THE
CHINESE EECOEDER
; \K
A.ND
MISSIONAEY JOURNAL.
VOLUME XII,
505830
a4 5 ■ 5o
SHANGHAI: AMERJCAN P F\ES B VT E RJ A N MISSION PI^ESa.
1 88 1.
INDEX TO VOL. XII.
Page.
A Compendium of History in Thirty Vols., . . . Eev. T. P. Crawford, D.D. 77, 193
A Letter to Professor F. Max. Miiller, ... ... ... ... Dr. Legge. 35
A Mongol Wizard, ... ... ... ... ... Hoinos. 57
A Sketch of the Lien-chow River, ... ... Rev. B. C. Henry, M.A. 344
A Strange Scene, ... ... ... ... Eev. Arthur Elwin. 16
An Essay on t\^, ^, §^, J^, ... ... ... Rev. M. Schaub. 294
At Home and Abroad, ... ... ... ... H. Friend. 384, 460
Biographical Sketch of the Rev. Joseph Race, ... ... Eev. W. Brewer. 27
Chinese Religious Tract Society, ... ... ... ... ... 283, 372
Confucianism in its practical bearings upon the Spread of Christianity in
China, ... ... ... ... ... ... M. C P. 218
Contributions by the Native Churches, ., . ... ... Eev. H. V. Noyes. 274
Correspondence.
Hilderic Friend. ... ... ,., ... ... ... ... 454
John L. Nevius. — A Correction. ... ... ... ... ... 131
John S. Fordham. ... ... ... ... ., ... ... 237
Juvenis. — A Bible Conference. ... ... ... ... ... 69
Timothy Richard. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 237
Wm. Muirhead. ... ... ... ... ... ... 302
Delusions about Mongolia. ... ... ... ... ... ... 109
Economy in Missionary Effort. ... ... ... ... ... 118
Editorial. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 237, 306
Facihties for Itineration in Canton. ... ... ... ... ... 438
In Memoriam. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 424
Missionary News.
Arrivals. ... ... ... ... ... 71, 134, 238, 307, 389, 470
Births. ... ... ... ... ... ... 70, 134, 307, 388, 470
Deaths. ... ... ... ... ... 70, 134, 238, 307, 388, 470
Bepartxires. ... ... .., ... 71, 134, 238, 307, 289, 470
Marriages. ... ... ... ... ... 70, 134, 238, 388, 470
America. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 242
Amoy. ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... 140, 310
Chefoo. ... ... ... ... ... ... 139, 240, 892, 472
Chinkiang. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 139
Foochow. ... ... ... ... ... ... 74, 140, 240
Formosa .. ... ... ... ... ... 141
Hangchow. ... ... ... ... ... 138, 239, 307, 391, 471
Hankow. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 240
Hongkong. ... ... ... ... ... ... 141, 241
Kiukiang. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 240
Newchwang. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 140
Ningpo. ... ... ... ... ... ... 137, 239, 472
\[ INDEX TO VOL. XII.
142
Sandwich Islands - y^; 135, 239, 307. 389, 471
S^^^S^^' . . 72, 242
^'*™- 71, 239, 307
So«°^^°^- - ... 139, »92
Tientsin. ... ... ■•• ••• ■•■ ' '
Missionary Manual. ... ••• ••• _ " . ^ i. it. i ono
Notes on the Ethical and Christian Value of Chinese Eehgious Tracts and Books. 203
NoTicfis 01 Eecent Publications.
English.
A Catalogue of the Library of the North-China Branch of the Royal ^^^ Asiatic Society. ... ••• ••• ••• •■• ■'•
A Monthly Illustrated Journal for the Educated Classes in India and Cylon. 143 Easy Sentences in the Hakka Dialect, with a Vocabulary. ... J. Dyer Ball. 473
Handbook of Enghsh. Japanese Etymology William Imbric. 143
History of China " D. C. Boulger. 316
Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1880,
New Series, No. XV. ... ... ... ••• ••• ••• ^^^
List of Protestant Missionaries in China, Japan and Siam. A. Herbete-Gordon. 374 Notices of Fusang and other countries lying East of China, in the Pacific
Ocean. ... ... ... .•• ••• S. Wella Williams. 316
Original Map of the Hill Country North and West of Peking. ... ... 8H
Questions and Answers on the Ten Commandments. ... ... 473
Report on the Production of Silk and its manufacture in China. ... 312
Report of the Peking Hospital, for the years 1878-79. ... ... 243
Report of the Medical Missionary Society in China, for the year llBSO. ... 243
Report of the Medical Missionary Hospital at Swatow in connection with
the Presbyterian Church of England for 1880. ... ,.. ... 244
Report of proceedings of the Second General Council of the Presbyterian
Alliance at Philadelphia, U.S.A., September, 1880. ... ... 311
Report of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of England
for 1880. ... ... ... ... ... ••• ••• 313
The China Review, for March and April, 1881. ... ... ... 314
„ „ ,, » May „ June, „ 397
„ „ „ „ Sept. „ Oct. „ '*74
The Chinese Globe Magazine. ... Rev. Young J. Alien, D.D., Editor. 314
The Chinese Review. ... ... ... ... ... ••• ^45
The Chrysanthemum, a Monthly Magazine for Japan and the Far East. ... 75
The Coins of Japan. ... ... ... ... William Bramaen. 75
The Foreigner in China. ... ... ... L. N. Wheeler, D.D. 473
The New Testament in Southern Mandarin Colloquial. ... ... 312
The Religious Condition of Christendom. ... ... ... ... 147
The Rock of Our Salvation. ... ... ... ... ... 313
The Vedic Religion, or the Creed and Practice of the Indu-aryans three
thousand years ago. ... ... Rev. K. S. Macdonald, M.A. 76
The Work of the American Bible Society in China and Japan in 1880. ... 897
The Works of Chuang-tsze. ... ... ... F.H.Balfour. 398
The Worship of Ancestors in China. Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D. 145 Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. VIII, part iii. ... 75
„ » » II ., i> 11 VIII, „ iv. ... 143
Chinese. :^J^MS^P^ The Two Friends. ... ... ... ... 142
nil ^ ^.-i )t 'i® ^1S S ^° e^^oj-'tatio^ *o ^■bstain from Opium. ... 142
f^jfy^^^i^ A Concordance of the New Testament in Chinese,
Eev. H. V. NoycB. 897
USDEX TO VOL. XII.
Ul
Obituary of the Eev. Justus Doolittle. Our Science Column.
Poetry.
" And the Maid Arose," ... ... ... ... J. Dyer Ball.
A Rhyme to the Editor.
In Loving Memory of the Zley. Joseph Race. ... ... ... M. I. B.
" She hath Done what she Could," ... ... ... J. Dyer Ball.
Progress of the Gospel in Ilau-chung fu, Shen-si. ...
Report of the Hankow Tract Society for the year 1880. Sacred Memories of Kev. J. S. Mcllvaine. ...
Shall we assist the Chinese, in acquiring a knowledge of the English language.
Short account of the Southern Methodist Mission, since 1877.
Sketches of a Country Parish. ... ... Rev. Arthur H. Smith- 245,
69 455
Rev, Ch. Piton.
Eev. C. A
Stanley.
The Decree of B.C. 403.
The Endowment Plan in the Churches. ...
The Gospel in Shensi.
The North-China Mission of the American Board ...
The Reverend Samuel R. Brown, D.D.
The Recuperation of China.
The School and Text Book Series. ... ..,.
The State Religion of China.
The Third Annual Meeting of the Chinese Religious Tract Society.
The Toleration of Christianity in China. ...
The Work of Protestant Mission in the Province of Shantung. ...
True Conditions of Church Membership. ...
Visit to Two Celebrated Peking Temple.
Work among the Chinese in Victoria, Australia, ... ... Mr. A. Gordon
130 301
68 300 101 101 297 225 292 317 430 128 104
54
64 ... 401
91
... 149
283, 372
1
87 20
362 1-15
THE
Ittn^s^ ^1^40i|d;i)l
AND ^^
MISSIONxVRY JOURNAL.
Vol. XII. JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1881. No. 1
THE TOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. By Eev. H. Blodget. pHRISTIANITY is radical in its nature. It aims at the complete ^ renovation of the individual ; and, so far as the influence and power of its professors extend, it aims also to renovate society. It begins with the heart and pervades the life. The family, the state, art, science, and literature, ail in a greater or less degree feel its effects. From small beginnings it has spread over the world, and now is presenting its claims in thousands of places, and in manifold ways to the government and people of this great empire.
To those from Christian lands, who have experienced its bless- ings from their earliest years, and who have known something of its beneficent fruits during its progress in the world, its advent is the dawn of a new day in China, and the harbinger of untold good. Not so to the government and people of this country. Their institu- tions and laws have been fixed for ages, and are of the most rigid and unbending character. Their social usages are governed by precedents of long standing and high antiquity. The underlying principles and religious systems, upon which Chinese civilization rests, have for many centuries been held by the people, and are, for the most part, simply the unfolding of what is found in their earliest historical records. To them the advent of Christianity, which seems likely to modify in some important respects their national institutions and customs, and to overthrow and supplant their long cherished systems of belief and worship, can only be an object of alarm and extreme aversion. This is owing in part to their ignorance of the true nature of Christianity, and in part to the deep opposition of the human heart, in its natural state, to the things of God.
2 THE TOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. [JailUary-
If, at its first coming to China, Christianity was regarded with indifference, or even with favor, as in the case of the emperors T»ai Tsung of the T<ang dynasty, and Wan Li of the Ming, this was because its principles, and the extent of its demands, were but imperfectly apprehended. Ultimately, in the case of any heathen nation, the conflict between Christianity and paganism must come. The religion of Christ must meet with the same treatment as did its founder. " If ye were of the world, the world would love his own : but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." " If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.'* He who expects that Christianity will enter and take possession of China, or any other heathen country, easily and quietly without opposition and excitement, without stirr^ing to the depths the hearts of men, come in, in the same way as the knowledge of some useful art, or as some valuable production of the soil, will be disappointed by the event. His expectations are contrary to the nature of the gospel, and contrary to what is predicted of its progress in the world.
There are but two ways in which Christianity can come to the ascendancy in China ; the one, that by which it came to be the religion of the Eoman empire, through violent persecutions, and the blood of many martyrs; the other, that in which the blind opposition and willful hatred of men are restrained and held in check by external influences. Which of these two ways is the desirable one in the view of intelligent Christians ?
Before saying more on this point let us refer briefly to the history of the past, as it regards the toleration of Christianity in China. For the present purpose this history may be divided into two periods ; the first, that In which Christianity received no protection from foreign nations ; the second ; that in which it has been protected by treaty enactments. The first period commences with the Nestorian Missions, about the year a.d. 505,* and ends with the formation of the treaties in 1842 and 1844. The second period extends from 1844 to the present time.
The Emperor T^ai Tsung of the T'ang dynasty, who came to the throne in the year 620, received with kindness, the Nestorian Missionary Olopun ; and his successors of that dynasty were for the most part favorable to the new religion, and did much for its dis- semination. Hue writes Vol. ii., p. 84, "The Emperor T*ai Tsung does not speak of Christianity like a man convinced of its truth; nor indeed does he of any other religion. He is an eclectic philosopher,
• See Williams' Middle Kingdom. Vol. II., p. 290.
February.] the toleration of Christianity in china. 3
who affords a hospitable reception to all kinds of creeds with equal benevolence, and equal indifference. He speaks like a prince, who having no state religion to defend, grants his protection alike to all modes of worship, and all symbols that do not oppose his government. His expressions are those of a true Chinese philosopher, disposed to believe that all religions are good according to time and place." There is little evidence that this emperor, or his successors possessed any considerable amount of knowledge of the real nature of Christ- ianity, so obscured had its light become by the corruption of its teachings, and the admixture of Budhism. Yet even at this time persecutions are recorded, as that by Budhists in the year 699, and by the Confucianists in the year 715 ; while in the year 845, the Emperor Wu Tsung issued an edict, commanding the 3,000 priests of the Nestorian Christians to retire to private life.
The first missionary of the Roman Catholic church to China, John de Monte Corvino, who arrived in Peking a.d., 1293, was received kindly by the Mongol Emperor Kublai, and not hindered ia his propagandism. His labors, and those of his successors during the short period of the Mongol dynasty, eighty-eight years, received the same toleration as those of tlie Nestorians and Mahommedans. The emperors of this dynasty were constantly engaged in war, and regarded with indifference the various forms of religion which were propagated within their dominions. Possibly they were inclined to favor Christ- ians on account of their severe contests with Mahommedans in Western Asia.*
It is probable that the Emperors of the Ming dynasty on their a3cessi()n to the throne, put a stop to the coming of Christian Mission- aries from the west, not so much on account of the religion thoy taug it, as on account of their connection with the Mongols, and com- ing through Mongol territory. From this time nothing is known, either of the N( storian, or of the Roman Catliolic Churches which had been planted in China. They seem to have died out entirely, and that, although the Nestorians had been in China nearly eight centuries. It is not known that either of these churches suffered persecution from the Emperors of the Ming dynasty. Their religion, it is to be feared, had little vitality; ©r^ if vital, it was suffocated in the arid desert of atheism and worldliness. One can but ask the question, how it .came to pass, that these Christian churches should have become extinct, while Mahommedauism has maintained itself in such vigour throughout China. Certainly there must remain in the
* Sej Mosheim's Church Historj, Yol. 2., p. 277. Alao Hue's Christianity ia Chin» Vol. 2. p. 333.
THE TOJ.ERATIOX OF OKRISTIANITY IN CHIKA. [Januaiy-
literature, or among the people of China some traces of these early Christian Churches, and it will be an interesting subject of historical research to find out their history. . The late Archimandrite Palladlus has some notices of the Nestorians in one of the numbers of the Chinese Recorder.
The present Roman Catholic Missions in China, were commenced by the Dominicans in 1555, but were speedily interrupted by the opposition of the mandarins. During the remaining years of the Ming dynasty, and under the present dynasty, down to the time of the edict of toleration secured by M. Legrene, in 1844, they were alternately tolerated and persecuted by the reigning emperors. The celebrated Matthew Ricci, who reached China in 1581, succeeded by means of his insinuating address, his great scientific attainments and his many artful schemes, in overcoming opposition and founding missions successively in Chau Cliing-fu in the province of Kuong Tung, Nan Ch'ang-fu in the province of Kiangsi, and in Nanking and Peking. Although obliged to leave Peking soon after his first arrival in 1590, he returned again in 1601, and was favorably received by the Emperor Wan Lei, who allowed him, and others of the Jesuits, to prosecute their missionary labors in Peking undisturbed. There was no opposition manifested during the life time of Ricci. The missionaries enjoyed full liberty, both in tlie capital and in the provinces. After Ricci's death, which occurred in 1610, a violent persecution was stirred up by the officials, and authorized by the Emperor Wan Lei, the same who had received Ricci with such kindness. This persecution began in 1616. The missionaries were all ordered to leave China. Some were thrown into prison and died there. In Nanking and Peking especial efforts were made to discover and drive theni out. In other places the decree was less vigorously enforced. In 16"22 the prime minister Kao Chen, who had taken a leading ])art in inciting this persecution, availed himself of a disturbance caused by the "White Lily sect," to vent his hatred against the Christians, Many of them were imprisoned and beaten, while the foreign priests were obliged to quit the country, or hide themselves in the most solitary places. Tiiis persecution however was soon ended, owing to the war with the Manchus, and the hope of deriving aid from the skill of the missionaries in this contest.
"During the troublous times which followed the deca}'' of the Ming dynasty, and the establishment of the present family on the throne, the missions throughout the country suffered much ; their spiritual guides retired to places of safety from the molestations of jaoldiers and banditti, and the converts were necessarily without
February.] the toleration of Christianity in china. 6
instruction." This was not however owing to any hostility on the part of the central government. After the cessation of persecution in 1622 the missionaries in Peking remained in favor successively with Cheung Chen the last of the Mings, with the insurgent Li, and with the Mauch I Emperor Shun Chi, Upon the death of this emperor, in the year 1664, a fresh persecution broke out with great violence during the time when the four regents governed the empire. Adam Schaal, who was then president of the Board of Mathematics and Astronomy, was condemned to death by torture. Foreign priests were by an edict of the government everywhere to be seized, and brought to Peking for trial, Chinese Christians were enjoined at once to abandon their new religion, and others were forbidden under pain of death from e nbracing it.
This edict of persecution issued in 1665, was so far modified by the young Emperor K^ang Hi in 1671 as to allow the foreign priests to return to their places and exercise the functions of their religion, although the people were still forbidden to become Christians. The prohibition was however removed by the same emperor in 1692, and liberty of Christian worship was everywhere proclaimed in the Chinese Empire, an event which occasioned the greatest rejoicings among all the adherents to the new religion, especially among the missionaries who had labored with such unwearied assiduity, and struggled against so many obstacles in order to secure this result. In the fervor of their zeal and gladness they hoped for the speedy conversion of the whole nation. The emperor even granted them a residence and assisted them to build a church, in the imperial city at no great distance from his own palace. And so rapid was the progress of the church in the provinces, that in the two Kiang alone there were said to be a' hundred thousand Christians.
It is beyond our present puipose to assign reasons for the change which took place in the mind of K'ang Hi toward the missionaries in the later years of his reign. In the year 1718 he forbade their remaining in the Empire without permission from himself, and ho allowed persecutions to be carried on in the country districts. After his death, in the year 1724, th'3 Christian religion was forbidden by his son, the Empire Yung CI e ig, and all missionaries, not required in Peking for scientific purposes were ord-n-ed to leave the country. From that time down to the year 1844 Christianity continued to be a proscribed religion in China. Successive Emperors issued fresh edicts against it. That of Kien Lung bears the date of 1736. In the eleventh year of his reign, 1747 a persecution extended through all the provinces. Still later in the same reign, in 1767, and again
6 TttE TOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. [Jaiiuary-
in 1784, very careful search, was made for foreign priests, some of whom were beheaded, otheis died in prison, and others were allowed to leave the country." * No data are available to show the number of native priests and converts who suffered death, torture, im- prisonment, and banishment In these storms. Clauses were prepared in the 19th year of Kla K'ing 1814, for Insertion In the Penal Code condemning Christianity, and were printed by his successor Tao Kwong in 1826.
Such was the experience of the missions of the Roman church in China, as regards the protection of the government, prior to the treaty of 1842, and the edict of toleration procured by M. Legrene in 1844. The only method by which the priests recommended themselves to the favor of the Emperor and his officials, was by their knowledo-e of astronomy, and of the arts and sciences, and by the curious presents they brought from distant nations. Their learning made them extremely useful, almost necessary, to the emperor. By their knowledge of astronomy they corrected his calendar. By the casting of cannon they saved to him the empire. For a time it seemed as if the advantages of their scientific attainments, would prevail to cause the government to allow their religion to be every- where received. The event however proved far otherwise. They were strangers from a far country, without any protection save that which the emperor chose to give them. They might be sent away at any moment at his caprice, and their religion, so far as its public manifestations were concerned, be stamped out. It was impossible but that, when it was fully known how Christianity struck at the roots of ancient and long cherished beliefs and customs of the people. It must meet with severe persecution. Notwithstanding these trials, there remained in China in the year 1839, f 8 bishops, 57 foreign priests, 114 native priests, and 303,000 converts. Very many of these were doubtless merely nominal Christians, whose parents had received baptism in the days when Christianity was in favor at Court.
The second period, that in which Christianity in China has received protection by treaty stipulations with foreign powers, opens with the year 1842, after the war with Great Britain. This protec- tion was afforded first to foreign Missionaries, by the treaties with England, the United States, and France 1842-1844, and subse- quently to Chinese converts, by the edict of toleration for Christianity in China, obtained in 1844 by the French Minister M. Legrene from the Emperor Tao Kwong through his Minister Ki Yiug.
» See Williams' Middle King. Vol. p. 315. f Middle Kingdom. Vol. 2 p. 315.
February,] the toleration of Christianity in china. 7
The protection thus secured, was greatly widened and confirmed by the treaties of Tientsin 1858-1860 with Russia, Enghind, France, and the United States, and by the subsequent Imperial Rescript in favor, of the Roman Catholics, given in 1862. It is hardly too much to say that the stipulation, of these four treaties regarding Christianity, will in the years to come form the Magna Cliarta of religious liberty in China. They are fundamental and comprehensive. Their authori- rity is constantly referred to and acknowledged. Requests for various particular rights and immunities have been based upon them, and secured in accordance with their provisions.
