churches, in consequence of the
rapid acquisition of new light and new experience, is equally
inevitable. These changes are not primarily attributable to fickleness
of nature, but to the extraordinary additions to their knowledge.

There is good reason to think, however, that the period of these rapid
fluctuations is passing away. All the various fads, fancies, and
follies, together with the sciences, philosophies, ologies, and isms
of the Western world, have already come to Japan, and are fairly well
known. No essentially new and sudden experiences lie before the
people.

Furthermore, the young men are year by year growing older. Experience
and age together are giving a soberness and a steadiness otherwise
unattainable. In the schools, in the government, in politics, and in
the judiciary, and in the churches, men of years and of training in
the new order are becoming relatively numerous, and erelong they will
be in the majority. We may expect to see Japan gradually settling down
to a steadiness and a regularity that have been lacking during the
past few decades. The newcomer to Japan is much impressed with the
expressionless character of so many Japanese faces. They appear like
the images of Buddha, who is supposed to be so absorbed in profound
meditation that the events of the passing world make no impression
upon him. I have sometimes heard the expression "putty face" used to
describe the appearance of the common Japanese face. This immobility
of the Oriental is more conspicuous to a newcomer than to one who has
seen much of the people and who has learned its significance. But
though the "putty" effect wears off, there remains an impression of
stoicism that never fades away. These two features, stolidity and
stoicism, are so closely allied in appearance that they are easily
mistaken, yet they are really distinct. The one arises from
stupidity, from dullness of mind. The other is the product of
elaborate education and patient drill. Yet it is often difficult to
determine where the one ends and the other begins.

The stolidity of stupidity is, of course, commonest among the peasant
class. For centuries they have been in closest contact with the soil;
nothing has served to awaken their intellectual faculties. Reading and
writing have remained to them profound mysteries. Their lives have
been narrow in the extreme. But the Japanese peasant is not peculiar
in this respect. Similar conditions in other lands produce simi