But we are quite as far from having asserted the existence of such preternatural phenomena, and we shall surely not attempt to establish facts of which we have no experience whatever. All that we have done has been merely to question the validity of that curt and summary argument, which assumes that matter and spirit are incapable of acting upon each other, and in this way cuts off all investigation.
We were somewhat disappointed and discouraged as we followed our contributor into that passage in which he seems to think that after death, the soul of man is removed beyond all knowledge of material things, and becomes incapable of ever perceiving their existence. It is true, this is but the logical deduction from his premises; and yet we felt some emotions of terror—some shrinking from that great and impassable gulf which he represents as then to be fixed between us and the objects of our life-long acquaintance—'the gulf which separates time from eternity.' But we were soon relieved; for in the conclusion of his article he waxes eloquent upon the higher faculties with which the soul will doubtless be endowed in its new state of existence, and with apparent unconsciousness of all inconsistency, assumes the very opposite of the whole preceding part of his argument. 'But,' he exclaims, 'when we shall stand in all the nakedness of pure, unfettered spirit,' 'and gaze with all the clearness of unveiled spiritual vision upon the wonderful mechanism of the universe,' etc. We might inquire of our author how, upon his principles, with merely spiritual vision, we can expect to behold anything so gross and material as the mechanism of the universe; but we overlook and forgive the apparent inconsistency—we are willing ourselves to be vanquished in the argument—for the sake of the noble idea that we may hereafter 'pass from blindness to far-stretching, unimpeded sight,' and 'be able at a glance to count the very stars, and to see the network of laws which binds them to their places, and controls, not only their motions, but the minutest particulars of their internal organism.' We are thankful, at all events, that, though matter and spirit may be so far apart in this our mortal state of existence, in the spiritual world, at least, we shall not lose all memory and knowledge of the grand material creation, of which we have learned so little here, but shall still be able, with even clearer vision, to perceive and comprehend the works of God, and, in the light of a nobler understanding, to adore the unfathomable wisdom which the Omnipotent Spirit has displayed in the arrangements of the boundless universe—the magnificent dwelling place of his creature man.
EXTRATERRITORIALITY IN CHINA.[10]
History pays no more than a just tribute to commerce, when she accords to that agency important civilizing influences; yet it must be admitted that it has frequently pursued a tortuous course, has often been unscrupulous in the means that it has employed, and has not always been reciprocal in its advantages. Like religion, it has been used as an opening wedge to conquest. As the establishment of a factory in Bengal prepared the way for the battle of Plassy, so the founding of a mission in Manilla led to the subjugation of the Philippines. Or as, in our day, opium breached the walls of China, so the Society of Jesus, by its labor in Anam, has caused the dismemberment of that empire. British commerce demanded for its development successive wars. Gallican religion exacts from each dynasty the employment of the sword as an auxiliary of propagandism.
These aggressions have been facilitated by the assumption, on the part of Christian powers, of the exemption of their subjects from local jurisdiction in Mohammedan and pagan countries. A factory or a mission is established, which, from the outset, is an imperium in imperio, and becomes a permanent conspiracy which soon finds causes of complaint against the government of the land in which, without invitation, its members have become domiciled. Essentially this is filibusterism, more dangerous because more insidious than an armed invasion; it has caused nearly all the collisions which have occurred in oriental and occidental intercourse. If, in the discussions that have arisen on eastern questions, this consideration of the subject had not been wholly ignored, the courses pursued by western powers would be even less defensible than they have been made to appear. No one can arrive at correct conclusions on questions affecting China, Japan, Siam and other pagan states without an attentive consideration of the claims which those weak countries have upon us in view of their being compelled to join the family of nations, and render themselves amenable to international law, while they are debarred from the semblance of reciprocity.
Extraterritoriality originated in the Levant. The mercantile establishments that sprang up in Western Asia and Northern Africa, as Moslem power began to wane, partook of a semi-official character; being recognized as an appendage of the diplomatic corps of that country, it became the practice to accord to the trading Frank the exemption from local jurisdiction which was accorded to the official representative of his country.
This abdication of authority, on the part of those states, has been effected gradually, and the usurpation on the part of Christian powers has only been perfected and secured by treaty in our own day. Great Britain, in her treaty with the emperor of Morocco (1760), agreed that 'if there shall happen any quarrel or dispute between an Englishman and a Mussulman, by which any of them shall receive detriment, the same shall be heard and determined by the emperor alone.'
In the following year we find the sublime Porte, in a treaty with Prussia, jealously guarding Turkish interterritorial rights, stipulating that the Ottoman tribunals should take cognizance of cases arising between Prussian subjects and those of the Porte. All that the Porte was then willing to concede, was the presence of the Prussian consul at such trials, and the privilege of adjudicating in disputes arising between his countrymen.