In all these cases it has been European enlightenment, as embodied in Christianity, that the Chinese through their Emperors have asked for. But already we hear of governors and high officials actually becoming Christians themselves individually. Up till now none had certainly joined the Protestant Church, and I think none had been baptised into the Roman Catholic Church, for I have always understood in China it was doubted whether a man could become a Christian and retain official place.
China has appealed to Christendom for the third time. May it not be in vain! Of all means for helping her, the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge seems the most useful at the present juncture, and £20 would bring a new city under its influence, while £200 would enable this Society to permeate a whole new province with its revivifying literature.
_UP-COUNTRY SHOPPING AND UP-COUNTRY WAYS._
Buying Curios.--Being stoned.--Chinese New Year.--Robbers.--Protesting Innocence.--Doing Penance.--Medicines.
Before Chinese New Year bargains are to be picked up--in Shanghai lovely embroidered satins, exquisite transparent tortoiseshell boxes, or china of the Ming period. Up-country our buyings are of a different order--a tiger-skin thirteen feet from head to tail, with grand markings, though of course not so thick a fur as is to be had at Newchwang. Head and tail and claws are all intact; and the man who brings it exhibits also its terrible jaws, and points to the holes where the spear entered before the man conquered the tiger. We have besides stone slabs, with the shells of the orthoceras embedded in them, sawn asunder and polished for screens or table-tops. What that most remarkable animal did, with a shell like the horn of an unicorn, not uncommonly over two feet long, and beautifully convoluted, it is hard to think. These pagoda-stones, as they are called, arrive in mass, all to realise money for New Year's debts.
Rocks of various kinds are the special product of the Ichang district, where we could supply all the rockeries of Shanghai with disintegrated conglomerate. Only, unfortunately, at this season fern-stones are not in sufficient beauty to play the part of the Irish pig, and help to pay the rent. But one day an eagle was shown into the drawing-room in splendid condition, with grand yellow beak, and beautiful brown eyes, and neck of blended tints of brown and bronze. The poor creature's feet were tightly tied together; but even as it was, we were careful about admiring its beauties too closely. Eight hundred cash was all that was even asked by its captor, who eventually is said to have parted with the beautiful bird for five hundred cash, or one shilling.