I went with him to Akashi; There are Christians there, but they do not gather in church, and now they live almost like pagans, without faith.

But on the other hand, the only true Christian is very good – Nikolai Shikata. The family is large and very Christian; everything in the house is arranged in a Christian way; he knows the metric like his own family, God grant that catechists know their Christians so well. And here there is no catechist. He is very zealous for the Church and often talks about faith with pagans. Now there are up to 30 or more people who want to listen to the teaching; but since Nicholas himself does not know how to explain well, and there is no time (photographer), all such people do not know the teaching and do not accept baptism. He asks a catechist here. I decided to see all these people who wanted to listen, to talk to them with the help of Shimizu, and on the way back I promised to be here, and in the meantime Nikolai would inform everyone.

At about 6 p.m., Kakogawa was met by the catechist Adatsi and the Christians. It turns out that there are only 9 real Christians here, and the rest have left the faith (3 houses). But even of the true Christians, only 9 people will come to church for worship. In a conversation with Christians, I asked: why have some weakened? Because they often did not come to church, and then completely lost the habit. Does the catechist visit Christians here (after all, he lives in Himeiji)? "No, very rarely; the former was very zealous, and things went well, but this one is not particularly zealous. "Maybe that's why some have become weaker?" The Christian only smiled at this. When Adatsi came, I said to him: do you come here to see Christians? – I do, but lately rarely. "I made a corresponding remark to him: you are here only to know your Christians and to help them maintain the faith well and firmly; Christians in general gladly listen to every word about faith, but you do not observe it. And anyway, what are you doing? The pagans do not listen to your teaching, their Christians lose their faith. If you really want to work for the Church, then work; and if not, then it is not necessary: God does not need lazy workers. The Church has brought you up for this work, and you, like an ungrateful son, do not respond to it, but despise her work; it is not good in ordinary life to show ingratitude, and even more so in the Church. In this way, all your Christians will gradually leave the Church, and you will not want to help them stay. Meanwhile, Christ bore the cross for every Christian; and you again destroy them and lose them to Christ. "The Christian who used to talk about Adatsi's laziness now interpreted something in his defense, but I only realized that Adatsi knows and works well for Christians in Himeiji.

The service was sung quite decently. After that, Adatsi gave a sermon that we must maintain faith in ourselves and ask the grace of the Holy Spirit to lift us up, since this is the only point. Afterwards I advised him to put all this to his heart and take care of it. After that, I began to talk about something with Christians and call upon them to return to the Church by joint efforts those who were weakened, since they are Christ's children, and our brothers, and all of us in Christ, are one body, in which all are bound together by the unity of life; and gradually attract pagans to the Church. And the owner of the house in which the church, Paul Atsumi, invited two pagans who wanted to listen to the teaching, and asked me to talk; I have expressed my difficulty, since my speech is not yet quite understandable even for Christians, and even more so for pagans. But I had to interpret it. I said approximately the following. If we look closely at the world, we will see that everything here has its creator; there would be no thing if it were not made by a craftsman for our use; And if so, how does the world exist at all? Undoubtedly, it also has its beginning and its Creator. This Creator is God. Then, if we turn to our heart, we will notice that it usually either approves or disapproves of our actions, and that we like only the good in others; and we will not silence this voice in any way, therefore, it is not essentially ours, but is given from somewhere above; this is indeed the voice of God in us; it forces us in our vanity not to be satisfied with this vanity and to seek something higher and different from this – in a word, it demands a different life; This is the life of the soul. In ourselves we see something that invisibly governs our entire life and cannot be destroyed in any way; During sleep, for example, the body does not feel anything, does not understand anything, but the soul lives here too, which is why we have different dreams. Obviously, the soul will not be destroyed even after death, like the body, which decays. All this is true: the soul will be freed from the body with death and will live a truly spiritual life with God, Who alone has true life. But, obviously, only that which is worthy of Him in its purity can be near God; and the rest must remain far from God, where there is undoubtedly darkness and torment. Just as it is difficult for an illiterate person to understand a book, so it is impossible for someone who is far from God in his soul to be close to Him in life. These are the basic questions that lead us to believe in God. All this I have said in detail, and have tried to present it as simply and clearly as possible; but it seems that he did not succeed, at least Varnava says that it is difficult for the pagans. I made him talk about various religious subjects and, among other things, for Christians, about the Eucharist and its meaning for us, according to the words of Christ. Only at the end of the 12th hour did the pagans leave, and the Christians wanted to confess.

