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SURGEON-GENERAL C. A. GORDON, M.D., C.B._, Q.H.P., ETC., 



towards their deity. In their discussions with other missionaries 

 they in fact contended that what the Chinese worshipped was the 

 immaterial Heaven. The result was an angry controversy, and 

 the difference between the Jesuits and their contemporaries on 

 this jDoint contributed mainly to the expulsion of both, and over two 

 centuries ago. 



There is in the paper a reference to the human frame -which I 

 think requires a little observation. The respect of the Chinese for 

 the body and the disiinctious that they draw in their punishments 

 between punishment which mutilates the body and that which 

 does not mutilate the body, is referable to considerations which we 

 could not be pi'epared for. It is referable to the relation of the 

 son to the father. The mutilation of the body, the loss of an arm, 

 to say nothing of the loss of the head, is considered a reflection on 

 the parents, in that it is a mutilation of the body bestowed upon 

 the child by the parent. Therefore the ci-iminality of a bad act, 

 which involves death by mutilation of the person, is aggravated by 

 the ver}^ fact that the body will have to be mutilated in the 

 punishment of it. 



And so we draw on to the question of ancestral worship and 

 burial. I think one might say, before we come to ancestral 

 worship, that the Chinese have regarded the practice of burial of 

 the dead, from very early times, as a distinct mark of civilization. 

 In the recorded utterances of the philosopher Mencius, the 

 greatest of the representatives of the Confucian doctrine, who 

 preached two generations after him, the fact that certain savage 

 people had no knowledge of sepulture, is mentioned as strong 

 evidence of their barbarism ; and it being, in the minds of the 

 Chinese, so sacred a rite, it is not to be wondered that the people 

 who had put before them the duty of the child to the parent, 

 should pay particular attention to the rite of sepulture and to the 

 graves in which their forefathers are buried. I have never been 

 able to regard the Worship of Ancestors as a rite to be summarily 

 put down. I do not regard it as an idolatrous rite. The tombs 

 ore repaired twice a year ; in the spring and autumn. A tablet, 

 it is true, is exhibited with a number of characters on it ; but 

 there is no image and no image worship. There are offerings set 



