HADES, OR THE LAND OF SHADOWS
Death a great problem that has been studied by the Chinese--Attempts
to solve the mystery--Conception of the Dark World--A counterpart of
China--Story of the scholar--Other life a continuation of
this--Doctrine of retribution--Metempsychosis--Modifications of this
great doctrine possible--The stories of the witch--Happiness of the
dead influenced by the condition of the graves--No babies in the Land
of Shadows.
The great problem of death is one that has oppressed the Chinese people in
all ages with its profound mystery, and has cast its shadow upon the
thought and life of the nation. The great sage of China, Confucius,
discoursed eloquently upon Heaven and its great principles, and has left
on record statements about it that cause those who can read below the
surface to see in the picture he has drawn a dim and shadowy vision of the
true God. He discoursed also about the duties of life and the human
relationships with such broad and statesmanlike views that twenty-five
centuries have passed by since they were first penned, and yet the Empire
accepts them to-day as the very inspiration of genius.
The subject of death was one that he would never discuss. He had evidently
pondered over it, but had found it too full of mystery for him to grapple
with, and he was too honest to pretend to be able to lay down any rules by
which the anxious seeker could find comfort when he came to stand face to
face with this grim enemy of our race. One of his disciples said to him
one day, "Master, I venture to ask you to tell us something about death."
Confucius replied, "Whilst we do not know sufficiently of life, how can we
know anything about death?"
A most pathetic commentary on the national feeling of helplessness with
regard to the question of death is seen in the graves that form so
conspicuous an object in any landscape that may be seen in any part of
China. The overwhelming population that must have peopled the plains and
valleys and mountain sides of this great country may in no uncertain
manner be estimated from the prodigious number of tombs that project
themselves upon one's attention everywhere. The one marked feature about
every one of these is the utter absence of any indication that the living
have any conception of where the dead have gone to. The gravestones are
absolutely silent on this point. In Christian cemeteries they speak with
affection of those that are gone, and they predict a joyful union in the
future, whilst some of them at least declare with confidence the happy lot
in the unseen world of beloved ones that have been snatched away by death
from those who have been left mourning their loss here.
A Chinese tombstone is usually stereotyped in the cold and dreary
statement it has to make about those who lie beneath it. On the top is the
name of the dynasty or of the place where the person was born, then in a
perpendicular line in the centre of it is the sex and family name of the
deceased. To the left, in smaller letters, is the name of their sons, and
positively nothing else. There is no loving record of their virtues, and
no hope expressed as to any meeting them in the future. They seem to have
dropped completely out of life, as far as any mention is made of them. It
is true that in the worship at the graves on the "Feast of Tombs," and in
the ancestral temples on the anniversary of their death, they are spoken
to as though they were still living; but they are approached on those
occasions not in the loving and affectionate way that was done when they
were alive, but rather as spirits that must be propitiated in order to
send blessings on their former homes, or coaxed into good humour so as to
cause them to refrain from hurling calamities upon the friends whom they
have left behind them.
But whilst death is a secret that none may fathom, it has not led men to
give up in despair the hopes of solving it. The Chinese, whilst feeling
themselves unable to find out what lies behind it, have built up a
mythical and yet at the same time a very human conception of what the
"Shadowy World" is supposed to be like. Having nothing to guide them in
their thoughts but the world of matter around them, they have imagined
that Hades is an exact counterpart of China, and that it has its emperor
and great and small mandarins, and provinces and counties with exactly the
same names that these have in the actual and visible lands of the
Celestial Empire.
That this is the conception of the thinkers and writers of this country is
evident from one of the fairy stories contained in a popular work which
gives a large number of exciting and wonderful incidents where the fairies
are the principal actors in the stirring events that are recorded.
In this it is told how that a certain scholar became seriously ill, and it
became evident that unless some great change took place, he would soon
die. As he lay in great pain and weariness on his bed, a man of stately
and dignified appearance, and one that he had no recollection of ever
having seen before, suddenly stood in the doorway of his bedroom, and,
saluting him with a pleasant smile, invited him to rise and go with him.
