to the words spoken, they believe themselves blest, nor would they consider the merit any greater if they understood the preacher.
Occasionally, however, there are priests who preach intelligibly to attentive hearers. Ordinary popular preaching is simply extracts from the traditional life and transmigrations of the last Buddha. The facts of his history are briefly, as set forth in the Buddhist writings, as follows:
Gautama, the last and greatest of the seven Buddhas, had appeared on this earth at least five hundred and fifty times (working his way up from the lowest forms of existence, and always exhibiting absolutely self-denying charity) before he was finally born a son of the rajah of Magadha. According to the Ceylon tradition, he would be nearly contemporary with the prophet Daniel, as their sacred writings place his death in 543 B. C. From this period the sacred era of Siam is dated. This young prince fled from his royal father, and, forsaking rank and wife and child, became first a hermit. Later he wandered, in a course of open-air preaching, through the length and breadth of India, and, Southern Buddhists claim, even to Ceylon. By the force of his irresistible eloquence he founded a new sect. Fanatics of all ranks, taking on themselves voluntary vows of chastity and poverty, left their families to follow in his footsteps. He
