Jerome was not too hard on the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked world. But your Protestant Monks bring the Monastery to the Man. They would hedge every man about with an invisible wall of non-conformity to the world,' as they call it, more cruel and crushing than the veritable stones of the cloister. 'Go about' (they preach) in the world my Christian brother, in a mooning kind of way, especially remembering that all the creatures you meet with, or almost all, are bad, and are placed there by the Almighty as snares and traps for you. Do nothing as anybody else would, don't dance, don't sing, don't touch cards, even to play the mildest rubber, thou shalt not go to a theatre, thou shalt not be merry, thou shalt not etc., etc.! And then in the true Monastic spirit we are told that the reason for all this Asceticism, Manicheism, Fetish, or whatever you like to call it, is, that we are to be so busy thinking about 'eternity' that we are to have no time or wish to behave like rational beings in this world. By parity of reasoning, I am going to Shanghai the day after to-morrow, I will be so absorbed in thinking about it, that I can't be civil to you this afternoon, nor even look where I am going, whereby I shall fall over the hillside and break my neck.'

'Come, don't get savage, old fellow' interjected the Doctor, who had lighted a cigar, and was listening patiently enough. I do get savage when I think of these wretched people and the harm they do. I believe in a pure and Godly life, but I as earnestly believe in taking the world as you find it, and as God made it, and not trying (which is the root of Monasticism) to separate the tares from the wheat, and make a fancy world of your own. Well, to change the subject a little-I was remarking how inevitably Monasticism crops up in all times, creeds, and places, and here, as I said before, are a couple of hundred men in China, who find the world too wicked for them, and must needs go and live out of it in a Buddhist Monastery!' "They don't find much purity inside their walls at any rate, by all that I have ever heard' quoth the Doctor.

'No. The average of Chinese Monks consist of the very lowest of the low, who have assumed the shaven head for reasons best known to themselves. And they don't generally improve by keeping. But no doubt the search after purity was the original main idea. In fact there you have the very worst side of Buddhism. Not its Idolatry, for as Saint Paul says an idol is nothing in the world,' and a Chinaman reverently bowing to Buddha or the Queen of Heaven is a much more pleasurable sight than Mr. Plantagenet Smith of University College, who never worshipped anything but Mill or Auguste Comte, as his conceit might happen to lie. Not its Idolatry--but its deadening doctrine of nil admirari, of renunciation of the world, of the sacredness of celibacy, of rising superior to pleasure and pain, the very same doctrines which the Exeter Hall party are trying to foist upon the Christian Church, for though they don't actually forbid you to marry, they do if your fiancée be not 'a child of grace.'

That is really an excellent likeness of the Abbot. He is the one sitting at the end of the room, the others are two of the Monks. He is of the liberal or Broad-Church school, rejoices in his English cut-glass, and gives you a glass of good

sherry and a capital cigar. He has given dinners too to foreigners, of an unexceptionable nature I believe. You perceive that the room is not badly furnished. The motto over the table may be translated "The Moonbeams flowing like a river," one of the vague sentences Chinese delight to hang about their rooms. I have spent many a pleasant half-hour there chatting with the Abbot, who particularly prides himself on his knowledge of foreigners and their ways. Amongst other pet vanities he is convinced that he speaks English and French like a native, because he can repeat the Alphabet according to the pronunciation of either language.'

By this time we were come to Aberdeen, and were walking along the very pretty road by the side of Single Tree Bay. The waves come in there with a gentle dash on the stones, very musical to hear, and about sunset when there is “a shaft of light across the land, a lane of beams athwart the sea" I do not know a sweeter spot. And as we walked we spoke of the Temple itself, of the bustling street at the gates where the landing of the ferry is, of the long quiet avenue up to the portico, and the cool green courts beyond where are "immemorial elms," great, shady, and wonderful to behold. Of the well ordered shrines and the chanted evening prayers, for the Abbot is, as I said, Broad Church, and does not object to a choral service (as the manner of some is), and really they do it very well indeed, and more like music than anything else I have heard in China. And we talked of the marble pagoda, of the labyrinth of cloisters, the refectory, the pleasant gardens beyon 1, the furnace of the dead and the Mausoleum, all of which would be long to tell. But perhaps another time we may have a picture of them. Till then, as we said at Parsee Point, au revoir.