"I have a horse outside ready to carry you," he said, "and I want you to
accompany me on a journey that I wish you to take with me." "But I am too
ill to get up," the scholar said. "I feel so weak that I can hardly lift
my hand, and to attempt to travel would certainly end in failure." "Oh!
no," gently said the stranger, who was really a fairy, "with my assistance
I think you will be able to manage it," and taking him by the hand, he
tenderly raised him from the bed and led him with slow and faltering
footsteps into the open space in front of the house, where a white horse,
beautifully caparisoned, awaited his coming.
No sooner had he mounted on its back than his disease seemed in an instant
to vanish from him, and he felt himself light-hearted, and with a keen
appreciation of the beautiful scenery through which they were passing. It
seemed, however, very singular to him that he could not recognize ever
having seen it before. It was all new and strange, and it had a beauty and
a fascination about it that he had never experienced in any of his
previous travels.
After some hours, they came to a magnificent city, whose walls towered
high like those that might belong to the capital of an empire. Passing
through one of its lofty gates, he noticed how wide its streets were, and
how crowds thronged them, though they seemed shadowy and unreal, and there
was a silence and a gloom about them that he had never seen in any city
that he had ever visited before. After winding in and out through these
spacious thoroughfares, they came at last to what seemed to the scholar
like a royal palace, so grand and imposing was its appearance.
Entering through its massive doors, and ascending numerous flights of
stone stairways, he was led by his guide into a magnificent
reception-room, where a number of what looked like mandarins of high
official rank were sitting as though they awaited his coming. The chief
one amongst them had a kingly air about him, and it seemed to him that he
strongly resembled the pictures he had often seen of the King of the
Shadowy World. Pointing him to a seat close by a table on which were paper
and pens and ink, and at which another scholar was seated, a subject for
examination was given them both, upon which they were to write an essay.
As soon as they were finished they were handed up to the royal-looking
personage, who after carefully examining them both, decided that the one
written by our scholar was decidedly the best, and was worthy of the
highest commendation and praise. "In consideration of the talent you have
shown, and your evident ability to do useful service for the State, I
appoint you to be the prefect in a certain city in the Province of Honan,"
said the kingly president.
The scholar now realized for the first time that he was really dead, and
that the noble-looking man that had been examining him was after all the
King of the Shadowy World. Trembling at the truth that had just burst upon
him, his thoughts flew back like a flash of lightning to his widowed
mother, and, rising from his seat, he pleaded with passionate earnestness
with the King to give him back his life and allow him to return to earth
and live as long as his mother, so that he might comfort and care for her
in her declining years.
His Majesty was deeply moved with this exhibition of filial piety, and
turning to one of the men sitting on the bench asked him to bring him the
"Book of Life and Death," in which the destined hour of every human
being's life was recorded, in order that he might see how many years the
mother had still to live. Turning to the page where her birth and death
were recorded he found that she had still nine years to live.
Turning to the filial son he said, "Your prayer is granted, and for nine
more years a fresh lease of life will be given you, and the man who has
been examined with you to-day shall act in your place as prefect, till you
can return and take up your post in Honan."
This is a very pretty story, and we could wish that it were one that was
founded on fact. The reason for quoting it here is to show how the other
world is considered to be the exact counterpart of this, only life there
is filled with gloom, for the shadows of a sunless land rest upon every
department of society, and take away the joyousness and the hope that the
bright sun shining in a cloudless sky is apt to impart to men living in
this upper world.
The conception that China should be the ideal that ought to be followed
when the "World of Shadows" was devised as an abode for the dead, has been
carried out not simply in the arrangement that has been made with regard
to its territorial and political divisions. Even society has been mapped
out on the same lines as those we see in what may be called the
Mother-country. The same businesses and callings are carried on by the
dead as those they pursued when they were alive on earth, for it is an
extraordinary fact that the inhabitants of the dark land have managed to
be clothed with the same bodies that they had when in life, and whilst
these are mouldering in the graves on the hillsides they seem in some
mysterious way to have regained possession of them when they reached the
other shore, and with the instinct of industry that is deep in the Chinese
race, they no sooner get there than without any loss of continuity they
begin to carry on the trades or professions that occupied them when they
were in life.
