Page:A modern pioneer in Korea-Henry G. Appenzeller-by William Elliot Griffis.djvu/29

Rh the two "great voices" of freedom, named by Wordsworth, made them lovers of their own national life. This, though so much and at so many points like the Chinese or Japanese, is notably different. Facing China Korea received more than she returned. With her mountain back turned to the archipelago, she gave freely to Japan, yet gained, until lately, little in return.

So, in its larger features, Korea, as it came from the hand of God is beautiful. As if the vast undulations of a stormy sea had suddenly frozen at the divine command, Cho-sen is a mountain land, so full of peaks and lines of hills, of mountains, range on range, as to seem to the native born as much alive as himself. While on his own soil, he can not escape them or be out of sight of them, for always and everywhere they are visible. As the Hebrew saw the mountains "skipping," "leaping like rams," "rejoicing" and the trees on them "clapping their hands" and otherwise acting as if they were living beings, endowed with a will and a purpose, so the Korean personifies his native hills over all of which is the Great One, Hannanim, whom Christian natives call Jehovah.

Long ago these summits wore God's clothing and were rich in forests, the growth of ages, but exactly like the wasteful Chinese of ancient, and Americans of modern date, the Koreans cut down their trees, neglecting to replant. Hence their land has suffered as China has and America will, while the Japanese, on the contrary, plant two trees for every one cut down. To the islander, who is a