se whose names are
remembered with gratitude, not only by the natives among whom they
laboured, but also by the savants of Europe; and the labours of the
Jesuit missionaries in India and China, of the Baptist missionaries at
Serampore, of Gogerly and Spence Hardy in Ceylon, of Caldwell in
Tinnevelly, of Wilson in Bombay, of Moffat, Krapf, and last, but not
least, of Livingstone, will live not only in the journals of our
academies, but likewise in the annals of the missionary Church.

[Footnote 92: 'The Chinese Classics;' with a Translation, Critical and
Exegetical Notes. By James Legge, D.D., of the London Missionary
Society. Hong Kong, 1861.]

The first volume of an edition of the Chinese Classics, which we have
just received from the Rev. Dr. J. Legge, of the London Missionary
Society, is a new proof of what can be achieved by missionaries, if
encouraged to devote part of their time and attention to scientific
and literary pursuits. We do not care to inquire whether Dr. Legge has
been successful as a missionary. Even if he had not converted a single
Chinese, he would, after completing the work which he has just begun,
have rendered most important aid to the introduction of Christianity
into China. He arrived in the East towards the end of 1839, having
received only a few months' instruction in Chinese from Professor Kidd
in London. Being stationed at Malacca, it seemed to him then--and he
adds 'that the experience of twenty-one years has given its sanction
to the correctness of the judgment'--that he could not consider
himself qualified for the duties of his position until he had
thoroughly mastered the classical books of the Chinese, and
investigated for himself the whole field of thought through which the
sages of China had ranged, and in which were to be found the
foundations of the moral, social, and political life of the people. He
was not able to pursue his studies without interruption, and it was
only after some years, when the charge of the Anglo-Chinese College
had devolved upon him, that he could procure the books necessary to
facilitate his progress. After sixteen years of assiduous study, Dr.
Legge had explored the principal works of Chinese literature; and he
then felt that he could render the course of reading through which he
had passed more easy to those who were to follow after him, by
publishing, on the model of our editions of the Greek and Roman
Classics, a critical text of the Classics of China,