Theoretically, at least, he most emphatically does not believe that the goddess is herself before him: for he knows perfectly well that if he walks two miles to another temple he will find another image of the same divinity; and that if he wishes to do so he may come across three or four Kuan Yins in the course of a single day's walk. On the island of Pootoo he could see dozens in a couple of hours. Unless the goddess is endowed with multiple personalities it is obvious that she cannot possibly be present in every image, and that all these clay figures are therefore merely lifeless statues which fulfil a useful enough function in exciting the devotional feelings of worshippers who might feel unable to offer up prayers to a blank wall. If the Christian urges that the Chinese worshipper of Kuan Yin is still an idolater because there is no such person as Kuan Yin either in the material world or in the spiritual and that therefore nothing remains to worship but the image, it may at least be tentatively suggested that if indeed there be a God of Love then the prayers that fly forth on the wings of sincerity from an upright heart will not be allowed—though they be misdirected—to flutter aimlessly for ever in some dark region of Godlessness.
That the Chinese sometimes treat the images of their gods or saints as if they were sentient creatures is true enough. They are taken out in processions, for example, and sometimes—if public prayers have been disregarded—they are buffeted and even mutilated. This is simply another instance of the remarkable inconsistency that seems to go hand in hand with religious opinions all over the world, and in the case of the most ignorant classes is doubtless due to the fact that many uneducated people cannot conceive of the existence of a being that is in no way cognisable by the bodily senses. Is Christendom free from such inconsistency? Certainly not in the matter of images,[406] as any one may see for himself at any time in southern Europe and elsewhere. There is a story told of St. Bernard, who eight hundred years ago knelt in a cathedral in front of an image of Mary. Devoutly and fervently he commenced to pray: "O gracious, mild and highly favoured Mother of God," he began: when lo! the image opened its lips and vouchsafed an answer. "Welcome, my Bernard!" it said. In high displeasure the saint rose to his feet. "Silence!" he said, with a frown at his holy patron. "No woman is allowed to speak in the congregation."
Let us pass this over as a fable, for it finds no place in the Aurea Legenda and is useful only as an indication that St. Bernard, though doubtless a true disciple of St. Paul,[407] took a somewhat ungenerous view of women's rights. But there are other facts to be noted which are not fables. "Is it not notorious," says Max Müller, "what treatment the images of saints receive at the hands of the lower classes in Roman Catholic countries? Della Valle relates that Portuguese sailors fastened the image of St. Anthony to the bowsprit, and then addressed him kneeling, with the following words: 'O St. Anthony, be pleased to stay there till thou hast given us a fair wind for our voyage.' Frezier writes of a Spanish captain who tied a small image of the Virgin Mary to the mast, declaring that it should hang there till it had granted him a favourable wind. Kotzebue declares that the Neapolitans whip their saints if they do not grant their requests."[408] In a missionary's account of China I recently came across a statement to the effect that in this land of idolatry, gamblers and other evil-doers will sometimes take the precaution of bandaging their idols' eyes so that the divinity may not be aware of what they are doing. This I believe is true enough, and it proves that in such cases, at least, the clay figures are supposed to be endowed with human senses; unless indeed the real idea at the root of the proceeding is connected with what is known as sympathetic magic: "As I bandage the eyes of the god's image so the eyes of the god himself (wherever he may be) will for the nonce be sightless." But even this practice is not unknown to Christendom, however repugnant it may be to Christianity. In the passage from which I have just quoted Max Müller goes on to mention an analogous practice in Russia: "Russian peasants, we are told, cover the face of an image when they are doing anything unseemly, nay, they even borrow their neighbours' saints if they have proved themselves particularly successful."[409]
There are Protestant missionaries who will agree that in tolerating superstitions of this kind the Roman Catholics and the Greek Church are as bad or nearly as bad as the Chinese themselves—and they will not hesitate to let their Chinese "enquirers" know what their opinions on the subject are. The Rev. J. Edkins, in describing a great Roman Catholic establishment at Shanghai, remarks that "it caused us some painful reflections to see them forming images of Joseph and Mary and other Scripture personages, in the same way that idol-makers in the neighbouring towns were moulding Buddhas and gods of war and riches, destined too to be honoured in much the same manner."[410] Elsewhere the same writer remarks that "unfortunately, Catholicism must always carry with it the worship of the Madonna, the masses for the dead, the crucifix and the rosary. Some of the books the Jesuits have published in Chinese contain the purest Christian truth; but it is an unhappy circumstance that they must be accompanied by others which teach frivolous superstition."[411] It is interesting to observe with what comfortable confidence the Protestant missionary tacitly assumes infallibility as to what does and what does not constitute the purest Christian truth and what is and what is not frivolous superstition. Noah's ark and Jonah's whale would no doubt come under the former heading, the doctrine of the Real Presence under the latter. Yet Dr. Edkins might have remembered that Roman Catholicism and the Eastern (Greek) Church embrace, after all, an exceedingly large part of Christendom, and are just as confident of their own possession of the truth as he was. As for Protestants, if they have refrained from worshipping pictures and images, have they not come perilously near worshipping a Book?
No wonder Emergency Committees and English University officials are bestirring themselves to find means for the education of China when they are told, for example, that the people of that country from the Emperor downwards believe that an eclipse signifies the eating of the sun or moon by a celestial dog or a dragon. Perhaps it may be worth while to dwell a little on this particular superstition. I will not venture to deny that this quaint belief is honestly held by many, but I may say that after questioning very many Chinese, mostly ignorant and illiterate, on this threadbare subject I have only discovered one who appeared (after cross-examination) sincerely to believe that eclipses are caused by a hungry beast. That person was an old woman (only half Chinese by race) who kept a tea-house near Tali in western Yünnan. Her confession of belief, I may add, was greeted with roars of laughter by the crowd of Chinese coolies who were sipping their tea close by and who heard my question and the woman's reply.
In Dr. Tylor's great work we read that the Chiquitos of South America "thought" that the moon in an eclipse was hunted across the sky by huge dogs, and they raised frightful howls and lamentation to drive them off; the Caribs "thought" that the demon Maboya, hater of light, was seeking to devour the sun and moon, and danced and howled all night to scare him away; the Peruvians "imagined" that a monstrous beast was eating the moon and shouted and sounded musical instruments to frighten him, and even beat their own dogs in order to make them join in the general uproar. Other similar theories existed in North America also.[412] It is curious to find such customs existing in both Asia and America. Some have thought that Fu-sang,[413] the mysterious land of bliss and immortality, which according to song and legend lay very far away in the eastern ocean, was a portion of the American continent;[414] and it has even been held that an ambassador from Fu-sang (or a Chinese who had visited Fu-sang and had safely returned) was received at the Chinese Imperial Court, where he gave an account of the strange land. China's possible knowledge of the existence of the American continent in prehistoric days is a fascinating subject that we cannot pursue here, but with reference to the accounts of the American eclipse-theories one feels inclined to ask whether the peoples named were as a matter of fact convinced of the truth of the dog or demon theory while they were beating tom-toms and shouting themselves hoarse, or whether the practices referred to by Dr. Tylor did not merely represent the survival in comparatively civilised times of a custom which in a ruder age had been based on a real belief. This would not of course mean—either in China or America—that the belief might not still be vaguely held by ignorant women and children and even in a thoughtless way by many average men. They would "believe" that some horrid beast was eating the sun just as a modern child—the Victorian child, at least, if not the Edwardian—usually "believed" that Santa Claus was a benevolent old gentleman who entered people's houses by way of the chimney.