during one of my walks over the temple grounds. As I observed the healthiness of the location, its proximity to a great city, the high literary character of that city, and its relation to this mighty empire, it stood before my mind in the form of a delightful possibility that upon the ruins of these heathen temples there shall rise a noble structure for the Christian education of ingenuous native youth; that this lovely spot shall be a fountain for religion and learning, from which shall flow out over these lands holiness and knowledge; and that the chimes of other bells shall ( Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; CHAPTER VIII. CHARACTER OF THE CHINESE. PUBLIC opinion throughout Christendom underrates, we think, the intellectual capacity of the Chinese. What we have already written in the course of this work indicates for them no mean position, intellectually, in the great family of man. Instead of predicating stupidity of the Chinese because of certain apparent incongruities and absurdities in their character, or because of the few unworthy representatives of the Chinese race who find their way to western countries, it would be more judicious to reserve judgment on the subject till we obtained more full and accurate knowledge of their character. It is entirely probable that a more intimate acquaintance with them and the difficulties through which they had to force their way, would excite our cordial sympathy and admiration. It is certainly highly creditable to them that as a nation they can point to a history and character such as are presented by their authentic records and by the patent facts of their civilization; and if under all the disadvantages, and against the fearful odds with which hitherto they have struggled, they have been able to accomplish so much, what may we not expect from them when the light of the Gospel shall shine upon them, and shall lead them forth into the joyous freedom of the sons of God. The Chinese mind is eminently quick, shrewd, and practical. It has an intuitive logic of rare vigor and certainty. Admit the premises in the argument of a Chinese, and his conclusion is generally inevitable. In their processes of ratiocination the defect is usually in the premises. Owing to their meager knowledge of many subjects they frequently assume things to be true which are not true, and hence the logical structure they rear on such a basis topples and falls the moment you point out the error. As business men they are remarkably energetic, efficient, and adroit. The foreign merchant, whether European or American, who goes to China for business purposes, finds it necessary to avail himself of all the helps and safeguards which his own judgment or the principles of trade suggest in order to protect himself; and it not infrequently happens that after all his precautionary efforts he is overreached by his unscrupulous competitor. The yankee must rise early in the morning and keep wide awake all day if he expects to get to windward of a Chinaman before nightfall. The permanence of Chinese institutions is worthy of notice in this connection. It is a significant and singular fact that, from the earliest period of their authentic history to the present time, the Chinese have preserved intact and inviolate every important feature and principle of their government and civilization. The successive irruptions of northern barbarians have neither abrogated nor essentially modified FOREIGN RELIGIONS. 123 Chinese institutions. The conquering races who have overrun those fertile plains have stood abashed in the presence of a superior civilization; and after subduing the empire, they have invariably adopted its government, laws, civilization, and language. Similar results have followed all efforts to introduce foreign religions into China. Budhism, Judaism, Nestorianism, and Mohammedanism have all lost much of their peculiar spirit, and many of their external features, when brought into contact with Chinese mind, succumbing apparently to its rigid immobility and inherent force. Romanism has won its way in China by subterfuges and compromises of the most questionable character, and even jesuitical casuistry and chicanery are almost overmatched in the struggle. Protestant Christianity has now entered the field, and a great cloud of witnesses watch the issue of its conflict with this, the oldest form of heathenism the world has ever seen. Paradoxical though it may seem to some of our readers, we proceed to state that the Chinese have long been a colonizing people. They have colonized along the sea-board of Asia, from the Sea of Ochotsk to the Bay of Bengal. The Japanese are an offshoot from China. The islands off the coast of China, and many of those in the East Indian Archipelago, have been colonized by the Chinese; and in nearly every kingdom of eastern peninsular Asia they are found in large and influential communities. It is a noticeable fact that whenever the Chinese colonize among a heathen people, their superior civilization gives them at once a decided advantage over the native population. By their intelligence, industry, and capacity for business they almost monopolize all the important and highly remunerative departments of labor; commerce passes into their hands, and they become the chief factors, the leading spirits in the native communities where they live. A year or two since a missionary in the Micronesian Islands was walking along the beach of one of the islands and found there a shipwrecked mariner, whose dress was strange to him, and with whose language he was utterly unacquainted. Through the natives of the island he ascertained that the stranger was a Japanese, whose vessel having been injured by a storm and rendered unmanageable, was drifted southward by the great oceanic current, until some of its fragments, bearing the sailor referred to, were stranded on the shore of the island. Following up the train of thought suggested by this incident, the missionary ascertained from the natives of the Micronesian Islands that similar incidents were of not infrequent occurrence, that every few years one or more of the people from those northern latitudes would be drifted on their shores; "and indeed," said they to the missionary, "our ancestors came from that northern region." The incident is certainly most interesting and suggestive; possibly it throws light on the question as to the origin of the tribes found in the islands of the South Seas. Any one familiar with the features of the North American Indian, who will look into the face of a Chinese, cannot fail to observe a striking resemblance between them. Whence came our North American Indians? They neither |