Directly that, leaving behind steamers, railways, and Sundays, you step ashore at Ichang, a thousand miles up the river Yangtse, you find yourself in the land of superstition. Right opposite to Ichang, facing it from across the river, stands a pyramidal mountain six hundred feet high, in all its proportions resembling the Pyramid of Cheops. The people of Ichang say it menaces them, and, according to their belief in Fung shui, or climatic influences (literally, wind and water), prevents their young men from passing their examinations, and makes all their wealth pass into the pockets of strangers. Just before I first arrived there in 1887, they had all taxed themselves, and built a many-storied temple on the top of the very highest hill behind the city, in order to keep the baleful pyramid in check; and the subject of conversation amongst the peasants at that period, when not discussing the price of something or their last bargain, was always whether that temple had been built on quite the right spot. "I always said it ought to be on that other knoll, and turned a little more aslant," one would say. However, though they have not yet grown rich, probably to be accounted for by some error of the kind, two of their young men the very next year after the building of this temple took their second degree—an event which had not gladdened the neighbourhood for hundreds of years.

It is very easy for us to laugh at Fung shui; but it often strikes me that far more foolish than the Chinese belief is the absolute disregard of climatic influences shown in England. When the huge block of Queen Anne Mansions was building, I recollect applying for south rooms; and noticing the late Mr. Hankey's expression as he jotted down a memorandum, I asked him what he had been writing. "Oh, only about five or six people have applied for south rooms," he said. "So I put you down as one of the eccentric lot. You'll find them hot, you know, in the season." I ventured to remark that the sun went northwards in summer; but Mr. Hankey was incredulous. Applying to a house agent in London for a small house with a south aspect, he said he really could not tell me of any off-hand, as he had never been asked for such a thing before, and had no notion how the houses on his list faced. But, stranger than this, when house-hunting with friends in the lovely Caterham district some years ago, we found that whenever we drove up to a house in high hopes, seeing it was situated on such an eminence as to command a really lovely view, we invariably found the house turned its back on the view, which often could not be seen from any of the windows. Although the Chinese in the course of centuries have made Fung shui into a superstition, surely their consideration of aspects, soils, water, etc., is wiser than our disregard of all such potent influences of nature? It is, however, always easier to laugh than to learn; and I see that I noted at the time:

"The other day, such a tumult here! It turned out that some of the neighbours disapproved of the gable-end just added to the servants' quarters of our new house. A number of old women insisted on dragging my husband into their houses to see. 'Look!' they said, 'your new gable points! and points straight at our shrine. It will ruin us.' Greatly amused, he straightway said, 'It shall be curled in another direction as soon as possible.' The old women were at once propitiated and delighted. But so far it has not yet been curled, and they seem to have forgotten all about it."

In other countries besides China an assurance that a thing is to be done quite satisfies people.

Fung shui was the great obstacle to the erection of telegraph-posts, and is a difficulty in the making of railroads; but it seems to be easily overcome by an official assurance that the interference with it is of no consequence. The carefully chosen sites for houses show, however, how deep-rooted it is in the national life, the most unfortunate fact about it being that in their solicitude for the dead the Chinese generally assign the very best spots to graves, which must never be meddled with except at a change of dynasty; and, unfortunately, when the Manchu Dynasty came in, they omitted to level the graves. It would be almost worth while to have another change of dynasty, if only for the purpose of restoring to the use of the living much of the best ground in China.

A stranger Chinese belief is that when the phœnix and dragon of fable come together an egg is laid which leads to the devastation of the country. Such an egg was said to have been hatched at Matung, a little way below Chungking on the river. Certainly, the city magistrate went down to inspect the spot. It is the duty of all the officials to destroy these eggs all over China, their whereabouts being discoverable by the snow refusing to lie over them. But as we have mostly no snow in Chungking, perhaps that was held as an excuse for the officials; for we did not hear of any being beheaded or otherwise punished for letting the egg be hatched. The magistrate, indeed, refused to be drawn on the subject and say what he actually saw. "All nonsense, all nonsense!" he said. One curious part of it was that we never should have heard of his visit and its object but for noting the extraordinarily heavy rain that seemed to pour and pour over Matung. We were many of us dwellers on the hill-tops that summer—though not at all after Mr. Grant Allen's fashion, I fancy; and one of our daily entertainments was to watch the thunderstorms marching along the lower country, investing first one mountain, then another, dividing here, converging there. And one could not but notice how the most awful thunderstorms passed by all obstacles to concentrate themselves on Matung. Commenting upon this as we sat in the starlight in the evening watching our other entertainment, the play of the lightning, we remarked it might be worth while to go to Matung to see what had happened there, and then were told of the magistrate's visit to inspect the egg that had been hatched, and that before all these great storms, which we had looked down upon at intervals, in a small way being at times ourselves partakers. There evidently must therefore have been some striking indication of coming calamity to call for an official visit; and judging by what we saw ourselves, that indication had been realised. "It is the people's own fault, if they build their houses in a river-bed. Of course they are washed away," said the magistrate. But how many were washed away we never knew. One often regrets the absence of a newspaper in the interior of China. Twice in one week we saw in the distance great fires—saw the flames rise up, towering like a bonfire, spread, then after some time die out, a blackness settling down on what one imagines were once happy homesteads. In England, next morning we should be reading all the particulars; next day would follow the subscription list, after we had already sent our cast-off clothes, etc., to the sufferers. Thus would our sympathies be called forth at the same time that our interests were aroused. In China—nothing! No more is heard of the conflagration we even ourselves witness, of the inundation to which we also—at least, our hill-tops did their part—may be said to have contributed. Is it not partly this that makes life in China so dull? Is it possibly this also which leaves denizens in China looking so much younger than their years, their faces unmarked by the traces of emotion experienced, whether pleasurable or the reverse?

