We see the effect of Buddhist and Tauist teaching in the present race of Chinese. The Tauist religion especially is responsible for those superstitions which have a dangerous character. The epidemic of the fairy powder was fatal to the peace of communities. The absurd charges brought against the martyred Sisters of Mercy in Tientsin were based on ideas which, although usually represented as popular, and as the native growth of the Chinese mind, are in fact correctly placed to the account of Tauism. It is dangerous to the state that religious teachings should be encouraged which tend to foster and originate popular delusions entailing such frightful results. Every man, whether a Christian or not, ought on moral grounds, and on the greatest happiness principle itself, if he thinks that is a safer basis, to desire the extinction of a religious system which encourages dangerous and lying delusions. Then there is the tail-cutting. The Tauists accept and endorse the whole system of popular delusion which originated the tail-cutting. They believe in the existence of just such fairies as are said to cut off men's queues. They make money by selling the charms which are represented to be a protection against such demons. Popular Tauism then is worthy of decided condemnation, from every Christian and every enlightened lover of mankind, whatever be his belief. There are beliefs in the Tauist religion which not only need to be attacked by books written from the Christian standpoint of thought, but which may very properly be condemned in the proclamations of magistrates, on account of their tendency to produce dangerous tumults and lamentable breaches of the peace. What a field is here presented for the teaching of science, and the spread of a practical system of improved education in China! Dense intellectual darkness clouds the people's minds. There is pressing need for the extension of a system of education which should strike at the root

of superstition and enable the rising youth of the country to avoid falling into the thrall of those delusive imaginations which have grown up under the fostering care of the Tauists during the last two hundred years.