Tue writer of the lotter in the Times on Missionaries in China and India made what Bishop Moule terperately speaks of as "ma quaint statement" to the effect that Chinese sentiment requires celibacy as a constituent of snuctity. It would be interesting to know on what authority this very peculiar theory is put forth. Chinese ideas of sanctity, to begin with, differ widely from those of Western nations, and especially from those of Southern Buropeans, It may be said without straining a theory that the standard of goodness and virtue in China is one Which is almost inseparably connected with social and domestic life, and the duties pertaining thereto. The good and holy man is he who scrupulously fulfils the obligations of the Five Relationships, prominent among which are those between husband and wife, father and child. Indeed the belief is one which underlies all Chinese notions of cosmogony, politics, and society. Heaven and Earth are the Father and de Mother of all things. he sovereign is the Father and Mother of his people, and in a very special senso the Son of Heaven. Every virtuous and wise parent sees that his son is married at an early age, and while, in the West, our poetry celebrates courtship more than marriage, and has recently assumed a atill more distinctively erotic style, in Chinese verse it is the conjugal relationship which receives the highest meed of praise, and is honoured by the most graceful and tender metaphors. Confucius, the Holy One par excellence of China, was, like St. Peter, himself 0 married man, and none were louder in praise of a married life than he; for "happy union with wife and children," said the Sage, quoting the Book of Poetry, "is like the music of Intes and harps." Indeed it would be difficult to find a people among whom the idea of sanctity was less associated with celibney than the people of China, They are an eminently domestic race, placing the ties of family and kindred in a far higher position in the scale of morals than the practice of religious obseryances, They louk with actual distrust, if not aversion, upon any man or class of men who deliberately shun the conjugal relationship. The Buddhist is, of course, a celibate; that is, the Buddhist priest, But though a priest who should break his vow of chastity is linble to severe punishments, the class itself does not inspire the confidence and respect of Inymen on account of its celibate habits, The man who cuts himself off from all domestic ties, and even renonneces that of which every Chinese is proud—his family name—is regarded with something more al to pilying contempt than admiration. Even the T'aoists marry. The popular igs of both religions are adapted domestic life, and inculcate the reous fulfilment of all those duties between husband and wife, parents and children, which the consensus of civilised humanity regards as in themselves holy. Where, we therefore ask again, does this theorist of the Times nows-paper find his authority for a statement the absolute and diametrical reverse of which is true P—What, we feel interested in enquiring, can he advance in favour of so outrageously wrong an assertion? If, as we bell he isa mau who has never made any the Chinese us they are,—their literature, their every-day maxims, their standards of excellence, their national and domestic life—ho may be excused for holding erroneous views; but to place euch views on record in an influential paper, and give them the spurious authority of a man who from long residence in the East may be supposed to know what he is writing about, is an unpardonable fanlk.
With respect to the practical point which underlies all this—the increased or diminished usefulness of a married missionary—it is not necessary to say very much. There is of course a good 1 to be said on both sides of the question. A missionary, if he is uatrammelled by the cares and expenses of a family, can no doubt do very much more in the way of instruction and evangolisivg than one with a wife and half-a-dozen children. He oan live on less, he can travel more, he oan brave a larger amount of roughing it in the interior, he can devote his heart and soul more entirely to his work. On the other hand, a missionary's wife, especially if not hampered with a family, can be of use to her husband in many ways. She can do good work among women, whom it is impossible thata man, especially an unmarried mav, can ever reach. She can institute schools for children of both sexes, nurse the sick, and supplement her husband's labours in a variety of useful ways. The matter is one on which it is neither possible nor necessary to Iny down an unyielding law. Ta each individual instance the persons concerned, if they be thoroughly and conscientiously devoted to the grant work they have taken in land, may be safely left to follow their own guidings. But we venture to give a tint contradiction to any such delusive statement as that the Chinese look upon a married missiounry in a less favourable light than on one who prac-rises celibacy. The assertion is as foolish as we believe it to be untrue, and that the writer himself bad perhaps some misgivings on the subject is sug. gested by the fact that he has not made any effort to support it by either observation or authority. Everything we have over met with in Chinese literature, or noticed in Chinese domostio life, points most conclusively in the opposite direction.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.