Note 130 — XV.

We occasionally saw the Queen of Heaven (Kwan-Yin) represented with a child in her arms, and have in our possession a piece of carved work representing such a group, which we purchased in a shop at Shanghai. This elegant figure seems to be a favourite deity with the Chinese, as it frequently adorns their little domestic altars, and is especially reverenced by the women who are desirous of the honours of maternity. The striking similarity between this exhibition and that of the Holy Virgin, as we see her represented in Catholic Churches, with the infant Jesus in her arms, must involuntarily suggest the idea that there has been an infusion of Catholicism intermingled here with the rites of Buddha. If the resemblance between the two is not accidental, it may readily be assumed that the same thing has occurred here as in the case of certain Christian legends, which the traveller encounters among various races, on whom the beams of Christian civilization have never been shed.