nothing for such considerations. ``Hence it is that the Chinese
religion of to-day has become an inextricable blending of
the three systems.''[17] ``The ancient simplicity of the state religion
has been so far corrupted as to combine in one ritual
gods, ghosts, flags and cannon. It has become at once essentially
polytheistic and pantheistic.''[18]


[17] Gibson, ``Mission Methods and Mission Policy in South China.''

[18] Williams, ``Middle Kingdom.''


The result is that the average Chinese lives a life of terror
under the sway of imaginary demons. He erects a rectangular
pillar in front of his door so that the dreaded spirits cannot
enter his house without making an impossible turn. He gives
his tiled roof an upward slant at each of the eaves so that any
spirit attempting to descend will be shunted off into space.
Nor is this superstition confined to the lower classes. The
haughty, foreign-travelled Li Hung Chang abjectly grovelled
on the bank of the Yellow River to propitiate an alleged demon
that was believed to be the cause of a disastrous flood, and as
late as June 4, 1903, the North-China Daily News published
the following imperial decree:


``Owing to the continued drought, in spite of our prayers for rain, we
hereby command Chen Pih, Governor of Peking, to proceed to the Dragon
temple at Kanshan-hsien, Chih-li Province, and bring from thence to