The Gods of Wo Lee

WO LEE has many gods, and, after a strange fashion, his life is largely a life of worship. Some of his gods are creatures of wrath and hot blood and vindictiveness ; for these he makes great show of respect, and to them he offers much incense and many prayers. Others are noted for their love and mercy and kindness ; with these he gets along easily, and they readily forgive or overlook his worst misdeeds and saddest shortcomings. The good spirits don’t like to harm a man ; and, therefore, if worship is inconvenient or burdensome, one may somewhat omit or neglect his service to them: the bad spirits are looking out for chances against men ; and therefore, and at whatever of cost or hazard, they must be supplicated and kept in good humor by presents and attentions. This, in brief, is about the sum of what one hears in San Francisco as to the religion of the Chinese. That Lee is devout in his way, that he spends much time in the ceremonies of worship, that his religion curiously enters into the warp and woof of his daily life,— this is soon seen by every careful observer. I am not certain that the American mind can either apprehend or comprehend Chinese religion or Chinese theology. The more I inquired into their religious system, — if indeed they have a system, — the more I found it full of riddles and intricacies and contradictions. The traveller may write of forms and ceremonies from the outside, but we shall know little of their meaning and significance till some one writes of them fully from the inside.

Kwan Tae is the god of war, and his images are numerous in the Chinese Quarter of every city or town on the Pacific slope. One of the puzzles of the Chinaman is, that though peaceable and inoffensive to a remarkable degree, he dearly loves the show and noise and bustle of conflict. The banners and implements of war abound in his temples, and the principal feature of the plays at his theatres is a terrific contest in which actors are wounded and slaughtered by wholesale. Looked at in one light, it did not seem strange to find Kwan Tae so popular among Wo Lee and his kinsfolk; the laws of California do not recognize their rights, and if I were a Chinaman I think I should assiduously cultivate the favor and protection of this mighty god of war. He is the first of the Chinese gods with whom most Eastern visitors to the Golden Gate make personal acquaintance. He is the patron of Ning Yung, one of the Six Companies, and has a temple on Broadway wholly to himself. This is easy of access from any of the hotels, and is the Joss-house to which strangers are generally taken or directed.

On one of my visits there I had for company a very intelligent Chinese gentleman, and during the afternoon he told me the story of this divinity. Kwan Tae lived about sixteen hundred years ago. In the early part of his life he was a soldier, and won high renown for vigor in the field and success in battle. Other men frequently had bad luck, but he mostly had good luck ; other men sometimes suffered defeat, but he generally gained victories. He was a person of great individual prowess, and not “ Go ! ” but “ Come ! ” was his usual word of command. He was, withal, kind and merciful, as well as valorous, and overcame enemies by deeds of manly love no less than by deeds of martial might. The wars being over, he resigned his position in the army. The Emperor counted him among his friends and relatives, and offered him some honorable station in the civil service ; but Kwan Tae declined this, joined the order of Devoted Brothers, and gave himself to works of religious benevolence. The qualities of mind and heart that had made him so notable a figure in the army soon advanced him to a leader’s place in the charitable Brotherhood, and for many years he was one of the foremost men in the empire in labors for the relief of the sick and needy and suffering. But war came again, and with it a long train of disasters to the reigning sovereign. Kwan Tae kept aloof for many months, but finally, moved alike by duty and desire, offered his services, and was put in command of a large army. His old luck still prevailed, and where he went there also went victory, so that he became everywhere known and respected as a great soldier and chieftain. It was his fortune at length to meet the forces directly under the head of the rebellious movement, and him he routed as he had before routed inferior officers and smaller armies. War once more ended, Kwan Tae retired to his home to resume the badge of the Brotherhood and live out his days in quiet and honor. There came to him one day a man ragged and wounded, and in the last extremity of illness and distress. He did not know the Brother, but was recognized by him as the leader of the late revolt, for whom the police of the Emperor were in anxious search. Kwan Tae was at first minded to seize and surrender him, but chose rather to take him in and feed him, and clothe him, and nurse him, and bind up his wounds, and set him on his feet, and secrete money in his purse, and send him on his way rejoicing. Then he put his house in order, presented himself to the Emperor, told the story of what he had done, adjudged himself guilty of treason, and cheerfully submitted to instant death. And for more than a thousand years he has been the Chinese god of war. Seen at the Broadway temple, he sits on a high dais, under a silken and golden canopy, with scymitar and battle-axe near, and has a red face, great black eyes, high forehead, and long black mustache, — on the whole, not a bad looking god, as Chinese gods average.

