according to our will. Whereas, on the contrary, we are but just located at a few border cities of the empire, and can only personally influence one in a million of the population. With regard to the rest, we have yet to affect them through the medium of their own tongue, and can only do it by using that tongue in the way in which they have been accustomed to use it, and in a way which they can understand. If we use new terms, or terins in a sense in which they have not been accustomed to employ them, we shall only render ourselves unintelligible, and not succeed in teaching them anything. We may indoctrinate individuals into our views, but by employing a new nomenclature, we shall leave the mass untouched, and how then are we to do for China what the Grecian philosophers did for their country? But Dr. Boone says that we must make a term, which never, according to this own showing, was used by any Chinese writer in the sense intended-we are to make that term, by our usage, designate what we please; and we are to teach the Chinese to use the word Shin, which they understand in the sense of spirit, to designate "not one of any class to be determined by the context, but the God xal' xv." That is, to determine for the Chinese how they are to understand their own terms, in spite of classical writers and dictionaries, and then to induce them to use such terms in the sense which we choose to put upon them.

Those of us who have had any experience in instructing the Chinese, know how difficult it is to teach them religion, even when availing ourselves of all the helps which their own usus loquendi, in regard to terms and idiomatic phraseology, afford; how much more would the difficulty be increased, were we to write and speak to them in an unknown tongue; instructing them first in the nomenclature which we choose to adopt, and then indoctrinating them in the religion which we have come to teach? Particularly, if this is to be done by means of the sacred Scriptures, which are to be published without note or comment, and which, if abounding in terms used in a sense authorized by no native writer, would be a sealed book to them. Let us picture to ourselves the Herculean task of teaching the Chinese to change the meaning of their own terms, and of making them acquainted with the sense in which strangers understand their language; insisting that it must be so understood, in order to the reception of the new doctines which foreigners come to diffuse. This, however, is not the peculiar business of missionaries; we come to this country in order to disseminate religion, and in so doing, it is out's to avail ourselves of the medium of communication already

established among the people, using terms in the sense in which they are generally employed, and clothing our ideas in a dress which is familiar and intelligible to the generality.

Dr. Boone says that the apostles completed, with regard to Eos, what the Greek philosophiers commenced. But he would set us a task far more difficult than that undertaken by the apostles. The philosophers of China have not commenced doing for Shin what the philosophers of Greece are said to have done for E05; so that we do not find China in the same position in which the apostles found Greece. We must then perform the part of philosophers as well as apostles, in this country; we must first remodel the language, and then disseminate our religion; and not only so, we must even do more than the philosophers of China ever attempted to do. They had frequently to speak of a Supreme Being, but they never ventured to designate him Shin;-doubtless because they knew that Shin meant spirit, and was therefore inadequate to express the idea. We are, however, to overcome that difficulty; we must, as Dr. Boone says on page 88, use Shin to render Elohim and ɛos, in spite of all objections: we must make Shin mean God and not spirit, whether the Chinese will so understand it, or not. Had any of the Chinese philosophers or poets used Shin for the Supreme in their estimation, we might have had some ground to go upon in establishing this meaning for Shin; but as not a single authority can be adduced, our difficulties increase, and we are left to perform a philological task more than philosophers or even apostles accomplished, without any assistance from either classics or dictionaries.

Dr. Boone says, that "these two facts, viz. that the Greek philosophers found 80s just where we find Shin, and that they used

og to designate the Supreme Being, is a direct argument why we should make a similar use of Shin." But the Greek philosophers did not find Eos just where we find Shin; they did not find it used for every kind of spiritual energy and being, including the human soul, with its powers: on the contrary, they found that eos contained in it so much of the full idea of Deity, as to warrant them in using it for God xa7' xv. We do not find Shin in the same position; and as a proof of it, we adduce the well-known fact that no Chinese writer has ever ventured to use Shin for God by way of eminence. Again, it is requiring too much, that we should suppose ourselves in the same position in China, that the Grecian philosophers occupied in their own country. It is enough for us to imagine ourselves in the circumstances in which the apostles were placed; as it respects the

propagation of the Gospel in an extensive empire. Could the advocates of Shin put us in the same position in which the apostles were with regard to 8E05, we should have nothing to reply; but as we do not find Shin where the apostles found ɛ05, i. e. used by the philosophers and best writers of the nation among whom they went to designate God by way of eminence; and as we find Shin embracing a much larger number of meanings than ever were attached by the Greeks to 8505, we conclude that we are not warranted by the example of the apostles in using 805, to make a similar use of Shin.

Dr. Boone thinks that though the Chinese do not predicate the origin and government of all things of Shin, we may still do it; because "we may predicate anything of any subject which is consistent with truth and right reason; otherwise, if we confine ourselves to the predicating of those things which the Chinese predicate of any given subject, we shall never be able to make them acquainted with the character and attributes of the true God." The true God in our estimation is God xal' ox; and the question to be decided is, by what name he shall be designated in Chinese. Dr. Boone proposes Shin, notwithstanding he owns that no Chinese writer ever used it for God xal' xv. In order to ascertain whether Shin really means God in the estimation of the Chinese, we inquire, whether they predicate what they conceive to be divine acts and attributes of Shin; and when we find that they do not predicate the origin and government of all things of Shin (though they consider these to be peculiar to the Divinity in their estimation), we conclude that those have not conceived aright of the meaning which the Chinese attach to the term Shin, who understand it in the sense of God κατ' ἐξοχὴν.

