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the hair plaited in a queue, while nuns shave the whole. It is not easy to distinguish the monks from the nuns as they walk the streets, for both have natural feet, wear clumsy shoes, long stockings drawn over full trousers, short jackets, and have bald pates. Like her sister in Romish countries, the Chinese nun, when her head has been shaved-the opposite of taking the veil, though the hair of both is sacrificed—is required to live a life of devotion and mortification, eat vegetables, care nothing for the world, and think only of her eternal canonization, keeping herself busy with the service of the temple. 'Daily exercises are to be conducted by her; the furniture of the small sanctuary that forms a part of the convent must be looked after and kept clean and orderly; those women or men who come to worship at the altars, and seek guidance and comfort, must be cared for and assisted. When there is leisure, the sick and the poor are to be visited; and all who have placed themselves under her special direction and spiritual instruction, have a strong claim upon her regard. That she may live the life of seclusion and self-denial, she must vow perpetual virginity. The thought of marriage should never enter her head, and the society of men must be shunned. On her death, she will be swallowed up in nihility!" In this nunnery at Ningpo, there were only seven inmates, and two conducted the daily services, but on special occasions, nuns from other convents and priests came in to assist. As might be supposed, the rehearsal of an unmeaning liturgy before a senseless idol has nothing devotional in it: "they are as merry and tricky, as flirting and frolicksome, as any party of girls met to keep the birthday of one of their schoolmates."

Most of them are taught to read the classics as well as their own literature, and some of the sisterhood are said to be well read in the lore of the country. Each nun has her own disciples among the laity, and cultivates and extends her acquaintances as much as she can, inasmuch as upon them her support principally depends. Each of her patrons, whether male or female, receives a new name from her, as she herself also did when her head was shaven. Contributors' names are written or engraved in conspicuous places in the building, casual fees or donations go to the general expenses. Each nun also receives ten cents when public masses are recited for those who have engaged them. Their moral character is uniformly represented by the Chinese as dis

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solute, and they are both despised for their profligacy, and dreaded for the supposed power they can exert by means of their connexion with spirits. The number of nunneries in the department of Ningpo is stated to be thirty, and the sisterhood in them all to amount to upwards of three hundred persons.*

The numerous points of similarity between the rites of the Budhists, and those of the Romish church, early attracted attention; the reader will have already noticed some of these coincidences, such as the vow of celibacy in both sexes, the object of their seclusion, the loss of hair, taking a new name, and looking after the care of the convent. There are many grounds for sup posing, too, that their favorite goddess Kwanyin, i. e. the Hearer of Cries, called also Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven, is only another form of Our Lady. The monastic habit, holy water, counting rosaries to assist in prayer, the ordinances of celibacy and fasting, and reciting masses for the dead, worship of relics and canonization of saints, are alike features of both sects. Both burn candles and incense, and bells are much used in their temples; both teach a purgatory, from which the soul can be delivered by prayers, and use a dead language for their liturgy, and their priests pretend to miracles. These striking resemblances led the Romish missionaries to suppose that some of them had been derived from the Romanists or Syrians who entered China before the twelfth century; others referred them to St. Thomas, but Prémare ascribes them to the devil, who had thus imitated holy mother church in order to scandalize and oppose its rites. But as Davis observes, "To those who admit that most of the Romish ceremonies are borrowed directly from paganism, there is less difficulty in accounting for the resemblance."

The worship is similar and equally imposing. One eyewitness describes the scene he saw in a Budhist temple: "There stood fourteen priests, seven on each side of the altar, erect, motionless, with clasped hands and downcast eyes, their shaven heads and flowing grey robes adding to their solemn appearance. The low and measured tones of the slowly moving chant they were singing might have awakened solemn emotions, too, and called away the thoughts from worldly objects. Three priests kept time with the music, one beating an immense drum, another a large iron

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vessel, and a third a wooden ball. After chanting, they kneeled upon low stools, and bowed before the colossal image of Budha, at the same time striking their heads upon the ground. Then rising and facing each other, they began slowly chanting some sentences, and rapidly increasing the music and their utterance until both were at the climax of rapidity, they diminished in the same way until they had returned to the original measure. In the meantime, some of the number could not restrain their curiosity, and even while chanting and counting their beads, left their places to ask for books. The whole service forcibly reminded me of scenes in Romish chapels; the shaven heads of the priests, their long robes, mock solemnity, frequent prostrations, chantings, beads, yea, and their idol too, all suggested their types, or their antitypes in the apostate church."*

