The Awakening of China Part 25

On the death of Tung-chi, the adroit selection of a nephew of three summers to succeed to the throne as her adopted son, gave the Dowager the prospect of another long regency. Recalled to power by the [Page 274]

reactionaries, in 1898, after a brief retirement, the Empress Dowager dethroned her puppet by a second _coup-d'etat_.

During the ruinous recoil that followed she had the doubtful satisfaction of feeling herself sole aristocrat of the Chinese Empire. Was it not the satisfaction of a gladiator who seated himself on the throne of the Caesars in a burning amphitheatre? Was she not made sensible that she, too, was a creature of circ.u.mstances, when her ill-judged policy compelled her a second time to seek safety in flight? A helpless fugitive, how could she conceive that fortune held in reserve for her brighter days than she had ever experienced?

Accepting the situation and returning with the Emperor, the Empire and the world accepted her, and, taught by experience, she engaged in the congenial task of renovating the Chinese people. Advancing years, consciousness of power, and willing conformity to the freer usages of European courts, all conspired to lead her to throw aside the veil and to appear openly as the chief actor on this imperial stage.

Six years ago her seventieth birthday was celebrated with great pomp, although she had forbidden her people to be too lavish in their loyalty. At Wuchang, Tuan Fang, who was acting viceroy, gave a banquet at which he asked me to make a speech in the Dowager's honor. The task was a delicate one for a man who had borne the hardships of a siege in 1900; but I accepted it, and excused the Dowager on the principle of British law, that "The king can do no [Page 275]

wrong." Throwing the blame on her ministers, I p.r.o.nounced a eulogy on her talents and her public services.

The question arises, did we know her in person and character? Have we not seen her in that splendid portrait executed by Miss Carl, and exhibited at St. Louis? If we suspect the artist of flattery, have we not a gallery of photographs, in which she shows herself in many a majestic pose? Is flattery possible to a sunbeam? We certainly see her as truly as we see ourselves in a mirror!

As to character, it is too soon to express an opinion. _Varium et mutabile semper femina_.

To pencil and sunbeam add word-pictures by men and women from whose critical eyes she did not conceal herself; and we may confidently affirm that we knew her personal appearance as well as we knew that of any lady who occupies or shares a European throne. A trifle under the average height of European ladies, so perfect were her proportions and so graceful her carriage that she seemed to need nothing to add to her majesty. Her features were vivacious and pleasing rather than beautiful; her complexion, not yellow, but subolive, and her face illuminated by orbs of jet, half-hidden by dark lashes, behind which lurked the smiles of favour or the lightning of anger. No one would take her to be over forty. She carried tablets on which, even during conversation, she jotted down memoranda. Her pencil was the support of her sceptre. With it she sent out her autograph commands; and with it, too, she inscribed those pictured characters which were worn as the proudest decorations [Page 276]

of her ministers. I have seen them in gilded frames in the hall of a viceroy.

The elegance of her culture excited sincere admiration in a country where women are illiterate; and the breadth of her understanding was such as to take in the details of government. She chose her agents with rare judgment, and shifted them from pillar to post, so that they might not forget their dependence on her will. Without a parallel in her own country, she has been sometimes compared with Catherine II. of Russia. She had the advantage in the decency of her private life; for though she is said to have had favourites they have never dared to boast of her favours, nor was a curious public ever able to identify them.

Her full name, including honorific epithets added by the Academy, was Tse Hi Tuanyin Kangyi Chaoyu Chuangcheng Shoukung Chinhien Chunghi. A few hours before her death, which occurred on the day after the Emperor's, she named his nephew as successor, and the present ruler, Hsuan-Tung, who was born in 1903, began to reign November 14, 1908.

Let the Dowager be taken as a type of the Manchu woman. The late Emperor, though handsome and intelligent, was too small for a representative of a robust race. Tuan Fang, the High Commissioner, is a more favourable specimen. The Manchus are in general taller than the Chinese, and both in physical and intellectual qualities they prove that their branch of the family is far from effete.

