The evening world. Newspaper, September 28, 1922, Page 28

oF * hitherto no inkling. The lucky coin- THE CHARACTERS IN THE STORY. THE HONORABLE GLEOFFr.EY BAKRINGTON, son of Lord Brandan, @ Captain in the Bntish Army resigns his commission whenghe weds ASAKO FUJINAMI, ‘eiress, daughter of Japanese parents,?who are dead, brought up and educated in trench convent schools. and introduced to London society by LADY EVEKINGTON, a ‘rilliant matchmaker, who did not foresee the result of the bringing together ot ne :wo. At the reception toasts are drunk to the closer union of Britain and |-pan. but both British and Japanese diplomats in the distinguished company evade the suggestion that the couple visit Japan, as appears to be their desire Some of the reception guests frankly question the wisdom of the marmage ane doubt the possibility of a happy life tor the pair. Lady tverington, in her anxiety for the young Captain, who has been her special protege, .nterviews COUN SAL1O, the Japanese AmLussador, who tells her the Fujinamis belong to the nouveaux niches of Japan, but gives little information of their ongin or the source of their weaith. A visit to his wife's guardians, the Muratas, @ Japanese tamily living ‘9 Paris, and a sojourn among the cosmopolitans of Deauville sharpen .he desivs to see Japan. Aboard the, ship they meet VISCOUNT KAMIMURA, returning home tc wed a bride chosen by his family, whom he has never seen. A stop at Nagasaki 1s the first sight of reat ‘Japan A part of the revelation 1s the Chonkina, or Geisha dance, seen by Barrington in company with two English acquaintances. Barrington is shocked by the pertormance. He 18 disturbed to learn from the talk of Amencans and Englishmen that marriages with Japanese women are not favorably regarded. TANAKA, 4 nondescript Japanese, attaches himself to the Barringtons, follows them everywhere and acccmpanies them to lokyo, where Geoffrey meets REGGIE FORSYTH, Attache of the Bntish Embassy, musical and romantic, shaking off old attachments in Paris for a new one in Japan, the novelty being YAE SMITH, daughter of a apanese mother and an English father. Bar- rington meets Miss Smith, who st okes and languishes in Forsyth’s apart~ ments at the Embassy. sarrington, trom a talk with LADY CYNIHIA CAIRNS, vife ot the British Ambassador, learns of Yae’s many—some fatal—love affairs and of the Embassy's disapproval of For- syth’s engagement to the young woman. iTO, lawyer for the Fujinam: estate, who has made regular remittances to Mrs Barrington, arranges for her and her husband to meet the Fu- jinamis of lokyo, fhe entzrtainments tail to impress Barrington, to whom Japanese family customs -eem odd and contradictory. A family bus.ness conterence discloses the ,act that the Fuyinami income is derived from the Geisha house priviieges in I okyo and elsewhere. At the same conference Asako’s marnage to Barrington 1s discussed, the decision being that she should be marned to a Ja»anese, the matter of divorce being easy. Under the tutelage ot her cousin, ASAKO, Barrington’s bride. begins to learn something of Japanese family cus- toms and hear about er [father and mother, the one a poet, the other a delicate, clinging little woman, who died wher Asako was born. Barrington and Yae Smith are Forsyth’: guests at Kamakura. They leave a dance to watch the Japanese peasants on the beach Yae flirts with Geoffrey, who carnes her back to “orsyths house in his arms. They have been seen by tanaka. Asako learns from her cousin that childlessness is cause for divorce in Japan. She spends much time in the Fujinami household. Forsyth surprises seoffrey and Yae Smith in his own rooms. Geoffrey declares his innocence; the girl accuses him, and in a violent tirade gives Barrington his first knowledge of the source of his wife's income. Asako fearns of the incident and turns a deaf ear to her husband's explanations and pleas for forgiveness. nder persuasion by Ito, Barrington signs a docu- ment which divorces Asako, CHAPTER XXIII. The Real Shinto. Yo no naka wo Nant ni tatoyemut Asa-borake Kogt-yuku fune no, Ato no shira-nami. To what shall ! compare This world? To the white wake behind A ship that has rowed away At dawn! Was against her nativity, When once this disaffected animal had been conquered and cast out, Asako's future should be a very bright one. The family witch agreed with the Fujinami that the Dog had in