Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/721



For some two thousand years China has been the field of almost ceaseless endeavour by alien missionaries. The efforts of Buddhists, Manichaeans, Nestorians and the emissaries of countless Christian churches and sects have met with varying but often large success. The ultimate origins of Taoism go back to some remote and unknown date beyond this period, and they also may have come from abroad. Since the beginning of our era, and perhaps earlier, colonies of Jews have lived and practised their religion in different parts of China, and at least one community retained its characteristics till the last century. Many millions of Muhammadans, Chinese in all else but their foreign ancestry and the profession of their faith, still live in harmony with the rest of the population.

The foregoing facts sufficiently indicate the attitude shown by Chinese towards religion. It has always been tolerant so long as the imported faith was not suspected of subverting national institutions. One factor favouring this broad-minded view has undoubtedly been the widespread infusion of foreign blood. Again and again the throne has been occupied by an alien dynasty, and, though in the end Chinese culture has always succeeded in absorbing the semi-barbarian conquerors, outside influences have left their mark.

Thus the study of religious belief in China is a task of extreme complexity and magnitude, utterly beyond the powers of one man in his lifetime. Still less is a bare outline of the subject possible in a small book of 202 pages, such as this, prepared for