dead men supposed to have taken up their abode in animals, reptiles,
insects, trees, stones, etc.--borrowed the cloak of religion from
Buddhism, which eventually outshone it, and degenerated into a system
of exorcism and magic. Buddhism, a religion originating in India, in
which Buddha, once a man, is worshipped, in which no beings are known
with greater power than can be attained to by man, and according to
which at death the soul migrates into anything from a deified human
being to an elephant, a bird, a plant, a wall, a broom, or any piece
of inorganic matter, was imported ready made into China and took the
side of popular superstition and Taoism against the orthodox belief,
finding that its power lay in the influence on the popular mind of its
doctrine respecting a future state, in contrast to the indifference
of Confucianism. Its pleading for compassion and preservation of life
met a crying need, and but for it the state of things in this respect
would be worse than it is.

Religion, apart from ancestor-worship, does not enter largely
into Chinese life. There is none of the real 'love of God' found,
for example, in the fervent as distinguished from the conventional
Christian. And as ancestor-worship gradually loses its hold and dies
out agnosticism will take its place.


Superstitions

An almost infinite variety of superstitious practices, due to the
belief in the good or evil influences of departed spirits, exists in
all parts of China. Days are lucky or unlucky. Eclipses are due to a
dragon trying to eat the sun or the moon. The rainbow is supposed to be
the result of a meeting between the impure vapours of the sun and the