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EW people in the United States know much about immigration into Argentine. In the year 1913 the total immigration into Buenos Aires was 327,446 persons. Among these were 122,271 Spanish; 114,252 Italians; 4,317 Austrians; 4,696 French, and 18,626 Russians. The statistics report that the women numbered 86,176, and the majority of them were unmarried. About one thousand of them are classed as artists, a term which includes vaudeville, circus and show performers; 7,132 were registered as cooks; 9,387 as seamstresses; 2,425 as dressmakers; 3,127 as weavers; 7,059 as laundresses; 23,742 as servants (male and female, but predominantly female), and 12,652 women, not children, were registered as "without profession." Is it any wonder that there is much immorality in Buenos Aires, when such a stream of women of doubtful reputation at home, stimulated to emigrate because of unsatisfactory conditions in Europe, pours into that city in one year? It is a saddening truth that a number

of these women have already lived immoral lives at home, and the abominable white slave traffic, altho at last greatly restricted, does surely exist.

But who are these unfortunate women? South Americans, all but the very smallest fraction of them, are European women, Poles, French, Russians, yes, and English too. A number of them also are Jews-to my surprize. These do not reflect upon the character of the South American woman. Having studied this problem, I doubt whether Buenos Aires, that Babel of nations, is worse in that respect than Paris or Berlin.

The lack of restraint among the young men in the cities, men who congregate at the corners of the streets and pass remarks such as "Quê linda!" "Que bonita la nena!" "Que gorda, che!" (being translated, "How nice!" "What a lovely girl!" "Look at that stout one, fellows!") makes it unpleasant for women to go out alone, especially at dusk or in the dark. But does not that reflect upon the men rather than upon the women? If the latter liked that

cover what excellent street-car conductors women make in England and Germany, while Chile has had them for years. I have never seen one of these prim conductoresses, with their uniform hat and white apron, insulted all the while I lived in Santiago.

And what excellent mothers the Argentine and Chilean women make. Their fault lies on the side of overmuch care and restriction of their daughters. Social standards and society manners and customs are, of course, different from our AngloSaxon type, but we could learn many things from our polite and formal Southern sisters. Whoever has lived some years in Argentine and has an unbiased mind will agree that the Argentine woman is a home-lover, a careful protector of her daughters and a true wife. If any one is to be blamed for lax moral conditions, blame the men, who too often fail to appreciate the sacrifice and the true affection the carefully guarded young bride brings to her new home when married into surroundings and experiences absolutely new to her, not by her own fault.

Nor is this promising state of things to be found in the more advanced of the Southern Republics only, where we have women as physicians, lawyers and public school teachers. The most independent woman in the world is the Bolivian Chola; she is the merchant of the Capital; she presides over her store. or stores; she combines with the other women in fixing daily the prices for the vegetable market. I was shaved in Uyuni by a woman who owned and operated a barbershop. The Chola is often the money

lender to the middle class, and while it is true that she has no book knowledge (often because of the lack of literature that interests her), she can keep accounts with the accuracy of the Chetty of Madras.

We must take the climate into account when we judge of things pertaining to the women of Brazil or Paraguay, or Colombia. The heat tends to laziness and the long siesta helps to prolong the time for evening entertainments. If girls are married at an age which seems to Northerners shockingly young, we must not lose sight of the fact that physical maturity takes place at an earlier epoch in the life of the Southern girl.

As superintendent over several girls' schools, and by my observation of normal schools in other republics of South America, I have come to the conclusion that the "Sister in the South" is a bright scholar, a splendid needlewoman, a lover of her family and, when married, is a queen in her own home. What she needs to fully develop her fine traits is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in its simplicity and purity, which she does not know. When once she knows Him and the power of His resurrection, she will soon give up the confessional and her rosary and let the saints alone. In the churches which I have served as pastor, the women were among the most faithful members of the congregation.

South-American women are not sinners above all others. They act as all others act who have not the Gospel of Christ preached unto them, but they are racially, intellectually, and by natural disposition Our "Sisters of the South."

