matters between a number of Christian evangelists.  After mutual comparisons they agreed that one of their number was more fortunate than the rest in that he did not have to support his mother.  On inquiring into the matter, the missionary learned that this evangelist, on becoming a Buddhist priest many years before, had secured from the government, according to the laws of the land, exemption from this duty.  When he became a Christian it did not seem to occur to him that it was his duty and his privilege to support his indigent mother.  I may add that this idea has since occurred to him and he is acting upon it.

Infanticide throws a rather lurid light on Japanese affection.  First, in regard to the facts:  Mr. Ishii’s attention was called to the need of an orphan asylum by hearing how a child, both of whose parents had died of cholera, was on the point of being buried alive with its dead mother by heartless neighbors when it was rescued by a fisherman.  Certain parts of Japan have been notorious from of old for this practice.  In Tosa the evil was so rampant that a society for its prevention has been in existence for many years.  It helps support children of poor parents who might be tempted to dispose of them criminally.  In that province from January to March, 1898, I was told that “only” four cases of conviction for this crime were reported.  The registered annual birth rate of certain villages has increased from 40-50 to 75-80, and this without any immigration from outside.  The reason assigned is the diminution of infanticide.

In speaking of infanticide in Japan, let us not forget that every race and nation has been guilty of the same crime, and has continued to be guilty of it until delivered by Christianity.

Widespread infanticide proves a wide lack of natural affection.  Poverty is, of course, the common plea.  Yet infanticide has been practiced not so much by the desperately poor as by small land-holders.  The amount of farming land possessed by each family was strictly limited and could feed only a given number of mouths.  Should the family exceed that number, all would be involved in poverty, for the members beyond that limit did not have the liberty to travel in search of new occupation.  Infanticide, therefore, bore direct relation to the rigid economic nature of the old social order.

Whatever, therefore, be the point of view from which we study the question of Japanese affection for children, we see that it was intimately connected with the nature of the social order.  Whether we judge such affection or its lack to be a characteristic trait of Japanese nature, we must still maintain that it is not an inherent trait of the race nature, but only a characteristic depending for its greater or less development on the nature of the social order.

IX

MARITAL LOVE