[VOL IV] JOSS-HOUSE, CHAPOO. DEATH OF COL. TOMLINSON

JOSS-HOUSE, CHAPOO.DEATH OF COL. TOMLINSON.

Cover Image: Joss-House, Chapoo – Death of Colonel Tomlinson / HaiYan JiaXing ZheJiang China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by T.A.Prior – ALAMY Image ID:2X55NFN

*Nicholas Ralph Tomlinson (1803-1842) was a British Army Infantry Officer who Commanded Her Majesty’s 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot during the First Anglo-Chinese War (First Opium War). Lieutenant Colonel Tomlinson was killed leading his regiment at the Battle of Chapu on 2 May 1842. / Sketched on the Spot by Capt Stoddart R.N..

Whatever heavens, sea and land begat,
Hills, seas, and rivers, God was this and that.

JER.

THE fall of Chapoo and death of Colonel Tomlinson have been described in the preceding pages of this volume;( * Vide p. 49, &c.)the accompanying view, taken almost immediately after the sanguinary conflict which it so spiritedly represents, places before the reader the local characters of the scene on which it occurred.

In other countries, as well as in China, temples of religious worship have been converted into places of temporary defence, in time of war, and garrisoned by gallant companies that have done honour to their country. Instances are so numerous, that no student of history can be unacquainted with some of them. The positions of churches, either on a conspicuous eminence, or in a sheltered glen – either in the very centre of the village, or commanding its entrance – having a tower well suited for a military post, from which musketry can act, with dreadful effect, upon an assailing party, render their occupancy always a point of importance. And it may accordingly be observed, that the most fatal encounters, in every aggressive war, have arisen from a struggle for their possession. The death of Colonel Tomlinson was attended with circumstances of greater gallantry than any other event in the Chinese war; and the obstinate defence of the Joss-house at Chapoo may be appealed to by the Tartars, as an evidence of their personal bravery.

Like the religions of the Chinese, their places of worship are also various: temples, on an extensive scale, capacious and lofty; but joss-houses, of minor proportions: the former often adorned with pagodas—the latter seldom; but both possessing accommodation for resident bonzes, and altars for consultation, to which votaries bring joss-sticks, and perfumes, and tin-foil, and other ingredients requisite for the performance of ceremonies calculated to propitiate the tutelar deities. How these inferior gods became entitled to this worship is probably little understood by the frequenters of their temples, especially since the number is considerable, and the idea attached to the divinity of many somewhat complex. Besides Halls of Confucius, Joss-Houses, or Halls of Ancestors, Temples to Buddha and Taou-tze, there are Miaos to the Mother of Heaven, the God of Fire, the Devil Star, the Four Chaste Ladies, the Dragon King, Literature, the Winds, Longevity – deities who attend travellers, and conduct them home in safety; and others, of whose office the description would be still more tedious. To all these objects of worship, joss-houses appear to be consecrated; and to some of them, (the dii majores, probably,) greater buildings. Notwithstanding the obvious folly of the Chinese modes of worship, there is one principle connected with them that is exemplary – toleration. Nor is the objection of much weight which ascribes that quality to indifference rather than liberality, for, the Chinese may employ the arguments of Symmachus, a bitter enemy of Christianity, who yet maintained the free exercise of conscience in matters of religion. “Because God is immense and infinite,” says this epistolary author, “and his nature cannot be perfectly known, it is convenient he should be as diversely worshipped as every man shall perceive or understand” – a deplorable theory, yet the offspring of reason. The same writer recommends, “that every province should retain its own institutions, revelations, orders, oracles, which the genius of the place may, from time to time, have dictated to their priests or ministers.” There cannot be a more accurate account of the plurality of religions that prevail in China, nor of the grounds on which toleration is permitted in that empire.