The Americans at home have established a beautiful custom of casting wreaths into the sea on Decoration Day in commemoration of the dead who were buried or lost at sea, and there is a similar custom at Venice and elsewhere. The Chinese, too, have a Decoration or All Souls’ Day, which is observed by the adherents of the three religions in the first week of September. Red boats and lanterns are set afloat, and the priests burn paper clothing, money and food, and set off firecrackers. Where the ceremony takes place on land, it is customary to throw copper money to the street gamins. The festival is also observed at the magisterial yamens and temples, and Wing Lok Street, Hongkong, is noted for the characteristic observance of the ceremony. The rise of republicanism is going to strike a hard blow at one of the main teachings of Confucianism, “serving the prince,” because there will be no prince to serve and also at “li,” the rule of blind obedience to those in power; following the trade of the parent; destroying children; self-disfigurement; concubinage; expensive funerals and priest-craft; abuse of women; blind worship of the past; suicide of purchased wives; exaggeration of man and minimizing of God; neglect of organized charities and of science and comparative history. This change will make the introduction of Christianity more hopeful. It is to be expected that the worship of ancestors will also weaken, and with it will weaken the custom of early marriages. The Chinese have too many children to educate properly, as the Americans and French have probably too few. A somewhat smaller China would mean a richer and better China. Catholic missions began in China when by caravan Corvina visited Kublai Khan, at Peking, in 1292 A. D. Ricci arrived at Canton in 1582 and worked in many of the provincial capitals and at Macao and Peking. Schaal worked from 1622 to 1664 and had influence with the greatest and most artistic Manchu emperor, Kang Hi. Abbé Huc covered the country from Peking and Tibet to Macao from 1844 onward. The chief educational centers of the Romanists are at Peking, Tientsin, Canton, Macao, Saigon and Hongkong. The large press and college of the Missiones d’Etrangeres is at Hongkong (Aberdeen side of the island). At Peking is their extensive Pei Tang press. They have large, two-spired Gothic cathedrals at Canton, Peking, etc. The square towered cathedral on Caine Road, Hongkong, is the architectural crown of the lovely colony. The Catholics number 1,500,000, their work being strong in orphanages, among women, etc., and in comparison with Protestant missions very weak in higher education and the distributed Bible itself. They consider it expedient to train the child rather than to make the expensive experiment of reasoning with and educating the man. Therefore most of the modernized Chinese officials are Protestants. Naturally the Catholic method brings more converts than does the Protestant.