Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/162

 which we find traces in every issue of the Peking Gazette, where sacrifices are ordered to the Spirits of the Hills and Woods, and which may be found in the very earliest records of the Chinese,—still exists an active, though quite unauthorised, system of adoration, the objects of which are manifold and indiscriminate. For instance, treeworship may be found in China, as distinct in its character as that which existed in the olden days of Britain, when the chief Druid cut the sacred mistletoe from the hoary oak with a golden sickle. The favourite deity, or numen, of this worship is identified with the banyan-tree or sung shu, and his title is the Banyan Prince. It is affirmed that age has much to do with the divinity or "spiritual efficacy," to use the Chinese term, of this noble tree. The older it grows, the more it increases in spirituality, and the greater honour is paid to it. The chief seat of its worship is said to be Amoy, and some doubt exists whether it is worshipped in any other place. The peach-tree, again, is held in considerable veneration, it having been asserted that no Chinese will venture to burn its wood, lest the spirit which inhabits it should visit his displeasure upon them by an attack of madness. This tree, as we have already seen, is regarded as the symbol of longevity and marriage bliss. It occupies a prominent position in the mysticism of the Taoists, and the Fairy Mother of the West is said to have had one remarkable specimen in her garden which bore once only in three thousand years. Another tree which is superstitiously esteemed in China is that called the wu-tung shu, identified by Williams with the Elœococca verrucosa. This is said to occupy a position in this land analogous to that of the oak in England. It is