ner of a very different sort was that which we ourselves gave
at the Grand Hotel of Yokohama to the Rochester men. To my surprise
twenty-four persons sat down, but this number included at least ten of
the wives. Chiba and Axling, Tenny and Topping, the Fishers, father and
son, Clement, Brown, Benninghoff, Takagaki, Kawaguchi, all except the
last with their wives, made up the list. I was proud of them, for they
are leaders of thought and of education in Japan. Only Doctor Bearing's
absence on furlough in America, a furlough ended only by his lamented
death, prevented us from inviting him, though he was not a Rochester
man. Reminiscences of seminary life were both pathetic and amusing at
that dinner. One thing impressed itself upon my mind and memory: Our
missionaries have not lost their sense of humor. Under all their burdens
of anxiety and responsibility they have retained their sanity, their
hopefulness, and their good fellowship. The hilarity of our gathering
was the bubbling over of cheerful dispositions, and the safety-valve
gave evidence that there were large reserves of steam. Missionaries are
not a solemn set. They are only a good set of human beings made in the
divine image, for is it not written that even "He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh"?

The next day was the brightest of the bright. We took advantage of it to
visit the great temple of Kamakura, and to inspect the greatest artistic
monument of Japan, the bronze image of Buddha. It is a sitting statue,
with folded hands and eyes closed, as if absorbed in mystic
contemplation of his own excellence as a manifestation of deity, and
careless of the sorrows and sins of the world. The great bronze image
is fifty feet high, but it is hollow. We entered it, climbed up by
ladders to its shoulders, and looked out of windows in its back. Its
hollowness seemed symbolic, for it has only the outward semblance of
divinity and is deaf to all human entreaties. On that same day we
visited the temple of Hachiman, the god of war, most spacious and
impressive in its park-like surroundings of ancient trees and noble
gateways, but fearful in its accompanying images of revenge and
slaughter. Humanity needs compassion in the Godhead. The Japanese have
felt this, and they have invented a goddess of mercy, Kwannon by name.
Her shrine is the richest in Japan. It constitutes one of the greatest
attractions of the capital. Millions visit it every year, and the
offerings of its w