Year: 1869

the law. This they have a right to
claim and will ere long secure.


They are idOlators. This is the most
difficult point in the whole problem.
Still, those who suppose that Ameri-
can civilization can not stand against
few thousand or few millions Chi
nese, are borrowing mucn needless
trouble.


Contrary to the opinion of most,
the Chinaman erects no idol of God.
He would no sooner do this than the
Christian. His faith is this: God is
good and kind, and so mercifuI that
He will under no circumstances do
us anything but good. But the Evil
One hates us, and is ever watching
an opportunity to injure and destroy
us; we must cOneiliate him. And so
joss or Devil houses are erected, and
insenee is burned constantly, and
offerings made to eOnciliate the devil.


They believe III the sweet influence
of departed spirits, that the dead are
constantly around them to watch and
guard and help. They make offer
ings of food at their graves, not, as is
said, with the idea of feeding the
dead, but to show them that they are
remembered. Their name for God
and for the influence which these
departed exert is the same as that
which expresses the soft warmth and
effect of a Southern sun falling upon
slope which looks toward the
South.


They send their dead home to bury
them in the family line, so that the
chain of ancestry may be complete,
and the sweet influences from the
spirit world flow through the line
uninterruptedly. If the line is brOk-
en- up by an absent dead one, the
influences are less regular, and the
wandering spirit is not at rest, and
instead of watching to do good desires
to injure and make trouble in return
for the neglect of his body. Three
times a year offerings are made to de-
parted spirits, and a late Emperor has
deereed that the government make
offerings also three times q year to
spirits at large, that is, to the spirits
of such as have died in battle or have
been lost at sea and left unburied or
not returned to the graves where the
family line is laid. This Emperor
had lost some of his family at sea,
and, after much mourning over his
broken line of buried ancestors, he
hit upon theremedy thus described.


There is much that is beautiful and
pOetical in what they term their relig-
ion, and much that shows a mind
susceptible to religious truth. The
missionary field is being brought to
our very doors in California. The
great societies of the country cannot
move too promptly in efforts to edu-
cate and ChriStainize these pagans,
skilled in all labor and accomplished
in a thousand ways, and whose COM
ing will bless the country in many
important respects. The wave is
setting in upon our shores strongly,
and Christian missionary effort should
be Immediately put forth to reclaim
and mould this new element in our
wealth and advaneements.


But under the encouragement which
the better classes are giving them all
this is changing. Their merchants
are erecting stores, and investing in
real estate. The labOrers are purcha-
sing homes and sending for their
wives. More and more of those who
go home are returning, and most of
them with friends designing to stay.
The attention of the great Chinese
capitalists of the Empire is being turn
ed to our coast, and the hope among
many of our business men in San
Francisco is, that they will shortly be
induced to take hold of great enter
prises. The coin of the world has
been pouring into China for genera
tiOns. In Canton and Hong Kong
there are many native depositors of
five and six millions, and many Chi
nese companies which could furnish
fifty and sixty millions to such an en-
terprise as the Pacific Railroad, or to
steamship lines, if they could once be
interested in the matter. Chinese
merchants say these men would invest
the moment they can have full protec-
ton for their persCns and property
under the laws.


Such are the outlines of the Chi
nese problem which, before the nation
has become aware that Chinese immi-
grafton has begun in earnest, is thrust
upon it in all its great proportions.


Thinking men will turn their atten-
ton to it at once, as one of the most
important questions of the day.


.. H. V. B.