Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/292

 animal figures, while from each projection to the very needle-point of the spire hang little bells, a a tiny golden wing attached to their tongues to catch the passing breeze, and all day long thousands of tinkling, silvery voices,

"As if a choir Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing,"

fill the air with sweet, weird music.

Each wat has also its chapel, or preaching-hall. On the feasts or sacred days crowds of women flock to hear some favorite priest read Bana. One day a missionary stopped to rest among the shady groves of a wat, and, hearing the voice of one reading, he entered. Out of a congregation of fifty he found only two men. This is what he saw: A yellow-robed priest seated on his high pedestal in the centre, in one hand a fan to keep his eyes from wandering to things carnal, in the other a palm-leaf book, from which he read sentences of the Buddhist scriptures, written in the Pali, in a monotonous tone, occasionally adding an explanation in Siamese. Before him burned a wax taper. His congregation, seated in a circle on the floor, reverently listened with downcast eyes, their palms joined and heads bowed till the elbows rested on the ground, though much of the service was in an unknown tongue: "Blessed is he who heareth the law." So, reverently listening