aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

160 AEOTJND THE WORLD.
when the first proves unfruitful. Ancestral worship is fundamental
in the Chinese mind. Nothing can exceed their
desire to have male children to visit their graves, and venerate
their memories. Parents in some of the provinces have
the power of life and death over their children. Sons obey
their parents the same after as before their marriage. Children
by the second, third, and other wives are legal, and
have the same rights as those by the first. Sons, marrying,
bring their wives to the father's house, having different
rooms, yet forming one household. The first wife, queen of
the shanty, may not only control, but legally beat the
others
to produce obedience. They are, in fact, her servants ; and
she claims the ownership and jurisdiction of their children.
The Rev. Dr. Eitel, of Hong Kong, gave us an interesting
account of a childless couple connected with his church,
who came to him beggrug 'consent for the husband to take a
second wife, hoping to raise a son. The wife was far the
most anxious of the two for this consummation. During the
importuning, she quoted the Bible case of Abraham and
Sarah. The doctor, after advising them to " submit to the
will of God," suggested, that if
they must have a son, looking
forward to ancestral worship, they adopt some outcast
child. The Christian woman repUed, " This was not Abraham's
course ; and then, such children usually inherit bad
temperaments and dispositions."
BUDDHIST TEMPLES AJiTD
BUDDHISM.
;
Buddha means the " enlightened " as Christos, Christ,
signifies " anointed."
Having read for years of Buddhism, and the older religions
of Asia, my first visit to a Buddhist monastery, to witness
the temple-services of the priests, was thriUingly interesting.
Stepping inside, and glancing at the brazen trinity of the
" three precious ones," the lighted tapers and burning
incense, the priests with shaven heads, long robes, — gray,
black, and yellow, according to the order, — bowing their