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and pray with her, he stayed in the room and listened to these Christians' supplications. His heart was so much moved thereby, that he vowed, if God would restore his grandmother, he would turn over a new leaf and become a Christian too. The old lady did recover, and the young man was true to his vow; but he had to break through many obstacles. In the beginning he tried to join the congregation secretly, not wishing to let his family-who are still heathen-know of it. One day however his wife went to a sorceress to make inquiries about something, when the woman would not entertain her request at all, saying, "Your husband is a Christian, why do you come to me? I can have nothing to do with you, for there is enmity between you and me." The young woman was thunderstruck and hastened back home, to tell all to her husband's parents. Thereupon the father grew very angry, and taking a stick, beat his son. The young man-although about thirty years of age-received the parental castigation kneeling, and as in duty bound, thanked the sire of the family for it. But these proceedings resulted in something very different from what the father had intended. It urged upon the son the necessity of making a public profession of his faith, and he now went openly to the mission chapel praying to be received into the church. Mr. Piton took him under instruction, found him remarkably well prepared for the reception of the divine truth, and after a time he was baptized. His father said he would disinherit such a disobedient son. His two wives said they would not live with him any more. The whole village were incensed, and the village school, which the young man was teaching, was taken from him. But nothing could shake his conviction, and he bears a good testimony to his faith in Jesus Christ. The grandmother is full of joy, and thanks God for having given grace to the conversion of this her grandson.

THE

PAGANISM.

BY REV. THOS. MCCLATCHIE, M. A.

V.

name Khwăn-lun is not the specific proper name of a range of mountains situated in any one fixed locality; any lofty mountain is called a Khwăn-lun. The meaning of the two characters without a radical, is simply "a circle;" as Morrison states, "anything spherical;" with the radical "water," they signify the infinite chaos or ovum mundi, "the Great Extreme" or circle from which the whole universe (including Man) is born; and with the radical "mountain," they signify a circular mountain or chain of mountains. In the Chinese

Khwăn-lun, or circle of the world, the cradle of the human race, we have evidently the three-peaked Hindoo holy mountain Meru, which they term Ila-vratta or Ida-vratta, "the circle of the world," and which they consider to be a paradise or celestial earth, where all the gods dwell. This circle of mountains is not confined to the Hindoo and Chinese systems. The Greek Olympus was represented by a circle; the Romans styled the sacred ring, mundus or "the world." The top of the Phrygian mount was denominated "the mountain of the circle,' and "the Gothic Ida is represented as a lofty plain rising in the centre of the earth, and tenanted by the hero gods." The Jews and Greeks gave the name Meru to some favourite mountain in their own country, the former to mount Sion or Moriah, and the latter called the inhabitants of Ilium (which was near to mount Ida) Meropes from the Sanscrit Merupa.'

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In Chinese geography we have two principal Khwăn-luns mentioned; the first or original chain from which the name is taken, is stated in Kang-he (see IV. supra) to be "beyond the four seas," that is to say, beyond the ancient Chinese empire which was supposed to be surrounded by four seas or large rivers. The centre mountain of the local Khwăn-lun range is called the Sung (i. e. Sung-kaou) mountain in the Shoo king; and it is stated to have three peaks.† Here the first inhabitants of China are located, and we are informed that the original Khwăn-lun, from which these early mixed Cushite settlers doubtless first came, is situated at a distance of fifty thousand le from the Sung-kaou mountain. Kang-he states that the traveller "Chang Keen crossed the western sea to the Ta-tsin and Woo-tsze countries, and found another western sea" resembling that of China, "with a small Khwăn-lun on its coast;" and from the same authority we learn that Khwăn-lun is "beyond the limits of the empire, and is situated in a wilderness of shifting sand." Ta-tsin, to which the traveller went, Matthew Ricci considers to be Judea. It is in the locality of the Khwăn-lun range, fifty thousand le beyond the boundaries of ancient China, that the five airs or the rainbow is found, and that locality is said to be the centre of the whole world(); it is surrounded by four seas, which was the appearance of Ararat as the waters subsided, and it is in the midst of four enormous mountains forming a circle around it; the centre peak of the triple summit is immediately under the polar star; and the locality of these "five mountains" is said to be "beyond the four seas" of China. It is

* Asiat. Res., vol. viii, pp. 314-316. Origin of Pag. Idol., vol. iii, p. 229.

+ sec. vii, p. 7.

Morrison's View of China, p. 86.

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K, vol. v. sec. iii, p. 4.

plain then, that the arrangement of the ancient empire of China as given in the Shoo king is merely the local transcript of this original Khwan-lun range, situated to the north-west, in the centre of the whole earth, and as the geographers assert, at a distance of fifty thousand le from China. That this Khwan-lun chain beyond the Chinese empire is in reality the Ararat of Moses, from whence the world was twice peopled, there can hardly be a doubt, as appears from what has been already stated. But as in other heathen systems, so also in the Chinese description, the mount, and the pagoda raised on the plain of Shinar to represent it, are evidently blended together. A celebrated traveller describes the approach to Ararat as follows: "As the morning broke, we were gratified at beholding the summit of Ararat towering in full distinctness and grandeur before us, in the south-west. ....the ground across which we travelled now......rose, at first imperceptibly, then more rapidly......and it soon became evident that we were now treading the base of the mighty mountain itself."* As the real Ararat rises from a sloping mound, so does Khwăn-lun. The earth is represented as being depressed at the four quarters, and on the top of the enormous mound so formed, rises the lofty Khwan-lun, whose summit towers aloft and forms one of the pillars of heaven. In strict conformity with this natural appearance of the holy mount, the temple of Heaven at Peking, the local transcript of the tower of Babel or imitative mountain, is built on "the round hillock," or a gently rising mound. It is triplicated, and the roof is painted blue, to show that it is dedicated, like the tower and the mount, to the visible animated sky (F) or "Baal," under the similar distinctive title of Shang-te.

