neighbour does not care about him or his affairs. Each man goes his own way and does what is right in his own eyes."

"All this is utterly unsound and un-Christian, and it is for Christian people to endeavour to change it-to bring home to each man the truth that he is his brother's keeper, and that the true life of man consists in realising the fellowship of brotherhood."

The same testimony comes from all our populous industrial centres. In East London the principal of Oxford House, Bethnal Green; Miss Octavia Hill, Mr. Charrington of Mile End, and the Rev. Archibald Brown of Bow, alike recognise and deplore the difficulty. Though living in a crowd, the townsman lives a more isolated and selfish life. "I make no neighbours and keep myself to myself," expresses the town-man's idea of correct conduct. The phenomena are as true of Glasgow, Lancashire, and the Midlands as of London.

In the metropolis the University Settlements are a step in the right direction, and tend to bridge the gulf; but as yet they have barely touched the life of the people. A colony of celibates can at present only render a limited social service; and it would not be right for educated people to attempt to bring up their families exposed to the sights and sounds of slumland.

Social isolation with all its disadvantages is too often confirmed and aggravated by insanitary surroundings. Reform in this direction is, alas! discouragingly slow. In spite of vast improvements, owing largely to the more enlightened conscience of the civic authorities, the poorer quarters of our cities and great towns still present almost appalling difficulties. Whilst "the solidarity of slum-land" in the older quarters is gradually being broken up, new slum quarters are arising in other areas, more especially on the fringes of nearly all our great towns. The more unfavourable home-environments not only remain on the larger scale much as they were, but they are in many towns actually extending themselves.

Only by new and stricter municipal regulations as to the laying out of new suburbs, the choice of sites, the breadth of the streets, the back to back spaces between them and other preliminary conditions, would it seem possible to arrest the "Jerryvilles" of one decade from becoming the slums of the next. Indeed, so serious is the prospect in these directions, that not a few Christian workers of both sexes in our great towns have sought election to municipal bodies in order to grapple more efficiently with difficulties which menace the lives of future generations.

Perhaps no greater social service can be rendered to an industrial town than that of keeping watch on the suburban fringes which have already been marked down by the builder for new roads and streets. The moral and spiritual health of untold thousands is often predestined, humanly speaking, by the plans which may be adopted in haste, ignorance, sordidness, or greed. An admirable example of the appreciation of a civic position as a means of dealing with these and other town problems is

seen in East London in the action of such notable Evangelistic workers as the Rev. Peter Thompson and Miss Steer (of the Bridge of Hope Mission) who have obtained election to local boards charged with these and other vital matters. Many other examples could be mentioned, especially devoted women workers in the large towns all over the kingdom.

But the way to better things is beset by even a greater evil than that of insanitary home environment. What shall we say to the lamentable unfitness for better housing which marks whole colonies and districts of our town poor! Miss Octavia Hill, Mr. William Booth, among other sccial observers, have familiarised us with the praiseworthy yet futile efforts of landlords of tenement property, who after completely renovating rows of dilapidated, floorless, and dirtsodden houses, have re-admitted the same class of tenants who have formerly occupied them, only to find in less than twelve months the houses are as dirty, dismantled of their woodwork, miserablelooking, and squalid as before.

"There are

types,' says Canon Ede, "which cannot be suddenly reformed even if their environment is changed."

It is here that the claims made for the great blocks of buildings known as "models" or industrial dwellings naturally come in. Are these huge and populous lodging-houses, often so barracklike in their outward appearance, really a solution of the difficulty, or even a temporary contribution to a better state of things? Their capacity for housing people close to the scene of their daily employment is undoubtedly enormous. In some parts of East London they have increased the resident population from three hundred to three thousand per acre. Their possibilities both for good and evil have alike been illustrated. Here, as in the separate tenement dwellings already alluded to, the worst of failures occurs through the unfitness of the tenants who obtain access to

them. Or they may fail through the laxness of discipline and administration of the resident superintendent.

Miss Octavia Hill describes all too graphically the interior life of a pile of "model buildings to which the unhappy class already described had

been admitted.