If now it be asked, what are the particular advantages secured by the treaties to foreign Missionaries, and what to native Christians, we reply; in brief, as things at present stand, foreign Missionaries have the unquestioned, right of residence in each of the thirteen ports, or consular stations of China and her dependencies, and of the propaga- tion ot Christianity from these centres by all lawful methods. More- over the treaties also practically secure for foreign Missionaries the liberty of travelling by passport, of residence with their families, whe- ther in rented or in purchased houses, and of the exercise of the proper functions of the Christian Ministry, in every province of the empire.
Furthermore, by these treaties and. the *Imperial Rescript based upon them, the toleration granted to the native Christians in 1844 by the Emperor Tao Kwong, was solemnly guaranteed in several particu- lars to the four great treaty powers ; and it was made specific in its application to the difficulties most likely to arise between the local populace and the Christian. A way also was pointed out for the adjustment of wrongs which might occur.
In looking at things as they now stand, one is almost ready to- say, we have enough. Let us be content with what has been already attained, and press on with our work. Surely we have enough to call for the most lively gratitude to God, and for the most strenuous effort to improve present opportunities. Happily also, if our experience has shown that other things are yet to be desired, they are such as may be attained by unfolding what is already in the treaties, or by a slight adjustment of their text.
In what is said further on this subject, two points will be con- sidered. First, what remains to be desired in regard to the toleration of Christianity in China ? Second, how are these things deemed desirable, to be obtained ?
• This important document is to be found, both in Chinese and in English, in th» Recorder for 1867, p.p. 88 and 89. A reprint is greatly to be desired at the present time.
8 THE TOLEKATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. [JanuaVV-
What are the things yet to be desired in behalf of the Chinese converts? And what the things on behalf of foreign Missionaries?
It may be observed at the outset, that we do not desire that any one should be compelled to become a Christian. Christianity con- cerns the intellect, the conscience, and the heart. It must be a matter of personal conviction, and be embraced heartily in the love of it. The principles and methods of Mohammedanism arc foreign to Christianity.
Not only is it true that men may not be compelled to become Christians, but it is equally manifest that they must to the end meet with many trials, with hatred and persecution, in renouncing heathen- ism and embracing the gospel. The offence of the gospel must still remain, numerous difficulties must inevitably arise in families and clans as well as in villages and towns, as the principles of Christianity are more fully unfolded, which no legislation, however judicious, can reach. The ruling classes also are effectually debarred from becom- ing Christians by the idolatrous ceremonies which they are obliged to perform. ^
Yet there are many points in regard to which, timely and judici- ous action of the government, may prevent much suffering and frequent outbreaks of violence among the people. It has been found in all the provinces, that difficulties in the rural districts are very likely to arise between converts to Christianity and the surrounding people, in regard to certain assessments for public expenditure, which are made from time to time upon all indiscriminately. The Christians are quite willing to pay all lawful assessments for useful purposes, but they can not conscientiously pay for " receiving gods, idolatrous processions, theatrical performances, incense offerings, and the like things." It not unfrequently happens, that the assessment is solely for such purposes ; at others, the sum assessed, covers both kinds of expenditures. On one occasion, the writer was travelling by water with native converts, when they came to a narrow-pass at which a boat was stationed to collect from all who passed that way, money for the repair of a temple. This is an infrequent case.
The Roman Catholics have had long experience of the difficulties thus pointed out, and the Imperial Rescript mentioned above, was procured in order to remove them. That document, after referring to and quoting from the treaty with France in 1858, and the convention in 1860, and to later edicts upon the same subject, goes on to state difficulties which still exist, and to arrange for their adjustment. The latter part of the Rescript reads as follows. " Its professors," ("pro- fessors of the religion of the Lord of Heaven") cannot on the ground
February.] thk toleration of christiaxity in china. 0
of being Church members, expect to be exempt from all contributions for public purposes. If labor were wanted for Government service, or money to secure useful ends were to bo levied, Christian converts are liable in the former case to be impressed for duty, and in the latter case to be taxed, in the same manner as other men. But they are never to be compelled to give anything toward receiving gods, idolatrous processions, theatrical performances, incense offerings and such like things, because in none of these are they interested."
" If local authorities meet with subscriptions which have a mixed nature, civil and religious, they must honestly and rightfully separate one from the other, and not impose them without judgment or dis- crimination. For instance ; were a fund to be raised, four-tenths of which were for public objects, and six-tenths for useless (idolatrous ones), the authorities must distinctly point out that Christians are liable only for the four-rtenths, and are not to be compelled to pay the rernaining six^tenths ; the latter being for uses which do not con- cern them. Again, should Christians on account of their refusal to be assessed their share toward those useless services which are con- trary to their Christian principles, be ill-treated or beaten or be plundered of their property, or have their crops burnt or destroyed, the local authorities must investigate the matter to the bottom, in the sufferer's behalf, and rigidly punish the offenders according to law, and order them fully to compensate for what was plundered, burnt or destroyed ; and It must be just and equal."
" The French and Chinese governments have however, decided that, as Missionaries are not Mandarins, they cannot take part in other matters, public or private, or protect their proselytes. But whereas they are well disposed men, and are in their own country greatly respected of others ; and whereas their first object is to instruct men to do good ; and mor^^over, since at this time good faith and amity exist between the French and Chinese governments, they (Missionaries) must be treated with more than usual high considera- tion, thereby strengthening the bond of friendship. Hereafter, if Missionaries submit any petition to the local authorities, concerning matters which are right and reasonable, the latter must at once in- vestigate and deal with them in accordance with justice, and may not oppress the complainants in the slightest degree."
In reading the above document, which has been quoted only in part, it will be seen that the difficulties met by the Roman Catholics are precisely the same as those met by Protestants ; and how by the exemption from payment of contributions for purposes not accordant with their religion, which is freely granted to Roman Catholic Christ-
10 THE tOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. [January -
ians, these difficulties are removed, also that a way of adjustment of these local difficulties, without bringing them to a Consular station, or to the Minister at Peking, is clearly pointed out. The privilege granted to a Missionary of a respectful representation of a case of injustice to the local Magistrate by a petition, while it is liable to abuse in the hand of an undiscriminatin^ or ill-minded individual, is yet of immense value in its proper and natural use. It secures the speedy adjustment of the case, without the endless delay and trouble of referring from one court to another, and finally to the Minister in Peking.
We see no reason to suppose that the Chinese Government would not willingly grant to Protestant Missions, what they have already granted to the Roman Catholic ; nor do we know any better form in which it could be granted, than that of the Rescript from which we have quoted.
It was to secure for Protestant Missions the same protection which had already been obtained for the Roman Catholics, that the late William C. Burns came to Peking in 1863. Those who have longer experience in the work, especially those who have labored with native Churches at Consular stations, well know the importance of such protection, and will see the great advantage of securing such a Res- cript for Protestant Christians as that above quoted. If any there are who do not seem to need it, it is very likely because they are unconsciously deriving the benefit of what has been already granted to the Roman Catholics.
It may seem sufficient to some, that the Rescript has been made in favor of the Roman Catholics, inasmuch as its beneficial results will naturally and of course accrue to Protestants. We think it better however, that each community of Christians should stand on equal footing before the law. It is not well that Protestant Christians in all the country churches, should be told that they hold their privileges through the Roman Catholics, solely by favors granted to French Missionaries of that Church. Besides this, while we hope and pray that errors may be removed from that communion, and that God would heal the breaches in His Church, it is still impossible to forecast the relations between Protestants and Roman Catholics in China during the years to come, and it is every way desirable that each c:>mmunity should alike be recognized by the Government, and receive the protection it needs.
No more will be said in regard to the wants of the Chinese con- verts; the things which are deemed at once practicable, and most important, being embraced in what has been written.
February.] the toleration of Christianity in china. 11
What is there of legal protection still to be desired on behalf of foreign Missionaries, to increase their opportunities for the spread of Christianity P In answering this question we mention but one point. In the year 1867, it was supposed that a revision of the American treaty with China was about to take place, and memorials were prepared by the American Missionaries in their various stations, suggesting to the United States Minister such changes and additions to the treaty as they thought desirable. In all the memorials thus prepared, the following suggestion in regard to residence in the interior, was found, though expressed differently by different writers.
In the sixth article of the Treaty of France with China, signed at Peking, October 25th, 1860, the Chinese text contains the follow- ing stipulation : " It is in addition permitted to French Missionaries to rent and purchase land in all the provinces, and to erect buildings thereon at pleasure." Wo respectfully suggest the desirability of insert- ing in the revised American Treaty, a similar clause, stipulating, that Missionaries from the United States may rent and purchase land in any or all (jf the provinces, erect buildings thereon, and reside there with their families ; also engaging that the proper local Magistrate shall affix his seal to the deeds of the land so purchased receiving only the usual and authorized fee for so doing ; so that it may no longer be in the power of Cliinese officials to deny the claim of citizens of the United Slates, to privileges and advantages accorded to other nations."
The need of such a provision is manifest. Missionaries in China must press forward into all parts of the Empire, as they go into all parts of India, and of Western Asia. It is not sufficient for their purposes to operate in the open ports only. Practically only a very few Societies are limiting their agents to this course ; and it is not unlikely that these will before long move forward to the regions beyond. Already British, American and German Missionaries are widely scattered in the interior, some of them living with their fami- lies in the most remote provinces. It is very desirable that these Missionaries should have some secure legal title to the property they hold ; desirable also that those who sell and lease to them should not do it in fear, too often well grounded, of imprisonment and stripes from the officials. This want of explicit legal sanction often proves a great hindrance in their work.
As things now stand, these privileges, so far as they are accorded to Protestant Missionaries, come through the Roman Catholics, to whom they have first been granted, 'ihe position of the late Anson Burlingame, in regard to American Missionaries in the interior, wits that, so long as Roman Catholic Missionaries were allowed to remain.
12 THE TOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. [January-
and werep'rotected in their persons and property, tlic same privileges must be accorded to American Missionaries. This is well, so far as it goes ; but the whole matter would be placed on a firmer and more satisfactory basis, by the introduction of the clause above referred to into the treaty, thus eXplicity giving to Protestant Missionaries the privileges desired*
The writer is not unaware of the difficulties which surround this subject. Since however by the said clause, and by the present action of all Missionaries, both Protestant and E-oman Catholicj the privilege is practically granted, the way would seem to be prepared for a full recognition of it by treaty right.
Other points suggested in the memorials to the AmeHcan Minis* ter were, " That the clause," " nor shall the local authorities inter- fere " (in the renting of land) " unless there be some objection offered on the part of the inhabitants respecting the place," and the clause, " citizens of the United States shall not unreasonably insist on particular spots/' be omitted from the 12th article of the Treaty, — as opening the way for Chinese officials and others to bring forward vexations and unreasonable impediments. " That the liberty of travel* ling by passport in the interior of China be secured to American citizens, as it is secured to British subjects by the treaty with Great Britain ; " that the words " any persons whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert," contained in the last clause of the 29th article of the Treaty be clearly expressed in the Chinese as well as in the English text of the revised treaty : also that the clause in the same article which now reads " The Holy Religion of Jesus Christ " (i.e. Protestant) " also called the religion of the Lord of Heaven " (i.e. Roman Catholicism) be so changed as to read. " The Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches." ^f^ ^ and fflj @c |^. Whatever of importance may be attached to these several suggestions, it is not judged best to dwell on them here.
It remains to consider the way in which the protection of Christ- ianity in China is to be maintained and secured. This question embraces both the agents, and the means to be employed. The agents thus far, and those to which alone we can look in the future, until Christianity has gained a firm foothold in the Empire, and the Government has learned to look upon Christians as its best and most loyal subjects, are the Christian nations of the West, and their repre- sentatives in China. To this employment of the influence of Christian nations three objections may be raised.
First, it may be said the protection of Christianity 'is not a proper object of diplomatic intercourse, and does not belong to the duties of
February.] tub toleration of Christianity in china. 13
a Christian nation. It is freely granted that a Christian Government is not an agency for the propagation of Christianity. Yet it is by no means allowed that it has nothing to do with such propagation by its own people, and also by others. It must recognize the Christian religion as the source of the greatest blessings to itself and to all nations, and it is bound to use what influence it may to secure a favorable hearing for its message, and to save it from being crushed out in its first beginnings by ignorance and prejudice.
At the time of the " ten. persecutions " there was no friendly, equal power to say to the Roman Empire, " This religion is only good. It teaches the practice of virtue and equal love to mankind," and thus to stay the hand of violence. Had there been such nations, and had they looked on in silence, without lifting voice or hand to stay those cruel and bloody persecutions, they could not have been justified by the voice of history, Nations can not live solely for themselves any more than individuals ; nor are their mutual res- ponsibilities and duties confined wholly to trade and commerce, any more than those of individuals are thus confined.
The case above supposed, would have been much stronger, had the sufferers been citizens and subjects of the equal and friendly Christian powers, and those converted to Christianity by their labors. A Missionary does not, by the very fact of his calling, cease to be a citizen or subject of his own nation. He is not denationalized. It is the glory of a great Christian nation to protect all its subjects, in all their lawful interests, in all parts of the earth. Its fostering care extends, not only to those who traffic in this world's goods, but to those who deal in spiritual things, and traffic in wares of the soul. It regards the Christian Missionary in his calling as justly entitled to protection, equally with the Merchant and the Seaman.
The second objection is, that it is unjust to the nation in which Christianity is thus protected, an unwarrantable interference with her privat'e concerns, Now, it is asked, should we like to be dealt with in this manner in what relates to the religious concerns of our own nation. To this it may be answered that it is not infrequent in European nations to have representations made to their govern- ment, as recently to Hussia and to Austria, by men of other nations, whether private individuals or those in official position, in behalf of persecuted Christians, to secure the toleration of Christianity. If in dealing with China the representations for this end, have been differently made, and the pressure to ensure their success has been greater, so also has the case been widely different. China is ignorant of the true nature of Christianity, and, very naturally, strongly pre- judiced against it Yet China has nothing to complain of aa against
14 THE TOLERATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA. [January-
Christian nations, for prevailing with hor to induce her to tolerate its propagation in her midst. Against any suspicion of such a wrong, we safely appeal from the China of the present time, to the enlightened and Christianized China of the future, whether 300 years, or 500 years hence. The China of that time will have no long cherished enmities against Christian nations, and no revenges to execute upon them, for the part they have taken in staying the bloody hand of persecution. Rather will she owe them a debt of gratitnde for the friendly explanations and persuasions by which she was saved from staining the pages of her history by events like those of the "ten per- secutions" in the lloman Empire, or the still more direful persecution of Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Japan. A third objection against using the influence of Christian nations in securing the toleration of Christianity in China is, that such a course is prejudicial to the true interests of Christianity. Some there are, who hold official rank in the service of foreign nations in China, who are of the opinion that it would have been better for Christ- ianity, If It had not been mentioned in the treaties. It would seem from what has been written at various times that a few Missionaries also are of the same opinion.
Probably neither of these have fully considered what would really be the condition of Christianity without such protection. It can- not be shown that the persecutions of the Roman Empire, and. In modern times, of Japan and Madagascar, would not be repeated in China. And would such persons judge it best for those powerful Christian nations, whose Influence Is now felt in all other matters, of purpose to stand aside and have the Christian religion to make its own way, that so, in the furnace of affliction, it might be purified, strengthened, and made to shine more brightly ?
We conceive that the error of such persons, if such there are, lies in this, that they consider the case of Christianity in China as altogether parallel to that of Christianity In the lloman Empire. The principles are indeed unchanged, but the circumstances are alto- gether different, and this difference vitiates the conclusion they would draw by reasoning from one case to the other. When God led forth the Christian Church In her infancy, solitary and alone, unaided by any human power, to the conquest of the lloman Empire, he supplied her with internal forces equal to the emergencies of her case. Now. that he has made her to ride upon the high places of the earth, and associated with her the powerful influence of the most civilized nations, we conclude that He woiild have those nations use their in- fluence in all lawful ways in her behalf, so that kings shall becom ©
February.] the toleration of Christianity in china. 15
"nursing fathers," and queens "nursing mothers" to the Church. If this be S), then we are to look to God only for such spiritual forces as the circumstances in which he has placed us demand, and are not to suppose that He will make up by supplies of inward grace for the wilful neglect of Christian rul(M's. He gave both Miracles and Martyrs when they were necessary. But his people whether in private stations or in public life, may not in these days look for the one or the other, 60 as to neglect to employ all lawful efforts to advance His cause. It remains only to state briefly the means by which this protec- tion is to be secured, of course it is chiefly by friendly representations, arguments, and persuasion. The very presence of the representa- tives of Christian nations, their intelligence, culture, uprightness, virtuous conduct, and just dealing as well as the power which they are seen to possess, should recommend the religion of the lands from which they come.
Is force ever to be used ? This question we care not to answer. Nor need it be definitely answered. Certainly, if employed, it should only be to put a stop to wrongs of a most manifest and flagrant nature. It is said that in one year, the year 1590, 20,000 of the Christian subjects of the emperor, in Japan were put to death on account of their religion ; that within a period of a few years the 40,000 Christ- ians of Nagasaki were all put to death, or compelled to renounce their religion, and in the whole empire of Japan, a number variously estimated at Jiom 400,000 to 600,000 shared the same fate. In case of the recurrence of like events, could Christian nations, having their present relations to that country, remain idle spectators ot the scene ? Would they violate those laws, which together, make of mankind one brotherhood, in putting a stop to such wrongs ?
Happily in China, toleration for Christianity has been attained for the most part by peaceful means. So it was in the earlier dynas- ties. So also in the time of the Emperor K'ang-hi, and Lo in 1844, in the time of Loo Kuong, when the edict of toleration was procured by M. Legrenje. The articles (,f toleration in the treaties of 1.85.8 had little to do with the disturbances at Canton by which they were preceded, and the war of 1860 had its origen in questions of national honor and of trade, not of religion.
We trust the day has now arrived when the Government of this land has come to understand that it has nothing to fear from the spread of Christianity among the people, and moreover, that in its transactions with foreign nations, its strongest ground of appeal for justice and fair dealing, is founded in the precepts- of this religion, which these nations profess, and which they have so earnestly com- mended to the Government and people of China.
16 A STRANGE scKNE, [January
A STRANGE SCENE.
By Rev. Arthur Elwin.
pERTIArS it will interest some of the readers of tlie Recorder -*- if I attempt to describe what I saw in a Temple near Hangchow during the past summer.
Time, midnight. Place, Eastern Hill Temple. Truly a strange secne meets our ga^e. From the top of this flight of twenty steps, wo look upon a vast crowd gathered in the Temple court. Nearly every man carries a lantern, so that although there is no moon, there ia plenty of light. What are these people doing in this Temple in the middle of the night ? Before answering this question let us turn round. What do we see behind us ? We are on an elevated platform in the Temple proper. In the centre, in the position of honour, sits an idol, truly a great hideous figure. He has been brought to pre-t side over the ceremony about to take place. Many servants wait on him. He has secretaries, and attendants, executioners and many others all waiting to do his bidding, In case he should feel the heat, four men constantly fan him all night. This idol represents the Ruler of the spirit world, who has under him officers of state, man- darins of high and low degree, to carry out his wishes. But there is a bhout in the crowded court below, We see the large entrance gates thrown wide open, and in walks a man representing and dressed like a Mandarin from the spirit world attended by his secretaries, execu-» tioners, messengers, while over him is held a most beautifully em-» broidered silk-umbrella. Attendants on either side cease not to fan him with large feather fans as he walks along, while before him, in case he should be annoyed by unpleasant smells, walk attendants swinging brasien censers suspended by chains, from which clouds of incense continually ascend fumigating the air. With measured tread he advances across the Temple area and slowly ascends the steps. An attendant places on the ground a cushion, beautifully worked in gold and silk, upon which the Mandarin in silence kneels before the idol. Representing the resident of one of the six governing boards, he then presents his report after which he withdraws. Again there are shouts as one after another of his attendants advance and present official cards, which are received and .placed before the idol. There are no less than seventy-two of these cards presented, representing seventy* two inferior Mandarins who are not permitted even to kneel before his Majesty. The chief of the six boards only come in person, their followers helping to swell the crowd waiting in the court.
