CONTENTS. PAGE 1 17 PARKWATER. BY THE AUTHOR OF "ASHLEY" NOTES ON NOTE-WORTHIES, OF DIVERS ORDERS, EITHER SEX, AND EVERY VIII.-CHARLOTTE BRONTÉ IX.-DOUGLAS JERROLD 317 THE HISTORY OF THE NEWSPAPER PRESS. BY ALEXANDER Andrews, AUTHOR OF THE “EIGHTEENTH CENTURY" LIFE AND TIMES OF BARON VON STEIN. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA.* WHEN the Gospel was first preached in the different parts of the earth, the religion of Christ excited nowhere any surprise, for it had been prophesied in all places, and it was universally expected. The birth of a man-God, a Divine incarnation, is the belief, the faith of humanity, the great dogma which has reappeared under more or less mysterious forms in the old worships and among the most ancient traditions. The Messiah, the Redeemer promised to fallen man in the terrestrial paradise has never ceased to be announced from age to age in all countries. The people of God, specially chosen to be the depositaries of that promise, spread the notion of it among men several centuries before its accomplishment. Such were, in the designs of Providence, the results of those great revolutions which agitated the Jews and dispersed them in the world, and especially in Asia. The double captivity of the Jews brought about their dispersion throughout Asia, with their books, their doctrines, and their prophecies; and everywhere they preached the advent of a Redeemer. Biblical traditions accompanied the children of Israel everywhere, going with them into Persia, India, and China, as they went by Asia Minor to Greece and Northern and Central Europe. According to Strabo, who wrote in the times of Pompey and of Cæsar, the Jews were to be met with in all towns; and it was not easy to find any place throughout the whole earth that had not received them, and where they had not established themselves. When Christ appeared, then, it was not only in Judæa, among the Hebrews, that he was expected, he was also expected at Rome, among the Goths and Scandinavians, in India, in China, and especially in Higher Asia, where almost all the religious systems are based upon the dogma of a Divine incarnation. Long before the coming of a Messiah, a redemption of the universe by a Saviour, a King of Peace and of Justice, was announced throughout the whole world. This expectation is often made mention of in the Pouranas, the mythological books of India. In China, also, Confucius lamented in his works the loss of the sacred tripod (emblem of a trinity), and announced to the Pè Sin, or one hundred families (the Chinese people), that the Messiah would come from the West. A short time previous to the birth of Christ, not only the Jews, but even the Romans all thought, on the authority of the Sybilline books, and Le Christianisme en Chine, en Tartarie, et au Thibet. Par M. Huc, ancien Ministre Apostolique en Chine. Vols. I. and II. May-VOL. CX. NO. CCCCXXXVII. B the decision of the sacred college of Augurs of Etruria, that that important event was near. The senate, terrified by the rumours and prodigies that happened in Rome, issued an edict forbidding any father of a family to bring up any child-nequis illo anno genitus educaretur (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 94), or to adopt any deserted infant during that year. The Roman Empire, the civilised world, India and China, were alike in the expectation of a regeneration of humanity; and what is very remarkable is, that the same year witnessed the most remote people of the East, the Seres or Chinese, sending a mission to acquire the friendship of Rome and of Augustus. The same expectation dwelt with each. China with Confucius awaited the coming of a Messiah from the West; Rome anticipated his coming from the East. Neither were deceived; that which constitutes the subject of the grandiose epics of India, the incarnation of the Divinity, was really about to be accomplished between the East and the West, in Judæa. The Messiah saw the day, in effect, in a poor grotto of Bethlehem, not far from Jerusalem; and no sooner had that event taken place than three magi, kings of the East, who lived in anxious expectation of its occurrence, directed their steps towards the place where the Divine infant was. At the same time the Emperor of India, alarmed by the prophecies current in the country, and which in his apprehension predicted his ruin and the loss of his empire, deputed emissaries to inquire at what place such a child had been born, that he might put it to death. The horrible massacre ordered by Herod, to deliver himself from the same apprehensions, is well known. Only a few years later the Emperor of China commissioned an embassy to go in search of the Messiah that was to be born in the West. The fact is thus related in the annals of the Celestial Empire: The twenty-fourth year of the reign of Tchao-Wang, of the dynasty of Tcheou (which corresponds to the year 1029 B.C.), the eighth day of the fourth moon, a light appearing in the south-west, illumined the palace of the king. The monarch witnessing this phenomenon, interrogated the wise men as to its meaning. These presented to him the books in which it was written that this prodigy announced that a great saint was about to appear in the West, and that a thousand years after his birth his religion would be spread over these countries. The fifty-third year of the reign of Mou-Wang, which is that of the Black Monkey (951 B.c.), the fifteenth day of the second moon, Buddha manifested himself. Thirteen hundred years afterwards, (?) under the dynasty of the HanMing, the seventh year of the reign of Young-Ping (A.D. 64), the fifteenth day of the first moon, the king saw in a dream a man the colour of gold, more than ten feet in height, and surrounded as with the splendour of the sun. Having penetrated into the palace of the king, this man said: "My religion will spread into these places." The next day the king interrogated the wise men. One of them, named Fou-y, opening the annals of the time of the Emperor Tchao-Wang, made known the relation that existed between the dream of the king and the statement in the annals. The king consulted the ancient books, and having found the passage relating to the times of Tchao-Wang, he was filled with delight. He then sent the officers Tsa-Yn and Thsin-King, the learned WangTsun, and fifteen other men to the West to obtain information regarding the doctrine of Buddha. In the tenth year (the year 67 after Jesus Christ) these emissaries having been sent into Central India, obtained there a statue of Buddha and Sanscrit books, which they transported on a white horse to the city of Lo-Yang. The error was grave: the emissaries of the Emperor of China did not |