While travelling in China, and trying to gain the Chinese point of view, I met so many charming people, so many men of intelligence and liberal education, honorable, broad-minded, and devoted to the uplifting of their unhappy country, that I became exceedingly interested in their cause, and anxious to aid it. With this object in view I am striving, through the medium of a story, to present it to those young Americans who, in the near future, will be called upon to decide the ultimate fate of the great Middle Kingdom. With them, more than with any other people, even including the Chinese themselves, will rest the decision, whether China shall remain a nation, open to the unobstructed commerce of the world, or become a series of petty colonial possessions devoted only to the interests of their several ruling powers. That my young readers may be guided to a wise and just solution of this great problem, is the sincere hope of their friend,