The NBSS as the First Bible Society to Publish Annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts

The NBSS began its work in China by appointing Alexander Williamson, who was formerly a missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS), as the NBSS's first agent in China in 1863. Compared with the BFBS and the ABS, which had begun their work in China beforehand,Footnote ⁶ the NBSS from the very beginning adopted a less rigid approach to applying the ‘without note or comment’ principle to Chinese Bible distribution. The Western Committee of the NBSS, which oversaw the society's work in China, reminded Williamson in 1864 that “in compliance with the Society's constitution, no note or stamp should be affixed to any copies of the Scriptures sold”.Footnote ⁷ Nonetheless, Williamson was allowed to distribute Chinese Bibles along with evangelical books and tracts explanatory of the Bible, provided that the cost of those books and tracts was not borne by the NBSS.Footnote ⁸ Despite being prohibited by the BFBS and the ABS, this practice was commended by some Protestant missionaries in China such as William Muirhead of the LMS, who believed that it tended to “facilitate and make more trustworthy the sale of the Scriptures”.Footnote ⁹ In 1869, the NBSS accepted the proposal of the Religious Tract Society in London that if the NBSS's colporteurs in China sold the latter's publications, half the proceeds of sales of those books would be placed at the NBSS's disposal to support its colportage in China.Footnote ¹⁰

Protestant missionaries in China at the time were, however, not satisfied with the fact that among the Big Three only the NBSS allowed its staff to distribute Chinese Bibles along with evangelical books and tracts. After the Treaties of Tientsin (Tianjin 天津) and the Convention of Peking (Beijing 北京) were signed in 1858 and 1860 respectively, Protestant missionaries gradually extended their work from treaty ports to inland areas of China, in which their presence used to be illegal. Having more personal, direct contact with the Chinese people, they found that cultural and religious discrepancies between Chinese society and the societies depicted in the Bible made it difficult for a Chinese to understand the Bible from its plain text.Footnote ¹¹ Therefore, the first General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, which was held in Shanghai in 1877 (hereafter referred to as the Shanghai Conference 1877), resolved to request “any Bible societies” forbidding the sale of tracts and other religious works along with Chinese Bibles to lift their ban, since this would “very much increase” the usefulness of the Chinese Bibles distributed.Footnote ¹² This resolution obviously targeted the ABS and the BFBS. While failing to make the BFBS change its stance, it led the ABS to agree in 1878 that “explanatory tracts and other Christian literature, if undenominational, may be distributed by persons engaged in selling the Scriptures, if the expense of circulation as well as of publication is provided for by other funds than [sic] those of the Bible Society”.Footnote ¹³

Moreover, the missionaries attending the Shanghai Conference 1877 resolved to urge the Big Three to permit inclusion of “brief, unsectarian notes” in their editions of the Chinese Bible, subject to the supervision of their respective committees in China.Footnote ¹⁴ Nevertheless, none of the Big Three fully responded to this resolution immediately after the conference: No related action was taken by the BFBS. The ABS agreed in 1878 that when desired, “references and condensed page-headings and chapter headings” may be introduced into the Chinese Bible,Footnote ¹⁵ whereas in the subsequent year the NBSS issued an edition of the Mandarin New Testament with chapter headings and maps.Footnote ¹⁶

Given the above context, unsurprisingly, the Big Three continued receiving requests from Protestant missionaries in China for publication of an annotated edition of the Chinese Bible after the Shanghai Conference 1877.Footnote ¹⁷ In 1886, while the BFBS and the ABS were still not yet ready to explore the possibility of publishing such an edition, the NBSS acknowledged that it could not resist the testimony submitted by its agents and “on behalf of the missionary body in China” regarding “the desirableness, if not the necessity” for the issue of an annotated edition of the Chinese Bible. Although the NBSS did not pledge itself to publish such an edition, it expressed willingness to consider “any annotations on the Gospel of Matthew, or other Gospel” provided by a “representative Committee of missionaries”.Footnote ¹⁸ Subsequently, after several years of deliberation, the General Board of Directors of the NBSS (hereafter referred to as the NBSS's board) agreed in late 1892 that it could publish the Chinese Bible with annotations, provided that they were confined to explanations of the meaning of the words used in the Chinese Bible and prepared “in China by those who shall fairly represent the mind of the missionaries on the subject”.Footnote ¹⁹ In 1893, the NBSS published an annotated edition of the Chinese Gospel of Mark which was the first annotated edition of the Chinese Bible published by a Bible society. From then on, the NBSS received constant enquiries from Protestant missionaries in China about whether the other Gospels would be published in Chinese with annotations.Footnote ²⁰ By the end of 1899, the NBSS annotated editions of the other three Gospels as well as the Acts of the Apostles in Chinese had also been printed by the NBSS's press in Hankou 漢口.Footnote ²¹

