As in many Christian nations the bridge between natural religion and the essential truths of Christian Theism is a very shaky one--so here in China and Japan, whilst there is a widespread belief in Karma and in Heaven's laws, this is but vaguely connected with the polytheistic cults of the masses. And as in some other Christian lands, the worship of the saints and local gods--even of the great Kwanyin--is not always moralised. Habitual sinners--opium fiends who, it may be, are ruining scores of lives, prostitutes and murderers--will pay their daily court to the family or local god: not conscious of any demand from the Compassionate that they should show compassion, or from the Righteous that they should be righteous. Buddhism has indeed lost its early salt of morality. It is for these and other reasons that China and Japan urgently need the Gospel of Jesus and of His Kingdom. In their own religious development is a noble preparation for this New Order: and in the Jesus of History they are finding a Norm and a Vision of God which makes their old ideals real and vital, and which purifies their idea of God. In this faith the Church is at work in these wonderful lands, believing that they have rich gifts for the Kingdom of God, and that it will greatly enrich them and carry to its fulfilment their noble civilisations whilst it emancipates their masses from fear and superstition. With all its achievements Buddhism has failed because it has had no power to cast out fear, and its Confucian critics even accuse it of playing upon the superstition of the people and of letting loose more demons to plague them. Yet it has done much for China, not only ennobling her art and culture but giving a new value to the individual, a new respect for women, a new love of nature, and many noble objects of worship to hungry human hearts. Whilst then the Gospel wins its way slowly but surely in Asia, leavening and giving new and abundant life, there are those in Christendom who hold that it is played out, and that Buddhism is destined to supersede it as the religion of the intelligent! The student should investigate their activities in London, Breslau, and other Western cities; and he may find Appendix I a finger-post to guide him in his quest. Appendix II is offered as a similar guide to a course of reading. [15] The chief services are at 2 a.m. and at 4 p.m. [16] During the war many such masses were said for the fallen, whether friend or foe. APPENDIX I[17] SOME EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN BUDDHISTS In the year 1881 Dr. Rhys Davids said, "There is not the slightest danger of any European ever entering the Buddhist Order."[18] Yet a recent writer was told by a Buddhist in Ceylon that his religion was making its converts "chiefly amongst the Tamils and Germans," and in each of the Buddhist countries there is to-day a small but active group of converts from the European nations to Buddhism.