"It is like taking a bad girl into a school. Regulations are of no avail; no public inspection can possibly for more than an hour or two secure order, no resident superintendent has at once conscience, nerve, and devotion single-handed to stem the violence, the dirt, the noise, the quarrels. Disheartened one by one, the tidier ones depart; the rampant remain and prevail. Sinks and drains are stopped, boys bathe in drinking-water cisterns; wash-houses on staircases, and staircases themselves become the nightly haunt of the vicious, the Sunday gambling places of boys; the yell of the drunkard echoes through the hollow passages, the stairs are blocked by dirty children, and the life of any decent hard-working family

It is easily seen how readily they may lend themselves to abuse. But in the present phase of townlife, have they not come to be indispensable? When well managed and Miss Octavia Hill is a willing witness to this possibility-they provide for thousands a higher class home than they have been accustomed to. The better class of "models" are eagerly sought by those who want decent and quiet surroundings, and the privacy which cannot be found in ordinary lodgings. In the Hygeia of the future they may disappear, but under the present conditions of town-life, and especially in highly congested districts, these great aggregations of domiciles under a single roof would appear to be often the best compromise which offers itself. Such excellent "models" as those built by Lady Coutts at Bethnal Green are now by no means uncommon in London. They suggest a brighter page in the future annals of these enormous caravansaries, which are sometimes as populous as many of our villages.

On the general question of the outward conditions of life as bearing upon character and conduct, there are, it is true, not wanting warning voices. It is still sometimes asked, Is there not a danger of expecting too much from mere external surroundings, howsoever they may be ameliorated? In the worst of slums are to be found those who were reared in every comfort, and who commenced life with every advantage. In reply, it may be readily admitted that circumstances are not everything.

66

Again and again," writes a well-known worker for the industrial poor, "when I have been filled with despair in considering the housing of the poor, I have recovered heart by remembering that Miss Octavia Hill tells us she 'knows many of the prettiest, happiest little homes which consist of a single room.' Such discoveries bring delight and succour to every worker for his fellows. That there are men and women who, in streets and alleys of evil name and amidst inhuman lives, can live the higher life, is indeed a hopeful sign, and the value of their solitary witness, as they shine like lights in the world, who can tell?

But a larger experience saves us from a perilous mistake. On the larger scale, it is felt to be neither just nor safe to leave average men and women to the never-ceasing pressure of insidious and poisonous surroundings, where noxious weeds too speedily overrun the ground, choke the good seed, and contaminate the soil.

Perhaps no more striking and conclusive words on this subject have ever been uttered than those of the great leader of the modern movement for improving the houses of the poor: "I am certain,” said Lord Shaftesbury, "I speak the truth, and a truth which can be confirmed by the testimony of

all experienced persons, clergy, medical men, and all who are conversant with the working. class, that until their domiciliary conditions are Christianised (I can use no more forcible term), all hope of moral and social improvement is utterly vain. The question of the homes of the people is, in a a very real sense, a religious question."

Not only have beleaguered souls and failing bodies to be succoured. The oncoming hosts of the newer generations who swarm in "models" and slums have to be spared the sordid and sodden lives of their parents, and trained in a sweeter and more hopeful air.

The question of personal service in such a cause is, we believe, felt to-day by many hearts, who are only too thankful when any new means of helpfulness to their hard-pressed fellow-creatures is opened up to them. The increasing aggrega tion of the population in our large towns, and the growing complexity of human relationships, are but too apt to generate in the ordinary observer a vague sense of sad helplessness. Moreover, only the few have the faculty of taking any public part on the boards, councils, and vestries which can do direct ameliorative work in the manner already indicated.

But a modicum of service is open to all, if only in a changed attitude towards the majority of their fellow-townspeople, and in sympathetic burdenbearing pending the advent of better social conditions. For this not even money is needed. The contribution may be made in the way so admirably inculcated by the Bishop of Durham in the little volume we have already referred to.

