rits, while subordinate to Shang-ti, are not his
messengers. The surmise is not to be avoided that these two worships
came originally from different circles of ideas, and have not been
perfectly blended. The worship of heaven belongs to the higher
nature-worship, that of the spirits to the lower; the latter is
animistic, it is a worship of detached spirits, while the former is a
worship of the natural object itself. The spirits are all good; there
are scarcely any bad spirits in Chinese belief.

[Footnote 3: The Japanese official religion, "Shin-to" (=way of the
gods, as distinguished from Butsudo, way of Buddha, _i.e._ Japanese
Buddhism), an easy worship of numberless spirits, without sacrifices
and without any moral doctrine, is allied to this branch of the
religion of China; as also is the religion of Corea. Shin-to is not
ancestral worship, and recognises no life after death.]

3. Ancestors.--The worship of ancestors is that which is assigned to
the private individual. He does not approach Shang-ti any more than
he would address the emperor on earth; his working religion is
directed to his ancestors. The Chinese believed in the continuance of
the soul after death, and addressed solemn invitations to it to
return to the body it had forsaken. Their belief can scarcely be
described as that in personal immortality; it is the continuance of
the family rather than of the person that is thought of. The
individual does not look forward to his own future life or allow that
to influence him; there is little trace of any belief in future
rewards and punishments. China has no heaven and no hell. It is the
past, not the future, that influences the present; the departed
members of the family are believed to be still attached to it, and to
have become its tutelary spirits. In every house there is a hall of
ancestors, where worship and sacrifice is offered to them, and many
even of the details of this worship remind us strongly of the way in
which the Romans served their family heroes. Tablets belonging to the
ancestors are placed in this hall; and to these they are supposed to
come when properly invoked, so as to be present with the family. At
every important family event they are summoned to attend. This
worship has to be rendered by husband and wife jointly, so that
marriage is necessary for its performance, and an early marriage is a
religious duty.

The family sacrifice, like all sacrifices in China, is of the nature
of a