| Volume 7, Number 3, April 2010 |
Ma Xiangbo’s Role in the
Achievement of Zhang Chongren
by 陈耀王 Chen Yaowang |
The Artistry of God
by Peter Knott 彼得·诺特 |
| MA Xiangbo’s place as an eminent authority in modern Chinese history’s academic circles is indisputable. Whether Nationalist or Communist, or among academics worldwide, all without exception speak of Ma with admiration. Ma Xiangbo was born in 1840 in Dantu, Jiangsu Province, to an influential Catholic family. At the age of 12 he went by himself to study at Shanghai Xuhui Public School and in 1862 he entered the noviciate of the Society of Jesus. In 1870 he earned his Doctorate of Divinity, was ordained a priest, was appointed principal of Xuhui Public School and held other positions. In 1876 he left the Jesuits to enter politics, and following Li Hongzhang, entered foreign affairs, serving as a diplomatic envoy in Japan, Korea, the United States, England, France, and other countries. In 1897, he resigned from his position as a wealthy, high Qing official, and embracing the ideal of “saving the country through education”, he returned alone to Xujiahui, Shanghai, donated his family property to the Church, and established schools. He destroyed his home... [ Read more ] |
Poetry
The art form which suggests most immediately the relationship between ourselves and God is poetry. In trying to express this relationship, Gerard Manley Hopkins uses metaphor to advantage when he speaks about the horror of an isolated ego: “Self yeast of spirit a dull dough sours”. The tragedy of an egotistical spirit resisting God is powerfully illustrated by this homely metaphor of yeast in bread (“Sonnet. 67”).
A positive image of our relationship with God is given in George Herbert’s “Prayer”. He takes the use of metaphor to extremes. This sonnet is a series of extravagant but very beautiful metaphors which bring together disparate elements to illustrate something difficult to express any other way:
Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth:
Engine against th’ almightie, sinners towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world... [ Read more ] |
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| Issue 7.3 |
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Make a Better City Life
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