The tenth Birth Story is the last and the greatest, and bears the distinctive title of "The Great Birth." It is the story of his last existence upon earth as an ordinary human being, and marks the summit of his upward career, the final stage of his successive earthly transmigrations. This story, which we shall presently relate at length, was told by him, after he had become a Buddha, to a great gathering of his friends and relatives, in the famous banyan grove of his native city. Showers of rain fell from heaven, miraculously bathing his holy body, but leaving untouched the throng of people around him. Seven times he appealed to heaven and earth to bear him witness as to the truth of his narrative, and seven times was an answer given in the voice of the thunder and the quaking of the earth. Siamese tradition goes on to say that after Buddha's death, a holy ascetic ascended to one of the heavens, where he met the Buddha who is next to descend and bless this earth with his teachings. The future Buddha held a long conversation with the earthly visitor in which he told him, that if the people wished for happiness and prosperity, they must unceasingly perform all the prescribed ceremonies according to the orthodox ritual, and, above all, they must not forget to annually recite the story of "The Great Birth." At one time, in Siam, Pegu, and Cambodia, it was the universal custom at the end of the rainy season, to gather in private dwellings or temple halls to listen to the reading or recital of the thousand stanzas of the poem which tells the story. The annual celebration is now chiefly a state ceremony performed in special places. In the olden days, offerings were made for the decoration of the halls in which the recital was to be held, and this custom still continues in a smaller degree. The general celebration that formerly took place degenerated at last into a kind of theatrical performance, and was accompanied by pantomime and song. New versions were given; the rhythm of the original poem was altered; and temple vied with temple, and house with house, in the introduction of novelties that would attract large audiences. The late king was a profound scholar and a devout believer in the pure truths and ritual of his religion, and not a nominal Buddhist like the majority of his subjects, and he looked upon these theatrical recitals with their accompanying buffoonery and merriment as being nothing less than a desecration of the famous story, and a burlesque of the life of him whose career they were intended to honour. When he left the cloister for the throne he sternly denounced the exhibition in a decree that is remarkable for its reasonableness and its forceful expressions. He even went so far as to tell a story, evidently of his own composition, the moral of which was that, as far as any religious merit was concerned, the money spent in preparing for the recitals would be better spent in burning dead dogs' carcasses.