All his friends of his own age were attached to him in no ordinary degree, and they watched every step in his future career with pride and interest.

In fact, he was a joyous, open-hearted, considerate friend, willing to contribute to the pleasure and enjoyment of those about him; well knowing his own power, but never intruding it to the annoyance of others, unless he was thwarted or opposed by pretentious ignorance; and then, though at times decided and severe in his remarks, he generally preferred leaving such individuals to themselves, rather than, by noticing them, to give prominence to their deficiencies.

His appreciation of character was so exact, and his dislike to anything approaching to vulgarity in thought or action or to undue assumption was so decided, that to

be his friend soon became a distinction; and the extent to which his society was sought, not only in private life, but in the scientific world, at this early period, marked strongly the distinguishing features of his mind and character.

In 1836 Brunel settled in his house in Duke Street, Westminster, overlooking St. James's Park, and in the same year married the eldest daughter of the late William Horsley, the sister of the eminent Royal Academician of that name, who has contributed some interesting personal recollections testifying to Brunel's love of art, and describing a journey to Italy with him in 1842. In the year succeeding a strange accident happened to him, which was very near being attended with fatal consequences. He was playing at conjuring with his children, and in pretending to pass a half-sovereign from his ear to his mouth, the coin unfortunately slipped down his throat. The accident happened on April 3, and on the 18th Sir Benjamin Brodie was consulted, who concluded that the half-sove

reign had passed into the windpipe. The operation of opening the windpipe was performed. The introduction of the forceps, however, occasioned so much irritation that the experiment could not be persevered in. Finally, and at the end of six weeks, the coin dropped from the mouth of the patient while in an inverted posture, and on the application of a gentle blow on the back.

resumed

Ten years of prosperous labour, though mixed with much anxiety, followed Brunel's release from this hazard. In 1857 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. at Oxford in company with Robert Stephenson. In the following year his health began seriously to fail, and he was advised to winter in Egypt. At Cairo he found Robert Stephenson, and the two dined together on Christmas Day. He returned to England in May, resumed his professional duties for some months, and was busy in superintending the preparations for getting the Great Eastern ready for sea. On September 5, 1859, the day before that on which she was advertised to sail, he was on board early in the morning, and he intended to have gone round in her to Weymouth. But in the middle of the day there were symptoms of failing power; he went home, and it was clear that an attack of paralysis had taken place. Ten days afterwards the end. came; and so, at a comparatively early age, closed the life of one of England's greatest workers in that field of enterprise to which so much of her national prosperity is due.

The Master said, 'My doctrines make no way. I will get upon a raft and float about on the sea.'. Confucian Classics, book 5, chap. 6.

A

STRANGER from the Province of Kansuh, on arriving at Yangchow, applies to a graduate from Shanghae for information respecting the manners and customs, religion and morals, trade and laws, of the foreigners residing at the open Treaty ports.

Stranger: 'It seems to me that we ought to be truly grateful for the many benefits we have enjoyed since the opening of the ports to foreign trade. In the first place our daily wants are supplied at a very moderate rate by the foreign merchants, our rivers and oceans are turned into highways by the sailing ships and steamers, our difficulties and differences are amicably settled by consuls appointed for that purpose, the ignorant and vicious are reformed by the preaching of the Catholic and Protestant religions, while free hospitals are founded to heal diseases not curable by our native physicians.'

Graduate of Shanghae: 'How extremely short-sighted you are, sir! This is only the surface of affairs. Outwardly the Chinese appear to be on friendly terms with foreigners, but in their secret hearts they thoroughly dislike them; though, from fear of our mandarins, they never demonstrate their feelings by any hostile acts.'

Kansuh Stranger (angrily): 'Sir, you completely misrepresent the feelings of our people in this matter.

Please to explain to me what injuries foreigners have done us, or

what grievances we have to complain of.'

Graduate of Shanghae: 'Since you have asked me for information on these five subjects, I will explain them succinctly; but I will not go beyond these limits on the present occasion. At the same time I beg you thoroughly to understand that the opinions I state are those held by the public generally, and not any particular views of my own. It is a rule of universal application that of all ills, those which are permitted to grow gradually and without check are the most formidable, seeing that after a lapse of time they become impossible to stop; while with regard to advantages, it is most disastrous to have them slowly and gradually abstracted, whereby, after years of long pinching and scraping, we eventually fall into poverty and distress. When foreigners deprive us of our advantages and do us injuries, is it likely that we should acquiesce without murmuring? We naturally harbour feelings of resentment; often, I allow, on account of very trifling causes, but which, I fear, will one day tend to very serious consequences. Instead of, as you suggest, feeling very grateful, reflection on these subjects only makes me feel more sad; and if you will listen to what I am about to say, you will perceive that I have good cause for so doing.

