By the Golden Gate; Or, San Francisco, the Queen City of the Pacific Coast / With Scenes and Incidents Characteristic of its Life

by Joseph Carey

CHAPTER X

THE JOSS-HOUSE, CHINESE IMMIGRATION AND CHINESE THEOLOGY

In Chinatown—Conception of God—The Joss House—Chinese Mottoes—The Joss a Chinaman—Greek and Egyptian Ideas of God—Different Types of Madonnas—Chinese Worship and Machine Prayers—The Joss-House and the Christian Church—Chinese Immigration—Chinamen in the United States—A Plague Spot—Fire Crackers and Incense Sticks—The Lion and the Hen—The Man with Tears of Blood—Filial Piety—The Joss—Origin of the World—Creation of Man—Spirits of the Dead—Ancestral Rites—The Chinese Emperor—What Might Have Been—The Hand of God.

Our study of Chinatown and the civilisation of the country of the Yellow Dragon, as seen in the City of the Golden Gate, has thus far brought us in contact with the social and business life of the Chinese and their amusements; but we are now to visit one of their temples of worship, the Joss-House. And here the real man will be revealed; for it is in religious services and ceremonies and beliefs that we get a true knowledge of a race or a nation. The conception of God which you have is the key to your character. If your views of Deity are low and ignoble you will not achieve any greatness in the world; but if on the other hand you invest the Being Whom you worship with noble attributes and look upon Him as just and holy, a God of mercy and judgment, your breast will be animated with grand thoughts and lofty ideals will impel you to the performance of heroic deeds. The word Joss, which we use for a Chinese idol or god, seems to be derived from the Portugese, Dios, or rather it is the Pidgin English of Dios. A Joss-House then is a Chinese idol or god-house. We are now standing before such a place of worship. This is on the corner of Kearney and Pine Streets, and is built of brick, and as we look up we see that it is three stories high. There is a marble slab over the entrance with an inscription which tells us that this building is the Sze-Yap Asylum. Let us enter. The lower story, we find, is given up to business of one kind or another connected with the Sze-Yap Immigration Society. This, we note, is richly adorned with valuable tapestries and silken hangings, and the rich colours attract the eye at once. If you wish to sit down you can, and enjoy the novelty of the scene. For here are easy chairs which invite you to rest. In your inspection of the place you venture to peer into the room back of this, and you perceive at once that there is the lounging place of the establishment. You see men on couches perfectly at ease and undisturbed by your presence, smoking cigarettes or opium, the Chinaman's delight. If you desire to penetrate further into the building you will come to the kitchen where the dainty dishes of the Chinese are cooked; but you retreat and ascend a staircase in the southeast corner of the first room, and soon you are in the Joss-House proper. This second story is devoted exclusively to religious purposes. The room to which you are now introduced is about thirty feet square, and as you look around you perceive the hangings on the walls and the rich decorations of the ceiling. Here are placards on the walls, which, your guide will tell you, if you are not conversant with the Chinese tongue, bear on them sentences from the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and others, with exhortations to do nothing against integrity or virtue, to venerate ancestors and to be careful not to injure one's reputation in the eyes of Americans;—all of which is most excellent advice, and worthy of the attention of men everywhere. You then cast your eyes on the gilded spears, and standards and battle-axes standing in the corners of the Temple, and as you look up you almost covet the great Chinese lanterns suspended from the ceiling. Your eyes are finally directed to the altar, near which, and on it, are flowers artificial and natural. At the rear in a kind of a niche in the Joss or god. The figure of this deity was like a noble Chinaman, well-dressed, with a moustache, and having in his eyes a far-away expression. He wore a tufted crown, which made him look somewhat war-like. It is but natural that this Joss should be a blind man. The Greek gods and goddesses have Greek countenances. The idolatrous nations fashion their deities after their own likeness. And what are these but deified human beings? It is so in Greek and Roman mythology. The Egyptian Osiris is an Egyptian. It is true that some of the ancients outside of Hebrew Revelation had a better conception of God than others. Even in Egypt where birds and beasts and creeping things received divine honors there were scholars and poets who had an exalted idea of the Deity, as witness the Poems of Pentaur. This is true also of some of the Greek Poets who had a deep insight into divine things. It is not a little interesting to note also that artists of different nations paint the Madonna after the style of their own women. Very few of the pictures in the great art galleries are after the style of face which you see in the Orient. Hence there are Dutch Madonnas, and Italian and French and English types. There were no worshippers in the Joss-House at the hour when I visited it. Worship is not a prominent feature of Chinese religious life. The good Chinaman comes once a year at least, perhaps oftener, and burns a bit of perforated paper before his Joss, in order to show that he is not forgetful of his deity. This bit of paper is about six inches long and two inches wide. He also puts printed or written papers in a machine which is run like a clock. Well, this is an easy way to say prayers. And are there not many prayers offered, not merely by Chinamen, that are machine prayers, soulless, heartless, meaningless, and faithless, and which bring no answer? But how simple, how beautiful, how sublime, the