The Karens are not now, and never have been, so far as can be ascertained, idol worshipers. They look with cool contempt upon the religious forms of the idolaters by whom they are surrounded. The few Karens who have so far forgotten their ancient customs as to give a formal adherence to Buddhist ceremonies, are looked upon as renegades by their fellow-countrymen. This feature marks them as entirely foreign in origin to the country in which they are now found. This is confirmed by their own traditions, which declare that they came from the north-west, following the mountain ranges until they found themselves in Burmah, where their home now is. These same traditions also declare unmistakably that they once worshiped the true God, whom they call in their own language _Yuah_ or _K’tsah Yuah_, the latter term meaning “the Lord Yuah.” Karens, however, will seldom repeat this name; the heathen declining positively, and many of the less informed Christians showing a strange reluctance to repeating it. The reason they give is that the word Yuah, in common speech, means _to flow down or away_, and the Karens say that to use this name carelessly will cause the favor of God to flow away from them. Although the Karens, however, show this strange reverence for the name of God, a reverence which reminds us of the similar feeling among the Jews for the sacred name Jah or Yah which the Karen so closely resembles, yet they do not worship this Lord Yuah, as a rule. Indeed in most cases the only sign of worship given to him is the exclamation, “Ba Pa K’tsah!” used when one is startled or suddenly alarmed. This phrase means literally “worship Father God,” or, colloquially, “we worship God.” Further than this a Karen scarcely ever offers any form of worship to this Being whom they acknowledge to be in very truth the one living supreme God. The reason for this failure to worship Yuah is accounted for by the following strange tradition, which we give as it is commonly repeated around the camp-fires, or in the huts of the Karens, as they while away the cool, quiet nights which succeed the burning days of Burmah: “We once, oh! children and grandchildren, had the Law of Yuah, and worshiped him as the only living and true God. This law was a written book, and was made of skin, the skin of an animal. Yuah gave us his law because we were his favored children. Yuah had seven sons, and his oldest son, the first-born of his creation, was our ancestor, the first of our nation and the first of men. “Yuah told us to be very careful of his law, and for a time our ancestors read his book and kept his commandments, for they feared that if they did not, Pa K’tsah (Father God, for that is the real name of Yuah) would flow (Yuah) away from them.