Buddhist priests and nuns live apart from other people in monasteries and nunneries. They wear a different costume, and have their heads entirely shaven. They live on a vegetable diet, and obtain their food by their chants, by singing masses and often by begging. People believe that wealth, happiness and longevity can be procured through them, and so, according to their means, they offer these priests and nuns money with which to buy incense for Buddha and oil to burn in his lamps, also that a number of prayers shall be offered up in their behalf. Accordingly these priests and nuns are enabled to live a life of sloth. Sometimes, however, as if to break the monotony of their existence, they commit crimes which expose them to the vengeance of outraged law. The Buddhist monasteries and nunneries were formerly houses of refuge for a certain class of criminals. Those who went there and became professed Buddhists were exempt from punishment. The educated classes despise both Taoists and Buddhists. Nevertheless in sickness, or in death, they patronize them. This shows that our religious instinct is so strong that a man will worship anything rather than nothing. As I said, there is nothing in Chinese religions corresponding to the Christian Sabbath. In none of our festivals, holidays or anniversary celebrations, does the idea of rest enter. Instead of churches, we have temples which embody the highest architectural skill of the Chinese. They are built of brick, one story in height, oftentimes very spacious, comprising a series of buildings with alternate courts, and flanked by others designed as living-rooms, for the priests or nuns. The presiding idol is enshrined in the innermost hall, and dressed in real clothes fashioned in accordance with its character. There are usually placed in every temple a large number of idols inferior in power to the chief idol. Before the chief idol is burnt incense-sticks and candles and costly sandalwood. Food is offered on stated days, as well as on ordinary days; the worshipers believe that the essence of the food is eaten by the spirit of the god and that the substance remains for their own enjoyment. From the fact that the devotees themselves eat the food offered to the idol, people reconcile economy with profuse expenditure, by pretending to be religious with the view to gratifying their own appetites. Idolatry in China is _not_ founded on the belief that wood and stones and other inanimate objects are in themselves worthy of worship; but on account of the spirits which reside or take up their abode therein. Thus the idolatry of the Chinese is superior to the brutal worship of India, and to the brutish worship of the Egyptians. But still it exerts a baneful influence on the minds and hearts of its subjects.