the comic performances consisted in the effort on the part of three old men to sing through to the end without a break-down the song which to us is so sacred, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.”  Only one man succeeded, the others going through a course of quavers and breaks which was exceedingly laughable, but absolutely irreverent.  The lack of reverence which has sometimes characterized the social side of the Christmas services in Japan has been the source of frequent regret to the missionaries.  In a social gathering of earnest young Christians recently, a game demanding forfeits was played; these consisted of the recitation of familiar texts from the Bible.  There certainly seems to be a lack of the sense of the fitness of things.

But the question is, are these practices due to an inherent deficiency of reverence, arising from the character of the Japanese nature, or are they due rather to the religious history of the past and the conditions of the present?  That the latter seems to me the correct view I need hardly state.  The fact that the Japanese are an emotional people renders it probable, a priori, that under suitable conditions they would be especially subject to the emotion of reverence.  And when we look at their history, and observe the actual reverence paid by the multitudes to the rulers, and by the superstitious worshipers to the “Kami” and “Hotoke,” it becomes evident that the apparent irreverence in the Christian churches must be due to peculiar conditions.  Reverence is a subtle feeling; it depends on the nature of the ideas that possess the mind and heart.  From the very nature of the case, Japanese Christians cannot have the same set of associations clustering around the church, the service, the Bible, or any of the Christian institutions, as the Occidental who has been reared from childhood among them, and who has derived his spiritual nourishment from them.  All the wealth of nineteen centuries of experience has tended to give our services and our churches special religious value in our eyes.  The average Christian in Japan and in any heathen land cannot have this fringe of ideas and subtle feelings so essential to a profound feeling of reverence.  But as the significance of the Christian conception of God, endowed with glory and honor, majesty and might, is increasingly realized, and as it is found that the spirit of reverence is one that needs cultivation in worship, and especially as it is found that the spirit of reverence is important to high spiritual life and vitalizing spiritual power, more and more will that spirit be manifested by Japanese Christians.  But its possession or its lack is due not to the inherent character of the people, but rather to the character of the ideas which possess them.  In taking now a brief glance at the nature and history of the three religions of Japan it seems desirable to quote freely from the writings of recognized authorities on the subject.