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Daily exercises are to be conducted by j For these they have a profound respect. I her; the furniture of the small sanctuary, bought a copy from them, but they would that forms a part of the convent, must be not part with it until they had strongly looked after and kept clean and orderly; urged me to give it an elevated place on those women, or men, who come to worship my book-shelves. The rapidity with which at the altars, and to seek guidance or com- the pages and sections of the books are fort, must be cared for and assisted. When hurried off at their religious services, is there is leisure, the sick and the poor are amazing. Both the young and the old nuns to be visited; and all, who have placed seem equally expert at their recitations. themselves under her special direction and But there is nothing of a devotional spirit spiritual instruction, have a strong claim about them. Their demeanor is any thing upon her regard. That she may live the but devout. When a choir of juvenile nuns life of seclusion and self-denial, she must meet together, it is shocking to see the levvow perpetual virginity. The thought of ity with which they pay religious homage to marriage should never enter her head, and the stock before them. They are as merry the society of men must be shunned. On and tricky, as flirting and frolicksome, as her death she will be swallowed up in any party of girls met to keep the birthday nihility! of one of their schoolmates. As much time is spent in reading and reciting prayers, cantics, &c., &c., the candidate, before she can be admitted into full orders, must undergo an educational training. She is taught to read, and many of them pursue the same elementary course that is adopted throughout the empire. They learn the Trimetrical Classic, the Four Books, &c., and are taught the ready use of the pencil. Some of the sisterhood, I have been told, are very well read in the lore of the country. It would appear, from what I have seen and heard, that the training of the novice is intrusted to that inmate who was last admitted.

In the Kwanyin nunnery, there are altogether seven inmates. The head nun is about forty years of age, and is more masculine in her temper than any Chinese woman I have met with. Her passions are violent, and when her anger is roused, it rises to a fearful pitch. She is a thorough scold, and keeps her pupils in perpetual awe of her. But what must be the hardened depravity of her heart, that, under a cloak of sanctity, seeks to hide those scenes of vice and debauchery which, with her sanction and encouragement, are acted under her roof! Her avarice is voracious. Her deceit is dark and deep. She is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Her disciples are six in Those among the laity, who have put number, their ages running between seven themselves under the spiritual direction of and twenty-five. Four of them, notwith-a nun, are expected to confide in her as a standing their spare diet, look fat and hale. teacher, and to submit to her as a priestess. The two younger are in a bad state of health. Whether the devotee be a man or a woman, The abbess always pretended to be very the nun who is the chosen preceptress gives fastidious in avoiding animal food, and to the individual a new name. Each nun is every thing having a strong flavor. Yet on the alert to cultivate the acquaintance she used to drink the ardent spirits distilled of the disciple she has already made, and from rice, and appeared at timer to be to swell her list of friends, because her supmuch under its influence. port principally depends upon them. BeTheir daily services are conducted morn-hind the shrine of Kwányin, in that nunneing and evening. At the usual exercises, however, I have rarely seen more than two officiate. On special occasions, that are occuring every month, there are services which occupy the whole day. At some of these, they are aided by sisters from other convents in the city or the country; and, a new name prefixed. Visitors from town not unfrequently, priests are called in to join the sacred concerts, in which case the priests and priestesses occupy separate apartments, but proceed with the chants in unison.

ry to which I have throughout been making a special reference, there is a slab erected with the names of subscribers, or donors, who for the maintenance of the order had promised or paid down small sums of money. To each of the female contributors there is

and country are very frequent. These generally contribute a little in money or in kind, so that with the subscriptions of steady friends and the donations of occasional visitors, the means of subsistence are not lackTheir sacred books consist of many vol-ing. Besides, there is property invested in umes, printed in large text on fine paper. houses and in land. That wing of the con

vent which I occupied is entirely appropri- ing a good deal from ulceration of the bowated to lodgings, let out at a moderate rate, els. On the abbess hearing that an English and capable of being made very comforta- physician had reached Ningpo, she applied ble, if one were not perpetually subject to annoyance from the boisterous money-seeking landlady.

