There are also some Jews in our Central Kingdom. They have been known in some provinces from a time long before the supposed birth of Christ.
Another _Sect_ of the region of the Western Barbarians (in the Eastern parts), who worship a god named _Mohammed_--a _Sect_ merely an offshoot of the Jews, from whom they adopted the most part of their superstition, and equally fierce and intolerant--penetrated into our Flowery Land soon after its rise. It was about six hundred years ago that they established a slight hold amongst us, and are still to be found--never here in their weakness exhibiting any of the savagery of strength. In a large portion of the Western regions they were for ages as cruel and destructive as the Christians, and, in fact, waged wars with them for absolute mastery, during which all the horrors usual to those dreadful Barbarians terrified and maddened mankind. Finally, these two Sects, _Christian and Mohammedan_ (so styled), divided the whole region of the Western Barbarians among themselves! and from that time have been less quarrelsome with each other, than have the _Sects_ of the two great divisions in their intestine conflicts.
Thus, it will be acknowledged that the Barbarians are well disposed sometimes towards us,--or at any rate the devotees of their Superstition are,--and we must gratefully thank them for their sincere anxiety for the salvation of our _souls_; for our _bodies_ that is another matter. They think us ignorant, even of the ordinary rules of morality. They do not know that before Greece or Rome had appeared in history, our worship of the Sovereign Lord and our moral precepts were established, purely, simply, and that our annals show that the Grecian and Roman culture largely borrowed from ours, though not the _Superstitions_. These were derived, probably, from some source common to the Western Barbarians, likely Egyptian, and though modified by habits of tribes, retained more or less of those original traits which appear in all.
The Temples are numerous, though often quite deserted except by the Bonzes and their servants. The same revenues are taken by the Bonze whether there be any worshippers or not, and sometimes the prayers are said or sung to empty forms (seats)--not more empty than the prayers.