626
Defense of an Essay, &c.
DEC.
opinions remain unchanged. The determination of the great majority of the missionaries not to accept of a transferred term is already put beyond all doubt; and Dr. Medhurst and Messrs. Stronach and Milne, and the three other signers of the Letter of January, to judge from their letter, are just as determined that they will use their “unmis- takably, incontrovertibly right” term Aloho. Their language leaves us no room to hope they will ever abandon this term, and it is nothing more than due to these three Delegates to say that their's has been the chief labor of making this version of the N. T. It would seem there- fore right that they should have funds to print it in a form in which they can use it, unless principle forbid, or it can be shown that the allowing them to do so would injure the Savior's cause. I am far from pleading their cause against the great majority of their brother missionaries who are opposed to a transferred term; but I am satisfied principle does not forbid the patronizing of two non-antagonistic ver- sions; and under all the circumstances of the case I should hope that less evil would result from following this course than any other.
The second term we shall bring to our proposed test is Shángti, This term comes forward under the disadvantage of having been abandoned, not only by the three members of the Committee of Delegates abovementioned, but also by the majority of the mission- aries who were in the habit of using it previous to the commencement of this controversy. To compensate for this disadvantage, it has gained the able advocacy of Dr. Legge.
Dr. L. is as resolute in favor of Shángtí as Dr. M. and his friends are in favor of Aloho. Before he reached his present position, he tells us he was led to see "that God was not a generic, but a relative term."
That which induced others to abandon Shángti, viz., its not being the generic term for god in the Chinese language, has attracted him. Shángti, he confesses is not the absolute appellative name for God in Chinese, and he urges its claims on the ground that it is a mere relative term, and therefore answers to the word God which is also a mere relative term. Let us then inquire how the use of this compound, relative term will answer in teaching the monotheism of the Bible, and in combating the Chinese polytheism. Dr. Legge asserts "There is only one Sháng Tí, Supreme Ruler;" but we may safely say, There is no monotheism tanght in this assertion. It is an assertion that might have been made in Greece and Rome, without en- dangering the existence of a single one of their thiny thousand gods, as it would have only asserted the supremacy of Zɛʊg and Jupiter respectively.