THE

A REPRESENTATIVE COMMITTEE NEEDED.

HE last sentence of Mr. Fitch's article "On a new version of the Scriptures in Wenli," which appeared in the August number of the Recorder should have a wide circulation. It will certainly be unfortunate to perpetuate the "unpleasant anomaly of two" more "versions of the scriptures in Wenli, side by side," which now seems imminent. Mr. John's work is almost finished, and I understand, that some members of the committee who labored so faithfully, so long and so successfully, in preparing the Mandarin version have nearly completed their work on the New Testament in easy Wênli based on that translation.

Allowing all the complimentary things that have been said in favor of Mr. John's translation, is it likely that the whole missionary body will accept the work of one man on a matter of such importance and so vitally connected with their work, as the translation of the word of God into Chinese? And is it fair to expect that missionaries of eminent ability and scholarship will readily lay aside work upon which they have spent the best part of their lives; or if they are willing to do so, can the missionary cause afford to lose their work?

Again, ought we to ask any Bible Society to publish a translation of the Scriptures that has not the sanction of the entire body of missionaries in China, or at least, a very large majority? The great Bible Societies of England and America are supported by the contributions of all Protestant denominations and all are equally interested in their work. The Societies represent Protestant Christendom; should not the work that we recommend to them also represent all missions in China? How can these independent Committees that are engaged upon these translations be considered representative? To be representative they must have authority from If this has not been given by the parties supposed to be represented, whence has it come? But if they are not representative, and the Bible Societies print their work, what is to prevent our having not two translations only, but many?

some source.

It is scarcely satisfactory for one person, or a small committee, to invite criticisms upon their work, to be accepted or rejected at their option, for in this case there can be no final appeal to the judgment of majorities. Nearly all have felt the need of a new version in simple, concise Wênli. Let the work be completed, but by a committee of not less than twenty missionaries selected from all parts of China, North, South, East, and West. In this way, and I believe in this way alone, can we secure a translation that will receive the "sanction of the whole missionary body."

PEKING, September 5th, 1885.

H. H. LOWRY.

Correspondence.

THE DEATH OF MRS. ASHMORE.

MY DEAR DR. GULICK,

The last American mail brought us the sad news of the death of Mrs. Ashmore. When she, with Dr. Ashmore, left us last March, she was very feeble, but we hoped the voyage, the change, and especially, the stimulating food and air which she would find at home, would prove beneficial, and that she might be restored to at least comparative health. They rested a few days in San Francisco, a few days in Chicago, and then went on to Newton Centre, near Boston, where they found a home with Mrs. Ashmore's sister. The best of medical aid and the most skillful nursing proved of no avail, and on the 21st of July, her freed spirit entered upon the eternal rest.

Mrs. Ashmore came to Swatow in 1863, and was permitted to continue twenty two years in the work to which she had consecrated her life. The circumstances of the mission at first, and the state of her health afterwards, did not admit of her engaging in any special department of mission work, but her presence was an inspiration not only to her husband, but also to all the members of the mission circle. If there was one feature of her character more marked than another, it was her constant desire to be helpful to others. How much of the success of our work here in Tie-Chiu may be due to her sympathy and help, we can not know until that day when the books shall be opened. She endeared herself to all who knew her, and impressed them with the sweetness of her Christian character. Among the sincerest mourners for her loss are the Chinese servants, who experienced only kindness at her hands. The work here will go on; but without that quiet, peaceful, home which her presence created, we feel shorn of much of our strength. The Lord's resources must be more ample than we realize since he can thus remove such a worker from the field.

Very sincerely yours,

SWATOW, September 3rd, 1885.

S. B. PARTRIDGE.

SIR,

THE "NEW THEORY OF TAO."

Your contributor Lan P'ao-tzu makes so earnest an appeal for kindly judgment in respect of one's theological opinion, that of course no one could feel like criticizing that part of his article. But as his theory seems to some extent based upon the passage in Hebrews of which he professes to give a literal translation, it is I presume, fair to call attention to the strange turn in the language of that passage, which by a very manifest forcing of the Greek, your contributor has produced. I refer to his rendering of the clause, прòç öν huìv ó λóyos. He translates this, "who with us is the word," (or Tao). Granting that juìv ó λóyoç means, "we have the word,” I venture to ask by what rule of philology our friend renders πpòç öv by "who?" The most literal translation that can be made forces us to respect the force of pòs, and the case of öv. "Before whom (i.e. in whose presence) we have the word," is therefore the nearest literal rendering consistent with sense. In Matt. xvi. 23, συνᾶραι λόγον is rendered "take account," and no other rendering gives so good a sense. Lan P'ao-tzŭ in a professedly literal rendering loses sight also of the plurals dpuv and and uveλwv, and misses the beautiful and powerful significance of γύμνα και τετραχηλισμένα, in which the reference is to the neck of the condemned, bared before the glittering blade of the executioner. So, take it for all in all, I do not think the translation of Lan P'ao-tzŭ is entitled to be called either a good literal, or a good grammatical one. The rendering of the A.V. seems to me strictly in accordance with the Greek words used, and perfectly consistent with the train of thought in the mind of the apostle. Were I to change it at all, it would be merely to read "in whose presence we have the reckoning," the same thought exactly as that of the present text.

