care for humanity shown. The effect upon the people was noticeable,
followers multiplied rapidly, and it is said that even the government in
many instances made them, the Shingaku preachers, the distributors of
rice and alms for the needy. Some of the preachers became famous and
counted among their followers many men of influence. The literary side
of the movement[22] has been brought to the attention of English readers
through Mr. Mitford's translation of three sermons from the volume
entitled Shingaku D[=o]wa. Other discourses have been from time to time
rendered into English, those by Shibata, entitled The Sermons of the
Dove-like Venerable Master, being especially famous.

This movement, interesting as it was, came to an end when the country
began to be convulsed by the approaching entrance of foreigners, through
the Perry treaty; but it serves to show, what we believe to be the
truth, that the moral rottenness as well as the physical decay of the
Japanese people reached their acme just previous to the apparition of
the American fleet in 1853.

The story of nineteenth century Reformed Christianity in Japan does not
begin with Perry, or with Harris, or with the arrival of Christian
missionaries in 1859; for it has a subterranean and interior history, as
we have hinted; while that of the Roman form and order is a story of
unbroken continuity, though the life of the tunnel is now that of the
sunny road. The parable of the leaven is first illustrated and then that
of the mustard-seed. Before Christianity was phenomenal, it was potent.
Let us now look from the interior to the outside.

On Perry's flag-ship, the Mississippi, the Bible lay open, a sermon was
preached, and the hymn "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne" was sung, waking
the echoes of the Japan hills. The Christian day of rest was honored on