The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 75

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

provides deities or spiritual patrons for all the
forces of nature, diseases (from devil-possession to
toothache), wealth and rank and happiness, war,
old age, death, childbirth, towns and _ villages,
trades, mountains, rivers and seas, lakes and canals,
heaven and hell, sun, moon, and stars, roads and
places where there are no roads, thunder, every
separate part and organ of the human body, and,
indeed, for almost everything that is recognizable
by the senses, and a good deal that is not. It need
hardly be said that no Taoist temple in existence
contains images of all these spiritual personages or
a hundredth part of them. ‘Each locality possesses
its own favorites.” (R. F. Johnston.)

A great deal of spiritism in the
modern sense is practised among
‘Taoists, especially among scholars
and, in general, among the educated
classes.

Buddhism.

Buddhism had its origin in
India. Just when it was introduced
into China is a mooted question.
There appears to be no doubt, how-
ever, that it had adherents at the
time of the birth of our Savior.
Buddhism is named for Buddha,
which means “The Enlightened,” a
name adopted by Gautama of India,
the founder of this form of religion.
Buddhism originally was a protest
against the prevailing idolatry and
everything grossly carnal that went with it in Hin-
duism. Buddhism itself, however, is an idolatrous
religion. In China it cannot be easily distinguished
from ‘Taoism, many of whose deities it has bor-
rowed. Buddhism in its present debased form deals
with the superstition of the people, especially in
beliefs and ceremonies connected with death and
burial. It has priests and monks and nuns and
rosaries and prayer-wheels, as well as so much in-
credibly childish ceremonial that only the power of
Satan over the mind of fallen man explains the
mystery of the firm hold this religion has taken on
the Chinese people. In recent years Buddhism has
experienced a revival and is increasingly active in
its opposition to Christianity.

Ancestor Worship.

The most powerful hold on the Chinese mind is
exerted by ancestor worship. ‘The Chinese believe
that their deceased forebears in their present exist-
ence need the comforts of this life. Hach heathen

15

Chinese house, therefore, has a family altar, on
which can be found an ancestor tablet in which one

- of the souls of the dead parent is supposed to dwell.

In addition, the altar has several idols and other
heathen decorations. Before this altar a daily offer-
ing of food and drink is brought to the spirits of
the ancestors by one of the male descendants.
Without this daily offering, which must be supple-
mented at stated times by make-believe money and
all kinds of artificial and mechanical effects, which
cater to the comfort and well-being of man, — all
made of paper and burned for the use of the spirit,
— without these daily offerings the spirits are un-
comfortable, dissatisfied, and unhappy and return

One of the Twenty Departments of the Buddhistic Hell.
The Judge orders the tongues of two condemned men torn out.

to harass the descendants. ‘The Chinese live in
constant dread of their ancestors and of the other
malicious spirits which are believed to populate the
air and to be continually bent on injuring man.

Mohammedanism.

Mohammedanism is named for Mohammed, who
is the founder of this religion and lived in Arabia
about 600 A.D. ‘This religion is also called Islam.
It is an abhorrent mixture of heathenism and per-
verted Jewish and Christian truths. Islam was
introduced into China in the seventh century.
To-day there are said to be some fifteen to twenty
million Moslems in China.

China has a population of some 440,000,000
people. Except for the comparatively few Chris-
tians — they~hardly number two million — and
the fifteen to twenty million Mohammedans, all
Chinese are given to grossest idolatry, srequently,
in its most abhorrent form.