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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42747 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://archive.org/details/shintocultchrist00terrrich
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SHINTO CULT
+
+A Christian Study of the Ancient Religion of Japan
+
+by
+
+MILTON S. TERRY, D.D.,
+
+Lecturer on Comparative Religion in Garrett Biblical Institute.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham
+New York: Eaton and Mains
+
+Copyright, 1910,
+By Jennings and Graham.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+The following pages are the substance of a course of lectures on the
+old Shinto cult which the author has been giving for a number of
+years to his classes in Comparative Religion. They are here condensed
+and adapted to the purpose of a little manual which, it is believed,
+may interest many readers, and bring together within a small space
+information gathered from many sources not easily accessible to
+ordinary students. At the same time it is hoped that this little
+volume may serve to suggest some valuable hints to the Christian
+missionary who is to come face to face with the Japanese people in
+their "beautiful land of the reed plains and the fresh ears of rice."
+It is possible that some portions, if not every jot and tittle, of
+this ancient cult may, like the law and the prophets of Israel, find a
+glorious fulfillment in the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. The principal
+authorities relied on in the preparation of this essay are named in the
+Select Bibliography given at the end.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  1. THE COUNTRY                                                       7
+
+  2. IS SHINTO A RELIGION?                                            10
+
+  3. ORIGIN AND RELATIVE AGE OF THE PEOPLE                            12
+
+  4. MEANING OF THE TERM SHINTO                                       14
+
+  5. SOURCES OF INFORMATION                                           15
+
+  6. JAPANESE COSMOGONY AND MYTHOLOGY                                 19
+
+  7. THE JAPANESE A SELF-CENTERED PEOPLE                              29
+
+  8. ESSENCE OF THE SHINTO CULT                                       30
+
+  9. THE GREAT SANCTUARIES                                            31
+
+ 10. FIVE NOTEWORTHY OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE WORSHIP               34
+
+ 11. THE ANCESTOR WORSHIP                                             37
+
+ 12. ELEMENTS OF ANIMISM                                              41
+
+ 13. THE DOMESTIC CULT                                                43
+
+ 14. THE COMMUNAL CULT                                                45
+
+ 15. THE NATIONAL CULT                                                49
+
+ 16. THE HARVEST SERVICE                                              52
+
+ 17. THE GREAT PURIFICATION                                           54
+
+ 18. OTHER RITUAL SERVICES                                            60
+
+ 19. INFLUENCE OF CHINA ON JAPANESE THOUGHT                           63
+
+ 20. INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM                                            64
+
+ 21. REVIVAL OF PURE SHINTO                                           68
+
+ 22. ESOTERIC SHINTO                                                  70
+
+ 23. MINGLING OF SHINTO, CONFUCIANISM, AND BUDDHISM                   71
+
+ 24. ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN JAPAN                                       73
+
+ 25. ALLEGED PRESENT RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE                           74
+
+ 26. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS                                          78
+
+
+
+
+THE SHINTO CULT.
+
+
+=1. The Country.= In taking up the study of a religion which has never
+extended beyond the limits of an easily defined territory, we may
+appropriately first of all take a hasty glance at the geographical
+outlines of the system we call Shinto, the primitive faith of the
+people of Japan. To appreciate the geographical position of Japan,
+one needs to have before him a map of the world. He may then see at a
+glance how remarkably the three thousand islands of that Empire stretch
+for some twenty-five hundred miles along the coast of Asia, from
+Kamchatka on the north to the island of Formosa on the south, which
+island is crossed by the tropic of Cancer. It may be called the longest
+and the narrowest country in the world. It looks like an immense
+sea-serpent, with its northern tail twisting toward the Aleutian
+Islands, which our Government acquired from Russia in 1867, and its
+southern head pointing toward the Philippine Islands, which we acquired
+from Spain in recent years. It seems to guard the whole eastern coast
+of Asia, and along with China, on the mainland, is suspected and feared
+by some European diplomats as embodying some sort of a "Yellow Peril."
+It may be that its noteworthy contiguity to our Alaskan possessions at
+one extremity and our Philippine wards at the other bodes some sort of
+peril to any Western nation that may hereafter presume to enlarge its
+dominions in the Orient by force of arms.
+
+Attention has often been called to the fact that the British Isles, in
+the Atlantic Ocean, just off the northwestern coast of Europe, occupy a
+corresponding geographical relation to the Western world. The islands
+themselves are comparatively small, but their measuring line has gone
+out into all the earth, and their civilization is dominating the world.
+Asia, on the east of the Eastern hemisphere, is a land of innumerable
+population; Europe, on the west, is a land of new ideas and of hopeful
+progress. The United States, resting her Atlantean shoulder on the
+island-empire of Europe, and her Pacific shoulder on the island-empire
+of the Orient, may be, in the order of God, a mighty mediator,
+possessed both of a great population and of new and commanding ideas,
+and destined to bring about the universal peace, the sound knowledge,
+and the highest prosperity of the world.
+
+We are told that Japan is a country of diversified beauty. Compassed
+round about with the vast ocean, yet not far from the Asiatic mainland;
+supplied also with a wonderful inland sea, and with lakes and rivers
+and fountains of waters; a land of mountains, and valleys, and broad
+meadows, and all manner of trees and shrubs and fruits and flowers,
+and charming landscapes, and all varieties of climate; it is no wonder
+that the people and their poets have called this group of islands "the
+sun's nest," "the country of the sun-goddess," "the region between
+heaven and earth," "islands of the congealed drop," "the grand land of
+the eight isles," "central land of reed-plains," "land of the ears of
+fresh rice," "land of a thousand autumns," and other similar names
+indicative of manifold excellence.[1]
+
+This island-empire of the Orient is the home of the religious cult
+called "Shinto," a religion which has never traveled nor sought to
+propagate itself beyond the dominions of Japan. It has never put itself
+in a hostile attitude toward any other form of religion, either at home
+or abroad, except when a foreign cult has entered its ancient home and
+sought to meddle with affairs of State or to interfere with loyalty to
+the Emperor.
+
+=2. Is Shinto a Religion?= At a meeting of the Society of Science, held
+at Tokyo in 1890, the president of the Imperial University expressed
+the opinion that Shinto should not be regarded as a religion. He
+believed it to be an essential element in the existing national thought
+and feeling of Japan, but destitute of the essential qualities of a
+strictly religious cult. Others have expressed a similar opinion; but
+we are disposed to think that this judgment arises from an incorrect
+concept of religion, and a consequent defective definition of the same.
+A similar denial has been made of the religious character of other
+cults and systems. Taoism, Confucianism, and even Buddhism have been
+said to lack the elements essential to a real religion. But if these
+systems do not constitute a religion for the peoples who accept them,
+they are in every case their substitute for religion. Any religion
+or any form of religion may so involve its thought and its practices
+with philosophical speculation, or with social customs, or with the
+political management of the State, as to have the appearance of a
+philosophical or a political system, rather than a form of religion.
+But, however it may, in such ways, ignore the religious ideas and
+practices of other systems, if there be no other religious cult among
+the people, the philosophy, the ethical policy and the customs, which
+make up this important element of the civilization and the national
+life, are as truly tantamount to a religious cult as any form of faith
+and practice which all men agree to call religion.
+
+=3. Origin and Relative Age of the People.= The main body of the
+Japanese people are believed to have migrated in old times from the
+northern central part of Asia, and to have worked their way eastward
+into Korea, and thence into the islands of Japan. They expelled
+or subjugated the aborigines of the country, and made themselves
+masters of the great islands and the inland and surrounding seas.
+But their origin and early history are involved in dense obscurity.
+They doubtless brought with them from their earlier dwellings in Asia
+various myths, legends, and traditions, and these grew and strengthened
+amid the simple habits of life which they adopted in their new
+island-world. According to a writer[2] in the _Westminster Review_ of
+July, 1878, Japan is yet, in more senses than one, a young country.
+Their language and their institutions "show us a people still in a very
+early stage of development." W. G. Aston holds that the earliest date
+of accepted Japanese chronology is A. D. 461, and he says that Japanese
+history, properly so called, can not be said to exist previous to A.
+D. 500. He regards Korean history more trustworthy than that of Japan
+previous to that date.[3] According to Satow, "everything points to the
+descent of the Japanese people in great part from a race of Turanian
+origin, who crossed over from the continent by way of the islands
+Tsushima and Iki, which form the natural stepping-stones from Korea to
+Japan."[4]
+
+But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a most remarkable advance
+in the use of modern inventions, and more than any other nation of
+the far East have the Japanese displayed both a willingness and an
+ambition to improve their condition by means of the ideas and usages of
+Western civilization. The war with China in 1894, and that with Russia
+in 1904-1905, displayed a wisdom, tact, and energy which were a great
+surprise to the world. The self-poise, the generosity, the far-sighted
+statesmanship exhibited in her concluding terms of peace with her
+haughty but defeated enemy, have commanded universal admiration. These
+facts make the study of this people's ancient religious cult, which is
+still a powerful element in the popular life, a matter of no little
+interest at the present time.[5]
+
+=4. Meaning of the Word Shinto.= The word Shinto means the "way of the
+gods." It came into use when Buddhism was introduced into Japan, and
+designates the old, ancestral worship as a way of the gods distinct
+from the way of the Buddhists, or of any other rival way of religious
+life. The Japanese name is _Kami no michi_. In its essential elements
+it is a commingling of Animism and ancestor-worship. Not only are the
+spirits of departed ancestors reckoned among the gods, but there are
+innumerable deities of other kind and character. The mountains and
+valleys, the rivers and the seas, the trees, the wind, the thunder, the
+fire, all moving things and objects of sense are supposed to have each
+a deity within. And these deities seem for the most part to have been
+regarded as beneficent powers, and their worship is of a joyous kind.
+
+=5. Sources of Information.= The sources of our knowledge of this
+ancient cult are quite numerous, but not as accessible to English
+and American students as is desirable. The oldest existing monument
+of Japanese literature is known as the "Ko-ji-ki," the text of which
+would make a book about the size of our four Gospels. It contains
+180 short sections or chapters. The word _Ko-ji-ki_ means a "Record
+of Ancient Matters," and appropriately designates this oldest known
+record of the mythology, history, and customs of the people of Japan.
+It is the nearest approach to a sacred scripture of the Shinto cult
+which we possess. It has been translated into English, and supplied
+with a learned introduction and many explanatory notes by Basil H.
+Chamberlain,[6] a distinguished scholar, who has made the Japanese
+language, literature, and archæology a subject of extensive and minute
+research.
+
+Another and much larger work, comprising thirty books, and containing
+a record of much of the same mythology and history as the _Ko-ji-ki_,
+is called the _Nihongi_, or "Chronicles of Japan."[7] It is a composite
+of various elements derived from numerous different sources, and while
+it reports in substance the myths and stories of the gods as they are
+found in the _Ko-ji-ki_, it makes no mention of that older work and
+omits some things which the older work records. It gives, however, a
+number and variety of reports of the myths and traditions, informing
+us how, in one ancient writing, it is so and so recorded; in another
+writing, it is somewhat differently told. This feature enhances its
+value for purposes of comparison among the varying traditions.
