economize time and labor in the production of prayermerit by machinery.

An intricate arrangement of huge wheels and other wheels within wheels, like the works of a clock, is connected with rows of cylinders and made to revolve rapidly by means of heavy weights. An infinite number of prayers are repeated in this manner by a single monk, who takes a minute or two to wind up the complicated spiritual machinery, and then hastens to help his brothers in industrial occupations-the whole fraternity feeling that the ingenious contrivance of praying by clock-work enables them to promote the common weal by making the most of both worlds. The story goes that, in times of special need and emergency, additional weights are attached to the machinery, and, of course, increased cogency given to the rotary prayers. It is to be hoped that when European inventions find their way across the Himalayas, steam-power may not be pressed into the service of these gross superstitions.-Churchman.

Thibet-An Unoccupied Field.

BY REV. J. STEWART HAPPER.

The publication of a series of articles on Thibet in one of the leading magazines revives interest in that land which is, to a great extent, terra incognita, and reminds the Church that it is one of the few countries where the preaching of the Gospel is prohibited.

Thibet is naturally isolated by its geograpical position and surroundings. This plateau in the heart of Asia, ten to twelve thousand feet above the sea, is surrounded by high ranges of mountains on the south, east, and north, and on the west are the high table-lands of Pamir. It has thus been shut off from all intercourse with outside nations, and only a very few travelers have visited the country and recorded the result of their researches. What is already known of the country and its people may be summed up in a very few words. The climate varies from regions of almost endless winter in the north, to the southern zone, where warm sunshine, sparkling brooks, and green grass form pleasant grazing land for cattle. The people, who number, according to Russian authorities, 6,000,000, are of the Mongolian type, slender in build but strong, with brown hair, black, slightly oblique eyes, and that absence of beard which is characteristic of the Chinese. In temper they are mild, reliable in their dealings, kind and friendly, fond of singing and dancing, but intensely superstitious. Their social customs present a striking contrast to the almost universal polygamy of the East; here polyandry is the custom, and the wife is usually espoused by brothers. One of these much-married ladies, on being interviewed by an Indian lady, defended the practice, saying that she divided the love and property of the various brothers with no one-it was all hers, and was not that a more enviable position than that of her sisters in India or China? On account of this custom, the position which

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woman holds is sometimes so exalted as to rise to the height of the chieftainship in some of the northern provinces.

The religion of Thibet consists of two kinds: the old original religion, the Bon, of which nothing definite is known, and Lamaism, which is a species of Buddhism. The bonzes, called lamas, hold not only all religious power, but civil power as well; and Thibet can be called a nation of priests, as these lamas number half of the population. The head of the lamas is supposed to be an incarnation of Buddha himself. The antiquity of the kingdom dates to 313 B. C., and Buddhism became dominant in the beginning of the tenth century. Although the government is really tributary to China, yet the power of the chief lama is virtually unlimited, and the policy of strict exclusion of foreigners is not opposed but encouraged by the Chinese Empire.

The Roman Catholic Church has made noble efforts to enter this forbidden territory. In 1330 the apostle of Tartary, Odoric Forojuliensis, traveled in Thibet, and found missionaries in the city of Lh'asa, who went there, it is supposed, early in the preceding century. In the seventeenth century a Mission was commenced from India, and the reigning prince was favorably inclined to the new religion; but this apostacy was made the pretext for his overthrow. Various attempts at evangelization have been made since that time, but only one attempt is noteworthy, that of Fathers Huc and Gabet, in 1845. They penetrated to Lh'asa after a journey of eighteen months, only to be arrested by the Chinese resident, who sent them as prisoners to Canton. The jealousy of the Chinese is excited, for they fear that the opening of Thibet will mean the subversion of the authority which they hold, even small as it is. From the time of the Mission of Father Huc, the Société Etrangères has taken the field, and has made numerous attempts, both by way, of India and China, to enter the kingdom; but they have suffered persecutions and their priests have been massacred, and at present they occupy only the confines of Thibet, where Chinese and Thibetans live together.

The Moravian missionaries have long been waiting to occupy this field. They, too, have stations on the confines of Thibet, and to them we are indebted for the various books in Thibetan which, few as they are, will suffice to equip the missionary for his work as soon as the wall is broken down and access is given. A Thibetan English grammar, a New Testament in Thibetan, and a Thibetan grammar have already been published. The latest information from these missionaries is that a Prayer Union has been formed among the Moravians to pray for the opening of this country.

