He says querulously, "Local Christendom is called to arms whenever a temperance club is to be organized, or woman suffrage discussed, or clothing procured for the poor." Pontoppidan charges America with being the author of the "new doctrine" of "practical Christianity," and for his part would like to order the officious clergy back to their cloisters, cathedrals, churches, and chapels, to long prayers and pious vigils and saintly seclusion. He wishes Christianity to return to Thomas à Kempis, clasp its hands in meditation, fix its gaze on the heavens, and deport itself here as a pilgrim and a stranger. But it has already gone back past the cloister reveries of Thomas à Kempis and the subtle metaphysics of the Athanasian Creed to the lofty ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and the active compassionate benevolence of Jesus Christ-to recall and emulate the example of that busy Friend of publicans and sinners, who continually went about doing good. Matthew Arnold truly said, "The Hebrews had a genius for righteousness;" that genius was God-given, and the more complete religion which came through the seed of Abraham and great David's greater Son is in the world as a power of rectification and control to superintend all movements and conditions into conformity to the will of Christ the Lord.

When the unbeliever informs us that delusions are abroad and that our faith is one of them we unhesitatingly admit that many things have been believed which were not true. That this is a world full of illusions, not all optical, no one is more assiduously warned, incessantly reminded, and completely aware than the Christian. He knows that the imagination is an active and prolific faculty, often unduly developed, and that a large part of practical and saving wisdom must always lie in discriminating between mere imagining and rational faith, between the figments of a foolish brain and the deepest convictions of the human soul, between the vain visions of an oversanguine nature and measurably realizable ideals. James Russell Lowell wrote a friend, "You know what a distrust I have of the poetical temperament, with its self-deceptions, its real unrealities, building its New Jerusalems in a sunset cloud rather than in the world of actuality and man." There is no denying that a stream of poetic propensity runs through the veins of mankind, and man's nature and the world make possible many self-delusions from within and impositions from without. But as Christ showed himself

to be a discerner of hidden facts, even of character and thoughts, so Christianity furnishes tests for distinguishing between substance and unsubstantiality; and the effect of the moral and spiritual illumination given to the devout soul is not to cloud but to clarify intellectual perception. Moreover, the mind committed unconditionally to rightness, by its fixed adjustment to the great Center of all, gains a universally correct perspective and is in possession of the true parallax by which it may know the bearing and relationships of all realities. Christianity does not disuse the critical faculties, but sharpens them to their keenest edge. It encourages the application of scientific methods to the examination of all things whose nature admits of such methods. It applies the severest possible tests for the sifting of the exact truth from the crude mass of falsehood. In the highest sense it is utilitarian and estimates all things by their face value for usefulness. Lowell, recognizing and guarding against the dangers of the poetical temperament, was one of those who hold that whatever else may be illusive, religion lives, moves, and has its being in the world of actuality, and that Christianity's prospectus is not of a white city of crumbling palaces built upon cloud-continents of sunset seas, but of a kingdom which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.

For reasons internal as well as external the Christian disciple has been able from the first to face without dismay the curled lip, the incredulous sneer, the derisive laugh. A cynical skeptic recently defined faith to be the power "by which men are enabled to believe that which they know to be untrue." For the reasonableness of belief let the strongest poetical intellect of the nineteenth century answer. Let the denier listen to the vigorous voice of that unprofessional but downright and independent asserter of the supernatural, whose soul ascended from Venice in December, 1889, and whose body by England's decree rests in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. Could affirmation be more positive than this?

I absolutely and peremptorily believe!

I say Faith is my waking life.

This man holds religion to be no reverie. He is certain he is not in a trance when he believes, but wide-awake, self-possessed, and master of all his robust powers. His faith is firm conviction; he spurns the agnostic with language on the great essen

tials quite dogmatic. And in full accord with him touching the unseen objects of belief was the titled Laureate of Victorian England whose final declarations affirmed spirit to be the one indubitable reality. "Matter, time, and space," he said, “are all illusions; above and beyond them all is God, who is no illusion." What such men sturdily affirm, can it be in any man a sign of strength, sanity, and wisdom to deny? If the faith-life were all a dream-life made of unrealities, would not such keen, high, fearless thinkers know it? Who is it claims a shrewder faculty for knowing? Does the cynical skeptic whom we quoted stand up to measure his stature with theirs? When he tiptoes to his full height it becomes clear that he needs to be on his watch lest the cranes that sup on pygmies gobble him up.

