CURRENT LITERATURE.
Religion in China. By Joseph Edkins, D.D. (Triibner.)—This volume, one of the series entitled" The English and Foreign Philosophi- cal Dictionary," is a second edition, " revised and enlarged," of a work originally published about twenty years ago. Dr. Eakins, who still labours as a missionary in China, writes from an experience which few men possess, and from a knowledge of Chinese literature in which still fewer equal him. And he writes, too, in a candid and gentle spirit, the natural, though not the invariable, result of large experience and knowledge. He acknowledges the merits of the Chinese character, and appreciates the Confucian morality, though he cannot allow that the practical effect of the system has been all that could be desired. Nor is he otherwise than fair to Buddhism, though he does not share the some- what enthusiastic views which some writers have taken of that religion. Buddhism has gone far into its decadence ; its activities have passed into nothing, and its chief, perhaps its most hopeful virtue, is its tolerance. The Roman Catholic missions present a subject on which a zealous Protestant is not unlikely to offend. Mr. Edkins has, it is evident, no kind of sympathy with Roman Catholicism, and does not even attempt to take a philosophical view of its system, but he does not fail to appreciate the result of the Roman Catholic missions. He makes no more unfavourable comment on their condition than the remark, which is probably just, that the priests have quite lost the literary standing which they once possessed. With regard to the progress of Christianity, he is sanguine. Restrictions have been taken off, and the faith can be professed without danger. A special preparation for its acceptance is found in the temperance, i.e., anti-opium societies which are being founded throughout the empire. Many begin by joining these, and end by requiring something more definite. This is a volume of much interest and value.
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