Social life of the Chinese : with some account of their religious, governmental, educational and business customs and opinions, with special but not exclusive reference to Fuhchau . re accustomed to make inquiries arevarious, such as recovery from sickness, birth of male chil-dren, success in trade, literary pursuits, and the attainment offame or office. They profess to believe that the gods will in-dicate the condition of things in regard to the future, or theirwill in relation to the present, to those who employ certainmethods; and the answer given is considered a good and suf-ficient reason
Social life of the Chinese : with some account of their religious, governmental, educational and business customs and opinions, with special but not exclusive reference to Fuhchau . re accustomed to make inquiries arevarious, such as recovery from sickness, birth of male chil-dren, success in trade, literary pursuits, and the attainment offame or office. They profess to believe that the gods will in-dicate the condition of things in regard to the future, or theirwill in relation to the present, to those who employ certainmethods; and the answer given is considered a good and suf-ficient reason for shaping ones conduct and business, in a greatdegree, accordingly. These methods of obtaining oracles from the gods will nowbe briefly described. The minutiae of the ceremonies per-formed in endeavoring to ascertain the will of the gods areconsiderably modified by the circumstances of the occasion or MAKING INQUIRIES OF GODS AND ANCESTOR: 107 the caprices of the principal actor. Sometimes much moreis done, and sometimes much less than is here mentioned. While making use of any one of these methods of consult-ing the gods, the burning of one or three sticks of incense and. sf 1 m ?; <^^ W* ^i^^^^^SkI -s^ ^^r,_ —*^& OFFERING IHIWI—1 a brace of candles before the idol worshiped, or whatever rep-resents the object invoked, is an invariable accompaniment. By the Use of the Kd-pue.—This is the name given to autensil, generally made of wood if to be used in private fami-lies, and of the root of a bamboo-tree if to be used in is usually from two to five inches in diameter at the largestend, and from three to eight inches long. One end is consid-erably smaller than the other, sometimes tapering to a it is made of the desired size and shape, it is split length-wise through the middle. Each piece will thus have, of course,a flat and a round side. The person who wishes to make inquiries of any particulargod or goddess kneels down before the image, or wha
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookidsociallifeof, bookyear1865