all probability departed with the foreign husband. Thef the toothless crone breathed three times upon Asako; and when this operation was concluded she stated her opinion that there was no season why the ransomed daughter of the house of Fujinami should aot be- HEN the autumm come the mother of many children. came and the But on the psychical condition of the maple trees family in general ae ran fron ae reassuring. Everything about the turned scarlet, rungion, the grewth of the garden the men re- the fight of the birds, the noises of turned from <he night-time, foraboded dire dis their long sum- aster in the near future, The Fujinam) mer holidays. were in the grip of a most alarm After that ing inge cRain (of cause and effect) Osako's lot be- Several “rough ghosts” were abroad; came heavier and were almost certain to do dam- tha ever. age before thelr wrath could be ap- “What is this peased. What was the remedy? It talk of tall bed® was indeed difficult to prescribe for and special such complicated cases, Temple said charms, however, were always e'ti- Fijinam! cacious. The old woman gave the Mr. “The girl is a Japanese. names of some of fhe shrines which She must live like a Japanese and be specialized in exorcism. Gentaro. proud of it” So Asako had to sleep on the floor alongside her cousin Sadako in one of the downstairs rooms, Her last possession, her privacy, was taken uway from her. The soft mattresses which formed the native bed were Somy days later the charmg were eMained, strips of rice paper with sacred writings’ and symbols upon them, and were pasted upon posts and lintels all over the house. This was done in Mr. Fujinamt's abseace, When he returned, he commenteg not uncomfortable; but Asako dis- jyost unfavorably on this act of faith, carded at once the wooden pillow, jhe prayer tickets dis‘igured his which every Japanese woman fits Into jinuse, ‘They looked like Kare the nape of her neck, #0 as to pre- jabels, They injured his reputation vent her elaborate colffure becoming as an esprit fort. He ordered the Gisarranged. As a result, her head srudents to remove them. was always untidy, a fact upon which — After this sacrilegious act, the old ber relatives commented. woman, who had, lingered on in the “She does not look like @ great family mansion for several weeks, re- foreign lady now," said Mrs. Shid- turned again to Akabo, shaking her uye, the mistress of the house. “She white locks und prophesying dark v0ks like osandon (a rough kitchen things to come iaaid) from a country inn.” ‘or some reason or other, the The other women tittered. witch's visit did not improve AswKe'n One day the old woman of Akabo position, She was © ed to per arrived. Her hair was quite white form little menial se to bring Uke spun glass, and her waxen face in food at meal times and to serve was wrinkled like a relief map. Her A serve the gentlemen on bended knve, to ludy was bent double like a lobster; ciap her hands in summons to the and her eyes were dim with cataracts. servant girls, to massage Mrs Ime Cousin Sadako sald with awe that she jinami, who suffered trom rheume. was over a hundred years old. usm in the shoulder, and to sory Asako had to submit to the indig- jer back in the ba’ id to sorb niy of allowing chis dessicated has Wer wishes were usually ignored; to pass her fumbling hands all over and she v her body, pinching her and prodding jhe jou her. The old woman smeit horribly of daikon . (pickled horse radish) Purthermore the terrified girl had to unswer a batiery of questions as to : her personal habits and her former “tated at marital relations. In return she J#panese. It bored her to have to ex- learned .a number of curious facts PlMin everything. She found this girl about herself, of which she had {fom Europe lly and undutiful. Only at night they would chatter as cidente of having been born in the &!rls will, even if they are enemies; hour of the Bird and the day of the @nd it was then that Sadako narrated Bird set her apart from the rest of the history of her romance with the womankind as an exceptionally for- young student timate individual. But, unhappily, the One night Asako awoke to find that S not encouraged to leave e and grounds, Sadako no longer took her cousin with her to the theatre or to choose kimono patterns at the Mitsukoshi Store. She was ir- Asako's failure to learn IWust paper shoji was pushed aside. Ner- vous and