WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION

MAGAZINE.

MARCH, 1857.

SHADOWS OF THE PAST, DAWNINGS OF THE FUTURE.

No. III.

WE must, now, turn from the condition of Italy to the state of things in the Eastern world. The year 1856 closed with the perpetration of what, we cannot but regard as a most wanton outrage on one of the largest cities on the face of the earth-we allude to the unjust attack made by the British forces on CANTON, that ancient emporium of Chinese Commerce, in the month of November last. Whether we regard the immoral character of the contraband trade in Opium, valued at more than five millions sterling, and attended by the ruin of thousands and tens of thousands of Chinese families, which is carried on there, under the protection of the British flag, and in violation of Treaty-obligations, or the unjustifiable destruction of life and property, which has been dealt out by our fleet to a densely crowded city, or the suspension of legitimate business, in one of the most important branches of our Foreign Trade, or the breaking up of the moral organizations set on foot by our Missionary and Bible Societies, for the spiritual improvement of one of the most ingenious and interesting people in the Heathen world-we cannot but regard this War with mingled feelings of humiliation and of abhorrence. We feel it to be a dishonour to our flag-a scandal to our country and our name, which must subject, even our Religion to reproach and suspicion among a people whose ideas of Christianity must be gathered, for the most part, from the public acts of the nations by which it is professed.

What are the Chinese likely to think of the Civilization of a people who can perpetrate such atrocities on such miserable pretexts? Will they not pronounce us Barbarians still, with double emphasis? Will they not scout the very idea of a Civilization in the Western world of a type, equal and even superior to their own, and tortoise-like shut themselves up, more closely, in the shell of their isolation? But the worst effects of this outrage, we fear, will be realised in the antagonism which it will rouse in the Chinese mind to all the efforts of true philanthropists, to promote the moral renovation of their country. Such deeds as those perpetrated by Admiral Seymour, are adapted only to raise up obstacles to the reception of those moral truths which are designed by the philanthropy of God our Saviour, to effect a moral revolution in China-to place Christ in the position which

Buddha has occupied from time immemorial, and to inaugurate the dominion of humanizing and regenerating influences over three hundred and sixty millions of our common family. We know not, how the Providence of God may overrule human folly for the advancement of His gracious purposes; but judging from all the data before us, we should pronounce the outrage equally injurious to the interests of its perpetrators and of its victims. Should it eventuate otherwise, it can only be by an exercise of that Divine sovereignty which often times causes "the wrath of man to praise Him." And no thanks will be due to a policy, which, humanly considered, was adapted to produce the most appalling results in relation to the most momentous interests of nearly half the human family.

But the influence of this outrage, though first felt in China, to the prejudice of the British name, will not end there. It cannot but operate greatly to our prejudice among the nations of the Western world. What must they think of our vaunted sympathy with oppressed nationalities? What of our interference in behalf of Italy and of Turkey, and of our "moral support" to the Hungarian struggle, when they see us hurling the thunder of the broadsides of our British men-of-war against an impotent people, with, we fear, no better purpose than the facilitating of traffic in a drug, which stupifies and debases all that fall under its influence; a drug, which has spread disease and death over millions of besotted victims, along the whole sea-board of China. This marvellous inconsistency has struck the attention of Englishmen, whose patriotic feelings are beyond all suspicion. They have said :

If a Ciceroachio is assassinated by Austrian bayonets, or a Poerio is im mured in a Neapolitan prison, you may call heaven and earth to testify against this iniquity, as more than humanity can endure. But if a Chinese city, with a million and a half of inhabitants, is bombarded by British cannon, until a spectacle of horror is produced before which the imagination shudders and reels, we are expected to believe that such a course is "humane, rational, and necessary."

