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Title: Children of China

Author: C. Campbell Brown

Release date: July 12, 2020 [eBook #62625]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF CHINA ***

CHILDREN OF CHINA

  “The good man is he who does not lose his child-heart.”--MENCIUS,
  371-288 B.C.

  “What the leaves are to the forest,
    With light and air for food,
  Ere their sweet and tender juices
    Have been hardened into wood.

  That to the world are children;
    Through them it feels the glow
  Of a brighter and sunnier climate
    That reaches the trunks below.

  Come to me, O ye children!
    And whisper in my ear
  What the birds and the winds are singing
    In your sunny atmosphere.

         *       *       *       *       *

  Ye are better than all the ballads
    That ever were sung or said;
  For ye are living poems,
    And all the rest are dead.”

                                LONGFELLOW.


[Illustration: THE EMPEROR OF CHINA]




  CHILDREN OF CHINA

  BY

  COLIN CAMPBELL BROWN

  AUTHOR OF
  “CHINA IN LEGEND AND STORY”

  [Illustration]


  WITH EIGHT COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS

  OLIPHANTS LTD.
  LONDON      EDINBURGH




_Uniform with this Volume_


  CHILDREN OF INDIA
      By JANET HARVEY KELMAN

  CHILDREN OF CHINA
      By G. CAMPBELL BROWN

  CHILDREN OF AFRICA
      By JAMES B. BAIRD

  CHILDREN OF ARABIA
      By JOHN CAMERON YOUNG

  CHILDREN OF JAMAICA
      By ISABEL C. MACLEAN

  CHILDREN OF JAPAN
      By JANET HARVEY KELMAN

  CHILDREN OF EGYPT
      By L. CROWTHER

  CHILDREN OF CEYLON
      By THOMAS MOSCROP

  CHILDREN OF PERSIA
      By Mrs NAPIER MALCOLM

  CHILDREN OF LABRADOR
      By MARY LANE DWIGHT

  CHILDREN OF SOUTH AMERICA
      By KATHARINE A. HODGE

  CHILDREN OF BORNEO
      By EDWIN H. GOMES, M.A.

  CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA
      By HERBERT PITTS


  Printed in Great Britain by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh
  Bound by Anderson & Ferrier, St Mary Street, Edinburgh




TO

ROBIN, MARGERY AND HUGH




INTRODUCTORY LETTER


MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,

There is a nook among the hills in far-away China to which, if only I
possessed the famous flying carpet, I should very much like to carry
you. To know it properly one ought to find it for oneself upon a day in
spring. The road to it runs at the foot of steep hills, on which the
grey earth peeps through a threadbare carpet of dry grasses.

Above these lower hills the mountain-sides are green, shading into
slate-colour and black; and when the sky clouds over, they look dark
and angry. The road rounds a corner and passes a wood: a few more steps
and the baby valley is in sight.

To leave the path and pick your way through some trees is the work of a
moment. You reach an open space like a little lawn. Above the lawn is
a bank, on which, among shrubs and scattered trees, many flowers are
growing.

A faint scent of almonds breathes in the air. You feast your eyes on
great wild roses and azaleas, rose-coloured, magenta, crimson--bushes
of red fire burning among ferns and green branches. Here, you notice
tufted flowers like feathers carved in ivory: there, white jasmine,
clematis and plants whose shining leaves are nearly covered by balls
of snow. Over the flowers and under the tree-tops great swallow-tailed
butterflies go whirling by. It is as if one of the old men of the hills
of whom Chinese stories tell, had opened a doorway in the mountain-side
and led you into a sweet wild garden of fairyland.

The daily round of life in China is bare enough, like a worn road
winding among hills; but when one comes to know the children of the
country, it is like finding a surprise garden where one had only looked
for rocks and boulders. The love of boys and girls, and the tenderness
and self-denial which they call forth among older people, are the
flowers that grow in this enchanted spot.

The flying carpet was lost long ago, when this old world forgot how to
be young, but you boys and girls sometimes weave one for yourselves and
fly off as far as Pekin or Peru. It is my hope in these pages to join
some of you in this pleasant task and carry you to some of the far-off
garden nooks of China.

_The Chinese_ by Sir John F. Davies, _Child Life in Chinese Homes_, by
Mrs Bryson, and _Chinese Slave Girls_, by Miss M. E. Talmage, are books
which have helped me to write about the children of China. I am sure
they will interest you by and by whenever you can find time to read
them. But the big Chinese city in which I live, and the hundreds of
villages round it, help me most of all to tell you about China and its
boys and girls, and I greatly hope that one day some of you may come
and see them for yourselves.

                                    I am,
                                          Your sincere friend,
                                                      C. CAMPBELL BROWN.

  CHINCHEW, 1909.




CONTENTS


                                  PAGE

       INTRODUCTORY LETTER           6

     I THE INVISIBLE TOP            11

    II CHINESE BABIES               14

   III THE CHILDREN’S HOME          18

    IV SCHOOL DAYS                  23

     V GIRLS                        30

    VI GAMES AND RIDDLES            37

   VII STORIES AND RIMES            42

  VIII RELIGION                     52

    IX FESTIVALS                    58

     X SUPERSTITIONS                63

    XI REVERENCE FOR PARENTS        73

   XII FAITHFULNESS                 76

  XIII THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN      80

   XIV MINISTERING CHILDREN         87

    XV THE CHILDREN’S KING          94




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  THE EMPEROR OF CHINA      _Frontispiece_

                               FACING PAGE

  CHINESE BABIES                        16

  CHILD LEADING BUFFALO                 20

  KINDERGARTEN PUPILS                   28

  CHILDREN AT FOOD AND AT PLAY          40

  GOING TO VISIT HIS IDOL MOTHER        60

  PHŒNIX                                84

  SUNDAY SCHOOL, CHINCHEW               88




CHILDREN OF CHINA




CHAPTER I

THE INVISIBLE TOP


The beginning of the world, as it is described to Chinese boys and
girls, is stranger than a fairy tale. First of all, according to the
story, there was something called ‘khi’ which could not be seen, nor
touched, but was everywhere. After a time this ‘khi’ began to turn
round like a great invisible top. As it whirled round, the thicker
part sank downwards and became the earth, whilst the thinner part rose
upwards, growing clearer until it formed the sky, and so the heavens
and the earth span themselves into being. Presently, for the story
changes like a dream, there came a giant named Pwanku. For thousands
of years the giant worked, splitting masses of rock with his mallet
and chisel, until the sun, moon and stars could be seen through the
openings which he had made. The heavens rose higher, the earth spread
wider, and Pwanku himself grew six feet taller every day. When he died,
his head became mountains, his breath wind, and his voice thunder; his
veins changed into rivers, his body into the earth, his bones into
rocks and his beard into the stars that stream across the night sky.
But though all this is only ‘a suppose story’ of long ago, the first
part of it is wonderfully like what wise men in our time have told us
about the beginning of things.

Now we must talk of China as it is to-day. The country in which Chinese
children live is a land of hills and plains, covered with cities,
villages and temples. You can imagine how big it is when you remember
that Szechuan, which is but one of its eighteen provinces, is larger
than Great Britain and Ireland.

How China grew into a great empire is one of the most wonderful stories
of the world. Its people are said to have come from the west, across
the middle of Asia, settling at length in what is now the province of
Shansi, just where the Yellow River bends sharply eastwards. Small
at first and surrounded by savages, the baby kingdom soon began to
grow. Like the tiny tent of the _Arabian Nights’ Entertainments_,
which unfolded until an army could rest beneath the roof, China spread
until, a thousand years before the time of Our Lord, its borders on
the north and west were pretty much what they are to-day, and it had
crept southwards many miles beyond the Yellow River. The nation went
on growing, drawing other tribes and peoples into itself, until, not
long after King Alfred’s time, the mother kingdom, without counting its
subject countries, was fifteen times as large as Great Britain.

What is now the Chinese Empire is said to have been gained in peaceful
ways rather than by fighting, and this no doubt is partly true. The
people knew more than their neighbours did. Their life was better and
happier. One after another the tribes wanted to join them, and so the
kingdom grew until one of the great changes of the world was made. This
will help you to understand why the Chinese have always believed in
peace rather than force, and until lately have not cared for war.

The history of China at first, like that of other nations, is rather
misty. In spite of this, however, we can make out that long ago the
people had wise and good men to lead them, among whom were Yao and
Shun, the model rulers of the empire, and Yu the Great, who drained
the waters of a vast flood and cut down forests until the land was fit
to dwell in. Much has happened since then. Greece and Rome have risen,
flourished, and decayed. This nation, under many different families of
rulers, and in spite of some seventeen changes of capital, has outlived
them by centuries. Turks, Mongols and Manchus have fought against it,
and, as in the present day, at times have conquered the country, only
to be conquered in turn by the wonderful Chinese people.

Of all the many changes in China’s story, perhaps none has been more
startling than that which happened in 1908, when the Emperor Kwangsu
and the Empress Dowager died, within two days of each other. The whole
country was thrown into mourning, almost all the people going unshaved
for a hundred days, until long hair and bristling faces made the
Chinese world look sad indeed.

On the 2nd December of the same year, the Emperor Hsuan Tung, born in
1906, ascended the Dragon Throne, and so the oldest of Empires came to
have the youngest of sovereigns for its ruler, and the world discovered
that the greatest child on earth was a little Chinese boy. It is said
that the baby emperor, frightened by the sight of so many people in
state dress, began to cry when he was set upon the throne. He was soon
comforted, however, by some of the ladies-in-waiting, and sat quietly
until the grand ceremony was finished.

The little man is the first ruler of China who, from the beginning of
his reign, has had prayer offered for him by Christian people all over
the empire, and we may be sure that blessing will be given to him in
answer to these prayers. Boys and girls everywhere ought to ask God to
help the boy sovereign of the last great heathen empire of the world.

Here is a description which opens a window for us into his nursery:
“Young as he is, the emperor shows a great love of soldiers, and has
little spears and swords and horses among his playthings. The sight of
toy weapons will stop him from crying and make him laugh. His Majesty
is much pleased when a horse is shown to him, and will not be satisfied
until he has been lifted on to its back and taken for a ride.”




CHAPTER II

CHINESE BABIES


A difference is made between boys and girls in China, but it is not so
great as the following lines might lead you to think:

  “When a son is born,
  He sleeps on a bed,
  He is clothed in robes,
  He plays with gems,
  His cry is princely loud,
  This emperor is clad in purple.
  He is the domestic prince and king.

  When a daughter is born,
  She sleeps on the ground,
  She is clothed with a wrapper,
  She plays with a tile,
  She has only to think of preparing wine and food
  Without giving any cause of grief to her parents.”[1]

In winter time little King Baby is rolled in clothes until he looks
like a ball, though his feet and part of his legs are usually bare.
When asleep he is laid in a bamboo cradle, on rough rockers which
loudly thump the floor. A red cord is tied to his wrist, lest he should
be naughty when grown up, and people should say, “They forgot to bind
your wrist when you were little.” Ancient coins are hung round his
neck by a string to drive away evil spirits and to make him grow up an
obedient child. When he is a month old, friends and relatives bring him
presents, a feast is made and Master Tiny has his head shaved in front
of the ancestral tablets, which stand on a narrow table at the back of
the chief room of the house. The barber who takes off the black fluff
from the little round head, receives a present of money; baby, for
his part, becoming the proud possessor of a cap, with a row of gilded
images in front, which is presented to him by his grandmother, together
with a pair of shoes[2] having a pussy’s face worked upon each toe in
the hope that “he may walk as safely through life as a cat does on a
wall.” Baby-boy also receives what is called his ‘milk-name,’ which
serves him until he goes to school. Some of the names given to babies
sound strange: Dust-pan, Pock-marked Boy, Winter Dog, One Hundred and
Ten. Ugly names are sometimes given, in the hope that the spirits may
think that babies so called are not worth troubling about and thus may
leave them to grow up unharmed. In the same way an ear-ring is put in
a little boy’s ear, and he is called Little Sister to make the demons
imagine that he is only a girl, and so not worthy of their notice, or
his head is clean-shaved all over, and he is dressed like a monk for
the same purpose.

Girl babies, like their little brothers, are shaved at the end of the
first month, but with less ceremony. They are called Water Fairy,
Slave Girl, Likes to Cry, Golden Needle, or some such name. Though
some of the little ones suffer from neglect and hardship, many of
them are happy in their babyhood. The people say, “Children are one’s
very flesh, life, heart,” and when the traveller sees a father or a
mother proudly carrying one of them about, or patiently bearing with
its naughtiness, he can well believe that they mean what they say.
Sometimes a mother pretends to bite her baby, saying, “Good to eat,
good to eat”; sometimes she presses her nose against its tender cheek,
as if smelling it, and kisses it again and again. The little things
have shining black eyes, with long dark lashes which look so nice
against the faint olive tint of the delicate skin.

When Master Tiny is a year old, another feast is made, and
brightly-coloured shoes and hats are given to him. After the feast
is over the little fellow is put on a table in the room where the
ancestors of the family are worshipped. Round him are placed various
things, such as a pen, a string of cash, a mandarin’s button, etc. Then
everyone waits to see which he will stretch out a fat hand to seize,
for it is supposed that the thing which he chooses will show what he is
going to be or to do in the world, by and by. If baby grabs the pen,
he will be a scholar; if the money takes his fancy, he will go into
business; but if his eager fingers grasp the shining mandarin button,
his father and mother hopefully believe that he will be a great man
some day.

[Illustration: CHINESE BABIES]

The Chinese are wonderfully patient and kind in treating their babies.
Much of the gladness of their lives and of their homes is bound up
with the boys and girls who play about their houses. They love their
children, in spite of things which sometimes seem to prove that they do
not When the little ones learn, at church or Christian school, to
know the Saviour, they bring a new gladness into the home. Not a few
Chinese children have been able to interest their fathers and mothers
and other friends in the Gospel, as you shall hear later on, and so the
words “A little child shall lead them,” have found a new meaning in
far-away China.

Here is the picture of two little twin-boys, four years old. Some time
ago, one of them said to his sister: “God does not sleep at night.” His
father, who had heard the words, asked, “Lien-a, how do you know that
God does not sleep at night?”

“The hymn says, ‘God night and day is waking, He never sleeps,’”
answered the little fellow.

“But can’t you think of something yourself which shows that God is
awake at night?” asked his father.

“I hear the wind at night,” said the child, after a little pause, “and
see the moon and stars.” He meant God must be awake to keep the wind
blowing and the moon and stars shining.

One day a friend gave each of the twins a bright new five-cent piece.
Their mother took care of the coins, saying, “I will keep them for you,
until we can get enough to use as buttons for your next new jackets,”
and the little fellows were ever so happy. Not long after, people were
gathering money to build a new church, and the little boys’ father said
to them: “Children, have you got anything which you can give to help to
build the new church?” The little boys thought and thought, then one
of them said, “Yes, we have our silver buttons.” So they gave their
treasured little shining pennies most gladly. But I think that God was
gladder still.




CHAPTER III

THE CHILDREN’S HOME


Homes differ as much in China as in other lands. Some are palaces,
some poor huts, some are caves cut into the face of cliffs, some are
boats upon rivers, where thousands of boys and girls learn to handle
the oar from their earliest childhood. Some are in dusty villages by
the roadside, others are set between stairs of green rice fields upon
mountain slopes, or built upon flat plains among giant millet and other
crops.

