character. Now, the character of a nation depends, in my
opinion, on the high or low estimate it has formed as to the meaning
and purpose of life, and also the extent to which it adheres to the
unwritten moral law, which is, after all, something superior to,
because higher than, mere legal enactments. I confess that as I wander
about this marvellous country of Japan, as I mingle with its common
people and see them in various phases of their lives I say to myself,
as St. Francis Xavier said of them more than three hundred years ago,
"This nation is the delight of my soul." The critic, the hypercritic,
is everywhere. He suspects everybody and everything. He can find
occult motives and psychological reasons for everything. I confess I
am a trifle tired of the critic, especially the psychological critic,
in reference to Japan. I view the people there as they are to-day, and
I have satisfied myself that we can see at work in Japan the formation
of a nation with a character. I care not to investigate the mental
processes at work, or the difference between the brain of the
Japanese and the brain of the European. I do see this, however, that
the leaders of the people, the educated and cultured classes of the
land, are intent on cutting out of the national character anything
which is indefensible, or has been found unserviceable, and equally
intent on adopting and adapting from any and every nation such
qualities as it is considered would the better enable Japan to advance
on the paths of progress and freedom, illuminating her way as a nation
and as a people by a shining illustration of all that is best in the
world, having sloughed off voluntarily and readily every
characteristic, however ancient, which reason and justice and
experience had shown to be unworthy of a power aspiring to stand out
prominently before the world.

In Sir Rutherford Alcock's work on Japan, "The Capital of the Tycoon,"
published some forty-four years ago, a work which, as I have elsewhere
said, is of undoubted value though somewhat marred by the prejudices
of the author, he attempted a forecast of the future of the country,
but, like so many prophets, his vaticinations have proved highly
inaccurate. "Japan," he remarked, "is on the great highway of nations,
the coveted of Russia, the most absorbing, if not the most aggressive
of all the Powers; and a perpetual temptation alike to merchant and to
missionary, who, each in different directions, finding th