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forfeited official favour. The opposition of the Buddhists, generally liberal in their attitude towards alien creeds, had probably been disarmed at first by the numerous resemblances between the rites and tenets of the imported faith and their own—such resemblances as that Maya, the mother of Shakyamuni, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, had both conceived immaculately; that in the ceremonials of each religion candles, flowers, vestments, beads, holy water, rubrics and masses for the dead in Purgatory occupied a similar place; that the priests of each faith were obliged to shave their heads and practise celibacy; that both used the sign of the cross,—the Buddhists by folding their robe over the breast in that shape,—and that the first three letters of the name ΙΗΣΟΤΣ formed the principal ideograph in Buddha's name. But history shows that during the Tang dynasty, to which period the record on the Nestorian tablet refers, the Chinese sovereigns differed greatly from each other in their policies towards Buddhism, their attitude being sometimes tolerant, sometimes oppressive, and sometimes patronising; and it was natural that under such circumstances the devotees of the faith should reflect in their own conduct towards rival creeds the excesses of which they were themselves the objects. Christianity, however, did not remain long under a cloud. A subsequent sovereign restored the church in Loh-yang, caused portraits of the first five Tang Emperors to be placed