Consider what Professor Nitobe says: "The greatest influence of the West is, after all, the spiritual.... Christianity has influenced the thought and lives of many individuals in Japan, and will influence many more, eventually affecting the nation through the altered view-point and personnel of the citizen and the administrator. The character-changing power of the religion of Jesus I believe to be only just now making itself appreciably evident in our midst." Somewhat further on, referring to the English language, he writes: "The effect of the acquisition of the English tongue on the mental habits--I had almost said on the unconscious cerebrations of our people--is incalculable.... The moral influence of some of its simple text-books used in our schools cannot be overrated.... They have been instrumental in opening new vistas of thought and vast domains of enterprise and interest to young minds."
No student of Japan's new life, resulting from the influence of Western and Christian ideas and ideals, should fail to familiarize himself with the eighth issue (1910) of _The Christian Movement in Japan_, which gives a series of remarkable addresses delivered by Japanese and foreigners at the semicentennial celebration of the beginning of Protestant missions in Japan. Especial attention should be paid to the section treating of the "Influence of Christianity on Japanese Thought and Life."
It will be obvious to any thoughtful person that changes so wide and deep, affecting all the fundamental conceptions of life, of manhood and womanhood, of the state, of law and justice, of right and duty, are not confined to those whose privilege it is to study Western books and acquire the higher education. In ten thousand ways the whole national life is being transformed, slowly it may be and silently, yet surely and steadily. And the benefits are accruing to the most lowly and least educated no less than to those at the top. All the working women of Japan have already received in some degree, and in the future will more and more receive, the blessings and the uplift which are coming to the nation through its contact with the Christian conceptions and standards embedded in Western civilization and literature.