This ceremonial had required long and elaborate preparation. The death indeed occurred last July; the body had been embalmed; it had lain in state and open to public inspection for four whole months; the funeral did not take place until November. A vast amount of detail had been attended to and provided for. Great packages of silken umbrellas had been stored to shield the heads of guests and servants. All the bearers of sedan-chairs, scores in number, were clad in silken uniforms; there were banners, and inscriptions, and lanterns, galore. Everything was done to impress the Chinese multitude with the greatness of the occasion. But it was all a glorification of man and of his virtues. There was no confession of sin, nor assurance of pardon; no proclamation of a divine Redeemer; no promise of life and immortality in Christ. Heathen religions are man's vain effort to win heaven by merits of one's own. Only Christianity is God's revelation of salvation "without money and without price," through the sacrifice and death of his only Son. This is the gospel which Confucianist and Buddhist, Hindu and Mohammedan, need to-day, and which, thank God, our missionaries are giving them.
IV
THREE WEEKS IN BURMA
Burma is the land of pagodas. These places of worship are the most striking feature of every landscape. Their bell-shaped domes, startlingly white, or so covered with gold-leaf as to shine resplendent in the sunlight, crown many a hilltop and constitute the chief beauty of the towns. The pagodas are usually solid structures of brick, with facings of plaster, and they are buildings at which, rather than in which, worship is offered. There are exceptions, however. The more ancient of these edifices, like the Ananda at Pagan, have inner chambers enshrining gigantic statues of Buddha, with corridors around the chambers, quite comparable to the aisles of English or French cathedrals. But the greatest of all the Burmese pagodas, the Shwe Dagon of Rangoon, is a solid mass of brick, with no interior cell, yet enormous in size, erected on a broad platform one hundred and sixty-six feet from the ground, towering to an additional height of two hundred and seventy feet, and crowned with a jewelled "umbrella" at the total elevation of four hundred and thirty-six feet above the teeming streets of the city below. The main platform from which the pagoda proper rises is an immense court nine hundred feet long by six hundred and eighty-five feet wide, and crowded with minor pagodas and shrines. This great esplanade is approached from the four points of the compass by long covered arcades, lined with shops in which offerings of every description can be bought. On the marble floor of the main court and before the minor shrines these offerings are presented by scores of worshipers prostrating themselves before statues of Buddha of every size. And yet the great conical or bell-shaped dome of the pagoda is its chief attraction, for this is covered with gold-leaf from its base to its summit, and its shining splendor salutes the traveler from miles and miles away.
The religion of Burma is Buddhism. Buddhism is a religion of "merit," so called, and the surest way to acquire "merit" is by building a pagoda. Repairing an old pagoda will not answer the purpose; hence many an old pagoda goes to ruin, side by side with a new one coated with whitewash or gold-leaf. Curiously enough, the epoch of pagoda-building was almost coincident with that of cathedral-building in England and France, that is, from A. D. 1000 to 1200. When one sees at Pagan an area along the Irrawaddy River eight miles long and only two miles wide, with nearly five thousand pagodas, multitudes of them small and in ruins, but many still standing great and splendid in their proportions, it seems impossible to doubt that a certain genuine religious impulse, however blind and mistaken, led to their erection. There they stand, mere relics of a magnificent past, but now erect in the midst of desolation, with only scattered huts about them, where once there must have been a dense population, rich and lordly. The fate of these towering monuments of idolatry and superstition, now for the most part given over to the moles and the bats, shows what God can do for pagodas, and encourages us to believe that missionary effort will be mighty through God to the pulling down of similar more modern strongholds, together with all the high things that exalt themselves above the knowledge of his truth.
