Gasettes show the extreme anxiety which prevails in the capital with regard to the famine. A decree ox-pressing the Imperial contrition for faults committed has been published, and frank and humble avowals of the ud shortcomings of the officers of are published in the Government organ almost daily. "At this period, when @ succession of seasons of dearth has brought about a famine of euch magnitude; with festering misery and want so prominently before our eyex, acknowledge that this calamity is " visitation from heaven, in con quence of faults and omissions in the administration of Government." And the most rigid and minute economy is enforced, 8 a daty on all classes, in order to place fands at the disposal of the Relieving Boarde, and ea to mitigate the wretchedness of the famineatrioken districts, as thoroughly and as ly a9 pos The avzicty is natural; indeed, it would be inconceivable, if so prodigious a calamity did not fill the rulers of China with very considerable alarm, The iden that the and the belief that it is a visitation on the rulers for neglecting their duties is belief which finds wide acceptance amongst the Chinese. A long serios of disasters induces the opinion that heaven is angry with the Sovereign, for certain sins of omission or commission; and over and over again the result of this opinion, when it hardens into a conviction, has been the subversion of dynasty, In order to understand this thoroughly, we must little below the peculiar ~which the Emperor holds, not only the secular raler, but the high priest of the State religion; and one of the main features of this venerable system is the worship of the earth. Not only does the Sovereign, on the most solemn of all occasions, worship the sky, but he sacrifices with an august and superb ceremonial to the earth, which is called "Imperial," as well as the heavens, and to the gods of the land and grain. We are we apt to apenk loosely of Chinese religion consisting of the worship of aucentors, that we miss these important tortures of the national creed, and therefore understand very imperfectly the relation in which the Emperor stands to the people. He is the lord of the soil, and the un. disputed ruler of some four Lundred millions of human beings, and he is also the high priest of an ancient and mysterious, cult, which has for its objects of worship the powers of natare,—the sky, the earth, the grain, the clouds, the rain, and the thunder. Thue, then, when. the heavens pour down floods aad Fain the eropa in one prov-bee ce Py formed province, Ve is received. The Te Battery oP opposite Welling potion The f 64 divine powers are angry with map, bat on.—The four now there are indications that there is something amiss with the Pontifex Maximus. The sacrificer's sin or impiety mars the acceptance of the escrifice. Thus the directors and guardians of the Emperor are extremely anxious at the present time, and their anxiety finds expression in the decrees recently issued. We must continually bear in mind the relation of the Emperor to the national religion, in order to understand folly the reason of ti anxiety. It is not merely a feeling of paternal anxiety for the suffering millions, it is not merely a selfish, though perfectly natural, dread lest so large a foodless multitude should rise in rebellion and cause danger to the Throne and the national instital this, The character of the Sovereign is edited by these visitations. Can he be the holy and chosen hierophant, whom the dark-haired race regard as the delegate of Deity Tutermediary between the people and the powers that rule the ree, if his adorn and offerings continue to in This is the question that red, and which it in very difficult @utyorts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.