In due time the body is restored to its resting place on the funeral pyre, the fire is lighted, and the whole mass flares up in flame and smoke, consuming not only the body, but along with it the decorations, including paintings of numerous demons, among whom may be an Englishman with a gun! Only demons could kill for sport! When it is consumed, the crowd disperses with shouts of merriment, well content, not least among the others the relatives of the departed. A good show has been staged, the dead has been honoured, the family name has been distinguished, and everybody is satisfied. If for the next year or more the family exchequer has been sorely depleted, still "it is the custom," and every one expects to follow it. Some one has well said that Buddhism in Burma is a cheery and social affair, "from festive marriages to no less festive funerals." I confess to an admiration for this cheerful view of death, even if some of its expressions are bizarre! It is less pagan than our "blacks, and funeral obsequies." 3. A Similar Scene in Siam. _The Funeral of a Siamese Prince_.--A nephew of the King has died, and his funeral sermon is being preached by another royal Prince, who is also a monk, and who is true to type and to the orthodox Buddhism of his race. "As kinsmen welcome kinsmen returning after long sojourn in far countries, so do good deeds welcome the good as they enter the other world. And what are good deeds, but the unselfish effort to advance the good of others? All must be left behind as we enter the Gate of Death; but as a shadow follows the body so do purity and simplicity of heart and deed steal after us, and minister to us in that world beyond. As a flame is our mortal life, and if there be no fuel it burns no more. We know not when it may die down, for all that has a beginning has also an end, and transient are all things. And as we may take with us only virtue, shall we not cherish and ensue it?" We are reminded of the picture by G. F. Watts, "_Sic Transit Gloria Mundi_," in which another prince is seen upon the bier, his crown, his books, his winecup laid aside; and over his bier are the words, "What I spent I had, what I had I lost, what I gave I have." It is sound Buddhism, and every word of this sermon of the royal monk is drawn from the _Dhammapada_, accepted in all Buddhist lands as the very words of the Buddha, himself the prototype of a long line of kings and princes in many lands, who have been proud to wear the Yellow Robe. 4. The Secret of Buddhism's Influence.