disproves what some people have said about the lack of literary ability on the part of the Tae pings. It shows that their chief himself is a man well versed in the very extensive literature of his country, the more philosophical portion of it included. And his style has that clearness and simplicity which an earnest man, more anxious to plant conviction in the minds of his readers, than to excite admiration of himself, is sure to adopt if really an able writer. I recommend Hung sew tseuen's "critics" to attend to the following:"Men frequently admire as eloquent, and sometimes admire the most, what they do not at all, or do not fully, comprehend, if elevated and high-sounding words be arranged in graceful and sonorous periods. Those of uncultivated, or ill-cultivated, minds, especially, are apt to think meanly of anything that is brought down perfectly to the low level of their capacity; though to do this with respect to valuable truths which are not trite, is one of the most admirable feats of genius. They admire the profundity of one who is mystical and obscure; mistaking the muddiness of water for depth; and magnifying in their imaginations what is viewed through a fog." Hung sew tseuen's Book of Declarations not being intended for men of "uncultivated or ill-cultivated minds," is written as plainly as possible.

Its first sentence forms a substantiation of all that I have just said respecting it. The translation published at Shanghae†

commences :—

"The great origin of virtue is from Heaven:
Let us now reverently allude to Heaven's

ways, in order to arouse you worthies.

The way of Heaven is to punish the abandoned

and bless the good."

But the first line is a quotation, forming the text, as it were, to the first section of the Book, which is in verse. The word rendered "virtue" is the Taou, which has been

Archbishop Whately.

+ All the Tae ping publications have been translated by Dr. Medhurst and were published in the "North China Herald," as also separately.

explained at length in the last Chapter; and the whole line

runs:

"Taou che ta yuen chuh yu Teen."

Truth's grand origination proceeded from Heaven.

Or, "Heaven is the grand origin of Truth." It was first used by Tung chung shoo, a philosopher who lived in the third century before Christ, and one of whose chief merits was the addition of the proposition which it enunciates, to the national body of doctrines. Choo tsze gave it his sanction; and it stands, as a text, at the head of several of the best essays on the national philosophy, that the orthodox school has produced, essays written from five to six centuries ago. Taou is, as I have shown, at times synonymous with our "virtue;" but the authoritative essays, just mentioned, prove that, in this time-honoured sentence, it conveys to Chinese the meaning of Truth, as identical with the Teen ming, the Will of Heaven, and with Teen taou, the Way (or true course) of Heaven. By the use which the founder of the Tae ping Christianity makes of this and of several similar, stereotyped sentences of the national philosophy, he addresses a powerful appeal to the educated of his countrymen: "You know," say these sentences in his mouth, "that Teen has always been considered by us to be the same as Shang te; consequently that the Will and Way of Teen are the Will and Way of Shang te and you know well how much trouble it cost Choo tsze to establish the doctrine that Shang te was merely the personified Ultimate Principle. The fact is, that Shang te is the intelligent, Supreme Ruler, the originator of all things; and our ultimate principle' is nothing but His Will or Way in operation, as the all-originating and all-sustaining power. The foreigners' Sacred Books, from beginning to end, represent Him and His Will and His Way in no other light; and the foreigners have, from the most ancient times up to the present day, devoutly worshipped him. Does this not explain the circumstance, that one small nation of these foreigners, when they sent a few thousands of troops from

a great distance to fight the Manchoo rulers of our vast China, were conquerors in every battle? Was that not because they have always worshipped the Shang te, whom Ching tang adored and obeyed when he overthrew the Hea dynasty; whose commands Woo wang executed when he overthrew the Shang dynasty; and whom the foreigners' Sacred Books show to have often commanded the destruction of the idolatrous and the vicious, such as are our Manchoo rulers, and such as are now the whole people of China?"

