Court Life in China: The Capital, Its Officials and People

by Isaac Taylor Headland

There are no images of any kind connected with the temple or the worship, the only offerings being a bullock, the various productions of the soil, and a cylindrical piece of jade about a foot long, formerly used as a symbol of sovereignty. Twelve bundles of cloth are offered to Heaven, and only one to each of the emperors, and to the sun and moon. The bullocks must be two years old, the best of their kind, without blemish, and while they were formerly killed by the Emperor they are now slaughtered by an official appointed for that purpose.

The covered altar is, I think, the most beautiful piece of architecture in China. It is smaller than the one already described but has erected upon it a lofty, circular triple-roofed temple ninety-nine feet in height, roofed with blue tiles, the eaves painted in brilliant colours and protected from the birds by a wire netting. In the centre, immediately in front of the altar, is a circular stone, as in the open altar. The ceiling is covered with gilded dragons in high relief, and the whole is supported by immense pillars. It was this building that was struck by lightning in 1890, but it was restored during the ten years that followed. Being made the camp of the British during the occupation of 1900, it received some small injuries from curio seekers, but none of any consequence. The Sikh soldiers who died during this period were cremated in the furnace connected with the open altar.

The Chinese have been an agricultural people for thirty centuries or more, and this characteristic is embodied in the Temple of Agriculture, which occupies a park of not less than three hundred and twenty acres of city property opposite the Temple of Heaven. It has four great altars, with their adjacent halls, to the spirits of Heaven, Earth, the Year, and the Ancestral Husbandman, Shen Nung, to whom the temple is dedicated. It was used as the camp of the American soldiers in 1900, and was well cared for. At one time some of the soldiers upset one of the urns, and when it was reported to the officer in command, the whole company was called out and the urn properly replaced, after which the men were lectured on the matter of injuring any property belonging to the temple.

There are several large plots of ground in this enclosure, one of which the Emperor ploughs, while another is marked "City Magistrate," another "Prefect," and on these bits of land the "five kinds of grain" are sown. One cannot view these imperial temples without being impressed with the potential greatness of a people who do things on such a magnificent scale. But one, at the same time, also feels that these temples, and the great Oriental religions which inspire and support them have failed in a measure to accomplish their design, which ought to be to educate and develop the people. This they can hardly be said to have done, especially if we consider their condition in their lack of all phases of scientific development, for as the sciences stand to-day they are all the product of the Christian peoples.

There are three other imperial temples on the same large scale as those just described. The Temple of the Sun east of the city, that of the Moon on the west, and that of the Earth on the north, though it must be confessed that the worship at these has been allowed to lapse. In the Tartar City there are two others, the Lama Temple and the Confucian Temple, in the former of which there is a statue of Buddha seventy-five feet high, and from thirteen to fifteen hundred priests who worship daily at his shrine. This statue is made of stucco, over a framework, and not of wood as some have told us, and as the guide will assure us at the present day. One can ascend to a level with its head by several flights of stairs, where a lamp is lit when the Emperor visits the temple. In the east wing of this same building is a prayer-wheel, which reaches up through several successive stories, and is kept in motion while the Emperor is present.

In the east side buildings there are a few interesting, though in some cases very disgusting idols, such for instance as those illustrating the creation, but over these draperies have been thrown during recent years, which make them a trifle more respectable.

The temple is very imposing. At the entrance there are two large arches covered with yellow tiles, from which a broad paved court leads to the front gate, on the two sides of which are the residences of the Lamas or Mongol priests. At the hour of prayer, which is about nine o'clock, they may be seen going in crowds, clothed in yellow robes, to the various halls of worship where they chant their prayers.

Very different from this is the Confucian Temple only a quarter of a mile away. Here we find neither priest nor idol—nothing but a small board tablet to "Confucius, the teacher of ten thousand ages" with those of his most faithful and worthy disciples. In the court on each side are rows of buildings—that on the east containing the tablets of seventy-eight virtuous men; that on the west the tablets of fifty-four learned men; eighty-six of these were pupils of the Sage, while the remainder were men who accepted his teachings. No Taoists, however learned; no Buddhists, however pure; no original thinkers, however great may have been their following, are allowed a place here. It is a Temple of Fame for Confucianists alone.

I have been in this temple when a whole bullock, the skin and entrails having been removed, was kneeling upon a table facing the tablet of the Sage, while sheep and pigs were similarly arranged facing the tablets of his disciples.

For twenty-four centuries China has had Taoism preached within her dominions; for twenty-three centuries she has worshipped at the shrine of Confucius; for eighteen centuries she has had Buddhism, and for twelve centuries Mohammedanism: and during all this time if we believe the statements of her own people, she has slept. Does it not therefore seem significant, that less than a century after the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached to her people, and the Bible circulated freely throughout her dominions, she opened her court to the world, began to build railroads, open mines, erect educational institutions, adopt the telegraph and the telephone, and step into line with the industrial methods of the most progressive nations of the Western world?