Religions, and the Language and Literature will be of special value to the general home reader. This volume taken with Prof. Douglass' "Confucianism and Touism," published last year by the same Society, must assist materially in giving English readers a well-rounded tho' not extensive view of these "ends of the earth." A home reviewer speaks of the author as "too much restricted to the limitations of a popular style" and as "restricted to the barest details ;" but this is in other words only expressing the wish that the work were something else than it was intended to be. L. H. G. Corea, The Hermit Nation. .By W. E. Griffis, author of "The Mikado's Empire." New York. Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1882. 8vo., pp. xxiii. 462. THIS work has not yet been received in China, though announced, and reviewed, by periodicals in New York. We venture to mention it in our present number, as it will so soon be accessible. The author was never in Corea, but his acquaintance with Japan must have assisted him much in apprehending some of the peculiar phases of Corean life and history; and he has availed himself of all sources of information, preeminent among which are the Jesuits' publication within the last few years. He is quoted by one of his reviewers as saying "Corea and Japanese life, customs, belief, and history are often reflections one of the other. Much of what is reported from Corea, which the eyewitnesses themselves do not appear to understand, is perfectly clear to one familiar with Japanese life and history. China, Corea, and Japan, are as links in the same chain of civilization." Mr. Griffis estimates the population of the Corean peninsular at 12,000,000 It will be interesting, in due time, as our acquaintance with the country increases, to learn whether these higher figures are confirmed. The New York Independent wittily remarks" Thus far, our transactions with this people have stood on the somewhat obscure basis of genseng. The admirers of President Edwards will recall the distress of that good man when his Stockbride Indians [in the early part of last century] took to the woods, in a sudden frenzy, to get rich by digging this spicy root from the ground. Around "Dominie Kirkland's" mission to the Oneidas it was genseng which enabled the colonists in the stress of their first years to buy bread. Their hot search has now exterminated the plant. For these many years not a root has been found in all these valleys, but the trade goes on. The Corean demand [and Chinese also] continues, and draws its supplies from ground that lies still further west." L. H. G. Le Mahométisme en Chine, et dans le Turkestan Oriental. Par P. Dabby de Thiersant: 2 Vols., Paris. Ernest Leroux. 1878. The Future of Islam. By Wilfred Scawen Blunt. French & Co., Paternoster Row. 1882. London: Kagan Paul, Islam and Its Founders. By J. W. H. Stobart, B.A., Principal Le Martmere College, Lucknow. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Lon don. 1878. undisguised religious position as a The Coran-Its composition and teaching, and the testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures. By Sir Wm. Muir, M.A., D.C.L., Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. SEVERAL other recent works might be noted on the increasingly interesting subject of Mahomedanism, which has of late attracted so much attention, but the above will suffice for our present purpose. Mr. Bosworth's Lectures in 1874 on "Mohammed, and Mohammedanism," gave in England great impulse to this subject, and they have had a large following in their very favorable estimate of the religion of The False Prophet. The increasing feebleness of the Sick Man of Eastern Politics, and the recent outbreaks in Egypt and Soudan, with the possibility of yet further complications in the near future, render the whole subject of Mohamedanism especially interesting; and we of China do well to turn our frequent attention toward it as a force which has not exhausted all its possibilities in the Flowery Kingdom itself. The work, whose title we have first given above, deserves especial attention from missionaries in this land, as the first extended study of Mohamedanism in China. Mr. Thiersant is a somewhat voluminous author on various military, scientific, and religious subjects relating to China. His position of late years as Consul-General and Chargé d'Affaires de France, has given him some special facilities for gaining out-of-the-way information, and his Kansu 8,350,000 6,500,000 Shansi & S. Mongolia 50,000 Yunan.. The Liau Tung.. .250,000 200,000 It 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 100,000 50.000 prominent individuals. Mr. Blunt, in the second of the books mentioned above, estimates the total of Mahomedans in Asia and Africa at 175,000,000; of which he allots 15,000,000 to China. It is evident, that, notwithstanding the great desolations this religion has of late years experienced here, its numbers are by no means despicable, and missionaries in China find themselves profitably involved in the study of the general subject of Mahomedanism. Kuenen, in his "Rational Religions, and Universal Religions," the Hibbert Lectures of April and May of this year, affirms that "Islam is advancing, and spreads more rapidly than either Buddhism or Christianity." Even if this be so elsewhere, it is by no means true in China; and it certainly has very large advances yet to make before it can approximate Christianity with its 400,000,000, and Buddhism with its 450,000,000, which are the estimates given by Kuenen. The general question of the future of Islam, receives very various answers from our different authors. Mr. Blunt, the grand-son-in-law of Lord Byron, and who has of late received the maledictions of many English for the moral "aid and comfort" he rendered to Arabi Pasha during the last year, finds it difficult to fully and sufficiently express his "supreme confidence in Islam, not only as a spiritual, but as a temporal, system, the heritage and gift of the Arabian race, and capable of satisfying their highest aspiration." Again he says "Islam has so much to offer to the children of Ham that it can not fail to win them-so much more than any form of Christianity or European progress can give. Central Africa then may be counted as the inheritance of Islam at no very distant day." And again "Its moral advance within recent times in the Malay Archipelago, in China, in Turkestan, and in India, encourages the supposition that under alien rule, Mahomedanism will be able to hold its own, against all rivals, and that in the decay of Buddhism, it, not Christianity, will be the form under which God will be eventually worshipped in the Tropics." Very divergent from this is Mr. Thiersant's expectation that Mahomedanism in China will ultimately be merged into the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. And even Dr. A. Kuen, quoted above, with all his "liberalism" says, Mahomedanism "misses the power so to transform itself as to meet the requirements of a higher type of life which in its present form it cannot satisfy." Islam and Buddhism alike fail to acquit themselves of their task beyond a certain point. There they find a line drawn which they cannot pass, because their origin forbids it." Mr. Stobart's unpretentious little volume written in the midst of Indian Mahomedan ism, to our mind presents the whole subject in a very fair and judicious manner, and arrives at very opposite conclusions from such writers as Messrs. Bosworth Smith, and Blunt. The concluding words of his book are, "Light and darkness, are not more opposed than the loving dictates of the Gospel, and the Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1882. New Series, Vol. XVII., Part I. THIS is an unusually interesting number of this Society's Journal. It contains five articles. Art. I. Notes on Chinese Composition, by Herbert A. Giles. Art. II. On the Geology of the Neighborhood of Nagasaki, by H. B. Guppy, M.B. Art. III. Notes on the South Coast of Saghalien, by G. C. Anderson. Art. IV. Annam and its Minor Currency, by Ed. Toda. Art. V. The HoppoBook of 1753, by F. Herth. Bibliography. Mr. Giles, after giving a list of the Figures of Rhetoric as presented in works of Rhetoric presents a pertinent example illustrative of each kind from Chinese literature with some explanatory remarks. The article on Annam will command the most general interest as it is a very well prepared and exhaustive paper on the subject which it treats. is illustrated by the representation of some 290 coins. We commend this paper to all who are interested in collecting coins. It The Hoppo-Book of 1753 will be of especial interest to all former residents in China as bringing to their minds the mode in which the Customs were managed at Canton 130 years ago. It will be evident to all residents now in China how very different and how much more satisfactory the Customs regulations now are as compared with former days. The Bibliography is a notice of an erudite Chinese Grammar by the able sinologist Von der Gabelentz who is the Professor of Chinese in the University of Leipsic. Every reader will regret that Dr. Herth, who we suppose is the writer of the notice, has made it so short. And all students of Chinese, except Germans, on reading how exhaustive this work is of Chinese Grammar will regret that it is published in German. It is of course most natural that an author should write in his own language but it is also to be supposed that an author writes to benefit his fellow men. While the number of Germans who are studying Chinese is rapidly increasing, yet it is comparatively very limited as compared with those of all nationalities. If the author had prepared this Grammar in Latin or, which Mr. Giles translates "the old gentleman of the sky," putting the first noun in the genetive; and might be according to that rendered literally "old Heaven's gentleman." But, with all deference to Mr. Giles, we would render these words "Old Heaven, the gentleman," making these two nouns in apposition. According to the rules above referred to the words may be construed both ways. How shall we decide which is correct. Of course there is the appeal to the sense and the propriety of the thing. The adjective "old" does not belong to the second noun but to the first noun "heaven" and is a title of respect. The words would read strangely if read applying the adjective to where it belongs "Old Heaven's gentleman," but the other rendering is perfectly congruous to the Chinese ideas. But beside this we have a similar expression which rendered making the first noun in the genetive would read "Heaven's grandfather." But construing the two nouns thus occurring in apposition they would read "Heaven grandfather," heaven being personified and thus addressed as grandfather. Chinese Grammar gives us some rule of grammar by which we can be guided in such sentences. English it would have assisted, on The A, A Manual of Historical Literature; comprising a brief description of the most important histories in English, French and German. By Charles Rendall Adams, LL.D., Professor of History in the University of Michigan. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1882. WE give the title of this book in full because it states clearly the purpose of the author in its preparaWe bring it to the notice of our readers because it supplies a tion. want which so many have felt. In this land so far from Libraries we are unable to keep up fully our knowledge of books as they appear, and yet we often wish to select |