Page:Korea (1904).djvu/131

Rh The spirits of the illustrious dead thus propitiated, the Emperor returned to the sacred chairs, once again paying his devotion to the tablets. One by one each was borne from its chair to the receptacle prepared for its future



. Panels of yellow silk screened them; no eye was permitted to gaze upon them, nor any hand to touch them, as each, wrapped in its inviolate sanctity of yellow silk, passed from its chair of state to its holy place. Priests attended them; the throne followed in their wake, the entire Court, the highest nobles and statesmen in the land, bowed down to them. An atmosphere at once devotional and filial prevailed, for the cult of Ancestor Worship epitomises the loftiest aspirations of the Korean. It governs the actions of a parent towards his child; controls the conduct of a child towards its parent.

The ceremony over, the scene within the Temple became