When dispassionate Englishmen speak thus, we are justified in pronouncing the conduct of our representatives in this Cantonese affair, as being at war with the sentiments and feelings of civilized man wherever it is known. Foreign nations will not judge of our conduct with more leniency than we do ourselves. Indeed, our intelligent neighbours on the other side of the Channel, have already began to moralise on the Canton outrage, in a most edifying but not very flattering style. Taking their data from statements which have appeared in the "Friend of China," they say, "the question at issue is the Supremacy of England in China, and Sir J. Bowring occupies there the position held by Clive in Hindostan: he must advance, and either perish or add another empire to the British Crown. If we ask on what grounds rests this right of Conquest, we are answered by the Right of the Stronger!" Now, we have no fear of Sir J. Bowring repeating in the nineteenth century what was done by the dauntless Clive in the eighteenth we have no belief that any such visions float before the Imagination of the Consul

as disturbed the slumbers of the energetic Clerk. But the above will show that vigilant eyes are upon us, and that the national character is in imminent peril. Nor can we,- —a people who presume to act as Censors-general of all nations,-complain if our public acts are criticised in the face of Europe. Our conduct in this nefarious business has been such, as might have provoked criticism in the case of a nation of much humbler pretensions than our own. Our Flag has been hoisted in the cause of Outrage and of Oppression. It has been used to cover one of the most vicious Trades, ever carried on by man. When we find it thus prostituted for the most damnable purposes, we partake of the feeling excited by this outrage among Foreign nations, and could almost disown the National Flag with all the historic glory, that has gathered round it during the thousand years it has "floated in battle and in breeze."

Men filled with virtuous indignation at this outrage, reproach us with affecting to be revolted at the conduct of the Spaniards in carrying on the African Slave-trade, while we carry on an almost equally diabolic traffic between India and China. The Spaniards say they,

at least, prohibited the export of Opium from Manilla to China, and the Dutch from Batavia. America like England, entered into a treaty by which Opium-smuggling is prohibited, and she faithfully observes it. No vessel of the States covers the contraband article with the the Stars and Stripes in the presence of their Consuls, while St. George's Cross protects the ships of other countries engaged in their buccaneering mission. And proh pudor! even so late as September 1855, the English Opium-smugglers at anchor at Loochoofoo, saluted with their guns that eminent philanthropist Sir J. Bowring, the representative of England in China. While our conduct is the butt of reproach to all classes of writers who take but a political view of the aspect of affairs in the East, the worst consequences have ensued with respect to those moral instrumentalities which the Christian principle of this country had called into operation, for the moral enfranchisement of China. The war has put a stop to all Missionary and Bible Society operations. Nay, more. Schools, Native Teachers, Medical Missions, as well as Missionaries, have been scattered abroad with loss of property, books, and furniture. The London Missionary Society's Hospital has been deserted. The Missionary family has been obliged to take refuge in Hong Kong. The Wesleyan Mission has been driven from Canton. The American Presbyterian Mission has had its premises and property destroyed by the fire which broke out under the bombardment of the representatives of a Christian Power, and the Missionaries have been compelled to seek refuge in Macao. Surely, now, the time has come if ever, for the eloquent and noble minded Gladstone to repeat with increased emphasis, the declaration made by him at the outbreak of the former Chinese War;-"our Flag is hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of China, we should recoil from the sight with horror; we should never again feel our hearts thrill as they now thrill with emotion, when it floats proudly and magnificently in the breeze."

It is pleasing to turn from the dark aspect of affairs in China, at the close of the last year, to the brighter scenes upon which the eyes of Christian Philanthropists in India fell, just as the funeral dirge of 1856 was being sounded throughout our Eastern empire. Our readers will remember that in a former paper we gave credit to Lord Dalhousie's Administration, for having by law abolished Sutteeism in all parts of Hindostan. It had been the immemorial practice to burn the living widow on the same pile with the remains of her deceased husband. To the Indian Government attaches the credit of having adopted a Law in prohibition of this inhuman practice. In doing this, which was but to protect the life of the Indian subject, they performed, as we conceive, all that appertains to the functions of the civil magistrate, in such a case. They could not by mere legislative enactment abolish the ancient prejudices of the Hindoo people-prejudice is too subtle an agent to be dealt with by the Law-maker. It was not in their province to ordain that, on a certain day the widow thus saved from the fire by British law, should be united in matrimony to some surviving Hindoo. In protecting the widow's life, they exercised the only functions of Government in the case, the rest was left, very properly, to the influence of Reason and of Truth. Nor was there, humanly speaking, much ground to anticipate a very speedy triumph. A prejudice which had existed probably since the age of the Pyramids might have been supposed likely to survive the legislative enactment in question, for some generations, at least. But no! The ink of the enactment was hardly dried: Lord Dalhousie had scarcely arrived, in this country, before an event transpired which showed how fully the public mind of India was prepared to profit by the humane legislation of their Christian rulers. One of the very latest, and certainly by far the most important event of the year, was the Marriage of a Hindoo Widow! Henceforth, the year One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, will mark a new era in the social and religious history of Hindostan: an era vastly more important to the real interests of mankind than any avatar or work of their gods, not excepting that of Brahma's escape from the divine egg which he SPLIT in halves, making the heavens out of the one half, and the earth out of the other.

