Her spirit at once goes to the Spiritual Mountain, and she sees the four Honourables and the three Buddhas. An angel in the form of a tiger comes and carries away her body to a pine forest.

Kwan Yin (her name as worshipped in China) is then sent under good escort down to Hades. She visits in all ten places. In the first there is no punishment going on, but the dead are brought before the Mirror of Justice where all their deeds done in the body are manifested and appropriate punishment assigned them by the Judge who presides there. The second to the ninth are hells of fearful punishments, each having sixteen sub-departments. (These are depicted in all their horrors in the Ching-hwang temple in every county town in China.) In the tenth place there is another test, and those who still remain wicked are sent back to earth to go the round of a lower form of existence, after first partaking of the Tea of Forgetfulness which makes them forget their former existence (like the waters of Lethe). Kwan Yin, pitying the dreadful sufferings of the lost souls in these eight hells, saves them out of them. Before leaving she asks what has become of the five hundred nuns whom her father had burnt alive in the White Bird Convent; she is told that, because on earth they had listened to her instructions, they have not come to the place of torment.

CHAPTER V.

Kwan Yin is led back to earth to the pine forest where the angel tiger is still protecting her body. She re-enters her body, sits upon a rock and weeps; looking round, she sees an old woman and an old man; these are her guides through Hades thus transformed. There are also two ministering angels transformed into a boy and girl. These again test her. Finding that she remembers all about her former life on earth, they say-What is the good of a religious life? Far better that they lead her back to the palace, where she may yet marry and be happy; she has lost herself at any rate, what other can she do? Finding her resolute in her determination not to go back to a worldly life, they say they can lead her to a temple on the "Fragrant Mountain" (mountain of spices), but the way is long and rough and there is no conveyance and no food-this again to test her perseverance. She goes gladly with them. On

the way, to test her again, a tiger appears, and the old man and woman pretend to be in great fear; she tells them they need not fear as long as she is with them, and asks the tiger which of them is in his debt (in a former existence); if one is to be eaten it ought to be she, for her companions have children and she has none. This proves that her religion is genuine, and at the old man's command she mounts the tiger, and in an incredibly short time they arrive at Fragrant Mountain.

CHAPTER VI.

The four lead her to a temple, and on leaving her they immediately vanish out of sight. A paper with a few words on it comes down from the sky, which she takes; she reads on it in symbolic language of the mystic union between the Divine and

In

the human nature (something like marriage) and understands that she has still more advance to make in virtue before her work is finished. the temple an old nun called Perfect Virtue sets refreshment before her. The old nun tells a vision she had the night previous, in which a goddess appeared to her with a thousand rays of light streaming from her body and a tablet above her with three characters on it- "Ancient Tsih Hang"; the goddess was attended on left and right by inferior divinities. As the old nun talks she looks steadily at the princess and recognises in her the features of the goddess she had seen in vision. The princess remains, and instructs the

nuns.

CHAPTER VII.

Tsih Hang (her name in heaven) continues at the Fragrant Mountain, and practises religion. According to custom at the winter solstice a god named Yü-Hwang-Ta-Ti examines men's lives, and recompenses accordingly. One called San-KwanTa-Ti brings two books-one black and the other red. The king's life is examined, and it is found that he has ten sins which call down immediate punishment, not the smallest of which is the burning of the White Bird Convent with its five hundred nuns. Though, according to a previous appointment, he has still twenty-four years to live, unless he repents he must now die. He is taken grievously ill. In his fevered imagination he sees the abbess of the convent he burned lead in her five hundred nuns, and they all begin to torment him. Five hundred ulcers break out on his body. He also sees all the animals he has ever killed

come in to his room to torment him. In great pain he commands priests to pray and burn incense, and puts out a proclamation that the best doctor in the land should come and prescribe for him.

CHAPTER VIII.

