As is known, teaching in the school has interfered sadly with our study of the language. We have not had a year's uninterrupted study, and so we feel very keenly our backwardness. It is difficult to pray or speak in public unless one understands well about the Honorifics to be used. The prayer would lose all idea of reverence, and the hearers would feel insulted, unless these forms were properly observed. There is one thing that we can do a little, and that is house-to-house visiting. We devote our Saturday afternoons to this work. Yesterday we made nine visits. At every place but one we were most cordially received, and some places royally entertained. At one place chairs and a table were brought out, and coffee and foreign cakes were set before us, besides the inevitable tea and sweetmeats. It was impossible to engage our host's attention in conversation -- he was continually rushing out of the room to get some lovely piece of lacquer ware or bric-a-brac for us to admire. He was also the proud possessor of a couple of foreign-bred poodle dogs and a pair of turkeys -- the former were brought in for our inspection. We asked the boy, our pupil in the school, if the host was his father, when that gentleman replied for himself in English, "No, I am his aunt." It is hard to preserve our gravity sometimes, and we often wonder if our mistakes in Japanese are as ludicrous as the Jap-English is.

At another place we were regaled with cherry blossom tea. It was like the nectar of the gods–the distilled perfume and sweetness of a whole spring-time. It was so rich and sweet that a very little sip was sufficient. It is made of salting down the blossoms, and afterward steeping them in hot water and adding sugar.

At another place the woman opened the door of her idol shelf and said in a sad tone, "They are gone -- all gone." Her husband is studying the Scriptures; and, having determined that idol worship is wrong, carried all the family idols away and buried them. This woman has for years believed that these rude wooden figures hold the spirits of her dead friends, just as we treasure a lock of hair or a faded flower, the sole memento of some dear one whose memory alone is left to us. The empty shelf was a mute but eloquent token of the empty, desolate heart that had not learned to worship Him who said, "Thou shalt have no other gods but me."

We tried to tell her of Christ, whose love satisfies all yearning, and of how he keeps our heart's treasures until that happy day when we shall receive our own again, but there came no light into the sad, darkened face, and we could only go away and pray for her.

O! if we only could talk! We each have a school for poor children now. It brings the tears to my eyes to see the hungry little faces -- faces filled with heart-hunger, the hardest of all longings to satisfy. In my school the favorite song is, "I will sing for Jesus," and O but they do sing; even the tiny ones who can hardly say the words strain every effort to keep up with the older ones, and they make the old house almost rock and drown our voices completely; and "O! do not be discouraged," fairly makes the walls and ceiling hum. They have caught the spirit of song, if the melody is not always perfect.

So far as we know Bro. Smith and party are now on the ocean coming toward us night and day, and we hope and pray for their safe arrival. I hope that Bro. Smith may be convinced quickly the orphanage will be a good thing. I hear the Catholics intend to start one in order that they may gain the popularity of the people.

I would be glad to write more, but other duties call me. We ask for the prayers of all God's people that we may never be found wanting in this great work.