temple in modern Kiangsi for purposes of meditation. But this seems to
have no connexion with the later sect, of which we first hear in 1308,
when its existence was prohibited, its shrines destroyed, and its
votaries forced to return to ordinary life. Members of the fraternity
were then believed to possess a knowledge of the black art; and later
on, in 1622, the society was confounded by Chinese officials in Shantung
with Christianity. In the present instance, it is said that no fewer
than thirty thousand adherents were executed before the trouble was
finally suppressed; from which statement it is easy to gather that under
whatever form the White Lily Society may have been originally initiated,
its activities were now of a much more serious character, and were, in
fact, plainly directed against the power and authority of the Manchus.

Almost from this very date may be said to have begun that turn of
the tide which was to reach its flood a hundred years afterwards. The
Manchus came into power, as conquerors by force of arms, at a time
when the mandate of the previous dynasty had been frittered away in
corruption and misrule; and although to the Chinese eye they were
nothing more than "stinking Tartars," there were not wanting many glad
enough to see a change of rule at any price. Under the first Emperor,
Shun Chih, there was barely time to find out what the new dynasty
was going to do; then came the long and glorious reign of K`ang Hsi,
followed, after the thirteen harmless years of Yung Chêng, by the
equally long and equally glorious reign of Ch`ien Lung. The Chinese
people, who, strictly speaking, govern themselves in the most democratic
of all republics, have not the slightest objection to the Imperial
tradition, which has indeed been their continuous heritage from remotest
antiquity, provided that public liberties are duly safeguarded, chiefly
in the sense that there shall always be equal opportunities for all.
They are quick to discover the character of their rulers, and discovery