This leads me to speak of the great missionary work that is now honeycombing and undermining the foundations of heathenism in this pagoda-land. We came to Burma to see what God has wrought. The labors and sufferings of Adoniram Judson appealed to us even in our childhood. We wished to see how the mustard-seed which Judson sowed in faith has grown up to bear fruit. So we went to Aungbinle, where for twenty long months Judson was imprisoned and tortured. There we seemed to hear God's word to Moses: "Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground." We were reminded also of the burning bush, which was ever burning but not consumed. Great forward movements in history are born in suffering. Through death to life, and the cross before the crown—that was the way of Christ, and it will be the way of his followers. We gathered, a small group of missionaries and visitors, in the little chapel that has been built upon the site of that old prison, and we prayed, with a lot of dusky villagers and children before us, that God would yet more gloriously prosper the work of missions.
We had every advantage in our investigations in Burma. Thirteen of my former pupils are now missionaries in that land. For many years they have been inviting me to visit them. Nine missionaries met us at the dock, as we landed from Singapore and Penang. They have made our visit delightful by their affectionate and boundless hospitality. Morning, noon, and night have been full of sightseeing, of visiting mission churches and schools, of "chotas," or little breakfasts, of "tiffins" or substantial lunches, or afternoon-teas and dinners at the close of the day. The social and kindly spirit of it all has turned what otherwise would have been wearisome into a succession of pleasant experiences. But there has been work, and there has been hard thinking also. Making three addresses a day, longer or shorter, for three weeks in succession, is no sinecure. I am sometimes called an "octogeranium," but I have not been permitted to waste my sweetness on the desert air. It is a wonder to me that I have survived so much stress and rushing, but I am compelled to say that good appetite and good sleep have made me feel in better health and spirits than for many months before.
What I have seen has gladdened my eyes and warmed my heart. Closer contact with mission work and mission workers has broadened my ideas, given me more sympathy, more zeal, and more hope. The vastness of these heathen populations, their appalling needs, together with their infinite possibilities, have dawned upon me as never before. Burma has sixty millions of people. It is a most fruitful land, never visited by the famines which ravage India proper, the land west of the Bay of Bengal. It enshrines a religion which, with all its ignorance and superstition, is more free from gross immorality than that which prevails on the other side of the bay. Its people are the most heterogeneous of any upon earth. Though the proud Burman native is still the dominant power, he has now to compete with the rising intelligence of the Karens, the sturdiness of the Chinese, and the subtlety of the Hindus. These last two peoples have in late years in large numbers migrated hither. Mohammedan mosques are rising side by side with the older Buddhist pagodas. The Parsees are numerous and influential, and theosophists are not rare. Rangoon is probably the capital city of Buddhism, for here at any rate is its most splendid temple. And Rangoon is a sort of melting-pot of all races. Burmans and Chinese are intermarrying, and are producing a most vigorous offspring. Sikhs and Malays, by their peculiar dress, make picturesque the streets. I know of no greater mixture of races, unless it is in the city of New York, where we have more Jews than there are in Jerusalem, and more Italians than there are in Rome. Here in Rangoon, however, all these peoples preserve their distinctive characteristics of dress and language, so that racial differences are more apparent.
The Roman Catholics and the representatives of the Church of England have made great efforts to capture Burma. They have established noble plants in the way of church edifices, hospitals, and schools. The leper asylum of the Romanists is an impressive and worthy provision for the housing and treatment of hundreds thus afflicted. The cathedral and school of the Anglican Church show a most praiseworthy estimate of the needs of this great province of the British Empire, and breakfasting with Bishop Fyffe, the metropolitan of Rangoon, gave us a pleasing impression of his kindly Christian spirit. The Methodist Episcopal Church has also its representative here, and all of these evangelizing agencies are supplemented by the work of the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., and the Salvation Army. Yet it is not too much to say that the Baptists have first place in Burma, both in church-membership and in education. We were the first Christian denomination upon the ground; we have leavened the country with our influence; our Mission Press has furnished the Bible in several different languages to the people of Burma; our schools are the most advanced in grade and the most numerously attended; our churches are most nearly self-governing and self-supporting. We have great reason to thank God and take courage.