itten
and colloquial languages, for the purposes of diplomatic intercourse
and the development of commerce; and also students of the history,
philosophy, archaeology, and religions of China, men whose contributions
to our present stock of knowledge may throw light upon many important
points, which, for lack of workmen, have hitherto remained neglected and
unexplored.

LECTURE V

TAOISM

TAOISM

China is popularly supposed to have three religions,--Confucianism,
Buddhism, and Taoism.

The first is not, and never has been, a religion, being nothing more
than a system of social and political morality; the second is indeed a
religion, but an alien religion; only the last, and the least known, is
of native growth.

The Chinese themselves get over the verbal difficulty by calling these
the Three Doctrines.

There have been, at various epochs, other religions in China, and some
still remain; the above, however, is the classification commonly in use,
all other religions having been regarded up to recent times as devoid of
spiritual importance.

Mahommedanism appeared in China in 628 A.D., and is there to this day,
having more than once threatened the stability of the Empire.

In 631 the Nestorian Christians arrived, to become later on a
flourishing sect, though all trace of them, beyond their famous Tablet,
has long since vanished.

It has also been established in recent years that the Zoroastrians, and
subsequently the Manichaeans, were in China in these early centuries,
but nothing now remains of them except the name, a specially invented
character, which was equally applied to both.

In the twelfth century the Jews had a synagogue at K'ai-feng Fu, in
Central China, but it is not absolutely certain when they first reached
the country. Some say, immediately after the Captivity; others put it
much later. In 1850 several Hebrew rolls of parts of the Pentateuch, in
the square character, with vowel-points, were obtained from the above
city. There were then no professing Jews to be found, but in recent
years a movement has been set on foot to revive the old faith.

Roman Catholicism may be said to have existed in China since the close
of the sixteenth century, though there was actually an Archbishop of
Peking, Jean de Montecorvino, who died there in 1330.

In the last year of the eighteenth century the first Protestant
missionary arrived. The first American missionaries followed in 1830.
They