anxious, she rose and s'ood in the dark veranda outside the room. A cold wind was blowing in from some aperture in the amado. This was un- usual, for a Japanese house in its night attire is hermetically sealed. Suddenly Sadako appeared from the direction of the wind. Her Nair was disheveled. She wore a dark cloak over her parti-colored night kimono. By the dim light of the andon (a rush- light tn @ square paper box), Asako could see that the cloak was spotted with rain. “I have been to benjo,"’ said Sadako nervously. “You have been out in the rain,"’ contradicted her cousin. ‘You are wet through. You will catch cold.” “Sa Damare! (Be quiet!)' whis- pered Sadako, as she threw her cloak aside, ‘do not talk so loud. See!" She drew from her Lreast a short sword in a sheath of shagreen. “If you speak one word, I kill you with this." “What have you done?" asked Asa- ko, trembling. “What I wished to do,’’ was the sullen answer. “You have been with Sekine?"’ Asa- ko mentioned the student's name, § Sadako nodded in assent. Then she began to cry, hiding her face in her kimono sleeve. “Do you love him?" Asako could . “Asako had to not help asking. “Of course, I love him,’’ cried gad- ako, starting up from her sorrow. “You see me. I am no more virgin. He is my life to me. Why cannot 1 love him? Why cannot I be free like men are free to love as they wish? 1 am new woman. I read Bernard Shaw. I find one law for men in Japan and another law for women. But I will break that law. 1 have made Sekine my lover, because I am tree,"* Asako could never have imagined her proud, inhuman cousin reduced to this state of quivering emotion. Never before hud she seen a Japanese soul laid bare. But you will marry Sekine, dear; and then you will be happy, Marry Sekine!" the girl hissed, “marry a boy with no money and leave you to be the Fujinami heiress, when I am promised to the Governor of Osuka, who will be Home Minister when the next Governor comes ‘Oh, don't do that,'' urged Asako, her English sentimentalism flooding back ucross her mind, !*Don't marry 4 man whom you don't love. You say you are a new woman, Marry Sekine, Marry the man whom you love, Then you will be happy." “Japanese girls are never happy," groaned her cousin. Asako gasped. This morality con- fused her. “But that would be a mortal sin," she said, “Then you could never be happy." “We cannot be happy. We are Fu- jinami," said Sadako gravely. ‘We are cursed, The old woman of Akubo said that {t is a very bad curse. I do not believe superstition. But I be- lieve there is a curse, You also, you have been unhappy, and your father and mother. We are cursed because of the women. We have mad: much money from poor women are sold to men, and they suffer in pain und die so that we become rich It {» very bad inge. So they say i Akabo that we Mujinam! fo: sada influence of the Dog Year the bed beside her was empty, and the io our tamiy. It brings us mopsyAa i Pi S. rated By Will. B. Johnstone. COPYRIGHT, but it makes us unhappy. In Akabo even poor people will not marry with the Fujinam!, because we h the fox."" ¥ It is a popular belief, still widely heid in Japan, that.certain families own spirit foxes, a kind of family ban- shee who render them. service, but mark them with a curs “I do not understand, afraid of this wild talk. “Do you know why the Englishman went away?" shid her cousin brutally. It_was Asuko's turn to ery, “Oh, [ wish I had gohe with him. He was so good to ms, always 50 kind and so gentle!” “When he married you," said Sa- dako, “the did not know that you had the curse. He ought not to have come to Japan with you. Now he knows you have the curse. So he went away. He was wise.’ “What do you mean by curse?’ asked Asako, “You do not know how the Fuj!