a thousand"!

Japan is a country where "every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."
Immorality is its curse. There is little drunkenness indeed, and
gambling is strictly prohibited. But the relations of the sexes are
almost wholly unregulated. Patriotism and filial devotion take
exaggerated forms, and girls can lead a life of shame in order to
provide means for the education of their brothers. General Nogi and his
wife can commit suicide when his sons are killed in battle, and the
whole country can regard it as so noble a deed that the general's desire
to extinguish his family name is not permitted to prevent the adoption
of it by another. The Japanese are a nation of wonderful natural gifts.
Honor, enterprise, submission, accessibility to new ideas, powers of
imitation and invention, make them the leaders of the Orient. Steamships
of twenty-two thousand tons, and equal to any Atlantic Cunarders, yet
built in their own dockyards by shipwrights who twenty years ago knew
nothing of their trade, are a proof of extraordinary plasticity and
ability. Civilization and Christianity may find new expression, if the
Japanese are subdued by the Cross of Christ.

My interest in missions has been doubled since I came in contact with
the practical work of our missionaries. We have able and devoted
representatives on this foreign field, and I believe that God will make
them mighty to dethrone Buddhism, and to crown Christ Lord of all. Yes,
"every prospect pleases." When I sailed through the Inland Sea of Japan,
two hundred and forty miles long, studded with hundreds of islands small
and great, islands often surmounted with glistening white temples or
fortifications, I thought our Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and
even the Isles of the Greek AEgean, were not to be mentioned in
comparison. The landlocked harbor of Nagasaki, with its encircling
hills, is finer than our Golden Gate of the Pacific. Fuji-yama,
snow-capped and symmetrical, seen against the crimson sunset sky, is
more beautiful even than Mount Ranier when seen from Tacoma, or Vesuvius
when seen from Naples. Japan is a land for poetry and song, a land to
awaken the loftiest patriotism, a land to inspire and lead the world.
Provided, ah yes! provided, it can be converted to Christ, and made his
servant. The Japanese is a natural orator; he has organizing ability of
the highest order; he is accessible, yet independent. Now is the time to
make him a preacher of the go