Lamas Reselutely Refuse all Efforts to Win Them to Adoption of Christianity ing Wellington at the present, time says the "Dominion" of Wellington, New: Zeland, is the Rev. R, Cunningham, of Edinburgh, who has been serving the China Inland: Mission for tho.leot: 20 years im the provicee of Szechuan, that province of China, with its 60,000, 000 inhabitants, which lies along the eastern border of holy Tibet, the impenetrable. Though: primarily Mr, Conningham's work lies among. the Chinese, he has been brought into contact almost continually with these curious nomadic people, and has worked among them assiduously im an endeavour to show them the Light, with small. success among the populace, and abeohitely none among the Lamas (the priests), with which the country is overran, Mr, Cunningham. says that to Regin to understand the Tibetans one must first endeavour to comprehend that Lamaiam is a domestic religion—a heterodox form of Buddism—in a more intense form, than is known in any other country, If a woman has two sons one at Toast becomes a Lama, possibly both, and ons frequently finds cases were one woman. has five or six sons all priests, 'Those devoted to this debased religion leave the. parental home, if one may call it hat (for the Tibetans ave wholly nomadic), at the age of six oF seven, and it is' expected that che mother should keep them in. the lamassnries—the great monasteries which are feattered throughout the country. 'To realize that possibility, too, it has to be remembered that the wife and mother in the head of the house hold. She is the commercial and financial head, and deco all the family management, which dicates that probably' femirinm haa ite rise behind the lofty Himalayas. Then the fare is most frugal. It connists almost entirely for the 165, days of the year of a queer mixture of yak butter and tea, The tea ies from China, and alter being 8 is mixed with a little salt and oda and: a great chuck of rancid butter made from the milk of the yak. This, with. ground roasted Darley, forms almost exclusively the fare of the Tibetans. The greater pare of the country was of an altitude of 13,000 feot or more, and ttle grows there rave grass, and. that but scantily. Still, the, people com to. be quite as healthy as others, and are just about as long lived on the average. to et on with, and by the printing of the. New Testament in Tibetan, and setting a Christian example, sone progress had been made in missionary work. In Tachienlu (Szechuan) the town where he was Jocated, which was only 9,200 feet! above sea-level,' they had: quite a food variety of food, including plenty of vegetables. On the other, hand, Tibet was wholly pastoral there was never an acre of land ploughed there. It was formerly part of Tibet, but hod been sub-Jngated by the Chinese, and was known an subjugated territory, Tachienlu was far remote from the civil wars of the northern and eastern provinces, and no one worried much ly Szechuan whether Marshal Feng or General Chiang were on top. They simply knew nothing about it, and wanted to know nothing. It wns a six weeks! Journey from Szechuan to Shanghai—twelve days by sedan chair Pony, four or five days by raft, on the Yang-tse-kiang, ten days' by ative boat, and the rest by steamer. This was, however, a very expensive Journey to a missionary. The Yangse-kiang extended. 200 miles into China, besides which within a comparative brief area arose the Bramapootra and the Irawadi, which, is served: for 1,000 miles by fine steamers with Scotch engineers.
Although Mfr. Cunningham has been for the last twenty years on the border of Tibet engaged in, missionary work on behalf of the. 'China Island mn, he has never set eyes on the mysterious Dalai Lama, who rules, financially, commercial ly and religiously over' Tibet, Probably there never was a ruler' more absolute than this person. His is law in everything.
"How does he happen—is he elected?" he was asked, "Oh, no," said Mr. Cunningham. "He is a veinearnation. I think the Present Dalai Lama ix the fifteenth Teineawation of the one being. I do not know exactly how they arrive at it, but the head priests cast spells, or draw lots in order to find the new Dalai when one dies. It might be a baby, a child: of six or seven, or @ young man; but cee chosen, he, reigns supreme, and all do him homage,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.