How I Became a Christian: Out of My Diary

It was well said by a Chinese sage tliat "he who stays in a mountain knows not the mountain." The fact is, distance lends not only enchantment to a view, but comprehensiveness as well. A mountain in its true proportion can be viewed only from a distance.

So with one's own country. As long as he lives in it, he really knows it not. That he may understand its true situation as a part of the great whole, its goodness and badness, its strength and weakness, he must stand away from it. Who is more ignorant of the city of New York than some of its domiciled denizens, to whom the Central Park is the only ''wild" in the universe, and the City Museum the hole through which they can peep into the wide world! The English aristocrats are famous for their ignorance about their own Island Empire, which makes their expensive travels around the world almost a necessity to make them anything near sensible subjects of her Britannic Majesty. So oftentimes, missionaries sent out to convert heathens come home converted themselves, not indeed from their Christianity, but from much, very much, of views they used to hold about themselves, Christendom, the "election" of Christians, the damnation of heathens, etc., etc. "Send your darling son to travel," is a saying common among my countrymen. Nothing disenchants a man so much as traveling.

Mj views about my native land were extremely one-sided while I stayed in it. While yet a heathen, my country was to me the centre of the universe, the envy of the world. ^'The soil gives the five grains* in luxurious abundance; its climate the equablest in the world; its scenery the richest, its seas and lakes like the eyes of a maiden, and its pine-clad hills her crescent-shaped eyebrows; the land itself overcharged with spirit, the very abode of gods, the fountain of light." Such, I say, I thought my country to be, while I was yet a heathen. But how opposite when I was ^'converted!" I was told of "happy lands far, far aw^ay;" of America, with four hundred colleges and universities; of England, the Puritan's home; of Germany, Luther's Fatherland; of Switzerland, Zwingli's pride; of Knox's Scotland and Adolphus' Sweden. Soon an idea caught my mind that my country was really '^good-for-nothing." It w^as a heathen land which required missionaries from other countries to make it good. God of Heaven had never thought mucli about it; He left it so many years wholly in the hand of devils. Speaking of any of its moral or social defects, we were constantly told that it was no so in America or Europe. Whether it could ever be a Massachusetts or an England, I sincerely doubted. I did truly believe that the world would not be any worse even if my country were wiped out of existence. "Is there such a thing as tax-paying in Japan?" a girl in a mission school was heard to have asked her teacher. Poor, innocent soul, she imagined her own people to be in such a degradation that extortion or some other heathen method of "sipping the people's blood" was still resorted to in her land, and equity and right the things peculiar to her adored America. '^Denationalizing influences of missionaries" are not phenomena wholly unknown in mission-fields.

But looking at a distance from the land of my exile, my country ceased to me a ''good-for-nothing." It began to appear superbly beautiful,— not the grotesque beauty of my heathen days, but the harmonic beauty of true proportions, occupying a definite space in the universe with its own historic individualities. Its existence as a nation was decreed by Heaven Itself, and its mission to the world and human race was, and is being, distinctly announced. It was seen to be a sacred reality, with purpose high and ambition noble, ^be for the world and mankind. Thrice thankful was I that such a glorious view of my country was vouchsafed to my vision.

This is not the only salubrious result of foreign travel, however. Under no other circumstances are we driven more into ourselves than when we live in a strange land. Paradoxical though it may seem, we go into the world that we may learn more about ourselves. Self is revealed to us nowhere more clearly than where we come in contact with other peoples and other countries. Introspection begins when another w^orld is presented to our view.

Several things conspire to bring about this result. First and most evident of all, loneliness is unavoidable to any sojourner in a strange land. With the best of friendship he may form in it, and the freest use of its language, he is still a stranger. A conversation, which otherwise might have been enjoyable and exhilarating, is made burdensome by an extra mental energy required in conjugating verbs for right tenses and moods, in giving singular predicates to singular nouns, (things unknown in my language), and in selecting right prepositions out of scores that differ but slightly from one another. Invitations to friendly dinners are deprived of much of the anticipated pleasures on account of extra attentions necessary for conducting prehensions, mastications, and deglutitions in accordance with the fixed table-laws. We would greatly prefer, therefore, to be alone, and help ourselves in our own styles, undisturbed by the staring looks of some ladies watching our savage demeanors with their keen, critical eyes. Loneliness becomes doubly sweet to us under such circumstances. Monologues and introspections are daily feasted upon, and the objective and the subjective selfs are in constant communion with each other.

