By the time we had reached the main entrance to the temple my courage had begun to fail, and gladly would I have backed out, but my husband felt we must go on. Passing through the great gates we entered a large court, on either side of which were crowds of men and women, some at tables, some seated on the ground, all feasting or gambling. In and out among these, peddlers passed calling loudly their wares. Utter confusion prevailed, but we had no difficulty in getting through to the court beyond; here, however, we found the crowd increasingly great. A large iron caldron resting on a pedestal stood in the center of the court surrounded by several men stripped to the waist, these were dancing and shouting as they stirred the fire in the caldron with iron sticks, the fire being fed by the paper offerings of the pilgrims. The men's faces and bodies were blackened by the paper ashes. The whole scene was most gruesome and reminded one of Dante's "Inferno."
The men, catching sight of us, demanded fiercely our paper offerings; one of them going so far as to seize me by the arm. I shrank in terror behind my husband, who urged me not to show fear, but to keep moving on; to go back now was impossible, for the whole crowd was moving on towards the right hand flight of steps leading up to the goddess' temple. On reaching these steps there was a pause and then a sudden rush, strain, and crush, when I found myself landed at the top of the steps, and my husband pushing me out of the crowd into a ledge of the balcony. Here we stood apart, almost hidden from the crowd.
What a sight the courts below presented! The crowds, seethed and crushed; hundreds of explosives seemed to be fired every moment; the noise and confusion was indescribable. As we watched there were some things that made one's heart ache. Heathenism seemed stamped upon most of the faces. Old men and women could be seen helped along by younger ones. Some of these must have been well on to eighty; some were so frail and old as to be almost carried. We knew that these were old grandfathers or grandmothers being taken to the goddess' shrine to ask for a grandson.
As I turned from the sight, sick at heart, and closed my eyes for a moment, I seemed to forget my surroundings and before me rose a vivid scene in the dear homeland. I seemed to be once more in the old seat in Knox Church, Toronto. Our beloved, white-haired pastor, Dr. Parsons stood at the Communion Table. And I could hear him say, "That I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." The quietness, the reverential worship, the solemnity of the whole scene seemed as real as if I were there. But oh, the contrast as I opened my eyes on the scene before us! _That_ was Christian--_this_ heathen worship!