Christian Progress in China. By Arnold Foster, B.A. (Religious Tract
Society.)—Alter an interesting introduction (which gives, by-the-way, a lower estimate than is commonly received of the population of Chins) we have chapters on " The Bible in China," " The Church in China," and " Methods and Results of Mis- sionary Work," this last being divided into various headings, "Medical Missions " being one of them. Mr. Foster has collected what he calls "gleanings from the writings and speeches of many workers," and he makes up from them an interesting and, on the whole, hopeful picture of mission work in China. The few thousands whom Christianity can reckon seem as nothing com- pared to the hundreds of millions of the Chinese populations ; but the beginning counts for much, for more, perhaps, than in any other kind of work. Bishop Burdon, for instance, writing of the province of Tnh-Itien (the mainland opposite to Formosa), says that for the first ten years not a single baptism took place, and that now there are four native clergy and ninety-three native catechists, with 1,886 native communicants. If things go on at this rate, the hundreds of millions will yield within a calculable time. Mr. Arnold Foster has put together a most interesting volume. We desire to express our thorough agreement with his criticism on a certain class of attacks on mission work. A writer who shows himself ignorant or careless of elementary principles of morality has no right to speak on such a subject at all.
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