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BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
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of Tibet, especially at particular festivals, to their monasteries and temples, they take no part in the celebration of the religious services, nor do they evince any stronger devotional interest than prevails in other Buddhist countries. In all of them, however, there are powerful means by which the priests work upon their feelings, and secure their adherence, and extort their bounty. Everywhere, except in China, learning, such as it is, is confined to the priesthood, and they are the sole instructor's of youth; they are also the collectors and vendors of drugs, and the practisers of medicine. They still, as in the days of Clement, foretell events, determine lucky and unlucky times, and pretend to regulate the future destiny of the dying, threatening the niggard with hell, and promising heaven, or even, eventually, the glory of a Buddha, to the liberal. Their great hold upon the people is thus derived from their gross ignorance, their superstition, and their fears; they are fully imbued with a belief in the efficacy of enchantments, in the existence of malevolent spirits, and in the superhuman sanctity of the Lamas, as their only protection against them; the Lamas in Tartary are, therefore, constantly exorcists and magicians, sharing, no doubt, very often the credulity of the people, but frequently assisting faith in their superhuman faculties by jugglery and fraud. In the most northern provinces of Russia, Buddhism, degraded to Shamanism, is nothing more than a miserable display of juggling tricks and deceptions, and even in the Lamaserais of Tibet, ex
