"When our ancestors, Martha, were painting themselves up in yellow ochre and carrying clubs—what was the row about, then?"
"It was something like this. To go back a little, the Emperor was always the nominal ruler and spiritual head, but the temporal power was administered by a self-decreed Viceroy called the shogun. Japan was a closed country and only a little trading was allowed in certain ports."
His questioner nodded. The girl beside the white-haired old soldier had touched the latter's sleeve, and both were listening attentively. "Then Perry came along and kicked open the gate. Bombarded 'em, didn't he?"
The bishop's eyes twinkled. "Only with gifts. He brought a small printing-press, a toy telegraph line and a miniature locomotive and railroad track. He set up these on the beach and showed the officials whom the shogun's government sent to treat with him, how they worked. In the end he made them understand the immense value of the scientific advancement of the western world. The visit was an eye-opener, and the wiser Japanese realized that the nation couldn't exist under the old régime any longer. It must make general treaties and adopt new ideas. Some, on the other hand, wanted things to stay as they were."
"Pulling both ways, eh?"
"Yes. At length the progressists decided on a sweeping measure. Under the shogunate, the daimyos (they were the great landed nobles) had been in a continual state of suppressed insurrection."
"Some wouldn't knuckle down to the shogun, I suppose."
"Exactly. There was no national rallying-point. But they all alike revered their Emperor. In all the bloody civil wars of a thousand years—and the Japanese were always fighting, like Europe in the Middle Ages—no shogun ever laid violent hands on the Emperor. He was half divine, you see, descended from the ancient gods, a living link between them and modern men. So now they proposed to give him complete temporal power, make him ruler in fact, and abolish the shogunate entirely."
"Phew! And the big daimyos came into line on the proposition?"
"They poured out their blood and their money like water for the new cause. The shogun himself voluntarily relinquished his power and retired to private life."