China.- Gospel in Chinese.- Gutzlaff (Karl Friedrich August ) [The Perfect Man's Model], title printed on bright yellow paper, this with a tear and chipped with a little loss, trimmed at outer edge, affecting printed side-notes, lightly browned throughout, ?original stitched plain wrappers, 244 x 134mm., Singapore, Jian xia shu yuan (the publishing arm of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions), 1836.

⁂ Rare Chinese language version of a Christian gospel printed in Singapore. Singapore rapidly became a major trading hub in the 19th century and by the time of the printing of this tract around half of the population was Chinese. Christianity was outlawed in China until 1846 and so missionaries took advantage of the frequent trade made by Chinese merchants and smuggled their publications into China via Chinese junks. Gutzlaff was a German Protestant missionary, who had travelled along the coast of China, breaking the law by preaching Christianity as he went.