[ { "id": 212262, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "181\n\nreceived honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen, his alma mater.\n\nYet James Legge has, both within his own lifetime and since his death in 1897, been greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. There are seven areas of misunderstanding which are discussed in what follows, as well as seven clues as to why this has been the case.\n\nSeven Misunderstandings of Legge's Work\n\n1. Missionary Rejections\n\nAfter having taken up his professorship at Oxford, Legge was invited by the missionary community in China to present a paper at the First General Conference of Protestant Missionaries in Shanghai in 1877. “Confucianism in Relation to Christianity\" has been cited by later sources as a remarkably sensible and sensitive document which, while affirming the revelational priority of Christian faith, retains a high regard for Confucius and some aspects of Confucianism. However, the speech generated conflict when it was presented in absentia on May 11, 1877.\n\n६\n\nSo antagonized were some members of the conference by certain aspects of the speech that they voted in a subcommittee to delete Legge's contribution from the published proceedings. Friends of Legge consequently arranged for it to be published independently in London. A side issue involved in this rejection was that Legge had discussed some aspects of a question, which had been banned from discussion at the conference, the so-called “term question\". The question focused on the appropriate terms to be employed in translating the Christian ideas of God, spirits, and the Holy Spirit. Most of the opposition, however, was based upon Legge's claims that original Confucianism did have a limited knowledge of the true God. He went on to explain how Confucianism became sidetracked from its proper understanding of God (Shangdi, 上帝) and so needed to be supplemented by Christian revelation. Legge argued that because Confucianism is not inherently opposed to Christianity (as he felt Buddhism and \"Brahmanism\" were), missionaries could justifiably learn much by studying the texts of Confucianism and building bridges on Confucian foundations for effective Christian evangelism. A strong attack on Legge's assumptions was soon published in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212263, "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "182\n\nChinese Recorder, by one of the leaders of the conference. It claimed that Legge was making the Confucian Classics equivalent to the Old Testament. Legge's attempts to synthesize traditional Confucian views of God and man with Christian revelation, reflected, it claimed, an unrealistic assessment of modern Confucian ideology and Confucian bureaucracy. Taking Legge's thesis to its logical conclusion, it claimed, there was no substantial reason to promote Christian missionary efforts in China. Although it was clearly not Legge's intention to weaken the Christian missionary effort, these fears were felt by many missionaries.\n\n## II. Academic Misrepresentations\n\nLate in Legge's career at Oxford the translations of the Confucian sacred texts Legge had prepared for The Sacred Books of the East were attacked by Barthelemy Saint Hilaire. His conclusions were that there is basically no religion in China; the Chinese honour, he stated, no spiritual Being except Heaven (Tian, 天) thus contradicting Legge's discussion of the terms Shangdi (\"Lord on High\") and Di (\"Lord”). Hilaire ranked the religion of Confucius last among the world's religions, far behind even Graeco-Roman mythology, since it was built only on certain traditions, only had a human basis, and excluded all notions of divinity; while Confucius was admirable in his own milieu, his teachings only insult and degrade our intelligence. It would seem that Hilaire had not read Legge's texts seriously, and his views have not been much supported since.\n\nNevertheless, the fact that not all scholars accepted Legge's position raised some doubts in the minds of even some of his closest associates. In 1895, A.M. Fairbairn, Legge's close friend and founder of Mansfield College in Oxford, when completing a text on the philosophy of religion, was convinced by anonymous sources not to publish his materials on China (based heavily on Legge) because Legge's position was \"dated\".\n\n## III. Accusations of Interpretive Error\n\nIn 1895 Legge was confronted with a more subtle criticism. It came from an Austrian sinologist, Franz Kühnert. He wrote a criticism of Legge's translation of The Great Learning, basing his criticism on the standard interpretation of The Great Learning of the Song dynasty", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212278, "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "197\n\nbecause, after Legge himself had remarried back in England in 1858, Rengan arranged for his relatives to stay with the Legge family until he called for them from Tianjing. The final demise of the rebellion included the capture and execution of Rengan by the Qing armies. In spite of the personal training given and closeness felt by Legge, the power of blood relations carried more influence than the power of Christian care. This made the need to understand the Chinese heart and mind all the more concrete to Legge.