us may well serve to suggest the consideration:--Might not
more of that large and possibly increasing number of unmarried clergy in
England be drawn to take part in a work of such fascinating interest--"_a
work_," if I may once more quote the words of our Bishop in Japan, "_that
must be done at once if it is to be done at all_."

Another point that can scarcely fail to strike us as we examine Mr.
Loomis' statistics, is the large number of "dismissals and exclusions"
made by those bodies which supply information under this head, and
amounting in some cases to several hundreds in a year. That such measures
are not resorted to without grave reason may be assumed, and that some
exercise of discipline is especially necessary in dealing with a young and
nascent church admits of no dispute. There is indeed every reason to hope
that by far the greater number of converts are actuated by an intense
sincerity, and evidence of this is afforded in the self-sacrifice to which
they, in many ways, readily submit for the Faith they have embraced. But,
at the same time, it is probable that the numbers in question indicate an
even larger proportion of "failures," than is the case with mission work
generally; and that they point not only to losses through "back-sliding,"
but to many instances of insincerity on the part of those professing
conversion. It has been remarked that it does not belong to the Japanese
temperament to "take things _au grand serieux_;" and this characteristic
extends to matters of religion. The young fellow, for instance, who, for
some reason or another, thinks it "worth his while" to conform to
Christianity for a time, will have the very smallest scruples about doing
so; and that, with a semblance of earnestness that will baffle, at any
rate for some time, the careful scrutiny to which candidates are rightly
subjected by most, if not all, of the missionary bodies. The missionaries,
I fear, are often imposed on; and yet--anything, surely, is better than
being over suspicious and severe. After all, what we want to do is to show
these different nations to whom we go, that Christ and His Church, and we,
His members, do really care for them, alike in things temporal and
eternal. Our Faith, to be really preached, needs to be boldly, hopefully
practised. And especially in Japan, where the only idea that such a phrase
as "eternal life" would commonly suggest is that of a series of painful
and endless transmigrations, must Ch