A large number of children are brought up in cities. You cannot easily
get at their homes because of the streams of blue-clad people who
throng the streets. Come for a walk among the busy shops, so that you
may know something of the place where Chinese boys and girls spend so
much of their time. Sedan-chairs, carried by strong men, push through
the crowd, shaving butchers’ stalls and narrowly missing the heads of
running children. Burden bearers, with bags of rice on their backs,
or loaded with vegetables, pigs in open baskets, bales of cotton or
tobacco, follow one another over the slippery pavement.

Here comes a pedlar selling tapes, needles and bits of silk. He is
called a ‘bell shaker,’ because he tinkles a little bell to call
attention to his wares. That poor man, with shaggy hair and half-naked
skin, is ‘a cotton-rags fairy,’ or beggar. He lives in a ‘beggars’
camp’ not far away.

Look in at this temple. The heavy scent, reminding you of rose-leaves
and stale tobacco, which comes through the open doorway, is the smell
of incense. Beyond the court, inside the door, is a big room where
idols, once bright with gilding, now blackened with smoke, sit each
upon its throne. Those spots of light inside the hall are made by
candles burning on the altar beneath the gloomy roof.

Boys and girls do not care to go inside, unless their mothers bring
them to bow before the idols. Some of the images have ugly faces, blue,
black and fiery red, which children can scarcely look at without being
afraid. Some are gilt and have a strange smile upon their lips. Here is
description of an idol in its temple:

  “I dreamed I was an idol, and I sat
  Still as a crystal, smiling as a cat,
  Where silent priests through immemorial hours
  Wove for my head mysterious scarlet flowers.

         *       *       *       *       *

  “There as I waited, day by changeless day,
  My people brought their gifts and knelt to pray,
  And I ...
  ... in unavailing pity sat
  Still as a crystal, smiling as a cat.”

Let us turn down this narrow lane. Now we have left the shops and the
busy street. Look at the rows of smallish houses, each with a bit of
plain wall and a bamboo screen hanging in front of the door. You hear
the sound of children’s voices within as you pass. How happy that
little boy is, running along in bright red trousers, flying his kite.
His home is near by; when he is older he will go to school, or learn a
trade in one of the shops not far away.

Here the streets are narrower. What strange names they have! Stone Bird
Lane, Grinding Row, Old Woo’s Lane, Bean Curd Lane, Family Ma’s Market.

Look at this big house. Turn in by the opening at the right of the
front door. Now we are inside the first court, an open space with rooms
all around. The room in front of us is the largest in the house. A
wooden cabinet stands on the narrow table against the back wall: it is
full of slips of wood, each about a foot high. These slips of wood are
called ‘ancestral tablets,’ because the Chinese think that the souls of
their ancestors live in them. Each one has writing upon it, telling the
name of the person whose soul is said to be inside.

To right and left of the chief room are two smaller ones, used as
bedrooms. Behind these again is another court, with rooms ranged round
it like the front one, and behind it perhaps another. Some houses have
‘five descents’; for Chinese storeys, which are called ‘descents,’ are
put one behind the other, instead of being piled upwards as are ours.

You may see a girl seated at a loom, driving the shuttle to and fro.
How slowly the cloth grows. Every time the shuttle flies across, the
web gains a line. Thread by thread it lengthens, just as a child’s
life lengthens day by day; that is why the Chinese proverb says, “Days
and months are like a shuttle, light and dark fly like an arrow.” The
older boys of the household are at school or at work. That woman who is
washing rice in an earthen pot, has a baby slung by a checked cotton
cloth upon her back. The child rolls its bullet head and sucks a fat
thumb, whilst one dumpy foot sticks out below its mother’s arm. The
lady in a blue tunic, with bright flowers in her hair, is the mistress
of the house; see how she sways on her tiny bound feet, as she moves
across the tiled floor.

[Illustration: CHILD LEADING BUFFALO]

If the head of the house is a scholar he wears long robes of cotton or
silk, blue and grey, one above the other, or in the hot weather white
‘grass cloth,’ thin as muslin. He has the top of his head shaved and
wears his back hair in a long plait or queue. On New Year’s day or
at other special times, he puts on a pointed hat, with a flossy red
tassel, top-boots and a silk jacket on which is embroidered a stork
or some other bird, to show his literary rank. An officer in the army
would have a bear or some other fierce animal embroidered on his jacket
instead of a bird.

In country homes a mill for taking the husk off rice stands inside the
door, where perhaps you might expect to find a hatstand. Sometimes
a sleek brown cow moos softly on the other side of the porch. Jars,
full of salted vegetables, share the front court with the usual pigs,
chickens and dogs. Look at that mandarin duck, bobbing her head and
throwing forward her bill, as if trying to bring up a bone which had
stuck in her throat just as she was in the act of curtsying to you.
She bows and curtsies all day, until even the fat baby, lying on a
kerb-stone at the edge of the court, grows tired of watching her antics.

Children run in and out of the house. One plays with a big, green
grasshopper, which struggles hopelessly at the end of a string.
Somewhere outside, a little boy or girl is sure to be leading a buffalo
by a rope, on the edge of the rice fields. Farther away some boys and
girls are gathering leaves, or cutting fern on the hillside.

About noon the household gathers for dinner. The men go to the kitchen
and return with bowls of rice and sweet potatoes or vermicelli. In the
middle of the table they have salted vegetables, bean-curd cake cut
into small pieces, dried shrimps, and on feast days, pork hash in soy,
all in different dishes. Each man has two pieces of bamboo, rather
thicker than wooden knitting-needles, which he holds between the thumb
and first three fingers of his right hand. With these chopsticks, as
they are called, he picks up a bit of meat or vegetable and begins
to eat it, but before it is swallowed he puts his bowl to his lips,
and holding it there, pushes some rice or potatoes into his mouth.
One mouthful follows another, and in no time the bowl is empty. Now
you know how to answer the Chinese riddle: “Two pieces of bamboo
drive ducks through a narrow door.” The ‘narrow door’ of course is a
mouth, the ‘ducks’ are bits of pork and fish, the pieces of bamboo are
chopsticks.

Sometimes the country people do not eat at a table, but sit in the
shadow of the porch, or on the edge of the stone coping which surrounds
the front court. The story is told of a poor boy, who used to eat
his meals in this way. The stone on which he sat had a crack in it.
When the boy began to study, he used to bring his book and a basin of
food, so that he might read as he sat on the broken slab eating his
dinner. By and by he became a great scholar and viceroy or ruler of the
province of Szechuan. When he returned to his native place, full of
riches and honour, he rebuilt the old home and made it beautiful, but
he kept the broken kerb-stone unaltered, in front of the dining-room.
It was left with the crack in it to remind him of the time when he was
a barefoot boy and used to sit by the edge of the court, eating rice or
learning his lessons.

When the men have finished their meal, the women and children have
theirs. How the fat little boys and girls love sweet potatoes! They
take them, pink and yellow skinned ones, in their chubby fingers and
stuff them down their throats, dogs and chickens waiting eagerly
meanwhile to pick up the skins and stringy bits which drop upon the
ground.

Though eating apart, girls and women mix more freely with the men
in these country homes than in those of educated townspeople, where
they must keep to their own rooms at the back of the house. Into
the homes of China, so different from each other in some things, so
alike in others, the message of the Saviour’s love finds its way.
Here one, there another--man, woman or child, believes the Gospel and
begins to serve God. In spite of persecution and unkindness, the new
convert remains faithful. By and by another member of the family is
won: sometimes the whole household is changed, and the home becomes a
Christian home.




CHAPTER IV

SCHOOL DAYS


The Chinese people think so much of learning that they say, “Better to
rear a pig than bring up a son who will not read!”

When the time comes for a boy to go to school, a lucky day is chosen
by a fortune-teller, and young Hopeful, spotless in dress, and with
head well shaved, is taken to be introduced to his teacher. In the neat
bundle which he carries as he trots along by his father’s side he has
‘the four gems of the study’ ready for use, that is to say, a pen which
has a brush for a nib, a cake of ink, a stone slab for rubbing down the
ink with water, and a set of books. As soon as the new pupil has been
taken into the school and introduced in the proper way, the teacher
asks the spirit of Confucius to help the little scholar with his work.
Then the master sits down and the boy bows his head to the ground,
beseeching his master to teach him letters. After this a ‘book-name,’
such as Flourishing Virtue, Literary Rank, Opening Brightness, is
chosen and given to the lad; for a Chinese boy gets a new name when he
goes to school. The room in which the budding scholar will sit at a
little black table for many a day to come is often dark and dingy, with
tiny windows and a low tiled roof.

A book, called _The Juvenile Instructor_, tells how children used to
be trained, in the good old days of China’s greatness. It says: “When
able to talk, lads must be instructed to answer in a quick, bold tone,
and girls in a slow and gentle one. At the age of seven they should be
taught to count and name the points of the compass, but at this age
boys and girls should not be allowed to sit on the same mat nor to eat
at the same table. At eight they must wait for their superiors and
prefer others to themselves.... Let children always be taught to speak
the simple truth, to stand erect in their proper places, and to listen
with respectful attention.”

At an old-fashioned Chinese school the pupils have no A B C; but
they have to learn by heart ‘characters,’ that is, the signs which
stand for words in their books. Boys who expect afterwards to go into
business are taught to do sums by a clerk or shopkeeper, who is hired
to teach them; but the ordinary schoolboys are taught no arithmetic,
or geography, or dates. Perhaps you think you would like to go to a
Chinese school! But wait a bit until you hear what Chinese boys have to
learn.

Beginners stand in a row before the master’s table and are taught to
read the first line of the _Three Character Classic_, until they know
it pretty well. Then they sit in their places and repeat it aloud. If
one of them forgets a word, he goes up to the table again and asks his
master how to read it, but he must not go too often.

What a din there is with some twenty boys all reading at the pitch
of their voices! The teacher does not scold them, for the busier his
pupils are at their work, the noisier they become. Whenever one of the
class knows his task, he hands in his book, and turning his face away,
so that his back is to his master, he repeats his lesson aloud. This
‘backing the book’ (as it is called), is to prevent a dishonest pupil
from using his sharp black eyes to peep over the top of the page and
help himself along.

After the _Three Character Classic_ and _The Hundred Surnames_, which
gives a list of the family names used in China, the schoolboy reads a
book called _The Thousand Character Classic_. This book, made up of
exactly a thousand characters, is said to have been written, by order
of an emperor of China, in a single night. The scholar who wrote it
worked so hard, that his hair, which was black when he began his task,
had turned white when the book was finished next morning. The _Four
Books_ and other Classics, as the standard books of Chinese literature
are called, are next begun by the pupil.

Boys do a great deal of writing at a Chinese school: when they are able
to read and to repeat quotations from their famous books, they must
go on to the higher art. First they are taught how to hold the brush
pen. Each boy is given a small book of red characters. He dips his
sharp-pointed brush in ink and holding it straight up and down begins
painting the red letters over. After a time he goes on to tracing
letters on thin paper over a copy. A square of wood, painted white,
serves him as a slate. On this he writes characters, which balance one
another, as heaven and earth, fire and water, light and darkness. By
and by he begins essay and letter-writing, which is very difficult
in Chinese. Pupils used to spend many years on this, but nowadays
schoolboys in China have to do more sums and less writing than their
fathers did.

Writing essays and verses used to be the chief lessons at a Chinese
school; for when scholars were fairly good at these, they entered for
the examinations. It was a difficult thing for a boy to go into the
great examination hall among two or three thousand men, and, after
having been searched to make sure that he had no books or cribs up his
sleeves, to go and sit at a bench and write his essay. Yet many gained
degrees when very young.

One of these was called Ta Pin. He had a wonderful memory and when he
had read the _Five Classics_ once over, he could remember them every
word! When eight years old, Ta Pin was in the house of an elderly
scholar, who was pleased by his good manners and wise ways. Seeing
that he behaved more like a grown-up man than a boy, the old gentleman
pointed to a chair and said: “With a cushion made of tiger’s skin,
to cover the student’s chair.” Then he waited to see if Ta Pin could
answer this bit of poetry as a grown-up scholar would have done, by a
second line of verse, which would match what he had just said. “With
a pencil made of rabbit’s hair, to write the graduate’s tablet,”
answered Ta Pin, every word of his line pairing with the corresponding
word in the old gentleman’s verse, ‘pencil’ with ‘cushion,’ ‘rabbit’
with ‘tiger,’ etc. The scholar struck the table with delight and gave
a present to the boy. When Ta Pin was thirteen he became a Master of
Arts, coming out higher than all the other competitors but one. He
was afterwards second in the examination for the degree of Doctor of
Letters and won the highest degree of all next year. This clever boy
lived over four hundred years ago, when the Ming emperors ruled in
China.

The story of how Mencius’ mother looked after him whilst he was at
school, is very interesting. At first they lived together near a
cemetery and little Mencius amused himself with acting the various
scenes which he saw at the graves. “This,” said his mother, “is not
the place for my boy.” So she went to live in the market street. But
the change brought no improvement. The little boy played then at being
a shopkeeper, offering things for sale and bargaining with imaginary
customers. His devoted mother then took a house beside a public school.
Now the child was interested by the things which the scholars were
taught, and tried to imitate them. The mother was pleased and said:
“This is the proper place for my son.” Near their new house was a
butcher’s shop. One day Mencius asked what they were killing pigs
for. “To feed you,” answered his mother. Then she thought to herself,
“Before this child was born I wished him to be well brought up, and
now that his mind is opening I am deceiving him; and this is to teach
him untruthfulness.” So she went and bought a piece of the pork, to
make good her words. After a time, Mencius went to school. One day
when he came home from school his mother looked up from the loom at
which she was sitting, and asked him how far he had got with his books.
He answered carelessly that “he was doing well enough.” On which she
took a knife and cut through the web she was weaving. The idle little
boy, who knew the labour required to weave the cloth, now spoilt, was
greatly surprised and asked her what she meant. Then she told him that
cutting through the web and spoiling her work was like his neglecting
his tasks. This made the lad think and determine not to spoil the web
of his life by idle ways; so the lesson did not need to be repeated.[3]
Thanks to the care of this wise and patient mother, Mencius grew up to
be a famous man.

An old-fashioned Chinese school opens about the sixteenth of the first
moon, or month, and continues for the rest of the year. The teacher
often goes home to attend feasts, weddings, birthdays or funerals; or
when the rice is cut, so that he may get his share of the harvest from
the family fields. In the third month he has to be away worshipping at
the graves of his ancestors; and in the fifth month, when the dragon
boats race each other, and on other festivals in the seventh, tenth and
eleventh months he will probably go home for a day or two. Whenever the
master is away, the boys play and idle in the streets, unless they have
to help with the harvest or run messages for their parents. So you see,
although they do not have regular Easter and summer holidays, they do
not fare badly.

But such schools as this will soon be left only in country villages.
In the larger cities pupils and teachers alike are giving up the old
slow-going ways. In the Government schools the boys wear a uniform and
look like young soldiers. The classes are distinguished by stripes,
like those worn on their arms by privates, corporals, sergeants and
so forth. You can tell the class a boy belongs to by looking at his
arm. When a visitor enters the school a bell tinkles and all the boys
stand up and touch their caps, as soldiers do when saluting an officer.
Inspectors visit the new schools to see how masters and scholars are
doing their work.