The carpenter, for example, continues as soon as he can get his breath in
the other world his old trade by which he has been lately earning his
living. No one ever supposes that either enterprise or ambition will
induce him to desire to enter upon any other line of life. The blacksmith
with his brawny arms, and his muscles as hard almost as the metal that he
has been working on, will naturally find his way to the smithy, and in
that darkened land where only an evening light ever penetrates, the sparks
will again be made to fly, and the red-hot metal, which glows with a
brighter light in the subdued and gloomy atmosphere, will as of yore yield
to his sturdy strokes and take the shape that he has in his mind.
The man in high position here will naturally gravitate, by a conservative
law that secures the continuity of life, into the same social position
there, whilst the men and women in the humbler ranks will just as
certainly move into similar spheres when they pass the narrow bourne that
divides the two lands from each other.
There is, of course, a great deal of vague statement and often a
contrariety of opinion with regard to the other world and how things are
carried on there. In such a profound subject and where speculation only
can be relied upon for any thought upon the question, it is evident that
the popular beliefs must often be at fault to explain difficulties that
arise in the logical carrying out of any theories that may be held on a
matter of such vast moment to the countless millions of this Empire.
There are certain leading ideas that men generally have about the World of
Shadows and the condition of the men and women there, and when they are
confronted with difficulties of details, they are either silent as to how
these are to be explained, or they boldly acknowledge that they can
suggest no solution to them, and they go on holding them precisely as they
did before the objections were raised. The turbidity of mind that is
constitutional in a Chinaman, enables him to accept theories which are
often in themselves self-contradictory, and in a Westerner would so shake
his faith in them that he would infallibly reject them before long. The
idols, for example, have so many vulnerable points about them, that these
have simply to be stated to be at once accepted, but this does not seem to
undermine the faith of their worshippers in them. They will laugh with the
objector, and will even suggest points that he had not thought of, and yet
they will be as earnest and devoted in their belief in them as though no
suspicion had ever been raised concerning them.
In addition to the belief already stated that Hades is but a continuation
of the Chinese Empire in its social and political aspects and conditions,
there is another one, most mysterious and most fateful, that is held by
the masses, and that is that where retribution had not been visited upon
the transgressor in this life for the evils he has committed, it will be
meted out to him in full measure by the King of the Land of Shadows when
he comes within his jurisdiction.
This is a Buddhist idea that came to this country with the idols from
India. It is true that the thought was dimly foreshadowed in the teachings
of the early sages, who declared that "virtue had its rewards, and vice
its retribution, and that if neither the rewards nor the retribution had
yet been meted out, it was because the time had not yet arrived for such
action." It was seen, however, that good men often died in sorrow, and
their noble life had not been rewarded as the sages declared it would be,
whilst men who had passed their lives in the commission of great wrongs,
accumulated great wealth, had sons and daughters born to them, and finally
died without the prediction of the great teachers of the nation being
verified.
The Buddhist doctrine about retribution in the next life filled up the
space that had been left undefined by the sages, and men everywhere have
accepted it as a solution of the difficulty. The teachers of this faith
are most emphatic in the way in which they preach it, and in many of the
Buddhist temples there are gruesome and realistic pictures of the various
kinds of tortures to which these men are condemned in the prisons or hells
that are kept in Hades for the special benefit of the men and women that
have violated the principles of Heaven during their stay on earth. These
are forcible reminders to the wicked and ungodly who will not repent and
abandon their evil lives, that even though they escape the consequences of
their misdeeds here, a day will surely come when in the prisons of the
Land of Shadows they will pay the full penalty for the wrongs they have
committed in their previous existence.
[Illustration: A BUDDHIST PRIEST.
_To face p. 208._]
Now, it is evident that at an early stage in human thought, the idea of
men and women suffering such terrible torments in the prison-houses of the
under world touched men with infinite compassion, and a new doctrine was
conceived that was intended to mitigate the horrors connected with the
retribution for wrong-doing. This was the famous theory of metempsychosis,
which has permeated the whole of the East, and has made a permanent
impression upon every one of the native religions.
Metempsychosis, as it is understood in China, declares that every adult
sixteen years after entering the Land of Shadows is allowed to depart to
be born again into some position on earth. There is a general release to
every one, good, bad, and indifferent, and once more they may return to
the upper world and be relieved from the pain and gloom of that sunless
realm.
But even in this great act of mercy the ideas with regard to retribution
for evil and reward for virtue are sedulously maintained. The bad man who
is let out of the hideous prison in which he has been confined is not to
be allowed to escape the consequences of his previous vicious life. He is
allowed to return to the world again, but he will appear perhaps in the
shape of a pig or a dog, or some other of the lower animals.
