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ON THE CHINESE NAME FOR GOD.
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MATTHEW L. YATES, D.D., 1847. EDWARD C. LORD, M.A., D.D., 1847. FREDERICK F. GOUGH, M.A., 1850. A. P. HAPPER, 1844. R. NELSON, D.D., 1851. J. S. Burdon, Bishop of Victoria, Hongkong, 1853. JOHN L. Nevins, D.D., 1854. T. P. CRAWFORD, D.D., 1852. H. BLODGET, D.D., 1854. SAMUEL L. J. SCHERESCHEWSKY, Missionary Bishop of the American
Episcopal Church, Shanghai, 1859. ELLIOT H. THOMPSON, 1859. CHARLES HENRY BUTCHER, D.D., 1864. WM. J. BOONE, M.A., 1869. HUNTER CORBETT, M.A., 1863. Chas. R. MILLS, M.A., 1857. JOHN WHERRY, M.A., 1864. JAMES BATES, 1867. L. D. CHAPIN, 1863. CHAUNCEY GOODRICH, 1865. C. A. STANLEY, 1862. J. A. LEYENBERGER, 1866. HENRY V. NOYES, 1866.
To this letter I returned the following answer :Gentlemen -I have taken some time to consider what answer I should return to the letter which you addressed to me as editor of The Sacred Books of the East,' and in which you complain that, in the translation of the Shu-king and Shih-king by Professor Legge, the names Ti and Shang-ti should have been rendered by God. You call my attention to the controversy which has been carried on for 300 years, and is still kept up to the present day among the missionaries in China, as to what is the nearest equivalent to be found in the Chinese language for expressing God. You remind me that Ti and Shang-ti were rejected by Papal authority, and have been accepted among Protestant missionaries by one party only, and you remark that, even those who in rendering the Scriptures into Chinese are willing, in the absence of a