golden Prayer which the Divine Master taught His disciples! Lord, teach us how to pray. If the noble Liturgy of the Church is properly rendered,—for it is the expansion of the Lord's Prayer,—there will be no machine-praying, and the answer to prayer will be rich and abundant. The contrast between the worship of the Joss and the worship of the true God in a Christian Church is striking and affords reflection. The former is of the earth earthy, the latter transports the devout worshipper to the throne of the Most High. There is no fear that the religion of the Joss-House will ever usurp the religion of the Christian altar. Men have expressed the fear that if the Chinese came in overwhelming numbers to America they would endanger the Christian faith by their idolatry. But would this be true? Has Christianity anything to dread? What impression has the Joss-House made all these years on the life of San Francisco outside of Chinatown? None whatever, except to make the reflecting man value the Christian faith with its elevating influences and its blessed hopes all the more. It is a mistake then to exclude Chinamen from our shores on the ground that they will do harm to Christianity. On the contrary the Church will do them good. The Gospel is the leaven which will be the salvation of heathen men. Did it not go forth into the Gentile world on its glorious mission, and did it not convert many nations in the first ages? Has it lost its potency to-day? No! It is as powerful as ever to win men from their idols and their evil lives. The question of Chinese immigration is a large one. It has its social and its political aspects. It is found all along the Pacific coast that Chinamen make good and faithful servants. The outcry against them as competing with white laborers and artisans is more the result of political agitation for political purposes than good judgment. Where they have been displaced on farms, in mills, in warehouses, in domestic life, white men and women have not been found to take their places and do the work which they can do so well. Under the Geary Act immigration has been restricted and the numbers of the Chinese in the United States have been gradually decreasing. In the year 1854 there were only 3,000 Chinese in the City of San Francisco; but even then there was agitation against them. It was Governor Bigler who called them "coolies," and this term they repudiated with the same abhorrence which the negro or black man has for the term "nigger." They kept on increasing, however, until in 1875 there were in the whole State of California 130,000. Of this number 30,000 were in San Francisco. To-day there are only about 46,000 in California and there are not more than thirty thousand of these in the City of San Francisco. There are only 110,000 Chinese altogether in the United States proper. Even the most ardent exclusionist can see from this that there is nothing to dread as to an overwhelming influx that will threaten the integrity and existence of our civilisation. The labour-question and the race-question and the international question, aroused by the presence of the Chinese within our borders, will from time to time cause agitation and provoke discussion and heated debate and evoke oratory of one kind or another; but the question which should be uppermost in the minds of wise statesmen is how shall they be assimilated to our life? How shall we make them Christians? The answer will be the best solution of the whole matter, if it has in mind the spiritual interests of the Chinaman and of all other heathen on our shores. There is indeed a plague spot in Chinatown, the social fester, which can and ought to be removed. But this is true of American San Francisco as well as of Chinatown. What, we may ask, are the men and women of as beautiful a city as ever sat on Bay or Lake or Sea-Shore or River, doing for its purgation, for its release from moral defilement and "garments spotted with the flesh?" This indeed is one of the searching questions to be asked of any other City, such as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, London, Paris, Cairo, Constantinople, as well as San Francisco. Among the other noticeable things in the Joss-House were two immense lanterns, as much for ornament as for utility. Then I saw a big drum and a bell, used in some of the processions of the Temple; for the Chinese take special delight in noises, indeed the more noise the better satisfied they are. During my visit some of the Joss-House attendants were shooting off fire crackers; and I was told that this was an acceptable offering to the Chinese god. One who was selling small, slender incense sticks, said that you could burn them to drive away the devil, an excellent purpose certainly. He also said they were good to keep moths away. Doubtless in the Chinese mind there is a connection between moths and evil spirits; but you smile at all such puerilities. They belong to the childhood of the world and not to the beginning of the twentieth century. Among other creatures which they venerate are chickens and lions. They invest the lion with divine attributes on account of his majesty and power. But the chicken? Well, it is a gentle creature. It is the embodiment of motherhood and it speaks of care, not only to the Chinaman's understanding, but to ours also. The Divine Teacher, greater than Confucius, said: "How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!" Will China, now waking out of the sleep of centuries, allow Him to gather her children together under the wings of His Cross? "And ye would not." Oh, what pathos in these few words! But doubtless they will. Many during the war of the Boxers were "gathered" unto Him, emulating the zeal and courage and faith of the martyrs of the early days of the Church. As the hen is sacred in the eyes of the Chinaman, sacred as the peacock to Juno or the ibis to the Egyptians, they swear by her head, and an oath thus taken may not be broken.

