action are not marks of a
living truth, but of a dead dogma. There is but little thought of forms
to him whose heart is full of the teaching of his Master, who has His
words within his heart, and whose soul is full of His love. It is when
beliefs die, and love has faded into indifference, that forms are
necessary, for to the living no monument is needed, but to the dead.
Forms and ceremonies are but the tombs of dead truths, put up to their
memory to recall to those who have never known them that they lived--and
died--long ago.

And because men do not seek for signs of the living among the graveyards
of the dead, so it is not among the ceremonies of religions that we
shall find the manifestations of living beliefs.

It is from the standpoint of this outsider that I have looked at and
tried to understand the soul of the Burmese people. When I have read or
heard of a teaching of Buddhism, I have always taken it to the test of
the daily life of the people to see whether it was a living belief or
no. I have accepted just so much as I could find the people have
accepted, such as they have taken into their hearts to be with them for
ever. A teaching that has been but a teaching or theory, a vain breath
of mental assent, has seemed to me of no value at all. The guiding
principles of their lives, whether in accordance with the teaching of
Buddhism or not, these only have seemed to me worthy of inquiry or
understanding. What I have desired to know is not their minds, but their
souls. And as this test of mine has obliged me to omit much that will be
found among the dogmas of Buddhism, so it has led me to accept many
things that have no place there at all. For I have thought that what
stirs the heart of man is his religion, whether he calls it religion or
not. That which makes the heart beat and the breath come quicker, love
and hate, and joy and sorrow--that has been to me as worthy of record as
his hopes of a future life. The thoughts that come into the mind of the
ploughman while he leads his team afield in the golden glory of the
dawn; the dreams that swell and move in the heart of the woman when she
knows the great mystery of a new life; whither the dying man's hopes and
fears are led--these have seemed to me the religion of the people as
well as doctrines of the unknown. For are not these, too, of the very
soul of the people?

CHAPTER II

HE WHO FOUND THE LIGHT--I

'He who pointed out the way to those that h