The two elder princesses pray and burn incense for their father's recovery. Tsih Hang on the Fragrant Mountain sees a black vapour over the country and divines that her father is in trouble. She changes into a Buddhist priest, and comes toward the palace. Seeing the proclamation commanding the best physician to come, the priest. takes it down and says he is able to cure all diseases, even to giving sight to the blind. He is brought to the king and on examination says that the disease can easily be cured if one of the children of the king will only give her hands and eyes to make the medicine. The two elder princesses excuse themselves from making the sacrifice. The priest said, "If you promise to repent, I know one in Fragrant Mountain who would be willing to sacrifice her eyes and hands for you." The. king at once commanded one of the chief ministers to go to Fragrant Mountain and fetch the hands and eyes. The minister said he feared the holy woman would not be willing, but the priest said if she was found unwilling they might take off his head. The minister went and spoke to the head of the convent, who at once brought the hands and eyes which were ready on a server for him.

Before returning to the palace he asked if he might see the holy one who had sacrificed her hands and eyes; he was admitted and noticed that she was quite young, not yet twenty. Angels came and directed in the making of the medicine. In the course of a fortnight the king was well again.

CHAPTER IX.

At a feast prepared for him by his daughters and their husbands, they in vain try to induce him to eat flesh or drink wine. He orders the White Bird Convent to be rebuilt, and priests to recite prayers for the five hundred nuns. He gives up all his evil ways, and his people have peace and justice. He also exhorts his two daughters to be religious.

CHAPTER X.

The priest says he must return to the Fragrant Mountain, and counsels the king to pay his vows there. The king calls him "Most Merciful, Most Powerful Saviour of Sufferers," and invites him to become the head of the White Bird Temple, and offers him 5400 gold pieces and one bushel of pearls. He (or rather she) will not consent to stay, as she has to save the suffering in all parts of the world. She counsels him to use the offered treasure in building a new temple on Fragrant Mountain. The king commanded his ministers to conduct the seeming priest outside the city; arrived there Tsih Hang disappears on the wind. The following day the king and queen with four ministers go to the Fragrant Mountain. The king on the road did not even dare to walk on the grass lest he should hurt any insect.

eyes,

After burning incense at the temple on the mountain, they go to see the holy maid. The king, on seeing her without hands and commanded that she should have extra hands and eyes. The maid thanked him, and at once bright rays streamed from a thousand eyes and hands. The queen said that she saw a resemblance to their third daughter, but the king seemed to think it blasphemy to suggest such a thing. They questioned the holy maid regarding her former history which she told out freely to the astonished parents and so revealed herself. The fact that it was their own daughter that had saved the king's life, and had become now more than mortal, decides both king and queen to give up the world entirely and become religious. She instructs them in all the steps to be taken and again mentions the "Wordless Scripture."

The king commands his four ministers to return, but three of them announce their intention of giving up the world. The king then writes out an edict resigning his crown to the fourth minister who is willing to return, and the three who remain sign it.

Tsih Hang after this changes into a nun and goes to her two sisters, and exhorts them to leave the world too. She says that she knows their sister and has learned her ways. She, however, speaks of things that only one of the family can know, and when they begin to suspect that it is really their sister in another form, she ascends in a cloud, where she again takes her original form

and they and their maids looking up recognise her.

CHAPTER XI.

The sisters reported to their husbands what they had heard and seen. The husbands were at first unbelieving, but the princesses persisted that it was even so. The minister, who in the meantime has returned, confirmed what the wonderful visitor had said about the king and queen having given up the world. They then believed, but were unwilling to have the king give up his dominion, so they all four determined to go to Fragrant Mountain to persuade the king to return.

On arriving there the king so powerfully exhorted them, and the sight of their sister Miao Shen risen from the dead so moved them, that they all determined not to return to their worldly lives but to stay there and become holy too; the sisters told their husbands that they would have done so much sooner but that they feared to offend them. Miao Shen then instructs the four neophites.

CHAPTER XII.

A god called San-Kwan-Ta-Ti appoints one to report to God (here called Ru Lai) in Spiritual Mountain, that Tsih Hang's work is finished. Ru Lai appoints Tsieh-Yin and San-Kwan-Ta-Ti to go to Fragrant Mountain to fetch Tsih Hang with her parents and sisters, the five hundred nuns and the sons-in-law to Spiritual Mountain.

When the two messengers arrive at Fragrant Mountain a great wind carries away Tsih Hang in a cloud, bearing in her hand the pure bottle, whose waters, when she sprinkles them on the earth, save men from their troubles; of this the occupants of the temple all were witnesses.