[Illustration: KINDERGARTEN PUPILS]

Kindergartens, where little boys and girls go to learn their first
lessons, though new to China, are much liked by the children and
their parents, and before long will become a great power for good in
the land. The little ones love to sing and march in time. Their tiny
fingers are clever at making hills and islands out of sand, or counting
coloured balls and marbles. Their sharp eyes are quick to see picture
lessons, which are drawn for them upon the blackboard, and their ears
attentive to the teacher who explains them. Ears, eyes, hands, feet,
all help the little heads to learn, as reading, writing, geography
and arithmetic are changed from lessons into delightful games, by the
Kindergarten fairy.

When the closing day comes, crowds gather to see the clever babies
march and wave their coloured flags. Fathers and mothers are ever so
proud when they hear their own little children sing action-songs, and
repeat their lessons without a mistake, and they gladly give money to
put up buildings and train teachers for the ‘children’s garden,’ for
that is what Kindergarten means.

Chinese boys and girls are fond of study, and so they will surely make
their country famous once more. The romance of China is not connected
with making love or fighting; it gathers round the boy who is faithful
at his tasks, who takes his degree early and rises to be a great
official. When the reward of years of hard work comes, he goes back to
the old home, bringing comfort and honour to all his friends. This is
the hope which has helped on many a little scholar and made his school
life glad.

This Chinese love of learning has opened a door by which the Gospel may
enter the minds of the people. Wherever missionaries have gone, they
have established schools, in which many children have learnt to know
God’s truth and love the Saviour.




CHAPTER V

GIRLS


It is hard to begin life as one who is not wanted. Many a Chinese
girl cannot help knowing that she has come into the world bringing
disappointment to her father and mother.

“What is your little one’s name?” said a foreigner to a woman, who was
walking along with a small child near Amoy.

“It is a girl,” was the reply, as much as to say, “You need not trouble
to waste time asking about her.”

“I know, venerable dame,” said the foreigner, “but what is her name?”

“Not Wanted,” was the strange answer.

“You should love your little girl as much as a boy. Why do you speak so
unkindly of her?” said the foreigner, thinking that the mother meant
she did not want her child. The woman laughed, but said nothing.

“Now tell me her name,” persisted the foreigner, anxious to show
interest in the despised girl.

“Not Wanted,” repeated the woman again.

“Not ...” began the stranger once more, meaning to tell the ignorant
woman not to speak so unkindly of her little girl.

“Not Wanted is her name,” said the woman quickly, before the foreigner
could finish the sentence.

It would be sad indeed to know one was not wanted, but it would be
harder still to be reminded of it every time one was called by one’s
own name. How would an English girl like to be so treated? “Not
Wanted, come and have your hair brushed.” “Not Wanted, where are you?”
“Not Wanted, come and play with your little brother,” and so forth.
When a baby girl’s fortune, as told by the fortune-tellers, is not a
lucky one, she may perhaps be handed over to Buddhist nuns, who will
give her rice, potatoes and vegetables, but no fish or meat or eggs.
The little one, if she lives to grow up, will serve in the nunnery and
help with the worship offered to the idols. When old enough to become a
nun she will have her head shaved, till it looks as round as a bullet,
and wear tight black trousers, a short blue coat and a close-fitting
cap of black cloth; and she will learn to do the fine embroideries,
most of which are the work of Buddhist nuns.

Sometimes, when the fortune-teller says a little girl will bring bad
luck to her own family, she is given to another household, where she
will be brought up to be the wife of one of the sons, when he is old
enough to marry. This often happens, but it is not a good plan and
leads to unhappiness, as you will hear later on.

The everyday dress of Chinese girls is simple enough. When they first
begin to walk they are odd little bundles of clothes, topped by a
little jacket and a cloth cap, which covers their head and ears and
neck, leaving the face open. When they grow older they wear jackets of
cotton,--blue stamped with white flowers is a favourite pattern,--loose
coloured trousers and tiny embroidered shoes. They wear ear-rings,
silver bangles on their ankles, and sometimes a ring on one finger.
When they are engaged to be married, they wear a bangle on one arm.
Their hair, which has been worn in a plait behind, is, when they are
old enough to be married, put up in a neat coil at the back of the
head, and pretty pins and flowers are stuck into it. It is a great day
in a girl’s life when her hair is done up in this way.

The first great trial which a Chinese girl has to meet is when she
has her feet bound. Her toes are pulled towards the heel, by winding
a strip of cotton cloth round them and drawing it tight. Tiny girls
of six or seven sometimes have to bear the pain of having their poor
little feet pinched together in this way, though eight or nine is the
more common age to begin. It must be extremely painful to have the
bones twisted and the flesh crushed, until it decays and dries; but
when the pain is over, and a girl has ‘golden lilies,’ only two or
three inches long, she is very proud of them, and people praise the
child’s mother for all the trouble she has taken to make her daughter
look so beautiful! So strong is the desire to be admired, that often
girls beg to have their feet bound, in spite of all the pain they will
have to bear.

Foot-binding, being foreign to Manchu customs, is not allowed in the
Palace. Some years ago, the Empress Dowager herself issued an edict
to the people saying: “Not to bind is better.” Children brought up in
God-fearing homes seldom or never have to suffer the torture of being
thus lamed for life. And now, in many parts of China, fathers and
mothers, who do not wish their little girls to be crippled, have joined
themselves into what is called ‘The Natural Foot Society.’ Let us hope
that before long there will be no more foot-binding in China.

Girls brought up in wealthy homes are seldom seen out of doors, but
poorer children, at a very early age, have to do something to help to
earn their living. They gather firing; they nurse the baby; they cook
and sew; they learn to scrape the soot from the bottom of the family
rice pot with a hoe; and, in some places, they very early begin to
carry loads, slung from a pole on their shoulders. Some sit beside
their mothers and help to make paper money to be offered to idols. Some
paste rags on a board, one on the top of the other, to be afterwards
made into soles for shoes; or they weave coloured tape, or twist
fibre into rough string. In some parts of China they make embroidery,
working beautiful birds and flowers with their clever fingers. All
Chinese girls learn to embroider and make up their own shoes and
the embroidered bands which they wear round their distorted ankles.
Sometimes they feed silk-worms with mulberry leaves, and afterwards
wind the threads off the cocoons which the worms have spun. When a
little older some girls may be seen making silver ornaments for women’s
hair-pins, but this is work usually done by men and boys; sometimes
poor girls, while they are quite young, sell cakes and sweets in the
streets, to help their parents; often they spin cotton and weave it
into cloth, to make clothes for all the family.

With the exception of a very few daughters of scholars, who were taught
to read and write by their fathers, girls used never to be troubled
with learning. In spite of this, there are books giving the names of
wise and learned women, some of whom, especially in the time of the
T’ang Dynasty, wrote famous poems. This shows that ages ago women
in China were educated, but as a rule in later days they were left
untaught, to learn by slow degrees the ‘three dependencies of woman,’
“who,” as the Chinese say, “depends upon her father when she is young,
on her husband when she is older, and upon her son when she is very
old.” The story is told of a girl, who used to sing as she toiled
at her daily tasks: “Oh, the tea-cup, the tea-cup, the beautiful,
beautiful tea-cup”--that was all the song she knew! When Christianity
comes, it brings new hope and new songs, and teaches girls and boys
alike to know of God and Heaven and a life away beyond the narrow
courts of the houses in which the earthly lives of so many Chinese
girls are shut up.

As we have seen already, a change has come over China. At the beginning
of 1909 there were said to be thirty-seven girls’ schools in Canton
alone, one of which had over three hundred pupils, and every year adds
to the number of such schools, all over the land. Christian girls teach
in these schools. Not long ago a girl refused to become teacher in a
Government school because she would not be allowed to read the Bible
with the scholars there. Twice she said she would not go, although
offered more money each time. At last the authorities said: “We must
have you in our school; you may do what you like; you may teach the
Bible--only you must come.” Some Christian girls, after leaving school,
study in the women’s hospitals and become nurses and doctors. At
first they help the missionary lady doctors, and afterwards, in some
cases, they earn their living by going out to care for sick women and
children. Thus Christianity has opened up a new way by which women may
support themselves in China.

When they are tiny little children girls are often engaged to be
married and go to live in their future husbands’ homes. They are
married, too, when very young. Sometimes a little girl is told only a
short time before that she is to be sent away in a great red chair and
become somebody’s wife in another home. Poor little thing, she is often
very frightened and unwilling to go.

The story of Pink Jade will help you to understand about girls’
marriages in China. The first hint she had of what was going to happen
was when an old woman, called the ‘go-between,’ came to her father’s
house with a silver bracelet and some hair ornaments for her, as a
present from her future husband’s family. A paper stamped with a dragon
had already been sent to her parents, giving a description of the young
man she was to marry, and a paper stamped with a phœnix, giving a
description of herself, had been sent in exchange.

Pink Jade’s father gave her many nice clothes and dresses, five pairs
of embroidered shoes, three pairs of red wooden heels, seven pairs
of silver finger-rings, bracelets and hair ornaments. These gifts
were packed in four red boxes and a dressing-case. Then there was
some bedding in a red box, five washing tubs, a wardrobe, a table and
two red lanterns. On her wedding-day Pink Jade was dressed in black
trousers and petticoat trimmed with embroidery, an embroidered green
satin jacket, a beautiful head-band, the gift of her mother-in-law,
and many hair ornaments. Before she left her home a thick veil of red
and gold, about a foot square, was fastened to her head-band by a few
stitches.

A little before noon the great red chair, in which she had been carried
by several men, drew near to the bridegroom’s house. The burden-bearers
now went on in front with the red boxes and other things, the little
bride following behind in her chair, attended by the ‘go-between,’ and
four men carrying lanterns.

It was a shy little maiden that entered the new home; then came the
ceremony of bride and bridegroom together worshipping heaven and earth,
after which they bowed down before the bridegroom’s parents and their
ancestral tablets. Some hours later, the husband cut the stitches of
the veil, and for the first time saw the face of his bride. She did
not see him, however, for she dared not lift her eyes. Crowds of women
from among the guests and neighbours came to look at her, saying very
freely if they thought the bride pretty or ugly, which it is considered
quite polite to do at weddings. Later in the evening she was shown to
the men friends of the family, who repeated good wishes in verse, the
poor little bride having to stand all the time while this and the other
ceremonies were gone through.

On the second day Pink Jade had to cook a meal and wash some clothes,
to show she understood her new duties. Her mother and sisters-in-law
were pleased with the little bride, so she was happy in her new home.
But before very long her husband went abroad, coming back to China only
now and then.

When but a little girl of ten years old, Pink Jade had gone with her
grandmother to live in a city where there was a Christian church. She
was curious to see what happened inside the church, so she went to
service there several times; but the singing, reading and praying all
seemed strange to her, for she did not understand what they meant. Her
husband had also been in church when young, but he did not like the
‘new religion,’ and would have nothing to do with worshipping God.

But it happened that after she was married, Pink Jade took ill and went
to the Mission Hospital at Swatow, where she heard about Our Lord Jesus
Christ, and how He came to save sinners from their sins. She became so
much interested that she persuaded her husband to attend the services
in the Hospital chapel, and before long he himself believed in Jesus
Christ, and was received into the church by baptism. Pink Jade learned
to read and in time gave her heart, too, to God’s service.[4]

Here is a simple rime which girls learn to repeat, so that they may
know what to do, when afterwards they go as brides to their new homes.

  “Bamboos thick, thick arise,
  Child in wifely love be wise,
  Late take rest, soon, soon rise,
  Wake, comb your hair,
  Adorn your face, lips, eyes;
  Chairs, tables, dust in hall,
  Wash kitchen dishes all,
  In chamber sewing fall.
  Praise brothers, great and small,
  Father, mother, worthy call,
  Praise your home, both roof and wall,
  Praise your lucky husband tall.”

In China, as in other lands, the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ brings
new love and new happiness to girls and women alike. It frees them from
being despised and ill-treated, and gives them their true place in the
home, for it teaches men that “there is neither bond nor free, there is
neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”




CHAPTER VI

GAMES AND RIDDLES


Chinese children are kept so busy at work or study that a stranger
might at first be tempted to think their lives were all work and no
play. In time, however, one discovers that they have many kinds of
amusements.

A favourite game is played with a ball of tightly wound cotton thread,
which is bounced upon the pavement, the player trying to whirl round
as often as possible, before giving another pat to make it jump again.
Boys are fond of ‘kicking the shuttlecock.’ They are wonderfully clever
with their feet, and send the shuttlecock flying from one to another,
turning, dodging, leaning this way and that, so as to kick freely. The
shuttlecock is kept on the wing for a long time in this way without
once falling to the ground. They play tipcat too, but their game is
more difficult than ours. ‘Knuckle-bones’ and a guessing game, played
with the fingers, like the Italian Mora, are also favourite amusements.

Another game is ‘tiger trap.’ To play it, a number of boys and girls
take hands and stand in two lines, facing each other. One waits at the
end of the double row of children and bleats, as a kid does in a trap
set for Mr Stripes. Then the tiger darts in between the lines to catch
the kid. The moment he does so, the children at the ends close up.
Unless the tiger bounces out very quickly he is caught and the kid runs
away.

There are several kinds of blind man’s buff. One is called ‘Catching
fishes in the dark.’ Each child chooses the name of a fish, calling
himself dragon-shrimp, squid, red chicken, or some other kind of fish.
The boy who is to be ‘he’ is blinded. Then the fishes run past, trying
to touch the blind man as they go. If one gets caught ‘he’ must name it
rightly. If ‘he’ names the wrong fish, away runs the boy. Another kind
is ‘Call the chickens home.’ In this game the blind man says ‘Tsoo,
tsoo, come seek your mother,’ then the other children, who are the
chickens, run up and try to touch him without being caught. If one is
caught he becomes blind man.

When playing ‘Eating fishes’ heads and tails,’ several children take
hold of each other’s jackets to form the fish. The first one is the
head, which is supposed to be too fierce to be captured; the last one
is the tail which may be seized and eaten. One of the players stands
by himself. Suddenly he begins to chase the fish, trying to catch its
tail. Every time he makes a rush the head of the fish faces round, and
the players, forming the tail, swing to one side to avoid being caught,
as in our ‘Fox and chickens.’

Kite flying is an amusement of which boys as well as grown men are
very fond. Little toddlers begin with tiny kites, cleverly made out
of folded paper, but the older boys are more ambitious. Some of their
kites are made to look like birds and have a bow, strung with a thin
flat strip of bamboo, tied behind the wings. When the bird rises in the
wind it hovers like a living thing, and the strip of bamboo buzzes with
a loud humming noise. Others are shaped like butterflies, centipedes,
and other creatures. One of the most beautiful kites is shaped like a
fish, so as to curve and sway in the air, much as a fish does in water.

There are several games played with cash, one in which the coins are
thrown into a hole scooped by the roadside; another in which they are
struck against a wall, so as to rebound and fall beside a certain mark
on the ground, but these, as a rule, are a kind of gambling.

Here are names of some other games which may interest you: ‘Threading
the needle’; ‘Waiting for the seeker,’ a game like ‘I spy’; ‘Hopping
race’; ‘Let the prince cross over’; ‘Circling the field to catch
the rat’; ‘The mud turtle’ and ‘The water demon seeking for a den,’
which is played by five children, but otherwise is like ‘Puss in the
corner.’ ‘Sawing wood’ is just ‘Cat’s cradle’ under another name.

The children often play at ‘worshipping the idols.’ For a few cash they
buy a painted clay idol, about two inches high, which they carry on a
small bamboo stool, by means of two sticks. One child goes in front,
one behind, with the ends of the sticks upon their shoulders. Others
beat a tiny brass gong and carry a burning stick of incense. Then they
offer a shrimp, a small fish and some other things as a sacrifice.