Materialistic though our worthy compradores (business managers) and invaluable boys (butlers) appear to us, with their expressionless faces and highly coloured explanations of popular beliefs in racy pigeon English, yet in reality no people believe themselves more surrounded by spirits than do the Chinese. Unfortunately, their spirits are generally evil spirits, requiring cunning handling to frustrate their designs—as when at New Year's time you stick on your door a red paper announcing that some sage of old or other celebrity lives in this house. In all countries the general belief seems to have been that the devils are very easily outwitted. But it is noteworthy how this belief in evil spirits gains upon the foreigners in their midst. Dr. Nevius, one of the most high-minded and noblest missionaries I have come across, a delightful man of apparently most healthy mind in a healthy body, wrote a deeply interesting volume on Demon Possession, giving instances to prove that this still exists in all its old Biblical terrors in China. I have known another missionary who is under the belief that by heartfelt prayer he himself was instrumental in driving out a demon; also others, of good social position and first-class English education, who felt their own powers for good almost paralysed whilst in the west of China by the presence of active evil spirits. Nor have I been able to divest myself in certain temples of the belief that the air was full of them, though I spent a long, long summer's day there once, alone, trying either to dispel the idea or to determine that it was so. Matters like these, if we believe, we none of us like to speak about. Certainly, it is during residence in China—supposed generally to have such a materialising effect—that I have become so convinced of spiritual agencies as to believe this faith unshakable. Happily for me the spirits, of whose presence and help I cannot doubt, have been uniformly good. And believing in their care, it has been impossible for me to be afraid in many circumstances with regard to which people often ask, "Were you not frightened?" Yet I have been frightened, very much frightened too, at other times. Probably, to many this confession will seem to rob my account of all trustworthiness. But all through this volume I try to write down what I have seen or think of things, always without asserting the correctness of my views. Some day we shall know; meanwhile, "It seems so to me" appears to be the truest phrase with reference to things Chinese.

To pass to lighter beliefs. In the west of China, at the foot of every fine old hoangko-tree, Ficus infectoria, a kind of banyan, is a little stone shrine, showing how at one time reverence was entertained for the spirit of this very beautiful shade-tree, growing on the top of so many hills in the windless province of Szechuan, always alone, and often giving enough shade to shelter the whole village near it under its branches in summer evenings; whilst in the autumn in the east of China, when the air is full of floating masses of gossamer, the Chinese say it is the "thread of niang-niang," or "heavenly silk." By the wayside, everywhere throughout China, the traveller comes upon pretty little shrines with one or two incense-sticks giving out a sweet fragrance; and if ever the whole land is converted to a higher, purer faith, I cannot but hope that these graceful little shrines may not be done away with, but consecrated anew with a figure of the Virgin Mother and Infant Saviour, or a crucifix, or a figure of some high and holy man of old, an ensample to us of these latter days, that so, like as in the neighbourhood of Méran, the peasant may feel called to offer upon it his beautiful white gardenia flowers, or a bunch of pink azaleas from the mountain-side, or a blossom of the gorgeous red dragon-claw flower, or even a white tea blossom or wild camellia, and, so doing, pray to Him above all, Whom they, as we, believe even now to see all they do, and Who, whatever our belief about Him, must for ever remain the same.

