Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/9

Rh of the great head of the church, and claim the countenance and co-operation of Christians of every name. So great is the work, and so feeble the energies that can be brought to bear on it, that we have no time "to fall out by the way;" and it is a pleasing feature of the Protestant mission to China, that hitherto the agents of various societies, the members of different communions, and the representatives of distant hemispheres, have consented to merge their national and denominational prejudices, and to join heart and hand in making known the great doctrine of justification by faith, to the sceptical and superstitious Chinese. May brotherly love continue; and may one strenuous and persevering effort be made, till the millions of China be brought under the influence of Christianity!

But it is necessary that the author should give some account of the origin and nature of the following work. Having been called upon, in the year 1835, to undertake a journey along the north-east coast of China, in order to ascertain whether or not that country was open to the Gospel; and having kept a record of passing events, he contemplated, on his return, the publication of a journal, with some brief remarks on the situation of foreigners in Canton, and the state of the native Christian community there. In the course of his tour through England, however, to plead the cause of missions, he found it necessary to dilate more at large on the political, moral, and spiritual condition of the Chinese, and to relate in order the efforts that a 2