Note 187 — XV. (continued 2)

Very similar are the reports made by the English who, in Dec. 1858, accompanied Lord Elgin on his voyage of discovery up the Kiang, and remained a considerable period among the Tai-ping. "The tenets of their religion," says Mr. Laurence Oliphant (vide Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, vol. ii. p. 463), "consist of a singular jumbling of Jewish ordinances, Christian theology, and Chinese philosophy. Like the Jews in the Old Testament they wage wars of extermination, they live like the worst professing Christians, and they believe like—Chinese."