In religious matters the Chinese are more tolerant than we. They let the religions of others alone, but naturally and rightly demand that others shall let theirs alone. In China, as in other Oriental countries where the color line is not drawn and where slavery itself is a light affliction, the mental attitude of the zealot who finds gratification in “spreading the light” of which he deems himself custodian, is not understood. Like most things not understood, it is felt to be bad, and is indubitably offensive. V At a church club meeting a paper was read by a minister, entitled, “Why the Masses Do Not Attend the Churches.” This good and pious man was not ashamed to account for it by the fact that there is no Sunday law, and “the masses” can find recreation elsewhere, even in the drinking saloons. It is frank of him to admit that he and his professional brethren have not brains enough to make religious services attractive; but if it is a fact he must not expect the local government to assist in spreading the gospel by rounding-up the people and corralling them in the churches. The truth is, and this gentleman suspects it, that “the masses” stay out of hearing of his pulpit because there he talks nonsense of the most fatiguing kind; they would rather do any one of a thousand other things than go to hear it. These parsons are like a scolding wife who grieves because her husband will not pass his evenings with her. The more she grieves the more she scolds, and the more diligently he stays away from her. Satan is not conspicuously wise, but he is in the main a good entertainer, with a right pretty knack at making people come again; but the really reprehensible part of his performance is not the part that attracts them. The parsons might study his methods with advantage to religion and morality. It may be urged that religious services have not entertainment for their object. But the people, when not engaged in business or labor, have it for _their_ object. If the clergy do not choose to adapt their ministrations to the characters of those to whom they wish to minister, that is their own affair; but let them accept the consequences. “The masses” do not really enjoy Sunday at all; they try to get through the day in the manner that is least wearisome to the spirit. Possibly their taste is not what it ought to be. If the minister were a physician of bodies instead of souls, and patients who had not called him in should refuse to take the medicine which he thought his best and they his nastiest, he should either offer them another, a little less disagreeable if a little less efficacious, or let them alone. In no case is he justified in asking the civil authority to hold their noses while he plies the spoon.