of China into "spheres of influence." England, as is her wont, appointed a man eminently fitted for the position to go to China and make a thorough study of the question and report. This was done in a masterly way by Lord Charles Beresford, and ought to have ended the discussion forever. But there are in the ports of China several small sensational sheets-we wish it understood that we do not make this accusation against all the foreign newspapers in those ports-which have continued the discussion from the beginning to the present time. This has stirred up violent opposition among the conservatives, and especially in the mind of the empress dowager, as is shown by her edicts; and this opposition is not without reason. Let the Chinese in San Francisco or New York, or both, start newspapers in which they constantly discuss the shortcomings of the United States government, rebuking both city and national officials and advising the division of the United States into "spheres of influence" among the Powers of Asia, and what would be the result? The peaceful citizens of these two ports, in this land of freedom of speech and a free press, would rise en masse and destroy these Chinese printing houses at once, before the government had time to prevent them. In a word, the sensational foreign press in the ports of China was party to the cause of the present uprising.

To say that the Chinese government caused the repeated persecutions of Roman Catholic Christians in Shantung, which was the beginning of the present uprising might be true and might not-it would be a statement one would never be able to prove. To say that the government at Peking has been in sympathy with the Boxers from the beginning would only be an assertion for which evidence has appeared in the attitude of the high officials toward the Boxers and that of the central government toward those high officials from the beginning. When Yü Hsien, the antiforeign governor of Shantung at the time the Boxer movement began, was appealed to for protection by the foreigners again and again, his only answer to them was that he could not promise them protection. This continued until the complaints against him were so numerous and imperative that the empress dowager was compelled to recall him to Peking. She gave him two audiences,

conferred upon him the character for happiness, and appointed him governor of the province of Shansi. When his successor, Yuan Shih-k'ai, was appointed and gave his brother command of the army, with orders to put down the disturbance, the latter was soon recalled because of the harsh methods he used in dealing with the Boxers. When General Nieh Shih-chun attacked the Boxers between Tientsin and Peking, killing five hundred of them, he was immediately rebuked and ordered back to camp. It is also unnecessary to speak of the attitude of such men as Prince Tuan and the Kansu general, Tung Fu-hsiang, who when they came upon the scene, came as allies

of the Boxers. What we wish to show is not that the central government was allied with the Boxers at the end of the movement only, but that it was behind it from the beginning.

Where, then, shall we look to find the real cause of the present trouble, and who can legitimately be held responsible? It is found in the conservative party and their opposition to the reforms of the emperor. This has appeared in many and various ways. As soon as the empress took control of affairs she burned all the foreign books the emperor had bought. This was told the writer by a eunuch from the palace who was a friend of the one who came to him daily to buy books; and the empress at the same time banished the eunuch who bought the books for his majesty. She then tried to prevent the opening of the new Peking Imperial University, but the emperor had set aside money in such a way that even she with all her power and ingenuity was not able to secure it, nor even divert it to other ends. Such a sentiment of opposition to foreigners and foreign affairs was created among the students of the institution that it was almost ruined as an adjunct to the government or an assistant in any efforts at reform. Such men as Ch'i Hsiu-who had been president of the Board of Rites, and who was dismissed by the emperor for an attempt to foil him in his efforts to allow the people to address him with closed memorials-was reinstated by the empress dowager and made a member of the Grand Council and the Tsungli Yamen. Chao Shu-ch'iao, one of the most antiforeign officials of the present time-a former governor of Chiangsuwas summoned to Peking and made the president of the

Board of Punishment, member of the Tsungli Yamen, and the successor of Chang Yin-huan as superintendent of the Board of Railways and Mining, the former having been banished at the time of the coup d'état. Such men as Hsü T'ung and Ch'ung-yi, lifelong antiforeign officials, were made tutors to the boy who was selected to take the place of the dethroned emperor.

