but to hold oneself at a distance, that is the attitude of the sage in regard to divinity. This cult is so surrounded with the practice of different rituals that it would be idle to enumerate here. One knows, besides, that each Chinese family, rich or poor, has an altar for the ancestors which could be a magnificent place of worship, or a simple dais stand on two sawhorses. It is there that funeral tablets of all the deceased ancestors dating back five generations repose. These are the object of particular ceremonies on the days in memory of the date of their death and of all the ritual fetes of the year. The others, the remote ancestors, arerepresented on a communal tablet and receive worship on definite ritual days which are also numerous during the year. Two days are officially dedicated to the dead: the ninth day of the third month, the day for visiting the tomb; this day of the dead has nothing gloomy about it and takes place at one of the prettiest times of the year when: The new grass stretching out to the vast horizon. The pear-tree branch grows white with its tender fleece... Thus it is said in the well-known poem of Kieu. To this day of the dead, called the weed-digging of the tombs, is added ordinarily a day of the living, for the idea of death, and it is something to note, has nothing gloomy about it in this country. The second day reserved for the dead is the fifteenth day of the seventh month. This is rather a Buddhist festival, dedicated to the wandering souls, to all those who died without descendents to keep their cult alive. For the greatest misfortune that could happen to a man is to see one day his cult broken, by posterity's default, and to become thus a wandering soul to whom Buddhist charity grants an impersonal and anonymous cult.It is possible that the souls and the spirits exist; it is probable that they do not exist. One thing for certain, that is, we should honor them. Let us do it in all sincerity, without s...
