by the grandest theories of philosophy. . . . No error can be more grave
than to imagine that when a critical spirit is abroad the pleasant
beliefs will all remain, and the painful ones alone will perish.'

That the critical spirit of modernised Japan is now indirectly aiding
rather than opposing the efforts of foreign bigotry to destroy the
simple, happy beliefs of the people, and substitute those cruel
superstitions which the West has long intellectually outgrown--the
fancies of an unforgiving God and an everlasting hell--is surely to be
regretted. More than hundred and sixty years ago Kaempfer wrote of the
Japanese 'In the practice of virtue, in purity of life and outward
devotion they far outdo the Christians.' And except where native morals
have suffered by foreign contamination, as in the open ports, these
words are true of the Japanese to-day. My own conviction, and that of
many impartial and more experienced observers of Japanese life, is that
Japan has nothing whatever to gain by conversion to Christianity, either
morally or otherwise, but very much to lose.

Of the twenty-seven sketches composing these volumes, four were
originally purchased by various newspaper syndicates and reappear in a
considerably altered form, and six were published in the Atlantic
Monthly (1891-3). The remainder forming the bulk of the work, are new.

L.H.

KUMAMOTO, KYUSHU, JAPAN. May, 1894.



GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN by LAFCADIO HEARN