The coming of the foreigners made a sudden and decided change in the situation. Within less than twenty years the whole condition of affairs had been overturned; the shogun had been deposed from his high estate, the mikado had come to his own again, the feudal system had been abolished, and the people beheld with surprise and delight their spiritual emperor at the head of the state, absolute lord of their secular world, while the military tyranny under which they so long had groaned was irremediably annulled. Such was the first great step in the political revolution of Japan. It was followed by another and still greater one, an act without a parallel in the history of autocratic governments. This was the voluntary relinquishment of absolutism by the emperor, the calling together of a parliament, and the adoption of a representative government on the types of those of the West. In all history we can recall no similar event. All preceding parliaments came into existence through revolution or gradual growth, in no other instance through the voluntary abdication of autocratic power and the adoption of parliamentary rule by an emperor moved alone by a desire for the good of his people and the reform of the system of government. Japan had learned the lesson of civilization swiftly and well, her ablest sons devoting themselves to the task of bringing their country to the level of the foremost nations of the earth. Young men in numbers were sent abroad to observe the ways of the civilized world, to become familiar with its industries, and to study in its universities, and these on their return were placed at the head of affairs, industrial, educational, and political. No branch of modern art and science was neglected, the best to be had from every nation being intelligently studied by the inquisitive and quick-witted island youth. The war with China first revealed to the world the marvellous progress of Japan in the military art. Her armies were armed and disciplined in accordance with the best system of the West, and her warlike operations conducted on the most approved methods, though only native officers were employed. The rapidity with which troops, amounting to eighty thousand in all, and the necessary supplies were carried across the sea, and the skilful evolution, under native officers, of a fleet of vessels of a type not dreamed of in Japan thirty years before, was a new revelation to the observing world. And in another direction it was made evident that Japan had learned a valuable lesson from the nations of Christendom. Instead of the massacres of their earlier wars, they now displayed the most humanitarian moderation. There was no ill treatment of the peaceful inhabitants, while ambulances and field hospitals were put at the disposal of the wounded of both sides, with a humane kindness greatly to be commended.