Burmese Sketches - Khamkoo

BURMESE SKETCHES,
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the five, eight, or ten precepts, as laid down and propounded
by him, the sermon began. It turned on the propriety of conducting
oneself with benevolence and goodwill towards his
fellow-creatures and on the necessity of alms-giving as a sure
means of gaining salvation. Suffice it to say that the priest
was an eloquent preacher: he brought home a strong conviction
to the minds of his hearers, who rose up with a new
determination to lead a purer and nobler hfe than they had
been leading before.
But what was Maung Po doing all the time ? He did kneel
down, and tried to mutter something in imitation of those
around him. That was, however, all. The priest noticed his
downcast and chagrined look, and, at the end of his sermon,
he sent for him to hold a quiet conversation with him.
"Well, Maung Po, how did you like the sermon ? " began
the abbot.
** Very well, Lord," replied Maung Po.
"But could you understand the Pali quotations which it
contained ? "
*No, Lord, PSli Is as strange to me as the language of the
birds ; to confess to you the truth, even now I cannot understand
very well the meaning of the precepts which the people
repeated after you."
'' Then,'* rejoined the priest, '* if that be the case, let us
reserve the subject for some other time as the day is far gone."
And the congregation dispersed.
CHAPTER V.-HELIQIOUS ASPIRATIONS.
When Maung Po reached home that day he recalled to his
mind the short conversation he had with the abbot. Brooding
and brooding over it, a change came over him. He felt somehow
that he was capable of being inspired with religious
aspirations. He had been brought up in no religion at all ; nor
had he received any religious instructions at his mother's knee
as is the wont among the people of the West. But he had read
something about the principal religious systems of the world,
and in his happy-go-lucky fashion, backed up by a smattering
knowledge of Paley, he treated every religion with some
degree of indifference. He, how^ever, consoled himself that the
duty he owed to Religion \sould be accomplished by his
believing in an Intelligent Immutable Creator, and by observing
the five Precepts of Buddhism. So, only a few weeks after the