“Him who cares not to be great, But as he saves or serves the State. Not once or twice in our rough island story, The path of duty was the way to glory: He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of self, before his journey closes, He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which outredden All voluptuous garden-roses.” We escorted our guest to the steamer, and there bade farewell to our Chief and our friend. CHAPTER XI A FEW WORDS ON BUDDHISM Buddhist monks are the most influential and most respected class of the community. In passing it may be mentioned that there is no such person as a Buddhist priest. No one exercises any sacerdotal function or celebrates any Sacrament. The religious are not priests, but monks, a numerous and well-organized body, wielding indefinite but real authority. In every village at least one monk is found. In Mandalay, the typical Burmese city, they were numbered by thousands. Professed monks are bound by vows of chastity and poverty, and are subject to strict discipline. Wearing the yellow robe, the distinctive mark of their order, as morning comes round monks and novices from every monastery walk slowly through the streets, each bearing a bowl for the receipt of the offerings of the faithful. We must not call this vessel a “begging-bowl.” One of the many acts from which a monk is bound to abstain is asking for anything. Voluntary gifts are freely offered, and are received as a matter of course. The lives of monks are devoted to meditation, the practice of austerities, the study and exposition of the law, the instruction of youth. Every Burmese boy enters a monastery, stays for a longer or shorter period, and receives there the elements of secular learning. Also, much to his profit, he is instructed in religious and moral duties. Thus it happens that in Burma elementary education is widely spread. The proportion of literate persons is greater than in any country where education is not compulsory. It is rare to find a man who cannot at least read and write. Sometimes men profess to have forgotten these arts, but as a rule this is mere laziness. The influence of monks having remained undisturbed by foreign contact, five-and-twenty years ago sound education in the vernacular was more common in Upper Burma than in the rest of the Province. In my own Court in Mandalay, in comparatively early days, a Lower Burman clerk was stumbling over the reading of a document. A bystander, apparently a plain man, offered his services. Borrowing a pair of spectacles from his neighbour, he read the crabbed text with fluency and accuracy. The incident does not prove, but it illustrates, my argument. [Illustration: MONASTERY WITH CARVING.]