small society, each member toiling for the common good, and being sure of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease.  More law-abiding?—­we appeal to any one who has lived in China, and mixed with the people.  Would it make them more honest?—­when many Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name.  Should we not run the risk of sowing seed for future and bloody religious wars on soil where none now rage?  To teach them justice in the administration of law would be a glorious task indeed, but even that would have its dark side.  Litigation would become the order of the day, and a rapacious class would spring into existence where lawyers and barristers are now totally unknown.  The striking phenomenon of extreme wealth side by side with extreme poverty, might be produced in a country where absolute destitution is at present remarkably rare, and no one need actually starve; and thus would be developed a fine field for the practice of that Christian charity which by demoralisation of the poorer classes so skilfully defeats its own end.  We should rejoice if anything could make Chinamen less cruel to dumb animals, desist from carrying ducks, geese, and pigs, hanging by their legs to a pole, feed their hungry dogs, and spare their worn-out beasts of burden.  But pigeon-shooting is unknown, and gag-bearing reins have yet to be introduced into China; neither have we heard of a poor heathen Chinaman “skinning a sheep alive.” (Vide Daily Papers of July 12, 1875.)

Last of all, it must not be forgotten that China has already four great religions flourishing in her midst.  There is Confucianism, which, strictly speaking, is not a religion, but a system of self-culture with a view to the proper government of (1) one’s own family and of (2) the State.  It teaches man to be good, and to love virtue for its own sake, with no fear of punishment for failure, no hope of reward for success.  Is it below Christianity in this?

Buddhism, Taoism, and Mahomedanism, share the patronage of the illiterate, and serve to satisfy the natural craving in uneducated man for something supernatural in which to believe and on which to rely.  The literati are sheer materialists:  they laugh at the absurdities of Buddhism, though they sometimes condescend to practise its rites.  They strongly object to the introduction of a new religion, and successfully oppose it by every means in their power.  They urge, and with justice, that Confucius has laid down an admirable rule of life in harmony with their own customs, and that the conduct of those who approximate to this standard would compare not unfavourably with the practice, as distinguished from the profession, of any religion in the world.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN LYRICS