CHINA.

There is no country in the world like China.

How different it is from Persia, where there are so few people; whereas

China is crowded with inhabitants!

How different it is from England, where the people are instructed in the

Bible, whereas China is full of idols.

China is a heathen country; yet it is not a savage country, for the

people are quiet, and orderly, and industrious.

It would be hard for a child to imagine what a great multitude of people

there are in China.

If you were to sit by a clock, and if all the Chinese were to pass before

you one at a time, and if you were to count one at each tick of the

clock, and if you were never to leave off counting day or night--how long

do you think it would be before you had counted all the Chinese?

Twelve years. O what a vast number of people there must be in China! In

all, there are about three hundred and sixty millions! If all the people

in the world were collected together, out of every three one would be a

Chinese. How sad it is to think that this immense nation knows not God,

nor his glorious Son!

There are too many people in China, for there is not food enough for them

all; and many are half-starved.

FOOD.--The poor can get nothing but rice to eat and water to drink;

except now and then they mix a little pork or salt fish with their rice.

Any sort of meat is thought good; even a hash of rats and snakes, or a

mince of earth-worms. Cats and dogs' flesh are considered as nice as

pork, and cost as much.

An Englishman was once dining with a Chinaman, and he wished to know what

sort of meat was on his plate. But he was not able to speak Chinese. How

then could he ask? He thought of a way. Looking first at his plate, and

then at the Chinaman, he said, "Ba-a-a," meaning to ask, "Is this

mutton?" The Chinaman understood the question, and immediately replied,

"Bow-wow," meaning to say, "It is puppy-dog." You will wish to know

whether the Englishman went on eating; but I cannot tell you this.

While the poor are in want of food, the rich eat a great deal too much. A

Chinese feast in a rich man's house lasts for hours. The servants bring

in one course after another, till a stranger wonders when the last course

will come. The food is served up in a curious way; not on dishes, but in

small basins--for all the meats are swimming in broth. Instead of a knife

and fork, each person has a pair of chop-sticks, which are something like

knitting-needles; and with these he cleverly fishes up the floating

morsels, and pops them into his mouth. There are spoons of china for

drinking the broth.

You will be surprised to hear that the Chinese are very fond of eating

birds' nests. Do not suppose that they eat magpies' nests, which are made

of clay and sticks, or even little nests of moss and clay; the nests they

eat are made of a sort of gum. This gum comes out of the bird's mouth,

and is shining and transparent, and the nest sticks fast to the rock.

These nests are something like our jelly, and must be very nourishing.

The Chinese like nothing cold; they warm all their food, even their wine.

For they have wine, not made of grapes, but of rice, and they drink it,

not in glasses, but in cups. Tea, however, is the most common drink; for

China is the country where tea grows.

The hills are covered with shrubs bearing a white flower, a little like a

white rose. They are tea-plants. The leaves are picked; each leaf is

rolled up with the finger, and dried on a hot iron plate.

The Chinese do not keep all the tea-leaves; they pack up a great many in

boxes, and send them to distant lands. In England and in Russia there is

a tea-kettle in every cottage. Some of the Chinese are so very poor that

they cannot buy new tea-leaves, but only tea-leaves which ire sold in

shops. I do not think in England poor people would buy old tea-leaves.

Some very poor Chinese use fern-leaves instead of tea-leaves.

The Chinese do not make tea in the same way that we do. They have no

teapot, or milk-jug, or sugar-basin. They put a few tea-leaves in a cup,

pour hot water on them, and then put a cover on the cup till the tea is

ready. Whenever you pay a visit in China a cup of tea is offered.

APPEARANCE.--The Chinese are not at all like the other natives of Asia.

The Turks and Arabs are fine-looking men, but the Chinese are

poor-looking creatures. You have seen their pictures on their boxes of

tea, for they are fond of drawing pictures of themselves.

Their complexion is rather yellow, but many of the ladies, who keep in

doors, are rather fair. They have black hair, small dark eyes, broad

faces, flat noses, and high cheek-bones. In general they are short. The

men like to be stout; and the rich men are stout: the fatter they are,

the more they are admired: but the women like to be slender.

