Only once in that region has it experienced any attempt at reform. In the fourteenth century, when the policy of the Ming dynasty in reducing the predominance of any one sect had prepared the way for him, Tsong-Kapa, “the Tibetan Luther,” endeavoured to effect a revival of the primitive rules of the Order, and succeeded in restoring something of the ancient simplicity in dress, the celibacy of the priests, the fortnightly confession, the season of yearly retreat, and the invitation ceremony at its close. He set his face also against the Shamanism of the Tantra system, adhered to the purer forms of the earlier Mahāyāna school, and succeeded in creating a new sect, whose leaders in the fifteenth century were by the Chinese Emperor recognised as titular lords over the Church and tributary rulers over the State, under the titles of Dalai Lāma and Pantshen Lāma. The dream of Hildebrand or Leo for the Papacy was for centuries more than realised in the Lāmaism of Tibet, for the Lamas are more than Popes, being re-incarnations of Avalôkitês’vara and of his father Amitabha, who never die, but at the act of dying transfer themselves into another body, born at that very moment, to be found in it in due time through a procedure, according to lot, never yet known to fail. When discovered, he has, however, to be accepted after the Erastian fashion by the Chinese Government or its representative, who, with the Desi or Regent, must also be present when the final lot is drawn.[369] Never under the Papacy, even in the times when its pretensions were most extravagant, and its power was most unchecked, has Christianity deteriorated so fearfully as Buddhism has done in Nepāl and Tibet. Not even in the Abyssinian—the most degraded of all the Churches that have worn the name of Christ, in respect of its incorporation of old Jewish rites and Egyptian superstitions—can we find the contrivance of the prayer-wheel, or the poles with their silken flags blazoned with the six sacred syllables, “om mani padme hum,”[370] fluttering their supposed incantations to the heavens. Buddhism’s ages of worship have been only a long sad history of degradation, of perpetual falling from bad to worse.[371] The higher the worship of Buddhists for the founder of their system has risen, the more have they fallen from his virtue; but in Christianity the ages of strongest devotion to Christ have ever been the periods of progress. The more intense man’s reverence for Christ has been, the loftier has been the standard of virtue attained. Worship and pursuit of holiness have gone hand in hand, and we cannot conceive of a life truly offered up in adoration of Christ ever proving immoral or impure.