Germany, Russia, France and England wrested from the weak hands
of the Emperor Kuang Hsu the four best ports in the Chinese
empire, leaving China without a place to rendezvous a fleet. The
whole empire was aroused to indignation, and even in our
Christian schools, every essay, oration, dialogue or debate was a
discussion of some phase of the subject, "How to reform and
strengthen China." The students all thought, the young reformers
all thought, and the foreigners all thought that Kuang Hsu had
struck the right track. The great Chinese officials, however,
were in doubt, and it was because of their doubt--progressives as
well as conservatives--that the Empress Dowager was again called
to the throne.

Now may I request the enemies of the Empress Dowager to ask
themselves what they would have done if they had been placed at
the head of their own government when it was thus being filched
from them? You say she was anti-foreign--would you have been
very much in love with Germany, Russia, France and England under
those circumstances? That she acted unwisely in placing herself
in the hands of the conservatives and allying herself with the
superstitious Boxers, we must all frankly admit. But what would
you have done? Might you not--I do not say you would with your
intelligence--but might you not have been induced to have
clutched at as great a log as the patriotic Boxers seemed to
present, if you had been as near drowning as she was?

"It is generally supposed," says one of her critics, "that Kang
Yu-wei suggested to the Emperor, that if he would render his own
position secure, he must retire the Empress Dowager, and
decapitate Jung Lu." If that be true, and I think it very