\n\nA more direct influence was the inability of Legge and his teaching staff to produce through the Anglo-Chinese College and its Seminary a continual supply of Chinese pastors and teachers. The government licensed the school with the understanding that some of those who graduated would be sent on to government placements as translators. Since the pay from the government was far more than any pastor could receive while working with a very small community at best, most students were drawn into government and business.\n\nThere is no doubt that there were also strong theological reasons behind the change. Legge's missionary service was directed toward the Chinese population. In order to know them and to be accepted by them, he felt he had to display a knowledge which they would honour: a knowledge of the Confucian Classics. Convinced that the earliest Chinese did know the true God named Shangdi, as found in The Book of Documents (HK) and the oldest portions of The Book of Odes, Legge was all the more concerned to discover how Chinese themselves responded to these religious dimensions of Confucianism. This attitude informed Legge's educational philosophy.\n\nThus, Legge supported the provision of general education for selected Chinese students, rather than requiring them to follow any rigidly missionary curriculum. He closed his own parochial school in 1858. He was the head of the education committee for the Hong Kong government which developed the new public educational system in Hong Kong. This is remarkable, since general education was not standard even in many European countries at that date. Legge arranged to have Frederick Stewart, a fellow Scotsman, come to act as headmaster of Queen's College, the new school designed to provide a higher-level general education for Chinese boys.\n\nEarly in his career as the London Missionary Society representative", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212280, "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": 222, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "199\n\nas this related to Chinese classical culture. Having been somewhat hesitant to suggest the possibility of a missiological approach which included a more positive role for Confucianism, Dr. Legge in his first years at Oxford became fully convinced that this was the most appropriate strategy for Christian missionaries in traditional China. In this way traditions known and respected in Chinese society, from the common people to the Confucian scholars who effectively ruled the provinces, could be used as bridges for presenting and highlighting the need of China and her people for the Christian fulfillment in salvation through Jesus Christ.\n\nThis was the keynote of Legge's controversial 1877 speech presented at the First General Missionary Conference in Shanghai. Because many missionaries came to China during this period in which \"gunboat policies\" brought legal access of missionaries to China, many also experienced strong opposition from the often corrupt and \"atheistic\" mandarins who ruled the areas in which they were active. In the minds of these missionaries, to advocate an alliance with this kind of a system was to advocate a dismantling of basic Christian convictions in theology and ethics. What appears to be a condescending view of the superiority of European culture in the writings of many missionaries was from their point of view the only means of supporting the kinds of reformations which Christianity would, they felt, necessarily involve in Chinese society. Their opposition grew out of their sense of the devastating practical compromises which would have to be accepted if missionary strategies accommodated the Qing Confucian system.\n\nThe consequences of Prof. Legge's support of an “original Confucian monotheism” in the early historical annals of the Confucian Classics were unwelcome to many missionaries. By referring to the classical Confucian texts as the basis for Christian missionary strategy, Legge was by extension accepting, they felt, the imperial palace — the arbiter of Confucianism as the final court of appeal for Christian missionaries. A further complication arose because the worship of Shangdi, the technical term Legge associated with the Christian God in the Chinese Classics, was a religion limited to an imperial monopoly. Legge hoped that this religion and its rites could be transformed into a Christian institution and extended across the whole of China.