repulse of the rebel forces. The advance of the British and French upon
Peking aided the cause of the insurgents, and fear of them had much to
do with the prompt surrender of the city to the foreign invaders.

After the war the tide of the insurrection turned and its decline began,
mainly through the aid given by the English to the government forces.
Ignoring the fact that the movement was a Christian one, and might have
gone far towards establishing Christianity among the Chinese, and
friendly relations with foreign peoples, the English seemed mainly
governed by the circumstance that opium was prohibited by the Tai-ping
government at Nanking, the trade in this pernicious drug proving a far
stronger interest with them than the hopeful results from the missionary
movement.

Operations against the insurgents took place through the treaty ports,
and British and French troops aided the imperial forces. The British
cruisers treated the Tai-ping junks as pirates, because they captured
Chinese vessels, and the soldiers and sailors of Great Britain took part
in forty-three battles and massacres in which over four hundred thousand
of the Tai-pings were killed. More than two millions of them are said to
have died of starvation in the famine caused by the operations of the
Chinese, British, and French allies.

General Ward, an American, led a force of natives against them, but
their final overthrow was due to the famous Colonel Gordon, "Chinese
Gordon," as he was subsequently known. He was not long in organizing the
imperial troops, the "Ever-Victorious Army," into a powerful force, and
in taking the field against the rebels. From that day their fortunes
declined. City after city was taken from their garrisons, and in July,
1864, Nanking was invested with an immense army. Its fall ended the
hopes of the Tai-ping dynasty. For three days the slaughter continued in
its streets, while the new emperor avoided the sword of the foe by
suicide. Those who escaped fled to their former homes, where many of
them joined bands of banditti.

Thus came to a disastrous end, through the aid of foreign arms, the most
remarkable insurrectionary movement that China has ever known. What
would have been its result had the Chinese been left to themselves it is
not easy to say. The indications are strong that the Manchu dynasty
would have fallen and the Chinese regained their own again. And the
Christian faith and worship of the rebels, with their mar