In the warm weather you may be sure that the boys and girls take
a large share in the fun when their fathers and brothers send up
fire-balloons. These rise in the night sky until they look like yellow
moons floating over the city. Sometimes a balloon catches fire, flames
for a minute, and then only a falling spark shows where its ashes go
tumbling to the ground.

The Chinese have many riddles which grown people as well as children
play at guessing.

Here are some for you to try your wits upon.

“It was born in a mountain forest. It died in an earthen chamber. Its
soul dispersed to the four winds. And its bones are laid out for sale.”

“In a very small house there live five little girls.”

“On his head he has a helmet. His body is covered with armour. Kill him
and you will find no blood, open him and you will find his flesh.”

“On the outside is a stone wall. In the inside there is a small golden
lady.”

“It takes away the courage of a demon. Its sound is like that of
thunder. It frightens men so that they drop their chopsticks. When one
turns one’s head round to look at it, lo! it is all turned into smoke.”


“There are two sisters of equal size; one sits inside, the other
outside.”

[Illustration: CHILDREN AT FOOD AND AT PLAY]

“In the front are five openings; on the sides are two windows; behind
hangs an onion stalk.”

“What is it that sits very low and eats more grass than a buffalo?”

Here are the answers: Charcoal, a shoe, a shrimp, an egg, a cannon, a
looking-glass, a Chinaman’s head, a Chinese kitchen range (which is
generally heated with fern and grass).

Sometimes riddles are painted on lanterns and hung in front of a shop
for people to guess: whoever succeeds in guessing right wins a small
prize.

Chinese boys and girls have a sweet tooth. Whenever they have cash to
do so, they buy sugar-cane, peanut candy and biscuits, some of which
are flavoured with sugared kui flowers, which give them a delicious
taste. When the man who sells candied peaches and other fruit appears,
boys and girls come hopping out of the houses at the sound of his bell,
and each one hunts in his little pocket for cash, or begs a few from
his mother, to buy some favourite dainty.

The children are filled with glee whenever a feast with plays is given
at their home. They are not allowed to sit at the feast, nor are they
supposed to look on at the plays, but they have a good share of what is
going. As the unfinished dishes are carried from the tables, one after
the other, the servants and children have a feast of their own outside.
Long before the plays begin, the children watch the erection of the
stage in the court or in the street outside the house, and examine the
masks and dresses as they are taken out of their boxes and hung up
ready for use.

When the music strikes up they choose knowing corners, from which to
peep past the shoulders and over the heads of the big people. They
love to see the actors dressed like famous heroes who lived long ago,
although they cannot recognise the boys now beneath their red and
black masks, long beards and rich robes. How the music clamours and
the drums beat and the rattles clatter. Warriors shout and stamp, fine
ladies wave their fans. When fighting begins upon the stage it would be
difficult indeed to catch the boys among the crowd, to send them to bed!




CHAPTER VII

STORIES AND RIMES


One of the best ways to know boys and girls is to learn something of
the stories they like to hear and tell. Here are one or two which will
help you to understand our friends the Chinese children much better
than pages of talk about their looks and ways.

First, there is the story of how the yellow cow and the water buffalo
exchanged their skins. You must know that the yellow cow has a fold of
skin which hangs loose beneath her neck, and a loud bellow, while the
buffalo has a tight grey skin, that looks some sizes too small for his
great round body, and a tiny wheezing voice, which sounds strangely
coming from so large a beast. Long ago the buffalo was yellow and
his skin fitted well enough, while the cow was grey. Now it happened
that one hot day the cow and the buffalo went to bathe in the river,
leaving their clothes upon the bank, while they enjoyed themselves in
the cool, green water. Presently there was a roar, which told them that
the tiger was coming. Out of the water they dashed, and the cow, being
the nimbler of the two, scrambled up the bank ahead of the buffalo. In
her haste she picked up the first heap of clothes which she came to
and began putting them on, hopping into them one leg at a time between
the steps as she ran. The buffalo was not far behind, but so frightened
lest the tiger should catch him, that he did not notice that the cow
had run off with his clothes. He picked up hers and struggled into
them somehow, then he ran for his life. He never was very bright, but
blown by running and frightened though he was, he soon noticed that his
jacket was very tight and that it was the wrong colour. There was the
cow running in front of him, and he could see that she had put on his
nice yellow suit. He wished her to stop and give him back his clothes,
but the tiger was somewhere in the woods not far behind them. So they
ran and they ran until at last they were safe from pursuit.

As the cow slowed her pace the buffalo overtook her. Before he had
quite made up to her he tried to shout out, “Give me back my clothes,”
but he felt so tight and puffed so hard that he could not speak. He was
very stiff about the ribs and a little angry, so instead of attempting
a long sentence he tried to say, “Oan,” one word only, which means
“change.” All he could get out, however, was “Eh-ah, eh-ah,” in a
wheezy little voice.

The cow understood his meaning well enough, but she felt so comfortable
in her new yellow skin that she only answered “M-ah, m-ah,” “I won’t, I
won’t.”

And so the buffalo has been wheezing “Change, change,” and the yellow
cow has been mooing “I won’t, I won’t” ever since.

Here is another ‘just-so’ story, which tells how the deer lost his
tail. Long ago an old man and his wife lived in a lonely cottage upon a
hill not far from forests and rocky places where wild beasts had their
holes.

One night, when the man and his wife had finished their supper, they
were talking together, as they often did before going to bed. In the
course of their talk the old man happened to say: “How happy we are in
our cottage upon this hill far from the city where thieves and beggars
bother and policemen frighten people. We do not fear thieves nor
policemen, nor tigers nor demons, nor anything at all, unless it be the
Lio--yes, we need not fear anything but the Lio.”

There was a hush in the cottager’s voice when he spoke the last words,
and when he had spoken them, both he and his wife were quiet for quite
a long time. Now it chanced that a tiger, which had crept down from
his cave under one of the blue peaks of the mountain overhead, was
prowling round the cottage whilst they were talking together, hoping to
pick up the watch-dog or a fat pig, before setting out for a hunt in
the valleys far below. Hearing the sound of voices, he stopped outside
the door. The family dog, who was far too wise to be out at night near
the edge of the forest, smelt him and crept into the corner of the
room furthest from the door, under the bedstead. He dared not growl or
whimper. There he lay, his brown hair bristling over his shoulders,
and he breathed so quietly that the young mice in their hole by the
wall were sure that he was dead, although their little grey mother knew
better.

At the moment the tiger began to listen to the talking inside the
cottage the old man was saying: “We not do fear thieves nor policemen,
nor tigers nor demons, nor anything at all, unless it be the Lio.”
There was something in the way he spoke the last words and in the way
he stopped after saying them, which showed that he really was afraid
of the Lio. The tiger, who had never heard of a Lio, wondered what it
could be, so he lay down quietly outside the door to listen, hoping
to hear more about the terrible beast which frightened people brave
enough to fear neither tigers nor thieves nor demons. All was dark
and the hill side was very still. Behind the cottage a thief, who had
come to rob the lonely couple, was crouching close to the wall. He too
heard the old man talking about the Lio and wondered what the terrible
creature could be like. Presently he crept round the side of the
cottage. The tiger noticed a sound coming moving through the darkness.
It was the thief. Though he slipped along as quietly as a pussy cat the
tiger heard him with his wonderful wild-beast’s ears. Dark as it was
when the thief crept round to the front wall, he felt, rather than saw,
that there was something lying beside the door of the little house.
“Good luck!” he thought to himself. “This is the old man’s cow.” It
was impossible to see, so he stole up gently to try to find out what
the creature might be. He put out his hand to feel, and touched the
tiger. In a moment he knew that this was no cow. Its hair was harsh and
its muscles like iron bands. Could it be--surely it could not be--the
dreadful creature of which he had just been hearing. Reckless as he
was, the thief felt his heart stand still. Next moment he jumped to one
side, climbed the wall of the cottage, and hid on the roof.

Meantime the tiger, making sure that the unseen thing, which had come
upon him in the darkness, was nothing less than the Lio itself, got up
and fled. He ran and he ran, until he met a deer in the forest. The
deer drew respectfully to the side of the path, as in duty bound when
meeting his betters. “Where does his Excellency come from in such a
hurry?” he inquired in rather a timid voice.

“Oh! from nowhere, from nowhere at all,” answered the tiger, a little
bit confused by what had just happened. Then he recovered himself and
told the deer how a terrible beast, called the Lio, had touched him in
the dark.

“A Lio, your Excellency! Why, I never even heard of a Lio,” said the
deer in great surprise. “What is it like?”

“A Lio is very clever,” said the tiger; “it climbs houses and comes on
you in the dark. If you would like to know more about it I will take
you to where it is. Come, let us go together.”

“But the Lio will catch me, your Excellency, I am but a weak creature,”
said the deer, drawing back a little, for he did not wish to be gobbled
up. He never had known the tiger so quiet and polite before, and he
could see by the gleam of the great green eyes, even in the dark, that
his companion was turning his head every now and then, as if he thought
the Lio might come gliding through the forest to spring upon them at
any moment.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the tiger, growing braver at the thought of
having a companion to go back with him, “I will take care of you.”

“But, your Excellency, the Lio will come and you will run away and
leave me to be caught,” answered the deer.

“Oh, no, we can tie our tails together, and then it will be all right,”
said the tiger. For you must know that at that time the deer’s tail was
much longer than it is now.

“Tie our tails together and both get caught at once,” gasped the deer,
so surprised that he forgot to be polite.

“Not at all,” said the tiger, with a little growl in his voice. “When
the Lio comes I will ‘put forth my strength’ and pull you away with a
whisk before it can get hold of you.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the deer, his spotted sides shaking until the
white marks danced again, “what a clever plan.”

So the deer and the tiger tied their tails together, and set off to
look for the Lio. They had to walk carefully through the forest,
because the bushes and trees would get between them, and as they went
along they talked in whispers about the Lio, until the deer felt creepy
all over. At last they reached the edge of the wood, where they could
just make out the black cottage looking very dark against the sky. A
branch cracked as they passed under the last tree.

The thief, who was still crouching on the roof of the cottage, took
fright at the sound, and making sure that the terrible beast he had
heard of was coming back, jumped down from the tiles, narrowly missing
the deer as he reached the ground.

“Help, help, your Excellency, the Lio!” cried the deer, terrified by
something, he knew not what, coming tumbling out of the night. The
tiger ‘put forth his strength’ and gave a great spring, when crack!
the deer’s tail broke off close by the root. The thief ran, the tiger
sprang, the deer bounded away, in different directions, each thinking
that the terrible Lio was close at his heels. But the Lio none of
them ever saw. What was strangest of all, the old man and his wife,
who never had seen a Lio in all their lives, went quietly to bed that
night without an idea of what was happening outside in the dark. And
now you know why the deer has only a white tuft sticking up, where his
beautiful long tail used to be.

The following story about a bird is a favourite one with boys and girls
in some parts of China.

There is a little grey bird, called the Bean bird, which pipes a sad
note in the spring. Its cry is said to be like the Chinese words for
“Little brother, little brother, are you there?” According to the story
a man, who had one son, married again and had another little boy. The
second son’s mother hated the elder brother and wished very much to get
rid of him so that her own child might enjoy the family property. Again
and again she did her best to get the poor lad into trouble with his
father, and too often she succeeded.

One day in spring when the farmers were busy putting their crops into
the ground she found some beans in a flat basket with which the elder
brother was going to sow his field. The boy was nowhere to be seen, so
she popped his beans into the empty rice boiler, and putting some grass
into the fireplace below, heated them until those tiny parts which
turn into buds and sprout under the soil were killed. Then she put
the beans back into their basket and left them to cool. The boy knew
nothing of all this, but the younger son, who dearly loved his elder
brother, noticed what had been done, and hoping to save him a scolding,
quietly put his own beans into the basket and took the roasted ones
to use himself. Then they went to the fields and each one sowed his
plot of ground. After a time their mother sent the boys to see how the
crops were doing. “If the beans have not sprouted in either of your
fields you need not come home again,” said she. “We do not wish to have
useless, lazy children in this house.”

The elder brother’s little field was covered with green plants, so he
went gleefully home and told his stepmother. The younger brother’s plot
was brown and bare, not a bean had come up through the soil. He knew
there would be trouble for his brother if he went home, so he started
off for the mountains, hoping that his elder brother would be left in
peace if he were gone. He wandered away and away, until at length a
tiger found him and ate him up.

The stepmother was vexed when her son did not come home from the
fields, and with many threats and angry speeches sent the elder boy to
go and look for him. The lad, who was anxious to find his companion,
went everywhere calling, “Little brother, little brother, are you
there?” The workers on the upland farms and the grass-cutters on the
hills, heard his voice floating faint and far, as he wandered farther
and farther away. Now it was here, now there, always calling the same
sad cry, “Little brother, little brother, are you there?”

When he could find him nowhere he knelt down in his despair and prayed
Heaven to show him where his brother was. As he prayed and wept he
knocked his head upon the ground. His head struck a stone, the blood
ran and he died. The blood which flowed from his wound was changed into
a little grey bird, and every year, when the beans are sprouting in
the fields, the bird comes with its plaintive cry, now near, now far,
“Little brother, little brother, are you there?” When the children hear
its call they say, “Rain is coming,” and surely enough the drops begin
to fall before long, as if the skies remembered an ancient wrong and
wept for sorrow.

There are many stories of children famous in China long ago. Here is
one which shows how even a little child may care for others, thinking
and acting wisely in time of danger.

Many hundreds of years ago, in the time of the Sung Dynasty, a boy
named Sze Ma Kung was playing with some other boys and girls. When
the fun was at its height, one of the party fell into a great big jar
of water. The children were so frightened that they all ran away,
except Sze Ma Kung, who at once went to try what he could do to save
his companion. The edge of the jar was too high for him to reach over,
so the little fellow could not get at the sinking child, to pull him
out of the water. There was no time to fetch a stool or call for help;
another moment and the prisoner would be drowned. A good idea struck
him. He rushed off, and picking up as large a stone as he could carry
he dashed it against the side of the jar. Crack went the pot and a
great hole opened, through which the water all ran away. Then the
child crept out like a half-drowned puppy, but not much the worse for
his drenching. When people heard of what Sze Ma Kung had done, they
knew that if he lived to grow up he would be a useful man, wise and
thoughtful and quick to help others.

Stories are told of children diligent at their books, who were famous
in after life. One lad, who was too poor to buy oil for his lamp, used
to catch fire-flies and read by the pale-green light they gave. He put
the fire-flies inside a tiny muslin bag, which he laid upon the page of
his book, the light which they gave being just enough to let him follow
his lesson, line by line. Another used to read by the light reflected
from snow, as the day failed, or when the moon rose. A third used to
fasten his book to the horn of the cow he was tending, so as to use the
precious hours for study; while a fourth tied his queue to a rafter of
the low roof above his head, so that when he became drowsy and nodded
over his lesson, he might be wakened by the pain of having his hair
pulled.

