The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-01-14

ofDolIars In the Largest and Wealth
States.
The oldest and largest and richest
Oriental temple in America is in Sar
Franchises Chinatown. 1t is the out
growth of the shrine that was estab-
lished over fifty years ago, when the
first Chinese came to California's newly
discovered gold fields. From small
beginning the institution has developed
during the decades until now 1t Is the
biggest and wealthiest Chinese rell-
gious concern outside the imperial en-
pire. Under the name of the Ming
Yung society it has gathered to its sup
port more than fifteen thousand Chi
nese and has accumulated city property
and a cash fund aggregating many
thousands of dollars. 1t own real estate
on Commercial street and the fine
three-story brick building and the lot
1t occupies on Waverly place.
Last week the society devoted five
days and nights to the celebration of an
important ceremonial that is observed
but once in three years. For that one
prayerful festival the thrifty Celestials
contributed about sixty-five hundred
dollars. The result was the attainment
of the most elaborate and important
season of worship ever known to Chi
nese colony in a foreign country. En-
tire walls and Railways on the business
floor of the society's building were COM
pletely covered with little red-paper
placards showing the names and offer
ings of the various contributors. In
one high hall We're $500 of these slips
each representing a fifty-cent donation.
Two walls of the assembly room, where
they were not occupied by huge pic
lures and other ornate decorations,
were red with some five hundred of the
dollar slips. Along another wall by a
stairway leading to the holy chamber,
were hundreds of three, five and twenty
dollar slips.
There, where all might read, were the
names Of the men who had given money
to the cause. And all who came looked
over the array of apparently similar
-ecords to find their own or to observe
those persons who had been able to
give more literally.
This special occasion was practically
triennial season of prayer for the
dead. Five hired priests performed the
mystic rites. One of them chanted the
peculiar ritual. In "a sing-song tone he
uttered what his followers know must
be an address and an appeal to the de-
parted relatives of the subscribers
But none was so wise as to know the
exact phraseology used These priests
compose their own prayers and grind
them in verbal agony from little
handbook At other times the head
functionary would sing tiresomely
while proclaiming in a mumbling mono
tone the long list of names of those that
had paid to have their dear ones re-
minded of the thoughts of the living.
Three times day the peculiar whining
chant of the priest would sound for
nearly an hour as he stood or crouched
before the smoke-scented altar and adj
dressed the heather gods. About ten
O'clock in the forenoon about two in
the afternoon and about seven in the
evening We're the favored hours for the
nasal recital, with it's accompaniment
of weird Chinese music.
Every afternoon a band Of eight play
ers clashed and clattered it's cymbals
and beat upon it's pigskin drums excl
teddy, and snarled with its one-string
fiddles, squealing with it's asthmatic
clarinets.
After five days of these periods of
praying and playing the great festival
was concluded with midnight burning
in the street of the thousands of dupli-
cate slips of those pasted on the inner
walls. Hundreds Of little fires blazed
along the narrow paved thoroughfare.
The sidewalks were thick with the men
who had come to witness this final trib-
ute to their dead relatives back through
centuries.
The Chinese reverence their dead.
Next to this national regard for the
spirit of the departed kinsman is the
devotion Of the Chinese to his parents
These two traits, together with the Gus
tom of paying all debts before the Chi
nese New Years day, suggest little of
the ancient morality still practised by
the oldest state in the world. With
such instructive customs forming part
Of the framework of the religion of
China 1t is not surprising that the four
hundred million people in the unpro-
SISSSlVG Olu empire are SdLlSIieu WlCn !
their religion, and they generally object
to the assumption of the younger civil |
izations that handful of misfit preach
ers are destined to improve the moral
tone of the followers of the tenets of |
wise old Confucius, who taught hun
dreds of years before Christ was born
The Chinese religion is suited to the |
Chinese, Many of it's elements are |
such as exist in all creeds. 1t differs |
chiefly In the manner of manifesting is |
presence.
Members pay no dues or fees to the |
society. They contribute according to
their means whenever there is a great
ceremony. Some of them, when depart
ing for China, make money present to
the institution In this way the con-
Germ is maintained Incidentally it de-
rives an uncertain and variable auxil-
larry income from the sale of punks and
to tourists and other visi-
tors who enter the josshOuse and find
confronted on the altar with
a very Occidental sigr suggesting the
purchase of a paper of punks for TWEEN
ty-five cents, or a little sandalWood for
fifty cents. By making a larger dona-
ton they have the privilege Of being
on the rolls of the society
as among its supporters, and entitled to
the regulation prayers of the priest.
Tho punk purchasers receive but the
one prayer. When that is offered no