in regard thereto. Officers are appointed to arrange in regard to the services. When the temples are newly erected, they are dedicated with idolatrous worship. When an image for one of the beings has been made, it is a mere image until after a certain service has been gone through; after which it is said to be occupied by the being for whom it was made, and it has become sacred. In the eyes of this people it is a proper and authorized object of worship. This ceremony is designated kai kwang 開光- It consists of prayers, chantings, &c. and touching the eye of the image with a pencil that has been dipped either in blood or in a red ink made of cinmabar. All this is done with the greatest solemnity.

Besides the ceremonies connected with the worship of heaven and earth by the emperor, the laws of China prescribe regulations for the worship of these various objects. The Chinese text reads: 汎社稷山川風雲雷雨等神及聖帝明王忠臣烈士載在 典應 , which may be translated thus: "All the shin of the land and of the grain, of the hills, the rivers, the winds, the clouds, the lightnings and rains, together with the holy emperors, enlightened kings,

faithful ministers and illustrious sages, which are recorded in the sacrificial records, shall be sacrificed to, together with the shin ki." **

**A+, “Whoever sacrifices to the skin who according to the ritual ought not to be sacrificed to, shall be punished with eighty blows.”凡私家告天拜斗,焚燒夜香,然點天燈七 ****9*, A+, “All private families, which adore Heaven

and worship the north star, burning incense during the night, lighting the lamp to heaven and the seven lamps [to the north star], are profaners of the shin-ming and shall be punished with eighty blows." * 祀天神地震御用祭器帷帳等物皆“Whoever shall steal the great sacrifice to the t'ien-shin‍and ti-ki, or any of the sacred utensils, clothes, &c. shall be beheaded."

From these extracts from the statutes of the empire of China, it is clear that the worship of the shin is recognized by the laws. There is a ritual prescribing how and by whom the worship may be performed, and prescribing punishment for any departure from the prescribed form; and for any sacriligious conduct towards the images, the temples, the altars or any of the utensils or clothing connected therewith. These beings, whose worship is thus authorized and arranged for, are of various ranks, as celestial and terrestrial, more or less honorable and powerful, having a wider or more contracted dominion, as being originally divine, or constituted divine, for meritorious service, by some recognized authority. In this class of beings there are found those who are distinctively styled ti, or shin, or kwai,* or kwai-shin,* or ti-ki W, or jin-kwai Ʌ,* *The common use of kwai as applied to evil spirits causes us to feel a repugnance to any so-called being included among the shin. But in this connection, kai has not a bad meaning. When used alone, it means nearly the same as the good demon among the Greeks. In the phrase kwai-shin it has some comotion of the duality which is found in their philosophy; and in the express on jin-kwai, it would appear to have a meaning connecting it with man, as shin and ki are connected with heaven and earth in the expression t'ien-shin, and ti-ki.

and the shin of hills and streams, and deceased ancestors, chi tsu 始祖

There are a great many spiritual beings who are not, by law, recognized as belonging to this class of worshipped beings; as, the sie shin 邪神, the ole lcwei 惡鬼, the iau 妖, the liwei 怪, and the tsing

What shall we translate shin, the name by which this whole class of worshipped beings is designated by the Chinese? With all due respect to the distinguished scholars who have said that shin "can only be translated in the abstract and in the concrete "spirit" and "spirits," I contend that in accordance with all the principles of language, it can only properly be translated "God" and "gods."

But let us examine farther. Some of this class of beings were originally men and women. After death they have become included among the number of the shin. How did they become so included? There are two recognized authorities by which mortals may be constituted as belonging to the shin. One of them is Yuh-hwang Shang-ti #; the other is the emperor of China. It is a little obscure as to how the emperor above makes known his will, or sends the letters-patent conferring this honor; and as it is not particularly important to the object in hand, I will not dwell upon that point. It is better known how it is done by the emperor; when the claim of any deceased person to be recognized as a shin is brought before the emperor, he refers it to the Board of Ceremonies to report upon the matter. If the board reports favorably, the statement of the meritorious services of the said individual, the reasons why it is proper to confer this dignity upon him, and the proper titles for him in the new position, are incorporated in a suitable memorial to the emperor; when he issues his mandate "Thus let it be," and the edict goes forth.

