The Press.
London, England, 1853-06-18 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE Is, 1853.

KONDON, 8.4TURD.41", JUNE lel. 18A.

WE are on the eve of great events ; and it is
just as well that the people of this country
should be prepared for their occurrence. A
nation that loves its hearth, and is fully occu-
pied with its eomplicated system of self-
government, shrinks with a natural repug-
nance from the consideration of eircumstsuces
which are beyond its immediate ken. Our
English ignorance of the relations which
should subsist between us and foreign nations
is proverbial, and has been costly. Hail we
been better acquainted with the state of the
European Continent, we should not have em-
barked in the first revolutionary war against
France, and our public burdens would have
been proportionately less. A single blunder
in the conduct of our foreign adaire may cost
us as much as a series of bad harvests. Take,
for example, the refusal of this country, in
1t414, to unite in the general arrangements to
provide a proper retreat for the Emperor NA-
POLEON. The reign of a hundred days was the
consequence. and our national debt was in-
creased in one year by a sum little less than
one hundred millions sterling. We are still
paying, and must pay fur au indefinite period,
the interest ou these millions, to an amount
much inure considerable than will be levied
under the new succession tax.
Europe is now disturbed, as she has been
periodically disturbed, by the designs of
Russia. When we dendiunce these designs we
do so because we believn,were they accom-
plished, they would be dean, ictive of our own
power, and ultimately of the independence at
least of the;Old NVorld. But we do not for a
moment maintain that. because the policy of
Russia, if successful, might be tidal to our-
selves, it is in consequence abstractedly un-
just. Russia has us much right to have her
peeuliar theory of empire as any other
power; but fur the same reasons that we
would oppose the extension of the French
empire to the Rhine, or the annexation Of
Canada and Cuba by the United States, would
we oppose a Northern power possessing itself
of the Dardanelles. the designs of Russia
are to be resisted by a vigilant and skilful di-
plomacy, resting on an assured basis of ma-
terial power; nor is there, in general. any fear
of Russia attempting to advance those projects
which British policy deems so tbmgerous, ex-
cept at periods when she fouls our diplomacy
napping, and the administratiou of our attiiirs
in the hands of iucompetent persons. Such
an occasion occurred when Lord ABElt
DEER was our Foreign Minister, and Russia
veiled herself of it. She shook the Turkish
empire to its centre ; and the timidity, the va-
cillation, the anti-Ottoman prejudices, and the
total want of energy of Lord ABEREEN did then
asgoed service for Russia its if the English
Minister had been a traitor iii her pay. The
Reform Act, among other good things. saved
England then from Lord ARERDEEN.
We have censured the foreign policy of Tend
ABERDEEN, because we believe it to be a re-
currence to the disastrous system of WV. We
charge him, since his accession to office, with

