The bright, good-tempered people of Japan are familiar with humor in many forms, and know how to sport with pencil as well as with pen. Their very sermons are not devoid of the jocular. When a preacher has pointed his moral by a comical tale, he will turn to the audience in the most familiar, confidential manner, and say, "Now, isn't that a funny story?" or, "Wasn't that delightful?" Sometimes he will half apologize for the introduction of mirth-moving anecdotes: "Now, my sermons are not written for the learned. I address myself to farmers and tradesmen, who, hard pressed by their daily business, have no time for study.... Now, positively you must not laugh if I introduce a light story now and then. Levity is not my object; I only want to put things in a plain and easy manner."[34] Nothing yet brought from that country is more interesting to us than the specimens given in Mr. Mitford's book of the short, homely, humorous, sound Japanese sermons. The existence of this work is another proof of the wisdom of giving consular and diplomatic appointments to men who know how to use their eyes, their hands, and their minds. The sumptuous work upon Japan by M. Aimé Humbert could scarcely have been produced if the author had not been at the head of a powerful embassy. [Footnote 34: "Tales of Old Japan," vol. ii., p. 138, by A. W. Mitford, Secretary of the British Legation in Japan, London, 1874.] The Japanese are a gentler and kindlier people than the Chinese; women occupy a better position among them; and hence the allusions to the sex in their literature are less contemptuous and satirical. The preacher whose sermons Mr. Mitford selects for translation is what we should term an eclectic--one who owns fealty to none of the great religions of the East, but gleans lessons of truth and wisdom from them all. Imagine him clad in gorgeous robes of red and white, attended by an acolyte, entering a chapel--a spacious, pleasant apartment which opens into a garden--bowing to the sacred picture over the altar, and taking a seat at a table. Some prayers are intoned, incense is burned, offerings are received, a passage from a sacred book is read, a cup of tea is quaffed, and then the preacher rises and begins his chatty, humorous, anecdotical discourse. Whenever he makes a point, the audience utters a responsive "Nimmiyô," varying the sound so as to accord with the sentiment expressed by the speaker. Indeed, it would be difficult to name one rite, or observance, or custom, or eccentricity of religion practiced among us here in the United States, the counterpart of which has not been familiar to the Japanese from time immemorial. They have sacred books, a peculiar cross, liturgies, temples, acolytes, nunneries, monasteries, holy water, incense, prayers, sermons, collections, the poor-box, responses, priestly robes, the bell, a series of ceremonies strongly resembling the mass, followed by a sermon, sacred pictures,