Secondly, one is more than an individual when he steps out of his country. He carries in himself his nation and his race. His words and actions are judged not simply as his, but as his race's and his nation's as well. Thus in a sense, every sojourner in a strange land is a minister plenipotentiary of his country. He represents his land and his people. The w^orld reads his nation through him. We know^ that nothing steadies a man so much as the sense of high responsibility. And w^hen I know that my country is condemned or applauded as I behave myself meanly or nobly, then flippancies, flirtings, and levities of all sorts depart from me at once. I become as grave as an ambassador to the sublime court of St. James. Hence reflection, consideration, and judgment. He who behaves otherwise is not worthy of his nation, I believe.

Thirdly, we all know^ what homesickness is. It is Nature's recoil upon one's uncongenial sur- roundings. Those familiar faces and hills and fields, which we now miss, but cannot erase from our mental vision, seek for dominancy in our souls; and in our very efforts to conform ourselves to the new environments, the home with its jealous love binds us more to its sweet recollections. Then comes Melancholy to dissolve the aching heart to tears, and drives us into dells and woods to engage in musings and fitful prayers. Our eyes follow the sun as he rolls down into the western main, and bid him to tell our dear ones at home as they behold him in his rising glory, that we are well here and think of them. Thus in spirits' land we dwell. Swallows come and go, men sell and gain or lose, but to the exiled from home monotony runs throughout the year, — communion with himself, with God, and with spirits. It must have been with some such providential purposes that Moses was driven to the land of the Midianites before he came forth as a deliverer of his people. Elijah's ''flight to Beer-sheba" has ever been a fact ot infinite consolation to one who in a strange land strives to seek God in the loneliness of his soul.

"Sit on the desert stone Like Elijah at Horeb's cave alone; And a gentle voice comes through the wild, Like a father consoling his fretful child. That banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear. Saying 'Man is distant, but God is near.' "

St. Paul's "Arabia" has always been construed in such a sense, for nothing could be more natural than that the Apostle to the Gentiles should have his term of internal discipline, that he might grasp the Son "at the first hand," and come forth and announce to the world and say: — "I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preaclied of me is not after man. For I neitlier received it of man, neitlier was I taught it, but bj the revehition of Jesus Christ."

Soon after my arrival in America, I was '^picked up" bv a Pennsylvania doctor, himself a philanthropist of the most practical type. After probing a little into my inner nature, he agreed to take me into his custody, and placed me among his ''attendants" with a prospect that I might taste all the ways up from the very lowest of practical charity. The change was quite a sudden one for me from an officer in an Imperial Government to an attendant in an asylum for idiots; but I did not feel it, as the Carpenter-Son of Nazareth taught me now an entirely new view of life.

Let me here note that I entered a hospital service with somewhat the same aim as that which drove Martin Luther into his Erfurth convent. I took this step, not because I thought the world needed my service in that line, much less did I seek it as an occupation (poor though I was), but because I thought it to be the only refuge from ''the wrath to come," there to put my flesh in subjection, and to so discipline myself as to reach the state of inward purity, and thus inherit the kingdom of heaven. At the bottom, therefore, I was egoistic, and I was to learn through many a painful experience that egoism in whatever form it appears is of devils, and is sin. In my efforts to conform myself to the requirements of Philanthropy, which are perfect self-sacrifice and total self-forgetfulness, my innate selfishness was revealed to me in all its fearful enormities; and overpowered with the darkness I descried in myself, I sunk, and writhed in unspeakable agonies. Hence the dreary records of this part of my existence. The present-day reader, more accustomed to the sunny side of human existence, may not be disposed to take them in with any degree of seriousness; but to the suiferer himself, they are the accounts of veritable Actualities out of which came the long-sought Peace, and all the blessed fruits resulting therefrom.

