by Mr. Walter Dening in one of the invaluable
"Summaries of Current Japanese Literature,"
contributed by him from time to time to the
columns of the "Japan Mail," Yokohama.

[Note 3] "It" means Christianity.

It needs no comment of ours to point out how thoroughly the
nation must be saturated by the doctrines under discussion
for such amazing utterances to be possible. If so-called
Christians can think thus, the non-Christian majority must
indeed be devout Emperor-worshippers and Japan-worshippers.
Such the go-ahead portion of the nation undoubtedly is--the
students, the army, the navy, the emigrants to Japan's new
foreign possessions, all the more ardent spirits. The
peasantry, as before noted, occupy themselves little with new
thoughts, clinging rather to the Buddhist beliefs of their
forefathers. But nothing could be further removed from even
their minds than the idea of offering any organised resistance
to the propaganda going on around them.

As a matter of fact, the spread of the new ideas has been
easy, because a large class derives power from their
diffusion, while to oppose them is the business of no one in
particular. Moreover, the disinterested love of truth for its
own sake is rare; the patience to unearth it is rarer still,
especially in the East. Patriotism, too, is a mighty engine
working in the interests of credulity. How should men not
believe in a system that produces such excellent practical
results, a system which has united all the scattered elements