In the Sign of the Cross

In the Sign of the Cross A Story of One Hundred Million Deaths BY ALMA 0. TAYLOR The most spectacular Christian in history is a Chinaman. Hung Siu-tseun, a Hakka Chinese, was born in a little village in the mountains near Canton, in 1813. He inherited the manly vigor of his race, was impetuous, madly ambitious, and aspired to pass the government literary examinations with a high degree, but failed. Disappointment preyed so upon his mind that his health failed him. While sick, nigh unto death, he had a dream, in which the Almighty entered his room, placed a sword in his hand, and commanded him to exterminate idolatry in China. The Almighty then conveyed him to the Heavenly Palace, washed him in a river and gave him a new heart. After recovering from his illness, he read some Christian tracts which had fallen into his hands, and in them he seemed to find the interpretation of his dream ! So, in 1847, when a young man of good education and superior manners presented himself at the American Baptist Mission, in Canton, and asked for Christian instruction, there is little wonder that Hung was quickly enrolled as a catechumen. Without receiving the sealing ordinance of the church, or taking his instructor into his confidence, he suddenly returned to his native city, and in 1850 began to preach the new faith. Talented, and full of zeal, he converted, first, his family and neighbors, then large numbers of his townsmen, whom he organized into a society called "The Church of the Supreme God." The society met with rapid and marked success in the entire province, where the idols and temples fell in ruined heaps before the iconoclastic crusade which Hung instituted, in obedience to the divine command received in his dream. The imperial government, alarmed, sent officers to suppress the zealots, and incited local persecution against them. This resulted in the transformation of the society into a bold, audacious political partv which finally rose in open rebellion against the government. ' So brilliant were the local victories of the rebel chief that multitudes flocked to his standard— the sign of the cross— for Hung now proclaimed his mission to be not only the

456 IMPROVEMENT ERA deliverance of China from the curse of idolatry, but the wresting of the throne from the Manchu usurpers. In this twofold campaign, he was seconded by a shrewd and calculating hierophant named Yang, who, at will, could throw himself into cataleptic fits, during which he was looked upon as the medium of communication with the "Court of Heaven," his utterances passing for the words of the "Supreme God." The rebels had visions of a new empire to be called, "Tai-ping Tien Kwoh" — The Kingdom of Heaven and the Reign of Peace — - with Hung as emperor, to be saluted as "God of Ten Thousand Years ;" and Yang as prince-premier, to be saluted as "God of Nine Thousand Years." Christ was called, "Heavenly Elder Brother," and Hung, the "Younger Brother of Christ" — all of which titles may be passed with a smile, but when Hung gave to his blasphemous adviser, Yang, the title, "Holy Ghost," the travesty of sacred things became complete. A revelation through Yang ordered the rebel hosts to leave their mountain fortresses in Kwangsi, and strike for Nanking, the old, sacred capital of China. Descending into the plains of Hunan, like a mighty torrent, these "Avenging Angels of the Cross" swept everything before them. They reached the great Yangtse river, at Hankow. Here they pillaged the three richest cities of central China, and slaughtered the inhabitants with the impunity of a satanic legion. They seized all the junks in the river and,, committing themselves to the current, floated down to the assault of Nanking, whose alleged impregnable ramparts proved to be fit only for the graves of its garrison, not one man of which lived to tell the tale. This was in 1853 — only six years from the time that handsome young man stood before the Christian Mission, at Canton, seeking the gospel of the Prince of Peace. The "God of Ten Thousand Years" ("Ten Thousand Years" being the literal rendering of characters which mean idomatically, "Eternity," or, " Live Forever.") established the throne of his "Kingdom" at Nanking, and maintained it for ten years. He distinguished himself by the exalted title, "Heavenly King." For assistant rulers were appointed, but they had to content themselves with the meaner titles, "Seven Thousand Years," "Six Thousand Years," etc., — or seven-tenths and six-tenths of an Eternity ! The energetic warrior and magnetic leader looked again into his Old Testament, and, finding a new and alluring model in Solomon, he abandoned David as the idol of his life, and surrounded himself with a large harem in which lust and debauch finally gained a complete victory. The affairs of government were left in the hands of subordinates, and the bloody crusade for the extermination of idolatry, and the overthrow of the Manchus, was carried on vigorously by Hung-'s fanatical but sagacious senerals.

