because the Buddhist religion itself can have any just claim to it. But Buddhism, by putting forward the image, debases and misleads the national mind, by drawing it away from the proper object of human worship. Our great contest as Christian missionaries is with Confucianism. There is found the intellect, the thought, the literature, the heart of the nation. But we have also a preliminary struggle with Buddhism and Tauism. These constitute three mighty fortresses, erected by human skill and effort, to impede the progress of Christianity. Confucianism is the citadel of the enemy raising its battlements high into the clouds, and manned by multitudes who are animated by a belief in their superiority and their invincible strength. The taking of this fortress is the conclusion of the war. But Buddhism and Tauism each represents a fortress which must also be captured and destroyed. So far as argument and intellect are concerned, these fortresses are weakly manned. But think of the numbers, the millions on millions, who are deceived by these superstitions, and held fast by chains of spiritual darkness. Let the Christian host of soldiers press on, and detail its battalions, first to overthrow these strongholds of rebellion against God; and when they are destroyed, let another earnest effort be made to destroy the last and strongest of the towers of the enemy. Then, when all these three fortresses are overthrown, and China becomes a subject kingdom under the Messiah's peaceful reign, it will be the greatest triumph ever achieved for Christianity since the time when the emperor Constantine became a Christian, and the Roman religion and power, and the Greek philosophy were dragged as captives behind the car of the victorious Redeemer.

Footnotes

^382:1 From Ping-shu-pi-t'an.

^382:2 From A.D. 1119 to 1126.

^391:1 The title Yu-ti occurs in Tauist books earlier than the T'ang dynasty, but not the full title with four characters. This belongs evidently to the T'ang dynasty, the age of Buddhist influence, and to the belief in metamorphoses, and a former life, borrowed from India. I asked the Tauist patriarch when in Shanghai, how long it was since Chang T'ien-ti first received his title. He only replied, "From the beginning of the universe."