“May I know,” he asked in reply—to change the subject, I fancied—“whether you are a missionary?”
“On the contrary,” I protested, “I am a sailor.”
“Because,” he went on, “one must know to whom one speaks. I am a Christian always—when I am in school or talking to missionaries.
“There are many religions in the world, and surely that of the white man is a good religion. We learn much more that is useful in the schools of the Christians than in our own. But, my friend,” he leaned forward with the earnestness of one who is about to disclose a great secret, “there is but one true religion. He who is seeking the true religion—if you are seeking the true religion, you will find it right here in our island of Ceylon.”
It comes ever back to that. Hordes of missionaries may flock to the “heathen” lands, bulky reports anent the thousands who have been “gathered into the fold” may rouse the charity of the pious at home; yet in moments of sober earnest, when, in the words of Askins, “it comes to a show-down,” the convert beyond seas is a stout champion of the faith of his ancestors.
“Many people,” continued my informant, “nearly all the people of Ceylon who would learn from the Christians, who are hungry and poor, or who would have work, pretend the religion of the white man. For we receive more, the teachers are our better friends if we tell them we are Christians. And surely we do the right in saying so? We wish all to please the missionaries and we have no other way to do; for it gives them much pleasure to have many converts. Have you, I wonder,” he concluded, “visited our Temple of the Tooth.”
“Outside,” I answered. “Are sahibs allowed to enter?”
“Surely!” cried the youth, “The Buddhists have not exclusion. We are joyed to have white men in our temples. To-night, we are having a service very important in the Temple of the Tooth. With my uncle, who keeps the cloth-shop across the way, I shall go. Will you not forget your religion and honor us by coming?”
“Certainly,” I answered.
Two flaring torches threw fantastic shadows over the chattering throng of Singhalese that bore us bodily up the broad stairway to the sacred shrine. In the outer temple, at the top of the flight, surged a maudlin multitude around a dozen booths devoted to the sale of candles, bits of cardboard, and the white lotus-flower sacred to Gautama, the Buddha. Above the sharp-pitched roar of the faithful sounded the incessant rattle of copper coins. The smallest child, the most ragged mendicant, struggled against the human stream that would have swept him into the inner temple, until he had bought or begged a taper or flower to lay in the lap of his favorite statue. From every nook and corner, the effigy of the Enlightened One, defying in posture the laws of anatomy, surveyed the scene with sad serenity.