dred, and Japan in thirty years. What mighty leavening agency has
been employed, what secret learned from nature's workshop, that these
almost incredible results, should have been so quickly, yet beyond
question so well, won? The answer may be given in two words: England was
chiefly hand-made, the United States, and above all Japan, have been
made by machinery. Richly endowed with human genius, as with natural
resources, only time enough was needed to transplant modern political
institutions, and economic and industrial machinery, and to train
natives in their use, to enable Japan to raise herself, in one
generation, high in the scale of progressive nations.

Thirty years ago, Japan stood hesitatingly upon the threshold of her
hermit's cell, and considered whether she should go out and join the
throng of bustling Europeans. America, England and Holland had beaten
furiously at her doors, demanding her answer. At this fateful moment,
the daimio Okubu thus addressed the Mikado--"Since the middle Ages our
Emperor has lived behind a screen and has never trodden the earth.
Nothing of what went on outside his screen ever penetrated his sacred
ear; the imperial residence was profoundly secluded, and, naturally,
unlike the outer world. Not more than a few court nobles were allowed to
approach the throne, a practice most opposed to the principles of
Heaven. This vicious practice has been common in all ages. But now, let
pompous etiquette be done away with, and simplicity become our first
object. Kioto is in an-out-of-the way position, and is unfit to be the
seat of government! Let His Majesty take up his abode temporarily at
Ozaka, removing his capital hither, and thus cure one of the hundred
abuses which we inherit from past ages."

"The young Mikado, Mutsuhito, came in person to the meetings of the
council of state, and before the daimios and court nobles, promised on
oath that a deliberative assembly should be formed; all measures be
decided by public opinion; the uncivilized customs of former times
should be broken through; and the impartiality and justice displayed in
the workings of nature, be adopted as a basis of action; and that
intellect and learning should be sought for throughout the world, in
order to establish the foundations of empire." "These words," says the
translator, "seem an echo of the prophetic question of the Hebrew seer:
Can a nation be born at once."

In 1868 the quickly accomplished revolution occurre