This man is none
other than the Emperor their vicegerent. He is constituted ruler over
all people. This accounts for three things; first, the superiority
which the Chinese emperors assume over the kings and rulers of other
countries; secondly, for the long-lived empire of China, it being
rebellion against Heaven to lift up one's self against the Emperor;
and in the third place it explains to us why divine honours are paid
to him. He is a sacred person. He is in a certain sense a god. The
view is similar to that entertained by the Roman Emperors, who, in
inscriptions and on coins employed the term Deus, and at times exacted
divine honours. As we turn from the Joss-House and walk away from this
bit of heathendom in the heart of an active, stirring, prosperous,
great American city with its Christian civilisation and its Christian
Churches and its Christian homes, we cannot but ask ourselves what
would have been the history of the Pacific States, of California with
its nearly eight hundred miles of coast, if the Chinese had settled
here centuries ago? If they had been navigators and colonizers like
the Phoenicians of old, like the Greeks and Romans, if they had had
a Columbus, a Balboa, a Cabrillo, a Drake, the whole history of the
country west of the Rocky Mountains might have been totally different.
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