smoking everywhere, whether in Syria, or Egypt, or Nubia, or Arabia.
And is it not true that men are much the same the world over, in their
pastimes and pursuits, their loves and their pleasures?




CHAPTER X

THE JOSS-HOUSE, CHINESE IMMIGRATION AND CHINESE THEOLOGY

In Chinatown--Conception of God--The Joss House--Chinese Mottoes--The
Joss a Chinaman--Greek and Egyptian Ideas of God--Different Types of
Madonnas--Chinese Worship and Machine Prayers--The Joss-House and
the Christian Church--Chinese Immigration--Chinamen in the United
States--A Plague Spot--Fire Crackers and Incense Sticks--The Lion and
the Hen--The Man with Tears of Blood--Filial Piety--The Joss--Origin
of the World--Creation of Man--Spirits of the Dead--Ancestral
Rites--The Chinese Emperor--What Might Have Been--The Hand of God.


Our study of Chinatown and the civilisation of the country of the
Yellow Dragon, as seen in the City of the Golden Gate, has thus far
brought us in contact with the social and business life of the Chinese
and their amusements; but we are now to visit one of their temples of
worship, the Joss-House. And here the real man will be revealed; for
it is in religious services and ceremonies and beliefs that we get a
true knowledge of a race or a nation. The conception of God which you
have is the key to your character. If your views of Deity are low and
ignoble you will not achieve any greatness in the world; but if on the