+
+This later production lacks the simplicity and originality of the
+_Ko-ji-ki_, and bears abundant evidence of the Chinese influences under
+which it was composed. It is written for the most part in Chinese, and
+exhibits numerous examples of the learning and philosophical cast of
+thought peculiar to certain well-known Chinese writings. As a specimen
+of this rationalistic type of construing the ancient myths of creation,
+we here cite the opening sentences from the first book of the _Nihongi_:
+
+"Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo
+[or _Yin_ and _Yang_, female and male principles] not yet divided.
+They formed a chaotic mass, like an egg, which was of obscurely
+defined limits and contained germs. The purer and clearer part was
+thinly drawn out and formed Heaven, while the heavier and grosser
+element settled down and became Earth. The finer element easily became
+a united body, but the consolidation of the heavy and gross element
+was accomplished with difficulty. Heaven was therefore formed first,
+and Earth was established subsequently. Thereafter Divine Beings were
+produced between them. Hence it is said that when the world began to
+be created, the soil, of which lands were composed, floated about in
+a manner which might be compared to the floating of a fish sporting
+on the surface of the water. At this time a certain thing was produced
+between Heaven and Earth. It was in form like a reed-shoot. Now
+this became transformed into a god, and was called _Kuni-toko-tachi
+no Mikoto_ ["Land-eternal-stand-of-august thing"]. Next there was
+_Kuni-no-sa-tsuchi_ ["land-of-right-soil"], and next, _Toyo-kumu-nu_
+["rich-form-plain"]--in all, three deities. These were pure males,
+spontaneously developed by the operation of the principle of Heaven"
+[the Yo, male principle].
+
+The _Ko-ji-ki_ was written about 712 A. D., and the _Nihongi_ in
+720 A. D., and they are both remarkable for the naïve and peculiar
+manner in which they unite together in their narratives matters of
+traditional mythology and of history without apparent consciousness of
+any noteworthy differences between the two. Besides these remarkable
+books there is a Code of ceremonial laws, in fifty volumes, known as
+the _Yengishiki_, which was published A. D. 927. It includes a large
+number of ancient Japanese rituals, called _Norito_, of which several
+have been translated into English and provided with a commentary and
+learned notes by Ernest Satow and Karl Florenz.[8] There is also
+an interesting collection of ancient poems, called the _Manyoshu_,
+"Collection of Myriad Leaves," which furnishes numerous pictures of
+the life of the early Japanese, both before and after the time of the
+compilation of the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_. There are also the
+voluminous writings of the three famous Shinto scholars, Mabuchi,
+Motowori, and Hirata, who flourished between the middle of the
+eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth century, and effected an
+intellectual revolution and a remarkable revival of the Shinto cult.[9]
+
+=6. Japanese Cosmogony and Mythology.= Our study of Shinto may well
+begin by a brief notice of Japanese cosmogony as presented at the very
+beginning of the _Ko-ji-ki_:
+
+"I, Yasumaro, say: Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force
+and form were not yet manifest, and there was naught named, naught
+done, who could know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first
+parted, and the Three Deities performed the commencement of creation;
+the Passive and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits
+became the ancestors of all things. Therefore did he [Izanagi] enter
+obscurity and emerge into light, and the Sun and Moon were revealed by
+the washing of his eyes; he floated on and plunged into the sea-water,
+and heavenly and earthly Deities appeared through the ablutions of his
+person. So in the dimness of the great beginning, we, by relying on the
+original teaching, learn the time of the conception of the earth and
+of the birth of islands; in the remoteness of the original beginning,
+we by trusting the former sages, perceive the era of the genesis of
+Deities and of the establishment of men."
+
+This brief fragment from the compiler's "Preface" furnishes a condensed
+outline of what we read in the first part of the _Ko-ji-ki_, and
+it indicates the peculiar cosmogony of the Japanese mythology. The
+early sections of the book record the names of the first deities,
+who are said to have been "born alone, and hid their persons;"
+which seems to mean that they came into being in some exceptional
+way, and then disappeared. Then followed what are termed "the
+Seven Divine Generations," among which we find such names as "the
+Earthly-eternally-standing-Deity," "the Mud-Earth-Lord, and his younger
+sister, the Mud-Earth-Lady;" "the Germ-Integrating Deity, and his
+younger sister, the Life-Integrating Deity." These seven generations of
+gods end with the birth of a brother and sister, named _Izanagi_ and
+_Izanami_ (_i. e._, "the male-who-invites and the female-who-invites").
+These two are commanded by the higher and more ancient heavenly deities
+to "make, consolidate, and give birth to this drifting land;" whereupon
+they two, "standing upon the floating Bridge of Heaven, pushed down a
+jewelled spear, and stirred the ocean brine till it became thick and
+sticky;[10] and then, drawing the spear upward, the brine that dropped
+down from the end of the spear became an island." Upon this island
+Izanagi and Izanami descended from the Heaven above, and in course of
+time generated all the islands of the Japanese world. When they had
+finished giving birth to countries they proceeded to give birth to
+deities, and so by them were begotten fourteen islands and thirty-five
+deities. There is little room to doubt that Izanagi and Izanami are a
+mythological representation of the generative powers of nature; but
+their portraiture in the Japanese literature has probably received some
+coloring from Chinese influence and thought.
+
+But in giving birth to the deity of fire, Izanami died, and her
+brother buried her, and drawing his mighty sword he proceeded
+to cut off the head of his son, the deity of fire. Whereupon,
+wonderful to tell, sixteen deities were born from the blood and
+the different parts of the body of the fire-god. Among the names
+of these we find such titles as "Rock-splitter," "Root-splitter,"
+"Brave-snapping," and "Possessor-of-Mountains;" and the name of
+the sword which cleft the head of the fire-god was "Heavenly," or
+"Majestic-Point-Blade-Extended."
+
+After the birth of these deities, Izanagi longed to see again his
+sister and spouse, and went to seek her in the underworld. He called
+to her and asked her to come back to him. She answered that such was
+her desire, but she must consult the deities of Hades, and she bade him
+wait, saying, "Look not at me." One can not help comparing here the
+Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus descended into the lower
+world, charmed Pluto with his lyre, and obtained permission for his
+wife Eurydice to return, following behind him, but only on condition
+that Orpheus should not look back at her till they had both reached the
+upper world. He grew impatient, looked back to see if she were indeed
+following, and she at once vanished from his sight. According to the
+Japanese myth, however, Izanagi grew tired of waiting outside, made a
+light and entered, and was shocked to behold maggots swarming over her
+body, and eight thunder-deities dwelling in her rotting form where they
+had been born. He turned and fled back, but she pursued him with the
+forces of the underworld. He succeeded in driving them all back, and
+with a mighty rock blocked up the pass of Hades. Then he went to purify
+himself by bathing in a stream, and from his staff, and girdle, and
+bracelet, and various garments, and from the filth which he contracted
+in the underworld were born a multitude of deities, bearing composite
+names of strange significance. There was also born, as he washed his
+left eye, a deity who was called "the Heaven-Shining-Great-August One;"
+and from his right eye was born the "Moon-Night-Possessor," and as he
+washed his nose there was born _Susa-no-Wo_, "Impetuous-Male-Deity."
+
+But we need not pursue further this seemingly "endless genealogy" of
+the deities. We are told in section xxx that in a divine assembly of
+eight hundred myriad deities it was decided to send one of their number
+to govern "the Central Land of Reed-Plains," and subdue the "savage
+Earthly Deities." Various deities were sent, and at length a grandchild
+of the Sun-Goddess[11] became the Ruler of the Empire, and bears the
+composite name of _Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko_, but is commonly called
+by his "canonical name," _Jimmu_, a title given him long after his
+decease. From such heavenly origin sprang all the Emperors of Japan,
+and the present Mikado, like all his predecessors, is thus conceived
+as an offspring of Heaven, a direct descendant of the ancient heavenly
+deities. The significance of this fact will appear conspicuously when
+we come to notice more particularly the essential elements in the
+Shinto cult.
+
+On this remarkable cosmogony and mythology we do well at this point to
+offer the following observations:
+
+(1) These accounts of the origin of the Japanese Archipelago and its
+rulers are regarded as _genuine traditions handed down from former
+ages_. One part of the tradition is that the Emperor, who took pains to
+have the old records carefully looked after, employed a person living
+in his household, who was gifted with marvelous memory; "he could
+repeat without mistake the contents of any document he had ever seen,
+and never forgot anything that he had heard;" and from the lips of this
+man of prodigious memory the scribe Yasumaro wrote down the contents
+of the _Ko-ji-ki_.[12]
+
+(2) Notice, in the next place, that the island world of _Japan is all
+the world_ which these records know anything about. The universe of
+this cosmogony consists of "the islands of the Central-Land of the
+Reed-Plains," with their inland and surrounding seas, and "the Plain of
+High Heaven," which, however, was not conceived as very far away above
+them.
+
+(3) The entire description of the beginnings of heaven, and earth,
+and gods, and men accords with the idea of a continuous process of
+evolution. The first three heavenly deities "were born alone, and hid
+their persons," or disappeared. All the other deities are spoken of as
+begotten, or born, and the deities give birth to the different islands
+of the earth.[13]
+
+(4) The world-idea of this old mythology is in notable keeping with
+the ancestor worship, and the Animism which enter so largely into the
+Shinto faith. In spite of all the wars and discords of the deities,
+this a primordial monism, so to speak, at the basis of Japanese
+cosmogony, and of all its diverse generations of the heavens and the
+earth; and yet there is no one Supreme Ruler in all the Pantheon of
+eight hundred myriad gods. When a great council of the gods assembles
+in the bed of the Tranquil Heavenly River, no one deity is chief among
+them, and we are at a loss to imagine who has authority to call them
+together or to preside over the assembly. Izanagi seems for a while to
+be the chief creator and ruler, but after a time he disappears, and the
+Sun Goddess, his daughter Amaterasu, has her heavenly domain shaken
+and ravaged by her younger brother, but is avenged by the heavenly
+assembly of gods, who fine and punish the offender, "and expel him with
+a divine expulsion." So the Sun Goddess maintains her dominion by the
+help of the eight hundred myriad gods, no one of whom is invested with
+supreme power. It appears from certain poems of the _Manyoshu_ that the
+moon as well as the sun was extensively worshiped among the primitive
+Japanese.[14]
+
+(5) It accords with all these ideas that the devotees of the "pure
+Shinto" faith trace all their history back to the age of the gods,
+and recognize some deity in, or back of, all phenomena. Japan is the
+country of the gods; every Japanese is a descendant or offspring of
+the gods, and the Mikado is the direct descendant of the imperial line
+which has continued in unbroken succession from the beginning of the
+world. Japan is, therefore, superior to all other countries, and the
+Japanese, being thus directly from the gods, are superior in every
+respect to other people. Sprung from the gods, they need no codes of
+moral law (like the Chinese), for they are naturally perfect, and do
+the right things spontaneously.
