BRIDGE TEMPLES AND IDOLS IN CHINA.
A MISSIONARY in China writes: “Every bridge here of any size is a temple. It is considered a work of merit to build a bridge. So when someone builds a bridge, hoping thereby to obtain merit, it has a roof of wood, and in the middle a shrine is built, containing idols, nearly always the three precious ones, that is, the Buddhas, and two or three smaller idols or figures, supposed to be attending on the idol. The idols are painted brilliant colors, and have real hair and beards (tho a Chinaman seldom has any beard), and before each is placed a bowl, filled with sand or earth, in which passers-by stick lighted incense sticks. In a day’s walk of 20 miles you would cross over perhaps 3 or 4 such bridges (and innumerable smaller ones), and pass perhaps 30 little wayside houses containing tablets and idols, and perhaps 20 temples of all sizes and degrees of dirt; and every now and again you see some one putting in incense sticks and bowing several times with clasped hands before the idols. The whole land is full of idols. A temple generally contains from 30 to 100 idols; and yet, if you talk to the people about them, a great many will acknowledge that the idols can not possibly help or protect them. The truth is that they are afraid—desperately afraid—of what the idols might be able to do to them. They fear the spirits that they believe live in the idols. The missionaries can tell them better.”—Gospel in All Lands.