Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/170

 maintenance of the great establishments that the feudal chiefs kept there, enriched the merchants and traders so greatly that their scale of living improved, and, like the land-owners, they indulged freely in the extravagances typical of the time,—tobacco smoking, sake drinking, vermicelli eating, and sugar consuming. The wealthy city-tradesman and the opulent provincial landlord could not fail to acquire an increasing perception of the gulf between the impecunious samurai and themselves. They resented his airs without appreciating his spirit. Excluded from the smallest share in the central administration, they had no sense of national duty, nor did they recognise any public obligation except the payment of taxes, any ethical principle except obedience to parents, or any limit to pleasure-seeking except lack of money. Religious influences were very feeble. Christianity had disappeared, and Buddhism was discredited by the conduct of its priests, who thought more of gratifying the flesh than of saving souls. Houses of ill-fame stood facing the entrances to temples and shrines, and a street in Yedo was frequented solely by the votaries of unnatural vices. The samurai themselves were rapidly drawn into this vortex of self-indulgence. Until the final quarter of the seventeenth century the bushi of the northeastern districts preserved their martial spirit and made comparatively few incursions into the realm of amatory passion, Osaka being then the chief