A nation so preserved and blessed gives
reverent thanks to God and invokes His guidance and the continuance of
His care and favor.
In our foreign intercourse the dominant question has been the treatment
of the Chinese problem. Apart from this our relations with the powers
have been happy.
The recent troubles in China spring from the antiforeign agitation which
for the past three years has gained strength in the northern provinces.
Their origin lies deep in the character of the Chinese races and in the
traditions of their Government. The Taiping rebellion and the opening of
Chinese ports to foreign trade and settlement disturbed alike the
homogeneity and the seclusion of China.
Meanwhile foreign activity made itself felt in all quarters, not alone
on the coast, but along the great river arteries and in the remoter
districts, carrying new ideas and introducing new associations among a
primitive people which had pursued for centuries a national policy of
isolation.
The telegraph and the railway spreading over their land, the steamers
plying on their waterways, the merchant and the missionary penetrating
year by year farther to the interior, became to the Chinese mind types
of an alien invasion, changing the course of their national life and
fraught with vague forebodings of disaster to their beliefs and their
self-control.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272