Ch. XX.] OPPOSITION TO EAXLWATS. 351 



it is really time that we should do our part and pay some 

 attention to Chinese. The ignorance of the language is a 

 frequent source of litigation and inconvenience in Hong 

 Kong, where English merchants, perforce, engage Chinese 

 assistants, whom they secure, the agreement heiag drawn up 

 in English and Chinese, and the Chinese edition heing 

 often different from the English, neither party fully under- 

 standing the foreign version. A Chinese college is required 

 to effect this great reform — this step in the regeneration of 

 the great Eastern nation by the West ; and such a college 

 has been publicly proposed in San Francisco, where Chinese 

 abound, and which carries on frequent and direct communi- 

 cation with Chinese ports. 



As for the Christianising of China, that process must 

 progress with very slow steps under the present regime. 

 Ignorance of the language implies a most imperfect know- 

 ledge of their theories of religion, and imless we know them, 

 how can we combat them, or ask them to substitute for 

 them our own, which they can only most imperfectly com- 

 prehend ? An isolated • case of conversion may occur now 

 and then, but the whole spirit of the two nations is so 

 different, that nothing but a free interchange of thought can 

 possibly tend to amalgamate them, by affording an insight 

 into the great points on which they differ, or those on 

 which perhaps they unknowingly agree. And without some 

 such amalgamation of feeling, no great advance can be made 

 in redeeming the Chinese race from the thraldom of a sense- 

 less paganism, such as must inevitably keep the national 

 mind degraded and contracted, and the national morality at 

 the lowest ebb. 