It is for this reason that the Buddhists are so opposed to the taking of
animal life. The animal upon whose flesh they are feeding may have been
when he lived before on the earth a notorious criminal, who for his
iniquities has been degraded by being transformed into, say, a buffalo.
Wrong-doing is a serious matter, and though released from the pains of
hell and allowed back again to earth, the criminal must pay the penalty in
the debased condition in which he is allowed to live once more amongst
men. A cock that is waking the morn with his shrill and defiant cries may
have been a man that a few years ago lived in another part of the Empire,
and who for his wickedness has been condemned to take the shape of the
animal whose voice fills the barnyard with its echoes. It may take a good
many births before these two individuals shall have expiated the crimes
they committed, and shall be allowed again the dignity of appearing
amongst mankind on earth.
Even in regard to the criminals who are undergoing the extreme tortures
that the King of the Land of Shadows knows how to inflict, the thought of
mercy comes in to break upon the monotony of their suffering. Every year
for the whole of August their prison doors are opened and their chains and
fetters are unloosed, the great entrance to the upper world is thrown wide
open, and they are allowed their freedom to wander once more at their own
will wherever they like throughout the whole of the Chinese Empire. So
firmly is this belief held by the people of this country, that during the
whole of their seventh month in every town and city and almost every
village in China, tables are spread out in the open with every ordinary
luxury that usually appeals to the Chinese tastes. There are roast
chickens and ducks, and ducks' eggs, and a variety of savoury vegetables,
delicately cooked and browned, so that the very look of them makes the
mouth water. These are left for hours where only the blue sky looks down
upon them, and the hungry spirits that have been famished in their
prison-houses tearing up and down, with invisible forms, through the air,
feast and feast again upon the good things that the benevolent have spread
out for their use.
The Buddhist Church has devised a system by which it can give deliverance
to the imprisoned souls without waiting for the seventh moon. They have
invented a service which is called "The breaking open the prison doors,"
and consists of chanting certain rituals, and going through a lot of
mummery, as the result of which the person for whom the service is
performed suddenly finds the torturer stay his hand, the saw that had
been ruthlessly grinding through his limbs gently and tenderly removed
from his body, and with a polite bow he is ushered through the prison
gates into the Shadowy Land outside to wander at his own free will, until
the sixteen years are up, and he is reborn again into the world in that
particular shape that the King may think that he deserves.
This process is a very expensive one and brings in a considerable revenue
to the Church, especially when the person who is incarcerated has wealthy
relatives on earth. This service reminds one of the practice of which
Roman Catholic priests were accused at the time of the Reformation,--of
professing, for a consideration, to lighten the pains and sorrows of those
in purgatory, which was one of the principal abuses denounced by the
Reformers in Germany in the sixteenth century, and has actually been said
to have been borrowed from the Buddhists.
With regard to the men who have lived the average life, or who have
distinguished themselves for their nobility of character in their previous
state of existence, the King sees that they shall be properly rewarded
when they pass away from under his jurisdiction. Some of the more noted
are born to be kings or mandarins, or men with lofty titles that shall
bring them great honours and emoluments. Others, again, become sages or
statesmen and famous literary characters, whose writings will influence a
nation for many generations. The ordinary rank and file compose the usual
members of society that one finds throughout the towns and villages of the
Empire, and who are the steady law-abiding citizens upon whom the
Government mainly depends for the preservation of law and order.
The usual time of sixteen years that the popular theory gives before a
person is again reincarnated into the world may in special circumstances
be very considerably shortened. A man or woman, for example, enters the
Land of Shadows with a first-class reputation. In some mysterious way the
King knows his whole history and is prepared to treat him liberally. After
watching his conduct for some time, and marking that he still continues to
exhibit the same admirable features that made him a power before he died,
he hastens on his rebirth, considering what a loss society in the upper
world would suffer from his absence. He is therefore sent back into the
world, but never into the same locality from which he originally came. The
recollection, moreover, of the scenes and sights and strange mysterious
experiences that he passes through in that gloomy, sunless land are all
blotted out from his memory. No story is ever told of that life by any one
of the countless millions that have come under the sway of "Yam-lo," the
Yama of the Hindoos and the mighty King of Hades, and though men have
implicit faith in the myth that the Buddhist Church has propagated, never
in the history of the past has any one hinted at any personal experience
that he has passed through in any of the many periods in which he must
have been a dweller in the land of gloom and twilight.
