the glare of the gorgeous heathen robes of the Eastern priests that they could not be seen, neither could their names be mentioned only in enigma and repressed breath; they could not have a prominent seat, much less be exalted on high and glorified above all. For this

their exaltation at the World's Fair we must go to that other gathering, not of sixteen days' duration but the endless meetings of Moody and others the entire time of the World's Fair, resting not day or night. Here Christ was exalted to the chief seat and only Christ.

It is needless to say that a platform for all the nations to stand on in a religious attitude, that has no room for the Prophets and Apostles, and no throne for Christ high and exalted above all that is called God or is worshipped, shining as the sun, and forever putting out all lights in His eternal day, no Christian-not to say a missionary-should stand on, or even desire to stand on, much less glory in his standing in one embrace with the Christless and Godless, however gorgeously robed or deceptively set forth.

The radical error of the whole thing as set forth by Bro. Candlin is not only in the principles forming the planks of this platform but also in the platform itself. "The comparative method which has shown us so much in other departments," as set forth by our brother in religion, contains a radical error. The platform of it is like the picture stand of the last Shanghai Conference, which collapses in utter ruin as soon as mounted. One has said in a certain place, "They themselves measuring themselves with themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves are without understanding." Others can consider the claims of these different cults and beliefs and embrace them, but as Christians we have no liberty to consider them with reference to a common platform or common ground

It is

of brotherhood. We cannot stand on any man-made platform, however broad or narrow; we can lay no other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. not the province of a Christian, much less a missionary, to stand on any platform of man's device, however high or low, and say to the world, heathen or other, "Come, my brother; we are both inspired and have our Bibles from God; both have received our revelations." But rather "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them, for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of," and again, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. What communion hath light with darkness? What agreement hath a temple of God with idols for ye are a temple of the living God. Wherefore come ye out from among them and be ye separate;" and Paul is very emphatic and says, "And if any man obeyeth not our word by this epistle note that man, that you have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed, and yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother" (2 Thes. iii. 14 and 15).

Our Lord has given us all the directions we need in these matters, and has made explicit in the Bible all the platform we need in our intercourse with a lost and ruined

world. He says, By their fruits ye shall know them. In a very critical point of His ministry, when the rulers were forsaking him, He said these significant words, at present most applicable, "Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch." Judging from their fruits then, well ripened and bitter, go to Turkey and know the fruit of Mohammedanism, to India and see

the results of the Vedas, which even the power of the Empress of India cannot wipe out. Behold China and know the bitter and hard-cased fruit of Confucianism and the classics. Look at the corruption of Japan and see the final of Shintoism. See the death that reigns in all the East and know the darkness that can be felt, called the light of Asia.

Go to those nations on the forefront of the best of the world's

civilizations and you will see not the ripe fruit but the first budding of the fruit of Christianity which shall go on perfecting until the kingdoms of this world, all these benighted and Godless religions, shall be relegated to the waste basket of forgetfulness and replaced by Christianity, and will become the kingdoms of Our Lord and His Christ. Yours sincerely,

"C. L."

*, or the Benefits of Christianity, by the Rev. Timothy Richard. A new and revised edition of this book is now ready at the Mission Press, Shanghai. It has undergone a most careful revision and many parts re-written which, it is hoped, will greatly enhance the value of the book.

We are very glad to notice the issue of a little tract by Prof. W. B. Bonnell on "Loosing the Bound Feet," which comes out in a form most attractive to the Chinese, printed on red paper. Unusual interest is being manifested on this subject in Ningpo, Shanghai and a number of other places, so that its appearance just now is very opportune. The societies against footbinding, which exist in the Amoy missions and have nearly eight hundred members, are a standing proof of what other workers may do. The common saying with which Prof. Bonnell begins his rhyme, "For every pair of small feet there is a kong full of tears," shows that even the natives themselves realize to a far greater extent than we imagine the misery it brings to the thousands upon thousands of Chinese women and girls. Although this tract is in the Shanghai verna

A friend in Canton sends us a sheet-tract in Chinese with the translation into English, the title of the tract being, "A Talk about Women entering the Church." The translator fears harm is done

by circulating such tracts, and

thinks it would be well to have all tracts carefully examined before being printed, to see that they contain nothing objectionable. This is undoubtedly true, and in the case of most of the tracts issued this is happily done. On the other hand there is nothing to prevent any person who feels so disposed from issuing any tract he may please doing it, perhaps, with private funds. It is possible that the tract criticised by our friend is of this nature, though we know nothing positive about it. On the whole we are inclined to think that most of the literature circulated by the missionaries has been carefully prepared, wisely edited and is well

腓立比人書釋義 Exegetical Notes on Philippians, by Rev. Jas. Jackson, of Kiukiang.

