sect of Buddhism;
but that he had found no satisfaction there. He accordingly wished to
study Christianity more carefully. For three hours we talked, he
asking questions about the Christian conception of God, of the
universe, of man, of sin, of evolution, of Christ, of salvation, of
the object of life, of God's purpose in creation, of the origin and
nature of the Bible. Toward the latter part of our conversation,
referring to one idea expressed, he said, "That is about what Hegel
held, is it not?" As he spoke he opened his knapsack, which I then saw
to be full of books, and drew out an English translation of Hegel's
"Philosophy of History"; he had evidently read it carefully, making
his notes in Japanese on the margin. I asked him if he had read it
through. "Yes," he replied, "three times." He also incidentally
informed me that he had thought of entering our mission theological
training class during the previous winter, but that he was then in the
midst of the study of the philosophy of Kant, and had accordingly
decided to defer entering until the autumn. How thoroughly he had
mastered these, the most profound and abstruse metaphysicians that the
West can boast, I cannot state. But this at least is clear; his
interest in them was real and lasting. And in his conversation he
showed keen appreciation of philosophical problems. It is to be noted
also that he was a self-taught philosopher--for he had attended no
school since he studied elementary English, ten years before, while a
lad of less than twenty.

As a sample of the kind of men I not infrequently meet, let me cite
the case of a young business man who once called on me in the hotel at
Imabari, popularly called "the little philosopher." He wished to talk
about the problem of the future life and to ask my personal belief in
the matter. He said that he believed in God and in Jesus as His unique
son and revealer, but that he found great difficulty in believing in
the continued life of the soul after death. His difficulty arose from
the problems of the nature of future thinking; shall we continue to
think in terms of sense perception, such as time, space, form, color,
pleasure, and pain? If not, how can we think at all? And can we then
remember our present life? If we do, then the future life will not be
essentially different from this, _i.e._, we must still have physical
senses, and continue to live in an essentially physical world. Here
was a set of objections to the