But I am wandering again and again into the sacred groves of religion, and must return into the devious paths of superstition. When a cargo-boat of my husband's once became a complete wreck, he could not help, even under the depressing influence of the news, being amused to hear his Chinese manager saying: "They would do it. They would do it. I told them not to. We must never again carry a cargo of dried shrimps. Of course, their spirits spoke to the spirits of their brother-fishes in the river, and they raised the waves that they might jump up and release their imprisoned relations. Well, there's a good deed done: a lot of lives set free. But we must not take shrimps again. You see, it is a dead loss. And I said so from the first."

According to a Chinese paper, the inhabitants of Chaochow Fu, of which Swatow is the seaport, are very superstitious. When one of them is seriously ill, instead of getting a doctor to attend him, he invites a certain set of priests to perform jugglers' feats and recite mysterious incantations. Thereby, it is believed, a cure can be effected. Ascending a ladder of swords is considered a very effectual mode of treatment. Two thirty-feet poles are made to stand in an upright position, fixed firmly in the ground parallel to each other. One hundred and twenty sharp swords, with their keen edges upward, are tied to the two poles like the rungs of a ladder. Some days before the ceremonies are to be performed notices are freely distributed, and on the given day thousands gather for the sight. A young priest, dressed in a fantastic costume, advances to the foot of the ladder, chanting incantations, and making passes with a knife which he holds in his hand. Suddenly he steps on the sharp edges of the swords forming the rungs of the ladder, and climbs rapidly. As the young priest has bare feet, it is a wonder that he can step without being injured on the edges of the swords. When he reaches the highest point, he deliberately sits on a sword, and throws down a rope. The sick man's clothing is tied to this, and is drawn up to the top. The young priest then shakes the clothing to the winds, burns magical scrolls, and recites incantations. He cries aloud the name of the patient, who is called in such ceremonies, "Redeem the soul." After these performances, the clothing is let down, and the patient puts it on. Taking a piece of red cloth from his pocket, the young priest waves it over his head like a flag, at the same time dancing and leaping from one pole to another. He places several sheets of paper money on the edges of the swords, steps on them, and the sheets fly in all directions, cut in the centre. He thus shows that the weapons are sharp, and that his position is by no means an enviable one. Exhausting himself at last, he descends with all the agility at his command. "Sometimes under such treatment the patient manages to recover," adds the Chinese paper naïvely enough.

In 1890 such a curious account was given in the North China Daily News of an incident that had just occurred in Western Shantung, the province the Germans are now trying to make their own, that, as I know nothing further of it, I think it is better to extract it from the paper:

"A certain man had a daughter, who was an only child, and for whose life the parents entertained the greatest fears. A boy, to be sure, would have been much more precious; but, as the saying runs, 'When cinnabar is not to be had, even red earth is valuable.' Having a neighbour named Chang who had many daughters, it occurred to the parents of the solitary child that it would be a good plan to have her 'adopted' into the family of the man with several daughters as one of them. This 'adoption,' it must be understood, is a pure fiction, and consists in nothing more than in calling the adopted child by the surname of the family into which she is adopted. Thus, in this case, the parents' surname being Liu, the girl, who was a mere infant, was called 'Chang Four,' as a milk-name, denoting that she was technically number four in the Chang family series of girls. The evil fates, perceiving that the Chang family had such a supply of daughters, would let her grow up in peace, and thus the Liu family would contrive to outwit the malignant spirits! The Liu girl never went to the Chang family to live, and had no relations with them of any kind, except that the family exchanged presents and calls on feast days, as if the conditions were those of a betrothal. In fact, the Chang family would be styled by the Liu family as their 'adopted relatives by marriage.' Devices of this kind, to cheat the fates in regard to boys, are very common, the lads being called 'ya-t`ao,' for girl, or sometimes 'lao-p`o,' to indicate that they are old married women. But these cunning schemes cannot, however, always be regarded as complete successes; for in this case the only daughter died, and so the 'dry relationship' came to an end."

Around the god of literature all kinds of legends have crystallised. He is said to have lived through seventeen lives. He is also said in his own person to have completed the perfection of the three religions of China. He did all manner of marvellous things, besides driving away a tiger that threatened a messenger, under promise from the latter to distribute five thousand copies of the tract on rewards and punishments. Perhaps the Psychical Society might learn something from his chapter on ghosts:

"A ghost is the corrupt part of man, and man is the pure part of a ghost.

"A man can be a ghost, and a ghost can be a man. The man and the ghost are mutually related. Why separate man and ghost?

"The ghost becomes a man, then man must become a ghost.

"If a man does not become a ghost, he will surely be able to perfect manhood.

"It is difficult for a ghost to become a man, because it has fallen to ghosthood, and because it has lost manhood.

"A man is a ghost; a ghost is a man: but all men are not ghosts, neither is every ghost a man.

