"Tue HistouicaL, Devaonwexr Teeucton bs "cuear— of H. A. Consular service.' name made frequent appearance, in days not long gone by, in the pages of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and other publications beloved of the sinologue. The substance of these chapters was delivered in addresses to the students in the Caermarthen Presbyterian College in 1918. The book is marked by competent scholars! sight and wise tolerance. the common people. admirably by its title. Tt is theology in the wide but not in the sectarian sense.
The different religions in the world have a blood relationship to each other and no one understands one Unless he has, at least a nodding acquaintance, "with some others. The book opens with a summary of the three religions, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, to each of which a chapter it devoted, then speaks of the decay of faith and ends with "the modern transformation'
balnneed judgment on the characteristics of ancient Chinese civilization is. given by the author in these words:—"The picture I ave in my mind of primitive China is mo Arcadian idyll of the golden days of Yao and Shan but " very hard and cruel state of society where Thuman life war held terribly' cheap: where the interests of the poor and the helpless, the younzand the dependent were ruthlessly sacrificed; where oppression and violence, war and devastation, scourged mankind into submission to the caprice of tyrannous chieftains; where abject slavery was the lot of all bat a Favoured few and where the only alternative to feudal anarchy was military despotism depending on the life and vigour of one man, and thi only' conception of law was, the elaboration and punctilious obser-
Nance of ritual in which superstition and fear played a far larger part than reason or enlightened concern for morality oF the public Feood." This witness is good and yet heaven did not leave itself without witness as is evidenced by the opening and closing sentences of the "Teo teh-ching." the classic of Taoism. "The way that can he expressed is not the eternal way; the shame that can be named is not the ternal name." "The way of God to Bless and not injure, the of the sages is conduct and not controversy." The society that produced at the same epoch Laortze vith his transcendentalism and Com-furious with his practical philiosophy was not barren or unfruitful.
On the political aspect of Chinese civilization our author is equally broad-minded, "There have been prolonged and tangled controversies of which some have been the cause, for at least the occasion, of wars whereon it is by no means impos sible to uphold the argument that, the balance, the foreign, Chi tian, Power was the more to blain Summary judgments on such questions are apt to be more unjust than epigrams usually are; the facts are tously complex and well informed men, equally animated with the desire to be fair-minded, have come ta discrepant and contradictory conclusions. Yet the existence such questions, admittedly. involve ing important' moral issues, has notoriously been a stumbling block in the path of mutual understand ing and the growth of goodwill."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.