How the Western Nations Formed the Acquaintance of China—First Mention of the Orient by Grecian and Roman Historians—Introduction of Judaism—Nestorian Missionaries Bring Christianity—Marco Polo’s Wonderful Journey—Roman Missionaries in the Field—Dissentions among Christians Discredit their Work—Work of the Jesuits—The Dynasty of the Chings—Splendid Literary Labors of Two Emperors—England’s[England’s] First Embassy to China—The Opium War—Opening the Ports of China—Treaties with Western Nations—The Tai-Ping Rebellion—The Later Years of Chinese History.
The works of several Greek and Roman historians, principally those of Ptolemy and Arian, who lived in the second century, contain references of a vague character to a country now generally believed to be China. Ptolemy states that his information came from the agents of Macedonian traders, who gave him an account of a journey of seven months from the principal city of eastern Turkestan, in a direction east inclining a little south. It is probable that these agents belonged to some of the Tartar tribes of Central Asia. They represented the name of this most eastern nation to be Serica, and that on the borders of this kingdom they met and traded with its inhabitants, the Seres. Herodotus speaks of the Isadores as a people in the extreme north-east of Asia. Ptolemy also mentions these tribes as a part of Serica and under its sway. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of the fourth century, speaks of the land of the Seres as surrounded by a high and continuous wall. This was about six hundred years after the great wall of northern China was built. Virgil, Pliny, Ricitus and Juvenal refer to the Seres in connection with the Seric garments which seem to have been made of fine silk or gauze. This article of dress was much sought after in Rome by the wealthy and luxurious, and as late as the second century, is said to have been worth its weight in gold. From the length and description of the route of the traders, the description of the mountains and rivers which they passed, the character of the people with whom they traded and the articles of traffic, the evidence seems almost conclusive that the nation which the Greeks and Romans designated by the name of Serica is that now known to us as China. The particular countries visited by the caravans which brought the silk to Europe, were probably the dependencies or territories of China on the west, or possibly cities within the extreme north-west limit of China proper.
The introduction of Judaism into China is evidenced by a Jewish synagogue which existed until quite recently in Kai-fung-foo, a city in the province of Honan. Connected with this synagogue were some Hebrew manuscripts, and a few worshippers who retained some of the forms of their religion, but very little knowledge of its real character and spirit. There is a great deal of uncertainty as to when the Jews came to China, though they have, no doubt, resided there for many centuries.
Nestorian missionaries entered China some time before the seventh century. The principal record which they have left of the success of their missions is the celebrated Nestorian monument in Fen-gan-foo. This monument contains a short history of the sect from the year 630 to 781, and also an abstract of the Christian religion. The missionaries of this sect have left but few records of their labors or of their observations as travelers, but the churches planted by them seem to have existed until a comparatively recent period. The Romish missionaries who entered China in the beginning of the fourteenth century, found them possessed of considerable influence, not only among the people, but also at court, and met with no little opposition from them in their first attempts to introduce the doctrines of their church. It seems to be true that during the period of nearly eight hundred years in which Nestorian Christianity maintained its foothold in China, large numbers of converts were made. But in process of time the Nestorian churches departed widely from their first teachings. After the fall of the Mongolian empire they were cut off from connection with the west, and not having sufficient vitality to resist the adverse influences of heathenism the people by degrees relapsed into idolatry or took up the new faiths that were introduced.
The first western writer, whose works are extant, who has given anything like full and explicit explanation respecting China is Ser Marco Polo. He went to China in the year 1274, in company with his father and uncle, who were Venetian noblemen. At this time, the independent nomad tribes of central Asia being united in one government, it was practicable to reach eastern Asia by passing through the Mongolian empire. Marco Polo spent twenty-four years in China, and seems to have been treated kindly and hospitably. After his return to Europe he was taken prisoner in a war with the Genoese, and during his confinement wrote an account of his travels. The description he gives of the vast territories of China, its teeming population, and flourishing cities, the refinement and civilization of its people, and their curious customs, seemed to his countrymen more like a fiction of fairyland than sober and authentic narrative. It is said that he was urged when on his death bed to retract these statements and make confession of falsehood, which he refused to do. He was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable travelers of any age.
During the period of the Mongolian empire which comprehended under its sway the greater part of Asia from China on the east to the Mediterranean on the west, an intense desire was kindled in the Roman church to convert this powerful nation to its faith. Among the first and the most noted of the missionaries sent to China at this time, was John of Mount Corvin, who reached Peking in 1293. He was afterward made an archbishop. From time to time bishops and priests were sent out to re-enforce this mission, but they met with indifferent success; and when the Mongols were driven from China the enterprise was abandoned as a complete failure. After the fall of the Mongolian empire, direct overland communication with eastern Asia was interrupted, and for about two hundred years China was again almost completely isolated from the western world.
The use of the magnetic needle, and improvements in navigation, made a new era in intercourse with the Orient. It is supposed that the first voyage from Europe to China was made by a Portuguese vessel in 1516. From this period commercial intercourse with China became more frequent, and various embassies were sent to the Chinese court by different nations of Europe. Unfortunately the growing familiarity of the Chinese with western nations did not increase their respect and confidence in them. This was due partly to the servility of most of the embassies to Peking, but principally, no doubt, to the want of honesty and the general lawlessness of most of the traders from the west. The consequence was that the Chinese became desirous of restricting foreign intercourse, and exercising as strict surveillance over their troublesome visitors as possible.
Immediately after connection was established between Europe and the far east by sea, another and a more successful effort was made by the Roman church to propagate its faith in the Chinese empire, this being coincident with the growth of the exchange of business. Francis Xavier, in his attempt to gain an entrance into the country, died on one of the islands of the coast in 1552. Toward the close of the Sixteenth century the Portuguese appeared upon the scene, and from their “concession” at Macao, at one time the residence of Camoens, opened commercial relations between China and the west. They brought the Chinese, among other things, opium, which had previously been imported overland from India. They possibly taught them how to make gunpowder, to the invention of which the Chinese do not seem, upon striking a balance of evidence, to possess an independent claim. About the same time Rome contributed the first installment of those wonderful Jesuit fathers whose names yet echo in the empire, the memory of their scientific labors and the benefits they thus conferred upon China having long survived the wreck and discredit of the faith to which they devoted their lives. At this distance of time it does not appear to be a wild statement, to assert that had the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and the Dominicans been able to resist quarreling among themselves, and had they rather united to persuade papal infallibility to permit the incorporation of ancestor-worship with the rites and ceremonies of the Romish church, China would at this moment be a Catholic country and Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism would long since have receded into the past.
CHINESE PRIEST.