solutely universal corruption of the official class. To hold office and to "squeeze are identical. If an official does not squeeze, he cannot be squeezed, and will be flung aside as useless. This corruption is open, shameless, thousand-eyed and thousand-handed. Salaries are merely nominal; examinations are simply means to higher and greater "squeezing." Degrees and promotions are useless without this. All China is one vast sponge grasped by myriad-handed officials to squeeze from it the life-blood of the people.

The hope of the future, the hope of Christianity, lies not in those who have been corrupted by this universal greed for illegal gain, but in the comparatively sound peasantry and small country proprietors. By what means the nation can be purged from this all-pervading evil, whether by the reforming hand of some great emperor or premier, or by the bloody hand of revolution, it is impossible to predict. But it is clear that there can be no permanent change which is not accompanied by a renovation of character and a greater love of integrity and justice than is yet to be found in China.

5th. This change cannot take place except by the cure of another evil yet more deeply rooted than official corruption, — the tyranny of that worst of despots, — a vast and varied superstition. Astrology and geomancy are the supreme powers in China, appealing to hopes and fears both natural and supernatural, extending their sway over both the living and the dead. So far as I can ascertain, the main or only benefit of the pagodas which stud the land is to adjust the fungshin, the influences of the air. Walls, rivers, mountain peaks, all sorts of objects, natural and artificial, play a magical part in the practical life of the nation, that seems incredible to one who does not witness it. These superstitions form the tightest and strongest fetter of the people of the Celestial Empire.

6th. The position of woman is such as is common in heathenism. Purer, perhaps, than elsewhere in Asia, yet she is degraded. Infanticide is frightfully common in most regions, and the odious and cruel practice of foot-binding is prevalent among all women not liable to manual labor. Confucianism provides no remedy

for all this.

Other evils naturally follow in the train of those which have been enumerated. Official corruption leads to betrayal of public trusts. Superstition breeds at once the degrading idolatry of Buddhism and Taouism on the one side, and skeptical rationalism,

ignorant and impotent, on the other. The sordid spirit of gain and habits of falsity undermine all business and social relations.

The cure for all this is a light which shall illumine these darkened minds, and a heat which shall melt these prejudices, purify the conscience, and kindle the desires and affections. The only cure is Christianity with its new life.

The medical work stands easily first in its successful appeal to the needs and sympathies of the people. Christian schools are scattered throughout the empire. Evangelists, foreign and native, are preaching in about every province. And although China has not been open to Christian labor till within half a century, many churches have been established, the beginnings made of a Christian literature, and about twenty-five thousand nominally converted.

In one sense, the results have been small. The mass of the Chinese people have not been affected, and are as far from receiving the gospel as ever. Many apparent converts are only riceChristians, many helpers only church compradores. The ruling classes would to-day expel all foreigners if they only could and dared. In all the gospel work among this people there is very much that is perplexing and discouraging. Yet the seeds are being sown. Our reason for confidence lies not in the gains already made, but in the overcoming power of the gospel. China may be its supreme test, but it is absolutely needed, absolutely fitted for this people. What has been accomplished shows that, despite all weakness and ignorance, all mistakes and divisions, all obstacles and opposition, progress can be made. The next half century may show astonishing changes, when the faith, the zeal, the selfsacrifice of those who have labored so long in an almost desperate undertaking will reap their legitimate harvest. In all this, China must herself be the main agent. I cannot forbear quoting here the recent remarks of a veteran laborer in this field: "China is not going to accept Christianity and European civilization as a boon from us, and thank us for it. All things considered, we have scarcely deserved this. The preachers of Christianity make some converts, and irritate the nation. The integrity of Europeans provokes a few to emulation and weakens the power of corruption in general, while every instance, in peace or war, of unfair dealing and self-seeking on our part, gives inward pleasure to the national mind, because it furnishes opportunity for the retort, 'Physician, heal thyself,' or else for the vain boast that, with all our advancement, the knowledge of the five cardinal virtues be

longs to China alone. But the total effect of European encroachment can ultimately be nothing short of a thorough rousing up from centuries of torpor; and when China is thoroughly roused, she will have power and discernment given her to work round to the adoption of all our best ideas. Meantime, we may depend upon it, she takes the measure of us just as we take the measure of her, and it becomes us, as we prize the Christian religion above everything else, to commend it to the adoption of the Chinese, not in word only, but in deed and in truth."

It has been with the greatest satisfaction that I have found the missions increasingly earnest in their opposition to the cruel and degrading practice of foot-binding. When a girls' school is started in any community, it is difficult to get any pupils, and it seems impracticable to insist that the feet must be unbound. But gradually every such school wins its way. As scholars multiply, the simple advice against foot-binding may be easily strengthened to a prohibition. The schools at Shanghai, Ningho, Foochow, Amoy, Swatow, and other places are all taking practically the same firm stand against the evil. In some cases this produces violent opposition. Perhaps the young pupil is the first, for generations, in all her village, who has had natural feet. The whole community is excited and indignant at the breach of custom. But in time the excitement abates, a Christian husband is found for the girl, and her daughter continues as her mother has begun. Such a breach in an iron-bound custom is a great victory, and a most encouraging omen.

