and to find out their powers. Thus they know in what part of
the earth any change has been or will be, and at what time it has
taken place, and they send to find whether the matter be as they
have it. They make a note of predictions, true and false, so
that they may be able from experience to predict most correctly.
The priests, moreover, determine the hours for breeding and
the days for sowing, reaping, and gathering the vintage, and
are, as it were, the ambassadors and intercessors and connection
between God and man. And it is from among them mostly that
Hoh is elected. They write very learned treatises and search
into the sciences. Below they never descend, unless for their
dinner and supper, so that the essence of their heads do not
descend to the stomachs and liver. Only very seldom, and that
as a cure for the ills of solitude, do they have converse with
women. On certain days Hoh goes up to them and deliberates
with them concerning the matters which he has lately investi-
gated for the benefit of the State and all the nations of the
world.

In the temple beneath, one priest always stands near the altar
praying for the people, and at the end of every hour another
succeeds him, just as we are accustomed in solemn prayer to
change every fourth hour. And this method of supplication
they call perpetual prayer. After a meal they return thanks
to God. Then they sing the deeds of the Christian, Jewish,
and Gentile heroes, and of those of all other nations, and this
is very delightful to them. Forsooth, no one is envious of an-
other. They sing a hymn to Love, one to Wisdom, and one
each to all the other virtues, and this they do under the direc-
tion of the ruler of each virtue. Each one takes the woman he