Ah! blessed Lord! Oh, High Deliverer! Forgive this feeble script, which doth thee wrong, Measuring with little wit thy lofty love. Ah! Lover! Brother! Guide! Lamp of the Law! I take my refuge in Thy name and Thee! I take my refuge in Thy Law of Good! I take my refuge in Thy Order! Om! The Dew is on the Lotus! Rise, Great Sun! And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. _Om Mani Padme Hum_, the Sunrise comes! The Dewdrop slips into the shining Sea! EDWIN ARNOLD. (PERORATION OF “THE LIGHT OF ASIA.”) Thibet is a country lying north of India and west of China. It has a population of about six millions. The early worship of the Thibetans was that of spirits, devils and of nature. The old worship, called the _Bon_ religion, bore a strong resemblance to the Taoism of China, and even to-day Buddhism has not destroyed that old religion entirely. The people still have gods of the hills, trees, dales and lakes, and still use charms and resort to magic. Just when Buddhism was introduced into this branch of the Mongolian family we cannot tell, but it certainly was not well-established until 630 A.D. All around Thibet Buddhist missionaries had gone long before this, and it is probable that there is some myth in the tradition that a few missionaries toiled, though in vain, to bring the Thibetans to the Buddhist belief. At the beginning of the fifth century Fa-Hian, the Chinese monk, made a pilgrimage to the sacred places of Buddhism in India. He and his four companions were forced to avoid crossing Great Thibet. SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF LAMAISM. [Illustration: A THIBETAN LAD.] A Thibetan king established his seat of government at H’lassa in 617 A.D. He married a Chinese princess of the Buddhist faith. By her request, he sent a minister to India, who brought back with him a great number of the Buddhist sacred books. The king had great difficulty in overcoming the objections of both priests and people, but finally succeeded. About the middle of the fourteenth century a great reformer arose in Thibet named Tsong-khapa. He forbade the priests to marry, and declared that magic and necromancy were against Buddhism, and introduced other changes. Another great reformer lived about the same time named Gedeen-tubpa; he built the great monastery at Teshu Lumbo in 1445, and in him commenced the perpetual incarnation of Buddha, in the persons of the Grand Lamas. In 1650 the sixth successor of this last reformer visited the Emperor of China, and accepted from him the designation of Dalai Lama, _Lama_ meaning priest, and _Dalai_, ocean. There are several rival Grand Lamas, the Dalai Lama, the Teshu Lama and the Taranath Lama. There rapidly grew up in Thibet a system of organized priesthood, which has made the Buddhism of Thibet almost altogether unlike that of any other land. MONKS AND MONASTERIES. [Illustration: MONASTERY OF HEMIS IN THE HIMALAYAS.]