\n\nRather than approach China as outsiders with a foreign message,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212297, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "216\n\nculture, which would make Chinese culture all the more accessible to the influences of Christianization. Secondly, it explains why other missionaries who considered Chinese culture to be simply pagan refused to have anything to do with a fusion of Confucianism and Christianity. In their minds, such a combination would hinder the advance of Christian civilization, obstruct the work of the Spirit of God, and ultimately be destructive of God's plan to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Legge's claim that God had left a trace in Chinese culture threatened their view of the desperate losiness of the Chinese people. In fact, Legge himself would agree with them in general on the issue of the need for salvation, but he disagreed with the missiological strategy which refused to look for any point of support for missionary activity within Chinese culture. Those who opposed Legge were in effect supporting a basic assumption: God would not employ the pagan Chinese culture for the purpose of establishing His spiritual Kingdom. This explained, from their point of view, why He did not send them any special revelation of Himself. It was precisely this latter claim that Legge vehemently denied: to overlook the Shangdi traditions in the Chinese Classics was to deny historical facts related to the destiny of the Chinese peoples.\n\nSee Confucianism in Relation to Christianity, op. cit. See for details of the comparison \"Some New Dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge (1815-1897); Part II\", op. cit., pp. 43ff.\n\n1\n\n57 James Legge, Christianity and Confucianism Compared in Their Teaching on the Whole Duty Of Man (London: Religious Tract Society, 1883).\n\nSH\n\nJames Legge, Christianity in China: A Rendering of the Nestorian Tablet at Si-an-fu to Commemorate Christianity (London: Trübner & Co., 1888).\n\nSV\n\nThe original twenty-four-page manuscript, entitled \"Sketch of Ho Tsun Sheen\", was written by Legge in March 19, 1872, and is kept in the South China letters of the London Missionary Society archives. It was later published as an article in a volume called Gleanings From The Mission Field (London: 1873?).\n\nMI\n\nSee The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle (January 1833), p. 34; (March 1853), pp. 121-129; (December 1853), pp. 697-707; (supplement), pp. 757-764.\n\nA\n\nThe Taoist priest Legge mentions was one who restricted his study to Laozi's Daode jing, rather than the more esoteric doctrines passed down in esoteric Taoist training. Legge found him \"more prepared than the Confucian literati to receive the message of the Gospel\". The elderly woman convert, at whose deathbed Legge sought a final testimony of trust in Christ, had been \"a professor among her country-women of Taoist superstitions\", but after becoming a Christian she had been a faithful and effective witness for Christ. See James Legge, The Religions of China, op. cit., pp. 275-276, 296-297.\n\nIn Alexander Wylie's Memorials of Protestant Missionaries (Shanghae: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867), pp. 119-121, eighteen manuscripts, pamphlets, and books are cited as prepared by Legge in Chinese. At least one of these was done with his Chinese colleague, Ho Jinshan. See Shengjing Zhengju (Proofs of the Bible) (Fuzhou: Taiping Street Gospel Hall Press, 1870). Among these texts are two pamphlets in story-telling form on the lives of Joseph and Abraham which are of particular interest. I have seen a copy of the former in the Bodleian Library, and discovered that it was written in Cantonese dialect; I suspect that the latter is done in a similar fashion, but no copy of it has yet been found.\n\nIn the context of this passage, Dr. Legge found it necessary to emphasize that he had spent as much time with Chinese people as he did with their books. Every day he claimed to spend several hours in visiting them, not only in their homes, but also in their shops. In the same recollection, he also mentions regular ministry in the Chinese prison as part of his vocation. Later on in this passage, Legge's wit also comes through:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214504, "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-1998", "page_number": 362, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "331\n\nwe had met Howard Song, the excellent local guide, and \"Mr White' the bus driver, and had arrived at the hotel (The Qingdao Shangri-La), checked in and been allocated rooms, it was already dinnertime. No problem, as all that had been planned for that day was dinner - a Chinese banquet style dinner in the hotel.\n\nMike, Sarah and I were able to brief the tour members on the story so far, how the trip had been planned and what we were going to see. I think that such a formal briefing had not been done on earlier trips but it seemed to have been well received. Following that, tour member Carol Tan, a Research Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, gave a talk on \"British Jurisdiction on Chinese Soil\" - an interesting and useful explanation of how the legally-minded British went about establishing the necessary legal framework in the many territories that came under their control. Particular reference was made to Hong Kong and Weihaiwei.