EXTRACTS FROM THE GREAT CONCORDANCE RELATING TO COREA.* BY E. H. PARKER, ESQ. Bordering north on the and, [Wu-hwan and Fu-yü]. Our[Liao Tung] is east of the, [Tsang Hai]. 餘 The Kokorai [高句麗者] emanate from Fu-yi. [Yang Ti] swept the gulf of Pechili [#], and thundered at [the gates of] Fu-yü with a lightning sweep. In the [Eastern Sea] there is besides a , [P'uh Hiai], therefore the [said] Eastern Sea is called the Hai]. The Poh-hiai [or P'uh-hiai] is another branch of the Sea. , [P'uh P'êng and Wu penetrated the [Wei-Meh country] and Corea [Chao-sien], establishing the prefecture, [Ts'ang Hai]. The Ts'ang-hai islands are in the Northern Sea. The Hiaksai [] were of the Fu-yü race, distant from the [Pin]; their Shinra is south east of Hiaksai over 50 li; its territory to the east borders on the Pacific; north and south it borders on Kauli and Hiaksai. In the Wei period [A.D. 200-300] it was called Sin-lu, and again, Shinra in the Sung time [4th cent]; and also [Sz-lo, Mr. Griffis' Sila]. Shinra Shin-han race[]. state was originally of the There were three Han tribes, the Ma Han, the Chên Han, and the Pien Han. The Mahan were westward, and consisted of 54 [petty] states: they bordered north on the [Loh-lang or Ngoh-lang] and south on the Wo [Japanese]. The Ch'ên-han [Shin Han] were east, and consisted of 12 states; north they joined the, WeiMeh]. The Pienhan were south of the Shinhan, 62 states; their south also touched the , [Wo]. The Mahan were the most considerable. The Wei History says "The Mahan people were good husbandmen, were acquainted "with the silkworm and mulberry, and made cotton cloth. "They have each [State or community their own] leaders, "the greatest of whom calls himself; the next is ", [a class of chieftain] scattered amongst the N. B. Each extract is given under the word under which it occurs. "mountains and seas. They have no walled cities. There PROTESTANT Christianity has been propagated for about fifty years in China, and there are now fully twenty-five thousand native Christians. A large number of Christian books and tracts have been prepared by foreign missionaries, but almost nothing has been done by Chinese writers. This fact is certainly somewhat surprising, especially when we consider the literary character of the Chinese. Several things have no doubt conspired to produce this result, the chief of which are the following: First, the small amount of educated talent in the Chinese Church. As in most other lands so in China, the gospel has come first to the poor; not because the missionaries have chosen the poor, but because the poor have chosen them, and given heed to their message. Now the poor are everywhere the ignorant, and this is, especially the case in China, where there are no free schools, and where education is laborious and expensive. To this we may add the further fact that the poor are generally inferior to the rich in intellectual endowments. Many notable exceptions no doubt there have been, yet the general fact remains that in every land the poor are intellectually inferior to the rich. On this account it has come that there is but a small amount of educated talent in the church in China, and what there is is not of a high order. to pass 濟 A second reason why more Christian books have not been prepared by Chinese authors is the want of originality in the Chinese mind.The Chinese mind is no doubt original in the sense of being sui generis, but it is not original in the sense of possessing a strong inventive faculty. The Chinese are preeminently a race of imitators. The old story which represents the Chinese tailor as following so closely the garment given him for a pattern, that he put on the new one patches similar to those on the old, is more of a truth than it is of a caricature. Invention is foreign to the Chinese mind. The average Chinaman not only lacks the power, but also the ambition to devise anything new. The possibility of doing such a thing seems never to touch his mental horizon. He walks in the steps of former generations, physically, intellectually, and morally, all oblivious to the idea that there is such a thing as progress or improvement. This vident characteristic of the Chinese mind is enough of itself to con'nce me that the Chinese never invented anything. To this want of inventive faculty should be added the want of nthusiasm. Chinese Christians are all moderate Christians. Their eal is all exceedingly prudent and temperate. They lack the nthusiasm and generous devotion which prompts to great undertakings. Either there is no religious enthusiasm in the Chinese nature, or Christianity has not yet succeeded in evoking it. Either the Chinese are largely impervious to the overmastering motives of the gospel or else these motives have not yet succeeded in thoroughly penetrating the thick rind of their all-prevalent selfishness. The Chinese lack the consecrated enterprise, as well as the original genius, necessary for the production of good Christian books. A third reason for the paucity of Chinese Christian authorship is the repressive influence of foreigners.