The American Baptist Mission has done splendid work amongst the Karens. They found them, like all the other hill-tribes, without a trace of a written language. Into two of the Karen languages, the Pwo Karen and the Sgau Karen, the entire Bible has been translated, and quite a considerable literature has been produced. Degraded and oppressed greatly by the Burmans in the days of Burman rule, the Burmans quite needlessly regarding them and treating them as nothing better than animals, they were peculiarly amenable, as all races under similar circumstances are, to the kindly, beneficent message of the Gospel. Like the rest of the hill-tribes, they were utterly ignorant and addicted to drunkenness. But it has ever been found that the hindrances to the Gospel arising from a low state of civilisation are not formidable in comparison with those which spring from the possession of a powerful, well-defined, ancient system of religion such as Buddhism, which claims to have a philosophy which accounts for everything, and whose rites and observances meet all the wants of which its followers are conscious. It is part of the principle of compensation we find running through life, that “these things”—the mysteries of the Kingdom—are ever hid from “the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes.” It is part of the mercy and wisdom of the Divine appointments, and it tends to give the uncivilised nations their fair chance. [Illustration: BURMESE CHILDREN.] The following account of this interesting people, whose manners, language and worship are quite distinct from those of the Burmans, is from the pen of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, the wife of Dr. Judson, the first missionary of the American Baptist Mission. “They are a rude, wandering race, drawing their principal support from the streams that flow through their valleys, and from the natural products of their native mountains. They migrate in small parties, and, when they have found a favourable spot, fire the underbrush, and erect a cluster of three or four huts on the ashes. In the intervals of procuring food, the men have frequent occasion to hew out a canoe or weave a basket; and the women manufacture a kind of cotton cloth, which furnishes materials for the clothing of the family. Here they remain until they have exhausted the resources of the surrounding forest, when they seek out another spot, and repeat the same process.