\n\nTsingtao - A German Home from Home\n\nTsingtao is already well known for the remaining wealth of evidence of German influence, perhaps the most famous being the Tsingtao Brewery. The problem facing us in organising this leg of the trip was not so much what to include, but what to leave out. Arriving, as we did, on a Saturday ruled out the brewery. Visitors are normally welcome, but only during the hot summer months does beer production continue seven days a week, so as to satisfy the thirst of all who depend on the brewery's products. The port area would have been interesting, to see what is left of the original German plan for its mighty naval base. Chiao-chou Bay would also have been interesting, to go and imagine the sights that first faced the German fleet when it arrived in the area. For those with strong stomachs, I have heard that the sewer system is still a masterpiece and a tribute to German organisation and engineering. But all these had to be left out owing to time constraints.\n\nHow the plan worked out was to split the city into two parts - the \"downtown\" area, with its official buildings; and the former military and residential area, with its remaining villas and barrack buildings.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214521, "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-1998", "page_number": 379, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "348\n\ndome of very Russian origins.\n\nLunch was had in a small restaurant on the road back out of town towards Dalian, in a building next to the one in which the Russians surrendered to the Japanese on 1 January 1905. A sign board records the events of that time, noting that after the Russian defeat the people of Lushun were \"pressed by the Japanese invaders.\" From what we could see, they are still very smartly turned out, with neat creases down their trousers. Next to us at lunch was a tale of rather elderly and venerable Japanese. We were wondering whether or not they had “been there before,\" but we were too polite to ask.\n\nA very productive morning, but it then struck us that there was nothing left to do in the afternoon. We turned down the guides' suggestion that we visit a carving factory. One of our number, who is famous for it, suggested that we visit a textile factory - but this too was voted against. Instead we asked if we could find some Dalian United football jerseys to take home as souvenirs. Believe it or not, the many sporting goods shops that surround the main stadium in Dalian could not between them come up with one jersey of the local heroes' team. England? Yes. Watford? Plenty. Juventus? Loads. Dalian? “Sorry - we don't get much call for them.\"\n\nAfter this disappointment we rather all went our separate ways. A few of us opted for a return visit to Nanshan to take photographs of the beautiful houses there as the sun was going down.\n\nDinner that night was a very pleasant western-style buffet in the Dalian Shangri-La, followed by a beer or two in the hotel's FATS Bar. I never did find out what \"FATS\" stands for, but the place was very popular with the local lads and a number of \"working girls.”\n\nAnd then, suddenly, it was all over. The weeks of planning, and the months before that. The reading and researching, the writing and the wondering. Was it all worth it? Certainly! Would I do it again? Er\n\nDid I learn anything from the experience? Yes - a number of things. I learned (again, for I have been on RAS trips before) that trips with members of this society are always fascinating experiences, attracting, as they do, people who have their own personal mines of information", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215980, "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-2002", "page_number": 279, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "213\n\n81\n\nperson named \"Soo Hoy-ü.\" Once again Legge insisted that Soo be dealt with \"in some way which should mark their sense of the enormity of his conduct.\" Both conditions were acknowledged and accepted by all of the officials Legge spoke to. Things went so smoothly, both in ritual form and placid acceptance of what must have been very difficult conditions for the officials, that Legge was both elated and disgusted. In his own mind at the time, the officials' display of timely submissiveness under pressure appeared only little more than blatant bathos.