"Those who can be respectful without feeling ashamed, who can be submissive without deception, who can obey to perfection the rule of life, and are able to preserve their natural force unabated, secretly cherishing growth, will become Buddhas or Genii, and not ghosts."

The god of war has not passed through so many vicissitudes; but it seems that in his lifetime he was a merchant noted for probity and liberality, and it is in this character that his picture is to be found in all self-respecting business firms to this day as an example of what a merchant should be. Then as the centuries passed by, he was canonised as the god or guardian saint of war, and his last change was being made the tutelary deity of the present dynasty. It is a great question, however, whether the Chinese can properly be said to have either gods or idols, or whether it would not be more correct to say they make and set up images of men canonised as guardian saints, and whose spirits are supposed to be present where proper reverence is shown to their images. According to Dr. Edkins, at the feasts in honour of the dead, whether simply ancestors or famous men of old, the dead man is now represented by a tablet; but by ancient rules a living representative was required, and preferably a grandson. In the time of the Hia Dynasty he stood. Under the Shang Dynasty—from 1800 to 1200 B.C.—he sat. Under the Chow Dynasty there would be six representatives of the deceased ancestors, who were all treated as guests, and partook of the feast. They had the strange idea that only thus could the patriarch of the clan be kept from extinction; for they thought of the soul as breath, liable to be dispersed as air. They called such a representative of the dead "the corpse," or, more correctly, "the image of the soul." It is hard to say whether such a practice is more material or spiritual.

Mencius describes images as at first made of grass and rushes, and then of wood, "to be buried with the dead in order to provide the deceased with servants to wait upon him in the other world." But not in his writings, nor in any of the classics, are there any indications of worshipping images or idolatry. Probably these images were a survival of human sacrifices in more ancient times. Paper representations of houses, servants, horses, money, are now burnt at stated festivals, in order to supply the dead with all they need. And for about a month before the appointed day, all through China, the eldest grandson of each family may be seen busy making out lists of all the ancestors entitled to such gifts, and writing letters to be burnt with them. Then on the appointed day the feast is spread, chopsticks are placed, wine-cups are filled, all for the dead dear ones. Thus are the superstitions or religious observances of the Chinese knit with their every-day life; for the living in the end eat the feast, though the wine is commonly poured out upon the ground as a libation. Then comes the great day when all the family goes out as a great picnic party to the family graves. The best clothes are put on, and a long day is spent in the country in junketing and gossip. All the environs of a Chinese city—for the environs are always the graveyards—are alive with gaily dressed parties of people, till the appearance presented is that of a great fair; for naturally booths are erected for the sale of eatables and drinkables as well as of offerings all along by the wayside. The temples are crowded; the priests receive offerings. Every one goes home at night with much the same expression as English people after a Bank Holiday. On the whole, the Chinese festival appears the holier and more fraught with sentiment of the two. Naturally, this festival is the culminating-point of ancestral worship. But it does not seem difficult to see how reverence for ancestors might be made altogether Christian, the natural outcome of the fourth commandment; nor how these feasts for the dead might be made very much the same as the Jour des Morts in Paris, or, indeed, something higher and yet more Christian. They are inextricably knit with the belief that the dead father's spirit floats round and watches over his children after death; and thus is the principle of noblesse oblige, or respect for ancestors, carried into every, even the poorest, household of China.

CHAPTER XII.
OUR MISSIONARIES.

People can hardly fairly discuss the question of missionaries without deciding definitely first of all whether they wish the Chinese to become Christians or not. And as I do not know what may be the views of those who read this book, I think I had better here cite impressions as to the prejudice against them, written after I had only spent a few years in the East; for the prejudice against missionaries is really one of the most amusing things in China.

"They all hang about Chefoo. That is the sort of place that suits them. A nice comfortable house, and nothing to do! Just about suit me too! I'd like to find a merchant's clerk who did as little as one of these self-devoted men, who have given up everything," is a little speech I heard one man make to three others one day, apparently expressing the sentiments and experience of all. Yet take Chefoo, the very place thus pointed out, and what do you find there? There is not a Shanghai man who knows him who does not say: "Oh, Dr. Nevius! Oh! but he's quite an exceptional man. He does more good than all the others put together, I believe. You don't fancy other missionaries are like him?" Or, "Oh, Dr. Williamson! Oh! but that's a man quite unlike the common," or, as I heard another day, "That's a man one really likes to hear talk about religion."

It is just the same, if you go up Hankow way. "Mr. Barber! Ah! but he is a thorough gentleman! A University man! Seventeenth Wrangler, you know, and a splendid all-round man—good at cricket, and football, and everything." "Mr. Hill! You won't meet another man like him in a hurry. Why, he is a man of independent means; doesn't draw a penny from the Mission. There is hardly a good cause all over the world which that man does not give to. He is wearing himself out, though"; or if the speaker be a little enthusiastic—they are enthusiastic sometimes in the outports: "That man is a real apostle."