The NBSS annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts met with a very favourable reception and appeared to have served their purpose, according to the reports of the NBSS's agents and Protestant missionaries in China on their Bible-selling activities. For example, in his account of a Bible-selling trip in South China in 1902, Maurice J. Walker, an agent of the NBSS in China, met a magistrate who told him that the annotations now used made the meaning of the Bible “much more clear [sic]”. Another official whom Walker met “made almost the same remark” to him.Footnote ²² Also, W. B. Hamilton, a missionary of the American Presbyterian Mission (South) in Shandong 山東, observed in 1903 that Christians in his district bought “a considerable number of the Annotated Gospels for their own use and as gifts to those desiring information regarding Christianity”.Footnote ²³ In the Republican era, the NBSS annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts remained popular with Protestant missionaries working among the Chinese people, even though the BFBS began to publish similar editions in the 1910s.Footnote ²⁴ They also received praises for their usefulness from Chinese Christians such as Li Lude 李路德 of the Christian Literature Society for China.Footnote ²⁵

As bestsellers, the NBSS annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts were a driving force behind the growth of the NBSS's work in China. In the decade from 1884 to 1893, on average the NBSS issued annually almost 200,000 Chinese Bibles, including complete Bibles, Testaments and biblical portions; In the subsequent decade, within which the NBSS published its annotated editions of Matthew, Luke, John and Acts, the number soared to about 386,000.Footnote ²⁶ It was reported that by the mid-1910s, almost two and a half million copies of the NBSS annotated Gospels and Acts were issued “in China itself and far beyond the bounds of the Eighteen Provinces”.Footnote ²⁷ The importance of these annotated Chinese Bible editions to the NBSS's work in China is also attested by the estimate that in the early 1930s they accounted for about ninety percent of the Chinese Bibles circulated by the NBSS.Footnote ²⁸

Exploring the Possibility of Publishing Other Biblical Books with Annotations

In early 1893, i.e. shortly after the NBSS agreed that it could publish the Chinese Bible with annotations, the NBSS already received the suggestion from Griffith John, a leading LMS missionary in China who worked closely with the NBSS, that it should “go beyond the Gospels, and bring the whole New Testament out” in annotated form.Footnote ²⁹ While it is possible that similar suggestions were made to the NBSS subsequently, it was not until 1920 that the NBSS began seriously to explore the possibility of publishing annotated editions of biblical books other than the Gospels and Acts.Footnote ³⁰ As indicated in the minutes of the meeting of the NBSS's board on 3^rd March 1920, it was reported that the NBSS annotated Gospels and Acts were “found so valuable to the Missionaries that a request had been made for the Society to publish other books of the New Testament in the same form”. It was resolved that A. Stewart Annand and W. E. Souter, who were agents of the NBSS in China, be instructed to see if “a Committee of eminent scholarly Missionaries would undertake preparation of Notes-such as Dr. Goodrich, Dr. Lewis, and Rev. Mr. Baller-and obtain cost of such publications”.Footnote ³¹

From the perspective of the NBSS, the request arrived at an appropriate time. Patronised by the Big Three, the Chinese Union Versions translation project, which was the largest one in the history of Protestant missionary Bible translation in China,Footnote ³² came to an end in 1919 with the publication of the complete translations of the Wenli (wenli 文理, i.e. literary Chinese) and Mandarin Union Versions. As remarked in the ABS's report on its work in China for that year, “it is not likely that much more will have to be done” regarding Chinese Bible translation in the foreseeable future, as “existing translations cover the whole of China, with the exception of some of the aboriginal or non-Chinese tribes in the west, south, and southwest”.Footnote ³³ In other words, the Big Three could thus concentrate their efforts on Bible publishing and distribution, which became the major arenas where they could further develop their work in China. Indeed, in the same year, Leonard Gow, the NBSS's vice chairman, stated that “the new revision of both Mandarin and Wenli Bibles means a new start with all our editions from Bibles down to the smallest portion”.Footnote ³⁴ Against such a background, publishing new annotated editions of the Chinese Bible was worth the consideration of the NBSS, as these editions could be a means of strengthening its position as a key player in the publication and distribution of the Chinese Bible, considering the popularity of its annotated Gospels and Acts.

