I will cite but one instance, where the parallel is indeed remarkable. In the I--King mention is made of the fallen dragon, or of the spirit of the dragon that, for his presumption in wishing to ascend to heaven, was precipitated into the abyss; and the words in which this event is described are precisely the same, or at least very similar to those which our Scriptures apply to the rebel angel, and the Persian books to Ahriman. However this dragon is whimsically, we might almost say, artlessly, made the sacred symbol of the Chinese empire and Emperor. The paternal power of the latter is understood in a much too absolute sense: not only is the Emperor styled the lord of heaven and earth, and even the son of God; but his will it revered as the will of God, or rather completely identified with it; and even the most determined eulogists of the Chinese constitution and manners cannot deny that the monarch is almost the object of a real worship. Christianity teaches that all power is from God; but it does not thereby declare that all power is one and the same with God. Even a dominion over nature and her powers is ascribed to the Emperor of China, as the illustrious lord of heaven and earth. Moreover, no hereditary nobility, no classes separated by distinctions of birth, exist in this country, as in India. The Emperor, half identified with the Deity, had alone the privilege in ancient times of offering on the sacred heights the great sacrifice to God. Some European writers have, from this circumstance, conceived the Chinese constitution to be theocratic; but if it be so, it is only in its outward form, or original mould; for it would be difficult to shew in it any trace of a true, vital theocracy. All that pomp of sacred ceremony and religious titles, so strangely abused, forms a striking contrast with real history, and with that long succession of profligate and unfortunate reigns and perpetual revolutions which fill most of the pages of the Chinese annals. We should err greatly were we to regard all these high imperial titles as the mere swell and exaggeration of Eastern phraseology. The Chinese speak of their celestial Empire of the Medium, as they call their country, in terms which no European writer would apply to a Christian state, and such indeed as the Scriptures and religious authors use in reference only to the kingdom of God. They cannot conceive it possible for the earth to contain two emperors at one and the same time, and own the sway of more than one such absolute lord and master. Hence they look on every solemn foreign embassy as a debt of homage; nor is this sentiment the idle effect of vanity, or fancy--it is a firm and settled belief, perfectly coinciding with the whole system of their religious and political doctrines. This political idolatry of the state, which the Chinese identify with the emperor's person, is a pagan error: all excess, all exaggeration is sure to produce opposition and re-action, or a tendency thereto.