1 697-] CHINESE DEVOTIONS. 257 



'Tis thus Eeligion, ill understood, oftentimes degenerates into 

 Extravagance. As for the other Presents, I'm well assur'd 

 they poyson them likewise, as well knowing the Motive 

 of Interest frequently prevails over that of Superstition,^ 

 Among their Tombs there are some very large, and finely 

 set off: They have divers Pacjoiles at Batavia} At first 

 sight these Temples seem much to resemble the Boman- 

 Catholick Churches.^ 



You see three sorts of Chapels, Altars, Wax-Tapers, 

 Lamps, Holy-Water, Pictures, Statifes and Images of a 

 hundred forms. The Priests too are set off with Ornaments, 

 not unlike those of the i2o//2«)i-Catholick Clergy. They wear 

 at their Girdles, or on their Arms, certain Chaplets, whose 

 Beads are not all equal, and which they make use of to count 

 certain Prayers which they repeat machinally. The People 

 have also their Devotions calculated, rather for a Monkey 

 than a God, and wear their strings of little Bullets, in like 

 manner with the Priests. 



When these last celebrate they use many Genuflexions, 

 turn to the Eight, Left, forw^ards and backwards, one making 

 Invocations, and the other answering him ; The By-standers 



1 In orig. : " de la Superstition, quelque violent qu'il soit, de roeme 

 que tous les autres," omitted by triinslator. 



2 In orig. : " autour de Batavia." 



3 "In fact, though these people have temples erected in various parts 

 of the Island of Java and one at Aujole, close to Batavia, the structures 

 seem to be formed more out of compliance with custom than for any- 

 serious purpose, since religious rites are hardly ever observed in them 

 nor is anything like worship) practised by the people who built them." 

 (Thorn, I. c, p. 247.) 



" An image, with tapers burning before it, representing either a good, 

 or evil genius, or both together sometimes, is placed in every Chinese 

 dwelling. This idol is frequently consulted by dropping two or more 

 sticks before it, and in a variety of other ways, which the Chinese inter- 

 prets according to certain rules, and thus determines the regulation of 

 his trading concerns by lot, not very dissimilar to the divination of the 

 ancients, and the practice still observed by the modern Arabians." 

 {im., p. 247.) 



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