There is, indeed, the story of an adventure connected with the Shadowy
Land that puts one in mind of the Greek hero, who went down to Tartarus in
search of his beloved wife who had been torn from him by death, but it
appears in a book of fairy tales, and as the writer was a man of a
romantic turn of mind no one is inclined to take his statement as sober
history.
The story describes how a certain young man had become enamoured of a
certain damsel who had bewitched him with her black eyes and her
fascinating manners. He had seen her one day as she passed along the
street with some girl friends, and he had been so entranced with her
beauty, that he had fallen desperately in love with her. So fully had he
made up his mind that he could never dream of ever having any one else for
his wife, that he was making arrangements to engage a middle-woman to
discuss the question of marriage, when he was told that the girl had been
taken suddenly very ill, and in a few hours she had died.
The news distressed him beyond measure and almost broke his heart.
Pondering over his great sorrow he determined that he would descend into
the Dark World and try and discover in what part of China the woman that
he had fallen in love with would appear when "Yam-lo" decided to let her
return again to earth. With the licence of the romancer, the writer of the
fiction declared that he successfully accomplished his purpose, and that
the dread King, touched by the devotion he had shown, not only shortened
the time of residence of the girl within his dominions, but also managed
in some way or other to let him see the "Book of Life and Death," where
the exact date of her rebirth was recorded and the locality where she was
to reside. The lover returned to earth, though the writer does not explain
how he could do that without a rebirth, which would have obliterated all
knowledge of the past, and would have quenched his passion for the girl.
At any rate, he leaves the Land of Shadows, and, guided by the information
he had obtained there, he proceeds directly to the new home into which she
has been born, and after various adventures that belong to the region of
fancy and romance she becomes his wife.
No sober writer has ever dared to suggest that the men and women who have
travelled into the unknown and mysterious land where perpetual shadows
rest, and where the gloomy torture chambers for the unrepentant criminals
and transgressors of this world are to be found, ever whisper the secret
of what they have seen when they are once more born again into the world.
The mystery has been well preserved by the ages, and the Buddhist Church
has discreetly kept its own counsel about a matter that every one longs to
penetrate, but which countless multitudes for a thousand generations have
with absolute unanimity refused to say one word about.
This is all the more remarkable because there is a most passionate desire
amongst the living to find out what the inhabitants of the gloomy land are
doing, and there is a class of women who get their living by professing to
be able to penetrate the mystery and describe what is going on there.
These persons resemble very much the Witch of Endor, who is recorded to
have called forth the prophet Samuel from the invisible world to predict
the calamity that was going to fall upon King Saul in the battle to take
place on the morrow.
These women are utterly illiterate, and belong to what may be called the
lower middle class of society. They are shrewd and clever, and have a
rough persuasive manner with them that commands the belief of the less
intelligent women that resort to them to learn about the relatives and
friends that have been removed by death. There is the most profound faith
in their utterances, for though they do make mistakes and say things about
the deceased that are contrary to fact, they so often hit upon real facts
that the inquirer, astonished that they should know something that was
supposed to be a family secret, at once jumps to the conclusion that they
must certainly be inspired by the spirits.
Some of the more famous of these witches are constantly being resorted to
by sorrowing relatives, so that they make a very comfortable living,
whilst a few lay by money and in time become quite wealthy. But I will
here describe one or two cases that have come under my own knowledge as
having actually occurred. A lady in respectable society had lost her
daughter, who was eighteen years of age. Both the girl and her mother were
devotedly attached to each other. The latter, anxious to know how the
loved one was faring in the dark country where no sun or moon or stars
ever shone, called in a witch that she might describe to her the condition
of her daughter.
The witch having seated herself, the ancestral tablet that was believed to
contain the spirit of the dead maiden was placed upon a high table and
several sticks of incense were burned in front of it. The mother then in a
loud, clear voice called out the name of her daughter, her age, and the
date on which she had died, and she entreated her to come and reply to the
questions that the witch was now going to put to her.
