ABOUT JAPANESE RULERS. 143

Japanese had had some reason to complain, as all the methods for
diffusing Christianity can not be approved. The Japanese showed that
they could torment as successfully as Western persecutors. Nobly,
though, did Christian converts prove their sincerity. Some were burned
to death. Thousands were thrown down from the rock of Pappenberg,
in Nagasaki harbor. Cheerfully did they let their persecutors hurl them
into pits, there to be buried alive. The government for many, many
years prohibited Christianity. All over Japan was set up the kosatsu,
or edict-board, forbidding the religion of Christ. I have seen a famous
one near Nihon Bashi. It plainly said: ‘The evil sect called Christian
is strictly prohibited.’ That day, though, has passed away. You will
ask how it is that the hated foreigners have been allowed to come again
in such numbers, bringing their hated religion.

“The Dutch for a long time previous to this century had certain
privileges of trade allowed them. In 1853, our Commodore Perry
came here with several bull-dogs or war-ships, treating amicably with
Japan, and yet the Japanese saw that the bull-dogs could growl, if
_ necessary. Japan now agreed to open some of its ports to foreign
trade. Foreign nations pressed closer upon Japan, Americans, English,
Russians, French and Dutch treating with Sunrise Land. In 1868
came a civil war in Japan. For six hundred yearsa set of military
rulers called shoguns were in existence. They lived at Yedo, as Tokiyo
was formerly called, and though inferior to the emperor, yet they had
such a military power in Japan that the mikado must oftentimes have
been a kind of big, invisible, shut-up nobody at Kiyoto, the other capital
and Japan’s sacred city. The shogun or tycoon, as he has been
called, had been signing foreign treaties, and not the mikado; and
dissatisfaction followed such abuse of privilege. People cried: ‘ Honor
the mikado, and expel the barbarian!’ At last, war broke out between
mikado and shogun. The result was that the mikado came to the