Watching the Author writing in his Diary at a noon stop Title 22 32 46 56 56 70 70 92 Memorial Arch, Hall of the Classics, Peking Graduating Class, Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Can 112 112 130 130 150 150 174 198 Approach to the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City, Peking 320 Two of China's Great Men-Yuan Shih Kai and Chang I THE ANCIENT EMPIRE E must be dead to all noble thoughts who can tread the venerable continent of Asia without profound H emotion. Beyond any other part of the earth, its soil teems with historic associations. Here was the birthplace of the human race. Here first appeared civilization. Here were born art and science, learning and philosophy. Here man first engaged in commerce and manufacture. And here emerged all the religious teachers who have most powerfully influenced mankind, for it was in Asia in an unknown antiquity that the Persian Zoroaster taught the dualism of good and evil; that the Indian Gautama 600 years before Christ declared that self-abnegation was the path to a dreamless Nirvana; that less than a century later the Chinese Lao-tse enunciated the mysteries of Taoism and Confucius uttered his maxims regarding the five earthly relations of man, to be followed within another century by the bold teaching of Mencius that kings should rule in righteousness. In Asia it was 1,000 years afterwards that the Arabian Mohammed proclaimed himself as the authoritative prophet. There the God and Father of us all revealed Himself to Hebrew sage and prophet in the night vision and the angelic form and the still, small voice; and in Asia are the village in which was cradled and the great altar of the world on which was crucified the Son of God. We of the West boast of our national history. But how brief is our day compared with the succession of world powers which Asia has seen. Chaldea began the march of kingdoms 2,200 years before |