168 REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



with Foreign Powers, and Religious Legislation, both Chinese and 

 foreign ; while Christianity itself is mainly represented (.see Chapter 

 IV) under the aspect of rules. In the appendices, the proportion of 

 what we may loosely call legal matter is even greater ; it includes 

 practically all recent governmental documents on religion, and is of 

 the highest value for reference. One would like the opinion of Chou 

 Fu on some of these ! Of the non-documentary part of the work, the 

 preface and appendix from the pen of His Excellency himself appear 

 to us by far the most valuable. They give us his personal convictions 

 on religion, and it is interesting to find that he endorses the opinion 

 of K'ang Hsi, of Fathers Grimaldi, Pereyra, Thomas and Gerbillon, 

 and of the late President Yuan Shih K'ai on the subject of the 

 Confucian rites, maintaining that they are not religious, and in spirit 

 at least, by no means inconsistent with Christ's religion. Chapter II, 

 which gives a sketch of the spread of Christianity, first in Europe 

 and then in China, is inaccurate in many points, and here the trans- 

 lator's notes are the most numerous. These are written as becomes 

 a loyal son of the Latin obedience, yet most people will regret that 

 Chinese readers have not the benefit of them. 



One's attention is soon compelled to the silences of the book. 

 Written by a Manchu official under the Manchu dynasty for practical 

 purposes, it is natural that only cursory notes are given on anything that 

 occurred in pre-Manchu times ; but even with regard to the rule of 

 the Ch'ings a drastic selection was made, — whether in the interests of 

 the reigning house or of the Christians, one is left to guess. As a 

 matter of fact, no anti-Christian legislation is recorded. An apparent 

 exception occurs on pp. 5 and 6, in an edict of the first year of 

 Yung Cheng, put out when the missionaries were bidden to retire 

 to Macao. But no mention is made of the persecution which was going 

 on, and attention is drawn rather to the kind care of His Majesty in 

 providing safe escort and proper treatment for the retiring foreigners. 

 The shocking treatment of the aged Schall in 1664 : the jDrohibition of 

 Manchus becoming Christians in the first year of Ch'ien Lung (1736) 

 and the accompanying persecution in Peking : the edicts of 1746 and 

 1748 for a general extermination of Christians, as a result of which 

 the missionaries were thrust into Chinese prisons and endured terrible 

 sufferings : the anti-Christian edicts of 1805, 1811, and 1812 and many 

 other "old, unhappy far-off things," are not mentioned at all here. 

 In fact, the general impression made on the Chinese reader is probably 

 that of a paternal and long-suffering government doing its best for 

 the preachers and converts of an intruding faith. Further, many 

 things enthrallingly interesting to the student of Christian propaganda 

 in China, such as the Rites Controversy, and the many literary labours 