When they all arrive at the Spiritual Mountain Tsih Hang leads them into the presence of God and adores. She expresses regret that she has accomplished so little. Ru Lai replies that this time her success has not been small, and congratulates her on having now come safely through all her troubles; and now that her work is completed, he seals or canonises her as 66 Holy, Most Merciful and Powerful Saviour of Sufferers."

All the members of her family were also canonised under names of "Pusas" (Buddhas), which are worshipped over China. They all in the Spiritual Mountain enjoyed everlasting happiness.

66

(It is worthy of remark that the Supreme Being Golden Mother" at the beginning, is spoken of as and as "Ru Lai" at the close, of the book. The explanation probably is that after her work for the sufferers in the world and in Hades is finished she is admitted to a higher Heaven than she occupied before.)

Now a few words on the teaching in the story of the Goddess of Mercy.

In this book, as in others belonging to secret sects in China, some of the teaching is not that of any one of the three recognised religions, viz., Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, but stands outside and above them all, using what is best in the three and having much that is higher.

While in this book we find transmigration taught, and while the garb of most of the teaching is Buddhistic, yet there are points that are nonBuddhistic, and also points in common with Christianity-some of them, indeed, distinctly Christian. Among points common to both creeds we might mention the following:

1. Incarnation of a Divinity. This is in common with some Hindoo religions as well as with Christianity. Some see in the name Kwan Yin the manifested Word, the "Logos" of St. John, while others think it a "Hearer of Prayer."

2. Judgment awarded according to the deeds done in the body. As in 2 Cor. v. 10, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ."

3. Contempt of and separation from the world. The vanity of the world is here put as strongly as in Ecclesiastes, and separation from it as necessary to a religious life is put as strongly as by Antony or Jerome.

4. We have also spiritual help obtained through prayer and meditation as with Christians.

Of things non- -Buddhistic, some of them distinctively Christian, we have:

1. A supreme God, which is alien to pure Buddhism.

2. Heaven, as in the Revelation of St. John, with its glassy sea, its angels and archangels, and seraphs and all the company of the saved--not the Nirvana of pure Buddhism.

3. The cross of suffering, both in its atoning and self-sacrificing aspects.

4. We have love in self-sacrifice effecting what mere exhortation and teaching could not do.

5. Repentance, which can hardly be said to be taught in pure Buddhism, is taught here.

6. The new birth is also highly developed here. 7. The mystic union between the divine and the human often typified by marriage in various parts of our Scriptures is also taught under the same figure in this book.

8. Special communion and fellowship with the Divine in drinking of wine (of the "awakened ones") as in our Communion is dwelt on here.

9. Nature sympathising at the death of Kwan Yin in earthquake and thunder reminds us of the supernatural darkness at the death of our Lord.

10. The resurrection of the body is also taught in the book.

11. Immortality for individual souls is also here, not getting rid of conscious being and desires and becoming lost in Nirvana as in pure Buddhism.

In addition the "Golden Pill" sect also talk of the communion and indwelling of the Divine Being whom they call the Son of God (literally Son of the Perfect Yang). His twofold nature they symbolically represent by the character Lü, which is two mouths and a stroke connecting them, indicating, as they themselves explain it, communication between the Divine and the human. The temple of Lü-Tsz is called Tswun-yang-kung and is the one where faith-healing is most prominently practised in the northern provinces of China. His face used to be painted white in token of his foreign or non-Indian origin, but under the

present dynasty it has been ordered not to be so any longer,-lest, it has been said, his disciples should join the Christian sect (which several Chinese authors say is the same as the White Face or White Lily sect), and so, by becoming too numerous, be beyond the control of the Chinese government. The crimes lavishly attributed to this sect may be as groundless as the charges against Christians in the Hunan Tracts, belief in which led to the riots of 1891 in the valley of the Yang-Tse-kiang. But on account of these alleged crimes they have been mercilessly persecuted and still are to this day. The ordinary law not being thought severe enough for them, the governors of the provinces of China had power given them, about eight years ago, to put the leaders to death without first consulting Peking.

The barbers of China worship the Divinity Lii-Tsz. This class are under very special disabilities, which fact has suggested the query: Was pure Christianity or Nestorian Christianity crushed in China by the government degrading its disciples, forbidding them education and other privileges on equal terms with other religionists? and are these among their descendants?

Besides, does not the well-known fact that the liturgy used by the worshippers of Kwan Yin, is wonderfully like the Christian liturgy point to the same thing, viz., that the teaching of Nestorianism or other form of Christianity must have got mixed up with Buddhism at some time or other perhaps in times of persecution of the Nestorians, when certain teachings were disguised in mystic form, making them unintelligible to all but the initiated? We must remember too that the books of the Nestorians and of the secret sects of China have been burned over and over again, so that the teaching in them was bound to be obscured. We do not forget that Nestorius was a strong opponent of Mariolatry and therefore that he would never have sanctioned the worship of Kwan Yin; but may not his followers, many generations after his time, have got corrupted by close contact with Buddhism? If this clue to lost Nestorianism be not the right one, the double puzzle remains, viz., what has become of Nestorianism? and, where did the worshippers of Kwan Yin. get their Christian ideas and Christian liturgy?1

The fact that Buddhists are led to expect an enlightened teacher from the west--the position of their Heaven-is in favour of the Christian missionary taking the position of their teacher. If a missionary understands and can solve the problems which the worshippers of Kwan Yin, the Golden Pill sect, and other secret sects are constantly discussing, he will at once be accepted as their master and guide.

May the Christian teacher not go to theworshippers of Kwan Yin and say:-We have come to you with the reality of which your story of this goddess is but a broken symbol and type?

MRS. TIMOTHY RICHARD.

1 For account of the Nestorian Monument and introduction of Christianity into China, see paper by the Rev. Professor Legge, in SUNDAY AT HOME for 1895, p. 352.

many people, especially in the South, the name of Glasgow conjures up a vision of chimney-stacks, slums, and whiskey-shops. And alas, this is no unreal vision! Yet how many know that Glasgow has traditions of a very different past, and also hopes-though perhaps yet far from fulfilment of a very different future.

Glasgow's brighter past is indicated in her very name, which, according to some of the best authorities is derived from the Celtic glas or "green," and cu or ghu signifying "dear," the combination making Glasgow, the "beloved green spot"!

Glasgow has comparatively little asSt. Mungo's. sociation with "history," and to-day looks so essentially "modern" that we are apt to forget that it dates back to about 560 A.D., when the princely St. Kentigern arrived as the ambassador of Christianity, and, until he could set up his little wooden church on the very site where the cathedral now stands, summoned his wild flock together by ringing a handbell fastened upon a tree-a tradition perpetuated in the 46 arms" " of modern Glasgow. The myths which have gathered about the good man are all of the gentle "saving" type. He is said to have restored the life of the pet robin of St. Serf of Culross, who

had succoured him and his mother in his helpless infancy; to have caused a salmon from the sea to bring back a ring whose production was necessary to spare a penitent Magdalen from public shame; and to have revived a dead hazel branch by breathing upon it all, of course, mere legends (though Glasgow heralds have emblazoned their symbols on the city's shield), and all accounted for, by the more authentic reports showing that Kentigern's simplicity of life, Bishop as he was, he practised constant manual labour, that he might not eat the bread of idleness. The very cathedral which is called after him, bears not his name of Kentigern, but that of "Mungo," or the "beloved," bestowed on him, it is said, by St. Columba himself. He is believed to have lived to an advanced age, and, whether rightly or not, his tomb is still pointed out in the cathedral crypt.

The existing building was founded in 1136, in the reign of that king David 1. who enriched so many ecclesiastical foundations in Scottish lands. During the following century it suffered severely from fire, but was restored by Bishop Josceline in 1197, and extended and adorned by many of his successors, among whom we may mention Robert Wishart, the firm friend of Bruce, who furnished from his wardrobe the state garments in which

Bruce was crowned, and who accordingly suffered imprisonment at the hands of the invading. English.

St. Mungo's is one of the very few Scottish cathedrals which escaped wreckage-more or less complete--at the time of the Reformation. It is said to have owed its immunity to the shrewd advice of the chief magistrate of the city, who, like a canny Scott, urged upon the people that it would be better to build a new church according to their own ideas, before proceeding to pull down the old one!

