2th Sept. Letrens now received contain the assurance that the Temple of Heaven has been destroyed by fire and that the cause was its being struck by lightning. The building thus destroyed is the Chi-nien-tien which stands on the northern altar. It was 99 feet high and had a triple blue roof which was elaborately repaired a century ago. It differed from Buddhist pagodas because the roofs were circular, and one above another. The very striking appearance of this edifice has led many visitors to regard it as the most sacred part of the erections embraced in the Temple of Heaven. Yet in fact the south altar without any edifice built on it is the most primitive and in some sense more sacred. There is no very clear classical precedent for the building over the altar which has now been destroyed. 'I'he altar is essential. The edifice over it is a later addition and does not certainly date from a time earlier than A.D. 483. In that year at Nanking, then the capital of South China, there was a discussion at court as to whether a roofed building should be erected on the altar for the spring sacrifice or not. There never was a question as to the south altar where sacrifices are offered at the solstices whether a temple should be built on it or not. It was thought more reverential to worship at an open altar. But in reference to the spring sacrifice it was decided that a building might be allowed. "If in the ancestral temple of the Emperors" said one of the courtiers " the round tent there used at sacrifices has been changed into a temple and carpets spread there, why should not the same be done at the Altar of Heaven?" Another remarked that the law-book of antiquity, the Chow Li, certainly spoke of felt carpets and it was therefore probable that there was a house. the Emperor approved. The opposition was silenced, and a temple was built, to be used in the first month of the calendar, when at the opening of spring the Emperor leaves his palace to pray for a fruitful year. In this temple there was space to arrange the tablets of the emperor's ancestors as assessors with the tablet of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. In this way the imperial tablets on the east and west shared in the banquet of the sacrifices with the Supreme Ruler. he day was after the sixth of February each year on the first occurrence of the character Asin, "new" the eighth in the series of teu names attached to days. That the lofty blue-roofed temple now destroyed should at all have a secondary character in the Imperial worship may seem in itself unlikely, but it must be remembered that the ancient Chinese idea of the worship of the Supreme requires simplicity and humility with reverence. T'husa temple havingabeautifully coloured roof covered with glazed tiles, having blue, yellow, and green paint under the glaze, or blue only, is not allowed in the round altar where performed at the winter solstice. T'he chief of all the sacrifices that of the 21st of December and this has nothing to do with the temple now destroyed. It will be performed as usual.
The next occasion when the burnt temple would have been used will be in February of 1890. If it should be decided not to rebuild the temple the round altar on which it stood is still there with its beauty of carved marble balustrades and flights of marble steps. The ceremonies as in the time before A.D, 483 can be performed in their full splendour, It would be a return to antiquity; it would be paying honour to the ritual of the ancient Eiperors not to rebuild the temple at all, but to perform the great national act of worship for the commencement of spring on the open altar as at the altar where the sacrifices of June and December are offered. Next February, as a matter of necessity, this will be done. Ihe ruins of the beautiful structure of the Ming dynasty will be removed, and new shrines and tablets for the Imperial line of deceased Emperors will be prepared. The ritual will be the same. The carefully selected bullock will be consumed by fire in the furnace altar on the south east as before. The Emperor will kneel on the round centre stone of the altar to prostrate himself before the tablet as his ancestors have done at the southern altar for two centuries and a half, and the retinue of two thousand persons will be there as usual on these occasions. The slaughtered bullocks, one in honour of each Emperor worshipped, will be placed in order before the tablets. Only the prayer will be read and burnt that it may fly upward in smoke and flame to the azure sky, only the magnificence of the temple now destroyed will be wanting, and this is not essential to the completeness of the worship.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.