+
+=7. The Japanese a Self-centered People.= The Japanese people, with
+such traditions and such a faith, would naturally be a self-centered
+people, and they conceived their island-empire as occupying the summit
+of the earth. The Mikado is the Son of Heaven, entitled and empowered
+to reign perpetually over the land and the sea. But as all the people
+are descendants of the gods, and the islands and all that is in them
+have also been begotten of the gods, it follows that the worship of
+ancestors is a worship of all the gods of whom they have knowledge, and
+all the lower animate and inanimate things in the world are also in
+some way instinct with the deities from whom they were born, and whose
+they are.
+
+Accordingly, the honoring of the gods is a fundamental thing in the
+Shinto thought and in the Japanese civilization and government. Every
+loyal subject of the Mikado's Empire is expected to be true to the
+ancient faith. It is assumed that religion and worship and the proper
+administration of government are all essential to each other. The
+Japanese word (_Matsuri-goto_), which is used to denote the art of
+government, means, literally, _worshiping_. And it is a common thought
+and saying: "Everything in the world depends on the spirit of the
+gods of heaven and earth, and therefore the worship of the gods is a
+matter of primary importance. The gods who do harm are to be appeased,
+so that they may not punish those who have offended them; and all the
+gods are to be worshiped, so that they may be induced to increase their
+favors."[15] One of the rules which all the ministers of the Mikado
+emphasized in the old times, before the introduction of Buddhism into
+Japan, was, "First serve the gods, and afterwards deliberate on matters
+of government."[16]
+
+=8. Essence of the Shinto Cult.= From what we have now stated it is to
+be seen that reverence and worship of the ancestors of the Japanese,
+and the recognition of the Mikado's divinity as the incarnation and
+earthly representation of the celestial gods, constitute the essence
+of the Shinto cult. All the Japanese are offsprings of the gods, but
+the imperial "Sovran Grandchild" of _Amaterasu_, the Sun-Goddess,[17]
+is pre-eminently divine and worshipful. The first Mikado, however, was
+not the real son of _Amaterasu_, according to the mythic tradition of
+the prehistoric time, but her nephew, the son of _Oshi-ho-mi-mi_, whom
+she adopted as her son. But the title of "Sovran Grandchild," having
+been applied first to the founder of the Mikado's dynasty, came in time
+to be the common title of all the Mikado's successors. The imperial
+worship, accordingly, represents the most conspicuous national form of
+the Shinto cult.
+
+=9. The Great Sanctuaries.= The Mikado's palace would, accordingly, be
+the most holy shrine of the national worship, the private and exclusive
+sanctuary of the imperial ancestors. But the most notable shrine of the
+Sun-Goddess is not now the residence of the Mikado. On account of some
+great calamity that occurred far back in prehistoric times, her worship
+was removed to a separate temple, and was finally established in the
+province of Isè, in which the temples, called the "Two great divine
+Palaces," are the resort of thousands of pilgrims every year, and,
+though not the most ancient, are regarded as first among all the Shinto
+temples in the land.[18] These two divine palaces, or temples, called
+_Geku_ and _Naiku_, are about three miles apart, and stand in the midst
+of groves of aged cryptomeria trees.[19] They are approached through
+archways (called _torii_, or _toriwi_) of simple construction. The
+_Geku_ temple is an irregular oblong structure, 247 feet wide at the
+front, but only 235 feet wide in the rear; while the side to the right
+of the entrance is 339 feet, and that on the left is 335. Within this
+large enclosure are others of similar structure, all made of the wood
+of cryptomeria trees, and left unpainted and without ornamentation. The
+various buildings of the temples are thus fashioned after the manner
+of the simple huts, or dwellings of the earliest inhabitants of these
+islands. Some of the buildings are covered with thatched roofs and
+have their walls and doors made of rough matting. Mr. Satow, who has
+visited and described the temples of Isè, says that "All the buildings
+which form part of the two temples are constructed in a style that
+is disappointing in its simplicity and perishable nature.... None
+but those which are roofed with thatch are entitled to be considered
+as being in strict conformity with the principles of genuine Shinto
+temple architecture."[20] The perishable nature of these temples is
+such that it becomes necessary, and is, in fact, the standing rule, to
+rebuild them every twenty years. Two sites for each temple are used
+alternatively; they lie close to each other, so that the new building
+is constructed and ready for use before the old one is removed.
+
+The temple which, though less venerated than those at Isè, is the
+shrine-center of the more ancient Shinto cult, is the one at Kitzuki,
+in the ancient province of Idzumo. These famous shrines of Isè and
+Kitzuki represent the two supreme cults of Shinto; namely, that of
+the Sun-Goddess, _Amaterasu_, and that of _Oho-kuni-nushi_, offspring
+of the brother of the Sun-Goddess, who became the ruler of the unseen
+world of the spirits of the dead. But there are many other great
+temples maintained in whole or in part from the imperial revenues.
+Some are of greater sanctity and renown than others, but those of Isè
+and Kitzuki are the most celebrated, and every Shinto worshiper is
+expected, at least once in his lifetime, to make a pilgrimage himself,
+or send a deputy to one of these most famous shrines.
+
+=10. Five Noteworthy Objects Connected with the Worship.= One
+noteworthy fact is the absence of images from the pure Shinto temples;
+that is, images exposed as objects of worship. But there is a number of
+objects connected with these sacred places which should receive brief
+notice:
+
+(1) There is, first, the wooden archway (called _torii_, or _toriwi_)
+through which one passes in approaching the temples. It consists of
+two upright posts set in the ground on the tops of which is laid a
+long straight beam, the two ends of which project a little beyond the
+uprights. Under this top beam is another horizontal beam connecting the
+two side posts after the manner of a girder. According to Satow, "The
+_toriwi_ was originally a perch for the fowls offered up to the gods,
+not as food, but to give warning at daybreak. It was erected on any
+side of the temple indifferently. In later times, not improbably after
+the introduction of Buddhism, its original meaning was forgotten, and
+it was placed in front only and supposed to be a gateway."[21]
+
+(2) Opposite the various entrances to the temples is placed a wooden
+screen, or fence, called _Banpei_, which serves as in other dwellings
+to guard and hide the privacy of the interior.
+
+(3) Another object of special interest is the _Go-hei_, a slender wand,
+originally a branch of the sacred tree called _sakaki_. From the Go-hei
+hang two long slips of white paper notched on the opposite sides. These
+wands of unpainted wood are supposed to represent offerings of white
+cloth and to have the power of attracting the gods to the places where
+they are kept.
+
+(4) The offerings presented consist of cups of water and small vessels
+filled with rice, vegetables, fruits, salt, fish, birds, and other
+simplest products of the land and of the sea. It is noteworthy that we
+find no bloody sacrificial rites in Shinto worship, in which one life,
+animal or human, was made a vicarious substitute for a guilty soul.
+
+(5) The sacred _mirror_, which figures in the mythology of the
+Sun-Goddess, and is said to have been once used to entice her from a
+cave into which she had hid herself in a spell of anger, is carefully
+guarded in one of these temples, and also many copies of the mirror.
+"Each mirror is contained in a box which is furnished with eight
+handles, four on the box itself and four on the lid. The box rests on a
+low stand and is covered with a piece of cloth said to be white silk.
+The mirror itself is wrapped in a brocade bag, which is never opened or
+renewed, but when it begins to fall to pieces from age, another bag is
+put on, so that the actual covering consists of numerous layers. Over
+the whole is placed a sort of cage of unpainted wood with ornaments
+said to be of pure gold, and over this again is thrown a sort of
+curtain of coarse silk, descending to the floor on all sides."[22]
+One can not read this description of the sacred mirror thus secretly
+guarded in a costly box without being reminded of the sacred ark of the
+Levitical sanctuary, and its enclosed "tables of testimony."
+
+=11. The Ancestor Worship.= We have already observed that ancestor
+worship is the basis of the Shinto cult. This kind of worship is also
+conspicuous among the Chinese, and is held by many writers to have been
+the original cult of all civilized races and peoples. It began, they
+tell us, with a belief in ghosts, and at the first there was no clear
+distinction between ghosts and gods. The departed spirit was thought
+of as abiding near the place where the dead body was deposited, and
+the earliest shrines would therefore be the graves or tombs of the
+dead. Later thought would beget the idea that the invisible spirits
+were present to witness the acts, and share the joys and sorrows of the
+living. And this fundamental idea would, of course, develop into many
+diverse conceptions and practices among the different tribes.
+
+Without here discussing this theory of aboriginal religious thought
+and practice, as applicable to all peoples, we may note that it
+accords with the facts of Japanese history and civilization so far as
+we can now trace them back into the mists of prehistoric time.[23]
+We have seen that Japanese history and mythology run together and
+blend in remarkable artlessness as they stand recorded in the oldest
+literature (_e. g._, the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_). Unthinkable
+monstrosities of the origin of gods and lands and men are told with
+the same simplicity as the unquestionable facts of historic times. But
+taking the one leading thought which runs through all these records and
+appears to be fundamental in the Japanese civilization--namely, that
+all their islands and emperors and chiefs and people are offspring of
+the gods, the very first of whom were somehow self-evolved from the
+primordial elements of the universe--we look upon the Shinto worship as
+it exists in its purest form to-day, and note the most apparent facts.
+
+Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, in his "attempt at an interpretation" of Japan,
+has, more clearly than any other writer I have consulted, described
+the Shinto ancestor-worship under its three forms of _Domestic_,
+_Communal_, and _State_ cults. In every case it is a worship of the
+dead, but the individual, whether he be the most obscure servant, the
+influential citizen, the commanding chieftain, or even the Mikado, is
+but a part and parcel of the body politic. There is a most remarkable
+unity of popular and national life. Government and religion are
+virtually identical, and there is no distinction between religion and
+morality. Obedience and conformity to the rules of family life, and to
+the customs of society and the requirements of the State--these are
+the simple sum-total of Shinto law and gospel. The individual must
+always stand ready to be sacrificed for the good of the community or
+of the State. Everything is to be regarded as public, and must serve
+the public weal. There is no such thing as privacy, and oddities have
+no respectable standing. Tradition and custom seem to constitute the
+essence of religion as well as of family, communal, and more public
+life. There is no code of moral law; there is nothing in the worship
+that is fairly comparable to what we understand by dogma, creed, or
+Church. Strictly speaking, this system has no heaven or hell, no deep
+sense of sin, and no concept of mediatorial redemption from sin and
+evil. The dead--all the dead of all the ages--are conceived as somehow
+living in the unseen vacancy around, above, below; they are present at
+the worship; they haunt the tombs; they are interested in the life and
+works of their descendants; they visit their former homes and attend
+the family worship there; their happiness, in fact, depends upon the
+honor and worship which their living descendants pay them; and also the
+happiness and prosperity of the living is believed to depend upon their
+sense of filial duty and proper reverence toward the dead. Furthermore,
+all the dead are supposed to become gods and attain to supernatural
+power. But there is no one Supreme Deity; no central throne of God;
+no paradise of heavenly blessedness. So far as any ideas of this kind
+obtain among the people, they may be regarded as later conceptions
+introduced by missionaries or adherents of other religious systems.
