Wesley Corpus

What their learning is now, I know not; but notwithstand ing their boast of its antiquity, it was certainly very low and contemptible in the last century, when they were so astonished at the skill of the French Jesuits, and honoured them as almost more than human, for calculating eclipses ! And whatever progress they may have made since, in the know ledge of astronomy, and other curious, rather than useful, sciences, it is certain they are still utterly ignorant of what it most of all concerns them to know: They know not God, any more than the Hottentots; they are all idolaters to a man; and so tenacious are they of their national idolatry, that even those whom the French Missionaries called con verts, yet continued one and all to worship Confucius and the souls of their ancestors. It is true, that when this was strongly represented at Rome by an honest Dominican who came from thence, a Bull was issued out and sent over into China, forbidding them to do it any longer. But the good Fathers kept it privately among themselves, saying, the Chinese were not able to bear it. Such is their religion with respect to God. But are they not eminent for all social virtues, all that have place between man and man? Yes, according to the accounts which some have given. According to these, they are the glory of mankind, and may be a pattern to all Europe. But have not we some reason to doubt if these accounts are true? Are pride and laziness good ingredients of social virtue 7 And can all Europe equal either the laziness or pride of the Chinese Nobility and Gentry, who are too stately or too indolent even to put the meat into their own mouths? Yet they are not too proud or too indolent to oppress, to rob, to defraud, all that fall into their hands. How flagrant instances of this may any one find even in the account of Lord Anson's voyage 1 exactly agreeing with the accounts given by all our countrymen who have traded in any part of China; as well as with the observation made by a late writer in his “Geographical Grammar:” “Trade and commerce, or rather, cheating and over-reaching, is the natural bent and genius of the Chinese. Gain is their god; they prefer this to everything besides.