Some reformers, he says, have occasionally sprung up, but the remedies applied were only partial: though idolatry was in some instances put down, in the majority of cases it was allowed to go on. Whereas, according to him, all these genii and fairies, superhuman and monstrous appearances, together with these impure rites and forbidden sacrifices, should have been discontinued; on the ground that besides the great God there is no spirit entitled to such honour as the Chinese have been accustomed to pay them.** All the images of wood and stone, which have been set up to represent these imaginary beings, are mere inventi ns of men, otherwise intelligent, who have allowed themselves to be deluded by the devil. The true spirit, he continues, is God; but those images which men are in the habit of worshipping represent only devils, the mass of whom consists of nameless noxious inventions, such as the spirits thought to preside over the various quarters of the world, and the myrmidons of the king of Hades. Having denounced these pretended spirits, he says most truly, the great God, (Hwang Shang-te) he is the God, (Te) and he alone is entitled to that appellation. Through a want of acquaintance with the Christian Scriptures, and certainly not with the view of sympathizing with the deniers of our Lord's divinity, with whom he never could have come in contact, the author of the pamphlet before us, says "that even Jesus, the first-born son of God, is only called our Lord, and is not called God;" who then he asks would dare to assume the designation of God? would he not for his blasphemous assumption be speedily consigned to hell He therefore exhorts his readers to worship God alone, and thus they will become his sons and daughters here, and obtain his blessing hereafter.
** It is evident, from the context, that the writer by the word spirit here, means such spiritual beings as men have been in the habit of worshipping, but which he thinks are not entitled to that honour. That he could not mean to say, besides the great God there is no spiritual being, is plain, because he uses the word shin to designate not only the genii which have no real existence, but the spirits of men which have.
