to him about this same rate of pay. Surely these men cannot be suspected of secular or mercenary motives in engaging in this Christian service. We were profoundly impressed with the godly sincerity and earnest devotion of all these native preachers. No one can look upon them for a moment without believing that God is with them, and that he is using them as his chosen instruments for the accomplishment of great results in China.

Of the schools of the mission only two receive special attention in this volume. First, the theological school, in which are thirteen bright and promising young men, among them a son of Hu Po Mi and one of Hu Yong Mi. There are Christians now of the fourth generation of this Hu family. Of the descendants of Father Hu, who was one of our first converts, four sons are now in the ministry, three of whom are in the conference. This school of the prophets will henceforth supply an intelligent stable ministry for the conference, and is of surpassing importance. The second school referred to is the Girls' Boarding School, in charge of the Misses Woolston. Neatness, good order, thoroughness, and spirituality are all given as its characteristics. Due praise is also awarded the medical work, in charge of the almost worshiped Miss Dr. Trask.

The chapter on Confucius is very discriminating and appreciative. We have never read six other pages in which so much is so well said to meet the general want on this subject. Confucius, to the author's mind, just met the limited cravings of the Chinese heart of his time. The Chinese are not like the people of India, philosophers and metaphysicians, for, as Huc has well said, "They ask of time only what may suffice for life; of science and letters, what is required to fill official employment; of the greatest principles, only their practical consequences; and of morality, nothing but the political and utilitarian part." This is just what Confucius has given them. But our author says:

His reign, however, is enduring too long. China can advance no further until she breaks away from and passes on beyond Confucius. He has been a beneficent conservative power during the past centuries, but he is utterly unable to carry his people beyond the semi-civilized state in which they have been living for twenty centuries. Something infinitely broader than Confucianism is needed to lift this great nation into the higher plane of civilization and enlightenment.

With a sad heart the Bishop looked upon the receding shores of his old-time mission field as he took his departure, probably to see it no more. An untold measure of love, of anxiety, of sorrow, of bereavement, of prayer, of faith, of hope, of toil, on his part are all embalmed in this now great mission. By way of Amoy and Swatow, in due time he reached Hongkong. On every side evidences of the influence of foreigners were manifest, and yet his observations led him to some remarkable inferences. He

says:

The Chinese of Hongkong are very enterprising, and here, as well as at Canton and Shanghai, they are gradually taking much of the trade out of the hands of the foreigners. They can do it so much more cheaply that it is a serious question whether before many years they will not make it unprofitable for foreigners to do business in China. The natives have this notion themselves, and are working toward it. They have bought up a large number of steamers, and the government itself is making a large number of steam war vessels. Charles of Sweden is fast teaching Peter of Russia to take care of himself. The Chinese are rapidly learning the same lesson.

From Hongkong the Bishop proceeded to Canton, and from that port embarked for Japan. Canton is of special interest to Christians of the United States, arising out of the fact that most of the Chinese who come to this country are from this province. The Methodist Episcopal Church should have missions in Canton. It has at times proposed to have them, but lack of means has to this present prevented. In view of this we pause to give a few of the Bishop's observations on Canton.

The

The approach to the city is through the Bocca Tigris, and up the Pearl or Canton River. The anchorage for foreign shipping is at Whampoa, twelve miles below Canton. growth and prosperity of Victoria have diminished the trade of Canton. The first thing that meets the eye is the river population. Not less than two hundred thousand of the people of Canton inhabit floating homes. Next you see the frowning fort, that tells of Chinese advance in the art of war and national defense. The city front is crowded with all sorts of boats. The author continues:

On each side of the river you find a large number of boats of considerable size moored to the shore, in which whole families are living. Some of these dwellings are very handsomely

carved and gayly painted. On the decks or flat roofs of some of them are constructed gardens, where they sit and smoke amid flowering shrubs, planted in painted porcelain flowerpots. You soon discover also other boats, fitted up in very elegant style, which serves as cafes, where Chinese gentlemen spend their evenings. And still another kind is soon seen, the most gayly decorated of all, which have carved fronts, gayly painted, silken lanterns suspended from their roofs, with looking-glasses, pictures, and verses of an amatory character inscribed on colored paper hanging on their sides. These are called the "Flower Boats," and are sinks of iniquity. The wretched female inmates, bedizened in tawdry finery, some of them tottering on their little deformed feet, appear at the door or on the decks, beckoning the passer-by, trying to entice him by their allurements to enter. Many of these degraded females are, at an early age, purchased from their parents, for prices varying from five to fifty dollars, and are retained in bondage until worn out by disease and profligacy. They are then turned adrift by their vile owners, with scarcely sufficient covering for their bodies to protect them from the weather, or answer the purposes of common decency. The career of vice is usually commenced at ten years of age, and they seldom live beyond twenty-five years.

But we were exceedingly glad to see that this unabashed profligacy and shame was very much restrained from the bold, daring, and impudent character which the whole thing presented a score of years ago.