A Chinaman does not take off his cap in company, and he has a good reason

for it: his head is close shaven: only a long piece behind is allowed to

grow, and this grows down to his heels, and is plaited. He wears a long

dark blue gown, with loose hanging sleeves. His shoes are clumsy, turned

up at the toes in an ugly manner, and the soles are white. The Chinese

have more trouble in whitening their shoes than we have in blacking ours.

A Chinese lady wears a loose gown like a Chinaman's; but she may be known

by her head-dress, her baby feet, and her long nails. Her hair is tied

up, and decked with artificial flowers; and sometimes a little golden

bird, sparkling with jewels, adorns her forehead. Her feet are no bigger

than those of a child of five years old; because, when she was five, they

were cruelly bound up to prevent them from growing. She suffered much

pain all her childhood, and now she trips about as if she were walking on

tiptoes. A little push would throw her down. As she walks she moves from

side to side like a ship in the water, for she cannot walk firmly with

such small feet. The Chinese are so foolish as to admire these small

feet, and to call them the "golden lilies". As for her finger-nails, they

are seldom seen, for a Chinese lady hides her hands in her long sleeves;

but the nails on the left hand are very long, and are like bird's claws.

The nails on the right hand are not so long, in order that the lady may

be able to tinkle on her music, to embroider, and to weave silk.

The gentlemen are proud of having one long nail on the little finger, to

show that they do not labor like the poor, for if they did, the nail

would break. Men in China wear necklaces and use fans.

What foolish customs I have described. Surely you will not think the

Chinese a wise people, though very _clever_, as you will soon find.

Men and women dress in black, or in dark colors, such as blue and purple;

the women sometimes dress in pink or green. Great people dress in red,

and the royal family in yellow. When you see a person all in white, you

may know he is in mourning. A son dresses in white for three years after

he has lost one of his parents.

HOUSES.--See that lantern hanging over the gate. The light is rather dim,

because the sides are made of silk instead of glass. What is written upon

the lantern? The master's name. The gateway leads into a court into

which many rooms open. There are not doors to all the rooms; to some

there are only curtains. Curtains are used instead of doors in many hot

countries, because of their coolness; but the furniture of the Chinese

rooms is quite different from the furniture of Turkish and Persian rooms.

The Chinese sit on chairs as we do, and have high tables like ours: and

they sleep on bedsteads, yet their beds are not like ours, for instead of

a mattrass there is nothing but a mat.

Instead of pictures, the Chinese adorn their rooms with painted lanterns,

and with pieces of white satin, on which sentences are written: they have

also book-cases and china jars. But they have no fire-places, for they

never need a fire to keep themselves warm: the sun shining in at the

south windows makes the rooms tolerably warm in winter; and in summer the

weather is very hot. The Chinese in winter put on one coat over the other

till they feel warm enough. In the north of China it is so cold in winter

that the place where the bed stands (which is a recess in the wall) is

heated by a furnace underneath, and the whole family sit there all day

crowded together.

The Chinese houses have not so many stories as ours; in the towns there

is one floor above the ground floor, but in the country there are no

rooms up stairs.

It would amuse you to see a Chinese country house. There is not one large

house, but a number of small buildings like summer-houses, and long

galleries running from one to another. One of these summer-houses is in

the middle of a pond, with a bridge leading to it. In the pond there are

gold and silver fish; for these beautiful fishes often kept in glass

bowls in England, came first from China. By the sides of the garden walls

large cages are placed; in one may be seen some gold and silver

pheasants, in another a splendid peacock; in another a gentle stork, and

in another an elegant little deer. There is often a grove of

mulberry-trees in the garden, and in the midst of the grove houses made

of bamboo, for rearing silk-worms. It is the delight of the ladies to

feed these curious worms. None but very quiet people are fit to take care

of them, for a loud noise would kill them. Gold and silver fish also

cannot bear much noise.

In every large house in China there is a room called the Hall of

Ancestors. There the family worship their dead parents and grand-parents,

and great-grand-parents, and those who lived still further back. There

are no images to be seen in the Hall of Ancestors, but there are tablets

with names written upon them. The family bow down before the tablets, and

burn incense and gold paper! What a foolish service! What good can

incense and paper do to the dead? And what good can the dead do to their

children? How is it that such clever people as the Chinese are so

foolish?

