The important city of Okoyama provides abundant food for observation—­the clean, smooth streets, the wealth of European goods in the shops, and the swarms of ever-interesting people, as I wheel leisurely through it on Saturday, December 4th.  No human being save Japs has so far crossed my path since leaving Nagasaki, nor am I expecting to meet anybody here.  An agreeable surprise, however, awaits me, for at the corner of one of the principal business thoroughfares a couple of American missionaries appear upon the scene.  Introducing themselves as Mr. Carey and Mr. Kowland, they inform me that three families of missionaries reside together here, and extend a cordial invitation to remain over Sunday.  I am very glad indeed to accept their hospitality for to-morrow, as well as to avail myself of an opportunity to get my proper bearings.  Nothing in the way of a reliable map or itinerary of the road I have been traversing from Shimonoseki was to be obtained at Nagasaki, and I have travelled with but the vaguest idea of my whereabouts from day to day.  Only from them do I learn that the city we meet in is Okoyama, and that I am now within a hundred miles of Kobe, north of which place “Murray’s Handbook” will prove of material assistance in guiding me aright.

The little missionary colony is charmingly situated on a pine-clad hill overlooking the city from the east.  Several lady missionaries are visiting from other points, all Americans, making a pleasant party for one to meet in such an unexpected manner.

On Sunday morning I accompany Mr. Carey to see his native congregation in the nice new church which he says they have erected from their own means at a cost of two thousand yen.  This latter is a very gratifying statement, not to say surprisingly so, for it savors of something like sincerity on the part of the converts.  In most countries the converts seem to be brought to a knowledge of their evil ways, and to perceive the beauties of the Christian religion through the medium of material assistance provided from the mission.  Instead of spending money themselves for the cause they profess to embrace, they expect to receive something from it of a tangible earthly nature.  Here, however, we find the converts themselves building their own meeting-house, and bidding fair ere long to support the mission without outside aid.  This is encouraging from the stand-point of those who believe in converting “the heathen” from their own religion to ours, and gratifying to the student of Japanese character.

About five hundred people congregate in the church, seating themselves quietly and orderly on the mat-covered floor.  They embrace all classes, from the samurai lawyer or gentleman to the humblest citizen, and from gray-haired old men and women to shock-headed youngsters, who merely come with their mothers.  Many of these same mothers have been persuaded by the missionaries to cease the heathenish practice of blackening their