The desired access will not be obtained until a new condition of things comes to pass in the government. Buddhist power in civil affairs must be overturned; the opposition of the Chinese government must be overcome before the snow-capped mountains of Thibet will look down upon the preaching-places of the missionaries of the cross.-Independent.

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The Confucian Sacrifice at Soochow.

BY REV. H. C. DUBOSE.

The "first cock crowing" is a poetic expression when read in the ritual beside a warm fire and under a bright lamp, but it is somewhat prosaic to rise at half-past two and take a long walk through the dark alleys of a native town. One is struck with the security of a Chinese city during the hours its inhabitants slumber and sleep. Every few hundred yards there is a gate, and a lantern is the passport required for opening. All the side streets are carefully closed and locked. There are watchmen with rattle, gong, and trumpet pacing their beat, and soldiers with their guard-rooms well lighted. A tramp of near two miles brings us to the "Dragon's Head," where the services are to be held.

The central gate of the "Temple of Literature" (as it is officially called) is never opened, for no mortal is worthy to walk in the middle avenue; so we entered the side gate and found the path between rows of cedars carpeted for the feet of the mandarins. At the door of the large entrance hall the traveling kitchen, with its hot soups, was plying a busy trade, and after the sacrifice we noticed that the high officials were glad to avail themselves of its benefit. How much better than a cold sandwich! An hour and a half does not pass quickly in the dark, but time is such a shifting commodity with the Chinese that it is well not to be late; and it afforded us abundant opportunity to inspect the halls and find out how the ceremonies were to be conducted. The day before we witnessed the rehearsal in an adjoining hall, where all of the sacrificial officers and the posturemakers practiced their parts. This was under the charge of a district magistrate.

The Confucian ritual gives a most minute account of how the services should be conducted, not omitting the slightest detail. Every tap of bell or drum or note of steel or string instrument is prescribed most accurately, and any deviation would destroy the harmony which is an essential element in their "divine worship." We were surprised at the time required for the services-over half an hour for the offerings to the ancestors of the sage and nearly one hour in the great sacrifice. Five generations of Confucius's forefathers who are honored with the title of "kings" are worshiped, and to them also animals are offered. This temple is in the rear of the main building, and into it we were permitted to go and watch the prefect and two other mandarins present the sacrifices. The services are precisely the same in both places.

The contrast between Buddhism and Confucianism is most marked; the services of the one so noisy and of the other so quiet and reverent; the one holding creature life so sacred and the other shedding blood; the one driving a hard-cash bargain, the other voluntary; the one for the vulgar populace, the other for the learned book-men.

The "Temple of Literature" has its host of worthies. On the right of Confucius are the four sages, among

whom is Mencius, on the left the ten wise men, and before their tablets sheep and hogs are placed; and also twelve animals, six on each side, placed two and two at some distance apart, are offered to the great men of the nation whose names are worthy to be enrolled in the Chinese Academy, and whose tablets are placed in the long halls which flank the court on the east and west. Two of the mandarins bowed at their shrines and offered sacrifice to their manes.

The Confucian temple, 70 by 100 feet, with its massive double roof, is in appearance the most venerable building in Kiangsu. In front is a stone dais of about the same size, surrounded by a marble balustrade, and over this is erected an immense tent with a curving roof, the matting used from time immemorial now being displaced by zinc which is in movable sections-the first innovation. Under this are placed two large frames, on one of which hangs the bells, and on the other the triangular steel instruments. Long guitars lie on their tables, and on one side are a tiger and a drum and on the other a bushel measure and the dragon scroll. Within long red candles burn in front of the shrines and the animals are arranged in pairs, a sheep and a hog, clean and white, lying on high stands with their heads elevated and facing the tablets. In front of Confucius kneels a bull with his throat cut, his shaggy hair all besmeared with the mud he brought from the fields, and lying close beside on either side a sheep and a pig. The beef is afterward divided, the four quarters to the four high officials and the head and tail to the chief of police.

The elephant drum, in which a tall man wearing a silk hat may stand, and which is pitched in the same key as the pigmy drum by its side, is struck, and immediately the attendants light the forty lanterns underneath the pavilion. Bonfires are kindled on the stands, which consist of an iron tripod in which the bundles of wood are placed on their end, with resin and shavings to make them quickly ignite. At the dawn the grounds are lit up with the brilliancy of noonday.

