Events in Asia by Baltimore American

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 27, 1857

Events in Asia.

By Baltimore American

It is not surprising that bold theorists or fanciful students of the Bible should imagine they see "the beginning of the end" of prophecy in the historic events of the past few years. There has been something strangely provocative of that idea in the return of the currents of strife and revolution to their original centre, the continent of Asia. The thoughtful have long anticipated and predicted such return, but while the indications were faint and gradual they escaped the common attention. Now, however, when the world has seen the great Northern Power of that continent arrayed against the nations of Europe; now that the whole Persian empire is swaying between the eastward march of Russia on the one hand, and the Indian ambition of England on the other; now that the entering wedge of the "opium war" has been succeeded by a new and unexpected second assault upon the exclusive policy of China; now that the extent of that vast and stagnant empire has been shaken by the tramp of revolution; now that the conquering policy of Russia is expanding into railroad ramifications through the continent pari passu with the canal and steam projects of European commerce along its southern and western margin—now that these things have become matters of history, the world seems to be awakening to the fact that Asia is to be the theatre of gigantic events in the near future, and grave statesmen find excuses for speculative solicitude in regard to the ultimate results.

What precise turn these results are to exhibit is not a practical question, but the unmistakable tendency of events already passed or now transpiring is among the most momentous considerations of the day. The abrupt termination of the Russian struggle with Turkey and the Western Powers was far more remarkable than the origin and incidents of the war itself, wonderful as were the latter. Its full significance is hardly, however, more yet discernible.

With seemingly lowered crest the Muscovite escaped from a tremendous and rapidly exhausting conflict, but at once proceeded to avail himself of the appliances of an advanced civilization possessed by his enemies, to unite and consolidate his empire. The idea of commercial convenience and consequent financial augmentation and strength no doubt enters fundamentally into these schemes, but that this aim is singly or even mainly, as is made to appear, the design of the Emperor, will be hard to impress upon those familiar with the inexorable policy of Russia. That icy despotism stands the iron type of military power in the nineteenth century. Her net-work of railways is primarily to answer the same purpose as the wonderful thoroughfares constructed by Roman energy, and to perfect the communication between the center and circumference of the empire.

Nor will it be sufficient that these means of instant communication ramify the empire itself. Already is the Czar busy with a counter-check to the Anglo-Indian encroachment on Persia, and the projected railroad from Tiflis, his trans-Caucasian center-point, to Teheran, the capital of the Shah, marks the first of his colossal strides to dispute the empire of Eastern Asia with all the world. To the same purpose have tended his aggressive spoliations on the Amour river over his feeble southern neighbor in that quarter.

Of the tendency of the events of the past few years in China—to which may be added the new relation occupied by Japan to the rest of the world—it is much easier to form an estimate. There were few men versed in the history of the "opium war" who ever anticipated that China would have remained as long as she has free from a second European drubbing. That war was but a preliminary buffet, before which the walls of Cathayan isolated—endangered by the senile insolence of the Chinese themselves—are eventually to succumb. It is possible this would have been repeated before now if the revolution in that country had not supervened. As it is, that astonishing convulsion of a people stagnant beyond all criterion is but another link in the general chain. Tai-ping-Wang could have sprung successfully into the character of a Chinese Mohammed only by the awakening consciousness of the people that godship did not dwell in the Tartar potentate. Two hundred years of undisputed rule had deadened the memory of doubt as to the Manchu divine right and divine person. It had also extinguished the vitality of the Ming tradition. But the English opium war taught the shrewd among the Chinese that their super-serene superiority was a deception and a myth, whose absurdity stared them in the face. Such a man was the disappointed schoolmaster, "the elegant and perfect" Siu-tshuen. He had witnessed in his day the miserable farce of Chinese resistance, and the total and disgraceful overthrow of celestial valor and might. His literary studies acquainted him with the potency of the Ming prestige as a historical souvenir. He may or may not be a remote descendant. This is immaterial. All that was necessary was to make the Chinese Saxons believe that he was of the race of their own Harold, and the immemorial and ineradicable prejudices against the invader and usurper would come to his assistance. The whole scheme illustrates the sublime duplicity of the Cathayan character. The "Prince of Peace"—Tai-ping-Wang—the "Great Pacification King"—could do no less than avail himself of the national superstition, and he therefore holds his followers enthralled with a belief in his indispensable divinity, while on the other hand he extorts their homage as the representative of the native nationality. He has caught a glimpse, faint though it be, of the power of the "outside barbarian," he is too shrewd not to appreciate it; he feels that contact is strengthening the ideas of his own people, and that their bleared and bespotted vision is clearing to something higher; he therefore boldly plunders the Christian of an improved idea of divine relationship, flatters by Oriental policy and frightens by practical performance, and meets the coming shock of events as a hero and a reformer.—Baltimore American.