CII.

A TAOIST DEVOTEE.

Chü Yao-ju was a Ch‘ing-chou man, who, when his wife died, left his home and became a priest.[165] Some years afterwards he returned, dressed in the Taoist garb, and carrying his praying-mat[166] over his shoulder; and after staying one night he wanted to go away again. His friends, however, would not give him back his cassock and staff; so at length he pretended to take a stroll outside the village, and when there, his clothes and other belongings came flying out of the house after him, and he got safely away.

FOOTNOTES:

[165] It would be more usual to “renew the guitar string,” as the Chinese idiom runs. In the paraphrase of the first maxim of the _Sacred Edict_ we are told that “The closest of all ties is that of husband and wife; but suppose your wife dies, why, you can marry another. But if your brother were to die,” &c., &c.

[166] This, as well as the staff mentioned below, belongs to Buddhism. See No. IV., note 46.