Chinese Records by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 27, 1870

Chinese Records.

By John Norton Loughborough

In the REVIEW some two years since, Bro. Baker published some testimonies relative to the records of the Chinese, from Shuckford, as given in Campbell's Debate with Owen. These quotations are to the import that their earliest authentic records date with Fohi, corresponding to the time of Noah.

I have just completed the reading of a work of 400 pp., entitled “Life among the Chinese,” by R. S. Maclay, who was resident missionary for several years in China, under the direction of the M. E. Church North. Elder Maclay gives the following important testimony on Chinese records: “Are the ancient records of China authentic? This question has now been thoroughly investigated, and a unanimous verdict has been given by both Chinese and foreigners, by missionaries and diplomatists. The substance of this verdict is that all the historic records of China anterior to Fuhhi (Fohi) supposed to be B. C. 2852, are utterly fabulous; that from Fuhhi to the commencement of the Chan dynasty, about B. C. 1100, they are extremely vague and uncertain, and that it is not till you come to the times of the Chan dynasty, about B. C. 1100, that they become entirely reliable.” p. 50.

Again he says: “Sir John Davis says, ‘The period of authentic history may be considered as dating from the race of Chan, in whose times Confucius himself lived; for though it might be going too far to condemn all that preceded that period as absolutely fabulous, it is still so mixed up with fable, as hardly to deserve the name of history.’ Says the late Rev. Dr. Medhurst: ‘It has been generally supposed that the Chinese maintain an antiquity of myriads of years, and that their historical records, stretching far back into the vista of more than a thousand ages, are at such variance with the comparatively recent account of Moses, as to oblige us either to question the one, or the other. The fact is, however, that the Chinese, like most other heathen nations, have a mythological, as well as a chronological period; the one, considered by themselves as fabulous, and the other, as authentic; the one, connected with the history of their gods, and the other, with that of their men. In the former, they speak of their celestial emperor, who reigned forty-five thousand years; their terrestrial emperor, who reigned eighteen thousand years, followed by their human emperor, who reigned as long; without condescending to enlighten us as to the names, characters, events, or circumstances of these wonderful individuals, or their still more extraordinary reigns: nay without so much as telling us whether their dominions were established in Heaven, or on earth; or whether they referred exclusively to China, or included other nations. In short, the vague account they furnish us of these fancied emperors, shows that they were merely the figment of the imagination, introduced to supply a deficiency, and to amuse the credulous. Indeed, so little credit is attached to these fabulous periods by the Chinese themselves, that one of their most respectable historians, Chu-Fu-Tse, does not venture to allude to it, but passing by these extravagant assumptions, commences his relations at a much later period, when events and circumstances of a connected character stamped the record of the age with greater marks of credibility.’ Another Chinese historian waxes indignant over those absurd claims to antiquity, and declares that they ‘are contrary to all sense and reason.’”—Maclay's Life among the Chinese, pp. 50, 51.

Two or three other items of interest I observed in the book, upon other topics, which I will place in the REVIEW for the benefit of those who may wish them. In speaking of Buddhism, one of the three forms of religion in pagan China, Elder Maclay says: “There is a striking similarity between the ceremonies of Buddhism and those of the church of Rome. Among these points of resemblance we may notice the distinguishing dress of the priests, their tonsure, celibacy, professed poverty, and monastic manner of life; the use of the rosary, candles, incense, holy water, bells, images and relics, in their worship; their belief in purgatory, their pretended miracles, prayers in an unknown tongue, with their endless repetition, the similarity of their altar furniture, and the names of their intercessors, as ‘Gods of mercy,’ ‘Queen of Heaven,’ ‘Holy Mother.’”—Maclay, p. 102.

Of the licentious character of the Chinese he says: “Licentiousness is another prominent trait in the character of the Chinese. Its corrupting and debasing influences pervade all classes of society. Forms of this vice, which in other lands skulk in dark places, or appear only in the midnight orgies of the bacchanalian revelers, in China blanch not at the light of the noon-day; are pictured in shop fronts and in other modes to the eyes of the thousands who throng the streets; or flaunting their gaudy blandishments, the living embodiments of their lust find ready access to the precincts of the family, the forum, and the temple. Saddening evidences of the almost universal prevalence of this vice, are every where apparent among the Chinese.”—Maclay, pp. 136, 137.

In speaking of the ministrations of a native Chinese Methodist preacher, he says: “He denied the sentiment

which seems to be entertained, in theory at least, by not a few learned Chinese, that the soul perishes when the body dies.”—Maclay, p. 363. This latter quotation shows that not all the heathens believe in the immortality of the soul.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.