If you desire to penetrate further into the building you will come to the kitchen where the dainty dishes of the Chinese are cooked; but you retreat and ascend a staircase in the southeast corner of the first room, and soon you are in the Joss-House proper.

This second story is devoted exclusively to religious purposes.

The room to which you are now introduced is about thirty feet square, and as you look around you perceive the hangings on the walls and the rich decorations of the ceiling.

Here are placards on the walls, which, your guide will tell you, if you are not conversant with the Chinese tongue, bear on them sentences from the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and others, with exhortations to do nothing against integrity or virtue, to venerate ancestors and to be careful not to injure one's reputation in the eyes of Americans;--all of which is most excellent advice, and worthy of the attention of men everywhere.

You then cast your eyes on the gilded spears, and standards and battle-axes standing in the corners of the Temple, and as you look up you almost covet the great Chinese lanterns suspended from the ceiling.