their theory. Let them not be too loud in condemnation of our views; for what they themselves regard as settled truths may become on more careful examination at best but hypotheses. If Solomon did repent, there is no record of it in Ecclesiastes. The book could not have been written in his old age, else some reference to idolatry and the evils of polygamy would have been made. If he did not write it in the latter

part of his life, then the most ancient tradition ascribing its authorship to Solomon becomes worthless, and certainly leaves grounds for other views.

One more objection of some weight is, the fact that no mention is made of this most important book in 1 Kings iv, 32, 33, where a list of Solomon's works is given.

Perhaps none of these arguments, taken singly and alone, will appear of much weight; but certainly, when brought together, and viewed in one connected chain, our position in regard to the authorship of Ecclesiastes is any thing but weak.

As already stated, there are certain passages in the book which clearly point to Solomon as the author; this explains why supporters of the Solomonic origin have been so many and so positive. But in conclusion let me ask, What objection can there be to believe that the author, whoever he may have been, adopted a personated authorship? That he makes Solomon the main character in the book, and through him utters his own words and ideas? The same as Socrates in the Krito of Plato, or Faust in the masterpiece of Goethe, or other characters in the fictitious and dramatic works of both ancient and modern writers. This is done in compositions of this sort without any idea of deception or imposture. "A dramatic personation of character has, at all times, been looked upon as a legitimate form of authorship, not necessarily involving any animus decipiendi.... If dramatic personation be, in all times and countries, a legitimate method of instruction, there is no a priori ground against the employment of that method by the manifold and very varied wisdom (Eph. iii, 10) of the Eternal Spirit." If this view of personated authorship is admissible and compatible with inspiration, then it is morally certain that Solomon did not write Ecclesiastes.

ART. VII.-WILLIAMS'S "MIDDLE KINGDOM." Of this well-known work on China, issued by Putnam in 1848, revised by the author, and re-issued by the Scribners in 1883, the reading public will require something more than a passing notice editorial. The recent demise of the writer makes it appropriate to preface a review of his book with brief notices of his life and labors. This most distinguished lay missionary of the century, late professor of Chinese in Yale College, passed to his final rest on Saturday, February 16, at 8:40 P. M. in the City of Elms, full of years, honors, and usefulness. It is seldom that any man is privileged to bring his lifelabors to a rounded close. Most men are surprised by the last summons with some unfinished piece of work in hand. Six years ago, February 6, 1878, Dr. Williams said, in a note to the writer: "I am using my imperfect eye-sight to revise 'The Middle Kingdom.' This job of work seems to be about as useful as any I can undertake." Here we have the key to his every undertaking. During fifty years of active life he had always some "job of work" on hand that looked toward the "useful." Inutility was incompatible with his earnest nature. A severe fall, a dislocated shoulder, and paralysis came as premonitory warnings. April 16, 1883, he writes again: "In March last year I had a partial paralysis of brain, from which I am slowly recovering. My son has revised the copy of 'The Middle Kingdom,' which, fortunately, was almost ready for the press. I have no expectation of doing any thing more after the book is out." It was his last work. The last touch was given to the preface in July. It was on the book-sellers' shelves in October, and at the time of the brief notice of it in the January "Quarterly" the venerable writer was in his final decline.

Two of the numerous pen-works of this diligent book-maker are specially monumental, and will long remain as proofs of native and acquired ability combined with rare opportunities. They are "The Middle Kingdom," and an "Anglo-Chinese Dictionary:" the one a wide survey of the Chinese Empire from the earliest times to the present, for the English reader; the other a much-needed help to the increasing number of students

of the Chinese language. How came he by the ability to prepare works so widely differing? Something may have been due to the fact that he belonged to one of the most prolific of the book-making tribes of the English race. Aside from the omnipresent and scarcely numerable Smiths, the Williamses are only second or third in the numbers sent by any one of the Anglo-Saxon gens into the fields of literature and authorship. For personal qualifications he was indebted to fortunate birth, solid education, and favorable surroundings. His father, William Williams, was a prominent citizen of Utica, engaged in the book and publishing business in one of the largest establishments west of Albany, a leading man in all benevolent enterprises, and an elder in the First Presbyterian Church. His eldest son, Samuel Wells, (S. Wells he always wrote it, after the family name of his mother, Sophia Wells,) was born in Utica, September 22, 1812. The pious and devoted mother silently dedicated her first-born to the cause of foreign missions. For the reason we have not far to seek. Carey, Ward, and Marshman, pioneers in India, had been heard of in the relig ious journals of America; Morrison had sailed for China from England by the way of New York, because the jealous East India Company refused him passage in their ships. The quintet of devoted Andover students,* graduates of Harvard, Williams, Brown, and Union respectively, had created a Board of Foreign Missions by their enthusiasm, and in February, 1812, with a quintet of brave wives, had stirred the soul of the American Church to its holiest depths by embarking, in the slow-sailing ships of the period, for an India that seemed as far off and shadowy as it had done to the mariners of Columbus three hundred and twenty years before.

