“When I was young I determined to fight and punish all my own and my ancestors’ enemies, and I did punish them; but afterwards, by deep consideration, I found that the way of heaven was to help the people, and not to punish them.  Let my successors follow out this policy, or they are not of my line.  In this lies the strength of the nation.”

“To insure the Empire peace, the foundation must be laid in the ways of holiness and religion, and if men think they can be educated, and will not remember this, it is as if a man were to go to a forest to catch fish, or thought he could draw water out of fire.  They must follow the ways of holiness.”

“Japan is the country of the gods [or God—­’Shinkoku’].  Therefore, we have among us Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism, and other sects.  If we leave our gods [or God] it is like refusing the wages of our master and taking them from another.”

“In regard to dancing women, prostitutes, brothels, night work, and all other improper employments, all these are like caterpillars or locusts in the country.  Good men and writers in all times have written against them.”

“It is said that the Mikado, looking down on his people, loves them as a mother does her children.  The same may be said of me and my government.  This benevolence of mind is called Jin.  This Jin may be said to consist of five parts; these are humanity, integrity, courtesy, wisdom, and truth.  My mode of government is according to the way of heaven.  This I have done to show that I am impartial, and am not assisting my own relatives and friends only."[BF]

These quotations are perhaps sufficient, though one more from a recent writer has a peculiar interest of its own, from the fact that the purpose of the book from which the quotation is taken was the destruction of the tendencies toward approval of Western thought.  It was published in 1857.  The writer, Junzo Ohashi, felt himself to be a witness for truth and righteousness, and, in the spirit of the doctrine he professed, sealed his faith with a martyr’s suffering and death, dying (in August, 1868) from the effect of repeated examination by torture for a supposed crime, innocence of which he maintained to the end.  It is interesting to note that two of his granddaughters, “with the physics and astronomy of the West, have accepted its religion.”

“The West knows not the ’Ri’[BG] of the virtues of the heart which are in all men unchangeably the same.  Nor does it know that the body is the organ of the virtues, however careful its analysis of the body may be.  The adherents of the Western Philosophy indeed study carefully the outward appearances, but they have no right to steal the honored name of natural philosophy.  As when ‘Ki’ is destroyed, ‘Ri’ too disappears, so, with their analysis of ‘Ki,’ they destroy ‘Ri,’ and thus this learning brings benevolence and righteousness and loyalty