Nevertheless, the NBSS did not comply with the request for annotated editions of the New Testament books other than the Gospels and Acts. This was most likely because the NBSS failed to secure the services of ‘a committee of eminent scholarly missionaries’ for the annotation work. Learned missionaries, not to mention the eminent ones, were sought-after in the China mission field. The following words borrowed from the records of the China Centenary Missionary Conference in 1907 describe the situation well: “Such men are not lying around loose, waiting to be picked up. When found, they are full of work and plans”.Footnote ³⁵

As for those referred to by the NBSS's board as examples of eminent scholarly missionaries, namely Chauncey Goodrich of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission, Spencer Lewis of the American Methodist Episcopal Mission (North) and Frederick W. Baller of the China Inland Mission, when their names were mentioned, Baller and Lewis were both in their sixties and Goodrich was even in his eighties. These ageing missionaries might not want to engage in the task of annotating the New Testament epistles and the Book of Revelation shortly after the completion of the Mandarin Union Version, a biblical translation which they had worked on for years.Footnote ³⁶ Also, it was questionable whether they were willing to form themselves into a committee to carry out the annotation work, given that Goodrich had an unhappy experience with Lewis in the final phase of the translation of the Mandarin Union Version, which led Goodrich to comment that he “cannot work any longer on a Committee with him [i.e. Lewis]”.Footnote ³⁷

The NBSS's failure to secure the services of eminent scholarly missionaries for the annotation work did not mean that nobody on the China mission field was willing to take up the task. For example, instead of following his board of directors’ instructions to the letter, Souter suggested that he might “undertake this work himself with Chinese assistance”.Footnote ³⁸ He expressed his willingness to commit himself to annotating the New Testament epistles, as well as desiring to receive “the English copy of the Annotations of the Gospels and Acts” for reference.Footnote ³⁹ Nevertheless, the NBSS's board insisted that the annotations on the “Epistles and other books of the New Testament” should be prepared by “experienced missionaries on the China field, who know best the difficulties, and that these notes be submitted to the Board before being translated into Chinese”.Footnote ⁴⁰ In 1923, Souter, who had been enthusiastic about preparing annotations on the New Testament epistles, resigned from the NBSS to be the secretary of the Chinese Foreign Famine Relief Committee in Shanghai.Footnote ⁴¹ This may be one of the reasons why no mention of any plan to publish annotated editions of the New Testament books other than the Gospels and Acts was made in the minutes of the NBSS's board for a while afterwards.

The NBSS's Preparations for the Publication of Its Annotated Edition of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version

Six years after Souter's resignation, the issue of whether to publish new annotated editions of the Chinese Bible was brought up again before the NBSS's board, thanks to Walter Milward, Secretary for China of the NBSS. At its board meeting on 8^th July 1929, letters were read from Milward, dated on 23^rd May and 10^th June in the same year. In these two letters, he expressed the view that since the NBSS annotated Gospels “have proved so eminently useful, an edition of other similarly Annotated Parts of the Bible would be equally serviceable”. Instead of annotated editions of other New Testament books, Milward proposed that an annotated edition of the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament be prepared.Footnote ⁴²

Why did Milward choose Proverbs? A hint can be found in the NBSS's annual report for 1929, which mentioned a case attesting to the usefulness of Proverbs in the itinerating work of Protestant missionaries in China. As reported by James N. Montgomery, a missionary of the American Presbyterian Mission (South) stationed in Huai'an 淮安 in Jiangsu 江蘇, he and his co-worker drew the attention of a lumber merchant to Proverbs during a missionary trip. The merchant then began to read several chapters daily, subsequently becoming an “earnest Christian” who preached on the gospel to great crowds on market days with remarks reinforced by “apt and piercing passages from ‘Proverbs’”.Footnote ⁴³ The information about the lumber merchant quoted in the NBSS's annual report for 1929 did not explain why he was attracted to Proverbs and why he quoted from Proverbs when preaching. However, the minutes of the NBSS's board meeting on 8^th July 1929 offered a reasonable answer: As stated in the minutes, the NBSS's board sanctioned Milward's proposal as it recognised “how eminently suitable such an Annotated Edition of the Book of Proverbs would be for circulation among Chinese who are so accustomed to the Proverbial Teachings of Confucius”.Footnote ⁴⁴

