arrived here, in the ship Morrison, on the 19th instant. Mr. Brown is a graduate of Yale college (U. S. A.); and for three or four years past has been employed as a professor in the Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb in New York, which station he relinquished for the appointment he now holds under the auspices of the Morrison Education Society.

ATR. VI.

Medical Missionary Society's Hospitals: appointment of Mr. Lockhart to the charge of that at Macao; inquest held on the body of a deceased patient in that at Canton. THE friends and well-wishers of the Medical Missionary Society in China will be gratified to hear of the advances which that Society is making towards the attainment of a permanent and sure footing in this country, its labors having received the tacit sanction of the government, and its meaus of exertion having been increased by the arrival of a new fellow-laborer, in the person of W. Lockhart, esq., an experienced surgeon, selected by the London Missionary Society as their agent in this country. Mr. Lockhart reached China towards the close of last month, and having offered his services to the Medical Missionary Society, has been appointed to the charge of their hospital at Macao, which was first opened by Dr. Parker during three months, last summer, and will this year be reöpened by Mr. Lockhart, as soon as he shall find himself qualified, by a sufficient knowledge of the language and character of the people, to commence his labors among the Chinese.

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The manner in which the government has given its tacit sanction to the operations of the Society is, in the first place, by the application of several officers of rank in Canton for medical aid,and in the second place, still more strongly, by having held an inquest on the body of a patient (who had died in the hospital, having no relative or friend in attendance), without having either at the time or subsequently expressed in regard to it a single word of disapprobation. This, in relation to an institution sustained wholly by foreigners, is no small step gained; and tends to confirm our belief, that, were we to manifest in many matters a less imperious and a more kind and considerate spirit, the Chinese government would speedily abate a large measure of its suspicions of the encroaching character of those living beyond the pale of its civilization. The subjoined letter from Dr. Parker to the Editor of the Canton Regis ter will show the particulars regarding the inquest referred to.

Dear Sir,-Allow me to state briefly the occasion of the Nanhae Heën's visit on Saturday last. On the 2d instant, a woman from Sanshuy arrived at the hospital, affected with dropsy and disease of the heart and liver. It was late in the day when I saw her; unable to walk she had called a chair, though she had nothing to pay the bearers. She entreated me to have compassion on her; that she was a solitary being without parent husband, or child. The boat in which she came had returned, and I could not send her back to the river side to perish there. The chairbearers were paid, and the woman told

to quiet herself, she should be compassionated, be provided with food and other comforts, and though her disease was very bad, we would do what we could. It was some time before she was able to walk up the stairs, and she breathed with great difficulty. Unable to lie dow she stood upon her feet nearly the whole of her tine day and night. Under medical treatment in a few days the swelling of the legs subsided, and on the 6th several gallons of fluid were drawn from her abdomen, showing a great enlargement of the liver. The nights following she was much relieved, and able to sleep in a recumbent posture; but on the 11th it was evident she could not live long, and it was proposed she should return to her home. She said there would be no boat before the 15th, when she would go; and it being the commencement of the Chinese new year, 1 could not procure a boat for her. On the 13th, about 5 P. M. she fell backward in her chair and expired in less than an hour. As she had no friend or relation, it was necessary, to prevent any possible future trouble, to have her buried in the legal way. The hong merchants accordingly petitioned the Nanhae to hold the required inquest on her body, and give orders for her interment. The result of their petition was quite satisfactory. On Saturday this officer, according to form, held an inquest upon the body, and then ordered it to be buried. Everything was made as pleasant as possible, and, so far as could be judged, both the magistrate and the hong merchants were perfectly satisfied. The event is an important one, as the institution is now brought distinctly before the government; and if no edict follows, such silence will be a tacit recognition of the institution: and it has seemed as though this was a point the cohong have desired. The measures adopted have been to prevent and not to create difficulties.

It is worthy of remark that the magistrate by whom this inquest was held had himself been a patient of Dr. Parker's for some time immediately preceding his official visit to the hospital and had perfectly recovered from his maladies, a providential circumstance to which may be attributed a portion of his unwillingness to give any trouble beyond what his official duty rendered necessary.

ART. VII. Journal of Occurrences. The imperial commissioner; loss of the Attaran; strangulation of Fung Angan before the foreign factories; European passage-boats licenced.

LIN, the imperial commissioner. is daily expected in Canton. The city is full of rumors respecting his intended measures, for the extinction of the trade in opium. The stoppage of the traffic on the coast, as well as in this neighborhood, is nearly complete ; and it is said that the receiving ships at Hongkong are about to proceed "out-side.”

The Attaran, schooner, with 130 chests of opium, was lost on the 3d ult., near Nanpang, a few miles southwestward from Macao.

Fung Angan, one of the ringleaders in the late affray at Whampoa, was strangled upon a cross in front of the foreign factories, late in the afternoon of the 26th, the governor thus making true his late declaration.

A crisis has come. For the time being, the local authorities are in earnest. There are, we suppose, not less than 50,000 chests of the Indian drug ready for this market —some 10,000 are now in the Chinese waters. The appetite for it remains, in most instances, no doubt, as strong as ever. What will be the issue, it is impossible to tell, or even to anticipate with any degree of certainty.

Seven European passage-boats, licenced by the Chinese local government, are affording us once more a ready communication between Canton and Macao.

THE

CHINESE REPOSITOY R. REPOSITOYR.

VOL. VII.-MARCH, 1839.- No. 11.

