Editorial Notes and Missionary News.

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

It is stated that arrangements have been made between the French and Chinese Governments in consequence of which the so-called North Cathedral, in Peking, which overlooks the Imperial Palace, is to be removed to another site at the expense of the Chinese Government, who also are to provide the new site. Dr. J. C. Thomson and Mr. Hager recently returned from a long and thorough tour in the South Western part of the Kwangtung Province, visiting many places not before seen by foreigners. They made large sales of books, and dispensed medicine also, though their rapid passage from place to place prevented much Medical Work.

We learn that Dr. E. G. Horder, of the C. M. S. Mission, is preparing to build a Hospital at

Pakhoi.

The Rev. Ernest Faber, lately of Canton, has removed to Shanghai, where he will act as editor in connection with the Book and Tract Society of China. We welcome him, as a great addition to the working missionary force in Central China.

The Gospel by Mark in Mandarin, for the blind, after Mr. Moon's system, has just been published in England, the romanization having as we understand been done by Mr. Hudson Taylor. A few copies have been received, and can be had by application to the China Inland Mission. An introductory note mentions the fact that this is the 250th language in which the Scriptures have been printed after the so-called "Moon System." We learn also that the Gospel of Matthew and the Acts of the Apostles have been stereotyped by

Mr. W. H. Murray, in Peking, on the Braille System of points and lines.

The following statistics are reported from Japan for December 31st, 1885. Number of Churches 151 (31 more than in 1884, and 63 more than in 1882); Members 11,604 (2,925 more than in 1884, and 7,835 more than in 1882;) Contributions $23,406.97 ($6,415.37 more than in 1884, and $10,949.90 more than in 1882).

We are rejoiced to hear that at last a purchase of land has been effected at Paoting-fu for the houses of the mission at that station.

The American Bible Society, in advance of the application from Peking published in our last issue, (which has not yet reached them) have authorized the publication of a tentative edition of a gospel of Dr. Blodget's and Bishop Burdon's Easy Wenli version, founded on the Northern Mandarin, and the Gospel of Matthew is now being sent to missionaries and friends of the Bible, for critical study.

A missionary from China, at a recent meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, United States America, said:" I favor the antiChinese movement, for California is too corrupt a place for the Chinaman to be in. Let him stay at home until a purer Christianity may meet him than that now offered on the Pacific Coast.

At the last Annual Meeting of the Methodist Mission in North China, it was resolved that, to the Boarding School at Peking, a school shall be annexed for the children of missionaries and other foreigners, the school to be called the Wiley Institute; but we are informed that the development of this project is a matter of the future.

Homes by the Total Prohibition of this two-fold curse of civilization." For the entire text of the Petition with the accompanying Explanation, we must refer to The Temperance Union. It is to be signed only by women. That this is no mere paper-movement, is shown by the fact that Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt

We learn from Nature, of the death of Prof. Zakharow, of the University at St. Petersburgh. He came to China as a Russian missionary nearly thirty years ago, and became eminent for his philological learning. He was the author of a Manchu-Russian Dictionary published in 1875, and he left a Chinese-Manchu-Russian is now making the tour of the world Dictionary almost completed. He was also the author of a Grammar of the Manchu language.

We learn from the Athenæum that the Prince of Wales, as President of the Health Exhibition, has presented to the British Museum the collection of 600 books in Chinese, (being translations of European works into that language,) which was exhibited by the Chinese Government at South Kensington last year.

Numbers five and six of the Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, published in one, make a very valuable pamphlet. The symposium on "The Chinese Theatricals" would have furnished illustrations to Mr. Posnett in his recent volume on "Comparative Literature." "The Seaports of India and Canton described by Chinese Voyagers of the Fifteenth Century" interesting as it is, is less attractive than Dr. Hirth's invaluable, "List of Books and Papers on China published since 1st January, 1884." It is evident that this Society has entered on a stage of increased activity and useful

ness.

THE WORLD'S WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN

TEMPERANCE UNION.

We have received a copy of a Petition of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union to the Governments of the World, collectively and severally, beseeching them, "To strip away the safeguards and sanctions of the law from the Drink Traffic and the Opium Trade, and to protect our

under the auspices of the Branch
of the above-mentioned society in
the United States of America,
Committee for the organization of
which is simply a Preliminary
a World's Union. She has recent-

ly visited and organized the work
in the Sandwich Islands, New
Zealand, and
Australia. It is supposed that it
a large part of
may take at least five years to
work up
the perfect organization of the
the petition, and secure
World's Union, and whatever time
and expense it may involve, the
women who have already taken
hold of this movement are prepared
to devote to it. In due time Mrs.
Leavitt may be expected in China,
when we can assure her of a warm
welcome from all Total Abstinence
men as well as women.
Perchance
she will give this cause among us
the impulse it just now so much
needs.