Hung sew tseuen nowhere alludes to the fact of the foreigners having beaten the Manchoos; but the great influence that the success of British military operations had in his conversion is, I conceive, fully established by the singular coincidences noted at pages 80 and 87. All the other views expressed in the above suppositional address are either enunciated in plain terms in different parts of his writings, or are unmistakeably implied by the passages which he quotes or embodies. For instance, the third of the above lines runs :

Now this is, with an immaterial transposition and the addition of the conjunction, but, a quotation from a justificatory manifesto of Ching tang,* given in the Sacred Shoo king: Teen taou fuh shen, ho yin; keang tsae yu Hea, &c., Heaven's Way gives happiness to the virtuous, inflicts misery on the vicious; it has sent down calamities on the Hea dynasty," &c. In the minds of the millions in China who have that passage by heart, its use, by Hung sew tseuen, recalls the old narrative of the expulsion of the Hea family at the command of Shang te.

Having shown generally how the new Chinese Christianity is connected with, and modified by, pre-existing beliefs, I proceed to an exposition of its tenets; in the course of

* He ascended the throne B.C. 1783.

EE

which some further proofs of the modification and connexion will be given.

Hung sew tseuen undoubtedly conceives Shang te, the Teen foo, as existing at times under a human form, with human attributes, i. e. his conception is anthropomorphic. His "vision" does not account to us for this, for we know that that could be nothing but a subjective product of his waking, sober thoughts. I have indicated at page 82, that it was probably the first and third chapters of Genesis, understood literally, which led to it. I know that not only Romanists, who paint in their churches God the Father as a venerable old man, conceive him habitually under the human form, but that many members of the two national churches in this island are also practically anthropomorphists, though theoretically declaring that God is a spirit; the chief cause being the expression "created man in his own image." A further reason may be adduced for Hung sew tseuen's anthropomorphic conception. His new faith was a reaction against pantheism not less than against idolatry; and as the unity of the One Shang te opposed the multiplicity of idols in the religion of the ignorant, so the distinct human-like personality of Shang te opposed the belief in a non-personal ultimate principle of the educated. Having noted this tendency of Hung sew tseuen's views to anthropomorphism, I need say little more on his conception of God the Father, for in all other respects that conception is identical with that of Protestant Christendom. He accepts entirely the cosmogony of Genesis as it is understood by orthodox Episcopalians; and for him God the Father is the Almighty, Allwise Creator, and the Omnipresent Sustainer of the Universe.

Hung sew tseuen gives his views of the nature of man, where he proves the brotherhood of the human race. Their bodies they derive from their parents; but as all families proceeded from one family, and that one family from one original ancestor, therefore, viewed with respect to their

physical nature, they are all brethren. Their souls, i.e. the souls of all men now born, he, guided by the second chapter of Genesis, states to be (sang) produced by, or to (chuh) proceed from, "the breath of Shang te." In support of this doctrine of a common origin, he quotes the aphorism which the national philosophy applies to the Ultimate Principle: "The one root spread out into multifold branches; the multifold branches all appertain to one root." He also quotes two passages from the pre-Confucian Sacred Books to the effect that man is produced by Heaven. Lastly, what is of great importance, he quotes the opening sentence of the psychological Chung yung, where Confucius says, "Teen ming che wei Sing, the will (or decree) of Heaven is called Nature."

Here we have the human soul of the new Christianity declared to be the same in constitution as the Jin Sing, Man's nature, of orthodox Confucianism; and here we, in consequence, see Hung sew tseuen declaring quite naturally, and in unconsciousness of any necessity to dwell on the proposition, that each man's soul, as (sang) an immediate creation of, or (chuh) direct emanation from, God, is perfectly good; a doctrine which he, in another place, explicitly enunciates by saying, "Righteousness is man's inborn original nature."

As orthodox Confucianism says nothing of a future life, it furnished no word by which man's immortal soul could be expressed. The Buddhist and Taouist superstitions of the uncultivated classes furnished the word hwăn; but this being (etymologically) composed of two others, the one meaning vapour, the other miserable or evil spirit, or demon, its latter component rendered it objectionable, as a designation of that immortal part of the human being which more especially constituted him a child of God. Therefore Hung sew tseuen has adopted a new word, formed by discarding the demon portion of hwăn, and substituting the character man as the component. In the Tae ping books the soul is, consequently, designated by a new composite word, whereof the constituents are vapour and man; forming, I may observe, a by no means inappropriate