I tried once to explain something of economic conditions in the white man’s world, and in that of modern Japan, to one of my Formosan aborigine friends. The idea that one should receive more than another, unless that other had by misconduct forfeited his share, was as difficult for my friend to understand as it was that a man could not work who wanted to work, or that there should not be food enough for all. That it was held to be a matter of shame to be helped by the community when one was too old or too ill to work was incomprehensible; as incomprehensible as was the question of prostitution. “But women who live so, how can they have strong sons and daughters?” he asked. “And how can they make good priestesses to the people?” an old priestess who was standing by asked. “Such women destroy faith,” she added, “not build it up for the guidance of men.” I thought of the Inari temples--those devoted to the worship of the Fox-god--and of the votaries of these temples, in Japan. I thought of the stories of the temples of Babylon, of Egypt, of certain of those in ancient Greece--all these had represented mighty civilizations; the votaries of the Fox-god temples belong to a nation that is to-day one of the great world-powers; while the old Formosan woman was only a savage. How could she know anything of the refinements of civilization, or of what civilization demands? But those ancient civilizations, I reflected--they were “heathen”; even present-day Japan is “heathen.” As a member of a race that is supposed to uphold Christian civilization and to convert heathen peoples to its tenets, there was momentary unction in this thought. Then, as the old man and old woman stood looking up at me, with inquiring, wrinkled faces, awaiting an answer to questions that would solve the problem that was puzzling them, there flashed across my mind the memory of a Christian temple, in a great Christian capital, which it was the fashion of the more fashionable stratum of the painted ladies of the city to attend, and where---- But no, they were not priestesses; only devotees who exchanged glances with the male devotees, and who after the services spoke with the latter, doubtless for the “upbuilding of their faith.”