ABSTRACT
The pamphlet was a religious tract titled "Good Words to Admonish the Age," written by Liang Afa, an early convert of Protestant evangelical missionaries working in the Canton area during the years just before the outbreak of the Opium War. Studies show that local secret society leaders, who by custom often organized rural activism in times of economic distress were some of the first to become involved with the Taiping movement. Although separated by more than three hundred years and significantly different social contexts, Thomas Muntzer and Hong Xiuquan shared some strikingly similar goals. By the time of China's first major encounter with European capitalism, developments had moved well beyond large trading companies of the Fugger variety to the industrial stage of capitalist economics. The relationship between class and status affiliations has always been a dynamic one in Chinese society and continued to be so during and after the Taiping Rebellion, even though the rebellion itself temporarily accentuated class divisions.