Ararat was the burial-place of the first individuals of the human race, both Adamic and Noetic, and hence we find the emperor Shun worshipping his deceased ancestors together with Shang-te, whose graves were on the mounds and hills around him.† We have merely to look at the tombs in various parts of the country around Shanghae alone, in order to see in them the exact transcript of Khwăn-lun or the paradisiacal Ararat. These burying-places are erected chiefly by wealthy families, and the following is a representation of one in the rear of the foreign settlement at Hung-kow (), Shanghae. There can be no question as to what this is intended to represent. The square base is the Earth, and is designated te; the four small mounds represent the four enormous mountains of the Shoo king, viz. T'ae, Hwa, Huang und Hăng, which surround the central gigantic triplicated Sung or Khwăn-lun. The animated Khwan-lun is at once the god Shang-te and his physical emblem or phallus; and hence it is + Medhurst's Shoo king, p. 18, note.

The Gentile World, p. 362.

Cf. Chin. Rep., vol. xiii, p. 83, 84.

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designated Tien or "Heaven." From this deity the human race are generated, and to it they all return. That the arrangement of the ancient empire in the Shoo king is intended to represent the far distant Khwan-lun or Ararat with its surrounding chains, is plain from the fact, that all the characteristic features of the latter are transferred to the supposed local circle of mountains. As we are told that the original Khwan-lun, fifty thousand li distant from the Sung mountain, is the centre of the earth, and immediately under the centre of heaven or the north-polar star, so are we also informed, that the local arrangement is at "the middle of the world," and that "the Sung eminence is exactly under the centre of the heavens." As it is an impossibility that two places so far apart could be exactly under the same point in the heavens, it is plain that in these and such-like statements, the supposed character, features, and position of that lofty mountain range from which the present world was peopled, have been transferred to China, and the natural features of that empire have been distorted in the endeavour to show that China is the world.

The chief features of the ancient city of Babylon are as follows. It was square in form, having gates on the four sides; the sacred river Euphrates flowed through the midst of it; all the streets were in straight lines, some parallel to the river, and others at right angles to these. In this city was-first, the outer wall;-secondly, the inner wall, within which stood the palace surrounded by "a wall of great strength;" and, between the first and second walls stood the temple of Belus, in which "there was no statue of any kind." The present

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Tien hea, signifies both the world and the empire of China, which the ancient
Chinese regarded as being synonymous.

+ Medhurst's Shoo king, pp. 5, 15, notes.

capital of China presents a striking parallel to this arrangement, in which there is first the imperial city surrounded by a high wall, with gates facing the four cardinal points; secondly, outside this, the Tartar city surrounded also by its own wall; and thirdly, outside the Tartar city is placed the Chinese city and the outer wall, within which stands the temple of Shang-te or "Belus," in which also there is no statue of any kind.*

This arrangement evidently comes down from that of the supposed imperial capital of ancient China, which in its general features corresponded with ancient Babylon. The ancient imperial domain was an exact square divided into lesser squares, with gates at the four quarters, corresponding to the four lofty mountain ranges in the midst of which the empire was supposed to be situated.† Through this the Chinese portion of the Hwang-ho or "Yellow river" ran.

The characteristics of the sacred river Euphrates have also been transferred to this sacred river of China. The Hwang-ho we are told arises in the far distant region of Khwăn-lun or Ararat, and like the Euphrates, pursues a winding course from north to south, and "entering China is called "the River;" it winds around eighty cities, so that a portion of these waters remain in China." "The artery (origin) of the mountains of the world is Khwăn-lun, and where this chain rises, there also is the fountain of waters. Khwan-lun is a far distant origin of waters, and it is only the River of China which has its source there; .hence of all the sources of the waters of the world, that

...

of the River is the chief. The ancients in sacrificing to the waters, worshipped the River first and the seas next, to show respect to source." It was supposed by the Chinese geographers, that "the head-waters of the Yellow river were fed from Lop-nor, the outlet of that lake running under ground more than five hundred miles through the intervening desert, till it reappeared in this place," i. e. where it entered China. This Hwang-ho is called the Sita-Ganga in the Puranas, and is one of the four holy rivers which, according to the Hindoos take their rise in mount Meru, or the paradisiacal Ararat.§ Four sacred rivers are supposed to take their rise in the region of Khwan-lun; these fall into a lake called the Starry sea, and the one "River" or Hwang-ho then proceeding on its course enters China proper from, as it were, a new source, viz. the local Khwăn-lun. following is taken from a map in the

tung chow lee kuo che, vol. i.

* See a full description of Peking in The Chinese Repository, vol. ii.

+ Medhurst's Shoo king, p. 13, note, p. 28. Legge, p. 144 and notes.

Ị Kong-he, A Khăn.

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