remarkable event out of which it grew, commend it to the sincere prayers of Christians, that God may employ it to some extent in imparting juster ideas of our religion to the rulers and people of Japan in strengthening the efforts of the honored and beloved missionaries resident there, and in drawing out the hearts of our own people in sympathy, prayer and personal gifts and labors towards the upbuilding of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus in "the land of the rising of the sun."

[This paper was signed by Rev. Drs. WILLIAM SPEER, GEORGE W. MusGRAVE, DAVID MALIN, and WILLIAM BLACK WOOD, of the Presbyterian Church; Rev. Drs. JOHN B. DALES and FRANCIS CHURCH, and Rev. Messrs. W. W. BARR and JOSEPH R. KERR, of the United Presbyterian Church; Rev. Drs. GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, BENJ. GRIFFITH, WARREN RANDOLPH, and P. S. HENSON, of the Baptist Church; Rev. Drs. CHAS. COOKE and C. H. PAYNE, and Rev. Messrs. W. C. ROBINSON and S. W. THOMAS, of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Rev. Drs. EDWARD Y. BuCHANAN and JOHN A. CHILDS, of the Protestant Episcopal Church; Rev. Dr. EDWARD H. NEVIN, of the German Reformed Church; Rev. Dr. T. W. J. WYLIE, of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.]

TO PRINCE TOMOMI IWAKURA, Prime Minister of Japan, and Ambassador Extraordinary to the United States, and the associated members of the Japanese Embassy.

We appear before you as ministers connected with various branches of the Church of Christ, to offer you a hearty welcome to our land, and to express our hopes and our prayers that Almighty God would enable you and our government to form a treaty which shall be honorable to both nations, and promote the best interests of all classes of people in them.

We hold no official relations to the government. We have no special, commercial or other interests, and no personal designs to promote. Our only

object is to greet you as ministers of a religion which has given to our country all that it possesses of peculiarity or excellence. This has made it grow most rapidly in prosperity. This has attracted to it the multitudes who have come from every nation under heaven, to make here their homes. This has given it a power second to none on earth. This has filled the world with its ships, its commerce, and its useful inventions. We speak this not to our praise, but to the praise of the Almighty and Eternal God who has shown to our nation so much favor and love.

There are men yet living who were born before our government existed. Had Japan sent here an embassy so short a time ago as the period of their infancy, it must have come by the vessels of some European nation, and by a slow circuitous voyage of many months; for only a vast impassable wilderness, filled with savages and wild beasts, whose great rivers and mountains, rich soil and valuable mines, were almost unknown to us, stretched over almost the whole tract of the thousands of miles from California here, which you have seen sprinkled with cities, connected by railroads and planted with the blessings of civilization. God has reserved here, from the time when He made the world, a vast, and grand, and rich territory, shut out from the ever-accumulating vices and wrongs of the Old World, until the time when he was prepared to establish upon it religion in a state of new purity and spirituality; to raise up a government which should be simple, equitable to all classes, free from superstitious and false distinctions of race and condition, and full of mercy to those which are more humble and poor; and to plant mankind in circumstances tending to give the utmost freedom to all healthful development, to promote all useful knowledge, to facilitate and spread valuable and labor-saving inventions, and to make all classes and conditions from principle more pure, more honest, more self-reliant, more energetic, more obedient to law, more comfortable in their condition, and more happy than they can be in the older states

producing the fruits of kindness, industry, patience, honesty, chastity, truthfulness, patriotism, and desire to advance the best interests of all mankind. We are able to testify as to the benefits of such Christianity in even temporal matters. Look at the reports of our census, taken each ten years. We do not boast, but we say with hearts overflowing with thankfulness to God, that in no other country has the national wealth so rapidly increased; nowhere else are all forms of labor so well paid; nowhere are the dwellings of the people so comfortable, their clothing so good, their women so pure and so much respected, their children so universally and well educated, their homes so happy. It is this which makes our government so strong; every man has deep personal interest in its maintenance and honor. It has no vast standing army. When it was threatened a few years ago by a rebellion which would have crushed perhaps any other nation on earth, two millions and a half of men leaped to pour out their blood for it; and rich and poor together gave money beyond calculation to uphold it. The four thousand millions of dollars given to the national treasury, was but the half of what the people spent in the war. And yet to-day the nation is stronger and richer, and more active in forms of industry, and in all enterprises of benevolence than it was before that tremendous

war.