One of the images which I saw in the Joss-House was pointed out as the God of the Door; and how suggestive this title and this office! Another figure, on the right side of the altar, which attracted my attention particularly was that of Toi Sin. He was dressed somewhat like a mandarin, and his head was bared, while tears as of blood were on his cheeks. He lived some three hundred years after the Advent of Christ; and owing to his disobedience to his parents, for which he was punished in his conscience, and otherwise, he grieved himself to death and wept tears of blood. His image, I was told, is placed in all Temples as a warning to children. It is a forceful lesson, and it is a timely warning. The one thing that is characteristic of a Chinaman is his filial piety. This filial piety was admired in all ages. It was inculcated in the old Hebrew Law and enforced with weighty considerations. It was a virtue among the Greeks as well as other peoples of the Gentile world; and I wonder not that when the heroes who captured Troy saw Aeneas carrying his aged father Anchises on his shoulders and leading his son, the puer Ascanius, by the hand, out of the burning city, they cheered him and allowed him to escape with his precious burden. A Chinaman is taught by precept and example to venerate his parents and to give them divine honors after death. Should a Chinese child be disobedient he would be punished severely by the bamboo or other instrument, and he would bring on himself the wrath of all his family. This strong sense of filial piety has done more for the stability and perpetuity of the Chinese Empire than ought else. It is a great element of strength and it leads to respect for customs and to the observance of maxims. Especially are burial places held in sacred esteem, and as they contain the ashes of the fathers they must not be disturbed or desecrated. In this respect we might emulate the Chinese, for they are a perfect illustration of the old precept, "Honour thy father and thy mother," which, in a busy, independent age, there is danger of forgetting. But we look with no little interest on the Joss above the altar, the Chinese god. His name is Kwan Rung, and I am informed that he was born about two hundred years after the beginning of the Christian era. Such is the person who is worshipped here. That he may not be hungry food is placed before him at times, and also water to drink. It is a poor, weak human god after all, a dying, dead man. How different the Creator of the ends of the earth, Who fainteth not neither is weary! The Chinese have no conception of the true God. They cannot conceive of the beauty and power and compassion of Jesus Christ until they are brought into the light of the Gospel. But what is Chinese theology? What do they teach about the origin of the world and man and his destiny. The scholars tell us that the world was formed by the duel powers Yang and Yin, who were in turn influenced by their own creations. First the heavens were brought into being, then the earth. From the co-operation of Yang and Yin the four seasons were produced, and the seasons gave birth to the fruits and flowers of the earth. The dual principles also brought forth fire and water, and the sun and moon and stars were originated. The idea of a Creator in the Biblical sense is far removed from the Chinese mind. Their first man, named Pwanku, after his appearance, was set to work to mould the Chaos out of which he was born. He had also to chisel out the earth which was to be his abode. Behind him through the clefts made by his chisel and mallet are sun and moon and stars, and at his right hand, as companions, may be seen the Dragon, the Tortoise and the Phoenix as well as the Unicorn. His labours extend over a period of eighteen thousand years. He grew in stature at the rate of six feet every day, and when his work was finished he died. The mountains were formed from his head, his breath produced the wind, and the moisture of his lips the clouds. His voice is the thunder, his limbs are the four poles, his veins the rivers, his sinews the wave-like motions of the earth, his flesh the fields, his beard the stars, his skin and hair herbs and trees, his teeth bones, his marrow metals, rocks and precious stones, his sweat rain, and the insects clinging to his body become men and women. Ah, how applicable the memorable line of Horace!

Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

In regard to the spirits of the dead the Chinese believe that they linger still in the places which were their homes while alive on earth, and that they can be moved to pleasure or pain by what they see or hear. These spirits of the departed are delighted with offerings rendered to them and take umbrage at neglect. Believing also that the spirits can help or injure men they pray to them and make offerings to them. From this we can understand the meaning and object of ancestral rites. In these rites they honour and assist the dead as if they were alive still. Food, clothing and money are offered, as they believe they eat and drink and have need of the things of this life. Even theatrical exhibitions and musical entertainments are provided on the presumption that they are gratified with what pleased them while in the body. Now as all past generations are to be provided for, the Chinese Pantheon contains myriads of beings to be worshipped. But think, what a burden it becomes to the poor man who tries conscientiously to do his duty to the departed!

Now this ancestral worship leads to the deduction that it is an unfilial thing not to marry and beget sons by whom the line of descendants may be continued. Otherwise the line would cease, and the spirits would have none to care for them or worship them.

The Chinese view of rulers or Kings is also striking. According to the belief prevalent regarding government, Heaven and Earth were without speech. These created man who should represent them. This man is none other than the Emperor their vicegerent. He is constituted ruler over all people. This accounts for three things; first, the superiority which the Chinese emperors assume over the kings and rulers of other countries; secondly, for the long-lived empire of China, it being rebellion against Heaven to lift up one's self against the Emperor; and in the third place it explains to us why divine honours are paid to him. He is a sacred person. He is in a certain sense a god. The view is similar to that entertained by the Roman Emperors, who, in inscriptions and on coins employed the term Deus, and at times exacted divine honours. As we turn from the Joss-House and walk away from this bit of heathendom in the heart of an active, stirring, prosperous, great American city with its Christian civilisation and its Christian Churches and its Christian homes, we cannot but ask ourselves what would have been the history of the Pacific States, of California with its nearly eight hundred miles of coast, if the Chinese had settled here centuries ago? If they had been navigators and colonizers like the Phoenicians of old, like the Greeks and Romans, if they had had a Columbus, a Balboa, a Cabrillo, a Drake, the whole history of the country west of the Rocky Mountains might have been totally different. Millions of Chinamen instead of thousands might now be in possession of that great region of our land, and great cities like Canton and Fuchau, Pekin and Tientsin, might rise up on the view instead of San Diego and Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco, with their idolatry and peculiar life and customs. Another question may be asked here by way of speculation. What would have been the effect of Chinese occupation of the Pacific coast on the Indians of all the region west of the Rocky Mountains? Would the followers of Confucius have incorporated them into their nationality, supplanted them, or caused them to vanish out of sight? What problems these for the ethnologist! Doubtless there would have been intermarriages of the races with new generations of commingled blood. And what would have been the result of this? There is a story which I have read somewhere, that long years ago a Chinese junk was driven by the winds to the shores of California, and that a Chinese merchant on board took an Indian maiden to wife and bore her home to the Flowery Kingdom, and that from this marriage was descended the famous statesman Li Hung Chang. But whatever the fortunes of the Indians, or the Chinese in their appropriation of the Pacific coast, it would not have been so advantageous to civilisation, to the progress of humanity. It would have been loss, and a hindrance to the Anglo-Saxon race destined now to rule the world and to break down every barrier and to set up the standard of the Cross everywhere for the glory of the true God. His hand is apparent in it all. He directs the great movements of history for the welfare of mankind, and He controls the destinies of nations for the advancement of His Kingdom!