ward off a crushing blow. But
so elated were the Chinese by their unexpected success that they
were in no mood to accept the services of a mediator. The Emperor
insisted that he should go on his knees like the tribute-bearer
from a vassal state. "Tell them," said Mr. Ward, "that I go on
my knees only to God and woman"--a speech brave and chivalrous,
but undignified for a minister and unintelligible to the Chinese.
With this he quitted the capital and left China to her fate. He
was not the first envoy to meet a rude rebuff at the Chinese court.
In 1816 Lord Amherst was not allowed to see the "Dragon's Face"
because he refused to kneel. At that date England was not in a
position to punish the insult; but it had something to do with the
war of 1839. In 1859 it was pitiful to see a power whose existence
was hanging in the scales alienate a friend by unseemly insolence.

The following year (1860) saw the combined forces of two empires
at the gates of Peking. The summer palace was laid in ashes to
punish the murder of a company of men and officers under a flag
of truce; and it continues to be an unsightly ruin. The Emperor
fled to Tartary to find a grave; and throne and capital were for
the first time at the mercy of an Occidental army. On the accession
of Hien-feng, in 1850, an old counsellor advised him to make it
his duty to "restore the restrictions all along the coast." His
attempt to do this was one source of his misfortunes. Supplementary
articles were signed within the walls,
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by which China relinquished her absurd pretensions, abandoned her
long seclusion, and, at the instance of France, threw open the
whole empire to the labours of Christian missions. They had been
admitted by rescript to the Five Ports, but no further.

Thus ends the second act of the drama; and a spectator must be
sadly deficient in spiritual insight if he does not perceive the
hand of God overruling the strife of nations and the blunders of
statesmen.

ACT 3. WAR WITH FRANCE

The curtain rises on the third act of the drama in 1885. Peking was
open to residence, and I had charge of a college for the training
of diplomatic agents.

I was at Pearl Grotto, my summer refuge near Peking, when I was
called to town by a messenger from the Board of Foreign Affairs.
The ministers informed me that the French had destroyed their fleet
and seized their arsenal at Foochow. "This," they said, "is war. We
desire to know how the non-combatant