nted religious
emotion and speculation in the best form known there, and when it
began to spread the intellectual soil was not unpropitious. The higher
Taoist philosophy had made familiar the ideas of quietism and the
contemplative life: the age was unsettled, harassed alike by foreign
invasion and civil strife. In such times when even active natures tire
of unsuccessful struggles, the asylum of a monastery has attractions
for many.

We have now some idea of the double position of Buddhism in China and
can understand how it sometimes appears as almost the established
church and sometimes as a persecuted sect. The reader will do well to
remember that in Europe the relations of politics to religion have not
always been simple: many Catholic sovereigns have quarrelled with
Popes and monks. The French Government supports the claims of Catholic
missions in China but does not favour the Church in France. The fact
that Huxley was made a Privy Councillor does not imply that Queen
Victoria approved of his religious views. In China the repeated
restrictive edicts concerning monasteries should not be regarded as
acts of persecution. Every politician can see the loss to the state if
able-bodied men become monks by the thousand. In periods of literary
and missionary zeal, large congregations of such monks may have a
sufficient sphere of activity but in sleepy, decadent periods they are
apt to become a moral or political danger. A devout Buddhist or
Catholic may reasonably hold that though the monastic life is the best
for the elect, yet for the unworthy it is more dangerous than the
temptations of the world. Thus the founder of the Ming dynasty had
himself been a bonze, yet he limited the number and age of those
who might become monks.[577] On the other hand, he attended Buddhist
services and published an edition of the Tripitaka. In this and in the
conduct of most Emperors there is little that is inconsistent or
mysterious: they regarded religion not in our fashion as a system
deserving either allegiance or rejection, but as a modern Colonial
Governor might regard education. Some Governors are enthusiastic for
education: others mistrust it as a stimulus of disquieting ideas: most
accept it as worthy of occasional patronage, like hospitals and races.
In the same way some Emperors, like Wu-Ti,[578] were enthusiasts for
Buddhism and made it practically the state religion: a few others were
definitely hostile either from conviction or