often visit Thibet as a holy place, and the Lama always entertains a body of two or three hundred in his pay. Besides his religious influence and authority, the Grand Lama is possessed of unlimited power throughout his dominions, which are very extensive, and border on Bengal.

Another religion which is very prevalent among the Tartars, is that of Schamanism. The professors of this religious sect believe in one Supreme God, the creator of all things. They believe that he loves his creation, and all his creatures; that he knows all things, and is all-powerful; but that he pays no attention to the particular actions of men, being too great for them to be able to offend him, or to do any thing that can be meritorious in his sight. But they also maintain that the Supreme Being has divided the government of the world, and the destiny of men, among a great number of subaltern divinities, under his command and control, but who nevertheless generally act according to their own fancies; and therefore mankind cannot dispense with using all the means in their power for obtaining their favour. They likewise suppose, that, for the most part, these inferior deities abominate and punish premeditated villainy, fraud, and cruelty. They are all firmly persuaded of a future existence; but they have many superstitious notions and practices. Among all the Schamanes, women are considered as being vastly inferior to men, and are thought to have been created only for their sensual pleasure, to people the world, and to look after household affairs; and in consequence of these principles, they are treated with much severity and contempt.

CHAPTER LIII.

CHINESE RELIGION.

Ir is much like that of the Tartars. Though the ancient Chinesc worshipped idols, yet their philosophers and legislators had juster sentiments of the Deity, and indulged the people in the worship of sensible objects only to make them submissive to government. The Jesuits made little opposition to this when they attempted to convert the Chinese, and suffered their proselytes to worship Tien, pretending that it was no other than the name of God. The truth is, Confucius, and the Chinese legislators, introduced a most excellent system of morals among the people, and endeavoured to supply the want of just ideas of a future state, by prescribing to them the worship of inferior deities. Their

morality approximates to that of Christianity; but as we know little of their religion, but through the Jesuits, we cannot adopt as truth, the numerous instances in which they tell us of the conformity of the Chinese with the Christian religion. Those fathers, it must be owned, were men of great abilities, and made a wonderful progress, above a century ago, in their conversions; but they mistook the true character of the emperor, who was their patron; for he no sooner found that they were in fact aspiring to the civil direction of the government, than he expelled them, levelled their churches with the ground; and prohibited the exercise of their religion, since which time Christianity has made no figure in China.

CHAPTER LIV.

PERSIANS.

THE Persian religion is Mahometanism of the sect of Ali; for which reason the Turks, who follow the succession of Omar and Abu Bekr, call them heretics. Their religion is, if possible, in some things more fantastical and sensual than the Turks; but in many points it is mingled with some Bramin superstitions. When they are taxed by the Christians with drinking strong liquors, as many of them do, they answer very sensibly, "You Christians whore and get drunk, though you know you are committing sins, which is the very case with us."

Having mentioned the Bramins, the comparison between them and the Persian Guebres or Gaurs, who pretend to be the disciples and successors of the ancient magi, the followers of Zoroaster, may be highly worth a learned disquisition. That both of them held originally pure and simple ideas of the Supreme Being, may be easily proven; but the Indian Bramins and Parses accuse the Gaurs, who still worship the fire, of having sensualized those ideas, and of introducing an evil principle into the government of the world.

A combustible ground, about ten miles distant from Baku, a city in the north of Persia, is the scene of the Guebres devotions. It must be admitted, that this ground is impregnated with very surprising inflammatory qualities, and contains several old little temples, in one of which the Guebres pretend to preserve the sacred flame of the universal fire, which rises from the end of a large hollow cane stuck into the ground, resembling a lamp burning with very pure spirits, The Mahometans are the de

clared enemies of the Gaurs, who were banished out of Persia by Shah Abbas. Their sect, however is said to be numerous, though tolerated in very few places.

The long wars between the Persians and the Romans, seem early to have driven the ancient Christians into Persia and the neighboring countries. Even to this day, many sects are found that evidently have Christianity for the ground-work of their religion. Some of them, called Soussees, who are a kind of quietests, sacrifice their passions to God, and profess the moral duties. The Sabean Christians have, in their religion, a mixture of Judaism and Mahometanism; and are numerous towards the Persian Gulf. I have already mentioned Armenian and Georgian Christians, who are very numerous in Persia.

