COMMENDABLE TRAITS OF CHINESE CHARACTER.
In summing up the moral traits of Chinese character—a far more difficult task than the enumeration of its oddities—we must necessarily compare them with that perfect standard given us from above. While their contrarieties indicate a different external civilization, a slight acquaintance with their morals proves their similarity to their fellow-men in the lineaments of a fallen and depraved nature. Some of the better traits of their character have been marvellously developed. They have attained, by the observance of peace and good order, to a high degree of security for life and property; the various classes of society are linked together in a remarkably homogeneous manner by the diffusion of education in the most moral books in their language and a general regard for the legal rights of property. Equality of competition for office removes the main incentive to violence in order to obtain posts of power and dignity, and industry receives its just reward of food, raiment, and shelter with a uniformity which encourages its constant exertion. If any one asks how they have reached this point, we would primarily ascribe it to the blessing of the Governor of the nations, who has for His own purposes continued one people down to the present time from remote antiquity. The roots of society among them have never been broken up by emigration or the overflowing conquest of a superior race, but have been fully settled in a great regard for the family compact and deep reverence for parents and superiors. Education has strengthened and disseminated the morality they had, and God has blessed their filial piety by fulfilling the first commandment with promise and making their days long in the land which He has given them. Davis lays rather too much stress upon geographical and climatic causes in accounting for their advancement in these particulars, though their isolation has no doubt had much to do with their security and progress.
When, however, these traits have been mentioned, the Chinese are still more left without excuse for their wickedness, since being without law, they are a law unto themselves; they have always known better than they have done. With a general regard for outward decency, they are vile and polluted in a shocking degree; their conversation is full of filthy expressions and their lives of impure acts. They are somewhat restrained in the latter by the fences put around the family circle, so that seduction and adultery are comparatively infrequent, the former may even be said to be rare; but brothels and their inmates occur everywhere on land and on water. One danger attending young girls going abroad alone is that they will be stolen for incarceration in these gates of hell. By pictures, songs, and aphrodisiacs they excite their sensuality, and, as the Apostle says, “receive in themselves that recompense of their error which is meet.”
MENDACITY OF THE CHINESE.
More uneradicable than the sins of the flesh is the falsity of the Chinese, and its attendant sin of base ingratitude; their disregard of truth has perhaps done more to lower their character than any other fault. They feel no shame at being detected in a lie (though they have not gone quite so far as not to know when they do lie), nor do they fear any punishment from their gods for it. On the other hand, the necessity of the case compels them, in their daily intercourse with each other, to pay some regard to truth, and each man, from his own consciousness, knows just about how much to expect. Ambassadors and merchants have not been in the best position to ascertain their real character in this respect; for on the one side the courtiers of Peking thought themselves called upon by the mere presence of an embassy to put on some fictitious appearances, and on the other, the integrity and fair dealing of the hong merchants and great traders at Canton is in advance of the usual mercantile honesty of their countrymen. A Chinese requires but little motive to falsify, and he is constantly sharpening his wits to cozen his customer—wheedle him by promises and cheat him in goods or work. There is nothing which tries one so much when living among them as their disregard of truth, and renders him so indifferent as to what calamities may befall so mendacious a race; an abiding impression of suspicion toward everybody rests upon the mind, which chills the warmest wishes for their welfare and thwarts many a plan to benefit them. Their better traits diminish in the distance, and patience is exhausted in its daily proximity and friction with this ancestor of all sins. Mr. Abeel mentions a case of deceit which may serve as a specimen.
Soon after we arrived at Kulang su, a man came to us who professed to be the near relation and guardian of the owners of the house in which we live, and presented a little boy as the joint proprietor with his widowed mother. From the appearance of the house and the testimony of others we could easily credit his story that the family were now in reduced circumstances, having not only lost the house when the English attacked the place, but a thousand dollars besides by native robbers; we therefore allowed him a small rent, and gave the dollars to the man, who put them into the hands of the child. The next month he made his appearance, but our servant, whom we had taken to be peculiarly honest for a heathen, suggested the propriety of inquiring whether the money was ever given to those for whom it was professedly received; and soon returned with the information that the mother had heard nothing of the money, the man who received it not living in the family, but had now sent a lad to us who would receive it for her, and who our servants assured us would give it to the proper person. A day or two afterward our cook whispered to me that our honest servant, who had taken so much pains to prevent all fraud in the matter, had made the lad give him one-half of the money for his disinterestedness in preventing it from falling into improper hands; and further examination showed us that this very cook had himself received a good share to keep silent.
Thieving is exceedingly common, and the illegal exactions of the rulers, as has already been sufficiently pointed out, are most burdensome. This vice, too, is somewhat restrained by the punishments inflicted on criminals, though the root of the evil is not touched. While the licentiousness of the Chinese may be in part ascribed to their ignorance of pure intellectual pleasures and the want of virtuous female society, so may their lying be attributed partly to their truckling fear of officers, and their thievery to the want of sufficient food or work. Hospitality is not a trait of their character; on the contrary, the number and wretched condition of the beggars show that public and private charity is almost extinct; yet here too the sweeping charge must be modified when we remember the efforts they make to sustain their relatives and families in so densely peopled a country. Their avarice is not so distinguishing a feature as their love of money, but the industry which this desire induces or presupposes is the source of most of their superiority to their neighbors. The politeness which they exhibit seldom has its motive in good-will, and consequently, when the varnish is off, the rudeness, brutality, and coarseness of the material is seen; still, among themselves this exterior polish is not without some good results in preventing quarrels, where both parties, fully understanding each other, are careful not to overpass the bounds of etiquette.
On the whole, the Chinese present a singular mixture: if there is something to commend, there is more to blame; if they have some glaring vices, they have more virtues than most pagan nations. Ostentatious kindness and inbred suspicion, ceremonious civility and real rudeness, partial invention and servile imitation, industry and waste, sycophancy and self-dependence, are, with other dark and bright qualities, strangely blended. In trying to remedy the faults of their character by the restraints of law and the diffusion of education, they have no doubt hit upon the right mode; and their shortcomings show how ineffectual both must be until the Gospel comes to the aid of ruler and subject in elevating the moral sense of the whole nation. Female infanticide in some parts openly confessed, and divested of all disgrace and penalties everywhere; the dreadful prevalence of all the vices charged by the Apostle Paul upon the ancient heathen world; the alarming extent of the use of opium (furnished, too, under the patronage, and supplied in purity by the power and skill of Great Britain from India), destroying the productions and natural resources of the people; the universal practice of lying and dishonest dealings; the unblushing lewdness of old and young; harsh cruelty toward prisoners by officers, and tyranny over slaves by masters—all form a full unchecked torrent of human depravity, and prove the existence of a kind and degree of moral degradation of which an excessive statement can scarcely be made, or an adequate conception hardly be formed.
END OF VOLUME I.