Missionazies have frequently been severely criticised for the "rory reports" they send to their Societies at home, and the pathetic descriptions of sudden conversions and eaiutly deathbeds for which the religions publio in England has so insatiable an appetite. missionaries holding such different views with regald to the religious condition of the Chinese, as a people, ae those set forth by Dr. msou and Dr. Yates respectively in recent issues of the Chinese Recorder, And we can well believe that to the most straitest sect of Christian Pharisnism the theories of the former gentleman must be little Jess than abhorrent. That the Chinese should be credited with a belief in "the Trae God" is shocking enough, bat that a word should be said in favour of ancestral worship is simply terrible, Dr, Williamson recognises the existence of " high moral code among the Chinese, and believes that the inculontion of the five constant virtues needs only to be extended in a more definitely theistic direction to muke the code simest pers feot. He looks upon the Chinese view of Lao ien-yeh, or God, a8 merely incomplete, and considers that it only requires to be vivified, amplified, and enforced. In fine, "there is wonderfully little to overturn in Chinn; our great daly is supplementing." There theories excite the horror and repro= bation of Dr, Yutes, who takes the lowest and most hopeless view of the condition of the Ohinese, He is opposed, toto clo, to any attempt to engraft Christianity on to Confucian. 1; Confucianism, he evidently think, must be destroyed root and branch if Christianity is ever to be planted in the country, Such are Ue dinmotrically opposite conclusions arrived ut by two men who have spent very nearly their entire lives in Ching, and each of where is a high authority on the literature, the beliefs, and the personal character of the Chinese, It is ecnrcely necessary to say that Dr. Yates's view is by fur the more popular of the two among a very large and influential section of the religious world, Exeter-hall audiences are fond of hearing about benighted heathens casting their idols to the moles and to the bats, about " wit arising from among the dari most bigoted recesses of heathenism, and go forth; they do not relish being told that Confucianism is pure and excellent as far as it goes, and that the wisest course is to build upon it rather than pull it down, " Overturn, ov turn," is the ery of Dr, Yates. " Hold fast that which is good, wherever you may find it," is the reply of Dr. Williamson, Strange that there should be so wide, and deep, and radical a difference between them. Surely, it must be a question more or less of personal idiosyncrasy and experience. The sterner and less hopeful views of Dr, Yates respecting Chinese moral nnd religious systems must to a great extent have affected his evangelistic efforts, To condemn Confaciauism, to reprobate the cherished institution of the so-called " worship" of ancestors, is lo steel the hearts of the Chinese
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.