Prince Kung, who for fifteen years presided over the imperial cabinet, was tall, handsome and urbane.

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Despite the disadvantages of an education in a narrow-minded court, he displayed a breadth and capacity of a high order. Prince Ching, who succeeded him in 1875, though less attractive in person, is not deficient in that sort of astuteness that pa.s.ses for statesmanship.

What better evidence than that he has kept himself on top of a rolling log for thirty years? To keep his position through the dethronement of the Emperor and the convulsions of the Boxer War required agility and adaptability of no mean order. Personally I have seen much of both princes. They are abler men than one would expect to find among the offshoots of an Oriental court.

Wensiang, who from the opening of Peking to his death in 1875 bore the leading part in the conduct of foreign affairs, showed great ability in piloting the state through rocks and breakers. His mental power greatly impressed all foreigners, while it secured him an easy ascendency among his countrymen. Such men are sure to be overloaded with official duties in a country like China. Physically he was not strong; and on one occasion when he came into the room wheezing with asthma he said to me: "You see I am like a small donkey, with a tight collar and a heavy load." The success of Prince Kung's administration was largely due to Wensiang. Paochuin, minister of finance, and member of the Inner Council, was distinguished as a literary genius. Prince Kung delighted on festive occasions to call him and Tungsuin to a contest in extempore verse. To enter the lists with a noted scholar and poet like Tung, showed how the Manchus have come to vie with the Chinese in the [Page 278]

refinements of literary culture. I remember him as a dignified greybeard, genial and jocose. On the fall of the Kung ministry, he doffed his honours in three stanzas, which contain more truth than poetry:

"Through life, as in a pleasing dream, Unconscious of my years, In Fortune's smile to bask I seem; Perennial, Spring appears.

"Alas! Leviathan to take Defies the fisher's art; From dreams of glory I awake,-- My youth and power depart.

"That loss is often gain's disguise May us for loss console.

My fellow-sufferers, take advice And keep your reason whole."

In more than one crisis, the heart of the nation has cleaved to the Manchu house as the embodiment of law and order. The people chose to adhere to a tolerably good government rather than take the chance of a better one emerging from the strife of factions.

Three things are required to confirm their loyalty: (1) the abolition of tonsure and pigtail, (2) the abandonment of all privileges in examinations and in the distribution of offices, (3) the removal of all impediments in the way of intermarriage.

This last has been recently authorised by proclamation. It is not so easy for those who are in possession of the loaves and fishes to admit others to an equal share. If to these were added the abolition of a degrading [Page 279]

badge, the Manchu dynasty might hope to be perpetual, because the Manchus would cease to exist as a people.

CONCLUSIONS

1. More than once I have demanded the expulsion of the Manchus, and the part.i.tion of China. That they deserved it no one who knows the story of 1900 will venture to deny. It was not without reason that _Mene tekel_ and _Ichabod_ were engraved on the medal commemorating the siege in Peking. If I seem to recant, it is in view of the hopeful change that has come over the spirit of the Manchu Government. Under the leadership of Dowager Empress and Emperor, the people were more likely to make peaceful progress than under a new dynasty or under the Polish policy of division.

2. The prospect of admission to the full privileges of a member of the brotherhood of nations will act as an incentive to improvement.

But the subjection of foreigners to Chinese jurisdiction ought not to be conceded without a probation as long and thorough as that through which j.a.pan had to pa.s.s. In view of the treachery and barbarism so conspicuous in 1900--head-hunting and edicts to ma.s.sacre foreigners--a probation of thirty years would not be too long. During that time the reforms in law and justice should be fully tested, and the Central Government should be held responsible for the repression of every tendency to anti-foreign riots.

A government that encourages Boxers and other rioters as patriots does not merit an equal place in the [Page 280]

congress of nations. The alternative is the "gunboat policy," according to which foreign powers will administer local punishment. If the mother of the house will not chastise her unruly children, she must allow her neighbours to do it.