Then again: "You don't know who that man is? Why, he was the champion wrestler till he came out here on mission work—wore the Border belt for two years. Some of the young bloods in Shanghai thought a missionary couldn't do much, and challenged him when he first came out. Didn't he punish them, though, and said, 'You see I am trying not to hurt you!' Why, he could have broken every bone in their bodies, if he had let himself."

Or again: "Mr. John! Now that man does real good. He has worked away for years, and every one must respect him. His is real solid work."

Then again, Mr. Baller of Ngankin. He is only to be named for every one who knows him to burst out into a eulogy. Mr. Studd's cricket renown is too widely spread not to make him exceptional from the outset; but those who have come across him in China seem already to have found out other things yet more noteworthy about him.

Thus the conversation goes on about pretty well every missionary any one knows anything about; and yet it winds up as it began: "But the missionaries generally are quite different,—hang about and make believe—and save money—and go home!" These typical missionaries no one seems to have ever met; yet every one who has been to China must agree one hears plenty about them. It begins on the voyage out, when you are told about the poor girls—the enthusiastic, misguided young girls they lure out to wretchedness, nobody knows where. "Clap them into Chinese dress the moment they arrive, and send them off up-country, where there is not a single European, in carts and all sorts of miserable conveyances. That's what they do. Why, the poor girls don't know themselves where they are going to."

This is the oft-repeated tale. And it is certainly highly probable that newly arrived missionaries, whether men or women, cannot pronounce the name of the place they are going to, nor even at first remember it. But there seemed some sound common sense in what an elder missionary said the other day: "Youth enables women to bear many hardships, under which they would break down in later life. And youthful enthusiasm carries many a young missionary over the first two years of Chinese life, where a woman of forty could not bear the change of climate and food. Besides, if, as is most likely, they become the wives of missionaries, there is a far more reasonable hope of a happy married life when the wife is already well accustomed to China and its ways before undertaking the cares and duties of a wife, than when she is brought out fresh from England and has to face all together."

However, Shanghai so far keeps up its old character for gallantry, that it never has a word to say against the lady missionaries, unless sometimes in a grumbling tone: "Did you ever really see a pretty one?" But, then, every one has. Captains speak rather sorrowfully of this, that, and the other who came out with them. And young men who go to church (young Shanghai does go to church a little; it is the men past their prime who only "have seats"),—young Shanghai speaks sentimentally of some fair apparition who looked so lovely in loose-fitting white and blue, and begins to question whether Chinese dress is not, after all, the most becoming. Certainly, fair hair looks all the fairer and softer above the loose-fitting clothes more generally associated with coarsest black.

And all the while the missionaries come in increasing numbers. With each freshly arriving steamer the cry is, "Still they come!" till China promises fair to be the best spiritually seen after country outside Christendom. Yet no missionary ever comes to the Europeans, whose spirituality seems to have so withered for want of exercise, that they resent nothing more than the idea that they could want a missioner to minister to their spiritual necessities or perchance have no spiritual wants.

Yet no account of Shanghai would be other than most incomplete which did not treat of the missionaries. They are a set apart, well known to one another, unknown for the most part to other Europeans, full of information about the China towns and Chinese generally, and abounding in racy anecdotes. How much good they do, who can estimate? They are certainly most refreshing to meet with, having a purpose in life, and reminding us sometimes that, as Faber says, "There are souls in this world that have the gift of finding joy everywhere."

But not all. The climate is trying; Chinese society is not of the liveliest; and there are—of course there always must be—a certain number of missionaries who do not seem quite the right kind of persons to have come out. How should it be otherwise? But it is a question whether that is more the fault of those of the inferior sort who come, or of those superior people who stay behind. But, setting aside this vexed question, the Roman Catholic missionaries do not appear nearly as cheerful and pleased with their surroundings as the Protestants. Nor, indeed, does one quite see what they have to make them happy—except, of course, always the love of God.

One time going up-river, after Chinkiang the saloon presented a picture of pigtailed Frenchmen—Jesuit Fathers in white Chinese clothes. As Jesuits are not allowed to go up-country till after a long preliminary training, and do not become full Jesuit Fathers till after at the least eight and not uncommonly fifteen years of preparation, if they are not far more skilled missionaries than those of the various denominations of Protestants, it would seem to show that in spiritual, unlike carnal, warfare training and discipline avail nothing. They reckon some one hundred thousand converts in Kiangnan. In some instances they have whole villages of Christians; but although Christians, they say it must be remembered these villages are Chinese still.

