moments they were seated at the table, Sü and his coadjutor unbent a little from their reserve, and by the time the interview ended, became quite sociable, while yet they evidenced how much they had condescended in having it at all. No reference was made by either party to the previous appointment, which on the governor's part was good policy.

"A Portuguese Lorcha," writes our informant, "commissioned by the Chinese government, has recently been destroyed by native pirates. The lorcha came in contact with a piratical boat, somewhere between Shanghai and Chapú; and her crew, partly Chinese and partly Portuguese, were about to board the boat, when the pirates succeeded in throwing into their assailant's craft some fire-balls, one of which reached the magazine. The lorcha was well nigh sunk, and several of her crew seriously injured, and one or two I believe killed. However, the pirates effected their escape, and the others succeeded in reaching the shore in the lcrcha, where they were robbed. After much difficulty, the master of the lorcha and several of the people made out to reach Shanghái; and the wounded men are now under Dr. Lockhart's care. Many native boats have been recently cut off. One of these, after having been abandoned by the pirates, was a few days ago brought up to Shanghái. She had been dismantled, masts cut away, part of her men taken prisoners, and part left dead in their blood on board.

"The late tautai, Mr. Samqua, is said to hold a commission, authorising special measures for the suppression of these outlaws, and has been in person as far as to the district town of Tsungming. A brave man. No doubt the great emperor will hear of his doings. It is currently reported that of the one hundred and more so-called-pirates, not one of them is truly so! For the prisons are full, the country is full of vagrants, then why be at all the cost and hazard of taking hardy and desperate pirates, when 'these poor outlaws' can easily be collected and made prisoners in their stead?"

The new American consul for Shánghái, John N. A. Griswold, esq., announced his appointment to the Chinese government on the 2d inst., and on the 7th waited on the new intendant of circuit, who returned his visit two days after, on which day the American flag was hoisted at the consul's residence. This officer is a Manchu, 35 years old, courteous and friendly in his bearing towards foreigners, and appears like an intelligent, active man.

Operations at the Ophthalmic Hospital. Contrary to a prevailing opinion, urinary calculus is not an uncommon disease among the Chinese. Four successful cases of Lithotomy have lately been performed by Dr. Parker at the Ophthalmic Hospital. In the first, the stone weighed 4 drachms, and measured 4 by 2 inches in circumference, and 13 by 1 inch in diameter. In eight days the water ceased to flow through the wound, and the patient was discharged well in one month. Sept. 6th. In the second operation, the stone weighed 44 drachms, measured 44 by 34 inches in circumference, and 13 by 14 inches in diameter; the patient was discharged in good health. Sept. 13th. The third was extracted from a man 40 years old; it weighed 24 ounces, measured 7 by 4 inches in circumference, and 24 by 2 inches in diameter. In about ten days, the incision closed; in seventeen the patient was on his feet, and discharged on the 33d day.

October 25th, we witnessed a fourth case of a remarkable character. The stone occupied the position of the prostate gland and neck of the bladder. Like the others it was extracted by the lateral operation; it was of a triangular or pyramidal form;-the base was towards the perineum, and the apex in the neck of the bladder. It weighed 6 ounces,-its circumferences were 74 inches and 10 inches; the diameters 3 and 4 inches. The patient is twenty-five years old, and has suffered ten years from the disease. He sustained the operation with fortitude; no unfavorable symptons have followed, and he is now considered in a fair way to recover.

THE

CHINESE REPOSITORY.

VOL. XVII. NOVEMBER, 1848.-No. 11.

ART. I. Reply to the Essay of Dr. Boone on the proper rendering of the words Elohim and ɛog into the Chinese language, contained on pp. 17, 57, et seq. By W. H. Medhurst, D. D. (Continued from page 520.)

ON page 41, Dr. Boone quotes an expression from Chú fútsz', 帝是理為主 * which he renders, "Ruler means that (k) order (or destiny) is master." This rendering, while it conyeys no definite idea to the English reader, is we believe not in accordance with the original, which doubtless means, "The Supreme is [he who takes] the fitness of things as his rule (or guide)." The latter part of this phrase occurs in the Sing-li Sect. 8., p. 5, and its explanation there may serve to guide us as to its sense here. The

passage is, 以理為主則此心虛明一毫私意 , when the principle of order is taken for the rule or guide, then the mind is disinterested and clear, without a single atom of selfish feeling." The commentator says, that the "wheu men obscure the principle of order by their selfish feeling, then they are sometimes dark; for the principle of order cannot co-exist with selfish desires; but when a man can take

the principle of order as his rule or guide, then the lusts of other things do not obscure him, and his mind is naturally clear, disinterested, limpid, and intelligent." That the Supreme Being should make the fitness of things the rule of his conduct, is an idea not foreign to Christian theology; Dr. Pye Smith, in his Discourses on the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ, says,

"The requirements of the moral law are not the dictates of the mere or sovereign will of the Deity, but the results of the real nature of things, and the propriety of relations. The will which determined the present constitution of moral obligations acted from motive; and the motive or reason which led to the result, was that ground of propriety for which we plead. If the moral law be the result of the real nature of moral things, the actual reason of the moral law must have been an intrinsic excellence in the dispositions and actions approved. This reason of the moral law is eternal and unalterable, and the obligation of the law which rests upon it must always be the same. If we attempt to ascend higher, in tracing the reason of the will of God, we arrive at the total perfection of the Divine nature, as the infinitely glorious and absolute, the SUM and ESSENCE of all good, the primary and ultimate reason of all that is wise, right, and morally beautiful. Higher we cannot go."—p. 180.