Yet, it is very likely that the NBSS's board decided to publish an annotated Chinese edition of Proverbs also because Milward succeeded in securing the services of a veteran Protestant missionary in China in preparing the necessary annotations. According to the letters from Milward read at the aforementioned meeting, Harry Price, a missionary of the Christian Missions in Many Lands and one of the editorial secretaries of the Religious Tract Society for China, offered to annotate Proverbs for the NBSS.Footnote ⁴⁵ Starting his missionary work in China in 1891, Price was a prolific writer and translator. Among his works were his Chinese commentary on Psalms and his Chinese translation of Charles Henry Mackintosh's Notes on Pentateuch.Footnote ⁴⁶ Considering Price's credentials, it is not surprising that the NBSS's board agreed to invite him to be the annotator of Proverbs.Footnote ⁴⁷ However, unfortunately for the NBSS, Price died on 4^th July 1930. Before his death, he had completed only the annotations on the first nine chapters of Proverbs.Footnote ⁴⁸

The NBSS's project of publishing an annotated Chinese edition of Proverbs was not thus terminated, as Charles W. Allan of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, who was also qualified for the task of annotating Proverbs, consented to succeed Price in early 1931.Footnote ⁴⁹ Described by the NBSS as “one of the most accomplished Chinese scholars”,Footnote ⁵⁰ Allan was elected as one of the Old Testament translators of the Mandarin Union Version in 1907, although he resigned from the translation project in 1913.Footnote ⁵¹ When the NBSS invited him to be Price's successor, he was a staff member of the Christian Literature Society for China on loan from his missionary society, preparing expository commentaries on the books of the Old Testament.Footnote ⁵² The dovetailing of the two publication projects might help explain why he accepted the NBSS's invitation. Indeed, it did not take Allan too long to complete the annotations on Proverbs: A draft copy in English of his annotations had reached Milward not later than early August 1931, i.e. about three months after the NBSS's board confirmed that he was Price's successor.Footnote ⁵³

One might wonder why Allan submitted to Milward an English draft copy of his annotations instead of a Chinese one, given that Allan's annotations were intended for use in the NBSS annotated Chinese edition of Proverbs. The major reason was that before being officially adopted by the NBSS, Allan's annotations would be scrutinised by an ad-hoc committee in Scotland appointed by the NBSS's board. The purpose of such an arrangement was to ensure that the annotations were prepared along the lines laid down by the NBSS's board in late 1892 concerning the publication of the Chinese Bible with annotations, i.e. the annotations were not doctrinal notes or comments but necessary explanations of the meaning of the words used in the Chinese Bible.Footnote ⁵⁴ Nonetheless, since the members of the ad-hoc committee did not necessarily know Chinese, to facilitate the scrutiny process, it was necessary for Allan to submit an English draft copy of his annotations.

On 14^th September 1931, the NBSS's board appointed a committee comprising two board members who were renowned Scottish Protestant clergymen, namely John Fairley Daly and Ernest David Jarvis, to go over Allan's draft annotations.Footnote ⁵⁵ A minister famous for his devotion to the cause of foreign missions, Daly was appointed very likely because of his membership of the Scottish committee of the Christian Literature Council for China. As for Jarvis, his appointment could be related to his stature as the minister-in-charge of the Wellington Church in Glasgow, which was an important congregation of the Church of Scotland at the time.Footnote ⁵⁶ As indicated in the postscript to the letter from G. A. Frank Knight, the NBSS's general secretary, to Milward dated 14^th November 1931, the scrutiny had been finished before the letter was written. By and large, Daly and Jarvis were satisfied with Allan's draft annotations, even though the two ministers made some suggestions for improvement,Footnote ⁵⁷ which will be discussed in the next section of this article. The approved annotations with the suggestions for improvement were sent to Milward as enclosure to the aforementioned letter, so that he could forward them to Allan, who would then translate them into Chinese for publication.Footnote ⁵⁸

The NBSS annotated Chinese edition of Proverbs was eventually published in 1932,Footnote ⁵⁹ although the earliest extant copy of it consulted by the author of this article was printed in 1933.Footnote ⁶⁰ The biblical text of this edition of Proverbs comes from the Mandarin Union Version. This is not surprising, since by no later than the 1930s the Mandarin Union Version had established itself as the standard biblical text for Chinese Protestants, which was also the major Chinese Bible version distributed by the Big Three.Footnote ⁶¹

Like the annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts, the annotated Chinese edition of Proverbs published by the NBSS was well-received among Protestant missionaries and Chinese evangelistic workers in China.Footnote ⁶² In his letter to Knight dated 27^th February 1933, David McGavin, who oversaw the NBSS's North China agency, wrote, “The new Annotated edition of the Book of Proverbs has already become very popular. The Chinese as a people are famous for their proverbs, and this appears to have a peculiar attraction for them”.Footnote ⁶³ The NBSS's report on its work in China for the same year provided more elaboration:

The same report also indicated that annotations made a difference to Proverbs of the Mandarin Union Version in terms of sales. It stated that “at the close of the first year it has been found that no fewer than 164,574 copies have been sold, more than four times as many as the average in former years of the unannotated Book [of Proverbs]”.Footnote ⁶⁵

The Chinese Annotations on Proverbs Published by the NBSS

While the familiarity of the Chinese people with short, pithy sayings facilitated the reception of the NBSS annotated edition of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version, its annotations, which aimed to make plain the text's contents that would otherwise be confusing to non-Christian readers, contributed to its popularity as an evangelistic tool.

In total, the NBSS allowed one hundred and five annotations for the translation of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version,Footnote ⁶⁶ which consists of nine hundred and fifteen verses. Among these annotations several different types can be identified. One of them is historical annotations. Three annotations of this kind are attested in the NBSS annotated Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version, and they provide brief biographical information about three historical figures of Israel respectively, i.e. David (1:1), Solomon (1:1) and Hezekiah (25:1). David was described as the second king of the Hebrews, who was also the father of Solomon, while Solomon was referred to as the third king of the Hebrews, who was “noted for his wisdom and the brilliance of his reign (yin ta de zhihui he ta de zhengzhi xiuming er deming 因他的智慧和他的政治修明而得名)”. Hezekiah, according to the NBSS's annotation, was one of the best kings of Judah, who lived about two hundred years after Solomon.

Another type of annotations identified is those explaining the customs and manners depicted in the Bible, which could be unfamiliar to ordinary Chinese people, who did not necessarily have knowledge of Jewish society and biblical lands. The annotation on the term jizhang 擊掌 (strike hands) in 6:1 is an example of this type of annotation. 6:1–5 is a biblical passage warning against standing surety for a non-family member.Footnote ⁶⁷ In the Mandarin Union Version, the first two verses of the passage read, “[6:1] woer, ni ruo wei pengyou zuo bao, ti wairen jizhang 我兒、你若爲朋友作保、替外人擊掌、[6:2] ni jiu bei kou zhong de huayu chanzhu, bei zui li de yanyu zhuozhu 你就被口中的話語纏住、被嘴裏的言語捉住 ([6:1] My son, if you have become surety for your friend, and have struck hands on behalf of a stranger, [6:2] you will be snared by the words of your mouth and caught by the words of your mouth)”. The phrase ti wairen jizhang 替外人擊掌 in 6:1 could be confusing for the reader, because he or she might not understand why ‘striking hands on behalf of a stranger’, i.e. the action described by the phrase, would get someone snared and caught by the words of his or her mouth. To avoid such confusion, an annotation is provided to explain that jizhang was “a sign among the Hebrews which served as evidence that a person became surety for another person (Xibolairen zhong de yizhong biaoji, wei ti ren zuo bao de zhengju 希伯來人中的一種表記，為替人作保的證據)”. In other words, it was a sign indicating that one would honour his or her promise to accept financial responsibility for some other person, thus relating to the words of one's mouth.

The annotation on 21:9 includes another example of the NBSS's explanations of the customs and manners depicted in the Bible. A Chinese reader of Proverbs in the Republican era might be puzzled by the phrase zhu zai fangding de jiao shang 住在房頂的角上 (live on a corner of the housetop) in 21:9, as Chinese residential roofs were usually pitched roofs.Footnote ⁶⁸ Therefore, in the annotation for that biblical verse, the annotator, i.e. Allan, pointed out that “the houses of Palestine had flat roofs. People generally sleep there in the summer (Balisitan de fangwu, shi pingding de. Renmen putong dang shutian shi shui zai nali…巴力斯坦的房屋，是平頂的。人們普通當暑天時睡在那裏……)”. This information would allow the reader to infer that ‘living on a corner of the housetop’ meant living at or near a corner of a rectangular flat roof.

The third type of annotation that merits attention here is annotations about the ancient Hebrew conception of the cosmos. The annotation on the term shenyuan 深淵 (the depths) in 3:20 is a good example of this type of annotation. In Proverbs, 3:19–20 are a pair of biblical verses describing “divine creation of the cosmos and its provisioning through water”.Footnote ⁶⁹ The translation of these two verses in the Mandarin Union Version reads “[3:19] Yehehua yi zhihui li di. Yi congming ding tian. 耶和華以智慧立地．以聰明定天．[3:20] Yi zhishi shi shenyuan liekai, shi tinakong dixia ganlu 以知識使深淵裂開、使天空滴下甘露 ([3:19] Jehovah founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding. [3:20] By his knowledge he broke the depths up and caused the skies to drop down dew)”. However, after reading the translation, a Chinese reader might not immediately understand why “shi shenyuan liekai 使深淵裂開 (break the depths up)” was relevant to the provisioning of the cosmos through water. Indeed, the phrase shi shenyuan liekai denotes that God broke up the depths to allow springs to well up from beneath,Footnote ⁷⁰ since the ancient Hebrews thought that the earth was like a flat disc and a huge ocean was underneath it.Footnote ⁷¹ To help the reader make sense of the phrase, the following annotation is provided: “The depths: This shows the Hebrew idea that underneath the earth was a great expanse of water. It was the origin of springs, streams and rivers (Shenyuan: Zhe biaoshi Xibolairen de sixiang, yi wei dadi zhi xia you yi juda shuichi, wei quanliu xihe zhi fayuan 深淵：這表示希伯來人的思想，以為大地之下有一巨大水池，為泉流溪河之發源)”.

Belonging to the wisdom literature in the Old Testament, Proverbs is a biblical book of which a common feature is the use of figurative language.Footnote ⁷² Hence, annotations are also provided in the NBSS annotated Proverbs to help the reader recognise and understand the figures of speech in the biblical book. For example, according to the annotation on the term shengming shu 生命樹 (tree of life) in 3:18, the term is “a figurative expression meaning the source of long life and peace (Zhe shi yizhong biyuyu, xiangzheng changshou yu heping zhi genben 這是一種比喻語，象徵長壽與和平之根本)”. In another example, an annotation is supplied to help the reader understand the metaphorical meaning of the phrase yu ren qinzui 與人親嘴 (kiss the lips) in 24:26, of which the translation in the Mandarin Union Version reads “yingdui zhengzhi de, youru yu ren qinzui 應對正直的、猶如與人親嘴 (Answering with honest words is like kissing the lips)”. As explained in the annotation, ‘kissing the lips’ means “showing true regard (biaoshi zhencheng de jingyi 表示真誠的敬意)”.

Since the NBSS believed that the Chinese people were noted for their fondness and knowledge of proverbs, it is understandable that to capitalise on this trait, the NBSS adopted Allan's annotation on 16:1, in which he explained the meaning of the biblical verse with a Chinese proverb. In the Mandarin Union Version, the translation of 16:1 is “xinzhong de mousuan zaihu ren. Shetou de yingdui, youyu Yehehua 心中的謀算在乎人．舌頭的應對、由於耶和華 (The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue comes from Jehovah)”. This biblical verse, which is about divine sovereignty and human planning, has been variously interpreted.Footnote ⁷³ Proposed by some biblical scholars, notably Crawford H. Toy, one of the popular interpretations is that the verse means “man proposes, God disposes”.Footnote ⁷⁴ This interpretation, together with the parallel Chinese proverb suggested by Solomon Caesar Malan in his Original Notes on the Book of Proverbs,Footnote ⁷⁵ casts light on why Allan suggested in his annotation on 16:1 that the meaning of this biblical verse is the same as that of the Chinese proverb moushi zai ren, chengshi zai tian 謀事在人，成事在天 (Planning lies with man; The outcome lies with heaven).Footnote ⁷⁶ Nonetheless, despite the potential advantage of attracting the reader's interest, Allan did not widely quote Chinese proverbs in his annotations. The annotation on 16:1 is the only one of its kind attested in the NBSS annotated Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version.

