rule of the priesthood, as it had already been a Brahminical law. For the laity he promulgated ten commandments which interdicted murder, theft, adultery, lying, intoxication, voluptuousness, and extravagance, whilst to the priests were enjoined total abstinence from the use of intoxicating drinks, mendicancy, and fasting of the severest description. On entering his noviciate the young Buddhist priest vows, “I will observe the precept or ordinance that forbids the use of intoxicating drinks, that lead to indifference towards religion;” and he also renounces every other human enjoyment, along with most of the necessaries of life.[46] His dress was of the meanest, if a few tatters can be called dress; his food was barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, such as a small portion of rice; he was a professed mendicant, going from place to place with an almsbowl. His day was employed in religious observances, meditation, penance, and self-mortification; in short, he became an ascetic of the strictest order, and it was his duty to teach virtue and morality to the multitude. “It is ever the rule of the Buddhas to proclaim first the reward to be received for the giving of alms, and then to enforce the precepts. The four great virtues are almsgiving, affability, promoting the prosperity of others, and loving others as ourselves.” “_But there is no reward to him who gives intoxicating liquors_, ... or gives to those who only dance and sing, or exhibit indecencies, or make obscene paintings on some public place.”[47] These ordinances and dogmas give us at once a vivid picture of the morality of the age, and show us the means that were taken to reform its vices. The Buddhist religion, than which none has been more abused and less understood, spread rapidly throughout China, and there can be no doubt that such a code, supported by the example of its administrators, and operating as it has done for more than two thousand years, must have exercised a very beneficial influence on the national character.