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CHAPTER XVI.

Theologians of the South in Literature.

The United States has produced during the past century more eminent theologians than any other country, England not excepted. These have not only accomplished, and are now accomplishing, a great work in God's service by their eloquent and heart-searching appeals, their pious and godly lives, but by their learned writings have made, and are still making an impress upon the literature of the day. Many of them were men of Southern birth or affiliation; some have passed from earth, but their works remain; many are still living and continue to write. Space forbids more than a passing notice of some of these.

YOUNG J. ALLEN, D.D. (Methodist), was born in Burke county, Georgia, in 1836. His father was Young Allen and his mother Jane Wooten. He was educated at the High School in Starrsville, Newton county, at Emory and Henry, Virginia, and at Emory College, Georgia. He was left an orphan at an early day; his father died before his birth and his mother six months after. An aunt, Mrs. Hutchins, his mother's sister, adopted him and changed his name to hers; this name he bore until he was fourteen years old. He had a very good income from property left to him, so that when he decided to go to China in 1860 he was not wholly dependent upon the church. He taught English in the Chinese University, and received there the highest literary degree; edited the Review of the Times, and published and edited many books. He married

Miss Molly Hampton, of Meriwether county, Georgia, and has five children, who were all born on Chinese soil; one of his daughters married a missionary, and is. living in China.

Dr. Allen is one of the most literary of Southern divines, and because he has lived abroad so many years little comparatively is known of his work by others outside of his denomination. He has reached a larger number of people in China through his books than any other American has ever done, for they have been read not only by the lower and middle classes but have reached the official classes also. His literary work began in the Christian Advocate, the leading organ of the Methodist Church, South; to this he sent letters about his work abroad. When he reached China he began translating as soon as possible hundreds of volumes of pure and uplifting literature for the Chinese in their own language. When one realizes how difficult it is to learn Chinese, it will be understood what patience and indefatigable labor this must have meant. He has now been in China nearly fifty years.

As far back as 1863 the Chinese government, having confidence in Dr. Allen, requested him to take charge of the new educational system as then projected. He advised Chinese | students to come to America and study the American system of education and carry back these new views to China. This advice was accepted and many Chinese students entered American institutions of learning. To Dr. Allen more than to any other one man is due in large measure the present attitude of China to modern civilization. Through the translation of geographies, arithmetics and histories, the Chinese have come to realize that they are very antiquated in their methods and are now adopting new systems of education which will bring about radical changes. Dr. Allen is greatly distressed over the attitude of our government towards the immigration of the educated Chinese, for he feels that China has been grossly misrepresented. It is thought that she is an ignorant country,

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but on the contrary she has a language and literature and laws that have come down from the greatest antiquity, and if rightly judged would be esteemed one of the greatest of all nations ancient or modern. Little is left of the literature of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, except a few fragments, but China has lost nothing of her great writings. Japan acknowledges this, and could never have gained what she has in civilization except through China. The Chinese did not resent it when the coolies and lower classes were excluded from America, but they strongly objected when the children of the upper classes, who desired to attend the colleges in order to secure advanced civilization, were forbidden to land. Dr. Allen is an authority upon this subject and his opinion is of great value. He has been many times called into consultation with the representatives of this government on matters of international relations. In his church he was offered the episcopacy of China and the East, but refused it.

He is a great man in many ways. Of him it may truthfully be said that he has the "sweet-spirited, unassuming, crystal grandeur of character of one who has studied and loved and worked enough to never think of the ways of one who esteems himself."

His works are: The Czar of Russia, Li Hung Chang's Travels, How the English Became Christians, Family Prayers for Chinese Christians, Patriotism, True and False, Illustrations of Christian Truth, A Scheme to Make a Nation Great, The Importance of International Intercourse, A Life of Luther, and his last and greatest work, Woman in All Lands, in twenty-one volumes. These are only a few of his many works; they have had a powerful influence in creating a sentiment in favor of educational and religious reform.

GEORGE DODD ARMSTRONG, D.D. (Presbyterian), was born at Mendham, New Jersey, in 1813. He graduated from Princeton in 1832 and went to Virginia to live with his brother, William J. Armstrong, who was pastor of the Presbyterian church of Richmond. He taught for three years, and then deciding to enter the ministry went to Union Theological Seminary, Prince Edward county, Virginia, and in 1851 became pastor of the Norfolk church. His earliest literary works were contributions to the Southern Literary Messenger, and Ruffin's Farmers' Register. His published works are The Summer of the Pestilence, a history of the terrible epidemic of yellow fever in Norfolk in 1855; The Doctrine of Baptism, The Christian Doctrine of Slavery, and The Theology of Christian Experience.

JOHN BACHMAN, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Lutheran), was born in 1790. He was educated at Williams College, Massachusetts, but as he could not graduate on account of ill health, traveled abroad and later studied in Germany, and at Berlin received his Ph.D. degree. His LL.D. was bestowed upon him by the South Carolina College at Columbia. As he became intensely interested in science he was made a member of a number of societies of natural history and philosophy at home and abroad. His works deal with both religious and scientific subjects. He wrote Design and Duties of the Christian Ministry, Defense of Luther and the Reformation, Sermon Against Duelling, Essays, Reviews, Sermons, and editorials on religious themes. His most important works on science are The History of the Quadrupeds of America, and The Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race Examined on the Prin- | ciples of Science. When General Sherman burned Columbia many of his valuable manuscripts on scientific subjects were burned. Dr. Bachman lived to the ripe age of eighty-four.

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