The woman, who had been sitting with a stern and stolid looking face as
though wrapped in spiritual meditation, now addressed the girl who it was
believed had obeyed the summons of the mother. "Is your name Pearl?"
"Yes." "Did you die on such a date and were you eighteen years of age
then?" These questions are asked in order to identify her, and to prevent
her from being confused with any other vagrant spirit that might have
wandered here in order to play a trick upon her.
"Now tell me," the witch continues, "how are you in the world of darkness,
and whether you are happy in your life there." "Oh! I am pretty well," is
the answer that comes at once in reply to these questions, "but I cannot
say that I am very happy. I am continually thinking of how distressed my
mother is at my death. I know that she is thinking of me morning, noon and
night, and that her heart is full of sorrow because she feels that she
will never see me again. With regard to my condition in this gloomy land,
it is not all that I could wish, but it is on the whole bearable. I am
living in the house that mother had made for me and that was burned at my
grave, so that in that respect I have nothing to complain of."
The question of what friends she has made, is answered by the statement
that she lives very much alone and that she knows hardly any one, but that
her father, who came into the Land of Shadows some time before her,
occasionally visits her, though, singular to say, she makes no suggestion
about planning to live with him. It would seem from the popular, though
somewhat vague ideas on this subject, that relatives keep strictly apart
from each other in that mysterious country, and though they do now and
again come and see each other, the intimate relationships that they
sustained with one another whilst they were on earth are almost entirely
broken off in that other country.
Another very important question was now put to her, viz. "Do you find that
your grave is dry or wet?" and she at once replied that she has been quite
satisfied as far as that is concerned, for that her mother has evidently
taken great pains that the rain or running streams from the higher ground
above it shall not flow in upon it. It would seem that the Chinese hold
that in some mysterious way the condition of the dead is very largely
affected by the wetness or dryness of the grave in which they have been
buried. This explains the extreme care with which they select the spots in
which to lay their friends that have departed this life.
There is a class of men called geomancers, who get their living by giving
their professional opinion as to the suitability or otherwise of plots of
land that people have in view to use as graves. There are certain
conditions that these must fulfil, or else they will be rejected. One of
these is that they must be dry. This specially the case in the South of
China, where a wet piece of land would attract the white ants, and in a
very short space of time the coffin would be eaten up by them, and worms
and noxious insects would then have free access to the body.
But, independent of this disastrous result, damp seems to be a potent
factor that affects the happiness of the departed, which not only renders
their life more miserable in the other world, but which also induces them
in revenge for the want of care of the living to send all kinds of
misfortunes upon the homes they have left.
[Illustration: CEMETERIES.
_To face p. 216._]
The mother at this stage asked the witch to describe what her daughter
looks like. Taking a black cloth which is usually one of her
paraphernalia, she puts it on her head, letting it droop down over the
face, and getting into an assumed kind of trance, she begins in a slow and
solemn chant to describe the scenes that she pretends she sees in the Land
of Shadows. "The country that lies before me," she says, "is a gloomy one,
and there is no sun to be seen. Shadows lie everywhere, and an air of
depression rests upon the hills and on the plains that stretch before my
vision. I see men and women passing up and down the roads, but they all
look like spectres, for there is no laughter on their faces, and no signs
of joy about them. They seem to be oppressed with a sense of their
desolate condition. But wait! here is the figure of a young girl standing
by a bridge looking into the sullen stream that is flowing rapidly and
with scarcely a sound underneath it. She is about eighteen years of age,
and though her face is pale and has caught the colour of the land in which
she lives, she does not seem to be in bad health. Her house, which is on
the bank of the river, is a very pleasant one and has a courtyard, a
guest-room, and a bedroom. She has a pleasant face, and one that could be
very sunny did she not live in so gloomy a country. She has a spray of
jessamine in her hair, and her dress is put on with exquisite taste." "Ah!
that is my daughter indeed," exclaims the mother. "Jessamine was her
favourite flower, and she was always so neat about her person, and had
such fine taste about her dresses," and here, overcome with the sad
thoughts that filled her heart, her tears began to flow and she sobbed
forth the bitterness of her heart in words of anguish and despair.
This was the end of the witch's visions, and having received her fee of
about twopence, she went off with a smiling face to explore the mysteries
of the Land of Shadows for the benefit of other sorrowing ones whose
sight could only reach to the scenes and people of this world.
