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and that Elohim, when used for the magistracy, is employed not strictly but figuratively. We are correct in regarding the word as used only figuratively in these cases, because it is comparatively so used but a few times, and we are distinctly told there is but one Elohim strictly speaking.

But this cannot be said of Tí. It is the title by which the highest officer in China has been commonly designated for hundreds of years. It occurs in Chinese books, as the title of this officer, a hundred or a thousand times, to once where it occurs as the title of any invisible Being. To attempt therefore to prove, from the fact that a few invisible Beings are called Ti, that it means God as Elohim does, is to maintain that a word is used improperly much more frequently than properly, which upsets all our ideas of the proper meaning of words. There can be no doubt that Tankwing is regarded by the Chinese to be as properly a Tí as Sháng Ti is ; though they would admit that he rules in a smaller sphere.

Another objection to the use of Ti to render Elohim in the first commandment is, that, this term would not exclude from religious worship multitudes of Beings who now receive much the greater portion of the worship offered in China. The worship of the God of wealth, the God of the Kitchen, and a number of other deities, who are all called Shin, but never Ti, and who receive more worship in one month than Sháng tí does in a generation, would not be forbidden by this term. The First Commandment would if Ti be used to render Elohim, spend its whole strength upon, first the lawful liege Lord and Sovereign of this people, and next upon a few of the Shin, who have been entitled Ti; whilst ninety-nine hundredths of the false worship, practiced by the common people of the present day, would not in any manner be forbidden by the use of this term.

We intended, when we commenced writing, to have devoted a few paragraphs to the consideration of the phrases, Sháng ti,, and Tien ti, ; but our Essay has already been extended to such a length that we shall dismiss them with one remark.

If Ti be not the appellative name of God in Chinese, the addition of the qualifying word, "high," or celestial," cannot make it so; indeed we suppose no one would maintain that either of these phrases is the appellative name of God in Chinese, and the use of Tien tí, "The celestial Ruler or Rulers," could only be advocated on the ground that it was a title of the chief God, which we have sufficiently answered in the first part of our Essay.

With a short resumé of our objections to the use of Ti, to render Aɛos, we shall conclude our remarks on this subject.

We object to the use of Ti: 1. That it is not the appellative name of God, or of any class of Beings either human or divine, but is a title given alike to gods and men. 2. That all the Dictionaries, both native and foreign, give Judge, or Ruler, as the meaning of Ti, whilst they give no intimation of its being the appellative name of God. 3. That meaning Ruler, and not God, it is wholly unsuitable to express the doctrine of the Trinity. 4. That Ti was never used even as the title of more than six Beings who were worshiped in the state religion, that neither of the Six was ever worshiped by the people of China, and that five of these six are now worshiped by no one. 6. That if Ti be used in the translation of the First Commandment it will forbid civil government; and 6. That it will not forbid ninety-nine hundredths of the false worship now offered in China.

These objections appear to us so weighty, direct and palpable, that all, who regard them as sustained, by the evidence we have adduced, will agree with us that the use of Ti, to render Elohim and 80s in the translation of the Sacred Scriptures, is wholly inadmissible.

We give a few additional texts of Scripture to show how subversive of civil government, the use of this word to render Elohim would prove. "I am the Lord and there is none else; there is no God beside me." Is 45:5. "Is there a God beside me. Yea, there is no God, I know not any." Is 44:8.

What would be thought of the English Translator who should use the word King as that whereby to render Elohim, into English, in the passages quoted above. And yet King is not more commonly used, nor more well known as the title of the Ruler of the English nation, than Tí is as the title of him who rules over the Chinese people. Should we render God, in the passages above cited, by a word which is constantly used to designate the individual who holds his office, Fiu Kwang would surely have just cause of complaint; and who could wonder, if under such circumstances, he were to forbid the distribution of our books? Who could blame him if he did.

In conclusion, we have only to beg that the arguments, produced in favor of the use of the words Shin and Ti, respectively, may be carefully compared, that a right judgment may be formed which of these two words is in truth the appellative name of God in Chinese.

With respect to Shin we have seen, 1. That it is unquestionably

the name of a class of Beings to whom the Chinese have always offered and still offer religious worship. 2. That the Shin are the highest of the three classes of invisible Beings, whom the Chinese worship. 3. That the Being worshiped in the Kiau sacrifice (the highest ever offered in China) is the Tien Chi Shin "God

of Heaven." 4. That this Tien chi Shin, Ħ Z, is styled Sháng TY. 5. That Shang is called repeatedly the most honor. able of the Shin. 6. That Drs. Morrison and Medhurst, in their Dictionaries both give Shin as the appellative name of God in Chi nese; and lastly, that all the Missionaries whether Protestants or Romanists, have used Shin in their writings as the appellative name of God, whilst none of them have ever used Ti.

