Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/383

 BEAUTIFUL THBOBY. 363 Christiaiiity alone can place women in China and Corea, — ^in number more than all European women, — ^in their proper social position ; Christianity alone can confer upon them the dignity of that position, and enable them to perform its duties pleasantly and beneficially to wield its influence. And if women demand, as they are justified in demanding, the removal of all real inequalities between the sexes in western lands, should Christian women not be more earnest still in their endeavours to ameliorate the wretched condition of those eastern women, whose state is now of such a nature, that their earnest prayer is, that in the next life they may be bom men? Only Christianity can save them. The excess of mourning, the accumulation of ritual, the calling upon the departed spirit, and any other custom referred to above, which may seem strange to western notions, are to be understood as implying profound grief at the loss to the survivors, and the expression of the wish that their dead might return to life again; and must not be supposed to imply any hope of an actual return to life, or a belief that the departed can indeed partake of the offerings. The origin of it all is not superstition, but the idea of filial devotion, which stands out as the first of all the virtues in China, and in all countries which have borrowed Chinese moral philosophy. If therefore the various rites and customs msay appear ludicrous, the true meaning of those rites is one to be highly respected ; though alas ! like every other virtue in the east, it is beautiful in theory, but lamentably lacking in practice ; for the man who may have killed his parents by his vicious courses, regards himself a most filial son, if he wails sufficiently over the coffin, and bums some paper before the grave.