an Oriental Pundit than are the efforts of Japan to vindicate her claim to Western culture without passing through the furnace which made that culture sterling.
The highest praise must be accorded to the earnestness and devotion of Christian missionaries in Japan, but it is a fact deeply to be regretted that the results of their work are so closely confined to the upper classes. This fact throws light upon the statement that there is a great gap between the upper and lower classes there. Even as we are writing, word comes from a keenly observant traveller in Japan that everywhere the Buddhist temples are undergoing repairs.
It is difficult to foresee what the resultant civilisation of Japan will be. There is nothing final as yet, nor have the conflicting forces indicated along what definite lines the intense nationalism of the Japanese will develop.
But let us look at the other side of the picture. Here is China, and with her Korea, for they are essentially one in general temper. They cling with intense loyalty to the past They are thoroughly conservative. Now, how will you explain it? Some would say that it is pure obstinacy, a wilful blindness, an intellectual coma, a moral obsession. This is the easiest, and superficially the most logical, explanation. It saves time and trouble; and, after all, what does it matter? It matters much every way. It does not become us to push the momentous question aside because those people are contemptible. Four hundred millions are saved from contempt by their very numbers. There is an explanation, and a rational one.
One must not forget that these people are possessed of a social system that has been worked out through long centuries, and to such fine issues that every individual has his set place and value. The system is comprehensive, consistent and homogeneous. It differs widely from ours, but has sufficed to hold those peoples together and give them a national life of wonderful tenacity. There must be something in the system fundamentally good, or else it would not have held