When the drum for the third time beats the governor and high provincial magnates take their places under tents which stand fifty yards in front of the temple, the civil rulers to the east and the military to the west. They wear the court dress, which consists of a red tasseled cover for the hat, a shoulder cape of gold thread, and a heavily embroidered skirt. We saw the governor after the services take off his sacrificial robe; and though living at the head-quarters for embroidery, nothing so rich and elegant has fallen under our eyes, and the wish was expressed that there might be present some ladies to exclaim, "O! how lovely!" From the official tent Governor Kang, with the three highest mandarins, at the cry of the "chief praise-leader," went into the temple, some entering by the right and returning by the left, and the others vice versa, and this for five times. Each was led by a "praise-leader" who directed the worshiper in all he was to do, they doing the talking and the mandarins keeping silent. This for the literary officials;

the poor general and his staff of lieutenants might bow, but their martial feet could not disgrace the sacred courts of learning.

Led before the shrine, the governor, the "Sacrificial Lord," or "True Offerer," in behalf of the 21,000,000 of the province, offered sacrifice to Confucius. At the call of the "praise-leader," "worship," he knelt; "prostrate the head," he bowed; "mount the incense," he raised his hands; "rise," he stood; "return to your place," he followed back to his tent. The first time he entered the hall three sticks of lighted incense were passed by one attendant to the other before him as he knelt and raised his hands. The second time, the fruits and eatables were similarly offered. The third, libations of wine in the sacrificial cups were thus handed and then placed before the tablet. At the fourth, the rolls of white silk with the official stamp upon them were passed in long boxes and laid upon the shrine. The whole service was intoned, the musical professor by a word directing his attendants in every sound of the instruments and tap of the bells, which were arranged in perfect order. The music was soft and sweet, and as the devout chant of the prayers was mingled with the gentle notes of the guitar the effect was very solemn indeed. The dancers, or posture-makers, thirty-six in number, thoroughly trained, with long feathers in their hands, went through the ninety-two motions prescribed in the book of ceremonies. After each return from the temple, at the call of the "chief praise-leader" the two companies of mandarins would make nine or twelve devout prostrations, adoring the literary prince of ages past and to come, by whose kind aid they had risen to posts both honorable and lucrative.

To Confucius they pray. First, the invocation when they invite the presence of his divine spirit, "O Confucius, how great art thou, first in prescience, first in knowledge, the peer of heaven and earth, the teacher of ten thousand generations; the appearance of the unicorn foretold thy good fortune; with the harmony of music (we invite thee), the sun and moon so bright, and heaven and earth clear and still." Afterward the "sacrificial lord" takes his position in the center of the hall, and the "prayer of blessing," corresponding to the "long prayer" of the kirk, is read. It is inscribed on a large square wooden tablet, and begins, "In the sixteenth year of Kwangchi, the second moon and seventh day, to the Most Holy, the First Teacher, Confucius," and continues in the prescribed form. During the several entrances of the governor three prayers are offered, and again a solemn address when the sacrificial vessels are removed. At the close his divine spirit, which is supposed to be omnipresent as far as China is concerned, is requested to return to its invisible and unknown resting-place, the wording of this benediction being as vague as the Chinese language is capable of expressing uncertainty.

Animal sacrifices are not often seen in this era of the world's history. Whether the fathers of the nation, going back to near the Noahic period, were originally

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monotheistic we will not now inquire; but it seems that the stream of theology, so pure and crystal as it flowed from the foot of Ararat, has been diverted into the channels of literature, and the religious effect is as disastrous as the overflow of the muddy waters of the Yellow River. At the spring and autumn sacrifices one bull, a flock of twenty-two sheep, and a herd of twenty-two swine are driven to each temple. There is one temple for each department and one for each county, or about 1,500 in all, making the total sum of animals slain each spring and fall about 67,500, or annually 135,000 offered to Confucius. There are 135 offered in Soochow at each sacrifice. The money paid for these, for the silk which is burned at the close, and for the two feasts to all the attendants is a drain on the national exchequer. The ritual collects the ancient emblems of religion in the period of the "spring and autumn," and they are practiced now in the worship of China's great sage. can witness the scene without being impressed how deep the roots of these venerable cults have penetrated into the national heart. As the Confucian law can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect,” there remains but to tell of the one perfect Sacrifice which was "once offered " and after which the shedding of the blood of bulls and lambs was to cease forever.-Central Presbyterian.

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Dr. Faber on Ancestor Worship.

No one

Dr. Faber thus analyzed ancestor worship in the discussion in the Shanghai Conference :

1. It presupposes the disembodied souls to be subject to the same desires and wants as souls living in the body.

2. It demands real sacrifices (even bloody), in the sense of ceremonial, for supplying the wants of the departed, propitiating them, removing calamities, and gaining special blessings.

