and influential; a skillful physician is hon- | life," said he, "how can we know death?” ored as the "nation's hand." Generally His commentators resolve everything into they have regular fees. In the cholera pure materialism; making nature begin time, the profession, finding their remedies with the primary material principle, which, of no avail, wisely gave up all treatment. operating upon itself, resolved itself into The Chinese, from their slovenly habits, the dual powers, or male and female prinare subject to diseases of the skin; a large ciples-the yin and yang. But they supproportion of the inhabitants are experi- pose that pure-minded men and sages are enced performers on the Scottish national gradually raised up as expounders of these instrument. Their materia medica includes principles, and form with them a Trinity, a great many queer ingredients, and needs or class of saints to be worshipped. very much the influence of the Baconian philosophy. The Chinese do not appear to be a religious people. Their philosophy is purely worldly, and they have no state hierarchy. They have no human sacrifices, and what is more remarkable, no deification of vice. Indeed, they are in daily life, as well as in religion, as corrupt and decent a people as any of their more enlightened brethren. Their state religion is not so much a matter of doctrine as of mere ceremony,— the word for doctrine which applies to religious creeds does not apply to this, which seems only a national ritual. There are three grades of sacrifices, the great, medium, and inferior. The objects to which the first are offered are four, viz.: tien, the sky, called the imperial concave expanse; ti, the earth; tai miau, or great temple of ancestors, which contains the tablets of deceased monarchs; and the shie tsih, or gods of the land and grain. The medium sacrifices are offered to the sun and moon, the manes of former emperors, Confucius, the ancient patrons of agriculture and silkweaving, the gods of heaven, earth and the passing year. The inferior to the ancient patron of the healing art, to the innumerable spirits of deceased philanthropists, eminent statesmen, martyrs to virtue, &c., clouds, wind, rain, thunder; the five celebrated mountains, four seas, and four rivers; famous hills, flags, gods of cannon, gates, the north pole, and many other things. The common people may worship what they please, except the objects of imperial adoration, the heavens and earth; these are reserved for the Emperor, or son of heaven. Confucius did not pretend to understand about the gods, and his teaching all had reference to this life, though he supposed himself commissioned by Heaven to revive ancient learning. "Not knowing VOL. I. NO. III. NEW SERIES. The first man, Pwanku, hatched from Chaos by the dual powers, had the task of hewing out the earth. He is painted at the work, which took him 18,000 years. With him are the dragon, the phoenix, and the tortoise, and sometimes the unicorn, divine types and progenitors with him of the animal creation, but whose origin is left in obscurity. He is succeeded by three monstrous sovereigns, whose reigns lasted another 18,000 years. During this time good government commenced, men learned to eat and drink, sleep was invented, and many other improvements adopted; but of all this there is no record because the mysterious tortoise, on whose carapace was written in tadpole-headed characters the history of the anterior world, did not survive. All their mythology is equally abstract and passionless. On The result of all is, that the learned Chinese have no definite religion, but a mere pageant. Sometimes they worship with the Buddhists or disciples of Fo, sometimes with the Rationalists, who believe in a final swallowing up of the individual in the pure, supreme, eternal Reason. great occasions they worship anything and everything. In 1835, when there was a great drought at Canton, the prefect advertised, offering a reward to whoever could succeed in producing rain by prayers. An altar was erected before his office, and a Buddhist priest prayed there incessantly for three days without success. public fast was then ordered, still with no avail. At length, the day before the rain came, the prefect gave notice of an intention to liberate all prisoners not charged with capital offences. As soon as the rain fell, the people presented thank offerings, and the southern gate of the city, which had been closed to keep out the hot wind, was opened, accompanied by an odd ceremony of burning the tail of a live sow, 17 A while the animal was held in a basket. | The learned men, while they admit the folly of these things, still join in them. "Buddhism," says Dr. Morrison, "in China is decried by the learned, laughed at by the profligate, yet followed by all." The priesthood have the better judgment of the people against them, and are rather feared for the mischief which it is supposed they can do than honored as examples of a pious life. The ceremonies at funerals vary in different parts of the country. In some parts they make a hole in the roof as soon as a person dies, to let the spirit pass out. The body is coffined arrayed in the richest robes the family can procure; a fan is put in one hand and a prayer