But aside from my internal struggles, my life in the Hospital was very far from being unpleasant. The Superintendent was a man who took genuine interest in my welfare, and looked after me with real affections, second only to those he lavished upon his own children. He believed in the right state of body for right morals and conducts; so naturally his solicitude toward me was more about my stomach than about my soul. Those who knew him not took him for a rabid materialist, especially when they heard him talk about his favorite subject, ''Moral Imbecility," meaning by that constitutional depravity caused by parental mistakes and vile environments. But a materialist and atheist he was not. He had a firm trust in Providence, as shown in his constant references to it as the Hand that guided him through all his life. He even attributed my coming under his care to Something more than mere chance, and cared and w^atched over me accordingly. His Biblical knowledge was extensive, and though not strictly "Orthodox" in his religious professions, he abhored the heartless intellectualism, and would often pronounce Unitarianism as "the narrowest and driest of sects," and this, notwithstanding his wife w^as a charming Unitarian woman, and a large part of his employes were recruited from Massachusetts. He indeed sometimes "roared like a devil," as my Irish colleagues used to tell me, at which the whole house trembled, and everybody tried to stand at a safe distance from him; but withal he had a heart en- compassing the whole of his large heterogeneous family, a maimed little Johnny and a mute little Sophie being equally at ease with him as our able and strong matron, who would often keep him at bay, and bid him to keep his mouth shut. The Doctor's musical skill was considerable, and many a time after the family was dismissed, he sung to the piano played by our music teacher; and many a time in my internal agonies, my soul was stilled by his tremulous voice as he threw his whole feryor into his favorite piece,

"Slowly by God's hand unfurled, Dowm around the w^eary world, Falls the darkness; Oh! how still Is the w^orking of His will."

But it was neither his religion nor his music that made me his admirer and faithful learner. It was his systematic thought steadily carried into practice, his well-directed will which gradually subdued rocky Pennsylvania hills, and made out of them a flourishing colony for the most unfortunate of mankind; his administrative skill which could rule and guide and keep in subjection some seven hundred demented souls; his large ambition extending to dim future, which it will take his lifetime, and his sons' lifetime to realize,— all these made him a w^onder and a study to me, such that I never have seen either in my homeland or anywhere else. If he helped me not in unriddling the tough religious doubts with which I w^as then afflicted, he taught me how to make the most out of my life. and religion; that Philanthropy with whatever high and delicate sentiment it might be backed, is of but little practical use in this practical world, unless it has a clear head and an iron will to make it a blessing to the suffering humanity. No courses in "Practical Theology-' could have taught me this invaluable lesson so well and so impressively as the living example of this practical man. He it was who rescued me from degenerating into that morbid religiosity (if I may so call it) wherein those so afflicted

"Sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched,

Nursing in some delicious solitude, Their daint loves and slothful sympathies."

The Doctor remained to the last hour the most trusted of my friends; and with all the differences in age, race, nationality and temperament, the love I contracted toward him has proved to be the most enduring. Oft in my Xew England college days, when others of my good friends were solicitous about my heart and head, he remembered my stomach, and would often send me some substantial helps, bidding me to fetch good square meals and be cheerful. And even after my return home, when my out-of-routine ways of action put m\ mental and spiritual sanity in question with many who belonged to the same household of Faith with me, it was he who never doubted my Veracity as well as Orthodoxy, and sent me succor and cheer from beyond the ocean. Indeed it was he who humanized me. My Christianity would have been a cold and rigid and unpractical thing had I only books and colleges and seminaries to teach me in it. In how manifold a way the Great Spirit does mould us!

Mrs. Superintendent was a Unitarian. In all my readings in Christian literature at home, I conceived anything but favorable opinions about

Unitarianism. I thought it worse than heathenism, and more dangerous because of its seeming affinity to Christianity. I confess, at first I looked upon her with strong suspicions. I imagined she was all brain and no heart, insensible to all that was tender and divinely womanly in the life of the Great Master. And I did not conceal my repugnance of the Unitarian doctrines from before my good hostess, — a rude barbarian as I was. But lo! she proved her possession of heart, a good tender womanly heart, by her tcw^ in accordance with her own Unitarian principles. My Orthodoxy was no obstacle to her in befriending me. She with the Doctor succored me frequently, and more than he, with her womanly instinct, she ^'snitfed out" my peculiar pains and comforted me accordingly. Oitduringherlastillness she remembered me in the tenderest terms; and only a few days before she joined Dorothea Dix and other Unitarian saintesses the one who ^'incorrigibly" supported the Puritanic doctrines was not forgotten; and as her last mission-work for the heathen, she sent me from beyond the seas a Christmas gift of most substantial shape to help me forward in the work which she knew was not Unitarian. I believe an Orthodoxy that cannot be reconciled with such aUnitarianism is not worthy to be called Orthodox or Straight-Doctrined. The true liberality, as I take it, is allowance and forbearance of all honest beliefs with an unflinching conviction in one's own faith. Belief in myself that I can know some Truth, and disbelief in myself that I can know all Truths, are the foundations of the true Christian liberality, the sources of all goodwills and peaceful dealings with all mankind. Of course I was not converted to these healthy views in a day, but that our worthy Mrs. Superintendent was largely instrumental in ^bringing me up to this ideal, I liave no doubt wliatever.