+But the cult implies beyond question a belief in some kind of future
+life. The _Yomi_, or Hades, of Shinto mythology, into which Izanagi
+went to seek his lost sister, was conceived as "a hideous and polluted
+land," and even the realm of the unseen heavenly deities was never
+longed for by the devotees of Shinto. Dooman observes that "to the
+Japanese mind and imagination Japan, as a place of residence, was far
+superior to heaven, and its inhabitants a far more desirable society
+than those living in the transcendent regions. We see that every god
+who is sent from heaven to Japan on some important business by the
+divine assembly marries, and is utterly unwilling to go back once more
+to the place from which he descended."[24]
+
+=12. Elements of Animism.= The ancestor-worship of Shinto can not be
+disassociated altogether from the elements of Animism which appear in
+the names and titles of certain deities, and also in the fact that
+there are "evil gods" and demons who are capable of working mischief
+and calamity in the family, the community, and the State. How these
+evil deities originated is matter of myth, legend, and speculation. Bad
+men would naturally be supposed to carry their evil character with them
+into the unseen world of the dead, and to have the same power to work
+harm among the living as the good spirits have to bestow benefits. But
+human spirits would hardly be supposed to become deities of the wind,
+and the thunder, and the waves, and the mountains; of the trees, and
+the fire, and the sun, and the moon, and the autumn, and the food of
+men. Here the old mythology of the _Ko-ji-ki_ comes in to tell us of
+a prehistoric and cosmical origin of evils. When Izanagi went to find
+his sister Izanami in the hideous and polluted underworld, and found
+her body swarming with maggots and eight thunder deities dwelling in
+the different parts of her decaying form, he fled back in astonishment
+and awe, and she in a rage of shame pursued him with all the horrid
+forces of that nether sphere. He escaped, but not without contracting
+much pollution on his august person, and when he sought to wash and
+cleanse himself in the waters of a certain river, there were born from
+the filth of his person two deities, named "the wondrous deity of
+eighty evils," and "the wondrous deity of great evils." These evil gods
+afterwards multiplied, and may be supposed to be the authors of all the
+demons, goblins, and mischievous spirits of evil that disturb the world
+and its inhabitants. But there are also good spirits innumerable that
+animate all moving things. The winds and the waters, the songs of birds
+and the hum of the bees, the growing plants and trees, are all instinct
+with a sort of conscious life, and the spirits that live and move in
+them are to be recognized and reverenced by prayers and offerings.
+
+The spirits of dead ancestors and the powerful spirits of the winds and
+the storms and the growths of nature may or may not have been supposed
+to have concert of action understood between them. The Japanese mind
+seems never to have elaborated any formal philosophy of this life or
+any specific theories of the life to come.
+
+=13. The Domestic Cult.= The simplest and most original form of the
+Shinto worship is that of the family. In the inner chamber of every
+home there is a high shelf against the wall called the "Shelf of
+the August Spirits." Upon it is placed a miniature temple, in which
+are deposited little tablets of white wood bearing the names of the
+deceased members of the household. These are often spoken of as "spirit
+sticks" and "spirit substitutes." Before these household shrines simple
+offerings are offered daily and a few words of prayer are spoken. The
+ceremony is a very short one, but as regular as the coming of the day.
+It is usually performed by the head of the family, but it frequently
+devolves upon the woman, the mother or the grandmother, rather than
+the father. "No religion," says Hearn, "is more sincere, no faith
+more touching than this domestic worship, which regards the dead as
+continuing to form a part of the household life and needing still the
+affection and the respect of their children and kindred. Originating
+in those dim ages when fear was stronger than love, ... the cult at
+last developed into a religion of affection; and this it yet remains.
+The belief that the dead need affection, that to neglect them is a
+cruelty, that their happiness depends upon duty, is a belief that has
+almost cast out the primitive fear of their displeasure. They are not
+thought of as dead: they are believed to remain among those who loved
+them. Unseen, they guard the home and watch over the welfare of its
+inmates; they hover nightly in the glow of the shrine-lamp, and the
+stirring of its flame is the motion of them.... From their shrine they
+observe and hear what happens in the house; they share the family joys
+and sorrows. They were the givers of life; they represent the past of
+the race, and all its sacrifices.... Yet, how little do they require in
+return! Scarcely more than to be thanked, as founders and guardians of
+the home, in simple words like these: 'For aid received, by day and by
+night, accept, august ones, our reverential gratitude.'"[25]
+
+=14. The Communal Cult.= The next phase of the Shinto worship to be
+noticed is that which is represented in the temples scattered about
+everywhere in the land and which are said to number over 195,000 at
+the present time. In every community, village, and large city is found
+the parish-temple, and in the larger towns each section or district
+has its public shrine, in which the whole community honor the deified
+ancestors of certain noble families of ancient time, or the spirit of
+the first great patriarch of the clan. The farmers, or those who till
+the fields, usually dwell in a village on the principal highway, and
+go out thence to work the rural districts round about. So the villages
+vary in size from fifty houses set on a single street half a mile long
+to a large town of many hundred houses. In Simmons and Wigmore's "Notes
+on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan,"[26] we read that
+the Japanese rural population is, as a rule, "exceedingly stable.
+The villagers are for the most part engaged wholly or partially as
+cultivators of land, and in the vast majority of cases many generations
+of cultivators have been born and have died on the same spot. From the
+almost numberless replies to inquiries, the answer usually is, 'We do
+not know where our ancestors came from, or when they came to live on
+this spot. Our temple register may tell, but we have never thought
+about the matter.'"
+
+The deity honored at these village temples is called the _Ujigami_,
+and recognized as the patriarchal and tutelary god of the community.
+Just whether he were the clan-ancestor of the first settlers in
+that particular parish, or the spirit of some mighty ruler of that
+district at a former time, or the patron-god of some noble family
+once resident there, is as uncertain as the knowledge of the common
+villagers touching their earliest progenitors. But in every class these
+_Ujigami_ were worshiped as the tutelar deity of the community in which
+the temple stood. Also, in the larger towns there are Shinto temples
+dedicated to certain patron-gods of other localities.
+
+Each one of these parish temples naturally has a most intimate relation
+to the life of the community about it. Thither every child born in the
+parish is taken, when a month old, and formally named and placed under
+the protection of the ancestral deity. As it grows up it is regularly
+taken to observe all the festivals and the processions and ceremonies,
+and the temple groves and gardens become its common playground. There
+is nothing somber or solemn about this religious cult to scare a
+child, but rather very much to attract and interest.[27] Every village
+temple has its appointed days of public worship, and neighboring
+districts vie with each other in making their great festival days
+occasions of popular delight. To these joyous festivals every family
+contributes according to ability, and the worship is accompanied by
+public amusements of various kinds, athletic sports, and the sale of
+toys for children. The temple worship consisted in the presentation
+of offerings of cloth, herbs, fruits, and other of the most common
+products of the country, and in a ritual prayer enumerating the various
+gifts and supplicating for prosperity and success in all communal
+affairs, for protection against sickness, plague, and famine, and
+for the triumph of their chieftains in time of war. In this way the
+_Ujigami_ was recognized as the tutelar deity of the community and the
+district, the abiding friend and helper of his offspring. The communal
+cult thus powerfully confirmed the family cult, and enforced the lesson
+that no man could live unto himself alone.
+
+=15. The National Cult.= But it is in the State or National observances
+of the great temples that the Shinto worship is seen in its most
+elaborated form. The substance and manner of this worship may be
+learned from the ancient Japanese rituals, which make mention of the
+chief deities, enumerate the offerings that are presented at the sacred
+shrines, and furnish us the very language employed "in the presence of
+the sovran gods." How early these rituals of worship were committed
+to writing is an open question, but it is altogether probable that in
+substance they had been transmitted orally through many generations
+before they were put in written form. From these rituals, and the
+practices of the worship as they may be observed at the present time,
+we are able to learn the chief features of the service.[28]
+
+In connection with this national worship we may here note (1) that
+the great festivals and occasions of worship were observed in all the
+principal temples at the same time; (2) the _Yengishiki_ mentions
+3,132 shrines distinguished as great and small; there were 492 great
+shrines, and 2,640 small ones. But besides these there were many
+thousands of smaller, undistinguished temples scattered all over the
+lands. (3) These various shrines were dedicated to a great number of
+deities, and there were many gods who received worship in a number
+of temples at one and the same time. (4) The offerings were made in
+the name of "the Sovran Grandchild" of the sun-goddess, the divine
+title of every Mikado, and Satow remarks that "it is difficult to
+resist the suggestion that the sun was the earliest among the powers
+of nature to be deified, and that the long series of gods who precede
+her in the cosmogony of the _Ko-ji-ki_ and _Nihongi_, most of whom are
+shown by their names to have been mere abstractions, were invented
+to give her a genealogy, into which were inserted two or perhaps more
+of her own attributes, personified as separate deities."[29] (5) The
+priesthood seems to have been for the most part hereditary, and many
+priests claimed descent from the chief deity to whom the temple was
+dedicated. The reader of the ritual was a member of the priestly tribe
+which traced its origin to _Oho-nakato-mi_, chief of the whole Nakatomi
+family. Another priestly family is the Imbibi tribe.[30] (6) Virgin
+priestesses also figure in the celebration of the great ceremonies
+of State. Princesses of the Mikado's family have been consecrated to
+officiate in the temples of Isè and in other great temples also. While
+some of the priestesses are virgin princesses, some of them also are
+young, not yet having reached the nubile age, and when they reach that
+age they cease to be priestesses. With others the office is hereditary,
+as it is with men, and the women of this class retain and exercise
+their priestly office after marriage.
+
+=16. The Harvest Service.= As an example of public worship of
+exceptional interest, we take the ritual ceremony for Harvest, which
+is celebrated once a year--the fourth day of the second month. The
+chief service is at the capital, but the festival is observed in all
+the provinces under the direction of the local rulers. Preparations go
+on for a fortnight beforehand, and the service begins twenty minutes
+before seven in the morning. At the capital, in the large court used
+for the worship of the Shinto gods, the ministers of State assemble,
+along with the priests and priestesses of many temples which are
+supported from the Mikado's treasury. When all things are in readiness,
+the ministers, priests, and priestesses enter in succession and occupy
+the places assigned them. The various offerings are duly presented and
+the ritual is read. At the conclusion of each section of the ritual as
+recited by the reader, all the priests respond, "O!" (Yes, or Amen.)
+
+The following is a portion of the ritual used on one of these
+occasions: "Hear, all of you, assembled priests of higher and lower
+order. I declare in the presence of the sovran gods[31] whose
+praises are fulfilled as heavenly temples and country temples.[32] I
+fulfill your praises by setting up the great offerings of the sovran
+grandchild's augustiness, made with intention of deigning to begin the
+harvest in the second month of this year, as the morning sun rises in
+glory. I declare in the presence of the sovran gods of the harvest: If
+the sovran gods will bestow in many-bundled ears and in luxuriant ears
+the late-ripening harvest which they will bestow, the late-ripening
+harvest which will be produced by the dripping of foam from the arms
+and by drawing the mud together between the opposite thighs, then I
+will fulfill their praises by setting up the first fruits in a thousand
+ears, and many hundred ears, raising high the beer-jars, filling them,
+and ranging them in rows." The ritual goes on to specify, among the
+offerings, sweet and bitter herbs, "things which dwell in the blue
+sea-plain;" clothes bright, and glittering, and soft, and coarse; a
+white horse, a white boar, and a white cock. The names also of many
+deities are declared: the "divine Producer," the "great Goddess of
+Food," "wonderful-rock-Gate," "the from-heaven-shining-great Deity who
+sits in Isè," "sovran gods who sit in the Farms," "sovran gods who sit
+in the mouths of the mountains," and those "who dwell in the partings
+of the waters."