1. With respect to religions, the Protestant faith is propagated by the English and Americans, and the Catholic by the French. Their ostensible motive in so doing is to reform mankind; their leading doc

trine being to "treat others as themselves." This is the same as our Confucian doctrine of "reciprocity;" but their reasons for promulgating it are very different from our own. Owing to the dissimilarity in habit and disposition, foreigners fear that we shall insult and injure them, and therefore preach this doctrine of reciprocity in order to benefit by its application. Their real motive is to obtain protection through preaching, and thus enable their trade to be carried on without hindrance or disaster; and they look to such Chinese as may go over to their persuasion to give them timely warning in case any hostile aggressions are contemplated.

'Anticipating that few of our nation would believe their doctrines, they try to draw them into their toils by making use of grandiloquent terms, such as "The Lord of Heaven," "The Supreme Ruler," "The Creator and Governor of heaven and earth, of mankind and all things;" while they violently traduce our Confucian, Buddhist, and Taouist religions, on account of the absurd rite of sacrificing to the spirits of our ancestors. Admitting for argument's sake that what they say is true, 'what Being, pray, created" the Supreme Ruler

or

"the Lord of Heaven," or where did he reside before the heavens were created? These tales always remind me of our own Pwankoo, who is also said to have created the heavens but all this is merely conjecture and application; for in the days of high antiquity writing was unknown, and so neither facts nor dates have been handed down for the enlightenment of posterity.

'Again, the Protestants and Catholics calumniate each other on every occasion; and not only cannot the nations of Europe, even the neighbouring nations, attain to religious unity, but even in one single country, as, for example, England, there are Catholics among Protestants, while

in France there are Protestants among Catholics. Again, among these Christians themselves there are many disorderly characters and even criminal offenders, and therefore it would seem hopeless to attempt to make the Chinese perfectly good, even though they were made thorough believers. In short, to leave their own countries to come here to preach is to stultify themselves by throwing away the substance to grasp at the shadow. A few persons here and there join their religions, but they are without exception the idle and dissipated; there are also, I believe, one or two reading men amongst them, but they are notorious scamps and vagabonds. In sum, people who profess Christianity are invariably said to eat Christianity, because they use their religion as a means of getting their livelihood: hence it is very apparent that the ruling motives with the converts are, either to obtain a living, or to take advantage of the indiscriminate mingling of the sexes in the chapels to gratify their lusts. Still worse, many converts, like the fox in the fable, who associated himself with the tiger to avail himself of the latter's awful majesty, act in the most lawless manner, and persuade the foreign missionaries to screen them when arrested by the mandarins, while in any difficulties with their well-behaved fellow-countrymen they call on their confederate religionists for assistance. The harm these men do increases with lapse of time; and, as a case in point, I may mention that the Taeping rebels set apart one day in seven for worship, when they recited the praises of the Almighty Ruler and Jesus.

'At the present time the Protestant missionaries are tolerably well behaved, but all sorts of strange things go on amongst the Catholics. These latter style themselves Spiritual Fathers, and in some parts of the interior actually assume the

position and dignity of our Civil Mandarins of the 3rd class, when the common people make use of their influential support as a cover for the perpetration of all sorts of enormities. Several years ago, before the ports were opened to foreign trade, although even then. this religion was practised, the foreign missionaries did not dare to go about openly through fear of arrestment by the local authorities; therefore they were escorted from place to place by native converts during the night, dressed in Chinese clothes, travelling on land in gestatorial chairs, and on water in boats. Nay, so much did they apprehend discovery, that they actually simulated the recumbent posture of disease to prevent any exposure of their features. As far as their professions are concerned, they diligently exhort people to lead virtuous lives, but their actions rather resemble those of thieves and robbers lurking privily under cover of the night. As both sexes mingle indiscriminately at their places of worship, it has been found impossible to prevent illicit intercourse, while some of the women who never marry are called sacred virgins, their special duty being to attend upon the Spiritual Fathers.

