point-insufficient scientific instruction. For this, among other reasons, it seems probable that, if China is to be largely Christianised, it will be in the Roman sense.

It has always struck me that Protestant missionaries never give sufficient weight to the extreme astuteness and subtlety of a Chinese intellect which has been trained in dialectics; nor do they seem sufficiently to appreciate the improbabilities of the Christian scheme of salvation as regarded from the same point of view. Early associations, careful training in its doctrines, and social influences do not prevent many professed Christians from freeing themselves from the trammels of this creed. How, then, is it likely to affect minds brought up amidst a different and antagonistic environment? The very language in which its most solemn mysteries are sought to be conveyed to these subtle brains is often said to be barbarously inadequate to the purpose. A Greek myth told in 'English as she is wrote' would be accepted with some difficulty as an article of faith by one of our own students. Is it possible to expect a better result with translations of doctrines of which some of the most important factors find no equivalent in the tongue in which it is attempted to render them? How can the essence of such a doctrine as the Incarnation of Christ be conveyed, through such imperfect channels, to men habituated to the highest forms of literary expression? What meaning are they likely to attach to it? Oriental minds are wont to ratiocinate on all such subjects with brutal frankness. Their method of handling this one is better left to the imagination. But in the revolting and shocking doctrines attributed from time to time, in Chinese pamphlets, to Christians one cannot fail to see that a good deal is due to a probably quite genuine misunderstanding of some of their most sacred dogmas.

The case of the missionaries in regard to the ethics of Chinese philosophy seems to be, that while they contain many most admirable precepts they have become a dead letter, and have ceased to form the rules of conduct of the people or their governors. This is a charge easier made than refuted. But I think it very doubtful whether the cult of the Chinaman does not strike deeper root into his daily life than the Christian religion does into that of any nation in Europe. Certain primitive and cardinal virtues are, beyond question, a living force among them; and although they may not live up to all the precepts of Confucius or Liao-tsze, they strive to pay their debts, honour their parents, and be charitable according to their means. Even Englishmen do not sell all that they have and give the proceeds to the poor; nor is the quality of meekness very widely practised among them, because they are aware that they could not exist as a prosperous and victorious people if the commands to act in that manner were carried out in their completeness. Nevertheless, charity flourishes among them, and the practice of humility is not extinct. Chinese official documents, probably,

do protest too much, but their citations from their sages and masters are not the sham those whose duty it is to controvert them often believe. I think we ourselves would find it much more difficult to justify our treatment of China by anything to be found within the four corners of the New Testament, than the Chinese would to find a sanction for their dealings with us from the teachings of their sacred books.

The simple fact is, that there do not exist any reasons for the christianisation of China, except from the standpoint of the missionaries themselves. Their superstitions, if ridiculous in European eyes, are, surely, perfectly harmless. Wherein lies the moral harm of Fêng Shui? or in that curious, widespread belief in the duality of nature? The errors they fall into as to the meaning of natural phenomena are not such as Christianity can dispel. The Bible itself has been shown to be full of similar errors. A deeper and wider scientific knowledge alone can cure them. Chinese philosophy, if it were based on a more profound knowledge of natural knowledge, might, not inaptly, be compared to the doctrine of evolution and the survival of the fittest. Western science has, of course, left this curious people far behind, but, beyond doubt, the germs of many modern discoveries can be found in that country. In the crossing and hybridisation of plants, in which such vast strides have been made in Europe within recent years, the Chinese were not long ago decidedly our masters.

Again, why should a Chinaman abandon, at the bidding of any one, a cult so essentially humane and deeply poetical as the worship of his ancestors? The Chinaman who did so would not be a better Chinaman. The chances are that he would be a vagabond, a déclassé item, instead of a respectable link in an endless chain of social continuity. His quaint respect for written papers is but a poetic form of his worship of what he considers the highest product of the human mind, itself a gift from Heaven. To destroy his faith in such things is to pick out the mortar which holds together the fabric of society. Why, again, seek to graft similes and images drawn from the desert and from nomadic life on to the literature of people brought up in settled communities and amid flowing rivers? A Chinaman of the great well-watered plains has no particular respect, for instance, for sheep. When they say that foreigners smell like sheep, it is in a spirit of opprobrium. A command to 'feed my sheep' possesses, therefore, no poetical significance to them, but is rather ridiculous than otherwise.

It forms no part of my purpose to belittle the efforts of the good men and women who work in the field of missionary enterprise in the Far East. They are quite capable of defending their own case, and have powerful pens advocating their cause all over Europe. But it is well to point out that it is one which emphatically has two sides.

