The Buddhist doctrine about retribution in the next life filled up the space that had been left undefined by the sages, and men everywhere have accepted it as a solution of the difficulty. The teachers of this faith are most emphatic in the way in which they preach it, and in many of the Buddhist temples there are gruesome and realistic pictures of the various kinds of tortures to which these men are condemned in the prisons or hells that are kept in Hades for the special benefit of the men and women that have violated the principles of Heaven during their stay on earth. These are forcible reminders to the wicked and ungodly who will not repent and abandon their evil lives, that even though they escape the consequences of their misdeeds here, a day will surely come when in the prisons of the Land of Shadows they will pay the full penalty for the wrongs they have committed in their previous existence. [Illustration: A BUDDHIST PRIEST. _To face p. 208._] Now, it is evident that at an early stage in human thought, the idea of men and women suffering such terrible torments in the prison-houses of the under world touched men with infinite compassion, and a new doctrine was conceived that was intended to mitigate the horrors connected with the retribution for wrong-doing. This was the famous theory of metempsychosis, which has permeated the whole of the East, and has made a permanent impression upon every one of the native religions. Metempsychosis, as it is understood in China, declares that every adult sixteen years after entering the Land of Shadows is allowed to depart to be born again into some position on earth. There is a general release to every one, good, bad, and indifferent, and once more they may return to the upper world and be relieved from the pain and gloom of that sunless realm. But even in this great act of mercy the ideas with regard to retribution for evil and reward for virtue are sedulously maintained. The bad man who is let out of the hideous prison in which he has been confined is not to be allowed to escape the consequences of his previous vicious life. He is allowed to return to the world again, but he will appear perhaps in the shape of a pig or a dog, or some other of the lower animals.