This iron-handed law of ancestral worship holds not only the ignorant folk of our country village, but with a never-yielding grasp it lays hold upon the educated of the higher classes. The hardest battle that Christianity has to fight in conquering this country is centered in and finds its stronghold around this law of ancestral worship.
Some years ago this whole matter of ancestral worship was very forcefully brought to my attention. A missionary friend of mine was assisting me in a study class at one of my country churches. In this church was a family composed of a mother, son, his wife and children, and one unmarried sister. They were all members of the Church except the old mother, who would not accept our new religion. I learned while there that the mother and the brother of her husband (the husband being dead) had arranged to marry the daughter to a man whose wife had died only a few weeks before. The man was fifty-two years old and had two sons, each of whom was older than the girl he was to marry, she being about seventeen. It was very unusual that she should have been allowed to grow to such an age without being engaged. The old mother, however, was thoroughly businesslike, and had doubtless been waiting to make a match that would be worth while. At last the time had come, and here was her chance; for the aforesaid gentleman was the leading man in the community, one of the wealthiest in the county, and had a strong pull on things politically, his brother at that time being magistrate of the county. It was a fine chance from the old mother's stand-