The present race of Persians are said to be very cool in the doctrines of Mahomet, owing partly to their late wars with the Turks. The Persians observe the fast during the month of Ramazan (the 9th month of the Mahometan year) with great strictness and severity. About an hour before day-light, they eat a meal, which is called sehre, and from that time until the next evening at sun-set, they neither eat nor drink of any thing whatever. It is even so rigid, that if in the course of the day, the smoke of a calean, or the smallest drop of water reaches their lips, the fast is deemed broken, and of no avail. From sun-set until next morning, they are allowed to refresh themselves. This fast, when the month Ramazin falls in the middle of summer, as it sometimes must do, (the Mahometan year being lunar) is extremely severe, especially to those who are obliged by their occupations to go about during the day-time, and is rendered still more so, as there are several nights during its existence which they are enjoined to spend in prayer. The Persians particularly observe two, the one being that in which their prophet Ali died, from a wound which he received from the hands of an assassin three days before; this night is the 21st of Ramazan, and the day is called by the natives, the day of murder. The other is the night of the 23d, in which they affirm that the Koran was brought down from heaven by the hands of the angel Gabriel, and delivered to their prophet Mahomet; wherefore it is denom inated the night of power.

CHAPTER LV.

INDIANS.

THE natives (or Indians) of America. It cannot be said that there is any regular system of religion among the Indians, because each one employs the liberty allowed him of making a religion for himself. The introduction of Christian missionaries appears to have somewhat modified their primitive opinions. As far, however, as we can collect consistent accounts, from early historians and late travellers, and residers among them in the north-west, the following appear to be the out-lines among them.

First, they believe in a great Manito, or Genius, who rules the world or universe: that is, the air and the earth, for these constitute their universe.

This Being they consider as dwelling somewhere above them: governs the world, though with little trouble to himself; sends wind, rain, or fair weather, according to his fancy; sometimes makes a noise, which is thunder, for his pastime; takes as little heed of men as other animals; dispenses good or ill by chance or at random, leaving the world in the mean time to fate or necessi ty, whose laws are absolute over all things.

They commonly call this Being the master of life, or he who made us, though this title they may have gotten from the missionaries.

Under this Supreme power are numberless Manitos, who traverse earth and air, and govern all things, each having his separate province. Some of them are good, and all the good that happens, comes from them; while others are bad, and all the evil that befals us is their work. All the worship they know is offered to the latter, whose wrath they strive, by their offerings and prayers, to appease or avert, as men endeavour to soothe or avert the envious or morose among themselves. They pay little or no homage to the good Manitos, because they believe they act from their own benign nature, and would do just as they do without their prayers.

The dread of the mischievous deities is their most constant companion and greatest tormentor. The boldest warriors are on this head, as timid as the women and children. A dream, a phantom, a mysterious cry, equally alarms. But as there are always knaves where there are dupes, every nation has a juggler, whose trade is to expound dreams, and to negociate between the Manito and the votary. Like valets in old comedies, he carries

messages between parties invisible to each other; and this office, we may well suppose, is not unattended with profit. The missionaries and these jugglers, are particularly odious to each other, and stigmatize their opponents as knaves and impostors. Though so familiar with these genii, they cannot describe their form or nature. They suppose them to be bodies of a light, volatile, shadowy texture. Sometimes they and their disciples will select a particular one, and give him, for a dwelling, a certain tree, serpent, rock, or water-fall, and to him they make their fetish like the Africans of Congo. They generally admit the notions of another life. After death they shall go, they think, to a country where game and fish abound, where they can hunt without toil, walk without danger of an ambush, regale upon fat meat, and in short pass their time amid those enjoyments which they value here. The northern tribes place their heaven in the south-west quarter, because their fair and mild weather.come from thence. The missionaries tell us that they have notions of rewards and punishments; but this, to deserve credit, demands more impar tial testimony.

These outlines are sufficient to shew the strong mythological notions of the American Indians and the Asiatic Tartars, as the latter have been described by recent Russian travellers. The analogy between them and the notions of the Greeks, is no less apparent. We discover the chief Manito in Homer's Jupiter. The latter, however, leads not the poor, unsettled, melancholy life of the Indian Jove, but enjoys all the magnificence of the court of Ethiopia, or rather of the hundred-gated Thebes, whose gorgeous secrets have been unfolded to us by the enterprise and curiosity of the present age. In the other Manitos, we perceive no less clearly the subordinate divinities of Greece. I mean not to insinuate that the Indians have borrowed their doctrines from Scytha or Greece. Shamanism, or the system of Budatha, may possibly have spread itself throughout the old world, where it is found. even at the extremities of Spain, Scotland, and Denmark; but it is quite as possible that it is a native product of the human mind, since it every where bears an intimate relation to the habits and condition of the people who profess it.

The great difficulty in believing a transmission of religious ideas through many generations, consists in the total absence, among savages, of records or writings of any kind. They know of nothing passed but by oral tradition, and in this form, the truth is strangely distorted in its passage from mouth to mouth. Very recent facts are totally disguised when propagated in this man

ner.

There is only one species of memorial among the Indians, which