2l8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I42 



ment by Christians. There will be a real loss to the Chinese if these ideals and 

 teachings are forgotten. 



There is so much good in filial piety that we need not take time to discuss it. 

 We would merely suggest that the strong emphasis on the duty of filialness on 

 the part of the children should be balanced by an emphasis on the duty of parents, 

 to do the best they can for their children, physically, mentally, morally, and 

 spiritually. 



Ancestor worship is closely related to filial piety. It is unfortunately named 

 in English, which makes it more difficult for occidentals to judge it fairly. There 

 are high and noble sentiments in ancestor worship, which might better be called 

 the ancestral cult. The fundamentals of the ancestral cult in China are love, 

 reverence, gratitude, and respect for parents and other ancestors. To lose the 

 best in "ancestor worship" would be harmful to the Chinese and to Christianity. 



During the past centuries of human history the people of all races and nation- 

 alities have had to come out of ignorance, supersition, and comparative savagery 

 into an age of enlightenment, and the highest stage of enlightenment, the per- 

 fect society, is still in the future. Worse criticisms can justly be made of occi- 

 dental customs, at least if we go back a few decades or centuries, than I now 

 oflfer about the Chinese practices in the ancestral cult. 



Enlightened Chinese do not regard the ancestors as gods, so that to them the 

 practice of the ancestral cult is not idolatry. But the more ignorant masses in 

 China do regard the deceased ancestors as deities. They have a proverb, "Living 

 they are men, when dead they are gods." Christian enlightenment should enable 

 a family to commemorate deceased ancestors with love, gratitude, and reverence, 

 without the idea that they are gods. 



In China a family, to pay for a costly funeral or a very expensive grave, will 

 sometimes go so deeply into debt that the descendants are handicapped for 

 decades. This should be discouraged. 



With the idea that the deceased ancestors need food, clothing, houses, money, 

 etc., vast sums of money are expended on offerings and the burning of "paper 

 money." This is a waste, and new and better methods should be found. 



Many persons believe that the soul of the dead person lives in the ancestral 

 tablet, and that the deceased ancestor is a deity. If the ancestral tablet should 

 be retained, it is important that the idealism in this custom be changed. 



The belief that the deceased ancestor, if not offered spirit money and food, 

 will become a demon and harm people, will not appeal to the intelligent Chinese 

 now or in the future. 



Old customs that are good and not harmful may and should be continued. In 

 some cases, like the Christian Christmas festival, the old custom may well be 

 continued with a new and better interpretation. But if the old custom, like 

 footbinding, is harmful and cannot be given a new and better interpretation, the 

 custom should be discontinued or a better one substituted for it. 



The above statements are not perfect and can be improved upon, 

 but the fact that the Chinese religious leaders were seriously facing 

 these problems and had invited me to participate in the discussion 

 should emphasize the importance, on the part of the missionary or 

 of any other occidental living and working in the Orient, of under- 



