AUTHENTICK MEMOIRS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN CHINA: Being a Series of Facts to evidence the Causes of the Declension of Christianity in that Empire. Translated from the German.

First English edition. Issued as an unbound pamphlet and later bound in brown card wrappers with a copy of the title page pasted to the front cover. A very good copy, the binding firm with minor rubbing to the covers and fading and ink overwriting to the front panel. The contents with a previous owner's bookplate to the front pastedown, a contemporary ink numeral to the half-title page and some toning to the first and last page are otherwise clean and bright throughout. An excellent example of a very scarce title.

An important early work on Christianity in China by the German Lutheran scholar Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693-1755). In it, he discusses the history of Christian missions in China, the inception of the Chinese church, the Chinese rites controversy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the contemporary state of Christianity in the country. Notably, in the second edition, published in 1862, the editor, Richard Gibbings, asserted that this 1750 edition was 'so scarce that its existence is almost unknown'. Provenance: From the library of Martin Stone.