18th May.
TuEnE are several aspects in which this large and in a sense representative gathering presents new and in-Until the advent of conventions of teresting phases of Chines life, this type the innate social instinct of young Christian Cnina was un able to express itself, That the new conditions are highly welcome is manifest in the enthusiasm and heartiness with which they are met. Repression and gravity are keynotes of Chinese ceremonial, but the alert attention, the prompt recognition of anything especially worthy of it, the frequent clapping of hands in token of approbation, indicate new avenues for expression, wholly unknown and indeed inconceivable in his eric China, Ofthe social value of forces like these, no one who is acquainted with China can entertain a doubt, nor that they are certain to increase in the large development of the Christian social life of the future. The natural barriers of difference of dialect are very great, yet here we see delegates from Canton, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, many parts of the Chekiang province, frm Kiangsu and Shantueg, joining in the sma acts of worship, and speaking men, except through the medium foreigner. That Chinese perplexing and obstructive variations of speech can be. removed, is probably too much to expect, but no means is at present so efficient toward that end as the general diffusion of Christianity, the gatherings which it br. about, the circulation of its extensive and rapidly expanding literature. It is increasingly manifest that the mandarin dialect is the language of China's future. In promoting its use Christian agencies are incessantly at work, as well in fixing and in unifying its terms for the uew civilisation and the new learning, as in the actual sowing broadcast of moral and spiritual ideas.
The attendance of the highest Chinese officials of Nin; the Taotai of the Ning-Shao-T'ai circuit, the prefect, and the district magistrate, at the whole of one session of the convention, where the duty of Christians to their rulers way to be discussed, is an in'eresting occurrence, and the subsequent addresses of each of these, altogether unpremeditated, is perhaps unique. These officials expressed their interest in what they saw and heard, and their cordial approval of the instructions of the ow Testament as to the duties of subjects, exhorting the Christians present to listen to their pastors and teachers, in which event all would go smoothly, and in cases of exceptional difficulty adjustment wou'd not be found impracticable. Being invited to a foreign meal, these officials not only accepted, but spent much time and thought in arranging 'a return banquet in a mission chapel, at which they were all presen well as the General of the troops, foreign ladies as well as gentlemen, to the number of eighty or more, being seated at tables arranged according to a plan drawn by the istrict magistrate, an officer of ability, who studied at the Foochow Arsenal. Incidents of this sort show that China is awake and moving, and in direction which every friend of the Chinese must approve.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.