In religious matters, the Japanese are
tolerant, or rather very indifferent. In the Archipelago,
for ages past, several worships have co-
existed in peace; Buddhism and the religion
of Confucius, foreign importations, share the
public favour with the Sinto or worship of the
Kamis, the primitive religion of the country.
Thanks to this tolerance, the Spanish and
Portuguese missionaries had not been many years in
Japan before two hundred thousand natives of
the highest classes had received baptism and
become Christian converts. Such a religious
movement was unexampled. But times are
changed. For the last two hundred years, there
has not been a single Christian in Japan.
They were all exterminated by the Emperors
Taïko and Yeyas.

Lately, three or four French missionaries
have made attempts in the Loo-Choo Islands;
but their zeal has been productive of little
effect. An army of satellites are occupied day
and night in preventing them from holding
any communication with the islanders. Their
servants are incessantly changed. All the houses
which look towards their dwelling have had
their doors and windows bricked up, and an
outlet made on the other side. Whenever
they go out for a walk in the country, every
one is ordered to retire; and the only and
invariable reply to all their questions is, "I
do not understand." In this respect the Japanese
entertain at the present clay the ideas
of two hundred years ago. They have not
made the slightest progress. They reminded
the French embassy of the famous reply of the
Spanish captain to the emperor, which brought
about the great persecution. Taïko, one day,
expressing to the captain his astonishment at the
vast possessions of the king his master, inquired
how a kingdom comparatively so small had
succeeded in acquiring such enormous domains?
"In a very simple way," the Spaniard
inconsiderately replied. And thereupon, he explained
how Spanish priests had settled in newly-
discovered countries, and converted the idolatrous
inhabitants by their virtues and their
eloquence; and how the court of Madrid,
finding the ground ready prepared and the
converts to Roman Catholicism favourably
disposed, had sent a few troops into the
country, and had annexed it to its own
dominions. The imprudent hint was not thrown
away upon the sharp-witted sovereign of Japan.
He immediately resolved on the ruin of Christianity,
and carried out his resolve with unswerving
perseverance. The Spanish and Portuguese
priests were expelled from his realm. The
Japanese Christians were compelled to choose
between abjuration or death. In a few years,
nothing remained of the wonderful edifice
rapidly raised by St. Francis Xavier. But it
will be evident that the revolution which crushed
Christianity in Japan, was purely political, and
in no degree religious.

There is no standing army in Japan. All the
two-sabred gentry, who form the suite of the
princes and governors in time of peace, act as
soldiers in time of war. Individually, they are
very brave; but their swords and spears will
hardly enable them to resist European tactics.
It is asserted, however, that, conscious of their
weakness, they carefully read strategical works.
Japan feels that Europe has made the first
breach in her exclusiveness, and is tormented
just now by a touch of anxious uncertainty
respecting the future. She understands fully
that, with bows and arrows, she can make no
head against Miniée rifles, and she endeavours to
acquire a knowledge of the actual state of naval
science and military art. To have soldiers
worthy of the name, she must at once renounce
sandals, puffy trousers, and long robes trailing
behind; but she is ready to make the sacrifice.
The Japanese have not, like the Chinese, the
stupid prejudice to believe and to boast
themselves superior to every other people. They
set themselves above the Chinese and the
Coreans, but they estimate the Western Powers
at their real value.

In Japan, in case of necessity, people now
only perform the pantomime of ripping open
their own abdomen; they cut the carotid artery,
or get a friendly hand to cut it for them.
Evidently, the Happy Despatch is an ancient
custom fast going out of fashion. Many
anecdotes relating thereto, which have widely
circulated, belong to quite bygone times.

The government of Japan, like that of the
kingdom of Siam, presents the singular fact of
two sovereigns reigning simultaneously, in a
regular and normal way, in virtue of the
constitution of the country. In Siam, there is a
first and a second king, who exercise the supreme
power at the same time; in Japan, there are the
civil emperor and the ecclesiastical emperor, the
Taïcoun and the Mikado. The Taïcoun, whom
Europeans wrongly style the Emperor of Japan,
is only the delegate, the lieutenant of the
Mikado, who is the real sovereign of Nipon.
This illustrious personage is the representative
of the ancient dynasties, the descendant of
the gods, and too elevated to busy himself
with things of this world and to attend to
the administration of affairs, he turns over
that duty to his subordinate. Originally,
the Taïcouns were only mayors of the palace,
the chief officers of a degenerate dynasty
declined from its native vigour. Instead of
confining in a cloister the last Japanese Merovingian,
they have shaved his head, have shut him
up in a sumptuous temple, and converted him
into a living idol; both the demigod himself and
the nation at large being firmly persuaded that
such a condition is most in conformity with
his divine origin. The new dynasty took
its seat on the throne, and usurped the power
thereto appertaining, protesting all the while its
great respect for its old masters, and continuing
to acknowledge them as the absolute sovereigns
of the Archipelago. On this fiction does the
whole edifice of the Japanese political constitution
depend. The Mikado continues to reside
at Meako, the ancient capital of the Children of
the Sun, surrounded by a sumptuous court, the