Besides, it is noteworthy that a few of Allan's draft annotations appeared in a revised form in the NBSS annotated Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version, because Allan accepted some suggested explanations of biblical verses in Proverbs that were provided by Knight after he gathered comments from Daly and Jarvis. These suggested explanations were believed to bring “greater clearness of thought” and elucidate “the exact meaning of the Proverb concerned”.Footnote ⁷⁷ How they affected the final version of Allan's annotations is illustrated in the following discussion about the annotations on the phrase zheduan gutou 折斷骨頭 (breaketh the bone) in 25:15 and the term tanhuo 炭火 (coals of fire) in 25:22.Footnote ⁷⁸

In Proverbs, 25:15 is a biblical verse about the power of patience and gentleness.Footnote ⁷⁹ Its second part, i.e. “And a soft tongue breaketh the bone”, was explained by Allan as meaning that a soft tongue “takes away the desire to speak angrily” in his English draft annotation on the phrase ‘breaketh the bone’ (in Chinese, zheduan gutou).Footnote ⁸⁰ However, the annotation was not adopted by the NBSS, most likely because it was considered as one of Allan's draft annotations showing that “the true meaning of the verse has been misunderstood”.Footnote ⁸¹ Instead, on behalf of the NBSS, Knight provided Allan with the following suggested annotation on the phrase ‘breaketh the bone’: “Gentle, conciliating words overcome the hardest opposition, & disarm the most determined enemy”.Footnote ⁸² Obviously, Allan revised his annotation accordingly, as its published version is in fact the Chinese translation of the NBSS's suggested annotation, which reads “Yi ji heai de yuyan neng shengguo ji wanqiang de fankang, neng huanhe zui you juexin de choudi 意即和藹的語言能勝過極頑強的反抗，能緩和最有決心的仇敵”.Footnote ⁸³

As for 25:21–22, while the passage is about the importance of kindness towards enemies, it is unclear from the text why if we treat our enemies humanely (25:21), we will “heap coals of fire” on their heads (25:22).Footnote ⁸⁴ In his English draft annotation on the term ‘coals of fire’ (in Chinese, tanhuo) in 25:22, Allan suggested that “These produce sharp pain. The pain here is the pain of contrition; the enemy will become a friend”. Nevertheless, after gathering comments from Daly and Jarvis, Knight advised that the phrase “& sorrow for the evil done” should be inserted after “the pain of contrition”.Footnote ⁸⁵ Helpful in further clarifying the meaning of ‘coals of fire’ for the reader, this suggested revision was adopted by Allan, as indicated in the published Chinese version of his annotation on the term tanhuo in 25:22, which reads, “zhe yao fasheng minrui de tongku. Zheli de tongku shi huiwu de tongku, shi yin xing e suo zhongxia de; zhe shi hua di wei you de fang fa 這要發生敏銳的痛苦 。這裏的痛苦是悔悟的痛苦，是因行惡所種下的；這是化敵為友的方法”. The Chinese annotation is basically identical in meaning with Allan's English draft annotation, except the phrase shi yin xing e suo zhongxia de 是因行惡所種下的 ([The pain] is inflicted by the evil done), which corresponds to the insertion advised by Knight, i.e. “sorrow for the evil done”.

The text layout of the NBSS annotated Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version also deserves our attention. The NBSS followed the Chinese practice of presenting annotations in the form of interlinear notes printed in a smaller font, placing them in the translated text and, with two exceptions, beneath the biblical passages concerned.Footnote ⁸⁶ This feature was deemed helpful by Protestant missionaries such as P. Hole, a Norwegian who worked in Shanxi 山西 and belonged to one of the associate missions of the China Inland Mission. In a letter to the NBSS written in 1933, Hole wrote, “We find that it helps better ordinary folk to ‘Understand what they read’ with the help of your inserted annotations than the abreaved [sic] top notes used in the B. & F.B.S., portions, as very few take any notice of the top notes”.Footnote ⁸⁷