What, we may ask, are the men and women of as beautiful a city as ever sat on Bay or Lake or Sea-Shore or River, doing for its purgation, for its release from moral defilement and “garments spotted with the flesh?” This indeed is one of the searching questions to be asked of any other City, such as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, London, Paris, Cairo, Constantinople, as well as San Francisco.  Among the other noticeable things in the Joss-House were two immense lanterns, as much for ornament as for utility.  Then I saw a big drum and a bell, used in some of the processions of the Temple; for the Chinese take special delight in noises, indeed the more noise the better satisfied they are.  During my visit some of the Joss-House attendants were shooting off fire crackers; and I was told that this was an acceptable offering to the Chinese god.  One who was selling small, slender incense sticks, said that you could burn them to drive away the devil, an excellent purpose certainly.  He also said they were good to keep moths away.  Doubtless in the Chinese mind there is a connection between moths and evil spirits; but you smile at all such puerilities.  They belong to the childhood of the world and not to the beginning of the twentieth century.  Among other creatures which they venerate are chickens and lions.  They invest the lion with divine attributes on account of his majesty and power.  But the chicken?  Well, it is a gentle creature.  It is the embodiment of motherhood and it speaks of care, not only to the Chinaman’s understanding, but to ours also.  The Divine Teacher, greater than Confucius, said:  “How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!” Will China, now waking out of the sleep of centuries, allow Him to gather her children together under the wings of His Cross?  “And ye would not.”  Oh, what pathos in these few words!  But doubtless they will.  Many during the war of the Boxers were “gathered” unto Him, emulating the zeal and courage and faith of the martyrs of the early days of the Church.  As the hen is sacred in the eyes of the Chinaman, sacred as the peacock to Juno or the ibis to the Egyptians, they swear by her head, and an oath thus taken may not be broken.

One of the images which I saw in the Joss-House was pointed out as the God of the Door; and how suggestive this title and this office!  Another figure, on the right side of the altar, which attracted my attention particularly was that of Toi Sin.  He was dressed somewhat like a mandarin, and his head was bared, while tears as of blood were on his cheeks.  He lived some three hundred years after the Advent of Christ; and owing to his disobedience to his parents, for which he was punished in his conscience, and otherwise, he grieved himself to death and wept tears of blood.  His image, I was told, is placed in all Temples as a warning to children.  It is a forceful lesson, and it is a timely warning.  The one thing that