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Corpasenti Webulance Directory 20
Page 01
Although from the moment the gills disappear the frog is a true land animal, he is obliged, on account of the fish-like character of his young, to lay his eggs in the water. For this purpose the frogs enter the pools in early spring. The surface of every country pond swarms with the bright-eyed little creatures. They have awakened from a long, cold, winter sleep, to find the spring about them and within them. Life has suddenly become abundant and joyous. Their sluggish blood flows faster, their hearts beat quicker; they leap, they swim, they swell out their throats and call to each other in various keys. The toads are with them, and the pretty tree-frogs that change their color to suit their emotions. And all are rapturously screaming. Their voices are not musical, according to man's standard, but seem to afford great satisfaction to the performers in the shrill orchestra of the swamps, who thus give vent to the flood of life that sweeps through them after the still, icy winter.
Throughout the land the newspapers are discussing the pros and cons of monogamy and polygamy. In January of 1898 the _Jiji Shimpo_, one of the leading daily papers of Tokyo, had a series of articles on the subject from the pen of one of the most illustrious educators of New Japan, Mr. Fukuzawa. His school, the "Keio Gijiku," has educated more thousands of young men than any other, notwithstanding the fact that it is a private institution. Though not a Christian himself, nor making any professions of advocating Christianity, yet Mr. Fukuzawa has come out strongly in favor of monogamy. His description of the existing social and family life is striking, not to say sickening. If I mistake not, it is he who tells of a certain noble lady who shed tears at the news of the promotion of her husband in official rank; and when questioned on the matter she confessed that, with added salary, he would add to the number of his concubines and to the frequency of his intercourse with famous dancing and singing girls.
So early as 1631 this colony decreed to admit none as freemen who were not also church members. Thus Church and State were made one, the government a theocracy. The Massachusetts settlers, though in many things less extreme than the Pilgrims, were decided Puritans, sincere but formal, precise, narrow, and very superstitious. They did not, however, on coming hither, affect or wish to separate from the Church of England, earnestly as they deprecated retaining the sign of the cross in baptism, the surplice, marriage with ring, and kneeling at communion. Yet soon they in effect became Separatists as well as Puritans, building independent churches, like those at Plymouth, and repudiating episcopacy utterly.
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