Sculptural art also has left nothing undone to represent the god as animated by the worst passions of man, but skill and ingenuity must inevitably stop short of the final act necessary to convince man that communication is possible between him and the spirit world. In order to bridge this chasm a class of men and women called sorcerers (_mo-han_ and _sheng-po_) has come into being, whose work it is to be the spokesmen of the gods. With deliberate intent and elaborate ritual they develop the mediumistic gift, and learn how to attain conditions of frenzy and of trance during which period the body is controlled by a spiritualistic force. Not only as the medium of the gods, but also as a resting-place for longer or shorter periods to the homeless, unclean spirit, do these sorcerers serve. At tremendous physical cost--for the medium is never long-lived--they accumulate great wealth, exorbitant sums being demanded in recognition of services rendered when freeing a family or village from the visitations of a tormenting _gwei_. When sickness enters his home, the Chinaman's instinct is to attribute it to any cause rather than a natural one; his appeal on such occasions is to the sorcerer whose time is largely occupied in giving what is called medical advice, but is in reality the practising of the rites of exorcism. Sometimes he will declare that the spirit of a sick person has strayed from the body, and means will be set on foot to secure its return. A woman I know, whose boy had apparently died from typhoid fever, was told that his spirit had been enticed away by a god whose shrine was built on the mountain side near the city where she lived. She took the child's coat and walked to the temple; here, standing before the idol, she burned incense and begged that the boy's spirit might be restored to her. Holding the child's coat open to receive it, she swayed to and fro, and with heart-rending cries besought it to return. She waited until she felt her request had been granted, and with a movement as though to enfold the little wandering ghost, she clasped the coat in her arms and swiftly returning home, laid it upon the lifeless body. The child revived, and is alive to this day.