nt, not only
first in order but the chief of all. They also infused into this term
ideas and associations which are foreign to the Chinese mind. In the
place of filial piety was Kun-shin, that new growth in the garden of
Japanese ethics, out of which arose the white flower of loyalty that
blooms perennial in history.

In Japan, Loyalty Displaces Filial Piety.

This slow but sure adaptation of the exotic to its new environment, took
place during the centuries previous to the seventeenth of the Christian
era. The completed product presented a growth so strikingly different
from the original as to compel the wonder of those Chinese refugee
scholars, who, at Mito[9] and Yedo, taught the later dogmas which are
orthodox but not historically Confucian.

Herein lies the difference between Chinese and Japanese ethical
philosophy. In old Japan, loyalty was above filial obedience, and the
man who deserted parents, wife and children for the feudal lord,
received unstinted praise. The corner-stone of the Japanese edifice of
personal righteousness and public weal, is loyalty. On the other hand,
filial piety is the basis of Chinese order and the secret of the amazing
national longevity, which is one of the moral wonders of the world, and
sure proof of the fulfilment of that promise which was made on Sinai and
wrapped up in the fourth commandment.

This master passion of the typical Samurai of old Japan made him regard
life as infinitely less than nothing, whenever duty demanded a display
of the virtue of loyalty. "The doctrines of Koshi and Moshi" (Confucius
and Mencius) formed, and possibly even yet form, the gospel and the
quintessence of all wordly wisdom to the Japanese gentleman; they became
the basis of his education and the ideal which inspired his conceptions
of duty and honor; but, crowning all his doctrines and aspirations was
his desire to be loyal. There might abide loyal, marital, filial,
fraternal and various other relations, but the greatest of all these was
loyalty. Hence the Japanese calendar of saints is not filled with
reformers, alms-givers and founders of hospitals or orphanages, but is
over-crowded with canonized suicides and committers of _hara-kiri_. Even
today, no man more quickly wins the popular regard during his life or
more surely draws homage to his tomb, securing even apotheosis, than the
suicide, though he may have committed a crime. In this era of Meiji or
enlightened peace, most appalling is t