Antiquity and Civilization
It is surely high time that this ancient and most interesting empire had the gospel fully proclaimed in its purity and soul-saving power. Long enough has it been held in the thraldom of sin and Satan. No other nation has been left for so many centuries to suffer in darkness, and to prove how utterly unable man is to raise himself without Divine revelation, and the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost. This empire, in its antiquity, stands the sole remaining relic of the hoary ages of the past, and of patriarchal times. For forty centuries it has enjoyed many of the fruits of a certain measure of civilization and of literary attainment. Our own antiquities sink into insignificance in comparison. As early as the reign of Edward the First, fire-arms were invented in China. The art of printing was discovered there in the reign of our Saxon king Athelstan. Paper was first made about a.d. 150; and gunpowder about the commencement of the Christian era. While the inhabitants of our now highly-favoured island were wandering about, painted savages, the Chinese were a settled people, living under the same form of constitutional government as they at present possess. Or to go back to times long antecedent to the history of our own country; — when Daniel foretold the rise and fall of the Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires; when at an earlier period Isaiah foretold the downfall of Babylon; or earlier still, when Jonah threatened the destruction of Nineveh — the Chinese nation was one of the greatest in the world. When Solomon reigned in Jerusalem in all his glory; when David, the sweet singer of Israel, wrote his psalms of matchless beauty; then the Chinese were enjoying many of the benefits of civilization and good government. One of their classical writings — to this day committed to memory by every advanced scholar in China — was composed by Wun-wang, an emperor who lived a century before David’s reign. When Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, led the people of Israel from the house of bondage to the promised land, Chinese laws and literature were probably not inferior to, while their religious views were far in advance of, those of Egypt; the worship of graven images not having been introduced into China until some centuries after this period. Upwards of 200 years before the call of Abraham, certain astronomical
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CHINESE CIVILIZATION ILLUSTRATED IN AGRICULTURE.
observations were recorded by Chinese historians, which have been verified by astronomers of our own times. And the oldest record of antiquity, still possessed by the Chinese, graven on the rocks of Hung-shan some half-century antecedent to this early period, was intended to perpetuate the memory of engineering works not less remarkable for extent or difficulty than those displayed in the “erection of the pyramids of Egypt. Since that time Egypt has risen to the zenith of its glory; has faded and become “the basest of the kingdoms.” Since that time the once famous empires of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, have waxed — and waned — and passed away; but China still remains, the only monument of ages long bygone. For 4000 years this empire has been preserved by the power of God, and it shall be yet preserved until His word, delivered more than twenty-five centuries ago by the mouth of His servant Isaiah, shall be fulfilled to the last jot and tittle: — “I will make all My mountains a way, and My highways shall
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Extent of Empire.
be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far, and, lo, these from the north, and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim (China).”