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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: kneelings and nine prostrations. Then going to the great altar he
inspects the offerings, after which he repairs to the Palace of
Abstinence, where he spends the night in fasting and prayer. The
next morning at 5:45 A. M. he dons his sacrificial robes,
proceeds to the open altar, where he kneels and burns incense,
offers a prayer to Shang Ti, and incense to his ancestors whose
shrines and tablets are arranged on the northeast and northwest
portions of the altar.
There are two altars in the temple, a quarter of a mile apart,
the covered and the open altar, and this latter is one of the
grandest religious conceptions of the human mind. It is a triple
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