Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/25

Rh to comfort, to bless. I once heard Bishop Brent, that most practical of spiritual men, in speaking to a congregation of sailors say that to put themselves en rapport with God and goodness was as easy as to turn a cock that let in the Pacific Ocean. So a Japanese enters into the peace that passeth understanding when he takes his weary body and tired mind, but open soul, into that place dedicated to peace. It is the survival of the Japanese garden, and all that the love of it still implies, which has saved Japan from being brutalized by improvement, from being crushed beneath the responsibility of transformation into a great Power, that has redeemed her from the curse that money-making brings. In the overturning of old ideals, while love of beauty and living things remains, Japan, thank God, can never grow into one of the sordid countries that the West knows so well.

But not only does the average Japanese bring with him the temperament to realise these delicate delights: the inspiration, the impulse to enjoy with the soul, as it were, is there before him. The artist who designed the grounds has already deliberately put it there, and, in these days, when mental suggestion has become almost a commonplace, it would be foolish to deny the possibility of such a sentiment persisting in a garden.

I dare say the reader may fancy this a farfetched idea—both my interpretation and the