Their exceptional status among Asiatic nations has been recognized by treaties which, contrary to the general practice in nonChristian countries, place all foreigners in Japan under Japanese law.
Meanwhile, both in East and West, the general practice has continued unbroken of reserving the Eucharist, in order that the " mass of the presanctified " might take place on certain "aliturgic" days, that the faithful might be able to communicate when there was no celebration, and above all that it might be at hand to meet the needs of the sick and dying.
But in the early ages of the world, when mankind were chiefly engaged in rural occupations, the phases of the moon must have been objects of great attention and interest, - hence the month, and the practice adopted by many nations of reckoning time by the motions of the moon, as well as the still more general practice of combining lunar with solar periods.
Thus we have reasons enough why the blast-furnace has displaced all competing processes, without taking into account its further advantage in lending itself easily to working on an enormous scale and with trifling consumption of labour, still further lessened by the general practice of transferring the molten cast iron in enormous ladles into the vessels in which its conversion into steel takes place.
The reason of its isolated settlement here is to be found in the former general practice of weaving as a home craft and its organization as an industry by capitalist Baptist refugees who arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries.