3. It presupposes the happiness of the dead depending on the sacrifices from their living descendants.

4. It presupposes that the human soul, at the moment of death, is divided into three portion-souls, one going to hades, one to remain at the grave, and one to reside in the tablet of the ancestral hall.

5. It presupposes that these three souls are attracted by the sacrificial ceremonial, and partake of the ethereal parts of the sacrifices.

6. It presupposes that all departed souls not favored with sacrifices turn into hungry ghosts, and cause all kinds of calamities to the living.

7. It presupposes the welfare of the living to be caused by the blessing from the departed.

8. It is not merely commemorative, but a pretended intercourse with the world of spirits, with the powers of hades or darkness forbidden by divine law.

9. It is destructive of a belief in future retribution, adjusted by God's righteousness. There are only distinguished rich and poor, not good and bad.

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10. It places the imperial ancestors on an equality with heaven and earth (deity), and the common gods or spirits (shen) are placed two degrees below.

II. It is the source of geomancy, necromancy, and other abominable superstitions.

12. It is the cause of polygamy, and of much unhappiness in family life in China.

13. It creates and fosters clannishness, as each clan has its own ancestral protectors. Frequent disastrous village wars are the results.

14. It has developed an extreme view of paternal authority, which crushes individual liberty.

Chinkiang-Its People and Its Missions.

BY REV. WILBUR C. LONGDEN, OF THE CENTRAL CHINA METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION.

I am now in the United States, but as I look upon the picture accompanying this I am forcibly reminded of my own mission work in Chinkiang, and of the great possibilities before the mission workers in that part of China. The view in the upper picture is looking northward toward the Yang-tsze River, which flows just beyond the hill. A little more than one third of the city is included in the picture.

The large building at the foot of the hill, a little to the right of the center, is the English consulate, and the white line at the top of the hill is a wall of masonry built for protection. In earlier days when a difference of opinion arose between the English official and the Chinese lewd fellows of the baser sort used to amuse themselves by rolling stones down the incline toward the consulate building. It proved easier to ascertain that a stone had arrived than to discover who started it. At length the Chinese magistrate suggested the building of this wall for protection. It has served its purpose very well.

At the foot of the hill, about in the center of view No. 1, stands the American consulate, and a little to the right of it is the building of our Mission, bought about six years ago and remodeled into a chapel. It was in this section of the city that the rioters of February 5, 1889, did their work. The English consulate was burned, the American consulate looted, the consuls with their families being obliged to climb the rugged sides of that hill and break through the wall at the top to escape the clutches of the mob.

The house next to the English consulate was the home of the Rev. Mr. Hunnex, of the American Southern Baptist Society. It was burned and his wife was forced to spring from her bed, throw about herself and her six-days' old babe such wraps as she could secure, and flee for their lives. It is one of the miraculous providences of God that she is still alive.

The mission homes of our society, being in another quarter, were unmolested. Our pleasant chapel, how

Six and a half years ago the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of our Church sent a physician and a teacher to Chinkiang, and two years ago a third lady arrived. This fairly states the force which the Methodist Episcopal Church has had at this place up to the present time.

The city itself is not large, perhaps 130,000 is a fair estimate, but its situation at the junction of the Yangtsze River, with the Grand Canal which extends from the capital southward about 600 miles through the best part of the empire, makes it one of the most important trade centers of China, to which merchants from every part of the country are continually coming.

Then just across the river, so near that its pagoda is visible to the eye on a fair day, stands the great city of Yangchow. This place, containing a population of no less than 350,000 souls, ranks high in the empire as a wealthy literary center. Any results affected in these two cities will be felt all through the outlying district which stretches away northward till it meets the bounds of our North China Mission, and is literally dotted with villages, towns, and cities. We wonder not that the men who opened Chinkiang felt that they ought to plan for great things, and we who have followed in the work there are waiting with longing hearts for the day when the Church shall feel able to put into this field a force which shall be somewhat adequate to the opportunities it offers. Our work for the present is limited to Chinkiang. Our chapel location has been transferred from its old location to a point at the extreme right of the picture, and on the main street of the city. Here we have a plain, substantial building, 32x48 feet inside. Brother A. C. Wright, who is now in charge, sends word that at every service it is filled with attentive, well-behaved auditors.

The corner-stone of this chapel, which was laid in September, 1889, contains among other things the names of about 27 Chinese members. There have been larger gatherings and greater displays at the laying of corner-stones, but I am doubtful if Christ's children have often assembled with a deeper sense of gratitude to God or with higher hopes for the future of his work than filled the hearts of the missionaries and the little company of Chinese Christians gathered there that day.

A little farther to the right of our chapel would be seen the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society Hospital,