Now, mighty and overwhelming though the living force of Chinese life may be, it is an undoubted fact that the dead and sleeping nation, as a religious factor, in many respects controls and dominates the living tides of men that impress us so vividly with their vast numbers. Even the casual traveller in China cannot help but be impressed with the way in which the graves of the dead thrust themselves upon the attention of the living. There is no getting away from them. The mountain sides very often are so thickly covered with them that one has to tread upon them if one would pass from one part to another. Every uncultivated spot on the lower levels has been eagerly seized upon as spaces where to bury the dead. Even the cultivated fields have been invaded by them, and mounds right in the centre of some diminutive rice or potato patches show how the little farm has been narrowed down in order to make room for some members of the family that have passed away. These graves thrust themselves up to the edge of the great roads, and seem to be prevented from grasping even them only by the incessant march of the countless feet that hurry along them from dawn till dark. The clearings and little hills outside the cities that cannot be used for cultivation are all seized upon as unprotected cemeteries for the dead, and the little mounds like tidal waves advance up to the very edge of the walls of the town, and are stayed in their progress only by these huge bulwarks. But it is not simply by the signs that appeal to the eye that one gets an idea which is apt to appal one of the vast problem of the dead in China. In countless houses throughout the land, and more especially in those of the rich, one is astonished to find how many lie in their coffins, hermetically sealed, for weeks and months, without being buried. It is a most gruesome sight, and would give an Englishman the shivers to have the dead in the next room for many months and sometimes for years. Now, it is an unquestionable fact that the "dead hand" is a most mighty and a most potent factor in the religious life of the people of China. All the gods and goddesses that are worshipped throughout the Empire are not believed to have the same influence over human life in sending misery or in bestowing happiness as the dead members of a family have in regard to their relatives that are still alive on the earth. A man, for example, dies. He was a poor worthless fellow when he left the earth, and his life was a constant record of failure and incapacity. He never accomplished anything, and he was a mere nonentity not only in society but also in his own home till the very last. All that is changed now, and as he lies in his tomb he has acquired a new power that, in conjunction with the unseen forces that are supposed to gather round the grave, will enable him to pour riches and power upon the home he has left.