350 
A GENERAL VIEW OF WHAT ARE REGARDED 
spiritual ministers, and Ti k’i,-—earthly, or inferior ones. These 
shin are the objects whom the Chinese universally worship. 
They rarely build any temple for the worship of Shang ti ; there 
is not one such temple in Amoy, and only one has been erected in 
the large city of Chiang Chow. 
Still the people universally pay to heaven, or to heaven’s lord, a 
sort of heartless homage daily. Every Chinese house has a lantern 
suspended outside the street door, and directly over the middle of 
the door way, which they call Then hung tang,—heaven’s lord’s 
lantern, or simply Then tang, heaven’s lantern. These lanterns are 
all lighted up, and incense is bnrnt for him, during a short time 
every evening. 
Also one day in every year they profess to devote to his honour—— 
the 9th day of their 1st month,—which they call his birth day ! Then 
they have plays acted to please him ! They spread out tables also, 
and load them with cooked meats and cakes and fruits, and have 
pigs and goats killed and placed, whole and raw, on frames besides 
those tables. 
With this meagre outward homag^paid to heaven the people rest 
quite satisfied. They never think it is their duty to worship God 
in the spirit; nor of regarding, in any way, his authority over them. 
But to Shang ti’s supposed spiritual ministers, the innumerable 
shin, they erect very many temples throughout the whole land; and 
to the images they make of these shin they render perpetual wor¬ 
ship. The people generally are well aware that the images are mere¬ 
ly the work of man's hand ; and before they are consecrated, they 
regard them simply as toys. But after an image has become sacred 
by the performance of certain ceremonies, they believe that the idol, 
or shin, has taken possession of it, and that then it should be regard¬ 
ed as a proper object of worship. These ceremonies are performed 
by Taouist priest,—the Bhudist priests being considered incapable 
of performing them. After a particular image has been got, and 
set up in its place, a table is covered with food, candles are lighted, 
and incense sticks are burnt,—the priest meanwhile audibly reciting 
the set number of prayers ; he then takes a pencil, and with the blood 