\" Cohen rightly points out how this kind of situation in the decade of the 1860s placed any Qing official between the Scylla of imperial duties to follow the treaty stipulations and the Charybdis of the anti-foreignism of local gentry who carried much popular support.82 Having bent over backwards for months previous to Legge's arrival, trying to use more humane means to obtain compliance from the literatus Soo and his supporters, the district magistrate had to battle at cross purposes with the popular demonology supporting anti-foreignism and the additional shame of recent military defeats. To act too abruptly or harshly would earn the magistrate the epithet of being a “friend of foreigners,” and so even risk his imperial role as an appointed civil authority. On the other hand, any blatant refusal to respond to the treaty conditions would merit imperial disfavour and severe reprimand, possibly including imprisonment. The double bind working on officials in this Guangdong setting could not have been any stronger.\n\n83\n\nEarly in the morning after the handover ceremonies Legge was woken by the River Superintendent (\"Hoppo\") and urged him to get an early start in his boat headed toward Canton. After the ceremonies the day before Legge had left the keys of the house in Ch'ea's hands, nominating the former keeper of the temple of Master Kong now the keeper of the new chapel dedicated to shangdi. When Legge mentioned to the Hoppo that he wanted to leave parting words with Ch'ea, the Hoppo apparently promised to pass on any message, and so Legge compliantly entered the waiting boat and headed off before sunrise.\n\nWhat motivated the Hoppo to treat Legge in this manner is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215994, "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-2002", "page_number": 293, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "227\n\nand phrasing typical of Ruist discourse in the late Qing period.\n\n26. Although Legge held this position by 1848 and argued for it in his extensive study of 1852, The Notions of the Chinese Concerning God and Spirits, he did make slight changes in the position later on in his Oxford years. Shàngdì was for Legge a high name for any monotheistic vision of God, but it was a composite term. Later in 1865 when he for the first time published a translation of the Book of Historical Documents (CC3), Legge shifted his position to claim that the single term, di (the second character in shangdi) carried the essential meaning of “God” in certain contexts. Shàngdi was only its \"intensified form.\" For this he had to develop a further justification, which he published in two different settings. For further details of these arguments see James Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part I: The Shu King. The Religious Portion of the Shih King, The Hsiao King (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), pp. xxiii-xxix, and A Letter to Professor F. Max Muller Chiefly on the Translation into English of the Chinese Terms Ti and Shang Ti in Reply to a Letter to him by 'Inquirer' in the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal for May-June 1880 (London: Trübner & Co., 1880). The first text appears as the third volume in the Sacred Books of the East series edited by F. Max Müller in Oxford.\n\n27. For the letter written by Legge and Chalmers on July 9, 1856, see the incoming letters for CWM/South China/Box 5/Jacket C/Folder 4. Later when meeting Legge in Hong Kong, Ch’ea said that \"he wished to receive the ordinance [of baptism] because it was commanded, but it was not the baptism with water which regenerated the soul, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Being asked where he had learned that, [Ch’ea] said that it was in the New Testament, he could not tell the book and the Ch., but if he had a book he knew where to find it. A New Testament being given to him, he soon turned up to the third Ch. of the Gospel of John.\" See EMMC/MM (October 1856), p. 215.\n\n28. Rambo describes \"intellectual conversion\" as the result of a person who \"seeks knowledge about religious or spiritual issues via books, television, articles, lectures, and other media that do not involve significant social contact.\" Then the person \"actively seeks out and explores alternatives.\" He adds, \"Belief generally occurs prior to active participation in religious rituals and organizations\" (Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, pp. 14-15).\n\n29. The letter describing Legge's encounter with the Daoist priest from Mount Luofu is dated February 22, 1854 (CWM/South China/Personal/Legge/Box 8), and confirmed in a later report to the London office by John Chalmers in his letter dated March 24, 1854 (CWM/South China/Box 5/Jacket E/Folder 3). EMMC/MM 21 (September 1857), p. 206. The original quotation is in the plural, describing both Ch'ea and a more recent convert named Kot A-Yuk. David Johnson also notes that in the late Qing period\n\nthere must have been a substantial number of individuals whose limited schooling had made it possible for them to grasp the meaning of many texts but not to write easily or well. Such persons had some access to the literary tradition and hence had transcended the confines of local oral culture, but were unable to use writing to order and record their thoughts. The distinction between those literates who could not write, or at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]