Canon of Durham. With' forty-five illus: trations by Edward Whymper, from sketches and photos lis, an index and a map. Fleming EH Revell Company, Now York, Qhieago, and Toronto. The Religious Tract ciety.
Canon Tristam is well known by his work on the Holy Land, as well as in other ways. The visit to Japan of which we have here a fitting record, was made in the year 1892, but the present publication of the account of it seems to have been suggested by the increased interest felt at home in the Far East, in consequence of the late war between China and Japan. 'The author is a highly observant traveller, and a trained naturalist in many branches.' He knows the botanical names of every herb after its kind, and the zoological title of every animal and every insect after its kind." He wades in mud and water to get hold of a shell that is reported to be just the same asa shell from the Lake of Galilee, and he has an eye to the minute, the beautiful, the sublime, and the commonplace. He delights in bits of ancient Japanese history, revels in old armour, and waxes enthusiastic over stuffed birds and specimens of antique pottery. He is just the sort of traveller to send a keen thrill_ of delight into the stolid breast of a Japanese dealer in curios, or in stuffed birds; and he is just the kind of man that any intelligent person would enjoy as a companion in travel, both for his acquisitive mind, and his evident ability to give more than he gets. Canon Scotch persistence, never letting go a Tristam's daughter was in Japan to act as hold once gained, and always full of an guide for her father, and by means of ambition to accomplish what would ordin-special passes he and she were enabled to arily be considered the work of several see a great deal which is inaccessible to the men. He gives due credit for not a little ordinary tourist. He is naturally much in-help which he has received during this long terested in the work of the Church mission, term of years, but it is plain that he has to which his daughter belonged, but he carried out his own plans in his own way. does not omit to give lucid, although brief His central idea appears to have been to accounts of other missions also, and is get hold of a group of young men, and evidently quite free from any kind of thoroughly inoculate them with the seeds bigotry. There are no elaborate chapters of Christianity, and of occidental civilisaon the nature of Japanese civilisation, no tion too, to such an extent that each one prognosis of the part Japan is to play in should be a permanent: centre of diffusion. the future history of the human race, and He took his pupils with him on his long cut and dried pronouncements of any tours, over mountains, among serpents, sort. The illustrations are numerous, and among the savages, in'open boats under some of them, as for example a country the precipitous coasts, and into the centre bridge, and Kumamoto Castle, are superb. ofthe French war. If any of them ever Those who have not been in Japan will declined to undergo so much fatigue, and enjoy this interesting sketch of a rapid to submit to such multiplied discomforts tour through some of its principal parts, and dangers, no trace of it appears in the and those who are familiar with that narrative. What does appear, however, is picturesque empire, will also enjoy seeing the remarkable adaptation of these youths how its beauties strike Canon Tristam, to their "environment," and the almost unique success which the leader and those From Far Formosa, the Island, its People whom he led have achieved. Ononeof the and Missions. By George Leslie Mac-closing pages we have the list of sixty kay, p.p. Twenty-five years a missionary points occupied by the Mission, and also in Formosa. Edited by the Rev. J. A. the names of an equal number of "native MacDonald, with portraits, illustrations preachers, trained and equipped for their and maps. Fleming H. Revell Company, work." The author tells us that in his New York, Chicago, Toronto, 1896. pp. report to the Canadian General Assembly for 1895, there were reported two foreign ordained missionaries, one of whom, how-'This handsome volume, just issued, is a ever, has bean only three years on the valuable contribution to the scanty litera-field: There were also two ordained ture accessible to an English reader, on native missionaries, sixty unordained the great and fertile island which has native preachers, twenty-four native Bible attracted so much attention on account of women; 1,738 native communicants, 1,027 its annexation by the Japanese as one of male, 711 female, in good and regular the few substantial results of the late war. standing in the Church, 2,633 "baptised The book is printed on good paper, is members," probably including children fully and even elegantly illustrated, in sixty dispensaries at chapels; 10,736 treat clear typo, and is very interesting reading, ments atthe hospital; $2,375.74 contributed It is divided into six parte. The first four by natives for mission purposes, $254.10 chapters give an autobiographical account contributed by the foreign community for of the author, a matter of much more importance in this case than in most books so unexampled, and so inherently incredible the hospital. This is a record so surprising, on China, because the personality of the to those who' know what mission work writer pervades his book and his work to among the Chinese is, that it is well that a remarkable decree. The five followin; the author was willing'to print an address chapters are devoted to the history an presented to him by the foreign residents natural history of the island, including its of Tamsui in August, 1893, on the eve of his geography, geology with a geological map, departure for Canada. A few extracts from trees, plants, and flowers; animal life, and this address will make clear what his fellow-outline of ethnology. Eleven succeeding townsman have to say about the results of chapters are grouped under the title Dr. Mackay's labours Aimong the Chinese," in which the reader We have not always given expression to is told what the Chinese are like, how they our thoughts, but we have highly appreciated are governed, and how they live and work, your great success, and the marvellous in northern Formosa. This narrative is progress you have, by God's help, been able closed with some details of the disturbances caused by the war between France and Chinese people around us; a success which to make in getting at the hearts of the China. we think is without parallel in the history of Christian missions in China.
Six more chapters are gathered under the heading The Conquered Aborigines,"
You cannot but regard with much thankfulness and satisfaction, the great and in which there is much which will probably noble work you have been engaged upon, and be new to all except the select circle of to which you have devoted your life these those who already know everything. The many years. In material blessings alone, re-special conditions of the semi-civilised sulting from your labours, resides sufficient "savages," placed between the upper mill-cause to make any man proud and happy stone of the "'civilised" Chinese, and the and if there were nothing else to show than nether mill-stone of the ansabdued aborithe good feelings between natives and for-gines, are made clear, and one is enabled to eigners, due to your teaching, that alone conjecture what a vast revolution will take would be a sufficient cause of triumph. Those of us who remember Formosa as it was at the place when the Japanese shall have begun time of your arrival, recognise a great altera-to apply in detail their comprehen tion for the better in the demeanour of the pass 2 the orderly government of this natives generally; and we ascribe the improve test acquisition. Two interesting chapment ina great measure to you. Suspicion has ters tell about the mountain tribes, which given place to confidence, and the most timid the author visited in the fastnesses, and hover dream of fearing molestation, let them with whom he came to amicable terms. roam the country where they will, Who The eight concluding chapters are styled with time to ramble can forget the neat and At Head-quarters," and give fuller details wholesome-locking mission chapels scattered of the modus operandi of the great mission broadcast through the land work which has been carried on for twenty-This address, of which the foregoing is four years since Dr. Mackay first arrived but an extract, is signed by forty-three in the island. names, representing the foreign community 'The author of this book a] to be of Northern Formosa, as well as the in some respects a typical Scotcl He captains, officers, and engineers of visiting came to Formosa with a vague idea of what steamers. At a' time when the feasibility he was to do, and of the place in which he of mission work is more than at.almost any was to do it, but as soon as the way began previous time under active discussion in to open, he pressed on with more than Ghina, this volume by an active participant,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.