One of the movements which will affect Christianity all over the East has had its origin in Korea. Just as the suffering and miserable heart of the individual man is that which Christianity finds most suitable for its home, so it is with a nation. It is at the moment of national adversity and humiliation that religious movements most readily rise. Korea had looked upon herself as the equal of Japan. From Korea came much of the civilisation which adorned Japan before the great Western movement. When Prince Ito with the eyes of a statesman was realising that Japan must either accept the domination of the West or its civilisation, Korea was immovably entrenched in her belief in her national greatness and in her contempt for the Western world. So Westernised Japan has overcome her ancient rival and teacher, and Korea is humbled to the very dust. In many ways that humiliation is rendered more poignant owing to the lack of sympathy between the races. Though they both have taken their civilisation from China and have a common classical literature, they are diametrically opposed in many things. The Japanese are essentially a clean race. {233} They wash constantly; they will not enter a house with their shoes on their feet. No one who knows them will accuse the Koreans of excess in cleanliness. On the other hand, the Japanese very frequently lack modesty. Many are the stories that residents will tell; and we have seen the Japanese women clothed in the garb of Eve appear in the public bath and even in the street. On the other hand, the Koreans may be corrupt and immoral, but they are modest. The women of Seoul as they walk through the streets cover their faces with their green cloaks, till one almost thinks one must be in a Mohammedan land. Those green cloaks are a perpetual reminder of the ancient hostility between the races. The picturesque story is worth telling. The Japanese, knowing of the absence of the Korean armies, determined to surprise Seoul. They thought they had succeeded, when to their amazement they saw the walls of Seoul covered with what they took for warlike Koreans. The ready wit of the women had saved their town. They had dressed themselves in their husbands' clothes and so deceived their hereditary foes. The Emperor rewarded them by giving them the right to wear the man's green coat, which they wear not in coat fashion, but over their heads, the sleeves partially veiling their faces; and as one wanders down the main street of Seoul and watches the modest but gaily-dressed crowd of Koreans--the women in their green coats with red ribbons, the men in white garments wearing their curious top-knots {234} and quaint hats--one understands the antipathy they must feel for the short, muscular, soberly-dressed Japanese who by his courage and daring has subdued them and now tramples on their national susceptibilities and ignores their national rights.