whom he had heard that afternoon preaching at the
chapel door in San-po, and how he kept talking of
some one whom he carled "Jesus." "Jesus! " ex
claimed one of the women; "wasn t it about Jesus
that the beggar used to read to us some years ago?"
The coincidence struck her so forcibly that she
started on foot the next day to San-po to hear from
the catechist s own lips what he could tell her about
Jesus. The road which she took has often wearied
me with the single journey alone ; but she went
there and back again in one day, a walk of from
twelve to fourteen miles in length, and this for several
Sundays in succession, and with the grievous
gz THE GLORIOUS LAND.
hindrance of the cramped feet of a Chinese woman.
So earnest was she that she exhibited that sweet
proof of true Christian sincerity, namely, a desire
to bring others within the sound of the good news.
She was baptized, and passed through a long fight of
affliction on account of her faith.
III.
The more recent and exceedingly interesting work
at Da-zih and other places among the T ai-chow
mountains was commenced by an agency, not so
strange, perhaps, as in the instances enumerated
above, but still by unexpected means. The rumour
reached that village of the existence in far-off Ning-
po of a foreign hospital where opium-smokers could
be cured of the dangerous and pernicious habit.
This rumour had been spread by people who had
heard (at some distance from Da-zih) the itinerating
evangelist sent down from the Ning-po College into
those regions by Mr. Hoare. A young man in this
village who had taken to opium-smoking, resolved togo
to Ningpo and try this new cure. He went, and was
gladly admitted as a patient. During his residence
there he daily attended the hospital prayers ; and
one day, when listening to the reading and exposition
of the great and marvellous doctrine of the Atone
ment, he rose, and there and then avowed his amaze
ment at this Divine truth, and his acceptance of this
great salvation. He then wrote to urge his father
to come up to Ningpo, that he too might hear
this new doctrine. The father came, and (as he
told me himself at the time of his baptism)
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 93
when he entered the hospital doors at Ningpo he
overheard the blessed sounds of the Gospel being
read by a Chinese Bible-woman in the adjoining
waiting-room for women, the window of which was
open at the time. The sound came back to him as
a long-forgotten voice ; for twenty years previously he
had been accustomed to visit Shanghai. Whilst there
he had heard enough to convince him that idolatry was
foolish and wrong ; and for twenty years he had given
up the worship of idols. He had heard also that " all
men have sinned, and come short of the glory of God " :
and for twenty years he had been uneasy because
of his sins. But he had forgotten the blessed tidings
of pardon and peace in Jesus Christ; and now the
voice struck again on his ears he accepted Christ
Jesus as his Saviour; the son believed with his
father; and both of them received the truth in the love
of it. Soon after their baptism the younger man
accompanied some of the Christians to San-po in
order to attend as a visitor the Native Church
meeting at Kwun-hae-we. The father meanwhile
returned to Da-zih. It was a year of great sickness
and mortality ; and the poor man was seized with
virulent cholera as he reached his own door; and died.
A few days later the son returned and found his
father dead, and the house sacked by the heathen
relatives and neighbours, because they thought the
curse of heaven had fallen upon one who had deserted
his ancestral faith. Who would have wondered if
the young Christian had given way before this sore
trial ? but, strengthened with might by God s Spirit
in the inner man, he held firmly to his faith ; and he
94
THE GLORIOUS LAND.
and evangelists sent down to Ningpo have been used
by God in gathering together a church of 100 baptized
members, with 60 communicants. A school and a
small church have been erected ; and an ordained
pastor, paid in part by the poor Christians themselves,
has been appointed to care for the little flock.
Bishop Moule hopes before long that the man who
was baptized with his father as the firstfruits of the
Mission, may himself be ordained as their pastor
and teacher.
Thus a word on a sign-board, the reading of a
beggar by the wayside, and the mere rumour of
distant physical help, led, through God s gracious
guidance and overruling, to widespread work of
conversion.
-~; -~T THE SI-KWd-MIAO, A TEMPLE ON THE EASTERN LAKE,
95
CHAPTER IX.
CHINA OPEN THE FUTURE.
"The good man lives not for himself but for others, and his
life is prolonged by so doing. The more he serves, the more
he has wherewith to serve ; the more he gives, the richer he
becomes." Chinese Taoist Philosophy.
" Oh opportunity ! opportunity ! It is only the true genius
who can take opportunity by the forelock ! It is only the
sagacious who never miss opportunity. But the next best
thing is to repent when the opportunity has gone by.
Repentance, followed by capacity to change for the better,
will yet enable us to repair our errors at some future time ! "
Chinese account of the Opium War, translated by E. H.
Parker.
