Present Day Conditions in China. By Marshall Broomliall. (Morgan and
Scott. ls.)—Mr. Broomhall has some very itrikitig facts to lay before his readers. He seeks to show that there id a great movement in China, and therewith a great opportunity for Christian missions. The change that has taken place, and is going on with increased velocity, is a fact of the first ifhportatiee. China does not abandon all her traditional pride—" See," she Says in effect, "what Empires we have outlasted ! "—but she modifies it ; she no longer believes herself to be the sole civilised Power in a barbarian world. And she is abandoning her old beliefs. This is by no means a good unless there is something to put in their place. "For the mass of the people it is Confucian morality or none," as Bishop Moule of Mid-China says. As for the need of men and money, it is impossible to exaggerate it. The Chinese population outnumber, it may be said, the aggregate of European Russia, the United States, Japan, Great Britain, France, Austria, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Scandinavia, with not a few other countries thrown into the scale. Among other highly interesting matters is the story of last year's famine in Kiangsi and two neighbouring provinces (in East Central China). A region almost as large as England was submerged. It is humiliating to be told that one obstacle to the work of relief was the un- willingness of the Viceroy to allow foreigners to engage in it, lest their countries should demand enormous indemnities in case of their death. Our hands are fairly clean of this sordid gain; but the same cannot be said of all European nations.
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