gol priests. At the hour of prayer, which is about nine o'clock,
they may be seen going in crowds, clothed in yellow robes, to the
various halls of worship where they chant their prayers.

Very different from this is the Confucian Temple only a quarter of a
mile away. Here we find neither priest nor idol--nothing but a small
board tablet to "Confucius, the teacher of ten thousand ages" with
those of his most faithful and worthy disciples. In the court on each
side are rows of buildings--that on the east containing the tablets of
seventy-eight virtuous men; that on the west the tablets of fifty-four
learned men; eighty-six of these were pupils of the Sage, while the
remainder were men who accepted his teachings. No Taoists, however
learned; no Buddhists, however pure; no original thinkers, however
great may have been their following, are allowed a place here. It is a
Temple of Fame for Confucianists alone.

I have been in this temple when a whole bullock, the skin and entrails
having been removed, was kneeling upon a table facing the tablet of the
Sage, while sheep and pigs were similarly arranged facing the tablets
of his disciples.

For twenty-four centuries China has had Taoism preached within her
dominions; for twenty-three centuries she has worshipped at the shrine
of Confucius; for eighteen centuries she has had Buddhism, and for
twelve centuries Mohammedanism: and during all this time if we believe
the statements of her own people, she has slept. Does it not therefore
seem significant, that less than a century after the Gospel of Jesus
Christ had been preached to her people, and the Bible circulated freely
throughout her dominions, she opened her court to the world, began to
build railroads, open mines, erect educational institutions, adopt the
telegraph and the telephone, and step into line with the industrial
methods of the most progressive nations of the Western world?

XXI

The Death of Kuang Hsu and the Empress Dowager

Who knows whether the Dowager Empress will ever repose in the
magnificent tomb she has built for herself at such a cost, or whether a
new dynasty may not rifle its riches to embellish its own? Tze-Hsi is
growing old! According to nature's immutable law her faculties must
soon fail her; her iron will must bend and her far-seeing eye grow dim,
and after her who will resist the tide of foreign aggression and stem
the torrent of inward revolt?--Lady Susan Townley in "My Chinese Note
Boo