on a piece of paper in the other. A coffin is made of boards three or four inches thick, and is rounded at the top; it is called "longevity boards." The body is generally laid in with lime and the lid closed with mortar; the coffin is then kept in or about the house many years, and incense burned before it morning and evening. The Chinese often purchase coffins in their lifetime; the price varies from $5 to $500, and even thousands are sometimes paid for them. Upon a general survey of the Chinese character, they appear to be as amiable and sensible a family as the race has ever produced. Though jealous of foreigners, they are not so bigoted to their old usages as to reject what are real improvements, when they comprehend them. They take life in a very business-like way, and make the most of it. Whether their very vagueness or almost entire want of a definite religious faith will make it easier to christianize them or not, is questionable. We should think their indifference quite as hard to overcome as a belief in some wild form of superstition. The labor of a Christian missionary among them must be no slight one. The true way to reach a people so little imaginative in religion must be through education. Here the great difficulties are the language and the old custom; it will go hard to break down what has worked tolerably well for so many hundreds and thousands of years. But the struggle must come; it is the inevitable result of the contact of the weak and false with the strong and true. The only hope for the poor Chinese is their unrivalled docility and quickness of imitation. They wish to know and pursue the right, and their religion and philosophy have kept them at least pure-minded in comparison with other pagan races. One cannot read without pity the history of their efforts to put down opium smoking. Our teetotal societies and license laws are but faint measures compared with those. They tried moral suasion in all sorts of modes; the present work gives one of a series of plates representing the opium smoker's downward progress, also some vigorous writing against it from one of their scholars; the physicians tried medicine; finally government made it penal. Though all has been without much avail, yet the progress of the anti-opium "cause,' as our temperance people would phrase it, has shown a right spirit. The same may be seen in their adoption of many foreign inventions. The result of the English opium war, Mr. Williams's history of which we have not room to sketch, has opened Canton, Amoy, Ningpo, and Shanghai to foreign trade, and cannot but have the effect to extend foreign influence in the empire. It will be as remarkable a fact as any connected with their singular history, should the Chinese now gradually and quietly come up to the standard of western civilization. When the influences are considered that are bearing more and more upon them, their destiny appears one of the greatest mysteries of Providence that time shall solve. G. W. P. JOHN BULL THE COMPASSIONATE.* pay for it. Was ever any barbarian so perverse? Page after page, and volume after volume of compassionate advice, in this strain, have been wafted to us across the water, until many very worthy people have become half persuaded that John Bull, hot and glowing with the fire of philanthropy, has quite forgotten himself in his disinterested compassion for his neighbors. THE giant of Rabelais, who devoured | good pennyworth; but we have chosen windmills, but was choked one summer's to do our own spinning, and get our own day by a pound of fresh butter, has found an antitype in John Bull. That heart-ofoak personage has not been generally supposed to stick at trifles, but it appears from his own asseverations, that he has now and then a fit of compassion, and that his eyes can drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal gum. When John Bull is compassionate, he is a sight There is a contrast of ideas and operations in the spectacle which hardly belongs to what philosophers call the "moral fitness of things." The butter sticks in his throat, while the windmills are rumbling in his belly. to see. The American system of protecting domestic industry has been the butter in this case-not, alas! the butter that has buttered John's bread, but the identical pound that has stuck in his capacious throat, and thrown him into hysterics of mortal compassion. Can words express how the compassionate John Bull weeps for the misfortunes of his dearly beloved Brother Jonathan? "In his greenness he has made a tariff, and in the simplicity of his heart he has built up a manufacture! What shall be done for our little Brother Jonathan in the day when he shall be spoken of by political economists ?" And straightway the compassionate John pulls out a quire of paper and indites a long letter of advice on free trade. Through multifarious channels has our respectable and compassionate elder brother been pouring out his lachrymations on this matter, Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, parliamentary speeches, newspaper prosings, ponderous tomes of political economy, etc., etc.