The Greenville enterprise. [volume] (Greenville, S.C.) 1870-1873, 1870-07-20
The Oldest and the Newest Empire
Or, China and the United States.

ing some interesting extracts from
a work soon to be published, bear.
ing the above title, with the ad,
vanced sheets, of which we have
been favored. 1t is by the Rev.
DR.. SPEER, formerly Missionary to
China, now Corresponding Secre.
tary of the Presbyterian Board OF
Education. This week we give
an extract presenting the past and
present relations between this
country and China. Very soon
we will give an instructive and in.
teresting sketch of Chinese Labor.
EDS. ENTERPRISE.
In the heights of the Sierra Ne
vada Mountains, the Creator has
set, in royal majesty, the throne Of
the sovereigns of the vegetable
world. And the feelings with
which one stands beneath the
mammoth trees resemble those
which. thrill the mind of a man
with awe, and wonder, and plea.
sure, when he gazcs on the cataract
Of Niagara. There before him,
the grandest Of living things on
earth, is plant which began to
grow with the beginning Of that
era, defined by the incarnation of
the Son of God, by which all
Christian nations mark the events
of their history. Scores of gene
rations of men and beasts have
lived and gone back to their dust
since it put forth its first leaves
Empires have risen, swayed the
affairs of continents, and fallen :
but it has confined to grow. And
now it stands taller than the tallest
columns or spires that man has
built in the New World, towering
in a pyramid of living green, its
foundations fixed in the everlast-
ing rocks, its summit crowned by
the glittering clouds of heaven.
There is an empire with which
we associate naturally such all en-
blem, the oldest empire in the
world. 1t was planted in the ear
liest generations, after the renova-
tion of tho world and of human
history by the Deiuge. Assyria,
Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rom c,
have risen and gone; their pride,
their wealth, their dominion, all
are things of the past. But the
Chinese race is still the same,
scarcely tinged by the admixture
of others. The primeval religion,
customs and literature are still
vigorous and fresh. Virtuous ex-
amples of their own ancestors who
lived four thousand years ago en-.
courage the generation of today.
School.books prepared by a con-
temporary of the Jewish prophet
Daniel are yet the manuals of the
teacher of children. The Ian.
guage is the unchanged monosyl.
tables of the infancy of mankind.
The social usages are those which
have been made familiar to us. in
the patriarchal pictures of the
book of Genesis. We contemplate
amidst all the ruins Time has
wrought elsewhere, such an EN-.
pire with constant amazement and
curiosity. And when we behold
at length change in the wind of
time beginning to blow the seeds
of this stupendous ripe tree across
the waters, SO that they are seen
taking root in our new virgin soil,
the study Of its whole character
becomes to US a subject of such
interest as has few parallel to it,
We are the newest, as China is
the oldest, empire of the world
Our institutions are but the raw
experiments of yesterday. We
are only beginning to realize that
we have q national life, and that
God has formed it for some great
commission, the mere alphabet of
which we are just learning to stam-
mer. ~,
The nations of the West boast
of their greatness; but how paltry
they seem in the eyes of an inhsb-
liant Of that venerable empirei-
And is this pride without founda-
tion3 Italone, in Asiay and many
Chinese know this--is equal TO tho
whole Of eithcr Of the other con.
sinents ofthe world in the mum Der
OF its people. BewiIdering as it
is to our ideas, there can be no
just exception taken to the compu.
tation which makes its population
to amount TO the one-fourth of the
entire family Of man. 1t stands
first of all existing nations in ag-
ricultnral productiveness, first IN
some important manufactures, first
in the sum of the wealth of its
subjects, China, to one who can
bring his mind to measure what
these statements embrace saana