s this same spirit of loyalty that has made it hard for Christianity
to get a foothold in Japan. The Emperor was the representative of the
gods of Japan. To embrace a new religion seemed a desertion of him, and
the following of the strange gods of the foreigner. The work of the
Catholic missionaries which ended so disastrously in 1637 has left the
impression that a Christian is bound to offer allegiance to the Pope in
much the same way as the Emperor now receives it from his people; and
the bitterness of such a thought has made many refuse to hear what
Christianity really is. Such words as "King" and "Lord" they have
understood as referring to temporal things, and it has taken years to
undo this prejudice; a feeling in no way surprising when we consider
how the Jesuit missionaries once interfered with political movements in
Japan.

So bitter was this feeling, when Japan was first opened, that a native
Christian was at once branded as a traitor to his country, and very
severe was the persecution against all Christians. Missionaries at one
time dared not acknowledge themselves as such, and lived in danger of
their lives; and the Japanese Christian who remained faithful did so
knowing that he was despised and hated. I know of one mother who,
finding command and entreaty alike unavailing to move her son, a convert
to the new religion, threatened to commit suicide, feeling that the
disgrace which had fallen on the family could only be wiped out with her
death. Happily, all this is of the past, and to-day the samurai has
found that he can reconcile the new religion with his loyalty to Japan,
and that in receiving the one he is not led to betray the other.

The women of the samurai have shared with the men the responsibilities
of their rank, and the pride that comes from hereditary positions of
responsibility. A woman's first duty in all ranks of society is
obedience; but sacrifice of self, in however horrible a way, was a duty
most cheerfully and willingly performed, when by such sacrifice father,
husband, or son might be the better able to fulfill his duty towards his
feudal superior. The women in the daimi[=o]s' castles who were taught
fencing, drilled and uniformed, and relied upon to defend the castle in
case of need, were women of this class,--women whose husbands and
fathers were soldiers, and in whose veins ran the blood of generations
of fighting ancestors. Gentle, feminine, delicate as they were, there
was a possibi