Another inspiring object in the Hospital was its matron! No man I know of was firmer than she; yet she was a. woman! She scoured through the spacious building from one end to the other, casting her observant eyes on this boy and that girl; and woe to a careless attendant who put Johnny's stockings to Georgie's feet, or Sarah's bonnet upon Susie's head. That woman ca7i rule as well as man was demonstrated to me by this worthy lady heyond any question of doubt. She certainly is a product of Christian America, to whom heathendom with all the grace and virtue of its womanhood cannot bring forth any equal.

One more lovable soul to whom I became firmly attached during my hospital days I must not fail to mention, as one who smoothed away much of my angular Christianity. He was from the state of Delaware, was decidedly a Southerner in sympathy, a skilled young physician, an Episcopalian in his religious professon, agile and dexterous, could make an excellent actor, could write poetry, an admirer of the Stuart kings, good, kind, and a most sympathetic friend. In his presence, disappeared all at once my prejudice against the Rebel- South, engendered in my bosom by my New England sympathies and acquaintances. My Puritanic faith and Cromwellian admiration were no obstacles to admit him to my confidence and love. He once took me to his Delaware home, that he might show me real ladies, at all comparable to those whom I described to him as my ideals. He said that such did really exist in America, but not in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts. He hired a hackney coach, and took me round first to the Governor's house, and then to the ex-Governor's, and so on; and as often as we came out of the presence of a beauty to whom we paid our homage, he asked me ^'How is that?" Upon telling him that she was not yet up to my ideal, he tried another, and then still another, doing his utmost to wrest the words of approbation from me, as the old knight did from his contestant for his i(Jol. But I remained true to myself, and disappointed him at last. ''What do you want then in Delaware?" he said to me finally in bewilderment. It was the peach season, and I studied in Geography while at home about the superlative quality of Delaware peaches. I therefore asked for some of the best of them in the state. Such he speedily and gladly ordered, and I had all I wanted and was perfectly satisfied.— This was he who revealed to me the half of America from which my Yankee sympatliies had kept me in ignorance. Generous, sympathetic, true, unsuspicious, — why the whole of American Christianity does not go by dollars and cents, with Jonathan Edwards and Theodore Parker. There is such a thing as chivalric Christianity, a thing very much to my national heart. I took up somewhat of 'the spirit of my Southern friend, committed to memory many passages from the Book of Common Prayer which he presented me with, and began to take delight in attending the Episcopal services. Led by God's Spirit, breadth does never contradict one's growing con- 'viction in his own faith; and I am ever thankful that I befriended half of Christendom througii my Delaware friend, without weakening in the least my unbounded admiration for Oliver Cromwell, and my attachments to those precious truths contained in the Puritanic form of Christianity. The limited space only forbids me to make mention of other good friends and sweet influences, wlio and wliicti acted upon me during my stay in the Hospital. Even from the Irish soil, and that not from among its gentries, came inspirations and widening of my mental and spiritual horizons. One strong man I particularly remember, who had a worshipful admiration for Gladstone, and who, when I told him of my envy for his owning such a mighty sovereign as Queen Victoria, signified his strong dissent with a stamping and a remark: ''I would rather be ruled by the king of Abyssinia than be a subject of that d — able woman." And yet what a goodness of heart, and piety too, in these misrepresented sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle.

With these descriptions of my surroundings I may be allowed to give some more of my diaries.

Jan. 1, 1885.— Cold. Last night felt much about ^justification by faith! Was on duty during night. The first time I took up the work of caring the sick. I thanked God that He opened a way for me.

The first day as an attendant in an asylum. The long-cherished line of labor, hallowed by the names of John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and innumerable other saints and saintesses, was now opened to me. Indeed, I felt I became a saint myself. But already from the very beginning of this my attempt to justify myself by ''the works of the law," a voice said deep down in my bosom, "a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law."