February.] ' a strange scene. 17
By this time the crowd is immense. It is with difficulty we hold our own. The runners and others, whose duty it is to keep an open space in front of the idol have hard work indeed to fulfill their task. At last all is ready, and the keeper of the lower regions has orders to bring up a certain evil spirit to be judged according to law. Ponder- ous keys are committed to this individual who with five or six assis- tants hastens off to the place representing hell to bring the doomed one to judgment. Soon unearthly yells rend the midnight air, and intense excitement prevail as these men appear once more, dragging with them an unhappy wretch, bound with iron chains, to present him to the judge. If it is asked who it is that is treated thus ? the answer is simply that it is a mad person ; truly mad, this being the only real thing about the whole performance. The madness is supposed to be caused by an evil spirit that has taken up its residence in this person's body. This spirit is now to be judged, and if possible cast out. Truly the Chinese believe that a man can be possessed by devils. But there is silence. The possessed man, having been forced on his knees before the idol, is now being questioned by those placed there for the purpose. There is a long conversation, many questions are asked, but we are not near enough to hear what is said. Soon judgment is pronounced, the man is to be beaten and consigned again to hell for a time after which he is to be restored to his friends. Amid the shouts of the multitude, preparations are made to carry out the sentence. Soon all is ready, and the man is lying stretched on the stones on his face before the idol. Two executioners advance, each armed with that instrument of torture the long bamboo. The crowd stand back ; and soon not a sound is heard in the still night air but the thud, thud of the bamboo as it falls at regular intervals, not on the man lying on his face on the ground, but on a straw figure dressed like a man placed by his side. The beating over, the man is again questioned and then ordered to be taken again to hades. The atten- dants close on him, and he is quickly hurried off to that awful place. Truly it is a terrible place. A narrow doorway admits one into a long chamber where by the light of many flaring candles, we see through the blinding smoke representations of figures going through every imaginable torment. Not pictures, but figures of men and women suffering every kind of torment that man's ingenuity can suggest. There in this dreadful place we see in succession representations of men being drawn asunder, boiled alive, ground to powder, crushed by stones, having their flesh boiled, burned, or being slowly cut away by large knives ; we see people being pounded in mortars, tlirown on to spikes. But enough, it is too awful, blinded by the smoke of the
18 A STRANGE SCENE. [Januaiy-
incense offered to the fiends wlio preside over these ceremonies wo rush out to brecathe once more the pure air. Visit this place at midnight and then say whether what others have written about in books, or depicted on canvass, the Chinese have not got here in truly terrible life-like reality. To this place these poor wretches are hurried, here to be chained up and left alone. But what is going on in the temple ? One case being settled, another case is taken in hand. Amid the shouts of the multitude, another victim is dragged across the court and up the steps. This time it is a young man, about, twenty-two. A dreadful scene is now enacted, the man refuses to kneel. The attendants throw themselves upon him and try to drag him down, but cannot. The excitement increases, the crowd surges wildly to and fro, and almost lifted off our legs, we are borne hither and thither by the press. There is one calm face ; it is that of the pale young man ; he appears to use no force, but they cannot get him down. Baffled in their efforts, " to hell with him " is soon the cry ; they hurry him to the top of the steps, but they can get him no further ; one by one he shakes off his tormentors. He is nearly free, when several of his keepers rush at him, run him down the steps across the temple court and do not stop until they have the young man securely chained in the infernal regions. This time they do not leave him long. The summons once more is issued. Again the attendants hurry him in. Having been baffled once, they determine not to be so again. No sooner has the possessed man reached the top of the steps, than down he goes on his face, doubtless tripped up by one "of his keepers. While some hold him down others question him, but not one word will he answer. Such obstanacy must be severely punished. The idol's mouth-piece sentences him to be beaten on the ankles. Again the executioners advance, again the long bamboo is produced, again the straw figure is brought in, again amid death-like silence the blows are heard. But the beating is ineffectual, no sound passes the young man's lips, and so once more he is hurried off to the place from whence he came. While looking on this scene my thoughts wandered far away to other scenes, about which I had read and upon which others had looked in by-gone ages. I no longer saw the idol or the Chinese. There sat the Roman Emperor. Before him was a Christian who refused to offer incense and give him the honour due to God alone. There was but one alternative, and as the cry "to the lions, to the lions " rung in my ears, I came to myself. There sat the idol made of painted wood, on every side surrounded by wor- shippers bestowing upon it every kind of honour, but the young man, who in spite of every threat refused to kneel, is gone. We have seen enough, we hurry out of the temple, gladly leaving behind us the
February.] a strange scene. 19
shouting multitude. Pleasant it is once more to look up at tlie quiet stars and remember tliat although the heathen may rage and the people imagine a vain thing, yet the Lord reigncth and will reign for ever and ever. Again we ask, what does it all mean ? The answer is that what we have seen may be called a Chinese method of curing mad people. The madness being caused by the evil spirit who has taken up its abode in the man's body. If the evil spirit can be cast out the man is cured. Are they ever cured ? The people say that sometimes they are cured, but more often not. All we can say is that there are not many persons who could be locked up for some hours in the infernal regions represented here in the middle of the night, without going mad even if they were of sound mind before put in there. These ceremonies last twenty nights, every night being wit- nessed by a different set of people. The lunatics are brought from places both far and near. Some idea may thus be gathered of the numbers who assemble here every year.
As I walked to the place where I was lodging, solemn thoughts filled my mind. Never before had I seen idolatry like this. A few women worshiping in a temple, or a larger crowd gathered together on some feast day to do honour to an idol, to this I was accustomed ; but here were thousands of people, shewing their faith by spending vast sums of money to do honour to poor dumb idols. And many of these persons, not the poorest by any means, but men of influence, spending large sums of money for the same purpose. One night all the expenses are paid by Wu, the celebrated banker of Hangchow and Shanghai, perhaps one of the richest men in the cmpii-o.
As I stood that night with my companion on the mountain side and listened to the distant roar of the great multitude in the temple in the valley, I thank I was able to realize more than ever before the greatness of the work that is before God's servants in this great heathen empire ; I think I was led more than ever before to realize the weakness of the instrumentality used to carry on this work ; and trust I was able at the same time to realize something of the power of him in whose name the work' is to be carried on, viz., in the name of him who said: All power is given unto 9)ic in heaven and in earth.
Go y<? therefore, and teach all nations, ; lo, Iain with you
ahvay, even to the end of the world. Lot us not be disouragcd. The enemy is strong and our progress may seem slovv, but God's word is sure, and one day, the warfare being accomplished and victory won, we shall see among the countless thousands gathered from the north, south, east and west, a vast multitude froni the land of Siniin, who shall join with us in ascribing all honour and might, dominion and power to him who sitteth on the throne and to the lamb for ever and ever.
20 TRUE coifDiTioNs OF CHmcH MEMBERSHIP. [Junuary-
IBUir. CONDITIONS OF CHURCH MElVtBERSHIP.
By ENquiRER.
A T tlie risk of being charged with wasting the time of the reader there yet exists a feeling in the writer that he cannot help formally drawing the attention of others to the matter of the follow- ing letter, with a view to engage the thoughts of able and experienced men more than ever on the difficulty of the situation here brought forward ; and that altogether apart from any consideration as to whether they may look with favor or the contrary on the direction in which the writer seems to view the matter. Among other great questions which every true-hearted missionary ponders stands this one problem, viz.: What is the true condition under which accretion to the churches established in China takes place, or ought to take place. Before ever it came to be a matter of experience with the writer it was remarked to him by a much older missionary how he had himself noticed, that, when the gospel came to be preached and had a fairly quick acceptance in a district, yet, after two or three years, " from some reason or other they seemed to cool down and lose their " interest— they got to know all about it, and there the matter stood" — matters settled on their old base pretty much, there being no additions and no enquiry. A state of things similar to this — not as bad by any means, but manifesting the same tendency — it has been the ill fortune of the writer again to more or less notice in his own disti'ict. Though the general features are the same, they differ in degree,, and he has,, in addition, to confess that up to the present he has not been able, with thorough, satisfaction to himself, to either procure or excogitate a^ wholly sufficient reason for the phenomena or did thesis above alluded to, even though much thought and search- ing has been given to it, and though natives and foreigners have alike been consulted. True, various, possible, probable, and subordinate reasons for this often-^found state of things have been brought to light in the course of the enquiry, and the proper corrective courses have been taken, but after all has been said and done there remains the fact, and further and deeper, the feeling and conviction, that the essential conditions under which accretion to the Church in China should take place are still wanting, unfound and unknown.
Wc know the normal vitality of the Truth. We sec the result in facts before our eyes. "We see moreover that these facts up to a cevtain poiut seem to correspond with our expectations: but they
Fcbrnan\] true conditions of cnrRen membership. 21
cease. A\Tiy ? Preach the gospel; gather out a congregation; organize it on a thoroughly unfettered basis ; do all that you can to guide it aright and without over-nursing it, and what is the result. Progress in proportion to the steps taken ? No; No such thing. All the conditions are, on your part, speaking generally, as perfect as you can make them. They have the whole counsel of God among them as you have, but the upshot is probably stationariness, or, in many cases, backwardness. Mind, we are not complaining that they do not rise to great heights, that is another question ; it is that they do not extend, they manifest no power or faculty of drawing others into adherence with them as they should. As long as they are learners and unorganized, Christianity seems to make rapid progress in places; as soon as it crystallizes out into the palpable form of a Christian assembly and association' matters assume a different form. Acces- sions cease to be numerous, zeal seems to lessop, the value of ordinances seems to fall off, progress in edification and piety come to a stand, external missionary effort and benevolence become slacker, and all the symptoms of a patient in a sinking condition are manifested.
Is not all this so ? Have you not lived alongside of it, watched it, mourned over it ? Is it not so I ask, that Christianity as ordinarily received in Chinese hearts seems to act on them, as it were, like a chemical reagent, converting them into an inert and insoluble precipitate, which falls to the bottom and there it rests unaffecting and unaffected ?.
No one feels more thoroughly than the writer the never-to-be- forgotten and eternal separation between the Church and the "World, and the clear way in which we are called to come out into separation from all spiritual defilement and moral impurity, maintaining con- sciences void of offence towards God and man. But yet I feel that is something very different from this religious "coagulation," which goes on increasing to be as rigidity; that we know to be as ineffective and inoperative as it is opposed to the general atmosphere that we come into when we consider the life of our Lord and his apostles among men. Life, light, salt, growth are the emblems of the one, not of the other.
Brothers, we may preach, and print, and organize till we go into our coffins, but while the above state of affairs remains undealt with, the Church of Christ in China, as far as we are concerned, will remain as it is. Where Is the trouble ? Eoman Catholicism suffers from it ; Mahommedanism suffers from it, and Protestantism is suffering from it ; and I venture to affirm, that, till we have ascer- tained the cause and act differently, wc will continue to suffer from it.
22 TRUE COKDITIONS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. [January-
I regret I have but little knowledge of what has been done towards the meeting of this evil in China. I do not find it much recognized as within the sphere of avoidable things. I therefore humbly ask for more facts to aid in a correct diagnosis and solution. Let those who know speak out. We are dealing with a stubborn reality, and a question of vast consequences, in one aspect certainly affecting soine missionary districts in China, but I ween, in another aspect, affecting every district. Let us own it honestly and then formulate the difficulty to our minds.
I might very properly cease writing at this point, but as I before said, that other points had been elicited in this enquiry, too many, and perhaps too trifling, for mention here, so it may perhaps be not amiss to confine myself to detail in one direction in which recently your Inquirer found his thoughts running.
The missionary in Ohina sees around him its teeming millions, endless villages, and hamlet after hamlet in which the name of the true God is never named, and where the sound of the heavenly doctrine has never come. But there are villages and cities where there is truth and true worship. Well, how do we find it there ? Very little differing from the others. There is perhaps a small company of from ten to thirty adherents, there is regular worship, they have no inducements to profess Christianity, and have persecution far outbalancing all possible "expectations." They give all reasonable proof of sincerity, but after all, how stands it ? Stationary. Perhaps some one will say they are not sufficiently clearly "precipitated" out of the world. But no, I cannot see they are tinged with any very fatal trouble. They have camo out, and seem according to their light to be doing all that can fairly be expected of them, yet they make no progress, and there are few accessions beyond the original set.
But let us look again. They have not only come out, but they are cut off. They are separated from the world — good ; but, the world, alas, is also separated from them. There is not only a moral, but a social, yes, a religious gulf heiiceen the icorld and them. On one side of that -chasm stand multitudes, on the other side a little flock, and to join that little isolated band is to cross a wide, deep, difficult ravine in morals, religion and social custom. We all know that few there be that do it — not the relatively few that our Lord meant, but absolutely few. They stand there, tliat knot of Christians on the other side, with an influence circulating only among themselves, but outside and toward others, almost none. Some little perhaps, but it must travel far across the social separation to reach the others, and, emitted from this stand-still, narrow-spirited, poor, sin-oppressed and
February.] xnrE conditions of ciiuRcn membership. 23
dispirited band, has to fall on hearts, but ill disposed, and by- reason of their total separation, in no way prepared, to receive an influence so emanating and proceeding. Hence, as one would a priori expect, it seems to be seldom effective on those reached.
But suppose the influence has touched, as it sometimes does a naturally well disposed heart, what is the prospect ? Why the chasm has to be crossed and the man at once becomes of the number of the few. How ? Probably in this way, the needful strength and pre- paration has to be made on the one side, and then by a Jump as it were the man finds himself on the other. For this, few Chinese have the strength. Having done it, they feel the ostracism very oppres- sive, and few have the progressive determination that can afford to set aside life-long conditions of existence. So things remain as they are, to the loss of the world, to the detriment of the Church.
Now, if that be a real statement of the case, and the difficulty, — i.e. the salient dif&culty — lies here, the next question is how this ch asm-difficulty, this separation of the world from the Church (please note I do not say the separation of the Church from the world, they not being convertible terms in my use of them) is to be met. A bridge ? I know of none. Fill up the chasm — do away with it ? Never. How then ? Well, I ask, how would you act if the situation was one in real life, say, on a prairie in one of the territories. The answer is obvious, you would cut, hew, or dig steps down one side of the declivity and up the other side, and thus all would pass down from the one side step by step and up the other ; and so, old and young, strong and weak, the fearful and the resolute, the burdened and the free would be found in numbers able and willing to do that which, before, hardihood could scarcely face, and, from the farther side the little flock would watch with eagerness the efforts of all who were coming to them, however slowly, and would ever look with ten- derness and careful concern upon every one who was following, how- ever painfully, the steps and processes of approach. They would not throw proud, repulsive, or sullen vengeful looks across the ravine — they would forget the erewhile " jump " that was necessary, and cease to consider it as the sine qua non method of joining their band. When the weary toiler reached the farther bank, many a hand would be stretched to help him to enter into their association, and those who had not yet commenced to cross, would at least cease to be alarmed by the severity and suddeness of the demands made upon their energy, and feel even encouraged by the facility with which numbers took continual departure for the other side. Yes, the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light, they
24 TRUE CONDITIONS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. JallUary-
descend from, and rise to high levels, by inclines of a low gradient, and seldom by either sliding or jumping.
I fancy I can hear some one saying *' Oh, this is just a new '' fandango to widen the strait gate and the narrow way that God has *' made strait and narrow.'' No such thing. The writer is of the opinion that current Christianity here and in the West is both too low and too wide, and most heartily agrees in the sentiments about the narrow gate, but he would warn the objector, in addition to what was said before about the few, not to mistake the gate for the way, nor the way for the gate, and in no case to set up a gate at any place where God has not set one, nor to place at the beginning of the Christian life tests that are more fit at the end of the natural life.
Let us take care that no methods for taking care of the few, or no peculiarities in the construction of the fold, cause us to hinder the many or forget the wilderness. Let us oppose no ecclesiastical arrangements to the great, ever just, and eternal principles upon which the Almighty deals with man. Let us remember that the charge of the key of knowledge is a very grave responsibility, and one frequently abused. Let us take care that we see what arrangements it is God loves and desires, whether it be those for the elaboration of the few or gathering in of the many. These, and like questions, will show that we need to combine the loftiest ideal of apostolic Chris- tianity with all that gentle appreciation of, and forbearing tenderness toward weak and struggling human nature which the Redeemer showed us how to mingle in our lives. Let us follow Him and we will not be latitudinarian in our notions.
These are no views for use in the Church, rather would we in this seek to help to carry the lambs toward the fold and gently lead those who are weak, and heavy laden with difficulty, uncertainty, reproach and fear.
Tell me, which emblem will you choose to represent your idea of the Kingdom of Heaven, the lofty and slender obelisk, or the no less lofty but massive and wide-based pyramid. Brother, the Divine idea, depend upon it is a massive one. Is the direction in which these remarks point a strange thing in your eyes. Think again. You have the history of the Primitive Church before you. Consult it. Perhaps you'll allude to its ultimate failures, but you know that these failures (if they indeed were such) arose from circumstances which the world has not got elements to reproduce now. Think again of the home churches. What are they. Isolated nuclei. By no means. They are nuclei surrounded by strata of minds in different stages of 2)reparation and amenability to the ohligations of truth, all being,
February.] true conditions of church membership. 25
naturally, evidently, but surely affected, and all being dra^ni in an unperceived, though real, order, to unite with, and become of, that nuclei ; an order no less real because there without form, and neither subject to regulation, nor recognized as a regular institution and necessary condition or mode of accretion.
The principle here contended for when proclaimed at the Shanghai Conference found ready acceptance. First the seed, then the blade, then the full "corn in the ear." But to isolatedly state a principle, or to assent to it, is it enough ? it might almost be as well not stated. It must have a definite recognition and place, embody a decided aim, and have a practicable method and congruous agency, so, may we hope for it to be effective and a real carrying of the subtler priftciple into actuality among men. I ask now is this principle true — is it an already existing, though perhaps unrecognized, fact elsewhere, if so have we in China such an aim embodied in our dissematory and church organizations. Have we in the least sought to accommodate ourselves reasonably to the conditions of moral progress in the East here. Finally, how far are the deplorable circumstances which I commenced by narrating ascribable to the want of such accommodation to the actual. That is the question, and a reality that no theoretical caviling can either evade or ignore.
Has it ever struck you what shall be the method by which, according to the measure of the gifts of the ability and opportunity given to every man of God in his own station and day, we may discriminatingly lead him, step by step, year by year, quicker if he wishes, slower if he needs, but, at any rate, lead him in steps of renunciation graduated to his increasing knowledge in spiritual perception and strength — with responsibilities growing, but only as he grows, i.e. in a renunciation, self-chosen, of such things as he feels he can renounce, and an assuming, of such responsibilities as he can assume all in the order of their respective importance, and as distinguished from immediate total renunciation and assumption ; not according to an indelible law of spiritual growth, but in obedience to an abitrary and imposed enactment of man. Thus, it seems to the writer, by acknowledging in practical arrangements what cannot be ignored, and will continue to operate independent of us, i.e. for our evil if we thwart it, for our good if we accord with it ; thus, I say we might also here surround our churches with the ever widening ranks of those coming from all quarters with their faces Zionward, some near, some fur off, but all coming — all drawing near.
26 TRUE CONDITIONS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. January-
The question then is, How shall we go forth to open up fresh pathways leading into, and as feeders of, the narrow way. In a word, How shall we prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths and these rough places of the Chinese all plain ; or, shall we merely sit down by the way, fold our hands, and bemoan it ; a course we would not venture to think of, much less dare to act out, in matters concerning us personally. Will we dismiss the matter with a " pshaw," or " consider our ways " and meet the difficulty.
Be that as it may, it remains a fact, that all spiritual phenomena have causes, and the caluse is certain in proportion to the uniformity with which the effect is observed as a sequence ; and these considera- tions at once fix our duty to enquire, and equally debar all sneers at the inquiry. The reader will now please bear in mind that this letter is written for the express purpose of drawing formal attention to the matter in question in the first instance. Secondly, it is hoped that the principle stated will be recognized as a Divine one — a principle of the developement and growth of the Kingdom of God — and not as a device of a human mind that finds itself in a fix and conceives this notion of expediency to get out of it.
