A CENTURY ago the world was in almost total ignorance concerning China, and had ever been so from the dawn of history. Its government and its civilization, its riches and its poverty, its languages and its religions, were all a sealed book to those most intelligent, while the laity were practically as ignorant of China and its people as tho they had no existence.
To-day how different! Now all is changed. Every day the great dailies bear some message to their readers from this far-away land. Many magazines are publishing write-ups of China, till every one feels he knows much concerning the "Flowery Kingdom," the "Middle State," as the Chinese love to call their country.
In some things China takes first rank among the nations of earth; and it matters not what nations may do to China or men may say concerning the conditions in China, the fact must ever remain that in many things the Chinese Empire, if not the greatest, at least is among the greatest empires that ever had national existence.
Great in Territory
Notwithstanding the great losses of possessions which China has undergone during the last century, possessions which she once governed or which were at least tributary to her, still this country remains among the mightiest kingdoms ever formed by man, taking rank to-day, in territorial possession, as the third kingdom of the world.
A view showing the houses of some of our missionaries set in among the bamboo-trees at Mokanshan. No. 1, Elder Westworth's; No. 2, Dr. Miller's; No. 3, R. F. Cottrell's.
With an area of 4,278,352 square miles, divided into eighteen provinces (constituting China proper) and four dependencies, China, as far as territory is concerned, takes first rank among the nations of all time.
China has a great diversity of climate. Lying as it does in a wide range of latitude in the temperate and torrid zones, from the severe cold in the north, all degrees of temperature can be found till one comes to the south where there is perpetual summer.
Its land is as diversified as its climate. From the barren wastes and arid lands of Mongolia and Turkestan to the rich alluvial plains of Central China, and the hills and fertile valleys of the south, China can boast of land with an enduring fertility which challenges a rival in any country in the world. Some of its plains have been cultivated for thousands of years, the same kind of crop succeeding crop for ages with no apparent depletion of productiveness.
Outside of the Nile Valley, the world offers no parallel to the enduring fertility of the great loess plains of Northern and Central China.
Great in Population
In the number of its population China has no rival in history. Like its great mountain peaks of Tibet, in the number of its people China towers so far above all others, that it stands pre-eminently alone. Approximately China has a population nearing 450,000,000. There is no nation like it in all the world, and never has been. Four hundred and fifty millions of law-abiding, industrious, intelligent people living adjacent one to another, with no other country intervening, governed by the same laws, and paying homage to the same emperor, make China a nation by itself, without comparison.
A view of the Garden Bridge and the new “Astor House” in Shanghai. The view looks across Soochow Creek from the Public Park. This picture shows a little of the progress being made in China.
Every fourth man, woman, and child in all the world is a Chinese, speaks the Chinese language, and if he can read at all reads the Chinese characters. Every fourth person who dies is a Chinese. Three more nations with a population like China's would people the whole world as densely as it is now populated. While the death-rate in China is appalling, still the race is rapidly increasing, and every decade finds a great increase in the number of people.
The Chinese marry young, and the central idea of marriage seems to be the rearing of a family. If the first wife fails to have offspring, the law permits the husband to have a second wife in the hope that children will be born. If human life was as sacredly regarded as in western nations, the Chinese people would soon increase till they themselves could easily fulfil the command given to Adam in the beginning, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."
Great in Resources
Not only does China cover a wide range of latitude and longitude, but in natural resources that help to make a great country, China must take first rank among the nations of earth. In fertility of soil, in mineral and natural wealth, few countries can compare with China. Her coal deposits are among the richest and most extensive on earth.
The amount of coal in Yunnan, Kweichau, Kwangsi, seems to reach 30,000,000,000 tons, and it is estimated that the vast coal measures of south Shansi would amply supply the world with coal, at the present rate of consumption, for thousands of years to come. —Richards.
The coal-fields in China have been laid down on a grand scale. To instance only one, that of Shansi, which has a continuous field 13,500 miles in area of anthracite, equal to the best Pennsylvanian, with from fifteen to forty feet seams. There is also a rich bituminous deposit in the same province.
There are most extensive coal-fields in China, for she is credited with possessing the largest coal-mines in the world, covering 200,000 square miles. —Ball.
China has also iron, lead, copper, gold, tin, and sulphur, so that in natural resources China could continue to exist, as it has existed in the past, to the end of all time without intercourse with foreign nations. Are other nations great in mineral wealth? Behold, China is great among the greatest. In coal and iron she stands pre-eminent, while the great mountain ranges of Tibet are still waiting for the tread of the explorer.
Great in Cohesion and in Antiquity
History offers us nothing in comparison to China when we judge her by cohesion and antiquity. Egypt, one of the earliest nations of earth, does not antedate China, if we are to rely on Chinese tradition and history.
The Chinese started in the race of national existence with the oldest of the old Egyptians, long before this huge mound of stones was piled up [the pyramids]. They outlived their ancient contemporaries. They outlived the Persians. They outlived the Greeks. They have outlived the Romans. And they will outlive the Arabs, for they have as much youth and vitality in them as the youngest of young nations. . . . Here are the Chinese, who have prolonged their existence for 4,000 years. . . . The old Chinese fixed their eyes on certain ineradicable principles of man's mind, and, working on these, have founded and built up a monument, the greatest and most gigantic the world has ever seen. —Meadows.
While other nations have crumbled away till no trace of them is found, this people have existed for millenniums, a separate, distinct nation, never once separating or disintegrating for over 4,000 years. They have preserved their language from all foreign contamination, and the scholar of to-day can read the characters used by Confucius and Mencius15five hundred years before Christ. Since the confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel, no language of any race has been spoken by so many people as the Chinese language. Think of 450,000,000 human beings speaking and reading the same language! The languages of ancient Greece and Rome are dead languages. Centuries ago they ceased to be spoken or read save by students who made them a special study. But the Chinese scholar of to-day can read and speak the very language written by the scholars before the Christian era. If cohesion and age make a people or a nation great, here we must give the guerdon to the "Flowery Kingdom."
The signal station of the Siccawei Observatory in Shanghai. These photos are furnished by Brother F. E. Stafford.
