IX.—An Interlude on Moses:
Genesis—or the History of a Thirteen Year Old Boxer: Reasons for Boxer Aggressiveness: Drastic Initiation row 4 SreciaL
Kalgan.
No two men could be more different than the typical Chinese village for, who. composes. the great mass Jof' the population, and the Chinese who has travelled. The villager, who lives an unchanging life thorited unchanged from many generations of ancestors, is timid and easily stampeded. He has no out-[look beyond his fields, and regards' Himself not so much as an individual /as a member of a family and village, Yet a Chinese of the same class, once he has tasted the delights of change, adventure and travel, be-Jeomes as stout a wanderer as Uly-sess, fol and trustworthy of companions.
Of this kidney is Moses, the prophet-in-ordinary of our Exodus, He loomes from a town in Chihli, on the great northern' plain, not far from [the borders of Shantung. At one time his family had considerable wealth. 'They-owned four shops: n the same town, selling grain and sundry goods, The family wax solid clan of over hundred members and many households; hut Jabout the time of Moses' appearance a Wicked Uncle of his began to travel over-frequently to Tientsin, [where he spent more on opium and! other little frailties than he made in grain. The fortunes of the house were dissipated, and the clan dispersed, a 13 Year-Old "Boxer Moses himself took early, to ddventure, At the age of "13. by Chinese reckoning, he was a fully! initiated Boxer. The power of the [Boxers was great and aggressive in his part of the world, Any family} The Jof which at least one member was, not a Boxer wax darkly suspect of Christ for which the penalty }was beheading. Moses was therefore elected by his brothers to keep the family in good odour.
One reason for the aggressiveness lof the Boxers seems to have been the great number of Christians, Besides all the usual stories about the missionaries spread by the Boxfers—as that they cut out the hearts children, or made medicine of Chinese eyes—it generally believed thatthe missionaries took too much me terest in the secular affairs, of their converts, and exercised undue influence on the Chinese magistrates. Tt was said that no man could win lawsuit unless he became a Catholic. To this day Moses hax not lost the relish with which he tells a story that must have been popular in 1900. fore the magistrate refuse, Cou. "Tam a Catholic; he said and can k'o thou only to the 7 Chy, not to any earthly power The' magistrate was afraid to 1 1 with this affront forthright, lest he} offend the missionaries, and hai a complaint laid against him in high-jer quarters. However he way to vindicate his ordered the characters Tien Chu—
Heaven's Lord—to be written on a rd, which he held in front of him, hen you see these characters," he asked the man, "what must yau do?" "I must 0 tou," said the man, prostrating hinrself." "Very oot said the magistrate; "and now Gail forbid that I should meddle with any of your God's creatures; but this"—he waved the card—"has ordered that you be beaten 500 pan-t 4 ing the Boxers, a conical pile of "silver shoe" incense paper Wasrbumed in the name' of the candidate, If it rose into the air while burning the candidate was considered worthy. If it did not, he was teh ended. 'The youthful 'Moses, whose motives for' joining: the Boxers were not' his own but his family's, was greatly terrified by this ordeal, However, to hin joy and relief the cone rose and soared fon the current of air caused by Its own buming, He later came to the conclusion that the only cones Which did not 0 rise were those Which bad been.privily moistened the base by an' enemy of the ini-
The Boxers vanged through all ses, from childhood to senility, and Were divided into eight "clans," each acter of its own. With themselves, the 1 Ho Tuan sociated many othty epheities, such as the Hung Tony Hui or Red Lantern Society Which was composed of young girls who dressed entirely in rod. The Boxers dressed in, black, with sash-ex and head-bands of different colours {0 distinguish the "characters."
nifestations—of the Red Lantern Society were concerned mainly with the—mysterious appearance of red tantferns burning on hillsides in the night. The next morning a young girl would be found on the spot, al? dressed in red, who was supposed to have arrived there by supernatural
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.