Those temples which are well endowed by their founders, are crowded with priests, so that only a few among the higher orders of them can be rich. Stupidity, with a few exceptions, is their reigning characteristic; neither skill nor learning is to be found among them. Budha seems to have intimated that stupidity brings the votary nearer to the blissful state of apathy, and therefore a knowledge of his institutions is considered as the only requisite to form an accomplished priest. The Budhists have no schools or seminaries, for the instruction of their believers, seldom strive for literary honours, and are even excluded from the list of candidates, so long as they remain priests. Few among them are serious in the practice of their own religion; they are in the most complete sense of the words, sullen and misanthropic, and live a very secluded life. But religious abstraction and deep contemplation, with utter oblivion of existence, appear to be out of vogue. The halls of contemplation are the haunts of every vice. Such effects must follow where the mind is unoccupied, and the hands unemployed in any good work. The nuns are less numerous and more industrious than the priests. It is a general observation that nearly all the temples of Budha are in a dilapidated state; the contributions of devotees not meeting the expenses of repairs. These erections are very numerous; there is scarcely a small village that has not one, and few romantic and beautiful spots can be found free from these seats of idolatry. The similarity of the rites of this superstition with those of papacy, are striking: every one who visits the monasteries can at once discover the resemblance. That they should count their prayers by means of a rosary, and chant masses both for the living and the dead, live in a state of celibacy and shave their hair, &c., might perhaps be accounted for by a mere coincidence of errors into which men are prone to fall; but their divine adoration of Teenhow, “the queen of heaven,” must be a tenet engrafted upon Budhism from foreign traditions. We are unable to fix the exact period at which this deity was adopted. There is a legend of modern date among the people of Farh-keen, which tells us that she was a virgin of that province, who, in a dream, saw her kindred in danger of being wrecked, and boldly rescued them; but this affords no satisfactory solution; neither is “the queen of heaven,” among the deities which the Siamese Budhists worship, though they possess the whole orthodox code of demons. It is probable that some degenerate Nestorian Christians amalgamated with their faith and ceremonies, the prevailing errors of China, and persuaded the priests of Budha to adopt many of their rites.