change wrought through the truths of the gospel, to inhabit a heaven of peace, and love, and holiness? If not, then we may as well cease from our efforts, and leaving them to their fate, go back to enjoy the sweet pleasures of religious and intelligent society, and the advantages for improvement and usefulness, which the lands whence we came would give us. But if our efforts are to result in the emancipation of this great nation from their bondage to pernicious customs, from ignorance, and from slavery to sin and Satan; if we are destined to be instrumental, in bestowing upon them the blessings of Christian society and a Christian spirit, and especially of preparing these many millions for a happy eternity; then let us prosecute such measures with a zeal and energy proportionate to the importance of the object to which they are directed.

"But it is not for man to know the future,' some one will say; "and what is the use of proposing questions that cannot be answered?" True, the future is unknown to us except when He, "who seeth the end from the beginning," is pleased to reveal what shall be hereafter; but when He speaks, our darkness ceases. By the help of what He has said, we can give a satisfactory, though somewhat general, answer to the above questions respecting the future condition of the Chinese.

In the year 19-, their places of worship will present a very different appearance from that which they now bear. The images of dragons, serpents, and the like, which are now so conspicuous, will all be removed. "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." This promise is doubtless a general one, implying that Christ, the woman's seed, shall do away the evil which Satan, under the form of a serpent, has brought upon the world; but to one who observes how almost universally the dragon or serpent appears upon the roofs, and gates, and altars, and nearly every other part of the temples of the Chinese, the promise seems to have a peculiar applicability, if not a peculiar reference, to them; yet if it has not, the removal of these images will be one of the results of the general triumph of Christianity predicted by it. The idols will also be all removed. "The idols shall he utterly abolished." "And Jehovah shall be king over all the earth; in that day, there shall be one Lord, and his name one." There will, therefore, be no worship paid to idols, and no use for them. They will be utterly abolished.

All their war junks and forts will be dismantled, and, with all their warlike weapons, applied to other uses. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

The Sabbath will be observed among them, and they will generally attend public worship. "It shall come to pass that from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before me, saith Jehovah." "Behold these shall come from far, and lo, these from the north, and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim," or

of the Chinese. The last passage is spoken figuratively of those who shall come to enjoy the benefits of Christianity; and as the Sabbath is one of its most precious gifts, and the time when others are to be specially sought and enjoyed, this passage in connection with the former, may be safely regarded as a promise that the day will be observed by the Chinese, whether expressly named or not, as well as by every other people. "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the earth shall worship before him." "All nations, whom Thou hast made, shall come and worship before thee." If they remember him, they will doubtless remember the day which he has pronounced holy; and if they worship him at all, they will not fail to do it ou that day.

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"Many shall "He will de

They will cease to be ignorant as they now are. run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." stroy the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations." "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. "All shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest.' These predictions cannot be fulfilled till the Chinese, as well as others, are made acquainted with Christianity. That darkness,-the veil of ignorance, will surely not be removed, nor that knowledge be introduced, in any other way than by means of those who have that knowledge to communicate. It is those that have knowledge who are to run to and fro," and increase it among others.

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These prophecies, which assure us that Christianity will be known in China, also convey an almost equally positive assurance that those who now possess the gospel will be allowed to have free intercourse with the Chinese. As they mingle among the people, they will communicate to them the useful knowledge of the western world. Many also, if not all of them, will be men who will desire to impart to the Chinese every temporal benefit in their power; and will bring with them the improvements of Christian countries in arts and sciences; so that railroads, and steamboats, and useful machinery, will be cominon in China, as well as in the west. How different, then, will China in 19-, be from China in 1836! Her idol temples and serpents and dragons, all exchanged for Christian churches, and decent ornaments; her war junks and forts and swords and spears, all applied to other uses than those for which they were designed, or suffered to rust and moulder away in neglect; her armies disbauded, and her soldiers turned to husbandmen; the Sabbath generally observed, and public worship attended; and all who have arrived at years of understanding, blessed with enlightened minds, and with the knowledge of the holy and sanctifying truths of the gospel. If we are, then, laboring for the introduction of the truth among the Chinese, we do not labor in vain, nor spend our strength for naught. No, it is for an object, which will be accomplished, for God has spoken it; an object which is worthy of our highest efforts, and most untiring zeal.

ART. VI. Brief remarks on the qualifications of medical practitioners to labor among the Chinese, in a letter addressed to the Editor, by Non Anglicanus.

MY DEAR SIR;-Should you consider the following remarks worthy of record, I beg you to give then a place in an early number of the Chinese Repository.

Nothing has been attempted in the medical line with the Chinese that has not met with success. The immediate effects of the efforts made have been good; and when moral and religious instruction shall be united to the healing art, who can say where the influence of such a union shall end? The minds of this people must be gradually prepared for the reception of religious and moral principles; and the surest way to accomplish this will be by showing them the effects of these principles in our own conduct. They are not capable of understanding abstract truths; but facts and actions speak for themselves. However, it seems to me that certain qualifications besides a thorough knowledge of the profession are required in those persons who shall determine to devote themselves to this work. Aud first, it is requisite that they be religious; next, that they possess energy and activity; and lastly, that they be men who consider their own interest as entirely subordinate to that of the great cause in which they engage. I say religious, because in the course of medical practice opportunities are constantly occurring, when a man piously disposed might inculcate religious precepts with great effect, without uniting in his own person the two very responsible professions of divinity and medicine,-a union which appears to me objectionable, as the all-absorbing duties of the physician would leave him but a scanty portion of time to devote to any regular course of religious instruction. Truly, "The harvest is plenteous but the laborers are few."

