The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-07-24
HOLD SNAKES SACRED
Spirit of the Dragon King, Which is
Worshiped, Supposed to Reside
Within Their BOdies-Rat is Also
HenOred,

1t is not always safe to kill a snake
in China. 1t doesn't matter much,
whether the snake is of the water
species or of the land variety, for
within this reptiles body is supposed
to reside the spirit of what the vel
low man worships as the dragon
king. This latter is believed by the
average superstitious "John' to have
the power of ruling over floods.
This dragon king represents one sym
boil in the ritual of worship of the
Chinese religion called Taoism.
China practically possessed three
different forms of religion until the
advent of the Christian missionaries:
The first of these religions was in
the form of a philosophy. This still
exists to some extent and is known
as Confucianism. The second form
has been recognized as Buddhism,
which still exists throughout China
as symbolized in the worship of idols.
AS you travel through the country,
here and there you will frequently
run across idols of Buddha located on
the hillsides or other quiet and Sc
questered spots conducive to reveren-
tial reflection. Plenty of ~worshipers
yet pay their homage to these Budd-
hist idols, snd you can see them con-
scientiously observing the formal GER
emonies of their worship. But this
form of religion is steadily dying
a natural death since the advent of
Christianity.
The third variety of religious OBJ
servance among the Celestials is that
of Taoism. This was started by an
old patriarch named Lao-tgu, who
had surrounding him a group of
''eight immortals" as his disciples.
One of these latter was given the res
possibility of representing the God
of BARRIERS. The Taoist worshippers
have temples erected in each native
town. In these temples are pictures
portraying the horrors of the future
life. When the souls of the dead
are buried across the river Styx the
artist has painted a gruesome thought
Men and women are depicted as
climbing towering mountains of ice,
only to fall back into a gaping abyss
as they nearly reach the top. AS
they fall their bodies are revealed
as being caught upon spears and tos-
sed backward and forward by deft
executioners. These gruesome pic
lures show the sufferers to be finally
ground up between millstones. Some
of them show sharp swords slashing
to pieces the bodies which have es-
capped the milestone process, and lit
tie dogs are pictured as running af-
ter the sufferers, tapping up the
blood. On certain occasions after a
death the family will proceed in a
body to these temples and will hold
a public wall.
On the drum tower of the Taoist
temple at Tientsin it has been COM
mon to see richly dressed native mer-
chants kneeling to an iron pot con-
tanning incense burned in honor of his
excellency the rat. Other Similar
disgusting procedures could be OBJ
served. 1t is hard to conceive that
human beings can be so superstitious
as to deliberately endure such emp
ty practices of hallowed mockery.
Yet this is one phase of China, the
China of today. The few modernized
Mongolians surely have their hands
full in effectively combating this aw-
ful element of ignorance and bigot-
ed superstition and holding their new
ly organized republic to the main
highway of progress.