the merit believed to attach to gifts presented for the support of monks, monasteries, and liturgical services, and on the wide-spread belief that such merit will be followed by all kinds of happiness. The early books of Buddhism abound in beautiful moral precepts, proceeding from the lips of a man who, through a long life, was animated by a pure and lofty asceticism. They are tinged with a proud scorn of worldly glory, and with a firm consciousness that there is nothing so good for a man as to listen to the teaching of his own better nature, while he shuts his ears closely to the siren voices of all sins and all temptations. Assuredly this is not what makes Buddhism popular now. For these early books are never, or almost never, read in the liturgical services; and as to striving to be good, the Buddhists do not act so as to indicate that this aim is vital and vigorous among them. The sharp eyes of the Confucianists are upon them, and the judgment they pass on them is unfavourable. The Confucianists represent them as drones in the community. They describe them as not like the useful silkworm, which gives to man the material of the textile fabric, but as being like the moth, which destroys that fabric. Then, why is Buddhism still believed by the people? The answer is, that they believe in the magical efficacy of Buddhist prayers, and in moral causation; or, in other words, the law of moral retribution which Buddhism teaches. It is on these accounts that money flows into the Buddhist treasury for the erection and repair of temples and pagodas, and for the support of innumerable priests. If I give money to gild sacred images, the law of causation will give me back happiness--Yin-kwo pu-mei.

The history of Tauism has been similar. What has come now of the philosophy of Lau-kiun and Chwang Cheu? It is much too abstruse for the modern Tauist mind. The Tauists of the present day do not occupy their attention with mysterious speculations on the pure and the true. Nor yet do they give attention to the alchemy