It will be seen from the Rev. Dr. Parker's Report of his hospital, and the same remarks have been made by Dr. Colledge, that numbers of diseased persons applied for relief to whom it could not be granted. Upon Dr. Parker too much praise cannot be bestowed; for besides being a pious minister of the gospel, he is a very talented physician, and does not run the risk of injuring the cause by pretending to a knowledge and skill in medicine which he does not possess. My remarks in objection to a union of the two professions do not apply to men who, like him, are competent to perform the duties of both; but to those who, possessing an imperfect knowledge of the healing art, attempt to make it a means of spreading their own peculiar religious or rather ambitious views, -as by such men incalculable mischief may be done both to their fellow creatures, and to the cause of religion itself. The profession of medicine as well as that of divinity is replete with responsibility, and

requires unremitting attention; and though individuals may be found who, like Dr. Parker, are competent to the duties of both divinity and medicine, I am constrained to say, from my knowledge of mankind that such instances are rare.

"Rara avis in terris."

I feel most thoroughly convinced that by following up the plan laid down in a paper, published in a former number of your valuable periodical, entitled "Suggestions with regard to employing medical practitioners as missionaries to China," results will be produced far beyond anything which has as yet appeared; and that it will be one of those courses of which the effects will be felt even before we have

time to trace its progress. I ardently wish to see numbers engaged in this great work which the Rev. Dr. Parker is at present so satisfactorily advancing; and should the perusal of these few remarks be the means of leading the pious and benevolent people of all Christian nations to turn their attention towards forwarding the plan already alluded to, the object for which I write will be answered; and that such may be the case is the sincere and earnest prayer of NON ANGLICANUS.

ART. VII. An Imperial Ordinance, issued on the occasion of her majesty the empress-mother attaining her sixtieth year. Dated November 28th, 1835.

To THE admirers of what is peculiarly Chinese, the following translation will be valuable, as illustrating several of those points in which this people stand altogether alone. We have already more than once had occasion to mention the congratulations attendant on an individual, and more especially an individual of exalted rank, attaining certain periods of life. These periods are the ages of fifty, sixty, seventy years, and onwards; of which the age of sixty years, as being the completion of one entire cycle, is regarded as the greatest occasion. In the present instance, the individual who attained this happy period of life, is the most exalted person in the empire, the parent of the one man,' to whom that one man' himself pays daily obeisance. To announce to his people the great event and the observances attendant ou it, the emperor has published a document peculiar to the graudest ceremonial occasions, called che, an ordinance. This is a document drawn up by the imperial academy in the most florid and abstruse style, and cannot possibly be translated with justice to the original. As illustrative of which, we may be allowed to mention, that having given the document to a Chinese of tolerably good literary attainments, he spent a whole day seeking in

the dictionary for the significations of the highly erudite expressions, and obscure allusions in which it abounds! In attempting a translation of it we have found it beyond our power to give more than the sense, as we have, after much study, been able to understand it. The epithets applied to the empress twice in the course of the document consist in the original of only eight words; and compose her title. The words employed in such epithets are used, according to rules given in the "Statutes of the empire," in a sense somewhat different from their ordinary signification, and not unfrequently in two or three senses noways synonimous. We have therefore found it necessary when rendering them into English to join together an adverb and an adjective, or two adjectives, in order to express the full meaning of each Chinese word. The nature of the "exceedingly great and especial favors" conferred on the occasion will amuse our western readers. The translation of the che is as follows.

"The emperor who has received from heaven, in the revolving course of nature, his dominion, hereby publishes a solemn ordinance. "Our extensive dominions have enjoyed the utmost prosperity, under the shelter of a glorious and enduring state of felicity. Our exalted race has become most illustrious, under the protection of that honored relative to whom the whole court looks up. To her happiness, already unalloyed, the highest degree of felicity has been superadded, causing joy and gladness to every inmate of the six palaces. The grand ceremonies of the occasion shall exceed in splendor the utmost requirements of the ancients in regard to the human relations, calling forth the gratulation of the whole empire. It is indispensable that the observances of the occasion should be of an exceedingly unusual nature, in order that our reverence for our august parent and care of her, may both be equally and gloriously displayed.

"Her majesty, the great empress-benign and dignified, universally beneficent, perfectly serene, extensively benevolent, composed and placid, thoroughly virtuous, tranquil and self-collected, in favors unbounded, who in virtue is the equal of the exalted and expansive heavens, and in goodness, of the vast and solid earth-bas within her, perfumed palaces aided the renovating endeavors (of his late majesty) rendering the seasons ever harmonious, and in her maternal court has afforded a bright rule of government thoroughly disinterested. She has planted for herself a glorious name in all the palace, which she will leave to her descendants; and has imparted her substantial favors to the empire, making her tender affection universally conspicuous. Hence genial influences abide within the palace of 'everduring delight,' and joy and gratulation meet together in the halls of 'everlasting spring.'

"In the first mouth of the present winter occurs the sixtieth anniversary of her majesty's sacred natal day. At the opening of the happy period, the sun and moon shed their united genial influences on it. When commencing anew the revolution of the sexagenary cycle, the honor thereof adds increase to her felicity. Looking