"In the presence of urgent needs we must learn to recognise that nothing of the things which we possess is our own. Those whose failings and vices are due outwardly to the circumstances of modern industry and life are in a special sense committed to the care of Christians.

"Effectual sacrifice is not of money only. There must be sacrifice of leisure, of feelings, of habits, of tastes. Some one has said-and the words are hardly an exaggeration-Give everything except money.' For the help which can be given without the personal ministries of love is at the best destitute of moral value to the receiver, and for the most part to the giver also. The money gift indeed hardly ceases to be hurtful till it is hallowed by the presence of sympathy.

"It is true that this higher kind of help would make a demand upon our time. Is it not also true that we owe to man for God's sake an offering of our time, and that we require ourselves the moral discipline which such a use of it would bring?

THE

HE Burman is rarely in a hurry, and he is never so leisurely as in changing his religion. That the Buddhist is very slow of belief is as true to-day as when Judson experienced it seventy years ago. Until he went to Burma in 1812, the Protestant missions which had begun there ninety years before had left practically no trace on the people; and even he, working as loyally as ever man worked, only obtained eighteen converts in ten years. The annexation of Lower Burma cleared the way considerably, and since the annexation of the upper territory in 1886, which made united Burma the largest province of the Indian Empire, missionary effort has greatly increased, and progress has become more promising. But the work of conversion is not easy. It is to the child and not to the man that the missionary has to look. The Burman does not wear his religion or his superstition lightly, for they have become part of his nature by an elaborate system of social customs and compulsory religious edu

cation.

The folk-lorist finds Burma a happy huntingground. Many of "the old wives' tales" that linger in our rural districts are found there in general acceptance, with due allowance, of course, for local conditions. Take our old rhyme as to the characters of children born on different days of the week. A Burman will tell you that all jealous men are born on a Monday, all honest men on a Tuesday, all choleric men on a Wednesday, all mild-mannered men on a Thursday, all talkative men on a Friday, all quarrelsome men on a Saturday, and all stingy men on a Sunday; or rather that these will be the dominant features of

the characters of the men born on these days. And that there may be no mistake about this, a regular system of nomenclature exists as a guide to their dealings with each other. Every day of the week has certain letters assigned to it, and with these the name of a child born on the day must begin. For example, if a Burman's name begins with a Y, you know he was born on a Wednesday, and by the subsequent letters you can tell whether he was born before noon or after noon; an important point this, for if he was born in the morning he will be soon angry, but soon calm again, while if he happened to first see the light after the sun had passed the meridian, his paroxysms of anger will be much shorter and more violent. When he makes his offering at the pagoda his candle must be of the appropriate shape for the day on which he was born. The candles of those born on a Monday must be of the shape of a tiger; for the Tuesday people a lion is assigned; for the Wednesday people an elephant; for the Thursday people a rat; for the Friday people a guinea-pig; for the Saturday people a dragon; for the Sunday people a representation of the mythical beast that guards the centre of the universe. A horoscope is as indispensable to every child as a birth certificate is with us, and from this horoscope he is told what are lucky days for him and what are not, and as the unlucky days are those in which it is best for him to be lazy, his detractors will assure you that they invariably occupy the bulk of the calendar.

These popular beliefs, among the men at least, are not so much due to the want of education as to the quality of it, for every Burmese boy goes

to school, either to an English government-school, or a layman's school in which the teaching is purely secular, or to the monastic schools which have been in existence for centuries, and at which attendance used to be compulsory. These monastic schools a school board manager would laugh to scorn, but there is one thing to be said in their favour, and that is that they are pleasant roomy places to which a boy never objects to go.

One never hears of over pressure" in a Burmese school. The boys all sit together in the big room, each with a black wooden slate on which in early days is scrawled "the basket of learning," known among us as the alphabet, either complete or in detachments. The language

depends much on intonation for its meanings, and to get this correctly the only plan that commended itself to the monks was to make all the pupils yell out each letter together, and thus it is that most of the time is spent in ringing the changes on the A B C with all the available lung power. It is not a rapid way of acquiring knowledge, but the noise is terrific and the exercise most healthful; in fact the satisfactory chest capacity of the Burman is in no slight measure due to the energy with which he is encouraged to shout his "basket."