THE instances of evangelistic work which I have
given in the two preceding chapters, some carried on
by ordinary, some by extraordinary agencies, are all
drawn from a comparatively small corner of the vast
Chinese mission-field, but they are to a great
extent typical of work in other parts of the field.
They show the accessibility of the people ; how both
men and women can be reached by the Gospel, and
are ready through God s grace to receive the Gospel.
They show open doors and barriers removed.
Forty years ago, in some of the districts of northern
Cheh-Kiang, to which my experience has been chiefly
confined, and to which my narrative refers, Fortune,
.THE GLORIOUS LAND. 97
the energetic and successful botanist and explorer,
was obliged to travel disguised as a Chinese gentle
man, if he was to travel inland at all. The place has
been pointed out to me where he was recognised
under his disguise, and where consultations were
overheard by him, as to his arrest and exposure,
and probable rough treatment.
In Hangchow, where for twenty-five years mission
aries have been living and working, and for twenty
years with full official recognition, foreign residence
was impossible thirty years ago, and travellers were
liable to be conducted promptly to the coast. Now
all this is changed. China is open. In whatever
dress you please to adopt, travel and exploration are
possible in almost all parts of the land. Disguise is
no longer necessary, for the foreigner and his creed
are matters of notoriety now.
In his remarkable sermon preached last May
before the Church Missionary Society, the Rev.
Herbert James speaks of the principle of gradualness
running through the operations of God in things
spiritual as well as in the world physical. He warns
us against premature action, which only courts
failure. We are told in reports, which are now
almost ancient literature, that in the early days
of this century doors were shut and ways were not
open. China, for instance, even to the eyes of
eager Jesuit pioneers, seemed shut in as by brazen
walls.
One is disposed sometimes to wonder whether
these doors were so fast shut as Christians supposed.
Inside those walls souls were dying fast souls as
98 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
precious and as valuable as souls in this year of
grace 1890. Beyond those apparently insurmountable
barriers Satan was working his tyrant will as the
lord and prince of this world. But that world
belonged to Christ, the King of kings, as much
100 years ago as it does now.
Doubtless God is sovereign, and salvation is no
one s right. The unevangelised nations are not
wronged by God at all ; for all is of grace, not of debt.
But they are grievously wronged by the callous luke
warm Church. And two considerations must, I
think, modify our thoughts about the gradualness of
God s work, true and sober as Mr. James reflections
are. First of all we reverse the picture given in
his sermon, and notice not only that the doors were
opened when the Church was awakened, but that the
Church was sound asleep when the doors of advance
seemed shut and barred. That sleep was criminal,
not Providential ; and the doors might not have been
barred at all, had the Church been awake. A vivid,
loving, yearning persuasion that souls were really
perishing beyond those barriers would, I think, have
led to their overleaping. And, further, if it be sober
and wise to advance into the Soudan now, though
it is death to be a Christian there, and though
English prestige is not to be relied upon, would it
have been quixotic to penetrate into China 100 years
ago, ignoring exclusiveness, and braving deportation,
persecution, or death ?
But I dwell on these points also but for a moment
in order to emphasize again the great truth that the
time of gradualness seems past. The gates are
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 99
open. The course is free. The Church, with her
treasure, the Word of God, can run through China,
and well-nigh through the world now.
" Our difficulty," continues Mr. James, " is not so
much that which hampered Christian effort at the
beginning of the century it is not so much to find
openings, as to find men and women who will enter
them." It gives one some idea of the change in
China to know that by an Imperial Rescript, dated
March I4th, 1890, Chung King, the great commer
cial capital of the province of Szchuen, a city lying
1,500 miles from the coast, was declared an open
port for European merchandise ; and that residence
and missionary work there, in the far-off heart of
China, will henceforth be as legal as in Ningpo and
Shanghai.
The fascination of ascending mountains hitherto
untrodden by foreign feet ; the excitement no
ignoble feeling of geographical discovery : some
unmarked hill range ; some unmapped branch of
mighty river ; some glorious view of mountain-peaks
or rolling champaign these are possibilities now for
missionary volunteers in China ; but, above all, the
wonderful privilege and the solemn responsibility
of preaching the Gospel where Christ has never yet
been proclaimed.
The presence and work of other societies in such a
country as China need in no sense prevent our
entering as well, if only the obligations of Christian
courtesy, and hearty recognition of God s work by other
hands, be observed. Most certainly such work cannot
relieve Churchmen from personal responsibility.
ioo THE GLORIOUS LAND.
The presence, for instance, of the China Inland
Mission in the provinces of Szchuen and Yunnan,
means merely the attempt to evangelize the whole of
France and Spain with some twenty or thirty
labourers. Even in the small districts of Chuki (as
large as the county of Kent) and T aichow (as large
as a large slice of North Wales), there is room
enough and to spare for two societies ; much more
so in the vast provinces of the Empire.
