thrones are mingled with the tears and blood of calamity and war. What a pageant! Yesterday, Chaldea, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome! To-day, England, Germany, Russia, Japan, the United States! To-morrow, what? What, indeed, if not some of these now awakening nations! It is by no means impossible that some new Jenghiz Khan or Tamerlane may arise, and with the weapons of modern warfare in his hands, and these uncounted millions at his command, gaze about on the pygmies that we call the Powers! Christendom has too long regarded heathen nations with a pity not unmingled with contempt. It is now beginning to regard them with a respect not unmingled with fear. There is not a statesman in Europe to-day who is not troubled with dire forebodings regarding these teeming hordes, that appear to be just awakening from the torpor of ages, and some thoughtful observers fear that a movement has already begun which will lead to great wars whose issue no man can foresee, and to stupendous reconstructions of the map of the world. The Emperor of Germany has painted a picture which has startled not so much by its art as by its meaning. "On a projecting rock, illuminated by a shining cross, stand the allegorical figures of the civilized nations. At the feet of this rocky eminence lies the wide plain of European culture, from which rise countless cities and the steeples and spires of churches of every denomination. But ominous clouds are gathering over this peaceful landscape. A stifling gloom o'erspreads the sky. The glare of burning cities lights up the road by which the barbaric hordes of Asia are approaching. The Archangel Michael points to the fearsome foe, waving the nations on to do battle in a sacred cause. Underneath are the words Peoples of Europe, keep guard over your most sacred treasures !'"'

Making all due allowance for the exuberance of Emperor William's imagination, the fact remains that his picture represents the thought that is uppermost to-day in the minds of the

world's thinkers. All see that the next few decades are big with possibilities of peril.

"The rudiments of Empire here

Are plastic yet and warm,
The chaos of a mighty world
Is rounding into form."

"The

One thinks instinctively of the words of Isaiah: noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together; the Lord of hosts mustereth the hosts of the battle." Plainly, the overshadowing problem of the present age is the relation of China to the world's future. Whether recent events have lessened the danger, we shall see in the next chapter.

XXVI

FRESH REASON TO HATE THE FOREIGNER

O

F course, the victorious march of the Allies upon Peking, the capture of the city, the flight of the Emand the Empress Dowager and the humiliating

terms of peace taught the Chinese anew their helplessness before the modern equipment of western nations and the necessity of learning the methods of the white man if they were ever to hold their own against him. But defeat, while always hard to bear, does not always embitter the conquered against the conqueror. On the contrary, there are evidences that the Chinese respect and like the Japanese far more since they were soundly whipped by them in 1894 and 1895. In considering, therefore, the effect upon the Chinese of the suppression of the Boxer uprising, we must bear in mind not so much the fact of victory by the Allies as the treatment which they accorded their prostrate foe. Was that treatment dignified and just? Did the soldiers of alleged Christian nations behave with the sobriety and fairness which so eminently characterized the Japanese troops after the China-Japan War? Have the Chinese reason to regard foreigners in the future as men who will sternly punish injustice and treachery, but who are at the same time as moral and humane and trustworthy as might be reasonably expected of the representatives of a higher civilization and a purer religion? For answer, let us turn to the conduct of the allied armies, led by experienced officers of high rank and working in harmony with diplomatic officials who were supposed to incarnate the spirit and methods of the most enlightened nations of the earth. The testimony of witnesses will be interesting.

APPROACH TO THE IMPERIAL PALACE IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY, PEKING (From a photograph by the Rev. C. A. Killie)