If all men knew that they must remain on earth through successive incarnations and must find heaven or paradise here and not elsewhere, possibly there would be more disposition manifested to make the world better during this life in order to prepare it for the next. Whether the souls of this generation shall return and inhabit the earth in the next or not is a matter of belief rather than of knowledge, but certain it is that our children and their descendants must abide in it till the race becomes extinct. No legacy can be passed down to posterity of such inestimable value as a well learned lesson of peace, concord and mutual aid. The boundaries of the moral law will be found coterminous with those of the true relations of man to man and to the living beings on earth. British rule in India has not yet revolutionized the educational system. The policy of giving free and universal instruction to the young does not prevail in the British Isles and very naturally would not be carried into India. The British have however made progress in introducing those great exponents of modern civilization, the railroad, telegraph, printing press and post office. Through these practical lessons of coöperation are taught and local animosities are diminished by commercial intercourse and social contact. The eradication of caste prejudices is a task of great difficulty and can only be effected by radical changes in the educational system and religious teachings. The British maintain their rulership largely by taking advantage of local animosities and caste distinctions through which the natives are deterred from combining, and the government employs one to curb another. Increased intercourse with each other and with the outside world must in time produce their logical effects on the people, but the inertia of such a mass is very great and can only be overcome in a long period of time or by an exceptional wave of enlightenment, such as comes to any people only once in many centuries. India has had its experiences of this kind in the past and may again in the future.

NOTE. The extracts from the code of Manu are taken from the translation of Sir William Jones edited by G. C. Houghton and published by Cox & Baylis, London in 1825. Those from the Burmese Code are from a translation published by the Baptist Mission at Philadelphia in 1848.

CHAPTER X

CHINA

In the study of any subject allowance must be made for perspective in order to gain a just comprehension of it. China is not merely geographically at the antipode to western Europe and America, but it is equally remote and dissimilar in its civilization. First consider what the Chinese Empire is geographically. In area it covers about 4,200,000 square miles, about 421,000 square miles more than all Europe. China proper has an area of about 1,312,326 or about 389,000 square miles less than Europe, exclusive of Russia. In climate it includes all varieties from the tropical district of Kwang Tung, to the regions of perpetual snow in the mountains of Thibet and Mongolia. In soil it has all gradations from the inexhaustible fertility of the rich loess lands of Chili, Shan-Si, Shen-Si, Kan-suh and Ho-nan to the barren rocks and sandy deserts of Gobi, and the equally barren peaks of the ThianShan and Kuen-Lun. Its surface shows every variety of formation from level plain to craggy mountain, and the most varied flora from the dense growth and endless variety of the tropics to the poverty and barrenness of the regions of perpetual frost. Its majestic rivers are but slightly inferior to the Mississippi, the Amazon and the Nile. Its fauna is rich and varied in species and numbers. But in nothing else is it so marked as in the numbers of its people and its unique civilization. The latest estimates accredit the empire with 400,000,000 or about 45,000,000 more than all Europe contains. While the empire includes many tribes not of Chinese stock, and differing more or less in type from the Chinese, the great bulk of the population is distinctly of one race, speaking one language, with no more difference of dialect than is found in England, France or Germany. This vast empire is now, and for many centuries has been, ruled by one

government, while Europe with its boasted superiority is divided at this day into nineteen separate and independent nations. Not only do the people of one of these nations speak a language different from that of nearly every other, but several of the nations include people speaking many different tongues. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a population about equal to that of the province of Kiang-Su, includes English, Welsh, Scotch and Irish. Russia includes Laps, Finns, Russians, Poles, Slavs, and Cossacks, differing widely from each other in language, customs and race characteristics.

China proper is divided into eighteen provinces, but al are under one government and one system of laws. The political map of Europe, ever since history began, has been subject to frequent and great changes. The nineteenth century has seen nations rise and fall and boundaries of nations. expand and contract from one decade to another, to such an extent as to render a map twenty years old utterly unreliable.

