tic not likely to
be appreciated by foreigners, and especially Orientals, and I think I
am justified in remarking that the Japanese do not at all appreciate
it.

The European may impress the Oriental in one of several ways; he has
for the most part done so by his great military or naval prowess. That
is the way in which Great Britain has impressed the natives of India.
The English are in that country as a conquering race. They have
practically never been defeated, and the respect which they have
obtained is the respect that the weak have for the strong. In Japan
such a state of things is no longer possible. The results of the
Russian War have rendered it impossible for all time. An Oriental
nation has met a European Power on the field and on the high seas, and
soundly thrashed it. There is, however, another way in which the
European might impress the Oriental. The former professes to have a
purer religion and a higher code of morals. He has sought to impose
his religion upon every race with which he has been brought into
contact, and if he has not sought to impose his moral system, he has,
at any rate, severely criticised that of the people with whom he has
been brought into contact, and compared it with his own to their
disadvantage. In Japan, where there is a large foreign community, the
thinking, logical Japanese has had abundant opportunities for studying
not only the principles of Western religions and Western morality, but
also the practice of them by Western residents in his own land.

The result has been to give him much food for reflection. He reads the
criticisms of Europe upon the Yoshiwara and the Japanese attitude
generally towards prostitution, while he has ample evidence of the
fact that many of the patrons of the Yoshiwara are to be found among
the European community in Japan. And so of religion. The various
Christian denominations of the Western world aspire to convert Japan,
and send missionaries there for that purpose. The Japanese gives them
a fair field, and he has shown no aversion to investigate their
dogmas. At the same time he sees that a large proportion, I might
perhaps say the majority, of the European residents in Japan do not
trouble to attend the Christian places of worship, while many of them
make no disguise of their contempt for Christianity in general and the
missionaries in particular. What conclusion, may I ask, can the
logical, reasoning Japanese come to in these matters?

There