[ { "id": 204618, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 99, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "86\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nin the north-east quarter of the city, well away from the new diplomatic quarter.2\n\nAll accommodation for foreign embassies was to be concentrated in one area outside the east wall of the city, and about one and a half miles from a newly constructed gate, just near to the old astronomical instruments which can still be seen on top of the east wall. Eventually, after negotiations, the new British Legation was allotted two large houses and two blocks of flats in this new diplomatic quarter. The last christening was performed in the Legation chapel, the books in the small library were taken off their shelves, the flag at the gate was hauled down, and everything was packed.3 Among the more colourful of the closing scenes in the life of the old British Legation should be mentioned the two Commonwealth cricket matches played in the Autumn of 1958 between the Moonrakers, captained by Mr. Duncan Wilson, the British Chargé d'Affaires, and the Woolgatherers captained by the Indian Ambassador, Mr. G. Parthasaratly. The rules governing this diplomatic cricket were many and local but the chief rule of all was that if anyone hit a ball into the grounds of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security next door his whole side was out.\n\nFinally, in September 1959, the staff moved to their new quarters and thus after nearly one hundred years of continuous occupation the existence of the old British Legation in Peking came to an end. From an historical and sentimental point of view its loss was sad. But from a realistic point of view which\n\n20 This was built on a site which had been granted to Russia as far back as the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689). As a result of fighting between Russian settlers on the frontier between Siberia and Manchuria about a hundred Russian prisoners were brought to Peking in the period 1683-5. They were formed into a company, given a place of residence in the northeast corner of Peking, close to the Lama Temple, and intermarried with Chinese and Manchus. They retained their Greek Orthodox faith and were allowed to have their own priests. See Michel N. Pavlovsky, Chinese-Russian Relations (New York, 1949) 145-164. It was to this place, known as the Pei-kuan (\"Northern Hostel\") that the members of the Russian ecclesiastical mission transferred in 1861.\n\n30 Unfortunately the imposing Royal Coat of Arms which dignified the gateway of the old Legation was too large to fit properly into the new Legation buildings. Mr. Michael Stewart, the Chargé d'Affaires at the time of the move, arranged with Sir Robert Black, the Governor of Hong Kong, that the Coat of Arms should be sent to Government House in Hong Kong. It is now fixed onto the wall at the far end of the long ballroom of Government House, which it dominates by the brilliance of its colours,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212281, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "200\n\nLegge urged missionaries to reach into the very heart of the Middle Kingdom and seek to fulfil the Chinese spirit through appeal to the traces of God left in their own Classics, while supplementing and fulfilling them through Christian revelation.\n\nWhy was Legge so persistent in this approach? One major factor in his motivation came from a special passage in the Old Testament. The nineteenth century Protestant missionary mandate to China was driven by a Biblical prophecy understood to include a promise of the eventual Christianization of China. According to many nineteenth century Protestant missionaries including Legge, the place referred to in Isaiah 49:12 as \"Sinim\" must refer to China. (More recent scholarship sometimes refers it to Assuan in Egypt.) Being thus convinced that God had a plan to include the Chinese peoples within the Kingdom of God, many 19th century Protestant missionaries believed that God's Spirit would accomplish this Christianization through the influence of great Christian leaders. A claim that this prophesy indicated essentially Protestant endeavours was also emphasized: the earlier Christian missionary groups, Nestorians, Jesuits and other Catholic orders, as well as a few Russian Orthodox priests, had been kept from completing this building up of the Kingdom of God in China. Thus it was claimed that the nineteenth century was the time for the Protestant nations to fulfil their Divine destiny in bringing to China the transformative message of Christ as well as their own brand of Christianized civilization.\n\n—\n\nThis particular attitude explains to a large extent why Legge himself was both supportive and critical of British and other colonial powers. If they were to be beacons of Christian civilization, they had to be criticized whenever they did not live up to this calling. Protestant missionaries therefore acted in relation to Chinese societies as social revolutionaries, and in relation to Western nations as prophets of either (and sometimes both) glory or judgement.\n\nLegge was not only able to define a prophetic duty for missionaries, he was also deeply motivated to provide intellectual tools to make it all the more possible.\n\nThis is one of the motivations which explains Legge's important reassessments of Confucius (LF) in his second edition of the Four Books completed in 1895. (He did not find similar reasons to revise", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]