Reasons which satisfy the strongest minds justify the high faith and immense hope of Christianity. If there be a God in the universe, a supreme and eternal Spirit, Creator of worlds and Father of men, Master of all forces, Lord of all being, then faith may reasonably affirm possibilities otherwise incredible. The Most High God when he arrives brings infinite possibilities along with him. He is not limited by our petty finite preconceptions any more than a rosebush is limited by the ideas of the aphides encamped on one of its leaves. The Christian is a daring believer, because whoever believes in Jesus Christ as Son of God and Saviour of men has leaped the gulf of darkness, doubt, and fear, and stands where all is light and nothing can be too good to be true. He who is sure of Christ can be sure of numberless consequent things. Once for all and forever he believes in boundless blessedness and beauty of which Christ is the proof and the pledge. Defeats cannot daunt, delays cannot dishearten the disciple of Him to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth and with whom a thousand years are as a single day. This disciple believes indomitably, through dark and bright, and, no matter what happens or fails to happen, lives and dies believing with intrepid and unwavering reliance. He sees the vast inclusiveness of simple faith in Christ and knows that all the rationalists in the world have nothing more rational than that blessed faith. If this be dreaming, then the only sane and advisable prayer to whatever superior power may happen to exist is,

O let me not awake, my God,

But let me dream alway.

THE ARENA.

CAUSES OF THE RECENT RELIGIOUS AWAKENING IN JAPAN. IN Japan we are having a wonderful religious awakening since last year. The revival fires that swept throughout the country are going on with increasing power and success. The national opinion is in favor of Christianity. The people are intensely in earnest to hear the Gospel preached to them. Hundreds of souls are converted to God. The very foundation of heathenism is shaken and is on the verge of ruin and destruction. The friends and foes of our missions are alike wondering at this rapid advancement of the kingdom of God. It needs no prophet to foretell the coming triumph of the Gospel. In this generation two ethnic religions-Buddhism and Shintoism-will meet their ruin, and Jesus Christ will be crowned in the hearts of our people.

The first cause of this religious awakening is the revision of the treaties with foreign powers. These treaties were formed when Commodore Perry came to our country and opened the ports. Then our laws, customs, and manners were so different from those of the civilized nations that no foreigner could live under the administration of the Japanese government. Every foreigner, therefore, was allowed to live in the concessions and to be governed by consular jurisdiction. The consuls were both executive and judicial officers at the same time. If any foreigner violated Japanese law he had to be tried, not in a Japanese court, but by his consul, according to the laws of his country. This consular jurisdiction was perfectly right and just at the time when Japan was not enlightened. We have it now in China. The Japanese government, however, improved its laws and judicial system year after year until the administration of justice has become equal to that of America or of any other country. Life and property became safe in Japan just as in the civilized nations. Thus the consular jurisdiction became an outrage to the sovereignty of Japan and aroused the indignation of the people. Several times the Japanese government tried to revise the old treaties, but this was opposed by the foreign powers, until both the government and the people lost their patience. It was the natural consequence of this that the reactionary movement was inaugurated against foreigners and the things which are foreign. Christianity was not free from the national rebuke, not because the people found any fault with it, but because it was introduced and propagated chiefly by foreigners, whose governments were so unkind to our nation on the question of the revision of the old treaties. Thus the progress of the Gospel, for a time, seemed to halt, bringing with it the unkindest criticisms even of the friends of our missions. It was, however, to the great honor of England and America that

they took the lead in the question and revised the old treaties, by which their subjects in Japan had to live and be tried in the Japanese courts according to Japanese laws. All other powers followed the example. The revised treaties came into effect about three years ago. The emperor sent out the edict urging the people to observe international comity toward foreigners. This changed their entire attitude in favor of foreign things, and especially of the Christian religion. They have now the kindest feelings toward the subjects of foreign powers. This was the great preparation of the recent religious awakening in Japan.

The proportion of Japanese Christians to the non-Christian people is one to every thousand, and yet the Christians in greater proportion have been occupying the influential positions of public life. Mr. Kataoka, the speaker of the House of Commons, is an elder of the Presbyterian Church. He and his colleagues, Mr. Nimoto, Mr. Yebara, and others, stood in the political field as stanch Christians. Their integrity, wisdom, and power were shining lights in the everturbulent world of politics. They were successful not only in their personal achievements, but also in passing laws which are founded on Christian principles. Two years ago they proposed the bill prohibiting young men under the age of eighteen from using tobacco. It carried both houses, was sanctioned by the emperor, and became the law of the nation. Since then the educational department has sent out its proclamation prohibiting all students of whatever age from smoking. Last year these Christian statesmen secured the passage of another law prohibiting young men from drinking intoxicating liquors. Furthermore, these political leaders went out last year as evangelists to hold revival campaigns. Their addresses and testimonies were full of Gospel truth and power. The writer himself heard their addresses several times, and can testify to their salutary influence in leading men and women to Christ.

Japan has now one of the finest educational systems in the world. Her children go to kindergarten at the age of three. At six they go to the grammar schools, where they stay six years. At twelve they go to the high schools, where they remain five years. They then enter the gymnasium for three years, then the college for three years, and lastly they study in the university for three years, making in all twenty-three years, including the kindergarten. This is two years longer than the educational system of America. For all these schools we have a uniform system of moral instruction. This is based on the educational rescript of the Japanese emperor, in which his majesty recommends the students to be faithful to the emperor, to be obedient to their parents, to be kind to their brothers, to be honest and sincere with their friends, to be patriotic to the country, and to be loving to their wives when they are married. This rescript is one of the best declarations of those ethical principles which are founded on no religious system. Every university president, all principals of colleges, gymnasia, or grammar schools, must