The gods are numerous as the wants of man. In my inquiries I heard of these: the god of general defence; the god of water; the god of fire; the god of wealth ; the god of trouble : the god of rain ; the god of the evil eye ; the god of the earth ; the god of wisdom ; the god of the forests; the god of long life ; the god of the bad heart; the god of medicine ; sixty gods for the sixty years of the grand cycle ; the goddess of child-bearing ; the goddess of navigation ; the goddess of mercy, who is also the goddess of children, and sometimes has the form of a man; the queen of heaven; and the queen of the underworld, who seems to be one with the god of the bad heart. Probably there are many other gods and goddesses, but this list was quite as large as I could well manage in one tour of investigation.

Each of the gods has a history, though I heard of no other one so interesting as that of Kwan Tae. The god of medicine is Kwa Toi: he was a great scholar, two thousand years ago, who had a marvellous art of healing, and went about among the poorer classes. On one occasion a sick peasant, to whom he had given the wrong remedy, died of his treatment ; whereupon Kwa Toi, as an act of expiation, and to teach other doctors carefulness, said his prayers and then killed himself. Kwan Yin is the goddess of mercy: she was a nice young woman who ran away from home to avoid a disagreeable marriage, took refuge in the house of a religious sisterhood, was there nursed and protected, and had such efficacy in prayer that everybody escaped when the building was burned by her enraged father. Raised after her death to the dignity of a goddess, she was, when I saw her, a damsel with bare feet, a pensive face, and a babe in her arms. My Chinese friend said that she is carried in processions at the feast of All-souls, and looks after spirits in the other world who are neglected by friends in this. The earthly lives of several other gods were given me, but the stories of their conflicts and victories do not appear to be worth repeating.

The Chinese in California have no regular day for religious services. Our Sabbath they observe as a general holiday : then the barbers and the market-men and the opium-dealers and the eating-houses do a driving business ; and if the day be fair, the stranger in the Quarter will have a view of joyous and careless and exuberant life that he cannot soon forget. There are festivals for one or another of the gods on nearly a third of the days in the year, but only a few of them require universal observance on the part of the people. The temples are open continually, and can be engaged for the day or the hour by any one wishing service. There are no priests or public teachers, but the gods are severally waited on by a number of attendants.

The decorations of the temples are unique and not easy to describe. The image is generally in a niche or recess, on a platform about four feet high. The altar is like a large and heavy table ; over it is the sacred fire, — a lamp kept forever burning ; on it are tall, slender candlesticks, with copper vessels in which incense and offerings are burned. On each side of the room is the row of “ eight holy emblems,” — staves six or seven feet long, with a fan or an axe or a knife at the upper end. In one of the rear corners is a bell or a gong, with which the attention of the god may be attracted. There are numerous tablets fastened to the walls and ceilings, made of wood, four or five feet long by fifteen or twenty inches wide, mostly red or yellow in color, covered with Chinese letters which may be sentences of thanks or praise, or lines from some of the classics. In one temple is a stove, wherein are burned pictures of whatever one would like to send to the dead. Banners of strange device greatly abound. There are rich vases for flowers ; bronze lions or dragons to watch by the god ; mats for kneeling worshippers; rolls of prayers printed on yellow paper ; chandeliers glittering with cut glass ; canopies and curtains of gorgeous silk ; the god’s great seal of authority ; cloths with fantastic birds worked in gold thread ; slabs of bronze, with hundreds of small human figures in bass-relief; carvings of wood that no white man can understand ; scrolls with notices and injunctions to visitors ; cups in which divining-slips are kept ; bundles of incense-sticks like pipe-stems for size ; fragrant Sandal-wood tapers, and through the room a languid odor of foreign lands. The worshipper brings in his offering of rice or fruits or dressed chicken, places it on the altar, lights the tapers and his incense of some strongly scented mixture, and then drops on his knees and inaudibly recites his prayers while the attendant strikes half a dozen blows on the bell or gong. As he did so at my first visit, I thought of Elijah and the prophets of Baal: ‘‘Cry aloud ; either he is talking, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.”

