upon
the nation as a whole? Will these accretions on the old civilisation
of the land mould and influence and alter the people generally, or
will the effect be circumscribed and merely develop a class standing
out apart from the great body of the people and affecting a
superiority because of its Western culture? In my opinion the result
will be not partial, but universal, though not immediate. There are,
of course, large portions of Japan, many millions of its population,
upon whom the opening up of the country has, as yet had little, if
any, effect. Many of the Japanese people have hardly ever seen a
foreigner, or, if they have, have viewed him with no little curiosity.
They certainly have not realised, and possibly have not suspected, the
effect which foreign influences are likely to have upon this Land of
the Rising Sun. But influences, we know, may be effective without
being felt, and I am convinced, from what I have seen and heard and
the investigations I have been enabled to make, that the Japan of
to-day is not only in transition--in rapid transition--but that its
evolution is sure and certain, and that the result thereof will be the
ultimate development of a nation which will assuredly impress the
world and will very probably have a much more potent effect upon it
than mere numbers would account for. It is the building up of a nation
such as this that I confidently look forward to in the future. We of
this generation may not, probably will not, live to see it--we
certainly shall not in its ultimate development--but we can already
see at work the forces which are to produce it, and the eye of faith,
of a reasonable faith, built not on mere surmise or ardent hopes, but
upon the expectation of a reasonable issue to the factors at work
producing it, assures us that the Japan of the future will, as I have
said, be a nation whose light will shine, and shine brilliantly,
before the whole world.

And as regards the political future of this wonderful country, I feel
I can speak with equal confidence. What a marvellous change has come
over this land, or our conception of this land, since the first
British Minister resident there penned his impressions on approaching
it. "A cluster of isles," he remarked, "appeared on the farthest verge
of the horizon, apparently inhabited by a race at once grotesque and
savage--not much given to hospitality, and rather addicted to
martyrising strangers of whose creed they disapproved. Th