he was
punished in his conscience, and otherwise, he grieved himself to death
and wept tears of blood. His image, I was told, is placed in all
Temples as a warning to children. It is a forceful lesson, and it is a
timely warning. The one thing that is characteristic of a Chinaman is
his filial piety. This filial piety was admired in all ages. It
was inculcated in the old Hebrew Law and enforced with weighty
considerations. It was a virtue among the Greeks as well as other
peoples of the Gentile world; and I wonder not that when the heroes
who captured Troy saw Aeneas carrying his aged father Anchises on his
shoulders and leading his son, the puer Ascanius, by the hand, out of
the burning city, they cheered him and allowed him to escape with
his precious burden. A Chinaman is taught by precept and example to
venerate his parents and to give them divine honors after death.
Should a Chinese child be disobedient he would be punished severely
by the bamboo or other instrument, and he would bring on himself the
wrath of all his family. This strong sense of filial piety has done
more for the stability and perpetuity of the Chinese Empire than ought
else. It is a great element of strength and it leads to respect for
customs and to the observance of maxims. Especially are burial places
held in sacred esteem, and as they contain the ashes of the fathers
they must not be disturbed or desecrated. In this respect we might
emulate the Chinese, for they are a perfect illustration of the
old precept, "Honour thy father and thy mother," which, in a busy,
independent age, there is danger of forgetting. But we look with no
little interest on the Joss above the altar, the Chinese god. His name
is Kwan Rung, and I am informed that he was born about two hundred
years after the beginning of the Christian era. Such is the person who
is worshipped here. That he may not be hungry food is placed before
him at times, and also water to drink. It is a poor, weak human god
after all, a dying, dead man. How different the Creator of the ends
of the earth, Who fainteth not neither is weary! The Chinese have no
conception of the true God. They cannot conceive of the beauty and
power and compassion of Jesus Christ until they are brought into the
light of the Gospel. But what is Chinese theology? What do they teach
about the origin of the world and man and his destiny. The scholars
tell us that the world was formed by the duel powers Yang and Yin, who
were