-all have wept How could we, Americans, and the sons of such a mother, be so unwiseso perverse-so blind to our true interests, as to spin our own yarn! John Bull stood ready to sell us his genuine spinnings, a over us. Under this impression of John Bull's universal benevolence, neighborly kindness, and all-absorbing love for the human species, one is tempted to call in question the common records of history, and raise an indignant doubt whether such a fairfaced, sweet-spoken, tender-hearted gentleman, has not been shamefully belied in the annals of past ages. "This fellow's of exceeding honesty, and knows all qualities." Can such things have been done as are read of in the wars of Europe and Asia during a century past? Is it true that the English bombarded Copenhagen? Is Hindostan more than a fiction? Clive and Hastings any substantial bodily existence? Is not Ireland a mythe, which some political Strauss will by and by evolve from obscurity, and explain without any detriment to John Bull's character for humanity? These windmills are flying very awkwardly in our faces, while John is attempting to "butter us down" with the outpourings of his tender compassion. Had The whim of John Bull that his Brother Jonathan ought to do nothing for himself, but have John to do everything for him, is no new whim. Many years ago this same blue-and-buff periodical on which we are now commenting, asked the question, "Who reads an American book ?" and straightway discovered that the matter of book-making was all right, for why should the Americans write books for themselves, when they can import ours *Edinburgh Review, No. CLXXIV. Art. 4. Macgregor on American Cor merce. in bales and hogsheads?" In spite of such questions, however, and the profound maxims of political wisdom that lay hidden under them, the Americans have at length got to making not only books, but blankets and bandboxes; whereat John Bull has somewhat changed his demeanor, and instead of asking questions he pulls out his handkerchief and falls a-weeping from pure humanity. Brother Jonathan, he declares, will die of a tariff, and leave him inconsolable! as Simple noddies as we Yankees are, we have yet, like "the creature Dougal," a glimmering of sense; and by the help of that glimmering, we can see through John Bull's blubbering philanthropy. We are in no puzzle to discern its genuine character; it does not ring clear, but has a decided twang of Brummagem. When John tells us that we are smart youngsters, and that he loves us as he does his eyes, but that his bowels yearn within him for the miseries which we suffer in spinning cotton, we can but laugh; for certain as puddings were made to eat, and mouths to open, just so certainly were a man's ribs made to vibrate, with intercostal accompaniments, at what is laughable. We cannot stand it, when a philanthropist who has just mowed down the Sikhs with grape-shot, and thrust his damnable opium upon the Chinese at the mouth of the cannon, turns round and tells us that his whole soul is about to dissolve in pity for an American citizen who pays ninepence too much for a pocket-handkerchief. The words "fatal policy ". unwise legislation"-"blind fatality"-" bigoted perverseness"-"false position "illiberal principles," etc., are all lost upon us;-Sparrow-shot," said my uncle Toby, "fired against a bastion." trines 66 We have done, in a great measure, with importing John's political ideas and docby the bale and hogshead," more especially such as are not suited to our wants. In plain English, all the world knows that these philanthropic professions of British economists are mere moonshine. They are puffs of their own wares, exeeuted to order for the markets of Birmingham and Manchester. The pedler assumes the garb of the philosopher, and sends out his magazine instead of a newspaper advertisement. We do not blame the English for wishing to get the markets of all the world; but we would have the world to know that the written political wisdom of England is not half so cosmopolitan in its sympathies as it pretends to be. John Bull's heart, if we take his word for it, is expansive enough to take in the whole human family; but we may rely upon it that of all his father's children he loves himself the best. John can sing a variety of pathetic tunes, but they all end in "Buy a broom." However, let us hear some of John's lamentations over his suffering brother : "The American citizen pays from 95 to 178 per cent. for his window glass; 75 to 150 per cont. on articles of manufactured iron; 133 per cent. on salt; 75 to 150 per cent. on prints and calicoes. In order that he may enjoy these and similar benefits without fear of interruption by the smuggler, he pays for steam revenuecutters to cruise along the islands and sandbars which fringe the free Atlantic along his coast." Is not this enough to melt a heart of stone? "Lie down and be saddled with wooden shoes!" says Goldsmith's patriot. 