Wo Lee worships in his own way and at his own pleasure such of the gods as he chooses to adore. If he is in bad luck, he goes to the temple and prays for good luck ; if his business prospers, he goes there and renders thanks ; he asks for guidance in new undertakings; he makes prayers for the recovery of friends from illness ; he brings offerings for a safe journey to his old home ; he puts up a tablet of praise when he arrives from shipboard : he burns incense on the death of his children ; he seeks counsel from the gods when he is in distress ; he presents wine and fruits after escape from calamity; he bows down and implores help against his enemies; he beats his head on the floor before Kwan Tae when the courts refuse him protection. He ascribes frowns and favors, troubles and blessings, joys and sorrows, to the higher powers; and his whole round of yearly life is interfused with the forms and dignities and ceremonials of religion. His faith may be cold to our hearts, and his pomps frivolous or blasphemous in our eyes ; but in such light as he has he walks, with ready and sincere acknowledgment of human dependence on superhuman aid and mercy. His precepts are moral and kindly precepts ; the adornment of his house is a salutation of good-will; he respects old age, and keeps green the memory of the wise fathers ; the lessons of his youth taught him to look upward, and in his mature years he does not forget this teaching. Such we shall find him to be when we really begin the work of trying to Christianize him, — a man of great faith in superior intelligence, but almost immovable in devotion to many gods whereto he can give visible form and body; of high reverence for powers and abilities greater than those of earth, but materialistic in all his conceptions, and blind to our ideas of Christ and the Father.

He is a great believer in spirits, particularly in those with an evil disposition. His upper-world is peopled by gods, and his under-world by multitudes of devils. Numbers of his kinsfolk are professional devil-killers, and their services are often in demand to rid houses of these unwelcome visitors. During my stay in California a dwelling at Sacramento became infested, and thereby ensued a high commotion in the Chinese Quarter. The exorcist or devilkiller was summoned, and four or five hours of hard work slew or drove out the evil spirits. He burned incense before the family or household god, and fervently repeated many and diverse prayers ; he mouthed numerous curses, wrote them with red ink on yellow paper, burned them on a porcelain plate, and stirred the ashes into a cup of water. He filled his mouth with this holy water, took a stout sword in one hand, and in the other held an engraved bit of wood weighty with virtue for the overthrow of demons. Then he stamped up and down the rooms in a vigorous manner, thrusting and brandishing his sword, holding aloft his magic wand, spurting water from his mouth in every direction, commanding the devils in his loudest voice to depart, yelling and howling and cursing and fighting, till the police hustled through the awed and excited crowd, swooped down on the magician, decided straightway that the devils were all in him, and so carried him, panting and exhausted, to the watch-house, there to meditate on the ways of the ’Melican man, and renew himself for further fearful encounters with the evil spirits that vex the good Chinaman’s peace and happiness.

My Oriental friend’s religion has a considerable element of superstition. His almanac is filled with lucky and unlucky days. He sees signs and omens in everything. The gods give him a convenient excuse whenever he wants to break an engagement or evade a disagreeable duty. He has ivory pieces and silver rings and sandalwood blocks for charms. He carries coins and bones in his pockets or tied by a string round his neck as guards against evil influences. He finds token of bad luck or good luck in the most common occurrences of every-day life. He is frightened at the appearance of certain birds, and rejoiced by an easterly wind on one particular day and a southerly breeze on another particular day. There is disaster in clouds of a peculiar form and color, and promise of good in the crackling of a fire or the flaming of a lamp. Calamity is hidden on every hand, and the gods or devils must continually be propitiated.

Events are forecast by lottery, and decided by divination. In the temple of Kwan Tae one afternoon I was anxious to know my chance for a safe journey homeward over the Pacific Railroad. I took up the cup of spiritual sticks, shook it well, and then drew out one of them ; it was numbered, and the attendant turned to the corresponding number in his big yellow-leaved book of fortune and gave me this answer : “ The gods prosper the man of upright ways.” It was impossible to evade my fate, and I came home without accident of any kind. Sun King said I could have my life mapped out for a year by going to one of the fortunetellers and passing in the date of my birth and a lock of my hair. There was a cellar down in Jackson Street where a fee of five dollars would give me an interview with the shade of Miles Standish or Cotton Mather ; and three doors nearer to Dupont Street was a man who could write me a correct history of my doings ten years backward or twenty years forward, and in commiseration for my inferiority of race would do it for nothing too ! I saw an astrologer of long beard and sinister face, for whom it was vouched that he could compel the stars to tell the date of any coming event; and my friend said that before deciding on the proposal to go into partnership with me as a dealer in tea and rice, he must consult the gods on three successive days.

