Containing a prodigious amount of quotes, Han's Duoshu is textually indebted to many others' literary efforts. It quotes edificatory writings of Chinese intellectuals as well as works authored or translated by the Jesuits. Indeed, one of the purposes of this thesis is to clarify the treatise's textual indebtness to works that pertain to the Chinese tradition and the "Western learning." / This thesis argues that Han Lin thus participated in his native Jiangzhou's government-supervised educational activities for two purposes. The first was to propagate the Catholic faith by making use a Confucian, official educational institution. The second was to contribute to the cultivation of moral values and to the restoration of moral order from the local level by incorporating Catholic ethics into local educational material. In this way, the writing of Duoshu aimed to advance both Catholic preaching and Confucian edification on the one hand, and to bring them into coalescence on the other. / This thesis concentrates on the study of the seventeenth-century Chinese treatise Duoshu (Book of Admonitions), authored by the Catholic intellectual Han Lin (1596?-1649). Towards the end of the Ming, the magistrate of Jiangzhou (in Shanxi Province) Sun Shun organized communal pact meetings (xiangyue) shortly after he assumed office, in which local gentries and intellectuals were invited to lecture on the Six Maxims of the Hongwu emperor. Han Lin, a native of Jiangzhou, was one of the lecturers, and Sun's invitation gave him the impulse to write Duoshu. Despite its noticeable Catholic elements, the treatise is neither purely an apologetic work nor mere exposition of Christian doctrines. Although the purpose of expounding the Six Maxims runs through the entire treatise in terms of its contents and structure, Duoshu was written not only to propagate orthodox Confucianism or Ming imperial ideology. Its teaching is found to be more rich and complex than that of a mere commentary on the imperial precepts can be. / To better understand Duoshu, this thesis tries to probe into the life of the author and contextualize the treatise in the light of its relevant social institutions and literary tradition (especially literary genres). Shortly after its publication, Duoshu's circulation aborted amidst the dynastic change. Only after a lapse of over two centuries did the lost work reappear in China. The scholar Chen Yuan (1880-1971) truly grasped Han's writing purpose and wanted to fulfill it in his own time. His philological and editorial efforts made the modern reprint of Duoshu possible. A chapter of this thesis is therefore devoted to this episode of Duoshu's reception history in the Republican era. / 李凌瀚. / Sumitted: 2005年9月[Sept. 2005] / Sumitted: 2005 nian 9 yue [Sept. 2005] / Adviser: Archie C. C. Lee. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-09, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-163). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Li Linghan.