A soldier, who was escorting a Buddhist priest, charged with some crime, to a prison at a distance, being very anxious not to forget anything, kept saying over and over the four things he had to think about, viz.: himself, his bundle, his umbrella, and the priest. At night he got drunk, and the Buddhist priest, after first shaving the soldier's head, ran away. When the soldier awaked, he began his formula, "Myself, bundle, umbrella—O dear!" cried he, putting his hands to his head, "the priest has gone. Stop a moment," he added, finding his hands in contact with a bald head, "here's the priest; it is I who have run away." * * * * * As found in Greek literature, the story, attributed to Hierocles, but probably much later, says that the prisoner was a bald-headed man, a condition which is suggested to the Chinese reader by the introduction of a Buddhist priest. Whether the Chinese got this story from the Greeks, or the Greeks got it from the Chinese, I do not pretend to know. The fact is that we students of Chinese at the present day know very little beyond the vague outlines of what there is to be known. Students of Greek have long since divided up their subject under such heads as pure scholarship, history, philosophy, archæology, and then again have made subdivisions of these. In the Chinese field nothing of the kind has yet been done. The consequence is that the labourers in that field, compelled to work over a large superficies, are only able to turn out more or less superficial work. The cry is for more students, practical students of the written and colloquial languages, for the purposes of diplomatic intercourse and the development of commerce; and also students of the history, philosophy, archæology, and religions of China, men whose contributions to our present stock of knowledge may throw light upon many important points, which, for lack of workmen, have hitherto remained neglected and unexplored. LECTURE V TAOISM TAOISM China is popularly supposed to have three religions,—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The first is not, and never has been, a religion, being nothing more than a system of social and political morality; the second is indeed a religion, but an alien religion; only the last, and the least known, is of native growth. The Chinese themselves get over the verbal difficulty by calling these the Three Doctrines. There have been, at various epochs, other religions in China, and some still remain; the above, however, is the classification commonly in use, all other religions having been regarded up to recent times as devoid of spiritual importance. Mahommedanism appeared in China in 628 A.D., and is there to this day, having more than once threatened the stability of the Empire. In 631 the Nestorian Christians arrived, to become later on a flourishing sect, though all trace of them, beyond their famous Tablet, has long since vanished.