+
+As soon as the reader had finished the words of the ritual, he retired,
+and the priests distributed the various offerings and presented them to
+the gods for whom they were set apart.
+
+=17. The Great Purification.= But the ritual of the Great or General
+Purification is said to be "one of the most important and most solemn
+ceremonies of the Shinto religion." Professor Karl Florenz, who has
+given us a translation of this ritual,[33] informs us that it is by
+means of this ceremony that "the population of the whole country, from
+the princes and ministers down to the common people, is purified and
+freed from sins, pollutions, and calamities." It is celebrated twice
+a year, on the thirtieth day of the sixth and twelfth months. "The
+chief ceremony was performed in the capital, near the south gate of the
+imperial palace, and might be styled the purification of the court,
+because it was to purify all the higher and lower officials of the
+imperial court. In a similar way the ceremony was celebrated also at
+all the more important public shrines of the whole country." Besides
+the regular semiannual celebration of the "Great Purification" (called
+_Oho-harahe_), it is also performed on such special occasions as at the
+accession of a new emperor to the throne, or when an imperial princess
+was chosen as a virgin priestess and sent to the temple of Isè.
+
+Without detailing the movements, positions, and practices of the
+assembled priests, officials, and common people at the service of the
+General Purification, we simply cite a few extracts from the ritual
+which may serve to show us the underlying concept of purification.
+While the ritual is only a part of the entire ceremony of the
+occasion, we are told that it is not infrequently recited without
+performing the ceremony. Moreover, while in ancient times the reader
+was always a member of the priestly Nakatomi tribe, at the present time
+the ritual is read by the officiating priest of each particular temple.
+The following excerpts are made from Florenz's translation:
+
+"Hear, all of you, assembled princes of the blood, princes, high
+dignitaries, and men of the hundred offices. Hear, all of you, that
+in the Great Purification of the present last day of the sixth month
+of the current year, [the Sovran] deigns to purify, and deigns to
+cleanse the various offenses which may have been committed either
+inadvertently, or deliberately, especially by the persons serving
+in the imperial court: (viz.) the scarf-wearing attendants, the
+sash-wearing attendants (of the kitchen), the attendants who carry
+quivers on the back, the attendants who gird on swords, the eighty
+attendants of the attendants, and, moreover, by the people serving in
+all offices."
+
+The ritual goes on to declare how the Sovran's dear progenitors, in a
+divine assembly, ordained that the "Sovran Grandchild's Augustiness
+should tranquilly rule the luxuriant reed-plain region of fresh
+young spikes as a peaceful country;" how they expelled with a divine
+expulsion the savage deities, and "silenced the rocks and trunks of
+trees;" how they let him go down from his heavenly place, "and dividing
+a road through the eightfold heavenly clouds," they sent him down and
+gave the land into his peaceful keeping. The ritual also makes mention
+of various kinds of offenses which need to be cleansed and purged away,
+and distinguishes them as "heavenly offenses" and "earthly offenses."
+Among the former are "breaking down the divisions of the rice fields,
+filling up the irrigating channels, and opening the floodgate of
+sluices," and the evacuation of one's bowels in improper places. Among
+"earthly offenses" are the cutting the skin of the living or the dead
+body so as to become defiled by blood, being affected with corns,
+bunions, boils, or proud-flesh; sins of adultery, the offense of using
+incantations, and various kinds of personal calamity.
+
+"It is expected," the ritual adds, "that the heavenly gods will be
+favorably disposed by reason of these offerings, ceremonies, and ritual
+of the Great Purification, and will deign to purify and cleanse, and
+make all the specified offenses disappear, even as the clouds of heaven
+and the dense morning and evening mists disappear before the blowing
+winds." It is expected that "the goddess who resides in the current of
+the rapid stream that comes boiling down the ravines, from the tops
+of the mountains," and the goddess who resides in the currents of the
+briny ocean will carry them away, and "swallow them down with gurgling
+sound," and they shall be utterly "blown away, banished, and got rid
+of," so that "from this day onwards there will be no offense in the
+four quarters of the region under heaven, especially with regard to
+all people of all offices who respectfully serve in the court of the
+Sovran." The offenses were thought of as somehow swept away by the
+winds and the waves, and then swallowed into the depths of the sea, and
+so cast down into the underworld, the realm of death and pollution,
+whence all defilements were supposed to have originated. So they were
+cast down into the depths whence they came forth.
+
+The concluding words of this ritual are a command for the "diviners
+of the four countries to leave and go away to the great river-way, and
+carry away the offenses by purification." Thus divination was honored,
+as moving in the will and way of the gods; but incantation is mentioned
+among the "earthly offenses." Probably these evil incantations refer to
+evil-minded witchcraft and invoking calamity on others.
+
+This great ritual ceremony of purification, being one of the most
+solemn formal expressions of the Shinto cult, calls for the following
+remarks:
+
+(1) The central idea is purification from certain forms of evil, or
+certain kinds of offenses.
+
+(2) The offenses are conceived as either willfully committed, or
+committed inadvertently.
+
+(3) They are also spoken of as heavenly and earthly. This distinction
+seems to us quite arbitrary and unnatural, but it probably had a
+mythical origin and the offenses called heavenly are mainly such
+as involve distress for an agricultural community. They are sins
+against the _land_ of the gods, while the earthly offenses are mainly
+matters of personal defilement. In all cases it is conspicuous that
+the Shinto concept of offenses which need purging away is that of
+outward physical pollution and damage. They are all offenses committed
+against the interests of the community and likely to bring some kind of
+calamity upon the people.
+
+(4) We should also remark that while, according to the ritual of the
+Great Purification, it is expected that from that day forwards "no
+offense which is called offense" will occur again in the four quarters
+of the whole region under heaven, the same ceremony of purification is
+repeated every six months--year in and year out.
+
+(5) These facts serve to show a moral and religious basis for the
+Japanese love of cleanliness and the scrupulous care with which these
+people of "the luxuriant central land of the ears of fresh rice" study
+to keep their bodies, their houses, their temples, and their whole
+domain free from all manner of physical impurity.
+
+=18. Other Ritual Services.= Other rituals for other occasions and
+purposes furnish nothing of a different character or of exceptional
+importance that we need here give further attention to their various
+contents and suggestions. There are, in the voluminous _Yengishiki_,
+rituals for the service of the gods of Kasuga, for the service of the
+goddess of food, and of the gods of the wind, and for the service of
+particular temples. Some of these services are occasions of grand
+ceremonial display. The place, the day, the hour, and all the details
+of the service are arranged beforehand. The procession of those who
+take part is ordered with extreme precision and made in every way
+magnificent. Various orders of officials move along in separate ranks.
+The priestess, accompanied by many mantled attendants, is drawn in a
+car, and on either side four men in scarlet coats carry a silk umbrella
+and a huge, long-handled fan. The female attendants and servants of
+the priestess, each a lady of rank, follow in seven carriages. Chests
+filled with sacrificial utensils and food offerings, the messenger of
+the Mikado and his attendants of rank, have their assigned places in
+the procession. Upon arriving at the temple enclosure, the priestess
+alights from her car or palanquin, passes into the courtyard behind
+curtains so held by her attendants as to hide her from the gaze of the
+crowd, enters her private room and changes her traveling dress for the
+sacrificial robes. Meantime the Mikado's presents and all the other
+offerings are duly placed on the tables and in the various chapels
+prepared for them and the high officers of State take their seats
+within the temple enclosure. All the prescribed forms are observed with
+scrupulous care, and the ritual is read. In many services harpists,
+flute-players, singers, and dancers perform their several tasks. At
+the conclusion of the services the company clap their hands and then
+separate. The priestess changes her robes again for her traveling
+dress, and returns to her lodging in like stately procession as she
+came to the shrine.
+
+The mirror, sword, bow, and spear, which are mentioned in the rituals
+as presents offered to the gods at the great festivals, doubtless have
+their symbolical significance, and like the three divine insignia
+of sword, precious stone, and mirror--the regalia or symbols of
+Japanese power and glory--have doubtless their mythic connection with
+prehistoric traditions; but these belong to the study of Japanese
+antiquities rather than to the religious elements of Shinto.[34]
+
+=19. Influence of China on Japanese Thought.= So far we have spoken
+only of what may be called the original or pure Shinto cult as the
+religion of the ancient Japanese. But it is important to observe that
+the moral and religious ideas of other peoples and other systems have
+for some two thousand years past been affecting the life and thought
+of the Japanese people. One noteworthy foreign influence came in from
+China, and as early as the first century of the Christian era--perhaps
+somewhat earlier--Chinese scholars made their way into Japan. This was
+very natural, for the proximity of China favored intercourse between
+the two nations, and Confucianism was at the beginning of our era
+five hundred years old. Ancestor-worship was common to the people of
+both lands, and the arts and industries of the two countries might
+have found affiliation in many ways we can not now determine. That
+such a leavening Chinese influence was early introduced into Japan is
+simply matter of fact. The Preface of Yasumaro, the compiler of the
+most ancient records of the _Ko-ji-ki_, shows the effect of Chinese
+philosophy in its incidental mention of "the Passive and Active
+Essences" which co-operated at the beginning of the creation; and
+Chamberlain, in his Introduction to his English translation of the
+_Ko-ji-ki_, observes that "at the very earliest period to which the
+twilight of legend stretches back, Chinese influence had already begun
+to make itself felt in these islands, communicating to the inhabitants
+both implements and ideas." Then it is to be further remarked that the
+_Nihongi_, completed in 720 A. D., although essentially a parallel
+chronicle of Japanese traditions, is in thought and style conspicuously
+Chinese. It is made in every aspect and element of its composition to
+resemble as far as possible a Chinese history.
