The words of other than Japanese writers may not be without some interest. A Christian friend of mine, once an English professor in a Japanese college, wrote to me lately: "I must admit that the Japanese do seem to have attained without Christianity a higher status than most Christian nations. Indeed, they appear to attain personal and national excellence without religion at all." Again, another Englishman, who has spent a lifetime and occupies a high position in Japan, remarks (in the course of a letter replying to my queries): "There is not the remotest chance of Christianity becoming the religion of the State. For the last two centuries and a half the educated class have adopted the Agnostic ethical system of Confucius, which, once understood and embraced, can never be dislodged by the Christian or any other variety of theologian." Yet Dr. Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, closes his book, The Witness of the Influence of Christ, with the familiar assertion of the inseparability of religion and ethics. It is an assertion which, now more than ever, the Churches are reiterating. Why? Is it not because they find that many are beginning to doubt its truth? I fear reiteration will not make it any truer. Only facts will appeal to the man who looks below the surface, and these all tend the other way. In the Hibbert Journal for October, 1905, there is an article contributed by the editor which deserves the earnest attention of all thoughtful men. It is entitled "Moral Supremacy of Christendom." The following quotations from it will suffice to show the far-reaching importance of the questions it raises: "Christendom, as a whole, long accustomed to treat all pagan races as morally inferior to herself, now stands confronted by a non-Christian civilisation, of vast power and splendid promise, whose claim to moral equality, at least, cannot be disregarded, except by those who are morally blind.... The hold of Christianity upon the peoples of the Western world is rooted in the conviction that this is the religion which produces the best men. To a greater degree than is commonly recognised, each Church or sect of Christendom thus derives its confidence from the final court of ethical appeal. Whatever ground be alleged for a given doctrine, whether of Scripture, authority, or reason, the argument would instantly lose its force if it were to appear that the ethical result of denying the doctrine was superior to that which followed its acceptance." CRIMINALITY.