correspondence between the several missions, and. to receive the missionaries on their arrival from Europe. His residence is at Macao, a town situated at the mouth of the gulph of Canton, the principal approach to the Chinese empire.
The missions of China are supplied partly by European, and partly by native priests, each mission having one or more ecclesiastical seminaries. The priests, owing to the paucity of their number and their consequent inability to administer to all the spiritual wants of their respective flocks spread over very extensive tracts of country, are assisted in some of their duties and ministerial functions by what are termed lay catechists. These are divided into two classes, viz. resident and itinerant.
The resident catechists are almost all married men or widowers, selected from the best instructed and most fervent Christians. Their office is, in the absence of the priest, to preside at general meetings of devotion, especially on Sundays and Festivals, when they read aloud prayers and some pious book, give familiar instructions on the Christian Doctrine, and announce to the faithful the feasts, fasts and abstinence prescribed by the church. They also, in cases of necessity, baptize new-born infants, and even the children of Pagan parents, as well as adults who are in danger of death. They visit the sick and attend the funerals of the dead, to see that the rites of the Catholic church are observed without any mixture of Pagan superstition. They correct scandals and abuses, comfort such as are persecuted for the faith, and watch over the preservation of peace and fraternal charity. In a word, on the periodical visits of the missionary, they give him an account of the abuses which may have, crept in during his absence, and of the general state of religion.
The itinerant catechists, who during their engagement in that capacity are obliged to live in a state of celibacy, accompany and assist the missionaries in the course of their visits, or go wherever they may be deputed to visit the different stations, to catechise, instruct, exhort and console the faithful, as well as to baptize, regulate Christian burials, and correct abuses. At Tong-king no person is admitted to the office of catechist until he has learnt by heart a work in two
