In one other most important respect there has been little variation in the records of Korean history. Brave, loyal, and good men, when they have arisen to serve their monarch and their country, have never been permitted to flourish on Korean soil. The braver, more loyal and unselfish they have been, the more difficult has the path to the success of their endeavors been made by a corrupt Court and an ignorant and ungrateful populace. Almost without exception such men—rare enough at the best in Korean history—have been traduced by their enemies and deserted and degraded by their king. Curing the Hideyoshi invasion the most worthy leader of the Korean forces by land was General Kim Tuk-nyung. It is said that the Christian Japanese General Konishi had so high an opinion of General Kim that he had a portrait of him made, and on seeing it exclaimed: “This man is indeed a general.” But, on account of Kim’s success, his enemies maligned him; the king had him arrested, brought to Seoul, and, after a disgraceful trial, executed. In all Korea’s history there has never been another man to whom the nation has owed so much for his courage, devotion, and genius in affairs of war as to Admiral Yi. It was he, more than all others—king, officers, and common soldiers—who accomplished the final ill-success of the Japanese invasion. It was Admiral Yi who destroyed all chance of re-enforcing the Japanese army in Seoul, and who thus actually did what the Russian fleet in the recent war could not begin to do. But this great patriot and successful leader, under the same baleful influences, was degraded to the rank of a common soldier and barely escaped with his life. Quite uniformly such has been the fate of the true patriots and best leaders during all Korea’s history, and this just because they were true and of the best. Such would to-day be the fate of the saving elements left in Korean official circles if the hand of Japan were withdrawn. Indeed, as we have already seen, the most difficult part of the Resident-General’s problem is to cultivate and to protect Korean leaders of a trustworthy character. It is Korea’s national characteristic to “stone her prophets”; but few of them have had “whited sepulchres” built to them by future generations.