celibacy. She became deified during the thirteenth century under the Soong dynasty, and, having originated in a maritime province, she is the peculiar patroness of seafaring people, who erect altars and temples to her on shore, and implore her protection on the water. She is supposed to have the control of the weather; and in seasons of severe drought the government issues proclamations, commanding a general fast and abstinence from animal food: the local magistrate, in his official capacity, goes to the temples and remains fasting and praying for successive days and nights, supplicating for rain. In no country are the vicissitudes of the seasons more irregular, nor the inconveniences resulting from them more severe, than in some parts of China.

"That the material universe is the object of worship appears not only from the names of those several parts which have been given above, but also from other circumstances. Thus the imperial high-priest, when he worships heaven, wears robes of an azure colour, in allusion to the sky. When he worships the earth his robes are yellow, to represent the clay of this earthly sphere. When the sun is the object, his dress is red; and for the moon, he wears a pale white. The kings (wang), nobles, and crowd of official hierophants wear their court-dresses. The altar of sacrifice to heaven is round, to represent the sky: that on which the sacrifices to earth are laid is square, but whether for a similar reason is not stated. The priests of the Chinese state religion, subordinate to the emperor himself as pontifex maximus, are the kings, nobles, statesmen, and the crowd of civil and military officers. The joo-keaou, or philosophic sect, monopolize both the civil and sacred functions. At the grand state-worship of nature, neither priests nor women are admitted; and it is only when the especial sacrifice to the patroness of silk takes place, that the empress herself, and the several grades of female rank at Peking, may take a part.

"It is required of the Chinese hierophants that they be free from any recent legal crime, and not in mourning for the dead. For the first order of sacrifices they are required to prepare themselves by ablutions, a change of

garments, a vow, and a fast of three days. During this time they must occupy a clean chamber, and abstain,-1. from judging criminals; 2. from being present at a feast; 3. from listening to music; 4. from cohabitation with women; 5. from intercourse with the sick; 6. from mourning for the dead; 7. from wine; 8. from eating onions or garlic; for," says the annotator, "sickness and death defile, while banqueting and feasting dissipate the mind, and unfit it for holding communion with the gods."

The victims sacrificed consist of oxen, sheep, and pigs; and the other offerings are principally silks. 1 It is required that the victims be whole and sound, and a black colour is preferred. The times of sacrifice are specified thus:-those to heaven are offered at the winter solstice; those to earth at the summer solstice; and the others at regularly appointed periods. The punishment annexed to the neglect of due preparation, imperfect victims, &c., is either forfeiture of salary for a month or longer, or a specified number of blows with the bamboo, which may be commuted for the payment of a very small sum of money, according to the number of blows adjudged to the delinquent; which, as in other cases throughout the penal code, may often be considered rather as a measure of the offence than as a specification of the real penalty inflicted. The case is far different if the common people presume to arrogate the right of worshipping heaven, for they are punished in such cases with eighty blows, and even with strangulation.

Notwithstanding the general aspect of materialism that pertains to the Chinese philosophy, it is difficult to peruse their sentiments regarding Tien (heaven) without the persuasion that they ascribe to it most of the attributes of a supreme governing intelligence. The work above quoted contains, in another place, the translation of the prayer of the reigning Emperor, Taou-kuâng, on the occasion of a long drought with which the whole country had been afflicted in the year 1832. 2 The following extract will show at once the responsibility which attaches to the 1 These, as well as the flesh of the sacrifices, are probably divided among the worshippers eventually. 2 Chinese Repository, vol i. p. 236.

conduct and administration of the Emperor, and the notions of a Supreme Being associated with the Chinese ideas of Tien:-"I, the minister of heaven (says the Emperor), am placed over mankind, and made responsible for keeping the world in order, and tranquillizing the people. Unable as I am to sleep or eat with composure, scorched with grief, and trembling with anxiety, still no genial and copious showers have yet descended. ****** I ask myself whether, in sacrificial services, I have been remiss? whether pride and prodigality have had a place in my heart, springing up there unobserved? whether from length of time I have become careless in the affairs of government? whether I have uttered irreverent words, and deserved reprehension? whether perfect equity has been attained in conferring rewards and inflicting punishments? whether, in raising mausoleums and laying out gardens, I have distressed the people and wasted property? whether, in the appointment of officers, I have failed to obtain fit persons, and thereby rendered government vexatious to the people? whether the oppressed have found no means of appeal? whether the largesses conferred on the afflicted southern provinces were properly applied, or the people left to die in the ditches?**** Prostrate, I beg Imperial Heaven to pardon my ignorance and dulness, and to grant me self-renovation; for myriads of innocent people are involved by me, a single man. My sins are so numerous that it is hopeless to escape their consequences. Summer is passed, and autumn arrived-to wait longer is impossible. Prostrate, I implore Imperial Heaven to grant a gracious deliverance," &c.

