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The Chinese have worshipped one God, Kien Tien, from time immemorial, without inferior gods,—the Emperor being sovereign pontiff, and viceroy of God.

Yet we must be careful not to give these ancients too much credit, for, like the moderns with rare exceptions, (by their favor) they have made God no better than a determined master, whose banner showed no insignia but the death's head and thigh-bones. Some of their philosophers, advancing into religious speculation, devised theories which were meant to account for evil in the world, while yet they hoped in the purity of the one God. Thus we have, amongst others, the eternal conflict of two equal beings; a conflict in which the better of two eternal beings shall ultimately triumph; and a devil by permission, who shall work yet some definite period. Under the latter method we have sects making man himself more or less the principal in his own final destruction, we can hardly determine whether in spite of the Almighty, or by his permission, or by making Him the author of both good and evil. Among them all, we will bear the reproach of saying, there is no perfectly satisfactory theory. The philosophical minds of the earth have, for the most part, approved Father Lactantius, where, on the "Anger of God," chapter 13, he makes Epicurus speak as follows: "God can either take away evil from the world, and will not; or, being willing to do so, cannot; or he neither can nor will; or, lastly, he is both willing and able. If he is willing to remove evil, and cannot, he is not omnipotent. If he can remove it, but will not, he is