Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1853-08-24
The Chinese Insurgents.
The North China Herald. of May 7th, giv'

The North China Herald. of May 7lh, gives
the following account of the insurgents, who are
carving everything before them:
The insurgents are Christians of the Protestant
form of worship, and antiidolaters Of the srictesi
order. They acknowledge but One God, the
Heavenly Father, the Allwise, Alpowerful, and
Omnipresent Creator of the world +; with him. Je-
sus Christ, as the Saviour of mankind and also
the Holy Spirit, as the last of the Three Persons
of the Trinity. Their chief on earth is person
known as 'Tae ping wang, the Prince of Peace,
to whom kind of divine origin and mission is as
crbed. Far, however, from claiming alteration,
he forbids in an edct the application to himself OF
the terms Supreme Holy and others, hitherto
constantly assumed by the Emperors Of China, but
which he declines receiving, on the ground that
they are due to God alone
Their moral code the insurgents call the 'Hea-
venly Rules which on examination proved to be
the Ten Commandments The observance OF
these is strictly enforced by the leaders of the
movement, chiefly Kwang- -tung and Kwang-se-
men, who are not merely formal professors of re-
ligious system, but practical and spiritual chris
tians, deeply influenced by the belief that God is
always with them. The hardships they have suf-
fered, and the dangers they have incurred, are
punishments and trials of their Heavenly Father !;
the successes they have achieved are instances of
His grace. In conversation they bore the more
worldly minded by constant recurrence to that
special attention Of the Almighty, of which they
believe themselves to be the objects. With proud
humility, and with the glistening eyes of graft
tude, they point back to the fact, that al the be-
ginning of their enterprise, some four years ago,
they numbered but 100 or 200; and that, except
for the direct hep of the Heavenly Father they
never could have done what they have done.
They said one, speaking of the Imperialists,
Spread all kinds of lies about US. They say we
em ploy magical arts. The only kind of magic
we have used is prayer to God In Kwang Sc,
when we occupied Yung Gnan, we were sorely
pressed there were then only some 1000 or 81
600 of us. We were beset on all sides by much
greater numbers we had no powder left, and our
provisions were all gone but our Heavenly Fa-
ther came down and showed us the way to break
out SO we put our wives and children in the
middle, and not only forced passage, but COM
pletely beat our enemies
After short pause he added,
'If it be the will of God that our Prince Of Peace
shall be the Sovereign of China, he will be the
Sovereign of China; if not, then we will die here.
The man who used this language Of courageous
fidelity to the cause in every extreme, and OF con-
fdence in God, was a shriveed up. elderly, little
person, who made an odd figure i'll his yellow and
red hood but he could think the thoughts and
speak the speech of a hero. He and others like
him, have succeeded in nfusing their own senti-
ments Of courage and morality to no slight extent
considering the materials operated upon, into the
minds of their adherents. One instance was a
youth Of 10, who acted as one of the guides to
party that rode into Nankin, and who again and
II,
Mr. Interpreter Meadows, if he came back from
Shanghae, to bring him broad sword but also
exhorted that gentleman to refrain from smoking,
from drunkenness, and other vices, with simple
earnestness at once amusing and admirable. This
lad, the son Of literary graduate in Hoonan of
the second degree, and himself no bad scholar, had
left his fathers house at the age Of II, and tfav
elled some days to join the nsurgent camp before
Kwei-ln, prompted by an adventurous spirit to
share in 'conqueriHg the rivers and mountains
the expression by which the 'hoIy warriors of
Taeping designate their enterprise.
That there are ambitious selfdeceivers, shfewd
mposiers and calculating hypocrites among them
in plenty, we doubt not; we also doubt not that
numbers Join, and will continue in ranks, ,inhueEe-
ed exclusively by motives as worldly and ignoble
as those which guide the conduct of so many pro-
Tossing christians of the West. But among the
leaders and originators of the movement there are
unmistakeable signs of a good leaven, which, we
trust and earnestly wish, may ultimately spread
throughout the whole mass. One convincing proof
of the sincerity of the ruling mind is, that while
fighting to ee their country from foreign yoke;
and anxious TO obtain adherents. they, neverthe-
less, throw great difficulties in the way of rapid
increase of numbers, by insisting on the general
adoption of new and revealed religion learnt
from ''barbarians."
While they have materially derived their rel
gious beliefs from the writings, if not in some Ca
ses the direct teachings OF foreign Protestant mis-
sionares, they appeared to be extremely ignorant
of foreign nations. Canton was known to them as
the seat of great foreign commerce but Shang
hae (Which had indeed sprung into importance
during the few years they have been fighting in
the west) was found 10 he quite unknown to sevei
eral of their leading men. 1t is gratifying to learn
that under these circumstances the existence of
common religious belief dsposes them to regard
their '.foreign brethren" with frank ffeDdliness
which past experience renders it difficult to COM
prehend in Chinese, but which we earnestly
trust every effort will be made TO cultivate and
establish III their minds.