Tue energy and zeal of religious missionaries in China has always been recognized in the columns of this Journal. We have criticised the faults which we conceive to be blemishes on the great cause, but we have never failed to acknowledge the merits of the really genuine advocates and promulgators of the Religion of the Cross, But there is scope and opportunity for Western missionaries who shall take quite another line, We refer to those who strive to make the Chinese acquainted with the literature, the science, and the progress of Europe. Some few months ago, we commended the efforts made by the Sovioty for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge at Poking, and we have a good hope that the efforts of this well-intentioned band of instructors will be fraught with the best possible results. There may be critical objections to the first publications of this unobtrusive society, but if we give the pioneers time, there can be little doubt that they will produce good results. The efforts made in the North will possibly be slow in producing quick and immediate fruit, but they will unquestionably, by slow degrees, influence the native mind, and if time be only given, we shall see the people much improved by the impression of Western ideas and by the steady holding forth of a higher standard than it was within the reach of Old Custom to display. The efforts of the secular missionaries have been, however, hitherto confined to Peking. The question presents itself: Why should not exertions be used in the Treaty Ports where Chinese most do congregate, to diffuse the light of civilization and to bring the mandarin, and the trader, and even the coolie into the pale? There is one step in this direction which may unquestionably be made. The English artisan has been improved by Public Libraries and Reading Rooms and by the appliances which familiarize ignorance with the trae standards of taste and knowledge Imown to the refined and cultivated classes of the Continent of Europe, of America, and of Great Britain, Could not a Reading Room be got up for Chinese For it must never be forgotten that they are a nation of readers. The good boy who minds his book is generally regarded with mingled feclings of admiration and contempt in England. He is not nearly so popular a personage as, the muscular Christies who climbs trees for birds' nests and makes a score at cricket, but in Chine all these means for developing ts?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.