This recruiting of the monks from the entire population—so different from Hinduism, which acknowledges a rigidly exclusive, priestly caste—immensely strengthens the hold Buddhism has on the people, and widens the popular basis upon which it rests. In my missionary life amongst the Hindus in Ceylon, I have observed in reading and expounding the parable of “The Good Samaritan” to a heathen congregation, a great readiness to apply, of their own accord, the cases of the Priest and the Levite, who passed by on the other side, to their own Brahmin priests, and they were always ready to take sides against them as quite a separate caste; but there can never be the same alienation between monks and laity in a Buddhist land like Burma, where the monks are their own kith and kin. The monasteries are very extensively spread over the country. Mandalay, at the time of the annexation, was officially stated to have close upon 6,000 monks, and you can visit scarcely any town or village, however small or remote, which has not its monastic establishment. The monastery is always the best building in the place, and has the cleanest enclosure of any house in the village, and there is an air of sanctity and repose about it. The monks are very approachable. The stranger, whether native or foreigner, is always made welcome; indeed, that is a characteristic of the Burmans everywhere, that they receive strangers freely and affably, and being free from those caste scruples so usual amongst the Hindus, one is not for ever fearful of transgressing their notions of propriety, or unwittingly hurting their dignity. As the monasteries are spacious, and often supplied with additional _zayats_ or rest-houses, it will rarely happen in travelling that they will be unable or unwilling to assign the stranger some humble place of rest, where he may tie up his pony, eat his food, and spread his mat and pillow for the night. To the poor and destitute the monastery is a place of relief, where they can always hope to obtain a little food out of that which is daily given to the monks in their house to house morning visits. It must be frankly admitted that the monasteries of the country do a useful work in the way of imparting elementary education. To them is chiefly due the creditable fact that there are comparatively few of the men who cannot read and write; and this does much to bind the people to the support of the Order. But the education scarcely ever goes beyond the most elementary stage. They learn to read Burmese, and they learn to repeat a few Pali prayers and forms of devotion. Pali is the sacred language; very few even of the monks understand the meaning.