The extra services I have above alluded to are got up by the patrons of the order on occasions of calamity, or prosperity, or when the abbess is successful enough to work upon the superstitious feelings of a husband, through the agency of a priestridden wife. The person, who sends requesting the services of the nuns, appoints the number of books to be recited at the shrine of the nunnery, for which he must pay a certain remuneration. At each service the nuns are said to receive respectively the small premium of 100 cash a day. According to the statement of the superior to this convent, there are, in the district of Ningpo alone, thirty nunneries and above 300 inmates, the largest number in a single building not exceeding twenty. But the estimation in which the religious order is held is exceedingly low. They are described by all to be a class of women almost on the same footing with those who are lost to all the finest and most delicate feelings that are peculiarly the glory and the protection of the sex.

Like the male priests of the same religion, and like the popish priesthood in the Philippines, they are not only not respected by the populace, but are detested for their profligacies, and dreaded for the influence, which they are supposed to exert on one's destiny by familiar intercourse with the spirits of the invisible world; hence, it is a common saying, that 'to meet with a nun in the street will be unlucky to your errand.' Indeed such was the profligacy of the dressy, small-footed, opium-smoking nuns of Suchau-the capital of Kiángsú province, that the notorious Yü Kien, (who in 1841 hastened down to Chinhái as imperial commissioner invested with full powers to destroy the barbarian English by fire and by sword,) when he held the office of lieut.-governor in that province, broke up their establishments and disbanded the sisterhood.

To complete this notice of Chinese nuns and nunneries, I will refer to the two junior inmates of the Kwányin convent. The younger of the two died only a week ago, at the early age of seven years. She had been bought when six years old. When I came into the neighborhood, she was suffer

to me for his assistance. Dr. Johnstone of the Madras Rifles, who was then on a visit of a few days, cheerfully consented, and prescribed for the sufferer from his private stock of medicines. This was in the end of last month. But the child was already beyond remedy, and death had fastened upon her vitals. On the morning of the 29th of December, while the elder nuns were rejoicing that the poor child was sleeping so soundly, they were not aware that the sleep of death had stolen upon her, until they perceived she was insensible to sound and to touch. It was breathing its last. When they ascertained this fact, the body was removed out of the room, and put into the wood-house, there to expire unattended. Aluh, her senior in age, although devotedly attached to this dying companion, was not allowed by her superior to watch over the closing moments of the poor girl. When it was laid in its rude coffin, the servant was ordered to throw in the doll with which she had played; and, after a sorcerer of the Táu sect had performed his incantations to quiet the spirit of the departed, and to bribe away from the spot any demons that might be lurking about, the coffin was placed under the city walls.

Aluh, her senior, is a girl thirteen years of age. Her father, who is dead, used to go about Ningpo hawking turnips and greens. On his death, the mother sold this poor girl to the nuns at the tender age of four. Being the sixth of eight sisters, (the seventh having in like manner been given over to a convent in the neighborhood,) she is named Aluh (the sixth); but her priestly name is Tsáhshen, 'Collected Virtues.' As she has not yet reached the age when she can be fully inducted, her head is not quite shaven. Her countenance is peculiarly striking, to which her present sickness adds a mournful interest, as it cannot fail to create serious apprehensions that she will not long be a survivor in this world.* And truly how deplorable, how cruel, is the mistake by which so many of the female youth of China are at an early age made over to a system, the influence of which is only to render their minds more corrupted, and to aggravate their future woes!

* She died on the 13th of the following May.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

BY H. MACNAMARA.

From the Metropolitan.

