Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 396

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Defense of an Essay &c.

JULY,

but one, the Shắng-tí of antiquity, and he worshiped only by the Emperor." From which he concludes that, “the Chinese mythology, in which there is only one, recognised at all as divine, does not con- tain, and can not furnish, a proper generic term for Deity. Not having the idea of such a class of beings, the language assuredly will not af- ford a generic term for such a class.'

It is very much to be regretted that this writer does not manifest more care in his use of terms, and that he does not define the sense in which he uses the words upon which his whole argument turns: e. g. he answers the question "Is T used as a generic term for Deity by the Chinese?" by another question, viz. Is it appellative for a

class of beings regarded divine, and not the name merely of an indivi- dual?" Upon this we would remark, that the word Deity without an article is abstract, and that of all the words he could have chosen, that have any connexion with the point under debate, the adjective “divine” seems to me the most indefinite. We are all familiar with “the divine Homer sometimes sleeps," and I have even seen "the divine Fanny Elssler," &c. Throughout his pamphlet the “ American Missionary" appears to me to confouned polytheism with what has been styled di- or tri-theism; i. e. a belief in the existence of more gods than one, using the word propriè in the sense of self-existent, almighty, &c., &c.

In the result he arrives at, the proposal to render Elohim and Theos by Shangti and Shin-ming, and in the admission he makes that Shángti only resembles the true God, and the doubt he expresses whether the Chinese really regard him as divine, his views approach nearer to Sir George Staunton's than to any other: they will be most suitably discussed under proposition d.

Having thus indicated, in general terms, the positions maintained by those, whose pamphlets I propose to answer, I shall now proceed to discuss the issues made between these several writers and iny Essay in the order above set forth.

The first question for our consideration is that involved in proposi- tion a,

Do the Chinese know the true God, or any Being who may tru- ly and properly be called God? To this question Dr. Legge answers,

They do: Shangtí is God over all, blessed for ever."

To put this opinion in the most advantageous way for Dr. Legge, it may be thus expressed : "The Chinese do know the Being we Christians call God, they really know him, though only in an imper- fect manner. The Being is the very same, the difference is in the clearness with which he is known.” We agree with Dr. Legge that if this point can be made good, viz., the Chinese know the Being we