Dr. Boone then proceeds to produce his proof that the worshiped at the winter solstice is the

Tien

Tien chí shin,
Shángti. It

is worthy of observation how he continues to render lien chi shin, "the god or gods of heaven," without having produced one passage from Chinese classics or dictionaries, which determine the explanation of the phrase in the above sense. This, let it be remembered, is the very point in dispute, for unless the word Shin necessarily means God, it is useless to persist in thus translating it.

In the quotation from the Pei Wan Yun-fi, given on page 42, the phrase Hwang tien chi shin is translated "the God of Imperial Heaven," which rendering, according to the usus loquendi of the Chinese, is inadmissible; K Hwáng t'ien is a well-known combination, designating the Supreme Potentate; Imperial Heaven in Chinese phraseology does not mean the visible heavens, nor the place where the Supreme holds his court, but the power that rules in Heaven, the Supreme himself. Shin, therefore, in this connection can not be rendered God, as in such case it would convey the idea of the God of the Supreme Potentate, implying a doctrine which the Chinese do not hold; for they do not believe that the Supreme has a God. It must therefore be translated spirit, in the same way that Ti chi shin, and

Shangti chi shin, mean the spirit of the Supreine, which we have seen, according to the ancient classics, and the Ritual of the present dynasty, approaches and approves of the sacrifice offered. Dr. Boohe thinks he has done right in reudering this phrase the "god of Imperial Heaven," because the Shin of heaven in other

places is called Shúngti; but we would observe, in reply, that there is some difference between the Shin of heaven, and the Shin of Imperial Heaven; for while it is possible that the single word Heaven may refer to a place, the compound term Imperial Heaven must, according to the usus loquendi of the Chinese, refer to a person; and while Tien chí shin might be called Shángtí in the sense of the spirit of heaven, Hoáng tien chi shin could not be used with the same reference. Again, Hwáng t'ien and Shángti are interchangeable terms, and Hwáng t'ien chi shin would be equivalent to Shángti chi shin; to say, that either of these is Shángti, would be like calling Shángti, the spirit, or even the God, of Shangtí. Shin, therefore, in this connection, must mean spirit, and not God.

Dr. Boone then introduces a remark of Chú fátsz' when com

menting on the Kiáu tih sing, a chapter of the Li Ki, which he thus translates: " Shangtí is the same as Heaven; if we collect the gods of heaven and name them, then we call them Shángti (Ruler on High)." We should render the passage, "Shángtí is the same as Heaven; if we were to collect together [in thought] the spiritual energies of Heaven, and speak of it (i. e. the collection), we should call it Shángti." Here, as usual, we differ about the translation of the word Shin, Dr Boone assuming it to mean gods, and we giving the meaning sanctioned by Chinese authorities, viz. spirit, or spiritual energy. We also differ as to whether Shin is to be taken here in the abstract or concrete. Dr. Boone chooses the latter; on that supposition, the sentence would mean, that if we were to collect all the invisible personages of heaven, and speak of thein collectively, we should call them, in their collective capacity, Shángtí, Ruler on High. To this interpretation, however, we object. The collection of celestial personages may form a court or conclave, but no assemblage of officials or authorities could ever form an individual ruler. We conceive, therefore, that the term must be taken in the abstract. The way in which the Chinese represent it is something like the following. Shángti is Tien, Heaven, or the Divinity. The Shin, or spiritual energies of heaven, are diffused throughout all nature; when viewed only as producing wind or rain, such portion of the celestial energies, if personified, would be called fung pih, the manager of the wind, or of the rain; or if viewed as guiding the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and the various seasons, would be luh tsung, the six honored ones. But supposing all the spiritual energies of heaven

Byü sz', the director

collected into one and personified, the name attached to the individual possessing in himself all celestial energies, would be Shángti. Should it be objected, that in this way there would be two divinities, Heaven and Shángtí, we reply, in the words of the Chinese writer, that Shangti and Heaven are the same.

The explanation suggested by Dr. Boone has been proposed to several Chinese teachers, and not one of them has assented to it. On the supposition that the Shin of heaven are to be taken here in the concrete, as the various invisible intelligences of the celestial world, the Chinese, who have been asked, immediately begin to compare them with the officers of the imperial court, and then say, that if such officers were collected in any conceivable numbers, they never could constitute one emperor, or receive the designation of the ruler of a country; and so, they add, the various intelligences of heaven, which taken in the plural must be considered as subordinate spirits, could never be looked upon as one Supreme. Hence, they say, the Shin here must be taken in the abstract sense as the spiritual energies of heaven, something like the Æ□ given

in Kánghi (see Inquiry, page 92).

The quotation regarding the Tien shin being most honorable and without compare we have already referred to

Much stress is laid (page 43) on some passages adduced from commentators, that the kióu sacrifice, presented at the winter solstice, is not offered to the material heaven, but to

Tien

shin, which Dr. Boone renders the god or gods of heaven, and which we translate the spirit or spirits of heaven. Regarding this sacrifice, it will be merely necessary to state that the Chinese do not pretend to offer it to the material heavens, but to the Divinity, who is designated by them Tien, Shángth, or Tr; see the Chung Yung, p. 14, and Theology of the Chinese, p. 204. It is admitted that the Chinese consider the Divinity, in their estimation, a , spiritual being, and that they call him Tien chỉ shin, and Tien chi ling, the spirit of heaven; the only question is how these terms are to be rendered; to translate them the god or gods of heaven, would be a petitio principii. The first thing requisite is to see what they mean elsewhere, and then we shall be better able to judge as to what they mean here. In the Inquiry, it has been shown that the word shin, according to Chinese definitions of the term, means spirit; Dr. Boone has not proved, in the same way, that it means God. he is therefore not entitled thus