The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

1 oo THE BOY TRAVELLERS.
for knowledge, and he longed to be able to read Japanese, so that he
might know the name of the inventor of this piece of mechanism, and
what it was made for.
He turned to the Doctor and asked what was the nse of the post, and
I^J
^m
PltAYING-MACHINl-;.
Jiow it was operated.
Just as he spoke, a man passed near the
machine and gave the wheel a blow that sent
it spinning around with great rapidity. The
man gave a glance at it to see that it was
turning well, and then moved on in the direc-
tion of the temple.
" I know what that is," said Fred, who
came along at the moment Frank expressed
his wonder to Doctor Bronson.
"Well,wdiat is it?"
"It's a praying-machine; I read about it
the other day in a book on Japan."
" Quite right," responded the Doctor ;
" it
is a machine used in every country where
Buddhism is the religion."
Then he went on to explain that there is
a formula of prayers on the sides of the post,
and sometimes on the wdieel, and that for each
revolution of the wheel these prayers are sup-
posed to be uttered. A devotee passes, and,
as he does so, he revolves the wheel ;
and for
each time it turns around a prayer is recorded
in heaven to his credit. It follows that a man
with strong arms, and possessing a knack of
making the wheel spin around, can do a great
deal more petitioning to Heaven than the weak
and clumsy one.
Fred thought that it would be a good thing
to attach these prayer -wheels to mills pro-
pelled by water, wind, or steam, and thus secure
a steady and continuous revolution. The
Doctor told him that this was actually done in
some of the Buddhist countries, and a good many of the pious people said
their prayers l)y raachinerj'.
The}' strolled along to where there were some black-eyed girls in