souls of the originator of
theatrical plays rambled away to the moon and paid a visit to the
Lunar Palace. He found it filled with Lunarians engaged in
theatrical performances. He is said to have remembered the manner
of conducting fashionable theatres in the moon, and to have imitated
them after his return to this earth. About the time of the festival of
the middle of autumn, the bake shops provide an immense amount
and variety of cakes: many of them are circular, in imitation of the
shape of the moon at that time, and are from six to twelve inches in
diameter. Some are in the form of a pagoda, or of a horse and rider,
or of a fish, or other animals which please and cause the cake to be
readily sold. Some of these 'moon-cakes' have a white rabbit,
engaged with his pounder, painted on one side, together with a lunar
beauty, and some trees or shrubs; on others are painted gods or
goddesses, animals, flowers, or persons, according to fancy." [179]

If we turn now to Jeremiah vii. 18, and read there, "The women
knead dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour
out drink offerings unto other gods," and remember that, according
to Rashi, these cakes of the Hebrews had the image of the god or
goddess stamped upon them, we are in view of a fact of much
interest. We are so unaccustomed to think that our peasants in
Lancashire can have anything in common with the Chinese five
thousand miles away, and with the Jews of two thousand five
hundred years ago, that to many these moon-cakes will give a
genuine surprise. But this is not all. Other analogies appear between
Buddhist and Christian rites, such as those mentioned by Dr.
Medhurst. "The very titles of their intercessors, such as 'goddess of
mercy,' 'holy mother,' 'queen of heaven,' with the image of a virgin,
having a child in her arms, holding a cross, are all such striking
coincidences, that the Catholic missionaries were greatly stumbled
at the resemblance between the Chinese worship and their own,
when they came over to convert the natives to Christianity." [180] It
is for the philosophical historian to show, if possible, whether these
Chinese ceremonies are copies of Christian or Hebrew originals; or
whether, many of our own Western forms with others of Oriental
character, are not transcripts of primitive faiths now well-nigh
forgotten in both East and West. The hot cross buns of Good Friday,
at first sight, have little relevancy to moon worship, and those wh