+
+=20. Influence of Buddhism.= But a deeper and more widespread influence
+than that of anything of Chinese origin was the introduction into Japan
+of Buddhism, which was first brought in about A. D. 552, but did not
+succeed in leavening the whole country until the middle of the ninth
+century. It was quietly propagated by leaders of various Buddhist sects
+which differ in minor practices, and slowly it gained ascendency,
+but its first more notable triumph followed the teaching of Kukai,
+founder of the Shingon sect, who so adapted Buddhist doctrines to the
+traditional ideas of ancestor worship as to maintain that all the
+Shinto deities were _avatars_ or incarnations of Buddha. With great
+ingenuity and cunning, a new interpretation was given to ancient
+myths, and new constructions were put upon old beliefs. The Shinto
+gods, rites, customs, and traditions took on a Buddhist significance,
+and many of the mysteries of birth and of death were explained in a
+manner so simple and popular as to commend them to all who listened
+to the new teaching. For Buddhism had already learned in India and
+in China the clever art of appropriating old beliefs and customs and
+of clothing them with a new and higher meaning. Confucianism itself
+had already in part prepared the way for Buddhism in Japan, and the
+successful Buddhist propagandists were wise enough to suppress or
+keep out of sight all that might be offensive in their system, and
+to teach only such forms of doctrine as could be made attractive to
+the masses of the people. Kukai thus succeeded in converting the
+Mikado to his new interpretations of the Shinto beliefs, and the new
+system thus put forward received the name "Riyobu Shinto," which means
+"two parts," or the "double way of the gods," or the twofold divine
+teaching. So complete and general did this Riyobu Shinto become in its
+spread throughout Japan that for a thousand years it dominated the
+civilization of the Empire. It had its priests, its gorgeous temples
+and ritual services, its philosophy, and its divers sects, and it is
+said that there are at least twelve distinct Buddhist sects in Japan
+to-day. According to Lafcadio Hearn, "the religion of the Buddha
+brought to Japan another and a wider humanizing influence--a new gospel
+of tenderness--together with a multitude of new beliefs that were
+able to accommodate themselves to the old, in spite of fundamental
+dissimilarity. In the highest meaning of the term, it was a civilizing
+power. Besides teaching new respect for life, the duty of kindness to
+animals as well as to all human beings, the consequences of all present
+acts upon the conditions of a future existence, the duty of resignation
+to pain as the inevitable result of forgotten error, it actually gave
+to Japan the arts and the industries of China. Architecture, painting,
+sculpture, engraving, printing, gardening--in short, every art and
+industry that helped to make life beautiful--developed first in Japan
+under Buddhist teaching."[35] To which may well be added the following
+statement of Aston: "There was nothing in Shinto which could rival in
+attraction the sculpture, architecture, painting, costumes, and ritual
+of the foreign faith. Its organization was more complete and effective.
+It presented ideals of humanity, charity, self-abnegation, and purity
+far higher than any previously known to the Japanese nation."[36]
+
+But after a thousand years of mixture, who can now tell for certain
+just what is original Shinto and what is the Buddhist supplement
+or modification? The Buddhism of Japan is as far from the original
+teachings of Gautama as the Roman Catholic religion of Spain is from
+the simple precepts and practices of Christ and His first apostles.
+The same is true of the Buddhism of China and Thibet. The Shingon
+sect of Buddhists in Japan, of which Kukai was the founder, has taken
+up into itself many ideas which are neither purely Buddhist nor purely
+Shintoist. Superstitions alien to both cults are likely to have found
+their way among the people and to have exerted influences on the
+popular cult, and no man is now able to point out their origin or their
+history.[37]
+
+=21. Revival of Pure Shinto.= We are not here concerned, however, with
+Japanese Buddhism. Our inquiry is after the facts and the significance
+of the essential Shinto cult. A great and remarkable revival of the
+older Shinto began near the beginning of the eighteenth century and
+persisted with great success for more than one hundred years. The most
+distinguished scholars of Japan were the chief leaders in this reform.
+We have already had occasion to mention the names of the three most
+famous men among them--Mabuchi, Motowori, and Hirata. These by their
+expositions of the ancient scriptures and traditions turned the tide
+of popular thought against Buddhism and Chinese philosophy. It is
+quite interesting to note in some of their writings the antipathy and
+hostility to Chinese teachings. Motowori had a remarkable answer to
+those critics who say that Shintoism knows no moral code. He declared
+that all a loyal Japanese subject was concerned to do was simply
+to obey the Mikado, whether his commands were right or wrong. He
+maintained that morals were invented by the Chinese because they were
+an immoral people; but in Japan there was no necessity for any system
+of morals, as every Japanese acted aright if he only consulted his
+own heart.[38] Whatever we may think or say of such self-complacency,
+it accords well with Japanese religion, mythology, and history,
+and it is a simple fact to be noted that in 1871 Buddhism in Japan
+was disestablished and disendowed, and the old Shinto was declared
+to be the national religion. Percival Lowell observes that this
+reinstatement of the Mikado and the old national faith is "a curious
+instance of a religious revival due to archæological, not to religious
+zeal."[39] But while the old Shinto is at present the official cult of
+Japan, it appears to have little life or force. Japanese Buddhism is
+said to be showing signs of renewed activity, and is likely to prove
+a powerful antagonist of Christianity. It is certainly a question of
+vital importance to the future civilization of Japan which of these
+mighty rivals shall gain ascendency over the popular mind.
+
+=22. Esoteric Shinto.= Shinto did not continue very long to hold its
+newly proclaimed status as the State religion. Its own most devoted
+adherents and leaders felt that its highest interests would be best
+served without official and governmental prestige. A wise and prudent
+State policy determined that its permanence and success should be
+left to care for themselves and to depend upon the merits of its
+teachings and its historic and popular hold upon the national, the
+communal, and the family life. As a cult it is deeply rooted in the
+civilization of the empire, and its pilgrims swarm along the highways
+of travel and at the historic shrines. They are found journeying to
+the summits of sacred mountains, and there performing esoteric rites
+which induce mystic divine possession. The performance of such mystic
+rites and incantations seems to be no modern innovation. It may have
+its connections with Buddhist counting of rosaries, and possibly other
+foreign influences have helped to cultivate its somewhat mantic forms,
+but its origin is from a remote antiquity. This "esoteric Shinto" is
+essentially akin to that self-induced religious fervor which exhibits
+itself in many lands and in connection with various cults, and is often
+seen among the Mohammedan dancing and howling dervishes. Its existence
+and its practices in Japan refute the notion of those who would deny
+to Shinto the character of a real religion.[40] The excrescences and
+extravagancies of religious fervor must have some sort of a religion to
+inspire them.
+
+=23. Mingling of Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism.= The noteworthy
+fact that Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism have for more than
+a thousand years mixed with each other in Japan demonstrates the
+susceptibility of the Japanese people to foreign influence and
+teaching, and their natural hospitality toward the various religious
+cults. The ethical teachings of Confucius prepared the way for
+Buddhism, and, in spite of antipathy and wars between the nations,
+maintain a powerful hold upon the thoughtful Japanese to-day. Still
+more remarkable is it that millions of the Japanese appear to accept
+both Shintoism and Buddhism, and good Shintoists and good Buddhists
+may be found worshiping in some temples at one and the same time.[41]
+A Japanese scholar, speaking at the Chicago "Parliament of Religions"
+on the "Future of Religion in Japan," declared that the three
+systems named "are not only living together on friendly terms with
+one another, but, in fact, they are blended together in the minds
+of the people. One and the same Japanese is at once a Shintoist,
+a Confucianist, and a Buddhist. Our religion may be likened to a
+triangle. One angle is Shintoism, another is Confucianism, and a
+third is Buddhism, all of which make up the religion of the ordinary
+Japanese. Shintoism furnishes the objects, Confucianism offers the
+rules of life, while Buddhism supplies the way of salvation."[42]
+
+=24. Roman Catholicism in Japan.= We must not omit altogether a notice
+of the introduction of Roman Catholic Christianity into Japan about the
+middle of the sixteenth century. It was in 1549 that the famous Jesuit,
+Francis Xavier, landed at Kagoshima, and began his marvelous missionary
+work through Japanese interpreters, and in two years of strenuous toil
+he succeeded in winning many converts from all classes of the people.
+Fifty years thereafter the Christian converts throughout the country
+are said to have numbered nearly a million. But the Jesuit habit
+and policy of meddling with affairs of State, their intolerance of
+other cults, and at length their crusade against the ancient national
+faith and their burning of Buddhist temples and slaughter of Buddhist
+priests, aroused the bitter reaction and bloody persecutions, which,
+after some forty years of struggle, succeeded in obliterating every
+public sign of Christianity from every province of the empire. And for
+over two hundred years Japan closed her doors to all foreign influences
+and appeals. It was not until 1873 that the edicts against Christianity
+were withdrawn. Of the Protestant missionary movements in the island
+empire since that date, it is not the purpose of this essay to speak.
+
+=25. Present Religious Indifference.= Much is said nowadays about the
+apparent religious indifference of the Japanese. Some writers seem to
+think that the Japanese and the Chinese people are alike inferior and
+defective in religious nature. Mr. Gulick, in his "Evolution of the
+Japanese," reports Marquis Ito, Japan's most illustrious statesman,
+as having said: "I regard religion itself as quite unnecessary for
+a nation's life; science is far above superstition, and what is
+religion--Buddhism or Christianity--but superstition, and therefore a
+possible source of weakness to a nation? I do not regret the tendency
+to free thought and atheism, which is almost universal in Japan,
+because I do not regard it as a source of danger to the community."
+And yet this same distinguished statesman is reported on the same
+page (288) to have given utterance to the following much more recent
+statement: "The only true civilization is that which rests on Christian
+principles, and consequently, as Japan must attain her civilization
+on these principles, those young men who receive Christian education
+will be the main factors in the development of future Japan." Possibly
+these two discrepant statements may be reconciled by supposing
+that, in the first case, Ito's thought was turned especially to the
+superstitions and temporary phases incident to all religious cults,
+and in his later remark he spoke of Christianity as somehow synonymous
+with Western civilization. But in any case it would seem that one
+who deems the Japanese either irreligious, or non-religious, or
+deficient in religious sense, ought to explain the manifold facts of
+the Shinto cult, such as the "god shelf," the ancestral tablets, the
+daily offerings, and the family worship in almost every household of
+that Eastern island-empire. What mean the hundreds of thousands of
+white-robed pilgrims who annually visit the numerous sacred shrines?
+And is there no element of religion in the devout patriotism that is
+ever ready to sacrifice life and all that men hold dear for the faith
+and inheritance of their beloved "central land of Reed-Plains" given
+long ago to the care of the "Sovran Grandchild" by the celestial
+deities?
+
+It is only a one-sided concept of religion, and a too prevalent failure
+to distinguish between its local temporary phases and its deeper
+essentials as grounded in the spiritual nature of man, that have led
+superficial observers to deny the profound religious element in the
+Shinto and Buddhist worship of Japan. If Paul, waiting at Athens, and
+beholding the city full of idols, could truly say, "I perceive, O
+Athenians, that in all things ye are very religious," just as truly may
+we say, in view of the 195,000 temples and the innumerable deities of
+the Shinto cult, that the Japanese are exceedingly religious.
+
+Let me add the testimony of Mr. Gulick himself, who spent years in the
+country: "The universality of the tokens of family religion, and the
+constant and loving care bestowed upon them, are striking testimony
+to the universality of religion in Japan. The pathos of life is
+often revealed by the family devotion of the mother to these silent
+representatives of divine beings, and departed ancestors or children. I
+have no hesitation in saying that, so far as external appearances go,
+the average home in Japan is far more religious than the average home
+in enlightened England or America, especially when compared with such
+as have no family worship. There may be a genuine religious life in
+these Western homes, but it does not appear to the casual visitor. Yet
+no casual visitor can enter a Japanese home, without seeing at once the
+evidences of some sort of religious life."[43]
+
+It is to be remarked that in the history and evolution of religion,
+where there has been obvious evolution, periods of long peace and
+repose, marked by formalism, skepticism, and indifference to religious
+obligation, are generally followed by great revivals and reforms.
+Some new light breaks in; some great prophet appears; new ideas and
+hopes take hold on the popular mind, and thereupon a new era opens in
+civilization. The renaissance in Japan of the last fifty years may be
+the prelude to an epoch-making revival of the Orient.
