attitude of the Church to certain practices, which had so much of evil as to seem to make their toleration wrong, but so much of good as to make their sanction necessary. The Emperor sided with the Jesuits; the Pope with the Dominicans. This and other changes gradually led up to a great opposition, which resulted in the expulsion of every known missionary from China, and their continuous exclusion up to our own time. The exclusion, however, was not so complete as to prevent many finding access, and working in peril and secrecy in the long interval between 1723 and 1858. Many were detected and slain, many detected and expelled, but the work went on. Whatever the faults of their policy, and errors of their creed, the six hundred thousand converts they left behind are a testimony to their zeal, and to the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to charm the hearts of men. For, imperfect and adulterated as their Gospel was, it had sufficient grip to maintain a hold on the souls of men during the century and a quarter which followed; and sufficient spiritual force to give the converts a superior type of character to that of the community around them. So fared the three first invasions of China by the Gospel. In each case it was welcomed and welcomed largely. In each case some admixture of error marred the strength of the Gospel. In each case probably, in Nestorian and Jesuit Missions certainly, the spirit of compromise was carried to an extent fraught with mischief. In each case they seemed to be extirpated by relentless persecution. The facts of a large welcome given to the Gospel remains; of wide conquests in Western China and Central Asia, from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries; and the further fact that ever since the Nestorian period there has been flowing alongside of the great current of national thought some streams of more spiritual conviction. The Buddhism that entered Central Asia-atheistic-adopted the Theism of the Gospel after it met with Nestorian Christianity. It adopted a Trinity, calling Sakya Mouni, the second person of it, the manifestation of the unseen God, and adding a third person. The name for the first person signified "Source or Origin"; for the second, "Book"; for the third, "Intention or Love." They had a dogma of the Incarnation,* accentuated the need of faith, made * Abbé Huc's "Christianity in China," II. 269. goodness not the price which wins salvation, but the expression of gratitude for it.* Another development of thought which shows the influence of Christian ideas on Buddhism is that presented by Lamaism, in which the executive hierarchy of the Church of Rome is copied, including an infallible Pope (the great Lama of Thibet); masses for the dead ; worship of relics; use of rosaries; a celebate monasticism, and other essentially Catholic usages. The Gospel history is fairly represented in a "Complete History of Gods and Genii," written by a Chinaman, 180 years ago. It seems unquestionable that a spiritualising and vitalising power still flowed from these missions, which outwardly were wrecked during the convulsions which enthroned and subsequently displaced the Mongol dynasty. And it seems probable that the higher tone of thought, the sacred hunger which so largely marks those connected with the secret sects to-day, is due to the presence and prevalence of conceptions of God derived ultimately from these Christian sources. In a land where the worship of departed men and women absorbs almost all the devotion left after the deprecatory worship of powers of mischief has taken its share, and where loyalty to the Emperor requires that the worship of the great God should be left to him alone, it is a significant fact that-according to Mr. Wherry, of Pekin-there are people by the tens of thousands who forswear idolatry and worship only God. BEGINNING OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS. Our review has led us down to the present century, when Protestant Missions began to assail this ancient Empire. The first to engage in missionary work in China was Dr. Morrison, though he was only able to find entrance as a servant of the East India Company, and the relation to which he owed his liberty of residence was one which deprived him of a large part of his liberty of speech. Still it permitted him to acquire the language, to frame a dictionary, to translate the Bible-all service of supreme importance for future workers. His Bible did not make its appearance till 1822. Another version of the whole Scriptures into Chinese had preceded his by two * See curious details regarding the sect which worships Amita Budha, in Missionary Review of the World, March, 1891, p. 185. † Sir John Davis's "The Chinese," II. 92. years, from the pen of our own indefatigable Dr. Marshman. Though Marshman had never been in China, and his opportunities were small, the excellence of his translation is remarkable. "It is surprising," says Mr. Wherry, "how much of the actual contents of the book is good current Chinese, and what a large proportion of it appears, ipsissimis verbis, in subsequent translations." Both Marshman and Morrison were probably indebted to a Catholic translation which existed in MS. in the British Museum. Others aided Morrison, laboured amongst the Chinese outside of China, especially among those of Singapore. Morrison died in 1834, worn out with work, having accomplished much, though only permitted to see four converts as the result of his work. The new era of Missions has two great dates-the 26th of June, 1843, when the Treaty of Nanking was ratified, which opened the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ning Po, and Shanghai to British subjects, with liberty to reside there, and ceded to us the island of Hong Kong as an English possession; and October 24th, 1860, when the Treaty of Tientsin, of June 26th, 1858, was finally ratified. This treaty made the number of ports open to foreigners for residence twentytwo; promised protection to missionaries and converts of the Christian religion (art. 8); and sanctioned the travelling in the interior of foreigners, for trade or pleasure, under certain conditions. In the Chinese text of the French treaty, ratified at the same time, there was the following clause :-" It is, in addition, permitted to French missionaries to rent and purchase land in all the provinces, and to erect buildings thereon at pleasure." These words are remarkable, for they are not in the French copy of the French treaty, having been, as a matter of fact, foisted into the Chinese copy by the Jesuit interpreters who assisted, and who took the liberty of looking after their own interests more thoroughly than the ambassador was doing. The French Government was, of course, glad to take advantage of concessions larger than they had asked for. Under this clause, the Catholic missionaries began at once to buy land and build houses, as well as travel freely. Under the favoured nation clause, our authorities might have asked the same liberty, but properly declined to take advantage of a fraud. But declining to claim the right, they asked the favour of similar privileges for our own missionaries, and since 1860 there has been freedom for mission * "Records of Shanghai Conference, 1890," p. 49. |