—Christian missionaries are generally aggressive men, and not always free from ambition and conceit. Hence they are generally more anxious to write books themselves than to stimulate or assist a Chinese Christian to write. Their superior resources both of education and money put the Chinese author at a great disadvantage. If any Chinaman attempts a polemic tract or an apologetic essay, the logical mind of the foreigner sees no end of bad logic and bad theology in it, and at once opens upon the manuscript a fierce fire of unsparing criticism. The writer is discouraged, and as he has no means of his own for printing, his well meant effort falls to the ground. These things account in great measure at least, for the fact that Chinese Christian scholars have as yet done so little in the way of authorship. But is this state of things to continue indefinitely? Is the whole task of furnishing a Christian literature for China to fall on foreigners? I confidently answer, certainly not. The day will come when Chinese talent and Chinese zeal will assert themselves. History shows that, with few exceptions, the books that have most influenced the people of any nation, have been written by native authors. It is a rare thing, in any land, that a book written by a foreigner has exerted a potent influence. It is to be anticipated therefore, that notwithstanding all drawbacks, Chinese authors are yet to write the books which will be most influential in China. Let us consider for a little how and why this will most probably come to pass. 1.-Christianity will presently reach a more intellectual class, and talent will increase in the native church.-Christianity has egun with the poor, but it will not end with them. It will rise to e higher ranks in China as it has done in every land. Its Gogress is upward as well as onward, and the time is coming when viwill reach the intellect of China, and enlist its forces in the cause truth. Christianity makes the poor and the ignorant the stepping enes by which it presently reaches the rich and the educated. zaristianity not only rises, it also raises. It elevates and stimulates eose who accept it. Moral and intellectual faculties grow and evelop together, acting and reacting on each other. At present che Christians in China are poor, but a few generations of virtuous industry will make them rich, and at the same time will develop amongst them a new intellectual vigor. The laws of heredity are not all physical. They are intellectual and moral as well. That the superior intellectual vigor of Christian nations is a legitimate result of Christianity, accords with the highest reason, and is denied only by those who shut their eyes to the most palpable evidence. The same process has begun in China and will go on until the intellectual forces of the land, as well as its material wealth, are largely found in the Christian church. 2.—A new and more stimulating kind of education will prevail, especially amongst Christians.-The mental stagnation of China is no doubt largely due to their wretched system of education. It trains the memory while it neglects or suppresses nearly every other mental faculty. It trains the mind to think wholly in the treadmill of the past. It forever commits to memory the same books, and prates over with servile docility, the explanations prescribed by imperial authority. The acme of its ambition, the conventional essay, is a continual repetition of the same ideas, old scraps melted and poured in the old mould. No wonder such a system of education has dwarfed the Chinese mind, and suppressed its powers of reasoning and invention. It is the privilege and duty of Christianity to bring in a better system, a system which, while it imparts useful knowledge, will train the reasoning powers and develop the faculty of original thought and investigation. The Chinese mind is not inferior in natural powers. Its present imbecility is not so much due to inherent weakness as it is the result of her traditional conservatism, together with her senseless system of education, Free the Chinese mind from the shackles which have hampered it for ages, give it the stimulus of a rational system of education, and it will presently awake to a new life. Give it mathematics to develop its power of reasoning, and natural science to stimulate the desire to know, to discover, and to use, and we shall presently have illustration of its splendid capabilities. It should be noted also that the Christians in China will be the first to avail themselves of the superior education of the west, and the first to feel the stimulus of its new life. Their minds are more receptive than those of the heathen. They are freed from the bondage of the classics and their minds awakened to the idea of inquiry and investigation. Besides this the gospel is itself a stimu lus. It awakens the mind to the value of truth, while the moral and spiritual life it begets reacts powerfully on the mental faculties. In short a pure Christianity will develop a new life in China. From this new life I confidently expect the first real intellectual achievement in China, Christianity has a right to the first fruits of the regenerated life of the nation, and she will not fail to get them. Moreover grace will develop a new zeal and enthusiasm in the more receptive soil of a new intellectual life, and Christian scholars will emulate the devotion and enterprise of their western teachers. Let the church only embrace the golden opportunity to teach and develop the intellect of China, as well as to regenerate and guide her heart, and the wealth of the nation's sanctified talent will be poured into her bosom. 3.-Chinese authors have a number of important advantages over foreigners,-The most patent of these is a more perfect command of the language. Nearly all foreigners fail of acquiring the Chinese written language. In making a book they furnish the idea, but they are entirely dependent on the Chinese teacher to furnish the language in which these ideas are clothed. This process is slow and laborious. It often fails to give the ideas of the author in their full integrity, and always results in the loss of much of their original vigor and vividness. It is a partnership in which neither party is satisfied, and the result is generally more or less of a failure, awkward in style and stale in expression. On the contrary the Chinese author writes with the pen in his own hand. The thoughts choose |