toil; it exposes his body to hunger and subjects him to extreme poverty;
and it confounds his undertakings. In all these ways it stimulates his
mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies." True honor
lies in fulfilling Heaven's decree and no death incurred in so doing is
ignominious, whereas death to avoid what Heaven has in store is cowardly
indeed! In that quaint book of Sir Thomas Browne's, _Religio Medici_
there is an exact English equivalent for what is repeatedly taught in
our Precepts. Let me quote it: "It is a brave act of valor to contemn
death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest
valor to dare to live." A renowned priest of the seventeenth century
satirically observed--"Talk as he may, a samurai who ne'er has died is
apt in decisive moments to flee or hide." Again--Him who once has died
in the bottom of his breast, no spears of Sanada nor all the arrows of
Tametomo can pierce. How near we come to the portals of the temple whose
Builder taught "he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it!"
These are but a few of the numerous examples which tend to confirm the
moral identity of the human species, notwithstanding an attempt so
assiduously made to render the distinction between Christian and Pagan
as great as possible.

[Footnote 20: I use Dr. Legge's translation verbatim.]

We have thus seen that the Bushido institution of suicide was neither
so irrational nor barbarous as its abuse strikes us at first sight. We
will now see whether its sister institution of Redress--or call it
Revenge, if you will--has its mitigating features. I hope I can dispose
of this question in a few words, since a similar institution, or call it
custom, if that suits you better, has at some time prevailed among all
peoples and has not yet become entirely obsolete, as attested by the
continuance of duelling and lynching. Why, has not an American captain
recently challenged Esterhazy, that the wrongs of Dreyfus be avenged?
Among a savage tribe which has no marriage, adultery is not a sin, and
only the jealousy of a lover protects a woman from abuse: so in a time
which has no criminal court, murder is not a crime, and only the
vigilant vengeance of the victim's people preserves social order. "What
is the most beautiful thing on earth?" said Osiris to Horus. The reply
was, "To avenge a parent's wrongs,"--to which a Japanese would have
added "and a master's."

In revenge there is something