+
+=26. Concluding Observations and Suggestions.= Our study of Shinto has
+led us over a somewhat unfamiliar field of thought. The mythology and
+the records of the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_ are far apart from all
+our Western legends and ideals of the early world, and in great part
+seem like monstrosities of fantastic speculation. It is affirmed by
+some that the Japanese people have been halting for two millenniums
+in a state of childhood, receiving nothing from Confucianism or
+from Buddhism to quicken or change the national life; but with the
+introduction of Western thought and enterprise they have suddenly
+leaped into comparative maturity, and their new departure from a dreamy
+past is likely to astonish the whole world. It is very obvious that
+the introduction of modern science into her thousands of elementary
+schools must sooner or later undermine all faith in the traditional
+cosmogony, and, along with that, a whole world of notions bound up with
+the Shinto cult must needs be overthrown. Eminent Japanese scholars
+say that Western learning has sounded the knell and signed the death
+warrant of the ancient religion of their island-world.
+
+It is for us very easy, in the light of our New Testament revelation,
+to point out defects in the Shinto system. Some four or five of these
+we may briefly mention as matters which a Christian missionary should
+keep in view as evincing the need of preaching among these people the
+deeper demands of the religion of Jesus Christ. (1) The first and
+fundamental defect in Shinto as a religious system is its lack of any
+clear or helpful concept of one God and Father of all. The doctrine
+of God is fundamental in any cult, and where the idea is vague and
+imperfect the entire system of doctrine and practice must needs possess
+an element of uncertainty and weakness. (2) Another defect is its want
+of a clear concept of sin as a moral disease of the heart. The Japanese
+mind needs to be turned inward to a deeper sense of the real sinfulness
+of sin. (3) Another serious fault in the Japanese civilization is its
+low estimate of womanhood. Here as in China woman has not attained her
+proper sphere. She is subjected to three forms of obedience, which
+in actual life are too abject for her higher development--she must
+bow to her parents, to her husband, and to her son in a manner that
+involves what we should call a humiliating form of domestic slavery.
+Japan needs the practice of a monogamy of the highest Christian type
+in order to rectify this inferior and one-sided view of the male
+and female constitution of humanity. (4) There is also in Japan an
+apparently low estimate of human life. It is probably due largely to
+the communal and feudal system which has for a long time ruled the
+people. The individual is nothing; the community is everything. These
+and other defects show our grounds for believing that the old order and
+system must sometime change. But it is no strange or unheard of thing
+in our world for an old order to change and give place to something
+new and higher. Western civilization has seen not a few examples of
+such changes; but, as touching religious evolution, what a monumental
+example we have in the transition from the Old Testament Judaism to
+the New Testament kingdom of heaven! The main contents and scope of
+the Epistle to the Hebrews point out the fact that the old covenant,
+with its sanctuary and altars and tables and sacrifices and priests,
+could not make their worshipers perfect. Notwithstanding its long and
+glorious history, it waxed old, and when the Epistle was written it
+was nigh unto vanishing away (Heb. viii, 13). It did pass away and
+give place to a more spiritual cult, the gospel of peace on earth and
+universal love. May not the national cult of Japan--with its faith in
+the unseen, its rituals of purification, its concepts of a heavenly
+ancestry, and its intimations of deification after death--be made to
+give way before a superior cult that may have the wisdom to offer a
+higher and more rational presentation of the essential truths embodied
+in the Shinto worship? Whatever men may think or say about the mystical
+and legendary elements in the Hebrew Scriptures, no one familiar with
+the literatures of the nations can hesitate for a moment to acknowledge
+the immense superiority of the Old Testament law and prophets and
+psalms over the contents of the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_. If, then,
+the covenants and the rituals of Judaism waxed old and vanished away
+before the clearer light and truth of the teachings of Jesus Christ,
+much more should we expect that the same superior "Light of the world"
+must needs, sometime, supersede and supplant the rituals of the Shinto
+cult.
+
+Accordingly, I shall venture to specify sundry elements of ancient
+Shinto, which, to use the language of Jesus, are not to be _destroyed_,
+but rather _fulfilled_, in the higher and more universal truths of the
+kingdom of Christ. _Fulfilled_, I say for I look upon all the religious
+longings, and prayers, and penitential psalms of the nations, and
+their inquiries after the Unseen and Eternal, as so many foregleams of
+a coming Light, destined to enlighten every man that cometh into the
+world.
+
+We have seen that one of the most conspicuous aspects of the Shinto
+cult is its ceremonial of the Great Purification. Physical pollution
+of any kind is abhorrent to the Japanese. The touch of a dead body,
+contact with a foul disease, failure to wash and keep one's person
+clean, are regarded as of the nature of calamities. We know that there
+was much in the practices and traditions of the Jewish elders that
+closely resembled these Shinto ideas of pollution. The Pharisees and
+scribes found fault with Jesus because of His indifference to their
+"washings of cups, pots, and brazen vessels." But cleanliness, we all
+admit, is a near neighbor of godliness. St. Paul said, "Glorify God
+in your body," for he maintained that "your body is a sanctuary of
+the Holy Spirit which is in you." Jesus found no fault with Jewish
+ablutions, and enjoined the highest personal purity. But He pointed
+out the deeper lesson that the more horrible defilement of man is
+a pollution of the heart. "For from within," He said, "out of the
+heart of man, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders,
+adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil
+eye, railing, pride, foolishness:--all these evil things proceed from
+within, and defile the man." This, then, is one fundamental truth
+which the Shinto worshiper should learn from the teachings of our
+Lord. The clean body and the pure white robes are eminently proper and
+beautiful in their way; but they should symbolize the consciousness
+of a pure heart, and a blameless life that keeps itself "unspotted
+from the world." Shinto purification needs the supplement of a deeper
+knowledge of spiritual defilement in order to a deeper knowledge of
+purity.
+
+More exalted than any mere forms of purification, or rituals of
+worship, is that notion of a living Presence concealed in all
+phenomena. There has been and is to-day among all peoples a belief in
+many invisible spirits that have some sort of power over the clouds,
+the winds, the waters, the earth, and all its teeming growths. We call
+it Animism, Shamanism, and in a certain specific form, Fetishism.
+Belief in a countless multitude of spirits who can influence the
+elements about us for good or for evil, is firmly rooted in all the
+ancient peoples of Eastern Asia, from India to Japan. We have seen
+how deep a hold it had upon the earliest Shinto cult, and the later
+influences of Confucianism and Buddhism in Japan have tended rather to
+strengthen than to suppress it in the popular mind.
+
+These animistic conceptions have played a noteworthy part in connection
+with most, if not all, the religions of mankind. When combined with a
+groveling fear of the spirits, and with the practice of magic rites and
+incantations to propitiate them as so many evil demons, the belief has
+run into the lowest forms of superstition. But is there no element of
+truth in Animism? Why should we speak disparagingly of the old Japanese
+worshiper hearing the voices of unseen spirits in the moaning winds,
+in the sounding waterfalls, in the rolling thunder? Why should he not
+adore the Sun as the heavenly Benefactor, and see in waving trees and
+blooming flowers and drifting clouds the presence and activity of
+beings, perhaps sometimes a Being Supernatural? One-sided, defective
+puerile notions controlled, no doubt, his thinking, but the one supreme
+and fundamental fact was that he felt himself in the presence of the
+Supernatural. And that primeval concept is the one most essential
+truth of all religion. We have only to divest it of sundry errant,
+non-essential interpretations in order to come face to face with the
+grandest, noblest, and most affecting theism, and monotheism as well.
+For monotheism finds its most advanced exposition in the doctrine of
+the universal immanence of God,--one God, the Eternal Spirit, in all,
+through all, over all. How far from such a concept of universal Animism
+was the old Hebrew psalmist, who sang of Jehovah "laying the beams of
+His chambers in the waters, making the clouds His chariot, walking upon
+the wings of the wind, sending forth springs into the valleys, causing
+the grass to grow upon the mountains," and receiving tribute of praises
+from the "sea-monsters and all deeps; fire and hail, snow and vapor;
+stormy wind performing His word; mountains and all hills; fruitful
+trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying
+birds." To such a worshiper the world was all alive with God. And Jesus
+added an intensity and an affecting beauty to this whole concept of an
+immanent God when He said: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,"
+and "not one sparrow falleth on the ground without your Father." I
+can conceive no Animism and no Supernaturalism more minute or more
+adorable than the ever acting and ever continuous presence of an unseen
+but all observant "Father in the heavens." The heavens in which He
+dwells are above, below, within, and all around us.
+
+And this is the higher Animism which ought to be welcomed by the
+Shinto pilgrims of Japan as the beautiful fulfilling of their ancient
+dreams. Not so many gods, not a multitude of unfriendly spirits that
+need propitiation by our gifts of food and clothing, but ONE Heavenly
+Father, immanent in every plant that grows and in every dewdrop on the
+flowers, forever working for our good, caring for every birdling, and
+numbering the very hairs of our head.
+
+With such a monotheistic conception of the world all mythologic and
+polytheistic notions of deity and the rule of the spirits of the dead
+must sooner or later disappear. Japanese scholars of high rank are
+telling their people and others that the modern Western learning has
+already destroyed the cosmogony of the Shinto cult. What is now most
+needed is a class of teachers straightforward and broad enough to
+show these people a nobler and truer concept of the world. The new
+conception need have no conflict with the belief that the spirits of
+the dead are all about us, and are deeply interested in us still. The
+family cult may adjust itself to the new and higher doctrines, and lose
+none of the beauty and tenderness and sanctity which old affection
+connects with the domestic tablets of the honored and beloved dead.
+Herein the new faith is to fulfill rather than destroy the ancient
+rites of love. Such a monotheistic cult will find no reason or occasion
+to commit the blunder of the Jesuit missionaries, and seek interference
+with the government of the land. The Mikado may still command the
+reverence and the love of the people and be rationally honored as
+a child of heaven. Loyal Christians do that under every form of
+government. "Fear God; honor the king; for there is no power but God,
+and the powers that be are ordained of God; for they are the ministers
+of God's service;"--these are the precepts of the earliest apostolic
+gospel, and the modern missionary of Christ is bound to observe and
+teach them. He should exhibit common sense and discretion in foreign
+politics, recognize and honor the legitimate power, and like the Great
+Teacher, "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God
+the things that are God's."
+
+The Shinto cult is essentially a religion of race and national
+patriotism. It is the secret of Japanese heroism and sacrifice in the
+day of battle. He counts it sweet and glorious to die for his country.
+He is not his own; he belongs to the State. We are told that the three
+principal commandments of the public and official Shinto faith are
+these:
+
+1. "Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy country.
+
+2. "Thou shalt clearly understand the principles of Heaven, and the duty
+of man.
+
+3. "Thou shalt revere the emperor as thy sovereign, and obey the will
+of his court."
+
+Surely these principles and precepts are capable of easy adjustment to
+any form of national government, and the ethics of Christianity are in
+fundamental accord with their essential claims.
+
+But how can the Christian religion, with its monotheistic worship,
+adjust itself without antagonism to the ancestor worship of Japan?