CHINESE EVERYDAY LIFE.

T becomes our duty in this last number of the present volume to act as shownan to some of the Illustrations which have been left, so far, to speak for themselves. Four may be selected as particularly characteristic of various phases of Chinese everyday life, and perhaps the reader will not mind glancing at them again.

A DOMESTIC GROUP IN THE COOLIE QUARTER, HONGKONG (p. 129). The 'Coolie Quarter' in this case might be put somewhere about Tank Lane, where chair coolies most do congregate. The three women in the foreground are evidently sempstresses, and without committing ourselves to the assertion, we should think they are Hakkas. The baby is amusing itself in the tranquil and philosophic way in which Chinese babies will, with a paper fan. Really the secret of the goodness of Chinese babies would be worth learning, and in boxes at thirteen pence halfpenny and two and three pence (a great saving effected by taking the larger size) could not fail to make the fortune of the vendor. Whatever troubles may beset a Chinese married man Squalling babies' is not one of them, for Chinese babies never squall. The youth on the left, who evidently attends no school whatever, is int the usual costume of 'dirty little boys' of the period. The whole wardrobe of

such young gentlemen consists generally of a pair of tattered trousers and a piece of string.

These people are sitting in front of a chair, and a chair of the poorer class also, for you perceive the poles are of bamboo and not of wood. Though poor, even squalidly poor, they are not necessarily dishonest or ill-conducted. You may see honesty and sobriety written on the faces of those women, who no doubt are, in their way, faithful wives, good mothers, and quiet citizens. Now will you turn to p. 168.

CHINESE CARD PLAYERS. But there is neither honesty nor sobriety written on the faces here. Smug smiling respectability if you like, Chinese respectability you understand, the respectability, as Mr. Carlyle would say, 'that keeps a gig.' We particularly distrust the fellow with the spectacles. When you see a young Chinese with huge 'giglamps' of that description, generally conclude that he wants to look ultra-learned and reputable, and is, to say the least of him, a humbug. Each of the faces is a study in its way, and contrast the clean shaven heads with the unshorn raggedness of the boy in the last picture we spoke of. These men are probably shopmen or shroffs, and they are met to while an hour away with the great Chinese resource-gambling. The white clothes they have put on are a kind of deshabille adopted almost always in times of relaxation or dissipation, and their game is Chinese Cards. These are smaller than the English ones and the pack consists of more, so that a 'hand' is a much more formidable thing to manage.

LETTERED EASE. How our learned friend has got into a room with so much Wardour Street furniture deponents say not. He is in a Chinese chair however, and has got a pot of the aster-flowers of which literate Chinese have in all ages been so fond. There you have the essence of Chinese refined dissipation (according to novels, for in real life we are afraid it sometimes becomes a little less spirituelle.) Your graduate opens his windows, 'to observe the delicate blossoms of the peach and willow, gently waving in the wind of spring,' sets out his asters, makes verses or reads them, and has literary games with his friends, in which the penalty for a false rhyme or false quantity' is a cup of wine. For it is the object of every man to keep sober himself and make the rest drunk. Our whiteclothed and spectacled friend of the picture has got hold of an edition de luxe' of some book, probably one of the unrivalled Soochow books, exquisitely printed and rubricated, with a loving breadth of margin, and in fact quite equal to the best specimens of typography anywhere. You can see, if you look closely, that the book is on white paper, not yellow, and can also make out the heading of chapter in black letter, and the first line of characters. Pax vobiscum learned friend!

AT THE DOOR OF THE TEMPLE. The Temple in question is the Hakka Temple, of the Queen of Heaven if we remember correctly, overlooking Causeway Bay. Not the one built over a curious rock, but that one surrounded by trees, and with steps up to it. You always find a Temple in a pretty spot, and Idols are supposed to be so much more sensible than human beings, that they derive some pleasure from looking at trees, rocks, and water! In the right hand corner of the picture is