Sentence:  It is no small tax upon the people to support their [Buddhist] priests, but they do it with a willing heart. When I was once at the old capital, I saw a woman, from her own stock, feed more than fifty priests, who came to her in his turn, and received his portion. [...] If I had asked her why she thus spent so much of her living, her answer would have been, 'To make <WSD>merit</WSD>.' 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment.