Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 392

354

Defense of an Essay &c.

JULY,

hurst and his friends; they called upon me, and insisted upon my re- tracting the position taken in that paper, viz. that those who exhort the Chinese to worship Shángti, violate the first Commandment. I took great pains to assure them that I did not suppose they intended to violate the first Commandment, but contended that, as the phrase Shangtí designates a single individual, and the Chinese who heard them understood by this phrase another being than Jehovah, I must maintain that the Commandment was broken. To inform all who read the Repository that I have no intention of intimating that any of my Brother Missionaries designedly broke the first Commandment, and to divest the matter of every shade of personality, which unhappily, from want of sufficient care on my part, attached to the communica- tion of a "Brother Missionary," I addressed a letter, under my own signature to the Editor of the Chinese Repository (see Vol. XVIII., page 97), to which I beg leave to refer the Reader. This paper I sent to Dr. Medhurst and his friends, as my answer to their demand for an apology, that they might see it before it left Shanghai for the printer's hands. From his note addressed to me on the receipt of this letter, it will appear that instead of maintaining that Shángti is the true God, Dr. Medhurst's habit and that of Messrs. Stronach and Milne was carefully so to explain their use of the phrase to the Chinese, as to prevent them from understanding it, as even alluding to any being with whom they were acquainted. IIis note is as follows:-

Shanghai, January 13th, 1849.

My dear Sir, "Your letter has been read by Messrs Stronach, Milne and my- self. We all think it unsatisfactory; principally with respect to the omission of any statement, that it was quite probable that the mission- aries using Shángti for God would accompany it with such explanations as would in their estimation, prevent the Chinese from understanding the term as alluding to any being with whom they had been previously acquainted, but to one whose being and attributes are revealed in the S. S.

"Such statement was distinctly required by us, and we fully expect- ed that it would accompany your explanation.

"I am, Dear Sir,

Yours truly

(Signed) W. H. Medhurst."

In the letter of 30th January 1850, Dr. Medhurst and his friends give up all the native terms as untenable, and propose to use the transferred term loah, as the rendering of Elohim and Thcos in all cases. They