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HE clinic was held in Tap Teang in the province of Trang, Monthon of Puket, in the lower peninsula of Siam. The partici

pants sat in the broad passageway that ran through the missionary's house, and served as dining-room, reception room, and library. It was the hot season, and the tropical sun was blazing without. Across the lawn was the jungle from which the tropical birds were calling. Pineapples, cocoanuts, pomegranates and a score of fruits were ripening in the garden. Village people and lonely dwellers in the forest passed silently by with their burdens in a many-colored stream of life on the road by the jungle edge.

The clinic was in the nature of a comparative study of the power of Christianity and Buddhism to meet human need. It was not an academic study from a distance of ten thousand miles. The participants were men who had been brought up in Buddhism, and who knew it thoroughly from within. They had honestly tried its Way and have now as honestly tried Christianity and have known it also from within. They were, therefore, able to make such an intelligent and authoritative comparison as can not be made by

western Christians who have learned Buddhism only from books or by eastern Buddhists who have either not studied Christianity at all or have derived their knowledge of it only from nominal Christians.

Only a few steps away from where we sat was a Buddhist wat with its shed of Buddhist images, its palm-thatched house of priests and novices and its wat school for the boys of the village. Some of the priests in their picturesque yellow robes passed by on the jungle road, with their chelas bearing their rice bowls after them. For centuries upon centuries the influence of Buddhism had lain upon the land and the clinic was held against a background of reality.

We began with the question: "What did you not find in Buddhism that you have found in Christianity? Was this discovery the actually compelling reason for your acceptance of the Christian faith?"

Loop made the first reply. He was a short, shy man who had been for seven years in the Buddhist priesthood. For all these years, he said, he had felt the need of a Savior. That need Buddhism had not met and had not profest to meet. Buddha succeeded only in saving himself and frankly told his disciples that he could not presume

to save any one else that every man must be his own savior. How, indeed, could Buddha save or help? The salvation which he himself had sought and attained was annihilation. in Nirvana. How then could he aid those who were still struggling in the toils of life? There could be no access to Buddha since Buddha himself had ceased to exist.

Loop said that he came to realize that his Buddhist prayers reached no one. An extinguished Buddha could not hear them and the Buddhist doctrine was that there was no god to hear. All that Buddha could do he had done. He had left his example and his exhortations. With these each man must work out his salvation for himself. Therefore, if Buddhism is true and Buddha has attained extinction by his Way, there is no saving help from him for man. If, on the other hand, there is such saving help from him, and if he can hear and answer prayer, then Buddhism is false and Buddha has not attained the end he sought.

Not to salvation, but to despair, had Buddhism led the heart of Loop. But with joy and deliverance he learned of the living Savior, Jesus Christ, by whom, as the present and accessible power of God, he obtained a salvation that is real now and is rich with abounding and eternal significance forever.

The second to make answer was Sook, who also had for years been in the Buddhist priesthood. He proceeded to contrast his present Christian experience with the opposite experience of his life in the wat. In the first place he said that he had formerly had no assurance of faith. There was nothing that he could rest

upon that gave him security for his salvation. He had no consciousness that the merit which he was accumulating would wipe away his sin. He could make no satisfactory calculations that this was the fact.

His Buddhist longing for a guaranty of the perpetual remembrance of his good deeds was, however, met by Christ's assurance that He would personally remember even a cup of cold water given in His name. Buddha had given no such assurance. How could he do so? How could extinction and remembrance consist together? Even on the grounds of securing a man's accumulation of merit, Sook's heart had turned to Christ, for here was a living Master who would keep a record in His personal remembrance. What remembrance could there be with the dead master with whom Buddhism bade his heart be content? He knew of no memory but personal memory and that was precisely what Buddhism did not provide.

Christianity also offered in many places, of which John 3:16 was one, a true and living Savior from sin. There was none such in Buddhism. It knew absolutely nothing outside of oneself that could take away sin. The only escape must be by the sinner's own deeds and in proportion to the inexorable profit and loss account of his acts. But in Christianity the sin was taken clean away and atoned for. The loftier thought of salvation was also accompanied by a deeper view of sin. In Buddhism he had never felt that he was a sinner against Buddha and there was no god against whom to sin. He was sinner because he had sinned against himself or broken the law.

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