Aug. 30.
MonamMepans have—their month of Ramadan and Christions their Lent; Buddhists have also their sacred month, though we have never heard it so called. The first day of the seventh moon of the Chinese lunar year fell on Saturday, August 14, the fifteenth day was on Saturday last (August 28), and he must have been a very unobservant individual who passed daily through our streets and failed to notice the extraordinary activity of our Chinese fellow residents during the evenings between these dates. Vast quantities of joss paren and incense have been burned during these days, and bonzes in gorgeous' but faded robes have chanted their monotonous prayers for the souls of the dead, in temples, open spaces and in the homes of the devout_who, of their charity, have provided masses for the repose of those forlorn spirits who have no descendants to attend to these pious rites on their behalf.
Tt is a striking fact that in the Mosaic economy the seventh month of the Jewish Itnar year was also the culminating period of the religious ceremonies which were the outstanding feature of life in the pristine days of Judaism. The tenth day of that month was ordained, -and is still observed by Jews the world over, as the great day of atonement, the most solemn festival of the sacred! year. The fifteenth day, when the moon was at the full, ushered in the feast of tabernacles when the people dwelt in booths for seven days to remind them that they had been dwellers in tents in the wilderness and went up to the temple in procession, singing their psalms as they went. It was a time of hilarity, so that a proverb said that he who had never rejoiced at the blowing of trumpets at this feast did not know what joy was.
Tt is not mere coincidence that these different and contra-dietary religions observe their sacred festivals at the same date of the calendar. It is probable that the inception of these feasts had@ 2 common origin in the days when the world was young. Before the pyramids were built or even before the Aryan dispersion which peopled Europe had taken
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.