The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-07-10
MISREPRESENTATION.

people have had to fight to maintain themselves
in peaceful and quiet pursuits. Among the first
great efforts put forth by a people to preserve
themselves remains today in a somewhat battered
condition as a monument to the industry and per-
severance, if not the foresight of the peacelovng
Chinese, in the Great Wall of China. Stretching
for 1885 miles along the northern and northwest
em frontiers of the Chinese empire, it stands to-
day of the earliest examples of peace
loving people to maintain their national integrity
and to protect themselves from interference from
the tribes of Tartars and barbarions who had in
the years before made raids on the rice fields and
homes of the people of the Celestial empire
According to the encyclopedia this great wall
conceived by the first universal emperor of the
Chinese, Sh-Hwang I'll, and was built by several
millions of men, half million of whom persisted
in the great work The Great Wall was built of
hewn stone two Independent walls being built, and
the space between filled with earth. Along the top
of the wall it is said that six horsemen can ride
abreast The height varied somewhat, but the
average from twenty to twenty-five feet with
towers up about every hundred yards to a
height of forty feet from which an outlook could
be had over considerable territory and thus guard
the wall from attack by the hordes which had men
aced the peaceful pursuits of the Chinese. All this
took place some 2,100 years ago, if the encyclo
pedia is correctly informed for the wall was com
pleted in the year oil B. c.
1t is not hard to imagine the feeling of salts
faction and security felt by the builders of this
great wall of masonry stretching mile after mile
along the boundaries of the empire and forming
a barrier before which the attacks of the Tartar
hordes were rendered of no avail. 1t was heroic
effort and in the fond fancy of the builders it
to stand forever barrier against invasion, guar
antee Of peace an impregnabe wall against which
the barbarians should butt their brains out in their
attempts to rob and pillage the villages and rice
fields of the industrious.
Little did ShiHwangTi know of the possibili-
ties of development which latent in the world.
In the light of twentieth century achievements,
how Intellectual does this gigantic wall appear!
It were child's play at this day to tear down that
Great Wall; to train battery of guns upon it
and tear holes through the impregnable fort
ness through which regiment could march
But the Great Wall served its purpose well.
Within the wall, the Chinese pursued their peace
full vocations; they advanced in a sort of civiza-
ton, in the arts and sciences Inventions which
today in use throughout the world had their
birth within the empire under the protection of the
great wall. 1t their standing army, their navy,
their peace pact with the outside world. Little
does it matter that today a child of the Tartar
hordes whom the Great Wall excluded from the
dominions of the emperor now occupies the throne
made secure for Shi-HwangTi. That is a bit of
the irony of fate which the first emperor of the
Chinese could not foresee, as impossible as the
+l,o Al ILL.,
arms or flying machines The civilization which
the Great Wall made possible was as much in ad-
of the times the Christian civilization of
the west is today ahead of that inaugurated 200
years before the beginning of the Christian era
But while we have advanced in science in arts
and industries, we have not got very far ahead of
the ancient emperor in our ideas of self preserva
ton. We no longer build Great Walls for such
work would be futile, but we do maintain at much
greater cost of life and wealth system of self
preservation. Preservation from whom! Surely
not from barbarous hordes who would overrun our
peaceful fields and destroy our cities for purposes
of pillage, for we have nothing to fear from the
uncivilized; any effort of a barbarous nation to
invade the territory of civilization would end in
complete disaster for the invaders. Before modern
artillery and modern infantry the invading hordes
would be swept away in manner too horrible to
Today be build -batteships
cruisers, torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroy
for war purposes; no, indeed; but to
maintain peace; to furnish protection to our peace
full industries against friends and brothers who
happen to live on the other side of line or across
the waters, brothers who owe allegiance to for
egn ruler, but who are children of God protesting
Christianity and love for their fellow men,
In the 2,100 years since the Great Wall of China
was built the world has made wonderful progress: