Ancestral Worship in China. AT the Missionary Conference in Shanghai, China, in May, 1890, during the discussion of ancestral worship, Rev. E. Faber, D.D., formulated into the following seventeen paragraphs his views of the subject:

1. Ancestral worship presupposes the disembodied souls to be subject to the same desires and wants as souls living in the body.

2. Ancestral worship demands real sacrifices (even bloody); the idea of supplying the wants of the departed, of propitiating them, of removing calamities, and of gaining special blessings allows no other interpretation. The ceremonial is the same as in worshiping deities.

3. Ancestral worship presupposes the happiness of the dead depending on the sacrifices from their living descendants.

4. Aucestral worship presupposes that the human soul, at the moment of death, is divided into three portions-one going to hades, one to remain at the grave, and one to reside in the tablet at the ancestral hall.

5. Ancestral worship presupposes that these three souls are attracted by the sacrificial ceremonial and partake of the ethereal parts of the sacrifices.

6. Ancestral worship presupposes that all departed souls, not favored with sacrifices, turn into hungry ghosts and cause all kinds of calamities to the living.

7. Ancestral worship presupposes the welfare of the living to be caused by blessings from the departed.

8. Ancestral worship is not merely commemorative but a pretended intercourse with the world of spirits, with the powers of lades, or of darkness, forbidden by divine law.

9. Ancestral worship, in transgressing the boundaries of human obligation, evokes evil of a very serious nature. This is as true of its most ancient form as of its modern development.

10. Ancestral worship is destructive to a belief in future retribution adjusted by God's righteousness; there are only distinguished rich and poor, not good and bad.

11. Ancestral worship places the imperial ancestors on an equality with heaven and earth, and the common gods or spirits are placed two degrees below.

12. Ancestral worship is the source of geomancy, necromancy, and other abominable superstitions; delay of burial for months and years, stealing of dead bodies, etc.

13. Ancestral worship is the cause of polygamy and of much unhappiness in family life in China. It stimulates more the animal nature of man, also selfishness and fear, than the nobler emotions of love.

14. Ancestral worship creates and fosters clannish

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17. "Honor thy father and thy mother" is the divine law which every Christian is bound to fulfill. There can be no doubt whatever about our attitude toward ancestral worship. Christianity brings men into divine relationship through the new birth by the Holy Spirit. Ancestral worship only knows the natural ties of flesh and blood which are supposed to continue after death. It is, therefore, even without a moral basis.

Miss Johnston, of Amoy, China, gives the following account of what she has seen of Chinese worship of ancestors:

One cannot be long in China without seeing and hearing a good deal about the worship of ancestors, in which worship the ancestral tablets play an important part. The tablets are in themselves insignificant slips of wood about eight inches long and three wide, painted a dull brown, and one end runs into a

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short footboard for support. They stand sometimes singly, sometimes in rows three or four deep, on a high narrow table, along one end of the entrance hall which serves as guest room in every heathen home. For some time after coming to China I did not notice the tablets, being more interested in examining the idols which occupy the center of the table. My attention was first forcibly directed to the tablets when calling on an old woman and inquiring after her sick daughter. She pouted her lips in the direction of the table, saying, "There she is!" On looking up, expecting to see the girl enter, I noticed a new slip of wood which had been added to the dusty column of worm-eaten tablets, and realized that the young woman was supposed to be seated there; dead, yet still present.

A week or two ago Miss M. Talmage and I took advantage of a bright day to visit some Christians in a village near Amoy. While one of us took notes of the names and ages of the women and girls in the family, trying to find pupils for the schools, the other spoke to the crowds of heathen who gathered about the doors. We visited about twenty houses, and in only two of these did we find the tables vacated by their row of ghostly tablets; not because the Christians themselves worshiped them, but because, owing to the Chinese custom of having large families

CHILDREN WORSHIPING ANCESTRAL TABLETS.

under one roof, there were always heathen relations in the houses who objected to their removal. In every house, behind the crowd of smiling, gayly dressed women who hastened to greet us, stood the silent host of their departed ancestors, a people who were not a people, and yet whose influence outweighed that of the living souls before us. A living woman has little power in China, but the spirit of the dead is greatly to be feared. For this reason suicide is often perpetrated by way of revenge. Even children in a fit of anger will attempt to drown or hang themselves, the living being then threatened with the anger of the dead.

In house after house the long tables faced us, sometimes gilded and varnished, with gay cloth hangings, but more often dusty, a mass of cobwebs and confusion. In the center stood the idols, occasionally in a glass case; the Goddess of Mercy, the principal figure, with on one hand the earth god, and on the other the kitchen god, red and smiling. Then, in long rows, the tablets, with basins of rice, surmounted by a few cash and an orange, placed in front. Other offerings, of vermicelli, vegetables, and meat were often seen. Each tablet is supposed to have its separate basin and chopsticks, so that, as a man remarked, when demolishing his household gods, "To-day's work will save a good deal of dish washing."

At all feasts and ceremonies, in seasons of mourning and rejoicing, the spirits of the dead must have their share of the good things. In the midst of the busy life around they keep their silent watch-dead, but not gone, ever wakeful, ready to work vengeance and evil on all offenders.

Having been accustomed from childhood to believe in the power and presence of these ancestors, it is no easy matter, even for Christians, to rid themselves of superstitious fears and at the same time oppose the public sentiment of filial duty by giving up ancestral worship. Only a short time ago I met with an instance of this. One afternoon a Christian woman asked me to go with a friend and visit a neighbor of hers who had lately become interested in the Gospel. She had given up the worship of idols, but feared to part with the tablets. She thought if we would pray with her she would have courage to throw them away. A few minutes' walk from the chapel brought us to her home-a tiny hovel where a loom with its half-finished web of cloth nearly filled the room. Dust and cob. webs, broken earthenware, stools, and buckets, littered the floor and heaped the corners. It was a cool, breezy morning, but a flare of warmth flashed out from under the rice boiler, where a blazing fire crackled over the handful of thorns which had been thrust under the earthen stove. Cold though it was, the woman we came to see was bathed in perspiration as she drew out some dusty slabs of wood from

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one of the buckets and held them up in the sunlight. "Do you see these?" she said, addressing a crowd of boys and women in the doorway, who, silent for the moment, were watching the scene with eager curiosity. "I am going to have nothing more to do with them; they are of no use. I am going to trust in Jesus the Saviour. I know he will protect me." Then, turning to us, she said, earnestly, "Pray for me, and I will not be afraid, even if my ancestors revenge themselves and take my life. The Saviour will watch over me; he will take me to heaven, will he not?"

After a little talk and prayer together, the tablets were tied up in a napkin. One seemed to have been broken, and was held together by a string. "That was done some months ago," explained our guide, "when my friend decided to give up the worship of idols. She gave her gods to the children to play

with, and the tablets she began to split up for firewood, but when she had broken one she was afraid and tied it together again, lest the spirit should be angry and bring evil influences to bear on her." "Are you quite willing to give us these?" we asked again, before carrying away the bundle. "Quite willing. You will pray for me, will you not? I will trust in the Saviour; indeed, I will not be afraid." So, with an explanation to the neighbors and an invitation to come and hear at the chapel, we left her, hoping that some day she may be able to read in the women's school in Amoy, and so learn more of the Saviour in whom she has already put her trust.

A few days after I was telling the story to an old schoolgirl. She smiled, and said, "My grandmother, too, was very much afraid of the spirits. When she first worshiped God she laid the tablets under the table. As no harm came of it she put them behind the bed for a night or two. Still no evil came to the family, so she grew bolder and put them in the dust heap. As they did not avenge even this indignity it showed plainly that they had no power, so she fearlessly chopped them up to light the fire and boil the rice."

Dr. B. C. Henry writes: "The system of ancestral worship terrorizes the living and presents a picture of the dead at once miserable and hopeless. The amount of expense involved is immense. Ancestral temples are more numerous than any other kind of public buildings. It has been estimated that the Chinese spend directly on ancestral worship one hundred and twenty millions of dollars every year. To this should be added the money given under the

TABLETS.

name of public charity for the relief of the wandering ghosts, which makes a total of more than one hundred and fifty millions of dollars spent in vain worship of the dead. Under this system a man who will expend ten thousand dollars on a lucky grave for his father will hardly give fifty cents toward the burial of his infant child, under the delusion that the little spirit so early blasted is accursed and powerless to help or harm him."

A correspondent in China of the Mission Field says: "The extent of idolatry is something fearful, and custom has welded it tight together with all the intents and purposes, thoughts and actions of the Chinese. Everywhere we are confronted by this gigantic evil. From the palace down to the beggar's mud hut over 400,000,000 souls of them are enslaved by idolatry. Every family poorly fed and poorly clad, every family richly fed and richly clad, all have their idols in their homes, which are their chief concern, which must be fed, worshiped, and guarded. Idolatry is an enormous expense to these people already stricken in poverty. Besides all the money that is spent on temples and shrines fortunes are wasted by burning make-believe money, miniature paper houses, men, horses, and women, trunks, bandboxes, and furniture, and also by providing provisions for the poor departed souls in the other world. Twenty thousand dollars are spent in a certain month of the year on one temple alone in the Canton province. The sum spent for idolatry throughout the empire in a year is estimated to be the magnificent sum of $300,000,000 at the very low. est. Mark such liberality!"

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The Kitchen God of China. REV. A. J. BAMFORD, writes of the Kitchen God of China. He says:

"The worship of the Kitchen God is universal in China. Some worship daily, and others are conteut to pay him homage at the beginning of each half month. From every kitchen range in China he benignly looks down upon and rules the household, rejoicing not only in the fragrance of the incense, burnt specially in his honor, but in all the steamy flavors that result from the daily cooking of the family dinner.

"Toward the end of the twelfth month he pays his annual visit to heaven, and confers with the supreme deity as to the affairs and conduct of the family over which he has been presiding. He goes to heaven upon the wings of flame. His picture is taken down from its place on the wall, it is put in a little bamboo lamp-stand on a bundle of rice-straw, and the whole is set on fire. In the flame and smoke he passes into the spiritual, unseen world; in proof of which he may be looked for in vain in this, the visible world. But it is commonly reported that the family, of whose home life he has been a witness during the whole year, treat him with special respect toward the close of it, depending on a charitably infirm memory in regard to earlier neglect, and hoping that he will ascend with favorable impressions of them induced by the more recent attentions.

KITCHEN GOD.

"Nor does the opinion in which he is held preclude them from adopting grosser devices. It is said that some even go the length of smearing his lips with syrup, that he may be the more likely to speak sweet things when he gives in his report, while others, to guard against his unnecessary accuracy, even consider it worth while to saturate the straw in the flames of which he rides with a liberal allowance of samshu, the spirit distilled from rice.

"A lamp is kept constantly burning during the first days of the new year, to indicate that the family are waiting to welcome him whenever he returns. When children have been away from home, after greeting their parents, they worship him. If fat pigs are reared, he receives credit for the good will that permitted it, and suitable offerings are made him when the pigs are sold.

"When the head of a household dies, and his effects are divided, the image of this god becomes the propcrty of the eldest son, the second son taking the censer that had stood before it, while the ashes are

distributed among the other sons; ashes, censer, image to form in each case the nucleus round which the complete paraphernalia is to grow, so that in each new home there may be established and perpetuated the worship of the kitchen god."

The Emperor of China.

THE present Emperor of China is only twenty-two years of age. A distinguished traveler writes what he saw of him in an audience given to the foreign embassadors in 1892: "His air is one of exceeding intelligence and gentleness, somewhat frightened and melancholy looking. His face is pale, and though it is distinguished by refinement and quiet dignity, it has none of the force of his martial ancestors, nothing commanding or imperial, but is altogether mild, delicate, sad, and kind. His skin is strangely pallid in hue, owing probably to his confinement in the palace and the absence of the ordinary pleasures and pursuits of youth, combined with the discharge of important and difficult duties of state. His eyes are unusually large and mournful in expression. His forehead is well shaped and broad, and his head large above the average. He sat cross-legged and played nervously with his fingers while the ordeal lasted."

Chinese Belief in Evil Spirits.