I will only add that to-day is the time for the formation of the infant native church which is itself to evangelize China; that there should be two thousand missionaries, instead of six hundred, engaged in this work, for which entire consecration is indispensable, but in which every order of talent can be employed. Laboring in the apostolic spirit, and with the inculcation of true Christian independence, even at the cost of some apparent delay, the middle or close of the next century ought to see a native church in China grandly militant, and a century later a church substantially triumphant. The continuity of heathen traditions once broken, and new traditions established, with filial piety directed towards Christian ancestors, the very forces that now tell against us, will come to our reinforcement and extension. It must be conceded that in this work there is manifested an occasional lack of wisdom which calls for just criticism. As when new-comers write home that the language can be mastered in six

months, when Dr. Legge, after thirty or forty years' study, still has his Chinese teacher. Or as when the Cambridge men, Mr. Studd and his companions, undertake to learn the language without books or study, believing that the gift of tongues will be granted to those who have sufficient faith, although after a month or two they are compelled to send for their books and learn the language in the usual way. Or as when the same men start forth on their first long tour with a literal fulfillment of Christ's instructions to those whom He sent out, they carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor change of raiment, nor bedding. But at the end of three days they find themselves used up, and are forced to return as they best can, recruit, refit, and start out again on commonsense principles. It is sad to see so much zeal and faith, without knowledge or discretion, and it brings great reproach on the cause. But this eccentricity is strictly exceptional, and usually soon cured, at least in its worst features.

No words can too highly express the devotion of the heroic band of men and women who are enlisted to prepare the way of the Lord into this citadel of heathenism. The majority break down in a few years, and are obliged to return home, to recruit or to remain. Nearly all of them seem to me to be living just on the outermost verge of their health and strength. The fancied romance of missions vanishes in the hard, wearing, daily fight with dirt and din and stench and filth, with climate and language, with ignorance and superstition, with beastliness and sordidness and falseness, with greed and pride and enmity, with discouragement, division, and sometimes opposition in their own ranks. The sanitarium and the two months' rest, the journey to Chefoo, to Japan, or Australia, in search of health, become necessary. But in all this, their much enduring patience, their lofty faith, their earnest personal love for the souls they are seeking to save, make the impression on a sympathetic observer of a heroism far grander than that which simply faces death on the battlefield and wins a speedy release.

PEKIN, CHINA.

Edward A. Lawrence.

EDITORIAL.

THE DECISION OF THE BOARD OF VISITORS.

MORE than five months after the public trial of the editors of this Review1 had closed, a decision was announced by the Board of Visitors before whom the various charges had been argued. The result, which has been widely published in the secular and religious press, is a vote to remove Egbert C. Smyth from the Brown Professorship of Ecclesiastical History, and a vote that the charges against his associates are not sustained. The vote of removal was upon three of the fifteen specific charges presented, one pertaining to the authority of the Bible, the other two to salvation without knowledge of Christ. The remaining charges were not therefore sustained by a majority of the Board. The Secretary voted only on the case of Professor Smyth, assigning as a reason for casting no vote in the other cases, that he was not present when Professors Tucker, Churchill, Harris, and Hincks made their statements in defense. It is inferred that the President of the Board voted for acquittal in all the cases (including Professor Smyth's), the lay member for removal, and that, according to the provision of the statutes when a tie vote occurs, the question was, in the four last cases, determined by the vote of the President. The legal result is therefore a positive acquittal of four of the professors, and not absence of action on account of a tie vote. The charges cannot, then, be reopened, as definite and final action was taken. The text of the decisions may be found elsewhere in the Review, and also the complete report of the Board of Trustees.

We shall consider in this article: 1. Some characteristics of the official result. 2. Some features of the case as it is transferred from the Board of Visitors to the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth. 3. The effect of the decision upon the practical working and administration of the Seminary. 4. The apparent motive of the procedure as indicated by the prosecution and decision. 5. The value of the result in relation to the administration of trusts under the conditions of a creed.

This article, for obvious reasons, is written without consultation with Professor Smyth, and he will not know its contents until he receives a copy of the Review.

We consider, first, some of the characteristics of the official decision. One characteristic creates almost universal astonishment. It is that this legal tribunal has rendered conflicting decisions in respect to cases which were presented on precisely the same charges and the same evidence. The strange announcement is made that four professors are acquitted of

1 The action of the Visitors by which the Trustees' election of Professor Woodruff was negatived, and which we deeply regret, does not come under discussion in the present article. Mr. Woodruff, since the decision, has been elected Professor of Greek in Bowdoin College.