Produced by Bryan Ness, Sharon Joiner, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) Village Life in China _TENTH THOUSAND Chinese Characteristics_ _BY Rev. ARTHUR H. SMITH, D.D._ For Twenty-six Years a Missionary of the American Board in China. _With Sixteen Illustrations from Photographs, an index and a Glossary._ _800, decorated cloth, $1.25_ From The Independent. There is no glamour thrown over the race, neither is there failure to recognize those qualities that have made them so backward in civilization, so hostile to foreigners, so repugnant to many in our land. Everyone interested in China or the Chinese should read the book. From The New York Times. If we are not to accept the studies that missionaries have made of the Chinese, whose are we to accept? We do not mean the accounts of the seminary young man who, fresh from his studies, lives in China for a six-month, and then writes of his experiences, but of the men like the author of this volume, who has had a residence of twenty-two years in China. Mr. Smith's volume is a highly entertaining one, showing uncommon shrewdness, with keen analysis of character. From The Critic. There is all the difference between an intaglio in onyx and a pencil scrawl on paper to be discovered between Mr. Smith's book and the printed prattle of the average globe-trotter. Our author's work has been done, as it were, with a chisel and an emery wheel. He goes deeply beneath the surface. From The Standard. It is much the most interesting book upon China which we have ever read, and it is specially valuable as a practical commentary upon the national and social institutions of the Chinese, the natural effect of their long isolation, and the benumbing effect of such a religion as has in great part made them what they are. From The Living Church. That this is the most valuable account of the Chinese ever written is, we believe, generally acknowledged. From The Missionary Review of the World. Every chapter is a thesaurus of startling antithesis, humorous portraitures, acute observation and marvelous sagacity.... The book is most delightful reading, and will be found most fascinating. It is a mirror of Chinese characteristics, as its name indicates. Within its pages we have found a volume of aphorisms and sage sayings seldom embraced in such a book.--_Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D._ _FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 63 Washington Street Toronto: 154 Yonge Street_ [Illustration: CHINESE VILLAGERS AT HOME] Village Life in China A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY BY ARTHUR H. SMITH, D.D. AUTHOR OF "Chinese Characteristics" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO Fleming H. Revell Company Publishers of Evangelical Literature Copyright, 1899 by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Foreword