contribute each his own converts to form one ecclesiastical organization in each denomination. And so again, there can certainly be no valid cause assigned why the churches formed by the missionaries of the London Mission and the American Board, should not constitute one organization of the Congregationalist Church in China, if indeed Congregationalism can be said to have an organization.

To summarize the various missionary organizations within the limits of the same general denomination, whatever be their nationality or whatever schisms may exist among them at home, should, without exception, combine their efforts and seek to build up one and but one church of that order in China.

Again; such a church should be, from its inception, entirely independent of all connection with or control by the ecclesiastical courts of the same denomination in any other land. It should be composed of Chinese members only, and any relationship which it may have with other churches of the same order should be limited to this Empire. We are not seeking to extend English or American churches into China but to build up a Chinese Church of Christ. In some denominations a vicious system has been adopted in the past, and is still adhered to, under which churches organized in Peking are attached to the Baltimore Conference, or the Presbytery of New York. Just why Baltimore or New York is chosen does not appear. The careful study of the subject makes it apparent that such a connection is abnormal and ineffective for any good purpose. It is quite out of the question for the General Assembly or for the General Conference in the United States to exercise any valuable surveillance over churches of those orders in Peking. And they ought not to do so if they could. The missionaries in charge of those churches must be trusted to guide, direct and control them until they are able to look after themselves. If it cannot be done by missionaries on the spot, then certainly ecclesiastical bodies on the other side of the world, whose members are almost as ignorant of the Chinese as the Chinese are of them, can render no assistance.

In conclusion a Church of the living God is being builded in this Empire. It is to be of Chinese, for Chinese, and, sooner or later, to be controlled and governed exclusively by Chinese. Faithful missionaries of Christ desire nothing so much as to see their part of the work done, and the young Church, symmetrical and vigorous, turned over to those who, under God, are to be its natural guardians. By so much as the Gospel is preached in all its purity and sweetness, free from any admixture of human divisions and differences, by so much will the period of tutelage and weakness be shortened and the end of our labors be hastened forward. May God speed the day!

I

ASIA RECONSTRUCTED FROM CHINESE SOURCES.

BY E. H. PARKER.

HAVE had the privilege of perusing the first hundred proof sheets of Dr. Hirth's valuable and suggestive work China and the Roman Orient, which, I understand, will be ready for publication in about a month; that is, as soon as the original Chinese extracts, which Dr. Hirth wisely furnishes with his translations, shall have been correctly put into type. Should the book not be ready by the time the following notes appear, the cart may, to a certain extent, seem to have been introduced to the public before the horse; and I hasten to state, therefore, that the subject is essentially Dr. Hirth's subject, and not mine. His plan of bringing extracts from different books to bear upon the same focus suggested to me another plan,—that of culling short sentences from the great Chinese Concordance, with the same object in view. The hundred or so of such which follow are the result of a few hours' prying into the Concordance, after which it became speedily evident that the extracts would most probably have to be counted by thousands; so that readers of the Recorder may resign themselves to the prospect of repeated dishes of the same olla podrida character as the present. Mr. Kingsmill's translation of the Shih-ki chapter on Ta-yüan, in the local Asiatic Society's Journal for 1879, though it contains three or four unusually serious mistranslations, and several over-sanguine philological identifications, is not so very bad a production after all, considering that Mr. Kingsmill is rather a closet student than a practical one: he has lent me the original copy from which he translated, and he certainly deserves a share of credit, if only for persistently provoking such exact students as Dr. Hirth to a more accurate exposé of the situation.

The rough sketch map which accompanies the following notes is only a first instalment, intended to rivet the reader's attention, and to make the perusal of the notes less wearisome and barren of suggestive light. At present, I do not express any definite convictions as to the identity of the Scythians, Huns, Turks, and Hiung-nu, nor as to the meanings intended at this or that period by any Chinese name for this or that country. I merely present fragments of evidence for the consideration of the jury of the public, each of whom can give his own verdict when Dr. Hirth shall have summed up the case now before him, and given us all the benefit of his direction to assist us withal. As to forms of spelling, whilst approving a

rigid adherence to Wade's system for routine and official purposes, or for studying the accurate pronunciation of Pekingese, I think it better, in treating of a quasi-philological question, to use that mixed, or half-Morrisonian style, which will better enable students all over China to follow the philological points as they suggest themselves. To one who studies Chinese scientifically, and not as seen in one dialect, each character, as Von der Gabelenz suggests, should be an algebraical quantity, which assumes definite shape in the mind when a given dialect is spoken. Thus, пioкопо5 gives the different forms vescovo, obispado, bispado, évêque, bisschop, episkop, bishop; and, when any given European language or dialect is spoken, instinct or practice directs the speaker to the local form. The difficulties with Chinese are (1) that (with due submission to Dr. Edkins) we cannot yet trace back the best oral root forms; and, (2) visually, the root form is, unlike the above instances, unchangeable: nevertheless, for all ordinary purposes, something in the style of Morrison and Williams is sufficiently near for the average algebraical quantity. Thus kiai is a very rare form in living Chinese, but conveys the idea of chieh, kai, ka, &c., to students of all dialects, whereas chich would leave all but,-indeed all including,-Pekingese students in doubt as to whether tsie, kie, tsie, or kiai was intended, and thus make any attempt at identifying a Tartar, Greek, or Turkish word dangerous, if not impossible. For want of knowing that (chi in Peking) was ts and not ki, Dr. Bretschneider was in doubt as to sid, the final syllable of Yessid. Now tsêt, tsat, tsit, zi, zih, (and possibly or probably zit) are all existing forms of the algebraical st, whereas no ingenuity could extract sid from ki.

Anyone can verify the extracts I give by hunting them up. I shrink from the labour and delay of serving up and pointing the originals, as Dr. Hirth so faithfully does. Each labourer can work best, or at all events most willingly, in his own line; and I for one am fain to leave the graces of style, consistency in spelling, marshalling of arguments, precise references to authority, and so on, to people who have a taste that way, and to content myself with grubbing up the raw facts.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PEI WEN YÜN FU.

1. One general officer opened up Kashgar, and the other, the commander-in-chief, subdued Bactria, [*¤ŻA).

2. Bactria, [], has similar customs with Parthia, []. When the Hun Khan Mete, or Matuk, [, See China Review, Vol. 12, Page 373], routed the Bactrians, these split up. Those who passed far away to the west of, and settled in, were the Great Bactrians, [A], whilst the remaining smaller hordes,