ericans, and particularly those of the Catholics and
Episcopalians. Their religious customs are beyond belief. As an
illustration, their religion teaches them that the dead, if they have
led a good life, go at once to heaven, though the Catholics believe in a
purgatory, a half-way house, out of which the dead can be bought by the
payment of money.

Now the simple Chinaman would naturally believe that the relatives
would be pleased at the death of a friend who was _immediately_
transported to paradise and freed from the worries of life, but not at
all; at the death of a relative the friends are plunged into such grief
that they have been known to hire professional mourners, and instead of
putting on clothes indicative of joy and thanksgiving array themselves
in somber black, the token of woe, and wear it for years. Everything is
black, and the more fashionable the family the deeper the black. The
deepest crape is worn by the women. Writing-paper is inscribed with a
deep band, also visiting cards. Women use jet as jewelry, and white
pearls are replaced by black ones. Even servants are garbed in mourning
for the departed, who, they believe, have gone to the most beautiful
paradise possible to conceive. Contemplating all these inconsistencies
one is amazed, and the amazement is ever increasing as one delves deeper
into the ways of the inconsistent American.

The credulity of the American is nowhere more singularly shown than in
his susceptibility to religion. At a dinner given by the ---- of ---- in
Washington, conversation turned on religion, and Senator ----, a very
clever man, told me in a burst of confidence, "Our people are easily
led; it merely requires a leader, a bright, audacious man, with plenty
of 'cheek,' to create a following." There are hundreds of examples of
this statement. No matter how idiotic the religion or philosophy may be,
a following can be established among Americans. A man of the name of
Dowie, "ignorant, impertinent, but with a superabundance of cheek" (I
quote an American journal), announced himself as the prophet Elijah, and
obtained a following of thousands, built a large city, and lives upon
the credulity of the public.

Three different "healers" have appeared within a decade in America, each
by inference claiming to be the Christ and imitating his wanderings and
healing methods. All, even the last, grossest, and most impudent
impostor, who advertised himself in the daily press, the picture