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his criticisms of Mencius cf.) In these revisions, the Christian sense of the bilateral duty to truth and to Deity was never lessened. What changed was Legge's understanding and sympathy toward Confucius as he compared the goals of the Classical tradition with those of the Christian tradition. They were neither religiously equal nor ethically equivalent, but they shared convictions about the nature of wisdom, commitments to moral virtues, and an understanding about the value of a self-critical humility in life which provided persuasive reasons for a bi-cultural harmonization. Although this perspective is most clearly brought out by a comparison of the 1861 and 1893-1895 editions of the Four Books, the basic arguments and their explicit justifications had been summarized in the Shanghai missionary conference paper of 1877.5%
Legge's power to persevere through personal crises can only be explained by his deep sense of commitment to fulfil his vow of duty to Jesus Christ. For the sake of completing his task, he endured the death of his first wife (in October 1852) and four of their children (two in Malacca and two in Hong Kong); three periods of furlough when he returned with family members to England, two clearly for the sake of convalescence; risking death and hardship while travelling and evangelizing in the Chinese mainland (he was stoned by Chinese crowds at least two times in his career); and once being caught out at sea in the midst of a major typhoon, suspected by his family and colleagues of having been lost at sea. Although these might be seen as the trials of any difficult life, they were taken willingly, in spite of the cost, because of the deep commitment arising from his missionary call.
Sometimes scholars overlook this missionary calling when a man like Legge retires from mission work and enters academia. Though this might be the case for some, Legge experienced no disenchantment with his Christian faith once he entered Oxford. His missionary duty was carried on throughout his Oxford career, albeit expressed at the intellectual level,
Soon after presenting his paper for the Shanghai General Missionary Conference in 1877, Prof. Legge served as the translator for a charitable organization which was seeking famine relief for the masses in China in 1878. This was directly related to his sense of Christian compassion, and was a means of practical response to