having encouraged Russia, both by his public
conduct and by his private conversation, to the
prosecution of those designs, which, while Lord
PALIIERSTON 01' Lord MALNIESBURY conducted
our Weirs, were suspended and inert. In our
criticisms we have made some statements of
a character which are not frequently found
in
public journals. For ourselves, we make no
boast of our sources of intelligence!. Our
columns must depend upon the authenticity of
their information, and the manner iu which
our views arc sustained. Any ostentatious
talk of our peculiar means would be just as nu-
gatory as any sneer against our recent origin.
We must stand or fell upon our claims to public
confidence exhibited in these pages. In our
last number we made a serious charge against
Lord CLARENDON. It was one which, whatever
the organ of its communication, could scarcely
be left unnoticed, or unrefuted, were it untrue.
It attracted considerable attention, and the
anxious friends of the Government made in-
convenient inquiries as to its authenticity.
Accordingly, when silence could be no Warr
prolonged, some leading articles appear in the
principal organ of Lord ABERDEEN, which
intendedare as a reply, but of so oracular and
hair-splitting a character that her Muslin's
lieges still remain perplexed. Oar " informs
tion," they are apprised. " is inaccurate," and
we are to be met by " a plain statement" of
Cimmerian darkness. We "confound different
stages of the negotiation;" what we say
happened, did certainly take place, but then it
took place with another person, and • quite at
another time. It was Lord Jens RUSSELL, and
not Lord CLARRNIX)S, to whim the representa-
tion was made by the Russian Minister at this
Court, mad then it was made in quite a dif-
ferent sense. Now we will neither practise,
.nor tolerate, quibbling.
The communication we referred to was not
made to Lord long Busmen.. It was made to
Lord CLARENDON. It matters not whether it
was made the day hefiare or the day after the
arrival of Prince Mt:swim:ore at Ca austanti-
110ple. In that communication Lord CI AREN-
DON was distinctly informed that the affair of
the Shrines was not the side object of the
'mission of the Russian Prince ; in that com-
munication " the general question " was gone
into—the question of the tights of the Greek
Christians of Turkey, and of the Emperor of
RessiA with respect to them under certain
treaties ; in that communication All these points
were, catevaased, and the course about to be
adopted by Russia explicitly stated. That
course was precisely the same as the one de
tailed in the projected convention of the 11th
of May, and that course Lord .CLARENDON, with
the assent of Lord Anzammx, in nowise dis-
approved or discouraged.
Is that clear? We never stated that the
draught of the convention was shown at that
time to our Secretary of State, which the
Aberdeen organ insists upon is the whole
point at issue. Shown to our Secretary of
State! That could scarcely be. Fur, had not
it been for the eneouragement of our Minister
on that occasion, the convention would never
have been concocted.
No wonder Lord ABERDEEN, under such eir-
e instances, resisted the sending of our fleet
to the Turkish waters—no wonder Colonel
ROSE was snubbed with his inconvenient in-
formation ; anal now, at this moment, what is
the setuatOn of affairs? To prevent the
breakiag up 91 his govetionent, Lord Ast;a•

DEES has finally yielded to Lord PALiaEIIaTON,
and eousented to the English and Frew-
h
&etc repairing in union to the Dardanelles.
TO fulfil his engagement with Russia, he has.
we are informed, made a private eounnuttica-
tion to St. Petersburg, that he will not tool.
upon the occupation of the principalities b)
the Rusaiaus as a raw belli. Observe the in -
exhaustible but inevitable difficulties which
must attend a. course at once timid and tor
tuous. The invasion of the prineipalities by
the Russians is a clear violation of the treaty
of 184 e, which regulates the relatioos of those
countries with Turkey.
Lord PALMERSTON, as
we are assured, viewing it in this light, recom-
mended the Cabinet to take their stand at
ouee, and declare tiny would rerognise the in-
vasion as a declaration of war. The sympa-
thies of the Cabinet, we arc also assured, were
with Lord PALMERSTON. But Lord ASERLKEN,•
having iu fact consented to the fleet repairing
to the Dardanelles only through the under
standing that Russia would not act in that
quarter, was now at bay. The existence Of
the tioveniment has again, this week, been at
stake. It is probable that Lord Pstuensiox
would have remained firm had not these
who generally uphold his views been alarmed
by the prospect of breaking up the Adminis
tration. We have reason to believe that within
these eight-and-forty hours he had given, or
was prepared to give, a sullen awnt to the
unchallenged occupation of the principalities
by Russia, when a despatch arrives from Paris
that the Emperor of the FRENcit, wearied with
our chicane. and resolved to itet according to
the spirit of treaties Mai the dictate's of high
policy, has resolved to view the occupation of
the principalities asass awe and calls
upon Great Britain to act with him iu concert.
And this is the last phase of oar danger's and
our ineptitude!
Before us, at the best, is a prospect of three
or four months of paralysis of our commerce
and finance, with the probability of a general
war in the autumn or the spring ; and all this
entirely occasioned by the wilful and sys
tematie repudiation by l.oiul A umunies of the
poliey so successfully pursued by his prede•
CCSISOTS.

MYSTERY Ul.' I'HE REBEI.I.ION IN
CHINA.

