A Winter in North China

One cannot be long in China without feeling how difficult it is to understand the religions which prevail there, and to determine with any approach to accuracy the religious position of the ordinary Chinaman. The difficulty results from the fact that there are several distinct, or at least distinguishable systems, not only existing side by side as separate and rival religions, but often blended together in the most remarkable and confusing manner. Confucianism is universally prevalent, and the rites of ancestral worship, with sundry modifications, are universally maintained; but with these there will be very often mixed up, and not infrequently in a very grotesque way, some recognition of the claims and pretensions of Buddhism or Taouism, or both. A Chinaman thinks it wise and prudent, without committing himself too deeply to any one of these systems, to keep on reasonably good terms with all. The various religious observances in which he from time to time takes part do not involve a very large expenditure of either time or money, and may possibly, he thinks, in some unthought-of way, bring to him some good, or avert from him some evil, in this world or the next.

And it is not only the poor and ignorant who exhibit this strange blending of different religions without any apparent sense of inconsistency. It is seen in all classes, from the highest to the lowest.