* OUR Correspondent 'Discipulus' writes to us :-" I fancy I must have sponsored a rather serious slip in the paper I sent you from Lan P'ao-tzů.' He speaks of I. Hsi, Wei being the present, past, and future tenses of the Hebrew verb to be. Now I am informed by a competent Hebrew scholar that there is no present tense in Hebrew-only a past and future. The present is supplied by participles. I am afraid, therefore, that the theories of our speculative friend are somewhat, leaky."-Editor Chinese Recorder.

Echoes krom Other Lands.

COMMANDING POSITION OF THE METHODIST MISSION SOUTH.

Dr. Y. J. Allen writes as follows in the Advocate for Missions for July:-"Assuming a right to judge for myself and speak what I do know, I am prepared to say without fear of contradiction, that while there are societies here older than ours, and represented by more workers in the field, yet there is not one that holds so commanding a position, or has such a providential opportunity of broad and wide-reaching influence, as is now the privilege of our China Mission. Most missions are hopelessly scattered over the field, and the opportunity of unity of action, or strength and variety of developement, is lost. Our mission is concentrated, and our organization is well-nigh complete, so that it is possible with us to compass, by division of labor, the whole field of labor, and do it immensely better than others could do with only fragments of missions, wastefully scattered beyond helping distance. We are now prepared to go forward from our present bases, and occupy the country all around-comprising this province and three or four adjoining ones, and embracing a population far larger than that of the whole United States-without taxing the Church further, or at least for some time to come, in the matter of foreign houses, residences, churches, schools, hospitals etc.; all we require being men chiefly for the field; young, unmarried men, ready and willing to take up the lines of work already laid down, and prosecute the enterprise in the spirit of Ashbury and the primitive Methodists of the early days of our own country. To open new missions elsewhere in China would involve great outlays, as here at the beginning, and is especially to be deprecated, for two reasons: First, the wastefulness of it-literally throwing away the funds of the Church to do a work which we are now prepared to do from the stand-point now gained. Second, the suicidal policy it would introduce-leaving a mission founded at so great expense, and attempting to establish another, or others, to the detriment of all..... We must not cast about to see what others have done, or are doing here, for I tell you, conscientiously, that there is nothing in this field to challenge our admiration, but much to be shunned and deprecated as wasteful and childish. Let us set a better example, let us concentrate, penetrate, enlarge, multiply, organize, and prosecute our work as Methodists, not as a fragmentary, scattered, unorganized, congregation... Send out your bulletins-150 missionaries needed for China. I will send details soon. Call for men of the primitive stamp for the field-work, lay and clerical, teachers and preachers,— all, or many, unmarried."

FROM THE PRESBYTERIAN FOREIGN MISSIONARY."

The Sabbath School of the Presbyterian Chinese Church gave $22.00 toward the dime offerings for Foreign Missions; the whole Church giving $198.00. This is of itself a singularly cogent answer to the San Francisco Chronicle's wretched article on the subject of the Christianization of the Chinese and attacking Mr. Hartwell in person, which article we were astonished to see reproduced in The Temperance Union of August 15th, without note or comment, and that too after it had recently condemned a contemporary for the same thing.

The elder in the Presbyterian Church at Nanking becoming alarmed during the war excitements, said to the missionaries, "You had better go," but when they asked him what he, who was at least in equal danger, would do, he said, "Oh! I will remain. God will look after me."

In the home for Chinese girls in San Francisco there are thirty-six waifs, mostly slaves, rescued from those who had purchased them for the worst of purposes. By their industry, in various forms, these girls support a Bible woman in Canton. There are now, in and around San Francisco, seventeen young families formed by the marriage of such rescued girls to Christian young men.

GLEANINGS.

A pleasant letter from Miss E. F. Swinney in the Sabbath Recorder tells of a day's experience in medical work, as many as one hundred and eighteen Dispensary patients having been treated in one day. Her friends will rejoice with her in the completion of her comfortable Dispensary building, on the road to Sicawei, which was dedicated by exercises in Chinese on the 20th of August.

The Rev. F. Ohlinger, of Foochow, writes to the Northern Christian Advocate of July 23rd, a graphic account of a visit to the city of Ping Nang, which had never before been visited by an American missionary, and but once by an English missionary, of the Church Missionary Society-the Rev. Mr. Črib. He mentions as a peculiarity of Ping Nang agriculture that men draw the plow because of the scarcity of cattle. The explanation given was, "For an ox we have to pay five measures of rice per day, for a man only three."

From a pleasant, chatty, letter by little Gussie Ohlinger, eight years of age, to the Christian Advocate, we learn that she wishes to go to America very much, and that her father and mother think they will go next spring.

A letter in the London Times written from Tientsin speaks kindly of missionaries as the true pioneers of civilization, and says "the day has gone by when English missionaries were snubbed by their own authorities." He notes that a new wave of missionary interest is passing over China, and is appreciative of the young men of the English universities who have recently come out in the China Inland Mission. This not very profoundly Christian writer deprecates missionary opposition to ancestral worship which he says to affront the conscience of a whole people in this matter;" and

is 66