feiture 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. The following extract will show at once the responsibility which attaches to the 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 punish

* Chinese Repository, vol. i. p. 236.

ments? 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 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 Kâng-hy, in his communications with the Pope, wherein he averred that it was not to the visible and material heaven that he

* The Supreme ruler.

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.

CHAPTER XIV.

RELIGION—BUDHISM.

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 Fo, 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, Cochin-China, 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

*This has been constantly confounded with the name of the ancient Emperor Fc-hy.

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 superstitions 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.*

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