There Is No
Room To Doubt That The Catholic Priests Had Drawn A Too Hasty And Too
Favorable Deduction From The Favor Of Kanghi.
They confounded their
practical utility with the intrinsic merit and persuasive force of
Christianity.
An enlightened ruler had recognized the former, but a
skeptical people showed themselves singularly obdurate to the latter. The
persecution of the Christians, of which the letters from the missionaries
at Pekin at this time are so full, did not go beyond the placing of some
restraint on the preaching of their religion. No wholesale executions or
sweeping decrees passed against their persons attended its course or
marked its development. Yung Ching simply showed by his conduct that they
must count no longer on the favor of the emperor in the carrying out of
their designs. The difficulties inherent in the task they had undertaken
stood for the first time fully revealed, and having been denounced as a
source of possible danger to the stability of the empire, they became an
object of suspicion even to those who had sympathized with them
personally, if not with their creed.
The early years of the reign of Yung Ching were marked by extraordinary
public misfortunes. The flooding of the Hoangho entailed a famine, which
spread such desolation throughout the northern provinces that it is
affirmed, on credible authority, that 40,000 persons were fed at the state
expense in Pekin alone for a period of four months. The taxes in some of
the most important cities and wealthiest districts had to be greatly
reduced, and the resources of the exchequer were severely strained.
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