To induce thought on and consideration of this one matter, as well as to elicit that same thought in form that will be of practical use are the distinct and alone purposes of the writer, which being so he feels no great shame or shortcoming in signing himself for the present as merely an
Enquirer.
P.S. — The reader will not fail to bear in mind that where the writer alludes to " stationariness," &c., and criticises the native Church, yet is he perfectly aware that there are two stand-points, one from which they may be praised. We may plume ourselves upon our relative attainments, but this is a comparing ourselves among ourselves that is rarely allowable, and far below "the reaching forward to that which is before" — the stand point of the present letter, and the right one for us who believe we are the members of a Kingdom which shall have no end.
1
February.] biographical bketcii^^of the rev. joseph race. 27
BIOGRAPHICAIi SKETCH OF THE BEV. JOSEPH BACE.
By Rev. J. W. Brewer. "niJRING the twenty-eight years of its work in China, the Wesley an Methodist Mission has, until the present year, been spared the sorrow of losing by death the services of a single ordained missionary. Death has entered our families and has smitten down wife and children, and has also snatched away in early promise of useful work a valued lady helper. During the past summer it has, for the first time, robbed us of one of our colleagues, the Rev. Joseph Race ; who, in the pride and strength of manhood, with a heart fully engrossed in his mission work, with a strong and active mind, eager for fresh enterprise and at the same time conscientiously industrious in performing the daily routine of duty, was laid prostrate with typhoid fever, which, on August 30th, had a fatal termination.
At first all had been hopeful that the disease would have run a favourable course. Only during the last day or two of his illness were grave fears of the result entertained. Before many had quite realized his danger he had gone, and left friends and colleagues dumbfounded ; who even at this lapse of time find it hard to convince themselves that he has really passed over the bourne. It seems but yesterday that he was amongst us looking healthy and strong, and we were rejoicing in him as " a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, " and he himself was rejoicing to make full proof of " the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." And now he has gone ; taken away when he seemed strongest and best fitted for the duties of his position, when the experience of his seven years of work in China was regarded by himself as only a preparation for more and better work in the future.
For some days before he gave in to his last illness he had been feeling very weak and unwell at times ; but his spirit bore up bravely and he persevered in working until almost the very end. On Saturday, August 21st, he, with great difiiculty, succeeded in getting through his morning's work in the dispensary. In the afternoon he had to take to his bed and as the day drew on became so alarmingly ill that he decided to take that evening's steamer to Hankow to seek medical help. Here he arrived the following day. Everything was done for him that could have been done, but alas ! all in vain. Eight days after he left his station and work his strong body succumbed to the fell disease, and with sorrowing hearts, we^ the next day bore him to his grave.
28 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THii RKV. JOSEPH RACE. [January-
From the busy 'round of toil in study, dispensary, school and chapel God has taken His workman and buried him ; nay, has trans- ferred him, after his seven years' apprenticeship, to the higher ministry of the life that knows no ending. "We mourn his loss, and bend in awed submission to the will of Him who is " the Lord and Maker of us all." " It is the Lord ; let Him do what seemeth Him good." As we stood round the open grave of our friend and brother there came to more than one of us a voice, saying, " Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.^"
Our late brother was born January 11th, 1848, in the parish of Stanhope, in the county of Durham, England. This parish is celebrated as the scene of the ministry of Bishop Butler, of ^'Analogy" fame, while engaged in the writing of his well-known book, and when traditions of him and his black pony so long survived. Brought up in what are known as ** the Dales," Mr. Race was associated in early life with men chiefly engaged in mining pursuits, and remarkable for their eagerness, keenness and industry; and from them received a stamp of character which he carried with him every- where and into everything and which he retained all through life.
He was blessed with that greatest of the blessings of early life, a pious parentage and a religious training ; which latter has borne glorious fruit in the conversion to God of the whole of the large family of ten children. The family has been spoken of in that neighbourhood as " the model family." His father and mother still survive. They were ever regarded by him — as such parents would be by such a son — with ardent affection ; a touching proof of which was given by him on his deathbed : when the stupor of death was fast creeping over him, he appeared suddenly to recollect something, and raising his head from his pillow said " Send my love to mother," which were his last words. Joseph was the eldest son of this " model family ;" and, far from being like his namesake of old an object of envy, was confided in and looked up to as a leader among them by both brothers and sisters. Specially close was the companionship between himself and a brother only a little more than a year younger than himself.
He attracted attention in early youth by his though tfulness, seriousness and diligence. At the age of about twelve or tliirteen he was converted during a revival of God's work in his neighbourhood, brought about by the labours of a lay evangelist named Coverdale Smith. Joining the church he soon engaged in Christian work and
I
February.] BiooRApniCAL sketch of thk hev. josepii race. 39
while yet in his teens became what is called among Methodists a " local preacher." Many were the stories he had to tell of long rides to distant country appointments over the wild and lonely roads of " the Dales" in company, often as they could so arrange it, with a dear friend and companion who was then and is still serving the church in the same capacity of local preacher.
Diligent preparation for the pulpit, and assiduous pursuit of all means of knowledge and self-improvement, made his services at this early stage of his career useful and acceptable ; and, when the time came, secured him a hearty and unanimous recommendation -to the work of the ministry from those who had known him from his youth upwards.
My own acquaintance with him dates from September, 1870, when he came to our Missionary College at Richmond to prepare for the mission work to which we had both been designated. Several, who were afterwards his colleagues in China, knew him also as a fellow- student, and all bear testimony to the respect and affection won by him on all sides. I well remember him when first he came a freshman to college. He stood well out, a leading man in the front rank of the men of his year, soon by his talents and diligence to win for himself a good standing among all the men at the college. He was a marked man from the very beginning of his course. At one period of his college life his health broke down through over work ; he was forbidden his studies and sent home to recruit.
I well remember, too, the evening I recived my appointment to China going into his room and telling him of my destination, when he at once said, in his own eager way, " I wish I was going too." This wish was gratified by his being sent to China the following year, 1873.
On his arrival he at once took up his abode at Kwang Chi, then a newly-opened station. Here he lived alone for two years. He felt keenly the loneliness of his life in this inland city, twenty miles from his colleague, the nearest foreigner. He felt himself to be indeed a stranger in a strange land and among a people of a strange speech. But not for long, the people and their speech soon became familiar to him. He wrung for himself from this painful ordeal of loneliness all its possible advantages, and so it made him a stronger man to his life's end.
He devoted himself to his work in all its branches with charac- teristic diligence and wholeheartedness. By pains-taking effort, both with his teacher and in actual intercourse with the people, he gained for himself a firm grip of the colloquial, and became what is
30 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP THE REV. JOSEPH RACE. [Januaiy-
popularly called " a good speaker ; " his speech being not only very intelligible, but also more than usually idiomatic. He displayed, also, great perseverance in pursuing his studies in various branches of Chinese literature. As shown by the MSS. left, (most of them unfortunately in such a rough, unfinished state as to be only of use to himself), he had pushed far ahead in historical researches, especially in the history of the T'ang dynasty, which however he regarded as preliminary and subsidiary to a special study which he intended making of the works of the greatest of the poets of China — Li Tai- peh. Having developed a talent for versification he had also turned his attention to street ballad literature ; a rhyming translation of a specimen of which appeared early in the present year in the Celes- tial Empire under the heading, " Hung "Wu, the Cowherd." Contributions from his pen to various home papers on different sub- jects connected with mission work and life in China showed consider- able literary activity and ability ; which, had his life been spared, might have borne good fruit. Equally promising and creditable was the only product of his pen in Chinese, a tract on Vegeta- rianism, published a few weeks before his death by the Hankow Tract Society.
During the summer of 1875, he was laid aside with very persis- tent diarrhea, which necessitated a trip to Japan, from which he returned apparently quite restored. In the beginning of 1876, he was married in Shanghai to Miss Hannah Dawson, a young lady from his own native village, who proved herself in all respects a worthy help-meet to him.
The return home of the Eev. "W. Scarborough at this time led to his removal to Hankow. After nearly two years on this station he returned in the Autumn of 1877 to tl^e scene of his previous labours ; now however residing at "VYu-sueh, a large trading mart on the banks of the Yang-tsze ; where he spent the last three years of his life.
Having thus experience of mission work both in the city and the country, Mr. Race developed a strong preference and also fitness for the latter. Though at one time in connection with its prosecution he and Mrs. Race had to endure no little amount of hardship, the native house in which they were living at the time being flooded out in the summer of 1878. In the following year, however, he built himself a house in foreign style ; which it was his pride and endeavour to build as well and as cheaply as possible. Being dependent on raw native workmen he had to be his own architect, clerk of the works and everything else. However carrying into this his usual thorough- ness, keenness and energy he succeeded far beyond all expectation.
February.] biographical sketch of th» rev. Joseph race'. 31
A sketch of his career would be very imperfect which did not mention that which rather than anything else was a speciality of his work in China, viz., his medical work. I retain vivid recollections of a visit I paid him in company with the Rev. T. Bryson at Kwang Chi just after his arrival, and before he had well settled down. After evening prayers one or two of the members came in with some small ailments seeking medical relief. Some kind friends at home had given Mr. Eace for personal use a large homeopathic medicine chest. Symptoms were asked for and described ; the guide produced and consulted ; and, amid jest and joke from both native and foreigner, the little globules, &c., handed out to the incredulous and wondering patients. The next thing we heard was that the patients were flocking in daily, and, anon, that the medicine chest, globules, tinctures and all had been exhausted ; and still the patients came. This necessitated application to Dr. Hardey, then in charge of our medical mission in Hankow, who rendered him valuable help by giving him many useful hints and some simple medicines wherewith to carry on his efforts. Thus encouraged he persevered, and the work grew on him rapidly, until, in after years, it became a very important, and also a very exhausting, part of his daily duties. Meanwhile he had availed himself of every opportunity of gaining medical instruction and information, especially during his two year's residence in Hankow, in connection with the missionary hospitals and dispensaries both in Hankow and "Wu-chang, and hereby succeeded in acquiring, for an amateur, an extraordinary amount of medical knowledge and skill. During 1879, 4000 patients were attended to in the Wu-sueh dispensary. He was instrumental also in saving a very large number of would-be opium suicides ; and gave the results of his experience in this line of operations in a paper entitled " Opium Poisoning in China," published in one of our Home magazines, which attracted some attention at the time of publication.
In May last, while on a short visit to him in "Wu-sueh, I accompanied him one Sunday to one of the country stations — Lung Ping. It was interesting to see the cordial relations between pastor and people, I was especially interested in the afternoon service, which he himself, conducted, in noticing the evident rap- port existing between himself and his audience of about thirty country farmers and peasants, I greatly admired, too, the way in which he adapted his subject to them and chained their attention from beginning to end. It was the same in his daily preaching to the heathen. And then in the dispensary, no one could watch him at his work there and not admire the tact with which be tried to
33 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE REV. JOSEPH RACE. [January-
speak a word in season to those who came for medicine. No fuss or parade about it, but quietly and as a matter of course, " here a little and there a little." And then again I saw him in the day school, carefully catechizing and instructing the scholars. In all parts of his daily work he was the same man of power and burning purpose, who had carefully thought and prayed over his work and its plans and hence knew perfectly well both what he wanted to do and how we could best set about the doing of it.
"While we were rejoicing in him as a useful, hard-working and well-equipped missionary, and were anticipating for him a long and honourable career of service, he has been taken from us. But his life, and in no less degree his death, have left an inspiring memory which will be ever cherished by all who knew him either as colleague or friend. - For his death was a fitting close to such a life. Con- scious almost to the very last, there was in him no sign of fear or quailing in his conflict with the last enemy. In taking farewell of his sorrowing wife all his anxiety seemed to be for her lest she should sorrow beyond measure, though with a true Christian's cheer- ful faith he had surrendered her and their little ones to the care of him who is " the Father of the fatherless and the judge of the widows."
He died as he had lived, a strong man and a true Christian. As he lay after death the line " He lay as a warrior taking his rest" came to my mind; and the manner of his dying was just that of a tired man seeking his rest without fear or anxiety or apprehen- sion of any kind whatever. The secret of this calmness and peace as well as the current of his thoughts at the time were shown when a friend standing by quoted to him the verse : —
" 0 remember m^e for good,
Passing through the mortal vale ! Show me the atoning blood,
When my strength and spirit fail ; Give my gasping soul to see Jesus crucified for me !"
For some moments he made no response, and it was feared he had not heard the words, when presently he said very quietly "For me ! for me ! Yes ! He died for me !" Then anon he would in glowing words praise God for permitting him to be a preacher of the gospel of the grace of God ; and in taking leave of a dear friend he said " Good bye ! God make you all better missionaries than I have been !" At one time he was quiet for some time, when all at once he burst out with "I am close to the gates !" Thus he sank away to rest, so gradually that it was hard to say when he really breathed his last.
February.] moGiiAPHicAL sketch of the iiev. joskph race. 33
Many pleasing testimonies of esteem have been received since his death. A friend in America, before he had heard of his death, wrote of him as " thoughtful, helpful, and suggestive." Another, who had also known him in his work here, says, " lie was a fine man. Ono I always looked up to and respected." Another who knew him intimately, writes of his earnest missionary spirit and of the high, spiritual tone of his letters. An old fellow student writes, " I was associated with him, as you know, at Richmond for two years, and no one was more respected and beloved by tutors and students than he ;" then referring to some letters he had received from him ho says, "they were letters which no man could read without feeling quickened and blessed. Only a man possessed by the Holy Ghost's power could have written words to reach another's heart as his words reached mine. How strange that a man so thoroughly qualified in every way for the work should be taken away ! It is one of those many things which are inexplicable to us here."
Testimonies, too, have not been wanting from the native Christians. Following him on the Hankow station I was more than once struck with the strong personal bond of respect and affection which seemed to exist between him and those who had joined the Church under his ministry. AVith them as with others those who knew him best loved him most. Above everything else his self- denying and self-consuming efforts on behalf of all within or without the Church who needed his help called forth remarks and admiration from the natives who knew him. Faithful to his God and to those committed to his pastoral charge, he was intolerant of all moral perversity, and at the same time charitable to those who confessed their faults, and most kind and persevering in helping all to live better and more useful lives. Zeal for his Father's house and work was the mainspring of his every-day life% The presence of so many native Christians at his funeral on short notice and on a wet day showed the general respect and esteem entertained by them for him, as did also a tribute of affection composed of their own accord by some of the leading members of his own church at Wu-sueh and published in the TFau Kwoh Kiing Pau of October 9th, 1880.
A mournful interest attaches itself to what Would appear from his note book to have been the subject which last occupied his mind and attention, an unfinished translation of a poem by Li T'ai Peh, which he describes as an imitation by that celebrated poet of a poem " produced about the time when the Liang dynasty supplanted the Ts'i (a.d. 502), over those who have died regretting the incomplete
34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE REV. JOSEPH RACE. [ Januaiy-
fulfillment of their purposes in life." The poet represents himself as ascending T'ai Shan in the early morning, and from thence surveying the unnumbered graves of those that have passed away, and in so doing pours forth a lament over " the fate of those worthies of earlier times who had to swallow down their regrets and die."
I do not know whether there was any connection between this and the last text chosen by him for a sermon, but probably the one suggested the other. It was a very unusual thing for him in his busy life to attempt the writing of a sermon in English ; but only a week or so before his death the impulse to do so seized him and he employed his spare moments in beginning a sermon on that glorious text which so well describes his own life and death, the purpose of the one and the hope of the other. "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord : whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." This effort likewise remains unfinished, the last words written being "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
I shrink from the task of attempting an estimate of the character of one who was so recently a comrade in the ranks. I prefer leaving the foregoing " plain, unvarnished tale " of his life and work to speak for itself. It is hard to write in sober terms of such a man when one has loved and lived with him in the closest relationships of missionary life. "We feel keenly our great loss, the loss of a friend and brother, intercourse and association with whom were stimulating, energizing and encouraging. There was no exaggeration in the language used by one of our Home Secretaries (the Rev. E. E. Jenkins, M.A.) in announcing his death, viz., that we have lost one of our finest missionaries.
And what is our loss compared to the loss sustained by that heart-stricken mourner who is now with her three fatherless little ones (one born since his father's death) wending her sorrowful way back to the home of her youth ? May He who has said " Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in Me " bless and protect both her and them !
February.] a LEXXEit to professor f. max mUller. 86
A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX SCULLER.
Chiefly on the Translation into English of the Chinese Terms Tt and Shang Ti
in reply to a Letter to him by 'Inquirer' in the ' Chinese Recorder and
Missionary Journal' for May-June, 1880*
BT JAMES LEGGE, PBOFESSOR OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND LITEBATtJBB IN THE UNIVEBSITY OF OXFORD.
Dear Professor Muller.
T RECEIVED lately from China a copy of the Chinese Recorder -^ and Missionary Journal for May-June of the present year. Its first article is a letter addressed to you by 'Inquirer,' and containing strictures on my translation of the Chinese term* * Ti ' and 'Shang Ti ' by the word God, and on my views generally of the theology implied in the Confucian classics. These strictures have been conveyed in such a form because of the appearance last year of the third volume of the Sacred Books of the East, in which translations are given by me of the Shu King and Hsiao King, and also of a con- siderable portion of the Shih King, the Shu and Shih being the oldest and most important of the Chinese books.
* Inquirer ' contends that, in translating Ti and Shang Ti by God, I am 'hindering' the object which you have in view in having the series of the Sacred Books of the East published, and that by my course I am making you, and you are by your course consenting to be made, a partaker with me in the offence of * giving a gloss — an
• It has come to the knowledge of the editor that Bome of the readers of the Recorder considered the publication of the Letter to Prof. Miiller in the May- Jane, No. of 1880 an infringement of the understanding that articles on the " term question " were not to appear in the Recorder. The present editor had nothing to do with the acceptance of that article for publication as it was already accepted when he entered upon the duties of editor. But as this reply to that letter has been received from the Eev. Dr. Legge for publication the same point comes under consideration. There is now no other course open to the editor, than to publish the reply to an article which first appeared in the pages of this Journal. But apart from that, in our judgment, the discussion of the main subject of these letters does not infringe on the under- standing in relation to the " term question." The " term question," aa we understand it, is this, " what words in the Chinese language are the more suit- able to be used in the translation of Elohim and Theos and of Ruach and Pneuma in the Chinese versions of the S. S.?" The matter discussed in these letters is entirely different from that. It is a matter of Chinese mythology ; viz., what Being is referred to in the Chinese Classics and Eituals when the word Heaven is used in speaking of the Chief God or Power exercising rule or control ? It is true that there is one point where the two questions touch. But when that point is not dwelt upon, or enlarged upon to show its connection xcith, or bearing upon, the proper word to use in the translation of Elohim and Theos, it is not a discussion of the " term question." For if that understanding excludes the discussion of every subject that has some connection with that question, it would exclude a wide range of collateral subjects. The main subject discussed in these letters is one fundamental to a correct understanding of the Chinese systems of religion and worship. It is also intimately connected with the system of mythology and idolatry of other lands. In that view of it, it is one of the most important and interesting subjects which miaaionariea bare to investigate.— Ed. R,
36 A LBTTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX muller. [January-
indivldual opinion — instead of a translation on a most fundamental point.' It concerns iny honour to rebut this charge, and I hope that you will bear with me, when, having done that, I go on further to defend, in brief, my views of the theology in the Chinese classics from the objections urged against them by my censor.
I. In the preface to vol. iii of the Sacred Books of the East, I have stated (p. 23) that * the object of their publication, as I understand it, is to give translations of them without any colouring in the first place from the views of the translators.* * Inquirer,' overlooking the words * as I understand it,' thinks that the language gives the principle laid down by you for the guidance of those whom you did the honour to ask to be co-workers with you in your impor- tant undertaking. What you wished to secure, as stated in your prospectus, was, * a complete, trustworthy, and readable translation of the principal Sacred Books of the Eastern Religions,' Your wish so expressed, seemed to me to impose the rule which I enunciated on the several translators. It is a rule which I conscientiously observed in the volume that has already been published, and which I will continue to observe.
* Inquirer ' does not say that I have not done so excepting in the rendering of the terms Ti and Shang Ti. He says indeed (p. 161), that my translations of the Chinese books, of part of which the larger portion of vol. iii is all but a reprint, having been long published, had received from Chinese scholars a good degree of approval as fair translations of the originals except in the one particular of the render- ing of those terms.' I thank him for this statement. It sliows that, in preparing vol. iii for you, I took no advantage of my position to introduce a new rendering of Ti and Shang Ti so as to give to the book a colouring of my own views ; I merely reproduced the render- ing which I had been giving to the world at intervals since 1852.
