Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 497

1850.

Journal of Occurrences.

459

We are willing to rest the philological evidence of skin for god upon this work, while too we admit that it has much wider significations in Chinese than god has in English; and the reason appears to us plain why it is so much applied to spirits, viz., because of the greater importance paid by the Chinese to the worship of ancestral maues than was ever the case in other heathen lands. The wide diffusion of the Scriptures will tend to restrict its modern usage to one being, and remove the plural ideas so intimately connected wtih it in the minds of this people; this idea of plurality is one of the objections we referred to on page 95, and its variety of meanings is another; but they together have not half the weight of the objection that Shangtí is the title of several idols, and will be and is so often confounded with them if used for God.

It is difficult to reason upon this subject with a man like Dr. Medhurst. Atone time he translates shin as god, gods; then says it means spirit, sages, fairies, and can never be rendered god :—he first says Shángtí is not the proper name of an idol, but denotes the Supreme Being; and presently explains that this Supreme Being is not the true God, but comes as near to him as the Chinese know; and lastly declares that it is a generic term for god, because it applies equally to six Shangtí:-he at one time upholds the use of Shangti for the true God and shin for false gods, and then maintains that the former is the only term by which to render Elohim and Theos, fortifying both these positions against all attack; but soon after dismantles his fortifications, and runs up a third for Tienti out of their ruins; which again he abandons to find refuge in the transferred term Alvah, declaring each of these positions one after the other to be impreg- nable, and yet giving no explanation for leaving them so rapidly, but on the con- trary rather displeased when his old artillery is brought to bear on his new for- tifications :—and finally, after declaring that he would not use shin for spirit in the new version, if others felt it their duty to use it for god, he now capitalizes his declaration, “That upon shin, and shin alone, do we feel ourselves compelled to fall back, as the only legitimate and suitable representation of ruach and pneu- ma in the sense of spirit and spiritual being,” thus involving the versions of the Scriptures in the most unhappy confusion. He now re-asserts in the strongest manner that to use shin for god and God in the Bible would render the Chinese version unclassical and contemptible, though our readers will conclude, we think, that one who has come to so many different decisions, has little right to expect us to regard his assertions to this effect. If the matter was a trifling one, this philological versatility would be less disastrous, but we earnestly beg Dr. M. to reflect upon the consequences of carrying out this last determination. We are pleased to see that Dr. Legge has adverted to the melancholy results of the double use of shin for God and Spirit in two versions otherwise the same. In conclusion, we beg Dr. Medhurst to revise his opinions on all these points. He says a majority of those who assembled at Hongkong in 1843 were in favor of Shangtí, but they had not then examined the subject; and as the large majority of them are now in favor of Shin, it should lead him to doubt the tenableness of his own position, for he can hardly think that their conversion has been altoge- ther for the sake of arguing the matter against him.

ART. III. Journal of Occurrences: endeavor to prevent foreigners from living in Fuhchau; disturbances in Kwángsi; North-China He- rald; port of Shánghái; fall of roof of Trinity Church; accident at Tsz'ki; bridge of Boats at Ningpo; completion of the revision of the New Testament.

THE citizens of Fuhchau have lately shown considerable hostility to the resid. ence of foreigners within their city-walls, quoting the proceedings of the people of Canton in justification of their course, and their authorities sheltering them