The thing to be ascertained is the meaning of Shin, and how it is understood by the Chinese; if we employ it in the way in which they are accustomed to use it, we may succeed in conveying some correct ideas to their minds; but if we assign to it a sense which they never ascribe to it, and go on predicating the acts and attributes of the less numerous class to the more extended genus, contrary to their usus loquendi, we may altogether fail in giving them any definite conceptions of the subject. Suppose a Chinese were to come amongst us; and, understanding the word spirit in the sense of God, were to insist upon predicating of the former term the acts and attributes which are peculiar to the latter. His so doing would never alter our view of the real meaning of spirit, nor induce us to relinquish the practice of using it with reference to the human soul,

or malicious demons; which classes we had ever conceived the word spirit to include, while we should deem the sole application of the term to designate God, as indefinite and improper. Should he persist in saying, that Spirit created the world, and that Spirit is the lord of the universe, we should consider that he spoke only a portion of the truth, without employing such distinctness of expression as would insure his being understood by all. In the same way, suppose a person were to insist on using the word animal for man; and predicate of the word animal such attributes as are peculiar to human beings, such as the exercise of reason and the employment of tools, on the ground that man was an animal, and that we may predicate of the genus whatever qualities are possessed by every species included in that genus: we should reply, that it is not proper to predicate the reasoning faculty of animals, because all animals do not exercise reason; while there is a specific term for denoting the class of animals who do exercise the reasoning faculty, viz. man.

The second class of objections against Shin may be seen at full in the Inquiry, page 143, and we conceive have not been completely We therefore leave them as they stood in that paper.

met.

The third class of objections refers to the Shin of Ti, which was considered by us as an adjunct of Ti; and as designating, not the divinity, but the spirit of the Supreme Being, in the estimation of the Chinese. This subject has been fully discussed on pp. 47-53 of the Inquiry. It is only necessary now to make a few remarks upon the observations of Dr. Boone relative to the same point. He says it is admitted by all, that Shin is here used in the abstract sense, and we may add, as the adjunct of a being; but there is a difference of opinion as to its precise meaning. He supposes that the Chinese mean by Shin, in the case alluded to, the divine energy or influence of Ti; we think it means his spirit. We have shown in the Inquiry, by a reference to the Shin of Wan wang ascending and descending in the presence of Ti, and other instances, that Shin, when considered as belonging to a being, must mean his spirit; besides which, the meaning universally attached to Shin, in native dictionaries and commentaries, leads to the conclusion that it means spirit. But even supposing, for a moment, that Shin meant the divine energy or influence of Ti, it must be considered as belonging to him, and as deriving all its importance from its connectiou with him (for the same energy or influence belonging to another person would not necessarily be divine); the conclusion to be drawn from such supposition is, therefore, that T is the being worshiped, on

occasion of the principal sacrifice offered in China, and that Shin is merely his energy or influence, coming and going at the commencement and termination of the service. Ti, then, is God in the estimation of the Chinese, and Shin is merely his energy or influence.

Dr. Boone says, whichever of the opinions taken of the Shin of Ti be the correct one, whether it mean the divine energy, or the spirit of that being, even supposing the spirit of Ti to be the exact idea of the phrase, it is no argument against our use of the term as the appellative name of God in the concrete sense. To this, however, we demur; and contend that if it mean spirit in the abstract, there is every reason to suppose that it means spirit also in the concrete; so strong is the presumption that it does so, that it would require very conclusive evidence to prove the contrary, the burden of which proof we leave with the advocates of Shin. Dr. Boone "that the term occurs much the most frequently as the apgays, pellative name of God in the Chinese writings;" but the sense in which it is to be understood in such a connection is the subject in dispute; and the fact of the word Shin being explained to mean spirit, and never having been used by any Chinese writer for God xa7' xv, strengthens the presumption, amounting almost to a certainty that it is to be rendered spirit and not God, even in those places where it is supposed to stand for the appellative name of God. Taking it for granted that the word Shin does mean divine influence or energy, in the phrase Tí chí shin, and that it is used in the sense of the appellative name of God where it occurs in the concrete, Dr. Boone says, "We have an instance of a word being applied to this double use in the word divinity, when we speak of Christ's divinity, and when we call God, the Divinity." Thus we may also say, we have an instance of a word being applied to a double use in the word spirit, when it means the energies and intelligence of invisible beings, and those invisible beings themselves; so that, as far as the double use of the word is concerned, Shin may as well refer to the one as the other; and viewed in connection with the interpretation and use of the word as found in native authors, it must refer to spirit and not divinity.

We do not stop to examine into the theological question, as to whether Christ's being everywhere present by his Divinity, refers merely to his Divine influence or energy. We perceive that Dr. Boone has appended a note of interrogation to the expression, and we therefore leave the question in his hands as one with which this controversy has nothing to do