Round About Their Temple They Doe Alwayes Make A Faire Court, Like Vnto A Churchyard, Which They Enuiron With A Good Wall:

And vpon the South part thereof they build a great portal, wherein they sit and conferre together. And vpon the top of the said portall they pitch a long pole right vp, exalting it, if they can, aboue all the whole towne besides.

And by the same pole all men may knowe, that there stands the temple of their idoles. These rites and ceremonies aforesayd be common vnto all idolaters in those parts. Going vpon a time towards the foresayd idole-temple, I found certain priests sitting in the outward portal. And those which I sawe, seemed vnto me, by their shauen beards, as if they had bene French men. They wore certaine ornaments vpon their heads made of paper. The priestes of the foresaide Iugures doe vse such attire whithersoeuer they goe. They are alwaies in their saffron coloured iackets, which be very straight being laced or buttened from the bosome right downe, after the French fashion. And they haue a cloake vpon their left shoulder descending before and behind vnder the right arme, like vnto a deacon carying the housselboxe in time of lent. Their letters or kind of writing the Tartars did receiue. [Sidenote: Paper. So do the people of China vse to write, drawing their lines perpendicularly downward, and not as we doe from the right hand to the lefte.] They begin to write at the top of their paper drawing their lines right downe: and so they reade and multiply their lines from the left hand to the right. They doe vse certaine papers and characters in their magical practices. Whereupon their temples are full of such short scroules hanged round about them. Also Mangu-Can hath sent letters vnto your Maiestie written in the language of the Moals or Tartars, and in the foresayd hand or letter of the Iugures. They burne their dead according to the auncient custome, and lay vp the ashes in the top of a Pyramis. Now, after I had sit a while by the foresaid priests, and entred into their temple and seene many of their images both great and small, I demanded of them what they beleeued concerning God? And they answered: We beleeue that there is onely one God. And I demaunded farther: Whether do you beleue that he is a spirit, or some bodily substance? They saide: We beleeue that he is a spirite. Then said I: Doe you beleeue that God euer tooke mans nature vpon him? They answered: Noe. And againe I said: Sithence ye beleeue that he is a spirit, to what end doe you make so many bodily images to represent him? Sithence also you beleeue not that hee was made man: why doe you resemble him rather vnto the image of a man then of any other creature? Then they answered saying: we frame not these images whereby to represent God.

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