This account of a few of their superstitions will serve to show you in what constant trouble and dread the Chinese children live, for fear of the demons and spirits all round them, because they do not know and trust in God. When living among them one cannot but feel that they are like the people long ago, “who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Yet we may learn something from them too. The constant sense of the unseen world among the Chinese and their dread of offending the invisible spirits, should make us ask ourselves if we remember the unseen God as often, and are as careful not to offend against our loving, watchful Heavenly Father, as they are not to offend the spirits. CHAPTER XI REVERENCE FOR PARENTS “Things difficult to come by are a good son, long life, and a great beard.”--_Chinese Proverb._ The Chinese say that filial piety is the chief of virtues, and many show by their actions that they believe the saying. They care for their fathers and mothers, obey their wishes, and are careful in the use of their property. “A good son will not use the portion divided for him; a good daughter will not wear her marriage clothes,” say the Chinese. The following story shows how sorry they are when they think that they have offended against their parents in any way. In 1908 a traveller met a young man on his way to a famous temple on the top of a mountain in Hunan. The lad had lost his mother and he was very sad because he thought that her death must have been caused by some wrong thing which he had done, either in this life or in some previous existence. He felt sure that if he had not been guilty of some very wicked action, Heaven never would have taken away his mother whilst he was still so young. In order to make up for what he thought to be his crime, he vowed to walk sixty miles to the temple, bowing down to the ground every seven steps which he took. He must have knelt over 250 times in a mile, or more than 15,000 times in all. To ill-use one’s father or mother is a fault for which there is no forgiveness in China. Some years ago, in one of the cities of the south, a boy who was unkind to his mother and spent his time in gambling, instead of working for her support, was punished by being buried alive. The following story shows how much power fathers and mothers have over their children, even when they are grown to be men and women. Once there was a Hunan man, named Chiu, who fought bravely against the ‘long-haired rebels,’ and rose to high office in the Canton province. His mother, a big woman with unbound feet and a face marked by small-pox, was a person of strong character who had trained her children to be dutiful and always to obey.