. Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants. comic dramas have the same structure, and nearly the same defectswith the tragic. They do not display those varieties and nice shades ofcharacter, nor those saUies of humor, which enUghten the American ; butthey are, nevertheless, diversified with striking incidents, and exhibit agenuine picture of Chinese life. They are, in fact, novels in a dramaticform, and the observations on the former species of composition will applyto them. The incident with which the Circle of Chalk terminates ha
. Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants. comic dramas have the same structure, and nearly the same defectswith the tragic. They do not display those varieties and nice shades ofcharacter, nor those saUies of humor, which enUghten the American ; butthey are, nevertheless, diversified with striking incidents, and exhibit agenuine picture of Chinese life. They are, in fact, novels in a dramaticform, and the observations on the former species of composition will applyto them. The incident with which the Circle of Chalk terminates has astriking similarity to that of the Judgment of Solomon. A circle of chalkis formed round the child, of which the two female claimants are desired totake hold, and each draw it toward herself; and she who succeeds in wrest-ing it from the other is to be adjudged the mother. The real parent provesher claim to that character by refusing to subject the infant to so dangerousa predicament. The coincidence is probably accidental, and the descriptionin the sacred volume is much happier and more Cliiuese Comedian. 266 CHINA, HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE. CHAPTER XVIII. THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA. The Chinese are divided into three religious sects, who are followers ofthe tenets inculcated by Confucius, Laou-Keun or Taou, and Fo or Confucian is the religion of the state, although the emperor builds andendows temples belonging to the other sects. The system of Confuciusmay be more properly termed a system of morality than a religion, as itis intended to inculcate the duties of men toward each other, rather thanthose which they owe to a superior being. The Confucians believe in onesupreme Deity, but they have no regular priesthood ; their religious ritesconsisting solely of sacrifices made in the temples on stated occasions, whenthe emperor officiates as high-priest, and the chief mandarins as his subordi-nates. The heavens, earth, sun, and moon, are worshipped: when th
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