Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 55

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Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.

JAN.

to be stuck. This piece of furniture is the gransu, or ancestral tablet, which though of Confucian origin, is held in high honor amongst the Budhists, and in their temples the names of the deceased abbots are enshrined and worshiped. The bonze having had his way, I insisted now on having mine; for had I allowed this table to be put back in its place, and everything been quiet afterwards (as has been the case), he would have triumphed, and the people been confirmed in their absurd superstitions, and even led to suppose that Christians also derived benefit from Budhistic witchcraft. On this ground, I peremptorily refused reädmission to the tablet, and am almost per- suaded it broke at least the regularity of the daily visits of the bonze to the temple.

Sometime after I threw out hints as to the inconsistency of a bonze coming so often to the temple, one would think, merely to look it my wife, a treat which he could not get anywhere else in the country; and I pleaded that since I was not permitted to see any of the wives of the respectable natives, no more should I be compelled to let my wife be courted but by those whom I would permit. Now I thought the bonze had less right than even other people to such a gratification. This was a very strong argument for these Confucian polygamists, who like Mohammedan hareem lords are ridiculously jealous; and to this objection, together with the absense of the representative of the dead, one if not the chief of their idols, I ascribe the gradual diminution and final suspension of idolatrous rites in our house. This done, we soon took away the partition, which infact made the whole secluded part only a haunt for vermin. By and by we shut up the cages of the different idols, but not without strong remonstrances to the contrary, as they conceive the inherent godhead dies without a good supply of light. Oh, how great is that darkness, that has need of daylight to keep its gods alive! They love darkness more than the light, for they know and admit that they are in the dark, but are fools enough to think any spiritual light coming directly upon them would do them no good, unless it was first reflected from the smeared faces of their saucy idols.

This then is the plain history of the cessation of idolatry in the Protector-temple of the empire of the independent sovereign of Lew- chew; and nothing is wanted but help from Christians to enable us to keep this house for ever a house of the living God, in whom there is no darkness at all, and to whose worship it has been consecrated more than three years. It is painful even to think of the possibility of idol worship being reëstablished on such a spot. How many hun-