Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/82

70 70 CHEISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC of their doctrines, should have borrowed nothing from each other for several centuries, during which they might possibly have come into contact, somewhere on the soil of the enormous empire of China. We do not see that the Chinese have ever borrowed anything of the Mussulmans, who have been living in the midst of them almost since the epoch of the Hegira. But those who are intimately acquainted with the religion of the Lamas, cannot help perceiving that their hierarchical system, a great number of their liturgical practices, and many of their dogmas, have been introduced into Budd- hism, by a result of the decay and corruption of Nestorian Christianity in Upper Asia ; and a zealous Protestant writer, Sir John Davis (formerly governor of the English colony in China), and whose authority Mr. Milne will certainly not dispute, expresses himself thus on the subject of the imitation by Buddhism of Christianity*: — " The curious resemblance existing between the rites of the Buddhist priests of China and Tartary, and those of the Church of Rome, has excited great surprise amono; Catholic missionaries. These curious coinci- dences afford ground for the conjecture that the Chinese did formerly obtain some slight knowledge of Chris- tianity by way of Tartary, and through the interven- tion of the Nestorians. " It is certain, and may be seen every day at Canton, that they observe the practices of fasting, of celibacy, and of prayer for the dead. They worship relics, use holy water, and have rosaries of beads with which they count their prayers, and a monastic habit, resembling that of the Franciscans." Here then it seems are many
 * " China," by Sir John Davis, vol. ii. p. 37.