THE AMERICAN MEDICAL MISSIONARY

ASSOCIATION.

and

On the 19th day of March, 1885, a society with the above name was organized in Chicago. It follows the example of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, and proposes to aid young men women in acquiring a thorough medical training, and to furnish the various Missionary Boards with Medical Missionaries, and also to establish, either independently or in co-operation with other Societies, Medical Mission Stations and free Dispensaries among the heathen. It does not yet seem to have done more than to organize and commence the publication of a quarterly magazine

called The Medical Missionary, the first number of which, for January, 1886, is before us. Its terms are $1.00 a year, with a reduction of fifty per cent to Foreign Missionaries. Notwithstanding the number of missionary magazines, we shall rejoice if there is found

room for yet another without denominational connections. We also note with interest that the New York Medical Society for local Missionary Work, has now become also a Foreign Missionary society, with a training medical institute attached.

Diary of Events in the Far East.

THE HE tenth century was in China a remarkable period of change, and had an immense influence on the two centuries following. The appearance of a great Tauist Ch'en tw'an at that time, and his friendship with the emperor Sung tai tsu, gave an impulse to the Confucian literati which they much needed. They had been devoting their energies to poetry and Buddhist studies. But from this time they turned to the contemplation of philosophy. Tauism and Confucianism were destined to come into combination and modern Chinese thought was to be greatly influenced by this union and by the effect of Buddhist philosophy.

In the common school edition of the Yi king a diagram of the sixty-four kwa is given in the introduction in the form of a square inscribed in a circle. Another contains the eight kwa, the four figures, the two spheres and the great extreme, in a diagram. Another diagram has the eight kwa in a circle, and a fourth contains the sixty-four kwa, the eight kwa, the figures, the spheres and the great extreme. These four diagrams are all inscribed with the name Fu hi as the author, but they really came from Ch'en tw'an, from whom they were transmitted through two generations of pupils to Shau yau fu, in whose writings they constitute what is called the doctrine of the former heaven. In accepting Tauist help in interpreting the Yi king, Confucianism formed a junction with Tauism. At the same time aid was not refused from the Buddhists. The whole field of Confucian doctrine as gathered from the classics was gone over carefully by a long succession of able scholars and the result was the voluminous series of works usually known as those of the Sung philosophers. The work of this school is the

direct result of the comparative study of the three religions made accessible by the new art of printing. During the 11th century Shau yau fu's system of the Sien Tien, F, obtained great currency. It spread so much faster that he was fond of numbers, and instituted a numerical philosophy of an astrological nature. Contemporary with him was Ch'eng yi who gained great fame as founder of a new school of Yi king philosophy called, Li his. He made or tried to make the Yi king moral only, but he accepted Shau yau fu's diagrams for his edition of the Yi king, so that the principles of the Li hio and of the Shu hio,, live together in this book. Not only did Ch'eng yi accept the diagrams, to place at the beginning of the work, to be conned by teachers and scholars all over China wherever the book is used; he also accepted the idea of, King fang, of the early Han dynasty with regard to the arrangement of the sixty-four kwa among the months and the periods of five days each called Hen. No one then may claim for Cheng yi that his philosophy was purely and exclusively morał. So far from its being so, it is tinged throughout with the very old fashioned and extremely one-sided physical theory of the Han ju. Still on account of his own predominantly moral tendency in his way of explaining the Yi king, his system is called the ethical school (Li hio) of the Yi king. In the 12th century came Chu hi, who accepted Ch'eng yi's work on the Yi king as satisfactory, but being himself realistic in tendency he spoke a powerful word for divination as the prominent aim in the Yi king. The consequence is that Shau, Ch'eng and Chu, have all had a share in placing the Yi king in the position it has since held in education and literature. At the same time Chu hi bent his energies to make the Four Books fundamental and essential, and through the work he expended on these works and on the Odes, he has had more to do than any other man in moulding education and literature to its present shape.

Several schools sprang up in the Ming dynasty and among the founders of these E, Wang sheu jen, was the most eminent. There was something mystical in his ideas. He felt that man was the soul of the world and insisted that there is nothing so high or deep as man's intellectual and spiritual nature. The work of the sage he says is to persuade men to think quietly about the light and energy of the soul, and to make this their instrument in searching into philosophy. He pointed out to his pupils how in taking this course he differed from Chu hi, who said it was his aim to comprehend and teach the external rather than the internal.

* See 王陽明集