The body was violated by handling or mutilating it, which was sometimes done for magical purposes; by stripping it of anything valuable, as gold, arms; or by transporting it to another place, without leave obtained from the Pontifex Maximus, from the emperor, or the magistrate of the place. Some consecrated temples to the memory of their friends. This was a very ancient custom, and perhaps is the origin of idolatry.

The highest honours were decreed to illustrious persons after death. The Romans worshipped their founder, Romulus, as a god, under the name of Quirinus. Hence, afterwards, the solemn consecration of the emperors, by a decree of the senate, who were thus said to be ranked in the number of the gods; also some empresses. Temples and priests were assigned to them. They were invoked with prayers. Men swore by their name or genius, and offered victims on their altars.

The real body was burned, and the remains buried in the usual manner. But a waxen image of the deceased was made to the life, which, after a variety of ridiculous ceremonies paid to it for seven days in the palace, was carried on a couch in solemn procession on the shoulders of young men of equestrian and patrician rank; first to the forum, where the dirge was sung by a choir of boys and girls of the most noble descent; then to the Campus Martius, where it was burned with a vast quantity of the richest odours and perfumes, on a lofty and magnificent pile, from the top of which an eagle, let loose, was supposed to convey the prince's soul to heaven.

SEC. VIII.-RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHINESE.

It is scarcely possible to give a distinct account of the religion of China, and to class its numerous superstitions under appropriate heads. It is Difficult to give indeed pretended, by some writers on the subject, that the an account of the ancient religious system of the Chinese has continued religion of China. unchanged amidst all the corruptions which have been grafted upon it during many successive ages; that this system is found to agree, in its most essential parts, with that of the Israelites, before the giving of the law by Moses, and that it may be traced back, by means of regular traditions, even to the renewal of the human race, by the grandsons of Noah. It is affirmed, on the contrary, by an intelligent traveller of England, that the primitive religion of China no longer exists, or exists only in a most corrupted state; that there is at present no national, nor scarcely any state religion in the empire; and that the articles of faith are as various as the modes of worship. All that we can attempt, therefore, amidst these discordant opinions, is to present our readers with a short view, first, of the principal religious systems which have been introduced into China at different periods, as far as can be ascertained from their own historical records; and next, of their present religious observances, as far as these have been described by later travellers in that country. All accounts of the religious opinions and ceremonies of the Chinese, previous to the time of Confucius, are mixed with fable, and full of uncertainty. Indeed, as their best existing historical documents must be regarded as his productions, and are at least ascribed chiefly to his pen by the Chinese themselves, none of the allusions to religious practices, which are to be found in the earliest period of their history, can be considered as resting

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upon any authority more ancient than his. But, as the Chinese affirm the greater portion of their canonical book, Shoo-king, to have been composed long before the age of Confucius, and to have only been restored by his labours, we may proceed upon this idea, and consider the tenets expressed in this work as the ancient religion of China.

Primitive Creed.

In this view of the subject, their primitive creed seems to have contained the general doctrines of theism, with regard to the Supreme Being, whom they worshipped under various names, such as Tien or Kien, heaven, Shang-tien, supreme heaven, Shang-tee, supreme Lord, and Hoan-shang-tee, sovereign and supreme Lord. This Supreme Being they regarded as possessed of all natural and moral perfections, as exercising a minute and judicial providence over mankind, as rewarding virtue and punishing vice, even in this life, as sending calamities to warn and reform the offender, and as ready to relent and pardon him upon his repentance. The first worship instituted in honour of the Shangtee consisted in prayers, accompanied with sacrifices or gifts, offered upon some natural eminence, or artificial mount, or merely in the open fields, upen an altar called tan, composed of a round heap of earth, or of a quantity of stones thrown together in a round form. At a very early period, however, of their history, we find them associating with the Shang-tee, or Supreme Being, a multitude of tutelary spirits as objects of worship, under the name of Shin, or Kooey-shin. In succeeding periods arose a multitude of superstitions; and the wind, the rain, the thunder, diseases, &c., were all, in like manner, personified, and addressed as divinities, while warriors, emperors, and illustrious men became demi-gods. The people forgot the simple worship of the Shang-tee, and embraced every new invention of idolatry with the utmost avidity.

Sect of Tao-tse.

The most ancient of the religious sects which have at different periods engrafted their superstitions upon the primitive theological system of China, is that of the Tao-tse, or sons of immortals, which was founded by a philosopher named Lao-kiun, or Lao-tse, who was born in the province of Honan, about 600 years before Christ, and concerning whose birth a multitude of strange stories are circulated among his countrymen. His followers, named Tao-tse, therefore, place the supreme duty and felicity of man in a state of perfect tranquillity, recommending the suppression of all violent desires and passions, the utmost moderation in every pursuit or enjoyment, and an utter indifference with regard to the past, the present, or the future.

of this sect.