My censor goes on to say that I was 'myself cognizant of the fact that there is a disapproval of my translation of the terms in question, and state that I examined the matter again.' What I was cognizant, of was this : — that some disapproved of my translation of the terms, and that others did not. My impression was, and is, that a majority of Chinese scholars accept my rendering with approval ; but so much did I regret that any should differ from me, and so important did I consider it to keep out every word of which it could be said that it reflected an individual opinion, that in revising my version of the Shu, I felt it proper to reconsider the force of the character Ti.
The critic says (p. 181), that I might have left Ti and Shang Ti untranslated, or have translated them by the words ' Ruler' and * Supreme Ruler ;' that, as I translated the absolute name Tliien by its proper equivalent Heaven, it would have been in the same line to translate these designations of Thien. Now I stated expressly in my preface (pp. 23, 24), that I had considered whether I could adopt either of these courses, and pointed out to what extent P. Gaubil and Dr. Medhurst, who had published translations of the Shu before me, had done so. Having given some of the reasons why I could not follow their example, I conchiJcd with the words — ' I can
I
Februar}-.] a letter to professor p: max muller. 37
no more translate Ti or Shang Ti by any word but God than I can translate zan (A) by anything else but man.' As I translate Thien, to use ' Inquirer's* words, by its proper equivalent Heaven, so I translate Ti by its proper equivalent God.
I did, indeed, as mentioned in my preface, alter my former translation of Ti in several places of the earlier books of the Shu, and once in one of the later books, where it is applied to the ancient heroes, Yao and Shun. Longer study of the classical and historical works had shown me that Yao and Shun, with other legendary or fabulous personages, had been styled Ti, in the first place, by a process of deification. The evidence of this, very briefly set forth in the preface, led me to retain the Chinese terms as applied to those heroes, and at the same time intensified my conclusion to which I came fully thirty years ago as to the meaning of Ti was correct, and that our word God was its proper equivalent in English.
The above details will satisfy you, I think, that the charge of using my position as a collaborateur with you in the translation of the Sacred Books of the East, in order to promulgate, with the sanction of your name and authority, my own unauthorised notions of the meaning of Ti and Shang Ti, is without any foundation of truth. I translated those terms as I have been in the habit of doing for very many years. I called attention to the renderings in the versions of Gaubil and Medhurst. I adduced reasons which made me adhere to my own. What more could I do ? What else ought I to have done ? If I had transferred the Cliinese names to my text, or rendered them by the inadequate terms ' Ruler ' and * Supreme Ruler,' I must have subjoined an explanatory note, which would have given still greater offeuce to the friend who has complained of me to you.
II. I have thus disposed of that part of ' Inquirer's' letter which has occasioned me real distress, and I now wish to submit to you some observations on his endeavours to expose what he considers my errors about the religious ideas of the Chinese. He says (p. 164): — 'As Dr. Legge has referred in his preface to a controversy which has been long pending in China, and known as " the term question " (i. e. what is the proper word by which to translate Elohim and Theos into Chinese in the ti'anslation of the Sacred Scriptures), I declare in advance that the matter now at issue has no necessary connexion with ". the term question." What is now under consideration is 1st, a matter of fact in regard to the religious belief and worship of the Chinese, and 2nd, of the faithfulness of the translation of two words of the original in which this fact is stated.'
Having thus indicated the matter at issue between him and myself, ' Inquirer' spends his strength on that he calls 'the matter of fact,' and hardly enters, so far as I can see, on the second point, — if, indeed, I understand what 'two words of the original' he was thinking of. The whole discussion has to my mind an inseparable, if not a necessary, connexion with ' the term question ; ' but leaving that for the present out of sight, let us see what my censor says on the matter of fact. According to him, it is this:— 'What i3eing is designated Thien,— Heaven,— in the Chinese classics? Dr. Legge
88 A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. [January-
expresses his full belief that the Being thus designated and which has been the chief object of the Chinese worship since the earliest record, and which Being is still worshipped by the Emperor at the altar to Heaven in Peking, at the winter solstice, is the true God — is Jehovah.' I will let this account of my * full belief ' pass in the meantime, only premising here that I have never said that the Chinese character
* Thien ' is the same as the Hebrew word * Jehovah.' I have said that Ti and the Shang Ti of the Chinese classics is * God, our God, the true God.' * Inquirer * may contend that this is equivalent to saying that Thien or Ti is Jehovah. Possibly it may be so ; but I wish to be judged by my own words, and not by another's exhibition of their meaning in his words. Ti is God ; Shang Ti is the Supreme God. Thien is God under the conception of Him as * the Great One.' Jehovah is God under the conception of Him as the
* Self-Existent.' The four names designate the same Being, but each tells its own story of Him. 'Inquirer' throughout his letter again and again repeats his charge that I hold that Thien is Jehovah, in a way that is calculated to prejudice me with his readers. I impute no motive to him for his doing so, but let the reader of this letter be aware that all he was entitled to say in giving an account of my belief as to Thien was, that the Being indicated by that name was the true God^.
* Inquirer ' says that he diflPers entirely from my view, but that there are certain things in which he agrees with me. First, he agrees with me 'in the opinion that by the word Thien, Heaven, the Chinese designate the Being, who, they suppose, is the Supreme Power in China ; a Being exercising power and control, setting up and displac- ing kings and rulers. To this Being they attribute many divine attributes and works. He is the chief object of reverence and worship.' Next, he agrees with me that * this Being is also fre- quently in the classical books called Ti and Shang Ti, that these words are designations of the same Being who is called Heaven.' And finally, he freely admits that * the Chinese have preserved among themselves an extensive knowledge of the divine nature and power, and have attributed to their chief god more of the attributes and works of Jehovah, and with less mixture of error, than other heathen people have done in ascribing attributes to their chief gods.'
I have read these passages of my censor's letter to you with pleasure, even while regretting the restriction contained in the phrase * in China,' in the first of them. It is a great pity that, agreeing in so much, we cannot go on to entire agreement. Let me
* A reader of ' Inquirer's ' letter may think that he has adduced an instance of my
calling Heaven Jehovah, — on p. 163, where he quotes from a note ab p. 478 of vol. iii of the Sacred Books of the East. But his quotation is very incomplete. He leaves out tlie intermediate sentences, which give to my closing remark all ita appropriateness and point.* The case is an axample of a defect in his method of argument, — that he seems unable to quote, either from friend or foe, with correctness.
* Any reader who will compare the extract on p. 163 of Chinese Recorder for 1880 with the
original on p. 478 of vol. iii. of Sacred Books of the East will see how much Dr. Leggo'a meaning la mls-etatcd.— lM<iuinBn.
February.] a letter to professor f. m.vx muller. 39
try to set forth as distinctly as I can wherein we differ ; and first, as to what he calls * the matter of fact.*
*I differ,' he says, 'from Dr. Legge on this fundamental point, as to what Being is called Heaven in the Chinese books. My belief is — that the Being thus reverenced and worshipped by the Chinese and called Heaven, is deified Heaven, the visible Heavens considered as a god, as the chief God of the Chinese' (p. 165). *It is not a matter now under consideration whether the Chinese may not have intended at first to designate the true God by the visible heaven as a symbol. The simple question now is, what Being or object do they worship when they worship Heaven ?
* I maintain that they worship the visible Heaven regarding it as a god pervaded by a powerful intelligent spirit which exercises supreme control or rule in China' (p. 165). 'Heaven is supposed to be pervaded by an intelligent and powerful Spirit. This is the Divinity of the Chinese. The visible object is as much a part of it as the body is a part of the compound being, man, or the image is a part of an idol god. Thien, Heaven, is the proper name of the chief god of the Chinese' (p. 169). I need not multiply quotations. My own view, in opposition to * Inquirer,' is, — that Thien is the name, not of the chief god of the Chinese, but the name by which they speak of Him, who is the One Supreme Being over all. I maintain that when they use the name in this way, they do not think of the
* material heavens ' at all. To use the words of Yang Fu, one of the great scholars of the Sung period : — * Heaven and Ti indicate one Being. The stars and constellations are not Heaven (in this sense). Heaven must by no means be sought for in what is visible. In what does he who seeks for Heaven in material appearances differ from a person who knows that a man has a body, colour and form, but does not recognise the honourable sovereign mind^ ? '
I have already quoted * Inquirer's * words that * it is not a matter now under consideration whether the Chinese may not have intended at first to designate the true God by the visible Heaven as a symbol ;* but that inquiry has always with me entered as inseparable from any satisfactory discussion of the import of the names Thien and Ti. The process which formed the nexus between the names of sensible objects and the concepts of the mind is a thing shrouded from us at this dis- tance of time from the infancy of our race, but the structure of Thien as made up of two simple characters, which mean * The Great One,* seems to give us a hint of what it was with the fathers of the Chinese in the case of the name for God^. The predicates, moreover, of Thien in the classical and other writings down to the present day, and the ancient and modern interchange of it with the personal names Ti and Shang Ti, place to me beyond a doubt the point that there was a transference of Thien, the name of the sky, to denote the concept of God.
* See my Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits, p. 87, where F6'»
original Chinese is given. ' See my Religions of China, pp. 8-11.
40 A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. [January-
* Inquirer ' allows that the use of Heaven in the sense of God is common and recognised in the Englisli language, and that it is to be admitted also in our Sacred Scriptures, and in Christian literature ; but he contends that the fact gives no support to my opinion. I think, on the contrary, that it gives strong support to it. I have heard English people, hundreds of times, say, * Heaven knows,' and it never occurred to me that they had any thought in their minds of the visible heaven. They meant what they had better have said, — ' God knows.' When I read how Confucius, deploring that he was not appreciated and understood by men, added, * But there is Heaven. — It knows me,' am I to receive with patience the assertion that he did not in the same way mean God ?
To show how baseless is * Inquirer's' contention that when the Chinese speak of Heaven, or worship Heaven, whatever else may be in their minds, there is always the idea of the visible firmament, I will give a few passages from a series of prayers, which the then emperor of the Ming dynasty addressed to Hwang Thien Shang Ti^ in the year 1538. It will be well to give the first prayer — * to greet the approach of the Spirit of Shang Ti ' — entire : — * Of old, in the beginning, there was the great chaos, without shape and dark. The five elements had not begun to revolve, nor the two lights to shine. In the midst thereof there existed neither form nor sound. Thou 0 Spiritual Sovereign, earnest forth in Thy presidency, and first didst divide the grosser parts from the purer. Thou madest Heaven, Thou madest earth. Thou madest man. All things, with their reproducing power, got their being^.' ' Thou hast vouchsafed, 0 Ti, to hear us, for Thou made all living things. Thy sovereign goodness is infinite. Great and small are curtained round (by Thee from harm).* 'Inquirer' says (p. 171): — 'In the Chinese Three Character Classic, the first book placed in the hands of Chinese children, Heaven, Earth, Man are styled " The Three Powers." In the earliest mythology of the Chinese, all of the objects of worship are divided into the three categories of Heaven, Earth, and Man, as they may belong to one or other of these categories.' I will not trouble myself or my readers by speculating on the meaning of this last sentence, but let me confi'ont with the statement about ' the three powers,' what is said in the first prayer above : — 'Thou madest Heaven ; Thou madest Earth; Thou madest Man.' Still more express is the language of another prayer, which I will also give entire. ' When Ti, the Lord, had so decreed. He called into existence the three Powers. Between (Heaven and Earth) He separately disposed men and things, all over- spread by the heavens. I, His unworthy servant, beg His (favouring)
* I translate these characters by ' God dwelling in the sovereign heavens,' while my censor would render them ' Imperial Heaven, the ruler above.' My version is correct, and confirmed by the Manchau version of the Shu ; but I discuss the renderings farther on.
' See my Religions of China, pp. .43-51. In the Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits, pp. 2«-31, the Chinese of all the prayers ou this occasion may be found.
February.] a letter to professor p. max muller. 41
decree to enlighten me His minister ; — so may I for ever appear before Ilira in the empyrean^'
I think I might now leave the 'matter of fact' about the Being who is worshipped as Thien and Ti in China. "With such prayers as I have just referred to before them, writers on the subject ought to give over asserting that that Being is * the visible Heaven,' even though they add to that the qualifying condition that it is the
* visible Heaven deified.* I intended going on at this point to consider the import of that qualification, but, while writing thus far, I have been querying all along in my mind what * Inquirer ' really meant by the second thing he had under consideration in his letter to you, and which he calls (as I have already quoted it) * the faithful- ness of the translation of two words of the original in which this matter of fact is declared,' All at once it has flashed on me that by * the two words ' he intended the two parts of the title Hwang Thien Shang Ti which has been employed in the imperial worship since 1538. He certainly dwells at length on this in pp. 176-178, impugning my translation of it, and proposing another of his own. He says : — * Dr. Legge translates Thien by Heaven, in accordance with the fact, which he states correctly, that the " most common use of Heaven in the Chinese classics is to designate the supreme govern- ing power," yet in several (? cases) he very inconsistently departs from this usage in his^translations. The phrase "Wang-thien Shang Ti " occurs several times. This is the word, Thien, Heaven, with the adjective imperial prefixed, with the designation Shang Ti following it, which Dr. Legge says is very frequently used as the synonym of Thien. In accordance with this most common use of the words, this expression means the chief power which is called Heaven, and here styled Imperial Heaven, and then followed with the synonym Shang Ti, in apposition with the commonly used name Heaven : — thus, " Imperial Heaven, the Ruler above." Dr. Legge, in disregard of this common principle of translation, renders it thus — " Shang Ti of the imperial heaven." '
Now the expression "NVang Thien Shang Ti, instead of occurring ' several times * in vol iii of the Sacred Books of the East, occurs, I believe, only once, — in p. 184, where I have translated it by * God, (dwelling in) the great heavens.' My censor contends that this version 'changes Heaven, which throughout the whole book is so frequently used to designate the chief Power, and which is the principal predicate^ *
^ Tin's prayer deserrcs consideration on two grounds : 1st. The cliaracter which I have rendered ' called into existence ' appears in Dr. Williams' last dictionary as nieaining ' to commence, to lay a foundation, to institute, the beginning.* In the face of the statements in these papers thftt ' Ti made Heaven,* what becomca of the story related by 'Inquirer' from hearsay (p. 178) of 'the late distinguished statesman. Wen Siang ?' 2nd. Ti'e concluding phrase 'in the empyrean' is,
literally. ' in the great vault' ( Jj^ ^ ^)- Dors not this establish my rendering of Hwang Thien Shang Ti as meaning ' God who dwells in the great or sovereign heaven ? * ' This is nonsense as it stands. 'Inquirer* means subject and not predicate ; — bo unfamiliar is he with the simplest nnd most common terms of grammar.
• This was a "lapsus memoi-iae" it should have read subject. The author accept*
the castigation of his friend, the learned Professor. — I^f<2^IBEB.
42 A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. [January-
of the sentence, to signify a place, and it changes it from being the predicate of the sentence to be a mere qualifying clause. Such a change is not justified by any rule of grammar, or by anything in the connection of any of the sentences in which it occurs.* But I am correct in construing Hwang Thien as a qualifying phrase, Shang Ti is the subject of the sentence ; Hwang Thien and Shang Ti are not two binomial nouns in appostion. Hwang Thien performs the part of an adjective and qualifies the other. I will content myself here with two proofs of this. The point will come up again.
1st. The translators of the Shu into Manchau, great scholars imperially commissioned for their work, construed the expression as I do. A very competent authority has supplied me with the following note : — ' Hwang Thien is rendered by Dergi Abka, " Supreme Heaven." Shang Ti, Hwang Shang Ti, and Hwang Thien Shang Ti are all translated in the same way by Dergi Abkai Han (Khan), where the i at the end of Abkai is the genitive inflexion.'
2nd. I have quoted above from the prayers used in 1538 at the inauguration Hwang Thien Shang Ti as the style of address to be thenceforth employed for God at the solstitial sacrifices. The first of the prayers (given entire) was ' to greet the approach of the Spirit of Shang Ti,' and the last was * to escort away the Spirit of Shang Ti,' clearly showing that Shang Ti was the noun or substantive part of the expression, and Hwang Thien merely an adjunct qualifying it.
The last sentence which I adduced above from * Inquirer ' is followed by a passage which is remarkable even in his letter. He says : — * There is, however, one passage from a standard collection of writings in which this phrase (Hwang Thien Shang Ti) occurs, to which I invite the attention of Chinese scholars. This sentence is of such a character as to afford a sure criterion as to the correct transla- tion of this expression, and to make clear its true meaning. The passage, which is taken from a work that dates before the Christian era, reads thus : — " For a long time the Thien (that is. Heaven) has been styled "VYang Thien Shang Ti, the great One, and its altar is called the great altar, while " Ti Ki," the Earth god, is spoken of as " Sovereign Earth." Now the " Ti Ki," ought to be styled Wang Ti Shang Ti, and its altar be called the broad altar. Happily I was able to turn to the original text* of this passage, unabridged by the compiler of any collection, 'standard ' or otherwise. It is found in the books of the first Han dynasty (b.c, 216 — a.d. 24), compiled by Pan Ku, who died a.d. 92. The third division of them consists of monographs ; the fifth of which treats, in two sections, of the solstitial
♦ By request the Chinese text of the passage as translated by me is reprinted from the pamphlet on Shangti, page 67—^ ^, ^JP^^^^Jl^^fc ""*>
>JKB mm, mm B }^ ±, ^ *s.i^mm ^m )s m^
This quotation is from a memorial by Wang Mang — who died, according to Mayer's Chinese Header's Manual^ a.d. 23 — As Pan Kii, from whose compilation Dr. Legge's quotes a passage, died a.d. 92, every reader can judge which passage is the original text. To me it appears clear that as the two passages are from different authors they are separate and independent passages. — Inquirkb.
February.] a letter to professor f.' max mtJller. 43
sacrifices or services rather, tracing their history during the course of the dynasty, the corruptions of them through the prev^ence of Taoist delusions, and the changes that had been made, and were still required (in the opinion of some), to bring them into accordance with reason and antiquity. Towards the end of the second section there occurs the passage with which I am concerned ; — part of a memorial which must have been written within the first twenty-five years of our era. The writer probably belonged to what we may call * The Revision Committee' that had been sitting since B.C. 51 on the classical writings and other old literary monuments. He had deliberated, he says, with others ; they were eighty-nine in all, and he gave their opinion on the matter in hand as follows : —
'The Son of Heaven (=the Sovereign) pays to Heaven the service due to a father, and to Earth that due to a mother. Now-a- days, when we designate the Spirit of Heaven, we call it Hwang Thien Shang Ti (=God dwelling in the great or sovereign heaven), the Great One, and we call its altar the great Terrace. And when we designate the Spirit of Earth, we merely call it Hau Thu (=Sovereign Earth), being the same as ^ung Yang Hwang Ling (=the Yellow Intelligence of the Centre); and, moreover, the altar space at the northern border has no honourable designation. It is proper that orders should be given to designate the Spirit of the Earth by the title of Hwang Lu Hau Kh\ (=Sovereign Spirit of the Great Earth), and to call its altar-space the Broad Terraced'
When you look at this translation alongside * Inquirer's ' trans- lation of the copy of the passage in his * standard collection,* you will see that that copy is very condensed indeed. Let me point out, first, that it was ' the Spirit of Heaven,' and not Heaven simply, or even ' the visible heaven, deified,' that was styled Hwang Thien Shang Ti. That binomial expression is the designation of Thien Shan, 'the Spirit of heaven,' which is the subject in the sentence, while the other is its designation or belongs to the predicate. My version, or some verbal alteration of it, will alone meet the exigency of the construction. Let me point out, secondly, that the three expressions, Hwang Thien Shang Ti, JTung Yang Hwang Ling, and Hwang Lu II&u Kh\, are all of the same construction, and should be construed in the samo way. But I think that even ' Inquirer ' will not contend that the two phrases in the second expression — ^ung Yang and Hwang Ling — are in apposition, ^ung Yang is a qualifying phrase indicat- ing the place of Hwang Ling. To explain the significance of the whole expression would require a dissertation, and a discussion of some of the darkest mysteries of Taoism and geomancy ; — all I have to do with now is the parity of construction in the three expressions. As -ffung Yang is a qualifying phrase of place, Hwang Thien and Hwang Lu should be the same. All will be prepared to admit that Hwang Lu is so ; and I venture to think that no one accustomed to
^IB M^. i!n ^ 1^ rift H ^ ±, ^ 4* :^ =i ® I^' X eJS 41: 5aJ> * W ^ ^, t: ^ ± i6 ^ 1 ^ ^ «■ jJis 0 a »§=•
44 A LETTBR TO PROFESSOR F, MAX MULLEB. [January-
the accurate interpretation of written documents will say that Hwang Thien is anything else.
