EARTH MOVEMENTS.

105

the still more ancient creed of Hinduism, the date |

of which is unknown.

About 620 B.c. the Hindus were a learned and
highly civilized people, and their religion, the
Brahman, was in full force, its worst features being
prominent, and the grains of truth which it origi-
nally contained being forgotten. Its members were
divided then, as now, into four castes, viz. the
Priestly, the Military, the Trading, and the Labour-
ing classes. The Brahmins or Priests ruled the
people with a rod of iron, and laid on them many
burdensome ceremonies, the least infraction of
which made the worshipper’s whole faith useless.
They taught that every thing, seen or unseen, was
material, and they promised to their followers
pleasure in this life and gross self-indulgence in
the next. Amid such a state of things Guadama
or Buddha, as he was afterwards called, was born.
His father, who was a king and ruled over'that part
of India which is now known as Oudh, belonged to
the second, or warrior, caste. Guadama, although
excelling in feats of arms, was much given to me-
ditation, and his mind revolted at the gross mate-
rialism which the Brahmins taught him. As he
meditated he became more and more discontented
with his life, and strove for greater light and know-
ledge ; his perpetual motto was ‘‘ There must be some
supreme knowledge in which we could find rest.” At
length the sight of a fakeer, one of the religious men-
dicants still common in India, supplied him with
the model of his ideal life; the man’s demeanour
seemed so calm and dignified as to denote a soul
raised above and indifferent to the cares and pas-
sions of humanity, and Buddha determined to de-
vote himself in the same way, and to seek the road
to perfection in a life of self-denial. He escaped
from his royal city, and after spending six years in
solitude and penances, he commenced his preaching
at Benares, and wandered throughout India, making
converts wherever he went, until at the age of
seventy he died, or, as he would have said, entered
“Nirvana.” His teaching was the exact opposite
to Brahminism ; he declared that neither the world
nor any thing in it had any real existence except
the mind of man. He taught that there was no
Creator and nothing created, and he inculeated the
purest morality, reverence for parents, charity to-
wards all. Instead of promising rewards hereafter
he preached that virtue was its own reward, that
there was no immortality, and that the true end of
all philosophy was to enter Niryana—that is, to be
completely annihilated.

The ministers of this faith are called Poonghies,
and live together in immense monastic institutions
called Kyoungs. To these boys are sent at the
age of twelve or thirteen for the double purpose of

learning to read and for acquiring early in life a}

store of merits. In this stage they are called

|

“Shings,” and they remain for two or three years, |
when they go into the world and pursue secular
callings. Some grow fond of the life and return
to it, and having acquired sufficient knowledge they
are at the age of twenty solemnly admitted into the
brotherhood and called Poonghies. Henceforward
they are clothed in rags, and wear a yellow robe
over their rags, and beg their bread from door to
door, or live on the voluntary offerings of their
followers. If as is not unfrequently the case, they
find this life too great a burden, they are allowed
to forsake it, and to enter the world again, but on
no consideration are they permitted again to change
their minds and to re-enter the monastery.

It is strange that this creed has no hold whatever
on the country which gave it birth. The Brahmin
persecutions very early drove it out of India proper,
and it has never again established itself there. It’s
stronghold is Burmah, but it is dominant also in
Siam, Cochin-China, Tartary, Thibet, Ceylon, and
other districts. In Burmah it seems to retain
most of its original form, for there the worship of
the people is limited to offerings of fruits and
flowers to the image of Guadama, and to strict ob-
servance of fasts and festivals. In Tartary the
practice of witcheraft and the use of charms are
combined with this ereed. In China, where we
see Buddhism in its most corrupt form, the people
worship the shades of their ancestors and demons
of various kinds. The Abbé Hue tells us that in
Thibet many ceremonies are performed which are
evidently copied from the worship of the Roman
Catholic Church, and that praying machines, which
by the pulling of a string scatter in the air strips
of paper with sacred legends printed on them, take
the place of prayers to Guadama, while in Ceylon
the worship of Buddha’s tooth is combined with
the worship of devils, and dances, which are supposed
to have an exorcising power.

Earth MoyEmMENTS.—Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Chambers
have made us familiar with the fact of the upheaval of the
Scandinavian peninsula, and M. Réclus adds many curious de-
tails. Certain fine woods in Norway are “ continually being
upheaved towards the lower snow limits, and are gradually
withering away in the cooler atmosphere; wide belts of forest
are composed of nothing but dead trees, although some of them
have stood for centuries.” The gulfs of Bothnia and Finland,
like vessels tilted up out of the horizontal, slowly pour their
waters into the southern basin of the Baltic. Fresh islets ap-
pear, and M. Réclus contemplates a remote future in which
the Aland Isles will become connected with the continent, and
will serve as a bridge between Stockholm and the empire of
Russia. Of South America we are told a very curious thing.
The western coast, from the island of Chiloe to Callao, is up-
heaving ; Patagonia and Brazil are sinking. “Then a large
portion of the South-American continent is constantly gaining
on one side that which it loses on the other, and is gradually
making its way through the ocean in a westward direction.”