THERE does not exist a more perfect feature

in human nature than that affection which a

mother bears towards her children. Love, in its true character, is of divine origin, and an emanation from that Spirit, who Himself "is Love," and though often degraded on earth, we yet find it pure, sublime, and lasting within the maternal breast. Man is frequently captivated by mere external graces, and he dignifies that pleasure, which all experience in the contemplation of the beautiful, by the title of love; but a mother makes no distinction, she caresses the ugly and deformed with kindness, equal to, if not surpassing, that she bestows on the more favored. Too frequently are interested motives the basis of apparent affection, but it is not so with her, who clings more fondly to her children in their poverty, their misfortunes, ay, and their disgrace. The silken chains by which we are bound one to the other are sometimes broken with facility; a word, a look, may snap the links, never to be re-united; friendship decays or proves false in the hour of need; we almost doubt the existence of constancy-away with this doubt, while the maternal heart continues, as a temple, for the dwelling of God's holiest attribute.

She has watched her infant from the cradle; she will not desert him until separated by the grave. How anxiously she observes the budding faculties, the expansion of mind, the increasing strength of body! She lives for her child more than for herself, and so entwined has her nature become with his, that she shares in all his joys, and alas! in all his "Not because it is lovely," says Herder, "does the mother love her child, but because it is a living part of herself-the child of her heart, a fraction of her own nature. Therefore does she sympathize with his sufferings; her heart beats quicker at his joys; her blood flows more softly through her veins, when the breast at which he drinks knits him closer to her."*

sorrows.

the sad truth be established, she still feels that he has not thrown off every claim; and if an object of blame, he is also one of pity. Her heart may break, but it cannot cease to love him. In the moments of sickness, when stretched on the bed of pain, dying perhaps from a contagious disease, he is deserted by his professed friends, who dare not, and care not to ap proach him-one nurse will be seen attending him; she will not leave his precious existence to the care of hirelings, though now every instant in his presence seems an hour of agony. not let him hear the sad response; she weeps, His groans penetrate her heart, but she will but turns away, lest he should see her tears. She guards his slumbers, presses his feverish lips to hers, pours the balm of religion on his conscience, and points out to him the mercy of that Judge before whom he may shortly appear. When all is silent, she prays for his life; and if that may not be, for his happiness in the life to come.

He dies. The shock perhaps deprives her of life, or, if not, she lives as one desolate and alone, anxiously looking forward to that world where she may meet her darling child, never to part again.

With equal simplicity and eloquence, the tender affection of Hagar for her child is expressed in the Old Testament.* In a wilderfrom fatigue, she beholds her infant-her only ness, herself parched with thirst and fainting companion-dying from want of nourishment. The water-bottle was empty. Placing her boy beneath a shrub, and moving to some distance, she cried, "Let me not see the death of "Let me not behold the severmy child!" ance of those ties, which nature compels me to support and cherish; let not mine eyes witwhich I had hoped would afford me comfort ness the gradual departure of that angel spirit, and consolation in my declining years." And "she lift up her voice and wept." But she was not left childless, "for God was with the lad."

to one

this parent, we can appreciate the beauty of If we reflect upon the inestimable value of the psalmist's expression, when he compares himself, laboring under the extreme of grief, Say that her son falls into poverty; a bank"who mourneth for his mother." And was it not in accordance with the perfect charrupt in fortune, he is shunned by former acquaintances and despised by most of his fel-acter of our Saviour, that some of his last thoughts should be for the welfare of her who low-beings, but one will there be found, like a ministering angel at his side, cheering his despondency, encouraging him to renewed exertions, and réady herself to become a slave for his sake.

Say that he is exposed to censure, whether merited or unmerited,-all men rush to heap their virtuous indignation on his head; they have no pity for a fallen brother, they shun or they curse him. How different is the conduct of that being who gave him life! She cannot believe the charge; she will not rank herself among the foes of her child. And if at length

Mrs. Austin's fragments from German writers. August, 1844. 36

* Genesis xxi. 14, &c.

A very fine picture of maternal suffering is exhibited in the fable of Niobe, (Ovid's Metamorph. lib. 6, fab. 5,) after the destruction of her

sons.

