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and again for baptism, but he cannot dispense with his numerous wives. The sending of the embassy had a good effect upon our work. The Governor-in-Chief and the LieutenantGovernor gave them a very kind reception. They used the opportunity to ask the Ondo authorities to discontinue human sacrifices; they advised them to refrain from interfering with the palavers of other tribes. They desired them to encourage the Society's agents by giving them land to build on, and sending their children to school. They sent with these messages handsome presents. The embassy returned to Ode Ondo on the 19th of August, and all the chiefs were highly pleased. Since their return two more children were given up to us, and some more are promised; a large lot of land has been granted to us by the king; and we are told that the king has already taken steps to abolish the killing of slaves at funerals.

On the 18th of July I admitted seven adults into the Church by baptism. Of the seven there was only one male candidate, the father of one of the young men whom I baptized in 1878. I believe that his conversion is due in a great measure to his son's solicitude. I had fully expected to have more male baptisms, but our promising young men have gone abroad for trade. Since all other accesses from the coast to the interior have been closed on account of the war, Ondo trade has become very profitable, and many have been enticed away. Of the six female candidates five are Ondos by birth, one of whom had embraced Mohammedanism in the Yoruba country, while she was in slavery there. She returned to Ode Ondo in 1877, and finding no Mohammedans here, she became an inquirer, and not long after she applied for baptism. The other four women have been under Christian instruction since 1877. The sixth woman had been a slave here from childhood, and is now over sixty years old. The newly baptized converts are making progress in spiritual things, and some of their countrymen remarked that they observed a change for the better even in their outward appearance.

Our Sunday services are still well attended. Though the services are no more a novelty in this place, yet the average number of attendants for the

last four months is ninety-five for the morning and eighty for the afternoon.

Besides the Sunday services we have two weekly class meetings for the instruction of adults. One is the inquirers' class, and the other is a Bibleclass for baptized members. The regularity of the attendants at the Bibleclass shows how much they appreciate it. During the year I called upon the members of the Bible-class to pay class fees, and I am thankful to say that they did so willingly.

The Sunday-school continues to prosper. Nearly all who attend the

services come to receive instruction in the Sunday-school. Several have learnt to read, and these seem to value the Scriptures. Those who cannot learn to read are taught the catechism, and prayers, and Scripture texts by heart.

Our pastoral care is not confined to Ondo converts, for there are always several Lagos Christians here who come to this place for trade. I am sorry to say that the presence of most of the Lagos Christian traders here gives me much anxiety. Though they find it advantageous to attach themselves to us, yet the influence they exert over Ondo converts is far from being healthy.

We have continued our evangelistic work. My long absence from the sta tion in the early part of the year under review, and the unsettled state of the town by the death of the Lisa, have caused temporary interruptions. Though I cannot report a large number of new inquirers, yet I believe that the leaven of the Gospel Truth is quietly permeating the Ondo community. Many have acknowledged the excellence of Christianity, and a chief said to me a few weeks ago that he believed that if we continue at this rate it would be

difficult after seven years to find

an Ondo who would be a sincere believer in idolatry. But mere disbelief in idolatry is not what we desire, for this might only result in or lead to atheism.

I paid a visit to Ilesa in July. Mr. Vincent, our solitary Scripture-reader, was much encouraged by my visit. As the Ijesa country is now the scene of a desultory warfare between the Ibadans and the Ekitiparapo countries, the present state of the country and of the little Church calls for earnest prayer.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA. CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM DESCRIBED AND COMPARED WITH CHRISTIANITY. By JAMES LEGGE, D.D., Professor of Chinese in the University of Oxford. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880.

R. LEGGE is so well known, both as an active worker for many years in China and now as Professor of the Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford, that a treatise on Chinese religions from his pen is sure to command respectful attention, and to repay attentive perusal.

Dr. Legge's name has been before the public lately also in connexion with the well-known, and alas! by no means extinct "term question." A long and interesting letter on this subject appeared in the columns of the Times last January, from the pen of Professor Max Müller. This letter was called

forth by a remonstrance from some of the missionaries in China against Dr. Legge's translation of the Chinese Classic of History, which has appeared as the third volume of Professor Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East. The remonstrants objected that Dr. Legge, instead of transliterating the disputed word Shangti has translated it God; giving thus (in their estimation) an opinion and not a translation. We must not pause to notice Professor Max Müller's vigorous defence of his collaborateur; but we shall find these same views clearly enunciated by Dr. Legge in the volume before us. The Intelli

gencer must refrain from partizanship on this subject in its pages, especially since C.M.S. missionaries in China are divided in their usage of terms for God; but we gladly bear witness to the fact that in the book before us Dr. Legge writes with singular sobriety on a theme which has not unfrequently called forth bitterness and unseemly recrimination.

