All this, and similar experiences, as well as the history of the Korean people for two thousand years, raises the serious question of the possibility of a truly national redemption. Both before and during my visit to Seoul I was given to understand by foreign residents, Japanese and European, that the case of the nation is hopeless; their whole social and political system is decadent; they are an effete race, destined to give way before the invasion of members from any more vigorous race. But Marquis Ito evidently entertained no such view. It was the Korean nation which he desired to rescue and to lift up—whether with, or without, the consent and assistance of their Emperor and his court. Of the same opinion with the Marquis were the missionaries. Many of these were extravagant in their praises of the native characteristics of their converts, and not only sincerely attached to them, but also confident of their capacity for educational advancement and moral and social reform. To be sure, when asked more particularly as to what were the precise traits of character which encouraged these hopes and elicited this affection, and when reminded how almost universal had been the confessions, recent and still going on among the native Christians, of long-continued indulgence in the vices of lying, dishonesty, and impurity, there was no altogether satisfactory answer to be given. The grounds for praise were usually exhausted when the amiable and affectionate nature of the Korean had been duly emphasized. To increase my distrust of the view held by the missionaries, were the facts gained in conversation with others who had been witnesses to the actions of the excited Korean populace; who had seen Korean officials that had offended this populace, or had been the object of some trumped-up charge circulated by their political rivals and enemies, beaten, jumped upon, smashed, torn limb from limb by their “gentle” and “amiable” fellow-countrymen. Nor were these things done in remote country-places, but in Seoul itself, near the Great Bell in the neighborhood of Song-do. I had also heard from the lips of Mr. Morris, manager of the Seoul Electric Railway, the story of how, at three o’clock in the morning of the night of May 27, 1900, he had been called out of bed and, accompanied by an escort of Japanese soldiers, taken to the prison near the Little West Gate to view the bodies of An Kyun Soo and Kwan Yung Chin. These were reformers who had been cajoled through promises of fair treatment by the smiling Emperor and his officials to return from exile in Japan; whereupon they had been foully murdered. Was one to share the “shivery feeling” with which Mr. Morris passed between the rows of instruments of torture to view the red marks of the cord with which these patriots had been strangled; or was one to trust the estimate of their Christian teachers regarding the mild and lovable disposition of the native