that men who daily expected the coming of the Lord should have no idea, and seek for no information, as to what He would be like when He appeared. To those who had known Him and to those who had never seen Him alike the question was of vital moment. Suppose He should appear to-morrow-in the Coliseum-in the Coliseum Vespasian had just built as an arena where the Christians should be cast to the wild beasts. Suppose He should come in the sight of the 80,000 spectators. Suppose that His beloved should be caught up to meet Him, or that He should shut the mouths of the lions, or that He should open the books for judgment. Peter would know Him, John would know Him-even Paul would recognise the face that shone on him on the road to Damascus. But the brethren? Can we believe that there was one amongst them who, having yielded to Paul's preaching, never asked Paul what the Master was like—to whom they owed allegiance for whom they were ready to die—to whom they looked as their Redeemer pledged to come to them in their sore trial to take them to Himself? But what if He should come as a thief in the night, when they were alone-these poor hunted Christians, who had never seen Him themselves, but trusted Him nevertheless? What if He should come when they were hiding in the Catacombs, and there was no Paul, or Peter, or John present to say "This is the Lord"? In "Rex Regum "I show that we have to deal in this question not only with the archæologia but with the humanities of the subject-something more, that is, than can be found under the glass cases of a museum. The human soul refuses to believe that the Christians of the first century were indifferent to the knowledge of the authenticity of the likeness of Christ.

For upon what else do we base our belief in the Resurrection? The Dean's theory would smash St. Paul's argument altogether. How careful St. Paul is, and exact! "He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve." Ah! but Cephas was an enthusiast, and the twelve were not scientific observers; moreover, they had their reasons for propagating the new faith. Very well, then, says St. Paul, "He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep." "But," says

an inquirer, "tell us now, Paul, can you dare to say that you ever saw Him yourself?" And St. Paul answers with the humble and beautiful words which ring through the centuries-"Last of all He was seen of me also."

He

There is one more point on which Dean Farrar lays stress. says: "It is strange that a writer in the nineteenth century should so confidently argue in favour of the authenticity of the likeness, when it is so well known that there was a marked difference between the Greek and Latin Fathers as to whether Christ was, in His human

aspect, beautiful or unlovely." It does not seem to occur to the Dean that even now such differences are very common. The reviewers, for instance, who comment upon " Rex Regum," though the same examples are before them all, contradict each other in the most bewildering fashion; one affirming that it is not strange that the fifty faces should be alike since they are all Jewish-another informing his readers that the one remarkable characteristic of the illustrations is

that there is not a Jewish face amongst them. The Dean forgets that in the Calixtine portrait, which I regard as the divinest representation of Christ's face in the world, he can himself see nothing to inspire an artist, nor even to indicate that it is the face of Christ at all. What weight, then, is to be attached to a difference of opinion amongst the Fathers on a question of art? To the Greek, trained in the traditions of classic art, the face of a Jew was necessarily incongruous with his conceptions of the Deity. Thus Celsus satirises the Christians on the ugliness of their God. And Origen replies on behalf of the Christians. He admits the ugliness; but he thinks that to those who can discern spiritual beauty Christ will appear beautiful. There could scarcely be stronger evidence than this to show that these men were discussing the same likeness, and that it was a likeness well known to their readers. Otherwise the taunt is pointless, and the

reply irrelevant.

Again I write impatiently. All this is but a negative argument addressed to the specific objections raised by the Dean of Canterbury. In itself it does not prove the truth of the likeness; it only removes a non possumus which might frighten timid souls from going further. Let me now state in a few words the facts on which I do rely in my Rex Regum "-the facts to which the Dean of Canterbury does not so much as refer, and against which the opinions of the Fathers are of no avail.

1. We possess a likeness or representation of the face of Christ, which is universally recognised; so that if we see it painted on a wall, or grouped with other faces, we know for whom it is intended. There are many versions of it, which we may admire or criticise, feeling that one painter has been happier than another in his rendering of it; but the likeness which underlies them all, and which the painter intended to realise, we quite understand. It is this commonly received likeness with which I am concerned in "Rex Regum."

2. Who invented this likeness? Clearly not the painters of the present day, for it existed in the works of the great painters of the Renascence.

3. Nor was it invented by the painters of the Renascence, for it existed in the mosaics of the basilicas for a thousand years before they adopted it.

4. This same likeness exisited in the time of Constantine, when

the Churches divided East and West. The Greek Church followed a traditional likeness existing in Byzantium, known and recognised and held to be authentic; the Latin Church followed a traditional likeness existing in Rome, known and recognised and held to be authentic ; and the two likenesses, Greek and Latin, are the same.

5. This likeness existed in and was brought from the Catacombs by the Christians when, in the year 306, Constantine gave them religious liberty.

6. This likeness had been painted over the graves of the martyrs in the Catacombs by men who lived in the expectation of the immediate coming of Christ, and who believed that they would recognise Him when he came.

7. This likeness existed in the Catacombs not as a solitary example, but in almost every form of pictorial and plastic art.

