Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/208

148 For it was thanks in large measure to the intercourse between East and West, which was generated by the clash of nations at the time when the turbulent Mongol hordes thundered at her gates, that Europe acquired the century-old inventions of Asia. Knowledge of the polarity of the lodestone, the art of printing, the rude power of gunpowder,—these were some of the gifts culled from the superior stores of Asian wisdom. "By the shock of nations the darkness of the middle ages was dispersed. Calamities which at first aspect seemed merely destined to afflict mankind, served to arouse it from the lethargy in which it had remained for ages; and the subversion of twenty empires was the price at which Providence accorded to Europe the light of modern civilisation."

When one bears in mind the long start which Asia enjoyed along the road of progress, the backward place which she occupies to-day appears all the more remarkable. The tremendous strides which China will have to take before recovering her place among