AISTONINHMENT, approaching to incredulity, has
been exeited by the late intelligence disclosing
the complexion of Christianity which has been
communicated to the revolution 1,1 China by
the pnwlamations and manifestoes of the rebel
chief and his armies. At. first their authenti-
city was questioned ; but, doubts upon this
head having been set at rest, sitspivions have
been whispered whether these unlooked-for
avowals of belief in the great doctrines of the
Christian faith may not have been insti-
gated by some entity emissaries of the mission-
aries to Mil/Seal' their own objects, or adopted
by the insurrectionary commanders with a
view to excite the sympathies of European
powers.
Our impressions of the impenetrability of
China, our notions of its inaccessibility to
strangers, and our idea of the unchanging
tenacity with which the Chinese cling to every.
thing that is peculiar and their own, have indig-
poicd us to credit the possibility chalvie

146

such a stereotyped race ; and, above all, change
in the matter of their ancestral and national
systems of religion.
But on all these points our conceptions,
where they are not erroneous, are exaggerated.
The inaecessibility of China to strangers does
not extend beyond the line of the mast ; in-
deed the variety of dialects in Chins is so
immense, and their dissimilarity so striking,
amongst the numerous tribes and races that
occupy the prodigious area of that vast empire,
that the detection of an intruder in one part of
the empire, who chose to represent himself as
a native of another, would be a matter of diffi-
culty if not impossibilq.
Hence, from the earliest period, the repre-
sentatives and emissaries of numerous creeds
have found a ready access rind established a
permanent position in China. Jews and Ma-
homedans have maintained a firm footing
within the prohibited territory ; and Christians
of all denominations have for centuries been
engaged in disseminating the tenets of their
respective churches amongst the followers of
Dentine, and the disciples of CONFCCIUR and
LAUKIUS.
Besides this, the doctrines of the Buddhists
and Rationalists in China are not of the ex-
clusive and intolerant character which belongs
to seine of the religions of the %Vest. and they
have at all times encouraged inquiry with a
liberality and self-confideuee which are almost
peculiar to themselves.
Christianity ix therefore no north!, in China ;
and long before our intercourse with it had
been expedited by the discovery of the passage
round the Cape of Good Hope, mid centuries
before 'mewls and MARCO POLO brought to
Europe the stories of Prester John and the
Bishops of Cathay. we have proofs that the
Nestorians had implanted Christianity in
China in the sixth and seventh centuries.
A diseovery ors remarkable kind was made in
China in the year 1015 A.D., when a stone tablet
was brought to light in Shensi, inscribed with
ancient diameters, recording the leading tenets
of the Christian faith, and professing to have
been erected in commemoration of "the ditfu-
sion of the illustrious religion of Ta-tsin
Jutheal in China."
This, the most ancient monument of Chris-
tianity hr Asia, details the arrival of the Nes-
torian teachers in 039 A n., their alternate wel-
comes and persecutions under successive So-
vereigns, down to the date of the monument,
7SI, when it was " erected in the second
year of KIEN-CILUNO, ninth Emperor of the
/fang dynasty, by the Priest Negostiu, being
special law lord and preacher of the inns-
" trims religion throughout the regions of the
.. East."
Traces of Christianity thus early implanted
by the Nestorians survived the ravages of
OENOIS KITAN and the expulsion of the Mon-
gols; and paved the way for the Jesuits and
other missionaries of the Church of Rome
who resorted to China in vast numbers, and
ith singular success, between the thirteenth
and eighteenth centuries. Abundant and MI-
-4.141111A0ti evidence exists of the results of
their labours, and the prodigious numbers of
the Chinese whom they succeeded in converting
to Christianity. In 1307 A.D. these were suffi-
cient to occupy the care of an archbishop
and seven suffragans. XAVIER, " the apostle of
the Indies," added his wonderful enthusiasm
to urge on the work, and died in China in the
midst of his successful labours. MArito
Ricci, in 1581 A.D., addressed himself to the
work of evangelisation with such signal suc-
cess that, after making good his footing at
Canton and Nankin, the Emperor invited the
Jesuits to Pekin, asigned to them the
building appropriated to foreign envoys, and
conferred on them an annual income.
In return for the Imperial protection, the
Jesuits rendered other services to the Chinese
besides the inculcation of their religion. They
communicated to them the discoveries of En-
ronean astronomy, they corrected the errors
of their calendar, they cast cannon for the Em-
peror. and completed a trigonometrical survey
of his dominions, which is to the present day
the only authentic document possessed by
Europe as to the geography of Chins.
Their popularity and share of royal favour,
however intermittent, were sufficient to swell the
number of their converts—hundreds of Roman