This sect became particularly powerful under the dynasty of Song; and one of the emperors of that race carried his superstitious reverence for a celebrated teacher among them to such a length, as to command Popularity him to be worshipped under the name of Shang-tee, which had hitherto been appropriated to the Supreme Being. The sages of the nation were so greatly shocked by this act of impiety, that they predicted the ruin of that dynasty as fast approaching; and the wiser part of the learned men frequently presented strong remonstrances to different emperors against the patronage which was bestowed upon these deceivers; but the sect of the Tao-tse continued to increase in power and numbers, under the protection of princes, the countenance of the great, and the credulity of the people; and has preserved its extensive influence

even to this day, in spite even of all the attempts of the celebrated Confucius to introduce more enlightened doctrines.

Confucius.

Confucius, or Kong-foo-tse, was born 550 years before Christ, and is regarded by the Chinese as the chief of their wise men, and as the author of their whole civil constitution. He endeavoured to restore the ancient system, and to improve the conduct of his countrymen, by exhorting them to obey the commands of Heaven, to love their neighbours, and to restrain their passions. Some of his philosophical principles are, that out of nothing there cannot anything be produced; that material bodies must have existed from all eternity; that the cause or principle of things must have had a co-existence with the things themselves; that this cause, therefore, must also be eternal, infinite, and indestructible; and that the central point of influence, from which this cause chiefly acts, is the blue firmament (tien), whence its emanations are spread over the universe; but neither he nor his disciples ascribe to the Deity any personal existence, or represent the first cause under any distinct image: while the sun, moon, stars, and elements are considered also as composing the firmament, or tien, as the immediate agents of the Deity, and as the productive powers in creation. The universe, in short, according to this philosopher, is one animated system, made up of one material substance, and of one spiritual being, of which every living thing is an emanation, and to which, when separated by death from its particular material part, every living thing again returns; hence the term death is never used by his followers; but they say of a person, at his decease, that he has returned to his family. Thus he taught that the human body is composed of two principles, the one light, invisible, and ascending, the other gross, palpable, and descending; that the separation of these two principles causes the death of human beings; and that, at this period, the light and spiritual part ascends into the air, while the gross and corporeal matter sinks into the earth. He taught, further, that the spirits of those who had performed their duty in life were permitted to visit their ancient habitations, and such places as might be appointed for receiving the homage of their descendants; that they have the power of conferring benefits upon their posterity; that it was thus the indispensable duty of every man to perform the sacred rites to the memory of his ancestors; and that whosoever neglected this duty would be punished after death by his spirit being rendered incapable of visiting the hall of his ancestors, and receiving the homage of his descendants. Besides the performance of these sacred rites to the memory of ancestors, the principal religious worship which he required was, that the prince, in the name of his people, should present offerings to the tien, particularly at the two equinoxes, for the purpose of obtaining a propitious seed-time and a plentiful harvest; but, at the same time, that the Deity is always best satisfied when men perform the moral duties of life, which he comprised chiefly in these two, viz.-filial piety towards parents, and unreserved obedience to the will of the emperor. With these tenets was naturally connected a belief of good and evil genii, and of tutelary spirits presiding over families, towns, mountains, and other places; and while the system of Confucius was little better than atheism in the mind of the philosopher, it became a source of gross idolatry among the people, who could not com

prehend the more refined notions, but, needing some visible object upon which to fix their attention, represented the tutelary spirits by images, and worshipped them by sacrifices. Confucius himself was much addicted to a species of divination or fortune-telling, and says expressly in one of his works, that the wise man ought to know future events before they happen, and that this may be done by means of lots. His tenets, in short, instead of overcoming the old errors, gave rise to new superstitions; and the chief difference between the proper followers of Confucius and those of Lao-tse is this, that the former inculcate the duty of living among men, and endeavouring to improve them; while the latter avoid every kind of society and occupation, and lead a frugal, retired life, as their only felicity. During the reign of the emperor Ming-tee, of the Han dynasty, a new superstition was introduced into China, whose influence is, perhaps, still more extensive and pernicious in that country than any of those

