the Jews built a synagogue at K'ai-feng Fu in A.D. 1164, where they
were discovered by Ricci in the seventeenth century, and where, in 1850,
there were still to be found traces of the old faith, now said to be
completely effaced.

Christianity.--With the advent of the Jesuit Fathers in the sixteenth
century, and of the Protestant missionaries, Marshman and Morrison, in
1799 and 1807 respectively, we pass gradually down to the present day,
where we may well pause and look around to see what remains to the
modern Chinese of their ancient faiths. It is scarcely too much to
say that all idea of the early God of their forefathers has long since
ceased to vivify their religious instincts, though the sacrifices to
God and to Earth are still annually performed by the Emperor.
Ancestor-worship, and the cult of Confucius, are probably very much
what they were many hundreds of years ago; while Taoism, once a pure
philosophy, is now a corrupt religion. As to alien faiths, the Buddhism
of China would certainly not be recognised by the Founder of Buddhism
in India; Mahometanism is fairly flourishing; Christianity is still
bitterly opposed.

CHRONOLOGICAL SYLLABUS

Legendary Period (Twenty-ninth Century to Tenth Century B.C.)--P'an
Ku and Creation--First Worship of Spirits--Worship of God, with
incense--Sacrifices to Mountains and Rivers--Worship of Sun, Moon, and
Stars--Institution of Ancestral Worship--God enjoys music, dancing,
and burnt offerings--God resents bad government--Revelation in a
Dream--Anthropomorphism--Fetishism--No Devil--No Hell--Terms for
God--The Character for "God" is a picture of a Man--God and Jehovah--God
in the _Odes_--Hou Chi and Parthenogenesis--Superstitions and
Supernatural Manifestations--Sacrifice--Ancestral Worship--Filial Piety.

Feudal Age (Tenth Century to Third Century B.C.)--The Influence
of Confucianism--His Agnosticism--Weakening of Supernatural
Beliefs--Consolidation of Confucianism--Human Sacrifices--Prayers for
Rain--The Philosophy of Taoism--A Rival to Confucianism--But uniting to
weaken the old Monotheistic Faith--Its Theory of Spirits--Modifications
of Taoism--The Elixir of Life--Evidences of a Spiritual
World--Mysticism.

The Empire (Third Century B.C. to modern times)--Arguments against
a Spiritual World--Attributes of God--Good and Evil--Buddhism
appears--Conflict of Faiths--Struggle between Buddhism and
Taoism--Taoism borrows from Buddhism and becomes a Religion--Mazdeis