enjoins the worship of Budha is by far the best and most important; and than it, there is no doctrine more conducive to a benevolent life.

(The Budha) Kúteh says, He who stands to the other doctrines, is like an ant ascending a lofty mountain, which in an hour gets only a single step in advance. But the doctrine which enjoins us to go to the western region, is like a vessel with full sails and favorable wind and tide, which in an instant advances one thousand miles. When we have once reached the western region, we are no more obliged to go out, or exposed to fall. The highest grade (of votaries) is able to ascend the Budha's ladder. The lowest grade is far superior in happiness to those who live in an emperor's palace. The worshipers of Budha's merits are very lofty; their duties are very easy. All, whether honorable or mean, talented or stupid, old or young, male or female, the eater of ordinary food, or he who restricts himself to vegetables, the man who has left his family, (the bonze) or he who still remains in it-all may discharge these duties.

I therefore exhort the virtuous males and believing females of the ten regions, (all the empire) into whose hands this may come, immediately to put forth a believing heart, and with the whole heart to worship Budha, and seek for a life in the western region. If perchance you are involved in family affairs, and endless worldly transactions, and cannot devote your whole mind to this, then you ought every day to recite Budha's name three thousand or five thousand times, and make a regular constant practice of this. If even this you cannot do, your recitation of this sheet will be reckoned as one degree of merit. Having recited this one hundred times,

then dot one of the circles on the margin, and when the dots are all made they will amount to one hundred and fifty thousand. Whether it is for yourself, or for your father and mother, that you are asking for life in the western region; or whether you are asking for your father and mother protection from disease, peace, increased happiness, or protracted old age-in all such cases, you must in the presence of Budha burn one of these sheets. If you pray for the happiness of your deceased parents, or for your six orders of relations and their relations, you must before the ancestral tablet, or over the graves, burn one of these sheets. Whether you worship the gods, or sacrifice to your ancestors, either at the festival of the tombs, the ninth solstice, the middle of the seventh month, or the end of the year, you must recite this sheet, and then burn it on the tombs of orphans or of those who are buried by charity, and thus provide for the happiness of destitute souls, who have not relations to sacrifice to them. In doing all this you may rely on the strength of Budha to secure their translation to the pure country. You may do this once or many times, according to your ability; and the merit you will obtain is inconceivable.

I fervently desire that you may together put forth a believing heart, be together virtuous friends, together see Budha, and together arrive at the extreme of happiness.

Hwui Chau, the head priest of the Drum Mountain (Kú Shán) monastery in Fuhkien, has respectfully printed this, bows and exhorts.

THE RATIONALISTS.

As this is a sect which had already come into existence and begun to exert some influence when Confucius was endeavoring to inculcate his doctrines, and as, in the foregoing pages, there has been occasional reference to the Rationalists and the tenets which they held, a brief notice of them may be desired by the reader.

Some portions of the article inserted here may be acceptable as showing what China has been able to produce in the line of TRANSCENDENTALISM. What we give on this subject is partly from "THE MIDDLE KINGDOM," by Dr. Williams.

The sect of the Rationalists, or Tau Kia, was founded by Lautsz' or Laukiun. He was born B.C. 604, in the kingdom of Tsu, now Hupeh, fifty-four years before Confucius, and is believed to have had white hair and eyebrows at his birth, and been carried in the womb eighty years, whence he was called Lautsz', the "old boy," and afterwards Laukiun, the "venerable prince." According to Pauthier, who has examined his history with some attention, his parents were poor, and after entering mature

years, he was appointed librarian by the emperor, where he diligently applied himself to the study of the ancient books, and became acquainted with all the rites and histories of former times. During his life, he made a journey through Central Asia, but what was its extent and duration is not recorded. His only philosophical work, the Tau Teh King, or Memoir on Reason and Virtue, was written before his travels; but whether the teachings contained in it are entirely his own, or were derived from hints imported from India and Persia, cannot be decided. A parallel has been suggested between the tenets of the Rationalists of China, the Zoroastrians of Persia, Essenes of Judea, Gnostics of the primitive church, and the Eremites of the Thebaid, but a common source for their conformity-the desire to live without labor on the credulity of their fellow men-explains most of the likeness, without supposing that their tenets were derived from each other.

The teachings of Lautsz' are not unlike those of Zeno: both recommend retirement and contemplation as the most effectual means of purifying the spiritual part of our nature, annihilating the material passions, and finally returning to the bosom of the supreme Reason.

He says, "All material visible forms are only emanations from Tau, or Reason: this formed all beings. Before their emanation, the universe was only an indistinct, confused mass, a chaos of all the elements in a state of a germ or subtle essence."

In another section he says, "All the visible parts of the universe, all beings composing it, the heavens and all the stellar systems-all have been formed of the first elementary matter before the birth of heaven and earth, there

existed only an immense silence in illimitable space, an immeasurable void in endless silence. Reason alone circulated in this infinite void and silence."

In one of his sections Lautsz' says, "Reason has produced one, one produced two, two produced three, and three made all things. All beings repose on the feminine principle, and they embrace, and envelop the male principle; a fecundating breath keeps up the harmony."

He teaches the emanation and return of good beings into the bosom of Reason, and their eternal existence therein; but if not good, the miseries of successive births and their accompanying sorrows await them.

His own

life was passed in ascetic privacy, and he recommends the practice of contemplation, joined with the performance of good deeds. Lautsz' says, when enforcing benevolent acts:

"The holy man has not an inexorable heart :

He makes his heart like that of all men.

The virtuous man should be treated as a virtuous man, The vicious man should likewise be treated as a virtuous

man:

This is wisdom and virtue.

The sincere and faithful man should be treated as a sincere and faithful man,

The insincere and unfaithful man should likewise be treated as a sincere and faithful man :

This is wisdom and sincerity.

The perfect man lives in the world tranquil and calm; It is only on account of the world for the happiness of man, that his heart experiences disquiet.

Though all men think only of pleasing their eyes and their ears,