RELIGION.--You have heard already that the Chinese worship the dead.

Who taught them this worship?

It was a man named Confucius, who lived a long while ago. This Confucius

was a very wise man. From his childhood he was very fond of sitting alone

thinking, instead of playing with other children. When he was fourteen he

began to read some old books that had been written not long after the

time of Noah. In these books he found very many wise sentences, such as

Noah may have taught his children. The Chinese had left off reading these

wise books, and were growing more and more foolish.[6] Confucius, when he

was grown up, tried to persuade his countrymen to attend to the old

books. There were a few men who became his scholars, and who followed him

about from place to place. They might be seen sitting under a tree,

listening to the words of Confucius.

Confucius was a very tall man with a long black beard and a very high

forehead.

Had he known the true God, how much good he might have done to the

Chinese; but as it was he only tried to make them happy in this world. He

himself confessed that he knew nothing about the other world. He gave

very good advice about respect due to parents; but he gave very bad

advice about worship due to them after they were dead.

Was he a good man? Not truly good; for he did not love God; neither did

he act right: for he was very unkind to his wife, and quite cast her off.

Yet he used to talk of going to other countries to teach the people. It

would have been a happy thing for him, if he had gone as far as Babylon;

for a truly wise man lived there, even Daniel the prophet. From him he

might have learned about the promised Saviour, and life everlasting. But

Confucius never left China.

He was ill-treated by many of the rich and great, and he was so poor that

rice was generally his only food. When he was dying he felt very unhappy,

as well he might, when he knew not where he was going. He said to his

followers just before his death, "The kings refuse to follow my advice;

and since I am of no use on earth, it is best that I should leave it." As

soon as he was dead, people began to respect him highly, and even to

worship him. At this day, though Confucius died more than two thousand

years ago, there is a temple to his honor in every large city, and

numbers of beasts are offered up to him in sacrifice. There are thousands

of people descended from him, and they are treated with great honor as

the children of Confucius, and one of them is called kong or duke.

There is another religion in China besides the religion of Confucius, and

a much worse religion. About the same time that Confucius lived, there

was a man called La-on-tzee. He was a great deceiver, as you will see. He

pretended that he could make people completely happy. There were three

things he said he would do for them: first, he would make them rich by

turning stone into gold; next, he would prevent their being hurt by

swords or by fire through charms he could give them; and, last of all,

he could save them from death by a drink he knew how to prepare.

[Illustration: THE PRIESTS OF LA-ON-TZEE.]

What an awful liar this man must have been! Yet many people believed in

him, and still believe in him. There are now priests of La-on-tzee, and

once a year they rush through hot cinders and pretend they are not hurt.

You will wonder their tricks are not found out, seeing they cannot give

any one the drink to keep them from dying. It is indeed wonderful that

any one can believe these deceitful priests.

Their religion is called the "_Taou_" sect. Taou means reason. The name

of folly would be a better title for such a religion.

There is a _third_ religion in China. It is the sect of Buddha.[7] This

Buddha was a man who once pretended to be turned into a god called Fo.

You see he was even worse than La-on-tzee.

Buddha pretended that he could make people happy; and his way of doing so

was very strange. He told them to think of nothing, and then they would

be happy. It is said that one man fixed his eyes for nine years upon a

wall without looking off, hoping to grow happy at last. You can guess

whether he did. There are many priests of Buddha, always busy in telling

lies to the people. They recommend them to repeat the name of Buddha

thousands and thousands of times, and some people are so foolish as to do

this; but no one ever found any comfort from this plan.

The priests of Buddha say that their souls, when they leave their bodies,

go into other bodies. This idea is enough to make a dying person very

miserable. One poor man, when he was dying, was in terror because he had

been told his soul would go into one of the emperor's horses. Whenever

he was dropping off to sleep, he started up in a fright, fancying that he

felt the blows of a cruel driver hurrying him along: for he knew how very

fast the emperor's horses were made to go. How different are the

feelings of a dying man who knows he is going to Jesus.