There was in me withal a sense of better rank in the eyes of this super-excellent few who worshipped, in “heathen” China, the Satan of Fashion.  As a matter of fact, their rank had emerged from such long centuries ago that it seemed to me to be so identified with them that they were hardly capable of analysis of people such as myself.  As I looked pityingly upon them and the involved simplicity of their immutable natures, I realized an unconquerable feeling of inborn rank and natural elevation in respect to nationality.  This is, however, against my personal general conception of Eastern peoples, but I must admit I felt it this afternoon.  And so perhaps it is with the majority of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always aliens with the Easterner.  They cannot sympathize with him in his joys and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or understand anything of his point of view.  This is one of the hardest lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the language.  Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a heathen—­it is easier.

Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives the most enviable spot in the province—­the center of his universe.  Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or sympathetically, and he is at once up against you.  It may develop narrowness of mind and smallness of soul.  We Westerners think we know that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but a desirable citizen and a full-sized man.  But no matter.  The Chinese, on the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial—­part of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.  But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in the world for the very same reason!

Rationally speaking, John is the “old brother” of the world, oldest of any nation by very many centuries.  In common with all other travelers and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums which cannot be solved.  Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial, and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought into his being.  Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late manhood and early youth.  I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary political economy—­but why?  This man explored centuries ago the cardinal theories of some of our present-day Western classics.