BUNYAN, John.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Pilgrim's Progress, translated into classical Chinese by William Chalmers Burns. An 1869 edition of the first full translation into Chinese of Bunyan's classic literary allegory. Printed to win new converts to Protestantism among the educated elite, the text is illustrated with ten engravings that place the story in a Chinese context.Born in Scotland, William Chalmers Burns (1815-1868) began his missionary service in China in the late 1840s, studying Chinese on the voyage out with Morrison's dictionary. After spending time in Hong Kong, he moved to Xiamen (Amoy), where he began his translation (he had read Bunyan frequently as a boy). The text was completed and published in the city in 1853, and it was reprinted in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai.Burns's approach blended Christian messages with concepts drawn from Confucianism. For example, he rendered the idea of the "great burden" as the Chinese concept of "daren" (great office or mission), which is derived from the teachings of Mencius. "Burns's translation of 'daren' drastically transformed the derogatory Christian concept of the personal burden of sin to a commendatory term loaded with the Confucian connotation of moral and social obligation. In the China Centenary Missionary Conference held in Shanghai in 1907, Burns's translation of The Pilgrim's Progress was acclaimed as the third most effective and well-received works of proselytization in the Protestant missions in China since the time of Robert Morrison" (Yeo,

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