One of my miscellaneous acquaintances was a doctor, Kim Woon by name, office in Sacramento Street. He was a neatly built fellow, forty or fortyfive years of age, who looked as if he could, if he would, a tale unfold of hidden and mysterious things. He invited me into his office one pleasant morning, and the room was so dingy and sombre and sepulchral that all the joy and delight of life at once went out of my heart. It was hard work to keep from being sick on the spot. The den was eight or ten feet square, with a shelf of a dozen books in one corner, a table and two or three stools, a collection of drugs and leaves and grasses on an upturned box, and a faded window-curtain that shut out three fourths of the sweet sunlight. If I were a Chinaman and had come for consultation, he said, he would feel of my several pulses, look at my tongue, retire to his inner room, locate my disease, give me medicine, and regulate my diet. I learned, on further inquiry, that he had a remedy for every possible ailment, that his specialty was diseases of the head, that in many cases he sought advice from the gods, that for the benefit of liberal customers he sometimes made offerings at the temple, that the duration of sickness often depended upon the will and power of evil spirits, that he could occasionally conjure away a symptom not to be reached by medicine, and that a man has need to be careful how he offends the gods, because diseases are frequently the result of their vengeance. After this statement of the peril in which we ever live, I found it more agreeable to talk with Kim Woon in front of his office on the sidewalk.

He and his fellow-doctors don’t know much about medicine as a science. Of anatomy they have little knowledge, and of the circulation of the blood they are wholly ignorant. If one of them were to treat me for a felon, he would probably give me one thing to act on the swollen finger, and another to drive the first down through my arm to the seat of disease. They use many herbsand roots and grasses and metallic preparations, and all in such quantities that one wonders how a man can live long after coming into the physician’s hands. Some of their remedies are as unique as their methods of practice. Such things as bugs, snails, worms, snakes, dog’s blood, crushed bones, ashes of burned teeth, the claws of cats, the hoofs of horses, hair from a cow’s tail, entrails of various animals, skin from the feet of fowls, parings of the toe-nails, and a hundred others that could hardly be named here, are in constant demand and thought to be of great virtue. The doctors have a theory that, while some diseases must be driven out, others may better be coaxed out. They curiously mix religion and medicine, talk about good luck and bad luck, speak of the ill-will of the gods and the influence of wicked spirits, and for the most part seemed to me to hold their places by practising on the credulity or superstition of their patients. The intelligent and cultivated class of Chinese discard their own doctors entirely, and in case of serious illness invariably call an American physician.

When a Chinaman dies, his body is at once placed on the ground or floor, so that his several distinct souls may have an opportunity to withdraw and enter upon their new stage of transmigration. It is then covered with a white cloth, — white, and not black, being the Chinese color of mourning, — and large quantities of provisions are set near for the refreshment of the dead man’s spirit and other spirits supposed to be waiting to conduct it away. The undertaker told me that the cries and howls of the real and hired mourners at this stage of the burial ceremonies are most doleful ; he had been present on many occasions, but even yet felt some nervousness when brought into the mourning-room. One thing a Chinaman must have if possible, — a strong and elegant coffin. Frequently at the funerals there is a great beating of gongs and shooting of fire-crackers ; this is to keep off bad spirits, and remind the gods that another soul has departed, and will need attention in the upper-world. Scraps of paper representing money are scattered about the house and along the road to the cemetery : these are propitiatory offerings to the gods of evil disposition for permission to bury the dead in peace and safety. Clothing of various kinds is put into the coffin, as are also at times cups or small baskets of rice and fruits for the soul’s long journey. At the grave there are further supplies of food and drink, and things which it is supposed the spirit may wart are burned in flames kindled with holy fire from the temple.