- nami have made so much money?"' “No,” said Asako. “It used to come for me from Mr. Ito. He had shares or something.” yes, But a share that means a share of a business. Do you not know what is our business?"” “No,” said Asako again, “You have seen said Asako, the the Yoshiwara, ‘That is understand where girls are sold to men. Do you our business. . eo went back to Yedo with about twenty girls, fifteen or sixteen years old. He and the other clerks of the Yoshiwara first made ther. joro. From those twenty girls he made very much money. So he married the woman who kept the house, Then he hired a big house called Tomonji. He fur- nished It very richly, and he would only receive guests, of the high class people Five of his girls became very famous oiran., Even their pictures, drawn by Utdmaro, are worth now hundreds of yen. When our great- great-grandfather died he was a very rich man. His son was the second Fujinamt: He bought more houses in the Yoshi- wara and more girls. He was our great-grandfather. He had two sons. One was your father’s father, who bought this land and first built a house here. The other was my grand- father, Fujinami Gennosuke, who still lives in the inkyo. “How do you know all these ter- rible things?" asked Asako. “Tt is written within your father’s book. I will read it to you. If you do not believe, ask Ito San. He will tell you it is true.”* So for several evenings Sadako read to this stranger Fujinami her own father's words, the words of a forerunaer, Japan is still a savage country, wrote Fujinam! Katsundo, the Jap- is22. BY BON! AND LIVERIGHT. . She was living the life of a servant and a prisoner. What would be the end of it? Surely Geoffrey would come back to her, and takegier away! But he had Mo money now, and it would cost Much money to travel to Japan. then, this terrible war! \ Geoffrey was a soldier. He would sure to be there, leading his men. Supposing he were killed? One night in a dream she saw his body carried past her, limp and bleeding. She screamed in her sleep. Sadako awoke, terrified. “What ts the matter?” ' “[ dreamed of Geoffrey, my hus- pand. Perhaps«he {s killed in the war, Do not say that,’ said Sadako. “‘It is unlucky to speak of death. It troubles the ghosts. I have told you this house is haunted." Certainly for Asako the Fujinami mansion had lost its charm. Even the beautiful landscape was besieged by horrible thoughts. Every day two or three of the Yoshiwara women died of disease and neglect, so Sadako sald; and therefore every day the invisible population of the Fujinami garden must be increasing, and the volume of their curses must be gathering in in- tensity. The ghosts hissed like snakes in the bamboo grove. The sighed in the pine branches. They nourished submit to the indignity of allowing this hag to pass her fumbling hands all over her body.” “Then I will tell you the whole story of the Fujinami, About one hundred and twenty years ago our great-great-grandfather came # to Yedo, as Tokyo was then called. He was a poor boy from the country, He had no friends. He became clerk in a dry goods store, One day Woman, rather old, asked him: ‘How much pay you get?" He said, ‘No pay, only food and clothes.’ The woman said, ‘Come with me; I will give you food and clothes and pay also.’ He went with her to the Yoshi- wara, where she had a small house with five or six girls. Every night he must stand in front of the house, calling. Then the drunken work men, and the gamblers, and the bad sumurai would come and pay their money, And they pay their money to him, our at-great-grand~ father. “When the girls were sick, or woyld not receive guests, he would beat them, and star them, and burn o kyu (a medical moxa, used for plant called cauterization) on One day he said to the who was mistress of the ‘Your girls are too old, The «is do not come any more. us sell these girls. I will go into the country and get new girls, and then you Will marry me and make me your partner.’ The woman said: ‘If we have good luck with the girls and make money, then I marry you.’ So our great-great-grandfather went their backs woman buck to his own country, to Akabo, and his old friends in the country Were astonished, seeing how much money he had to spend. He said "Ye I have many tich friends in Yedo. They want pretty country girls to be their wive See, 1 pay you in advance five pleces of gold After the age more money will t en, Let me take your prettiest girls to Yedo with me. And they will t nds.’ “They were simple country peop! d they belleved him because he was man of thely village, of Akabo, Le anese are still barbarians, To cont- pare the conventional codes, which they have mistaken for civilization with the depth and the height- of Occidental idealism, as Christ per- ceived it and Dante and St. Francis of Assisi and Tolstoy, 1s ‘to compare the tortoise with the moon.’ Japan is imitating from the West its worst propensities—hard materialism, vul- garity and mon hip. uch was the age of Asako's father in his book ne Real Shinto." We are not allowed to read this Sadako explained; ‘the police en it, But T found a secret copy. It was undutiful of your father to write such things. He went away from Japan; and every one said, ‘It 1s a good thing he has gone; he a bad man; he shamed his coun- and his family,’ * here was much in the book which Asako could not follow Her cousin tried to explain it to her; and many nights ed thus, the two girls sit- ting up and reading by the pale light of the andon, It was like a renewal of the old friendship. Sometimes a low whistle sounded from outside the house. Sadako would lay aside the book, would slip on her cloak and go out into the garden, where Sekine was waiting for her, When she was left to herself Asako began to think for herself for the finst me: time in her Iife. Hitherto her thoughts had been concerned merely with her own pleasures and pains, with the smiles and frowns around her, with petty events and trifiing projects. Perhaps, because some of her father’s blood Was alive in her yoing, she could understand certain aspects of his book more clearly than her interpreter, Sadako, She j\uew why Geoffrey would not touch non It was fithy, it was dis like the poor Women who had urned it, Of course, lier Geoffrey preferred poverty to wealth that Nd she face poverty wit ne Why Was Door 4 ly ‘ ee Where wus the lusurg Walsh Lex money used te buy the dwarf shrubs with their pollution. Beneath the waters of the lake the corpses—women's corpses—were laid out in rows. Their thin hands shook the reeds. Their pale faces rose at night to the surface and stared at the moon. The autumn maples smeared the scene with infected blood; and the stone foxes in front of the shrine of Inari sneered and grinned at the devil world which their foul influence had called into being through the black witchcraft of lechery, avarice and disease. CHAPTER XXIV. The Autumn Festival. Yo no naka ni § Ushi no Kuruma no H Nakari-seba, Cmoi no tye wo Ikade ide-mashi? In this world If there were no Ox-cart (ic. Buddhist religion) How should we escape From the (burning) mansion of our thought? URING October, the whole family D of the Fujinami removed, from Tokio for a few days in order to perform their religious duties at the temple of Ikegami, Even grand- father Gennosuke emerged from his dower-house, bringing his wife, O Tsug!. Mr. Fujinami Gentaro was in charge of his own wife, Shidzuye San, of Sadako and of Asako, Only Fuji- nami Takeshi, the son and heir, with his wife Matsuko, was absent. And’ perity. The dead Fujinami, down from that great-great-grandfather who had first come to seek his fortune in ¥- lo, were buried at Ikegamf. Here the priests gave to each hotoke (Buddah or dead person) his new name, which was inscribed on small black tablets, the thai. One of these tablets for each dead person was kept in the household shrine at To- kio, and one in the temple at Ikegami. Asako was taken to the October festival, because her father was buried in the temple grounds—one small bone of him, that is to say an ikotsu_or legacy bone, posted home from Paris before the rest of his mor- tality found slien sepulture at Pere Lachaise. Masses were said for the dead; and Asako was introduced to the tablet. But she did not feel the same emotion as when she first visit ed the Fujinami house. Now, she had heard her father's authentic voice. she knew his scorn for pretentious- ness of all kinds, for false conven- tions, for false emotions, his hatred of priestcraft, his condemnation of the family wealth, and his contempt for the little respectabllities of Japan- ese life. +A temple in Japan is not merely a building; it is a site. These sites were most carefully chosen with the same genius which guided our Bene- dictines and Carthusians. ‘The site of Ikegam! is a long-abrupt hill, half- way between Tokio and Yokohama. It is clothed with cryptomeria trees, These dark conifers, like immense cypresses, give to the spot that grave, silent, irrevocable atmosphere, with which Boecklin has invested his pic- ture of the Island of the Dead These majestic trees are essentially a part of the temple, They corre- spond to the pillars of our Gothic cathedrals, The roof is the blue vault of heaven; and the actual buildings are but altars, chantries and monu- ments. A cteep flight of steps is suspended like a cascade from the crest of the hill. Up and down these steps the wootten clogs of the Japanese people patter incessantly