"The old faiths, grown more wide, Purer, and glorified, Are still our lifelong guide."
Crowd.--Nuns.--Final Shaving.--Woven Paces.--Burning Heads.--Relationships.--A Living Picture.
I have attended an ordination in St. John Lateran's at Rome, of which my principal recollection is how the Italian young men wriggled as they all lay flat upon the marble floor whilst something was sung over them. Was it a _Te Deum_? It certainly was very long. The whole service, indeed, seemed very long drawn out. I have also a remembrance of nearly fainting from weariness at an ordination in Exeter Cathedral; and can still recall the thrill of awestruck admiration with which I regarded the reader of the gospel on that occasion, who, as I understood, had passed first, and who yet was overcome by emotion, so far was he from esteeming himself worthy of this honour, in thinking of the work that lay before him. Certainly, long though the proceedings were--and they must have been very long if they seemed so to me, for in those days I was an enthusiast about cathedral services--yet never for a second did reverence of the highest quality cease to brood over all the scene. Thus, when invited by the abbot himself to assist at an ordination in one of the strictest of Chinese monasteries, there was some element of wonder mixed with the fortitude with which I prepared for a barbarous burning rite, and _soupe maigre_ to see it on. Nor was that flask of whisky forgotten that is such a support to the traveller, remaining always full under all emergencies because never wanted. It was not in this case. But as the only European, whose account of such a ceremony I had heard, reported two or three monks carried away fainting, and a general odour of burning flesh, I thought it might be.
[Illustration: AT FENGTU, CHINESE HADES. _By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
The large beautifully situated monastery was already full when I arrived; and my husband, who had transmitted the abbot's invitation, and himself had been there two days, informed me his was the only bed with one man in it. "They sleep head and feet," he said, as if this added to the comfort of it. "I can't think where they will put you. They are very, very full; and they are playing cards or smoking opium all the time in my room. But they are very polite,--some one is always 'keeping me company.' I cannot read a word." Indeed, he wore the dazed air of being too much kept company with. At the head of a flight of steps, at the entrance to the women's quarter, a dark den with two beds was, however, found for me; and though several ladies most obligingly offered to occupy the other bed, and "keep me company" all night, I retained undisturbed possession of the two, whenever the door was barred. When it was not, people "kept me company" (_pei_); ladies, priests, young men friends, and young men who were not friends, but might become such, all crowded in together with some young monks, whose behaviour somewhat surprised me.