Many wonderful stories are told of the mysterious ceremonies of the Manchu court at night; how soldiers suddenly lined Meridian Street, and no Chinese could leave his house but on pain of death. Then the Wu Men gate of the Forbidden City was thrown open under the smoking torches, and the pale Emperor Kwang Hsu was carried forth, robed in yellow, and his courtiers in red, gold and blue. Down Meridian Street they noiselessly marched southward, the soldiers turning _volte-face_ along the street. The Chien Men gate into the Chinese city was thrown open, and through its Meridian Street the procession continued south for two miles to the temples and the open altar of Heaven, where midnight sacrifices of a black bullock, burned silk, grain and wine were made; a worship as old and as simple as that of the patriarchial days of Abraham. It was the worship of the ancestral Chou clan, which Confucius chronicled and the Manchu adopted so as to keep himself in veneration; and this right of sacrifice he has maintained in his abdication. The Pope Mikado has also retained his right to make similar sacrifices. Surely if the main hold on eastern peoples is to be a superstitious one, it is not so strong a hold as the republicans of China intend to set up in the minds and hearts of the new nation. God’s name was simply called “Tien”; i. e., heaven or sky. Then the procession hurried back long before the non-Manchus were awake. Other mysterious things happened in the night. The Wu Men gate was opened, and all courtiers and ministers then alone had their audience with the screened crown head. During the long regency of the Dowager Empress Tse Hsi and her predecessors, China was a land ruled by midnight decisions, and justice was as dark as the muffled and mysterious hour. Executions of the prominent were held at night on the common Meridian Road, which had been blocked off by soldiers. You never know at Peking when your passenger cart is standing over the altar of a life which was persecuted and sacrificed for opinion’s sake. No wonder that the Chinese, like other long-suffering reformers, are saying under their breath: “We have had enough of ‘plants’ and deeds done in darkness; let there be light.”