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followed him through all his trials? When centuries kept Turkey in a constant state of extended on the cross, pointing to the disciple active or slumbering hostility with Christenwhom he loved, he said to Mary, "Woman, dom, and the adoption by the Turkish_governbehold thy son," and to the disciple, "Beholdment and people of many of our habits and thy mother." And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

Among the greatest and the best of our fellow-creatures,* we shall find that they never forgot the duty owing to her from whom they not only received life, but frequently inherited superior powers of mind. We are all too apt to disregard blessings to which we have long been accustomed, and to appreciate them only when it is too late. Many of us have cause to regret the past on this account, and some would willingly begin life again, solely from a wish to serve and please those of whose worth they are now aware.

Trifle not with a mother's love! It is too valuable, too elevated, and, though it last to the end of life, too transitory. Like many objects of inestimable worth and power, it is yet delicate and sensitive; then wound it not by a thoughtless word or an unkind action, but cherish its existence with feelings of the strongest admiration and respect.

Let us endeavor to share in the sentiments of the poet, Kirk White, as expressed in the following lines:

"And canst thou, mother, for a moment think
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honors on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?---
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away,

Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought! where'er our steps may

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PUNISHMENT OF APOSTATES FROM ISLAMISM.

From the Asiatic Journal.

modes of thinking, seem to have invited this encroachment (for such we deem it) upon their peculiar laws, and in a matter which, a few years ago, would have thrown the whole Ottoman empire into combustion.

The short and simple facts of the case are as follows. By the Mahomedan law, as adminis tered in Turkey, persons who, having embraced Islamism, afterwards abandon that faith, are liable to suffer death. This is no doubt a barbarous and cruel law, but it is not peculiar to Mahomedanism-witness the Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford ! There have been probably more persons put to death in cold blood, and according to the forms of law, for exchanging one mode of Christianity for another, than in Turkey for renouncing the established faith altogether.

In the Turkish empire, there have been individuals who, educated in Christianity, have apostatized to Islamism,-men of lax or abandoned principles, who hoped by such change to improve their worldly circumstances, or, perhaps, in a few cases, to gratify their appetite for pleasures in which the Mussulman creed perinits its votaries to indulge without let or censure. It is barely or scarcely possible that one or two individuals in a century have conscientiously repudiated the Bible, in the belief of which they have been bred, and sincerely embraced the Koran. When the Barbary states were in their vigor, many Christians, captured through compulsion, or in the hope of escaping by their rovers, became Mahomedans, either the horrors of slavery ; but that infamous system has passed away.

Recently, some individuals, who had apostatized from Christianity to Islamism, and become again converts (as it is termed) to their origi nal faith, have been executed in Turkey. What might have been the motives of these men in thus dallying with a question of such vital importance to themselves, it is impossible to know; if the first change was a sordid or licentious one, the second may be as little sincere. But the motives of the converts are no part of the question.

The ambassadors of England and France at Constantinople have been authorized and instructed by their governments to demand of the Sultan that this practice, of putting to death converts from Islamism to Christianity, be forA RECENT Occurrence, which has established mally and forever abandoned throughout the a precedent for interference by Christian gov- Ottoman empire. When this proposition was ernments, in matters of religion, with Mahome-made to the minister of the Porte, he told the dan states, is too curious in itself, and too important in relation to its probable consequences, to be allowed by us to pass without a short notice. The relaxation of that severe system of anti-Christian policy which for so many

Tasso, Pope, Gray, Cowper, Kirke White, Canning, may be adduced, among many others, as well-known examples.

ambassadors that this was a religious question, in which the government could not act; at the same time, in order to evince his desire to fulfil the wishes of his Christian allies, the Sultan, although he could not abrogate a religious law, undertook that it should not in future be enforced.

This was a very considerable step in toleration, to be taken by a bigoted government, at

the instance of those whose motives it must sus pect and whose faith it detests. The law was still to remain unrepealed, but inert, like our law against witches, up to a very late period. And this would probably have sufficed, if it had not been intended to establish a direct and unquestionable precedent for interfering peremptorily in such matters hereafter. The two ambassadors would listen to no stipulation short of a formal abrogation of the law. It was in vain they were reminded that this was no question involving the toleration of Christianity, which is secured by treaty; the ambassadors demanded interviews with the Sultan, and threatened that, if their proposition was not agreed to, they would cease communication with the Porte, and withdraw from Constantinople.

Whether the military and naval preparations, which were ordered contemporaneously with this demand, indicated an intention primarily to resist it, is matter of conjecture: the Turkish government is too feeble to engage in a war with any European power, even when the contest is for the defence of their faith. It

has submitted.

In this event we foresee the ultimate overthrow of Mahomedanism as a principle of government. Similar occasions for interference will often happen, and they will never be neglected. The two creeds will thus be brought into a species of conflict, and Mahomedanism will sink from a dominant principle into the distinction of a sect.

The result may be beneficial; but we wish it could be brought about by different means. Neither England nor France has any greater right to require the Turkish government to forbear executing apostates who relapse, than to call upon that of Portugal to abstain from an auto da fe.

THE POLKA.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

WHEN We wrote last month, that there was little doubt but the Polka would soon leave Paris, and come to town vid Folkeston and Boulogne, we scarcely imagined that our predictions would be so rapidly fulfilled. The Polka has arrived, and its London popularity bids fair to equal its Parisian, at least for a season. But we are bound to state our impression that this season will be a very short

one.

The "Illustrated London News," with its usual active vigilance, was the first to herald the approaching furore, by giving the music of the dance, and illustrations of its execution, in which a lady with long plaited tails and a gentleman in melodramatic costume, were throwing their limbs about in unwonted action. Then advertisements of tuition in its mysteries

crept into the newspapers. Nobody as yet knew it, but all assumed the knowledge; and what they were at a loss to comprehend they invented of their own. Some announced that they had started for Paris to see how it was performed in society; others simply stated they gave lessons in it twice a-day; and one lady informed an anxious public "that she had had the honor of acquiring it from a Bohemian nobleman." How we should like to have seen the interview! and what a subject it would have made for the pencil of Mr. Leech, who in the portrayal of "foreign gentlemen," seedy and otherwise, stands unrivalled. Bohemia must indeed be the land of dance, from the days of La Esmeralda to the present time, when its very nobles give lessons therein. Imagine our returning the compliment, and dispatching one of our peers-Lord Brougham, for instance-to teach the college-hornpipe or the double-shuffle at foreign academies!

It was left for Easter Monday to reveal the music and the dance of the Polka to public ears and eyes, the former at the Haymarket, the latter at the Lyceum and Princess's Theatres; and four days later the Opera followed their example. At the first-named house it was simply played by the orchestra, but at the others it was executed by the corps de ballet. Miss Farebrother, as a most bewitching robber, joined her band of forty very pretty thieves in its graceful evolutions at the Lyceum; and at the Princess's so many dark eyes and good legs flashed and twinkled in the figure, that the lookers-on were well nigh beside themselves. But at both of these theatres young ladies in the boxes became alarmed as they watched its intricacies, and whispered to each other, or thought to themselves, "Goodness gracious! shall we be expected to go through all those positions in society ?" We believe we can relieve their anxiety by replying, "Certainly not ;" for in both cases the Polka is a fine fiction, as now performed. We, who from our "Divan remove the roofs of houses at our will, and, Asmodeus-like, lay bare their secrets, know that at neither theatre was any thing particularly understood about it at all. At one house, the tact of the gifted little woman who now manages therein, cleverly aided by her satellites and auxiliaries, contrived to throw additional attraction into a very clever burlesque by its apt introduction; and at the others, the evening "Fair Star" shone with increased brilliancy by the Polka, which emanated from the united heads, or heels, of Monsieur Jullien and Madame Vedy. A great man and a talented is Monsieur Jullien. You will find envious musicians, and gloomy frequenters of classical concerts, who call him a humbug. This we flatly contradict. He has unequalled tact in seizing, and ability in arranging, any subject of popular interest. And, even admitting that he is one, a man who can "humbug" London for three or four consecutive years is of no ordinary mind. How many are struggling to do the same; and, in the same, misera

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