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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
name for God in Chinese, or in any other language, unless it is simply intolerable, should be treated by missionaries with the greatest reverence. Let them slowly and gently cut down the rank growth of mythology that has choked so many of the names of God; but let them be careful lest, in tearing up the roots, they kill the stem on which alone their new grafts can live and thrive. Let them follow, in fact, in the footsteps of the boldest and greatest missionary the world has ever seen, who at Athens did not break the altar of the unknown God, but said, “Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.'
These are, in a few words, the reasons which made me not only approve of Professor Legge's translation of Shang-ti,' when it occurs in the Shu-king and Shih-king, by God,' but sincerely rejoice at it. Nor do I think that, in adopting the course we thought right to adopt, either he or I took an unfair advantage of those who, on conscientious grounds, differ from us. If this translation of Shang-ti' by God' had been inserted in The Sacred Books of the East' without any warning to the reader, I should plead guilty for myself, and I could well understand in that case the remonstrances of those who all their lives have been opposing Dr. Legge in his views on Chinese religion. But when there is in the preface, from page xxiii, to xxix., a clear explanation of the reasons which induced Dr. Legge to render "Shang-ti' by
God,' when the translations of that namo proposed by other Chinese scholars are clearly set forth and examined, and when the translator is prepared to take upon himself the full responsibility of that rendering which he personally considers the only true one, surely there is no solid foundation for the charge of mala fides, either against Dr. Legge or against myself. I need hardly say, therefore, in conclusion, that it would be a great satisfaction to myself, and, I have no doubt, to Dr. Legge also, if after having read my explanations, and the pamphlet which Dr. Legge has addressed to me
