THE BIBLE IN CHINESE · (Contd.)
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scholar, who had besides a knowledge of astronomy and medicine. But his most important study in his training for China was of a manuscript in Chinese in the British Museum. This had been given to Sir Hans Sloan by a Mr. Hodgson, of the East India Company; it contained a Gospel Harmony and the greater part of the remainder of the New Testament translated by Roman Catholic missionaries. This book Morrison transcribed with the aid of an educated young Chinese whom he met in London. Morrison always acknowledged his debts; and of this manuscript, "Sloan 3599," he wrote that it was "the foundation of the New Testament in Chinese which I completed and edited."
In Canton Morrison took his place among the traders of various nations, who lived on a piece of land about 15 acres in size by the river outside the city. There and in Macao Morrison lived; most of his day doing his one appointed task. Like Carey, with whose life his own ran a parallel course, he boasted only that he could plod. In 1809 he was appointed Chinese translator to the Company; but he did not cease from his work as an evangelist, when opportunity served, and as linguist, and the successive stages of his life are marked by the printing of books. It was on January 28, 1814, for example that he wrote to Lord Teignmouth of the Bible Society: "Allow me this day, as if present from the land of China in the midst of your animating assembly, to lay before you a translation of the New Testament into Chinese made and published at Canton."
DAYS OF VICTORY
There were other hours of rejoicing in Morrison's life: he baptized his first convert after seven years' ministry; he helped to found a college in Malacca for the Ultra-Ganges Mission; during his only furlough in England he presented his Bible to George IV; he was invited but could not go to see Sir Walter Scott. He began a school of Oriental studies which did not last long; and he even undertook to teach Chinese to a class of young ladies, one of whom, Mary Aldersey, afterwards went out to Ningpo, the first unmarried woman missionary to reach China.
When Morrison spoke at Singapore for his friend Sir Stamford Raffles, he described how in the new college which was being planned there "native missionaries of science" would be trained. "Why should it be thought impossible that natural history, that botany, that mineralogy, and other departments of science may be thus greatly enriched by stores brought from sources to which European can have no access? There is a curiously modern note in this and in many passages in Morrison's letters and speeches. His faith had enabled him to sink his own personality in the life of the Chinese, and to become in a real sense a citizen of the world. "Christianity is in its spirit," he wrote, "the religion of the world. It buries national prejudices and the more it is understood, believed, and loved the more rapidly will it unite all men in each country and the men of each country as brethren."
Grave in bearing, solemn in word, courteous in manner he won all men's respect. When Lord Napier and all the merchants of Canton followed the mourners down to the quay from which his body was to be carried from Canton to Macao, they mourned a fine Chinese scholar and public servant, but they could not foresee what Morrison would come to mean to the Church of Christ in China.
THE MORRISON LIBRARY
One of the connections this Colony has with the famous Dr. Morrison whose centenary was celebrated a few months ago, is the valuable library which he accumulated, and which is now housed in the Hong Kong University. For a good many years it
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