"Lord Buddha sat the scorching summer through, The driving rains, the chilly dawns and eves; Wearing for all men's sakes the yellow robe, Eating in beggar's guise the scanty meal Chance gathered from the charitable." "_Light of Asia_," Book V.--ARNOLD. Among the crowd of brightly dressed people who throng the streets and alleys, the canals and rivers of Eastern Venice, there are none who so soon command the attention of the new arrival, or who appeal more strongly to the eye of the oldest inhabitant of the city, than the yellow-robed priests of the Buddhist faith. In the capital of Siam there are over ten thousand of them, while in the whole kingdom there are more than one hundred thousand. No ancient order of Grey or White Friars ever exhibited their individuality either with such frequency, persistency, or picturesqueness as these representatives of a far more ancient if less noble worship. It is scarcely necessary in these days when Oriental creeds and faiths have been so fully and widely discussed, to point out that the primal elements of that philosophy which announced the necessity of the Buddhist priesthood are entirely different to those which caused the creation of similar institutions in the West. The monk of the Western orders claims to be an intercessor between God and man. The Buddhists have no God, and therefore they do not make intercession for their brethren. The Western monk is a teacher and a preacher, the Buddhist priest may be, but is by no means necessarily so. The order rests upon a basis something like this:--The evil in the world is the result of past evil and will be productive of future evil. The only way to eradicate the general wickedness of the world is by casting it separately out of each individual in the world. This can only be accomplished by the individual himself, and as long as he remains in contact with the world he is under constant temptation to indulge in its pleasures, to gratify his passions, and to add in a thousand ways to the sum of human misery. By retirement he no longer craves for fine food and raiment, but has every opportunity for long and careful meditation upon his own evil doings and desires, and upon the way to get rid of them. The monastic institution finds its parallel in the life of a layman, when such a one, with a large amount of work to be performed, shuts himself up in his own room and denies himself friends and rest that his labours may be properly accomplished.