The event for 165 is the foundation of the Taoist Church, under the half-legendary figure of its first Pope, Chang Taoling; whose lineal descendants and successors have reigned Popes of Taoism from their Vatican on the Dragon-Tiger Mountain in Kiangsi ever since.  They have not adverertised their virtues in their names, however:  we find no Innocents and Piuses here:  they are all plain Changs; his reigning Holiness being Chang the Sixth-somethingth.  It was from Buddhism that the Taoists took the idea of making a church of themselves.  Taoism and Buddhism from the outset were fiercely at odds; and yet the main splendor of China was to come from their inner coalescence.  Chu Hsi, the greatest of the Sung philosophers of the brilliant twelfth century A.D., says that “Buddhism stole the best features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism:  as if the one took a jewel from the other, and the other recouped the loss with a stone.” * This is exact:  the jewel stolen by Buddhism was Laotse’s Blue Pearl,—­Wonder and Natural Magic; the stone that Taoism took instead was the priestly hierarchy and church organization, imitated from the Buddhists, that grew up under the successors of Chang Taoling.

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* Chinese Literature:  H.A.  Giles
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If Laotse founded any school or order at all, it remained quite secret.  I imagine his mission was like Plato’s, not Buddha’s:  to start ideas, not a brotherhood.  By Ts’in Shi Hwangti’s time, any notions that were wild, extravagant, and gorgeous were Taoism; which would hardly have been, perhaps, had there been a Taoist organization behind them;—­although it is not safe to dogmatize.  It was, at any rate, mostly an inspiration to the heights for the best minds, and for the masses (including Ts’in Shi Hwangti) a rumor of tremendous things.  After Han Wuti’s next successor, the best minds took to thinking Confucianly:  which was decidedly a good thing for China during the troublous times before and after the fall of the Western Hans.  Then when Buddhism came in, Taoism came to the fore again, spurred up to emulation by this new rival.  I take it that Chang Taoling’s activities round about this year 165 represent an impulse of the national soul to awakenment under the influence of the recurrence of the Eastern Han Day half-cycle.  What kind of reality Chang Taoling represents, one cannot say:  whether a true teacher in his degree, sent by the Lodge, around whom legends have gathered; or a mere dabbler in alchemy and magic.  Here is the story told of him; you will note an incident or two in it that suggest the former possibility.