Sea,” and “the Lord of the Tide.” The temples of the Dragon King are also favorite resorts of worshipers, who in all convulsions of nature recognize the agency of this potent and amphibious monster. Serpents are looked upon as manifestations of this deity, and in times of flood often receive worship at the hands of the educated and the uneducated alike. During the flood which overspread the country round Tient-sin, in the year 1874, a serpent sought shelter in a temple near the city, and ensconced himself beneath one of the altars. Far from desiring to get rid of the intruder, the priests welcomed it as a sacred guest of good omen, and Li-Hung-chang, the viceroy of the province, came in person to pay reverence to it as the personification _of the Dragon King_. [Illustration: THE THREE PURE ONES.] [Illustration: GOD OF THE KITCHEN.] [Illustration: GOD OF THUNDER.] [Illustration: CARRYING THE DRAGON.] [Illustration: DRAGON BOAT-RACES, A CHINESE FESTIVAL.] THE GOD OF LETTERS. Apart from these more general deities are gods who preside over the different pursuits and callings of men. As the number of deities is unlimited, and as it is obviously to the interest of the priests to encourage worship of whatever kind at their temples, there has never been any difficulty in adding a god or two to the Pantheon. Thus students have chosen to appropriate to themselves a god, who is supposed to watch over the literary efforts of his votaries. _Wan-chang te-keun_, or the god of literature, is, according to legend, the disembodied spirit of Chang Chung, an official of the Chow Dynasty. Under subsequent dynasties, he appeared on earth in the persons of men renowned for their scholarship and virtue, and finally, under the Yuen Dynasty, he was deified under the title of “Supporter of the Yuen Dynasty, diffuser of renovating influences, Sze-luh of Wan-chang, God and Lord.” Such is the Chinese conception. [Illustration: CHARM TO WARD OFF EVIL SPIRITS FROM A BRIDE.] [Illustration: GOD OF THIEVES.] CHARMS.