This gave the populace time to recover from the heat of its fanaticism. That it soon did so is proved by the fact that a few years later, when the Presbyterian scholar and divine who had become Principal of Glasgow University had actually induced the magistrates of his period to consent to the demolition of the ancient edifice, "the incorporated trades ran to arms, took possession of the church, and threatened instant death to the first individual who offered to injure a stone," even compelling the magistrates to make solemn declaration that no mischief should be wrought.

an

The cathedral, whose general character is Early English, is smaller than most of the chief English cathedrals, but has a solemn dignity and beauty of its own. Its crypt, particularly, is very fine. Readers of Scott may remember that this crypt, then called the "Laigh Kirk," is introduced into the twentieth chapter of "Rob Roy," as extensive range of low-browed, dark, and twilight vaults. . . in whose waste regions of oblivion, dusky banners and tattered escutcheons indicated the graves of those who were once doubtless 'princes in Israel,' while inscriptions which could only be read by the painful antiquary, in language as obsolete as the act of devotional charity which they implored, invited the passengers to pray for the souls of those whose bodies rested beneath." The description remains true to-day.

The stained-glass windows of Munich manufacture date only from the year 1856-not a bright period of artistic development !

The minster bell, however, is of much greater antiquity, and, as Chambers puts it, "tells its own history, mournfully," in the following inscription:

"In the year of grace 1583, Marcus Knox, a merchant in Glasgow, zealous for the interest of the Reformed religion, caused me to be fabricated in Holland, for the use of his fellow-citizens of Glasgow, and placed me with solemnity in the tower of their cathedral. My function was announced by the impress on my bosom, 'Me audito, venias, doctrinam sanctam ut discas,' and I was taught to proclaim the hours of unheeded time. One hundred and ninety-five years had I sounded these awful warnings, when I was broken by the hands of inconsiderate and unskilful men. In the year 1790, I was cast into the furnace, refounded in London, and returned to my sacred vocation. Reader! thou also shalt know a resurrection, may it be to eternal life! Thomas Mears, f.cit. London, 1790."

The cathedral stands in its own burying-ground,

where the grave-stones lie so thickly that they serve as a pavement. Hard by, on the steep bank which Scott described as "covered with fir-trees closely planted," we now see the monumental statuary of the Glasgow Necropolis, while on the other hand we notice the Barony Church, not the ancient dumpy edifice where Dr. Norman MacLeod preached, but the new building of which Dr. J. Marshall Lang, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, is the minister.

Charitable Institutions.

The whole vicinage of St. Mungo's has greatly improved of late years. Old houses and closes have been cleared away, and a pretty little public garden has been laid out, with many seats, which, on the Saturday evening of our visit, were well occupied by people of the poorest class, old and young The clearance of buildings has made more manifest the many charitable institutions, municipal and otherwise, which naturally congregate in this old ecclesiastic quarter. There are the Royal Infirmary and the Fever Hospital, each containing three hundred beds. There is the Blind Asylum, whose annual sale of goods produced by the inmates often runs into five figures. There is an Industrial School, and also a Home for Indigent Aged People, an institution which might well be removed to a brighter and quieter localityespecially since that could scarcely more effectually separate the old people from their children or other friends than does a plate upon the door, which announces that "Visitors to the inmates are only admitted between the hours of two and four on Thursdays." The rule is, probably, more honoured in the breach than in the observance; yet that it exists is a proof that even monuments of ancient charity require constant revision to keep them in step with the softening feeling and juster views of the age. This juster view and softer feeling are made manifest in the adjoining buildings of Cathedral Square-new model blocks of workmen's houses, which are not only clean and comfortable, but really pleasing and pretty. We understand that ladies voluntarily collect the rents of this block, and of similar blocks (not all quite so pretty) dotted here and there about the city. This is a carrying out of the system inaugurated in London by John Ruskin and Miss Octavia Hill.

The dreary walls of the North Prison flank one side of the little public garden. When we pass on from these cathedral precincts down the Bell o' the Brae (where they say William Wallace fought a battle with Earl Percy) and the High Street, we sigh over the misery and degradation which meet our gaze on every side-despite all clearances and "civic improvements." The greatest "civic improvement "-the limitation of the number of grog-shops-is, alas! still to come. They stare at us on every hand, many of them, even in the lowest neighbourhoods, resplendent with gilt and coloured glass. The very hoardings are covered with advertisements of whiskey and strong drink, different brands vaunting their qualities under the names of peaceful Highland glens, desecrated by the production of fiery poison