The repairs to the temple were accordingly completed, but for "lighting the eyes,"[203] and the attendant festivities, some further subscriptions were wanted. Suddenly, the magician, pointing at the managers, cried out, "There is money short; of fifteen men, two of you are defaulters." At this, all declared they had given what they could afford; but the magician went on to say, "It is not a question of what you can afford; you have misappropriated the funds[204] that should not have been touched, and misfortune would come upon you, but that, in return for your exertions, I shall endeavour to avert it from you. The magician himself is not without taint.[205] Let him set you a good example." Thereupon, the magician rushed into his house, and brought out all the money he had, saying, "I stole eight taels myself, which I will now refund." He then weighed what silver he had, and finding that it only amounted to a little over six taels, he made one of the bystanders take a note of the difference. Then the others came forward and paid up, each what he had misappropriated from the public fund. All this time the magician had been in a divine ecstasy, not knowing what he was saying; and when he came round, and was told what had happened, his shame knew no bounds, so he pawned some of his clothes, and paid in the balance of his own debt. As to the two defaulters who did not pay, one of them was ill for a month and more; while the other had a bad attack of boils.
[199] The chief supporters of superstition in China.
[201] Such is one of the most common causes of hostile demonstration against Chinese Christians. The latter, acting under the orders of the missionaries, frequently refuse to subscribe to the various local celebrations and processions, the great annual festivities, and ceremonies of all kinds, on the grounds that these are idolatrous and forbidden by the Christian faith. Hence bad feeling, high words, blows, and sometimes bloodshed. I say "frequently," because I have discovered several cases in which converts have quietly subscribed like other people rather than risk an _émeute_.
An amusing incident came under my own special notice not very long ago. A missionary appeared before me one day to complain that a certain convert of his had been posted in his own village, and cut off from his civic rights for two years, merely because he had agreed to let a room of his house to be used as a missionary _dépôt_. I took a copy of the placard which was handed to me in proof of this statement, and found it to run thus:--"In consequence of ---- having entered into an agreement with a barbarian pastor, to lease to the said barbarian pastor a room in his house to be used as a missionary chapel, we, the elders of this village, do hereby debar ---- from the privilege of worshipping in our ancestral hall for the space of two years." It is needless, of course, to mention that Ancestral Worship is prohibited by all sects of missionaries in China alike; or that, when I pointed this out to the individual in question, who could not have understood the import of the Chinese placard, the charge was promptly withdrawn.