In the latter case, ministers of the Christian faith would of course be justified in refusing to blend ancestral worship with the teachings of Christianity.

It would no doubt be very desirable to bring about a compromise, and discover some modus vivendi for the Chinese convert, other than that of throwing over Confucianism with all its influence for good, and of severing all family and social ties, and beginning life again as an outcast in his own country; but I feel bound to say that in my opinion these ancestral observances can only be regarded, strictly speaking, as worship and as nothing else.

To return to the Chinese woman.  She enjoys some privileges not shared by men.  She is exempt from the punishment of the bamboo, and, as a party to a case, is always more or less a source of anxiety to the presiding magistrate.  No Chinaman will enter into a dispute with a woman if he can help it,—­not from any chivalrous feeling, but from a conviction that he will surely be worsted in the end.

If she becomes a widow, a Chinese woman is not supposed to marry again, though in practice she very often does so.  A widow who remains unmarried for thirty years may be recommended to the Throne for some mark of favour, such as an honorary tablet, or an ornamental archway, to be put up near her home.  It is essential, however, that her widowhood should have begun before she was thirty years of age.

Remarriage is viewed by many widows with horror.  In my own family I once employed a nurse—­herself one of seven sisters—­who was a widow, and who had also lost half the little finger of her left hand.  The connecting link between these two details is not so apparent to us as it might be to the Chinese.  After her husband’s death the widow decided that she would never marry again, and in order to seal irrevocably her vow, she seized a meat-chopper and lopped off half her finger on the spot.  The finger-top was placed in her husband’s coffin, and the lid was closed.

This woman, who was a Christian, and the widow of a native preacher, had large, i.e. unbound, feet.  Nevertheless, she bound the feet of her only daughter, because, as she explained, it is so difficult to get a girl married unless she has small feet.

Here we have the real obstacle to the abolition of this horrible custom, which vast numbers of intelligent Chinese would be only too glad to get rid of, if fashion did not stand in the way.

There has been in existence now for some years a well-meaning association, known as the Natural Foot Society, supported by both Chinese and foreigners, with the avowed object of putting an end to the practice of foot-binding.  We hear favourable accounts of its progress; but until there is something like a national movement, it will not do to be too sanguine.

We must remember that in 1664 one of China’s wisest and greatest Emperors, in the plenitude of his power issued an Imperial edict forbidding parents in future to bind the feet of their girls.  Four years later the edict was withdrawn.