Another kind of story helps to fix the written ‘characters’ in
schoolboys’ memories. One of these tells how a scholar, called Li An-i,
went to visit a rich boor named Ti Shing. When he reached the house
and asked for the gentleman, a message was brought that he was not at
home. Li An-i knew that this was not true, so he wrote the character
for ‘afternoon’ on the door of Mr Ti’s house and went away. When asked
why he had done so, he said that the character for afternoon meant
‘the ox not putting out its head.’ When you know that the character
for afternoon is the same as the one for ox, but without the dot which
makes the head of it, and that a stupid person is called an ox in
China, much as he would be called an ass at home, you will understand
Mr Li’s joke. He meant that the man, who had not ‘put out his head’ to
see him, was a stupid ox.

There are plenty of nursery rimes in China, one or two of which will
show you that Chinese children are very much like our own. Here is one
about our old friends the sparrows.

  “A pair of sparrows with four bright eyes,
  Four small feet that pop, pop so,
  Four wings that whirr, whirr, how they go!
  Pecking rice and grain likewise.”

Another reminds us a little of the pig that would not get over the
stile.

  “A bit of copper fell out of the sky,
  And hit an old man as he passed by.
  When the man began to jog,
  He struck against a dog.
  When the dog began to yell,
  It struck against a mill.
  When the mill began to fall,
  It struck against a hall.
  When the hall began to build,
  It struck against a stool.
  When the stool began to sit,
  It struck against a sheet.
  When the sheet began to tuck,
  It struck against a duck.
  When the duck began to wade,
  It struck against a blade.
  When the blade began to cut,
  It struck against a hat.
  When the hat began to wear,
  Catch the thief and slit his ear.”

The following verse, which is often shouted by boisterous little
scholars, pokes fun at a greedy schoolmaster, who has lost the respect
of his pupils. The first and third lines are from the _Three Character
Classic_, the first book a child learns; the others are hits at the
master.

  “‘Primal man’s condition’
  Teacher sly steals chicken.
  ‘Good at root was his heart,’
  Teacher’s nicking gizzard.
  The boys won’t touch a book,
  Roll teacher in the brook.”

The boys and girls of China are learning the stories of Joseph,
Samuel and Jonathan, of John the Baptist and of Peter. They read
the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, _Jessica’s First Prayer_, _Christie’s Old
Organ_ and many another favourite, which has been put into the Chinese
language for them by the missionaries. Best of all they learn the story
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through it come to know the Blessed
Saviour Himself.




CHAPTER VIII

RELIGION


It is rather strange that the Chinese have three religions, instead of
being contented with one like most people. Confucianism is the chief
of these. It takes its name from Confucius, a wise man born in 551
B.C., who taught men to be just, to be kind to one another, and to
agree together; but he said little or nothing about how to know God and
worship Him. The most famous saying of Confucius is: “What you do not
wish done to yourself, do not do to others.” These beautiful words are
nearer to the teaching of Our Lord Jesus than any others to be found
outside the Bible, and ought to be treasured by everyone. Following in
the steps of the earlier teachers of China, Confucius taught children
to reverence their parents, and in this way he printed the spirit
of the Fifth Commandment upon the entire nation. We must remember,
however, that Confucius did not begin what is called Confucianism, he
only handed on truths which the early Chinese had learnt. Indeed some
things, such as the knowledge of God, and of a future life, he taught
less clearly than those who had gone before him.

A story is told which shows that, wise as Confucius was, he did not
know everything. One day, when out for a walk he found two boys
quarrelling. “What are you two quarrelling about?” asked the great man.

One of the boys answered, “The sun. I say that when the sun has just
risen it is nearest to us.”

“I say that it is nearest to us at noon,” insisted the other.

“When the sun rises it looks as big as a chariot wheel. When it is
high it is quite small, no larger than a saucer. It is plain that when
things are far away they look small, and when they are close to us they
look big,” said the first youth.

“When the sun rises,” objected the second boy, “it is chill and cold.
When the sun is overhead it is as hot as boiling water. Plainly it is
cold when it is far away and hot when it is near, so it is nearer to us
at noon than it is in the morning.”

When Confucius had heard each of them in turn, he did not know what
to say, so he went on with his walk and left them. Then the two boys
laughed, and one of them exclaimed: “Who are the people that say that
the Sage of the kingdom of Lo is a wise man?”

While Confucius lived, few of his fellow-countrymen would listen to
him. The princes, whom he tried to teach to govern wisely, made him
sorrowful by refusing to follow his advice. On the last day of his life
he was very sad and dragged himself about, slowly saying over and over
again to himself:

  “The great mountain must crumble,
  The strong beam must break,
  And the wise man wither away like a plant.”

But his labours were not lost. His wise words were put into a book by
his followers, more than a hundred years after his death. Mencius, the
greatest of his disciples, carried on his work. His fame spread all
over China and far beyond it. Now there are 1500 temples in which he is
worshipped by millions of people, and so great is the honour given to
him that his followers say:

  “Confucius! Confucius!
  Great indeed are thou, O Confucius.
  Before thee
            None like unto thee!
  After thee
            None equal to thee.
  Confucius! Confucius!
  Great indeed are thou, O Confucius.”

Confucius told the Chinese people that the most precious teaching
handed down to them from long ago was that which taught them to honour
their parents and those older than themselves. But both before and
after the time of this great man, the Chinese went too far, not only
reverencing, but also worshipping the dead. Perhaps we can imagine how
this mistake crept in. They were afraid that they might forget their
loved ones. Since it was not the custom with them long ago to put names
upon gravestones, they wrote them in books and on slips of wood. These
slips of wood, or ancestral tablets, were kept most carefully, as we
have already seen, in the chief room of the house and in temples. The
Chinese believed that each person had three souls, one which went into
the unseen world at death, one which stayed in the grave, and one which
lived in the slip of wood. They also thought that the souls in tablets
or in graves depended on dutiful sons to offer food and sacrifices to
them. Girls might not make these offerings, because, when married,
they belonged to their husbands’ families. When parents had no baby
boys, they were much troubled, not having anyone to grow up and worship
their spirits, for they fear more than anything else to become ‘hungry
demons’ after death, with no one to care for their needs. Now you know
why Chinese people are anxious to have sons rather than daughters.

Fear mixes with the worship of the dead at every turn. When people are
sick or lose money or have some other trouble, they think that the
spirits in the tablets are angry, and are bringing evil upon their
home. They offer food, and burn paper clothes, houses, money, servants
and horses to please them, thinking that when burnt, those things pass
into the spirit-land, where their relatives enjoy them, and being
pleased, give up troubling those on earth.

A man named Wang had sickness in his family and his business was not
good. A priest told him that his father’s spirit, which lived in a red
and green tablet, was angry with him, and he must offer paper money,
incense and other things to pacify it. He offered these things, and
fruit, chickens, cakes and pork besides; but all to no purpose, things
went just as badly as ever. At last, after spending all his money in
this way, he lost faith in the priest and in the tablet. “My father was
not unkind to me when he was alive,” said he, “why should his spirit
plague me so wickedly when he is dead?” About this time he first heard
the Gospel, and in despair of finding comfort elsewhere, began to go to
church. He heard that he had a Father in Heaven, and found peace and
gladness in His service. This worship of the spirits of the dead is the
real religion of China; all the rest of their beliefs are things added
on. The fear of those who have gone into the unseen world hangs like a
weight upon the people, who are said to spend millions of money every
year in trying to please the spirits of their relatives.

Sad as this is, we ought to remember that there is something beautiful
and right hidden beneath all that is wrong in this worship, and that is
the desire of the Chinese people to reverence and obey those who have
gone before them. When they have learned to serve God, what is wrong
will pass away, and perhaps they will teach us all to understand the
real meaning of the Fifth Commandment better than we have yet done.

In spite of the good in it, Confucianism has been a failure, because it
has not taught men and women and children to know the one true God, who
alone can help them to follow the teaching of Confucius and be just and
kind and obedient.

Taoism, as it is called, is the second religion of China. Its founder
is called Lao-tsze or ‘old boy.’ It is said that he was old and wise
and had white hair when he was born. After serving his country for
a time, he gave up his post and travelled towards the west. At the
frontier pass of Han Kuh, the officer in charge of the gate stopped
the traveller, and knowing that he was a wise man, persuaded him to
write down some of his teaching in a book. Taoism takes its name from
Tao, the truth, or the way, the first syllable in the name of the
Tao-teh-king, the famous volume which Lao-tsze wrote; but what is now
called Taoism does not follow the teaching of this book.

‘The Heavenly Master,’ or pope of the Taoists, lives in the
Dragon-tiger mountain in Kiangsi. He has rows of jars, in which the
people think he keeps evil spirits shut up, like the Djinn whom the
fisherman of the _Arabian Nights_ found sealed in a copper vessel.
There are Taoist priests in every city of China, who sometimes may be
seen in red and yellow robes with a curious topknot of yellow wood tied
into their hair, going through strange rites, or cracking a whip with
a long lash to frighten away demons. The Taoist god most feared by the
people is the Kitchen God, who they think goes up to heaven once a
year, and tells what each member of the family has been doing during
the twelve months.

Buddhism, which is an Indian religion, entered China in 217 B.C., and
was welcomed by the emperor of that time. It was afterwards persecuted,
but later spread over the country. Now, practically all the people
are Buddhists, as well as Confucianists and Taoists. The teaching
of Confucius, as we have already seen, leaves men and women without
a Saviour or strength to do the good they know. That is why, when
Buddhism came into the land, the Chinese welcomed it, hoping that it
might aid them. But though Buddhism tells men to be true, pure, humble,
courageous, it does not lead them, any more than did Confucianism,
to a personal God, who might help them to do what they were told was
right. It leaves them to their own efforts and points to no one able
to save from sin. It tells people that if they conquer their bodies
and give up doing wrong things, not taking life or eating animal food,
they will after death be born again in a new and higher life. If, when
born again, they do still better, they will be born still higher, until
at last they enter Nirvana, the Buddhist heaven, “as the dewdrops slip
into the shining sea.”

If, on the other hand, people do wrong things, the Buddhists say they
will be born again as lower animals, dogs, rats or creeping snakes.

There are many idols connected with these religions, and everywhere
you may see people going to the temples to burn incense and paper
money, and to offer gifts of food. They do not go regularly, as people
go to church in Christian lands, but on idols’ birthdays or when they
themselves are in trouble.

Year by year more of the people turn from their own religions to the
peace and happiness of serving God. In Our Lord Jesus Christ they find
forgiveness of sins, and for the first time strength to follow all that
is good in the teaching of their own ancient Sages.




CHAPTER IX

FESTIVALS


Chinese life, which for many children is dull and full of work, has
its red-letter days. No description of the little folk of the Middle
Kingdom would be complete without an account of some of the festivals,
which add so much to the happiness of the year.

How the boys and girls look forward to New Year’s day! The houses
are swept and tidied the night before. Inscriptions on bright red
paper are pasted on the door-posts and lintels of each home. What a
banging of guns and crackers there is, in the early morning, after the
ancestors have been worshipped. The pavement is littered with red and
white paper, wherever fireworks have been let off. A little later, the
streets are full of people going to call on their friends, and say “I
congratulate you, I congratulate you,” for this is the way in which the
Chinese wish each other a Happy New Year.

The children are dressed in new clothes, their queues and little plaits
of hair being tied with fresh red cord. They have new shoes and new
hats and a handful of cash to rattle in their pockets. The babies are
as gay as humming-birds, in bright coloured jackets and trousers,
pussy-faced shoes, silver bangles, and wonderful embroidered crowns and
collars.

The shops are closed, everyone is either resting or holiday-making. The
streets are lined with gambling-boards. One hears the clatter of bamboo
lot-sticks and the rattle of dice everywhere as one passes along. Boys
and girls make for the cake man’s tray. They buy candy and fruit and
toys; they jump and dance and play, and enjoy life hugely. The holidays
continue for two weeks. There are plays and feasts in the evenings, and
plenty of crackers are fired. The children wish that the fun might go
on for ever. On the fifteenth of the month the holidays are closed by
the festival of lanterns.

For several days before this feast the streets have been gay with
beautiful lanterns of many shapes and sizes. Some are made of glass,
with flowers and birds of paper pasted over them, or painted in
bright colours. Some are made of crinkled paper, round like melons,
or jar-shaped; others resemble fishes, lions, castles, rabbits, lotus
flowers, white and red, tigers, dragons. They are all colours--red,
green, white, blue, pink, yellow, purple. The kind which the little
boys like best are ‘throwing-ball lanterns,’ which are made by pasting
bits of different coloured paper on a frame of thin bamboo. Inside
there is a tiny clay dish, filled with fat, into which a wick is stuck.
When the evening is dark enough, out come the boys. They light their
lanterns. Some have big tiger and fish lanterns, which move on wooden
wheels, the fire shining through their eyes and bodies. Some prance
along in a row, each with a bit of a long dragon on his shoulder. The
first boy carries the head, and the last one has the tail. The dragon
bobs and twists as they thread the crowded street. Some whirl their
‘ball lanterns’ round and round, by means of a string tied to the top.
The wicks keep alight because the lump of fat does not run out of the
socket as oil would do. The bright colours gleam as the light shines
out, and the lanterns whirl flashing through the dark.

Then there is the spring festival, when troops of people go out of the
east gate of the city to see the mandarins worship at an altar to the
Earth God, which has the figure of a buffalo standing beside it. People
throw things at the buffalo; whoever hits it is sure that he will have
a prosperous year.

[Illustration: GOING TO VISIT HIS IDOL MOTHER]

Then comes the Tsing-Ming, or feast of tombs, when schools have
holiday. Steamed cake, brown and white, and vegetables rolled in
pancakes are eaten in every house. People put the family graves in
order. Sacrifices are made, paper money is strewed upon the earth
and crackers are fired. Tiny boys are taken to the graves, that they
may learn how to tend them, and present the offerings by and by when
older. Boys, lads and young men line the banks of the river, or some
other open space near the town or village, and throw stones at one
another. The stones fly fast, dashing up spray where they strike the
water. Now one side has the better in the fight, now the other. The
game becomes serious indeed when someone is struck and the blood flows.
Many people go to look on, believing that if the battle goes on until
blood has been drawn, the village will be free of sickness during the
year.

In some cities a children’s festival is held about the beginning of
summer, when the little ones are carried to the temple of one of the
goddesses and devoted to her. Those taken for the first time go through
a little ceremony. Some money is paid to the nuns in charge of the
temple, and the infants become the adopted children of the idol. After
being adopted, the children go every year to the temple until the age
of sixteen is reached, when they again pay a sum of money and give up
attending. The little ones and their friends enjoy these festivals.
From early until late, streams of people pour in by the city gates
and flood the streets. The children are most gay, dressed in silk and
satin. Some wear the robe, hat, belt and boots of an official; some
wear delicate robes of green, blue, pink, crimson, apple-green; some
have head-dresses embroidered with flowers and spangled with tiny
mirrors; some wear antique crowns adorned with pheasants’ feathers;
some are dressed as old men riding on water buffaloes to represent
Lao-tsze on his journey to the west; others again are in uniform and
képi, after the fashion of the new army.

Many of the children are mounted on horses, over which coloured cloths
are thrown. The collar-bells chime and jingle as the animals are led
along. The crush at the temple gates is great. The little people
dismount, and with others who have been brought pick-a-back, are
carried into the presence of the idols. Their parents buy red candles
and offer long sticks of incense, and go through the temple making the
children bow towards the altar. The horses are mounted once more and
carry their gay riders home, where paper money is burnt and plays are
acted. In spite of the fact that many children are stolen and lost,
or become ill from heat and exposure at these festivals, the foolish
people believe that the goddess takes special care of her adopted
children.

