one, but by the wealthy also, although I do hot affirm or suppose
that the practice was universal. I am personally acquainted with the
management of the Christian Leper Hospital in Kumamoto, and the sad
accounts I have heard of the way in which lepers are treated by their
kindred would seem incredible, were they not supported by the
character of my informants, and by many other facts of a kindred
nature.

A history of Japan was prepared by Japanese scholars under appointment
from the government and sent to the Columbian Exposition in 1893; it
makes the following statement, already referred to on a previous page:
"Despite the issue of several proclamations ... people were governed
by such strong aversion to the sight of sickness that travelers were
often left to die by the roadside from thirst, hunger, or disease, and
householders even went to the length of thrusting out of doors and
abandoning to utter destitution servants who suffered from chronic
maladies.... Whenever an epidemic occurred, the number of deaths that
resulted was enormous."[N] This was the condition of things after
Buddhism, with its civilizing and humanizing influences, had been at
work in the land for about four hundred years, and Old Japan was at
the height of her glory, whether considered from the standpoint of her
government, her literature, her religious development, or her art.

Of a period some two hundred years earlier, it is stated that, by the
assistance of the Sovereign, Buddhism established a charity hospital
in Nara, "where the poor received medical treatment and drugs gratis,
and an asylum was founded for the support of the destitute. Measures
were also taken to rescue foundlings, and, in general, to relieve
poverty and distress" (p. 92). The good beginning made at that time
does not seem to have been followed up. As nearly as I can make out,
relying on the investigations of Rev. J.H. Pettee and Mr. Ishii, there
are to-day in Japan fifty orphan asylums, of which eleven are of
non-Christian, and thirty-nine of Christian origin, support, and
control. Of the non-Christian, five are in Osaka, two in Tokyo, four
in Kyoto, and one each in Nagoya, Kumamoto, and Matsuye. Presumably
the majority of these are in the hands of Buddhists. Of the Christian
asylums twenty are Roman Catholic and nineteen are Protestant. It is a
noteworthy fact that in this form of philanthropy and religious
activity, as in so many others, Christians are the pioneers and