How merrily the French Fathers chatted over their coffee! But at the one word "France" every man waxed sorrowful! They say, however, they do not suffer from mal du pays, as do the Italians, many of whom have to go home, in consequence, sick with sorrowing. Not to be forgotten, however, is that French priest at Peking who, just returned from a long sojourn up-country, at the one word "France" broke down completely, and could not recover himself. And once more I felt a tightening at the heart, thinking of that large house building at Ichang to receive Italian Sisters—simple, loving-hearted women, who for others' sins, not their own, will live and die so far away from that loved Italy for which Filicaja wished: "Ah! wert thou but more strong; or if not that, less fair!" The life of Italian Sisters in China seems altogether too sad. They all get sick; they cannot love the people; they long for Italy; and till now they have been obliged to bind the feet of the little girls confided to them, yet unable to bear the pain for them. But the French priests, too, seem to have nothing to look forward to, and their lives are more comfortless than certainly English people at home have any idea of. I recollect one French priest in a most remote village showing me—half excusing himself, half proudly—his one great luxury, a little window with glass panes he had put in near his writing-desk, so as to see to read and write till later in the evening. There was barely a chair of any kind to sit down on in his large barracklike room. He showed me a set of photographs of his native village in France; but I noticed he never dared glance at it himself while we were there. We were the first Europeans to visit the place during the three years he had been there, with the exception of an old priest, who once a year came three days' journey across the mountains to see how he was going on. By comparison, the life of Protestant missionaries seems so joyous; indeed, I have never been able to see why it should not be an exceptionally pleasant one—barring illnesses always.

The coming New Year was casting its shadow before it in Chungking in the shape of gaudy pictures festooned about the streets, crackers of rejoicing by night and by day, and sad-faced young men wanting to realise on the family gold ornaments or picture-books by old masters offered at impossible prices. It cast its shadow also in other ways. The mission schools were breaking up, and the missionaries themselves going out to schwa, i.e. enjoy themselves in the country. Having been kindly invited to be present at the breaking up of the Friends' Girls' School, I noticed one or two things that appear worth recording.

Of course, I know missionary labours are popularly supposed to be the one kind of work on which we all of "the world outside" are qualified to pass discriminating judgment without ourselves requiring any preparation for so doing. A man may race across China as fast as he is able, and it is he who knows whether the missionaries are wasting their efforts on ungrateful soil, or whether opium does or does not disagree with the Chinese constitution, although he would hesitate to express an opinion on any such difficult question as whether a certain soil were suited for growing opium, or whether a merchant would be well advised to ship hides for the Shanghai market. Questions like these require specific knowledge. Not so the question whether missionaries in China are doing good. Notwithstanding which I must further premise that, just as when the new railways begin I individually should not feel in a position to say the navvies' work was being wasted because I saw no rails, so I do not feel in a position to say whether even the missionaries I know best are spending ineffectual toil because I do not see many Christians.

Judged by this test, indeed, what wanton extravagance might not the Shanghai Cathedral be pronounced! To some follower in our friend Dr. Morrison's footsteps I commend the calculation of the cost of its services to be divided by the number of converts thereby made. The sum would probably not be a difficult one, though the result might not be gratifying. For it costs more to redeem souls, etc.

But to return to twenty-six little girls, who were not converts. They passed an examination in the Old Testament, as it appeared, most creditably, although the eldest were thirteen. There was no hesitation in the answers, as one heard them affirming Jezebel was not a good woman, and telling about the hair by which Absalom was caught in the tree. And, after all, Jezebel and Absalom lived nearer to them than to us, and at least in their own quarter of the world. It is really odder to hear village children in England telling about the Old Testament kings, though it seems odder to hear Chinese children doing so. The younger children were also examined. Five little round-about bodies—for they were pretty well as thick as they were long—aged only six, repeated a hymn. Other hymns were repeated by other little detachments. All this was not surprising. But I was surprised when the first class, being led up to an outline map of Africa without names, called out Congoland, Madagascar, Natal, and the like as the examiner pointed. They did the same by Asia, cheeringly shouting out Japan, and equally readily indicating China. If into these little girls' heads it really had penetrated that there were other kingdoms in the world besides their own, they were in so far better taught than most of the literati of the land, and no knowledge would seem more to be desired for a Chinaman just now. After this the usual eye-trying needlework was exhibited, under protests from the European teacher that any one's eyes should be so tried, yet in this she felt obliged to conform to the fashions of the country.