The fifth day of the fifth moon is the dragon boat festival, when
schoolboys present some cash to their teacher, and teachers give a fan
with an inscription on it to each of their pupils. The children go with
their friends to look at the dragon boats racing. They love to see the
paddles splash in the water, to listen to the drums beating and the
shouts of the rowers.

The mid-autumn festival comes in the eighth month, when scholars once
more give money to their teachers, receiving moon cakes in return. In
some districts the children build circular towers of broken tiles, and
light fires inside them. Some of these towers are six feet across and
several feet high, although the bits of tiles are laid one on the top
of the other without cement.

In the eleventh month there is the winter festival, when ancestors are
worshipped and feasts and plays are again enjoyed. There are many other
holidays and feasts, as, for instance, on the birthdays of the idols,
but those above mentioned are the chief festivals to which the boys
and girls look forward during the year.

Though Christian children do not join in idolatrous festivals, they
have ‘ball lanterns’ to swing, and cakes to eat, and a good share of
fun. When they learn to know and love the Saviour, they find true and
lasting joy, better far than that which heathen boys and girls know.

Sunday is the Christian holiday, when the little ones wear bright
clothes and join the happy throng which gathers at church. They love
to sing the hymns and take part in the Bible services by answering
questions and saying the golden text, chosen for each Sunday.




CHAPTER X

SUPERSTITIONS


The superstitions of China are countless, and of course differ in
different parts of the Empire, but you will like to hear of some that
touch the lives of the boys and girls.

When boys and girls are born, their fortunes are told. The baby’s
father gets the child’s ‘eight characters’ written down on a piece of
paper. Two of the ‘characters’ tell the year, two the month, two the
day and two the hour when the little one came into this world; these
he takes to the man who ‘looks at people’s lives,’ who he believes can
tell from them whether the child will be fortunate or unhappy in this
world. This fortune-teller, who is very often blind, has a great deal
to do with baby’s fate. If, for instance, he says that fire enters
into its disposition, and someone else in the family has a fortune
connected with wood, then the child will surely bring bad fortune to
that person, for fire burns wood. The people believe what the blind
man says, and so poor little baby is given away, or even in some cases
put to death, to prevent its bringing trouble upon the family. When
baby grows older it is supposed to be in danger from wicked spirits.
Little gilt idols are put in its cap, to frighten away these demons,
a favourite figure being that of a roly-poly bald idol, called ‘Fat
Strength.’ When a little older, a tiny round tray, foot-measure and
pair of scissors are sewn on the front band of its cap, for the same
purpose. Coins, charms of copper and silver, and little square bags of
incense powder, with the names of idols written on them, are also hung
round children’s necks to keep away the evil spirits.

If a little one takes ill the father sometimes begs one cash from a
hundred different people among his neighbours and friends. With these
coins he has a chain made to go round the child’s neck and a padlock
to fasten it tightly. In this way he hopes, poor man, to fasten baby’s
soul firmly to its body, and so prevent it from dying. If, in spite of
this, baby gets worse, its father thinks some idol is enticing its soul
away from its little body. After finding out which idol is probably the
thief, he takes one of the child’s little garments and puts it into an
empty basket, which has a length of dry straw rope tied round it. Then
he goes to the temple, and, after offering things which he thinks will
please the idol, and make it willing to let baby’s spirit go again,
he spreads out the little jacket, believing that the tiny soul will
recognise its own garment and get into it. Then he puts the garment
carefully into his basket and lights the straw rope that it may burn
slowly, and lead the little wandering spirit safely home.[5]

In some places the father goes about with the tiny jacket hung on the
end of a stick, calling baby’s name aloud, hoping to find the little
wandering spirit in this way.

Boys and girls early come to know the stone lions, which stand opposite
points where straight lanes or streets enter other streets, or in front
of temples and yamens. These curious images have broad noses and tufted
manes and tails. Some crouch close against a block in a wall, with
round eyes and long teeth, looking as if they were going to walk out
of the stone. Many have their heads on one side, with a double string
hanging down from their mouths. Some have a baby lion in front of them
or a carved ball under one paw. A few have a ball inside their stone
jaws and some are crouching as if to spring. The children are told that
these stone lions stand in front of houses to prevent evil spirits
or ghosts from coming along the lane to hurt people inside. They say
that in the middle of the night the lions come down from their stone
pedestals and play about the streets with their balls, rolling over and
over one another! One lion, which was supposed to change himself into
a man and roam about the streets, has been caged with bars and is kept
safely shut up in a little temple of his own in Chinchew.

Then children are also told that coffins, which have been shone upon by
the moon, turn into ghosts and walk about the streets, trying to catch
people. They think there are demons who call and howl whenever anyone
is going to die. They say, too, that the spirits of drowned people
turn into duck demons, which swim near the edge of ponds. If anyone is
foolish enough to try to catch them, they drag him under the water and
drown him. The drowned man then becomes the duck demon, and the first
man can escape. Then children are told of serpent demons and foxes that
turn into people, and bring hurt to those who take them into their
houses. A famous story is that of a man who met a beautiful lady and
married her. One day he came home rather sooner than his wife expected
him, and could not find her anywhere. At last he peeped through a hole
in an old shed, and there he saw a hideous demon, painting its skin,
which was stretched on a board. Looking at the skin the man saw that it
was his wife’s, and so knew he had married a fox-demon and not a woman.
“If you could stretch your hand three feet above your head you would
touch the spirits,” is a common saying.

Fork-like prongs stick out from the roofs of the houses to drive away
demons. Streets and roads often, for no reason, turn a sharp corner,
and the furrows ploughed in the fields are awry, so that the spirits
may lose their way and not come along them to hurt people. They think
there are spirits of the door and spirits under the eaves, spirits of
the rafters and spirits of the bed.

Sometimes you will see a head with a shining sword in its mouth above a
door; sometimes a sword, made of round brass cash, tied together by a
red cord, hangs in a bedroom. If a wicked spirit comes to hurt anyone
inside the room the spirit of the sword is supposed to flash out and
drive it away.

In the hills and waters, in graves and in houses, in great stones and
in old trees, in the moon and in the stars, there are, the Chinese say,
spirits and spiritual influences. There is the earth spirit in the
ground and there are dragons which may be made very angry if the soil
is dug too deeply. If an earth dragon is angry and moves his tail, half
a city may fall down. There are dragons too of air and water. When an
eclipse took place, the people used always to go out with drums and
pans and brass gongs to frighten away the Celestial Dog, which they
thought was eating up the sun or moon. In 1909, however, when the
Prince Regent was asked to give orders for the usual ceremonies to
drive away an eclipse, he refused, saying that now these foolish ways
must cease.

Numbers of superstitious practices are connected with the idols. The
spirits inside them are supposed to eat the spirit of the food offered
upon the altar. Inside some of the images there is a mirror, in which
the idol is supposed to see all that passes before it. On certain days
idols are carried through cities and villages and round the fields to
let them see how their worshippers are faring. On great festivals men
may be seen bare to the waist, with their hair floating down their
backs, and thin, flat swords in their hands. The spirit of the idol
is thought to enter these men. They foam at the mouth, they whirl
round and rush about, they cut themselves, striking wildly over their
shoulders with their swords. Though they do not wound themselves badly,
yet thin streaks of red show where the skin is cut. Guns are fired and
piles of paper money send up clouds of smoke. The ‘mediums,’ as these
men may be called, put their swords between their teeth and leap on to
the carrying poles of the idols’ sedan-chair, and thus standing behind
the image, they are carried through the streets.

Chinese boys and girls are also taught to believe that the spirits of
the idols go into women, who turn very white and ill-looking, and then
begin to speak in a strange, thin, muttering voice. The people think
that when the idol spirit is in these women, they can bring dead people
back to speak to their friends and children, just as the witch of Endor
brought back Samuel to speak to Saul.

In southern China, a man named It-sai-peh, who was a Christian, died
before his wife had learned to believe in God. His widow was very sad
when he died, and wished to burn money, clothes, houses, servants,
horses and other things, all made of paper, so that the spirit of all
these things should be of use to her husband in the unseen world.
Before going to the expense, however, she went to ask one of these
women, who was said to be a spirit medium, whether she ought to make
the offerings or not.

“Shall I make offerings for It-sai-peh’s soul?” asked the widow.

“It-sai-peh is in heaven,” said the woman, “he does not need your
offerings.”

It was a strange answer for the witch to make, but it did good, for
It-sai-peh’s widow was much comforted; she did not waste her money on
useless offerings, but she went to church to hear the doctrine which
had saved her husband, and in time herself believed in Christ.

In addition to consulting these idol mediums, people often go to the
temples to cast lots themselves, and to divine. They first offer
incense and paper money, then they tell the idol what they want to do,
and ask it whether they may do so or not. After this they take two
curved bamboo roots, round on one side and flat on the other. They
wave these before the image, and then throw them down upon the floor.
If the two round sides or the two flat sides turn upwards, that means
_No_, but if one round side and one flat side are uppermost, that means
_Yes_. They throw three times; and twice yes, or twice no, settles the
matter. Sometimes they go to certain temples or shrines to sleep, in
the hopes that the idols will tell them in a dream the winning number
in a lottery, or something else they want very much to know. When they
have had the dream they go to someone wise in explaining dreams, to
find out its meaning.

The idols are supposed to do strange things at times. Once when the
officials were putting out a great fire at Pekin, they said they saw
a boy with a red face, in the midst of the flames, helping their
men; everywhere the boy went the fire died down, till soon it ceased
altogether. Search was made for the useful boy, but he could not be
found. Afterwards it was said that in a distant province there was a
boy idol, deified when he was eleven years old, represented with a red
face, and sitting on a throne. This idol was now honoured with a title
and special offerings, because it was believed that he had gone all the
way to Pekin to help to put out the fire.

The people think that sometimes idols get down from their seats and go
about in the way just described. Here is a story which will make this
superstition plain.

In the West Street of a certain Chinese city a man kept a cake shop.
The shopkeeper began to notice that very early every morning two chubby
children used to bring some cash to buy cakes. What further surprised
him was that every night he found some sheets of yellow paper money
(such as is offered to idols) at the bottom of the till. Nobody put the
paper money into the box, but every night, as surely as he counted over
his gains, there was the yellow paper lying at the bottom. Sometimes
he wondered whether this paper money had to do with the boys who came
to buy cakes in the morning. But let him watch ever so closely, he
never saw them put anything into his till. They brought him good luck,
however, for more people came to buy his cakes every day, and he made
plenty of pennies. But the cake man could not give up wondering about
the paper money, and, at last, he made up his mind that the children
certainly had to do with the mystery. Nobody knew where the pair of
chubby-cheeked boys came from, or where they went to, and they were not
quite like ordinary boys, there was something distinguished in their
look and ways.

One day the shopkeeper could restrain his curiosity no longer, so he
waited until the boys left the shop, and then he followed them along
the pavement, carefully keeping at a distance and noticing where they
went. After walking along the West Street for a little distance, they
turned up a narrow lane; their pursuer quickened his pace and followed
them along the lane, and out into another street, and yet another,
until they disappeared round the corner of a small temple. A minute
later the inquisitive man followed them. Inside the temple were two
images of chubby-faced child idols. The secret was out! The boys were
no ordinary children, but idol spirits which had taken to frisking
about the city. The secret was out, but the boys came no more to the
cake shop. There was no more paper money lying at the bottom of the
till at night, and, for some reason, fewer people went to buy cakes, so
that the prying shopkeeper’s business fell off from that day. That, at
least, is the legend.

It would not be easy to tell one hundredth part of the superstitions
of a country which has followed heathen ways for so long as China has
done. It may be said that no one can be born, reared, taught, married;
no one can study, farm land, keep a shop, work or govern; no one can be
doctored or nursed, die or be buried, without numberless superstitious
customs, which entangle the lives of the Chinese people as the meshes
of a spider’s web entangle a fly.

Who is that blind man who strikes a cow’s horn with a bit of wood as he
walks along? Kok, kok, kok, goes the horn. It is the fortune-teller,
upon whose words the fate of so many people depends. There--a woman
has stopped him. The sound of the horn is stilled. He leans his head
to one side, listening, while his poor, empty eyes stare vacantly.
Now he is speaking. You cannot hear his words, for he has lowered his
voice. Probably he is telling the old lady her fortune, or advising
her about a new daughter-in-law, or some business matter. On we go.
There, at a corner of that temple under the shadow of the red brick
wall, sits a learned-looking man with wide-rimmed spectacles. He has
a table in front of him, on which there are two small cages. Wait a
moment and you will see something of interest. Up come some people
from the country. You can tell that they are villagers by their new
clothes and the circles of silver pins which the girls have stuck in
their hair, beside their general look of being on holiday. One of them
wishes to have her fortune told. See! the old gentleman has put some
slips of folded paper, about the size of playing-cards, upon the table.
There are different fortunes written on them. If you looked closely
enough at the edge of the folded papers you would see that one of them
has a little double fold. But this is a secret of which these country
folk know nothing. Now which of the fortunes will be chosen? Wait and
you will see. Old Spectacles opens the door of one of the cages and
out hops the most friendly speckled brown bird. He stands in front
of the folded papers and looks at them, one after the other, in the
wisest way; he turns his head, down dives his clean, black bill. See,
he has picked up one of the papers. His master takes the paper and
gives birdie a grain of rice before putting him back in his cage. Now
he reads off the fortune from the paper and explains its meaning. The
country folk are much impressed, especially by the wise bird, and pay
their money willingly before they go away. They are so superstitious
that they really believe the bird chose their fortune for them, but
birdie only picked out the paper with a fold in the edge, because he
hoped to find a grain of corn in the crease. If you followed its master
home, you would see him constantly teaching his little brown pet to
choose the paper with a fold, by putting a grain of rice just inside
the crease. So when customers come to have their fortunes told, the
bird looks over the papers until it finds the one folded at the edge by
the fortune-teller, and then picks it up and gives it to be read by him.

This account of a few of their superstitions will serve to show you in
what constant trouble and dread the Chinese children live, for fear of
the demons and spirits all round them, because they do not know and
trust in God. When living among them one cannot but feel that they are
like the people long ago, “who, through fear of death, were all their
lifetime subject to bondage.” Yet we may learn something from them too.
The constant sense of the unseen world among the Chinese and their
dread of offending the invisible spirits, should make us ask ourselves
if we remember the unseen God as often, and are as careful not to
offend against our loving, watchful Heavenly Father, as they are not to
offend the spirits.




CHAPTER XI

REVERENCE FOR PARENTS

“Things difficult to come by are a good son, long life, and a great
beard.”--_Chinese Proverb._


The Chinese say that filial piety is the chief of virtues, and many
show by their actions that they believe the saying. They care for their
fathers and mothers, obey their wishes, and are careful in the use of
their property. “A good son will not use the portion divided for him; a
good daughter will not wear her marriage clothes,” say the Chinese.

The following story shows how sorry they are when they think that they
have offended against their parents in any way. In 1908 a traveller
met a young man on his way to a famous temple on the top of a mountain
in Hunan. The lad had lost his mother and he was very sad because he
thought that her death must have been caused by some wrong thing which
he had done, either in this life or in some previous existence. He felt
sure that if he had not been guilty of some very wicked action, Heaven
never would have taken away his mother whilst he was still so young. In
order to make up for what he thought to be his crime, he vowed to walk
sixty miles to the temple, bowing down to the ground every seven steps
which he took. He must have knelt over 250 times in a mile, or more
than 15,000 times in all.