But in * Inquirer's * letter, the third expression appears as
* Wang (i.e. Hwang) Ti* Shang Ti.' I do not say that when he wrote' thus, — that the Ti^Z/i ('Earth god,' as he renders it) should be so styled, he was purposely altering the text of the passage in his
* standard collection ; ' but I believe that ho was heedlessly misread- ing and misquoting it. In fact, it is difficult to follow and make allowance for his mental vagaries in this part of his letter. I have just pointed out how he translates Ti K/n by * Earth god,' and im- mediately after he renders Khi by * Producer,' saying, ' According to Dr. Legge, the first part (i.e. expression) should read " the Supreme Ruler of the Imperial Heaven ; " and the other, if translated accord- ing to the same grammatical rules, would read, " Sovereign Producer of Imperial Earth."
But on what grounds does ' Inquirer ' metamorphose the mean- ing of Khi from * god ' into * Producer ? ' Producer is nothing but Lis own audacious mistranslationf of the term. Even ' god ' is not the correct rendering of K/n. The term is synonymous with shan, (jjB^) with this difference, that spirits generally, and especially those whose seat is referred to heaven, are called shan, while those whose influence is in and over the earth are called khi.
It would seem hardly possible for the force of error to go farther, but on pp. 178, 179, * Inquirer ' contrives to outdo himself. There he says : — * The words Wang-ti t Shangti, in the second quota- tion, are the very words which are inscribed on the tablet to Heaven, which is placed on the altar at the time of that sacrifice. This I know certainly, because I saw this very tablet myself.' Other eyes, besides those of * Inquirer,' have seen * that very tablet.' I do not ask him to produce it, because it is not in his power to do so ; I only ask him to produce the signed testimony of any one of his friends who has also seen the tablet and could read Chinese, certifying that it bears on it the inscription — ' Wang (Hwang) Ti Shang Ti.' Let him do this, and I will, in the Chinese for retractiug a charge, * cat my words.'
It has been an easy, though an unpleasant, task, thus to expose the blunders of my censor, but does his being in error prove that I am myself in the right ? It does so to a great extent ; but still farther to clear myself from the charge of giving what he calls ' a
* These words should have read Hwang Ti Hau K'i. That the two last words were
printed Shangti was a typographical error ; for which the Author is not to blame. — Publishers of Chi. Kec.
t Kang Hi in defining Ti Ki says " it is the Earth shin," and quotes from the Showh-wen thus : - i^ )(®. il *»?, gi 3JC tfe IK, Jl ffi II ^ ^ 4- X« J^ ,^ ^ ^> which I have translated, " the one who causes the myriad things to come forth." See pamphlet ou Shangti, pages -10— If auy one' will suggest a word which will better express this definition of Kang Hi than " Producer " does, I will be glad to accept it.— Inquirer.
J These words should have read Wang J'^ien Shangti. The second word being printed " ti " was a typographical error for which the Author was not respou- sible.— PcBLlBUjeiiH OF Chi. Hac.
February.] a letteh to phopessor p. max mullbr. 45
gloss ' of my own, instead of a translation, when, in vol. iii of the Sacred Books of the East, I render Ti and Shang Ti by God, and to prepare the way more fully for an appeal that I wish to make to the Protestant missionaries in China on the ground of the discussions to which * Inquirer's ' letter has led me, I will, with your permission, return to the point, at which I turned aside to reply to his interpreta- tion of the parts of the expression Hwang Thien Shang Ti.
Up to that point I had been contending, that when the Chinese used Heaven, as both he and I allow, in the sense of God, they have no image of the visible heaven or sky before their thoughts. Even he says again and again, that the Being who is called Heaven in the classical books of China is * deified heaven, the visible heaven considered as a god, as the chief god of the Chinese.' Here it would seem as if one part of the controversy between, him and me could quickly and easily be settled.
* The visible heaven, deified, is the chief god of the Chinese.* How then is this deification of heaven declared ? Before it took place there must have been the idea of deity in the minds of the worshippers. What was their name for that idea ? By what process of speech was the ceremony (so to speak) of deification carried through ? I do not find in his letter that * Inquirer ' put such ques- tions to himself, or has said anything which can be accepted as replying to them. My answers to them are : — The name for the idea of Deity was Ti ; the process of deification was by styling Heaven Ti, and intensifying the title by the addition of Shang into Shang Ti.
I will substantiate these answers by the authority of two Chinese writers of great celebrity. Take first the language of K/iang I, the most renowned scholar of our eleventh century, whom even ^u Hsi, in the century after, called his master. K/ia,ng has set the thing forth as clearly as it was possible for him to do. Commenting on the remarkable lines in a poem of the eighth century B.C.,
' There ia the great God (Hwang Shang Ti), — Does He hate any one ?'
^u Hsi says : — * Shang Ti is the Spirit of heaven. As K/iang I says, " With reference to Its form, we speak of Heaven ; with reference to Its lordship and rule, we speak of Ti." ' The other authority which I adduce is the well-known lexicographer, Tai Thuug, of our thirteenth century. His account of the character Ti begins thus: — 'The honourable designation of lordship and rule. Hence Heaven is called Shang Ti.'
The Chinese thinkers could not express themselves more clearly ; and I do not know that in this nineteenth century of the Christian era any philosopher of Europe can explain fully the mystery that enwraps the subjects. How does the idea of God first arise in the human mind ? How did it become the practice, universal perhaps, certainly not confined to China, to use the name of the visible sky in the sense of God ? The Chinese fathers used it so, having the conviction that above and beyond the sky, there was a lord and ruler to whose government they and all beings and things were subject.
46 A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. [January-
and as a personal appellation for Him they used the name Ti. Ti does not mean 'lord and ruler.' It is the honourable designation of one who is such. These names are but the expansion of the idea in it. Ti means God.^ This is what I claim for myself : — to have seized with a firm hold, fully thirty years ago, this significance of the term, and to have rendered it by Grod in all translations that I have since made of Chinese writings, where it was used as the appellation of the Supreme Power. I have said, that ' Inquirer ' does not tell us by what word or words the 'deification' of the visible sky is declared. In his long argument about the parts of the expression Hwang Thien Shang Ti he would seem to say, that that important part is performed by Ti and Shang Ti ; and if so, he yields the point as to the correctness of my translation of those terms in your vol. iii. My views about the theology in the Chinese classics, whether they are correct or not, do not affect the rendering of them. It was competent for 'Inquirer' to object to those views, but not to accuse me of mistranslation. Whether Jupiter was the true god or a false does not concern our use of the word God in translating Theos or Deus ; and whether Thien be the true God, or merely the chief god of the Chinese, we are equally correct in using Ti to translate Elohim or Theos, I must confess, however, that I am surprised that my holding that Thien, Ti, and Shang Ti are denominations of ' God, our God, the true God,' should awaken a tumult of so much opposition in the mind of ' Inquirer.' I entered nearly forty years ago on a careful examination of the classical books of China with no other purpose but to qualify myself to fulfil to the best advantage the duties of a missionary. When I began to publish the result of my studies, I had the benefit of missionaries more than of any other class of possible readers in my mind. If I have lost the sympathy and confidence of any of them by making known the conclusion to which I came, I am sorry for it, — on their account more than on my own. They will bear with me, I hope, when I reiterate my conviction that ray conclusions are correct, and venture, after the manner of Paul with the Galatians, to entreat them not to think of me, because I tell them the truth, as their enemy, or the enemy of the work in which I am still as much in- terested as themselves.
But readers of ' Inquirer's ' letter will get from it an insufficient idea of what my views about theology and human duty as gathered from the Chinese classics are. He starts, as I have already com- plained, with the statement that I hold that Ti or Shang Ti is Jehovah. He might have borne in mind a paragraph which I wrote and published in 1852, the substance of which I will reproduce
^ While writing these pages I was interrupted by a visit from two of the gentlemen belonging to the Chinese legation in London, — the Charge d'Affaires in the absence of the marquis Tsiing on the continent, and one of the interpreters. I asked them their opinion about the meaning of Thien and Shang Ti. The Charg^ quoted KA Hsi's account of Shang Ti, as ' the Spirit of Heaven.' The interpreter Baid, 'If I may express my humble opinion, you in England say "God," we in China say " Shang Ti." There is no difference. God is Shang Ti, Shang Ti i« God.' ^
February.] a letter to professor v. max muller. 47
here^: — *I take the declaration in Exodus vi. 2, 3, as it stands, with- out trying to explain it away. To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God was not known by the name Jehovah. Yet they knew the true God, though they had not consciously named Him in accordance with the fact of his self-existence, which I think, and probably " Inquirer " also thinks, the name Jehovah asserts. So it is with the Chinese. "We might suppose that the first prayers or hymn used at the special solstitial service of 1538 was composed from the first chapter of Genesis. They know the true God though they have not distinctly apprehended and expressed His self-existence. As the day-spring from on high visits them, it will reveal it. It is the privilege of missionaries to quicken them to the recognition of it, and to testify — each one — to them as Moses was commissioned to do to the children of Israel, "I AM — Shang Ti, the self-existent — hath sent me to you.'"
According to my censor (p. 167), 'Thien is the absolute name of the chief god of the Chinese, and Jehovah is the absolute name of the one living and true God. No name or title can make any being more real and personal than he is in his own nature. The absolute name comprehends the whole of his attributes. These remarks are true of Jehovah as a Being possessed of all excellences.' All this agony of assertion about the absolute name arises from * Inquirer's * forgetting what absolute terms are in logic. The absolute name does not of itself tell us all about the being to whom it belongs ; it only tells us what he is as a whole in himself, without reference to any greater whole of which he is a part^. The name Jehovah tells us of God that he is self-existent ; — this and nothing more. We learn all His other attributes from His various revelations of Himself ; and then Jehovah, becoming in fact what we call a proper name, will bring God before us according to the ever-increasing amplitude of our knowledge of Him.
In the same way, while Thien may by and by be used less frequently by the Chinese, as they become familiar with our Sacred Scriptures, it will be the representative to them of God, as we know Him now, and as we hope to know Him yet more fully, even within the sphere of time. The written symbol of it is composed of the symbols of unity and greatness, and suggests the idea of the sky, the one thing above and over all, and to whose magnitude we can assign no limit. The same structure of the character, when the name is used in the sense of God, brings Him before the mind in His greatness and unity, — as the one Being who alone is great. Certainly this is a conception of God which is not to be despised ; and I am not afraid here to quote what I have said in my little work on the Religions of China published this year : — * The relation of the two names, Thien and Shang Ti, has kept the monotheistic element prominent in the religion proper of China down to the present time, and has prevented the prostitution of Ti as
^ Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits, p. 32. » Whately's Elemonta of Logic, Book II, Chap. v. Sect. 1.
48 A LETTER TO PROFESSOB F. MAX MULLER, [January-
Elohim, Theos, and other corresponding appellations of the Divine Being were prostituted in other nations^. *
I am afraid you will be thinking that this letter is already too long, and I will endeavour to be drawing it soon to a conclusion. I am weary of tracking my censor through the inaccuracies of his quotations and translations, and his loose and inconclusive attempts at reasoning. What he says about a system of nature-worship as au integral part of the state religion ; about the dualistic phrase Heaven and Earth, which was the first corruption of the old religion, and the use of which, instead of the single names Heaven or Ti, has all along been controlled by the relation between those names that I have spoken of immediately above ; about the decision of Confucius that in the two solstitial sacrifices, that to Heaven and that to Earth, the service was rendered to Shang Ti : — what he says about all these points is one-sided and misleading. Eeaders wishing to know what I have said about them, may consult my ' Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits* (1852), or my 'Religions of China compared with Christianity' (1880). Instead of entering on these subjects afresh, I will confine myself to what * Inquirer * says about
* the concurrent opinion of Christian missionaries in China,' whether adherents of the Roman and Greek churches or of Protestantism, that they hold and have held for the last three hundred years, that Heaven does not designate the true God.
There are indeed those in the Protestant camp who agree with me that ' Heaven ' in the classical books denotes the true God, but
* Inquirer ' assures you that the holders of this opinion, * so far as they have made it known, may be counted on the fingers of one hand.* Possibly it may be so, but I am surprised at the statement. Very many — I have thought one half at least of the Protestant missionaries in China — agree with me in using Ti and Shang Ti for God in their teaching, their translations, their tracts and commentaries. That is enough. If they cannot go on to embrace my opinion in its entirety, I am notwithstanding content, and can think with satisfaction of their labours. The evidence in the case, indeed, should make them go farther. Perhaps they shrink from being charged, as I was when I first published my views, and am still, — charged with not holding orthodox views. But I contend that the view of a primitive mon- otheism in China is more in accordance with the testimony of the Bible than any other, and that the usage of Thien and Ti, all along the course of history, struggling against the corruptions of that primitive monotheism, and occasionally succeeding, to a great extent, as during the Ming period, in casting them off, is most honouring to God, and shows how He has never left Himself without witness among the many-millioned people of the Chinese empire.
And moreover, when translating the Scriptures and preaching the gospel, missionaries cannot bring their truth into contact with the minds of their readers and hearers so effectually as by using Ti and Shang Ti for God.
^ Tha Eoligions of China, p. II.
February.] a letter to professou f. max mullbr. 49
What is the practice of the missionaries of the churches of Rome and Russia ? It is that prescribed by a decree of pope Clement XI in 1704, the part of which bearing on the subject in hand is as follows : — * That, since in China the most high and good God cannot be named by the names given to Him in Europe, we must, to express our idea of Ilim, employ the words Thien Ku, that is, " Lord of heaven," — now for a long period received and approved by the mission- aries and the faithful in Christ ; that the names Thien, " Heaven,'* and Shang Ti, " Sovereign Emperor," must be absolutely rejected ; and that for this reason it must not be permitted that tablets, bearing the Chinese inscription King Thien, "Adore Heaven," should bo placed in Christian churches, or retained there for the future should they have been previously so placed^'
You are aware that this decree was issued in consequence of bitter and long-continued controversies among the Roman Catholic missionaries on the meaning of the Chinese terms ; — the Jesuits principally on one side, and the Dominicans and Franciscans on the other. Before the decree appeared, P. Regis and the other translators of the Yi King, in a note to a passage in that classic, said: — 'The expressions Thien /.ih Ku, Ts^i, " Lord and Governor of heaven," Wan Wa /.-ih /iTu, " Lord of all things," and Thien A'u, " Lord of heaven," all of which the Christians use, are, we may say, synonyms of the name Shang Ti. If the word Shang Ti is now so improper because of the abuse (as some in Europe have said) of the materialis- ing philosophers of the Sung dynasty, the expressions " Lord and Governor," " Lord of heaven" are no better.'
The statement of Regis and his associates was correct, and their conclusions sound. Shang Ti and Thien ^u have, so far as tho Being whom they describe is concerned, the same reference in tho minds of Chinese readers ; but that fact could not save the former from being proscribed by pope Clement. Thien Ku having been used by Roman Catholic missionaries and their converts now for about two hundred years, Thien Ku. Kiko, ' the Teachings of the Lord of heaven,' has become among the Chinese the name for Christianity, and where they recognise a difference between Protestantism and Popery, the name for the latter. But if we leave out the adjuncts Shang and Tliien, Ti and Kn are terms of the same class, and have similar significations. There is the difference between them that there is in English between God and Lord. They may be inter- changed both in writing and preaching, and I have myself often interchanged them, saying — now Shang Ti, and now Shang ^u.^ I prefer the prefix Shang, meaning * Supreme,' to Thien, which restricts and localises ; but still Shang Ti and Thien Ku. do not come into collision in preaching. The case is different, however, in translating. In order to render lord, we require the term Ka ; and I can no inore use Thien Ku to render Eloliim and Theos than I could substitute •Heaven's Lord' in our English Bible wherever 'God' occurs, having at the same time no other word to substitute in the room of ' lord.'
» Uuc'b Christianity in Cliiua, Tartary, aud Tliiljct, III, p. 410.
60 A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. [January-
You will have observed that, in the decree of Clement XI, Shang Ti appears as meaning ' Supreme Emperor.' Here was the mistake oi the Roman Catholic missionaries. They found the emperor of China called by the title of Hwang Ti, * Great (or August) Ti.' They do not appear to have considered the facts that that title was first employed by the tyrannical sovereign of Khin in b.c. 221, and that Ti had been used, in the sense of * God,' to designate Thien for more than 2000 years before his unwarrantable assumption of it. As if the facts in the usage of the name had been the reverse of what they were, they supposed that its primary meaning was emperor and not God. If they had clearly apprehended its true meaning, as I have so often and so strongly insisted on it in this letter, I believe they would have been saved from the controversy about terms, which embittered their relations among themselves, embroiled them with the emperors of China, operated disastrously to check the progress of their missions, and entailed the discording views which now keep the Protestant missionaries in different camps. We should never have licard of * the term question,' and they would not have attempted to evade a difficulty of their own fancying by a device unworthy of the scholarship by which many of them were distinguished. I suppose the • still, small voice ' of truth was drowned amid the clamours of bigotry.
I have spoken, immediately above, of the different Protestant €amps in China. There are three. Let me endeavour to describe them.
The first camp is a large one, and contains many missionaries who use Ti and Shang Ti for God, and the term Shan for Spirit. To this camp I belonged while I was in the mission field. Whether all in it say with me that Shang Ti in the Chinese classics is * God, the true God, our God,' or some of them shrink from expressing them- selves so roundly, that does not disturb their harmony in what they preach, write, and translate for the benefit of the Chinese.
The second camp is also a large one, and contains many mis- sionaries who use the term Shan for God. This Shan is the same term which those in the first camp and the missionaries of the Roman and Greek churches use for Spirit. This makes it necessary that these missionaries should find another term for Spirit, and accordingly we find Ling (^) employed in this sense.
The third camp is as yet but small. It contains a few mis- sionaries who have begun to follow the Roman Catholic usage in the employ nlent of Thien ^u for God. But they are not agreed in the translation of Spirit, some of them in this again following the Roman Catholics, and also the missionaries of the first camp, in the use of Shan, and others of them adopting Ling from the second camp.
It is to be deplored that there is not agreement in the Chinese t«rms used for words of such importance. The difference, indeed, between Roman Catholics and the missionaries of the first camp amounts only to diversity, and not to contradiction. But I grieve over the usages in the second, in which my censor, ' Inquirer,' must have his place.
I said in one part of this letter that he has not distinctly told us by what verbal process the visible sky was deified, and that it often
February.] a letter to profbssor f. max mUller. 51
seemed that ho was allowing that the deification was made by Ti. I have since fouuJ pruoF, liowever, iu the last line of the brief appendix to his letter, that he thinks that this important operation is performed by Shan. He adduces a Chinese passage, and translates it thus : — > * At the round hillock to sacrifice to expansive Heaven, the Ruler above, is to recompense our origin. Thus to recompense our origin is because of the deifying of Heaven (Shan Thien).' I know the passage well, having adduced it, and given a translation of it, in 1852, in my ' Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits' (p. 163). The real meaning of it would alone suffice to overthrow the whole structure of * Inquirer's ' reasoning in his letter to you. Coming back to the study of it after so long an interval, I render it thus : — ' The sacrifice at the round hillock to Shang Ti (dwelling in) the vast heaven is a thankful acknowledgement of our origin (as coming from Him). It is by this thankful acknowledgment of our origin that wo spiritualise heaven,' — that we show, that is, that by (the name) Heaven, we understand a spiritual Being ^
Shan never means deity.* * Inquirer ' allows (p. 165) that, in the opinion of the Chinese, * the visible heaven is pervaded by a living intelligent, and all-powerful Spirit.' This is called Thien Shan, and very often Thien k'lh. Shan, with A'ih, the equivalent of our preposition ' of,' between those terms. Every one iu the second Protestant camp allows that Shan means Spirit ; but it is contended that it also means God, or may be made to mean so. Dr. Morrison unfortunately said : — ' The Shrm of China denotes Spirit or God.' But the term is applied to whatever does not fall under the apprehension of the senses, and is descriptive, in the concrete, of the class of spirits. It is for them a generic name of nature ; and to say by it that there is only one Shan is impossible. Is there to be found, out of the mission field of China, a body of sensible men attempting by a generic name to deny the existence of the genus to the existence of which it testifies ?
