The second prose production begins with the statement that all men have one origin, both as it regards their bodies, being sprung from one ancestor; and as it regards their souls, which have all come from the original breath of God; thus all under heaven belong to one family, and should all regard each other as brethren. The writer then goes on to combat the erroneous notion current in China, that the king of Hades determined life and death: this king of Hades, he says, is no other than the old serpent, the Devil.* He then lays down a method by which men may judge the correctness of principles, and avers that those which are diffused through all ages and countries are generally right, while parital and private views are to be suspected: but the principle above stated he adds is found neither in Chinese nor foreign classics, but in the Buddhist and Taouist books and therefore concludes that it must be wrong. This is not the first time, he continues, that lies have been invented in China: for the ruler of the Tsin dynasty imagined the existence of fairies; Kwang-woo, of the Han dynasty, sacrificed to the kitchen; people of later ages pretended that the dragon produced rain; whereas rain, it was evident came directly from heaven. Then we have some references to the Old Testament, about the forty days rain in the time of Noah, causing the flood; which rain was sent down by God as a judgment upon a guilty world.† He goes on to say that a Buddhist book called the "pearly Record" also ascribes the power of life and death to the king of Hades; but the classics of China and foreign nations, he avers, all say that Heaven produced and nourished every thing, and that life and death are determined by fate, which is nothing else than the appointment of God. This appeal to foreign (by which is meant Christian) classics, as an authority in matters of faith, is a new thing in China: as is also the allusion to the 審判 shin-pwan judgment which God will enter into with the men of the world.
* The phrase employed for expressing this latter idea is very similar to the one used in Medhurst's and Gutzlaff's versions of the New Testament, as may be seen by comparing them.
| Med's. & Gutz.'s vers: | Insurgents' vers. |
| 老 蛇 妖 鬼 | 老 蛇 魔 鬼 |
† The word used for "Old Testament" is the same as that employed by Morrison and Gutzlaff. The name of Noah corresponds to that used by Gutzlaff, viz: 挪亞 No-a, and not to Morrison and Afa, who employed 挼亞 No-a. In the mode of expressing the 40 days and 40 nights, the writer agrees more with the Morrison than Gutzlaff. So that he must have had both versions before him, or quoted by memory occasionally from one and the other, as he happened to recollect.
