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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
a serious departure from the principle laid down in your preface.
Moreover, this is not merely a literary-it is a missionary question. Many who have read or will read the book e exercise strong influence from England and other countries,
directly or indirectly, on Christian missions in China, and it is exceedingly important that their minds should be kept free from prejudice on one side or the other, seeing they have no means of examining or determining upon the question for themselves. Such a book as Dr. Legge's is to them, so long as the controversy is undecided, simply misleading.
We respectfully urge that, in editing it, the balance between the two parties in a difficult and still open contention should have been held with a steady hand, and express our regret that the book referred to, though brought out with the statement of so admirable a principle, of avoidance of all colouring, is, nevertheless, of a distinctly partisan character, inasmuch as by its interpretation of Shang-ti' it is the exponent of the view of a very small number even of those who prefer to use 'Shang-ti' to make known the true God to the Chinese ; for of those who use the term, very few agree with Dr. Legge in the opinion that 'Shang-ti' of the Chinese classics is the same as Jehovah' of the Christian Scriptures.
It is on this account that we venture to address you. Were you less enlightened and liberal than you are, we might conclude by asking you to pardon us for addressing you; but we do not do so, as we are assured that your fearless and uncompromising love of truth will induce you to hail with satisfaction any suggestion which may remove from a volume with your name on the title-page the faintest trace of onesidedness. We have the honour to be, Sir,
Your faithful and obedient servants, THOS. M'CLATCHII, M.A., Canon of St. John's Cathedral, Hong
kong, and of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Shanghae, 1844.
