CHINA AND ITS TRADE. 555 



he gathered from authorities, upon the accuracy of which he was 

 competent to decide. But with many of his opinions we could very 

 conveniently dispense. Though living so long beyond the pale of 

 European civilization, he possesses all the ascerbity of the most bi- 

 goted intolerant towards his catholic precursors, in sowing the seed 

 of the gospel. So far, indeed, does his rancour in this respect carry 

 away his better judgment, that he pronounces catholicity to be op- 

 posed to Christianity, and maintains that the paganism of the Chinese 

 is preferable to the religion of men who doubted the propriety of 

 leaving the solution of the mysteries of the New Testament to the un- 

 tutored brains of tea-gathering savages. Mr. Gutzlaff's abhorrence 

 of all things papal induces him to hazard a multitude of paradoxical 

 aphorisms on the subject of religion. He lays down an axiom, and in 

 the very next sentence demolishes it ; asserts as a fact, what he forth- 

 with hastens to prove a syllogism of his own ; and ends, by leaving 

 the reader to deduce an inference the reverse of the author's. It is to be 

 regretted that a man, though a prey to petty sectarian prejudices, should 

 be unable to divest himself of the feelings of an embittered polemic 

 in the discussion of a nation's welfare. Mr. Gutzlaff has, it is true, 

 accumulated much novel matter respecting the people among whom 

 he has resided : he has told what he knows without any affectation of 

 pedantry, and produced a very readable and instructive work ; but 

 he has also maligned a body of men, who, however mistaken in the 

 peculiar form of their faith, were as good Christians as Mr. Gutzlaff, 

 with a greater portion, we should hope, of that very necessary in- 

 * gredient in the formation of a follower of the Redeemer charity. 

 This being the only objection of importance we have to make against 

 our author, we deem it as well to do so at once, and thereby avoid 

 the necessity of interrupting the tenor of the subjoined remarks. 



All writers on the affairs of China, however they may differ in other 

 respects, are unanimous in declaring that nation to be of very ancient 

 origin. But that it existed anterior to the period from which we date 

 the beginning of all things, is not only contrary to our received no- 

 tions of things, but is contrary to fact. Chinese chronology is a sub- 

 ject about which little is or can be accurately known. But, if we re- 

 gard the period preceding Confucius (B. C. 550) as altogether 

 uncertain, we shall arrive near enough to the truth for all purposes of 

 utility. The pretensions of the Chinese to an antiquity 4,000 years 

 older than the Mosaic account of the creation, are based on the al- 

 leged superiority of their astronomers ; though, notwithstanding all 

 subsequent experience and intercourse with Europeans, they are still 

 childishly ignorant on many essential points of this difficult science. 

 Their cycle we forbear giving the original unpronounceable names 

 consists of sixty years ; their year of twelve lunar months of twenty- 

 nine and thirty days each ; and their day and night of twelve periods, 

 each of two hours. Their calendar, as is usual with all oriental na- 

 tions, is interlarded with much astrological nonsense. 



From the earliest history, the Chinese regarded their own country 

 as the only one properly so called in the world. All other nations 

 were regarded with the utmost contempt, and indeed only suffered 

 to exist by courtesy. The emperor was supreme lord of all created 



