“But how could she?” I queried.

“Oh, she had always been very religious,” my friend responded,—­“sincerely religious.  She only said, ’May God pardon me as I now pardon you!’ She made her servants hide the creature and feed him; and they kept him hidden until the excitement was over.  Then she sent him back to work; and he has been working for her ever since.  Of course he is now too old to be of any use in the field;—­he only takes care of the chickens.”

“But how,” I persisted, “could the relatives allow Madame to forgive him?”

“Well, Madame insisted that he was not mentally responsible,—­that he was only a poor fool who had killed without knowing what he was doing; and she argued that if she could forgive him, others could more easily do the same.  There was a consultation; and the relatives decided so to arrange matters that Madame could have her own way.”

“But why?”

“Because they knew that she found a sort of religious consolation—­a kind of religious comfort—­in forgiving the wretch.  She imagined that it was her duty as a Christian, not only to forgive him, but to take care of him.  We thought that she was mistaken,—­but we could understand....  Well, there is an example of what religion can do."...

* * * * *

The surprise of a new fact, or the sudden perception of something never before imagined, may cause an involuntary smile.  Unconsciously I smiled, while my friend was yet speaking; and the good notary’s brow darkened.

“Ah, you laugh!” he exclaimed,—­“you laugh!  That is wrong!—­that is a mistake!...  But you do not believe:  you do not know what it is,—­the true religion,—­the real Christianity!”

Earnestly I made answer:—­

“Pardon me!  I do believe every word of what you have told me.  If I laughed unthinkingly, it was only because I could not help wondering” ...

“At what?” he questioned gravely.

“At the marvelous instinct of that negro.”

“Ah, yes!” he returned approvingly.  “Yes, the cunning of the animal it was,—­the instinct of the brute!...  She was the only person in the world who could have saved him.”

“And he knew it,” I ventured to add.

“No—­no—­no!” my friend emphatically dissented,—­“he never could have known it!  He only felt it!...  Find me an instinct like that, and I will show you a brain incapable of any knowledge, any thinking, any understanding:  not the mind of a man, but the brain of a beast!”

A LETTER FROM JAPAN

Tokyo, August 1, 1904.