The Buddhist Monas teries. Buddhism ism. est Roman Catholic churches in form. They are excavated out of solid rock, and have a nave and side aisles, ending in an apse, or semidome, round which the aisle is carried. One of the excavated rock temples at Karli, built in this style, is one hundred and twenty-six feet long and forty-five feet wide, having fifteen elegantly-carved columns on each side, which separate the nave from the aisles. The façade of this temple is likewise profusely ornamented, and has a large open window to light the inside, below a beautiful gallery of rood loft. The numerous rock-cut monasteries of the Buddhists in India have now been deserted for centuries. Between seven and eight hundred are known to remain, most of which were excavated between B. C. 200 and A. D. 500. Buddhist monks at that early period, as well as at the present time, took the three vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience, which are taken by the members of Roman Catholic orders. Besides this, all the Buddhist priests are mendicants. They shave their heads, wear a friar's robe tied round the waist with a rope, and beg from house to house, carrying their wooden bowls for boiled rice. The old monasteries of India have chapels and cells for the monks; but the largest could accommodate only thirty or forty; while one monastery in Thibet visited by MM. Huc and Gabet (the lamasery of Kounboum) is occupied by four thousand lamas. The structure of these monasteries clearly proves that the Buddhist monkish system is far too ancient to have been adopted from the Christian system. But while Buddhism thus resembles Romanism in its outward forms, a Protest it manifests the spirit of Protestantism. In Asia the human mind proagainst Brahman- tested in the interest of mankind against the oppression of priest-ridden Brahmanism, as the European reformers of the sixteenth century revolted against the tyranny of the Church of Rome. Brahmanism established a system of salvation by sacraments, but Buddhism revolted and founded a doctrine of personal salvation by teaching. Brahmanism was the more spiritual, as it made God everything, this world nothing; Buddhism was the more rationalistic, as it made this world everything and ignored Deity. Brahmanism is a system of fixed castes; Buddhism a system wherein the doctrine of individual freedom is asserted. Brahmanism considers the body as the soul's enemy; Buddhism accepts the laws of nature and is a religion of humanity as well as of devotion. Buddhism was a protest of nature against spirit, of humanity against caste, of personal freedom against priestly despotism, of salvation by faith against salvation by sacraments. But like other revolts, Buddhism went too far. "In asserting the rights of nature against the tyranny of spirit, Buddhism has lost God." Buddhism ignores creation and the Creator. Its tracts say: Its tracts say: "The rising of the world is a natural case." "It is natural that the world should rise and perish." Brahmanism recognizes absolute spirit as the only reality and considers this world an illusion; while Buddhism recognizes only this world and ignores the eternal world of spirit. Nevertheless Buddhism, like Brahmanism, looks upon this life as an evil, and the aim of both systems to escape the changes of the world and its miseries and obtain eternal repose, while both systems hold to the doctrine of the transmigration of the souls of those who do not lead a correct life into other forms of animal existence until the soul is purified, when rest is obtained, according to Brahmanism, by absorption into the Divine Spirit of the universe, and according to Buddhism by entering Nirvana. Though both systems have the same aim, that of escaping the miseries and changes of existence into the absolute rest of eternity, the Brahman thinks this repose can only be obtained by mental submission and by a passive reception of what is taught by a priest-caste, while the Buddhist believes that this eternal rest can only come through a free obedience of the Divine laws. Both systems consider knowledge essential to salvation. M. Saint-Hilaire has summed up the good and evil of Buddhism thus: Its founder proposed himself to save the human race. He did not indulge in the subtle philosophy of the Brahmans; he did not promise his followers riches, pleasures, conquests or power; but he in vited them to accept salvation by means of virtue, knowledge and selfdenial. We do not find such noble appeals in the Vedas or the other Brahmanic works. The Buddha's greatest glory was the unlimited charity for man which filled his soul. He devoted his life to teach man and lead him in the right way. His law was a law of grace for all. Sakya-muni, the Buddha, therefore aimed at a universal religion. He viewed man's life, regardless of rank and class, as sorrowful. He considered all alike poor and needy, and invited to come unto him all that labor and are heavy laden, offering them rest. He desired to cure the diseases of the life of the human race. M. Saint-Hilaire remarks that in thus trying to save man the means of Siddartha the Buddha are as pure as his ends. He sought to persuade and to convince. He did not desire to use force. He permitted confession, and aided the weak and helpless by explanations and parables. He established habits of chastity, temperance and self-control, to guard man against evil. He employed the Christian graces of patience, humility and forgiveness of injuries. He abhorred falsehood, and reverenced truth. He forbade slander and gossip. He taught respect for parents, family, life and home. Saint Hilaire's View. Buddha's Teach ings. Bud The teaching of Gautama the Buddha, like that of Jesus the Christ, Corrupted has been corrupted with doctrines which he never taught; and the forms of worship adopted in different countries vary, but principally consist dhism. Buddha and Christ. Saint Hilaire's View. in adoration of the statues of the Buddha and of his relics, he being regarded by them as that which any person may become by the four sublime truths and the ten commandments. Buddhism as a philosophy does not deny God; it simply ignores Him, says nothing about him. Buddhism as a religion is a polytheism and an idolatry, whose millions of votaries believe in a multitude of gods. We have observed resemblances between the Buddha's teaching of charity and mercy and that of Christ's, as the fruit of the loving natures of both. Like Christianity, Buddhism was driven out of its birth-place. But M. Saint Hilaire observes that Buddhism never yet founded a Further good social state or a solitary good government. It failed in India, its native land, and never got a permanent hold of any Aryan race. The gloomy