Should the day arrive when the people will abandon their ancient beliefs, without having had the opportunity of becoming familiar with a higher creed, a sad deterioration must be the inevitable result. And the nation may be exposed to a similar danger should the old moral basis of their existence be shaken by the too sudden introduction of new conditions, and before the growing generation has had time to reach a standard of spiritual development corresponding to it. Thus far the rapid progress of Japan has been confined chiefly to material efforts; there has not been leisure to give sufficient care to the spiritual and moral needs of the people. The first aim and object of the young Japanese is to become rich, great, and mighty. Blindly they follow the example of the commercial Powers of Western Europe. With marvellous rapidity they have assimilated all that was external, all that was palpable. The Japanese fleet in the harbour of Nagasaki is a marvel of efficiency, while Kobe and Yokohama, as commercial towns, compare favourably with some of the largest trade centres of the United States and Britain. Osaka and Tokio, encouraging factories of every kind, have secured to Japan the market of the East, and life in the principal cities is in almost every respect a faithful copy of European institutions. But whether the people are essentially happier, with this external veneer, and the strong strain and high pressure it involves, is quite another thing, and a question of great importance to all who have the welfare of the nation seriously at heart. A too rapid transformation of existing conditions might very easily lead to an economic crisis, symptoms of which are already beginning to manifest themselves. Greater still would be the danger of a moral crisis, and equally unavoidable, so long as the people conform only outwardly to the exigencies of the newly acquired culture, without realizing its moral value, and whilst ignoring its spiritual aims. II CHINA China is in almost every respect diametrically opposed to Japan. In the first place, the two empires are entirely different in their geographical features and geological formation. In China towering mountain crags and vast, immeasurable plains alternate with one another. Some of those plains are dreary, desolate, barren wastes, while in other parts the ground is closely cultivated, yet wholly inadequate to feed China's millions. The canals which traverse the land in all directions are like so many huge rivers, and the streams sometimes widen into regular lakes, the borders of which cannot be descried by the naked eye. [Illustration: ON THE YANG-TZE-KIANG AFTER A WATER-COLOUR DRAWING BY THE AUTHOR "And the streams sometimes widen into regular lakes, the borders of which cannot be descried by the naked eye" To face page 340]