ABSTRACT
The author was lying awake in the Myako Hotel, the window looking out across the town below towards the eastern hills and framed with clusters of red maple. All on the crest of the hill behind the hotel is a row of temples crowning the height. All through these temples it was obvious that the agnosticism, or indifference, or attitude of politeness towards possibilities, which has apparently taken possession in Japan, is in no way prevalent among the masses. In all the country parts that the author visited and in the large temples in the great cities there was everywhere evidence of faith as sincere and devout as can be found in the churches of the most Christian country in Europe. In a way it reminded one of the Gregorian chant one often hears in Catholic churches, but in this Buddhist chanting there was that curious Oriental strain of semi-tones that gave a strange and peculiar plaint to the chorus.
