From the time when the remarkable words "I came not to send peace, but sword" were uttered, Christianity, though in its best periods ever averse itself from persecution, has been more orless aggressive mits effects. "Go forth and preach the Gospel to every creature," was the Jast charge of its Founder, a charge which, at all times and in all seasons, has been remembered and treasured up by its professors. The peculiar doctrines of Christianity, its intense progressiveness, its assertion of individual responsibility and individual freedom, its high standard of social morality, have at all times brought is into hostile contact with the other systems of religion amongst whose followers it has sought to make its way. Though averse from persecution, it has never yet been able to brook the presence of a rival creed. The loving accord of Buddhism, Taouism and Confucianism, which we see in China at the present moment, or the almost equal friendliness with which Bud-diiism and Sintooism exist together in Japan, has no place in the principles or practice of Christianity. It claims the entire devotion of its professors; and it is this claim which has ever, in the first instance, brought it in' contact with the temporal power.
OF this result of the propagation of the faith, an instance is becoming daily \developed in China, where the higher mandarins feel that many of the traditions on which the system of government has been founded, are becoming loosened amongst the body of the people, that a spirit of investigation has been aroused, and that, not only with regard to religion, but also with respect to the general system of administration, there is not that entire complacency on the part of the people which is so much belauded in Chinese philosophy. Christianity in Chi-has, however, never been made use of as a political engine to the same extent asin the neighbouring country of Japan. Anxious as were some of the Jesuit fathers of the last century for poli tical supremacy, the attempt was fortunately nipped in the bud, so that Christianity in China retains to the present day the possibility of arriving at perfect accord with the governing powers. "Fear God; honour the King" was spoken of a sovereign more hostile to Christianity than the Imperial authorities of China have yet proved themselves, and there is nothing in the doctrines of the religion to destroy the allegiance due from subject to sovereign. Tis influences ave of a secondary nature, and may be said to tend as much to the enlightenment of the rulers as the happiness of the governed. In Japan,: on the contrary, the apostolic Francis Xavier was succeeded by a class of missionaries who made religion subservient to political influence. The pure doctrines which had been spread
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.