" And God and Man " on Earth. 



IMPERIAL EXAMPLE, ACHIEVEMENT, AND LESSON EROM JAPAN. 



'There is no second way whereby to show 

 The love of Fatherland. 



Whether one stand 

 A soldier under arms, against the foe, 

 Or stay at home, a peaceful citizen, 

 The way of loyalty is still the same." 



—JAPANESE EMPEROR. 



IT is singularly appropriate for us to write on 

 the subject of the late Emperor of Japan, even 

 although some time will have elapsed before 

 these lines are published. To all the mourning 

 subjects of the Emperor there is rejoicing that in the 

 future the Imperial ancestors will number amongst 

 them one who, of all the long and unbroken line, 

 did most during his lifetime to achieve the advance- 

 ment of his country. And this added force for good 

 and for progress, together with the unimaginable 

 forces already existing, cannot but work for the good 

 of the country and for the carrying out of the ideals 

 of Mutsuhito. Where here we cry, " The King is 

 dead, long live the King ! " in Japan they say, " The 

 Emperor never dies ; long live the new Emperor, who in 

 his person contains all the good and all the force of his 

 predecessors." Toilive in order to become a good ancestor 

 is the ideal of the Japanese ; how much more so when in 

 dying the Emperor becomes part of the religious part 

 of the nation, from which it draws its daily inspiration, 

 and around which centres that patriotism which has 

 marked Japan out from amongst other nations. 



While his subjects considered Mutsuhito as a more 

 than man, he, availing himself to the full of the 

 advantages and attributes of that national point of 

 view, without allowing himself to be unduly influenced 

 in his commonsense decisions, made of his country 

 what he would. And what he would was good. " The 

 reign of the late Emperor," says Mr. Asquith, " was 

 the most memorable in modern history. He witnessed 

 in less than fifty years his own transformation from 

 a semi-Divine and carefully sequestered figure in the 

 background of the national life into a constitutional 

 monarch, and without losing any of the attributes of 

 his illustrious ancestors, he became the mainspring, 

 the central force, the pioneer and leader of a trans- 

 formation which has placed Japan among the foremost 

 nations of the world as a great na\al and military 

 Power with a splendid record of stubborn and 

 disciplined heroism." 



The personal side of the keystone of the Japanese 

 national arch is perhaps of less importance to the world 

 than the nature of the office he has inherited and of 

 the cumulative force of his position vts-d-vis the nation. 

 These because they appertain as much to his successor 

 as to himself, and it is because of this lliat we think 

 it well to devote some time to the Imperial position in 



Japan, that curiously successful mixture of theocracy, 

 autocracy and democracy, which has made many 

 profound thinkers wonder whether in Japan there is not 

 to be found the answer to many of the most thorny 

 of Western social problems. 



In the fact that Mutsuhito began to reign in 1S67, 

 when a mere boy, we may find a parallel with our 

 own Queen Victoria. Both had to gain their experience 

 in living history, and neither one nor the other failed 

 in the great task they were called upon to take up, 

 to the unending honour and glory of their respective 

 countries. The Japanese Emperor was the one 

 permanent and unchanging point in a rapidly-changing 

 country. He acquired experience and learnt to use 

 to the best advantage his inherited wisdom, even while 

 leading and encouraging change, and achieved the 

 apparently impossible work of perpetuating the old 

 Japan in the new. A man of immense industry, 

 working early and late, and ever ready to respond to 

 the call of duty, he was able to keep in touch with 

 all the many sides of Japanese development. His 

 frank nature led hirp to abhor subterfuge and to 

 demand truth from all around him. Endowed with a 

 remarkable memory, and a good judge of character, 

 he was able to make use of his servants and ministers 

 to the best advantage. Of his private life nothing 

 but good can be said. He saw Japan domineered 

 over by the arrogant nations of the West ; he becomes 

 an Imperial ancestor to watch over one of the great 

 Powers of the world, bound in indissoluble alliance 

 with this country, whose proud boast for centuries 

 was " we want no alliances." 



From his position in the nation, from the use he 

 made of it, from his actions and from his utterances, 

 Mutsuhito stands as an example to sovereigns and a 

 mark of admiration for ail. What he was his successor 

 may have every hope to he. for have not the Imperial 

 ancestors who guide and dominate him gained a very 

 wonderful recruit ? We do not need to be anxious 

 as to the future of any Japanese Emperor ; the past 

 Emperors keep jealous and true guard over him and 

 his actions. To know what the new Emperor will do 

 we have only to turn to the past, and in the actions 

 and utterances of the late Emperor we find mirrored 

 the quintessence of Japanese Imperial ideals and an 

 expression of the forces which continue to-dav to 

 dictate Imperial action. 