Jan. 6.— Read the Book of Job; much consoled.

Again with the help of the venerable Albert Barnes. The two volumes of his Commentaries were hurried through without a stop. That the final outcome of all evils is good, w^as now indelibly impressed upon mv mind. Ever since I seldom have missed this view of life, even amidst the darkest of clouds.

Jan. 11, Sunday. — Was on duty all the day through. Read Havergal; much taught in spiritual things.

Jan. 25, Sunday. — This life is a school where we are taught how to enter the heaven. The greatest achievement of this life, therefore, is to learn "the precious and eternal lessons."

New lessons are being taught by ministering angels, Francis Havergal the most conspicuous among them. Till then this earthly life was all in all to me, even under the Christian dispensation. The new faith was accepted more for utilitarian purposes, such as happy homes, free governments, etc., than for its intrinsic spiritual w^orth. ''To make my country as strong as Europe or America," was the prime aim of my life, and I welcomed Christianity, as I thought it a great engine for carrying out this design. And O how many do still accept it for its socio-political reasons! But now the love of country w^as to be sacrificed for the love of heaven, that the former might be restored to me in its truest and highest significance.

Feb. 2. — The idea of my sonship to God; greatly encouraged.

Feb. 11.— Bead Phillips Brooks on "Influence of Jesus," and greatly encouraged.

A grand discovery that I am 'Grod's son and not his brother or equal. Why strive to compete with him in strength and purity, that I be received upon ''equal footings" by Him? Presumptuous little god of the world! know thyself, and things will go well with thee.

And Phillips Brooks! what struggling souls did he strengthen and support? What a depth under his surplice, and what a broadness behind his Prayer-Book! As I pored over his book, I thought he knew personally all my ills for which he had specifics to offer. A wayfarer takes in a breath after a draught of his elixir, and for a week or two, he marches on with songs upon his lips, the earth with all its 'bristles and mountains and valleys leveled and smoo-thed before him.

Feb. 14. — As far as I know is my own knowledge and truth. The w^orld may have different opinions, but they are not mine; hence I am not responsible for them. Let me care for w^hat I know, and for no more.

The extent and limit of my knowledge was to be defined that I might armor myself against the multitudinous opinions which were now forced upon me for acceptance. America is a land of sects, where each tries to augment its numbers at the expense of others. Already such strange isms as Unitarianism, Swedenborgism, Quakerism, etc., to say nothing of others with which I was already familiar, were being tried upon me. The poor heathen convert is at loss which to make his own; so I made up my mind to accept none of them. What mortals under heaven can make a '^right choice" out of dozens and scores of denominations, each having its own merits and demerits? Why torment a poor convert with the etymology of panrieu and persuade him to be "dipped,'' when authorities equally as great and pious maintain that even sprinkling is not necessary for his eternal salvation. Be merciful to the poor convert, ye ''Christians at home.''

Feb. 18. — Much doubting; not a little troubled. My heart must be fixed upon God. Men's opinions are various, but God's Truth must be one. Unless taught by God Himself, the true knowledge cannot be obtained.

Horrid struggles with the "selections" of Truth. Is Jesus a God or a man? If I believe He is a man, shall I not be condemned in eternal hell-fire? Yet they say that Emerson, Garrison, Lowell, Martineau, and other great and brave and learned men said that He was a man. My belief in the divinity of Christ was then as foolish and groundless as the superstitious idolatary I had left behind with so much sacrifice. While my struggle upon this point is yet unsettled, another set of divines comes to me, and kinidly cautions me not to be deceived by Protestant devils, and favors me with a copy of Cardinal Gibbons' "Faith of Our Fathers," to peruse it with all prayerful diligence. And as soon as my attention is seriously turned toward the solution of this momentous problem, the agnostic in the name of Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer, admonishes me to give up the futile question, and to rest in the visible and the tangible. Then souls in all outward appearances as pious as Madame Guiy on herself, tells me that //^^f/r prophet