It was the opinion of some among the Jesuits in China that the better portion of the learned in that country had not given

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way to the material and atheistical system current during the Soong dynasty, but adhered strictly to the ancient religion, in which a Supreme and creative intelligence was acknowledged under the title of Kien, or Shang-ty. The Confucian philosophers consisted, according to them, of two sects. First, of those who disregarded the modern commentators and philosophists, and retained the same notions regarding the Creator of the universe that had been handed down from remote antiquity. Secondly, of those who puzzle themselves with the speculations of Choo-tsze and his school, as they appear in the work before mentioned, and endeavour to explain the phenomena of nature by the operation of material causes. Others of the Romish missionaries were persuaded that all the Chinese learned were no better than atheists, and that notwithstanding the express declaration of the Emperor Kung-hy, in his communications with the Pope, wherein he averred that it was not to the visible and material heaven that he sacrificed, but to the true Creator of the universe, no faith could be placed in their explanations. We have before remarked that the Romish fathers, however much they may have extolled the wealth, civilization, and resources of China, have generally viewed the moral and religious character of the people in a somewhat prejudiced light; and the commercial adventurers from Europe, confined in their communications with the people to the neighbourhoods of seaports, unable commonly to gain correct information from books, and treated by the government as barbarous intruders, have been sufficiently predisposed to give way to unfavourable impressions.

1 The Supreme ruler.

WHEN a Chinese is asked how many systems of philosophic or religious belief exist in his country, he answers, Three-namely, Yu, the doctrine of Confucius, already noticed; Fo, or Budhism; and the sect of Taou, or "Rationalists." It must not, however, be inferred that these three hold an equal rank in general estimation. Confucianism is the orthodoxy, or state religion of China; and the other two, though tolerated as long as they do not come into competition with the first, have been rather discredited than encouraged by the government. "First (it

is observed in the Sacred Instructions) is the honourable doctrine of the Yu, and then those of Fo and Taou. Respecting these latter, Choo-tsze has said the doctrine of Fŏ regards neither heaven nor earth, nor the four regions. Its only object is the establishment of its sect, and the unanimity of its members. The doctrine of Taou consults nothing more than individual enjoyment and preservation."

The religion of Fŏ,1 or, as it is pronounced at Canton, Futh, is that of Bud'h, in the precise shape which that superstition has assumed throughout Thibet, Siam, Cochinchina, Ava, Tartary, and Japan. The extensive dissemination of Budhism in countries foreign to India, its original birth-place, must necessarily be ascribed in a great measure to the rancorous persecution it experienced from the Brahmins, whose hatred towards this heresy gave rise, as soon as they became the predominant sect, to the most cruel treatment of the reformers, for such the Budhists appear at first to have been. About one thousand years before the Christian era, an extraordinary man appeared in India, who laboured with unceasing assiduity, and not without success, to reform the popular super

1 This has been constantly confounded with the name of the ancient Emperor Fo-hy.

stitions and destroy the influence of the Brahmins. This was Budha, whom the Brahmins themselves regard as an avatar of Vishnu. The efforts of Budha were exerted to bring back the religion of his country to its original purity. He was of royal descent, but chose an ascetic life, and embraced the most abstruse system of philosophy prevalent in India. Many princes, among others the celebrated Vikramaditya, who reigned in the century that preceded the commencement of our era, adopted the faith of Budha, and, as far as their influence extended, obliterated the religion of the Brahmins and the system of castes. It is certain, however, that the learned adherents of the Brahminical religion did not remain silent spectators of what they deemed (or at least called) the triumph of atheism. They contended with their equally learned opponent, and this dispute, as is manifest by the tendency of many of the works still read by the Hindoos, called forth all the talents of both sides; but here, as in innumerable other instances, the arm of power prevailed, and, as long as the reigning monarchs were Budhists, the Brahmins were obliged to confine themselves to verbal contentions. At length, about the beginning of the sixth century of our era, an exterminating persecution of the Budhists began, which was instigated chiefly by Cumavila Bhatta, a fierce antagonist of their doctrine, and a reputed writer on Brahminical theology. This persecution terminated in almost entirely expelling the followers of the Budhist religion from Hindoostan; but it has doubtless contributed to its propagation in those neighbouring countries into which it had previously been introduced, through the intercourse of commerce and travel.2

