kindliness of the monks—their real Christian charity—to the poor and afflicted, to the hungry and sore distressed, as to all who come to them in times of misery and evil. If many of them learn the litanies of their liturgy by heart, if they lack scholarship, if they do not know the meaning of much upon which they spend so many weary hours of their lives, are not these slight things when weighed against their profound humanity, their gentleness to everything which breathes, their benevolence to the old and destitute, their exceeding humility, their wonderful toleration, the quietness and extreme simplicity of their lives, and the humanitarian nature of their interests?
The Monastery of Yu-chom is all peace and quietude. It lies, shut off from all contact with the outer world, within a deep, tree-clad valley of the eastern ranges. It is self-contained, and its whole existence is wrapped up in the mysteries of that faith to whose services it is dedicated. There is no booming torrent, such as that which vibrates and thunders through the Chang-an-sa gorge; a subdued babble alone rises from the water, which wells from some rocks deep in the recesses of the prevailing bush. Its appearance is strangely solemn, and it exerts over the daily lives of the coterie of monks, assembled within its walls, an influence that conduces to their extreme asceticism. The atmosphere of repose and seclusion, in which a soul distressed finds so much comfort, broods over the whole community.
The most imposing of the thirty-four Buddhist retreats within the Diamond Mountains is Yu-chom-sa. It may be approached from the western side of the Keum-kang-san by climbing the rocky path of the Chang-an-sa gorge, and crossing the watershed through