*

This transaction by which a deceased mortal is constituted one of the class called shin, is expressed in Chinese by fung shin. This expression ought to help us to arrive at the meaning of shin. As the souls of all deceased mortals are disembodied spirits, it does not need any imperial edict to justify styling them spirits. In the dictionaries by Morrison, Medhurst, Williams, Lobscheid, Maclay and Baldwin, Doolittle, Stent and the Chinese author Kwong Ki-chiu, this expression has been translated in English, "to deify" or "to make a god." And in the very nature of things, and of the usages and doctrines of polytheism, this is the only translation that can be properly made of it. Fung means “to grant a domain to one; to invest a noble with rule over a domain; to appoint to office; to give a patent of nobility." Fung kwoh is "to confer a right to rule over a state." Fung shin and receive honor and worship as a shin."

is "to confer a right to rule The person upon whom this is conferred being already a spirit, what else can shin be translated but

"god." As an example of such deification I may refer to one who has a temple at the recently opened port of Hai-kau in the island of Hainan The title of the shin in that temple is Kiang Iu-ki tsiang-keun 江驍騎將軍 His name while living was Kiang Ke-lung 江起龍 of Kiang-nan. He was a military officer at the Hainan camp, and was

lost at sea when in pursuit of pirates. It was reported, that after his death he protected vessels that were in danger from storms, and Kang-hi deified him as a water god with the above title, with a temple at

Hait-kau, that he may protect the vessels passing over that sea. Is it not the whole impression, that he was made a god, in the heathen sense and not a spirit? and so all the others that have been deified, as Kwan-ti 關帝,Kwan-yin 觀音, Tien-hai 天后, and E-ling 醫靈

Again we will be assisted in determining how shin ought to be translated, by considering what qualities have been attributed to this class of beings. Knowledge is attributed to the shin as in these sayings: ***∞, "What men do not know, the gods already know." ##Ʌ7"Men may be deceived, but the gods cannot be deceived.""If the heart moves, the gods know it." Such knowledge implies the ability to search the heart. This is an attribute of God:-"I Jehovah search the heart."

Power is attributed to the shin. Power and control over the elements of nature, as of the rain, lightning, the winds, and tempests. Power and control over the calamaties that come upon mankind, as of war, pestilence and famine. The rewarding of the righteous and punishing of the wicked. are ascribed to the shin. These are all perrogatives of God. E 9, P 7 T‡, "If you do not believe there are gods, behold the lightning.""The gods make happy the good and punish the depraved." . “He commands the soldiers like a god." If any one does not admit that it is regarded as belonging to the gods to guide and control in battle, let him look into Homer's Iliad.

The shin are supposed to hear and answer prayer. This implies divine attributes; and it is that which Jehovah especially claims as belonging to himself.

The shin love the good and hate the wicked; they desire the good of men and their happiness; they heal the sick, they rescue those who are in danger; they confer blessing; and thus indeed the exercise of every function almost that belongs to Jehovah are ascribed to the shin, except the creating of all things out of nothing. Is not this class of beings then properly styled gods? and thus must not the word shin* by which they are called in Chinese be translated gods?

*To many persons it appears impossible that shin can have such different applications, as in one connection to mean "spirit, soul," &c. and in another connection and sense to mean "God" and "gods." But does not our own language and religion afford a striking instance of the same word being used in widely different senses? The word ghost means commonly "the soul of a deceased person appearing; an apparition, a shadowy appearance." A great many sentences could easily be collected from English authors, in which it occurs in the sense of "an appirition, a spectre." It has also a well-established use as designating the third person of the Triune God-the Holy Ghost. How futile it would be for any one who does not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, to collect a multitude of sentences in which the word ghost is used in the former senses, and then say, it having this meaning, it can never mean the third person in the Trinity. One example of its use meaning "the Holy Ghost" from any recognized creed of a Trinitarian church, would set aside any array of sentences in which the other meaning occurred, and be accepted by all as proof that the word had such an accepted and established meaning, referring to the third person of the Trinity, and an object of worship.

There is still another line of thought. The Bible reveals to men, that Jehovah is the self-existent God; and that he fills immensity with his presence; that he made all things out of nothing, guides all affairs by his wisdom, and rules and controls all things by his power. It is in him that "we live, and move and have our being," and not a sparrow falls to the ground without his notice. Men are required to acknowledge him in all - their ways, and to set the Lord always before them.

This conception of one God "who is everywhere in power, and nowhere in appearance," is hard to be retained in the minds of men; and hence men, in their vain imaginations, have conceived a multitude of beings to whom they have ascribed many of the attributes of God, and distributed among them the government and works which belong to him; and as a consequence of this, men have given to these beings the worship and service which belong to Jehovah only. As one has expressed it :"From the accounts given us by the best writers of antiquity, it seems that the polytheists believed that heaven, earth and hell were filled with divinities."

