sanctuary rails, the congregation is assembled in greater or less numbers, according to the importance of the day. Around is a profusion of lights and flowers; while the air is fragrant with the fumes of incense. The prayers, which the officiating priest recites in monotone, are in Pali, a form of Sanskrit; and if an air of perfunctoriness pervades his devotions, let it be remembered that every day, month after month, and year after year, he may be found chanting these same litanies, of the significance of which he has but the vaguest idea. Not, however, that he is without belief in their efficacy; nay, it may be that his very ignorance of their meaning causes the words he utters to have, in his eyes, a transcendent value. Above the high altar, in seated posture on lotus-blossoms,(23) are three colossal images, cunningly wrought and richly gilded, and bearing on their countenances an expression of placid repose. Perhaps, it is the _Triratna_, or Three Jewels, that these represent, the Trinity of Buddha, the Law, and the Order. Or, possibly, this is Buddha, in his triple forms of existence:—as Sakya-muni, the form under which he lived as man among men; as Amitabha, his metaphysical existence in Nirvana; as Avalokitesvara, his reflex in the world of forms, his spiritual son, generated to propagate the religion established by him during his earthly career. Or once again, these three images may portray the Buddhas of the Past, Present, and Future:—Gautama who _was_, the historic founder of Buddhism; Kwannon, or Avalokitesvara, the head of the present Buddhist hierarchy, the Buddha who _is_; and Maitreya, or Meroku, the deliverer yet _to come_, the rehabilitation of past Buddhas foretold by Sakya-muni. Now and again one may meet with a Buddhist of superior intellectual attainments, who would explain the acts of worship he offers to these images, as signifying merely reverence for Gautama’s teaching; but to the multitude, as has been seen already, the images represent distinct and all-powerful deities. Indeed, the people are encouraged thus to regard them by their ecclesiastical superiors; it being one of the methods of Buddhism thus to adapt its teaching to the capacity of dense and ignorant minds. And thus it comes about that a religion, commencing with agnosticism, meets the “craving for divinity,” so deeply implanted in the nature of our race, by passing into what is, practically, a deification of humanity. [Illustration.] Pagoda at Nikko.