The establishment derives its revenues from the rent and proceeds of the Church lands, donations from pilgrims and guests, occasional benefactions from the wealthy, and the collections made by the mendicant monks. These latter chant the litanies of Buddha from house to house, and travel throughout the Empire, finding food and lodging by the wayside, to collect the scanty contributions which their solicitations evoke. The four great monasteries are presided over by a member of the community, who is elected annually to the office. Unless his conduct gives rise to dissatisfaction, he is maintained in authority, usually until his death, or transference to some other centre of Buddhistic activity. The practices and observances, in these monasteries of the Diamond Mountains, conform to the principles of the religion of Buddha, as nearly as do the customs and manners of our own Church to the varied tenets of Christianity throughout the world. I confess myself sorely puzzled to discover any substratum of truth in the charges of gross profligacy and irreverence which the agent of an American Missionary Society brings against the monasteries of the Keum-kang-san. Personally, after spending many weeks in the calm seclusion of this monastic region, I prefer to recall the kindliness of the monks—their real Christian charity—to the poor and afflicted, to the hungry and sore distressed, as to all who come to them in times of misery and evil. If many of them learn the litanies of their liturgy by heart, if they lack scholarship, if they do not know the meaning of much upon which they spend so many weary hours of their lives, are not these slight things when weighed against their profound humanity, their gentleness to everything which breathes, their benevolence to the old and destitute, their exceeding humility, their wonderful toleration, the quietness and extreme simplicity of their lives, and the humanitarian nature of their interests? The Monastery of Yu-chom is all peace and quietude. It lies, shut off from all contact with the outer world, within a deep, tree-clad valley of the eastern ranges. It is self-contained, and its whole existence is wrapped up in the mysteries of that faith to whose services it is dedicated. There is no booming torrent, such as that which vibrates and thunders through the Chang-an-sa gorge; a subdued babble alone rises from the water, which wells from some rocks deep in the recesses of the prevailing bush. Its appearance is strangely solemn, and it exerts over the daily lives of the coterie of monks, assembled within its walls, an influence that conduces to their extreme asceticism. The atmosphere of repose and seclusion, in which a soul distressed finds so much comfort, broods over the whole community. [Illustration: THE ABBOT OF YU-CHOM-SA]