like water drops At the top of the steps stands the towered gateway, painted with red ochre, which leads to the precincts. The guardians of the gate, Ni-O, the two gigantic Deva kings, who have passed from India into Japanese mythology, are encaged in the gate- way building. Their cage and their persons are littered with nasty mor- sels of chewed paper wherever their worshippers have literally spat their prayers at them. Within the enclosure are the va- rious temple buildings, the bell-tower, the library, the washing trough, the hall of votive offerings, the sacred bathhouse, the stone lanterns and the lodgings for the pilgrims; also the two main halls for the temple ser- vices, which are raised on low piles and are Unked together by a covered bridge, so that they look like twin arks of safety, floating just five feet above the troubles of this life. These buildings are most of them painted red, and there is fine carving on pan- els, friezes and pediments and also much tawdry gaudiness. Behind these two sanctuaries is the mortuary chapel where repose the memories of many of the greatest in the land. Be- hind this again are the priests’ dormi- tories, with a lovely hidden garden hanging on the slopes of a sudden ravine; its presiding genius is an old pine tree, beneath which Nichiren \imself, @ contemporary and counter- part of Saint Dominic, used to medi tate on his project for a Universal Church, founded on the life of Budd- ha and led by the apostolate of Japan, Wor the inside of a week the Puji- nami dwelt in one of « row of stalls, Uke loose-boxes, within the temp! precincts. The festival might have some affinity with the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, when the devout left their city dwellings to live in booths ouside the walls. Namu myoho renge kyo. (Adoration to the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Scriptures!) The famous formula of the priests df the Nichiren sect was belng re- peated over and over again to the accompaniment of drums; for in the sacred text itself les the only au- thentic Way of Salvation, With ex- emplary insistence Mr. Fujinamt Gennosuke was beating out the rhy- thm of the prayer with a wooden clapper on the mokugyo, a wooden drum, shaped like a fish's head. Namu myoho renge kyo. From every corner of the temple enclave the invocation was droning like a threshing machine, Asako's Catholic conscience, now awakening from the spell which Japan had cast upon it, became uneasy about its share in these pagan rites. In order to deceive the echo of the litany out of her ears, she tried to concentrate her attention upon watching the crowd. . Namu myho renge kyo. Around her was asdense multitude of pilgrims, in their hundreds of thousands, shuffling, chaffering and staring. Some, like the Fujinami, had hired temporary lodgings, and had cooks and servants in attendance Some were camping in the open Others were merely visiting the tem- ple for the inside of the day. The crowds kept on shifting and mingling like ants on an ant-hill Enjoyment, rather than piety, was ‘There had been some further trouble 41.¢ Deevailing spirits for thia was on in the family which had not been con- of the few annual holidays of the in- fided to Asako, but which necessitated dustrious Tokio artisan urgent steps for the propitiation of re- In the central buildi five feet lig ifluences. The Fujinami were above this noisy confluence of people, followers of the Nichiren sect of where the golden tmages of the Buddhism Their conspicuous ¢ o- Thuddhas are enthroned, the mitrod tion gifts to their priests with thelr copes of ,old- priests of the temple were held to be embroidered brown were performing causes vf their ever-increasing. spros4 Aha.rituals of thetr order, To right y and left of the high altar, the canons squatting at their red-lacquered praying-desks, were reciting the sutras in strophe and antisti Clouds of incense rose. In the adjoining building an ang young preacher was exhorting a Bregation of elderly and somnolent ladies to eschew the lusts of the flesh” and to renounce the world and its gauds, marking each point in his dis- course with raps of his fan. Foxy- faced satellites of the abbey were do- ing a roaring trade in charms against. various accidents, and in c scrolls printed with prayers or figu! bs) of Nichiren. 