But what struck me most (for it is the one matter on which I really felt qualified to form an opinion) was the expressions of the children. They were interesting, they were attractive, simply because the mind in them evidently had been aroused, and was working. The blank, dead-wall Chinese stolidity was gone. What may be the end of those children, what may be the outcome of it all, it is not for me to say; nor how far it is right to teach little girls who are not Christians Christian hymns. There are plenty of beautiful hymns they could learn, avoiding those about a Christ for whom they have no reverence. But one thing is clear: for good or for evil those little girls are with their awakened intelligences in a perfectly different position from those around them; and if their education is carried further forward—about which there are many difficulties in China—they will be in an increasingly critical position. And then seems to come the great danger. If they become Christians, well and good; they will have the ethics of Christianity to guide their daily life. But if not, removed from Buddhist influences, yet more in need of a guide than those around them, because themselves more susceptible of outside influences, one feels a certain uneasiness about them.

The proceedings wound up with what certainly seemed to give great pleasure: a gift of an article of clothing for every little girl from one member of the Mission, and then the great ceremony of choosing. Little collections of presents, sent out by the Missionary Helpers' Union, had been carefully sorted out and arranged upon the table,—a doll, a needle-book full of needles, an emery cushion, and a bag perhaps on one; woollen muffettees and a picture-book on another; and so on. The little girl who had most marks had first choice, and so on to the last, who had no choice at all, said the kindly lady teacher in great distress, her heart evidently aching for the little one, who must sit by and see all the best things chosen from before her eyes. "But she could have got more marks; it is her own fault," she added indignantly, the severity of the teacher once more gaining the upper hand; for this lady, young though she still was, was not a mere novice, but was teaching in England in a large and well-known Friends' School in the west country before ever she came to China, and came to China with the distinct purpose to teach little girls; into which work she appeared to put her whole heart, until ill-health forced her to come home. Some of the little girls had evidently studied the presents well beforehand, and came up to choose with their minds made up, making the Chinese reverence all round and up and down, then off to their mothers to put their treasures in safe keeping before going back to their seats. But it was pretty to see the indecision on some childish faces, growing redder and redder as first they pressed a white wool doll to their little bosoms, then fondled lovingly one in grey silk. All the dolls had been carefully dressed to suit Chinese notions of etiquette, with sleeves well down to the wrist, and the longest possible lace-trimmed drawers under their long dresses. But one wondered if the little Chinese children would not have preferred Chinese-clad dolls to nurse.

Anyway, each year, being presented with such useful and tempting-looking foreign gifts, although certainly not intended that way, must predispose the little girls to wish to buy foreign things when they grow up, recollecting the delight that foreign things gave them as children. In this way all the trouble of the Missionary Helpers' Union, formed of children at home, thus early trained to interest themselves in missions by being led to work for them, may have commercial results not dreamed of by the little workers. With its reflections my account seems nearly as long as the little ceremony. But I must not omit one feature of it. The Chinese mothers sat on benches all round, flushing with pride as their children distinguished themselves, and the Mission ladies sat in front behind the prizes. Then in came all the Mission babies, with their faces so startlingly clean by comparison with the Chinese as to look like beings from another sphere, rosy, and kicking about their white fleecy shawls and other pure whitenesses. Disdainful, indeed, the babies appeared, and were themselves probably the crowning feature of the show; for the Chinese certainly delight in foreign babies, and are never tired of examining them. I cannot emulate An Australian through China, and reckon up the cost per head; but I think the whole proceeding must have resulted in a certain amount of friendly feeling, and some of joy. Can we confidently say even as much of the Marlborough-Vanderbilt wedding?

There is, however, besides the climate, another sad element in life in China, and that is the dislike of the Chinese to foreigners and distrust of them.

It was sad to hear, shortly after this prize-giving, that there were again anti-foreign placards out on the walls of Chengtu, the capital of the province, of a very violent description, and that the Canadian Mission had already been more than once the object of hostilities in a small way. Yet one would like to know whether in their new buildings they were consulting Chinese taste, or building some hideous European erection which must offend the æsthetic feelings of every Chinaman that sees it. In this city of beautiful roof-curves a foreign house, without any proportion being observed between its windows and wall space, without any sweep of overhanging eaves, and built as no architect, European or Chinese, would build it, strikes a dissonance like a wrong note in music, and must be very irritating to those attuned from childhood to the laws of beauty in architecture. Why we should insist upon the Chinese swallowing our ugly clothes and ugly houses before they receive our beautiful gospel of glad tidings, I never can understand, except by reminding myself that that gospel never came from Shanghai or New York, but from that very Asia where still truth and beauty seem to Asiatics synonymous and interchangeable.

