ful young girl, when he met a Taoist priest in the
street, who started on seeing him, and said that his face showed signs
that he had been bewitched. Hurrying home, the young man found his door
locked; and on creeping softly up to the window and looking in, he saw a
hideous devil, with a green face and jagged teeth like a saw, spreading
a human skin on the bed, and painting it with a paint-brush. The devil
then threw aside the brush, and giving the skin a shake-out, just as you
would a coat, cast it over its shoulders, when lo! there stood the girl.

The story goes on to say that the devil-girl killed the young man,
ripping him open and tearing out his heart; after which the priest
engaged in terrible conflict with her. Finally--and here we seem to be
suddenly transported to the story of the fisherman in the _Arabian
Nights_--she became a dense column of smoke curling up from the ground,
and then the priest took from his vest an uncorked gourd, and threw it
right into the midst of the smoke. A sucking noise was heard, and the
whole column was drawn into the gourd; after which the priest corked it
up closely, and carried it away with him.

The search for the elixir of life was too fascinating to be readily
given up. It was carried on with more or less vigour for centuries, as
we learn from the following Memorial to the Throne, dating from the
ninth century A.D., presented by an aggrieved Confucianist:--

"Of late years the court has been overrun by a host of 'professors,' who
pretend to have the secret of immortality.

"Now supposing that such beings as immortals really did exist--would
they not be likely to hide themselves in deep mountain recesses, far
from the ken of man? On the other hand, persons who hang about the
vestibules of the rich and great, and brag of their wonderful powers in
big words,--what are they more than common adventurers in search of
pelf? How should their nonsense be credited, and their drugs devoured?
Besides, even medicines to cure bodily ailments are not to be swallowed
casually, morning, noon, and night. How much less, then, this poisonous,
fiery gold-stone, which the viscera of man must be utterly unable to
digest?"

Thus gradually Taoism lost its early simple characteristics associated
with the name of Lao Tzu. The _Tao_ developed by Chuang Tzu, in the
light of which all things became one, paved the way for One Concrete
Ruler of the universe; and the dazzling centre, far away in space,