They do many things almost in a way directly the contrary of that in which we do it. Their customs and ideas are diametrically opposite to ours. “We read horizontally, they perpendicularly; and the columns run from right to left. We uncover the head as a mark of respect, they put on their caps. We black our boots, they whiten them. We give the place of honor on the right, they on the left. We say the needle points to the north, they to the south. We shake the hand of a friend in salutation, they shake their own. We locate the understanding in the brain, they in the belly. We place our foot-notes at the bottom of a page, they at the top. In our libraries we set our books up, they lay theirs down. We now turn thousands of spindles and ply hundreds of shuttles without a single hand to propel, they employ a hand for each.” [Illustration: A CHINESE BOOK.] But the most singular thing of all, perhaps, is the language. The fundamental conception of the language is ideographic. It is entirely monosyllabic, and has only characters, no alphabet or letters. In one respect it is as colossal as the nation in the number of its characters. Every character is the name of a thing. An immense number of seemingly arbitrary signs is therefore to be mastered. The labor is alleviated, however, by the fact that there are certain root forms, variously estimated at from 315 to 4,000. Out of the characters 214 have been selected as keys or radicals, one or other of which is found in every character of the language. The number of words contained in the official dictionary is 43,500, and other authorities reckon as many more. But the missionary Doolittle, affirms that a knowledge of 3,000 or 4,000 characters is sufficient for the reading of most books. The most complicated characters in the language contain fifty-two strokes, but such are very rare. The language is still further complicated in its pronunciation by a system of tones, which vary according to the meaning of the word. The language, like the people, is of the earth earthy, for among its thousands of words rankly luxuriant there, there was found to be no expression suitable to express one of the graces of the spirit, and it was for half a century a matter of grave discussion what should be the proper rendering of the word God. THE THREE CHINESE RELIGIONS. A Chinaman may at the same time be an adherent of all three of the national religions. The mass of the Chinese people accept the three, and see no inconsistency in so doing. It is somewhat as if we Americans were at the same time Protestant, Romanist and skeptic. The Chinese support the priests of all religions, worship in all their temples, and believe in the gods of each and all. These three religions differ from each other, however. Dr. Edkins has so well defined this difference that we give his words: