ll in force, to corporal punishment; and the adoration by private
families of spirits whose worship is reserved for public ceremonial
was a heinous offence. No such rigorous control over the
multiplication of rites and deities has been instituted elsewhere. On
the other hand, while in other countries the State has recognised no
more than one established religion, the Chinese Government formally
recognises three denominations. Buddhism has been sanctioned by
various edicts and endowments, yet the State divinities belong to the
Taoist pantheon, and their worship is regulated by public ordinances;
while Confucianism represents official orthodoxy, and its precepts
embody the latitudinarian spirit of the intellectual classes. We know
that the Chinese people make use, so to speak, of all three religions
indiscriminately, according to their individual whims, needs, or
experience of results. So also a politic administration countenances
these divisions and probably finds some interest in maintaining them.
The morality of the people requires some religious sanction; and it is
this element with which the State professes its chief concern. We are
told on good authority that one of the functions of high officials is
to deliver public lectures freely criticising and discouraging
indolent monasticism and idolatry from the standpoint of rational
ethics, as follies that are reluctantly tolerated. Yet the Government
has never been able to keep down the fanatics, mystics, and heretical
sects that are incessantly springing up in China, as elsewhere in
Asia; though they are treated as pestilent rebels and law-breakers,
to be exterminated by massacre and cruel punishments; and bloody
repression of this kind has been the cause of serious insurrections.
It is to be observed that all religious persecution is by the direct
action of the State, _not_ instigated or insisted upon by a powerful
orthodox priesthood. But a despotic administration which undertakes to
control and circumscribe all forms and manifestations of superstition
in a vast polytheistic multitude of its subjects, is inevitably driven
to repressive measures of the utmost severity. Neither Christianity
nor Islam attempted to regulate polytheism, their mission was to
exterminate it, and they succeeded mainly because in those countries
the State was acting with the support and under the uncompromising
pressure of a dominant church or faith.

Some writers have noticed a certain degree