dreaded monarch of the mountains was once prayed against to the shan-shun, or mountain god; but is now himself regarded as that god.

But when we enter among the innumerable valleys and low, frequent mountain ranges of eastern Manchuria, on to the Corean frontiers, we come upon villages, hamlets and isolated families, consisting half of Manchus, half of Chinese, from all the northern provinces. These without exception are wholly given over to the worship of the mwo, the spirits of the wild beasts which abounded and still exist in the mountain recesses. There are n.any small temples like those miniature houses, dedicated to the hien-zun where votive offerings are made by all the people.

When new emigrants come from scholarly and sceptic Shantung, they laugh at the earnest advices of their friends, who urge them to make the acquaintance of the muco and propitiate their favour by making the suitable offerings. They heed not the warning that severe sickness has been the lot of every soul of Shantung or other man, who dared to neglect these lords of the eastern border. But as sure as their neglect, does a long painful and lingering illness lay hold of them, for which there is no remedy save repentance towards these gods. The worn out emigrant at last gives up the struggle, sends his offerings, the muco have another worshipper and the man gradually

recovers.

My theory of acclimatization was pooh-poohed, and my own example, sojourning among them some time, without suffering any such dire evils, though I could discover no reason why the muro should regard me with special favour, was an exception, which had nothing to do with the rule.

TOO STRAIGHT IS CROOKED THE OTHER WAY.
J. E. WALKER,

SOME say that Shan never squarely means spirit; others that Shan is never admitted to mean god. Some say Shangti must originally have denoted the true God; others that there is no proof that Shangti ever denoted the true God. Still others think any one is a fool who has any thing to do with the controversy. Now we all remember the story of the two knights fighting about the color of a shield. "Tis red said one; 'tis blue said the other; and when they had fought nearly to death, some one showed them that the shield was red on one side, and blue on the other.

Most words have more than one meaning. Take for instance the word church. It means a church building, an organized body of believers, a sect or denomination, the whole body of professed Christians

of all sects and creeds, &c. Thus a stone church, a wealthy church, the Romish church, a state church, church and state, the church universal, the church militant, the church triumphant. Now when church means a meeting house, it means that and nothing else; and so with all its various uses. In ordinary conversation we seldom miss the right use of a word. But with more abstruse subjects the case is different. Sermons are spoiled, discussions befogged, error proven to be truth, Scripture wrested and law perverted, through confusing and mis-taking the meaning of important words.

Take now, it means gods or a god; it means spirits or a spirit; it means other things which are neither one nor the other. Rightly used its meaning is clear; but misused it is exceedingly ambiguous. I asked a Christian teacher at Foochow what it meant, and he answered that in his opinion the primitive meaning of the word was God , but that in popular usage it had been perverted till it meant about the same as . On another occasion he told me that in the classics it meant almighty 7. But he said that the classical style was hard to master; because each character might be used for a score of others, while a score of others might be used for it, and one must learn how and when to use each one. Happening to read 2nd Kings ch. II. 9th (Medhurst version) with him, I asked what a literary man, not conversant with our usages, would there understand by. He replied "another man's spirit coming to help." I asked a Foochow helper, and Shao wu Christian the same question. The former said

would there be taken to mean a genius; the latter said “no, not a genius but a p'u sah." But both agreed that any term would be misunderstood by a man unacquainted with the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Again the Chinese confound things that we discriminate, and discriminate where we confound. Now with them almost any being belonging to the other world is a legitimate object of worship. There are distinctions of rank, character, worthiness, but most all are, or may be worshiped. So they have little occasion, and their language makes little provision, for clearly discriminating the ideas of deity and spirit. It seems to me that is often so used as to embody both ideas. But however used the idea of something formless and invisible is kept in view. At Foochow a number of essays were prepared on the theme . One writer defines this expression, thus "Since He is from eternity self existent, only one, and without equal, He is called E. Since He made heaven and earth, and governs all things, there

fore He is called. Further, He has neither form nor shape, voice nor odor, and so He is also called 神”(曷稱乎上帝以其元始 自有獨一無對故稱之曰上以其創造天地宰理萬物故

稱之曰帝又其無象無形無聲無臭兼稱之曰神故曰上 .) The essays so far as I have examined them give special prominence to the fact that God is a spirit but do not limit the theme to this one thought. I asked a helper in what sense the essayists used 神, he replied they are all ambiguous (on that point) 都做不明白 I carefully pointed out to him the point on which it was expected they would discriminate, i.e. does it mean God or Spirit, and he said they have made no such discrimination都沒有分別

Again at Foochow there is quite a difference between the classical and colloquial use of. I asked a Christian teacher if it would be correct to say, there is only one Shăn. He said it would. I told a helper about this, and he replied that a Christian who knew characters would understand the expression aright, and assent to it; but the common people would not: for among them is used in altogether too broad a sense. They believe there is a in every chair, table, and the like. One teacher said that if an article of furniture was broken then it had a in it: but another teacher said no, but if one cut his finger and some of the blood got on a table or chair, in a few tens of years it would become trickish. These furniture are never worshiped, and so, in the Foochow colloquial, this word is very rarely used by itself to denote an object of worship. A couple of Foochow helpers were looking at the word in a native dictionary and when they read, "That

which is inscrutable is called" they said that there it meant God 上帝. Why then I asked were you all so unvilling to use for God? Because they said it is so ambiguous and besides the classics furnish us with Shangti which is a much better term.

