"During my whole residence in the country I never saw an indecent act or immodest gesture in man or woman.... I have seen hundreds of men and women bathing, and no immodest or careless act.... "Children are treated with great kindness, not only by the mother but the father, who, when unemployed, takes the young child in his arms, and seems pleased to attend to it, while the mother cleans the rice or sits unemployed at his side. I have as often seen fathers caressing female infants as male. A widow with male and female children is more likely to be sought in marriage than if she has none.... "Children are almost as reverent to parents as among the Chinese. The aged are treated with great care and tenderness, and occupy the best places in all assemblies." According to Saint-Hilaire's opinion, the Buddhist morality is one of endurance, patience, submission, and abstinence, rather than of action, energy, enterprise. Love for all beings is its nucleus, every animal being our possible relative. To love our enemies, to offer our lives for animals, to abstain from even defensive warfare, to govern ourselves, to avoid vices, to pay obedience to superiors, to reverence age, to provide food and shelter for men and animals, to dig wells and plant trees, to despise no religion, show no intolerance, not to persecute, are the virtues of these people. Polygamy is tolerated, but not approved. Monogamy is general in Ceylon, Siam, Birinah; somewhat less so in Thibet and Mongolia. Woman is better treated by Buddhism than by any other Oriental religion. § 6. Buddhism as a Religion. But what is the religious life of Buddhism? Can there be a religion without a God? And if Buddhism has no God, how can it have worship, prayer, devotion? There is no doubt that it has all these. We have seen that its _cultus_ is much like that of the Roman Catholic Church. It differs from this church in having no secular priests, but only regulars; all its clergy are monks, taking the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Their vows, however, are not irrevocable; they can relinquish the yellow robe, and return into the world, if they find they have mistaken their vocation.