Читать книгу Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D - John Gerardus Fagg - Страница 11

"Their respect for ancestors is very great, so much so that the species of idolatry which has by far the strongest hold upon their minds is ancestral worship. This is the stronghold by which Satan maintains his supremacy over the minds of the people, and this we may expect will be the last to give way to the power of the Gospel of Christ. One may hold up their gods to ridicule and they will laugh at his remarks, but they do not love to hear the worship of their ancestors spoken against. This worship, after the period of mourning is over, consists chiefly in offering at stated times various articles of food to the spirits of the deceased, and in burning various kinds of paper, as a substitute for money, by which these spirits are supplied with that most convenient article. Natural affection and selfishness unite to strengthen their attachment to this worship. It is as necessary for the happiness of the souls of the dead, in the opinion of the Chinese, as is the saying of the mass in the opinion of a Roman Catholic. Without these attentions the souls of the deceased are in a sort of purgatory; wandering about in want and wretchedness. But if the desire of rendering their ancestors happy be not sufficient to secure attention to these rites, a still more powerful motive addresses itself to their minds. These wandering spirits are supposed capable of bringing misfortune and inflicting injuries on their ungrateful and impious descendants. Thus if a family meet with reverses, the cause is often attributed to the want of attention to the souls of the deceased ancestors, or to the fact that the sites of their graves have not been judiciously selected, and the dissatisfied spirits are taking vengeance for these neglects or mistakes. Another consideration which seems to exert much influence, is that if they neglect the spirits of their ancestors, their descendants may neglect them.

"For the present life they can think of no higher happiness than success in acquiring wealth, and the highest happiness after death consists in having sons to supply the wants of their spirits. These are the two objects that engross the highest aspirations of a Chinaman."