A second reason which leads us ever to trace the prosperity of this nation directly to the favor of the Eternal God is that, as a people, we have constantly acknowledged him.

We have acknowledged God in our prosperity and adversity. When our fathers declared their independence of Great Britain, and determination to establish a free government, they said we "appeal to the Supreme Ruler of the world for the rectitude of our intentions," and declared their "firm reliance on Divine Providence" for success. The great events of our history generally have been made occasions for public thanksgivings for God's mercies, or the

appointment of public fast-days for humiliation on account of our sins. We have national thanksgiving days appointed every autumn by the President and the Governors of the States to bless God for the fruits of the earth. Our conventions for the nomination of candidates for the Presidency and the most important public offices, are usually opened with a solemn prayer to God for his direction and favor. Our houses of Congress and state legislatures have their chaplains, who open every day's deliberations with prayer. Each important fort on land and vessel-of-war at sea has its chaplain supported by the government. These are appointed from various denominations of Christians, upon the recommendation of their prominent men. Our public asylums and hospitals are attended by devoted ministers of the gospel. The Christian people of the land try to have a copy of the word of God placed in every family in the nation. To the poor it is given without charge. Thus the influences of the Christian religion are felt in numerous ways throughout all our institutions.

Our administration of justice is based upon the Christian religion. Christianity is declared by our lawyers to be the basis of the common law. No law is made which is in conflict with its fundamental principles. Blasphemy of the name of God and offensive profanation of the Sabbath day are punished by law. Our oaths in courts of justice are based upon the idea that there is one Eternal and Almighty God, who punishes the evil and rewards the good, and that there is a future state of existence where these recompenses will be manifested. Our punishment of criminals is conducted upon the Christian principle, that the offender should be instructed and reformed; he is taught in prison, and made to practice a useful trade; and if he prove worthy, his term of confinement is often shortened. Thus our whole legislative and judicial systems are pervaded by the influence of Christianity.

We acknowledge God in our national regard for the Sabbath day. The observ

ance of every seventh day by acts of worship has been preserved by God among some portions of our race since He made the heavens and the earth, to be a memorial of His honor, and His demands upon mankind as their Creator. It is also a monument of the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world, and became a man, to save sinners by dying in their stead, and suffering the penalty of the guilt of all that would believe in Him, and rose again on the Sabbath day, and afterward ascended to heaven, that He might there be the Friend, Intercessor, and King of his people forever. And it is likewise appointed by God as a pledge, that Jesus Christ will come again to the world at an appointed time, known to Him, but not revealed to us, to judge the whole human race. Every man must then stand before Him to answer as a creature of God for the use or abuse of God's gifts to him. Every one who has heard of Christ's offer of pardon for sin through his own suffering for sin, must then answer for his belief or disbelief. He that believeth will be saved, and enter heaven; he that believeth not, will be condemned, and cast away to eternal sorrow. These facts will explain to you the Christian observance of the Sabbath. The whole nation keeps the Sabbath, and the civil government, though it supports no sect or forms of worship, yet punishes those who disturb this general day of rest and religious exercises for four reasons. The Sabbath affords to mankind a rest of the body, a relief from toil, which makes labor far more easy and productive, and the people more healthful and vigorous. It is the best guard to the morals of the people, by bringing them once in each seven days under instruction, which shows them the evil of sin and immorality, and the present and eternal rewards of doing right. | It makes a nation peaceful, submissive to law, and opposed to those who needlessly violate law. And it brings men to their homes, gathers their families about them for instruction in the word of God, gives opportunity for the collection of the poor and vicious children into Sabbath schools,

where they are taught by good men and women, encouraged to love and do right, and religious books are loaned them to read, and rewards are given them for diligence and good behavior. These are the reasons why the Sabbath is honored as a sacred day over the whole land, by our national and state and local governments. This observance of the Sabbath does more to make us a peaceful, moral, prosperous nation than all our laws, and than all the institutions that man has devised. It is God's day, and the nation which keeps it will have God's best blessings bestowed upon it.

