CO129-180 - Public Offices & Others - 1877 — Page 452

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language, but also an important auxiliary to the maintenance of peace, and a good understanding * between two great nations.

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Thay be permitted in conclusion to say a few words about myself as its first occupant. I went to the East in 1839, as a missionary to the Chinese, with no thought but to fulfil to the end of my life the duties of that position. For more than twenty I was occupied in direct missionary labours; years but I had not been twelve months in the mission field when I seemed to see that in order to our per- manent success, all the classical books of the Chinese, covering the whole field of thought through which the sages of China had ranged, and containing the foundations of the religious, moral, social, and political life of the people, should be translated and discussed by some one scholar more fully and critically than single books had been dealt with by individuals. After nearly twenty years of preliminary study with a view to this end, years in which earlier and favourite studies had very much to be given up, and new and attractive studies declined, I began in 1861 to publish the result of my labours. Five of the seven Works which my plan embraced have been given to the public in eight volumes. Two others still remain to be completed, and they will demand three or four, perhaps five, additional volumes. I never wavered in my conviction that such an undertaking was good, and even necessary to the success of mis- sionary labour in China; but, as it proceeded, it came to engross my time more and more, and interfere with the prosecution of direct missionary work both in preaching and teaching. Other circumstances arose which rendered my withdrawal from the Chinese

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field an act of duty to my family.

During all the years I was in China, I often wished that there were Chairs for its language and literature in the great universities of this country. That I should myself occupy one of them did not enter into my thoughts. When this was first suggested, about eighteen months ago,

I was as one that dreamed. I accept the posi- tion, grateful to the first proposers of it, to the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, and to the members of Council, Congregation and Convocation, who brought the thing to pass. What I can do to justify their choice I will, with God's help, do, to the extent of my ability, both in the way of research and of teaching, the first object always being to make the Chair practically useful.

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