In Burma it is not otherwise. The deeper the tenets of Buddhism are observed, the more the women are concerned in it. Who lights the candles at the pagoda, who contribute the daily food to the monks, who attend the Sunday meetings in the rest houses? Nearly all of them are women. Even in Burma, where the devotional instinct is so strong and so deeply held, the immense influence of women is manifest. In Christian and Buddhist countries the women are free to attend the services; they are free, to a greater or lesser extent, in all matters, and in religion they are conspicuous—they rule it, they form it to suit themselves.
But in the races that rejected Christianity, that rejected Buddhism, it is otherwise. The Hindu women keep themselves in zenanas. They are not allowed in the temples, or only in special parts. They can take no part in the public services. They cannot combine to influence religious matters. At the time the Buddha lived women were very much freer than they are now, and this accounts for its initial partial success at home. But as waves of conquest, the incessant rigorous struggle for existence deepened and circumstances contracted that liberty, so as it contracted did Buddhism die. Till at length the women remained immured, and Buddhism fled to countries where women had still some freedom.
It is the same with Christianity. The Jewish women, if not quite so secluded as Hindu women, were yet never openly allowed to join in the synagogues. They, too, as the Mahommedan even, had their "grille" apart. The Jewish men and the Mahommedan men kept their religion for themselves, a virile religion, where women had little place. It may be the fact—I think in another chapter I have shewn that it is a fact—that women seek after religion far more than men But they must have a religion to suit them. The tenets of Christ and of Buddha do appeal to them, do come nearer to them than they do to the generality of men. And so where women have been free to make their influence felt, to impress their views upon the faith of a country, the mild beliefs of non-resistance, of peace, of meekness and submission have obtained. Whereas in the countries and nations where for one cause or another women are not free to make their combined influence felt, where they remain under the greater dominance of man in all matters, the faiths that retain the stronger and more virile codes of conduct have remained.
I am not sure that there have not been other influences also at work. I can, I think, see another strong influence that has worked to the same end. There may be many reasons. But that would not alter the fact that the influence of women has been a main force, that they have greatly been concerned in the change of faith.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PRAYER AND CONFESSION.
What is the most general, the most conspicuous form in which religion expresses itself? Is it not in prayer? Where is the religion that is without prayer? There is none. And perhaps, too, it is the very first expression of religion, that when the savage fell and prayed the lightning to spare him, he was inaugurating the greatest religious form the world has known.
What a wonderful thing it is, wonderful in every form, beautiful wherever you see it—from the glorious masses sung in the cathedrals to the Mussulman spreading his mat upon the sand and bowing towards Mecca. There is nothing so beautiful, nothing that so touches the heart of man as prayer.