CHINA FROM WITHIN.
China from Within. By Arthur Davenport. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.)—The second title of this book, "A Study of Opium Fallacies and Missionary Mistakes," prepares the reader for its being of a highly controversial nature. Mr. Davenport is before all things bent on showing that the charge brought against this country by the anti-opium societies of having "forced opium on China" is entirely without foundation, we " being no more responsible for the excesses of the Chinese in regard to opium-smoking than are the Portuguese for drunkenness in England." Further, he holds that "the Missionary Societies should cease from leaning on the Arm of Flesh, should give up their Sisypluean struggles with the Court, the officials, the literati, and the people, and remove all occasion for international complications by frankly applying to the Chinese Government to grant missionaries the privilege of naturalisation ; whereby they would 133 enabled to renounce their Treaty privileges and status, throw off all distinctive foreign marks, habits, and surroundings, simply taking their places in the ranks of ordinary Chinese citizens, following the noble example set in earlier days by Nestorian and Catholic missionaries." All this Mr. Davenport maintains and buttresses with arguments of a varied, and, indeed, rather rambling and scrambling, character. He has a very considerable portion of the Bible at his finger-ends, and so when be has a specially strong point, as he thinks, to put, he has no difficulty whatever in nailing " it with Scripture. That he has the faculty for literary " slogging " is also amply demon- strated. Mr. Davenport has not a little knowledge, however, and a very great deal of earnestness ; and his volume, if not quite convincing, is at all events interesting and entertaining.
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