Among such a people, how much should you expect to find of the Sacred Mysteries?--There were the Nine Tripods of Ta Yu with the king at Honanfu, to say that his kinghood had behind it symbolic sanctions; there was the Book of Changes; there was the system of the Duke of Chow, more dishonored in the breach than honored in the observance.... For the rest, you might as well look for the Eleusinia in Chicago. Who could believe in religion, those days?--Well; it was the pride of some of the little duchies and marquisates to keep up a reputa-tion for orthodoxy: there was Lu in Shantung, for example,-very strict.* (As strictness went, we may say.) And if you wished to study ritual, you went up to Honanfu to do so; where, too, was the National or Royal Library, where profitable years might be spent. But who, except enthusiasts, was to treat religion seriously? --when one saw the doddering Head of Religion yearly flouted, kicked about and hustled in his own capital by his Barbarian Highness the 'King'--so he must now style himself and be styled, where in better days 'Count Palatine' or 'Lord Marcher' would have served his turn well enough--of Ts'in or Tsin or Ts'i or Ts'u, who would come thundering down with his chariots when he pleased, and without with-your-leave or by-your-leave, march past the very gates of Honanfu;--and lucky if he did march past, and not come in and stay awhile; --on his way to attacking his Barbarian Highness the 'King' of somewhere else. The God that is to be sincerely worshiped must, as this world goes, be able now and then to do some little thing for his vicegerent on earth; and Heaven did precious little in those days for the weakling King-pontiff puppets at Honanfu. A mad world, my masters! ------ * _Ancient China Simplified:_ E. Harper Parker;--also much drawn on. ------