This is a book of fifty-three Chinese pages, 20 pages of which are taken up with introductory matter in large type, and the remainder with a running comment, verse by verse, of the Epistle. We note a lack of practical and homiletic suggestions, in which we think commentaries in Chinese should abound in order to be real helps to native pastors in the preparation of their sermons.

The author carries the use of Shen () for Spirit to the extreme of discarding for the soul of man. This is narrow. He

also makes Paul teach the old Platonic theory of trichotomy, which was the source of a nest of heresies in the early Church. If any one wishes to see this theory thoroughly exploded I refer him to Hodge's Theology, vol. 2, page 48.

The comment on the 9th verse of 1st chap., where Paul prays that their "love may abound yet more and more," says "love here is not love to man or love to God but their own love."

But how could their love abound We without having an object? like Fawcett and Brown better, "Your love-to Christ, producing not only love to Paul, Christ's minister, as it did, but also to one another, which it did not altogether as much as it ought."

D. N. L.

Report of the Medical Missionary Society in China for the year 1893.

The above is the fifty-fifth annual meeting of the above Society, of which J. G. Kerr, M.D., LL.D., is president. It is certainly a matter for thankfulness that the Society has enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity for so long, and that it continues to add to its list of supporters and patrons, irrespective of nationality or creed. During the year nearly seventy foreign subscribers contributed over one thousand dollars to the work, and a somewhat shorter list of Chinese patrons subscribed nearly the same amount. the The Report of Society's Hospital, which is under the charge of Dr. Swan and Dr. Mary W. Niles, is interesting, both from a professional and an evangelistic point of view.

During the last thirty-four years fourteen hundred and eighty-three cases of vesical calculi have been operated upon; only ninety-seven proving fatal. There were twentyeight students in the class in surgery. The two hospital schools were well attended.

It is pleasant to notice that Dr. Wan was busy in translating medi- . cal works, as native translators are among the greatest needs of China.

There is abundant evidence that the faithful evangelistic labors in connection with the work have been abundantly blessed, for of the twenty-five who united with the Presbyterian Church during the year eleven had been patients.

W. P. B.

REVIEW OF SHEFFIELD'S THEOLOGY. BY REV. JOHN W. DAVIS, D.D.

(Concluded from page 97.)

"As a rule all the ancient sages of the Confucian sect have held that heaven and earth originated

They call heaven

the universe. the father and earth the mother; heaven the male principle and earth the female. On examining the Book of Changes, made during the Chow dynasty, we find that the first of the eight diagrams*, called kien, represents heaven, and the last, kwun, represents earth. The definition of these terms says, 'Great is the celestial source; from it the universe has sprung. Excel

lent is the terrestrial source; from it the universe is born', meaning that heaven and earth produced the universe, not by design but spontaneously, merely taking advantage of its principles of affinity and productiveness. If this be true then man, born between heaven and earth, is totally dependent for protection and support upon that which produced him, and man worships heaven and earth as if they had divine intelligence, and exercised a secret control, could receive man's worship and recompense his regard. Pushing our investigation along these lines of thought we may say that the universe is a wondrous me

chanism, whose wheels and pivots are all connected together. In the operation of the machine each part is regulated by fixed laws. Man is as it were a wheel in the machine. If he can rectify his heart and revere heaven and earth

he is like a part of the machinery moving without irregularity.

"The scholars of the Sung dynasty greatly amplified this theory of They said that the

materialism.

"The eight diagrams were said to have been invented by Fuh Hi in remote times, to serve as it were as an abacus to philosophize with, and indicate, by their combinations, the mutations and aspects of nature. These were afterwards multiplied to sixty-four double ones, and on them are based the speculations of the Book of Changes, composed by Wan Wang about B. C. 1109, which amount to nothing better than a mechanical play of idle abstractions." Williams' Chinese Dictionary, p. 467.

absolute had no beginning, for it was impossible to account for its origin. They also called the absolute by the name of law (or principle), and said that law and force (or vital fluid ) were blended together. Neither preceded the other in the order of time, but as to activity they assigned the precedence to law. Force in its division into the male and the female principles was wholly_under the regulation of law. From the motion and rest of the dual principles there came a division resulting in heaven and earth. Heaven belongs to the male principle and controls motion. Earth belongs to the female principle and controls rest. In consequence of this there is a division as regards male and female; light is distinguished from darkness, life differs from darkness, life differs from death. Man and things are by this criterion adjudged to be honorable or base. For man obtains the principle of heaven in its entirety: things obtain it in part. The production of man and things depends entirely upon force. The

are at

nature with which men first endowed is entirely free from unrighteousness. But force is exercised either liberally or sparingly; sometimes in purity, sometimes impurely. He who is endowed by superior man; he who is endowed force liberally is, as a rule, a sparingly is a churl. One endowed by force, exercised in purity, is sagacious; one endowed by force, exercised impurely, is a simpleton.

*Tai Kih, "The Absolute," according to Giles. Williams says, "The primum mobile, the ultimate immaterial principle of Chu Hi and other Chinese philosophers." In this translation I use "the absolute" and "law" and "force" as equivalents for and and respectively. Every student of Chinese knows that these equivalents are not precise translations of the Chinese words.

Teaching of this sort does not result from investigating the nature of things but from mere speculation. Man, having lost the doctrine of creation by God, proceeds to invent hypothesis and accounts erroneously for the origin of the universe. This, which is called the absolute, does not deserve to be mentioned on the same page with the Creator. For the Confucianists do not say that the absolute is a self-existent, eternal, living, almighty, omniscient God, having feelings and the principles of virtue.

66

If you examine what is said of the spontaneous activity of law and force you find that it is a theory utterly destitute of proof. There are no facts that can be pointed to as evidence of its truth. If we rightly discuss it there is always manifest in, heaven and earth a wonderful law. The regular revolutions of sun, moon and stars, the unceasing production of plants and animals, the phenomena of gases, liquids and solids, proceed according to all-pervading law. If you consider the effects produced in the world by law, you cannot assert that they are produced spontaneously. We must say that there is a plan-devising God who controls law in its operations so as to accomplish His creative plans. They say that heaven is the father and earth is the mother. What do these words mean? As to heaven it is not a thing-not a law, not a god-it is a formless and unlimited void, within which earth and the heavenly bodies revolve. As to earth it is not the counterpart of heaven. Heaven is empty, earth solid. Earth brings forth its fruits, not through the influence of heaven but because it is warmed by the sun, fanned by the wind, fertilized by the rain. The four seasons come and go, and who governs their regular succession? Truly heaven does not. The cause is this: as the earth revolves in its orbit around

the sun the two poles of the earth are inclined to the plane of its orbit to the extent of twenty-three and a half degrees. Hence the sun is inclined part of the time to the North and part of the time to the South. By this we know that heaven is not man's father, nor is earth his mother. Heaven is merely an empty space. Earth is simply an inanimate place of abode. Moreover, this proves that the Confucian doctrine of worshipping heaven and earth can bear no comparison with what Christianity teaches concerning the worship of God.

"As to force being divided into the male and the female principles, we know that this is idle talk. For the proof of it is not seen in the classification of substances. All substances may be classified under two divisions, the spiritual and the material. The spiritual is capable of feeling and thought, the material of neither. Chemistry treats of material substances, whether elementary or compound. Now the elementary substances are not divided into the male and the female principles. The earth, the moon, the sun and the stars are composed of the same constituent elements. They cannot be referred to those two principles-this to the male, that to the female.

all

Furthermore, so far as regards true learning this materialism is not merely useless; it is positively harmful. For men take it for true learning, because it is the teaching of the ancients, and though they afterwards find the proofs of true learning they still regard their empty discussions as true and the solid proofs of others as false. Materialism produces a still greater harm, in that it can, alas, obscure the mental vision of men and prevent them from seeing the evidence of God's existence which He has exhibited in His works."

It is a significant fact that the first eleven chapters, one-fourth of