There is a third cause of the prosperity which God has given us as a people, to which we would invite your attention. We hold that it is the duty of the government to give to all the children of the land, at the public expense, the best possible opportunities of education.

The mind of each child is like a mountain. The wealth of valuable grains upon its slopes, of sweet fruits upon its terraces, of varied precious ores in its interior, of streams flowing from its fountains to water distant lands, no one can estimate. The spirit of every human being is immortal, and will live when the earth, and sun, and stars have passed away. Its faculties, therefore, should be cultivated for the sake of their own inherent dignity and worth. The young, both male and female, should be taught the elements of such knowledge as will fit them for self-support, and for their duties to those dependent upon them in life, and to their country. They should be put into communication with nature, and with the God of nature, and of their own being and hopes.

The American idea of education requires that its necessary elements shall be furnished by the State without cost to the child, or its parents, or natural guardians, by means of a general tax; and we may say that no tax is more cheerfully paid by all the people than this one. Then that instruction shall be reasonably varied to suit different sexes, capacities, and stages of progress. Then

that it shall train the young person for the duties not only to self, but to society and mankind, and teach it to be governed by the highest motives, and aim to live for the noblest ends.

Christianity is an essential part of such a general system of education. It alone can inspire and sustain it. Our schools are generally opened with reading a passage of the Bible, and often a short prayer is added. The children are refreshed and instructed also by the singing of sweet hymns, filled with the language of praise to God suited to the youthful heart. The school books are based upon Christian science and Christian duty, and some of them contain extracts from the Scriptures. Our colleges and advanced scientific and professional schools are related more or less to Christianity, many of them were founded and are taught by the ministry. They are considered unworthy of confidence, and lose the public support, if, as in some cases, they utter teachings at variance with the word of God.

We feel bound to say to you that the universal education of the young at the expense of the State, and the maintenance of a religious foundation in all our system of education, are esteemed by us to be absolutely necessary to our continued existence as a nation. Our system has its enemies. Romanism hates this light, and freedom of thought, and religious liberty, and makes continual war upon it. If Romanism or any hostile system of falsehood succeed in overthrowing this, if the wickedness and unbelief of men pervert it, it seems inevitable that our government must come to an end, our prosperity decay, and our national honor be laid in the dust.

Most honored Prince and gentlemen of the Japanese Embassy: We venture to hope that this exposition of some of the most important relations existing between our nation and Christianity will be acceptable to you, and may be of some little value to the venerated Sovereign of your empire, if you should think it worthy to offer it for his consideration, and to such of your nation as consider

and examine these subjects, which lie at the foundation of the honor and happiness and prosperity of any nation.

In the Japanese empire, permit us to say in conclusion, we feel the deepest interest. God made you and us of the same blood; we sprang from the same first parents; our ancestors, like yours, worshipped first the only and Almighty God; then they were led for ages into cruel systems of idolatry, like yours, some remnants of which continue in our language and some of our popular notions; they embraced Christianity many centuries ago, were corrupted and plunged into war and filled with political and religious calamities by Romanism, as you have been; they have shaken off, like you, the power of that corrupt mixture of Christianity and idolatry. In all these points we feel that you are our brothers.

We have tried to treat you as brothers. When you in your want of knowledge of us imprisoned and starved our seamen and shut us by violence from your land, we preferred to make war upon you, not with the destructive weapons of war which modern science has given us, but with the artillery of benevolent acts, and new ideas and useful arts. These conquered you, and now no two nations in the world feel more sincere and warm interest in each other than Japan and the United States.

You are our nearest neighbor on the Pacific ocean. You have nearly as many people as we. There is much in trade by which we can benefit each other. And there is plenty of room upon this great new continent for such of your people as may choose to immigrate here. There are vast semi-tropical regions which seem peculiarly suitable for their residence, and for improvement by the introduction of your vegetables and cereals and fruits, and to be enriched by your delicate and skilful manufactures. And there is another great continent south of ours, which is also new, but partially occupied, almost as rich as ours, and which centuries cannot fill.

We believe you will soon be a Christian people. We see it in the recent