The chief object of the French nation in this country is to establish missions, their trade not being more than one-hundredth part of that of the other nations. They make monthly disbursements for the subsistence of their converts, and we Chinese are very anxious to find out in what manner they intend to indemnify themselves for the very large amounts so elaborately expended. Naturally, they only use their religion as a means of forming a secret confederacy, in order to obtain information respecting the manners and dispositions of the natives, and the nature and capabilities of the country. The very opening of ports

in the interior to foreign trade is the direct result of the missionaries having previously spread themselves thither. In sum, even simpletons must perceive that the intentions of these people are perfectly inscrutable.

"The Supreme Ruler" is a title applied to Heaven, but the sages of antiquity state, in the classics, that this was merely the name of a fictitious object or picture created by the imaginations of the early Emperors for the purpose of impressing upon their own hearts a feeling of reverential awe. Now the Protestant missionaries ignorantly apply this term to the Father of Jesus.

'It has been handed down from the days of remote antiquity that, from the Emperor to the meanest of his subjects, men sacrifice to their ancestors for the purpose of teaching their children the virtue of filial piety, by reminding them of their origin; while the design in sacrificing to the spirits of the just is, by recompensing past moral excellence, to stimulate alike emulation amongst the living, and warn the ignorant and vicious.

'The religions of Buddh and Taou supplement the temporal laws of the land by doctrines of rewards and punishments in a future state of existence; that is, they make use of the doctrine of spirits to keep mankind in the paths of virtue. Our learned scholars and officials show the utmost respect for, but hold aloof from, all these tenets, and it is only the common people who crudely accept them. On the other hand, the foreign missionaries, being ignorant of their abstruse nature, deem themselves called upon to ridicule and vilify these doctrines-a course, we think, exhibiting a lamentable want both of judgment and good taste. The wise scholars and officials of China perceive that the missionaries only preach to obtain self-protection,

and that while affecting to inculcate morality by the mingling of the sexes, they subvert the manners of our countrymen. Therefore no just man ever becomes a convert. Again, there are foreign missionaries, both male and female, who arouse the suspicions and excite the odium of the people by dressing and parading the streets in Chinese clothes; and this vagary gave rise some time ago to a popular demonstration in this very city.

In sum, the only religions worthy of the name are those which do not injure, but benefit mankind. What reason is there, then, for reducing all religions into one, thereby aiding the selfish schemes of evil-minded men, who disgrace the name of their co-religionists, call down upon them the grave disapproval of our scholars and officials, and the resentment of all well-meaning men?

2. The hospitals are established by the missions, and the foreign physicians pass examinations before they are permitted to practise. They are intimately versed in anatomy, and their treatment of wounds and ulcers is marvellously skilful. There are only one or two in a hundred who are not very well acquainted with the lesser joints, become nervous when operating, and send to other practitioners for advice

and assistance.

'In dealing with outward diseases they are very fond of using the knife and lancet. They first stupefy the patient with medicine, so that he cannot feel pain, and then perform operations with the knife and saw. If, however, they first paid some attention to the various constitutions of their patients, they would not meet with so many mishaps as they now do. Stupefying medicine lowers the animal spirits, while the use of the knife causes a loss of blood, and the combined shock sometimes kills a patient already much enfeebled by disease. I have known four or five cases where death has

resulted from amputation of the thigh or operation for goître.

They usually treat internal complaints with opening medicines and emetics; but, in my opinion, too strong doses are given. Where, however, they most signally fail is in cases of low fever and the convulsions of children, when they lose very many of their patients. This is the result of the diet they order being unsuited to the nature of the disease.

'What, however, our countrymen take the gravest exception to is the immodest employment of male prac titioners in midwifery cases. They are not at all aware that this is the immediate result of the high esteem in which slender waists are held [among Europeans], and the consequent tight bandaging-a custom which, like the tying up of the feet of our own countrywomen, has come down from the times of remote antiquity.

'The scandals which were afloat some time back in this city of Yangchow and other places, though highly exaggerated, took their origin in well-known facts. Foreign physicians are ever hunting after and gaining possession of the dead bodies of young children for the purpose of finding out the causes of their deaths by dissection. Some years ago a boat was upset in one of our rivers, and a foreign doctor, seeing the dead bodies floating past, had them dragged ashore and taken to his house. The relatives of the deceased having traced their bodies, the doctor was ordered, at the instance of our mandarins, to hand them over, when, on removing the wrappers with which the bodies were enveloped, they found, to their inexpressible horror, that vast apertures had been made in their heads and breasts!

The few Chinese who were acquainted with foreign usages knew that this was merely a case of dissection performed for the sake of