At the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, held at Shanghai in 1877, an Essay was read by the Rev. Mr. Roberts, an American Presbyterian missionary, on ' Principles of Translation into Chinese.' With most of those principles, as laid down by him, I cordially agree ; but he is unfortunately drawn iu one place into the vortex of * the term question.' Endeavouring to illustrate his views by the term Shan, he says : — * There are two analogues for it in English and the original tongues of the Scriptures, one of which — spirit, pneuma, ruach — is, it is claimed by some, an
^ The phrase Shau Thien (jp^ ^) is a difficult one. The idea in the mind of tho Chinese writer was, I am confident, what is conveyed by my expansion of the phrase, and is expressed as clearly as the difficulty of the subject, and the sym- bolical nature of his written medium, enabled him to do. In the Record of Uitoa, IX, i, 21, we find ' Earth shanned' in the same way : — ' The sacrifice at the altar to the Earth is the way by which the Earth is spiritualised ;' — the way, that is, iu which we show that by (the name) Earth, at that service, we understand a spiritual Being. Gallery (p. 61) renders this passage : — ' La culte du Dieu tutelaire de la terre a pour objet de spiritualiser la terre.*
* As the remaining pages are occupied by a formal discussion of the " terras," we might refrain from printing this part of the Letter. But we prefer to print it entire. — Eduob of Chi. Rec.
52 A LETTER TO PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. [January-
exact equivalent of one of the meanings of Slian^ and the other — gods* elohira, theos — of the other meaning. The clioice hotwcen those meanings must be determined by circumstances.' But is it the case that, beyond the second Protestant camp in China, it is allowed that there is any analogue of shan, in the concrete, in Eiiglisli or other languages, but spirit or the equivalent term in each ? Mr. Roberts' style of speech on the subject is new to me. Accepting, himself, that the other word, or god, is also an analogue of it, ho goes on to say that * the ordinary popular definition of God, the translator's definition, *'an object of (formal, stated) worship," — whether a " being" or not is immaterial, — is the only consistent and possible one ; for God, in common usage, is so called rather from a relation he sustains than from his nature, or any personal attribute, respect, or function.' I will not stay to point out all the various shades of error and inconsistency in this sentence, further than to record my dissent from the account which it gives of the dofiniticm of God, considered even popularly, and still more from a translator's point of view. But even if that were correct, no inference could be drawn from it to favour the adoption of Shun as the rendering for God in Chinese ; for Shan does not contain in itself any idea of the spirit or .spirits to whicTi it refers being objects of worship.
I allow, of course, that since * God is a spirit,' we may, by using various adjuncts along with the term Shun, convey some idea of our meaning when we try to speak or write about God with it ; but S!iau used alone, as it must be thousands of times in a version of the Bible, can only confuse and lead astray. I may be told that, as a Chinese reads on, he will by and by come to see the sense in which the translator meant the term to be understood ; but supposing that such a result were possible, where is the sense of subjecting iho man to so painful a process in order to reach it? As I said in 1852, I say now : — ' The first step towards harmony among the Protestant mission- aries in China must.be taken on this term Shan by the agreement of all to use it in its proper sense of Spirit, and in that alone.' •
The importance, not to say the necessity, of such an agreement becomes greater fi-om the difiiculty of finding any other word to use for spirit in the place of shun. The missionaries who thought it necessary to resolve that shun should mean God continued for a time, after the example of Dr. Morrison, to use for spirit the term fang. But fang means * wind,' and 'influence ' such as may be symbolised by the effects of the wind. It was ere long found to be intolerable to read in the New Testament expressions equivalent to 'the love of the wind,' 'the wind saith to the churches.' Fang was abandoned and the advocates of Shan for God gathered round the term ling for spiiit. This ling is not so startlingly objectionable as fang, but it answers the purpose in em])loying it very imperfectly.
Shan and ling are used in dictionaries, — each to define the other. But there is a difference between them. Shan is a name of nature ; ling is the name of a quality of that nature. "We meet with such expressions as — ' The mind naturally is a thing which IS spiritual and clear-seeing,' and ' The nand is a thing which HAS intelligence.*
February.] a letter to professor f. max muli.er. 53
Wo can say Shan /.ih ling, but not Ling ^ih Shsin. The phrase Sli:m /.ih ling, occurring of necessity very many times in the Shun Bible of tlie second camp, and intended to say to its readers, * The Spirit of God ' really says only ' The efficaciousness of the Spirits.' Tiie most that even Shang Ti /ah ling, or Thien Kn /.ih ling, could say would be, * The influence or efficaciousness of God.' Instead of teaching the personality of the Spirit, ling is opposed to the doctrine which would teach it. Ling ought to be discarded from the second camp as fane- was. AVheu the occupants of that camp have united with all the other missionaries in using Shan for Spirit, I am little concerned comparatively whether they elect to use Shang Ti for God, or Thien Kvi. My osvn judgment and predilections are in favour of Ti and Shang Ti. To adopt these is the more excellent way ; — more in accordance with the truth of names and things, and more adapted for the mission field of China. But if they prefer to adopt Thien ATi, I shall not feel that they and the missionaries of the first camp are in antagonism to one another. They can teach, and preach the gospel intelligibly, though I fail to see how they can translate the Scriptures in a scholarly and successful manner.
And now I bring this long letter to a conclusion, though it is not nearly so long as * Inquirer's.' He provoked me to the controversy by the charges which he brought against me to you ; and I hope you will consider that I have shown that there was no foundation for them. I went on to vindicate my views on the theology in the Chinese classics, not because of the force of * Inquirer's ' pleading against them, but from regard to others, especially younger men, who are in the same camp with him. I touched in conclusion, also on their account, on the, old ' term question.' It would have been easier to write much more than so little.
I am often amused when I look back to the years when wo thought in China that question was the most important controversy in the world. And it was far from being unimportant ; but the recollection of it comes to me, as if it had been a long-enduring nightmare. AYhilc I do not regret the part which I took in it, and have reason to believe that it was useful, I commenced this reply to 'Inquirer ' most reluctantly. As I went on, there occurred to me once and again the words of Gray.
' Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.'
But it is not so, and I have been sorry to be severe at times in showing the want of accuracy in my censor's translations, and of soundness in his arguments. I hope that I shall not have to become a controversialist again.
As * Inquirer ' addressed his letter to you, you will probably reply to him. I rejoice to think, indeed, that you are thus called in to give your judgment in the questions agitated between him and me, and which, apart from the details of Chinese criticism, must have a great interest for you. Meanwhile I will publish this letter, and send it to the Editor of ' the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal,' with a request that, as my defence, it may be allowed to appear where ' Inciuirer's ' letter to you did.
54 THE NORTH-CHINA MISSION OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. [JailUaiy-
THE NORTH-CHINA MISSION OF THE AMERICAN BOARD.
By Ret. C. A. Stanley.
rjlHE operations of this mission have been confined mainly to the ■^ province of Chihii. It is the province of the Imperial city, Peking, which ranks it as the most important of the provinces of China. Its name is descriptive meaning direct rule, and denotes that from it emanates the power which governs the nation. Its surface is level, with the exception of a few hills and ridges at the north and west. Its jurisdiction now extends over a large tract of Mongolia ; but this part is separately officered. This outer section comprises about half the area of the entire province. It is bounded by Inner Mongolia on the north, Shing-king, Gulf of Pechihli and Shantung on the east and south-east, Honan on the south and south-west, and by Shansi on the west. For a short distance on the north-east, the Great Wall forms the border line.
There are few if any important historical events or incidents connected with the province, such as have given renown to some other parts of the empire. Shantung is the birth-province of Confucius ; Chihii can boast of no honor equal to this. Still it is not without its legends and romances, some of which possess a degree of interest — perhaps had some political or other importance at the time.
The area of the province is 59,949 square miles ; is divided iuto 17 departments (counties), and 144 districts (townships), each having its walled city, a number of market towns, and scores of villages and hamlets.
Much of the soil is unproductive on account of the soda it contains, causing its surface to present the appearance of being covered with a hoar frost. Persistent labor and cultivation has reclaimed a considerable portion of this inferior part. Where free from soda, the soil is productive ; but the spring and autumn rainfall is too small, generally, to ensure the full harvest ; while the summer rains are usually so frequent and so abundant as to inundate the low lying lands, and do immense damage, often completely destroying the crops. The swollen streams often overflow their banks, thus adding greatly to the destruction and suffering, and occasionally sweeping away in a night a'l entire village. Many of these river beds are dry during a large part of the year, but fill rapidly when the
February.] the north-china mission oE-the American hoard. 55
summer rains begin, and pour out a great volume of water during tbo rainy season. Large tracts of the low land are overflowed almost every year. These abound with fish ; and where the water is not too deep, rice is cultivated successfully.
The principle productions are wheat, barley, millet (large and small), many varieties of beans and vegetables, cotton, apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, grapes, walnuts and chestnuts. Hides, camels' and sheeps' wool, " medicines " and soda, are among the articles most extensively exported. Coal is abundant in the hills, but the mines are very imperfectly worked. The best coal has scarcely been reached, and the methods of transportation make it very expensive at the place of consumption. The precious metals and iron are also found, in what quantity is unknown.
This Mission was begun by Rev. Henry — now Dr. — Blodget, who, after a residence of six years in Shanghai, came north in the autumn of 1860, in a transport ship connected with the allied English and French forces, reaching Tientsin September 28th. The Mission is therefore just twenty years old. Other stations have been occupied as follows : Peking in 1864 ; Kalgan in 1865 j Tung Cho in 1867 ; Pau-ting-fu in 1873. It is proposed to occupy a new station in the Shantung border next year.
'When the statistics which appear in the Records of the Missionary Conference held in Shanghai in May, 1877 were prepared, the Mission numbered five stations where missionaries resided, 10 out-stations, 267 church members, 14 clerical and two lay missionaries, 11 married and 5 single ladies.
While there has been growth at all the stations, the most rapid expansion has been in the Southern part of the field in connection with the Tientsin station, which reported 367 church members at the last annual meeting held in April-May, as against 90 in 1877. For this rapid growth, two causes are chiefly assign- able— one immediate, the other remote. The immediate cause was the distribution of famine relief in the spring of 1878. By this charitable labor hundreds of lives were saved, and the distributors brought directly into contact with thousands of the people. The missionaries thus became personally known to them, and prejudice was disarmed.
In organizing the relief work, it was distinctly stated that receiv- ing aid bore no relation whatever to hearing the doctrine ; that money was sent simply to save life and only as life was imperilled, and in such amounts as were necessary to save it would money be given ; that as time and opportunity permitted, instruction would be gladly
56 THE nohth-chtna mission of the AMERICAN BOARD. [Jaiiuar)'-
given to all who were willing to receive it, but the imperative work now was not preaching, but feeding the starving.
It is noticeable that a desire to hear the truth gradually sprang up ; and I am satisfied that a careful adherence to these principles had much to do with the spiritual results which have followed.
But the more I look over the entire field, the more does it appear to me that the remote cause had quite as much to do as the immediate in producing this enlargement. In other sections, relief was given with equal care and fidelity, with varying — in many with very meagre — spiritual results. May not the reason be largely this, that but little evangelistic labor proceeded the relief work ? Annual or semi-annual preaching tours had been made to this section of country, since the winter of 1866. Books had been sold at fairs, while both at the fairs and in many of the smaller villages, the truth had been proclaimed by the missionary and his assistants. Something was known of the gospel throughout a wide region of country when the famine came. There was already gathered a membership of 43 scattered among ten villages, the most remote of which were about fifteen miles apart.
No claim is made that these Christians are better than any other equal number, similarly circumstanced. Indeed some were very un- worthy representatives of the Christian name — perhaps injured rather than promoted the cause. Yet making all due allowance for this ; with twelve years of labor done, a! couple of score of members testifying to Christianity by their adherence to it at least, — if not in all cases by the best of lives — in half-a-score of villages, and hundreds of copies of Christian books and tracts and portions of Scripture scattered about, it is safe to say that it was reasonable to expect a great enlargement in the work at no distant day.
No one could anticipate that famine would be the immediate agency used by God to set before the people the practical results of Christianity as exemplified in the relief sent them from far away lands and people, and to enforce its principles on their own consciences. Yet so it was. The teachings of the gospel, imperfectly understood, were now illustrated before their eyes ; they connected the two, and pondered on them ; we see the result under God's Spirit, for which these years of labor had been preparing.
A double lesson of encouragement is taught by this brief history. However unpromising the prospect, persistent labor will bring a harvest in God's time and way. However dark the providence, seize the opportunity, use it in faith, in some way God means bless- ing by it.
February.}-,
A MONGOL WIZARD.
67
The present force of the mission is, 13 clerical and one lay missionary ; 13 married and 6 single ladies. Un route to join the mission, 3 missionaries and their wives, and 1 single lady. Excepting in church membership the change in statistics has been very slight since 1877. Important changes are indicated in the accompanying
TABLB OF STATISTICS.
Stations
Out-stations
Churches
Church members. . . . Boys' boarding sch's.
Pupils
Boys' day schools . .
Pupils
Giris' boarding sch's.
Pupils
Theological school , . Pupils
|
1877 |
1880 |
|
5 |
same |
|
10 |
20 |
|
7 |
13 |
|
267 |
613 |
|
1 |
|
|
12 |
25 |
|
8 |
4 |
|
45 |
56 |
|
1 |
|
|
20 |
30 |
|
1 |
|
|
5 |
Sunday schools , , , ,
Scholars
School Teachers .... Assistant Preachers. ,
Colporteurs
Bible women
Church buildings for
Christian worship
Chapels
Churches partially
self-supporting . . Contributions ......
|
1877 |
1880 |
|
6 |
7 |
|
147 |
158 |
|
9 |
|
|
8 |
13 |
|
4 |
|
|
1 |
2 |
|
5 |
7 |
|
7 |
9 |
|
3 |
6 |
|
$50 |
$80 |
A MONGOL WIZARD.
A S an illustration of the Mongolian belief in the supernatural power possessed by some men, take the following story which is current in Mongolia.
The merits of a famous wizard were being discussed, when a rash young man remarked that perhaps the wizard had great power and perhaps he could deceive others, but he could never deceive him. The wizard, hearing of this boast, had his fine saddle put on his splendid black horse and rode to the abode of the rash young man. The conversation soon turned to the supposed powers of the wizard, and the youth rather wished to put them to the test. The wizard said that was all right, but that meantime he was in trouble and wanted to get out of it. A Chinaman had come to his house and refused to stir from it till an old debt of ten taels were paid up. Failing the money the Chinaman would be content with nothing less than the handsome black horse, but he, the wizard, was unwilling to let an animal worth thirty taels be sacrificed to clear a debt of tea taels, and
58 A MONGOL WIZARD. [January-
so had come to offer to sell the animal for twenty taels to the young man. The wife was just in the act of pouring out three cups of tea, one for the wizard, one for her husband, one for herself, when the husband went out to have a look at the horse. As he looked at it he suddenly became unconscious, did not know where he was, and wandered about in a land without inhabitant, till, finally, he came to a single hut at the foot of a mountain not far from the sea-shore. The hut proved to be that of a lone woman who could give no account at all of herself. The young man also found that he too could give no account of himself, but remained a day or two under her roof.
When the time came for him to go he did not want to leave ; had, in fact, no where to go to, and proposed to marry his hostess. They did marry and between them managed to make life more endur- able. The woman gathered fuel on the mountain, drew water, and busied herself with household concerns, while the husband went a hunting and kept the house in provisions. In due time a child was born, to the great delight of the parents. "Ah," said they, "Ah, we are three now and don't need to fear." Other two years passed away and another child was born. "Ah," said they, "Ah, we are four now, and may live at ease." Six years in all elapsed, when, one day as the father returned loaded with a deer, and the mother was warming the house with a bundle of fuel, the youngest of the two children was seen creeping towards the sea, and suddenly fell in. Trying to save him, the elder also fell in, and the mother, distracted, trying to save her two children, fell in also. The father threw down the carcase of the deer, and rushed to the scene of the disaster, but he was too late, it was all over and he was all alone. For a month or two he had rather a hard time of it. If he went for venison he had no fuel, if he went for fuel he had nothing to cook. Eventually he found himself unconscious, and uncertain as to his whereabouts, but saw a tent like his own with a horse tied before it, and was re-called to consciousness by his wife asking him, angrily, if he did not mean to drink his tea before it cooled.
The truth flashed upon him. He had been under the power of the wizard and had experienced the joys and sorrows of six long years and more, all in less time than a cup of tea takes to cool.
HOINOS.
February.] obituary op the kev. Justus doolittle. 59
OBITUARY OF THE REV. JUSTUS DOOLITTLE.
TT is eminently proper that some appreciative notice of the late Rev. J. Doolittle should appear in the pages of the Recorder. He was editor of this Magazine for a time in addition to his other labors. The first notice is from Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D., who was at the same station though of a different Mission. The second is from the Rev. C. C. Baldwin, D.D., who was for many years his colleague in the same Mission.
Rev. Justus Doolittle was bor^ in Rutland, Jefferson county, KY., June 23, 1824. He was converted in Medina, Orleans county, in 1834, under the labors of Rev. Mr. Burchard. His father soon afterward removed with his family to Indiana. Justus returned to this State in 1844, and united with the Congregational church in Rutland. He entered Hamilton College on September 21, 1842, and graduated honorably from that institution July 22, 1846. During his whole life he cherished pleasant memories of the President and Professors, and of the students with whom he was there associated. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ithaca, June 7, 1848. He entered Auburn Theological Seminary in September 1846, and graduated June 20, 1849. His graduating address was on " The Peculiar Obstacles to the Evangelization of the Chinese." So fully had he studied the field to which he was going, and so thoroughly had he made himself acquainted with its peculiarities, that now, after the lapse of thirty years, scarcely a word need be changed in that address as an accurate presentation of its subject. On the evening of the same day he was ordained as a missionary by the Presbytery of Cayuga, and married by the Rev. H. A. Kelson to Miss Sophia A. Hamilton.
He sailed with his wife for China from Boston, November 22, 1849, and reached Foochow May 31, 1850. He entered at once upon the study of the language, and notwithstanding its great difiiculty, and the absence in those days of the many helps now enjoyed, he commenced to hold family worship in Chinese within six months. In two years after his arrival. May 27, 1852, he held his first religious exercise in the chapel. June 21, 1856, he was called to mourn the loss of his excellent wife, who died in the full triumphs of faith. October 19, 1857, a native church was organized in connection with the American Board's Mission, consisting of four
60 OBITUARY OF THB REV. JUSTUS DOOLiTTLU. [January-
converts, at least one of whom had been under Mr. Doollttle's instruction, as a pupil, in the school of which he had charge.
January 11, 1859, Mr. Doolittle was married to Miss Lucy E. Mills at Shanghai. He continued to labor faitlifully at Foochow until February 23, 1864, when he was obliged to return to America in the hope of recovering from aphonia — a disease which had precluded for some time the use of his voice in public speaking. August 11, 1865, his wife was called to her heavenly home, leaving the most clear and precious testimony to her Saviour's grace in the dying hour. During this stay at home, Mr. Doolittle prepared and published his "Social Life of the Chinese," the most thorough and valuable work on the details of Chinese life that has ever appeared. His habit of accurate and painstaking observation, is fully illustrated iu this work.
February 1, 1866, he was married at Galesburg, 111., to Miss Louisa Judson, with whom he sailed for China April 7. He reached Tientsin, to which field he was transferred August 20. Here he labored three years, when his voice again hopelessly failing, he accepted an invitation to enter the mercantile house of August Heard & Co., at Foochow, as interpreter. Though laid aside from active participation in the missionary work, he continued to show the deepest interest in it, and his association with the missionaries was deeply ap- preciated by them.
In 1872, feeling that his yolce was greatly improved by the rest he had enjoyed, he sought to enter the work in connection with the Presbyterian Board. His wishes were granted, and in September of that year he removed with his family to Shanghai, and entered upon work in that place. While at Foochow he had begun the publication of a vocabulary of the Chinese language, which he afterward finished at Shanghai, and published in two large volumes. It contains a vast amount of information on a great variety of subjects, and is of much value to all students of the language. It is to be feared, however, that he taxed his mental powers too severely by the great additional burden he then placed upon them. His work at Shanghai was of very short duration. He was stricken down in January, 1873, by a very sudden attack, resembling paralysis, and although he partially recovered from it, he was obliged to return to America in May, 1873, since which he has resided in Chinton, N. Y. As long as he was able to work, he was constant in his efforts to interest the churches in the missionary work. He gradually sank under softening of the brain, until he closed his eyes, June 15, 1880, upon earthly scenes, and entered the glories of heaven !
February.] obitttaut of the rbv. jtisttts dooltttle. 61
One of his fellow missionaries has well said of him. "His prominent traits as a missionary were entire devotion of spirit, definiteness of aim, and minuteness and thoroughness of detail in execution." All his work was characteiized by these qualities. He was eminently catholic and cordial in his feelings toward fellow laborers of all names ; and his cheerfulness in the social circle made his presence a blessing in the various missionary families. His strict conscientiousness made him a firm adherent of whatever appeared to him as right, and an unflinching opponent of everything that was dishonoring to God or degrading to man. He listened with great pleasure to an eloquent denunciation of the opium traffic by a native preacher, and afterward expressed his cordial sympathy with the speaker. Untiring in work for God, persevering in all duty, un- wavering in faith, and steady in purpose, he was a worker greatly appreciated when in the field, and greatly missed when removed from it. "We may not feel sad to-day on his account. Though mourning our loss, for him we can only rejoice that his struggles are over, and the eternal rest of heaven is his !
The following remarks are from his colleague, Rev. C.C. Baldwin, D.D. : — Rev. Justus Doolittle joined our American Mission at Foo- chow May 31st, 1850, and at once commenced the study of this difficult dialect, I remember the eagerness with which he investi- gated its peculiarities, as a system. As I had preceded him in the field about two years, I was able to be of some service to him. The tones of the dialect, and some of the initial and vowel sounds tasked his patience, as a learner. A knowledge and practice of music would have materially helped him over some of the hard places. But he made up for his want of these by careful study and incessant drill, and acquired a good knowledge of the language, written and spoken. His vocabulary of terms, needed in preaching and book making, was quite extensive. He spoke often with much power. He depicted the follies and sin of idolatry so graphically and forcibly as to rivet the attention of crowds. His manner was earnest, impressive, downright, and unsparing, but his thoughts were uttered with such a manifest sincerity and honesty of purpose, as very rarely to elicit angry retorts, though of course they often provoked warm discussions. The audiences seemed sometimes spell-bound. I was very intimately associated with him in this kind of work at our first church. Very often we and our helpers spoke in turn, and repeated our turns on the same occasion, as our interest impelled us. Our using different terms for the divine name, during a part of the period under review, was not allowed to interfere with the
62 OBITTIARY OP THB REV. JUSTUS DOOLITTLB. [JailUary-
work. We followed our convictions and maintained our mutual sympathy and trust in each other. Practically it made no difference with our heathen audiences. They understood the terms as designat- ing the same Being, whom we called Heavenly Father or Jesus. Mr. Doolittle also preached instructively to our little congregations of Christians, teachers, servants and school children. The recollection of one sacramental occasion is still vivid in my memory. He spoke of the love of Jesus, and of His preciousness as a Saviour to the Christian heart in a most impressive manner, illustrating his point by a citation of incident. His words seemed to come from his inmost soul with living power. The Rev. "Wm. C. Burns was one of the hearers, and after the service remarked that the preacher seemed to be moved by the Holy Spirit in his address.
Mr. Doolittle excelled as Superintendent of a Mission School. Strict discipline and thorough instruction characterized his govern- ment. No drill-sergeant could train his raw recruits better than Mr. Doolittle trained his school. To use the common saying, all were obliged to " toe the mark " from the native teacher down to the youngest scholar. The pupils were grounded in Christian knowledge and guided in their religious experience as well as in their daily studies, so far as the very peculiar character of such a school would permit. The four oldest boys were boarded on the premises and received special training. All became preachers. The oldest, Mr. Sing, is now employed as principal teacher in our Boarding School. Mr. Nga is pastor of the first church. Mr. Lau is licensed preacher at Changloh city. The fourth, Mr. "Wong, has entirely forsaken Christ, I fear, and is making haste to become rich, as he openly says.
Mr. Doolittle is also widely known as an author in China and in the U.S. His " Social Life of the Chinese " and " Vocabulary and Hand-Book of the Chinese Language " show the peculiar traits of his mind. To speak only of the former, it is a marvel of accuracy in details, and of honesty and faithfulness in giving the exact features of every subject of which it treats. The book is thoroughly trustworthy. It cost him many a long weary day of intense application (not to say, fear) in Foochow and in the U. S. before it was deemed, by its self- exacting author, worthy of being given to the public. Besides these two extensive works the one in English, the other in English and Chinese, Mr. Doolittle published Almanacs and a considerable number of tracts in Chinese, mostly revisions and translations into the Foo- chow of extant works. These do not appear in the ** Catalogue of publications into Chinese by Protestant Missionaries." It should be
February.] obituart of the rbv. Justus doolittle. 63
added that Mr. D. was not only diligent in making books, lie was also very laborious, during a part of bis missionary career in selling books among the people. He found by experience what means were best adapted to the purposes of street- work and then made frequent use of them. His well arranged stand and stock of books were taken to some public place, where he took his position, book in hand, spoke of the contents and invited purchasers. In this way he disposed of hundreds and thousands of tracts and larger volumes, while his brief explanations served the double purpose of effecting sales, and of informing the mind of the many in regard to religious truths.
Our departed friend possessed an intense spirit of devotion to the cause of Christ in China. This pervaded his life and ennobled his mental traits. He had very clear and decided convictions of truth and of duty, and it required very strong arguments indeed to induce him to change either view or practice in important matters. He wag a most conscientious man, almost morbidly so, as others would sometimes judge him to be. He was painstaking, laborious and persevering in any task that he undertook, and his conscientiousness pervaded the task to its end. Such was his natural bent, so that usually the completed task unmistakeably revealed the trait. He had a well trained intellect, whose work in sermons, letters, and books usually commanded the assent of his associates. He was a plain, straight-forward reasoner, moving to some practical end. He was original and fruitful in expedients, which secured a full-rounded success to his plans. He was warm and sincere in his friendships, and strictly just in his dealings. In all his life he commended himself to us and to his native brethren, as a Christian without guile and a faithful disciple of Christ. He was a man of very tender feelings, though these were sometimes concealed under a calm or severe exterior. But in speaking of the love of Jesus and kindred themes, his heart of responsive love showed itself at once in voice and manner.
The influence of such a man perpetuates itself by fixed moral law. This is one source of comfort in the death of our dear brother, while to him the gain is unspeakable. He is forever released from the sad state of physical and mental weakness, which here was so irreparable, to enter forever into the joy of his Lord. "What » glorious exchange !
64 THE REVEREND 8AMUEL R. BROWN, D.D. [ January -
THE REVEREND SAMUEL R.'BROWN, D.D.
TF a proper respect for one of the customs of civilized society, and a due regard for our personal improvement, demand from us some discriminating and appreciative reference to those who, having acted well their part, pass away from earth, it certainly is eminently fitting that we should notice in the columns of this journal the life and labours of so long and favourably known a member of the foreign community in Japan, as the late Rev. Samuel R. Brown, D.D., the intelligence of whose decease, which occurred on the 26th of June, 1880, in his birth- place, Massachusetts, U.S.A has reached us by a recent mail.
The more prominent events in the life of Dr. Brown seem to fall readily into four periods — -first, the period covering his early life, his first three or four years of teaching in the United States, extending from the year 1810 to the year 1838 ; s^conc/ period comprising his term of service in China, as Principal of the Morrison School established in Hongkong for the Christian education — chiefly through the medium of the English language — of Chinese youth, extending from 1839 to 1847 ; the third period including his services as pastor of a Reformed church in one of the towns in the northern portion of the state of New York, U.S.A., and as classical instructor of an academy'^in the same town, extending from 1848 to 1858 ; the fourth period being the time of his residence in Japan, from 1859 to 1879.
"With regard to the first period just referred to it may suffice to state briefly, that Mr. Brown was born in Monson, one of the old towns in the state of Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the year 1810, that his earliest mental culture was received from intelligent and devout parents, his mother possessing more than ordinary intellectual gifts, together with very decided religious convictions, and being now widely known as the author of some excellent hymns which have been adopted by many of the Churches in the United States ; that during his course of study in the Monson academy, and subsequently during his studies in Yale college, New Haven, Conn., he was favoured with all the advantages to be derived from the most competent instructors and the best educational appliances to be had at that time in the United States ; that after his graduation from Yale college, impressed by a sense of his personal obligation with reference to the duty of preaching the Gospel in lands where it had not been proclaimed, he offered himself to the American Board of Missions for service in the foreign missionary field ; and that, being disappointed in regard to the immediate execution
February.] the reverend samuel r. brown, d.d. 65
of this purpose, he accepted temporarily a situation as instructor in the institution for the deaf and dumb, in New York city, where he remained three or four years and then received a call to engage in the work of Christian education in China.
During the second period of his life (1839-1847), Mr. Brown is presented to us as a pioneer in the work of Christian education among the Chinese. Accompanied by Mrs. Brown, he sailed from the port of New York, via the Cape of Good Hope, in the ship Morrison, and arrived on the 19th of February, 1839, in China, when he at once assumed charge of the " Morrison School, " an institution established and supported chiefly by some of the members of the foreign community then resident in China. The object of the school was to impart a liberal education — chiefly in English — to some of the youth of China, with a view to opening the way for the introduction of Western literature and science among the Chinese. The island of Hongkong had been recently ceded to Great Britain by the Government of China, and it was decided to plant the school in that Settlement where it would possess ample facilities for the prosecution of its beneficent work. The title of the school was intended to be a memorial tribute to the then, recently deceased E-ev. Robert Morrison, D.D., known and honored as the first Protestant missionary to China. Mr. Brown's administration of the school was eminently successful, and after giving to it eight years of faithful labor, when compelled by the failure of Mrs. Brown's health to return to the United States, he had the satisfaction of receiving from the Trustees of the school the following well-merited praise : — " Having, from a closer intercourse with Mr. Brown than that of other members of the Society, had frequent opportunities of admiring the satisfactory manner in which he has conducted the school, we cannot avoid, on such an occasion as this, expressing our approbation of the manner in which he has carried out the wishes of the Society."
During the third period in Dr. Brown's life (1848-1858) he resided in the United States, the greater portion of the time in the State of New York, where he entered upon the work of the pastorate in connection with the the American Reformed Church, and in the discharge of his high duties won the esteem and confidence of all with whom he had intercourse. In addition to his pastoral work he found opportunity to given lessons in Greek and Latin to some of the classes in an academy conducted in the town where he resided, and the work, being entirely congenial to his taste, afforded him sincere pleasure. During these years, also, he exercised a general supervision over the three Chinese boys he had brought with .him on his return from China to the United States. One of these, Mr. Yung Wing, under appointment by
6G THE REVEREND SAMUEL R. BROWN, D.D. [January-
tlie Emperor of China, is now in the United States superintending the education of about ninety Chinese boys placed by the Chinese Govern- ment under his care for this purpose, and who have entered by twos in many of the schools and some of the private families of New England, the object being to separate them from each other as much as practicable with a view to their becoming to a certain extent Americanized, that thus they may the more readily and certainly acquire a thoroughly idiomatic use of the English language.
The closing period of Dr. Brown*s life (1859-1879), reaching through a period of twenty years, covers the time of his residence in Japan. The first task challenging his efforts on his arrival in Japan, was the acquisition of a new language with a view to the communica- tion through it, of knowledge and ideas to the Japanese mind — a task sufficiently formidable for a man fifty years of age, and yet one which he successfully accomplished. By persevering study he acquired not only a thorough knowledge of the general structure of the language, but also the ability to use it, both in writing and speaking, with accuracy and fluency. As a teacher of English, whether in Government or Mission schools, he was, of course, entirely at home, and the work he undertook in this department was most effectively performed. It was remarked by a gentleman, fully competent to pronounce an opinion on the subject, that when meeting English-speaking Japanese, he could always identify Dr. Brown's pupils by the correctness and purity of their language. The works he has published, designed to elucidate the structure of the Japanese language or to facilitate its acquisition by the student, have been found most useful.
Dr. Brown cherished an intelligent interest in everything that concerned the Japanese; hence, he was an active member of the Asiatic Society of Japan and frequently filled its chair as president. While warmly attached and thoroughly loyal to the branch of the church of Christ with which he was connected, the catholicity of his Christian sympathies was a prominent feature of his character. He was prompt to discountenance whatever tended to produce strife among Christian brethern. Nothing seemed to pierce his spirit with a keener sorrow than the thought that there was a lack of hearty Chrtstian fellowship among those with whom he associated ; and nothing caused his count- enance to glow with a brighter radiance of satisfaction, than to notice evidences of the increase of love between the brethren in Christ. Infused with such a spirit, it was to be expected he would hail with delight the proposal to form the Japan Branch of the Evangelical Alliance. He took an active part in the formation of the Alh'ance, filled the office of President for three years, and both by his presence
February.] the reverend samuel r. hrown, d.d. 67
and addresses at the meetings, contributed largely to the success of the movement. His pulpit ministrations in the English language, when the condition of his health made it practicable for him to officiate, were always evangelical, earnest and instructive.
The work, however, with which Dr. Brown's name will be most pro- minently connected is his share in the translation, recently completed of the New Testament into the Japanese language. Being one of the pioneer Protestant missionaries to this Empire he had early given his attention to this important subject ; and before any public action with regard to it had been taken by the body of Protestant missionaries in Japan, he had already made some tentative efforts in this direction. His knowledge of both the Japanese and Chinese languages, and his familiarity with the Greek text of the New Testament were admirable qualifications for the proposed work of translation ; and at a general meeting on the subject, held at Yokohama in 1872, by the missionaries, he was elected a member of the committee chosen by that body to translate the New Testament into the Japanese tongue. Dr. Brown cooperated heartily and efficiently with the translation committee, attending as far as practicable all its sessions, and preparing, with great care, the first-draft translation of Acts, Philippians, Philemon, and Revelation, which came before the committee for revision. During the spring and early summer of 1879 it became evident that his time for work was approaching its close ; but, animated by a strong desire to complete the first-draft translation of Revelation which he was preparing, he toiled on, through much physical pain and weariness, till at last he had the great satisfaction of finishing his task and presenting the translation to the committee for its revision. He felt "now that his work was done, and with profound gratitude to God for what he had been permitted to accomplish and to witness in Japan, he at once began to make preparations for returning, with his family, to the United States. Refreshed by the homeward passage and by the grateful attentions of old-time friends whose faces he had the privilege of once more looking upon, his strength for a short time seemed to return. But the recuperation was only temporary. Wishing again to see the graves of his parents he visited Monson and spent part of a day looking through the old cemetery. That evening he retired to rest in a tranquil, grateful frame of mind, sank into a soft, sweet sleep, and apparently without pain or disquietude passed calmly to his eternal home.
It has been to the writer of the foregoing sketch a labor of love to trace, though briefly and inadequately, the career of his late associate and friend ; and he trusts that the story of this useful life may incite very many young men to go and do likewise.
68
IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE REV. JOSEPH RACE. [JanuarjT-
IN liOVING MEMORY OF THE REV. JOSEPH RACE.
Who died at Hankow, August 30th, 1880.
"So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard eaith unto his steward, Call the labonrerfl
aud give them their hire."
With fair forget-me-nots of love,
And laurel's wreathed spray, We weave a garland dewed with tears,
Low on his grave to lay.
His grave ! e'en yet our sorrowing hearts Can scarce believe him there,
Can Death, in manhood's brilliant noon Have quenched a life so fair ?
Home joys and scenes in which ho lived
Now stir our hearts to pain, Like music pitched in minor key
That wakes a sad refrain.
Oh Christ who wept o'er Lazarus dead, And shared the mourner's woe,
Give faith to trust Thy purpose which As yet we cannot know.
Strange that the lives we least can spare
Are seldom with us long, God needeth them in holier climps
To swell the angels' song.
God's mysteries we cannot solve;
" Too soon," we dai-e not say, •• This faithful labourer from his task
The Master called away."
We only know, without a fear,
In strong unshaken faith, With calm eyes on the further shore.
He crossed the stream of death.
The labour he had loved so well. The dear ones closely shrined
Deep in his brave and faithful heart, Calmly he left behind*
He lived the doctrine which ho taught, Shrewd Chinese eyes could see
A Christ-like life was nobler far Than cold philosophy.
With tender hands he healed the sick ;
The sinner's wandering heart, With earnest words, he daily taught
To seek the betterjpart.
And far adown the Yang-tse shore
His name for long shall be, Linked in the people's thoughts with love
And Christ-like sympathy.
He sowed the seed in faith and prayer. Morning, and noon, and night j
And other hands in future days, Shall reap the harvest bright.
Sure it was meet that Chinese hands Should bear him to his grave,
Singing with faith in Chinese words Of rest o'er Jordan's wave.
Sweet rest and peace, and more than all, The Master's welcome home :
What fairer heritage of bliss To those we love could come ?
Oh Comforter of those that mourn. Who all our griefs doth bear.
Give grace to follow in his steps, Until we meet him there.
M. I. B.
February.] correspondexce. 69
®jijtt$5|iflii^$iit$.
A Biblical Conference. Dear Sir, —
At the close of his valuable concensus in last Recordery Dr. Baldwin says, *' If there could be a conference of well chosen delegates to arrange for the translation of a .Union version in easy wen-li, it would in our opinion be an immense gain to the cause of Christ in this land."
And why may we not hope to see this conference in May or June ? The American Bible Society has a committee regularly appointed for the revision of the B. and C. version which is sufficiently representative to satisfy all American missionaries. There is a stand- ing committee to " conserve the Delegates' version," — will not the members of this committee now in China choose three of their number to meet with their brethren to consult about the matter ? The fraternal hand has been extended. The Agents of the three Bible Societies might be corresponding members of this conference.
The collection of opinions given by Dr. Baldwin from " a " to ** 0 " goes to show that the details cannot be settled by those of us who belong to the " out-door staff," but must be left to representative men. The English revision, now completed (of New Testament) has been done by representative men.
The time for the proposed conference can be settled by Dr. "Williamson, who can act as Convener till the chairman is appointed ; and the travelling expenses can readily be met if Dr. Williamson will find out the sum necessary and designate one in each province to collect the same, say one or two dollars from each missionary. The conference can bring the matter before the Bible Societies, and if they deem proper, before the different missionary stations in China. During its sessions much prayer will be offered.
Dr. B. says, " What about the one fourth negative votes ?" The 07ie fourth is of the forty-seven who answered the circular. Is it probable that there is one-tenth of the whole body of China mission- aries not in favor of one Bible ? It is generally understood that almost without exception Americans approve of the effort. At a
70
MISSIONARY NEWS.
[January-
meeting of twelve English missionaries, from four Societies up the Yang-tso, most earnest resolutions were passed in favor of the Uniform version. Every man of the China Inland Mission — the largest hi the field — votes in one affirmative. Of the seventeen missions answering the circular, only three were opposed.
There has been a movement in Pekin and Hankow for the revision of the Mandarin New Testament. "Will not the brethren wait till the wen-li version is made ? Several of this committee will be from the North ; by the addition of one or two more the versions can be brought out at the same time, or immediately consecutive, so that they will be identical — one and the same Bible.
May the proposed conference make of "twain" "one flesh," putting away "the bill of divorcement" which our fathers were "suffered to write."
JUVBNIS.
SoocHOW, Jan. 17th, 1881.
iggifliiatif Mtk%.
lirtfe, P^rriiJijie^ S: Souths.
BIRTHS.
At Swatow, on the 5th January, the wife of the Bev. W. K. McKibben, of the American Baptist Mission, of a daughter.
At Swatow, on the 24th January, the wife of the Kev.