While China has had its internal wars and has at times been subjected to a divided rulership, it still has maintained its integrity as a nation through thousands of years. It has been conquered by Tartars without revolutionizing its customs and laws, and with but slight effect on the great Chinese mass. Through all changes and vicissitudes the civilization to be found in China has been distinctly Chinese. Long before letters were introduced into Greece, the Chinese had their unique system of characters. The name of the inventor and date of the invention are given in one tradition as Fuh-hi 3200 B.C. and in another as Tsang-ki 2700 B.C., either date however is sufficiently remote to precede the time when Cadmus carried the alphabet into Greece by over 1500 years. That much progress in agriculture and the arts had been made long before the Greek tribes migrated from Asia Minor into Greece, is amply proved by the historical records of the Chinese, which extend back in credible and definite form at least as far as the reign of Yaou 2356 B.C. The first weaving of silk is ascribed to Si-ling-shi, wife of the Emperor Hwang-ti, about 2600 B.C.

For early records of China, we look only to China. No neighboring nation can furnish us contemporary side lights. Of all the people of eastern Asia the Chinese first invented a written language and first became historians. Whether in authentic writings they antedate the Egyptians is a question on which archeologists may differ, but certain it is that their early histories are far more numerous and copious than those of any other people on earth. It is surmised by some, that the progenitors of the race migrated into China from the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, but the writer does not know on what evidence, for no ancient Chinese record is referred to as proving it, and there are no older or other records on the subject.

The Chinese, like the Egyptians, were first found in the country they now inhabit. Their civilization has grown and continued to abide where it now exists. It has until very recent times received no marked impulse from without except the Buddhist religious teachings. No conquering horde has ever swept over the provinces of China and supplanted the ancient race with its own people. The Tartar conquest begun by Jenghiz Kahn and completed under Kublai, while bloody and destructive in the paths of the invading armies, failed to destroy or supplant the ancient stock. The subsequent Manchu conquest was a change of rulers, but slightly affecting the great multitude. Throughout all ages China has been secure against outside foes, except such as entered from the North. The barren inaccessible heights of the Himalayas on the south have ever interposed an impassible barrier against invasion from that direction. The barren steppes of Thibet and Mongolia could only be reached from the west after crossing the mountain ranges of central Asia. Only from the north has it been found practicable to lead in an invading army, and that cold and inhospitable country has not frequently poured out hosts of such magnitude as to overrun the densely peopled provinces of China, and never sufficient to drive out the people.

Like all other people, in their accounts of the origin and early history of their race, the Chinese narrate what is evidently fabulous and imaginary. Records cannot antedate the

art of making them, and traditions receive an accretion of the marvelous as they are passed down from generation to generation, till the real basis of truth is covered up and indiscernible. The period of 2,267,000 + years, given by Chinese writers as having elapsed between the creation of man and the time of Confucius, is entitled to no more and no less credit than any other attempt at fixing the date of man's advent on earth. Nor could anything be more whimsical than an attempt to blend and harmonize authentic Chinese history with the Mosaic account of creation.

The earliest accounts and traditions locate the Chinese along the Yellow River in and about the province of Shan-si, and while Chinese writers mention numerous long dynasties anterior to his time, Fuh-hi appears to be about the first ruler whose existence at some date appears fairly certain. The date of his accession to the throne is variously estimated from 2852 to 3322 B.C. He and his seven successors are said to have reigned 747 years, giving an average of 93% years to each. While such periods are shorter than the lives of Biblical patriarchs, they are equally improbable and afford no data for computing the time of events. To Tuh-hi is attributed the Yih-King, or Book of Changes, which stands at the head as the most ancient of the Five Classics. The work appears to us rather whimsical, being made up of essays on important themes, illustrated by a combination of whole and broken lines treated as different principles, placed one above the other in various orders, and which are regarded as symbolical of the subjects discussed. Perhaps, however, as symbols these linear combinations may have meant more to the Chinese than they do to us.

The early reigns are sometimes spoken of as though the sovereign occupied the same relation to the people as in later years, yet it is said that the successors of Hwang-ti were elected by the people. The reign of Yao 2356 B.C. is taken as the starting point of authentic history. In his reign there was a great flood causing a permanent overflow of much land. This was remedied by works carried on under Yu, who afterward succeeded to the throne. Little appears to be recorded