The steady growth and influence of the new literature in China were the subject of interesting vomment at the annual meeting of the annual meeting of the Christian Literature Society, held on Thursday under the chairmanship of Mr. Sidney Barton, c.at.c., H. M. Consul-General. There was a good attondanca at the reception and meoting but, in view of the far-reaching importance of the society's work, it was somewhat surprising to learn that Shanghai is represented by 15 only in a membership of 200.
In opening the meeting Mr. Barton, said that the report of the society, after recording a year of increased activity and encouraging results, commented as it could hardly fail to do, on the conditions of general intellectual end physical unrest prevailing in China to-day, and on that condition based a plea for extension. of the society's work in providing literature of the right sort for the assistance of the millions of the people of this country who are looking outSide themselves for guidames in the upheaval of national thought and life. This was a plea, therefore, which must surely appeal to every thinking foreigner in China to-day. In addition to the religious literature provided by the society, the translations of standard foreign works on historical and- political subjects which the society issued, had for many years past found a ready welcome at the hands of Chinese officials throughout the country, and he had met many readers who testified to their value.
No doubt the study of the experiences of other countries as revealed in these. books had contributed in no small measure to the gen-oral desire for progress and reform which was characteristic of both classes and masses in China to-day, but as the circle of interested inquirers grew so did the material offered by rival purveyors knowledge increase in volume and variety, and large quantities of literature which could not be regarded as helpful was finding its way into the country.
The day was practically passed, the chairman continued, when Christian teaching, conveyed either by the spoken or the written word, aroused hostility as such, and, "the missionary case'? has almost ceased to figure in official archives. One of the principal figures in the military struggles of to-day had, he behaved, read most of the society's translated works, and one was himself a Christian. Who could say how far reaching would be the effect when a stern morality of the Cromwellian type is applied to the solution of problems which to ordinary minds, might appear well-nigh hopeless (Hear hear.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.