e sure to be received by one of them from the moment of
entry, and to be invited to take tea and cakes. Now in the temple
there was a "Babies' Chapel," which was reputed to possess miraculous
virtue. By passing the night in it and burning incense, women who
wished to have a son obtained a son: those who wished for a daughter
obtained a daughter.

Round the main hall were set several cells. Women who wished for
children had to be of vigorous age and free from malady. They used
to fast for seven days, and then go into the temple to prostrate
themselves before Fo, and to consult the wands of divination.

If the omens were favorable, they passed a night locked up alone
in one of the cells, for the purpose of prayer. If the omens were
unfavorable, it was because their prayers had not been sufficiently
sincere. The bonzes made this fault known to them; and they began
their seven days' fast anew, before returning to make their devotions.

The cells had no sort of opening in their walls, and when a penitent
entered one of them, her family and attendants used to come and
install her. As soon as night came, she was locked in the cell, and
the bonzes insisted that a member of her family must pass the night
before her door, so that none might entertain the least suspicion of
an entry to her. When the woman returned to her home, the child was
already formed. It was born fat and beautiful always, and without any
blemish.

There was, moreover, no household, either of public officials or the
common people, which did not send one or even two of its members
to pray in the Babies' Chapel. And women came to it even from the
provinces.

Every day the crowd in the monastery was comparable with mountains
or the sea, and the place was filled with the gayest hubbub. They no
longer kept any reckoning of the offerings of every kind which flowed
in upon them. When the women were asked how, during the night, the
P'u-sa had made his answer intelligible, some answered simply that Fo
had told them in a dream that they would have a son. Others said that
they had dreamed that a lo-han had come and lain beside them. Others
asserted that they had had no dream. Others again blushed and declined
to answer. Some women never repeated this kind of prayer a second
time: others, on the contrary, went to the temple as often as
possible.

You will tell me that this story of a Fo or of a P'u-sa coming every
night to the monastery is in no way short of prepo