because of them that a Christian public opinion is growing up among non-Christian Japanese. Men to-day who have no special leanings toward Christianity shake their heads over vices and sins which a few years ago were not even thought of as wrong. There is a great deal of talk about the growth of moral depravity in the country, but as a matter of fact, the standards of virtue have never been so high since Japan was opened as they are to-day: it is only that Christian thought has held up a mirror to an un-Christian society, in which it views all too clearly its own defects. There is, to my mind, no more hopeful sign of the times than the growing discouragement over the present condition of morals. When there is added to this a steadily increasing respect for the honesty and strength of character of Christian men and women, it must mean that a great and lasting impression has been made. To-day banks, business offices, and other places requiring trustworthy clerks and employees, prefer, other things being equal, Christian young men, for it is generally known that they are more worthy of confidence than the majority of applicants for such places. One instance of this increased moral sensitiveness may be cited in the recent successful efforts to limit the power of the brothel-keepers over their victims and virtual slaves, the _jōrō_ or licensed prostitutes. As I have stated in a previous chapter, the women who carry on this business in Japan are, many of them, unwilling victims of a system which allows parents to sell their children to a life of shame; and they enter upon that life so young that they can hardly be regarded as morally responsible for their condition. Even after the actual sale of girls was forbidden by an imperial ordinance in 1872, the purchase price was called a loan to the parents of the girl, and subsequent loans for clothing entered upon the books of the establishment kept the unfortunates so continually in debt to their masters that they could never escape from the bondage in which they were held except through death, or by purchase by some infatuated admirer. Public opinion, while it indulged in some sentimental pity for the hard lot of the _jōrō_, did little or nothing to aid any one who desired to help them, regarding the profession as a necessary one, and caring not at all for the injustice to which the girls were subjected. Ten or twelve years ago, a movement started by some prominent Japanese Christians against the _jōroya_ fell flat for want of a public opinion behind it. Speeches on the subject were hissed down by audiences of young men, and nothing could be done to help even the most innocent and unhappy of the girls to a better life. In the new code, perhaps as an effect of this movement, a new law provided that the _jōrō_ might leave her calling by giving notice to the police. A police regulation, however, forbade any girl to cease her employment, or to leave the house in which she was kept, unless her