men were born to the scepter, and nothing was more inevitable than that in such a crisis powerful ministers should come to be the real rulers, and that factions and wars should arise between ambitious rivals. To give an account of all the strifes and changes of the early times would require a volume. It is sufficient to my purpose to say that in course of time a powerful military chieftain became ascendant, and established himself as the recognized executive of the empire, taking the title of Shogun (pronounced Shong-un). But he ruled in the name of the Mikado, who was universally venerated as the sacred ruler. The Shogun, however, acquired such a hold of power as to make it hereditary. This state of things commenced, say, eight centuries ago—not to be accurate, for I have not the means at hand to verify the date-and continued, with the exception of a short interval, until 1868. But the Shogunate was not in the same family during this entire period, there having been several revolutions, changing it from one family of the great nobles to another. Three powerful families seem to have held it from first to last—the Taira, the Hajo, and the Tokugawa. Iyeyasu, one of the greatest names of Japanese history, of the Tokugawa family, was at the head of the last line. He became Shogun in 1598, and organized the Government with consummate sagacity, on a basis that secured the tranquillity of the empire until 1868, a period of nearly three hundred years. The study of his policy will well repay the time of any one who takes pleasure in that sort of reading.

During the period of the Shogunate the people became divided into several classes-a division which

began to appear even earlier. But the principal division was between the military and other classes. The military class were called samuri, a title that has great significance in the present history of the country. The samuri, or soldier class, was the product of the incessant wars of the early periods, and in course of time, if not from the beginning, it came to embrace all the official personages of the nation, and was hereditary. The samuri blood was never contaminated by inter-marriage with farmers, laborers, mechanics, or merchants. Indeed, the merchant, I understand, was held in greater contempt than any other class.

The samuri were supported at public cost, on this wise: The whole of Japan was divided into districts, each one of which belonged to a Daimio-pronounced Di-me-o. The terriotory of some of the Daimios was very large; others, again, had but a small domain. These Daimios were lords of the soil, and in the local administration were absolute, collecting such rents as they pleased from the land and the laboring classes. The samuri residents in the domain of any Daimio were his retainers, bound to respond to any call for military service, and dependent on him for subsistence. Sometimes the Daimios were at war with each other, and sometimes they were called upon by the Shogun to join him in his military enterprises. These enterprises generally had to do with rebellion in some part of the empire. Very rarely there was a little foreign embroilment with Formosa or Corea, or the conquest of some small group of islands.

It will be seen that this was all much the same as

the feudal system of Europe in the Middle Ages. The lord and his vassals were in nearly the same relations to each other, and the common people were taken no account of only as they could be taxed.

The samuri always wore his sword at his belt, and was quick to take and to avenge an indignity. Much blood was shed among themselves, and as for the cringing laborer or farmer, he knew it was as much as his life was worth to offer any show of self-defense against the domineering demands of his armed and knightly oppressor. Accustomed to it from infancy, he no doubt believed himself to belong to an inferior race, and accepted it as a part of the constitution of things.

But they

But there was not always war, and especially from the times of the great Iyeyasu to the present, peace had been the rule. The samuri were then an idle class, nor could the "standing army" be reduced to a peace footing, for all the sons of samuri were samuri, and their daughters were of the same class. Their subsistence was sure, but often rather scant. could resort to no ordinary avocation to increase their wealth. Many just lived in idleness, while many others devoted themselves to literature, and some became teachers. In this way a native literature has been maintained, and, as a class, the samuri are to a considerable degree cultivated, both in native and Chinese learning. It is not in any proper sense of the word, however, a scientific, but only a literary, culture. Many have devoted themselves to the elucidation of their own history and mythology, and there is, I believe, a considerable extent of literature in the line of romance.

The policy of the Shoguns was to keep the Mikado as an inaccessible sacred object, in whose name they could govern the people. He lived in voluptuous idleness, with every opportunity of sensual indulgence. With no responsibilities to arouse a manly nature, and a precedent of ages to justify his indulgences, he was a mere sensualist, enfeebled by excesses, imagining himself a god superior to the vulgar cares of life, and made of better stuff than other men. He was never seen but by the personal servants of the palace and the higher nobles, and by these last only at a distance, seated immovable in gorgeous robes, hung round by magnificent tapestry and canopied with gold. To the ear of the common people there came only rumors of the divine splendor of the son of the gods.

But during all this time it seems that there existed a latent feeling in many of the Mikadoes that they ought to reign in fact as they did in name, and that amongst the samuri there was always a greater or less degree of restiveness under the power of a man who was only one of their own class. In the long reign of peace, as literature was more and more cultivated, a knowledge of the earlier history of the country became diffused, and the feeling became wide-spread that the Shogun was a usurper. The desire to restore the Mikado to his rightful place as the actual Emperor-for he was always the nominal one -grew to be general and deep.

It so fell out that the Government of the United States of America furnished the occasion of bringing on a crisis. The Shogun had for two hundred years kept Japan secluded from any intercourse with

foreign nations. I believe there is a wide-spread belief that this had always been the case. Not so. Up to the beginning of seventeenth century they had shown no disposition of jealousy toward foreigners. That jealousy was brought about by the Jesuits. In 1542 this enterprising Order entered the country from Portugal-at least the greater number were from Portugal-the very first was Loyola himself. These missionaries met with marvelous success. They made converts by the thousand. They built churches, cathedrals, and monasteries. Several great Daimios being proselyted, compelled the people of their Daimiates to embrace the new religion on pain of banishment. The good fathers chuckled over this wholesale and bloody-handed dispensation of grace, and in the course of seventy years they boasted a native Church of between two and three hundred thousand members, if my memory is correct. They became proud and insolent, and began to feel that the country belonged to them. They undertook to meddle with public affairs. The Government took the alarm, but found that it could secure itself against their open or secret influence only by their expulsion. The policy of extermination was resolved upon. The priests were sent out of the country, thus having to take their own medicine. The native Christians were compelled to recant. Thousands were put to death. It was one of the bloodiest and most effectual persecutions in the history of the world. It was supposed that the Christian name had been obliterated, but it has recently come to light that, after two hundred years, there were still several thousand who secretly held the faith of the missionaries.