ant disregard for the principles which should regulate the conduct of
Christians. Without, however, denying either the justice of these charges,
or the reasonableness of the mood which advances them, I think it may be
urged with fairness that the influence of Christianity on us as a nation
cannot rightly be estimated in this particular way. As a rule, the
Englishman can scarcely be said to appear to advantage abroad. Too often
he assumes an attitude of insolent superiority to the people whose guest
he is; while the position in which our countrymen are placed in a country
like Japan--coupled with the freedom from restraint, so much greater than
at home--has, for reasons which we need not now enter into, its peculiar
difficulties. Neither is it by any means certain that a Japanese, paying a
short visit to England, will gather any just impression of what hold
Christianity has on us as a people. In all probability the range of his
observations will be very limited and superficial; his wanderings will be
chiefly confined to the great thoroughfares of the principal cities; while
the circle of his acquaintance will, it is likely, be equally restricted,
and equally unrepresentative of English life. Not that, in saying this, we
would seek to excuse ourselves, or deny that there is far more truth than
we could wish, and than there ought to be, in the charges brought against
us. We would merely submit that there is another side to the picture which
ought not, in fairness, to be overlooked. Admitting as we must, for
instance, the great prevalence of infidelity in our England of to-day,
there is yet to be placed over against it,--and may I not add, drawing it
out into the light?--the increased activity of the Church during this last
half-century, the remarkable power she has exhibited of adapting herself
to meet the needs of her times, the influence for good that she has not
only been in the past, but remains at the present day, in the nation at
large, and in thousands and thousands of English homes. "By their fruits
ye shall know them": and Christianity must not and need not deprecate the
application of that test to herself. Only, we would urge, that is not a
fair judgment, which takes account only of what the Church of Jesus Christ
has failed to do, without recognizing also all that, in the strength of
her Divine Head, she has been permitted to accomplish.

V. CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

I propose now to place before my reade