8 The temple-yard was an immense’ fancy fair. The temple pigeons wheeled disconsolately in the alr or perched upon the roofs, unable to find one square foot of the familiar flag- stones, where they were used to strut and peck. Stalls lined the stone path- ways and choked the spaces between the buildings. Merchants were ped- dling objects of plety, sacred images, charms and rosaries; and there wero flowers for the women's hair, and toys for the children, and cakes and bis- cults, biiru (beer) and ramune (lem- onade) and a distressing sickly drink called “champagne cider’ and all manner of vanities. In one corner of the square a theatre was in full swing, the actors making up in public on a balcony above the crowd, so as to whet their curiosity and attract their custom, Beyond was a cinemato~ graph, advertised by lurid paintings of murders and apparitions; and fa: on there was a circus with a z00 The crowd was astonishingly mix€@, There were prosperous merchants of Tokio with their wives, children, ser- vants and apprentices. There were students with their blue and white Spotted cloaks, their kepis with the school badge and their ungainly stride. There were modern young men in yofuku (European dress), with pana- ma hats, swagger canes and &i spring shoes, supercilious in attit and proud’ of thetr unbelief. Ther were troops of variegated children, dragging at their elders’ hands or ki- monos, or getting lost among the legs of the multitude like little leaves in an eddy. There were ex: sion parties from the country, with thelr kimonos caught up to the knees and witn baked earthen faces stupidly staring, sport- ing each a red flower or a colored towel for identification purposes. There were laborers in tight trousers and tabard jackets, inscribed with the name and profession of their employ- er. There geisha girls on thelr Lest behavior, in charge of a profes- sional auntie, and recognizable only by the smart cut of their cloaks and the deep space between the collar and were the ape of the neck, where the black chignon lay Close to the tomb of NICHTS stood a J anese Salvationist, a zeal ous pimply young man, wearing @ ved and blue uniform of Gen. Bor with kaiseigun (World-Saving in Ju letters round his cap. He stood in front of @ screen, on which the first verse of Onward, Christian Japanese Soldiers," was written in a translation, An assistant officiated at a wh harmonium The tune was vague akin to it Western prototyp nd the ty evangelists were trying to inducd tolerant but uninter join in the chorus verywhere beggars were crawlin over the compound in various states of filth, Some, however, were sv ghastly that they were excluded trom the temple inclosure. They had linert up among the trunks of the crypt meria trees, amonr the little gray tombs with their fading inscriptions and the moss-covered statues of kindly Buddhas, Asako gave a penny into the crooked hand of one poor sightles wretch, “Oh, no!" cried Cousin aa “do not go near to them. Do ny touch them. They are lepers,” Some of them had no arms, or ha mere stumps. Some had no legs, and were pulled along on little wheelefi trolleys by their legs by dilapiday)t companions in misfortune. Some h no features. Some had faces abnor mally bloated, with powerful fo heads and heavy jowls, which gat them an expression of stony immo- bility like Byzantine lions. All were fearfully dirty and covered with sores and lice. ‘The people passing by smiled their grim unsightliness, and threw ponies to them, for which scrambled and scratched like beasts, Namu myoho renge k at Asako's relatives spent the day M eating, drinking and gossiping to the rhythm of the Intermi It was a perfect autunin, which is the sweetest season in Ja- pan, A warm bright sun had heen saining on the sumptuois colors of the waning year, on the brilliant reds and yellows which clothed the neigt - toring hills, on the broad brown plain with {18 tesselated design of hare ce fields, on the brown villas hud d in their fe of evergreen like birds in their nests, on the red trunks of the crytomeria es, on the brown’ arpet of matted pine-needles, on the gray crumbling stones of the old graveyard, on the high-pitched tem. ple roofs, and on the inconsequentlal swarms of humanity drifting to their devotions, casting their pennies into the great alms-trough in front of the shrine, clanging the brass bell with ® prayer for good luck, and drift home «gain with their bewtldergg happy children ( (Continued To-morrow.)