of their own women. Very few of the pictures in the great
art galleries are after the style of face which you see in the Orient.
Hence there are Dutch Madonnas, and Italian and French and English
types. There were no worshippers in the Joss-House at the hour when I
visited it. Worship is not a prominent feature of Chinese religious
life. The good Chinaman comes once a year at least, perhaps oftener,
and burns a bit of perforated paper before his Joss, in order to show
that he is not forgetful of his deity. This bit of paper is about
six inches long and two inches wide. He also puts printed or written
papers in a machine which is run like a clock. Well, this is an easy
way to say prayers. And are there not many prayers offered, not
merely by Chinamen, that are machine prayers, soulless, heartless,
meaningless, and faithless, and which bring no answer? But how simple,
how beautiful, how sublime, the golden Prayer which the Divine Master
taught His disciples! Lord, teach us how to pray. If the noble Liturgy
of the Church is properly rendered,--for it is the expansion of the
Lord's Prayer,--there will be no machine-praying, and the answer to
prayer will be rich and abundant. The contrast between the worship
of the Joss and the worship of the true God in a Christian Church is
striking and affords reflection. The former is of the earth earthy,
the latter transports the devout worshipper to the throne of the Most
High. There is no fear that the religion of the Joss-House will ever
usurp the religion of the Christian altar. Men have expressed the fear
that if the Chinese came in overwhelming numbers to America they would
endanger the Christian faith by their idolatry. But would this be
true? Has Christianity anything to dread? What impression has the
Joss-House made all these years on the life of San Francisco outside
of Chinatown? None whatever, except to make the reflecting man value
the Christian faith with its elevating influences and its blessed
hopes all the more. It is a mistake then to exclude Chinamen from our
shores on the ground that they will do harm to Christianity. On the
contrary the Church will do them good. The Gospel is the leaven which
will be the salvation of heathen men. Did it not go forth into the
Gentile world on its glorious mission, and did it not convert many
nations in the first ages? Has it lost its potency to-day? No! It is
as powerful as ever to win men from their idols and their evil lives.
The qu