To ill-use one’s father or mother is a fault for which there is no
forgiveness in China. Some years ago, in one of the cities of the
south, a boy who was unkind to his mother and spent his time in
gambling, instead of working for her support, was punished by being
buried alive.

The following story shows how much power fathers and mothers have
over their children, even when they are grown to be men and women.
Once there was a Hunan man, named Chiu, who fought bravely against
the ‘long-haired rebels,’ and rose to high office in the Canton
province. His mother, a big woman with unbound feet and a face marked
by small-pox, was a person of strong character who had trained her
children to be dutiful and always to obey.

Not long after Mr Chiu had gone to Canton, he sent for his mother to
come and stay with him in the big house where he now lived. When word
was brought that the servants, whom he had sent with his own silk-lined
chair for the old lady, were drawing near to the city, Mr Chiu left his
retinue and joined them, following his mother’s chair on foot as it
entered the gateway and passed through the city.

The people, as they usually do when there is anything to be seen, lined
the streets, filling every doorway with their eager faces, for men,
women and children had turned out to see the great man welcome his aged
mother.

Old Mrs Chiu sat in the sedan, her big feet sticking out from under
the silk front covering of the chair. As he walked along beside the
bearers, her son noticed how awkward they looked in that position, and
gently pushed them inside with his hand.

On went the silken chair with its bearers and escort, the people gazing
with interest on all the marks of honour paid by a good son to his
mother. Presently the old lady again stuck out her feet, so that they
“showed like a pair of boats” on the footboard of the chair beneath the
gaze of the whole city. Mr Chiu, great man as he was, did not dare to
push them back again, much as he disliked to have everyone laughing at
his mother’s big feet.

When the chair reached the Yamen, or official house, Mr Chiu went to
help his mother to get out.

“What place is this?” asked the old lady, as if she did not know her
son. “What place is this?”

“This is the Yamen, where you are to live, mother,” answered Mr Chiu.

“I can have no such happiness,” said she. “Go and see whether there is
an inn near by, where people cook their own food, that I may go and
lodge there.”

Mr Chiu, seeing that something had gone wrong, knelt down, careless of
his silk clothes and all the crowd of onlookers, and said:

“O mother, I do not know what may have displeased you, but if I have
offended you in any way, I ask you to forgive my fault,” but his mother
would not answer him a word.

Mr Chiu, finding that he could make nothing of the old lady, sent for
his wife, hoping that she might persuade her to leave the chair and
go into the Yamen. By this time the court was full of people who had
gathered to see what was going on. Her Excellency, young Mrs Chiu, came
out in her long robes and satin shoes, and kneeling down upon the stone
pavement, besought Mrs Chiu, saying:

“What is wrong with you, mother? We do not know why you are so angry
with us. Please tell your daughter what is the matter, and why you will
not come into the house.”

“There can be no such happiness for me,” said the old lady shortly, and
then she said no more. Young Mrs Chiu’s tears fell freely and she began
again to beseech her mother-in-law to forgive whatever might have
offended her, and not to shame her son in the eyes of his friends and
neighbours.

On this the angry dame left her chair and walked into the midst of the
guests and the crowd of onlookers. Then she stamped one of her large
feet upon the stones and turning to her son said:

“Your father did not find fault with my feet, who are you to be ashamed
of them? My heart is right, therefore Heaven has given me good fortune;
looks do not matter.” His Excellency bore her anger with grace and
patience, and when she had said all she wished to say, at last was able
to persuade her to enter the Yamen.

It would be a mistake to think that old Mrs Chiu would not go into her
son’s house only because she was angry. The Chinese despise the man who
is ashamed of his parents or poor relations. The old woman’s big feet
showed that she had been of the working class. She acted as she did,
not from obstinacy or temper, but because she wished that neither she
herself nor her distinguished son should be ashamed of their humble
beginnings.

The honour paid by children to their parents, such as this story tells
of, has kept the better heart of China alive amid much evil, and has
made her people more ready to join in the worship of our Father which
is in Heaven.




CHAPTER XII

FAITHFULNESS


Faithfulness is another of those things we admire, that are taught to
Chinese boys and girls too. Many are the stories told to make the
children honour faithful men and wish to be like them.

One of these tells of Luh Sin Fu, in the time of the Sung Dynasty.
This faithful servant of his country, after refusing to be bought over
by the Mongols who were then at war with China, was defeated in a
sea-fight near Canton. His ships were scattered, and seeing that the
hopes of the Sung rulers were lost, he took the baby heir of the throne
and jumping overboard perished with him in the waves.

Chinese children are often reminded to be faithful by the books
which they read at school: “Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first
principles.” “Daily I examine myself in regard to three things, whether
in doing business for others I may have been unfaithful, whether I may
have been insincere with my friends, whether I may not have laid to
heart the teachings of my master;” and such lessons are made clear to
their minds by the example of men and women praised for faithfulness in
every district of the land.

A legend is told in Chinchew city of a family which became famous in
the time of the Ming Emperors, through the faithfulness of one of its
ancestors. This man, a Mr So, kept a wine-shop in East Street, not
far from the magistrate’s Yamen. He was an honest citizen, who went
about his business in a quiet, steady way. Among his customers was a
middle-aged man, who used to go once a day to the shop to have his
earthenware bottle filled with wine.

One day this regular customer brought a bundle, which he asked Mr So
to keep for him, until he should call for it. Mr So willingly took the
bundle, promising to take good care of it. From that moment the man
came no more to Mr So’s shop. Days passed into months, months became
years, and the familiar customer with his brown bottle was forgotten.

The incident of the bundle had passed out of memory when one day an old
man entered the wine-shop and cast his eyes round the place.

“Are you Mr So?” he asked the owner.

“That is my unworthy name, venerable grand-uncle,” said Mr So. “What
may I do for you?”

“Please give me the bundle which I left with you some time ago,” said
the stranger.

“The bundle! I do not remember your giving me a bundle. When did you
leave it here?”

Mr So started when the stranger mentioned a date years before, and
turned to question his men, none of whom could remember the old man or
his bundle.

The stranger pressed Mr So to have the shop carefully searched, saying
that the package which he had left for safe keeping had some slips of
gold inside it, and it would be a terrible loss to him if they could
not find it.

“We know nothing about the bundle, or what was in it, venerable
grand-uncle, but if you left it here, you shall certainly have it back
again,” said Mr So.

After diligent search the bundle was found upon a shelf in the strong
room at the back of the shop.

The old man’s eyes glittered as he undid the fastenings of the bundle,
now black with dust and cobwebs. Carefully he turned over the things
inside it, laying them one by one upon the counter. There was a clatter
and fall of metal. “The gold is here safe enough,” said the stranger,
taking up the dull yellow slips with his thin fingers. “One, two,
three,” he numbered slowly, “four, five, six,” counting until the full
tale was reached. The old man put back the gold, and did up his bundle
in silence. Then he lifted his head.

“You are an honest man, Mr So,” said he. “You have indeed been faithful
in the trust which I committed to you so long ago.”

“What have I done?” answered Mr So. “The bundle has lain just as you
left it,” and with that he bowed low.

The old man waited. Then he spoke again.

“I have some skill in finding such spots as will bring good fortune to
the children of those who are buried in them,” said he. “You have kept
my gold faithfully. I wish to make you some return for your kindness,
and happily it is in my power to do so. Listen! there is a place
outside the East Gate of the city, so fortunate that if you were to buy
it and use it for your grave, your descendants afterwards would surely
prosper in the world.”

Mr So, who was no less superstitious than his neighbours, bought the
ground, and when he died was buried in the lucky spot. The family
prospered and in course of time one of his descendants became an
official, so high in favour with the Emperor Ban-lek, that he gave him
his sister to be his wife, and a ‘five-storied pavilion’ for her to
live in. Mr So’s heirs continued to prosper, and some of them still
live in the old home within the city. But we know that the family rose
in the world, not because of the grave, which the old man thought so
lucky, but through the blessing which follows upon doing what is right
and honest.

Much as the Chinese praise faithfulness, the old men shake their heads
and tell their children that people born in the time of the Emperor
Hien-fung were more honest than those born during these last forty
years, and those born earlier still, in the days of Tau-kwang, were
still more faithful. It is the usual story, “the old days were better
than the new,” but the very sense of failure makes the people, young
and old, more ready to welcome that Saviour, who alone can help men to
be faithful and upright and true and good.




CHAPTER XIII

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN


From what you have read, you will think, perhaps, that Chinese children
have a merry life, but it is not always so. Little girls, who were
unwelcome to their families, used to be laid in the tiger’s track or
among woods to die. Some were choked immediately they were born, or
drowned in a bucket. In many cities of the Empire kind-hearted people
have provided places, where such little outcast waifs are nursed and
tended; for the practice of doing away with children was always against
the law of the land, although the popular proverb said, “Destroy a girl
and you hasten the birth of a boy.” Last year a Christian, after his
conscience had been awakened, confessed that years before, while still
a heathen, he had strangled a baby daughter, and put the little body
into the mud of one of his rice fields.

Of late years, in many parts of China, the practice of putting girl
babies to death has almost entirely ceased, partly, no doubt, because
girls are scarce, and their value has risen accordingly; in some places
as much as six hundred dollars being given by ordinary people for a
wife.

Then there are many things which bring trouble upon children and their
homes. When rain does not fall for several weeks, there is little
food for boys and girls to eat. So long as rivers and wells hold out,
the farmers, by working hard, can water their fields. When the streams
dry up, they dig holes in the sand of the river-beds and carry the
water, which collects in them, to keep the crops alive. All the family
in turns tread the water-wheel, which raises water out of such holes
or channels, tramp, tramp, they toil unceasingly until their skins
are burnt dark brown and the bones show through. If rain still does
not come, their labour is lost, the crops dry up and the poor little
children as well as their fathers, and mothers have no food to eat, so
that many of them die of hunger.

Sometimes there is too much rain: the rivers overflow, the grain is
spoilt in the fields, pigs, goats and cows are swept away. The water
rises. People climb on to the roofs of their houses, carrying clothes
and the few things they hope to save from the flood. They crouch on
the tiles, with their babies and little children, under the pitiless
rain. Kind people, whose houses, being on higher ground, have not been
deluged, go out in boats carrying food to them, for often they have
had nothing to eat for several days. The flood rises still higher,
in places it breaks the banks of great rivers, houses, temples, city
walls and whole villages are swept away by the swift brown water, and
thousands of men, women and children perish. Often, too, fires break
out in crowded villages and towns. The flames spout from the windows,
and showers of sparks fly into the sky when roofs fall in. If a wind
happens to be blowing, a whole street of shops and houses is burnt down
in no time. The people flee with their children and whatever they can
save from their homes. The poor little babies and boys and girls fare
badly indeed, when such trouble turns them out of doors. In parts of
China, plague comes every year and carries off hundreds of people,
leaving many little children with no one to care for them. In the
south of the Empire, too, the people are constantly having clan-fights
between families or villages; often fathers or brothers are killed, and
then there are lawsuits, which ruin many a family. All these causes
bring distress and suffering upon Chinese boys and girls, such as are
seldom met with in Western homes. But most of the trouble which falls
upon children in China to-day comes from poverty. Grinding poverty
leads to hunger and starvation. Often children must work as soon as
they can toddle. When they are two or three they must look after the
baby brother or sister, while the mother is away working in the fields.
The baby is strapped on the toddler’s back, and he or she must stagger
about with it for hours, however weary the little limbs may be. Or the
tiny boy or girl must go out with a small bamboo rake and fill a basket
with leaves and grass to burn. In the country, quite small children
must carry loads, and in the city baby workers toil at trades, till the
anxieties of life have made them look old and wrinkled before they are
ten years of age. One boy of ten used to work from morning till night
in Chinchew city making clay furnaces. He was stunted, and his face was
grey and pinched, but he helped his widowed mother to get a living.
When people are very poor, two neighbours will exchange baby girls very
soon after they are born, or a mother will sell her little baby girl
for two or three dollars to another woman. The baby is then brought up
by this foster-mother to be a little servant until old enough to many
her son, and so she gets a servant, and then a wife for her son very
cheap. But this custom leads to much misery and unhappiness for these
‘baby daughters-in-law,’ as they are called. They are usually treated
as the family drudges and never know any childhood or parents’ care;
they have to work hard, and too often live a loveless, sad life.

The saddest thing of all, is when small girls are sold to be slaves.
In places where food is dear and money is scarce, fathers and mothers
are driven to part with their children. In certain districts, towards
the end of the year, when debts have to be paid, they may be seen
carrying their little boys and girls slung in baskets to sell. A nurse
in the home of a foreign lady used to tell how she had had to let eight
children go in this way. Her husband was poor and when there was no
food to give them, she had to sell one of the children rather than see
them all starve together at home. One of the boys had been bought by
a rich family in the village, so she could see him sometimes, but of
course he was not her own little boy any more. When her husband died,
the poor woman had to let the remaining children go, one by one, for
she had no food to give them. The last little boy she gave to some
strolling players for thirty dollars, to be a little actor. When asked
how she could sell a child to such a terrible life as these little
actor-boys lead, the mother said, “Oh, after ten years he will be too
big to act, and then I shall get him back again, and he has promised to
be a good boy.” The child had his yearly holiday on New Year’s Day, and
his half-starved mother would save up enough cash to buy a chicken to
fatten for the occasion. When her boy came home she killed the chicken,
and she and he had a feast on their one happy day together.

Sometimes slave children are well and kindly treated, but in China, as
in other lands, slavery too surely leads to cruelty and suffering. The
notices of slave girls lost, stolen or strayed, posted up on the gates
of Chinese cities, shows that many of these little girls are unhappy in
their masters’ houses, and easily persuaded to run away. Sad cases are
brought to the hospitals, too, of slave children so wasted by neglect
and starvation that the poor things are little more than skeletons. An
old woman named Ch’uan Kua used to tell how her little girl, whom she
had sold into a Viceroy’s family, was unkindly treated. One day the
poor child did something to offend her mistress, and the angry lady
stabbed her to death, with one of her long hair-pins.

Another cause of unhappiness to the little ones is the practice of
opium smoking. When the father, or mother, or other wage-earner of the
home, smokes opium, there is little for the children to eat. In time,
some of the wretched slaves to opium sell house and land, furniture
and clothes, wife and children, in order to get money for the terrible
self-indulgence.

The following story gives some idea of what a little girl, named
Phœnix, had to suffer from a father who was an opium-eater. The story
is doubly interesting because it is told by herself.

“It would be very difficult to relate fully what I have passed through
from my childhood until the present. I will only tell some of the
principal events.

“When I was three years old my mother died. My grandfather cared for
me until I was six, and then he also left this world. I had no one
to care for me, and my father brought me to Amoy and sold me to Mrs
No-te, who lived near the Bamboo-tree-foot church. From that time I had
opportunities of hearing the Gospel, but could not go to school, as I
was kept busy with house-work. When I was fifteen the Lord received me
into His church, and I was baptised.”

[Illustration: PHŒNIX]

Phœnix does not mention that the woman who bought her broke the
agreement made with the child’s father, that she should in time become
the wife of her son. The father, a wretched opium sot, made this an
excuse for claiming the return of the girl, in order to sell her over
again for more money.

“When I was sixteen years old my father demanded me back, and at that
time my heart was very sorrowful. I was afraid he would not let me go
to church. I took this trouble to the Lord, and Our Lord truly heard
the prayer of His child. He also gave me the desire of my heart and let
me go to the Girls’ Boarding-school, to study and know more about the
Bible. If it had not been for this, I would have been like a person
blind. It was arranged through the earnestness and love of my pastor,
who told my father that I belonged to the church, and that he must
certainly put me to school. This he did and let me be in school for
about one year, and then he came for me and I had to go with him, and I
was very sad.

