anointing, shaven crowns, sects, orders, and systems of theology. Their sermons abound in parables and similes. The preacher just mentioned illustrates his points with amusing ingenuity. For example, in a sermon on the folly of putting excessive trust in wealth, strength, or any other advantage merely external or transitory, he relates a parable of a shell-fish--the sazayé--noted for the extreme hardness of its shell. One day, just after a large sazayé had been vaunting his perfect security against the dangers to which other fish were exposed, there came a great splash in the water. "Mr. Sazayé," continued the preacher, "shut his lid as quickly as possible, kept quite still, and thought to himself what in the world the noise could be. Could it be a net? Could it be a fish-hook? Were the tai and the other fish caught? he wondered; and he felt quite anxious about them. However, at any rate, _he_ was safe. And so the time passed; and when he thought all was over, he stealthily opened his shell, and slipped out his head and looked all round him, and there seemed to be something wrong--something with which he was not familiar. As he looked a little more carefully, lo and behold! there he was in a fish-monger's shop, and with a card, marked 'Sixteen Cash,' on his back. "Isn't that a funny story?" cries the jovial preacher, smiling complacently upon the congregation. "Poor shell-fish! I think there are people not unlike him to be found _in China and India_." This is a favorite joke with the preacher. He frequently closes a satirical passage by a similar remark. "I don't mean to say that there are any such persons _here_. Oh no. Still, there are plenty of them to be found--say, for instance, in the back streets of India."