Of such as this physician the apostle said:  “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.”

["By the ‘Most High and Heavenly God,’ worshipped by the Chinese, as Marco Polo reports, evidently the Chinese T’ien, ‘Heaven’ is meant, Lao t’ien ye in the common language.  Regarding ‘the God of things terrestrial,’ whose figure the Chinese, according to M. Polo, ’placed below on the ground,’ there can also be no doubt that he understands the T’u-ti, the local ‘Lar’ of the Chinese, to which they present sacrifices on the floor, near the wall under the table.

“M.  Polo reports, that the Chinese worship their God offering incense, raising their hands aloft, and gnashing their teeth.  Of course he means that they placed the hands together, or held kindled joss-stick bundles in their hands, according to the Chinese custom.  The statement of M. Polo sbattendo i denti is very remarkable.  It seems to me, that very few of the Chinese are aware of the fact, that this custom still exists among the Taouists.  In the rituals of the Taouists the K’ow-ch’i (Ko’w = ’to knock against,’ch’i = ‘teeth’) is prescribed as a comminatory and propitiatory act.  It is effected by the four upper and lower foreteeth.  The Taouists are obliged before the service begins to perform a certain number of ’K’ow-ch’i, turning their heads alternately to the left and to the right, in order to drive away mundane thoughts and aggressions of bad spirits.  The K’ow-ch’i repeated three times is called ming fa ku in Chinese, i.e. ‘to beat the spiritual drum.’  The ritual says, that it is heard by the Most High Ruler, who is moved by it to grace.

“M.  Polo observed this custom among the lay heathen.  Indeed, it appears from a small treatise, written in China more than a hundred years before M. Polo, that at the time the Chinese author wrote, all devout men, entering a temple, used to perform the K’ow-ch’i, and considered it an expression of veneration and devotion to the idols.  Thus this custom had been preserved to the time of M. Polo, who did not fail to mention this strange peculiarity in the exterior observances of the Chinese.  As regards the present time it seems to me, that this custom is not known among the people, and even with respect to the Taouists it is only performed on certain occasions, and not in all Taouist temples.” (Palladius, pp. 53-54.)—­H.  C.]

NOTE 4.—­“True politeness cannot of course be taught by rules merely, but a great degree of urbanity and kindness is everywhere shown, whether owing to the naturally placable disposition of the people, or to the effects of their early instruction in the forms of politeness.” (Mid.  Kingdom, II. 68.) As regards the “ornate style of speech,” a well-bred Chinaman never says I or You,