66 mightiest nation of Asia was crushed by this 'Lochinvar" out of the East, in less than a year of war! General Grant passed through "the valley and the shadow of death," fearless and full of Christian hope, within a year after the date of our meeting, and long before his prophecy became verified. The ex-President confessed that these opinions of the land of which he had been a loved and honored guest were somewhat influenced by the boundless hospitality shown to the United States in the person of himself. This hospitality was shown largely because he was an American citizen, and because the occasion furnished to Japan the opportunity to manifest her respect and her love for our country. From Li Hung Chang to the Chinese Empress Dowager and the coolie-from Pekin to Shanghai in the Middle Kingdom-they showered upon him likewise a most gracious hospitality. His opinions were founded on the evidence he everywhere saw of Japan's wonderful advance in civilization and in all the qualities which constitute the true power of a State. He would have us understand that he avoided trenching upon the peaceful and tolerant conflict in those far eastern lands, between Paganism and the Christian religion. But believing, as he did, in the God of the old Bible and in the Christ of the New Testament, in the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, nevertheless, he said that the only Paganism he heard of in Japan was confined to the temples and not exhibited by the State, and seemed to rest lightly on the people, from the prince to the peasant. In a word, we were assured that almost complete toleration in matters of church existed there. The denial by the Buddhist church of the divinity of Christ Jesus and its denial of eternal punishment after death did not seem to produce fanaticism in the gov ernment, or lessen their love for our country, or teach intolerance of the Christian missionaries, or hinder their progress in any way toward the higher hopes and civilization of the West. When he returned from his long voyage around the world, and said to his countrymen in part what he said to us, many of his sincerest friends thought that he was painting Japan in the colors of the rose, and that his honest opinions thus and then expressed, smacked of Munchausen. We here close the brief recital of the substance of this the first and last interview on Japan which the writer ever had with the famous soldeir and ex-President of the great Republic. CHAPTER IV. TRIBUTE TO THE "BLUE" AND THE GRAY." HOUGH it does not by any means relate to Japan, yet the author feels that it is just to the mem ory of a great and typical American now gone to his reward, that he should give a faithful and brief recital of Grant's parting words. He expressed the sincere hope that our people would soon forgive and forget the bitter memories and bad blood of that fratricidal conflict between the States. "I rejoice in the prospect," he continued, "of the early return of the old time spirit of union and fraternity between the North and the South. The very fact that, from the peaceful civic revolutions and changes in our political home government, many of the He Southland who fought against the Union, will ere long bear the National flag to foreign lands as representatives of the restored Union will show that however we may have differed in political faiths, yet, at last, the old love for our native land comes back to us and asserts its supremacy as in the days of our fathers." hailed these signs as the harbingers of a glorious day now dawning on the country. He was for the Union, of course, with all his soul, but he earnestly said to us that our people, North and South, must forgive and forget. They could afford in honor to do both. As foemen they were worthy of each other's steel, on every field of battle where the Blue and the Gray fought and fell together. "We believed," he continued, "that the South was wholly wrong in her appeal to arms, but her soldiers put all controversy to the end of time at rest as to their absolute honesty and belief in the justness |