“My father soon took me to Tung An, and all the time I was there I
could only manage to go to church once....

“Someone told my father that I had been to church and he was very
angry, and told me to take salt and salt down my heart, to make dead
my heart. He said he certainly would not let me go to church, and told
others that they must not let me go. He also said that if I had any
communication with the lady missionary he would throw me down stairs
and kill me. But the Lord was always with me and delivered me out of
the mouth of the lion.

“Afterwards my father brought me to Amoy to my uncle’s house.
Two-thirds of the family are vegetarians, and early and late they
burn incense and candles to the idols. My heart was miserable in the
extreme.

“My father tried to sell me to be the second wife of a rich man, who
was willing to give nearly three hundred dollars for me. He said:

“‘Your old friend, the Bible-woman and the Christians will do nothing
for you, you might as well make up your mind to it. The Bible-woman
says there is no use trying to do anything more for you, that no
Christian will marry you now.’

“I felt that he was telling me a lie, but I could not know if the
Bible-woman, who had always been so good to me, had really said that or
not, and I was very unhappy. My father kept urging me to agree to being
sold to the rich heathen man, so that he might have the money to use.
He was very angry with me because I was so strongly opposed. I said, ‘I
have made a covenant with the Lord, which I cannot break, I am His.’

“One day a sister of a Christian came to speak to my uncle, and someone
said to me, ‘That person is a follower of the Gospel like you and
lives at Bamboo-tree-foot.’ I said, ‘Is that true?’ After this I found
that she knew one of my classmates, who lives at Bamboo-tree-foot,
and through her I secretly sent a letter to my classmate, asking her
to tell the pastor’s wife where I was. The letter was delayed several
days, and before it was delivered one day I saw three Christians
passing the house with Bibles in their hands, on their way to church,
and so I knew that it was Sunday--I had lost count of Sundays--and I
called to them. My father was out, or I should not have dared to speak
to them. They were pleased to find me. They told the Bible-woman, and
through them and my letter in a week’s time the pastor’s wife and the
Bible-woman both came to see me. I found out that what my father had
said about the Bible-woman was not true, and they both comforted my
heart.

“After this, I dreamed I had fallen into a ditch up to my neck, and
someone pulled me out; that I went to school again, and was writing on
my slate, and I thought: This means that God is going to open the way
for me. In six more days, beyond all my hopes, God’s great goodness
was manifested, and I truly jumped for joy, when I was told that my
father’s consent was gained, and Miss ---- had redeemed me for two
hundred dollars, and that I was to go back again to school.

“In two days the pastor came for me and brought me to school. This
truly manifests the love of God for sinful me, and also the love of
Miss ---- in that she gave money to save me. During the time of trial
the Lord always helped me, and now He has brought me to this place,
free from all fear. Love like this is truly great.”

Phœnix has since become engaged to a young theological student and will
probably be married within a year.




CHAPTER XIV

MINISTERING CHILDREN


In 1898 a boy named Ch’en Yo, generally known as Yo-ah, lived near the
West gate of Chinchew city. His father, who was called Poah, used to
sit by the roadside gambling with the passers-by. The boy went with
him, and sometimes when his father lost a game, would have a turn at
the board and win some money.

When Yo-ah was thirteen years old, his father first heard about the
worship of the true God, and began to go to church, near the great
western pagoda in the city. Strangely enough, Yo-ah, who had gone
willingly enough to gamble, would not follow his father to church. For
six months Poah went to the ‘worship hall’ alone, then he told his son
that he must join him. Yo-ah did not wish people to know that he had
anything to do with the ‘Barbarian church,’ so when out of obedience
to his father he went to service, he used to creep through round-about
lanes and side streets, in the hope that none of his friends would meet
him on the way.

After a time Yo-ah went to school, though he was most unwilling to
do so, thinking that gambling was better fun than poring over books.
Seeing how idle he was, his father said to him one day:

“If you don’t mean to study you had better go away, for I will not take
care of you any longer.”

Seeing that his father meant what he said, Yo-ah made up his mind to do
better, and set about his work with a will. Not only did his lessons
improve; in a short time his temper grew better, and he gave up using
naughty words and telling lies. The secret of this wonderful change was
that at school Yo-ah had learnt to know the Saviour.

[Illustration: SUNDAY SCHOOL, CHINCHEW]

The neighbours, who did not understand about worshipping God, noticed
that Yo-ah had given up his rude ways, and did not answer back as he
had done before he went to school. One of them, a widow who had an
only son named Wu-mei, was very much struck by the change in him. Her
son had been called Wu-mei, that is, Black Little Sister, to deceive
the evil spirits into thinking that he was an ugly little girl, not
worth troubling about, in the hope that they would let him grow up
to manhood in peace. His mother, seeing how much Yo-ah had improved by
study, sent Black Little Sister to the same school.

The new scholar read diligently, and soon began to drink in the story
of the Gospel. Three or four months after he entered school a bad
illness, called plague, broke out and many people died, both inside and
outside the city. Black Little Sister sickened one day and had to be
carried home in a chair, slung on two long bamboo poles.

His teacher, who wanted all the children he taught to know the Lord
Jesus, was troubled about him, for he saw that he was very ill, and
he did not know whether Black Little Sister had learnt to trust the
Saviour or not. Just as he was starting off to go to the boy’s house,
Yo-ah’s father came into the school-room and said:

“You need not go, teacher; Black Little Sister’s mother has filled the
house with idols, and he is delirious. Even if his people allowed you
to enter his room, he would not understand what you said to him.”

The teacher was very sorry when he heard what Poah said, for he saw
that it would be useless to go to see his little friend.

Very early next morning Yo-ah’s father came again with news of Black
Little Sister, and best of all, he told the teacher that the dying boy
believed in our Lord Jesus as his own true Saviour.

“Last night,” said he, “when everyone could see that Black Little
Sister was very ill and must surely die, his relations turned all the
idols out of the house. Then I went in to see him. When I entered his
room, I said, ‘Black Little Sister, people say that you have lost your
senses. Is it true?’”

“‘No, brother Poah,’ he answered, ‘these heathen, who do not understand
what I am doing, think that I am out of my senses, because they see me
constantly getting up and kneeling upon the bed to pray.’”

Seeing that the boy was able to talk quite sensibly, Poah brought
another Christian, a man called Ah Lin, to come and see him.

“Shall I read some verses from the Bible to you?” asked Ah Lin, sitting
down by the bedside.

“Yes, I should like you to read some very much,” answered the dying boy.

Ah Lin opened his New Testament and began reading from the third
chapter of St John’s Gospel. When he reached the fifteenth verse he
stopped.

“Black Little Sister,” he said, “do you know the next verse?” It had
been the golden text, repeated by the children at the Bible service on
the previous Sunday.

“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting
life.” The poor dried lips slowly repeated the precious words to the
end.

Then Poah and Ah Lin prayed. When they had finished Black Little Sister
put his hands together and said: “Thank you, God, so much for giving
your only born son, that I, a sinful one, believing on Him, might have
everlasting life.” Then the room was very quiet, for the boy was tired
and neither Poah nor Ah Lin could speak a word.

Soon after this the fever died out of Black Little Sister’s face and
eyes. The fight was over. He had left the narrow room and its useless
idols, and gone to the home of love and everlasting life.

Whilst Poah told the story to the good teacher, he cried for joy and
sorrow, until the tears ran down his cheeks.

In the fourth moon of the next year, the plague came to the city once
more. On the 15th, Yo-ah was taken ill after morning school. When his
minister went to see him, he said:

“Please do not say anything to my father about my sickness, for I am
the last of six brothers, and if he were to hear that I was ill, he
would be so sorry.”

But the minister of course felt he must send for the father as quickly
as possible.

When Poah reached the school he found Yo-ah sitting in bed reading his
Bible. He seemed bright enough, and had just finished doing up accounts
for one of the Christians, who had been out selling fish.

“What is wrong with you, Yo-ah?” asked his father.

“I have only got a small lump above my leg, which pains me a little,
father.”

The doctor came presently and gave the boy some medicine, but the
medicine did not seem to have much effect.

That evening Yo-ah felt poorly. “If the fever does not go down to-night
I will certainly be in Heaven to-morrow, father,” said Yo-ah.

Next morning Yo-ah looked so much better that Poah was very glad and
exclaimed to one of his friends, “I took a straw rope for a serpent
this time,” meaning that he had been frightened by his boy’s illness
when there was no reason to be afraid.

During the day one of the schoolboys, a great friend of Yo-ah’s, went
to see him. The sick lad was very glad to see him, and said: “Ah!
So-and-so, you will go on to the middle school by-and-by. Afterwards
you must give yourself to God’s service and work for Him.”

“You, too, must work for God, Yo-ah,” answered his friend.

“The Lord is not going to leave me long in this world,” said Yo-ah.

After this he begged one of his uncles to believe in Christ and find
safety in Him. He also spoke to several of his friends asking them to
give up things which they knew to be wrong in their fives. To one, who
was careless about money, he said, “Brother Lin, you ought to live more
sparingly. How can you glorify God when you are constantly in debt and
people have to dun you for money at the end of the year?”

His father, seeing that though Yo-ah looked better, he acted like one
about to leave this world, said to him:

“If you die, I will go and hang myself.”

“Daddy, if you do what Judas did, then after my death, we two, father
and son, will never see each other any more. You must live for God and
tell people His truth with all your might when I am gone.”

After this he spoke much with his father, asking him to be faithful
to Christ. When noon came he stopped talking, saying, “Now all is
finished.”

His poor father was very sorry and tried to speak to him, but all that
Yo-ah would say after this was “Submit, gladly submit,” repeating the
words over and over again, meaning that his father ought to be willing
to let him go if God took him.

By seven o’clock that evening Yo-ah was restless, throwing himself from
one side of the bed to the other. His father sat by, trying to soothe
and quiet him, and as he watched through the dragging minutes he cried
to God, for he was not willing that his only son should die.

The bell rang for evening prayer in the church, next door to the
school. The poor man in his sore trouble wished to go to the service,
but dared not leave the sick-room, fearing that Yo-ah might roll from
the bed and fall upon the ground.

A change passed over him and a new calm came into his heart. He fell
upon his knees in front of the bed and prayed:

“O, God! I submit to Thy will. I pray Thee to let my child go home in
peace.”

He rose from the ground. The restless tossing had stopped. Yo-ah was
lying still upon the bed. After one long look the poor father went into
the church. The service was nearly over when he entered the building
and the minister was just saying, “If anyone wishes to lead us in
prayer, let him do so.” Poah began: “O God, I thank Thee for having
given me this son to care for these fifteen years. Now Thou hast taken
him home to Thyself. I gladly submit to Thy will. Only please help me
to remember, and to do all that he spoke of when he talked to me.”

At the close of the service the people knew that Yo-ah had ‘crossed
over’ to the better land. Some of them wished to try to comfort his
father, but they were all so grieved for him that no one could find
a word to say. Poah, whose face was very calm, began to comfort them
instead. He told them what Yo-ah had said, and asked them to join with
him in submitting to the will of God.

That year plague raged in the city and many people died. One of the
minister’s sons, a boy of ten, sickened and died without a word. When
Poah heard of it he said: “God has indeed been merciful to me. If my
boy had died like this without comforting me, what should I have done?”
Yo-ah’s father, who now seemed to live only for the good of others,
went everywhere to help with the sick and dying. Next year he became an
elder of the church, which he served most faithfully. A year later, the
plague came again, and joyfully submitting to God’s will he, too, went
home to be with Jesus.




CHAPTER XV

THE CHILDREN’S KING

  “The Cross is tall,
  And I too small,
      To reach His Hand
      Or touch His Feet;
          But on the sand
            His foot-prints I have found,
          And it is sweet
            To kiss the holy ground.”

Until fifty years ago China, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty,
lay under a spell. Idolatry, love of money and evil customs, like
the thorns and briars of the famous story, had overrun the land. The
sacred names of God and Heaven, were almost forgotten. What wise men
long ago had taught of peace and justice, of kindness and self-denial,
had faded into dreams. The joy of learning, the reverence of father
and mother, and the love of little children, lay under the enchantment
of the Wicked One. Then the Prince came, our princely Lord Jesus, and
China began to waken. At His touch the old-world knowledge of God, of
peace and justice, of kindness and self-denial, stirred in the people’s
hearts and prepared them to welcome the Gospel. Then history, that
wise old story-teller, began to repeat herself. The Kingdom of God,
when once founded in China, like the nation itself in bygone ages,
began to grow. Its conquests were those of peace, and not of war.
Surrounded by enemies, it drew them into itself, spreading light and
love as it widened its borders.

Men and women came to put their trust in the Lord Jesus, and the little
ones learned that He is the children’s King. The King sent forth His
messengers into every province, and, most wonderful of all, wherever
the messengers went, the King went too, and whenever their message
entered a human heart, His own kiss woke it to love and joy.

Churches began to grow, humble enough to look at, but more beautiful
in God’s sight than palaces of gold and precious stones. Schools were
built all over the land, and Christian homes arose in many a village
and town and great city.

You would love to see the children gather in God’s house on the Lord’s
Day in China. Shaved heads and strange clothes would catch your eyes at
first, but you would soon be attracted by the earnest faces and intent
dark eyes of some of the little ones whose attention had been caught by
a story. After service you would see them gather in the Sunday-school,
and perhaps when you heard them repeat their texts, you would long to
borrow their wonderful memories for your own use. If you followed the
little boys and girls after service, you would find that the children’s
King had done much for them in their homes, but you would need to live
with them for a time, to discover how great the change from the old
heathen ways had really been. You would see, if you lived with them
long enough, that the girls did not have their poor little feet pinched
and bound. The babies would not be sent away or sold, unless there was
great poverty, and then they would only be allowed to go into another
Christian family, where they would be loved and cared for. You would
notice that the harsh words and sharp blows which heathen children,
and especially little girls, have to bear, were fewer. There would be
more gentleness and loving family life, less quarrelling and unkindness
among the inmates.

When the family gathered for dinner, the little ones would put their
fat fingers over their eyes, whilst grace was said. In the evenings,
when the shadows fell, no stick of incense would be burnt in the
guest-room, nor stuck in the paper lantern outside the door, but, a
little later, hymn-books would be brought and the family would have
prayers before going to bed. When you went into their room and sat on
the edge of the children’s bed, and got the little ones to nestle dose
up to you, they would whisper, if you asked them in the right way, that
they loved Jesus.

Chinese boys and girls learn to love Jesus, that is the proof that
Christ is the children’s King, that the Prince Himself has kissed them
and wakened them out of sin. And, if you turn back to the story of
Yo-ah and Black Little Sister, you will see that when He calls them
home to Himself, they lovingly go to be with Him.


FINIS




FOOTNOTES:

[1] Dolittle, _Handbook of the Chinese Language_.

[2] When these shoes have the character for ‘King’ on them, they are
called Tiger shoes.

[3] James Legge, _Mencius_, p. 10.

[4] Mrs Lyall, in _The Children’s Messenger_.

[5] The Chinese say that man’s day is the spirit’s night, that is why
a burning rope, or candles, or a lantern, are used at such times, and
when worshipping in temples during the day.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Incorrect page reference in the Table of Contents has been corrected.






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