Not only from a political point of view, but far more from an intellectual and religious point of view, is Japan in great, urgent need of what Christianity can give her. “It seems from the figures of a religious census recently taken in the Imperial University of Japan at Tokyo, that of the students in attendance, three-fourths of them declare themselves agnostics, while fifteen hundred are content to be registered as atheists. That leaves only five hundred of the whole student body to be accounted for: and of these, sixty are Christian, fifty Buddhist, and eight Shinto.... The educated classes of Japan have practically broken with Shintoism and Buddhism, and are looking around for some better basis for ethics and faith. The issue in Japan is no longer between Christianity and Buddhism, but between Christianity and nothing.”[97] [Sidenote: Kindergarten children in after-life.] Side by side with this pregnant statement we place a few sentences from the Sixth Annual Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan. “What influence has the kindergarten on the lives of its graduates in later years? From many churches we hear of them as church members doing active service, like one young man who has a class of twenty-five boys in Sunday-School. As teachers, as mothers, in many walks of life, they are showing the power of Christ in their lives, and all, whether Christians or not, are better men and women for their training in Christian schools.” The inference is so obvious that we need not comment upon it. Rather let us do our share to multiply the agencies that can embody in their reports such incidents as the following from the American Church Mission Kindergarten at Sendai:-- “More than ever before have we emphasized Christianity as the center of our thought and life, and feel much encouraged to go much farther next year. Yearning over our graduates, who, when they leave us, may be separated for a long time from Christian teaching, we earnestly desired to see Christianity move definitely forward in their hearts, so far as may be for little children. So we based the last month’s work on Phil. 2:6-11. This seems deep, but was found helpful by the teachers.... Just before graduation, in the free talk at luncheon hour one day, a boy whose parents were about to move to Akita said most disconsolately, ‘There won’t be any God to take care of me when I go to Akita!’ ‘Oh, yes, there will,’ said Taguchi San, who, seeing his need of a broader understanding of the Omnipotent God, told of the God of all the earth, and that He cared for us wherever we go, even when farther than Akita.”[98] [Sidenote: China’s awakening.] China’s awakening has been so sudden and so rapid that even while the Christian women of America were studying “China’s New Day,” many facts in that up-to-date text-book became ancient history. A few of the startling contrasts between the Old China and the New were indicated in the _Congregationalist_ of April 24, 1913.