The officers of the Six Companies report that about eleven thousand of their countrymen have died in the United States, and that over six thousand bodies have already been sent back to China for final burial, while many more would be forwarded this winter and spring, prior to the great feast for the dead. Two of us had some talk with an educated Chinaman about this custom of sending home the remains of those who die here. It appears to rest on the belief that spirits constantly need earthly care and attention ; that they love the body and forever remain near it; and are likely to be forgotten or overlooked if that is left in a strange land, among people not holding the Chinese view of the relation between the dead and the living. The Chinaman wishes, therefore, to be buried among his friends and ancestors, and religion and sentiment alike lead him to make provision for his body after death as well as before death. It is not necessary that the fleshy integument shall mingle with the soil of home, and, as a fact, in most cases only the bones of persons are removed to the ancestral grounds. Many men enter into arrangements with their Company or associates as soon as they arrive here for the return of their bodies, and obligations of this kind are held to be as sacred as any that one can assume. In the earlier days of the immigration, provision for final burial at home was made by everybody ; but a change of doctrine is taking place, and now one finds a considerable number of persons who are content to have their bodies and those of their relatives rest in America forever. The work of removal will go on for years, but the belief in its religious necessity is likely to disappear when our laws and customs permit the Chinaman to establish his permanent home under the stars and stripes.

The great religious festival of the Chinese year is that of Feeding the Dead. It is a movable feast, but always occurs in the spring, and generally near the end of our month of March. On that day the whole Chinese population of the Pacific slope suspends work. Then, as Wo Lee devoutly believes, the gates of the other world are set wide open, so that spirits of every age and condition may revisit the earth and enjoy the society of friends still in the body. Then the incense of thanksgiving is burned, and flowers tenderly and profusely laid upon every grave. Then tapers are lit at the tombs with fire from the temples, prayers of joy and penitence are offered to all the gods, while flame and smoke pass over to the spirits great quantities of things thought essential to perfect happiness in other spheres. Then the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco is temporarily transferred to the hills of the suburbs, and all classes go to the cemeteries with baskets and boxes and carts and wagons full of meats and fruits and wines. The observance of the day has its comic side, to be sure, as many other strange customs have ; but Americans capable of looking at the ceremonies in a catholic spirit speak of them as being extremely touching and beautiful.

The social festivals are numerous, but, so far as I learned, not more than four or five of them are universally observed. These are New-Year’s, the harvest moon All-souls-day, the feast of lanterns, and the winter solstice. New-Year’s is the great festival. It occurs near the end of our month of January, — this year on the 30th, and last year on the 10th of February, Then all business matters are adjusted, all accounts settled, quarrels reconciled, feuds healed; as far as possible the old must be finished ere the new is begun. Prayers are made in private and at the temples, offerings of food and drink are presented to the gods, incense is burned before the shrines of the dead, fire-crackers are exploded by the wagon-load, the red of joy is everywhere displayed, and tea and wines and fruits and sweetmeats are set out in profusion for all visitors. The feast of the harvest moon is more generally kept in the country and the villages than in San Francisco ; it lasts two or three days, brings business to the astrologers, much gathering of persons out of doors, many civilities to strangers. thank-offerings to the gods, great slaughter of pigs and chickens, and is in some respects not unlike our Thanksgiving day. The feast of All-souls is for the special benefit of spirits who have no living friends, and were not, therefore, provided for in the grand religious festival of March or April. It usually falls in the month of August. There is a procession in which images of certain gods are carried, and a generous display in the streets and on the balconies of houses of food and clothing and such other things as are either left at graves or burned in cemeteries at the annual Feeding of the Dead. On this as well as on all other occasions when meats are offered, what is not eaten by the gods or spirits may be put into the family larder for home consumption. It is useless trying to corner a Chinaman by asking if he believes that the spirits can eat and drink : he answers that there is more in the leg of a fowl than human eyes can see or human palates taste, and that his duty is at least done in cooking and presenting the best of what he has for the support of existence.

