194 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I42 



shocked at what was happening, others were very radical. There were 

 those who adopted the opinion that all that was old was practically 

 useless and should be exchanged for something new. Conservative 

 people were regarded by them as old fogies. A Chinese newspaper in 

 1934 expressed such an opinion about Chinese temples and monu- 

 ments, praising buildings of foreign style. This was answered by an 

 article in the China Journal (Sowerby, 1934, pp. 1-3), which as- 

 serted that China has a glorious past and that in many phases it has 

 excelled foreign culture. 



The innovations and changes due to contacts with Western culture 

 were not all material ; even more important were ideas. In time 

 religion was bound to be seriously affected, and many began to notice 

 new tendencies and changes. For instance, in March 1928 in the 

 town of T'ung-chiang in eastern Szechwan, the students went to the 

 Board of Aldermen and asked permission to destroy the idols. The 

 reply was that they could, but to wait a while. The students were in 

 a hurry and paraded the streets shouting, "Destroy the power of the 

 gods." A few idols were carried away on the backs of their worshipers 

 and saved, but the rest were destroyed. This occurred on the birthday 

 of Sen Yat Sen, on the third day of the third moon. 



It was about this time that the leaders of Li-tuan-ch'ang, a village 

 southeast of Suifu, decided that idols were false and useless. They 

 turned temples into schools, shops, hotels, and the like, and destroyed 

 all the idols but three. At first they intended to destroy all of them, 

 but because some of the most ignorant people believed in these gods 

 and refrained from crime for fear of the punishment of the gods, 

 they decided to leave three of the gods in one temple as a moral re- 

 straint on the believers. 



Religious changes became more and more evident. Not all of these 

 were for the good of the Chinese people. Many beautiful memorial 

 arches were torn down and their stone used for other purposes. First, 

 most of the property of the temples was confiscated, then some of 

 the temples were confiscated and sold, and others were occupied en- 

 tirely or in part by soldiers, officials, schools, hospitals, police de- 

 partments, and other organizations. Contributions to temples and 

 worshipers gradually decreased. Door gods decreased in number until 

 they entirely disappeared. Pilgrims to famous temples and to sacred 

 mountains decreased until there were fewer than one-tenth as many as 

 there had been before. The great festivals on the birthdays of the 

 gods that included gigantic parades and feasts and theatricals were 

 entirely discontinued because of lack of funds. Occasionally one 



