Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 40

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1841.

Medical Philanthropic Society,

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a dispassionate consideration of the claims of Christianity, as a divine revelation.

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To these benevolent efforts, the well known contempt of the Chi- nese for all that is foreign had placed a barrier, apparently insur- mountable. Experience has, however, since shown that even this inveterate prejudice could not always withstand the claims to atten- tion, which such convincing proofs of superior knowledge, united with disinterested kindness, carried home to the understanding and the hearts both of patients and observers. Sufficient tokens of such an improved state of mind were perceived, to justify the committee in China in saying in their report" We hope this is but the beginning of a great work, that will eventually remove from the Chinese nation. all those unfounded prejudices which at present prevent general inter- course, and lead this people to call those their enlightened benefac- tors whom they now call barbarians."

To bring these two important branches of Christian philanthropy into more obvious union before the Chinese people, it was resolved to form a society at Canton, under the title of "The Medical Mission- ary Society," a fundamental rule of which should be, that the agents employed by it should possess, in union with the requisite, medical and surgical skill, that sincere piety and religious know- ledge, which would incline and qualify them to impart to those who might become desirous of receiving it, an acquaintance with the evidences and truths of Christianity.

The plan was adopted, and the Society established accordingly at Canton, in February, 1838; and a valuable medical library, through the liberality of its friends, was attached to it... Considerable sub- scriptions were made for its support, to which some of the Chinese themselves contributed. Two large hospitals, one at Canton and the other at Macao, were opened, and so greatly were these institutions valued by the Chinese, that they were the last English establishments, interrupted by the late political events. Short as the duration of these institutions was, it served to evince the beneficial tendency of the principle

on which they were founded, and to encourage the ap plication of it on a more extended scale, as the means of so doing

hall allow.

therefore, to invite the benevolent British public to encou ormation of a Society in England, for the communication Sings of European medical skill, and of the Christian reli- Chinese and other eastern nations that the present ad- mitted to their notice.