During the month of September, 1900, as a direct result of the attacks of and upon the Army, the number of visitors to these houses in Tōkyō was decreased by about 2,000 a night. On October 2, a government ordinance was issued that at one stroke removed all obstacles in the way of a girl's securing her freedom at any moment when she wanted to leave the business. The new regulations made the descent to Avernus as difficult as possible, and the return to the upper world a mere step. In Tōkyō alone, in the first four months after the promulgation of this order, 1,100 out of the 6,335 girls who were licensed as prostitutes left the houses in which they were employed, most of them returning to their homes and families, and as many as applied being cared for in the Rescue Home of the Salvation Army. The places thus vacated are not easy to fill, because the keepers will not advance money to the parents of a girl, now that they can no longer hold her as security for the debt. In consequence, too, of the revelations of the evils of the system, the business has fallen off alarmingly. Thus many of the houses have been obliged to close, owing to lack of custom and to inability to pay the heavy taxes. We have here the story of a successful attack on a system which has existed in Japan for three hundred years, by a Christian agency acting with the support of so strong a public opinion that police and government have felt bound to obey its behests. There has been no more striking example of the effect of Christian thought upon public sentiment in any country than this crusade against the brothels in Japan. When we remember that ten years ago it was not possible for a speaker to attack the institution before an audience of students without being silenced by hisses, it is interesting to note that this year, the students of that same school greeted with applause and respectful attention an address on this very subject. It seems to me rather striking that in the year 1900 fifty thousand copies of the Bible were sold in Japan--more than of any other book. Although the present translation is regarded as far from perfect, and much of it is unintelligible to the average Japanese without instruction, whether directly or indirectly, by mission workers, it is still sought after and read for the sake of its literature, and because of the reputation that has been gained for it throughout the country. There are few missionaries of any experience in Japan who cannot tell stories of men coming to them from country villages, who, through the reading of a copy of the Bible in some way fallen into their hands, have been brought by the beauty and nobility of the parts that they could understand to seek additional explanation from some teacher or preacher. One case that is amusing, but at the same time striking, I have heard vouched for from a number of sources:--