[Sidenote: The Religion.] Like the Chinese, the Japanese selects his religion from among three great religions, Shintoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Like the Chinese he frequently thinks it well to mix the three. If he is a Confucianist, he is thoroughly trained in the rules which govern man’s relation to the State and to his fellow man; if he is a Buddhist, he learns self-control and self discipline in order that he may at the last become absorbed into a vague impersonal deity; if he is a Shintoist he worships the rulers and his ancestors. [Sidenote: The Japanese a Lover of Beauty and a Fatalist.] The Japanese is intensely patriotic and invariably civil and courteous. His love of beauty finds expression in almost every detail of his life, his practical ability needs no further proof than the adaptation of the nation’s millions to its circumscribed area. His life is happy; but the volcanic eruptions, numerous earthquakes, dreadful tidal waves which bring to his lips a patient smile and a fatalistic word “No help for it” must stir in the depths of his human heart other feelings, however unexpressed of terror and dismay. To him, so far lifted above many other non-Christians but lacking the chief thing, the Christian’s God offers peace for terror and assurance for dismay. SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES. There is but one European Lutheran Society in Japan, the _Lutheran Gospel Association_ of _Finland_, which has six men and three women in its field northwest of Tokyo, where it began to work in 1902. AMERICAN SOCIETIES. [Sidenote: “Kyushu Gakuin.”] The mission of the _United Synod in the South_ was begun in 1892. It has met with the difficulties and obstacles common to all young enterprises and is now well-established. Its chief stations are in Saga, a city of thirty-five thousand, in Kumamoto, a city of sixty-five thousand and in Fukuoka, which, together with its twin city Hakata has a population of eighty thousand. The island of Kyushu upon which these cities lie is densely populated, and there is an average of only one Protestant Christian to over one thousand of the people. In the city of Kumamoto is located the educational institution of the United Synod and the only Lutheran educational institution in Japan, called Kyushu Gakuin, which consists of a middle school and a theological department for the training of native workers. Here almost six hundred boys and young men are being educated, who are but a small part of those who would gladly come if there were larger accommodations. The work among the little children in Sunday schools and kindergartens meets with hearty support at home, a work whose joys it is easy to comprehend. The United Synod has at work four missionary families and two single women. Its baptized membership is over six hundred.