The views of the Chinaman, who has done more than any man of this generation to stir up anti-foreign feeling among his countrymen, are more to the point, however, than any words of mine. Chou-han has for years been circulating tracts of so offensive a nature against Christians that I cannot further refer to them; but here is Chou-han's own letter on the subject to T`an, the Governor of Hupeh. It is interesting, in connection with this letter, to remember that it was T`an's son who was among the first six beheaded by order of the Empress-Dowager when she deposed her nephew, the Emperor, and that T`an, the father, either died of grief or killed himself, heartbroken on hearing of his son's death.

"Multiplicity of affairs leaves me but little leisure for letter-writing, and it is a long time since I have written to inquire after your health. I would humbly congratulate you on the ten thousand happinesses which attend your downsitting and uprising, and on the abundance of your virtuous deeds and meritorious achievements. With regard to the anti-heresy publications, let me state that they are all of them printed and disseminated by myself, in concert with the officials and gentry, both civil and military, who have the management of affairs connected with the Benevolent Halls. Some time ago a relative of mine, T`ang Chenpih, styled Mungliang, a native of Siangtan, was going to Wuchang, and we unitedly entrusted him with a hamperful of these publications for general distribution. After this a special messenger was sent by T`ang to Siangtan, to inform us that he was imprisoned on account of what he had been doing, and praying that we would come to his rescue, etc., etc. This is amazing! If, indeed, it be wrong to attack this depraved heresy, then I am, so far as the matter of fabricating words and creating disturbances is concerned, the chief culprit. In all reason, you ought to report me to the Throne, deprive me of my official rank, and arrest me as a criminal. What has my relative T`ang to do with the matter? And even should you take off his head and hang it up as a warning to all, how could you by so doing put a stop to the thing itself?

"My special object in writing now is to beg of you to consult with the Viceroy, and set at liberty my relative T`ang and every one of his companions, who together with him are unjustly implicated; also to return to them every article of property which may have been possibly taken away from them. I beg of you to prepare a joint statement of facts, and to impeach me in a memorial. I will respectfully wait my punishment in the provincial capital; I will certainly not run away. If however, your Excellencies will treat good and honest people like fish and pork, and put me aside and not examine me, then I will go at once to Peking, and cry at the gate of his Majesty's Palace. I swear that I will with my own body requite the beneficence of Yau, Shun, Yu, T`ang, Wen, Wu, Cheu-kung, Kung, and Meng, together with the beneficence of his Majesty the Emperor, the Empress-Dowager, and all the ancestors of the Great Dynasty. I shall certainly not allow my relative T`ang and his injured companions to hand down a fragrant name to all coming ages alone. I am anxiously looking for your reply, so as to decide whether to proceed or to stop. It is for this I now write, also wishing you exalted enjoyment.

"Your younger brother and fellow-countryman Chou-han writes with compliments. Chou-han, imperially honoured with the Second Rank, and expectant Taotai in Shensi, a native of Ninghiang, now at his own village recruiting his health."

Translated by the Rev. Dr. Griffith John.

One cannot but admire Chou-han for his outspoken boldness, as also for his persistence in opposing what he believes to be a depraved heresy. On the other hand, turning to his tracts, it is difficult to believe that any one could circulate them with a good intention.

People who do not believe the Chinese would be any better for becoming Christians can be but little interested in missionaries. Those who, on the other hand, really believe we have glad tidings to tell to them may doubt whether quite the right means are being taken to deliver the message. If every one who went out to China lived as a Christian should, it clearly would have a far more striking effect; but whilst Europe remains what it is, that seems at least as unattainable as converting the Chinese. Of those who are converted, I have come across thousands of Roman Catholics who have borne the burning of their houses and devastation of their property. There were four thousand Roman Catholic refugees in Chungking in the summer of 1898. Not a few have been killed. And in the west of China several cases have occurred where men have been offered their lives if they would burn incense upon Buddhist altars, and have refused and been martyred. I do not know how converts could more prove their sincerity than by thus dying. But of Protestant converts, too, I do not think the staunchness has at all sufficiently been estimated. When riot after riot occurred all along the Yangtse, in some cases all the foreigners went away, leaving their converts to shift for themselves. Native evangelists carried on the services, and there were the congregations just the same when the missionaries came back. Whilst, to turn to lesser persecutions, sometimes even harder to bear, how many Chinese Christians have seen their business fall away from them, and from a position of competence have been reduced to poverty! As long as Treaty Ports exist in China, probably their common talk will be that Chinese Christians are no good; for there of all places men of bad character may be expected to join the Christian communities from interested motives: but on the whole, though naturally they cannot attain to all the Christian virtues at once—it will probably require a generation or two to arrive at such an approximation even as we have ourselves arrived at—yet in the matter of staunchness Chinese Christians stand as high as the Christians of any nation at any age.