Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/135

Rh their weight in gold. One can still discover places once famous for temples which have now become a wilderness through their destructive efforts.

The training of the people in the doctrines of their religion was a matter of great care on the part of the higher officials. The attendance on Sabbath worship was compulsory; indeed, for officials of all grades more than compulsory. For they were apparently regarded as the leaders, possibly the teachers or priests of the movement. In every hamlet or district of twenty-five families one of the officers was responsible for conducting the religious services, and at least once a month a great assembly was called together from twenty-five of these parishes to hear some prince or high officer preach. No official could be absent from these great gatherings without ample excuse. For the first offence he was pilloried for seven weeks and beaten with a thousand blows; for the second he was put to death. The addresses delivered on these great occasions, if Lindley's quotation of one of those he heard be a fair sample, were nothing more than patriotic addresses, calling on the officers and people to follow the T'ienwang until the empire was won.

In addition to the doxology and the hymn that followed it, the rebels prescribed forms and prayers for important occasions. In the repentance of sins, after the regular prayer was offered, the penitent was commanded to wash himself either in a basin of water or by immersing himself in a river. This was apparently their understanding of the ceremony of baptism. After this he must ask God for the guidance of His Spirit, must regularly offer prayer at meals, worship with the throng on the seventh day, observe the Ten Commandments, and abstain from