The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-03 00:00:00

MISSTONS IN CHINA.

On Tuesday, a meeting was held in the Collegiate Institution,
to hear from the newly-appointed Bishop of Victoria, Hong
Kong, a statement of his missionary plans for the propagation
of the Gospel in China, and the peculiar claims which his
diocese has upon the members of the Church of England. The
venerable Archdeacon Brooks presided, and said it afforded
him much pleasure to meet those present on such an occasion,
which could not fail to create a lively interest. He trusted they
would all agree with him that it was an object which deserved
their warmest support, and he hoped they would support it in
the best way in which they were enabled to do.
The Bishop of VICTORIA then came forward, and after a few
introductory remarks, said that, until a recent period they were
confined in their intercourse with China to the southern city of
Canton, where they were brought into contact with an insolent
people. The edicts of the Government loaded foreigners with
abusive and contemptuous epithets; but the events of the late
war had brought about a remarkable change in this particular.
Since the last war things were very different in China. Five
cities were open to Europeans; and having resided in them all,
he was able to tell them that in the four northern cities the
people showed a friendly disposition. The institutions of the
Chinese presented no formidable impediment to the spread of
Christianity ; there was no great or powerful priesthood ; and
though the great mass of the people practised idolatry, the
scholars of China were virtually atheists, their principles ex-
cluding the idea of a Supreme Ruler, and a future state of re-
wards and punishments. There was very little in the religion
of the country to thwart our efforts; the great difficulty was
the indifference and apathy of the people to religion, the only
religious custom which was strongly enthroned in the affections
of the Chinese being ancestral worship. They had a great ad-
vantage in the fact that education was very general in China,
and its importance was considerably enhanced by the similarity
of the written language throughout all the provinces. Through-
out the five cities missionaries found hospitality and attention,
beside they had the Island of Hong Kong. The more hopeful
of the direct missionary labours was in the five open cities;
but in indirect missionary labour, and in the sending forth
of the Word of God, Hong Kong would be its scene. Another
favourable sign was the tolerancy of the government to Christian
converts—so that in the fact of five cities and the British
colony of Hong Kong being thrown open to the labours of the
missionary, they had encouragements to call on the Church
of England to make a vigorous attack on heathen darkness in
China. As regarded the d►fficulties in the way, it should be re-
collected that the country generally was not open to foreigners—
that a spirit of jealousy existed amongst the people. Some of the
people told them that they (the English) only wanted to get a
corner of the country to conquer it as they had done in India.
In Canton there was no real liberty; the treaty was broken
there; but in the other cities there was perfect liberty, as re-
garded the limits to which they were allowed to go. It would
not be decorous for a missionary to go past the bounds which
the law of China pointed out, thou p I the Romish missionaries
assumed the dress of the natives, and were thus enabled to.