towards thanksgiving.
It considers them an impertinence and a foolishness, born of ignorance,
akin to the action of him who would daily desire Atlas not to allow the
heavens to drop upon the earth.

And yet, and yet.

I remember standing once on the platform of a famous pagoda, the golden
spire rising before us, and carved shrines around us, and seeing a woman
lying there, her face to the pagoda. She was praying fervently, so
fervently that her words could be heard, for she had no care for anyone
about, in such trouble was she; and what she was asking was this, that
her child, her baby, might not die. She held the little thing in her
arms, and as she looked upon it her eyes were full of tears. For it was
very sick; its little limbs were but thin bones, with big knees and
elbows, and its face was very wan. It could not even take any interest
in the wonderful sights around, but hardly opened its careworn eyes now
and then to blink upon the world.

'Let him recover, let him be well once more!' the woman cried, again and
again.

Whom was she beseeching? I do not know.

'Thakin, there will be Someone, Someone. A Spirit may hear. Who can
tell? Surely someone will help me? Men would help me if they could, but
they cannot; surely there will be someone?'

So she did not remember the story of Ma Pa Da.

Women often pray, I think--they pray that their husbands and those they
love may be well. It is a frequent ending to a girl's letter to her
lover: 'And I pray always that you may be well.' I never heard of their
praying for anything but this: that they may be loved, and those they
love may be well. Nothing else is worth praying for besides this. The
queen would pray at the pagoda in the palace morning and evening. 'What
did she pray for?' 'What should she pray for, thakin? Surely she prayed
that her husband might be true to her, and that her children might live
and be strong. That is what women pray for. Do you think a queen would
pray differently to any other woman?'

'Women,' say the Buddhist monks, 'never understand. They _will_ not
understand; they cannot learn. And so we say that most women must be
born again, as men, before they can see the light and understand the
laws of righteousness.'

What do women care for laws of righteousness? What do they care for
justice? What for the everlasting sequences that govern the world? Would
not they involve all other men, all earth and heaven, in bottomless
chaos, to save one