their favour: They live some thousands of miles off. So that if it were affirmed, That every Chinese had literally three eyes, it would be difficult for us, to disprove it. Nevertheless there is room to doubt even of their understanding: Nay, one of the arguments often brought to prove the greatness, to me clearly demonstrates the littleness of it: namely, The thirty thousand letters of their alphabet. To keep an alphabet of thirty hundred letters, could never be reconciled to common sense: since every alphabet ought to be as short, simple, and easy as possible. No more can we reconcile to any degree of common sense, their crippling all the women in the empire, by a silly, senseless affectation of squeezing their feet, till they bear no proportion to their bodies: so that the feet of a woman at thirty, must still be as small as they would be naturally when four years old. But in order to see the true measure of their understanding in the clearest light, let us look not at women or the vulgar, but at the nobility, the wisest, the politest part of the nation. Look at the Mandarins, the glory of the empire, and see any, every one of them at his meals, not deigning to use his own hands, but having his meat put into his mouth, by two servants planted for that purpose, one on his right hand, the other on his left! O the deep understanding of the noble lubber that sits in the midst, and "Hiat, ceu pullus hirundinis !” Gapes, as the young swallow for his food. Surely, an English ploughman, or a Dutch sailor, would have too much sense to endure it. If you say, Nay, the Mandarin would not endure it, but that it is a custom: I answer, Undoubtedly it is; but how came it to be a custom ? Such a custom could not have begun, much less have become general, but through a general, and marvellous want of common sense. What their learning is now, I know not: but notwithstanding their boast of its antiquity, it was certainly very low and contemptible in the last century, when they were so astonished at the skill of the French Jesuits, and họ And whatever noured them as almost more than human. progress they may have made since in the knowledge of astronomy for calculating eclipses, and other curious rather than useful sciences, it is certain, they are still utterly ignorant of what it most of all concerns them to know. They know not God any more than the Hottentots: they are all idolaters to a man. And so tenacious are they of their national idolatry, that even those whom the French missionaries called converts, yet continued one and all, to worship Confucius, and the souls of their ancestors. It is true, that when this was strongly represented at Rome, by an honest Dominican who came from thence, a bull was issued out and sent over into China, forbidding them to do it any longer. But the good fathers kept it privately among themselves, saying, The Chinese were not able to bear it. Such is their religion with respect to God. But are they not eminent for all social virtues, all that have place between man and man? Yes, according to the accounts which some have given. According to these, they are the glory of mankind, and may be a pattern to all Europe. But have not we some reason to doubt, if these accounts are true? Are pride and laziness good ingredients of social virtue? And can all Europe equal either the laziness or pride of the Chinese nobility and gentry? Who are too stately or too indolent even to put the meat into their own mouths? Yet they are not too proud, or too indolent, to oppress, to rob, to defraud all that fall into their hands: how flagrant instances of this may any one find even in the account of Lord Anson's voyage! Exactly agreeing with the accounts given by all our countrymen, who have traded in any part of China: as well as with the observation made by a late writer, in his geographical grammar. 'Trade and commerce, or rather cheating and overreaching, is the natural bent and genius of the Chinese. Gain is their god; they prefer this to every thing besides. A stranger is in great danger of being cheated, if he trusts to his own judgment. And if he employs a Chinesebroker, it is well if he does not join with the merchant to cheat the stranger. Their laws oblige them to certain rules of civility, in their words and actions. And they are naturally a fawning, cringing generation: but the greatest hypocrites on the face of the earth.' 5. Such is the boasted virtue of those who are beyond all degrees of comparison the best and wisest of all the Heathens in Asia. And how little preferable to them are those in Europe! Rather, how many degrees beneath them? Vast numbers of these are within the borders of Muscovy. But how amazingly ignorant! How totally void both of civil and sacred wisdom! How shockingly savage both in their tempers and manners! Their idolatry is of the basest and vilest kind. They not only worship the work of their own hands, but idols of the most horrid and detestable forms that men or devils could devise. Equally savage, (or more so, if more can be,) as is well-known, are the natives of Lapland: and indeed of all the countries which have been discovered to the north of Muscovy or Sweden. In truth, the bulk of these nations seem to be considerably more barbarous, not only than the men near the Cape of Good-Hope, but than many tribes in the brute creation. Thus have we seen what is the present state of the Heathens in every part of the known world. And these still make up, according to the preceding calculation, very near two-thirds of mankind. Let us now calmly and impartially consider, What manner of men the Mahometans in general are. 6. An ingenious writer, who, a few years ago, published a pompous translation of the Koran, takes great pains to give us a very favourable opinion both of Mahomet and his followers. But he cannot wash the Ethiop white. After all, men who have but a moderate share of reason, cannot but observe in his Koran, even as polished by Mr. Sale, the most gross and impious absurdities. To cite particulars is not now my business. It may suffice to observe in general, That human understanding must be debased to an inconceivable degree, in those who can swallow such absurdities as divinely revealed. And yet we know the Ma hometans not only condemn all who cannot swallow them to everlasting fire; not only appropriate to themselves the title of Mussulmen, or True Believers: but even anathematize with the utmost bitterness, and adjudge to eternal destruction, all their brethren of the sect of Hali, all who contend for a figurative interpretation of them. That these men then have no knowledge or love of God is undeniably manifest,. not only from their gross, horrible notions of him, but from their not loving their brethren. But they have not always so weighty a cause to hate and murder one another, as difference of opinion. Mahometans will butcher each other by thousands, without so plausible a plea as this. Why is it that such numbers of Turks and Persians have stabbed one another in cool blood? Truly because they differ in the manner of dressing their head. The Ottoman vehemently maintains, (for he has unquestionable tradition on his side,) that a Mussulman should wear a round turban. Whereas the Persian insists upon his liberty of conscience, and will wear it picked before. So, for this wonderful reason, when a more plausible one is wanting, they beat out each other's brains from generation to generation. It is not, therefore, strange, that ever since the religion of Mahomet appeared in the world, the espousers of it, particularly those under the Turkish emperor, have been as wolves and tygers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth: that numberless cities are razed from the foundation, and only their name remaining: that many countries which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished away from the earth! Such was, and is at this day the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human-kind! 7. Proceed we now to the Christian world. But we must not judge of Christians in general, from those who are scattered through the Turkish dominions, the Armenian, Georgian, Mingrelian Christians: nor indeed from any others of the Greek communion. The gross, barbarous ignorance, the deep, stupid superstition, the blind and bitter zeal, and the endless thirst after vain jangling and strife of words, which have reigned for many ages in the Greek church, and well-nigh banished true religion from among them; make these scarcely worthy of the Christian name, and lay an insuperable stumbling-block before the Mahometans. 8. Perhaps those of the Romish communion may say, 'What wonder, that this is the case with heretics!-With those who have erred from the Catholic faith, nay, and left the pale of the church? But what is the case with them who have not left that church, and who retain the Roman faith still? Yea, with the most zealous of all its patrons, the inhabitants of Italy, of Spain and Portugal? Wherein do they excel the Greek church, except. in Italianism 2 received by tradition from their Heathen fathers, and diffused through every city and village. They may indeed praise chastity and rail at women, as loudly as their forefather Juvenal. But what is the moral of all this?.. "Nonne putas melius, quod tecum pusio dormit ?" This it must be acknowledged, is the glory of the Romish church. Herein it does excel the Greek. They excel it likewise in deism. Perhaps there is no country in the world, at least, in that part of it, which bears the Christian name, wherein so large a proportion of the men of education, are absolute deists, if not atheists, as Italy. And from hence the plague has spread far and wide, through France in particular. So that did not temporal motives restrain, no small part of the French nobility and gentry, would pay no more regard to the Christian revelation, than do the Mandarins in China. They excel still more in murder, both private and public. Instances of the former abound all over Italy, Spain, and Portugal. And the frequency of shedding blood has taken away all that horror which otherwise might attend it. Take one instance of a thousand. An English gentleman was some years ago at an entertainment in Brescia, when |