1860. | Buddhism ; 
common gull breeds in vast numbers 
on the sand bars or sand islands off the 
south coast of Long Island. A little 
dent is made in fhe sand, the eggs are 
dropped and the old birds go their way. 
In due time the eggs are iiishied by the 
warmth of the sun, and the little crea- 
O 
of Buddha, one\ymay be tempted to pa 
the correctness\of this title, “The 
Protestantism of the East.” One might 
say, “ Why not rather the Romanism 
of the East?” For numerous are 
the resemblances betwéen the customs 
of this system and those df the Romish 
Church, that the first Cath 
aries who encountered the 
Buddha were confounded, and\thought 
that Satan had been mocking their sa- 
cred rites. Father Bury, a Portugs 
missionary,* when he beheld the 
nese bonzes tonsured, using rosarie 
or, the Protestantism of the East. 
Teena NEP PR FURR ERLEBIE BE NSE et #8 SP te ets ROLLY PY OEY THEMIS MU ON MD WNL MANS OIA 
‘the; 
713 
tures shift for themselves. July 
countless numbers of them, of different 
ages and sizes, swarm upon these sandy 
wastes. As the waves roll out, they 
rush down the beach, picking up a kind 
of sea gluten, and then hasten back to 
avoid the next breaker. 
lation,) says: “The cross, the mitre, 
the dalmatica, the cope,/ ‘which the 
Grand Lamas wear on their journeys, 
or when they are petforming some 
ceremony out of the sémple, — the ser- 
vice with double chéirs, the psalmody, 
the exorcisms, thé censer suspended 
from five chains, and which you can 
open or close/at pleasure, — the bene- 
dictions givefi by the Lamas by extend- 
ing the right hand over the heads of the 
‘faithful, > the chaplet, ecclesiastical cel- 
ibacy, religious retirement, the worship 
the’ saints, the fasts, the processions, 
Ai itanies, the holy water, —all these 
are analogies between the Buddhists 
praying in an unknown tongue, and And outselves, » And in Thibet there 
kneeling before images, exclaimed in/ ¥g also a Dalai Lama, who is a sort of 
astonishment : “There is not a piece of 
dress, not a sacerdotal function, n 
ceremony of the court of Rome, which 
the Devil has not copied in this’coun- 
try.” Mr. Davis (Transactions of the 
Royal Asiatic Society, II. 491) speaks 
of “the celibacy of the Buddhist clergy, 
and the monastic life of the societies of 
both sexes ; 
their strings of beads, their manner of 
chanting prayers, #heir incense, and 
their candles.” Mr. Medhurst (China, 
London, 1857) mentions the image of a 
virgin, called. the “queen of heaven,” 
having an infant i in her arms, and hold- 
ing a cross. Confession of sins is 
regularly” ‘practised. Father Huc, in 
his Reéollections of a Journey in Tar- 
tary Thibet, and China, (Hazlitt’s trans- 
Press “‘ The Cross and the Dragon,” (London 
'54,) quoted by Hardwicke. , 
VOL. XXIII. — NO. 140. 46 
to which shight be added. 
i eae Such numerous and 
triking analogies are difficult to ex- 
plain, After the simple theory “que 
le diable y était pour beaucoup” was 
abandonéd, the next opinion held by 
the Jesuit missionaries was that the 
Beddhists Tad copied these customs 
from Nestoria missionaries, who are 
known to have ‘penetrated early even 
as far as China. \But a serious objec- 
tion to this theory\is that Buddhism 
is at least five hundred years older than 
Christianity, and that many of the most 
striking resemblances Delong to its 
earliest period. Thus Wilson (Hindu 
Drama) has translated plays written be- 
fore the Christian era, in which\Buddh- 
ist monks appear as mendicants\, The 
worship of relics is quite as aK. 
Fergusson* describes topes, or shri 
* Tilustrated Handbook of Architecture, p. 67. 