This is an amount of positive testimony in favor of Shin being the appellative name of God in Chinese, which we risk nothing in saying, cannot be produced in favor of any other word in the language. Whatever objections, therefore, may be urged against the use of this word, must be answered by the exigencies of the case. Shin, is the only word the Chinese language affords us, that can be regarded, after a careful examination of the subject, as having any just claim to be considered the appellative name of God. This word we must therefore use to render Elohim and Jɛog malgré all objections. If we could remodel the literature of the country, we would forbid the employment of Shin as the Pantheists have used it, we would forbid its use for the human soul; but we must take the Chinese lan guage as it is, and can only use the best terms it affords us, it being the only medium through which we can make the Chinese people acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures. That Shin is used for a!! objects of religious worship, including the maues of the dead, makes it only the more available to prohibit all false worship to which this people are addicted.

If the writer may judge from his own past experience, the objection which has had the greatest weight with the Missionaries, and prejudiced their minds most against the use of Shin for the true God, is the fact that it is used as the appellative name of a class including so many contemptible Deities, that it seems to them almost contamination to call Jehovah by a name that is colamon to such Beings.

This feeling is most natural, and can only be overcome by remembering that we use this common name to negative the existence of these contemptible and imaginary Deities. A Greek or Roman

Christian must have had the same feeling with respect to the use of Beos or Deus. There is no individual of the class called Shin, who is more insignificant than Priapus, or Sterentius, or Occator; not to descend lower into the Greek and Roman Pantheon.

The appellative name of God in use in each heathen nation must be used. The truths taught in the Bible can alone purify the language, as well as the hearts, of a heathen people.

The writer indulges a strong hope, that, as all the Missionaries have hitherto agreed in using Shin, to translate 80s when heathen gods were referred to, they will all ultimately be led to see the propriety of using this same word to render Elohim and dog in all cases The question is one of the utmost importance to the spread of the Gospel in China, and claims from all those connected with the missionary operations here the most prayerful and careful consideration. May God of His infinite goodness grant wisdom and grace to the Directors of the Bible societies so to decide this question as shall be best for the interests of the Redeemer's cause, and for the salvation of the perishing millions in China, who are expecting the word of God from their hands.

Upon the Missionaries themselves however must rest the heaviest responsibility in this case; theirs is the chief auxiety, the warmest interest. May the gracious Saviour be present with them all, that the diversity of opinion which now exists on this vital point-the name by which we shall call Him for whom we claim the homage of all hearts in China-may not cause any breach of the harmony which has hitherto existed among the Protestant Missionaries in China.

The writer's constant prayer is that all those in China, "who do confess God's Holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word, and live in unity and godly love."

VOL XVII NO. 11

ART II. Desultory Notes on the Government and people of China, and on the Chinese language; illustrated with a sketch of the province of Kwang-tung, showing its division into departments and districts. By THOMAS TAYLOR MEADOWs, interpreter to her Britannic Majesty's consulate at Canton. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co. 1847. INDEPENDENT thinking and patient research (not always sufficiently long continued) characterise this little volume, of two hundred and fifty handsomely printed octavo pages. Having for nearly five years, as he tells us in his preface, bestowed undivided attention on Chinese affairs, in an unusually favorable position, Mr. Meadows considered himself entitled to write. He commenced his studies in the autumn of 1841, under the tuition of Professor Neumann at Munich; early in 1843, arrived in China; came to Canton in the summer of the same year; and in June 1846 completed his "Desultory Notes," having in the mean time translated more than 350 official letters, also many proclamations, and conducted a large amount of official business, bringing him into almost constant communication, oral or written, with the Chinese. These are, in brief, his claims to write on the government and people of China and their language. The book he has dedicated to Mr. Thom, late, H. B. M. consul at Ningpo.

The Notes are nineteen in number, all of them relating to topics of interest and such as had come more or less directly under his own observation. Having turned over the leaves of the book with some care, and much pleasure, we will, without attempting a formal review notice a few points that arrested our attention in the perusal. In his first note by way of apology for the publication of the others, he exposes some of the false notions that are afloat regarding China, a very prolific subject. He is quite right in saying, that the fashions change among the Chinese as they do everywhere else; right too in discarding the use of such terms as "Lord mayor of Canton;" and, we think "Hoppo, mandarin," and his "yamun," ought to go into the same category, being, in the king's English, equally "out

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He is hardly correct in speaking of Kiangning as the capital of Kianguán-that old province being now divided into two, viz:, Kiaugsi and Nganhwui, and Kiánguing being really the capital of

the latter.

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