This same influence is also used in cases of serious illness, but
always secretly, for such practices, as well as dark _seances_ for
communicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chinese
authorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely to
be subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick person,
or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind are equally
under the ban of the law, the assumption--a very justifiable one--being
that the aim of these societies is to upset the existing order of
political and social life. The Heaven-and-Earth Society is among the
most famous, and the most dreaded, partly perhaps because it has never
been entirely suppressed. The lodges of this fraternity, the oath
of fidelity, and the ceremonial of admission, remind one forcibly of
Masonry in the West; but the points of conduct are merely coincidences,
and there does not appear to be any real connexion.

Among the most curious of all these institutions is the Golden Orchid
Society, the girl-members of which swear never to marry, and not only
threaten, but positively commit suicide upon any attempt at coercion. At
one time this society became such a serious menace that the authorities
were compelled to adopt severe measures of repression.

Another old-established society is that of the Vegetarians, who eat no
meat and neither smoke nor drink. From their seemingly harmless ranks it
is said that the Boxers of 1900 were largely recruited.

For nearly twenty-five centuries the Chinese have looked to Confucius
for their morals. Various religions have appealed to the spiritual side
of the Chinese mind, and Buddhism has obtained an ascendancy which will
not be easily displaced; but through all this long lapse of time the