JAPANESE PRIESTCRAFT.

The Bonzes profess celibacy, but they do not always observe it very exactly. They abstain from flesh and fish, shave their beards and hair, and conceal their debaucheries under the appearance of an austere life. Their greatest profit is the burying of the dead; the people being persuaded that, in the other life, the souls of their relations may fall under some necessity, spare nothing to procure them the comfort which the Bonzes promise them, by means of their great alms. They use another artifice to enrich themselves, viz. to borrow money, which they promise the simple people to pay again in the other world with great interest; and borrowing it in this manner, they say among themselves that the term is worth the money: they who would draw a parallel between the east and the Catholic west, would find it equally defective as to the article of these debts payable in the other world. Celibacy ill observed, cheats, hidden under the appearances of a rigid morality, the profit of burials, and the assistances sent to souls separated from the

would afford them a great many comparisons. I am persuaded that many people, in reading extracts from the Japanese missionaries, could not choose but say inwardly to themselves, “thus it is with us.” It would be very curious to see an account of the west, written by a Japanese or a Chinese, who had lived many years in the great cities of Europe. They would pay us in our own coin. The missionaries, who go to the Indies, publish relations in which they particularise the falsities and frauds which they have observed in the worship of these idolatrous nations. But whilst they ridicule them for it, may they not fear that it should be replied to them, “Quid rides? mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.—Why dost thou laugh? changing the name, the story is told of thee or that they should be upbraided as they deserve, who wink at their own faults, and discover with the utmost sagacity the vices of others?

Cùm tua pervideas oculis mala lippus inunctis,
Cur in amicorum vitiis tain cernis acutum,
Quàm aut aquila, aut serpens Epidaurius? at tibi contra
Evenit, inquirant vitia ut tua rursùs et illi.
Hor. Sat. iii, lib. i, v. 25.

For wherefore, while you carelessly pass by
Your own worst vices, with unheeding eye,
Why so sharpsighted in another's fame,
Strong as an eagle's ken, or dragon's brain?
But know that he, with equal spleen shall view,
With equal rigour shall your thoughts pursue. — Francis.

Art. Japan.