In considering all systems of idolatry and superstition, one significant fact stands prominent, _the utter neglect of religious training of the young_. China’s three great religions have nothing answering to the Christian Sunday school. Of course, boys and girls pick up some religious ideas in their intercourse with those about them. But nobody ever deliberately sits down to tell them of this god and that god, their origin, character and power. Only incidentally is such knowledge conveyed. There are many religious books; but from the difficulty of learning to read, they are necessarily sealed to the young mind. If the young are told to worship this idol and that idol, they never understand why and wherefore they should do this. In time they comprehend that they do it to obtain favor and to gain merit. I well remember the first time I was led to a temple and there told to bend my knees to the idol decked out in a gorgeous robe, its face blackened by the smoke from the incense. On either side of the room stood four huge idols, with stern and forbidding faces. One of them was especially frightful. It was the God of Thunder represented by an image having the body of a man and the head of a highly caricatured rooster. This idol had a hammer in one hand and a large nail in the other, with which he is supposed to strike wicked persons. This god made such an impression on me that I had a horrible dream about it that very night. I saw him clad in fierceness; he moved his hands threateningly. Almost choked with fright though I was, I managed to cry out and that awoke me. On account of the conservative spirit of the Chinese, their traditions, the pure morals which Confucius taught, the peculiar school system, and the prejudices which they justly entertain against foreigners, the work of missionaries must progress slowly. Something _has_ been done during the last fifty years. The land has been surveyed and its needs and capabilities made known. CHAPTER VIII. CHINESE HOLIDAYS. It would be a matter of many chapters were I to describe all the holidays which we have in China. The bare enumeration of them would be as difficult as tedious. In point of fact we have almost as many holidays and festivals as there are days in the year. Each prominent idol has a birthday, also an anniversary of his death, both of which are celebrated. There are some—the Goddess of Mercy, for instance—who have half a dozen days sacred to them. There are a number of deities, great persons deified, that are common to the nation; while each city, town and hamlet, has numerous local deities who are its special protectors.