that Japan was to become a Christian nation before the end of the century, was due in large measure to an ignorance alike of Christianity, of human nature, and of heathenism, but, under the peculiar conditions of life, this was well-nigh inevitable.  And that great and sudden changes in feeling and thought have come over the infant churches, in consequence of the rapid acquisition of new light and new experience, is equally inevitable.  These changes are not primarily attributable to fickleness of nature, but to the extraordinary additions to their knowledge.

There is good reason to think, however, that the period of these rapid fluctuations is passing away.  All the various fads, fancies, and follies, together with the sciences, philosophies, ologies, and isms of the Western world, have already come to Japan, and are fairly well known.  No essentially new and sudden experiences lie before the people.

Furthermore, the young men are year by year growing older.  Experience and age together are giving a soberness and a steadiness otherwise unattainable.  In the schools, in the government, in politics, and in the judiciary, and in the churches, men of years and of training in the new order are becoming relatively numerous, and erelong they will be in the majority.  We may expect to see Japan gradually settling down to a steadiness and a regularity that have been lacking during the past few decades.  The newcomer to Japan is much impressed with the expressionless character of so many Japanese faces.  They appear like the images of Buddha, who is supposed to be so absorbed in profound meditation that the events of the passing world make no impression upon him.  I have sometimes heard the expression “putty face” used to describe the appearance of the common Japanese face.  This immobility of the Oriental is more conspicuous to a newcomer than to one who has seen much of the people and who has learned its significance.  But though the “putty” effect wears off, there remains an impression of stoicism that never fades away.  These two features, stolidity and stoicism, are so closely allied in appearance that they are easily mistaken, yet they are really distinct.  The one arises from stupidity, from dullness of mind.  The other is the product of elaborate education and patient drill.  Yet it is often difficult to determine where the one ends and the other begins.

The stolidity of stupidity is, of course, commonest among the peasant class.  For centuries they have been in closest contact with the soil; nothing has served to awaken their intellectual faculties.  Reading and writing have remained to them profound mysteries.  Their lives have been narrow in the extreme.  But the Japanese peasant is not peculiar in this respect.  Similar conditions in other lands produce similar results, as in France, according to Millet’s famous painting, “The Man with the Hoe.”

It is an interesting fact, however, that this stolidity of stupidity can be easily removed.  I have often heard comments on the marked change in the facial expression of those adults who learn to read the Bible.  Their minds are awakened; a new light is seen in their eyes as new ideas are started in their minds.