Many of the scenes in which these second-sighted women engage are really
most interesting, and supposing for the moment that the pictures described
are inventions of their own--which, of course, they indignantly deny--they
usually manage to import into them a fine sense of poetical justice that
one would hardly expect from minds so illiterate and so untutored as they
always possess.
On one occasion a wealthy man invited one of these women to his home to
call up a vision of his father, who had died a few months before. It will
make the story more plain by explaining that the old man had been a
mandarin, who had been notorious everywhere wherever he had held office
for his avaricious, grasping disposition. His ability to accept bribes was
immense, and no case came before him but was finally decided not on its
own merits, but by the amount that either the prosecutor or the defendant
was able to give him.
When he died he had a grand funeral, and houses and wives and concubines,
and male and female slaves, fashioned at great expense in paper, were
burned at the grave, which by some mysterious and unexplained way were to
follow him into the Land of Shadows, where he could set up house on the
same princely scale that he had been accustomed to on earth. Nothing had
been neglected that money could purchase to make his life in the Dark
World as thorough a success as it was possible to ensure, for in addition
to a complete suite of furniture and kitchen utensils, and the providing
even of a dog to guard the house from robbers, immense quantities of
ingots of gold and silver, and piles of dollars and copper, all in paper,
were dispatched by a fiery way into the land of gloom to prevent him from
suffering any hardships that money could prevent.
It was felt in his late home that everything had been done that religion
or money could suggest, for not only had every convenience for living a
high-class life been lavishly provided, in paper, but Buddhist priests had
been engaged to perform the most elaborate services to deliver him from
the pains and sufferings of the infernal prisons, in case Yam-lo should
have decided to have him imprisoned in one of them. These last had cost
them thousands of dollars, which they had willingly spent, however, since
they had been solemnly assured by the priests that their relative had been
safely delivered from the horrors of the gaol in which he had been
confined.
The witch having arrived, the ancestral tablets of the deceased mandarin,
elaborately carved and chased with gold, were placed on a magnificent
black wood table. Incense sticks were then lighted, and the usual
questions identifying the spirit were asked and satisfactorily settled.
This preliminary is a very essential one, for it has often been discovered
that the inhabitants of the Land of Shadows retain many of the
peculiarities of character that they had in the land of the living, and
the witches are frequently taken in by vagrant spirits, who assume the
name of others in order to obtain the offerings that are being presented
to their friends in the other world.
The witch being satisfied that the spirit of the dead mandarin was really
in the tablet before her, asked him if he was happy in the dark land, when
it burst out into sorrowful complaints about the utter wretchedness of the
life he was leading. Yam-lo, because of his exactions and disregard of the
claims of justice when he was a ruler, had condemned him for his sins to
be a chair-bearer, and his days were now spent in the severest toil, and
at night he was tortured with cold, for he had not enough clothes to put
on to keep out the damp air that struck a chill into his very bones.
"But did you not receive the mansion I burned for you," broke out the son
in an excited tone, "and the servants, and the thousands of gold and
silver, that would have enriched you until you were released from that
terrible land by being born again into the world of men?" "I have received
nothing of all the offerings you made me," the father replied, "for Yam-lo
intercepted them, because my life had been such a bad one, and he declared
that I deserved to suffer misery and degradation; and so I am working as a
chair coolie, bearing hardships and sorrow every day of my life."
"And is there nothing we can do for you?" asked the son. "Yes, there is
one thing that will be of great service to me, in my present miserable
condition. Buy two hundred pairs of straw sandals, such as chair-bearers
wear, and send them to me at once; also a few rain hats to keep me from
the wet. My feet are cut and lacerated with the rough roads, and I am
continually wet through with the rain that seems to be always falling in
this gloomy land, so that my life is one continued misery." With the
promise that these things would be burned and sent to him, the _seance_
ended, and the family were left to mourn the sufferings of the man who had
brought upon himself such a terrible fate through his passion for money,
and because he had wished to enrich his family so that they should not
know what want was after he had been taken away from them.
As might have been expected, there is a great diversity of opinion with
regard to the dwellers in the Land of Shadows. Some hold that relatives do
not know each other there, whilst even those who dispute this theory still
believe that whilst they may visit each other occasionally, they never
dream of reuniting the scattered members of a family and living together
as they used to do before death divided them.
