“From having been the religious teacher of Hung-siu-tsuen in 1847, and hoping that good—religious, commercial, and political—would result to the nation from his elevation, I have hitherto been a friend to his revolutionary movement, sustaining it by word and deed, as far as a missionary consistently could without vitiating his higher character as an ambassador of Christ. But after living among them fifteen months, and closely observing their proceedings—political, commercial, and religious—I have turned over entirely a new leaf, and am now as much opposed to them—for good reasons, I think—as I ever was in favour of them. Not that I have aught personally against Hung-siu-tsuen; he has been exceedingly kind to me. But I believe him to be a crazy man, entirely unfit to rule without any organised government; nor is he, with his coolie kings, capable of organising a government, of equal benefit to the people, of even the old Imperial Government. He is violent in his temper, and lets his wrath fall heavily upon his people, making a man or woman ‘an offender for a word,’ and ordering such instantly to be murdered without ‘judge or jury.’ He is opposed to commerce, having had more than a dozen of his own people murdered since I have been here, for no other crime than trading in the city, and has promptly repelled every foreign effort to establish lawful commerce here among them, whether inside of the city or out. His religious toleration and multiplicity of chapels turn out to be a farce—of no avail in the spread of Christianity—worse than useless. It only amounts to a machinery for the promotion and spread of his own political religion, making himself equal with Jesus Christ, who, with God the Father, himself, and his own son, constitute one Lord over all!! Nor is any missionary who will not believe in his divine appointment to this high equality, and promulgate his political religion accordingly, safe among these rebels, in life, servants, or property. He told me soon after I arrived, that if I did not believe in him I would perish, like the Jews did for not believing in the Saviour. But little did I then think that I should ever come so near it, by the sword of one of his own miscreants, in his own capital, as I did the other day.