Excerpt from The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, Vol. 17: January, 1886 It is the fascination of the study of life, especially of the study of the spiritual life of men, SO exhaustless in variety and yet so common in its passions and needs, that gives occasion and excuse to the present endeavor. The fortress Of time-honored customs and supernatural beliefs, says Mr. Robert West, in which the soul of the heathen is, as it were, entrenched, must be explored and studied if: any atom Of adamantine truth has survived it must be respected. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.