As I stand on the steps with the din of the temple behind me, a man in the crowd below buys a cage of little birds at a stall, and, opening the door, throws them up into the air. The startled flutter of their wings as they soar up over the heads of the crowd into the blue carries me back to Ober-Ammergau, to the memory of the overturned tables of the money-changers, and the overthrown cages of those who sold doves. “My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Is human nature the same all the world over? Are priests? Or is the fate of all religions alike? O Kannon of Asak’sa! Kannon, Lady of Mercy! how long must thou wait for thy deliverer? O Lord Buddha, how long? V RINZAKI’S ALTAR On the edge of the dark hills is the temple of Rinzaki, and the green sea of the rice-fields washes up to its open doors. Overhead the grey sky of a sunless summer’s evening dims all the colours in the land, and leaves them shadows. It is fresh and still, and the wide, green bay sweeps in smooth curves to the foot of the dark hills. On the pathway the hosts of little green frogs hop like hailstones, and the startled splash as they fall back into the rice-fields is sharp and clear. Rinzaki stands alone, its _shōji_ walls pushed back, and the slender, square pillars at each corner are dark against the greyness. The open matted spaces of the temple are deserted, and the stillness is pure and clear as freshly running water. In the sunless evening light the sombre colours of the temple are but light and shadow, a sweep of pale matting under a dark roof framed in grey. And the stillness grows purer, clearer, and more still. Beyond the open spaces of the matting, between altar wall and altar wall, the garden of the temple hangs, a living picture on the wall. Two kneeling-cushions on the matting mark the purpose of the garden, and I stay to look. A faintly running stream, stone-grey, a shaven slope of green, and on it three clipped azalea-bushes pink with blossom. So still, so clear, I stretch my hand to feel. It is a garden--a garden painted by an artist who worked in earth and flowers. And the dim greyness of the temple, the pale spaces of the matting, frame the garden as a shell its pearl. I could but look. The pale pink of the azalea-bushes, the soft curve of the slope, the stone-grey of the running stream, were painted with the loving care, the certain touch of a master’s hand. There was no fault. Between altar wall and altar wall the living picture hung--perfect. Like David’s harping to Saul distraught, the stillness of the garden, the dim greyness of the temple, washed pure the heart. The sin-freed soul floated out unfettered, and thought was not. Alone the garden lay, an earthly Nirvana in the stillness. Rinzaki’s true altar stood here. VI TWO CREEDS