known to history is deified, and has a shrine or temple.  These heroes, too, are all men of conspicuous valor or strength, famed for mighty deeds of daring.  They are men of passion.  The most popular story in Japanese literature is that of “The Forty-seven Ronin,” who avenged the death of their liege-lord after years of waiting and plotting.  This revenge administered, they committed harakiri in accordance with the etiquette of the ethical code of feudal Japan.  Their tombs are to this day among the most frequented shrines in the capital of the land, and one of the most popular dramas presented in the theaters is based on this same heroic tragedy.

The prominence of the emotional element may be seen in the popular description of national heroes.  The picture of an ideal Japanese hero is to our eyes a caricature.  His face is distorted by a fierce frenzy of passion, his eyeballs glaring, his hair flying, and his hands hold with a mighty grip the two-handed sword wherewith he is hewing to pieces an enemy.  I am often amazed at the difference between the pictures of Japanese heroes and the living Japanese I see.  This difference is manifestly due to the idealizing process; for they love to see their heroes in their passionate moods and tenses.

The craving for heroes, even on the part of those who are familiar with Western thought and customs, is a feature of great interest.  Well do I remember the enthusiasm with which educated, Christian young men awaited the coming to Japan of an eminent American scholar, from whose lectures impossible things were expected.  So long as he was in America and only his books were known, he was a hero.  But when he appeared in person, carrying himself like any courteous gentleman, he lost his exalted position.

Townsend Harris showed his insight into Oriental thought never more clearly than by maintaining his dignity according to Japanese standards and methods.  On his first entry into Tokyo he states, in his journal, that although he would have preferred to ride on horseback, in order that he might see the city and the people, yet as the highest dignitaries never did so, but always rode in entirely closed “norimono” (a species of sedan chair carried by twenty or thirty bearers), he too would do the same; to have ridden into the limits of the city on horseback would have been construed by the Japanese as an admission that he held a far lower official rank than that of a plenipotentiary of a great nation.

It is not difficult to understand how these ideals of heroes arose.  They are the same in every land where militarism, and especially feudalism, is the foundation on which the social order rests.

Some of the difficulties met by foreign missionaries in trying to do their work arise from the fact that they are not easily regarded as heroes by their followers.  The people are accustomed to commit their guidance to officials or to teachers or advisers whom they can regard as heroes.  Since missionaries are not officials and do not have the manners of heroes, it is not to be expected that the Japanese will accept their leadership.