Mere have been those who have thought that the only future before China is one of gradual decay and dissolution, his view has been put forward by the jealous religionist, who would point the moral of a great heathen nation preserved through long centuries by the wisdom of the teaching of its Snges, only at last to perish thro the foolishness of its worldly wisdom, Snel a wreck to the destinies of one-fourth of our fellow human beings, it has been supposed, would redound the glory of our common Creator and of the Gospel which the Great Master to proclaim to erring man, just as if the Deity were only waiting to consume the world in his wrath rather than rescue it in His love, The indefatigable globe-trotter who has touched upon the borders of this great land, or has even perhaps spurred himself to the remarkable self-denial of doing the native city with its sights and odours, he also would declare China to be without hope for, he would argue, do not her merchants cheat you at -every turn; does not your melon-eyed "hwy " lie to you with the blandest kind of " sanctimonious smile; do not the men swoke opium and the women bind their feet; ig not the Emperor a mere boy, and, last but not least, has'not the great Li Hung-chang had his Imperial yellow Riding Jacket token away, and been stripped of liis former high honours? It would be i to suggest to either of the two classes just mentioned that a new Party of Progress has sprang up; that a Reform Club was once started in quiescent old Peking that the Examiner in the Kiangsi Triennial Examinations asked some interesting questions about our distant relative Noah; that Shanghai is to have anew Government College, and that a loan from somebody at some time, in some way, is to be made to China to replenish her treasury and to get rid of the Japanese from Weihaiwei. Such facts would be declared inconclusive evidence by these parties, and the Celestial Empire would by them be consigned to a sub-terrestrial sphere of malign and dire punishment.
We are not of those, however, who have abandoned hope, or even of those who hope for too much. In reflecting upon the future of China we cannot convince ourselves that there is anything to expect from the present Manchu dynasty, which seems to have sunk into "innocuous desuetude." It has produced such really great Emperors as Kang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung, who gave their undivided attention to the affairs of state, and did much to elevate the general condition of the people; but the last occupiers of the Dragon Throne gate habits or innocents im the Frands have been either young boys of profii-
of scheming ministers. Had not a powerful Western friend come to its relief when the "long-haired" rebels were shaking the dynasty to its very foundations, there can be no question but that the country would have broken up, but no one can prophesy what would have become of the pieces. Neither can we hope for anything from" mandarindom, which literally goeth about asa roaring lion seeking what it can devour. Offices are held at fixed prices by Metropolitan and Provincial authorities taxes are collected in full but are decimated before they reach the Tuperial Treasury; "the big fish eat the litle fish, and the little fish eat wud," by which simile the Chinese proverb expresses aptly the fact that the great efficinls feed upon the smaller ones, and that they in turn feed upon the people. It can be asserted without fent of successful contradiction that no position in the Empire can be obtained without the use of money, nor retained without illegal practices. If then nothing can be hoped from the rulers of China, what can be said about the student class which is placed at the head of the four divisions of the people? his class is conceited beyond endurance; they still speak of the "round heaven and square earth," and dilate upon the " five elements." Foreigners are still to them barbarians who came to China to learn the laws of propriety; the five great Continents represent only divisions of ancient feudal states tributary to their country, and commerce is despised as only being taken up by those who have not the mental power to master books. They went their large goggles; cultivate their finger nails into enormous lengths assume the swaggering gait with which Confucius is said to have walked, and have a silent contempt for all but themselves, They regard woman as their inferior and rightful slave, She is happy if the mother of sous, but wretched if she adds daughters to the home. Since rulers and scholars furnish no gleam of hope, we might ask what of the lower classes, out of which in Western lands have often come great leaders? In China, however, they seemed to have been crushed so long that all spirit has been forced out of them. They submit to the wretched cruelties of official torture without banding themselves into rebellious mobs; they allow their military officials to strike and bamboo them; they kneel servilely for hours in the presence of superiors, On the whole, they seem to be the prey of every designing man under whose influence they come, and of every vicious habit of which they know. They could all be arranged under the classical epithet of bending grass. hus hope arise th from a contemplation neither of the official, literary nor common classes. If asked, then, where is our hope for China, and wherein do we differ from the two classes which we first mentioned, we would remind our questioner of the remark of Horace Greeley, "Go West, young man," and of the goal of Buddhist hope which is the Western Heaven, Let him that runneth read.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.