holding aloft their banner in the path of their pilgrimage, and in the readiness which they should exhibit to look out on the way for the victims of sin and error, and induce them to join in the march to the heavenly city.

Secret merit.--Any virtuous actions are meritorious, and form a stock which may be heaped up like grain in a barn, and constitute a man's treasure of benefits to come. No good action, says the Buddhist, is lost. The spirits unseen will be sure to take note of it. If you do good, there is an absolute certainty that you will receive benefits by way of recompense. Hence the phrase tsi-yin-kung, "accumulation of secret merit."

A curious confusion takes place here, through that mental tendency which sometimes mixes the cause of an act with the event. Merit produces happiness. Therefore the name happiness is given to merit. In Mongolian Buddhism boyin is both "happiness" and "merit." Etymologically, it is the Chinese fu, "happiness;" doctrinally, it is any good action. In the ordinary language of social life, it is either happiness or religious merit. In Chinese Buddhism, tsui-fu means either "misery" and "happiness," or "sin" and "virtue." You may translate them either way; tsui is "misery," but it is also "sin;" fu is "happiness," but it is also "merit." In the ordinary use of sheu-tsui in Chinese, "bear suffering" is the idea. The conception of "sin" is lost. This is the effect of Buddhist teaching.

The following passages occur:--T'iau-t'o-tsui fu-chi-kwan, "leap out of and escape the gate of misery and happiness;" sien-t'sung-tsui-fu-yin-kwo-i-jan-sing-wu, "first wake up with a shock from (the delusive dream of) causes and effects, of misery and happiness."

The effect of Buddhist doctrine on heaven and hell may be judged of partially by a statement in No. 480 of the Wan-kwo-kung pau. An account is there given by a convert of the Basel mission, in the district of Sin-an, near