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and ignorance. The thing will have to sweat and stew for some time yet. But in time I hope that good people at the East will come to a better appreciation of the difficulties, while the better elements in the Far West will come to the front and take the lead, and then we may have restrictive legislation that will be both humane in its spirit and effective in its methods.

Shaowu, 9th Sept., 1893.

The Parliament of Religions.

S. S. Victoria, Pacific Ocean, Oct. 11th, 1893.
Lat. 50° 56′ N., Long. 157° 51′ W.

DEAR PRESIDENT BONNEY:

N response to your request I take great pleasure in sending you a word about the Parliament of Religions.

It is just two weeks to-day since the Parliament closed, and this distance of time seems to have been necessary to enable me to quite realize its greatness. The Ferris Wheel looked most impressive when I stood beneath it, because after all it was only big, but the greatness of a mountain would require distance to enable one to take it in. The Parliament was of the mountainous order of greatness. It suggested infinitude and eternity. Like great events, like great deeds, like great men, it asks the perspective of time to show that change, which wastes and scars all earthly things, will grave, deep as in granite, the record of its durability and worth. Looking at it as a thing past, the conviction I had while contemplating it as a thing to come, is re-doubled, that this greatest religious meeting of the modern world is prophetic of the twentieth century, and will dominate and guide the religious thought of the future. It is in that light that I have regarded it and must continue to regard it. Its chief purpose was not to chronicle past victories and record past progress (though this of course it did) but to open the door to future and immeasurably greater ones. It was a prelude not a finale, a promise not a boast, a prospect not a recollection. Like Christianity itself it was a rapt gaze into the millennium.

But to be this, to others as well as to those who took part in it, it is necessary for us to be faithful. I say 'us' with a deep sense of misgiving, knowing how unworthy I am to take the lowliest place in such a band of brothers with the world in their hearts. Would that the spirit which held us in those transfigured hours might

hold us always, hold us all within its spell, that in that spirit we might live our lives and do our work and face every cross and burden, pouring ourselves in loving consecration on the world.

Dear President Bonney, of all others let me beseech you (and you will pardon the mistrust) to always have this before you. The Parliament was a 'message of peace.' I cannot help thinking that as with the old, original 'Gospel' it will be taken as a declaration of war, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.' Should that unhappily be the case it will be the greatest religious struggle since the Reformation, and you must be leader in that warfare. Pardon me saying what I apologize for as too nearly like a compliment, when I would not be guilty of the meanness and triviality of a compliment in such high matters. During the Parliament I watched with intense eagerness to see how many of that great assembly were wholly clothed with its spirit, entered into the fulness of its meaning and realized all its bearing upon the future. Of all there only two could I be absolutely sure of-yourself and Dr. Barrows.

Looking at the Parliament from the point of view of my own calling (and I cannot divest myself of the belief that is the most interesting point of view) I am free to say that I am absolutely convinced that it was a sheer necessity, and the spirit it may be expected to create and foster is the indispensable condition, without which the great object of all missionary effort whatever-the conversion of the world—is impossible. I would emphasize this because it is in simple earnest the gist of what I have to say-the world cannot be converted until we are as ready to own the truth and goodness and heavenward aspiration we find all over the world as to impart our own. Thus only shall we find 'good ground' for our 'good seed' and reap the harvest sixty and seventy and a hundred-fold. If anyone cares to call this a compromise of creeds I am not disturbed. It is not a compromise of truth but the complete triumph of it and of charity. This great work we have only begun. All the promise of the future is in it; it is the new bright dawn of Gospel morning for the world, for all the world. Once more the gates of day unlock as the stars pale and the sky flushes with hope unlimited, immortal, and the moru of joy bursts on human hearts. It is the one only argument left. to us that Christianity is divine. May we all hold this blessed faith as our most precious possession and may you be long preserved to head this hallowed cause which embraces all for which our souls 'must strive and pant and yearn.'

GEO. T. CANDLIN.

The following is an extract from Dr. E. Faber's paper contributed in Chicago to "The Parliament of Religions." The extract is taken from the Chicago Herald of Sept. 16th, which contains a capital woodcut portrait of the worthy doctor:

DR. ERNST FABER INTERPRETS THE GREAT PRINCIPLE OF RECIPROCITY. Dr. Ernst Faber, of Shanghai, spoke at length on "The Genesis and Development of Confucianism." He said that he did not expect Chinese scholars to accept his exposition of the doctrines of Confucius without scrutinizing the reasons which lead up to it. The first part of Dr. Faber's address was devoted to the period of Chinese life before Confucius. He gave a historical resumé of the birth and growth of Confucianism, and after touching upon the different schools he treated exhaustively of modern Confucianism. He said :

In order to show the greater contrast in modern China and its Confucianism compared with China in the times of Confucius and Mencius and their teachings, it seems best to invite both Confucius and Mencius to a short visit in the Middle Kingdom. On their arrival Mencius began to congratulate his great master on the success of his sage teachings, but Confucius would not accept congratulations until he had learned the cause of the success.

He found that the spread of Confucianism was brought about, not by the peaceful attraction of neighbouring states but by bloody wars and suppression. The constitution of state was changed and ruins were everywhere. He noticed splendid temples dedicated to gods he had never heard of, while around these magnificent homes lived people who were poor and famine-stricken or who spent their lives opium-smoking and gambling. He found that benevolent institutions were mismanaged and that the money which belonged to the poor found its way into the pockets of the respectable managers dressed in long silk robes.

