fore the head and master or mistress of that family to
which they belong; so that those who have the government of them at home
may see their deportment in public; and they intermingle them so, that
the younger and the older may be set by one another; for if the younger
sort were all set together, they would perhaps trifle away that time too
much in which they ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of
the supreme Being, which is the greatest and almost the only incitement
to virtue.

They offer up no living creature in sacrifice, nor do they think it
suitable to the divine Being, from whose bounty it is that these
creatures have derived their lives, to take pleasure in their deaths, or
the offering up their blood. They burn incense and other sweet odours,
and have a great number of wax lights during their worship; not out of
any imagination that such oblations can add anything to the divine
Nature, which even prayers cannot do; but as it is a harmless and pure
way of worshipping God, so they think those sweet savours and lights,
together with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccountable
virtue, elevate men's souls, and inflame them with greater energy and
cheerfulness during the divine worship.

All the people appear in the temples in white garments, but the priest's
vestments are parti-coloured, and both the work and colours are
wonderful. They are made of no rich materials, for they are neither
embroidered nor set with precious stones, but are composed of the plumes
of several birds, laid together with so much art and so neatly, that the
true value of them is far beyond the costliest materials. They say that
in the ordering and placing those plumes some dark mysteries are
represented, which pass down among their priests in a secret tradition
concerning them; and that they are as hieroglyphics, putting them in
mind of the blessings that they have received from God, and of their
duties both to Him and to their neighbours. As soon as the priest
appears in those ornaments, they all fall prostrate on the ground, with
so much reverence and so deep a silence that such as look on cannot but
be struck with it, as if it were the effect of the appearance of a
Deity. After they have been for some time in this posture, they all
stand up, upon a sign given by the priest, and sing hymns to the honour
of God, some musical instruments playing all the while. These are quite
of another form than those used among us: