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342 CIIUISTIAK LlTEiiATUiiKAmerican Church Mission, Hankow, was the first GeneralSecretary. At present the Rev. Cheng Ping (gfc- 2 !*) holdsthis position. The plan is that each of the 34,756 Christianswithin the eleven, dioceses should make an annual contributionof at least twenty cents. This would amount to a total sumof $6050. During the year, Mr. Hwang made a tour toSianfu and to all the provinces where the Chung Hua ShengKung Hui is working. His report regarding Shensi as asuitable location for the Mission is favourable. He reportsthat the place is accessible, and that the people are simpleand trustworthy. Sianfu is a great Mohammedan centre,and many of the people are originally from Shantung.There are about three thousand Christians in Shensi, andfour hundred in Sianfu. The population of the capitalcity is 400,000. The Baptist .Missionary Society and theChina Inland Mission arc the only two large missions thatarc working in the province.The plan of the Board of Missions of the Chung HimSlieng Kung Hui, if faithfully carried out, will mean muchto the spiritual life of the Church, and the salvation ofmen s souls. From the depths of our heart we wish theplan the Divine sanction and special blessings from on high.IV.The BibleUnder this head three points should be mentioned,namely, translation, distribution and study.Some rather severe but friendly criticismsNew Mandarin ^ appeared in the papers more than onceTranslation .. \ * .rTof the Bible during the year against the new UnionMandarin Version of the Bible. They havestrongly objected to the use of newly-coined characters, andof colloquial expressions. To this the Peking RevisionCommittee made a reply, which did not however satisfy itscritics. Probably our critical friends have not fully realizedthe difficulties in Bible translation, which is totally differentfrom the translation of other books from foreign languages.It is by no means an easy task to make a translation thatmeets the conditions of the Chinese literary style, and is atthe same time an accurate reproduction of the original. In