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AST year East Church people awoke to find an indebtedness of, as it seemed to them, colossal proportions hanging over them.

The embarrassment was increased by the fact that some of the leading and best paying members had also lost largely. Our poor church was mortgaged for more than its full value, and it seemed almost hopeless for this little band of poor Christians to keep it and be able to pay church expenses and interest on the mortgage to say nothing of ever being able to pay off the mortgage itself. But finally with the help of our other Osaka churches, missionaries, and the members themselves, they were able to pay off the smaller mortgage. This left an indebtedness of thirty-six hundred yen. ($1,800). Upon this they have had to pay all year thirty yen a month interest ($15).

Last fall under the inspiration of a Stephen Bible Club picnic to Ashiya mountain and seashore a few of the boys decided they wanted to do something to help pay off the indebtedness of our church. They said they did not want the American Church and American missionaries to have to pay their church debt. (At present the pastor's salary is practically paid by mission and missionary funds, the people themselves raising about sixty yen a month which goes for the interest and other church expenses.)

We finally decided to give a concert. Through this concert Stephen Bible Class was able to pay toward the church debt the sum of two hundred yen. Besides this they gave ten yen more collected from the members. Thus, recently, through these amounts and other sums donated by the Ladies' Work Society of the church, missionaries and men of the church, six hundred yen more of the indebtedness has been wiped out. The Stephen Bible Class usually has a social once a month and I give them an "At Home" evening twice a month.

Last Saturday, as last year, I planned to entertain the club at supper, only this year it was to be a garden party on Mrs. A. D. Hail's lawn instead. But the fates were against us. By evening a steady rain had

set in. The garden party became a house party. The weather was damp. Did it dampen our spirits? No. Everyone seemed thoroughly in the mood to enjoy anything. We sang the blessing standing, then, just as we were about to begin eating a photographer took a flash-light of us. This was interesting as some of the boys had never been taken by flash-light before and the shock is always amusing.

After a good meal the tables were cleared for games. By means of ping pong, crokinole, various kinds of hand games, etc., a very pleasant evening was spent with several more flash-lights to increase the fun. Finally the meeting adjourned with a verse of "Stand up for Jesus" and prayer. This is a sample of the social life of our club and it pays.

The boys see another side to Christianity which is very attractive to them and especially to those of a social disposition, who really want to keep themselves pure from the vices of the only other social life that they know about, that is, a social life in which sake (wine) drinking, Geisha girls and theatre of a bad kind figure pre-eminently. When the boys come and spend an evening playing innocent games, singing, laughing and talking together, and enjoying refreshments of no more dangerous character than cake and tea or coffee, they find that Christianity is not just a dry, meaningless religion, but that it is full of life, good cheer, and good fellowship.

Stephen Bible Class is a fair example of Christian Brotherhood. Several months ago one of the young men of Stephen Bible Class decided to become a preacher. He has always been one of the most earnest workers in our club and at that time was president. When Mr. Y. told of his intentions all the boys took a friendly interest in his plans and often prayed for him. When the time came for his departure they first held a farewell meeting for him. I wish I could make you feel something of the spirit of that meeting. There seemed only joy on the surface but I know the boys pretty well and I felt the undercurrent of affectionate sorrow

which they were trying to hide. Several times during the evening Mr. Y. came to me with tears in his eyes and said that he would not forget that meeting or our club as long as he lived and that wherever he went he hoped to be able to pass on the spirit of Stephen Bible Class.

The boys had collected enough money to buy a nice leather pocket book and to put inside seven yen. This they entrusted to me to give Mr. Y. with Dr. Hail's and my own gift. When the train pulled in they entered the car and found him a place and helped him with his belongings.

Then I stepped up to the window and presented our gifts. After farewell words with all had been spoken, and much shaking of hands we all stepped back and formed a semi-circle about the window. Then the boys began to cheer and sing, finally closing with "God be with you." Suddenly as if by one common impulse they moved nearer and taking off their hats, bowed their heads while one of them prayed for Mr. Y.

I think I shall never forget the sight as long as I live. The Holy Spirit seems working in our midst, and I hope that others will soon be led to give their hearts to God.

The Theological Department of the Meiji Gakuin, Tokyo, had an unusually good year. The total enrollment was twenty-eight and of these thirteen graduated in June. One of these is to go to America for further study, two remain with us for post-graduate work and the other ten have already gone to their

respective fields of labor, being scattered from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south, and one is a pastor to a Japanese church in Manchuria,

It is a pleasure to feel the wide extent of the school's influence through its graduates.

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F one were to criticize the Church in Japan today we should have to comment on the woful lack of interest taken in the social welfare of the nation at large. There are illustrious exceptions to this statement, such as the work of Mr. Ando Taro in the temperance movement and the work of Mr. Tomioka and others for discharged prisoners but these are individuals engaged in great works and only indirectly do they represent the church. The church in Japan today is still a preaching church only. The church is well organized and maintains regular Sunday preaching services, the weekly and the cottage prayer meeting.

Outside of the great social work carried on by the Salvation Army there is little aggressive social welfare work being done by the church as a church. There is an abundance of talk concerning church union but there is no apparent desire for united charities. If the church in Japan is to accomplish its work successfully there will have to be, not a lessening of the present preaching and kindred work, but a positive effort toward social welfare of the people. Here is a great field right at hand and great consecration will be needed to make the church take up the work. Though the emperor gave one million and a half of yen toward the relief of the poor, the wealthy men of the land did absolutely nothing until the thumb screws were applied and they were constrained to make large donations which will carry out the emperor's desire.

For several months I have been engaged in work in a poor hospital in our city. In every province in Japan there are hospitals called "Travelers' Hospitals" which are maintained by the province for the sake of strangers, who becoming sick and having no relatives at hand, need medical help. The person is received into the hospital after his case has been investigated by the police, and then his home province is notified of the fact. The home province must pay the hospital treating the patient until the man is released. The hospital is allowed thirty sen a day for each sick man, woman and child but no nurse or resident physician is in attendance. Every

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three days a doctor from the city hospital visits the Travelers' Hospital to prescribe medicine and to examine the patients. The system would not be so bad if the treatment of the patients was not given over to a contractor, who must make his margin of profit from the poor who are down and almost out. One of the patients late in December last was cold and wanted something to keep him He knew that his cry would pass unheeded unless he turned to a foreigner of whom he had heard. He sent a letter to my colleague, Mr. Pierson, who bought him a good warm flannel shirt. When Mr. Pierson came to Sapporo we took the shirt out to the man who was suffering from a bad attack of beri beri, a very prevalent disease among rice eating people. From that day I have had regular meetings among the patients. Located in a wind swept plain on the western extremity of the city this Travelers' Hospital, which was formerly a pest house, receives patients suffering from all kinds of diseases. Here are the blind, not only blind but sick, others whose feet and hands have rotted because gangrene set in when frozen feet and hands were not properly treated; others have beri beri and stomach trouble. Lepers also are received because the Government hospital for lepers is too full to receive new patients. There was also one man with a broken back who was in the hospital for six months. He died about a month ago. Picture these people huddled together with no one to minister to their wants and you have a sample of the way the poor hospitals are conducted.

From the very first the patients were glad to sing the Christian hymns and to have me talk to them. The man in charge asked me to preach to the patients, that is, to the four or five that manifested a desire to learn about Jesus. On my third visit a large ward twelve feet by twenty-four feet was cleaned up and fifteen patients gathered to listen to the Story of the Cross. That number came regularly until they were dismissed or had passed away.

We are hoping that the church will take up this work in the name of Christ and carry it