is a terribly tyrannical word. Having told his tale up to his father's death, emphasising the part of the Taoist in it all, his art teacher seemed content for him to be "godless.' "But you should worship your ancestors. That is a good old custom, you know. It is filial."

"I

That evening the matter was referred to his friend. believe in idols? Not I. I am as good as any dead man was, and far better than wood and mud images. Have you heard of the man who apprenticed himself to the great idol of the O Mei Hill in Szchwan?"

Seng-teh had, and felt he had scored a point. On being asked where he heard it, he confessed it was in the Taiping camp.

"Taiping, you rebel; you mean Longhaired."

In Seng-teh's mind, Captain Li hardly belonged to the Longhaired. He was a Taiping to him. And to turn off the conversation, he asked about the proclamation he was reading when he first saw his friend. He could not understand the term "Lord of Heaven." He had never heard it in the Longhaired camp.

Young Tai's reply consisted in the information that there was a "Lord of Heaven" hall in a village not far off, that the morrow was their worship day, as he knew from one of their "religion eaters." He asked Seng-teh to take a holiday It is great fun."

and come with him.

Seng-teh asked his friend to morning meal, during which he explained that the Sacred Book of the Longhaired was called the Old Covenant, and that the proclamation referred to the New, which he could not understand.

Reaching the cottage, they entered, to find five or six illclad men having a morning meal.1 "We are selfish," said the man at the head of the table.

"Oh, please, please!" they replied (chin-chin, the usual reply to the usual phrase).

"We had our meal at home before we came," said Tai in a rather sarcastic manner. The man at the head of the table seemed to feel it, but said, "Sit down, please," and he 1 The writer does not commit himself to any undue generalisations in this description, but draws one particular place from the life.

handed them the water-pipe, while they proceeded with their meal.

Seng-teh, looking about him, saw that the central picture represented what he at first took to be the goddess of mercy bringing a child to earth. He asked whether it was

not so.

The men looked at him to see whether he was in earnest, then made the "ten sign" (a cross) upon their chests, and said, "By no means." Seng-teh apologised for his mistake, still looking at the picture. The " penmanship" was strange.

"It is printed," said his friend, which a closer examination proved to be the case. Under it was the Imperial Tablet inscribed "Sacred Edict." Three sticks of incense were burning before both, and two candles were lit.

'May we see your Sacred Book?"

"Yes, with pleasure," and the man handed Seng-teh a volume called Lo Ma (Roman) Prayer Classic. The characters were familiar, but they would not go together.

"Have you any book called the New Covenant?" he asked.

This

"No," was the reply, "our spiritual father has it.” phrase Seng-teh knew to be a polite name for a præfectural mandarin, and thus did not take it to refer to a foreign priest.

"Do you not read it? It speaks about the Lord of Heaven."

"Yes it does, but it is heresy to read it. It is rebellion." "Then the Longhaired did not learn of you."

Again the man looked; then seeing him to be in earnest, made the "ten character" sign, and said, "By no means." Have you heard of anyone called Yesu [Jesus]?"

"Heard!" they all exclaimed, laid down their chopsticks, and made the same sign again.

"But the book which speaks of him," said young Tai, sarcastically, "is, you say, a bad book."

"These are reviling words," exclaimed the man at the head of the table. Have I been wanting in politeness to you?"

Seng-teh rose to go, apologising to the company, and

pulling his friend away.

He was

more bewildered than

ever.

But the remembrances of the camp and the peach-stones recalled his friends, and, being left alone, he wrote a letter to Nieh Shen-seng and sent it off. He felt lonely again, and home-sick. When would the reply come, he wondered.

This matter was referred to young Tai. "Don't believe in home-sickness," he said. "I like to come in here, and you like me to come; but if I were a recluse on the top of one of your nine peaks, with a little secret in my possession, of course, I should never feel lonely."

The reference to Seng-teh's early home did not improve matters, and the flippant manner of young Tai, refreshing when directed against mere orthodoxy, was somewhat obnoxious in connection with feelings with which he could have no sympathy.1 "What is your secret? Is it private, like that of gilding in the potteries?

“Well, we are friends, and I will tell you a tale. Many years ago, a young scholar, who had taken his first degree, went up to the capital to take the next.