These men were the advisers of the empress dowager, and the edicts which she issued embodied their sentiments as leaders of the conservative party, as well as her own, and as such leaders they should be held responsible. In two years of effort at government they have shown that they are out of sympathy with the whole world and are unable to carry on a system of government which is acceptable to the great viceroys and the liberal party or beneficial to their own people. They have compromised themselves with the whole world, if they do not prove to have bankrupted the empire. It is therefore impracticable and impossible that such men and such a party should be kept in power. The question therefore arises -and it is one of the most important, if not the most important, question which now engrosses the attention of the worldWhat should be done under the present circumstances? What is the duty of the allied Powers to China and the world in this crisis in the East?

China is not without resources. There is a China unlike that which has appeared in the cartoons of the past few months. The Chinese people are many-sided. They can furnish from their four hundred millions of people those who are prepared for every emergency that may arise. For twenty years and more a party has been developing which only needs a civil leader to make it the dominant power of the East. From all the schools that have been established in China have gone out young men who have carried with them an influence antagonistic to the ultra-conservatism of the octogenarian leaders we have just mentioned. In the conservative party at the present time there are no men of strong character and political power under sixty years of age. The liberal party is made up of young men who, in spite of all the opposition of the dowager and her party, have been steadily preparing

themselves for the revolution which they know is inevitable. A division of China would throw the power of all these young men in favor of China and against the allies; and they will fight to the death for China because they are patriotic. But put the emperor or a liberal leader in power, and all the great internal, as well as international, problems are solved. Put the liberal party in power, and there will be no trouble about the protection of the foreigners in any part of the empire. Not only so, but they will be sought as teachers of foreign ideas. Let the people feel and know that the officials and the throne are in favor of introducing western education and improvements, and the revolution of China may be accomplished in less than a quarter of a century.

This is not all. The Powers desire an "open door." Put the liberal party in power, with such a man as Kuang Hsü on the throne, and there will be no trouble about freedom of trade. The open door is as much desired by the liberal party as by the allied Powers. They realize the inability of any nation to accomplish its self-development, and desire to put into operation every resource which will bring about the opening up of the hitherto undeveloped wealth of the Chinese empire and furnish a proper living for the Chinese people. And they look upon intercourse with the West as the only possible way of doing it.

We therefore do not regard the present uprising in China as a calamity, but as one of the greatest opportunities of the age. It is a crisis. The disposition of China is put into the hands of the allied Powers. They may be controlled by selfishness or by benevolence and generosity. They may break China and destroy the peace of the world, or they may make China and guarantee the peace of the world. Which shall it be?

59

Isaac 1. Headland,

ART. V.-FIRST, THAT WHICH IS NATURAL. RELIGION can never become thoroughly wholesome until it becomes entirely natural. It is not an exotic, but has its foundations in the nature of things, having had its evolution just as certainly as civilization has had its evolution, and having followed much the same order. Religion is not an afterthought, nor a makeshift, nor a piece of patchwork, but must be recognized as an essential part of the outfit for humanity in this world. Its evolution has been so distinctly marked that its history can be clearly traced.

Man's sense of need and fellowship, which doubtless led to the worship of higher powers and which is of the very essence of religion, could find expression on a plane no higher than that of his own intelligence. He could not worship better than he knew, and we may well believe that it was a great thing for him to be able to begin to worship at all. He did well to worship trees and stones, rivers and wells, earth and sun, and whatever else represented to him that weird conception of supernaturalism which could find expression only in that way-nature-worship, and fetich, and totem losing in significance and true worship gaining just in proportion as man's knowledge of nature increased. As nature comes to be better understood, the significance of that which is behind it becomes more apparent. The heavens have declared "the glory of God," and the firmament has showed "his handiwork," but this has always been in the ratio of the knowl edge men have had of them. Modern astronomy having almost infinitely increased our knowledge of the universe, it would be absurd to claim that the heavens declared the glory of God in any such measure to the psalmist as that glory now stands revealed. It all depends on how well we understand "the things that are made" as to how clearly the "invisible things of Him from the creation of the world" will be seen. The revelation of God, it may be, comes to no two men alike. The conception of his "eternal power and Godhead," even, must be very different in different minds. What can the child or the savage know of God's power as compared with