Those here are more self-collected in confession than in Kobe. All 8 people.

At Mass, Adatsi gave a sermon; after dinner I talked a little, gave a few edifications, and called for joint efforts to help the catechist in the work of preaching; At home, it is imperative to pray, and on holidays to gather in church, so that there would be a truly church life.

Then I went to the reitan (weakened in faith) Luka Matsumoto; but I did not find him, but only talked a little with his pagan father and went to the station to go to Himeiji. On the way, he also called on Christians; they all live not far from each other; They are very kind Christians, and in their mood they are really Christians. Some came to see off the train. In the carriage with me was Adatsi; I gave him instructions, stirring up his spirit to preach with the joy of Christians today on the occasion of the feast, and in conclusion I said: Do you give your word to really work for the Church? He promised. Concerning yesterday's Gentile listeners, he said that there are many such people here, and he will listen, and so he will remain with the same, for he has no faith.

There are only two houses in Himeiji that are very good Christians, and they come to church all the time; I saw them, though not all of them, for I did not find them; he gave general edifications, as he did to other Christians, and called on the catechist to assist in the work of preaching, attracting pagans. I also went to the house of a reitan, she received her rather unkindly, in the outer hallway, and did not ask me to sit down, so I stood and told her that she should go to church, and I explained to her in detail the meaning of prayer for us, and especially church prayer. And then he asked if she prayed at home. She admitted that she did not, although she had a prayer book. Then she became a little kinder and asked me to sit down. I advised her to remember what she had received and what she was missing, and I told her the story of Fukase that by faith we really receive God's mercy and help. She was very surprised and became even more attentive; I don't know what will come out of the conclusion. And I didn't see the other two reitans, since they are not at home. A Christian came to see me off. At 4 o'clock I had already left for Akashi, having sent Barnabas there after Mass to warn of my arrival there and to inform those who wished to listen to the teaching in the evening. My head ached terribly, and I went with Barnabas to the seashore in Akashi to go for a walk. There we talked about the work of preaching, and he was very enthusiastic; he said that Buddhism is a religion without God, and the Protestants only add to this indifference, since the multitude of sects among them casts doubt on the Japanese and teaches them to believe everyone in their own way, but in essence not to believe in any way. That is why they constantly have mass cases of falling away from the faith, which we do not have. In general, I liked him; it is clear that he wants to work, but perhaps he does not succeed or does not know how. In part, the same impression was made on me by Adatsi; wherefore I, having reprimanded them both for their laziness, endeavoured to stir them up to the work of preaching; It is difficult to say whether this has succeeded, of course.

The headache subsided during the walk. At 8 o'clock two Christians and several pagans actually came. First I turned to Christians, drawing a picture of the sublime life of Christians in the Church, and talked about prayer. In the meantime, about 11 pagans had gathered, and I gradually moved on to a common speech for them. I have repeated in part what I said yesterday, only in a simpler form, but chiefly spoke of the soul and of God as personal and indestructible principles, in order to contrast the correct conception of them with Buddhist pantheism. On the question of the soul, he explained in detail that bright pure life which we like, but from which we are constantly deterred, for in life we often do not this good, but another evil. This is the fruit of our fall, from which sin crept into our nature, created pure of God, as the dominant principle. In this duality we involuntarily come to the idea – to seek some higher help against evil, in order to become better; and if our life is from God, then help is only from Him, Who created from nothing and is able to recreate again. And so it is: all those who really sought and heartily benefited from this help of God's grace, while still here on earth became completely different from people who usually live in vanity and sin; the power of God was clearly at work in them, exalting them. As a proof of this, their bodies remained incorruptible, for it is impossible for those who partake of grace to decay. On the question of God, I talked about His Omnipotence and that He is a real person, who governs everything, to Whom we must all come in the end. On the question of His work, he briefly said that now even science is amazed – how Moses, not having modern scientific knowledge, could so correctly and definitely tell the story of the creation of the world; apparently there was another power that taught him this; it is God Himself who has put such light into his mind. One of the listeners, after the end of my speech, said: I do not understand what the soul is. We can understand its actions, but we do not understand what it is. I said that it is impossible to understand this completely: we cannot understand visible, material objects, and even more so the soul, which is so called; One thing is certain, that it exists and dominates in us, as anyone can easily convince himself. – Is it through self-awareness? –Yes. Here he began to talk about the powers of the soul, but he himself agreed that it had no particularly important religious significance, and therefore there was no need to talk about it now. And then: God, in my opinion, is the world soul (and he spoke in detail in the sense of pantheism). "And I showed him that, therefore, He is not above this world, but only this very world, and most importantly: it means that He is not perfect; For what about sin and all other evil in the world? He agreed. I could not explain to him correctly in Japanese that God must necessarily be a person, distinct from some impersonal sojourn or spillage of Him in the world; this was done by Barnabas, and the questioner understood correctly. He was a teacher somewhere, then he gave it up, and now he is a silkworm breeder, very prominent and educated; He has no faith. He listened to the Protestants, but did not approve of them: they had no faith, he said, but only theory, and each interpreted it in his own way. I said that, indeed, there is only one truth and we must believe in God as He Himself revealed Himself to us; if you look closely at Orthodoxy, you will see that it is just that, and that it has proved itself and is proving itself by its very life-giving power (by the way, briefly about Father John of Kronstadt); Now Protestants are also aware of their mistakes and are looking for a return to Orthodoxy. God willing, there will indeed be one flock and one Shepherd.