Sect of Fo. by which it was preceded. One of the Tao-tse doctors had promised to a brother of the emperor's that he would open to him a communication with the spirits; and this superstitious prince having heard of a spirit in Tien-tso, or Hindostan, named Fo, or Foe, prevailed upon the emperor, by his importunities, to send an embassy for this foreign divinity. When the officer who was entrusted with this mission arrived at the place of his destination, he found only two Sha-men, or priests of Fo, whom he carried to China, with some of their canonical books, and several images of the idol painted on linen. The followers of Fo describe him as the son of a prince of one of the kingdoms of India, near the line; and affirm, that as soon as he was born, he stood upright, walked seven steps without assistance, and, pointing to the heavens with one hand, and to the earth with the other, cried aloud, “In the heavens and the earth there is none but myself who deserves to be honoured." At the age of seventeen he married three wives, by one of whom he had a son, named by the Chinese Moheoo-lo; but at the age of nineteen he abandoned his house and family, with all the cares of life, and committed himself to the care of four philosophers, with whom he retired to a vast desert. Being filled with the divinity at the age of thirty, he was metamorphosed into the Fo, or Pagod, as the Indians term it, and immediately thought of establishing his doctrines by miracles, which attracted numerous disciples, and spread his fame over every part of India.

When he had attained his seventy-ninth year, and perceived from his infirmities that his borrowed divinity could not exempt him from mortality, he is said to have called his disciples together, and to have Tenets of Fo. declared to them that hitherto he had spoken to them by figurative expressions, but that now he would discover his real sentiments, and unveil the whole mystery of his wisdom; namely, that there is no other principle of things but a vacuum, or nothing; that from this nothing all things at first sprung; that to nothing they shall again return; and that thus end all our hopes and fears at once. After his decease a multitude of fables were propagated concerning him by his followers; such as, that he was still alive, and had been born 8000 times, appearing successively under the figure of an ape, a lion, a dragon, an elephant, &c. His last words excited much dissension among his disciples; some of them resolving to adhere to his original tenets; others adopting his concluding

atheistical view of things; and a third class attempting to reconcile both systems together, by making a distinction between the external and internal doctrine. The internal doctrine, to which the disciples of the idol are exhorted to aspire, is a system of the most absurd atheism; of which some of the principal tenets are, that nothing is the beginning and the end of all things; that all beings are the same, differing only in figure and qualities; that the supreme happiness of man consists in acquiring a resemblance to this principle of nothing, in accustoming himself to do nothing, to will nothing, to feel nothing, to desire nothing; that the sum of virtue and happiness is to be found in indolence and immobility-in the cessation of bodily motion, the suspension of all mental faculties, the obliteration of all feelings and desires; that when men have attained this divine insensibility, they have nothing to do with virtue or vice, rewards or punishments, providence or immortality, no changes, transmigrations, or futurities to fear, but have ceased to exist, and become perfectly like the god Fo. The external doctrine has the greatest number of followers. It teaches a great distinction between good and evil, and a state of rewards for the good, and of punishment for the wicked, after death, in places suited to the spirits of each. It acknowledges the transmigration of the soul through different bodies, till it is at length completely purified and prepared to be united to the Deity. It affirms that the god Fo came upon this earth to expiate men's sins, and to secure them a happy regeneration in the life to come. Its practical injunctions are simply these: To pray to the god Fo, and to provide his priests with temples and other necessaries, that by their penances and supplications they may procure for his worshippers the forgiveness of their sins; and to observe five precepts, viz.-to kill no living creature-to take nothing that belongs to another—to commit no act of impurity-to utter no falsehood —and to drink no wine. The practice of these duties is enforced by threatenings of future punishment, especially of transmigration into the bodies of dogs, horses, rats, serpents, &c. In consequence of this doctrine a multitude of idols have sprung up wherever the religion of Fo has prevailed; and temples have been erected to quadrupeds, birds, and reptiles, of every description, according as the god was imagined to have occupied any of their bodies in the course of his transmigration.

Fo is supposed to have lived 500 years before the time of Pythagoras; and from his followers the Grecian sage is conjectured to have learned the doctrine of the metempsychosis, when he travelled in India.

Era of Fo. The worship of Fo was introduced into China A. D. 69, and is understood to have been originally the same as that of the Indian Buddha, from the evident coincidences between the history and worship of the two divinities. The Buddha of the Hindoos was the son of Ma-ya, and one of his names is Amita. The Fo of China was the son of Moy-a, and one of his names is Om-e-to, or, as it is pronounced in Japan, Amida. The Menshin, or guardian spirit of the door in China, is the same as the Ganesa of Hindostan; and in both countries, his figure, or at least the character expressing his name, is painted on the door of almost every house. The Lui-shin, or spirit of thunder of the Chinese, represented under the figure of a man with the beak and talons of an eagle, is equivalent to the Vishnu of the Hindoos, who is generally figured as riding