The form of Budhism prevailing among the Mongols and Tibetans differs more in its state and power than in its doctrines; it is called Shamanism, or Hwang kiau, the Yellow doctrine, from the color of the priestly robes. The dalai lama at H’lassa, in the great monastery of the Putala, is the pope of the religion, the incarnation of deity. Mongolia swarms with lamas, and the government at Peking aids in supporting them in order to maintain its sway more easily over the tribes, though the Manchus have endeavored to supplant the civil authority of the dalai-lama and banchin-erdeni, by partially aiding and gradually subdividing their power. The ritual of the Shamans, in which the leading tenets held and taught by the lamas are exhibited, has been translated by Neumann, a German sinologue. They have ten principal precepts, forming a kind of decalogue, viz. 1. Do not kill sentient beings; 2. Do not steal; 3. Do not marry; 4. Speak not falsely; 5. Drink not wine; 6. Perfume not the hair on the crown nor paint the body; 7. Do not behold songs or plays, and perform none thyself; 8. Sit not nor lie on a high large couch; 9. Do not eat after the time; 10. Do not grasp hold of gold or silver, or any valuable thing. The book contains also twentyfour sections of directions as to the conduct to be observed in various places, and before different persons. When using the sacred books, the devotee must consider himself to be in the presence of Budha, and he is forbidden to study books of divination,

* Foreign Missionary Chronicle, Vol. XIV., p. 300.

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physiognomy, medicine, drawing lots, astronomy, geography, alchemy, charms, magic, or poetry:-no wonder the priests are ignorant, when almost every source of instruction is thus debarred them. The number of temples scattered over Mongolia and Tibet, and the proportion of priests, are far greater than in China, and the literature is not less enormous for bulk than are the contents of the volumes tedious and uninstructive. A good device for a religion of formality to economize time and accommodate ignorance is adopted by the lamas, which is to write the prayers on a piece of paper and fasten them to a wheel, carried round by the wind; chests are also set up in temples having prayers for worshippers engraved on the outside in large letters, and the prayer is repeated as often as the wind or the hand revolves the wheel or chest. The lamas exert a great influence through their incantations and demoniacal exhibitions, and no intelligent or educated class interposes any obstacle.

The hold of the Budhists upon the mass of Chinese consists far more in the position they occupy in relation to the rites performed in honor of the dead, than in their temples and tenets. This brings us to the consideration of the real religion of the Chinese, that in which more than anything else they trust, and to which they look for consolation and reward,-the worship of deceased ancestors. The doctrines of Confucius, and the ceremonial of the state religion, exhibit the speculative, intellectual dogmas of the Chinese; the tenets of Lautsz', and the sorcery and invocations of his followers, may be regarded as the marvellous and subtle part of the popular creed; while the idle, shaven priest of Budha impersonates its sensual and scheming features; but the heart of the nation reposes more upon the rites offered at the family shrine to the two "living divinities" who preside in the hall of ancestors than to all the rest. This sort of family worship has been popular in other countries, but in no part of the world has it reached the consequence it has received in Eastern Asia; every natural feeling serves, indeed, to strengthen it when once it becomes common. Who so likely to watch over their children, protect from harm, and rescue from danger, cure in sickness and preserve in health, prosper in business and succor in poverty, as those who had performed these kindly offices when they were alive, and around whom the best affections of the heart are entwined? That the worship rendered to their ancestors

by the Chinese, is idolatrous cannot be doubted; and it forms one of the subtlest phases of idolatry, essentially evil with the guise of goodness, ever established among men.

The prevalence of infanticide, and the indifference with which the crime is regarded, may seem to militate against this view of Chinese social character, and throw discredit on the degree of respect and reverence paid to parents; for how, some will ask, can a man thus worship and venerate parents who once imbrued their hands in his sister's blood? Such anomalies may be found in the distorted minds and depraved hearts educated under the superstitions of heathenism in every country, and the Chinese are no exception. It is exceedingly difficult, however, to ascer tain the extent of infanticide in China, and all the reasons which prompt to the horrid act. Investigations have been made about Canton, and evidence obtained to show that it is comparatively rare, and not at all countenanced by public opinion; though by no means unknown, nor punished by law when done. Similar investigations at Amoy have disclosed a fearful extent of murders of this nature; yet while the latter are believed, the assertions of the former are regarded as evasions of the truth from the fear of displeasing a foreign examiner, or a greater sense of shame when detected! The whole nation has been branded as systematic murderers of their children from the practice of the inhabitants of a portion of two provinces, who are generally regarded by their countrymen as among the most violent and poorest people in the eighteen. Sir John Barrow heard that the carts went about the streets of Peking daily, to pick up dead and dying infants thrown out by their unnatural parents, but he does not mention ever having seen a single corpse in all his walks or rides about the capital. The bodies of children are not as often seen in the lanes and creeks of Canton as those of adults, and the former are as likely to have died natural deaths as the latter.

In Fuhkien province, especially in the departments of Tsiuenchau and Changchau, infanticide prevails to a greater extent than in any other part of the empire yet examined. Mr. Abeel extended his inquiries to forty different towns and villages lying in the first, and found that the percentage was between seventy and eighty down to ten, giving an average of about forty per cent. of all girls born in those places being murdered. In Changchau, out of seventeen towns, the proportion lies between one fourth and

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