File:Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China seas and Japan (1857) (14781508591).jpg

Identifier: narrativeofexped05perr (find matches)
Title: Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China seas and Japan
Year: 1857 (1850s)
Authors: Perry, Matthew Calbraith, 1794-1858 Hawks, Francis L. (Francis Lister), 1798-1866
Subjects: United States Naval Expedition to Japan (1852-1854)
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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a says, all who reach the blissful land will be-come so that they cannot be made to transmigrate, (or change for theworse.) The square post upon which these inscriptions were cut was nearly eightfeet in length, and near the centre, at a convenient height to be reached bythe hand, was affixed, vertically, a wheel, which moved readily on an axlethat passed through the post. Two small iron rings were strung upon eachof the three spokes of the large wheel. Every person who twisted this in-strument in passing was supposed to obtain credit in heaven for one ormore prayers on the post, the number being graduated according to thevigor of the performers devotion, and the number of revolutions effected.The jingle of the small iron rings was believed to secure the attention ofthe deity to the invocation of the devotional, and the greater the noise, themore certain of its being listened to. This praying by wheel and axlewould seem to be the very perfection of a ceremonious religion, as it reduces
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1 ^M,\\ llllllllliil llll l 1 1 Ijl 111 f 11 liii A x,^ A^i .1; > ^ PRAYING BY MACHINERY. 515 it to a system of mechanical laws, which,provided the apparatus is kept in order,a result easily obtained by a little oil,moderate use, and occasional repairs, canbe readily executed with the least possi-ble expenditure of human labor, and withall that economy of time and thoughtwhich seems the great purpose of our ma-terial and mechanical age. Hue, in hisinteresting account of his travels in Thi-bet, speaks of an improvement on themachine we have described, where the ap-paratus was turned by water power, andvery appropriately styles it a prayer mill.In the course of the progress of the Jap-anese in the mechanical arts, this, withtheir usual readiness in adopting new im-provements, will no doubt be introduced,or perhaps the more effective power ofsteam will be applied to their prayingmachines, and with the introduction ofsteamboats and railroads may commencean era of locomotive devotion. T

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