Today my conversation was better understood, and in general something remained with the listeners, and they, thanking for everything, left already at 12 o'clock, and one remained almost until 12; I advised them to listen to the catechist when he came here; they would very much like it. Then we talked for a long time with Nikolai Shikata; he keeps asking for a catechist; I said that we did not have them now, and asked to look for students for the school in Osaka.

On May 26/7, I was already in Osaka. Here, on the holiday, one very good old woman Maria Kitajima and two children were baptized. About 50 Christians gathered, but on the day of the Holy Spirit there were few, only 6-7 people.

Some came who could not walk at all; but those whom I called to do so did not come; Only a few listened. When I arrived, I slept for two hours after lunch and now I feel good: I am very tired. And now I'm still writing about my journey. In Japanese, I have accumulated a lot of hieroglyphs, I don't know when I will overcome them.

Yesterday Father John Ono was there; says that Father Simeon Mii has only recently returned from a trip to the north of his church.

May 29/10 June. Yesterday I could not go to the Christians, because the catechist Paul Sakuma, it turned out, had gone to the Christians in the afternoon and was in four houses, returning at night. And this is good. And this afternoon with Isogai I went to the Buddhist tera of Higashi Hongaji; a very rich tera, all in gold; very extensive, perhaps a little smaller than the Trinity-Sergius Lavra of the Assumption Cathedral. Ahead, as usual, is a place completely similar to the Catholic sees, there are three of them; there are few pilgrims; All of them, looking around and rubbing their raised palms, repeat words that are incomprehensible to any of them, probably not of a particularly deep and intelligent prayer: Namabi dam. Some people bring special cloaks for prayer, similar to kesa bonzes, only they go down more on the back; It looks like a double-sided apron. Immediately they throw their pennies into the church, some with importance, it must be richer. I stood and thought: why did they decide to pray? After all, there is no God for them? Is it possible to pray to the teacher Buddha? And if one prays to some spirit that is spread throughout the world, then it is some thought or idea that permeates the whole world – but it is impossible to pray to this, and besides, in this case it is also partly me; and perhaps even less: they think to pray to this very existence of the world, for, according to them, God is the soul of the world, fulfilling the world from its very beginning, until it turns again into the nothing in which it was. But in this case, why pray if nothing will happen? This means that there is nothing in the essence of the matter, but only in this way, as if smoke appears temporarily from a chimney, which then disappears again into the air, as if turning into nothing for our eyes. And yet people live with such unbelief and unsteadiness; Such is the power of religious life: any lie, even in the face of positive truth, finds it difficult to give way to it, not because it is strong in itself, but because the spirit of man is strong, which has absorbed this falsehood into itself. And for a long time we will have to struggle with the deafness of the Japanese to the Word of Christ, until the opposite way of life is gradually created in our country, so that the truth does not force man and gradually leads him to free salvation. And everything that is free is stronger, although it is not created soon. And the time will come when this church will also be our beautiful cathedral and thousands of true believers in Christ, the King of heaven and earth, will enter it.