New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable AwakeningBrown, Arthur Judson
History
New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable Awakening
Brown, Arthur Judson
China -- Commerce; China -- Foreign relations; China -- Politics and government; Missions -- China
I wish I had power to describe adequately all we saw in that
vast enclosure of about thirty acres, with its stately trees, its
paved avenues, its massive monuments, and, above all, its
imposing temple and scores of related buildings. One was the
Lieh Kew Kwei Chang Tien, the Temple of the Wall of the
Many Countries. Here are 120 tablets, each about sixteen by
twenty-two inches, and in the centre three larger ones measuring
two feet in width by four and a-half feet in height. In
front of these is a stone three and a-half feet by four and a-half,
and bearing the inscription: ``Tribute from the Ten Thousand
Countries of the World.'' The Chinese solemnly believe that
in these tablets all the nations of the earth have acknowledged
the preeminence of Confucius.
Then we visited three gloomy buildings where the animals for
sacrifice are killed--one for cattle, one for sheep and one for
pigs. Beyond them, we entered temples to the wife of Confucius,
to his parents and to the ``Five Generations of
Ancestors,'' though the last-mentioned contains tablets to nine
generations instead of five. On every side are scores of monuments,
erected by or in honour of famous kings, some of them
by the monarchs of dynasties which flourished before the Christian
era.
Most notable of all is the great temple of the sage himself,
standing well back on a spacious stone-paved terrace, around
which runs a handsome marble balustrade. The eye is at once
arrested by the twenty-eight noble marble pillars, ten in front,
ten in the rear and four at each end. The ten in front are
round and elaborately carved, as magnificent a series of columns
as I ever saw. The others are smooth, octagonal pillars, but
traced with various designs in black.
Within, there are twelve other columns about four feet in
diameter and twenty-five feet high, each cut from a single tree
and beautifully polished. Naturally, the central object of
interest is a figure of Confucius of heroic size but impossible
features. In front is the tablet with costly lacquered ornaments
and pedestals, and an altar on which were a bullock and
two pigs, each carefully scraped and dressed and lying with
heads towards the statue and tablet. In several other temples,
notably in the one to the Five Generations of Ancestors, other
animals were lying, some evidently offered the day before and
others awaiting the worship of the day now beginning.
Altogether I counted nineteen sacrificial animals--one bullock,
eight sheep and ten pigs. The great temple is of noble proportions,
with an overhanging roof of enormous size but constructed
on such graceful lines as to be exquisitely beautiful.
But within dust reigns, while without as usual the grass and
weeds grow unchecked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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