That the religion of the Burman is a religion of his heart, never of his head. It is spontaneous, as much as the forest on the hillside. He has in his heart many instincts, that have come there who knows how, and out of these he has made his faith. What that faith is I have told in my first book. It is not pure Buddhism. But because Buddhism has come nearest to what his heart tells him is true, because its tenets appeal to him as do none others, because they explain the facts he feels, therefore he professes the faith of the Buddha and calls himself a Buddhist. That is what I learnt to be sure of. And what I heard from others, what I read in many books I learned absolutely to disbelieve. I was told, for instance, that a Burman villager far away in the hills thought he could remember his former lives _because_ the doctrine of the transmigration of souls had been introduced by Buddhist monks. But I, looking into his heart, was sure that the villager was a Buddhist because the Buddhist doctrine of transmigration resembled the instinct and knowledge of his own soul. It is not the same. The Buddhist faith recognises no ego. The Burman does. But in some sort or other he could fit the imported theory to his facts, and he therefore was a Buddhist. Communities of Christians and Mahommedans, Jews and Hindus, have lived among the Burmans for hundreds of years; there have been no converts to any of these faiths. Burma now is full of Christian missions and there are converts--a few--but never, I believe, pure Burmans; they have always some other blood in their veins, usually Mahommedan. And why? Because Buddhism accords with the instincts of the Burman and no other faiths do. Yet pure Buddhism knows no prayer, and the Burman prays. Why? Ah! again it is the instinct of the heart. He wants to pray, and pray he will, let his adopted faith say what it will. But on the whole the beliefs of his heart are nearer akin to the theories of Buddhism than the theories of any other faith, and therefore he is a Buddhist. That was one thing I learnt, that religious systems are one thing and a man's religion another. The former proceeds from the latter and never the reverse, and men profess creeds because the creeds agree more or less with their religious feelings; they do not have religious feelings because they have adopted a creed, whatever that creed may be. I had at last come down from creeds, which are theories, to religions, which are feelings and instincts; I had left books, which are of the intellect, and come to the hearts of men.