carried them; the uncompromising prohibition of the opium habit; the observance of a Sabbath; the offering of prayers before and after meals; the invocation of divine aid before a battle — all these cardinal points of a Christian faith created a world-wide impression that China, through the instrumentality of the Taipings, was to be evan- gehzed; that the Manchu Dynasty was to be swept out of existence, and a “Celestial Empire of Universal Peace,” as it was named by Hung Siu Chune, was going to be established, and thus China, by this wonderful intervention of a wise Providence, would be brought within the pale of Christian nations. But Christendom was a little too credulous and impulsive in the belief. It did not stop to have the Christianity of the Taipings pass through the crucible of a searching analysis.
Their first victory over their persecutors undoubtedly gave Hung Siu Chune and his associates the first intimation of a possible overturning of the Manchu Dynasty and the establishment of a new one, which he named in his religious ecstasy “The Celestial Empire of Universal Peace.” To the accomplishment of this great object, they bent the full force of
