nd as young women they
have been seduced or have been betrayed in other ways, such as the
husband refusing after marriage to fulfil his promise to support the
girl's parents, and in consequence of her disgrace the woman has
committed suicide." From that moment terror has dogged the steps of her
husband, and he has gone in hourly fear of sickness, accident, or sudden
death. If he be a student, the day of examination presents terrors
calculated to ensure failure, for he knows that the _gwei_ has power to
hold his mind in subjection so that he cannot write his competitive
essay. The only hope he has of release is the taking of a vow, whereby
he undertakes to study and make known _The Divine Panorama_ or _precious
record_ transmitted to men to move them, being a record of examples
published by the mercy of Yu Di, that men and women living in this world
may repent them of their faults, and make atonement for their sins. The
punishments described include all the most painful tortures of which
Chinese ingenuity can conceive. Truly, idols are the work of man's
hands, and they that make them are like unto them!

Sculptural art also has left nothing undone to represent the god as
animated by the worst passions of man, but skill and ingenuity must
inevitably stop short of the final act necessary to convince man that
communication is possible between him and the spirit world. In order to
bridge this chasm a class of men and women called sorcerers (_mo-han_
and _sheng-po_) has come into being, whose work it is to be the
spokesmen of the gods. With deliberate intent and elaborate ritual they
develop the mediumistic gift, and learn how to attain conditions of
frenzy and of trance during which period the body is controlled by a
spiritualistic force. Not only as the medium of the gods, but also as a
resting-place for longer or shorter periods to the homeless, unclean
spirit, do these sorcerers serve. At tremendous physical cost--for the
medium is never long-lived--they accumulate great wealth, exorbitant
sums being demanded in recognition of services rendered when freeing a
family or village from the visitations of a tormenting _gwei_. When
sickness enters his home, the Chinaman's instinct is to attribute it to
any cause rather than a natural one; his appeal on such occasions is to
the sorcerer whose time is largely occupied in giving what is called
medical advice, but is in reality the practising of the rites of
exorcism. Sometimes he