8. This likeness existed before the use of Christian symbolism had become general, side by side with actual portraits of the Apostles.

9. This likeness existed before the text of the fourth Gospel was known to the Christian community in Rome.

10. This likeness existed before John, and Peter, and Paul were. differentiated from their contemporaries by a nimbus or aureole, which was at that time reserved for Christ alone.

These propositions, proved step by step, from facsimiles of paintings, mosaics, cloth pictures, and engraved glass of the first century, form a a chain of evidence that satisfies me of the authenticity of the likeness. Limit the use of it as you will, guard against the abuse of it if necessary, but the fact remains that the manhood of Christ was visible to men apart from His godhead. And of this fact the likeness is the record. There is no escape from this dilemma. If the likeness of Christ is fictitious, it is misleading; and the Church, in holding it before our eyes these nineteen centuries, has been inviting us to believe in and to anticipate the second appearance of a personality which we shall not only never see, but which never had any existence. I believe that the likeness of Christ must stand or fall with Christianity.

WYKE BAYLISS.

THE YANGTSE VALLEY AND

ITS TRADE.

T

HIRTY-EIGHT years have passed since Lord Wolseley, then a subaltern in the army that invaded Peking in 1860, formed the opinion that Europe stood in peril from the Mongol race. Englishmen living in China who knew the Chinese people by long personal contact were startled upon reading the celebrated article in the Nineteenth Century in which England was threatened with the yellow spectre, and asked themselves, Can Lord Wolseley be joking, or does he mean some other race than the "mild-eyed, melancholy, lotus-eating "-i.e., opium-smoking-people whom we know so well? Only the other day Lord Salisbury spoke of 400,000,000 of brave Chinamen: this must surely have been "writ sarcastic," but English residents in China took it seriously, and wondered more than ever as to what the foreign policy of our Government in China could be worth-if indeed there were any policy at all. It seems as if China were destined for ever to be like one of her own ingenious mechanical puzzles, which few "Westerns" have the patience and skill to solve. The most puzzled by the complex Chinese problem appear to be the politicians by profession anything more "mixed" and inconclusive than the latest parliamentary debate that of August 10-it is difficult to conceive; and if those whose business it is to study the question find it difficult, how shall the man in the street be expected to understand it? What is the 66 open door" and what are the "spheres of influence"? Are both these courses to be pursued simultaneously, or have we an option in the matter?

It is to give some account of our own reputed sphere of influence the Yangtse Valley-with which I happen to have somewhat intimate acquaintance, that I have been asked by the Editor of this REVIEW to write an article. To enter into a discussion of the

"Chinoiseries " of Asiatic politics is beyond my province. Nearly forty years in the country have left me little wiser in this respect than I was on the day I first landed in the ancient city of Canton, at that time still in the occupation of British troops. China differs enormously from Europe; precedents acquired by the study of European history and of European civilisations are falsified directly we come to China; long residence amongst the Chinese merely results in upsetting our previous convictions; the more we study the subject the deeper we find our ignorance; so that I shall not attempt the quaking ground of politics, but confine myself to the terra firma of Geography.

The valley of a river is generally defined as bounded by its watershed. The Yangtse River, from its farthest source in the Kwenlun on the Tibetan tableland to its mouth below Shanghai, is estimated, with its windings, to be about 3000 miles in length, of which nearly twothirds is navigable. We have thus navigable water 2000 miles in length on the main river, with at least half as much again upon its principal affluents or over 3000 miles in all-everywhere flowing through some of the richest and certainly through the most populous regions on the world's surface. The Mississippi, with its great affluent the Missouri, has likewise a navigable length of some 2000 miles; but, unlike the mighty Yangtse, which sweeps down with a volume of water estimated at 110,000 cubic feet per second at a point 1500 miles above its mouth, the upper reaches of the Missouri are unnavigable in the dry season. In the high water season, which extends from May to November, this volume is increased tenfold, the river rising 90 feet in Chungking, and sometimes as much as 200 feet in places where the channel is narrowed by the vertical cliffs of the great gorges. The Amazons are said to discharge into the Atlantic a greater body of water than the Yangtse discharges into the Pacific. If this be the case, still the Yangtse must be allowed the palm as regards the developed riches of the country it flows through and the populousness of its banks. For, from the " roof of the world," Tibet, where it takes its rise, to the tidal flats which guard its mouth below Shanghai, we have a constant scene of human activity, developing the surface of the surrounding countries to their highest possible range of productiveness. Beginning near its many sources on the great Tibetan plateau, we have the wool derived from the flocks of the handsome Tibetan sheep that thrive in the dry air of the rich pasture lands; coming to the borderland behind the grand wall of snowy mountains, 22,000 feet and more, which fences in China proper on its western boundary, we find musk deer, whose scent-bag is used to form the basis of all our perfumes, the medicinal rhubarb which the Chinese imagine to be a necessary of life to us gross meat-eaters, with numberless other things indispensable to the Chinese pharmacopoeia, not except