A LIVING GOD

or district, their main meaning was essentially the same everywhere. Some were ethical, some industrial, some religious; and all matters were regulated by them—even individual behavior. They preserved peace, and they enforced mutual help and mutual kindness. Sometimes there might be serious fighting between different villages—little peasant wars over questions of water supply or boundaries; but quarreling between men of the same community could not be tolerated in an age of vendetta, and the whole village would resent any unnecessary disturbance of the internal peace. To some degree, this state of things still exists in the more old-fashioned provinces: the people know how to live without quarreling, let alone fighting. Everywhere, as a general rule, Japanese people fight only to kill; and when a sober man goes so far as to strike a blow, he essentially rejects communal protection and takes his life into his own hands with every probability of losing it.

The private conduct of the other sex was regulated by some remarkable obligations entirely outside of written codes. A peasant girl, before marriage, enjoyed far more liberty