Brought up in the purlieus of a printing-office, what more natural than that Wells should be a printer, familiar from boyhood with all the mysteries of type-setting and all the details of book publishing. All his works show the results of this initial training. Rudimentary studies were pursued in academy and high school. To his pious parents the cause of missions was particularly dear, and their children were reared to love and respect the work. In 1820, when Wells was eight years old, a young man, James Garrett, connected with his father's *Newell, Hall, Rice, Judson, Nott.

printing-office, was sent to Ceylon as missionary printer, an event which made a deep and lasting impression on his childmind. Converted and brought into the Church in 1831, his father was disposed to send him to college, but inclination for the natural sciences decided him to go to the Rensselaer Institute, Troy, under the care of the distinguished scientific specialist Amos Eaton, for whose botanical manual, published in 1833, young Williams wrote out the derivations. In April, 1832, he received an invitation to go to China as printer to the American Board Mission, deliberated on it for a single night, and accepted; spent a year at home in study and mechanical preparation, and in mid-June, 1833, sailed from New York in the ship "Morrison," reaching Whampoa, the anchorage-ground for the city of Canton, on the 25th of October following. In his passage up the Pearl River, ten or twelve miles, he took his first lessons in a language that was to become as familiar to him as his native tongue, lessons given gratis by the brawling, shouting, yelling, swearing boatmen, as he threaded his way through the crowded fleets of lorchas, lighters, junks, flowerboats, police boats, and sampans that make up the noisy babel so delightful to ears Oriental. Thus, at the first blush of dawning manhood, Wells Williams took his station on the remotest frontier of the foreign field, the most unpromising in the wide world, a simple printer, without collegiate, theological, or medical education, to become, through his own industry, the eminent "self-educated "author of works that should enlighten the Christian world and smooth the pathway of the hundreds who should come after.

At his advent all things were as they had been for a century. China was a sealed country. The three immortal pioneer missionaries, Messrs. Morrison, (1807,) Milne, (1813,) Medhurst, (1817,) and a score of successors, unable to penetrate the barrier, had expended their forces on the emigrant overflow of the Malayan Archipelago. The first American in the field, Elijah C. Bridgman, (1830,) could do no more at Canton than Morrison, the first Englishman, had done twenty-three years before. He could neither teach nor preach. He could only, in a sort of stealthy way, print books for circulation. In 1832 New York sent him a press, and in 1833 an enthusiastic young printer, well versed in his art. Missionary effort of every kind was

opposed and restrained by three hostile forces, the native authorities, the narrow East India Company, and the Romish priests at Portuguese Macao. In 1834 the monopolizing Company was dissolved, and the great and good Dr. Morrison died. At that time Bridgman and Williams were the only missionaries left on Chinese soil. The Chinese Christian Church had, as yet, no being. Books, teachers, translations, and the printingoffice were the only resort of this brace of lonely workers. To these they were shut up, and, of these, during the ten years that intervened before the opening of the treaty ports, they made diligent use. With his new printing-press, in 1832, the indefatigable Bridgman began a monthly called the "Chinese Repository," of which he and Williams were co-editors till its winding up with the twentieth volume in 1851. In 1835-36, Williams spent seventeen months at Macao, completing Medhurst's Hak-ke-en Dictionary, his first, but by no means his last, work in the lexicon line. As a pleasant change to four years of solitary routine he was invited, in 1837, to go in the American ship "Morrison "—the property of the benevolent patrons of missions, Messrs. Olyphant & Co.-to the Loo Choo Islands and Japan, to return some shipwrecked natives to their own country. The expedition was unsuccessful. Its benevolent mission was neither understood nor appreciated. The jealous natives fired upon the vessel at each of the four ports she attempted to enter. After an absence of ten months the ship returned, and the wrecked sailors were put to work, for their own support, in the printing-office of the mission. The ever-active mind of Williams seized the opportunity to learn their language, and between 1839 and 1841 he made, by their aid, an imperfect translation of Genesis and Matthew into Japanese. Between 1837 and 1844 he completed a useful manual, "Easy Lessons in Chinese," for beginners; assisted Bridg man in the preparation of his "Chrestomathy," another useful hand-book for beginners; edited the second edition of the younger Morrison's "Commercial Guide," an invaluable repertory of facts for merchants and ship-masters, and published a vocabulary in English and Chinese, which the writer found exceedingly helpful, notwithstanding its provincial syllabary, -that of the Canton dialect.

Mr. Williams was, of course, at the very center of the opium.