THE MISSIONARIES IN CHINA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") role of the superior person is always offensive. It is not less SO when assumed by a person so informed and eminent as Mr. Edward Clodd. I hold no brief for missionaries, or for any missionary society, but when a sweeping charge of ignorance and incompetence is brought against them, as in Mr. Clodd's letter in the Spectator of September 29th, it is surely time to ask on what evidence the charge rests. It should surely rest upon something stronger than Mr. Clodd's ipso, di.vit, backed up by such authorities as he mentions. He must know that there are authorities on the other side, far more numerous and weighty, who bear very different testimony as to the success which has been achieved by missionaries, both in India and China. It would need not one letter but many to detail this testimony, or even to outline its leading features. Your readers may satisfy themselves in regard to it, if they will only go to the right sources for information. Mr. Clodd's suggestion that "missionary societies should start an intelligence depart- ment, which, with its other duties, should sift rigorously all reports of progress," is simply a piece of rude impertinence. The "dry light" of intelligence can be more completely obscured by prejudice than it can be by sympathy. Your readers may accept the assurance, in spite of Mr. Clodd, that there are not a few missionaries in China and India to-day whose acquaintance" with "the modern science of comparative theology" is as profound and extensive as his own.—I am,
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