Canton was the largest city the Bishop had seen in China, and, dense as populations generally are in China, they are nowhere else so dense as here. The houses are, many of them, two stories high, built of bluish-colored bricks. The streets are cleaner but not wider than usual in China. The foreign residences are on the Island Shameen, separated entirely from the native city by a canal that flows around it. The island is beautiful and has many fine buildings. The only mode of conveyance through the city is by sedan, through narrow streets, crowded, as in other cities, with a motley, noisy multitude, bearing all sorts of burdens and pursuing all sorts of employments. Lepers and beggars with loathsome diseases are numerous.

The wall that surrounds the city is six miles in extent, embracing the "old" and "new" cities, which are divided from each other by another wall. Quite as many of the population live outside the walls as within. The city is dotted all over with temples and pagodas, and has some fine resi dences. Tinsel and filth are often in immediate contrast,

and the rich Chinaman is usually ridiculous for his pride and conceit.

The Bishop visited the Buddhist temple of "the five hundred gods," which has five hundred images of saints or deified disciples of Buddha, arranged on platforms around the temple. They are of life-size, sitting on their folded legs, and each one bears something to indicate the reason for his canonization, such as eyes turned to heaven that are supposed never to have winked, a hand held so steadily out that a bird builds its nest in the hand, etc. The Bishop "next visited the Buddhist temple of horrors, the chief feature of which is ten cells, in which are exhibited the various pains of the Buddhist hell, or purgatory."

The actual scenes are exhibited in clay figures about two thirds life-size. The first cell, about ten feet square, which is about the measurement of each of them, is the hall of judgment, where the poor wretches are tried. Then came one chamber where a man is receiving from the demons a terrible whipping, being stretched on the ground face downward, by two men, while the third is beating him with a large paddle. The next cell exhibits a criminal fastened in a frame head downward, and being sawn in two, lengthwise. In the next another is suffering the torture of slow burning; another is supposed to be sitting under a red-hot bell. In the next they are in cages, and some chained with the Chinese cangue; in another they are being beheaded; and in another they are ground in a mill, and pounded in a mortar. In the next they are boiling a poor fellow in oil, and in the last some poor wretches, for having been guilty of eating beef, are being themselves slowly transformed into oxen. Several figures in this cell present the various steps of this transformation. In all these cells numerous figures of demons are looking on with expressions of diabolical satisfaction, and, strange to say, around the sides of each of the cells are ranged, in scenic manner, mountain and hill-side retreats, on which are seen smaller figures of the good and saved, seeming to take an equal delight in witnessing the pains of the unhappy ones who have missed of paradise. Notwithstanding all these horrors booths are rented out before all these cells, and a lively traffic is carried on, and the priests themselves drive a large trade in selling paper fans, sacrificial money, etc., which are to be burned for the use of these suffering wretches.

Canton is the oldest and most difficult of Chinese mission fields. The vices and aggressions of foreigners, and the animosities engendered by war, seem to have here done their

worst. Nevertheless numerous societies are here, doing and daring for Christ, among which are the American Board, the London Missionary Society, our Presbyterian and Baptist Missionary Boards, and the British Wesleyans. This is the field of Rev. George Piercy, who went out to China at his own cost, and by his Christian zeal won over the Wesleyan Missionary Society to adopt him and his work.

Neither from Chinese books nor the masses of China can a clear idea be obtained of the religious systems of the Chinese, if such they possess. Such confused notions as exist in the one, or are found in the other, are well stated by our author. The undefined State religion is not idolatrous, yet the people are idolaters. Our author regards Confucianism as not a system of religion but of morals. Taouism is more spiritual than the native faith, teaching the separate existence of the human soul, and future reward and punishment. But, altered and corrupted as it now is, these doctrines of Taouism have been greatly modified, and made the basis of most absurd opinions and practices.

The author's history of Buddhism, and statement of its doctrines and usages, are of much interest, but that which is most striking is the similarity he traces between this false system and Roman Catholicism. Our author says:

This is one of the first things that arrests the attention of the observing foreigner. He is at once attracted by its great show of temples, monasteries, nunneries, way-side joss-houses, frequent processions, and multiplied festivals. The long-robed and shavenheaded priest, with his slow and measured tread, his pusillanimous air, and his Jesuitical cunning, strikes him as a quite familiar personage. Even when he enters the Buddhist temple or monastery things wear a familiar aspect. The images, the statue of the "Holy Mother," or "Queen of Heaven," with her babe, the walls adorned with paintings, some exhibiting passages in the life of Buddha, but more displaying the adventures of the Holy Mother, the altar, with its numerous vessels and instruments of service, the burning candles, the smoking incense, the ringing bells, the service in a foreign tongue, the prostrations, the mock solemnity, the muttered prayers, and the monotonous chantings, all forcibly remind him of scenes in Romish chapels. Nor will it aid in dispelling the illusion to find here and there, in the different apartments of the establishment, devout-looking priests counting over their beads, and repeating over and over again the same brief sentences, till he fancies he can almost catch the