the writings of Confucius and Lao-tse, both of
whom lived in the sixth century B. C.(66) But in their zeal to show that
the sacred books of the Chinese contained numerous passages borrowed from
the Bible, nay, even some of the dogmas of the later Church, they hardly
perceived that, taking into account the respective dates of these books,
they were really proving that a kind of anticipated Christianity had been
accorded to the ancient sages of the Celestial Empire. The most learned
advocate of this school was Father Premare. Another supporter of the same
view, Montucci,(67) speaking of Lao-tse's Tao-te-king, says:--

"We find in it so many sayings clearly referring to the triune God, that
no one who has read this book can doubt that the mystery of the most holy
Trinity was revealed to the Chinese more than five centuries before the
advent of Christ. Everybody, therefore, who knows the strong feeling of
the Chinese for their own teachers, will admit that nothing more efficient
could be found in order to fix the dogmas of the Christian religion in the
mind of the Chinese than the demonstration that these dogmas agree with
their own books. The study, therefore, and the translation of this
singular book (the Tao-te-king) would prove most useful to the
missionaries, in order to bring to a happy issue the desired gathering in
of the Apostolic harvest."

What followed is so extraordinary that, though it has often been related,
it deserves to be related again, more particularly as the whole problem
which was supposed to have been solved once for all by M. Stanislas
Julien, has of late been opened again by Dr. von Strauss, in the "Journal
of the German Oriental Society," 1869.

There is a passage at the beginning of the fourteenth chapter of the
Tao-te-king in which Father Amyot felt certain that the three Persons of
the Trinity could be recognized. He translated it:--

"He who is as it were visible but cannot be seen is called _Khi_.

"He whom we cannot hear, and who does not speak to our ear, is called
_Hi_.

"He who is as it were tangible, but cannot be touched, is called _Wei_."

Few readers, I believe, would have been much startled by this passage, or
would have seen in it what Father Amyot saw. But more startling
revelations were in store. The most celebrated Chinese scholar of his
time, Abel Remusat, took up the subject; and after showing that the first
of the three names had to be pronounced, not Khi, but I, he main