It is something like this--"_to_ the era of Meiji" (A.D.

1868-1894+) which I have essayed.
Hence I am perfectly willing to accept, in advance, the verdict of smart inventors who are all ready to patent a brand-new religion for Japan, that my presentation is "antiquated." The subject has always been fascinating, despite its inherent difficulties and the author's personal limitations.

When in 1807, the polite lads from Satsuma and Ki[=o]to came to New Brunswick, N.J., they found at least one eager questioner, a sophomore, who, while valuing books, enjoyed at first hand contemporaneous human testimony.
When in 1869, to Rutgers College, came an application through Rev.Dr.
Guido F.Verbeck, of T[=o]ki[=o], from Fukui for a young man to organize schools upon the American principle in the province of Echizen (ultra-Buddhistic, yet already so liberally leavened by the ethical teachings of Yokoi Heishiro), the Faculty made choice of the author.
Accepting the honor and privilege of being one of the "beginners of a better time," I caught sight of peerless Fuji and set foot on Japanese soil December 29, 1870.

Amid a cannonade of new sensations and fresh surprises, my first walk was taken in company with the American missionary (once a marine in Perry's squadron, who later invented the jin-riki-sha), to see a hill-temple and to study the wayside shrines around Yokohama.

Seven weeks' stay in the city of Yedo--then rising out of the debris of feudalism to become the Imperial capital, T[=o]ki[=o], enabled me to see some things now so utterly vanished, that by some persons their previous existence is questioned.