95 per cent. on window glass, and steam revenue-cutters into the bargain! exclaims the Edinburgh Review. O unhappy Americans! What is the small matter of being priest-ridden, king-ridden, aristocracy-ridden, or national-debt-ridden, compared to the miseries of being steam-revenue-cutterridden? Truly, if it were not for our humane brother across the water, we should never know half our misfortunes. He has no steam revenue-cutters-lucky dog! nor ever heard of a preventive service. There is no such thing in England as being "exchequered." However, let John dry up his tears; we think, with God's help and some patience, we shall survive the horrid infliction of steam revenue-cutters; the country has many things to forget before it will take up that topic as a grievance. John Bull is a knowing fellow, but we counsel him, as he values his reputation for shrewdness, to say no more about our steam revenue-cutters. As to the 95 per cent. upon glass, and all that, a man with half an eye may see through it. Not to mention that our glass is better than his, we certainly shall claim the privilege of employing our own arithmetic in estimating the profit and loss of our dealings with so sharp a customer. Like Autolycus, John is always crying, "Come buy, come buy!" and like Autolycus, he is sure to pick your pocket. He has the multiplication table at his fingers' ends, while "free trade" is ever on the edge of his tongue.-95 to 178 per cent. forsooth! No, brother, that will not do. Did you never hear of a fallacy lurking under figures of arithmetic as well as under figures of rhetoric! Did it never enter your noddle that American glass will serve two purposes to your one? It keeps the cold out of the house and keeps the money in, which yours can never do, because we must send the money out to pay for it. As to the 150 per cent. on calicoes, you may score down as many figures as you please, but we are old enough to remember seeing British calicoes sold among us at 62 cents a yard, before the protective system had an existence, which would be high in the market now at a shilling. That is a fixed fact, which cannot be got over. "Human experience, which is the only test of truth," says Dr. Johnson, "is perpetually contradicting theory." But let us hear John Bull again he will : condole in some measure," like his friend Nick Bottom : "So long as the American farmer chooses to feed himself and his cattle on taxed salt; to work his land with taxed iron; to dress his wife and daughters in taxed calicoes-not to preserve the national honor, to plant the rapacious eagle on the towers of Cortez, or to humble the obstinate Britishers,' but simply that the world may admire the factory girls of Lowell, and that a few Yankee speculators may get rich in the towns of New England so long these statesmen may enjoy a poorly acquired popularity; but the dispelling of that delusion will place them at the feet of their enemies, unless they extricate themselves from the false position which they now occupy." Now, if the American farmer chooses to feed himself and his cattle, and dress himself and his family, according to his own notions of thrift and economy, as he certainly does, why need John Bull go into fits about it? But he is a compassionate soul, and has pangs of grief to see his neighbors pay too much for their calico. If John had no calico of his own to sell, we might possibly lend an ear to his neighborly advice in this matter; but as the case stands, it is quite natural that such advice should be looked on with distrust. His theories of free trade are very fine things on paper, but the perverse obstinacy of real events is such as to render them utterly worthless. Facts, naked facts, are the things we want throw theories to the dogs. What stuff is this about taxed iron and calico? There ought to be no such thing as iron or calico in the United States, if the English theories of free trade have a particle of truth in them. The protective system should have raised the price of these articles above the reach of any farmer in the Union: nobody would have manufactured them, for nobody would have been rich enough to buy them : where there is no demand there will be no supply. Now what has been the fact? We had no protective system, and we paid England enormously high prices for iron and calico. We adopted a protective system, and now we have iron and calico of our own dog-cheap! Is there a farmer in the country who wishes to go back to the days of untaxed iron and calico? Alas for John Bull's theory of free trade ! And here we are compelled to ask a question :-Does the writer in the Edinburgh really believe that all these horrors of taxed iron and calico and steam revenuecutters are patiently endured by the people of the United States, merely that the world may admire the factory girls of Lowell? Does he in good sooth persuade himself that the merchants of New York, the sugar-planters of Louisiana, and the farmers of Ohio, sit down calmly under grinding taxation, in their strong desire to enrich only a few Yankee speculators in the towns of New England? Does he, we ask, seriously believe this? We should like to put him to his corporal oath upon it. If he does believe so, we would give a trifle to see the face and eyes of a man capable of such asinine credulity! By what sort of hocus-pocus does he suppose the American people-a people whose wits in money matters, according to the, universal belief in England, are as sharp as a two-edged sword-by what sort of hocus-pocus does he believe these people. to have become in an instant so enamored of the Lowell factory girls as to suffer taxation and tariffs, and steam revenuecutters into the bargain, for the mere |