Christianity will purify and sweeten the Chinese home, now always and everywhere liable to devastating hurricanes of passion, and too often filled with evil-speaking, bitterness and wrath. The imperative inhibition of all manner of reviling would alone do more for domestic harmony than all the wise maxims of the sages mechanically learned and repeated could accomplish in a lifetime. Indeed, Christianity will take these semi-animate precepts of the dead past, breathe into them for the first time the breath of life, and then reinforce them with the Word of the Lord and the sanctions of His Law. Christianity will introduce a new and a potent factor into the social life of the Chinese by its energy as a prophylactic. Chinese society has a virtuous talent for "talking peace" when there is no peace, and when matters have come to such a pitch that a catastrophe appears inevitable. But the remedy almost invariably comes too late. Chinese "peace-talking" is usually a mere dust-storm, unpleasantly affecting the eyes, the ears, the nostrils of every one exposed to it, thinly covering up the surrounding filth with even impartiality, while after all leaving the whole of it just where it was before. Christianity is an efficient sanitary commission which aims at removing everything that can breed pestilence. In this it will not, indeed, entirely succeed, but its introduction upon a large scale will as certainly modify Chinese society, as a strong and steady north-east wind will eventually dissipate a dense fog. As has been already remarked, perhaps there is no single Chinese custom which is the source of a larger variety of mischief than that of keeping large family organizations in a condition of dependence upon one another and upon a common property, instead of dividing it up among the several sons, leaving each free to work out his own destiny. The inevitable result is chronic discontent, jealousy, suspicion, and on the part of many indolence. This is as clearly perceived by the Chinese as by us, indeed far more so, but hereditary cowardice, dread of criticism, and especially of ridicule prevent myriads of families from effecting the desired and necessary division, lest they be laughed at. Christianity is itself a defiance of all antecedent public opinion, and an appeal to a new and an illuminated understanding. Christian communities will probably more and more tend to follow the Scriptural plan of making one man and one woman a new family, and by this process alone will save themselves an infinity of misery. This will be done, not by the superimposition of any force from without, but by the exercise of a common sense which has been at once enlightened to see and emboldened to act, attacking with courage whatever needs amendment.