On the pagoda spire, The bells are swinging, Their little golden circlet in a flutter, With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter, Till all are ringing, As if a choir Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing; And with a lulling sound, The music floats around, And drops like balm into the drowsy ear. MRS. EMILY C. JUDSON. The early religion of the Burmese was Shamanism; the belief in evil spirits and the necessity of warding off their hurtful influence by the use of charms and amulets. Buddhism has taken the place of this degrading system among the Burmese. Besides the Burmese there are other peoples in Burmah; the Karens, of whose religion we have already spoken, the Shans, who are Buddhists, and the Mōns who adhere still to the old practice of Shamanism. The old evil-spirit worship of the Burmese and Shans still remains to some extent in the Nat worship. Just when Buddhism was introduced into Burmah is a little uncertain. Dr. Francis Mason, an American missionary, in his work on Burmah speaks as follows, and as the whole extract is an excellent account of the introduction of Buddhism and a summary of its doctrines, we present it entire: “Three hundred years before Alexandria was founded; about the time that Thales, the most ancient philosopher of Europe, was teaching in Greece that water is the origin of all things, the soul of the world; and Zoroaster, in Media or Persia, was systematizing the fire-worship of the Magi; and Confucius in China was calling on the teeming multitudes around him to offer to guardian spirits and the Manes of their ancestors; and Nebuchadnezzar set up his golden image in the plain of Dura, and Daniel was laboring in Babylon to establish the worship of the true God; a reverend sage, with his staff and scrip, who had left a throne for philosophy, was traveling from Gaya to Benares, and from Benares to Kanouj, exhorting the people against theft, falsehood, adultery, killing and intemperance. No temperance lecturer advocates teetotalism now more strongly than did this sage Gautama twenty-three centuries ago. Nor did he confine his instructions to external vices. Pride, anger, lust, envy and covetousness were condemned by him in as strong terms as are ever heard from the Christian pulpit. Love, mercy, patience, self-denial, alms-giving, truth and the cultivation of wisdom he required of all. Good actions, good words and good thoughts were the frequent subjects of his sermons, and he was unceasing in his cautions to keep the mind free from the turmoils of passion and the cares of life. Immediately after the death of this venerable peripatetic, his disciples scattered themselves abroad to propagate the doctrines of their master, and tradition says one party entered the principal mouth of the Irrawaddy, where they traced its banks to where the first rocks lift themselves abruptly above the flats around.