[
    {
        "id": 212283,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 225,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "202\n\nChina and her people. It is important to note that Legge's seminal text on Chinese Religions published in 1880 further illustrates this Christian influence, even for the casual reader. More subtle analysis can show that the criteria of judgement employed by Legge parallel themes found in the Scottish Shorter Catechism (1648) which he had memorized as a child. His ethical studies, summarized most cogently in the tract, \"Christianity And Confucianism Compared in Their Teaching On The Whole Duty Of Man,\" reflect both his Christian commitments, strong Aristotelian leanings, and his unwavering concern for the spiritual enlightenment of the Chinese. Finally, Legge took great pains to pursue information about and present a critical study of the Xi'an (西安) stele often referred to as the Nestorian monument. Published in 1886, this work reflects the desire Legge still had to use his academic credentials and scholarly awareness to reassert the historical importance of the Protestant role in bringing Christianity to China.\n\nBeing for many years the senior London Missionary Society administrator in Hong Kong, Dr. Legge was also responsible for dealing with the more difficult realities faced by both missionaries and the Chinese people with whom they worked. In particular, this meant being with the dying in their last moments, encouraging them, witnessing their last testimony as believers, and reporting these matters to the officers of the Society in London. The reality of the missionary duty is nowhere more clearly evident than in these documents, for they included not just the recording of the fate of missionaries and Chinese believers, but often also a description of their last hours, their struggle with fatal diseases, and the persistence of Legge as missionary in supporting them and seeking their last confession of faith. Numerous letters which passed between Legge and London spoke of the sicknesses and deaths of missionaries and their family members. When Pastor Ho Jinshan (何進善) died, the Chinese colleague with whom Dr. Legge shared the whole of his missionary career from Malacca to Hong Kong, Legge wrote a deeply reflective memorial which was later published by the Society in London. Easily the most emotionally engaging of these testimonies from Legge's experiences came in a letter written to his father-in-law regarding the death of Mary Isabella, his first wife, during a complicated birth. In other reflections, he spoke of the final testimonies of Chinese Christians in Hong Kong, including two very memorable ones involving an elderly woman and a former Taoist priest.61\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
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    {
        "id": 212296,
        "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": 238,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "215\n\nrole in this “secularization” process, comparing Legge's leadership in the new Board of Education with the manner of a “born bishop” I believe his motivations must be read in the light of his postmillennial leanings. See n. 55 on postmillennialism. Also see James Legge, \"The Colony Of Hong Kong\", The Journal Of The Hong Kong Branch of The Royal Asiatic Society, op. cit., p. 188; also E. T. Eitel, Europe In China: The History Of Hong Kong From The Beginning To The Year 1882 (Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh Ltd, 1895; reprinted in Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 347, 390-394, 466.\n\nSee Gwenneth and John Stokes, Queen's College: Its History 1862-1987 (Hong Kong: Queen's College, 1987). A number of the details of the origins of the school in relation to Legge are not correct, and should be compared with my article in Ching Feng (1988), op. cit.\n\n51 Prof. Legge's participation in the initial stages of the drafting of the Somerville College rules is not mentioned in some of the more recent texts on Somerville College, but his role as a member of the council (1881-1883) is found in Somerville College Register, 1879-1959 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 272. In the minutes of the Provisional committee which later incorporated the College, Prof. Legge apparently helped to draft and support a college rule which, in its final form, read as follows: \"Prayers will be read daily in the house, and on Sundays the students will be expected as a rule to attend a place of worship chosen by themselves or their parents\"; an earlier proposal to eliminate family prayers, and a later proposal requiring instruction in the Bible provided by each House, were both voted down. It is also significant that the provisional committee set a rule that the members of the Council should include equal numbers of women and men. See the Notes of the Provisional Committee meetings for the year 1879, dated February 7, 15, and 28, held at Somerville College.\n\n* This picture is kept at the Library of the Oriental Institute at Oxford, and was recently used for the cover of T. H. Barrett's Singular Listlessness: A Short History Of Chinese Books And British Scholars, op. cit.\n\nHis reaction was primarily against the legalistic trends of Scottish Reform theology, particularly as it related to the harsher restrictions enforced on the Sabbath. At one point Legge, writing about his youthful days in Huntly, complained: \"The voice of Moses was allowed in our household too often to overpower the voice of Christ\". See Notes Of My Life, op. cit., p. 15, and James Legge, John Legge, ed., Lectures On Theology, Science, And Revelation (Papers by the late Rev. George Legge), XXII-XXIV. Still one must point out that the memorization of the Shorter Catechism left its mark in many of the themes discussed in Legge's The Religions of China. He may have rejected its ethics, but he was nursed and matured in its theological worldview.\n\n34 Legge gave his views on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the London Missionary Society, celebrated at Moorfields Tabernacle. See his \"The Land of Sinim,\" (London: John Snow, 1859).\n\n+4\n\n—\n\nThis perspective was technically supported by nineteenth-century \"postmillennialism,\" a view which generally interprets Biblical prophecies regarding the end of human history as one in which there will be no personal return of Christ. Postmillennialism claimed that God will reign on earth indirectly in a kingdom of peace established by his own people, the Church. This view normally involves the corollary that human achievements, particularly the advance of Christian civilization, would bring about the final state in which the Kingdom of God would be achieved. James Legge had been exposed to this position through the theology of his older brother, George Legge, and apparently accepted its arguments. See George Legge, Lectures on Theology, Science, and Revelation, ed. James Legge, et al., op. cit. Belief in a postmillennial view of history explains two important aspects of James Legge's academic work. First, it explains why he was concerned to locate a trace of revelation in the foundations of Chinese",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
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