When Wo Lee comes to dwell with us, we shall have to consider his religious views and his festal customs, but his desire for amusement will hardly give us either trouble or serious inconvenience. After a quaint fashion he greatly enjoys his holidays, but he is altogether too grave a man for anything like national sport. His ear for the concord of sweet sounds is so utterly unlike ours, that we may properly doubt if he has any ear at all. There are singing women in his gambling-shops, but he rarely concerns himself with the question whether their warbling is good or bad. He drops into his theatre occasionally, sits patiently through the long play, and then walks off with the air of one who has killed time rather than found delight. He is a social fellow, and somewhat given to going in crowds, but mostly chooses the mild excitement of a quiet chat over a pot of weak tea, or with a good pipe and plenty of tobacco. If he opens a place of amusement in Boston or New York, we may visit it sometimes to see his neat and curious jugglery, but if those at San Francisco are to be taken as a model, two or three evenings a year of his regular theatrical performances will be about as much as any of us can endure.

He is a tireless and an inveterate gambler ; and when he comes Eastward the gambling-shop and its sphinx-faced manager will also come. A white man finds it difficult to get into the San Francisco establishments. One is much like all the others, — a small entry on the street, in which sits the watchman, a door from that into a hall, and another door from the hall into the house. This is a room with bare floor and low ceiling, a narrow counter at the rear for the manager or book-keeper, and behind him a bit of a platform whereon lounge the two or three women who furnish the music of the evening or afternoon. Whenever I stopped at the street door as if about to enter, the guard came forward with forbidding gestures, and “Go way-ee; you not come-ee here ; go way-ee.” I tried it a dozen times, and always with the same result; he would not allow me to even look into the hall, fearing, as I afterward discovered, that I might be a spy from police head-quarters. I went where I pleased while in the interior towns, and finally accomplished my desire in San Francisco by persuading a well-known Chinese gentleman to introduce me and vouch for my character. Wo Lee bets often, but not high ; he stakes his last piece of money on the chance of doubling it or going supperless ; he often consults the fortune-tellers for luck, and even goes to the temple and tries to find out the winning numbers by aid of the spiritual slips.

Chinese gambling has about as much interest for a looker-on as the odd-oreven game of school-boys ; in fact, it is little more than a variation of that famous game of our childhood. The gamblers sit or stand around a table covered with matting or oil-cloth, on which a black square is plainly marked. In one or two houses there was a small sheet of lead or zinc in place of this painted square. The banker sits behind the table, with gold and silver in a drawer, and on the matting a heap of cash,—a brassy coin of small value, in size like our twenty-five cent piece, having a square hole in the centre. From this heap the banker takes a handful, lays it on the square, and partly or wholly covers it with a brass or pewter bowl. The players simply bet whether this pile under the bowl will count out odd or even on fours. One lays his money down on whichever side of the square he chooses, and the dealer, with a pointed stick, eighteen or twenty inches long, rapidly counts the cash, drawing toward himself four coins, then four more, and so on until the last four have been drawn out. If the count is even, each player receives four times the amount of his stakes ; if three coins remain, the one whose money lies on the third side of the square gets three times his bet, and the bank takes what lies on the other three sides ; and if two only remain, the second side wins double and the others lose, — the winner always paying the bank a small percentage of what he has gained by way of commission. This is all there is of the game, and I heard of no other game played by the Chinese in any of the shops.

That the Chinese are much given to the smoking of opium everybody well understands. In the stores of the Quarter at San Francisco and elsewhere, jars of opium are displayed as jars of snuff are in the stores of the Southern States. There are smokingdens just as there are gambling-dens and barbers’ shops, though my efforts to get into one were not successful. Fhe Chinese of San Francisco pay duty on near thirty thousand pounds of the drug yearly, and probably manage to smuggle in half as much more without paying the duty. The shrewdness of the custom-house officials is taxed to the utmost to detect the tricks of smugglers, and some of those that have been exposed showed a wonderful knack for disguising the precious commodity. Thus in one case a box of common medicinal roots proved to be worth thousands of dollars ; it was opium, drawn or moulded into roots or fibres, then dried and colored and scented. I asked a young man who did me many services if he had ever smoked opium; he resented the inquiry as a well-bred American lad would resent the question whether he was in the habit of getting drunk. He and many other Chinamen told me that opium-smoking was disreputable ; that it was not pleasant to the gods ; and that habitual or intemperate smokers are not admitted into the best circles of their people. Numbers of leading merchants seemed anxious to impress this fact upon my attention, that the custom does not prevail among the refined classes, but is deplored and condemned as strongly by them as by Americans.