The title, "Religions of China," must be taken in a precise and literal sense, q. d. Chinese and not foreign religions; and the book differs from another able and valuable treatise by one of Dr. Legge's former colleagues (Dr. Edkins), The Religious Condition of the Chinese, in that it omits Buddhism. Buddhism is of course an exotic, having been introduced into China from Ceylon 1800 years ago; whereas Confucianism and Taoism, of which Dr. Legge treats, are Chinese religions; their founders having been partly contemporary in China in the sixth century before Christ. On the tasteful cover of Dr. Legge's book there is a Chinese inscription, which means "Christianity, Confucianism, and Taoism, compared and discussed with an impartial mind." But the effect of Buddhism, not merely over the Chinese religious world, but also over Taoism itself (as Dr. Legge points out), has been so potent, that we cannot but deem its omission in this valuable book a serious hindrance to a full comparison of the religions of the greatest of heathen Mission-fields, with Christianity.

Dr. Legge, however, adopts a singularly ingenious and interesting method for tracing the origin of the religious tenets of Confucianism and Taoism, a method which could not have been applied to the fountain-head of Buddhistic religious thought. The learned Doctor believes that the religious utterances of the ancient Chinese fathers may be heard over the clamour of 5000 years, by listening to the language of the primitive characters (originally pictorial or hieroglyphic, in all probability), and the invention of which is ascribed by Chinese tradition to the mythical Emperor Fuh-si, B.C. 3369. If we do not misunderstand Dr. Legge, he would trace in some of these primitives, the sources both of the truth and the error which are to be found in Confucianism and Taoism.

In the primitive Tien," sky" or "day," and Ti, " ruler," which are interchangeable in Chinese classical usage, Dr. Legge believes that the idea of the over ruling Providence of God is portrayed; and he expresses his views in words which not a few Sinologues would hesitate to endorse; "Tî was to the Chinese fathers, I believe, exactly what God was to our fathers, whenever they took the great name on their lips" (p. 11). This primitive monotheistic worship exists (so our author believes), under the sanction of Confucianism, down to the present day; worship, however, for long centuries now offered to Shangti only by the Emperor, as the representative of the people.

In another primitive we may detect the very early departure from monotheistic faith, by a tendency to nature worship, and to ancestral and hero worship: "animistic with a fetichist tendency" (Professor Tiele), to quote the painfully cumbrous language which learned writers of the present day seem bound to employ. We find also undoubted symptoms of that practice which is the very life and soul of Taoism, namely, superstitious divination. We must refer our readers to Dr. Legge's book for the elaboration of this exceedingly interesting inductive method.

We cannot refrain from an expression of gratitude to Dr. Legge for the clear and unfaltering way in which (if the Doctor will pardon us) he joins issue with the very title of his own book. We refer to the closing lecture, in which he points out the fact that Christianity is a religion of doctrines founded on miraculous historical events, prominent amongst which stands the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now no other religion, certainly neither Taoism nor Confucianism, has anything of the kind; and, as we have always felt, the expression "comparative religion" is a misnomer when Divine and Miraculous Christianity is mentioned beside Human religions. There is contrast, but not comparison; and this Dr. Legge distinctly implies on page 283.

One word of minor criticism we would offer in conclusion. We greatly desiderate an index. No book of this kind is complete without a good index; and a table of contents, however full, does not adequately compensate for the omission. We could wish also that the learned Doctor had been a little more careful, in at least one passage, of literary style. It is an abrupt way of beginning the momentous argument which he so ably conducts to say, "The first thing to be done in these Lectures is to give an account of Confucianism (p. 3). The Doctor is fortiter in re, strong and robust in detail and argument. He might have been also in his opening sentences some

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A. E. M. FOUR LECTURES ON NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. BY MARCUS DODS, D.D. 4th Thousand. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1878.

MOHAMMED, BUDDHA, AND CHRIST.

It is no small token of success in a book of this class that it should be in its fourth thousand. The success, however, is not inexplicable; and it is on the whole well deserved. The four chapters are lectures, actually delivered at the English Presbyterian College in Queen Square; and they have the popular form and speech of lectures, while in no sense superficial. The two on Mohammedanism are particularly good. We do not know where a fairer account of that system and its founder in a small compass is to be found. Dr. Dods certainly does ample justice to whatever virtues he can find in either the man or the creed; but his conclusion, nevertheless, is a just condemnation of both. The third lecture, on Buddhism, is less popular in method, and yet is much less complete in the treatment of its subject. In

the fourth, which is entitled "The Perfect Religion," Christianity is compared with other religions, and is shown (1) to give the highest idea of God, and (2) to bring men most perfectly into harmony with the supernatural. This is well enough as far as it goes; but Dr. Dods seems to us to miss altogether the one grand characteristic feature of the Christian revelation, that it accounts for the sin and misery which, as a matter of fact, we see around us, and proclaims an all-sufficient remedy. Nor can we say that such incidental expressions as might be adduced to show that he does not wholly forget this are at all satisfactory.

FAR OFF. PART I. ASIA DESCRIBED. PART II. OCEANIA, AFRICA, AND AMERICA DESCRIBED. By the Author of the " Peep of Day." New Edition. London: Hatchards, 1881.

