Every superior in China, from the Emperor to the military officer or civil Mandarin, is “a father;” all under him are his “children,” and as such must obey him without question or demur. “Filial disobedience,” whether to parents or governors, is the highest crime. Filial disobedience is thus defined:—“In our general conduct not to be orderly, is to fail in filial duty; in a Magistrate not to be faithful, is to fail in filial duty: among friends, not to be sincere, is to fail in filial duty: in arms and war, not to be brave, is to fail in filial duty.” A people thus treated as children, must ever remain in a state of childhood; and though education is general among the Chinese, it is an education which, like the bandages on their women’s feet, binds their minds _from_ growing, and restricts them to the size and calibre of infancy. Education in China consists solely in social and political training for the purposes of despotism. The studies are confined to one unvaried routine, and no deviation from the prescribed track is permitted. Within this circle all are, and must be, educated. Hence an uniformity of mind prevails, and has prevailed for ages throughout China, and has extended itself to the national features; betraying itself in Snub Noses and a dull, stolid expression of countenance. So much for compulsory education! It is impossible that it should be otherwise. A nation whose minds are all reduced to the same level; whose thoughts are prescribed; whose daily conduct is measured out; whose very amusements are dictated by an imperial will, must necessarily soon become uniform, both mentally and physically. This uniformity will be the waveless level of the Dead Sea. Storms may agitate the upper sky, winds may rage, and floods descend; but the waves are too heavy to rise from their death-like repose. They sleep the calm sleep, not of peace, but of death. The last trumpet alone can arouse their torpor. The benignant mind of the Christian may nourish sweet hopes of evangelizing a nation so sunk. but the hopes are vain. Christianity came not till the human mind was fitted and prepared to receive and understand its divine precepts. It came not to the infancy of the world, but to its old age and matured judgment. A nation, therefore, steeped in the irreclaimable dotage of a childhood which has endured throughout its whole life, cannot receive it. Both the Hindoos and the Chinese have forfeited by their long-lived puerility the blessed message.