The Syrian Christians extended their missions in China at a time when Buddhism was in the ascendant, and adopted terms from the professors of that religion which indicate a more extensive principle of imitation than either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants have in later times thought of adopting. The reason is found in the popularity of Buddhism in the capital of China in the time of the Nestorian missionaries. That religion was much favoured at court, and was the chief agent in teaching the future state and the superiority of the monastic life as a means of subduing the passions. Both Buddhism and Christianity came from the West; and it would be for the Nestorians difficult to maintain the mutual independence of the two religions, agreeing as they did in a belief in a world of happiness and of misery for mankind after the present

life. The fact that the Nestorian monks called themselves seng, as the Buddhists do, has some light thrown on it by an incident in the life of Matthew Ricci. He adopted a Buddhist priest's dress and shaved his head. But after making trial for a time of this costume he changed it for that of the Confucianists, as it was worn in the Ming dynasty. Perhaps the Nestorian priests adopted and retained the Buddhist costume in ordinary life, and reserved their own ceremonial robes for special occasions, as the Roman Catholics do now with the Confucianist.

The word seng, for "priest," they probably took to be an exact equivalent of their cohen. So in colloquial English, we call the Buddhist monks Buddhist priests. We have given up the word bonzes, the Japanese term introduced by Portuguese and other Romish missionaries, into European accounts of the religion of this part of the world. To call them priests at all is, however, somewhat negligent English. The Roman Catholics have done better to call their "monks" sieu-shi, and their "nuns" sieu-nu, rather than to style them seng or ho-shang, and ni-ku or ni-seng. Sieu is "cultivate moral virtues;" shi, "scholar," "person;" nu is "woman."

Times have changed. The Buddhists are not now wafted to a proud position by the gales of popular applause; and still less in the present dynasty, than in the Ming dynasty, would the Jesuit gain any advantage by following the example of Ricci while he was in South China, in adopting the Buddhist garb.

In discussing Buddhist phrases capable of being applied in Christian teaching, I will begin with mo, the "devil." This is in Sanscrit mara. The maras are, in Buddhist phraseology, a class of demons. They are not known to the Brahmans. The word is formed from the root mar, "death," and is an Aryan personification of death. By the Buddhists the maras are regarded as a king with a host of followers. They wage war against Buddhism, and when Shakyamuni was living he had successful contests