Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

There are times, however, in the life of the people when the gods seem to vanish out of their sight, and they turn to a great power which they call Heaven for deliverance or protection. In the very earliest days of Chinese history, ages before idolatry was introduced into China from India (A.D. 61), there is no doubt but that the people worshipped the true God. In the course of time the word for God became mixed up with certain heroes that were deified by successive emperors, and so the monotheistic craving of the nation took refuge in the word Heaven. The Chinese character for that is composed of two words, “one” and “great.” The combination then means, “The One Great,” which truly expresses the thought that men have of the Great and the Mighty One whose power is absolute and whose decisions are final throughout the whole of creation.

That this belief is no mere abstract one is seen in many instances in ordinary life where men appeal directly to Heaven instead of to the idols. The country, for example, is suffering from the want of rain. Months have gone by and the rainy season has come and passed away without the usual rainfall, the crops are withering in the fields, and there is a prospect of hunger and famine unless the clouds send down of their richness and revive the drooping forces of nature.

The priests of a certain temple notify that on a certain day a procession will be formed to march through the city to beseech Heaven to pour down the much-needed rain upon the land. The people gladly respond to this appeal, and on the day appointed, scholars dressed in their long robes, and priests in their yellow dresses, and the common people in the clothes that they wear only on special occasions, all turn out and join in the long line that winds its way along the narrow unsavoury streets to intercede with Heaven, that it will send down copious showers on the thirsty earth.

One singular feature in this public demonstration is the attendance of the idols. They are brought out from their temples and carried in the solemn procession to join with the people in the universal prayer for rain. Every ten yards or so the slowly-moving line makes a halt, and every one kneels down and a piteous cry is raised to Heaven, that it would have pity upon the land, so that the crops may not perish and the poor may not die of hunger and starvation. It is intensely interesting to watch the long line of suppliants at this stage in their supplications. Many of them, in order to show the intensity of their purpose, have come dressed in sackcloth; others who are musical have brought their instruments with them, and as they walk with a solemn step they play a sombre funereal air that is intended to show to Heaven with what sorrow their hearts are filled at the calamity that threatens to overwhelm the people if the rain is withheld.

Now the music is stopped and the whole procession is on its knees, and even the idols, as it were, with silent supplications join in the mournful confession of sin and in the agonized entreaties to Heaven to have pity upon the people.

Heaven is recognized as being supreme in power. In the mottoes that the Chinese paste on their doorposts and lintels at the beginning of the year are several that show the popular thought on this great subject. “May Heaven send down upon our home peace and happiness”: “Life and Death, adversity and happiness are all decided by Heaven”: “Honour and wealth as well as poverty and lowly station are in the hands of Heaven”: “Men may plan, but it is Heaven that decides what the result shall be.”

There is no reference to the idols here. In fact, when Heaven is mentioned they are never referred to as having any authority in the great movements and principles by which human life is controlled and influenced. Heaven to the Chinese is a great impersonal power, so far exalted and so mysterious that in despair they have adopted the idols as a means by which they can communicate with the unseen. And yet there are occasions when men seem to lose their dread of Heaven, and they appeal to it, as Christians do to God. Heaven, for instance, is believed to have a stern sense of justice and of righteousness. It is also the redresser of wrongs, which it invariably puts right, upholding the innocent and bringing swift judgment on the guilty. Its government is one that is founded on great principles of right, that work automatically in the destruction of all that is evil and in the furtherance of all that is good.

There are many times in the life of this people when Heaven becomes to them a veritable Person, who can hear their cry when they are in distress and who, they believe, is ready to vindicate their character when it has been unjustly assailed.

One day, in passing through one of the side streets of a great town, a crowd was observed standing with a kind of shocked look upon their faces gazing upon a woman that seemed to be raving mad. It turned out that she was a poor woman living down the street, who had gone to assist in the household work of the family opposite to where she was now standing. Some trifling thing had been missed in the house, and she had been accused of stealing it. She defended herself passionately and with all the eloquence at her command, but without avail. Being originally of a high temper and of a hasty, fiery disposition, she was enraged beyond measure not only at the false accusation that had been levelled against her, but also because the woman refused to accept her defence of herself, and still reiterated her firm conviction that it was she that had stolen the missing articles.

Feeling that there was no other way of clearing her character except by appealing to Heaven, she rushed out into the street, and letting down her long hair till it fell in thick tresses over her shoulders, she looked up at the sky where the Power she called Heaven was, and she poured out the grievance that was filling her heart almost to bursting. She told how she had been falsely accused, and how every attempt to right herself had been listened to with scorn and contempt. Then with tears streaming down her face, she called upon Heaven to avenge her and show to the neighbourhood that she was guiltless of the charges that had been made against her. With a rush and a torrent of imprecations that positively made one shudder she then prayed “The Great One” to hurl down upon the woman that had injured her all the miseries and woes that poor human nature has ever been called upon to endure. Her vocabulary of evils was amazing in its luxuriance, and as each was shot forth from her passionate lips, some of the onlookers actually shuddered with horror at the awful sorrows that she wished her enemy to have to suffer.