The lecturer proceeded to des-cribo in detail the elaborate ritual followed on the great occasions of public worship, when a lamb is slain by one of the priests and! its blood sprinkled "to atone for our iniquities." One of these three great festivals is called the Feast of Thanksgiving, and is held when the whole harvest has been garnered.
Further details of worship were given in striking parallel with the Old Testament story, but Mr. Torrance concludes that the faith of this people certainly does not spring fom Judaism. The only satisfactory conclusion is that the Ch'iang religion represents a very primitive faith from which both it and the Old Testament ritual are directly descended. Perhaps the most striking resemblance is where the priest envelops the white stone of sacrifice in a cloud of smoke. It does not take much imagination, says Mr. Torrance, to recall the great revelation on Mount Sinai. But no explanation is forthcoming, he people do not know why the priest does this. It is simply an unalterable custom.
A number of local sportsmen who returned to Shanghai on Tuesday after spending the week-end at Pinghu, recount an exciting experience which necessitated their absence from the Settlement for a day longer than they had anticipated. They had set out for home on Sunday night, their house-beats being towed in the launch train, and all went well until arrival' at the Minghong Reach in the early hours of Monday morning. At that time, it may be remembered, a gale sprang up, and although of comparatively short duration was of excessive violence. Catching the boat train on the side it blew launch and houseboats ashore, and there they remained for a considerable time. At length the launch was able to get off under her own steam and proceeded ty Minghong where on arrival she sank, two of her crew being drowned. Foreigners in one of the houseboats had noticed that close the spot at which they went ashore were a quantity of piles, and they; were of the opinion that had they been -blown on top of these the- boat. would have been holed. It is their view that the launch jmust have struck against some of this piling and sprung a leak which later caused her to sink. After a somewhat lengthy wait, the houseboats and remainder of the boat train were taken in tow by a second launch which had been despatched from Minghong, and the parties were able to reach Shanghai a day late,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.