As might have been expected, there is a great diversity of opinion with regard to the dwellers in the Land of Shadows. Some hold that relatives do not know each other there, whilst even those who dispute this theory still believe that whilst they may visit each other occasionally, they never dream of reuniting the scattered members of a family and living together as they used to do before death divided them.
The general theory that after the lapse of sixteen years men and women are released and allowed to return to earth is subject to a good many modifications. A person of high moral character, for example, and one who has gained the approbation of the stern and inflexible Yam-lo by uprightness of life, is sent back many years sooner than the allotted time. Young boys and girls, unless they have developed decidedly vicious tendencies, are dismissed after a very short probation, to begin again the experiment of life that had been so rudely interrupted by the cruel enemy of our race.
It is a remarkable fact that there are no babies in that gloomy under world, for never having done any wrong against society, no sooner do they die than Yam-lo sends them back to life to begin once more their struggle with evil, by which their characters are to be developed, and, after a number of births, they may become the teachers and the sages of future generations.
This doctrine of metempsychosis has its fascination for a good many people, for where the future would otherwise be a dark, mysterious thing, with no ray of light to break the solemn darkness that broods over it, this breaks its awful monotony and gives men hope of escape from its mystery and power. A colonel was one day haranguing his soldiers just as they were about to engage the enemy. With the natural timidity of the Chinese soldier, they showed symptoms of alarm, and he was afraid that, carried away by their fears, they would incontinently bolt with the first sound of the bullets flying about their ears. What motive could he bring before them to induce them bravely to meet death? He could not appeal to their love of their country, for that does not exist in the hearts either of the common people or in the army. Neither could he bring forward high and lofty incentives from their religion, for though of a deeply religious nature, there is not a single system of belief in China for which any one, man or woman, would be willing to lay down their lives.