find exact equivalents for many expressions desirable in technical theology, or for what may fairly be termed pious slang, but will not use them, for fear of misleading the reader, or rather of failing to lead him out of his old notions into the new faith which it is desired to teach. So general have the use and affectation of Chinese become, that in many instances the pedantic Chinese name or word has been retained in the mouths of the people, while the more beautiful native term is almost lost. In general, however, only the men were devoted to Chinese, while the cultivation of the Japanese language was left to the women. This task the women nobly discharged, fully maintaining the credit of the native literature. Mr. W. G. Aston says, "I believe no parallel is to be found in the history of European letters, to the remarkable fact that a very large proportion of the best writings of the best age of Japanese literature was the work of women." The Genji Monogatari is the acknowledged standard of the language for the period to which it belongs, and the parent of the Japanese novel. This, with the classics Isé Monogatari and Makura Zoshi, and much of the poetry of the time, are the works of women.

It is to be noted that the borrowed Chinese words were taken entirely from the written, not the colloquial, language of China, the latter having never been spoken by the Japanese, except by a few interpreters at Nagasaki. The Japanese literary style is more concise, and retains archaic forms. The colloquial abounds in interjectional and onomatopoetic words and particles, uses a more simple inflection of the verb, and makes profuse use of honorific and polite terms. Though these particles defy translation, they add grace and force to the language. As in the English speech, the child of the wedded Saxon and Norman, the words which express the wants, feelings, and concerns of every-day life-all that is deepest in the human heart-are for the most part native; the technical, scientific, and abstract terms are foreign. Hence, if we would find the fountains of the musical and beautiful language of Japan, we must seek them in the hearts, and hear them flow from the lips, of the mothers of the Island Empire. Among the anomalies with which Japan has surprised or delighted the world may be claimed that of woman's achievements in the domain of letters. It was woman's genius, not man's, that made the Japanese a literary language. Moses established the Hebrew, Alfred the Saxon, and Luther the German tongue in permanent form; but in Japan, the mobile forms of speech crystallized into perennial beauty under the touch of woman's hand.

XXII.

THE GROWTH AND CUSTOMS OF FEUDALISM.

JAPAN, of all the Asiatic nations, seems to have brought the feudal system to the highest state of perfection. Originating and developing at the same time as in Europe, it became the constitution of the nation and the condition of society in the seventeenth century. When in Europe the nations were engaged in throwing off the feudal yoke and inaugurating modern government, Japan was riveting the fetters of feudalism, which stood intact until 1871. From the beginning of the thirteenth century, it had come to pass that there were virtually two rulers in Japan, and as foreigners, misled by the Hollanders at Deshima, supposed, two emperors.

The growth of feudalism in Japan took shape and form from the early division of the officials into civil and military. As we have seen, the Fujiwara controlled all the civil offices, and at first, in time of emergency, put on armor, led their troops to battle, and braved the dangers of war and the discomforts of the camp. In time, however, this great family, yielding to that sloth and luxury which ever seem, like an insidious disease, to ruin greatness in Japan, ceased to take the field themselves, and delegated the uncongenial tasks of war to certain members of particular noble families. Those from which the greatest number of shōguns were appointed were the Taira and Minamoto, that for several centuries held the chief military appointments. As luxury, corruption, intrigue, and effeminacy increased at the capital, the difficulty of keeping the remote parts of the empire in order increased, especially in the North and East. The War Department became disorganized, and the generals at Kiōto lost their ability to enforce their orders.

Many of the peasants, on becoming soldiers, had, on account of their personal valor or merit, been promoted to the permanent garrison of household troops. Once in the gay capital, they learned the details of intrigue and politics. Some were made court pages, or attendants on men of high rank, and thus learned the routine of official duty. They

caught the tone of life at court, where every man was striving for rank and his own glory, and they were not slow to imitate their august examples. Returning to their homes with the prestige of having been in the capital, they intrigued for power in their native districts, and gradually obtained rule over them, neglecting to go when duty called them to Kiōto, and ignoring the orders of their superiors in the War Department. The civil governors of the provinces dared not to molest, or attempt to bring these petty tyrants to obedience. Having armor, horses, and weapons, they were able to train and equip their dependents and servants, and thus provide themselves with an armed following.

Thus was formed a class of men who called themselves warriors, and were ever ready to serve a great leader for pay. The natural consequence of such a state of society was the frequent occurrence of village squabbles, border brawls, and the levying of black-mail upon de-Y fenseless people, culminating in the insurrection of a whole province. The disorder often rose to such a pitch that it was necessary for the X court to interfere, and an expedition was sent from Kiōto, under the command of a Taira or Minamoto leader. The shōgun, instead of waiting to recruit his army in the regular manner-a process doubtful of results in the disorganized state of the War Department and of the country in general-had immediate recourse to others of these veteran "warriors," who were already equipped, and eager for a fray.

Frequent repetition of the experience of the relation of brothers in arms, of commander and commanded, of rewarder and rewarded, gradually grew into that of lord and retainers. Each general had his special favorites and followers, and the professional soldier looked upon his commander as the one to whom his allegiance was directly due. The distant court at Kiōto, being utterly unable to enforce its authority, put the whole power of quieting the disturbed districts, whenever the disorder increased beyond the ability of the civil magistrate to repress it, into the hands of the Minamoto and Taira. These families thus became military clans and acquired enormous influence, enjoyed the monopoly of military patronage, and finally became the virtual rulers of the land.

The power of the sword was, as early as the twelfth century, lost to the court, which then attempted, by every means in its power, to check the rising influence of the military families and classes. They began by denying them high rank, thus putting them under social ban.

They next attempted to lay an interdict upon the warriors by forbidding them to ally themselves with either the Taira or the Minamoto. This availed nothing, for the warriors knew who rewarded them. They then endeavored, with poor success, to use one family as a check upon the other. Finally, when the Minamoto, Yoriyoshi, and Yoshiiyé conquered all the north of Hondo, and kept in tranquillity the whole of the Kuanto for fifteen years, even paying governmental expenses from their private funds, the court ignored their achievements. When they petitioned for rewards to be bestowed on their soldiers, the dilatory and reluctant, perhaps jealous, nobles composing the court not only neglected to do so, but left them without the imperial commission, and dishonored their achievements by speaking of them as "private feuds." Hence they took the responsibility, and conferred upon their soldiers grants of the conquered land in their own name. The Taira followed the same policy in the south and west.

When Yoritomo became Sei-i Tai Shōgun at Kamakura, erected the dual system, and appointed a military with a civil governor of each province in the interest of good order, feudalism assumed national proportions. Such a distribution soon ceased to be a balance, the military pan in the scale gained weight and the civil lost until it kicked the beam. At the end of the Hōjō domination, the court had lost the government of the provinces, and the kugé (court nobles) had been despoiled and impoverished by the buké (military). So thoroughly had feudalism become the national polity, that in the temporary mikadoate, 1534-1536, the Emperor Go-Daigo rewarded those who had restored him by grants of land for them to rule in their own names as his vassals.

Under the Ashikagas, the hold of even the central military authority, or chief daimio, was lost, and the empire split up into fragments. Historians have in vain attempted to construct a series of historical maps of this period. The pastime was war-a game of patchwork in which land continually changed possessors. There was no one great leader of sufficient power to overawe all; hence might made right; and whoever had the ability, valor, or daring to make himself pre-eminent above his fellows, and seized more land, his power would last until he was overcome by a stronger, or his family decayed through the effeminacy of his descendants. During this period, the great clans with whose names the readers of the works of the Jesuits and Dutch writers are familiar, or which have been most prominent since the opening of the empire, took their rise. They were those of Hosokawa

Uyésugi, Sataké, Takéda, the "later Hōjō of Odawara," Mōri, Otomo, Shimadzu, Kinzoji, Ōta, and Tokugawa.

As the authority of the court grew weaker and weaker, the alle giance which all men owed to the mikado, and which they theoretically acknowledged, was changed into loyalty to the military chief. Every man who bore arms was thus attached to some "great name" (daimiō), and became a vassal (kérai). The agricultural, and gradually the other classes, also put themselves, or were forcibly included, under the protection of some castle lord or nobleman having an armed following. The taxes, instead of being collected for the central gov ernment, flowed into the treasury of the local rulers. This left the mikado and court without revenue. The kugé, or Kiōto nobles, were thus stripped of wealth, until their poverty became the theme for the caricaturist. Nevertheless, the eye of their pride never dimmed. In their veins, they knew, ran the blood of the gods, while the daimiōs were only "earth-thieves," and the parvenus of feudalism. They still cherished their empty titles; and to all students of history their poverty was more honorable than all the glitter of the shōgun's train, or the splendor of the richest daimiō's mansion.

The daimiōs spent their revenues on their retainers, their personal pleasures, and in building castles. In almost every feudal city, or place of strategic importance, the towers, walls, and moats of these characteristic specimens of Japanese architecture could be seen. The strictest vigilance was maintained at the castle-gates, and a retainer of another daimiō, however hospitably entertained elsewhere, was never allowed entrance into the citadel. A minute code of honor, a rude sort of chivalry, and an exalted sense of loyalty were the growth of the feudal system.

Many of the medieval military customs were very interesting During this period the habit originated of the men shaving the hair off their temples and from the middle of the scalp, and binding the long cue into a top-knot, which was turned forward and laid on the scalp. The object of this was to keep the hair out of the eyes during battle, and also to mark the wearer as a warrior. Gradually it became a universal custom, extending to all classes.

When, in 1873, the reformers persuaded the people to cut off their knots and let their hair grow, the latter refused to "imitate the foreigners," and supposed they were true conservatives, when, in reality, the ancient Japanese knew nothing of shaven faces and scalps, or of top-knots. The ancient warriors wore mustaches, and even beards.