At dawn on May Morning it is the custom for the surpliced choristers of Magdalen College to ascend the Great Tower and there greet the rising sun with the sweet strains of a Latin hymn. Just as the full circle of the sun flushes with morning light the grey stone pinnacles the beautiful hymn comes to an end, and the tower—the "dawn-smitten Memnon of a happier hour"—trembles and sways as its eight mighty bells leap into glad music and awaken "the college of the lily" into joyous life. No one seems to know the certain origin of the ancient rite of which this is a survival, but some have said that it represents an old heathen ceremony connected with the worship of the sun. The rite (in a modern form) is very properly kept up because it is singularly beautiful—the most beautiful and impressive ceremony of its kind practised throughout the length and breadth of England. But would not Oxford be politely surprised and somewhat amused if our Chinese traveller were to inform his fellow-countrymen that sun-worship was still kept up at England's academic capital and that the President of Magdalen was an Egyptian initiate or a Druid?
The analogy between Chinese and English survivals is far from perfect. Heathen ceremonies in England have been Christianised; in China all ceremonies remain "heathen." But, after all, the difference ceases to oppress us by its magnitude if we regard Religion as One though creeds are many. What good do we do the cause of truth by heaping disagreeable epithets on faiths other than our own? Socrates was denounced as an atheist by his fellow-countrymen. Which of us now would not be proud to have been an atheist with Socrates? Christians themselves were at one time stigmatised as atheists by both Greeks and Romans. What good does the Vatican do to the cause of Christ by vituperating the Modernists because they are honest? What did Athanasius gain, either for himself or for "Orthodoxy," by applying to the Arians such ugly names as "devils, antichrists, maniacs leeches, beetles, gnats, chameleons, hydras" and other terms equally discourteous?[404]
SHRINE ON SUMMIT OF KU SHAN (see p. [396]).
VILLAGERS AT A TEMPLE DOORWAY (see p. [415]).
But, comes the reply, when we say the Chinese are idolaters we are only stating a simple fact that any one can verify for himself. "That the Chinese have profound faith in their idols," says a Western writer, "is a fact that cannot for a moment be questioned. China is a nation of idolaters, and neither learning nor intelligence nor high birth tends to quench the belief that has come down from the past that these wooden gods have a power of interfering in human life, and of being able to bestow blessings or to send down curses upon men."[405]
Now this question of idolatry is a difficult one to deal with, for plain speaking is sure to offend. It is on the heads of the unfortunate Chinese "idols" that the vials of Christian wrath are chiefly poured. As a matter of fact it is rather questionable whether the images in Chinese temples are correctly described as idols at all. Surely it would be less misleading to reserve that term for images which are regarded as gods per se and not merely as clay or wooden representations of gods. One sees a Chinese "worshipping" an image, say, of Kuan Yin. Does he regard Kuan Yin as actually present before him or does he merely regard the image as a man-made statue of his goddess,—an image set up as an aid to prayer or as a stimulator of the imagination or the emotions?