CHINESE NOTIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1953, 13 January 1885, Page 4

CHINESE NOTIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

\ w. mrm in a recent issue of the Xott/i Chni" II" t'>? ill- mi^is the only Chinese notioiis of immoitahty. In the most ancient time .uicc-tial worship was maintained on the giuund that that the souls of tiie (lead exist after this life. The piesent is a part only of human < xiatenco, and men continue to l>e after death what they have become before it Hence the honors accorded to men of r.mk in their hfe-tinic were continued to them .ifter their death. In the earliest uttei mces of Chinese national thought on this subject we find that quality winch has remained the prominent fca tuie in Chinese thinking ever since. The pi eBent lite is light ; the future is darkness. Wlnt the shadow is to the sub stance, the soul is to the body ; what \ a por is to water, breath is to man. By the pioccbs of cooling steam may again become water, and the transformations of animals teach us that beings inferior to man may live after death. Ancient Chinese then believed that as theie is a male and female principle in all nature, a day and a nipht as inseparable fioni each thine in the uni"erse as fiom the uimerse itself, so it is with man. In the course of ages, and in the vicissitudes of religious idea?, men came to believe more definitely in the possibility of communications with supernatural beings. In the twelfth century before the Christian era it was a distinct belief that the thoughts of the sages were to them a revelation from above The " Book of Odes" frequently u-es the expression " God jpoke to them," and one sage is lepresented afttr death as " moving up and down in the presence of God in heaven." A few centuries subsequently we find for the first time great men transfeircd in the popular imagination to the sky, it being believed that their souls took up their abode in certain constellations. This was due to the fact that the idias of immor tality had taken a new shape, and that the philo-phy ot the times regarded the stars of heaven as the pure essences of the grosser thinjya belonging to this woild. The purr is heavenly and the gio&s eaithly, and therefore that which is purest oti earth ascends to the regions of the stiis. At the same time hermits and otlur ascetics began to be credited with the power of acquiring cxtraoidinary lonjjcMty, and the stork became the animal which the Immortals prefened to ride above .ill others. The idea of plant* which confer immunity from death soon sprang up. The fungus known as iW.ypm it* titct'/'ix was taken to be the most tfficacious of all plants in guarding man from death, and 3000 ounces of silver have been asked for a single specimen. Its red colour was among the circumstances which gave it its reputation, for at this time the five colors of Babylonian astrology had been accepted as indications ot good and evil fortune. This connection of a icd colour with the notion of immortality through the medium of good anil bad luck led to the adoption of cinnabir as the philosopher's stone, and thus to the construction of the whole system of alchemy. The plant of immortal life i<» spoken of in ancient Chinese literature at least a century before the mineral. In correspondence with the tree of life in Eden there was probably a Bibylonian tradition which found its way to China shortly befoie Chinese writers mentioned the plant of immortality. Tho Chinese, not being na\ igitors, must ha\ c got their ideas of the ocean which suiiounds the world from those who weie, and when they received a cosmography they would receive it with its let'cnd*.

Tnti first three \olumes of Captain 'Burton's tianslatinn of the " Ambi-in Night I " '' will be deliveied to subset ibers next March. The ten volumes— at a guinea each— will he issuer! within IS months. Only this one edition of 1000 copies will be printed, and they are to be obtained only from Captain Burton, at Trieste. He has Kept the long, unbioken sentences of the oiiginal, and the peculiar passages which lie faithfully retains will, he thinks, " Commonly be more objectionable than some which are in Shaksnere and in Shakspere's contemporaries." Irish Ekcbrravcf. — A court martial of an extiaordimry nature will, according to the World, shortly be held at Aden on a junior subaltern of the Essex regiment, charged with thiashing his commanding officer. The colonel, who is not at all popuhr with his subordinates, was visited one evening before mess by this young officer, a hot-tempered Irishman, who it appears, wished to call the colonel to account for forcible language used on parade. He was referretl to the ordeily-room the next norning, but preferring to take the law into his own hands, he proceeded to extremities with his superior, who, finding that he and his servant were no match for the youngster, took to his heels, and called for assistance on the parade. FIKTKfcN HuNDREDWMf.IIT OK (i\'\ro\v»fcß to A Chaiu.k. — The gun which Colonel Hope is making for the War Office is (says a Home paper) to be, it appears, a 100-ton gun, firing the enormous and unprecedented charge of l.'icwt. (three quartet s of a ton ') of powder concentrated behind a 12001b shell in a 12inch gun We hear that the calculated velocity is, upwards of 4000 feet a second, and the theoretical penetration through wi ought iron about 5 feet. Assuming this gun to be a siicces*, it would ha\e a \alue be\ond that of other guns, because owing to the immense lange and penettation, it would afford such protection to run harbours and coaling stations that it would set free a laige number of ships for cruising which otherwise would be compelled to remain in port. We hear that Colonel Hope expects to finish his first gun in ton to twelve, months, including the time necessary for the construction of the enormous pl.uit lecjuiicd ; but as lie makes his guns in one sinale forging, the actual constiuction of the gun is not expected to take quite three months,

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