An eloquent writer observes

The event, then, which the Indian news has communicated, domestic as it is, is by no means an unimportant one. It is a sign of decided growth in the native mind; it is an act of moral courage, and defiance of the Hindoo gods. History and philosophy alike show the extreme difficulty with which the human mind shakes off the weight of customary and artificial morality. What people have been taught to think wrong, they continue to think wrong; the independent appeal to the light of reason and conscience is the very last act which they perform, and they do it generally with trembling when they do take the step, and half think themselves impious for it. When Hindoo religion, then, has said immemorially that a widow's marriage is wrong, it is a great step when any number of Hindoos say, as they do say now, that a widow's marriage is right. Doubtless many an orthodox Hindoo is seriously grieved and distressed at so audacious an innovation; he feels earth and sky whirling round him, and the ground

giving way from under his feet, as he contemplates such an act of impiety; he wonders why the destroyer does not at once crush the delinquents; he sees avenging deities hissing through the throats of the millions of snakes which form their celestial head-dress; he sees the multitudinous legs and arms of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, in angry commotion, their nostrils breathing fire, and their tongues dropping blood; all the shapes of his portentous theology come out, and he dreams of dragons coiling their tails round the universe, and threatening to crush all nature. But the time is obviously approaching when the orthodox Hindoo must retire to his cell, and groan in solitude over the degeneracy of modern piety and growth of religious laxity. When people once begin to alter their moral standard they generally go on. The difficulty lies in the first step, the first act of independent appeal to natural reason and law. When this act has been once done, the human mind feels it strength, and moves more freely after it. We have been told, indeed, over and over again of the immovableness of the Hindoo mind, and how impossible it is to put a new idea into it; but the fact now confutes these judges. It was, however, quite absurd even beforehand to settle the question so summarily against the Hindoo. How in the world could we know what his mind was, or what there was in it, so long as it was kept down by the weight of a colossal superstition, and so long as we did nothing at all to relieve it from that weight? What possible right had we to say that the Hindoo was incapable of progress, when we ourselves stopped up the way? But these recent facts, at any rate, refute this idea. It now appears that the English Government of India have been more orthodox Hindoos than the Brahmins themselves, and have, in their dread of offending the native prejudices, been actually keeping them up artificially, when of themselves they were ready to yield. But this has been the consequence of that exclusively mercantile basis on which India has been hitherto held. How could we legislate well for India when we did not even pretend that our aim as possessors of India was the good of India? Improve this ground and motive, and we shall see the Hindoo with different eyes. We shall see abundant reason to hope where at present we despair. India will afford a field to the zeal of the philanthropist which it has not had since the abolition of the Slave-trade; and the improvement of that great empire, and the progress of that multitudinous race will elicit and employ the benevolent energies of years.

It now appears that the English Government of India have been more orthodox Hindoos than the Brahmins themselves! What a humiliating confession! We could almost wish that the Edinburgh Reviewers of 1808, living and deceased, could be assembled in the India House, with the Magnates of the Company, to listen to it from the Oracle of Printinghouse Square, that well instructed organ of the public opinion of mankind both in this and other lands: we do wish that it could reach the ears of Major Scott Waring, and other individuals of his class, who were so eloquent some fifty years ago, on the sublime morality of the Hindoo system, and the imminent risk to which British rule in India was exposed from the vain and impotent efforts of Carey and Marshman, to gain over the worshippers of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, to the worship of the ONE GOD, the maker of heaven and earth! But this cannot be. We must be content to give up half our wishes. Meanwhile, the maxim of the ancients is again verified; Truth is mighty, and shall prevail !

The intelligence up to the close of the year, with respect to the operation of other restrictions designed to protect the Hindoo against