thy Soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?"
THE DEPENDENCIES OF CHINA.
Having completed our survey of China Proper, we must now cross the border, and cast a passing glance at the extensive, though thinly-populated regions of Chinese Tartary and Thibet. We fear lest our readers should weary of these details; but though they may seem uninteresting, they are really important and solemn realities. Whether interesting to us or not, every individual of the millions of China, every inhabitant of these vast regions, must either live for ever or die for ever. They are in a fallen state, are unclean, unthankful, unholy. Every day tens of thousands, every three months 2,000,000 subjects of the Chinese Emperor pass into eternity, very few of them ever having heard the gospel. Do we realise what this number means? A million days are 2730 years; a little more than two million days ago Adam was walking alone in the garden of Eden, and Eve was not yet formed. So large a number is two million days. But as many souls die without the gospel every three months. Should we say, "Behold, we knew it not," God will not justify our leaving them to perish on the ground of that excuse. Very uninteresting to the priest descending from Jerusalem to Jericho was the state of the poor Jew, whom the robbers had left naked, wounded, and half dead. Not so, however, to the good Samaritan; he felt the greatest interest in the case, and he shewed it too. Oh! let us shew our interest in these sin-sick, perishing souls, by making strenuous efforts to bring them to the Great Physician.
In order to enable our readers to realise the vast extent of the outlying districts of the Chinese empire, we would suggest a comparison of them with those countries which are nearer home. We have already referred to France as being nearly four times as large as England; Spain and Portugal together are considerably larger than France. But for the purpose of comparison. Great Britain and Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal taken together do not suffice. The peninsula of Norway and Sweden is about six times as large as England; and Denmark, Iceland, and Holland exceed in extent Scotland and Ireland. Add these to the preceding, however, and the whole is still too small. Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, may be added; Germany and Austria, and Turkey and Greece may also be added; and the sum total of all these countries does not half equal the extent of the outlying regions of the Chinese empire with which we are comparing them. Russia in Europe is about ten times as large as Spain and Portugal, and exceeds
