Journal, March, 1898. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press.
Perhaps it is cause for thankfulness, rather than blame, that in sitting down to explore an essentially serious periodical we come on something unexpected and unintended which wakes a smile and puts us in gocd humour for the task before us. Ts it wrong for instance to have our gravity upset by finding a prophecy of the cycling craze in Darwin's reference in the Origin of Species to this planet going cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity? not, then, we can be amused at the coincide ence involved in the high place given to the subject of Self-support in the last Recorder and the importance attached to Foot-unbinding, in the opening article of this number. This opening contribution is practically the speech delivered by Dr. Griffith John at the annual meeting of the Central China Roligi ous Tract Society. In the course of his address Dr. John asks why the movement against foot-binding should not become at once a grand Christian movement, and the year 1898 be known in the history of the Church in China as the '*Foot-unbinding Year."
Tu his.addressDr. John points out "that the productions of the Christian Press in Ghina are being widely. read these days, and are producing a deep impression on many minds," "that the attitude of the official class to our Christian literature is undergoing a great and vital change." Of course, the opening of Hunan receives special attention, and this opening. is ascribed, not to one cause only, but toa combination of causes. Among these Dr. Ouélook, a small quarto paper, costing 3rd John mentions the persistent attacks on a week, of 32 pages, something in thelihe missionaries in Hunan for the last
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.