Swedenborg saw heaven with his own eyes, and testified with all his mighty intellect that all what he said and wrote was absolutely true. But says great physiologist Dr. Flint, that Swedenborg was a genuine lunatic. Woe is a conscientious heathen convert in the midst of all these controversies. His mind is hurled from one end of the intellectual universe to the other, with no position safe from some attacks of most ponderous nature. Once more I thought of peace and serenity in my grandma's '^heathen" faith. Say not, O ye sect-bound Christians, ^'Better one year of Europe than a cycle of Cathay;" for you promised us a peace which you really do not have. If dissensions and religious animosities are the things to be desired, we had them enough in ^'Cathay" without entangling ourselves in fresh dissensions of your make and origin. I rememiber I once went to a missionary and asked him the raison d'etre, if there was one, of sects among Christians. He told me that in his view the existence of sects was a real blessing, as it engendered "emulation" among different denominations, and thus brought about more purity in churches, and rapider growth of God's kingdom. When, how^ever, a few months after this, we started up a new church of our own, contrived in a fashion not very palatable to his taste, the very same missionary sharply reprimanded our audacity, by telling us that we must not add one more new sect to hundreds which were already disgracing the cause of Christianity. But we never have been able to comprehend his logic. If the existence of sects is "a real blessing," why not increase the number of sects, and get more benefit out of them I But if it is a curse, as we poor converts imagine it to be, why not attempt to annihilate it, and make Methodism,

Presbyterianism, Conjjre^ationalism, Quakerism, aud all otlier harmless an'd harmful isms into one great united whole. Crank-headed as we are, we never can unriddle the paradoxical statement of our missionary friend.

March 8. — Feeling the importance of sanctification more and more. The "Ideal Purity" lies before my eje^, but I cannot enter that state. A wretched being that I am!

March 22. — Man is too finite a creature to be able to rest upon, and occupy, the whole of the Infinite Foundation of Wisdom. The only thing he can do is to lodge himself in a little corner of this Foundation. As soon as he gets to even this corner, he can be calm and quiet, — so strong is the Rock. This explains the existence of different sects, and the success of every one of them.

A more humane and rational explanation of "sects." I believe Phillips Brooks helped me out to this.

April 5, Easter Sunday. — Beautiful day. Spirit was poured out, and for the first time in my life, had a glimpse of Heaven and Immortality! O the joy inestimable! A moment of such holy joy is worth years of all the joys which the world can give. My spiritual blindness was felt more and more, and I prayed earnestly for light.

A day of Resurrection indeed! After months of continual gloom and wrestlings with Spirit, this revelation and respite were welcome to me beyond my powers of description. I remember I tasted the painted eggs placed before me with a relish more than lingual. In them, (i. e. when they were fresh, and not after they were boiled and hardened and painte'd,) I read a sermon illustrasting the then state of my soul. All my stock of embryological knowledge was now brought before my mind for spiritualization, and I pondered in what stage of soul-development I then was, — whether it was in the "cleavage stage," or in the "mulberry stage," or so far advanced as to be near the "chick stage." Soon the shell shall be broken, and I shall mount high on my wings to my Savior and Perfection. O for more light!

April 6. — More zest and fervor in teaching the idiotic children.

The day before this, I came in contact with one of the most remarkable men I ever have seen in my life-time. The same was the late James B. Richards, of world-wide renown as an indefatigable teacher of idiotic children. I heard from his very lips some of his early pedagogic experiences, demonstrating to us the practical possibility of "showing the Father" even to the lowest of His children. The impression I received was electric, and its effect, permanent. Since then Philanthropy and Education ceased to be the works of mere Pity and Utility. Both were seen to have high religious purposes, — dispencers of God, the only Good. My attendantship in the asylum was now glorified to a holy and sacred office, and Duty dropped all the slavish elements it had in it.

Him, Richards, Unitarian in his church-relationship, I count among the best missionaries that have been sent to me. His personality, his depth of sympathy, saying nothing of his extraordinary genius as a teacher, smoothed away much of my Trinitarian prejudices I was bred up to in my Orthodox relationship and reading.

April 8. — The highest conception of human capabilities may be the origin of Unitarianism in its purest and highest form. Man, however, cannot attain his highest possible moral altitude by his own efforts; so he drags down Christ to suit his weak intellect. "^^ Conception of God is perfectly clear till we come to Christ. Here all stumble. I often think how clear a view must I have w^ith regard to my God had there been no Christ.

Christ a stumbiingblock, not only to the heathen Greeks of old, but to the heathen Japanese, Chinese, and all other heathens of this very day. The Unitarian explanation of him is too simple for the mystic Oriental, but the Trinitarian "theory" is no less unbelievable. Who shall roll away the &tone for me?