Japan’s Prime Minister on Religious Liberty
JAPAN’S prime minister has published a letter to Japanese Christians expressing himself in favor of religious liberty. He expresses himself on the subject in these words:— For my own part, regarding religion as an essential element of civilization, I have uniformly tried to treat all religions with becoming respect, and I believe it to be an important duty of statesmen under all circumstances to do their utmost to prevent racial animosities. And so in the year 1895 at the time of the Japan-China war, my soldiers had no sooner set foot on the Liao Tung Peninsula than I took especial pains to see that the greatest care was exercised6by them in extending protection from all harm to the Christian believers and churches planted there by the English and French missionaries. As the present war is one carried on against Russia — a professedly Christian nation — I have felt that redoubled efforts should be made that no unworthy sentiments should be tolerated, that we should adopt a thoroughly unbiased and equitable attitude toward all, and that the whole nation should give practical effect to the policy so clearly set forth in the imperial edict, that this is a war which has no other object than the safety of the empire and the peace of the far East. I sincerely hope that no one will be betrayed into the error of supposing that such things as differences in race or religion have anything whatever to do with the present complication.