ead? Never, prithee, never forget the many benefits which our good
master Hideyori hath heaped upon thee. The gratitude we owe him is as
deep as the sea and as high as the hills."

Woman's surrender of herself to the good of her husband, home and
family, was as willing and honorable as the man's self-surrender to the
good of his lord and country. Self-renunciation, without which no
life-enigma can be solved, was the keynote of the Loyalty of man as well
as of the Domesticity of woman. She was no more the slave of man than
was her husband of his liege-lord, and the part she played was
recognized as _Naijo_, "the inner help." In the ascending scale of
service stood woman, who annihilated herself for man, that he might
annihilate himself for the master, that he in turn might obey heaven. I
know the weakness of this teaching and that the superiority of
Christianity is nowhere more manifest than here, in that it requires of
each and every living soul direct responsibility to its Creator.
Nevertheless, as far as the doctrine of service--the serving of a cause
higher than one's own self, even at the sacrifice of one's
individuality; I say the doctrine of service, which is the greatest that
Christ preached and is the sacred keynote of his mission--as far as that
is concerned, Bushido is based on eternal truth.

My readers will not accuse me of undue prejudice in favor of slavish
surrender of volition. I accept in a large measure the view advanced
with breadth of learning and defended with profundity of thought by
Hegel, that history is the unfolding and realization of freedom. The
point I wish to make is that the whole teaching of Bushido was so
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, that it was
required not only of woman but of man. Hence, until the influence of its
Precepts is entirely done away with, our society will not realize the
view rashly expressed by an American exponent of woman's rights, who
exclaimed, "May all the daughters of Japan rise in revolt against
ancient customs!" Can such a revolt succeed? Will it improve the female
status? Will the rights they gain by such a summary process repay the
loss of that sweetness of disposition, that gentleness of manner, which
are their present heritage? Was not the loss of domesticity on the part
of Roman matrons followed by moral corruption too gross to mention? Can
the American reformer assure us that a revolt of our daughters is the
true course for their his