The

TAOISM in China is responsible for the gross superstitions and belief in malevolent spirits that prevail throughout the country. It has filled the air with fairies, sprites, and demons, and attributes diseases of various kinds, fever, madness, drowning, accidental death, suicide, and all kinds of evils and discomforts to the agencies of these malevolent beings. priests do all they can to foster such delusions, and insist that charms are necessary to protection; so that on almost every door strange figures or mysterious characters are posted-the Taoist charms against malign influences. In case of an epidemic or any widespread fear of evil they make capital of the superstitious fears of the people, and enrich themselves from the sale of charms and amulets. They are a great blight to the country and the enemies of all enlightenment.

The Chinese Bed.

THE kang is the common bed of a Chinese house. This institution in an iun runs along each side of the one long room which is used for cooking, smoking, dining, gambling, squabbling, and simultaneously for sleeping. Whether the inn be fifty or a hundred and fifty feet long this is a description absolutely accurate, unless on roads frequented by mandarins, for whose accommodation small rooms are partitioned off either at the end or one of the sides. The kang is a counterlike structure two feet high, and from five and a half to six feet broad, brick built, and perforated with flues, heated, when short, from one end only, and when long from several openings along the side. Into these a few kindled millet stalks are thrust, and by occasional renewal your bed can be heated to any extent, regulated by the desire of the sleeper, the parsimoniousness of the innkeeper, and the capacity of the kang to do what is required of it.

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The Feast of Spring in China.

BY REV. C. BONE.

MOST nations seem to celebrate a spring festival, and to this rule China is no exception. Moreover, of all its yearly feasts-and they are legion-this is one of the most popular. The genesis and development of Tsing Ming can with difficulty be traced, except in general outline. Its present popularity, however, is unique. It finds no place, and is not even hinted at in the Confucian classics. The sage's remark, "In spring and autumn they repaired and beautified the temple halls of their fathers," can hardly refer thereto. The festival appears to have become important during the palmy days of the Tang dynasty, A.D. 618905, and was celebrated chiefly by the elegant and learned.

As the name Tsing Ming means "freshness and sunshine," so the time of its celebration was always

starts for the grave in the golden sunlight of early dawn, laden with baskets of provisions, gilt paper money, tallow candles, incense sticks, fire crackers, and an antediluvian hoe. With this ancient hoe they clear off the weeds and brambles, and dig up two big clods of turf, which they place upon the head of the grave to prove to the world that they have been filial; with the paper money they satisfy the cravings of the expectant shade, and with the provisions they satisfy themselves.

Their work and worship finished, the letting off of crackers gives amusement to the younger section of the party, and informs the spirits that the ceremony is over. The worshipers then return to the village, where they abandon themselves to conviviality and social intercourse. Meanwhile those who cannot "go to the mountain" arrange that the mountain shall come to them. In other words, in each doorpost of every house sprays of green willow are stuck,

spring, which is, or should be, a time of gladness. Poets, authors, and statesmen assembled at the spring residences of their rulers, composed their poems, drank their wine, looked out upon and enjoyed the mountain landscape bedecked in its garments of approaching spring. They returned laden with green boughs, which were visible proofs that grim winter had departed and spring had come. What was once a monopoly of the rich has now become the property of all, and millions forsake the dreary towns for the fresh green country with the feeling that this is "the happiest time of all the glad New Year."

They go to worship their forefathers at the graves of their ancestors-when they can discover them amid the brambles and long grass by which they are often hidden. Then there is the family worship in the ancestral hall; after which follows the feast of roast pork and pickled cabbage. The family party

which are said to attract and direct the wandering ghosts to their respective homes and feasts.

Binding the Feet.

IT is well known that the feet of the women of China are bound in their youth, so that they can walk with difficulty when they grow up. Two explanations are given of the origin of the custom: one, that the fashion was set by an empress who had herself deformed feet; another, that the practice was instituted to prevent women going about, and so making mischief. During the first year or two the poor victims suffer intense pain, many of them, in summer, lying prostrate with fever. But large feet are said to be immoral, and the poor children, believing that they are something dreadful, shudder at the thought of them. A change, however, is said to be coming over the minds of the people in this connection, and we are told that the next generation will see great alterations in Chinese homes.