THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
boiling ferment of the Restoration. Like the Real Horse of Hakuraku, the spirit of Old Japan, in spite of the accretions of centuries, was still manifest.
The Tokugawa authorities had everything to fear from the revolutionary nature of the Oyomei doctrine, whose followers hesitated at nothing where their idea of righteousness was concerned. It was Oshiwo, a celebrated Oyomei scholar of Osaka, who with all his disciples rose in open revolt when the governor of that city refused for some insufficient reason to grant subsistence to the populace during the severe famine of 1837. He fired on the garrison and held them in check while he distributed the contents of the government granaries to the famished people, after which he calmly met his death. His mental attitude may be
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