ABSTRACT
The Chinese usually speak of only three native religions—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Tauism. The high mandarins are required to make sacrifices in the spring and autumn, and to burn incense on the first and fifteenth of every Chinese month, before certain gods or objects of worship. The most important and imposing of the vernal and autumnal ceremonies are performed in honour of the “Literary and the Military Sages,” viz. Confucius, and Kuanti, the Chinese god of war. The viceroy immediately issued a proclamation, announcing the fact and date of the emperor’s death, and commanding all the civil and military officers, the gentry, and the people to put on mourning, commencing from that day. The viceroy, or other officer who is to command the expedition, standing before the table and the flag, receives some sticks of lighted incense from a professor of ceremony, which he reverently places in the censer arranged between the candles.