This is something fine to say of a nation, — every man can read and write his own language. And of the Chinese on our Western shore this can almost be said. Yet they are heathens and we are Christians ! It will not hurt us to recall this fact, when we feel overmuch inclined to boast of our superior civilization. The Chinese have nearly made education universal : we have not. “ Learn, learn, — learn all you can,” said Lee Kan, in a little speech to some Sunday-school children; “knowledge and virtue go together, and no people can have too much of either.” These are the words of one who appreciates the day and generation in which he lives ; and they speak the sentiment of his people, too. The Chinese children of San Francisco are all instructed in private schools: education is regarded as a solemn religious obligation, for “the gods will not smile upon a people that neglects its children.” Have we anything of doctrine higher than that ?

The Chinese Sunday schools are not specially schools of religious instruction. The largest one in San Francisco has been in operation something over a year, and has on its books the names of about one hundred and fifty teachers and six hundred pupils. It could not be kept up a month if the Bible and the catechism were put forward as books for study. The lessons taught are in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and such other branches as are common to ordinary week-day schools. The Chinese do not take kindly to our religious views, and the children would at once be withdrawn if we declined offering them instruction in anything else. The practical bearing of the Sermon on the Mount they understand and appreciate ; but as for our theology, it is a riddle they do not care to unravel. At one of the schools I heard the familiar song “We ’ll gather at the River,” and at another the old hymn, “All hail the power of Jesus’ name.” These schools are doing a good work, undoubtedly, but their Christianizing influence is only of an indirect character.

It is idle to fancy that the immigration from China is to result in the immediate conversion of many. The present generation will stick to its own faith, and so will the greater part of the next generation. The Chinese religion was old long ere Christ came, and we have not yet done much to commend his Gospel to this serious, reflective, high-spirited people. They judge us, and have a right to judge us, by what their experience on the Pacific has taught them ; and it will take many years of patient work to disabuse them of the impressions they have formed in their struggle there. It will be an advantage if we fully comprehend this before they plant their feet on these Eastern shores.

And that they are coming here I do not in the least doubt. I cannot clearly see, as I have already said, what change in the national mind led to the emigration to California ; but having conquered the right to live there, I am sure that neither the mountains nor the wide plains will stay them from coming hither. They are quiet and patient, but they are also very persistent and remarkably self-poised. The Governor of California may recommend measures to prevent their immigration, and his Legislature may gravely discuss propositions to tax them out of existence, and the inhabitants of that State and its neighbors may treat them never so shamefully: all this is as futile and foolish as an anathema against the wind or the sunshine. They are not going back to China; on the contrary, they will bring their wives and children and household gods and strange customs to the Golden Gate, — there, and through California, and over the Sierras, and across the desert, and along the railway, to our farms and workshops and manufactories. Seeing this, as every thoughtful man spending two months in California will see it, I have deemed it well to indicate certain of their chief habits and peculiarities wherewith we ourselves shall be called upon to deal at a time not many years distant.

The article in this magazine for December, 1869, sufficiently proved their capacity for varied labor. Three fourths or more of those now in our country are of the so-called peasant class. In many trades requiring delicate and careful workmanship they are superior; in every branch of what is properly called handicraft they easily take position in the foremost ranks. If they lack swiftness, they have large perseverance. If they want knowledge, they have aptness in learning. If they show little creative or inventive power, they are a daily study and wonder of imitativeness. Make it clear to them how you want a thing done, and your thing is done in that way till you teach them another. Of the powers and capacities of the refined and educated classes we have not yet had any great means for judging. The few in California are liberal and catholic and upright and public-spirited. They have talent for organization and business enterprise, and the promise of what they have done is one of hopefulness and encouragement.