3. Prior to legal reform, and at the root of it, the adoption of a const.i.tution ought to be insisted on. In such const.i.tution a leading article ought to be not toleration, but freedom of conscience. As long as China looks on native Christians as people who have abjured their nationality, so long will they be objects of persecution; self-defence and reprisals will keep the populace in a ferment, and peace will be impossible. If China is sincere in her professions of reform, she will follow the example of j.a.pan and make her people equal in the eye of the law without distinction of creed.

4. All kinds of reform are involved in the new education, and to that China is irrevocably committed. Reenforced by railroad, telegraph, and newspaper, the schoolmaster will dispel the stagnation of remote districts, giving to the whole people a horizon wider than their hamlet, and thoughts higher than their hearthstone. Animated by sound science and true religion, it will not be many generations before the Chinese people will take their place among the leading nations of the earth.

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APPENDIX

I.

THE AGENCY OF MISSIONARIES IN THE DIFFUSION OF SECULAR KNOWLEDGE IN CHINA[*]

[Footnote *: This paper was originally written for Dr. Dennis's well-known work on The Secular Benefits of Christian Missions.

As it now appears it is not a mere reprint, it having been much enlarged and brought down to date.]

While the primary motive of missionaries in going to China is, as in going to other countries, the hope of bringing the people to Christ, the incidental results of their labours in the diffusion of secular knowledge have been such as to confer inestimable benefit on the world at large and on the Chinese people in particular.

This is admitted by the recent High Commission.[**]

[Footnote **: See page 263.]

It was in the character of apostles of science that Roman Catholic missionaries obtained a footing in Peking three centuries ago, and were enabled to plant their faith throughout the provinces.

Armed with telescope and s.e.xtant they effected the reform of the Chinese calendar, and secured for their religion the respect and adherence of some of the highest minds in the Empire. So firmly was it rooted that churches of their planting were able to survive a century and a half of persecution. Their achievements, recorded in detail by Abbe Huc and others, fill some of the [Page 282]

brightest pages in the history of missions. I shall not enlarge on them in this place, as my present task is to draw attention to the work of Protestant missions.

A CENTURY OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS.

It is not too much to claim for these last that for a century past they have been active intermediaries, especially between the English-speaking nations and the Far East. On one hand, they have supplied such information in regard to China as was indispensable for commercial and national intercourse, while on the other they have brought the growing science of the Western world to bear on the mind of China. Not only did Dr. Morrison, who led the way in 1807, give the Chinese the first translation of our Holy Scriptures; he was the very first to compile a Chinese dictionary in the English language.

THE PIONEER OF AMERICAN MISSIONS

It was not until 1838 that America sent her pioneer missionary in the person of Dr. Bridgman. Besides cooperating with others in the revision of Morrison's Bible, or, more properly, in making a new version, Bridgman won immortality by originating and conducting the _Chinese Repository_, a monthly magazine which became a thesaurus of information in regard to the Chinese Empire.

THE PRESS--A MISSIONARY FRANKLIN

The American Board showed their enlightened policy by establishing a printing-press at Canton, and [Page 283]

in sending S. Wells Williams to take charge of it, in 1833. John R. Morrison, son of the missionary, had, indeed, made a similar attempt; but from various causes he had felt compelled to relinquish the enterprise. From the arrival of Williams to the present day the printing-press has shown itself a growing power--a lever which, planted on a narrow fulcrum in the suburb of a single port, has succeeded in moving the Eastern world.

The art of printing was not new to the Chinese. They had discovered it before it was dreamed of in Europe; but with their hereditary tendency to run in ruts, they had continued to engrave their characters on wooden blocks in the form of stereotype plates. With divisible types (mostly on wood) they had indeed made some experiments; but that improved method never obtained currency among the people. It was reserved for Christian missions to confer on them the priceless boon of the power press and metallic types. What Williams began at Canton was perfected at Shanghai by Gamble of the Presbyterian Board, who multiplied the fonts and introduced the process of electrotyping.