restraint were unknown. He may even have found time to walk all the way down to that quarter,* and watch them for a while, as dressed like respectable Chinese in clothes of a grave mourning color (white) but ridiculously tight, and with absurdly shaped black cylinders for a head covering, they obeyed the dictates of their restless natures by an objectless walking back and forward in an open space before their dwellings.t

But after 1840 they began to attract some attention in the vicinity of Canton, by a turbulent opposition to the antiopium measures of the imperial government; and in 1841, and the beginning of 1842, they acquired a totally new character, as a people possessing not only wonderful fireships and other irresistible engines of war, but, if no other description of settled government, at least a regular military organization, which had enabled them to inflict signal defeats on the hitherto invincible Manchoos, and to dictate to the Imperial Government an ignominious peace. This became manifest throughout the native department of Hung sew tseuen in the summer of 1843; when Ke ying, a prince of the Imperial house was seen to pay friendly visits to the foreign leaders; when the trade was resumed at Canton. free from former restrictions; and when the publication of the Treaty showed that four other great marts had been thrown open in the northern provinces. It is not, therefore, surprising, that precisely at this time, Le, a friend of Hung sew tseuen, should have been induced to study the Christian publications he found in Hung's book case; nor that the latter should afterwards read them "closely and carefully."

"He was greatly astonished to find in these books the key to his own visions, which he had had during his sickness,

* As a poor student of the London University may have been able to spare time to walk down to Blackwall to have a look at the Chinese junk.

Our taking exercise, which even now attracts gazers from the inner districts.

six years before; he found their contents to correspond in a remarkable manner with what he had seen and heard at that time. He now understood the venerable old man who sat upon the highest place, and whom all men ought to worship, to be God, the heavenly Father; and the man of middle age, who had instructed him, and assisted him in exterminating the demons, to be Jesus, the Saviour of the world. The demons were the idols, his brothers and sisters were the people in the world. Hung sew tseuen felt as if awaking from a long dream. He rejoiced to have found in reality a way to heaven, and sure hope of everlasting life and happiness." He and his friend Le were converted; administered baptism to themselves, as they understood the rite from the books; and then immediately commenced preaching to others, in imitation of Leang a fah; an account of whose conversion and labours they found in the books.

But Hung sew tseuen at once took a much higher stand. He found the contents of the books "to correspond, in a striking manner with his former visions; and this remarkable coincidence convinced him fully of their truth, and of his being appointed by God to restore the world, that is, China, to the worship of the true God." "These books," said he, "are certainly sent purposely by heaven to me to confirm the truth of my former experiences." And "under this conviction he, when preaching the new doctrine to others, made use of his own visions and the books as reciprocally evidencing the truth of each other."

I need scarcely observe that when Hung said "sent from heaven," it did not enter into his imagination to ignore the fact that they were transmitted to him through human agency. But he had, in the lapse of years, totally forgotten his first cursory glance at the books; and there is something so flattering to human feelings in the idea of being selected by Heaven as its special instrument, that his mind would instinctively shrink from reviving recollections that tended to dispel an illusion so grateful. The Books showed him that

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the foreigners (he ceased to call them barbarians) whose power in war had just humbled the sovereign of China, were steadfast worshippers of the God of its antiquity, Shang te; whom the first monarch of the glorious old Chow dynasty had solemnly, and thankfully, adored on attaining possession of the throne. He read that this, the only True God, whom the Chinese had long neglected for false gods, had after "creating the first man and woman in his own image more than once talked to them; had "walked in the garden in the cool of the day;" that he had "made them coats of skins and clothed them;" and that he had expelled them from the garden lest they should eat of a certain fruit "and live for ever," as they had already eaten of one kind of fruit and thus become able "to know good and evil." The awful conviction now fell on his mind, that his spirit had been summoned into the presence of this very God, had from Him in person received a fruit to eat, together with a seal and a sword with which to exterminate demons in the spiritual world; and had been, at the same time, charged with the special mission of reforming the depraved worshippers of these demons" among the peoples of this earth.”

This conviction of a divine mission, at once readily accepted by one of his aspiring character then suffering from disappointed hopes in a different career, was not likely to be weakened by further study of the books. In estimating the relative amounts of disinterested, sober reasoning, and of tacit self deceit that were engaged in leading him to look on his visions as scenes of real, though spiritual, occurrences, we must particularly bear in mind that he read in the books, St. Paul's account of the incidents, in Acts xxii., attendant on his conversion, when about noon "a great light shone about" him, and he "fell to the ground, and heard a voice" the voice of "the Lord" who addressed him, and to whom he replied, while "those that were with" him, "saw the light indeed," but "heard not the voice of him that spake." Further, an enthusiast for what was good, he found in the

Sermon from the Mount the strictest morality and highest goodness that had ever been inculcated by Confucius; impressionable for what was great, he found, in the chapters taken from the Psalmists and Prophets, descriptions of the grandeur and might of a One True God, the sublimity of which could not be altogether destroyed even by very imperfect translation; and of which nothing whatever is found in the writings of Confucius or his followers. Lastly, as a Chinese, with that mental tendency towards ultimate unity, which is a marked characteristic of the nation, his intellectual nature found satisfaction in the absolute unity of the Hebrew Jehovah," the Lord besides whom there is no God," "the Holy One," the "Mighty One."

CHAPTER VII.

HUNG SEW TSEUEN'S ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW SECT OF CHRISTIANS IN KWANGSE, AND CAUSES OF HIS SUCCESS.

HUNG SEW TSEUEN's first converts were men who like himself acted as village schoolmasters. The most important of these for future events was Fung yun san. His next converts were his own parents and brothers and their wives, all of whom, with their children, received baptism. "Of his other relatives several sincerely believed, others were convinced of the truth, but feared the mockery of the people. Some said Such mad and foolish things ought not to be believed;' others had to suffer rebuke from their own parents because of their faith."

The chief mark of true conversion was the renunciation of idolatry generally, and the withholding of the distinctive honours paid to the tablet of Confucius. Hung sew tseuen and Fung yun san having removed this tablet from their schoolrooms, found themselves in a few months deserted by their pupils; and, being very poor, resolved to travel to another province as preachers, trusting to support themselves on their journeyings by selling ink and writing brushes. In this they were influenced by the words "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and his own house;" and by the notices of St. Paul's travels contained in the xix. chapter of the Acts, given in Leang a fah's books. Accordingly in the beginning of 1844 they left for Kwang se, and, after making a few converts at various places on the way, entered about May the territory of the aboriginal moun