Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/509

 Christianity came, and may therefore be called the name of a heathen god. But while in China it has been found that idols exist bearing the name Chun-ju, the Koreans have never attempted to make any physical representation of Hananim. He has never been worshipped by the use of any idolatrous rites, and the concept of him in the Korean mind is, so far as it goes, in no way derogatory to the revealed character of God himself. It is a moot point whether the Koreans consider the physical heavens to be the person of this god. Some of the more ignorant ones will deny that he is invisible, and point to the heavens in proof of their statement ; but they attribute to him a fatherly care of mankind in sending sunlight and shower, and a retributive power in striking the wicked with lightning or other disaster. The Temple of Heaven to which the Emperor repairs to pray in times of famine, pestilence or other great calamity is a purely Chinese innovation, and can be said to have only such connection with the Korean Hananim as grows out of a common but independent concept of Divinity in the two countries. As a rule, the people do not worship Hananim. He is appealed to by the Emperor only, as we have just said, and this in itself would seem to indicate that the Koreans received the idea of this being from China. One would be rash to dogmatise here, but it is our conviction that it was indigenous to Korea as well as to China.

The foregoing coincides with the Confucian element in Korean religion, so far as Confucianism postulates a personal Supreme Being, but on the Buddhist side there are countless gods, the one commonest to the Korean being Ok-wang Sang-je, or Jade King Supreme Ruler. The various " uses " of the Buddhist deities will appear in connection with our remarks on fortune-telling.

We must turn now to what we may call the practical religion of the Koreans, the belief in a countless number of spirits which definitely affect the every-day life of the individual. The higher deities are reserved for special festivals, but these others