2 The Hindoos, vol. i. p. 175.

The above is the Indian history of Budhism. According to the Chinese, it was introduced into their empire about sixty-five years after the commencement of our era, during the reign of Ming-ty of the Hân dynasty. That monarch, considering a certain saying of Confucius to be prophetic of some saint to be discovered in the west, sent emissaries to seek him out. On reaching India, they discovered the sect of Budhists, and brought back some of them with their idols and books to China. The tradition is, that Budha was both king and priest in a country of the west, with a queen whom he made a divinity: that he was obliged to abdicate his power and seek a secluded retreat for twelve years, after which he taught the dogma of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, making that the vehicle of a system of rewards and punishments hereafter. He is said ultimately to have regained his power, and to have departed this life at an advanced age, being transformed at once into the god Fò, or Budha. It is a common saying of his disciples, that "Fo is one person, but has three forms," which are represented by three distinct gilded images, called the "Three precious, or pure Budhas." The mother of the god is said to have dreamed that she had swallowed an elephant, whence the veneration for elephants in Siam and Pegu. Budha's character as a reformer is indicated by the Chinese legend, that he aimed at instructing men "to amend their conduct and practise virtue."

The five principal precepts, or rather interdicts, of Budhism must be understood as being addressed to the priests alone, or to those who devote themselves to the god. They are the following:-1. Do not kill living creatures. 2. Do not steal. 3. Do not marry. 4. Speak not falsely. 5. Drink no wine. The Shamans, Hoshangs, or priests, are associated together in monasteries attached to the temples of Fŏ. They are in China precisely a society of mendicants, and go about like the monks of that desciption in the Romish church, asking alms for the support of their establishments. How much their costume resembles that of the Catholic priesthood, may be seen by the annexed cut, from original Chinese drawings done at Canton.

Their tonsure extends to the hair of the

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whole head. There is a regular gradation among the priesthood, and, according to his reputation for sanctity, his length of service, and other claims, each priest may rise from the lowest rank of servitor, whose duty it is to perform the menial offices of the temple, to that of officiating priest, and ultimately of Tae Hoshang, abbot or head of the establishment. The curious resemblance that exists between the observances of the Budhist priests of China and Tartary, and those of the Catholic church, has excited the surprise of the missionaries from the latter; and the observations and surmises of Père Gerbillon, who was intimately acquainted with the subject, may by some be considered as worthy of attention. He questioned a well-informed Mongol, as to the time when his countrymen had first become devoted to the Lama of Thibet, who is a spiritual sovereign closely resembling the Pope. The reply was, that priests first came into Mongol Tartary in the time of Koblai Khân, but that these were really persons of holy and irreproachable lives, unlike the present. The father supposes that they might have been religious Christians from Syria and Armenia, the communication with which countries being subsequently cut off by the dismemberment of the Mongol empire, the Budhist priests mixed up their superstitions with the Catholic observances. Certain it is (and the observation may be daily made even at Canton) that they now practise the ordinances of celibacy, fasting, and prayers for the dead: they have holy water, rosaries of beads which they count with their prayers, the worship of relics, and a monastic habit resembling that of the Franciscans. They likewise kneel before an idol called Tien-how, queen of heaven. strange coincidences led some of the Catholic fathers to conjecture that the Chinese had received a glimpse of Romish Christianity, by the way of Tartary, from the Nestorians; others supposed that St. Thomas himself had been among them; but Père Prémare was driven to conclude that the devil had practised a trick to perplex his friends the Jesuits. To those who admit that most of the Romish ceremonies and rites are borrowed directly from paganism, there is less difficulty in accounting for the resemblance.

These

Chinese history relates, that about the middle of the tenth century, the Emperor Kien-tě, who founded the Soong dynasty, sent three hundred Shaman or Budhist priests into India, on purpose to procure the books and relics of the god. After passing the river Heng-ho (Gunga, or Ganges) they saw a large image of Fó in the south. In the homilies of the priests there often occurs this sentence:-"Oh Fo, existing in forms as numerous as the sands of the Heng-ho." Their books mention a country called Sy-lán (Ceylon), in which, near the sea, there is on a certain mountain (Adam's Peak) the print of a foot three cubits in length. At the base of the hill is a temple, in which the real body of Fo is said to repose on its side; and near it are teeth and other relics of Budha, called by the priests Shay-ly. It is but justice to the Chinese to say that, in importing some of the Indian deities and their superstitions, they have wisely left behind all the indecen

cies and fanatic madness of Indian worship, and that such horrors as those enacted at Jaggernath and elsewhere could never in the slightest degree be practised under a government like that of China.

One of the principal objects of curiosity at Canton is a temple and monastery of Fó, or Budha, on a very considerable scale, situated upon the southern side of the river, just opposite to the European factories. It is said that towards the close of the last Chinese dynasty, and about A.D. 1600, a priest of great sanctity raised the reputation of the temple which had been for some time before established in that place; and a century afterwards, when the Manchows had taken possession of Peking, the son-in-law of Kang-hy, who had been sent to subdue Canton, and was therefore called " Subjugator of the South," took up his residence in the temple, which he at length patronized and greatly enriched. The funds soon sufficed to maintain a crowd of