And acting on this persuasion, the Church Mis
sionary Society has sanctioned an experimental
mission to Szchuen with new plans and methods of
work, suggested by the Rev. J. H. Horsburgh,
formerly connected with the Society s Hangchow
Mission.
The fascination of inland China unveiling to our
gaze must not however lead to the neglect or
abandonment of the thickly-peopled districts near the
coast-line. Watch the life of those great cities up
and down the coast. T ientsin a place of great
importance the port of the capital, the northern
terminus of the Grand Canal (as Hangchow is the
southern terminus), and destined to rise to the first
rank when it forms the northern terminus of China s
first trunk railway ; Shanghai, the commercial eye
of China and of those Eastern seas, with 500,000
Chinese inhabitants, and 15 million speaking nearly
the same dialect in the country round ; Suchow, and
Hangchow, China s " earthly Paradises," with at
least a million and a quarter of people between them,
and thickly-peopled contiguous districts. Ningpo,
with her 400,000 souls, and twice as many more
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 101
within the amphitheatre of her beautiful hills ; and
with 10,000 speaking the Ningpo dialect; Shaou-
hying, with half a million within her walls, and twice
as many in her magnificent and well-watered plain ;
T ai-chow, Wen-chow, Fuh-ning; Fuh-chow, with
its million inhabitants ashore and afloat in its
harbours barren though that city seems while the
country work blooms and blossoms as the rose.
Hong-Kong, a small fishing village within the
memory of man, now with a quarter of a million
Chinese, and a British colony with stately houses
climbing past to Victoria Peak ; Canton, the great
and active metropolis of the south ; and so round to
Pakhoi ; and the entrances to Kwangsi and Western
Kwangtung. Shall these great regions be abandoned
now that China s heart is open abandoned because
in the past the cities have borne but little fruit ?
Rather let them be prayed over, and wept over, and
worked over again and again till God s time of mercy
and of power has come.
" Miss not the occasion by the forelock take
That subtle Power, the never halting time ;
Lest a mere moment s putting off should make
Mischance almost as heavy as a crime."
WORDSWORTH.
The boat communication between river and canal
in many parts of China is made by " pas " or haul-
overs, the boats being dragged up the steep incline
of mud and sand on one side by windlasses worked
by men and boys, assisted by extra ropes pulled by
water buffaloes. The boat poises for awhile on the
summit of the bank while the fees are wrangled over,
G3
102 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
or, if there be a custom-house near, while the cargo
is being examined. Then a push is given, the tow-
ropes are unhitched, and the boat slides rapidly down
and rushes into the water below. I have often stayed
for hours near the foot of the incline, amidst a fleet
of boats waiting for their turn to cross. Sometimes
by gentle persuasion, sometimes by vigorous pushing,
sometimes by courteous entreaty, the boats in front
will make way for the stranger ; but oftentimes the
obstruction is insurmountable, and patient waiting is
the only policy. Then when the boat reaches and
touches the foot of the incline there is a rush to
secure the towing-ropes ; they are lifted up dripping
with mud, and with a double noose are hitched over
the stem of the boat. Now with shouts and some
times with a well-timed song they begin to haul.
The boat moves, and all goes well on the smooth and
easier part of the incline. Suddenly there is a check.
The boat has stuck fast and is immovable. The
boatmen jump out, and with a dozen or more to help
them they put their backs to the boat s side, lever it
up, and rock it from side to side. It is moving
slightly now, and the shout goes up to the men at
the capstan, and to the buffalo drivers, to take it on
with a rush ; they respond, and with a long pull and
a strong pull the boat is hauled up to the summit.
If they fail to seize that moment of apparent move
ment, the boat will settle down again, and the toil
and fatigue must be gone through a second time.
This scene illustrates not without force the present
state of Missions in China. We have passed after
long delay through the stage of obstruction and
THE GLORIOUS LAND. 103
relentless opposition. We have reached, however
slowly, some semblance of advance in Mission work.
But the progress has been in some places scarcely
perceptible. The deadweight of ignorance, super
stition and sin continuing for years together seems
to have made the Church in some portions of the
great field stationary or even sliding back. Now,
shoulder to shoulder, Christians, unite for China s
good. The country is open. The fields are white
for the harvest. There is movement, a sound of
a going in the tops of the trees ; there is advance
and hope. The cry goes up for " a large number of
ordained missionaries and lay workers to preach the
Gospel throughout the length and breadth of the
land ; to plant churches ; to train and educate
native ministers and native agents (without whose
co-operation our work must be largely in vain) ;
to create a Christian literature ; to engage in and
direct the supreme work of Christian evangeli
zation ; to travel far and wide distributing books ;
to lend a strong helping hand in the great work of
Christian education, and to exhibit to China the
benevolent side of Christianity in the work of healing
the sick."* Neglect this opportunity: and for
years the Church may have to contend again with
opposition and deadness. Respond ! O Church
of the Living God ; seize the opportunity ; combine
with heart and soul and mind and strength, with
loving, self-denying gift, with self-dedication, and
whole-hearted sympathy, and the creeping forward
march may turn to a run and an onward rush ere
* See " Report of the Shanghai Conference," May, 1890.