character of Buddhism, which looks upon all existence as an evil, with the simple motive of doing right for the sake of future reward by deliverance from a sad existence, has a corrupting influence upon duty; the idea disappears, and skepticism follows. "God is nothing; man is nothing; life is nothing; death is nothing; eternity is nothing. Hence the profound sadness of Buddhism. To its eye all existence is an evil, and the only hope is to escape from time into eternity or into nothing-as you may choose to interpret Nirvana. While Buddhism makes God, or the good, and heaven, to be equivalent to nothing, it intensifies and exaggerates the evil. Though heaven is a blank, hell is a very solid reality. It is present and future too. Everything in the thousand hells of Buddhism is painted as vividly as in the hell of Dante. God has disappeared from the Universe, and in his place is only the inexorable law, which grinds on forever. It punishes and rewards, but has no love in it. It is only dead, cold, hard, cruel, unrelenting law. Yet Buddhists are not atheists, any more than a child who has never heard of God is an atheist. A child is neither deist nor atheist; he has no theology. The only emancipation from self love is in the perception of an infinite love. Buddhism, ignoring this infinite love, incapable of communion with God, aiming at morality without religion, at humanity without piety, becomes at last a prey to the sadness of a selfish isolation. We do not say that this is always the case, for in all systems the heart often redeems the errors of the head. But this is the logical drift of the system and its usual outcome." Sir Edwin View. Says Edwin Arnold concerning the Buddhist religion: "In point Arnold's of age, most other creeds are youthful compared with this venerable religion, which has in it the eternity of a universal hope, the immortality of a boundless love, an indestructible element of faith in final good, and the proudest assertion ever made of human freedom." CHAPTER IX. ANCIENT CHINA AND JAPAN. SECTION I.—GEOGRAPHY OF CHINA. tion. THE Chinese Empire contains more than five millions of square miles, Area and or twice the area of the United States, and has a population of almost Populafive hundred millions, or about one-third of the number of inhabitants of the globe. China proper, inhabited by the Chinese, is about half the size of Europe, and has about four hundred millions of human beings within its limits. Of the eighteen provinces of China many contain singly more inhabitants than some of the great European monarchies. China proper contains about one-fourth part of the territory of the empire, and three-fourths of the population. It is the portion that comprises that peculiar nation, so different from all others--the Chinese. China proper is bounded on the north by Tartary and the Yellow Sea; on the east by the Pacific Ocean; on the south by the China Sea, Anam, Siam and Burmah; on the west by Thibet and Tartary. It is mainly an uneven plain, though crossed by two ranges of mountains the Peling range in the North, and the Nan-ling range in the South. The two chief rivers are the Hoang-Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang, both of which rise in Thibet; the first being eighteen hundred and fifty miles long, and the last two thousand miles. China Proper. The island of Hainan lies upon the southern coast, about eight miles Hainan. from the mainland. It is one hundred and fifty miles long and seventyfive miles wide, and is very populous. A part of the people are subject to China, and a part are independent. This island produces gold, lapis-lazuli, and various curious and valuable woods. The climate of China is cold in the North, and the winters at Pekin, Climate. the capital of the Chinese Empire, are attended with deep snows and severe frosts. In the South it is hot. China lies in the same latitude as the United States, and comprises almost the same extent upon the Pacific as our country does upon the Atlantic, so that the seasons and temperature of the two countries are very much alike. The soil of 673 Soil. China is mainly fertile, and the whole of it is under industrious and Products. skillful cultivation, yielding abundant crops. It produces all the fruits common to tropical and temperate latitudes. Camphor and cinnamon trees grow in the fields and gardens. Tea. Rice. Silk. Insects. The tea shrub, or tree, grows wild in fields and hedges, but cultivation greatly improves it. It reaches a height of from four to six feet. It is usually grown in gardens. The leaves are gathered by families, and sold to merchants who trade in the article. Tea is a peculiar product of China, and the great staple of the country. Rice is grown more extensively in China than in any other country of the world, and is the main food of the people. The silk-worm is cultivated in China, and in that country, it is said, silk was first manufactured. The various insects of China are very brilliant, and among them are many kinds of beetles and butterflies, some very large, and others beautiful. Little is known of the wild Animals. animals of China. The cattle are of the same humped species as those of India, one kind being no larger than a hog. There are not many horses. The pigs are said to be very small. Political Divisions. Provinces. The political divisions of the Chinese Empire are China proper, Manchooria, Mongolia, Soongaria, Little Bucharia, or Chinese Turkestan, Thibet and the island of Hainan. Manchooria, Mongolia, Soongaria and Chinese Turkestan are called Chinese Tartary. Mongolia is regarded as the original home of the Mongolian race. Manchooria is the native country of the present dynasty, which has ruled the Chinese Empire for almost two and a half centuries, since A. D. 1644. China proper is divided into eighteen provinces-Pe-chee-lee, Changtung, Kiang-su, Ngan-hoei, Ho-nan, Hoo-pe, Che-kiang, Kiang-si, Hoo-nan, Fokian, Quang-tung, Quang-si, Kuei-cheou, Yun-nan, Sechu-an, Shen-si, Shan-si, Kansi, Leao-tong. The great cities of China are Pekin, the capital, with about three million inhabitants, in the most north-eastern province, Pe-chee-lee; Canton, with over two million inhabitants, in the province of Quang-tung, in the South, bordering on the China Sea; and Shanghae, Amoy, Ningpo, Nankin and Foo-choo, in the East, along the coast. Chinese Antiquity. SECTION II. ANCIENT CHINA. THE Chinese Empire is the oldest now existing on the face of the earth, and has until recently formed a separate world, as it were, from the rest of mankind, with a history distinctly its own and not connected with that of other nations. While great empires have successively risen and fallen in other parts of the world, China has remained the |