The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-01-04
ARTICLE x.
The Three Great Native Religions
The Dead Hand-Ancestor WOr-
ship-The Invasion of a Fourth
Great Religion From Outside.


ship-The Invasion of a Fourth
Great Religion From Outside.
st. Paul told the Athenians that they
We're too supeFstitious, because he
CHANGED upon one of their affairs with
this inscription: To the unknown Goo.
What would ST. Paul have said if he
could have visited China? He would have
found there in his time, as can be
found there today, several religions and
gods, affairs, temples and superstitIons
without number. Compared with the
Chinese, the Athenians were Puritans.
1t is difficult for the Occidental mind
to form any clear conception of the re-
ligious notions of a Chinaman, if indeed,
John himself has any. The medley or
nonsense, contradictions and fantastic
childish superstitions which serve him
as religion, resemble nothing lying with
III our experience unless it be mInce
pie and plum pudding nightmare. II
would require a large volume to describe
all his superstitions. One must suffice,
simply as a sample
The belief in "feng-shui' is universal
and implicit. Rich and poor, wise and
ignorant young and old, all alike, gov
ern their actions in every transaction,
trivial or important public or private
by this superstition. What is "feng-
shui?" A literal translation will not helm
us much, for it means simply wind and
water But the superstition itself
amounts to a great deal. Everyone
knows'-in China-that each locality,
each spot of ground, has it's resident
spirits, some friendly, others unfriendly
all variable They are easily offended
and in that case the people living In
that spot will have nothing but sick
ness, death and misfortune until the
cause of offense is removed.
The P3nSA n tbo OffaDca &c rreroyoltx,
Of the most trivial nature, but especial
~ offensive is anything which over
looks or overtops the spot. Thus, a
neighbours window, or chimney. or. worst
of all, a tower or church spire. is Of
fensive to the spirits. The list of such
things is infinite, and they must be rem
edied. For the law takes cognizance Of
feng-shui, and will promptly interfere
to protect the complainant
Nor is this childshness confined to
the ignorant. A foreigner in the en-
ploy of, the Chinese government built a
house next to that of a prominent Chi
nese official. The official complained of
the foreigners chimneys, not because of
soft coal smoke, but in behalf of feng-
shut; he was compelled to remove them
and get through the cold weather as
best he could, with fire in open braziers
to keep from freezing!
The spirits are very finical Sometimes
While utterly refusing to tolerate meat
shop, they seem to have no objection
to groceries or dry goods. They may
take an unaccountable dislike to the
family of All Sin, and bring them such
misfortune as to compel the family to
move out in spite of every effort to pla-
cate them. Then Wa Shing moves in and
everything is serene-feng shut What
better proof could you want? Of course.
the barbarian mind sees in all this
nothing but another form of the luck
which SO many Occidentals all but wor-
ship, but to the Chinaman it is intense
ly, painfully real; he believes himself
surrounded on every side by invisible
agencies, potent for good or ill., which
it must be the chief object of his life
to propitiate
Sometimes feng-shui becomes Of ma
tional, or even international, Importance.
For instance. on the death of a certain
emperor, the OWNERS declared that it
would never do to bury the remains in
the imperial tombs because Of feng-shui
Then there was a tremendous bother for
no one could think for moment of act
ing contrary to feng- shut; so the corpse
lay around unburied for long time, and
thousands of dollars were expended while
the OWNERS were finding out how to
get over the difficulty. Finally they dis
covered that some trivial expedient such
as painting q tree IN a corner OIL the
cemetery would appease the spirits and
so at last the emperor was at rest. Even
among the Chinese, there are not want
ing some free thinkers who will go so
far as to insinuate that the OWNERS will
never find a way out so long as there
are any fees in sight but they insinuate
it very cautiously, having no mind to
figure at the front end of a heresy hunt
The large number of unburied collins
which disfigure the landscape in many
parts of China are so left because of
this same feng-shui difficulty, and also
because of the expense of funeral rites
and ceremonies. This only illustrates an
other of Johns little Inconsistencies.
Take him one way and he is a material
list of the materialists; his religion knows
no God, no soul, no immortality, no flu
ture rewards or punishments. He lives
for this life alone, and regards the flu
ture with fatalistic indifference.
But once let this feng-shui supersti-
ton be touched and John is a changed
man. Now he believes in dead earnest