. New China and old : personal recollections and observations of thirty years. dsnearly as far behind Confucius as we are before him, andwe find Shun, the ancient heroic Emperor of China,reigning about the time of Terah ( 2254), going tothe temple of his accomplished and cultivated ances-tors, and offering a bullock. His Minister of Statewas called The arranger of the Ancestral Temple —and the practice of ancestral worship seems to havecome down from the earliest times ; springing from thebelief that the spirits of the departed have a knowledgeof mundane affairs ; and that they have power
. New China and old : personal recollections and observations of thirty years. dsnearly as far behind Confucius as we are before him, andwe find Shun, the ancient heroic Emperor of China,reigning about the time of Terah ( 2254), going tothe temple of his accomplished and cultivated ances-tors, and offering a bullock. His Minister of Statewas called The arranger of the Ancestral Temple —and the practice of ancestral worship seems to havecome down from the earliest times ; springing from thebelief that the spirits of the departed have a knowledgeof mundane affairs ; and that they have power to affectthem. Events of importance therefore were communi-cated to them before their shrines. Prayers and vowsare mentioned as presented before the altars of Imperialancestors during the Chow dynasty ( 1122-235)and in all probability they were regarded as mediatorsor intercessors. Heaven was the most honourable(writes Dr. Legge), and the ancients did not dare toapproach it abruptly; so they depend on their sympa-thetic ancestors to present or second their requests in. Sitpcrstitions in Ancient Days. 2,17 heaven. Plato held that every demon, or departedspirit, is a middle link between God and mortal this applies at all generally to Chinese ideas of theirancestors, peasant as well as Imperial, the rejection ofthe practice runs parallel with the rejection of Mari-olatry and saint worship. There is one Mediator, andone alone, appointed and required between God andman, the Man Christ Jesus. But does ancestral worship go yet further than this,and become not erroneous superstition merely, but abso-lute idolatry ? One of the Kings of the Shang dynasty( 1765—1153), when sacrificing to King Tang, thefounder of his line, sings thus— Permanent are the blessings coming from our conferred without end. By these offerings we invoke his presence without a word :He will bless us with the eyebrows of longevity. And later, in 821, King Seuen, the las
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