One day, I begged of a good-natured, large-bellied, Priest to explain to me; and ventured to ask him if the _Creed_ was really an Article of Belief, or only a formal and meaningless Invocation--like some of the mummeries [phin-zi] of our Superstitious Sects. He looked surprised; but when he saw that he was thus accosted by a "_Heathen Chinee_" (as these Barbarians always contemptuously call the inhabitants of our Central Land), he merely said: "Why, you have in China our Missionaries to enlighten your darkness; have you never met them?" "No; I have heard of them at Shanghai; but they do not speak our tongue, nor do we understand them; and their teachings, even if understood, would attract no attention from the _Literati_, who would consider them as unworthy of notice as any other Superstition." "How so? our Religion is no Superstition; it is the true and _only_ true Religion, revealed by God himself to his chosen people, and miraculously preserved for all believers." "I bow before your Illustrious mind and body; but we have, and have had from time immemorial, just such pretensions; they are as old as history." "I will not argue; but look at the excellency of our divine religion!" "Where shall I look? If you mean the excellency of certain moral principles, there is nothing peculiar to your _Sect_ in them. They have been taught in our schools for thousands of years--they _are_ excellent; they show the divine in man--man is of the divine; morality comes of that." "But look at your frightful vices; at your Pagan worship--see the effects of idolatry!" "I bow to your Illustrious mind." I saw my effort to obtain any reasonable explanation was fruitless; I made my obeisance and left. What an illustration of ignorant and superstitious conceit! Vice, thousands of miles beyond sea, so dreadful; the vice at hand, defiling every corner, unseen! The only true Religion of this Priest will not see, or, seeing, he will not believe that it is Vice--or, at any rate, idolatrous--pagan Vice! I could not believe, at first, that the _Superstition_ was more than a Form, kept up merely for the advantage of the Priests. The sharp intellects of the Barbarians, applied so fruitfully to useful arts, seemed stultified, if I held to their actual belief. I doubted the honesty of the Priests; I knew the bad character of many of the Bonzes of our Superstitious Sects. Now, better acquainted with the imperfect civilization of the people, I am not moved by these ignorant and bigoted displays. Poverty, vice, and drunkenness; crimes of violence and fraud, are rife among the Barbarians. The Temples, ordered and maintained by the _Queen-Pope_, are, for the most part--especially in great cities--empty. The Sects of the Low-Caste people, despised by the High-Caste, are far more zealous worshippers, though not better _Christians_. The funds raised to support the great Temples and the Priests, are nearly all absorbed by them, and the Temples left ruinous.