Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/338

326 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC and the superstitions to which they give way are so ex- travagant, that the most ignorant make them the object of their sarcasms. They have acquired celebrity chiefly by their pretended secret of an elixir of immortality, a secret which has brought them into great favour with some famous emperors. The Chinese annals are full of the disputes and quarrels of the Lao-tze with the disciples of Confucius, who have employed the weapons of ridicule against them with the greatest success — and have never failed to turn the laugh against both them and the Bonzes, the priests of Buddhism, which is the third religion of China. Towards the middle of the first century of our era, the emperors of the Han dynasty officially admitted into the empire the Buddhism of India ; and this worship, which admits of material representations of the Divinity, spread rapidly among the Chinese, who called it the religion of Fo — an imperfect transcription of the name of Buddha. This is a very ancient generic word, with a double root in Sanscrit — one part signify- ing being, and the other wisdom or superior intelligence. It is the name employed to designate the Supreme Being — the Omnipotent God; and it is also sometimes extended to those who worship him, and seek to raise themselves towards him by contemplation and sanctity. The Buddhists generally use it for a real historical personage who became celebrated throughout Asia, and who is regarded as the founder of the institutions and doctrine comprised under the general denomination of Buddhism. In the eyes of the Buddhists this personage is sometimes a man and sometimes a god, or rather both one and the other — a divine incarnation — a man-