Again different dialects differ in their use of words. At Foochow for instance the generic terms for objects of worship are鬼神,神明, 菩薩 Commonly the latter two phrases are combined to form an all embracing term. At Shao-wu is the almost universal phrase. It includes alike the image, and the spirit; and embraces every thing from the Gemmy emperor, down to the merest toy or picture. Such terms as,,and, are used only. This last expression is I believe unknown at Foochow in certain cases. The Foochow notion about chairs and tables, &c. all having, seems to be unknown at Shao-wu. At Foochow and I are both styled . At

Shao-wu this titled is applied only to the former, of whom the common

* Fubkien Church Gazette, Kwang su 3rd year, 5th moon. Query. Does not this man

proceed as if he thought his theme called upon him to treat of the meaning of 上帝

as much as of the meaning of Foochow helpers, like preachers of

other nations, often have to be criticised for failing to sieze on and stick to the

main thought of a text. A little defining of the theme so as to direct attention especially to the word might have led to a much clearer and fuller statement

of what they understood by this word.

people know nothing by that name, while the Gemmy emperor is merely styled a . At Foochow the heathen rarely use the term by itself: at Shao-wu the term itself is unknown to the common people except as they have learned of it from us. Of all the emperor's worship of Lat Peking they know nothing. At both Foochow and Shao-wu the Gemmy emperor is often said to be the same as heaven. At the latter place they even go so far as to call the 1st moon and 9th day heaven's birthday. Yet though heaven is said to be the Gemmy emperor, and he is called a P'u sah, heaven is never said to be a P'u sah. In like manner at Foochow, heaven is never said to be a B. At Foochow a very popular superstition is the worship of the "Five Regions". This also is considered by many to be the same as the worship of heaven. It is unknown at Shao-wu. By the way, a native Christian tells me that the worship of heaven is vastly superior to the worship of idols. He says those who worship heaven are like men who know a certain shop by reputation, but are not acquainted with the head of the shop. Such discrepancies as those just noticed, show a tendency to drag the worship of heaven down to common idolatry; just as the worship of the true God has degenerated into the worship of heaven. My Shao-wu teacher says that and are both good words for God; but he objects to by itself, and to F. He says that in the first commandment is the proper word to use. But I doubt if our Foochow helpers would agree with him. From what inquiries I have made, I believe the majority of native Christians at Foochow would call a good term, but those who have had much experience in preaching to, and controversary with the heathen, would much prefer as vastly more serviceable for such work. A very clear headed Christian here in Shao-wu says that even here is not a good term to use, for they would understand it as meaning true Pu sah not the true God. Just here in this place the prejudice against the Roman Catholics is very strong hence is a term too much calculated to excite suspicion and arouse prejudice.

Again do we properly discriminate the usage of our own language? God is a Spirit, the Third Person in the Trinity is The Spirit. Is He any more a spirit than the First Person is? No! Why then is He called The Spirit? In Old Testament times God manifested Himself by the Theophanies, by a voice thundering from Sinai, by various means addressed to the outer senses. But aside from all this, there came to the prophets and heroes of Israel, a mighty influence which filled them, fired them, endued them with resistless valor, gave them views of the distant future, yet remained as inscrutable as it was almighty. This they called the Spirit of God. In New Testament times the same power,

working in the same spiritual manner, was called by the same name. The Spirit, or Holy Spirit, means the Third Person in the God-head. If now cannot be used to express just this idea of Divine power present and working, yet inscrutable; then Dr. Williams first definition of it has misled me. To my mind, it is no objection to the use of for the Holy Spirit, that our Foochow helpers, after using this term for a number of years, have not been taught by it to discriminate clearly between the use of for deity and for spirit.

Again much has been said about a generic term, as if God, and Theos and Elohim were such. Now each of these words has several distinct meanings and one of these is "any object to which divine honors are paid." But God and gods no more mean the same, than A theologe the church universal and a stone church mean the same. under examination for license to preach, headed the plan of a sermon, "Christian Imperfection." Said one of the professors "permit me to inquire if you consider imperfection one of the Christian virtues ?" Permit me to enquire if we are to consider it a virtue in any name for the Divine Being that it can be so used as to mean devils. The Inspired Word so uses Elohim after Israel had been in idolatrous Egypt. for several hundred years. But just there it was in the main superseded by Jehovah, and if we would follow the precedent of Moses and the prophets, we should have as the common term for God, one which we use in this sense only; and supplement this by some term which can be used in a generic sense, or even in a bad sense, where pity for human weakness and stupidity requires such a usage. Moses, as we learn from Ex. III: 13-16, was troubled about this question of what term to use and by divine direction adopted Jehovah as the Hebrew term. Human perversity sought to corrupt this word as it had all others. Micah had an idol or idols, but thought Jehovah would bless him because he had a Levite for a priest. Jeroboam set the Ten Tribes to worshiping Jehovah under the symbol of a golden calf. Solomon built, not only Jehovah's temple, but also shrines to heathen deities. Even amid the rank idolatry and wickedness of Jeremiah's time, the formal worship of Jehovah was kept up; and Jeremiah's worst enemies were corrupt But this wickedness God priests and false prophets of Jehovah.

fearfully punished and rescued his NAME from all such pollutions. Nebuchadnezzar was a sort of Monotheist, Bel-Merodach being the object of his worship. He ascribed to him such titles as Daniel would ascribe to God only. He named Daniel after him and thought that his own visions and Daniel's inspiration came from him. Rawlinson says, (Smith's Dictionary), "Nebuchadnezzar seems at some times to have identified this, his supreme god, with the God of the Hebrews" (Dan. ch. IV.) at others to have regarded the Jewish God as one of the