Not only his "basket' does he shout, but everything else besides. He is taught to read in the same way, and his reading exercises are a most appalling experience for the reverent, that is for those who are reverent of other religions than their own, as all his books are religious, and the whole object of his education is to make him a satisfactory Buddhist and encourage him to become a monk. No better description of a Burmese monastery school has been given than that by Mr. Scott, who chose to hide his identity under the pseudonym of Shway Yoe. He says, "The first books-all the books, in fact, put in the boys' hands are religious. They learn the five universal commandments "—those against murder, theft, adultery, falsehood, and drunkenness "the five subsidiary rules, the Pali formula to be employed at the pagoda, pattering them over till they pour out of the lips with the fluency and precision of water out of a pump. When there are a number at the same stage in their studies, they repeat their lesson word for word after the teacher, sitting in wide rows before him, and all chanting with the same emphasis and apparently in the same key. The effect is very singular when a string of sonorous Pali versicles is being mouthed over in the striking intoned recitative peculiar to these formula. The twenty or thirty boys crouching down on their knees, their little heads every now and then bowing down to the ground over their hands joined in supplication, the yellow-robed monk sitting cross-legged on the daïs before them, repeating in abrupt, jerky fashion, the clauses of the form of worship, which the childish voices instantly catch up."

When the boy is old enough, that is, when he is fifteen, or often when he is twelve, it is considered to be time for him to become a monk for a few days, if not for his life. And this admission is his baptism in which he gets a new name, which

he ceases to use when he returns to the world. It should be the most important ceremony of his life, and it generally takes place at the beginning of the Buddhist Lent, which lasts during the rainy season from July to October. In his finest clothes, mounted on a pony or riding in a car, he is the most prominent object in a procession round the town. Preceded by a band and accompanied by troops of friends, he visits the houses of his relatives to bid them farewell, and receives their contribution on his departure from the world. Returning to his home, the induction ceremony takes place before the chief of the monastery, and his attendant monks who are seated on a dais each hiding his face behind the leaf of talapat palm, from which the Portuguese gave them the name of Talapoins. His fine clothes are taken from him, his long hair is cut, a strip of white cloth is bound round his loins, he is dressed in yellow robes and given his begging jar, and then, after a short address from the abbot, off he goes to the monastery. Sometimes he returns the same night, sometimes he comes back in a month, sometimes he remains a monk for life; he can cease to be a monk whenever he pleases, but while he is in the monastery he must behave himself as if he were its oldest inhabitant. But strange to say, he can apparently become a monk again as often as it may suit him. Even a married man can enter a monastery; but there are degrees in sanctity, and he is the holier who has been a monk from boyhood.

In the monastery his most painful experience is to abstain from food between noon and sunrise, but to this he soon gets accustomed. He must be up as soon as he can see the veins in his hand, and so control his thoughts and actions during the day as to keep clear of the 227 sins which it is possible for a monk to commit. The five universal commandments we have already inferentially given, the five subsidiary ones are that he must not eat after midday, he must not sing, dance, or play on any musical instrument, he must not use cosmetics or colour his face, he must not sit, stand, or sleep on elevated platforms, and he must not touch old or silver; five injunctions which the Burman is content to forget, except occasionally on "the duty days," which for all practical purposes answer to our Sundays.

ck, od.

of He is awakened in the morning by the so the wooden bell to join the community as ey gather round the image of Buddha and tak. his part in the morning service. He then helps to clean the floor of the monastery, and filter the "ay's supply of water for drinking. Then, after meditation, comes his early breakfast, after whhe studies for an hour, and then, about eigh he goes forth with the abbot to beg his The Burman monk has peculiar views as to this begging. He does not beg because he is in «nt, but because it is duty to give his fellow en a chance of encouraging their self-esteem blessing is on him that gives more than on him that takes. With their eyes fixed on the ground exactly six feet in front of them the rnks perambulate the town; they never look up, they never stop. If the more or less cheerful givers

the