Held by Superstition

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 26, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 45.

Held by Superstition.

As EVIDENCE of the power of superstition over minds that have always been held in bondage to it, a missionary in China tells of a man who wishes to renounce idolatry and join the church, but is kept back by his wife, who is willing to give up all her idols but one. This woman has "one only son of her old age, all her former children having died. She has made a sort of vow to their household divinity—the kitchen god, Tsao Wang—that, if he will spare her this son, she will not unlock from the child's neck an iron collar which she placed there in his first year. This collar is locked with a key which she carefully guards till the specified time, namely, till the boy is twelve years old. The idea seems to be that if this collar is removed before, the vow is broken, and the god is not bound to fulfill his part of the contract.

"This kitchen god is a paper picture of the god and his attendants, usually pasted on the mud stove. It is so cheap—costing only one cent—that the poorest can have its protecting presence. I could not baptize the husband, because, out of respect to his wife's feelings, he would not take down and destroy this idol. They were willing to destroy all the rest, including several expensive ones, and many ancestral tablets. The wife said she knew the god was nothing—but if her boy should die! Alas, the power of superstitious fears! This bit of paper keeps this whole family away from God."