22nd Feb.
Tue Chinese cannot easily divest themselves of the idea ofa living actual world. The.world to come is in their opinion a continuation of the present world, minus the bodily form and life. Each Chinese thinks it is best for him to go back to his home at death that he may not be separated from his ancestral tribe. Christianity teaches Europeans to look for an entirely different world as the future home of the personality. Here then there exists a great difference between the thought of the Far East and that of the Far West. To Chinese thinking, ancestor worship is the great religions duty of every individual man. In whatever tribe he is born he belongs to that tribe irrevocably. He is taught from childhood that it is a permanent: and paramount duty especially Eis own parents and grand-to worship the tribe fathers and
rents. They are not far away. They live in the spirit world. They watch the actions and fortunes of their descendants. Their influence may be for the good of the worshipper if he is diligent and sincere in his offering of the sacrifices. To intermit worship would be to imperil the continued existence of the souls of his ancestors. May they not vanish into thin air? The spirit, as the Chinese thinker imagines, is but a conglomeration of fine particles. Conscious existence depends on the conglomeration, and ceases when the particles separate. This is not true, says the European. 'The soul is not' material in nature. It is spiritual. No material particles can think or love or revere or feel emotions of joy and sorrow. It is not in matter to have the power of thought at will. The Chinese then are fundamentally wrong in their metaphysics. They very much need psychological teaching. It is a good thing that Yen Yung-ching, the Christian pastor, who to the regret of all his friends died last year, published a volume of lectures on psychology. It is also well for the Chinese reader that President Martin of the new Peking University has given very long-continued and close attention to an extensive treatise on psychology. It isa prime necessity, in Chinese thinking, that the distinct nature of the soul as absolutely intellectual and not physical, should be brought clearly to view. This is the great crowning characteristic of human existence that the spirit of a man which goeth upward when the body falls into the grave is endowed with immortality, and cannot be extinguished, because it can think, hope, and revere.
How far this is from modern Chinese thinking and from the ancestral traditions of the people is seen in the. SETTLEMENT EXTENSION.
Woparations they never think to de enough for the sweeping of the tombs" ie fied Feb. We have before us a plan showing and the due performance of ancestral sacrifices. Had they a correct psychology, they would see that the three years' mourning, the white dress, the white queue, the conveyance of the coffin of the dead to the home of the tribe in a distant province, and the' visit to the tombs duly paid at stated seasons, are absolutely of no avail in continuing the happy existence of the departed, and are only useful as evidences of respect.
White attire: indicates the sorrow and respectful feeling of the mourner with the Chinese, as black attire does with us. White is the colour of sorrow, as sackcloth was anciently among the Jews. In Europe the white silk cassock and rochet of the Pope and the white. surplice of the clergy result from old Roman customs. The togu of the Romans was white and magistrates had the tog" well chalked to make it still whiter. Private mourning in Rome was black. So it was that in Europe white was changed for black as a mourning colour and white was festive. But the Chinese use of white for mourning is the most ancient custom. In the Western idea of the future state of happiness the inhabitants of the heavenly city are clothed with white robes with palms of victory in their hands.
The Chinese represent the judges and magistrates in the unseen world as dressed in silks and satins of bright colours, just such as they would wear in the present world. We see this in the colours of the magistrate in
other cities. This magistrate is dress-the city temple in Shanghai and in ed in Ming dynasty deep sleeves and a long robe, and red is the prominent colour. The dress of the Manchu dynasty is not represented in the temples. The founders of the dynasty forced the people to adopt the Manchu dress and long queue with shaved head, but they did not extend this necessity to the magistrates of the unseen world. In their temples, as in the theatres, the people retain the memory of the old Chinese costume as it was before the year 1644. From the days of Yao and Shun down to 1644 the people wore deep sleeves and long gowns. From that date to the present time they have worn the robes we now see. But in the invisible world which the Chinese love to have represented to them on gala days they look on the old costume with affectionate recollections, and so far as they represent the future state with Courts of justice and the magistrates adjudicating on all alleged crimes, the judge always appears in the ordinary official costume of the present life as it was before the year 1644, the boundaries of the territory which the Viceroy at Nanking is, as we understand, prepared to add to what is popularly known as the Anglo-American Settlement. The eastern boundary is the Defence Creek and the southward continuation of that creek until its junction with the creek that bisects the native city. From that point the line follows this small creek to its junction with the Sicawei Creek at St. Catherine's Bridge, all to the eastward of this, including the Mar-garer Williamson Hospital, ete., being left outside the proposed exten-ion. From St. Catherine's Bridge on the French Sicawei Road the southern {boundary consists of a straight {line to the junction of the old Great Western Road with the Sicawei Road, the Crematorium being thus included in the proposed extension. The western ondary follows round the Bubbling Well and the Temple there to the junction of the Cross Road with the Sinza Road, from which point a line is drawn due north to the Soochow Creek, which Creek forms the northern boundary of the proposed extension, it not being proposed so far to give any extension on the Hongkew side or on Pootung.
It will be noticed that the district where the Margaret Williamson Hospital stands as previously mentioned, and the territory northward from there to the present French Settlement, ie. the land on each side of the West Gate of the City through which the French Sicawei Road runs, from the Pahsien Bridge to St. Catherine's Bridge, is reserved because it is full of native graveyards, including the Ningpo Cemetery. On this plan there is no room left for any extension of the French Settlement, and we understand that the British Government, for one, is firmly determined to object to the last to any extension being granted to the French as long as they claim any exclusive control as they do in their present Settlement. Consul-{General Brenan did indeed come to an agreement with Consul-General Bezaure, as we stated some time ago, that in the case of the French oh. taining an extension, foreign landowners not being French citizens should not be obliged to register their titles at the French Consulate-General; but our Foreign Office having definitely made up its mind that the French shall not receive an exclusive extension, this agreement, we presume, falls to the ground. On the other hand, the Consuls-General who are working for the extension of the cosmopolitan Settlement do not want anything south of the Great Western Road; and it would appear that the Chinese
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.