In the very nature of things, the beings to which have been given by men the attributes and worship which of right belong to the true God, are false gods; they only exist in the imaginations of men. When we inquire what are the false gods of the Chinese, we find that it is true of them, as of other heathen people, that they have filled heaven and earth with their imaginary divinities. These objects of their worship meet our eyes wherever we turn them. The temples and altars to them are found in every street and alley of their towns and cities. The objects which first meet our eyes when we enter their houses, or ships or boats, are the shrines of their false gods. The worship of these beings is connected with every event, and every day of their life. They pray to them for every temporal mercy and blessing which the hearts of men desire. They pray to them for life, health, happiness, wealth, honor, long life, children, prosperity, protection from fire and calamity and distress, for restoration of health in case of sickness, &c. &c. &c. They burn incense before them morning and night. They have special worship before them on the 1st and 15th, the 2nd and 16th of every month, on new-year's day, on all the feast days during the year, at marriages, and in connection with births and deaths. What do the Chinese call these false gods which they so frequently and so assiduously worship? The name which they give to this whole class of worshipped beings is shin . The expression to designate this worship is pai shin. This

sentence is wonderfully like the Latin "colene deos." The shrine is the shin's seat or the shin's loft the temple is the shin's maiu 神廟; the altar is the shin's tun 神壇; grace is shin ngän 神恩;a heart devoted to worship is shin sin; the idol which is worshipped is shin siang; an idol's birth-day is skin ton; the divining slips are shin tsien, &c. &c. Beside the shin that are specifically called the household shin, they have in common life, the furnace shin 灶神, the wealth shin財神,the-door shin 門神, the well shin 井神,

the fire shin 火神, the earth shin 土神, the place shin 地方神, the thunder shin 雷神, the hill shin 山神, the dragon shin 龍神, the wind shin, the mirth shin, the opening-the-way shin 開路神,the revealing-dream shin 報夢神, the field shin 稷神, the grain shin, the south-sea shin, the city-defence shin , &c. &c. This list might be indefinitely enlarged, but this

will suffice.

*

After this extended examination of the objects of Chinese worship, I think that all who read this article will readily admit, that they are of the same general character as the false gods which were worshipped by the heathen in the land of Canaan, and by the Greeks, and by the Romans, and which the Hebrews designated sometimes elohim, the Greeks ɛol, the Romans dii, and which in English we name "gods." The Chinese call these objects and imaginary beings shin; and the conclusion I have arrived at is as follows, viz. that shin is the name of that class of beings whose worship is recognized and authorized by the laws of China; and since there is the same custom in use in China as prevailed in Greece and Rome, by which deceased mortals are promoted to the dignity of gods,-which promotion was called apotheosis in Greek, and deificare in Latin, and is styled fung shin in Chinese; and since these shin have the same attributes, works and offices given to them in China as were given to the false gods in Canaan, and in Greece and Rome; and lastly, since the shin are universally worshipped by the Chinese in temples and in their houses, by the burning of incense, the offering of prayers and gifts; therefore, beyond all doubt, the shin

are the gods of the Chinese people; and therefore shin, when referring to this class of beings, and when used in this sense, should be translated "god" or "gods." It follows, as a natural sequence to this, that as the shin of China are the same class of beings as those which are called elohim and @so in the Sacred Scriptures, when these words refer to false gods, then elohim and 0ɛol, when used in this sense, can only be properly translated into Chinese by the word shin.

Having in the foregoing arrived at the conclusion, that shin is the only word by which elohim and cos can be translated into Chinese, when they refer to false gods, I now propose to inquire if shin can properly be used to translate Elohim and Oɛor in the Sacred Scriptures, when they refer to Jehovah the true God. Before, however, proceeding to discuss this point directly, I wish to answer some objections that havẹ been urged against shin being used in that way. It has been stated that shin used in connection with any personal pronoun in the possessive

* The Chinese language has long been used in Japan. Nearly all the books in Japan have hitherto been printed with Chinese and Japanese interlined. As the two nations have so much in common, in their idolatry, philosophy and literature, it may be reasonably supposed, that the Japanese have an accurate knowledge of the Chinese language. It is stated by missionaries now resident in Japan, who were formerly missionaries in China, and hence conversant both with Chinese and Japanese, that shin, in the sense referred to in this paper, has been translated into Japanese by kami. This word kami is used by all the missionaries in Japan as the term for "God."