In their discipline they have three blows with the cane, three successive reproofs, and the alternation of speech and silence. They have a play on the words "guest" and "host." The guest may learn from the host by seeing how he meets circumstances, and imitating him. The host may learn from the guest, as when those who are already profound in wisdom make constant inquiries from their visitors, and seize ardently on what they approve. The host may learn from another host, as when those who are already wise discuss points, and such as are learning throw away what they had been grasping firmly. The guest may learn from another guest, as when the learner is laden with the heavy wooden neck collar and iron lock, and all discussion ceases.

Where the meaning of such mysterious teaching is not clear, there will be an oral explanation by the tutor; and so step by step the pupils will acquire a knowledge of the Lin-tsi school doctrines and discipline, and of the enigmatical language in which they are couched.

The founder of the Lin-tsi school died A.D. 868. A dagoba was erected over his ashes in the south part of the province of Chi-li, near Ta-ming fu, on the north-west angle not far from the city.

He resided for some years on the banks of the river Hu-t'o, which rushes with great force of current out of Shan-si into Chi-li, at the distance of a mule's journey of five days from Peking on the south-west. This river flows through the prefecture of Chen-ting fu to the Grand Canal. On the banks of this river to the south-east of the city of Chen-cheu, as Chen-ting fu was then called, the founder of the Lin-tsi school spent much of his life in a small monastery. Here he was in a quiet spot surrounded by the objects of a well-cultivated plain, where wheat and millet have been sown from time immemorial; and here he acquired a reputation for magical powers. He could stroke the beard of a fierce tiger, split rocks, burst open precipices, walk upon ice, and move along the edge of a

sword. The main features in the landscape on which he looked were the blue mountains of Shan-si, forming a broad and continuous chain on the west, with the swift river which flowed by his monastery with a full and foaming stream in the summer months, and sinking to a much smaller one in the winter, when it is frozen hard enough to be passed by loaded waggons. It was this river that gave a name to the school, for Lin-tsi means "Coming to the ford."