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ON THE CHINESE NAME FOR GOD.
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well known, among the early Roman Catholic missionaries in China, and a like contention exists at the present day among the different Protestant missionaries. It cannot be said that there has been any lack of scholarship in the discussion of this question. Both views have been well represented from time to time, first among Roman Catholic missionaries, and latterly among Protestant missionaries, by men whose Chinese as well as general scholarship is undoubted. We ned but mention the names of the early Jesuit missionaries, Matteo Ricci on one side and Longobardi on the other, and the Protestant missionaries, Dr. Medhurst, Dr. Legge, Dr. Edkins, and Dr. Chalmers on one side, and Bishop Boone, Dr. Bridgman, and Dr. Williams on the other. To the last three should be added, though of the Greek Church, the distinguished name of the late Archimandrite Palladius, so well known as one of the most profound Chinese scholars.
Considering, then, that the question has been agitated among all classes of Christian missionaries for nearly 300 years, our complaint is, that in a book containing a translation of the Chinese classics intended for English readers, and brought out with your imprimatur, the term 'Shang-ti' has been, not translated, as it might have been, by such a phrase as 'Supreme Ruler' or 'Supreme Emperor,' or 'Ruler (or Emperor) on high,' or transferred, as has been done indeed in some passages of the same book, with the term "Ti,' in either of which cases no fault could have been found, but interpreted as the God of revelation-the view which the eminent translator, Dr. Legge, so strenuously advocated while in China as a missionary. That is, he sets forth his own. private view by substituting God' for Shang-ti' wherever it occurs in the classics; whereas this has been denied by persons as thoroughly qualified as himself to form a judgment on the subject. His reaffirmation of his reasons for this view in the addition to the preface made in the present volume does not make his translation of Shang-ti' any the less
C
