Upon the character of the last great rising of the Chinese against their oppressors, the Ti-ping rebellion, the Bishop of Victoria, in 1854, wrote:--
"The finger of Divine Providence appears to us signally conspicuous in this revolution. The moral, social, and political condition of China was almost hopelessly wretched and debased. Its whole system of government, of society, and religion, was to be broken up, remodelled, reconstructed, and renewed. In looking about for an agency available for such an end, the mind was depressed and perplexed. The government was corrupt, the scholars were feeble and inert, the gentry were servile and timid, the lower classes were engrossed in the struggle for subsistence, the whole nation seemed bound hand and foot, with their moral energies paralyzed, their intellectual faculties stunted, and their civil liberties crushed beneath the iron gripe of power and the debasing influence of sensuality. Political subjection to an effete despotism, and addiction to opium, had enervated the national mind, and rendered the Chinese helpless as a race.
"From themselves no reformer seemed likely to arise. Their canonized virtue of filial piety was perverted and abused as the grand support of despotism. But it is in this state of perplexity and despondency that we turn to survey the present movement, its chief actors, and its accomplished results; and beholding we admire, and admiring we thank God for what our eyes are privileged to see."
[4] This strong tendency of the Chinese to combine and organize is well noticed in "Impressions of China," by Captain Fishbourne, at pages 415 to 418.
[5] Alluding to the establishment of the Tartar Budhism.
[6] The badge of slavery imposed by the Manchoo Tartars upon their conquest of China.
[7] The form of head-dress and insignia of nobility introduced by the Manchoos.
[8] Referring to the elaborate and merciless laws of treason and disaffection established by the Manchoos.
[9] Wan-theen-seang would not submit to the Mongols, and was slain by Kubla Khan.
[10] One of the adherents of the Sung dynasty, who, on being seized by the Mongols, refused to eat, and so died.
[11] Killed himself when the Ming dynasty was irretrievably lost.