It is easy for the fool, especially the learned and scientific fool, to prove that there is no God, but, like the murmuring sea, which heeds not the scream of wandering birds, the soul of humanity murmurs for God, and confutes the erudite folly of the fool by disregarding it.-J. SERVICE, quoted in "The Christian View of God and the World,” p. 74. I dreamed I was in a churchyard at midnight. Overhead I heard the thunder of distant avalanches and beneath my feet the first footfalls of a boundless earthquake. Lightnings gleamed athwart the church windows, and the lead and iron frames melted and rolled down. Christ appeared and all the dead cried out: "Is there no God?" And Christ answered: "There is none. I have traversed the worlds, I have risen to the suns, with the milky ways I have passed athwart the great waste of spaces of the sky; there is no God. And I descended to where the very shadow cast by Being dies out and ends, and I gazed out into the gulf beyond and cried, 'Father, where art Thou?' But answer came none, save the eternal storm which rages on. We are orphans all, both I and you. We have no Father." Then the universe sank and became a mine dug in the face of the black eternal night besprent with a thousand suns. And Christ cried: “Oh, mad unreasoning Chance; knowest thou-Thou knowest not-where thou dost march, hurricane-winged, amid the whirling snow of stars, extinguishing sun after sun on thy onward way, and when the sparkling dew of constellations ceases to gleam as thou dost pass by? How every soul in this great corpse-trench of a universe is utterly alone." And I fell down and peered into the shining mass of worlds and beheld the coils of the great Serpent of eternity twined about those worlds; these mighty coils began to writhe, and then again they tightened and contracted, folding round the universe twice as closely as before; they wound about all nature in a thousand folds, and crashed the worlds together. And all grew narrow and dark and terrible. And then a great immeasurable bell began to swing and toll the last hour of time, and shatter the fabric of the universe, when my sleep broke up, and I awoke. And my soul wept for joy that it could still worship God-my gladness and my weeping and my faith, these were my prayer.-JEAN PAUL RICHTER. V TOURING THROUGH VILLAGE AND BYWAYS U P to 1899, freedom of travel and residence in cities the consuls of each nation looked after his own nationals, and, so far as sovereignty was concerned, Japan relinquished all her rights over foreigners as long as they remained within the specified cities. This provision, called extra territoriality, was very humiliating to Japan. Great was the rejoicing of her statesmen when it was abolished in the new treaties of fourteen years ago. And great, too, was the joy of the missionaries, because henceforth they could travel beyond the twenty-five-mile limit around the port cities. Formerly, if they went farther they had to secure a passport. Now, the whole Empire is opened to the messenger of the Cross. In no land may one travel more safely. There are no brigands in the mountains nor will lone robbers hold up a stage at night. I was riding with a veteran missionary, on the main line from Tokyo to Kyoto not long ago, and he remarked how things had changed. "It does not seem long ago that I took this same journey of three hundred miles by jinrikisha," he said. The missionary's main dependence when away from the railway line, and when too tired to walk, is the stage, the bicycle, or the jinrikisha. The country highways are smooth and well kept. Everywhere the jinrikisha man is available, who, rain or shine, will run with you at a lively pace. Occasionally he may tip you over and apologize, even when he skins his shins and you fall on top of him. I have disembarked from jinrikishas in every conceivable fashion, but the most ex hilarating is to tip directly over backwards. With relays, one can easily make one hundred miles a day on level roads. Notwithstanding the fact that the jinrikisha's centre of gravity is unnecessarily elevated, they are preferable to the ordinary one-horse stage. How I do love these rollicking, four-wheeled beehives, with leather straps used in the similitude of springs! My last ride was in company with twelve others who were jammed tightly into our boxed cell. The driver mounted and shouted, his assistant blew his horn, and off we flew. We contented ourselves on the fact that we could wiggle our toes and fingers and blink our eyes. One ambitious lady passenger hooked her towel over a stay above and clung to it wildly while she carried on an audible conversation, notwithstanding the rattle and bang of our lurching schooner. What a relief it was when our hansom got stuck in the mud on the shady side of a hill. Some of us rolled out and had the luxury of stretching our muscles in helping our sweaty, balking horse out of his dilemma. Sometimes a missionary may float down a river in a boat or sometimes his track may lead over a chain of mountains. In either case, the scenery would be enchanting, and everywhere the evidences of idolatry will make him feel that his mission is a worthy one. At an elevation of seven thousand feet, with a gorge below and a cliff above, I called the attention of my porter to a banner that waved in the mountain breeze. He said it was an offering to the god of the mountain. Another time our boatman suddenly bent over the edge of the boat, washed his hands, and scooping some water into his palm, he emptied it into his mouth and rinsed it briskly. He then clapped his hands and seemed to be talking to some one among the trees on the shore. In a bend of the river we had come close to a shrine, and this explained it all. One Lord's Day, not far from my hotel, I saw a shapely |