There had been changes in dress which chilled the hearts of Confucius and Mencius. They sighed when they saw women with distorted feet and men wearing queues. As they wandered along they found that sacrifices were made at graves and that everyone bowed down before the genii of good luck. In the colleges they found that most of the time was spent in empty routine and phraseology. There was no basis for the formation of character.

CONFUCIUS SIGHS.

Passing by a large book-store they entered and looked about them in surprise at the thousands of books on the shelves. "Alas!" said Confucius, "I find here the same state of things I found

in China 240 years ago. The very thing that induced me to clear the ancient literature of thousands of useless works, retaining only a few, filling five volumes, worthy to be transmitted to after ages. Is nothing left of my spirit among the myriads of scholars professing to be my followers? Why do they not clear away the heaps of rubbish that have accumulated during twenty centuries? They should transmit the essence of former ages to the young generation as an inheritance of wisdom which they have put into practice and so increase."

Going into a gentleman's house they were invited to take chairs and looked in vain for the mat spread on the ground. Tobacco pipes were handed to the sages, but they declined to smoke, saying that the ancients valued pure air most highly. Seeing many arches erected in honour of famous women they wondered that the fame of women should enter the streets and be proclaimed on highways. "The rule of antiquity is," said Confucius, "that nothing should be known of women outside the female departments, either good or evil." Then they found out that most of the arches were for females who had committed suicide, or who had cut a little flesh from their own bodies from the arm or the thigh, as medicine for a sick parent. Others had refused marriage to nurse their old parents. Arches were erected to a few who had reached an old age and to a very few who had performed charitable works.

Neither Confucius nor Mencius raised any objection to these arches, though they did not agree to some of the reasons given for their erection. They did not approve of the imperial sanction of the Taoist pope, the favours shown to Buddhism and especially to the Lamas in Peking, the widespread superstition of spiritism, of the worship of animals, fortune telling, excesses and abuses in ancestral worship, theatrical performances, dragon festivals, idol processions and displays in the street, infanticide, prostitution, retribution made a prominent move in morals, codification of penal law, publication of the statutes of the empire and cessation of the imperial tours of inspection.

Then they noted the progress of the West, the railroads, the steam engines and steamers of immense size moving on quickly, even against wind and tide. "Oh, my little children," said Confucius, "all ye who honour my name, the people of the West are in advance of you as the ancients were in advance of the rest of the world. Therefore learn what they have good and correct their evil by what you have better. This is my meaning of the great principle of reciprocity."

Correspondence.

INTRODUCTION TO THE WENCHOW

DIALECT.

To the Editor of

"THE CHINESE RECORDER."

C. I. M., Wênchow, 20th Dec., 1893.

the

MY DEAR EDITOR: I have read with much interest Dr. Edkins' valuable "critique" on the above Wênchow Primer. The "notes" on character of the tones were written by Mr. Soothill, of Wênchow, I believe. Mr. Montgomery mentions this in his "Preface."

Dr. Edkins is quite right in saying that the T of Wênchow is "low slow falling" intonation.

T, in combination with another Hia-ping, does become "lower even tone, and the second Tbecomes "lower rising.”

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ALF, followed by another Shang-ping, keeps the "upper even tone, and the second becomes "upper quick rising," as for example in the combination sie-sae (=teacher) the "sie" is pronounced in the " upper even tone (slowly) and the sae rising" tone.

" in the "upper quick

In the example given in the Primer there is evidently, as Dr. Edkins remarks, a mistake. The combinations yung-yiae (= glory) is heard in Wênchow as A and ; the "yung" being the "lower slow rising" and the "yiae” "the lower slow falling."

The longer one remains in China the importance of accuracy in the tones, and the necessity of mastering them, is more and more emphatically impressed upon the mind, especially of those in daily converse with the natives.

Yours very heartily,

ROBERT GRIERSON.

A SUGGESTION AS TO THE RENDERING

OF SUNTELEIA AND TELOS IN THE

MANDARIN VERSION OF
MATTHEW'S GOSPEL.

To the Editor of

"THE CHINESE RECORDER."

Shaowu, Foochow, 1st Nov., 1893. DEAR SIR Recently having occasion to compare the mandarin text of Matth.'s 24th Chapter with the original I was surprised to find two different words--" sunteleia, consummation, and telos," end, both rendered the same, and by the same phrase as he eschata hemera, the last day; Moh-jeh (I) is used for all three. Now necessity sometimes compels us to thus blur over in the translation distinctions of this kind in the original. But is it necessary in this case? Sunteleia is a stronger word than telos, and its use in the N. T. is very limited. It is found five times in Matth., viz., Matth. xiii., 39; xiii., 40; xiii., 49; xxiv., 3 and xxviii., 20. In each case it is followed by the genitive of aiōn, the world; and in

each case the revised version adds the marginal reading "Consummation of the age." The word also occurs once elsewhere, Heb. ix., 26, where it is followed by the genitive plural of aiōn, and is rendered "end of the ages" by the revisers, with the marginal reading "Consummation." In Young's Anal. Concordance sunteleia is well rendered by "full end." Dr. Williams in his "Tract to rouse the World" uses the expression "Liau kieh, shi'kiai' tih, sz'-ts'ing (T

to express this same idea, and why could not Shi'-kiai' tih, liau-kieh (世界的了結) be used in these five places in Matthew ?

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