PREFACE.

ON my return to the United States from China, I found an unexpected degree of interest in the community regarding the prospects in that empire for the extension of traffic and intercourse; and in many circles, a still greater desire to know how far the recent changes and openings were likely to advance the introduction and diffusion of Christianity among its inhabitants. A residence at Canton and Macao of twelve years in daily and familiar contact with the people, speaking their language and studying their books, it was supposed might enable me to explain parts of their polity and character not commonly understood here, and give such views of their condition as would illustrate their social state, and encourage to greater efforts in evangelizing them. To reply to these, and other inquiries respecting their geography, population, arts, customs, and science of the Chinese, I delivered a series of lectures in Utica, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, and other cities, the proceeds of which were devoted to the manufacture of a fount of Chinese type then making for the missions. Having gone to China under the patronage of the American Board of Foreign Missions as a printer, this object in lecturing was in keeping both with my station in the mission, and the general subjects of the lectures, in which I endeavored to take a survey of the empire and its inhabitants. The inquiries made by intelligent persons guided me in the topics chosen for lecturing. The sequel need hardly be told, nor are the lectures here referred to as an apology for these volumes. Others, far better able to

judge of the necessity and usefulness of such a work than I am, strongly recommended their publication; and one pastor said that if I would write them out he would get his church to publish them.

Two objects have been kept in view while preparing them. One has been to embody all the topics treated of in the lectures, amplifying and illustrating some of them more than was expedient or useful in a discourse; so that those who heard the lectures will find the same subjects referred to here. In arranging them, the same order has been preserved; and in discussing them, care has been taken to select whatever information was most authentic, important, and recent; trying to reach that difficult medium between an essay on each head, which would tire the general reader, and could be found elsewhere by all who wished to investigate it, and an unsatisfactory abridgment, too meagre to gratify rational inquiry, and too short even to induce further research; but whether I have attained this chung yung, as the Chinese call it, I am not a judge. If on the one hand the volumes seem too bulky for a general inquirer to undertake to peruse, as containing more upon such a subject than he cares about reading, let him remember the vastness of the Chinese Empire, much larger than his own Republic in its widest bounds, and whose races number nearly as many scores, as his own country has units, of millions, and he will not, perhaps, deem them too large for the subject. On the other hand, those who feel greater interest in the character, history, and institutions of the Sons of Han, will pursue their investigations in the works of the French missionaries and savants, and those few English writers who have entered into this branch of knowledge.

Another object aimed at, has been to divest the Chinese people and civilization of that peculiar and almost undefinable impression of ridicule which is so generally given them; as if they were the apes of Europeans, and their social state, arts, and government, the burlesques of the same things in Christendom. It may be excusable for the Chinese to have erroneous and con

temptuous notions concerning lands and people of whom they have had little desire and less opportunity to learn what they really are; but such ideas entertained concerning them by those who have made greater attainments in morality, arts, and learning, greatly enfeebles the desire, and tends to excuse the duty, to impart these blessings to them. The names she has given her towns, the physiognomy God has marked upon the features of her people, the dress and fashions those people have chosen to adopt, their mechanical utensils, their religious festivals, their social usages; in short, almost every lineament of China and her inhabitants, has been the object of a laugh or the subject of a pun. Travellers who visit them are expected to give an account of "Mandarins with yellow buttons, handing you conserves of snails; Smart young men about Canton in nankeen tights and peacocks' tails. With many rare and dreadful dainties, kitten cutlets, puppy pies; Birdsnest soup which (so convenient!) every bush around supplies.” Manners and customs, such as met the eye, and attracted attention by their newness and oddity, first found a place in their journals, and combined to continue the impression generally entertained, that the Chinese were on the whole an uninteresting, grotesque, and uncivilized "pig-eyed" people, whom one run no risk in laughing at ; an "umbrella race," "long-tailed celestials," at once conceited, ignorant, and almost unimprovable.

If this attempt, therefore, to set them in a fair position by a plain account of their government and its principles of action, a synopsis of their literature and literary examinations, and a detail of their social, industrial, and religious state, just as other nations are described, tend to correct or enlarge the views of any, it will not have failed of its object. I have called it the MIDDLE KINGDOM, chiefly from that being the meaning of the most common name for the country among the people themselves; and also, from the Chinese holding a middle place between civilization and barbarism,—China being the most civilized pagan nation in her institutions and literature now existing.

Besides these objects, I wish also to increase the interest felt in

the Christian community for the spread of the Gospel among the Chinese by showing how well they are likely to reward missionary labors, when once they have taken root among them. In order to this I have gone somewhat fully into the nature of the government and its principles of conservatism and disorganization; and the religious opinions of the people. The geography of the whole empire has been carefully examined, and the grounds for believing that the largest estimated population is both probable and possible, and its proofs the most credible of any, investigated. The sources of almost every part of the work are personal observation and study of native authorities, and the successive volumes of the Chinese Repository published at Canton, and edited by Dr. Bridgman. Some may think it unnecessary to issue another general account of China so soon after the methodical and able digest of Sir John Davis; and I have thought I could not pay his work a higher compliment than to refrain from quoting it frequently, or even going into many details upon points fully illustrated in it. Ten years have elapsed since "The Chinese" was published, however, and the public in this country will, even if they have read it, take a deeper interest in that people, now that they are more accessible than when that was written, and be glad to learn the causes and results of that remarkable contest which compelled them to open their long closed gates. Other works consulted are usually quoted in their place, but the Repository is often the source of many statements not distinctly marked. The illustrations have been selected with reference to their accuracy, from various sources, chiefly from La Chine Ouverte, a French work of considerable research and vivacity.

In concluding this prefatory note respecting the origin, plan, and design of the present work, I may be allowed to express the humble hope that it will aid a little in advancing the cause of Christian civilization among the Chinese, and do its part in diffusing a juster knowledge of their state and nation in this country. If that knowledge shall further tend to induce in any one the desire to diffuse among them an acquaintance with the chief

source of our own civil and religious liberties, and encourage those now engaged to greater efforts, then will the pains taken in its preparation be increasingly rewarded. To the many kind friends in this country who have looked upon the attempt with favor, and especially those who have aided me in carrying it through the press, I can only return that acknowledgment which they so well deserve, but which I have not their permission more explicitly to give. S. W. W.

New York, Dec. 1st, 1847.