[42] The common European name for the only Chinese coin, about twenty of which go to a penny. Each has a square hole in the middle, for the convenience of stringing them together; hence the expression “strings of cash.”
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[43] The belief that the human eye contains a tiny being of the human shape is universal in China. It originated, of course, from the reflection of oneself that is seen on looking into the pupil of anybody’s eye, or even, with the aid of a mirror, into one’s own.
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[44] Which will doubtless remind the reader of Alice through the Looking-glass, and what she saw there.
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[45] The all-important item of a Chinese marriage ceremony; amounting, in fact, to calling God to witness the contract.
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[46] That is, of the religion of Tao, or, as it is sometimes called, Rationalism. It was founded some six centuries before the Christian era by a man named Lao-tzŭ, “Old boy,” who was said to have been born with white hair and a beard. Originally a pure system of metaphysics, it is now but a shadow of its former self, and is corrupted by the grossest forms of superstition borrowed from Buddhism, which has in its turn adopted many of the forms and beliefs of Taoism, so that the two religions are hardly distinguishable one from the other.
“What seemed to me the most singular circumstance connected with the matter, was the presence of half-a-dozen Taoist priests, who joined in all the ceremonies, doing everything that the Buddhist priests did, and presenting a very [odd] appearance, with their top-knots and cues, among their closely shaven Buddhist brethren. It seemed strange that the worship of Sakyamuni by celibate Buddhist priests, with shaved heads, into which holes were duly burned at their initiation, should be participated in by married Taoist priests, whose heads are not wholly shaven, and have never been burned.”—Initiation of Buddhist Priests at Kooshan, by S. L. B.
Taoist priests are credited with a knowledge of alchemy and the black art in general.
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[47] A celibate priesthood belongs properly to Buddhism, and is not a doctrine of the Taoist church.
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[48] The “angels” of Taoism—immortality in a happy land being the reward held out for a life on earth in accordance with the doctrines of Tao, for which, as Mr. Chalmers says, “three terms suggest themselves—the Way, Reason, and the Word; but they are all liable to objection.”
Taoist priests are believed by some to possess an elixir of immortality in the form of a precious liquor; others again hold that the elixir consists solely in a virtuous conduct of life.
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