Although The Most Famous Of The Societies, And The One Which Is Regarded As The Parent Of All That Have Come After It, The Water-Lily Had, As A Distinct Organization, A Very Brief Existence.

Its organizers seem to have dropped the name, or to have allowed it to sink into disuse in consequence of the strenuous official measures taken against the society by the government for the attempt, in 1803, on Kiaking's life in the streets of Pekin.

They merged themselves into the widely-extended confederacy of the Society of Celestial Reason - the Theen-te-Hwuy - which became better known by the title given to it by Europeans of the Triads, from their advocacy of the union between Heaven, earth, and man. The Water-Lily Society, before it was dissolved, caused serious disturbances in both Shantung and Szchuen, and especially in the latter province, where the disbanded army that had rescued Tibet and punished the Goorkhas furnished the material for sedition. With more or less difficulty, and at a certain expense of life, these risings were suppressed, and Kiaking's authority was rendered secure against these assailants, while for his successors was left the penalty of feeling the full force of the national indignation of which their acts were the expression.

With regard to the organization of these secret societies, which probably remain unchanged to the present day, China had nothing to learn from Europe either as to the objects to be obtained in this way or as to how men are to be bound together by solemn vows for the attainment of illegal ends.

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Words from 89969 to 90233 of 191255