Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/210

156 empire which stretches in all directions, and encircles the globe with the drum-beat of her garrisons. The huge empire on whose possessions the sun never sets has taken as its ally the small empire of the rising sun!

This recognition of the status of New Japan has been, of course, a matter of great pride and rejoicing to that nation and therefore a source of encouragement to continue steadfast in the paths of progress along which she has been moving so rapidly. It has likewise been recognized that this alliance imposes great responsibilities upon Japan, if she would maintain her new position. These responsibilities are along not only military, naval, political, and commercial lines, but also along social, moral, and religious lines. The new alliance means that licentiousness, dishonesty, and other vices should not be tolerated, and that ignorance, superstition, and idolatry should not be allowed to thrive among a people in alliance with such a progressively Christian nation as Great Britain. In other words, this alliance should hasten the spread of the Gospel in Japan.

But this alliance means much to Christianity, not merely in Japan, but over all the Orient. For the