Ywe world has seen various types of civilisation, from Hittite to Japanese. All these civilisations if known to one another lave been more or less strange in one.another's estimate; all have had their. peculiarities and: imperfections, and whit to one people seems nataral and proper, to another age and race may be offensive. and abhorrent to the last degree. In Bzypt aman might borrow money by giving the dead body of his father in pledge; but no degree of tightness in the money market would reconcile the Chinese to doing the same. And exch ¢ivilisation has also had: some advantage not found in' the others—something of peculiar benefit to itself at the time and even worthy to be borrowed and perpetuated in later civilisations. But one and all, with the exception of the civilisation we call ours, they have proved themselves without permanence,' All have passed or are quickly passing. None has sufficed to preserve the race from bar-parians' who came in like a flood, or from other races with a civilisation higher or stronger; or if left in peace the civilised have become corrupt, as the unplucked fruit' goes through ripeness'to decay, Some, disappearing, have left something to help succeeding ages, just as the ancient pyramids were useful in building modern Cairo; influences, teachings, truths, discoveries have survived in other climes and later ages;.and some civilisations, sterile, have disappeared, and are only known of through some doubtful mounds, or buried ruins, or unreadable inscriptions.
It is ensily assumed that our civilisation, the: European civilisation of all progressive countries to-day, is infinitely superior to all others, bygone or contemporary; yet to some extent this assumption is merely due to the fact of the civilisation being ours: no doubt the Aztecs considered theirs on the whole superior to the Spanish; and it is notorious that the Chinese would only accept: small portions of ours to graft on theirs and will only change because they are obliged As to whether apart from prejudice our civilisation is really ahead of all others it may be said it has one advantage of being eclectic. As with our language there is a good original stock enriched from many sources. We have and appreciate the great literatures of bygone civilisations,—wo know the China of to-day and are not above borrowing anything that pleases us. The earlier could never get any benefit from the later, and often, as in the case of China, was disinclined to learn anything from the contemporary. We, on the contrary, study with greediness both new and old, and learn and borrow and imitate with freedom. Nearly all that the old civilisations could do we also are equal to; we could build pyramids also if we wished to, but we prefer canals and bridges: we could embalm our dead if we wish to: but we let Egyptians and others make experiments for us in many directions, and we profit thereby. It is true that we cannot build Parthenons or carve a Venus de Milo; yet we can instead weigh the planet and put a girdle round the earth in forty seconds.
"Still, however satisfied we may be, it behoves us to remeuiber that* other civilisations, as glorious in their ways as oitrs, and perhaps as self-satisfied, have passed away, and we have no guarantee that ours will be more stable. It has been said that the invention of gunpowder ensured civilisation against the ircuptions of barbarian hordes; yet within these ere has been a scare lest sation borrowing the least, noble portion of our knowledge, stealing our fire, should overran us. It has been said that printing also ensures that knowledge shall never again be lost. Yet it must be remembered that every former civilisation has felt itself thus secure, and with equally good reasons, yet has failed.. There has always been some force outside of the range of the imagination, which men did not count on, but which meant destruction. We too may be secure against all imagined foes, yet fail teenth century; for the scholarly minority it is all right, as Latin in England. But if China is to exist as China—and still more if not—the entire system of education must be changed; the whole system of corrupt government must be cleansed; and hundreds of the inventions of the hated foreigner must be freely used; and theo, though *the Chinese will remain Chiiess, as the Japanese are Japanese and the Russian beneath the skin is said to remain. a Tartar, yet the ancient Chinese. civilisation will be gone; and will have left, alas! how small a residue of imperishable teaching or help to the world, A large number of the most influential and intellectual men, the best products of our modern civilisation, are believers in the divive government of the world and regard our civilisation as bound ap with the Christian religions, -It-is at avy rate certain that the best rasults have-thus far only been coen iit Christian lands, and that no non-Christian civilisation has proved permanent. Japan has adopted western methods without or at any rate. in advance of Christianity, but it is siguificant that the world is very suspicious of Japan's stability, It is also certain that for generations to come the lead in the world will be kept by those nations whose civilisation has most of Christianity in it, It is therefore nat al to- introduce all) results - of and logical that, while many'are, 4
civilisation. into. China,.to: opei trade routes, "or: knock -senie'into: the heads of the par blind g governitig " ollisses, another group of enthusiasts are begining farther back and lower down, and teaching that system of religious truth which they believe is the basis ofall true prosperity and the spirit of. all progress. And. who knows but. that when China becomes free and civilised and Christian, her most glorious "age may still lie far before het
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.