ed to study law and become a public pleader in order to
defend the poor against unjust men of wealth. In his theological ideas
he was likewise extreme and changeable; swinging from positive and
most emphatic belief to extreme doubt, and later back again. In his
periods of triumphant faith it seemed to him that he could teach the
world; and his expositions of truth were extremely interesting. He
proposed to formulate a new theology that would dissolve forever the
difficulties of the old theology. In his doubts, too, he was no less
interesting and assertive. His hold on practical matters was
exceedingly slender. His salary, though considerably larger than that
of most of the evangelists, was never sufficient. He would spend
lavishly at the beginning of the month so long as he had the money,
and then would pinch himself or else fall into debt.

Mr. ----, the head of the Kumamoto Boys' School during the period of
its fierce struggles and final collapse, whom I have already referred
to as the Hero-Principal,[AS] is another example of this impractical
high-strung visionariness. No sooner had he reached Kumamoto, than
there opened before our enchanted eyes the vision of this little
insignificant school blooming out into a great university. True, there
had been some of this bombast before his arrival; but it took on new
and gorgeous form under his master hand. The airs that he put on,
displaying his (fraudulent) Ph.D., and talking about his schemes, are
simply amusing to contemplate from this distance. His studies in the
philosophy of religion had so clarified his mind that he was going to
reform both Christianity and Buddhism. His sermons of florid eloquence
and vociferous power, never less than an hour in length, were as
marked in ambitious thoughts as in pulpit mannerisms. He threw a spell
over all who came in contact with him. He overawed them by his
vehemence and tremendous earnestness and insistence on perfect
obedience to his masterful will. In one of his climactic sermons,
after charging missionaries with teaching dangerous errors, he said
that while some were urging that the need of the times was to "his
back to Luther," and others were saying, that we must "his back to
Christ" (these English words being brought into his Japanese sermon),
they were both wrong; we must "hie back to God"; and he prophesied a
reformation in religion, beginning there in Kumamoto, in that school,
which would be far and away more important i