deemer from Disease.[1] This attempt on the part of Yang to identify himself with the Holy Ghost encroached on the place Hung held by reason of his earlier visions and was accompanied by treasonable political actions. But it helps us to understand Hung's position, which was that God as Father, and Jesus as elder brother, had prerogatives on which a younger brother must not encroach, but that he was nevertheless more than mortal man. This identification of himself with the heavenly family did not raise troublesome questions of speculative theology; there is no argument about the possibility of holding such a relationship: he holds it as a matter of faith and conviction.
Here we see the fruit of an unguided Confucian mind working on materials recorded in the Bible, which Hung accepted literally and turned to his own purposes. As he progresses in his thought he finds himself farther and farther away from the teachings of the Protestant Christianity with which he had first come into contact at Canton. He is a prophet and son of God in his own right; he is willing to accept little or no guidance from the teachers of the foreign faith, though he must recognize that they represent the worship of the same God. It is for them to come to him for enlightenment, for he has come direct
- ↑ The full title of Yang in Chinese was Yang, The Comforter, The Holy Ghost, Ho-nai Teacher, Saviour from Disease, General of the Left Wing of the Main Army. "He [Yang] has applied to himself the terms employed in Gutzlaff's Version of the New Testament for 'the Comforter,' and that used by Morrison to designate the Holy Ghost." (From an anonymous writer "X.Y.Z." in the N. C. Herald, quoted in Brine, p. 196.) To the same effect Dr. Bridgman, who was also on the Susquehanna expedition to Nanking, 1854, p. 192. Yang was then at the height of his power, when he was having his name inserted in the doxology where the Holy Ghost is praised, and omitting the name of the T'ienwang altogether. It comes at a time when Yang is usurping the powers of government and reproving the T'ienwang; it is one of the things leading eventually to Yang's overthrow.
