The religion of Burma is Buddhism. Buddhism is a religion of "merit," so called, and the surest way to acquire "merit" is by building a pagoda. Repairing an old pagoda will not answer the purpose; hence many an old pagoda goes to ruin, side by side with a new one coated with whitewash or gold-leaf. Curiously enough, the epoch of pagoda-building was almost coincident with that of cathedral-building in England and France, that is, from A. D. 1000 to 1200. When one sees at Pagan an area along the Irrawaddy River eight miles long and only two miles wide, with nearly five thousand pagodas, multitudes of them small and in ruins, but many still standing great and splendid in their proportions, it seems impossible to doubt that a certain genuine religious impulse, however blind and mistaken, led to their erection. There they stand, mere relics of a magnificent past, but now erect in the midst of desolation, with only scattered huts about them, where once there must have been a dense population, rich and lordly. The fate of these towering monuments of idolatry and superstition, now for the most part given over to the moles and the bats, shows what God can do for pagodas, and encourages us to believe that missionary effort will be mighty through God to the pulling down of similar more modern strongholds, together with all the high things that exalt themselves above the knowledge of his truth. This leads me to speak of the great missionary work that is now honeycombing and undermining the foundations of heathenism in this pagoda-land. We came to Burma to see what God has wrought. The labors and sufferings of Adoniram Judson appealed to us even in our childhood. We wished to see how the mustard-seed which Judson sowed in faith has grown up to bear fruit. So we went to Aungbinle, where for twenty long months Judson was imprisoned and tortured. There we seemed to hear God's word to Moses: "Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground." We were reminded also of the burning bush, which was ever burning but not consumed. Great forward movements in history are born in suffering. Through death to life, and the cross before the crown--that was the way of Christ, and it will be the way of his followers. We gathered, a small group of missionaries and visitors, in the little chapel that has been built upon the site of that old prison, and we prayed, with a lot of dusky villagers and children before us, that God would yet more gloriously prosper the work of missions.