is insulted by it, or requires
revenge for it. You might as well try and insult gravity by jeering at
Newton and his pupils, as injure the laws of righteousness by jeering at
the Buddha or his monks. And so you will see foreigners take all sorts
of liberties in monasteries and pagodas, break every rule wantonly, and
disregard everything the Buddhist holds holy, and yet very little notice
will be taken openly. Burmans will have their own opinion of you, do
have their own opinion of you, without a doubt; but because you are lost
to all sense of decency, that is no reason why the Buddhist monk or
layman should also lower himself by getting angry and resent it; and so
you may walk into any monastery or rest-house and act as you think fit,
and no one will interfere with you. Nay, if you even show a little
courtesy to the monks, your hosts, they will be glad to talk to you and
tell you of their lives and their desires. It is very seldom that a
pleasant word or a jest will not bring the monks into forgetting all
your offences, and talking to you freely and openly. I have had, I have
still, many friends among the monkhood; I have been beholden to them
for many kindnesses; I have found them always, peasants as they are,
courteous and well-mannered. Nay, there are greater things than these.

When my dear friend was murdered at the outbreak of the war, wantonly
murdered by the soldiers of a brutal official, and his body drifted down
the river, everyone afraid to bury it, for fear of the wrath of
government, was it not at last tenderly and lovingly buried by the monks
near whose monastery it floated ashore? Would all people have done this?
Remember, he was one of those whose army was engaged in subduing the
kingdom; whose army imprisoned the king, and had killed, and were
killing, many, many hundreds of Burmans. 'We do not remember such
things. All men are brothers to the dead.' They are brothers to the
living, too. Is there not a monastery near Kindat, built by an
Englishman as a memorial to the monk who saved his life at peril of his
own at that same time, who preserved him till help came?

Can anyone ever tell when the influence of a monk has been other than
for pity or mercy? Surely they believe their religion? I did not know
how people could believe till I saw them.

Martyrdom--what is martyrdom, what is death, for your religion, compared
to living within its commands? Death is easy; life it is that is
difficult. Men have d