ly than they do now on their bowl of rice and cabbage,
moistened with a drink of tea, and perhaps supplemented with a few
whiffs of the mildest possible tobacco? Would it cause them to be more
industrious than--e.g., the wood-carvers of Ningpo who work daily from
sunrise to dusk, with two short intervals for meals? Would it make
them more filial?--justly renowned as they are for unremitting care of
aged and infirm parents. More fraternal?--where every family is a
small society, each member toiling for the common good, and being sure
of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease.
More law-abiding?--we appeal to any one who has lived in China, and
mixed with the people. Would it make them more honest?--when many
Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner
deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian
nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name. Should we not
run the risk of sowing seed for future and bloody religious wars on
soil where none now rage? To teach them justice in the administration
of law would be a glorious task indeed, but even that would have its
dark side. Litigation would become the order of the day, and a
rapacious class would spring into existence where lawyers and
barristers are now totally unknown. The striking phenomenon of extreme
wealth side by side with extreme poverty, might be produced in a
country where absolute destitution is at present remarkably rare, and
no one need actually starve; and thus would be developed a fine field
for the practice of that Christian charity which by demoralisation of
the poorer classes so skilfully defeats its own end. We should rejoice
if anything could make Chinamen less cruel to dumb animals, desist
from carrying ducks, geese, and pigs, hanging by their legs to a pole,
feed their hungry dogs, and spare their worn-out beasts of burden. But
pigeon-shooting is unknown, and gag-bearing reins have yet to be
introduced into China; neither have we heard of a poor heathen
Chinaman "skinning a sheep alive." (_Vide Daily Papers of July_ 12,
1875.)

Last of all, it must not be forgotten that China has already four
great religions flourishing in her midst. There is _Confucianism_,
which, strictly speaking, is not a religion, but a system of
self-culture with a view to the proper government of (1) one's own
family and of (2) the State. It teaches man to be good, and to love
virtue for its own sake, with n