The general theory that after the lapse of sixteen years men and women are
released and allowed to return to earth is subject to a good many
modifications. A person of high moral character, for example, and one who
has gained the approbation of the stern and inflexible Yam-lo by
uprightness of life, is sent back many years sooner than the allotted
time. Young boys and girls, unless they have developed decidedly vicious
tendencies, are dismissed after a very short probation, to begin again the
experiment of life that had been so rudely interrupted by the cruel enemy
of our race.
It is a remarkable fact that there are no babies in that gloomy under
world, for never having done any wrong against society, no sooner do they
die than Yam-lo sends them back to life to begin once more their struggle
with evil, by which their characters are to be developed, and, after a
number of births, they may become the teachers and the sages of future
generations.
This doctrine of metempsychosis has its fascination for a good many
people, for where the future would otherwise be a dark, mysterious thing,
with no ray of light to break the solemn darkness that broods over it,
this breaks its awful monotony and gives men hope of escape from its
mystery and power. A colonel was one day haranguing his soldiers just as
they were about to engage the enemy. With the natural timidity of the
Chinese soldier, they showed symptoms of alarm, and he was afraid that,
carried away by their fears, they would incontinently bolt with the first
sound of the bullets flying about their ears. What motive could he bring
before them to induce them bravely to meet death? He could not appeal to
their love of their country, for that does not exist in the hearts either
of the common people or in the army. Neither could he bring forward high
and lofty incentives from their religion, for though of a deeply religious
nature, there is not a single system of belief in China for which any one,
man or woman, would be willing to lay down their lives.
Looking at them with steadfast gaze, he said, "Soldiers, let me exhort you
to be courageous in the presence of the foe to-day. You are better men
than they are, and if you only stand firm they will fly in terror before
you. Do not be afraid to die, for though you fall during the fight,
remember that in sixteen years hence you will be men once more on earth,
and for your valour Yam-lo may send you back to high positions in your
country's service."
A poor incentive this to induce men to risk their lives on the
battlefield, but it was the highest that this officer could think of, for
the shout of "King and country" would have failed to inspire them, and
idolatry produces no enthusiasm to raise a war cry at the sound of which
death would cease to have any terrors.
One day a poor woman was bending over her baby that lay dead upon the bed.
The home was wretched and forlorn and showed signs of the greatest
poverty. There was not a single comfort in it, and to add to its utter
desolateness death had come and taken away the little joy that filled the
mother's heart. Never had the house seemed so dreary as to-day, for the
smile that used to fill her heart with sunlight and the childish voice
that had thrilled her soul with the sweetest music, both had died out in
the solemn stillness and silence of a sleep that would never know an
awakening. "Oh, my dear little one!" said the heartbroken mother. "I shall
never see you more, and your sweet laugh will never again fill me with
gladness. Your life has been a short one, and very little happiness in it,
for we are so poor that we could not give you the comforts I should have
liked. And now my hope is that when you are born into the world once more,
it will be into a family where they will be rich enough to give you every
luxury, and where you will grow up to be a great scholar; and though I
shall never see you, or be able to share in your good fortune, still as
long as I live my thoughts will go out to you, where in some unknown part
of China you will be living a happier life than you were able to do with
me."
The whole conception of the Land of Shadows and of the doctrine of
metempsychosis are a most pathetic attempt to penetrate the profound
mystery that lies about death and the unknown future. Where no revelation
from God has reached men on these two profound and mysterious subjects,
they are bound to fashion out for themselves some theory that will be an
attempt at least to solve some of the perplexities that the heart can
never get rid of until some light has been thrown upon them. The Chinese
theories are oftentimes vague and contradictory, and when they are put to
the touch of logic, they fail utterly before its tests. They are as brave
an effort, however, as has ever been made by any heathen people to
construct a system that shall try and satisfy the cravings of the human
heart about the unknown. They are profoundly human, and an exalted vein of
righteousness runs throughout them. There is no paltering with evil, and
no elevation of vice or impurity, and even their ideal ruler of the Land
of Shadows, stern and severe as he is represented to be, can always unbend
before the exhibition of goodness in any of the spirits under his
control.