en women, and it is
from these that arises the inferiority of women to men."

{53}

[Illustration: THE GREAT BUDDHA (DIABUTSU) AT KAMAKURA.]
This gigantic figure of Buddha (a man's head would barely reach the
statue's feet) singularly expresses the spirit of serene
contemplation for which the Buddhist religion stands; is indeed,
hauntingly suggestive of that dreamy Nirvana which it teaches is the
goal of existence. There is perhaps no finer piece of statuary in
the East than this.

{54}

[Illustration: THE DEGENERATE KOREANS AT REST AND AT WORK.]
The favorite occupation is smoking, but in the lower picture three
men together are managing to operate one spade. One man rams it into
the ground, and the other two (by means of ropes attached) jerk out
the shovelful of earth!

{52 continued}

The wife of the missionary I visited in Osaka told me one or two
amusing incidents--amusing in one aspect and pathetic in another--that
are of interest in this connection. A Japanese member of her church
declared: No, no, Mrs. {55} "Hail, you can't ever make me believe that
my wife is as good as I am!" On another occasion she was teaching a
Sunday-school class concerning the woman of Samaria, and asked: "Why
did Jesus ask the woman to call her husband?" And the Japanese answer
was: "Because he was going to talk on intellectual things and she
needed some man to help her understand!"

Dr. Sidney Gulick, with whom I had tea in Kyoto, tells of tying his
wife's shoes on the street, on one occasion, only to find the Japanese
amazed that a man should so humble himself. His wife's taking his arm
in walking was also regarded as the height of impropriety!

No religion of the Far East has ever recognized the dignity of woman,
probably because no religion has ever recognized the worth of the
individual. Just as I have said, that in the old days, and almost as
largely to-day, in the relations of the home, it was the family that
counted and not the individual, so in his relations to the larger
world beyond the individual formerly counted for nothing when weighed
against the wishes of the superior classes. In the earliest days, when
the lord died, a number of his subjects were buried with him to wait
upon his spirit in the Beyond. Later, with the same object in view,
wives and servants committed suicide on the death of the master. Even
now it is regarded as honorable for a girl to sell herself into shame
to sav