ABSTRACT
China's momentous Taiping Rebellion was inspired and propelled by a syncretistic religion formulated by Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, a disaffected member of China's besieged Hakka minority. Hung Hsiu-ch’uan was born on January 11, 1814, and grew up in Kuan-lu-pu, a Hakka village in Hua county, Kwangtung province, thirty miles north of Canton. Poverty kept the Hakka monogamous. Nor did they take their women out of farm work and market activities through foot-binding. The Hakka were proud to have originated in the cradle of Chinese civilization and were devoted to Confucian ethics. The missionary insisted that converts could be both Chinese and Christian. While rightly valuing human relationships, he claimed, Chinese Christians worship the one true God instead of “false” gods, which they are obligated to denounce. After weekly Bible study and prayer with Milne, whose exemplary “life and habits” Liang admired, the convert sought to become China's second baptized Protestant.
