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Japan and the Japanese, 
often procure permission to go elsewhere, from the officers 
of Government. Still, the old persecuting laws against Chris- 
tians have never been annulled ; they are simply allowed to 
remain as dead letters on the statute-book ; but native con- 
verts can go anywhere preaching the Gospel to their fellow- 
countrymen. 
Miss Bird, in her fascinating work on Japan, says, in 
reference to this question, Of the shadows which hang on 
the horizon of Japan, the darkest to my thinking arises 
from the fact that she is making the attempt, for the first 
time in history, to secure the fruits of Christianity, without 
transplanting the tree from which they spring. The nation 
is sunk in immorality, the millstone of Orientalism hangs 
around her neck in the race in which she has started, and 
her progress is political and intellectual, rather than moral ; 
in other words, as regards the higher destiny of man indi- 
vidually or collectively, it is at present a failure. The great 
hope for her is that she may grasp the truth and purity of 
primitive Christianity, as taught by the lips and life of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, as vigorously as she has grasped our 
arts and sciences ; and that in the reception of Christianity, 
with its true principles of manliness and national greatness, 
she may become, in the highest sense, ' The Land of the 
Rising Sun, and the Light of Eastern Asia.'" 