IN THE SIGN OF THE CROSS 457 Hung's spectacular career, however, was by no means ended. Unbridled license did not rot him all at once. His surplus energy found expression in a book of laws entitled Celestial Decrees, purporting to be revelations from heaven; in the printing and publication of the Bible by what was termed, "Imperial Authority;" and in the introduction of Bible study into all the schools, making it supersede the old Chinese classics upon which government examinations had been based for centuries. A message was dispatched to the Rev. Issachar Roberts, by whom Hung was welcomed into the Baptist Mission, at Canton, in 1847, inviting him to visit the "Celestial Court." Roberts, like all other foreign missionaries, had stood amazed and terrified, watching, from a distance, the mighty ' whirlwind sweep the land in "the sign of the cross." So fierce was the wind of death around Nankino- that everv missionary who had attempted to reach the god of the storm had failed. ' Therefore, Roberts, being invited by the o-od himself, hastened to the "Celestial Court," where he found only the most sickening profanity. His quondam disciple had even inaugurated a new mode of baptism, neither sprinkling nor immersion but washing the pit of the stomach with a towel dipped in warm water! (Who dare say the Chinese have no originality?) Roberts at first boldly rebuked the rebel chief who being a man, had made himself a god, and, while professing the New Testament creed, had disgraced in vilest travesty the^Holy Trinity and all sacred ceremonies! Such remonstrance spelled insult to the "Heavenly King," and Roberts remained a prisoner in the "Celestial Palace" for nearly a year. The rebel forces pushed on towards Peking by way ot the Grand Canal, for in Peking sat the despised Manchu emperor. No town no city, was able to check their progress, which resembles Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Finally, in the beginning of winter, they met the imperial army, commanded by a courageous Mongol prince, then they met the more dreaded and unconquerable generals-January and February. Disheartened they returned to the Yangtse valley where their campaign of destrurtion. plunder and death made that broad, deep river run red with human blood, carrying in its current long lines of corpses out to the ocean grave. The toll of death at Suchow was appalling. (Suchow was called the Venice of China because o fts waterways, and the Paris of China because of its beautiful women, tea-houses and gay life.) All the canals within he city the Grand canal outside the city, and the many little Likes n he ne ghborhood were so filled with swelled, water-soaked putrfyjng bodies that the canal boats could not move. 1 he a f ,rti1e with o-orv odor. Many of those floating corpses were w^ou^dL^iHs estimated that 80,000 inhabitants of the

458 IMPROVEMENT ERA city drowned themselves at the approach of Hung's "Celestial" horde. In 1910, the writer passed over the principal part of Hung's bloody path. At Nanking, I went within the city wall, but had to ride for several miles across an open field before reaching the inhabited part of the city. Every other Chinese city has overflowed its walls. Why should the old, historic capital be so different? The answer is, that in 1853, when Hung appeared before the walls with the sign of the cross waving above his victorious army, this field was covered by the homes of millions ; it is now their grave-yard, a mute witness of the unholy zeal of the world's most spectacular Christian, in whose iconoclastic crusade we find the story of one hundred millions of the dead ! Li Hung Chang, who later became China's foremost statesman, organized an army at Shanghai, which, under the command of the well-trained English soldier General Gordon,* fought its way to Nanking, and, in 1864, delivered the blow that sent the "God of Ten Thousand Years" and his blasphemous government in a mangled mass to perdition. An intereseting bit of history in connection with this crusade, known politically as the "Tai-ping Rebellion," is that in 1860, the foreign powers, disgusted with the imperial government at Peking, attempted, through their respective ministers, to open negotiations with Hung's court at Nanking. How different would China's modern history be if the Tai-pings had received the recognition of the Powers ! A little stone turned the dangerous tide. The French Minister, being a devout Catholic, hesitated to recognize Hung, because he was a Protestant, and he did not wish to see the ascendency of Protestantism over Catholicism in China. This hesitation gave time for the Imperial Government to regain the favor of the Powers, and the death knell of the Taiping glory rang through the land. 4 [The second article in this series of three will deal with "In the Beginning, According to Japanese Books."] *[Known also as "Chinese Gordon," and Gordon Pasha, Governor of Soudan under the Khedive from 1874-79; he met his death Jan. 24, 1885, in Kartoum, which he had gallantly defended against the rebels for a year. — Editors.]