Page:Who is God in China.djvu/7

iv extracts from Chinese and from other Asiatic writings, than to strip them of their native elegance, and to lower them to the level of common type, we owe some apology to men resident in China for doing so. For, as there is inherent in every letter a feature that belongs to the language, there can be no real equivalent for a characteristic alphabet. Assuredly not for the grave outline of the sacred Devanagari; and least of all for the ideographic symbols of the land of Yaou and Shun. Fancy even Homer in Roman type! Would he not be—

For quotations disguised in this vicious and ambiguous form, which is little else than the lifeless remains of their living original, offer but a repulsive image of the language they represent. And their only use is, we may say, to point to the gems of archaic lore enshrined in the venerable texts to which they refer.

Thus, while occupied in noticing faults in other men, we are naturally brought to solicit their in-