The sight of "Far Off" carries us back thirty years to the days of our childhood, when these admirable geographical volumes of the "Peep of Day" series first appeared, and were immediately devoured by us with keenest relish. The friends of the revered authoress, now gone to her rest, have done well to prepare a new and revised edition, particularly of the Second Part, for both in Africa, Australia, and America, discovery and development have long since rendered the original work quite out of date. The goodly little volumes of over 600 pages each that now lie before us need no recommendation from us. They will long remain favourites as first books of geography for those parts of the world which they describe.

The somewhat unequal execution of the work was a feature noticeable in the original edition; and it is certainly not less noticeable now. Thus, missionary effort occupies a prominent place; and yet in the Indian section the name of Tinnevelly does not occur, and under Africa the references to the C.M.S. work on the West and East Coasts are singularly meagre. On the other hand, the various South African Missions are noticed at some length; and the Madagascar Mission of the L.M.S. occupies twenty-two pages. The Moravian Missions and Bishop Patteson's work are also described in some detail. By some oversight the usual acknowledgment of pictures supplied to the editor by the Church Missionary Society has been omitted in Part II., while a large number are acknowledged as from the Illustrated Missionary News-including (of course by mistake) at least two of our own. The same paper also receives in the foot-notes an altogether disproportionate amount of credit for information. We do not doubt that these and other accidental imperfections will be set right in future editions ; and meanwhile they will not do the young readers of "Far Off" any serious harm. But a reviewer is bound in candour to notice them.

OUTLINE MISSIONARY SERIES. CHINA, by REV. J. T. GRACEY. INDIAN ZENANA MISSIONS, by MRS. E. R. PITMAN. MADAGASCAR, by Rev. J. SIBREE. London: John Snow and Co., 1881. These are the first three of a series of sixpenny missionary manuals, which promise to fill very usefully a niche which has been too long vacant. The practical difficulties of such a series, however, are significantly manifest in the specimens now before us. "Zenana Missions" are a distinct department of missionary work, on which it is comparatively easy to write a popular introduction of 48 pages, briefly stating their need, their origin, their objects, their agents, and their results; though, even here, the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, which is, we suppose, the largest organization of the kind, is not even mentioned. The story of Madagascar, too, is virtually the story of

a single Mission, and can be told with abundant interest in a similarly small compass. But China in 48 pages-which are to include an account of the country, people, and religious systems, and a sketch of the Missions of all denominations-is a very different thing; and we are not surprised to find that several societies, the C.M.S. included, are not alluded to at all. Nevertheless Mr. Gracey, who is the missionary editor of an American religious newspaper, has done his work well in other respects, considering the limits assigned him. The comparisons by which he illustrates the vastness of China and its population are very ingenious. Thus :-" Lay the Chinese Empire on the United States, and it will overrun into the Gulf of Mexico, and four degrees into the Pacific Ocean. Reverse the experiment, and lay the United States, including Alaska, on the Chinese Empire, and you may gem the edges with a half-dozen of Great Britain and Ireland; that is, you will have nearly three-quarters of a million square miles to add for good measure."

A BOOK has lately been published, translated from the French by Mrs. George Sturge-The Niger and the Benueh, by Adolphe Burdo (Bentley and Son)-which contains some curious statements about Bishop Crowther. We should have left them unnoticed, but that the book has been favourably reviewed in some newspapers of repute; and as it is, we do not allude to them in order to complain of any depreciation of the Bishop's work, for the author throws a halo of romance about it which no missionary publication would venture to emulate. M. Burdo-whom we should call a thorough Frenchman, but that apparently he is a Belgian-gives a most exciting account of his adventures in what he terms "Central Africa," that is to say, in the Delta of the Niger, and up the river a little further than the Confluence; and appears to have been rescued from a position of imminent peril from hostile natives by the sudden apparition of "the Bishop of the Niger," who worked a "miracle"-of what nature we cannot quite make out -and caused in our traveller a "revulsion from terrible distress to unmixed joy." It was at Lokoja, at the Confluence, that this remarkable event occurred; and into the Mission-house at that place the Bishop received his delighted guest.

This ends a chapter; and the next chapter opens with a short "biography" of M. Burdo's host, which begins as follows: "The Bishop of the Niger was born in Igbira-Panda, on the Benueh." We need scarcely tell the readers of C.M.S. publications that the Bishop was born in the Yoruba country, two or three hundred miles away. Next we are informed that the Bishop does not know his own age, but looks "about fifty"; also that he might have been about nine years old when he was kidnapped-which we all know to have been in 1821. As M. Burdo's visit to him was in 1878, a very pretty arithmetical problem is thus suggested. Then follows a fairly correct notice of the future Bishop's life as a captive, rescue by the British cruiser, and subsequent missionary career. But presently we are told that "one day when he was preaching at Imaha, a large village of Igbira-Panda, a poor old woman, bowed down with age and sorrows, drew near,”—which sentence introduces a highly-coloured account of the well-known incident of Samuel Crowther meeting his long-lost mother; accompanied by a sensational picture. It appears that for "eight-and-twenty years" she had wandered from village to village in quest of her son; and here M. Burdo has managed to be not more than two or three years out in his notes of time. But we are told that she now "found him as a Bishop." So that Crowther must have

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