To the Editor of the Si,—In your issue of April Srd, "Spectator," in his zeal to make good his of exaggeration" and ser tional flourishes" found in the introduc for " of a tract entitled China asa Mission Field, has indulged in some strictures which, for the benefit of your readers who may not see the tract, seem to require an answer.
The tract, "Spectator" designates as "really a typical work of its class," and he finds ''a flavour of the peculiar kind which missionary tracts usually betray he also Gitivered as a lecture before popular audi-ite correctly asserts, (for it was originally ences,) that "if the writer had confined himself to strict logic and didactic statement, he would have failed to reach the sympathies of the class for whom such tracts are chiefly designed." Mr. A. Matheson has well said that what a critic does is simply to describe himself and define his standpoint," and this is done in entire unconsciousness. In the present instance, we have a good illustration of this definition of criticism, and we may quite appropria ately return Spectator's compliment, and say that his critique follows the stereotyped style of writers of his class, and possesses a flavour of the peculiar kind which criticisms on missions and missionaries, from a deistical, infidel and positiveist standpoint usually betray; moreover, if the writer had confined himself to strict logic and didactic statement, and to a candid estimate of the real merits and demerits of the work, instead of throwing out slurs respecting "appeals to the supernatural," and sensational flourishes introduced to give unhealthy interest, he would have failed to please that class for whose amusement such critiques are chiefly designed.
As an illustration of "appeal to the supernatural," or at least of "expansive enthusiasm," he adverts to the reference the tract to the Pacific Railroad as being an item in the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecies. I submit that since, for instance, the 58rd chapter of Isaiah is universally admitted, by all who believe in prophesy at all, to have been minutely fulfilled in the person of the Messiah, and since the 49th chapter is as universal itted to refer to the progress of the Mes-slab's kingdom in the latter days, there is no wild extravagance in suggesting that the great national thoroughfares of the present day may be a part of the fulfilment of that prophet's reference to facilities for intercommunication as aiding the progress of that kingdom. That the prophetic writings relating to the future progress of God's Kingdom in the world, do contain some reference to these facilities for intercommunication between the nations, is, 1 think, the general belief of all Christians, Among the sensational flourishes, Specta-for quotes a paragraph relating to the probable origin of the Chinese, which to the writer really seems prosy enough to suit the taste of the most plodding and ' dry-as-dust" savant, The statement was by no means an off-hand "flourish," but the result of careful investigation, ° It is, in fact, but a condensation of a more elaborate statement contained in a lecture by the author on the population of China, that appeared in the Daily News, and also in Notes and Queries, some four years since, He attempts to fortify his charge of ex. aggeration" (a charge by the way very common among writers of his close when speaking of the statements of missionaries) by calling in question the estimate of 5,000,000 square miles as the area of the Chinese Empire, and 370,000,000 as estimate of the population of the pire. 'These big figures which our critic asserts, are necessary to the tone in which missionary writers too often think it necessary to deal with China," are not originally chargeable upon' the writer of the tract, nor upon missionary. writers," ence the er has no pertinence, as in fact is the case with most eriticiem of the class, On the other hand, "Spectator," with all his zeal for facts" and "plain statements," in estimating the population at 250, 00,000, and in another' place even intimating his acquiescence in the view that the population of Hindostan is fully equal to that of China, the iindoos being placed by him 420,000,000," makes " bolder flight into the regions of exaggeration and rash conjecture than the writer of the tract or any other missionary probably would dare tomake. The Chinese census of 1839, giving 415,000,000 as the population, may not have been perfectly correct, still it evidently furnishes the most reliable data that is available for making a true estimate And how can "Spectator" clear himself from the charge of oxagyeration" and " exuberant hyperbole," which he so vigorously condemns, when he estimates the African Fotishists at '200,000,000, more or less when geographers estimate the whole pop-lation of Africa at between 70,000,000 and 80,000,000.
As another specimen of ' exaggeration" and "nonsense," he quotes the following:—What is the Christianizing of a few islands and small countries, compared with the great work to be done in this populous Empire? Were all the islands of Oceanica, with Siam, Burmah, Assam, and all the other bordering nations to become thoroughly Christianized, still they are comparatively so small that the great system of heathenism in Asia, would scarcely feel the shock." Until China is converted to God, idolatry and heathenism will remain in their pride, power and ascendency in the world. With assort of "sensational flourish," (if such a cool, terse writer as he seems to claim to be, can be guilty of such folly,) he exclaims, "Why, in the name of geography, are the islands of Oceaniea grouped in this way with Siam, Burmah and Assam; and what are the countries bordering on these latter The reason why special mention was made
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.