to the nation and to mankind. The
one is the Tae-ping insurrection, the other the diplomatic mission of Mr.
Burlingame to the Western world. Whatever may be the immediate issue of
the great insurrection of our day against the Tartar dynasty, it will
remain a phenomenon of the utmost significance. There is no doubt,
notwithstanding the general opinion to the contrary, that it has been a
religious movement, proceeding from a single mind deeply moved by the
reading of the Bible. The hostility of the Chinese to the present Mantchoo
Tartar monarchs no doubt aided it; but there has been in it an element of
power from the beginning, derived, like that of the Puritans, from its
religious enthusiasm. Its leader, the Heavenly Prince, Hung-sew-tseuen,
son of a poor peasant living thirty miles northeast of Canton, received a
tract, containing extracts from the Chinese Bible of Dr. Morison, from a
Chinese tract distributor in the streets of Canton. This was in 1833, when
he was about twenty years of age. He took the book home, looked over it
carelessly, and threw it aside. Disappointed of his degree at two
competitive examinations, he fell sick, and saw a vision of an old man,
saying: "I am the Creator of all things. Go and do my work." After this
vision six years passed by, when the English war broke out, and the
English fleet took the Chinese forts in the river of Canton. Such a great
national calamity indicated, according to Chinese ideas, something rotten
in the government; and such success on the part of the English showed
that, in some way, they were fulfilling the will of Heaven. This led
Hung-sew-tseuen to peruse again his Christian books; and alone, with no
guide, he became a sincere believer in Christ, after a fashion of his own.
God was the Creator of all things, and the Supreme Father. Jesus was the
Elder Brother and heavenly Teacher of mankind. Idolatry was to be
overthrown, virtue to be practised. Hung-sew-tseuen believed that the
Bible confirmed his former visions. He accepted his mission and began to
make converts All his converts renounced idolatry, and gave up the worship
of Confucius. They travelled to and fro teaching, and formed a society of
"God-worshippers." The first convert, Fung-yun-san, became its most ardent
missionary and its disinterested preacher. Hung-sew-tseuen returned home,
went to Canton, and there met Mr. Roberts, an American missionary, who was
induced by false charges to refuse him Christian bapt