ART. I. Review of the Shin Seën Tung Keën,- A General Account of the Gods and Genii; in 22 vols. (Continued from art. 1. No. 10, p. 525.) From a Correspondent.

THE Course of our history brings us now to the reign of Che hwangte (246 B. C.), the innovator, whom Chinese historians have loaded with every opprobrium that their language possibly could furnish. Being an enemy of the literati, he was not exactly opposed to the Taouists, and when relieved from his fatiguing exertions, he would stroll amongst the mountains, and take some priests for his guides. He even went so far as to change the mountains on which his predecessors had sacrificed, for the sake of oddity, because he wished to be singular; he would perform extensive tours amongst the mountains, and make search in the caverns. He himself was without any fixed idea of religion, and like many other conquerors and worldly men, considered it an excellent thing to have achieved his own purposes. He therefore frequently flattered the Taou priests, and was not indifferent about the incense of praise offered to him. The story of the land of the immortals was again told to him, and it took so well, that another colony of youths and maidens was dispatched thither. Some of them are said to have landed on the shores of the blissful isle, and established a celebrated state, perhaps Japan. It is much to be regretted, that China, having produced many historians, gives us no account of the colonies sent from the mother country, that the native books are full of the stale records of the court, and the fables of ignorant ages. Japan, before the commencement of our era, was

under the influence of Chinese emigrants, though the great stock of the natives does not seem to have come from the celestial empire. The same applies also to the countries south of China, though scarcely any mention is made of them in its history. And even at the present day, when the Indian Archipelago swarms with the flowery people, no writers have ever taken the trouble of investigating the progress of civilisation in those islands, though their own countrymen are the main spring of the principal improvements. The poor barbarians, and all the sons of Han who are unfortunate enough to settle in their countries, may live and die unknown, though some of them have done more for mankind than paltry emperors, who pass their days in the harem, and are praised in memoirs of four or five volumes.

When the Han dynasty obtained possession of the empire, the Taouists, with their wonted officiousness, paid court to these new masters. Several appeared in the capacity of mountebanks and jugglers, and attracted great notice by their tricks. If they were not properly treated, they revenged themselves upon the princes, and one emperor, at least, died of some poison which they had dexterously administered to him. Another had long attended to a very clever priest, who had an inexhaustible fund of humor, and knew well how to amuse his master. Once, however, he was spoken to rather harshly, and abruptly left the court, in the shape, as the legend says, of a fox. Others endeavored by their learning to captivate the princes. One, a youth, had; at the age of fifteen, become a master of all arts, and being versed in literature to perfection, he added to his accomplishments a knowledge of tuition, having by his perseverance learned by heart no less than 440,000 characters in the books which treat upon that art. From all we are able to learn, the sect abandoned more and more their haunts, and, mingling with human society, strove for honors and emoluments. They were not very scrupulous about making money, and the medicine, which was gratuitously administered to the poor, had to be paid for with its weight in gold by the rich. The healing art was then already known in China, but quacks in many instances were better paid than the most learned physicians, though these knew to a fraction the beating of the pulse in all kinds of diseases.

There lived at that time a Chinese king, who, having heard of a anchorite, sent a message to him, saying, "I am desirous of longevity and to enjoy lasting youth, wish to possess general knowledge, to be initiated in the most recondite matters, and to be endowed with

great strength," &c. The hermit readily promised to change him into a youth of fifteen, and make him blooming like a peach tree. When this answer reached the king, he was greatly delighted, and learning that the master of this metamorphosis approached, he immediately went to meet him barefooted, spread out a splendid silken carpet, moved a golden chair near to him, and then in humble posture, he said, "I wish to become your disciple," adding many more professions of devotedness, and promising to go through the whole catalogue of penances, and to purify himself from all worldly droes. The sage now commenced his teaching, and first of all he changed eight lads into so many old men. The first said, "I can raise wind and rain, make mist and clouds, cover the earth with them, and convert land into rivers, or can take a clod of earth to form a mountain." The next said, "I can make hills fall, tame tigers and leopards, can turn dragons and serpents into spirits and demons." The third said, "I can change my appearance, become invisible whilst seated, and darken the clearest day, so as to hide a whole army." The fourth said, "I can ascend in the air, and walk about in the vacuum, ride on the sea, congeal smoke, and rove about, without being arrested by any obstacle, for a thousand miles." This was a very fine tale for the king, but during the conversation, he behaved rather rudely, forgetting for a while, that he had become a humble disciple, and he was therefore to be expelled from this wonderful community. He was, however, fain to ask what became of man after death. His instructor replied, "His bones and flesh become earth, his blood returns into water, the animal life is changed into wind or air, and only the female ethereal principle is preserved and becomes a demon, and may be permitted to enter the regions of the genii." There is a tree growing, the juice of which has life-restoring power, and the king being anxious to prove its efficacy, went with the priests to a dead body. It was winter, the flesh had not yet decayed, and on rubbing in the vaunted specific the man was resucitated. This so much strengthened the belief of the royal personage in these reveries, that he underwent joyfully all discipline, and became a sincere devotee. He is well known under the name of Hwaenantsze, and considered a brilliant writer. As a philosopher he belongs to the class of the eclectics, and very artfully mixes the tenets of Confucius with those of Laoukeun. But he partakes, with all the race, of mysticism intelligible to none except to the writer. Being however a king, and few men who sat on thrones having condescended to write treatises for the instruction of the world, his name is held in great veneration.