Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 529

1850.

Memoir of the Rev. Walter M. Lowrie.

491

that doubt will be removed by an overwhelming mass of evidence contained in the Constitution or Magna Charta of the reigning Manchu family: it is called Tá Tsing Hwui Tien, or “The Collected Statutes of the Great Pure Dynasty." Referring the Reader to the ample tes- timony of that Great work, Philo submits the entire subject and here closes this long note.

ART. IV. Memoir of the Rev. Walter M. Lowrie, Missionary to

China. Edited by his Father.

THIS is a work of five hundred quarto pages, neatly printed with large type. It is almost entirely a collection of letters and journals, and the editor, as he tells us in the preface, has done little more than to select and arrange these papers. He has however inserted a few remarks "with the view of noticing his early years, and con- necting the different periods of his short but active and not unvaried life." The letters and journals were in general hastily written and often in the confidence of Christian and endeared friendship," but this fact invests them with an interest which could not be attained by any labor of composition. Their easy simplicity of style and the freedom with which the writer lays open the feelings of his heart, throw around thein a charm which will, we doubt not, secure for the work an extensive circulation. With all who love to contemplate the exhibition of the emotions of Christian friendship, founded on the sympathies of the Christian life, or the workings of a heart panting after God, this will be a favorite volume. The position of the mis- sionary whose character is here delineated, the esteem in which he was held, his promise of great usefulness in the work to which he had de- voted himself, and the distressing circumstances of his violent death, will conspire, with the more abiding excellences of the work itself, to place this among the most interesting of our missionary biographies. It is our purpose at present however to speak rather of the subject of this memoir than of the memoir itself. We embrace the occasion of the appearance of this volume to place on record in our pages a brief sketch of one who had labored for several years with more than ordin- ary energy and success for the welfare of the Chinese. We quote the following account of his early years from the memoir.

"Walter Macon Lowrie, the third son of Walter and Amelia Lowrie, was born in Butler, Penn., on the 18th of February, 1819. Until his