REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 209 



soon as he arrives in China, to collect material bearing on current 

 history there, and that he should have the patience which was required 

 to work that material into a useful book. If every young missionary 

 and every young business man were to choose some field of study 

 outside the immediate requirements of the work he does, and try with 

 perseverance to make himself the master of it, the result would be most 

 useful to the individual, and would make fruitful some fields that now 

 a,re sadly barren. But then how soon should he publish? One would 

 suppose that the answer might be, "As soon as he has something 

 timely to say." At least the book should be judged on its actual 

 merits, and not be decried on the ground that its author has been only 

 a few years in China. Moreover, where is the line to be drawn? If 

 we are inclined to laugh at George Kennan, who steps ashore from his 

 travels in the midst of the Mixed Court riots, and promptly gets all the 

 facts and the meaning of them, and distributes praise and blame in 

 omniscient fashion for the numerous readers of The Outlook, yet we 

 remember that Professor Ross, who was in the country only six 

 months, gathered his material by the wise questioning and the wise 

 observing possible only to a trained mind, and produced a book worthy 

 to be included in Mr. Wheeler's prize list, and useful to beginners. 

 Time alone will tell whether Mr. Wheeler's opinions on the present 

 state of affairs in the East are sound judgments or not, but it would be 

 far from surprising if his temperate and carefully thought out book 

 should be considered an authority long after more pretentious works 

 were forgotten. In a 1 ! books of the sort, there must be an ephemeral 

 element, and in some details this book is already out of date, so rapid 

 is the movement of events in Chinese politics. But the main effect is 

 quite otherwise, and the promise of the book is such as to make us 

 look forward to Mr. Wheeler's further work in this field. 



H. K. W. 



Greek-Chinese-English Dictionary of the New Testament, By 



J. Leighton Stuart, d.d. Shanghai. Presbyterian Mission Press. 

 China is moving, or at any rate, the foreigner in China is making 

 her move. This volume is quite a new departure. It proposes to lead 

 China back to the antiquity of Europe, by offering the theological 

 student, of the Chinese church, an opportunity of studying for himself 

 an ancient vehicle of thought, and move in a sphere of speech that 

 was contemporaneous with their own Han period. It is a bold venture 

 and time alone will show the justification. But the publication of this 

 volume shows unmistakably the enterprise of the Church. Whether the 

 student will be able to cope with it in addition to his other studies 

 time alone will prove : or whether he would not have been bette* 

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