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.

Then we went into a special huge room for preaching, where 150-200 listeners were sitting on the floor; An old man, a very well-fed bonze, came, made a short prayer before the idol, went up to the pulpit and began to preach, prefacing her with some kind of proclamation in a completely hoarse and wild voice, as if deliberately breaking and disfiguring him; the people shouted something and fell silent, and the bonze began to preach; but it almost consisted of a set of old songs, so that even Isogai did not understand. During the sermon the bonze broke his voice terribly, sometimes he seemed to cry, sometimes he shouted, but in general he spoke all the time laughing and laughing; The sermon lasted 15 minutes.

From there we went not far to the same tera Nishina; This one is a little richer, but a complete copy of the first. From here we also went to the sermon; a young bonze preached here; we found it already in the middle; he explained that we are before God as children before our parents, and we must behave and cleanse ourselves of the sins that we have. And where did he find such and such a God? And what kind of sins are for a Buddhist? Isogai explained that these are the most ordinary worldly offenses, and this does not concern the essence of spiritual life, the heart. After all, a Buddhist also has some kind of search for the purity of life. Are they not from Christianity and are turning it over in their own way? After all, the Protestants cleverly instilled in the Japanese the idea of freedom of belief for everyone in their own way, since it is not important, but the recognition of the One God is important.

From time to time the bonze hummed something in the middle of the sermon, and then everyone began to repeat and babble too; here many people woke up, completely asleep and now awakened by this uproar and howling. After the sermon, the bonze read a few words from some sacred book of this church, written by its creator: this is done at the conclusion of every day's sermon. Now there are two sermons here every day at this time; And if they gather like this every day, then it is very good for Buddhism, it means that it still has many sincere followers. After the sermon, everyone left money on the floor. If our Christians did the same, then our work would be a little better. But for the time being, everything ecclesiastical has been created for them by foreign, Russian hands, and therefore the heart does not have such a warm attitude towards what is not theirs: everything is thought to be corrected by the one who did it. Well, yes, this will gradually take root, little by little everything will be at their hands, at least in the form of minor repairs, and then they themselves will take care of everything as their own.

It is the same in Russia: if a school is built for the peasants, they do not send their children to it with much love, and it is absurd to talk about repairs; Not ours, they think they will fix it anyway. But if even a bad one, and the men themselves build a school for themselves, so they take care of it.

At 6 o'clock in the evening from Sakuma I went first to Yamamoto Luka: he had been baptized, as I was told, five years ago. Now he does not go to church and does not confess, which is why I did not soon find out where he lived; all my co-workers justified their ignorance of him by the fact that he had fallen behind the Church. His wife is a pagan, and she must be strict about it. Luke met me in the shop and immediately received my blessing; I began my speech directly from a painful place for him: Jesus Christ endured the cross for us, and you, having accepted baptism and the grace of God, neglect this greatest love of His; for if only you had shown this to your parents, you would have been a very ungrateful and wicked son; but for us the Son of God Himself descended from heaven to earth. If you really contained this grace you received, you would really find it the greatest strength for yourself, and the power of God would really help you. Remember that we will all die and then we will have to give an answer to God in everything: what answer will you give in this? He has an icon. I advised him to come to my house some day for a conversation, as perhaps he was at a loss in front of his wife, and the boys were crowded around, so that he had to drive them away; he advised to come to church from time to time, and to confess and commune during Lent, and briefly spoke about the sacrament of Holy Communion as a means of being with Christ.

Then we went to Katajima Stephen, whose wife was baptized on Trinity Day; I wanted to congratulate her and give her the icons, but it turned out that she was taking a bath. By the way, the Japanese in general do not hesitate to show themselves completely naked and only wear belts; Their baths are common to all. And yet it does not seem to be that their manners are too depraved in comparison with European licentiousness, where, for instance, in France, the population is positively dying out. The old woman, who was worried, said that we would come at another time, and went to Mruyama Theodora, but we did not find her at home – there was a lock. We went to Miyamoto Hariton and Natalia. They live very far from the church; sometimes they still seem to come to church; only Chariton did not take communion this year; he justifies himself by the fact that although before receiving baptism he agreed with the owner (a tobacconist) to give him a leave of absence to go to church from time to time, the pagan owner still does not let him go and forces him to work every day; I nevertheless advised us to arrange it somehow, because without prayer we cannot live spiritually, and in Lent I advised us to take communion; we are called believers, and therefore we must live and act according to this faith; every man is called a carpenter from his own work, a carpenter from carpentry, and so on; so are we: for it is only for us that Christ suffered on the cross, in order to give us His saving grace; but grace, though in our hands, may not save us if we do not accept it and use it. For example, I have a book in my hands, but if I do not understand the signs, then I will understand nothing in it, and if I gradually understand the signs, then I will understand the book, and so grace: if we do not live it, then it will not be effective for us, and vice versa. Natalia complained that her breasts hurt; I said that especially in illnesses we must turn to God, because if the wardrobe breaks down, then I will not fix it myself, because I cannot and do not understand, I will call the master, he understands it well and will do it; so in the beginning God created us out of nothing, but He alone can really help us in our needs and illnesses, and therefore we must always turn to Him. If we really ask God for help with faith for anything, then we will certainly receive, for God knows us well and loves us more than parents: these can sometimes forget children, but God will never forget, if only we turn to Him (the story of Fukase). In conversations he sometimes asked to talk with pagans about Christ, since Christ brought the Cross for everyone and everyone equally needs salvation. He asked: where does Morimura Habakkuk live with his sons Elijah and John? He is Natalia's uncle. Neither Father Sergius Suzuki nor the catechists have seen or visited him, since he does not go to church. It turned out that Miyamoto knew, and he pointed it out to us, so next time we can put him in as well. Thus, God willing, we will find everyone, but the Christians themselves will say about everyone – where he is. They know each other. On the way back, we again went to the old men of Kitajima, but the old man was planing something, so I interrupted and decided to say a few words and leave; the old woman was very happy, her face was so soft and kind; I gave her icons of the Savior, the Mother of God and Mary Magdalene. She was very grateful; I sometimes encouraged her to go to church (although I am aware that it is difficult for her: they live far away, and she is already an old woman); She said very happily that she would always try to the best of her ability, and now she would come the day after tomorrow. I said goodbye and left; And the old man left his work and saw him off. At about 9 o'clock we returned.

Today Vladyka sent a letter in which he writes that everything I do is good so far, it should be; Fr. Archimandrite Sergius will tell about it in Kanda at the meetings, and it is wonderful, although, Vladyka writes, he does not say anything about his sermons, except for the usual good-natured reviews, for example: the old women slept well, and then diligently thanked for the word; this is his humility. He now knows more signs than Vladyka, and he reads the Japanese newspapers more freely than he does (writes Vladyka). Thank God. I probably won't get to that; the signs fall out of my head, I can't remember them, and I don't have time to deal with them at all; So today I did not have time to rewrite them. Vladyka enclosed a letter from a certain Tokito from the Osaka Noogak-koo (middle school), he wants to listen to the teaching and asks for a teacher; at the direction of Vladyka, I advised the catechist Jacob Fujia to go and get to know this man, so that later I could get to know him myself, whether he really wanted to listen to the teaching. Yes, it would be very good to have a catechetical school here: the pagans have opened their ears for listening, and we cannot satisfy them.