I do not fully share the current notion that Mr. Wo Lee is the Perfect Servant for whose appearance our households have prayed with such fervency. Remembering Bridget’s tyranny and worthlessness, I made many inquiries as to his fitness for her kingdom. He is no more a natural cook than he is a natural gold-digger. He is willing to work in any station, and therefore accommodates himself to the service of the kitchen and dining-room. He can readily do almost anything that may be done with an intelligent use of the hand, and in a comparatively short time, under good instruction, make a skilful cook. He is rarely insolent or domineering, never imagines himself the owner of the house in which he is engaged, and applies himself steadily and faithfully to the business of the hour. He is generally neat enough in his person, but not always so in his surroundings, and has an unsavory habit of mixing truth and falsehood. He is attentive to his duties and careful with crockery and furniture, but his ideas of mine and thine with respect to small things are not quite so clear as they should be in a servant. He is easily seduced from his allegiance by an offer of higher wages, and somewhat subject to sudden and unexpected conclusions that service at the other end of town is preferable. He does not hold high and secret carousal in the basement, but he is a night-bird, and must often go out in the evening to see his friends. He is neither quarrelsome nor prone to anger, but when once inflamed his passion is malicious and destructive. He neither storms nor threatens, but at times his ways are far from being ways of pleasantness. The worst trait he has yet developed is that of inability to recognize the binding force of a contract. Unless special reasons exist for attachment to the family, there is never any certainty that he will remain till the great party or dinner is over. And when he gets ready to go he goes. The mistress may complain or remonstrate as she will ; he listens in silence, proffers no apology or explanation, and then walks away, serene and immovable, with little regard for his bargain or her convenience. He is much better “ help ” than Bridget ever was, but even he is not the Perfect Servant.

This peasant class adapts itself with cheerful facility to our methods of labor; on that head their presence will bring us no difficulty but such as patience and firmness can overcome. It will work for less wages than we now pay whites, and its expense for food and clothing will be considerably smaller. It has trades’ unions of its own, but has never yet indulged in strikes or combinations against capital. Whether It will develop anything of creative power is to be determined ; but, as already indicated, it has surpassing tact and skill in every kind of handicraft.

The higher class is quite a force in the business circles of San Francisco. The value of goods brought to that port last year from China and Japan was three and a quarter millions of dollars, and the records of the CustomHouse show that at least two thirds of the duties on this importation were paid by Chinese merchants. The rice import was thirty million pounds, and nearly the whole of it was on their orders. The tea import was two million three hundred thousand pounds, and they paid the duties on but little less than half of it. One of the largest business branches of business in the city is that of making cigars ; it is mostly managed and carried on by Chinese, and gives employment to about three thousand persons. The internal revenue officers told me that they have little trouble in collecting taxes from this class ; they are generally honest in making returns and prompt in paying their dues. On ’Change, the word of nearly all the Chinese mercantile houses is as good as that of American houses ; and I was assured, indeed, by a number of authorities, that the commercial honor of the Quarter is really very high.

The Quarter, quick to fall in with our ways of work, is slow to accept our beliefs and ways of thought. To our aggression it opposes passiveness like fate in its fixedness. On questions of morality the upper class is with us, even when the lower class is somewhat against us in practice; but as soon as we leave mere morals and touch religion, the whole body of the people is in the opposition. Coming over here they will bring Joss and his temple, Kwan Tae, and Kwa Toi, and Kwan Yin, and the other gods and goddesses, and all the religious and semi-religious festal days. I have purposely given much space to a statement of their peculiar views and customs. We shall have to accept the Chinese, and with them these customs ; there is no such thing as avoiding this conclusion.

But this strange people will bring us something, too, that is very good and wholesome. They are tender to the aged and infirm ; they look upon home as a sacred institution ; they inculcate the highest regard for parents ; they are courteous by instinct as well as by teaching ; they venerate the wise and upright among their ancestors ; they respect law and order and authority at all times ; they abstain from intoxicating liquors, and lead lives of quietness and thoughtfulness ; and from their sentiment toward the dead grow sweet flowers in the heart. We are prodigal and wasteful; they are frugal and economical. We nurture a genius for quick results, and pay the penalty of many failures ; they have learned to strive for sure results, and success rarely escapes their grasp. We are eager and changeful ; they are steady and well balanced. We continually reach out for the new and strange; they abide by the old, and are cheerful in routine. We aspire, and are nervous with longings ; they are not ashamed to do well whatever they find to do. They honor good government; they believe that integrity alone is worthy of station; they hold that promotion should rest on capacity and faithfulness ; they have swift methods of dealing with official rascals and peculators ; they are not impatient of the slow processes of the years, but know how to labor in faith and wait in contentment; if they are not progressive, they have at least conquered the secret of national and individual steadfastness.