"Tne Egyptinns sometimes lighted torches at night. The Chinese light Innterns; the Chinese are therefore evidently a colony from Egypt." So wrote Voltaire, ridiculing the far-fetched theories of the philosophical antiquarinns of his day, and the absurd insufficiency of the grounds on which those theories were constracted. Ho says in his own inimitable way that "in a Western province, formerly called "Coltien, the love of singularity and "paradox has been carried so far as to "induce some to assert that the Chinese "sere only an Egyptian, or, rather, perhaps, a Phoenician colony. It was "attempted to prove in the same way, "as a thousand other things have been proved, that a King of Egypt, called Menes by the Greeks, was the Chinese "King Vu; and that Atoes was Ki, by "the change of certain letters." spite of this fantastic effort of imngination, and the just exposure of its absurdity which it received at the hands of the great master of irony, there is little doubt that something might be learned by a comparison of the religious systems of China and the religious systems of ancient Egypt. The history of growth and development of religious leads us to believe that the earliest religion of which shadowy and vague reminiscences are discernible, was followed by Animism. The best apecimen of this form of belief is to be found in the old religions of Mexico and Pera. The religion of the Natchez, a small tribe at the confluence of the Mississippi and Red River, had as their religious system an organized Animism. Theabsolutesovereign waste brother of the Sun and High Priest, and to all firca special sanctity was attached. In this case, as in many others, religions progress seems to have been connected with the introduction of agriculture, All systems of this kind are Nature ions, and traces of this state of development are to be met with unmistakeably in the State religion of China, Next in order we Lave the polytheistic religions and the nomistic religions, founded on a law or holy staves Mow the peculiarity of China is that it contains three religions belonging to three different forms of development. There is the natures worship, which finds its outward express sion in the august ceremonial connected with the worship of Heaven and Earth, There is the polytheism which consists in the worship of a world of spiritual beings, and which is the creed of the populace, This brings in its train all the crazy follies and superstitions of diablerie and gives employment to colleges of priestly impostors and to astrologers and necromancers, vendors of charms and amulets, of spells and elixirs. Tuoism supplies this want of the vulgar, and its priests, with their so-called Pope at their head, fool the masses to the top of their bent, and rob them by all the usual arts of religious charlatanry. In addi" tion to these two systems there is also the Confacian teaching, which isa very good type of a nomistic religion, and which, though placed by some writers side by side with Taoism, is really in practice very different from it. The characteristics of Buddhism are too well known to be referred to. It will be seen, then, that a people like the Chinese, who have four systems belonging to four different stages of religious development alive in their midst at one and the same time, may be compared with many other nations; and the com. parison cannot fail to prove satisfactory in certain respects. Some points of contact must be found between the Chinaman's nature religion and that of the ancient Mexican. The ordinances of Confucius may be likened to those of Moses. The Chinaman's Buddhis resembles that of the Hindoo, Thus, when we say that the ancient Chinese religion stands at the same point of development as the Egyptian, we are pretty sure to be partially right. Still the differences are very great between the faith that is professed on
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.