of resemblance between the
policy of the Roman empire and that of the Chinese empire toward
religion. We may read in Gibbon that the Roman magistrates regarded
the various modes of worship as equally useful, that sages and heroes
were exalted to immortality and entitled to reverence and adoration,
and that philosophic officials, viewing with indulgence the
superstitions of the multitude, diligently practised the ceremonies of
their fathers. So far, indeed, his description of the attitude of the
State toward polytheism may be applicable to China; but although the
Roman and Chinese emperors both assumed the rank of divinity, and were
supreme in the department of worships, the Roman administration never
attempted to regulate and restrain polytheism at large on the Chinese
system.

The religion of the Gentiles, said Hobbes, is a part of their policy;
and it may be said that this is still the policy of Oriental
monarchies, who admit no separation between the secular and the
ecclesiastic jurisdiction. They would agree with Hobbes that temporal
and spiritual government are but two words brought into the world to
make men see double and mistake their lawful sovereign. But while in
Mohammedan Asia the State upholds orthodox uniformity, in China and
Japan the mainspring of all such administrative action is political
expediency. It may be suggested that in the mind of these far-Eastern
people religion has never been conceived as something quite apart from
human experience and the affairs of the visible world; for Buddhism,
with its metaphysical doctrines, is a foreign importation, corrupted
and materialised in China and Japan. And we may observe that from
among the Mongolian races, which have produced mighty conquerors and
founded famous dynasties from Constantinople to Pekin, no mighty
prophet, no profound spiritual teacher, has arisen. Yet in China, as
throughout all the countries of the Asiatic mainland, an enthusiast
may still gather together ardent proselytes, and fresh revelations may
create among the people unrest that may ferment and become heated up
to the degree of fanaticism, and explode against attempts made to
suppress it. The Taeping insurrection, which devastated cities and
provinces in China, and nearly overthrew the Manchu dynasty, is a
striking example of the volcanic fires that underlie the surface of
Asiatic societies. It was quenched in torrents of blood after lasting
some ten years. And very recently there