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He sins, if he removes his robes in order that his body may be seen.

If a priest go to sing or to recite near a dead person, he sins if he do not reflect upon death, and that everybody must die, and on the instability of mortal things, and the fragility of the life of man.

A priest sins if he eat without crossing his legs. If he sleeps in a place where others have slept together, he sins.

A priest sins if, when speaking with seculars, he stretches out his legs.

A bonze may not wash himself in the twilight or the dark, lest he should unadvisedly kill some insect or other living thing.

Notwithstanding all the precepts which are supposed to be protective of personal purity, the paintings seen in the Buddhist temples are often of a licentious and libidinous character.

The persons and property of the priesthood are removed from the general action of the law. There is a sort of ecclesiastical court, presided over by a bonze of high rank, in which the sacred code, written in the Pali language, constitutes the rule of judgment, in precisely the same way as the text of the Koran becomes the paramount law in the superior courts of the Mussulmans. Within certain limits, a priest may both inherit and bequeath property; but its possession does not emancipate him from those privations to which he is condemned by his religious vows. In case of intestacy, the property falls to the convent of which the bonze was an inmate.

A priest is not allowed to take an oath. His affirmative answer to a question is received when he raises his fan; his negative is conveyed by letting the fan drop.

As the priesthood, as an institution, is more dovetailed into the social system than in any part of the world, no jealousy seems created by its laziness, no resistance is exhibited to its claims. It is supported by the spontaneous offerings of the whole people, in whose minds merit and its recompences are constantly associated with reverence for the functions of the servitors of Buddha, the depositaries of his will and the expounders of his teachings. Among the priests will be found some subtle polemics, who are by no means unwilling to enter the fields of controversy. The Mohamedans aver that a few of the priesthood have recognised the authority of the Prophet, but the cases must be very rare.

The police to which the Phra are subjected is superintended by one of the princes, who has a number of commissaries, who are authorized to bring them up for judgment. On the proof of their delinquencies, they are unfrocked, flogged with the rattan, or condemned to prison, or other penalties, according to the gravity of their offences.

During the rainy season,-i. e., for three months of the year, the Phra are compelled to remain in their convents. During the other nine, many of them lead a wandering, vagabond life; and some of them trade, and practise alchemy or medicine, in spite of the prohibition of such employments.

Their daily life is thus described:- At cock

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crowing, they ring their bells and beat their drums, to announce their coming to those from whom they are to collect. They summon their attendants to get ready their boats. They bathe, visit the temple, and recite prayers in Pali. They then take their rounds, and gather from the multitudinous almsgiversmostly prostrate women-the contributions of rice, fish, fruits, vegetables, and cakes. When their pot is filled, they return to their houses, select what pleases them of the food they bring, and give the remainder to their attendants. They then smoke, drink tea, converse, or enjoy their promenade. A few of them have literary tastes, but such cases are quite exceptional. At eleven to half-past eleven o'clock they take their second repast, as they are not permitted to eat anything after mid-day till the next sunrise; but drinking tea, cocoa-nut milk, &c., is not prohibited. When asked to private houses to celebrate domestic festivities, great honour is done them, and they are welcomed with a variety of gifts,money, pieces of silk and cotton, tea, fruits, and preserves. On such occasions they perform a religious service in Pali, which lasts an hour, and is principally composed of sentences in praise of the excellences of Buddha.

A volume called the Patimok contains the regulations which the bonzes are bound to obey. This is an abbreviation of a larger work in several volumes, entitled Phra Vinai.*

In China, the Buddhist priests often subject them

* Pallegoix, ii. 23—32.

selves to voluntary torture; burning off the joints of their fingers in the fire, inflicting terrible wounds on the body, and even condemning themselves to voluntary and painful death. But suicide and self-mutilations are rare in Siam. lation occurred in 1821; had announced his intention to sacrifice himself jumped out of the burning pile, and ran into the river. (Bruguière, Annales, xxvi. 162.)

An example of self-immobut the poor wretch who

There is a body of female devotees called Nany-xi, who are dedicated to the service of the pagodas. They are a sort of nuns, wearing white dresses, and are allowed to collect alms for themselves, and for the temples to which they belong.

They have their prayers to recite, and their services to perform.

As to hospitals for animals, reptiles, vermin, which are said by some travellers to be under the special care of the bonzes, I know of none such in Siam; though, no doubt, the temples are the recipients of a multitude of living creatures-peacocks, geese, ducks, fowls, pigs, fish, apes, beetles, crocodiles-whose lives are safe and sacred, unless under strong temptation. Dogs and cats are found in multitudes within the walls of the temple inclosures, where they

"Live unmolested lives, and die of age."

Of course, they become a nuisance; but Bangkok is scarcely worse than Damascus or Constantinople.

CHAPTER XII.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TO SIAM.

I.-Christian Missions and Missionaries.

THE diversity of the religious instructions of the

Catholic and Protestant missionaries is an immense difficulty in the way of both. I am sorry to say, they frequently exhibit towards each other a spirit which is not that of Christian concord. The Catholic denounces the Protestant as a schismatic and a heretic, and the Protestant tells his hearers that the Catholic is but a teacher of a corrupt and indefensible faith. The whole field is too much occupied with jealousies and misunderstandings; and I have heard it alleged by natives against their foreign visitors-" They quarrel with one another; they do not understand one another; they teach different religions: how should we understand their differences? When they can agree about what we are to receive, we shall be more disposed to listen seriously." Now, I am much disposed to think that if the various sections of missionaries would only regard one another as coadjutors-fellow-labourers— promoters of a common object, though pursuing it by dissimilar modes of action,—that each should allow to the rest even the merit of good intention and honest effort,-all would be benefited by the con