The boy in question is now Emperor and has unfortunately broken down in health. Mrs. Sannomya (afterwards Baroness), wife of the Vice-Chamberlain, told me that he was very intelligent, and that the Empress, who adopted him in accordance with Japanese custom, was fond of him. She also told me that the secondary wives were about the Court, but that it was not generally known which were the mothers of the Prince and Princesses. Mrs. Sannomya personally knew which they were, but the children were to be considered as belonging to the Emperor and Empress, the individual mothers had no recognised claim upon them. I believe that this Oriental “zenana” arrangement no longer exists, but meanwhile it assured the unbroken descent of the Imperial rulers from the Sun-goddess. We were assured that the reigning Emperor still possessed the divine sword, the ball or jewel, and the mirror with which she endowed her progeny. The mirror is the symbol of Shinto, the orthodox faith of Japan, and it derives its sanctity from the incident that it was used to attract the Sun-goddess from a cave whither she had retired in high dudgeon after a quarrel with another deity. In fact it seems to have acted as a pre-historic heliograph. By the crowing of a cock and the flashing of the mirror Ten sho dai jin was induced to think that morning had dawned, and once more to irradiate the universe with her beams.
Though Shintoism, the ancient ancestral creed, was re-established when the Emperor issued from his long seclusion, the mass of the population no doubt prefer the less abstract and more ritualistic Buddhism of China and Japan. What the educated classes really believe is exceedingly hard to discover. A very charming Japanese diplomatic lady remarked to me one Sunday at Osterley in connection with church-going that “it must be very nice to have a religion.” Viscount Hayashi summed up the popular creed, in answer to an inquiry on my part, as “the ethics of Confucius with the religious sanction of Buddhism”: perhaps that is as good a definition as any other.
It seems doubtful whether Christianity has made solid progress, though treated with due respect by the Government. Mr. Max Müller told me that when the Japanese were sending emissaries to the various Western Powers with instructions to investigate their methods both in war and peace, two of these envoys visited him and asked him to supply them with a suitable creed. “I told them,” said he, “‘Be good Buddhists first and I will think of something for you.’” An English lady long resident in Japan threw some further light on the Japanese view of ready-made religious faith. At the time when foreign instructors were employed to start Japan with her face turned westward, a German was enlisted to teach court etiquette, no doubt including “robes montantes en traine.” While still in this service a Court official requested him to supply the full ceremonial of a Court Christening. “But,” returned the Teuton, “you are not Christians, so how can I provide you with a Christening ceremony?” “Never mind,” was the reply, “you had better give it us now that you are here; we never know when we may want it.”
CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN
St. Francis Xavier, who preached Christianity to the Japanese in the sixteenth century, records the testimony of his Japanese secretary, whom he found and converted at Goa, as to the effect likely to be produced on his fellow-countrymen by the saintly missionary. “His people,” said Anjiro of Satsuma, “would not immediately assent to what might be said to them, but they would investigate what I might affirm respecting religion by a multitude of questions, and above all by observing whether my conduct agreed with my words. This done, the King, the nobility, and adult population would flock to Christ, being a nation which always follows reason as a guide.”
Whether convinced by reason or example it is certain that the Japanese of the day accepted Christianity in large numbers, and that many held firm in the terrible persecution which raged later on. Nevertheless the Christian faith was almost exterminated at the beginning of the seventeenth century, only a few lingering traces being found when the country was reopened to missions in the latter half of the nineteenth.
Nowadays the Japanese idea unfortunately appears to be that Christianity has not much influence on the statesmanship of foreign countries, and their leading men in competition with the West seem too keen on pushing to the front in material directions to trouble much about abstract doctrines. Belief in a spirit-world, however, certainly prevailed among the masses of the people whom we saw frequenting temples and joining in cheerful pilgrimages.
The great interests of our visit from a social and political point of view was finding an acute and active-minded race in a deliberate and determined state of transition from a loyal and chivalrous past to an essentially modern but still heroic future. Neither the war with China nor that with Russia had then taken place, but foundations were being laid which were to ensure victory in both cases. The Daimios had surrendered their land to the Emperor and received in return modern titles of nobility, and incomes calculated on their former revenues. The tillers of the soil were secured on their former holdings and instead of rent paid land-tax. Naturally everything was not settled without much discontent, particularly on the part of the peasants, who thought, as in other countries, that any sort of revolution ought to result in their having the land in fee-simple. Much water, however, has flowed under the Sacred Bridges of Japan since we were there, and I do not attempt to tread the labyrinths of the agrarian or other problems with which the statesmen of New Japan had or have to deal.
DAIMIOS OF OLD JAPAN
One thing, however, was evident even to those who, like ourselves, spent but a short time in the country. The younger nobles gained more than they lost in many ways by the abandonment of their feudal prominence. Their fathers had been more subservient to the Shoguns than the French nobility to Louis XIV. The third of the Tokugawa line, who lived in the seventeenth century, decreed that the daimios were to spend half the year at Yedo (the modern Tokyo), and even when they were allowed to return to their own estates they were obliged to leave their wives and families in the capital as hostages. The mountain passes were strictly guarded, and all persons traversing them rigidly searched, crucifixion being the punishment meted out to such as left the Shogun’s territory without a permit. On the shores of the beautiful Lake Hakone at the foot of the main pass villas were still pointed out where the daimios rested on their journey, and we were told that a neighbouring town was in other times largely populated by hair-dressers, who had to rearrange the elaborate coiffures of the ladies who were forced to take their hair down before passing the Hakone Bar. True, the daimios lived and travelled with great state and had armies of retainers, but at least one great noble confessed to me that the freedom which he then enjoyed fully compensated him for the loss of former grandeur.