THE SHWE DAGON
Any one who visits the pagodas and watches the people at their devotions—they make a far more beautiful picture, by the way, than the congregation of any European church, though that is not to the point—is not likely to see anything suggestive of the decay of Buddhism. There are, on the contrary, healthy signs of a renewed religious activity which, if guided aright, should lead to splendid results and silence all forebodings. Meanwhile, the jewelled pinnacle of "the greatest cathedral of the Buddhist faith"392—the Shwe Dagon Pagoda—still bears silent witness to the vitality and beauty of the religion which called it into being. So long as the Buddhist faith is a living force in Burma, there will never be wanting eager hands to dress the altars and lay gold-leaf on the dome of that splendid fane, and never will the grand and passionless face of the Lord Buddha be averted from the little Burmese children who with their fathers and mothers come to lay their gifts of flowers at the Master's feet. If Buddhism dies out of Burma the country will lose the most precious of all its possessions; and when the Shwe Dagon, deserted by its last pilgrim, crumbles away into a shapeless heap of bricks, the world's diadem will lose one of its most lustrous gems.