movement. Thus far there seems little to throw doubt on the story as given.
Difficulties, however, appear at this point. One of these is the place of Fêng in the new state. That he founded the God-worshippers is clear from all accounts; but now, when they were coming together, he had a distinctly secondary role to play. How did Yang and Hsiao secure the divine oracle that placed them ahead of Fêng? A second difficulty arises in the fact that even after Hung had come to take the position of head, his leadership, though strenuously supported by Yang, is most grudgingly accepted. The recorded descents of God and the celestial elder brother in 1851 and 1852[1] make clear the surprising fact that there is disloyalty to the T'ienwang even after the villagers have abandoned their homes to follow him. Time and again they were called on to return to their duty as his followers. A few of these descents may have been necessitated by danger of defeat at the hands of imperialists, but some are inexplicable on that ground. Was it possible that a rival group existed in the camp who used the common fear to secure disaffection in the ranks as a means of gaining the leadership? If we confine ourselves to the sources we have thus far examined, the natural explanation for these crises would be that the followers were so reluctant to leave their homes and native hills that encouragement through divine revelation was necessary; or we might consider that the growing number of adherents would make it necessary to have new assurances from heaven that this was an inspired enterprise. But the excellence of the small army, the apparent lack of connection between some of these descents and threatened danger from without, and above all, their frequency—nine or ten having occurred—
- ↑ P'ing-ting Yueh-fei Chi-lueh, supplementary vol. II, 1b.