104 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
long ; till the summit is reached and the kingdoms
of this world have become the kingdoms of our God,
and of His Christ.
" What manner of persons ought we to be in all
holy living and godliness, looking for and hastening
the coming of the day of God ? "
CHAPTER X.
ALTER EGO.
A WAKING DREAM.
Romans xv. 1-3. i Cor. x. 24.
IT was the sweet dawn of an April day ;
Roused by the early light I musing lay :
When suddenly, how brought I cannot tell,
The mystery of being on me fell.
I was aware of what I could not shun,
Another day with this same self begun.
I woke once more, controlled still and confined
By the straight limits of one soul and mind.
Can I transgress these bounds, and pass at will
Into another s world, yet conscious still ?
Thus restless, ill-at-ease, I wished to be
Self, but not all the same identity.
Then changed my waking dream : I saw the day
Break on the hills and towns of Far Cathay.
The nation wakes to conscious life again ;
To toil and pleasure, or to tears and pain.
" Having no hope " beneath God s blessed sky,
" Far from the life of God" they live and die.
And shall I fret with hopes beyond the grave ?
A " child of God " deem that high self a slave ?
And if men yearn for wider, vaster sphere,
" Look on the things of others " far and near.
Let self step back and mind another s cares ;
Laugh in their laughter, weep your tears with theirs.
106 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
Plan for them, and supply each weary head
With thoughts they cannot think, with prayers unsaid,
So spend your ransomed life, that all may hear
The tidings of that Ransom ringing clear.
Or if, recoiling from the task, you plead
Weakness and fear ; then in each hour of need,
" Not I," the plea of slavish days, shall be
The glad plea of your days of liberty.
" Not I," to toil, to pray, to strive, to win,
But, by the Spirit s grace, my Lord within.
Now into darkness let " the flame be blown,"*
Not of true self, but selfishness alone !
That " Great Renunciation " shall obtain
Not gloom, but joyfulness; not loss, but gain.
So to the loftiest heights of highest heaven,
And to earth s furthest bounds your life be given :
For man s good and God s glory spend your days,
And rise with fetters loosed to work and praise.
* Cf. Chapter VI. on Buddhism.
APPENDIX.
THE Chinese nation has a literary language known
as the classical " wen-li." This is not a tongue at
all. It is simply the terse, concise, written language
of the country. It is a dead language (says Dr.
Williamson) but wonderfully alive, impressive, and
powerful. It is the language of proclamations, adver
tisements, contracts, deeds, correspondence, and
newspapers : and it is used in all the transactions of
life.
It is the language taught in the schools, and it is
the language of the Ancient Classics, as well as of
Chinese literature generally.* This language has,
so far as we know, never been a living spoken
language. It is meant for the eye and not for the
ear ; for books and not for speech. It can be
pronounced indeed ; but for intelligent apprehension
on the part of the hearers it must be translated by
the reader into the colloquial spoken by the audience.
This was the difficult double task which mis
sionaries had to perform in public worship, before
the issue of versions of the Bible in Mandarin and
other " colloquials " ; Mandarin being at once the
Court language of China, and in its many forms and
modifications the common medium of talk for, some
* Cf. Chinese Recorder, July, 1890,
io8 THE GLORIOUS LAND.
say, nearly two-thirds of the population. The
lessons had to be studied in the difficult " wen-li,"
and then translated at sight into the " colloquial."
The number of dialects spoken in China cannot be
accurately stated. Ten are mentioned as " separate
and distinct from each other." But these ten have
a large number of widely differing varieties; a broad
river, or a range of mountains, suffices oftentimes
to divide two different tongues with new sets of
particles, pronouns, and phrases, so that 200 will
probably be a sober estimate.
PRINTED BY PERRY, GARDNER & Co., FARRINGDON ROAD, LONDON, B.C.
BV 3415 N683 1891 TRI
Moule, Arthur Evans,
The glorious land
15 N683 1891 TRIN
Ar -f-hiiT F\7ns.
B V 3 4 J. J J.NUOO J.CJC7A JL
Moule, Arthur Evans
The glorious land
