“The Karens are a meek, peaceful race, simple and credulous, with many of the softer virtues, and few flagrant vices. Though greatly addicted to drunkenness, and extremely filthy and indolent in their habits, their morals in other respects are superior to many more civilised races. Their traditions, like those of several tribes of American Indians, are a curious medley of truth and absurdity; but they have some tolerably definite ideas of a Great Being who governs the universe, and many of their traditionary precepts bear a striking resemblance to those of the Gospel.[1] They have various petty superstitions, but, with the exception of a small division, they have never adopted Buddhism, the oppressive treatment which they have received at the hands of their Burmese rulers probably contributing to increase their aversion to idolatry. “Soon after the arrival of the first Burmese missionary in Rangoon, his attention was attracted by small parties of strange, wild-looking men, clad in unshapely garments, who from time to time straggled past his residence. He was told they were Karens; that they were more numerous than any similar tribe in the vicinity, and as untamable as the wild cow of the mountains. He was further told that they shrank from association with other men, seldom entering a town except on compulsion; and that therefore any attempt to bring them within the sphere of his influence would prove unsuccessful. His earnest inquiries, however, awakened an interest in the minds of the Burmese converts; and one of them finding, during the war, a poor Karen bond-servant in Rangoon, paid his debt, and thus became, according to the custom of the country, his temporary master. When peace was restored, he was brought to the missionaries on the Tenasserim coast, and instructed in the principles of the Christian religion. He eventually became the subject of regenerating grace, and proved a faithful and efficient evangelist. Through this man, Ko-Thah-Byu by name, access was gained to others of his countrymen, and they listened with ready interest. They were naturally docile; they had no long-cherished prejudices and time-honoured customs to fetter them; and their traditions taught them to look for the arrival of white-faced foreigners from the west, who would make them acquainted with the true God. The missionaries in their first communications with the Karens were obliged to employ a Burmese interpreter; and notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they laboured, the truth spread with great rapidity. Soon, however, Messrs. Wade and Mason devoted themselves to the acquisition of the language, and the former conferred an inestimable blessing on the race, by reducing it to writing. This gave a fresh impetus to the spread of Christianity.