The Chinese only ask to be let alone. The burden of proof is with those who contend that their request should not be granted. With the Chinese, the pressing necessity of the hour seems to be the return of the missionaries to the ports. Not only, as I think I have shown, are they within their rights in the matter, but I believe its refusal will entail future disasters on the missionaries themselves. The present temper of the Chinese seems to be sullen and dangerous. The effect of ultimatums and commissions ending in executions will not be permanent. The Chinese are slow to abandon a fixed purpose, especially when they believe that they have substantial justice on their side. One cannot contemplate, then, with complacence the outlook, as regards those mission stations which are situated in places remote from efficient assistance, in case of the troubles which never cease from brewing.

T. C. HAYLLAR.

3 E

VOL. XXXVIII-No. 225

ISLAM AND CANON MAC COLL1

THE veiled prophet of the Quarterly, though still hiding behind the shelter of anonymity, has revealed his real self in his latest production by a characteristic intemperateness of language, reckless partisanship, and personalities which need no adjective. With an honestminded adversary anxious to discuss in a scholarly spirit the merits of a question of momentous interest to many millions of the human race, a controversy about Islâm would probably not be without profit. With an enemy actuated by religious rancour, whose sole desire is to vilify a religion against which he has conceived a violent prejudice, further discussion is alike unpleasant and unprofitable.

To such an opponent nothing comes amiss as a weapon of attack ancient or modern, true or false, all serve his purpose equally well. I do not propose, therefore, to do more than call attention to certain statements which I cannot allow to pass unnoticed and unrefuted in the 'rejoinder' of Canon Mac Coll-it would be absurd to permit him any longer to wear the mask he has assumed. I have no doubt that in the present state of feeling in England, his anathema against Islâm has succeeded in achieving the purpose for which it was designed, namely, to inflame still further the passions and prejudices of the fanatical, perplex the wavering, and obscure the main issues in the minds of others. The name of Canon Mac Coll has in these days become a noun of multitude. As secretary of various associations, promoter of public meetings, writer of endless letters and paragraphs in the newspapers, of resolutionist' pamphlets and anonymous articles, he has filled England with the volume of his sound. His manœuvres remind one of soldiers on the stage, who, by constant moving in and out, convey to the spectators the impression of a large army. And such is the effect the Canon has managed to produce on the public mind.

My solitary voice at this juncture, I fear, can offer but a small resistance to the wave of intolerance engendered by these clever tactics. Beyond endeavouring, therefore, to correct some misconceptions, I shall do no more. The rest, personalities included, I leave

1 See Fortnightly Review, October 1895.

to the sober judgments and chivalrous instincts of such of the reverend Canon's countrymen as have not lost their proverbial sense of justice and fair play in their love for the Armenian or their hatred for the Turk. With this I put aside Canon Mac Coll and apply myself only to refute his perversions of the Islâmic system.

His article in the Fortnightly is likely to create among persons unacquainted with Mahommedan jurisprudence an impression that the Hedaya is a work like the Code Napoléon, an embodiment, in short, of positive rules and regulations. I must mention here that, excepting rules relating to succession and partially to marriage, there are but few positive directions in the Koran. The law on other subjects is derived by inference, construction, and illustration from the traditional sayings of the Prophet-a process which has naturally given rise to a wide difference among legists both in principles and their application. The divine origin of the laws is a matter of theory; each great legist has his own interpretation. The Hedâya was written in or about the year 1183 of the Christian era by a Central Asian lawyer. It gives the opinions of Abu Hanifa, a theorist of the eighth century, whose name the school bears, and of his disciples Abû Yusuf and Mohammed, with occasional references to Shâfei and Mâlik, the founders of two other schools. The opinion of each is set against that of the other with objections and answers. The consequence is that in order to reconcile the differences of the various legists, theoretical or otherwise, four glosses were written one after another in the course of a short period. Without them the Hedâya itself is difficult either to comprehend or to apply in actual practice. The Hedaya represented the spirit of the times so far as related to the Hanafite Sunnis, in the same way as the feudal codes and ecclesiastical laws of Christendom embodied the harsh and intolerant spirit of Christendom in the Middle Ages. Since the days of the Hedaya there has been a succession of works on Mahommedan law by practical jurists and judges. The old enunciations were examined and analysed, many were allowed to become tacitly obsolete, like some of the cruel laws that still disfigure the English Statute Book; others were distinctly put aside as 'of weak authority.' Among those which took a broader and more liberal view of the old enunciations, I may mention the Tanwîr-ulAbsûr, the Fath-ul-Kadir, the Darr-ul-Muhtar, the FatawaAnkirawia, and the Radd-ul-Muhtûr.3 I am confining my attention solely to the Hanafite law and say nothing about the Shiah or the Mutazalite systems; the latter came into practical operation in the times of Al Mâmûn and his immediate successors, and is most humane and progressive in its interpretations.

2

2 Inâya, Kifâya, Badâya, and Nihâya.

3 All these works are to be found in print, and there is no excuse for not knowing them.