The Awakening of China

by W. A. P. Martin

Not only has this section of the province a dialect of its own, of the mandarin type, but its people possess a finer physique than those of the south. Taller, with eyes less angular and faces of faultless symmetry, they are a handsome people, famed alike for literary talent and for commercial enterprise. During my residence there the whole city was once thrown into excitement by the news that one of her sons had won the first prize in prose and verse in competition, before the emperor, with the assembled scholars of the empire—an an honour comparable to that of poet laureate or of a victor in the Olympic games. When that distinction falls to a city, it is believed that, in order to equalise matters, the event is sure to be followed by three years of dearth. In this instance, the highest mandarins escorted the wife of the literary athlete to the top of the wall, where she scattered a few handfuls of rice to avert the impending famine.

My house was attached to a new church which was surmounted by a bell-tower. In a place where nothing of the sort had previously existed, that accessory attracted many visitors even before the bell was in position to invite them. One day a weeping mother, attended by an anxious retinue, presented herself and asked permission to climb the tower, which request of course was not refused.

Uncovering a bundle, she said: "This is my boy's clothing. Yesterday he was up in the tower and, taking fright at the height of the building, his little soul forsook his body and he had to go home without it. He is now delirious with fever. We think the soul is hovering about in this huge edifice and that it will recognise these clothes and, taking possession of them, will return home with us."

When a bird escapes from its cage the Chinese sometimes hang the cage on the branch of a tree and the bird returns to its house again. They believe they can capture a fugitive soul in the same way. Sometimes, too, a man may be seen standing on a housetop at night waving a lantern and chanting in dismal tones an invitation to some wandering spirit to return to its abode. Whether in the case just mentioned the poor woman's hopes were fulfilled and whether the animula vagula blandula returned from its wanderings I never learned, but I mention the incident as exhibiting another picturesque superstition.

Chinese psychology recognises three souls, viz., the animal, the spiritual, and the intellectual. The absence of one of the three does not, therefore, involve immediate death, as does the departure of the soul in our dual system.

But I tarry too long at my old home. We have practically an empire still before us, and will, therefore, steer west for Hangchow.

In the thirteenth century this was the residence of an imperial court; and the provincial capital still retains many signs of imperial magnificence. The West Lake with its pavilions and its lilies, a pleasance fit for an emperor; the vast circuit of the city's walls enclosing hill and vale; and its commanding site on the bank of a great river at the head of a broad bay—all combine to invest it with dignity. Well do I recall the day in 1855 when white men first trod its streets. They were the Rev. Henry Rankin and myself. Though not permitted by treaty to penetrate even the rind of the "melon," as the Chinese call their empire, to a distance farther than admitted of our returning to sleep at home, we nevertheless broke bounds and set out for the old capital of the Sungs. On the way we made a halt at the city of Shaohing; and as we were preaching to a numerous and respectful audience in the public square, a well-dressed man pressed through the crowd and invited us to do him the honour of taking tea at his house. His mansion exhibited every evidence of affluence; and he, a scholar by profession, aspiring to the honours of the mandarinate, explained, as he ordered for us an ample repast, that he would have felt ashamed if scholars from the West had been allowed to pass through his city without anyone offering them hospitality. What courtesy! Could Hebrew or Arab hospitality surpass it?

Two things for which the city of Shaohing is widely celebrated are (1) a sort of rice wine used throughout the Empire as being indispensable at mandarin feasts, and (2) clever lawyers who are deemed indispensable as legal advisers to mandarins. They are the "Philadelphia lawyers" of China.

As we entered Hangchow the boys shouted Wo tsei lai liao, "the Japanese are coming "—never having seen a European, and having heard their fathers speak of the Japanese as sea-robbers, a terror to the Chinese coast. Up to this date, Japan had no treaty with China, and it had never carried on any sort of regular commerce with or acknowledged the superiority of China. Before many years had passed, these youths became accustomed to Western garb and features; and I never heard that any foreigner suffered insult or injury at their hands.

In 1860 the Rev. J. L. Nevius, one of my colleagues, took possession of the place in the name of Christ. He was soon followed by Bishop Burden, of the English Church Mission, whose apostolic successor, Bishop Moule, now makes it the seat of his immense diocese.