He

Origin of the Poppy. stopped at an inn some distance from Peking, where he found an accomplished maiden who was able to converse with him upon his own subjects. Her father had given her leave to reject any suitor she did not like, and had promised not to sell her to any moneyed man she knew nothing about. She was therefore 'unspoken.' Mutual affection sprang up between the two, and the young scholar vowed that when he had taken his degree he would return in the eighth month and make her his bride. He proceeded to Peking, and was fortunate enough to get not only the hoped

46

1 In the travels of the Buddhist monk Fah Hien (4th or 5th century), who spent fifteen years wandering through the "Buddhist kingdoms," it is related that Several years had now elapsed since Fa Hien left the land of Han; the men with whom he had been in intercourse had all been of regions strange to him his eyes had not rested on an old familiar river, plant, or tree; . . . no face or shadow was now with him but his own, and a constant sadness was in his heart. Suddenly one day, when by the side of a gigantic image of jade, he saw a merchant presenting as his offering a fan of white silk [presumably a Chinese fan], and the tears of sorrow involuntarily filled his eyes and fell down" (see Legge's trans., p. 103).

;

At this

for degree, but also the office of county magistrate. he was so elated as to forget the maiden and his promise. He returned home another way.

"She, however, as the time went by, began to get anxious and poorly. In the tenth month, receiving no news, she sickened and died. Two months later the young mandarin received an Imperial summons, and proceeded to the capital again. He went by the same road as he had gone before, and stopped at the same inn. The landlord felt highly honoured to see a county mandarin come up to his door, but soon recognised his guest of the previous summer. "Where is my bride?' asked the mandarin. 'Alas, great official, she loved you so much as to pine away and die when you did not return.' They went together to her grave. It was evening; he desired to be left alone, shed many bitter tears, and being very weary, fell asleep. In his dreams the maiden. appeared to him, saying, 'Our connection [yin yuen] is broken, but on waking you will find an herb which will help to console you. It is a medicine for sorrow, and an elixir for

all woe.'

"He awoke, and found a plant he had never seen before, nor was there any reference to it in the herbal treatises he had brought with him. He carefully dug it up, potted it, and by and by found out the soothing properties of its juice. From the words of the maiden he called it the1 yin sheu flower" (the former word is a pun upon the first word she used; the latter, is that of budding, which occurs in the Chinese for "B.A.," budding talent).

'And have you that flower?"

"I have its dried juice; or, what is better, I have foreign opium."

1 This character yin in the name of the poppy as generally written means jar; the second character, from the T'ang dynasty onwards, is always seu of millet, from the resemblance of a poppy head to a millet jar. The above tale, though (formerly) current at the potteries, does not seem to be in print.

The poppy is mentioned by Homer as a garden flower, its juice by Hippocrates. Virgil speaks of the "lethean poppy." Pliny and Dioscorides also mention it in the same connection. The poppy seems to have been introduced into China by the Arabs in the eighth century A.D. (Dr. Edkins, Historical Note on the Poppy in China, 1889, reprinted in the official Blue-book 1894).

Chapter XX.

HOW TO BECOME A DEMIGOD.

FIERY ORDEALS-WINE--OPIUM-IMMORTAL RABBITS, AND MEDICINES WHICH IMMORTALISE.

"It is the long road that determines the strength of the horse." Chinese Proverb.

The Legend of the "Fire

He

NEXT day, Kang Shenseng referred again to the subject of idols, and asked Seng-teh whether he had noticed two temples in the streets, the names of which he gave. would tell the story thereof. "At the end of Goddess." the Ming dynasty great havoc was caused at the potteries by the insurgents, and all the kilns were destroyed. Nor as time grew quieter were there any found who could build fresh ones after the old pattern. An old man and his daughter drew out a design for a kiln which was to be twenty feet high. It did not answer, however. Several alterations failed to improve it,—-the pottery was either broken or unevenly burned. The maiden then suggested that the door should be made her own height, with two breast-high indentations for watching the fire, and other apertures for ventilation underneath. This was done, and perfection was nearly attained.

"On the second trial, she went on top to see if she could discover the reason of the remaining defects, was overpowered by the charcoal fumes, and fell in. The kiln then answered perfectly, and that form has been adopted ever since.

The

maiden was deified, and her temple called by the name of the

Fire Goddess."