+Many seem to think that in this particular there must needs be an
+irrepressible conflict, for the worship of ancestors is central and
+fundamental in the Shinto faith, and the most precious and hallowed
+bond that holds the family, the community, and the State together.
+
+In this matter we do well to observe a number of relevant facts.
+Ancestor worship has existed in a variety of forms among many peoples.
+It has undergone various modifications in different countries, and it
+appears to have ceased among some peoples and given place to other
+ideas and forms of worship. The Japanese conception is that their
+Mikado and all his people are offspring of the gods, and each one,
+when he dies, becomes a deity, but does not cease to have interest in
+the relatives and companions of his earthly life. During the siege of
+Port Arthur, Togo sent the Mikado a message in which he expressed the
+thought that the patriotic _manes_ of the fallen heroes might hover
+over the battlefield for a long time and give unseen protection to the
+Imperial forces. Such a faith and such inspiration from the dead are
+things which a proud nation does not easily let die.
+
+But may we not approach the devotees of such a faith with the words of
+the old Hebrew prophet: "Have we not all one father? Hath not one God
+created us?" Ye think your honored ancestors still live, and love to
+think of you and aid you from their higher sphere; is it not also just
+as true of the ancestors and heroes of other lands and peoples? You
+have learned that your beautiful "land of the reed-plains and the fresh
+rice-ears" is only a very small portion of the world of men. Have these
+broader lands and more numerous peoples sprung from other and greater
+gods than yours? May it not rather be that, as there is only one sun to
+shine on all this habitable world, so there is one Heavenly Father of
+us all? Then we are all offspring of one Supreme God and we should all
+be brethren. Our ancestors and dear kindred who have passed out of our
+sight should lose no place in our affection by this larger thought.[44]
+
+By some such suggestions, and by such friendly and persuasive appeal to
+larger truths, it would seem that a higher and purer faith may commend
+itself to the adherents of Shinto, without provoking their hostility,
+and without the compromise of any essential Christian truth. As surely
+as self-evidencing science wins her onward way among the nations, so
+surely will self-evidencing truths of religion win the hearts of men.
+We are familiar with the Christian congregations singing:
+
+    "Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
+    We will be true to thee till death."
+
+But Christian and Shintoist should note the fact that the fathers and
+the sons are greater than the faith. As "the Sabbath was made for man,
+and not man for the Sabbath," so the faith, the forms of worship,
+the æsthetic arts, the culture, the learning, and all the ennobling
+elements of the highest civilization are made for man, not man for
+them. Being, therefore, not an end in themselves, but a means to the
+attainment of some higher boon, they must all be judged according to
+the broad and noble proverb: "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
+things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
+are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
+report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, take
+account of these things" (Phil. 4:8).
+
+It may be that ancestral shrines will become more sacred and more
+heavenly when lighted with the glimmer of immortal hopes of blessed
+reunion in the unseen world, and our forms and manner of honoring
+father and mother and friends that pass out from our homes may be
+safely left to adjust themselves to an uplifting faith that lives in
+the heart and ever longs for all that is holiest and best.
+
+The whole world looks with admiration upon that island-empire of the
+Orient that has shown within thirty years such marvelous capacities
+of adaptation and improvement. If she thus go on to "prove all things
+and hold fast to that which is good," who knows but her brilliant
+rising to great power and influence among the nations may mark the
+beginning of world-wide reforms? Her tremendous, bloody battles should
+say to all mankind: "Let us have no more of this. Let us establish
+great, trustworthy tribunals of arbitration, and settle our rights
+and differences there. Let us beat our swords into plowshares and our
+spears into pruning-hooks." Such triumphs of peace and righteousness
+might well bring to pass the old Shinto ideal of a code of morals
+so deeply written in the hearts of men and of rulers that they
+spontaneously do that which is obviously right. For is not this lofty
+ideal in accord with that of the Hebrew prophet who descried a coming
+golden age when "they should teach no more every man his neighbor, and
+every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know
+the Lord, from the least of them unto the greatest" (Jer. 31:34)?
+
+On the assumption that the highest form of religion must needs respond
+to the highest moral test, the editor of _The Hibbert Journal_[45]
+propounds the following startling question, "How would the general
+status of Christianity be affected by the appearance in the world
+of a religion which should stand the test better than herself?"
+That is, a religion or people that should present an exhibition of
+moral excellence superior to that seen among the Christian nations.
+Our own belief is that such an exhibition of moral excellence in
+a non-Christian people would set the Christian searching his own
+standards of morality. It may be that Japan in her late exhibitions
+of ability in political diplomacy, and her sacrifice and waiving of
+certain rightful claims to indemnity, and the exalting of the right
+and the truth above narrow, selfish interests, has put to shame the
+"Christian Powers" of Europe, whose conspicuous qualities have been
+baneful statecraft, jealousy of rivals, and greed to enlarge their
+territory by crushing feebler States, and grinding down the masses
+of the people. Such an exhibit would not prove the inferiority of
+Christian ethics, but the failure of the so-called Christian Powers to
+honor and exemplify the ethics of our gospel. The plain fact in this
+matter is, as thoughtful men must everywhere acknowledge, that the
+aggressive "Christian Powers" have enlarged their empire at the expense
+of weaker States and, by taking advantage of their day of weakness and
+adversity, have by such ambitious procedures belied and violated the
+fundamental commandments of the religion which they profess.
+
+We Americans have dreamed and sometimes boasted that our great Republic
+of freedom has proven a mighty evangel of human liberty and rights.
+It is a luminous star of the first magnitude, and it arose in the
+Western hemisphere. But this brilliant star of the West has cast its
+helpful beams across the Pacific Ocean upon the blooming rice-fields
+of Japan. It may be that those grandchildren of the sun-goddess may
+by their skill and prowess flash upon the world a light so strong as
+to eclipse to some extent our own, and be so self-evidently excellent
+that all mankind will bid it welcome. It may or may not be that all
+will acknowledge the radiant Evangel as "the root and the offspring of
+David." With the Japanese it may for long be insisted that this new
+Light is the root and offspring of the Mikado and the Goddess of the
+Dawn. But we can waive that point and all of us cry out, Let the true
+Light come. If it make for righteousness and love and the peace of the
+world, we shall hail its rising in the far East as the light of "the
+bright, the Morning Star;" for there is no other that can ultimately
+prove itself to be "the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh
+into the world."
+
+
+
+
+SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+ ASTON, W. G. Shinto, The Way of the Gods. London, 1905.
+
+ BRINKLEY, F. Japan and China. 12 volumes. London, 1903.
+
+ CHAMBERLAIN, B. H. Things Japanese. London, 1902.
+
+ DYER, HENRY. Dai Nippon. A Study in National Evolution. London, 1904.
+
+ GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT. The Mikado's Empire. New York, 1876.
+
+    Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji.
+    New York, 1895.
+
+ GULICK, SIDNEY L. Evolution of the Japanese, Social and Psychic.
+    Chicago, 1903.
+
+ HEARN, LAFCADIO. Japan. An Attempt at Interpretation. New York, 1904.
+
+ KO-JI-KI, or Records of Ancient Matters. Translated by Basil H.
+    Chamberlain.
+
+    _Published as a Supplement to Vol. X of the Transactions of the
+    Asiatic Society of Japan._ Yokohama, 1883.
+
+ LOWELL, PERCIVAL. The Soul of the Far East. Boston, 1896.
+
+ MACLAY, ARTHUR C. A Budget of Letters from Japan. Reminiscences of
+    Work and Travel in Japan. New York, 1886.
+
+ NIHONGI, Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A. D. 697.
+    Translated from the original Chinese and Japanese by W. G. Aston. 2
+    vols. London, 1896.
+
+    _Published as a Supplement to the Transactions and Proceedings of
+    the Japan Society, London._
+
+ REED, EDWARD J. Japan: Its History, Traditions, and Religion. London,
+    1880.
+
+ Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. From 1872 to the present
+    time.
+
+ Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London. From 1892
+    to the present time.
+
+    These separate series of volumes of Transactions of Japanese
+    Societies, running through many years, are an invaluable repository
+    of information on the history, customs, religion, and literature of
+    Japan.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The _Ko-ji-ki_ (section XXX) has this remarkable combination: "The
+luxuriant-reed-plains-land-of-fresh-rice-ears-of-a-thousand-autumns-of-
+long-five-hundred-autumns." The Ritual of the Great Purification and
+other rituals call Japan "the luxuriant reed-plain region of fresh
+young spikes." The word "spikes" here is a synonym for ears of rice.
+
+[2] Understood to be Sir Ernest Satow.
+
+[3] "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan," vol. xvi, part I,
+page 73.
+
+[4] Westminster Review, July, 1878, p. 18.
+
+[5] It may not be improper to suggest that some of the notions of
+the Western peoples as to the backwardness of Japan in the past, and
+the relative stage of civilization reached generations ago in the
+island empire may be very ludicrous to the mind of a self-respecting,
+thoughtful son of Japan. The Mikado's minister at Paris is reported
+to have said: "We have for many generations sent to Europe exquisite
+lacquer work, delicately carved figures, beautiful embroidery, and many
+other things which show our artistic ability and accomplishments, but
+the Europeans said we were uncivilized. We have recently killed some
+70,000 Russians, and now every European nation is wondering at the high
+civilization we have at last attained!"
+
+[6] It is published as a Supplement to vol. x of the "Transactions of
+the Asiatic Society of Japan," pp. lxxv and 369. Yokohama, 1883.
+
+[7] There is an English translation of the Nihongi, by W. G. Aston: 2
+vols. London, 1896. It is published as a Supplement to "Transactions
+and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London."
+
+[8] These appear in vols. vii, ix, and xxvii of the "Transactions
+of the Asiatic Society of Japan." Over thirty-five volumes of these
+Transactions have appeared, and they are an invaluable repository of
+information on the history, customs, religion, and literature of Japan.
+Other journals of like value are the "Transactions and Proceedings
+of the Japan Society of London" and the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für
+Natur-und Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio."
+
+[9] Sketches of these men and numerous extracts from their works may
+be found in Satow's essay on "The Revival of Pure Shin-tau," published
+as Appendix of vol. iii of the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of
+Japan."
+
+[10] Japanese cosmology seems to postulate eternal matter, but "it
+is matter almost completely lacking consistency--an indescribable,
+nebulous, unsubstantial, floating, muddy foam"--"Japan: Its History,
+Arts, and Literature." By Captain F. Brinkley. Vol. V, p. 108. (J. B.
+Millet & Co., Boston and Tokyo.)
+
+[11] In the rituals he is often called "The Sovran Grandchild," though
+an adopted son of the Goddess; so "the sovran grandchild" is first
+applied to the founder on earth of the Mikado's dynasty, and afterward
+to each and all of his successors on the throne of Japan.
+
+[12] See Chamberlain's English translation of the _Ko-ji-ki_, p. iv. It
+is interesting to compare the story of Ezra dictating the lost sacred
+books of Israel, from a memory inspired supernaturally, while five
+rapid scribes wrote down what was told them. See 2 Esdras, chap. xiv.
+
+[13] We may compare the fact that in our book of Genesis the formation
+of the earth and the heavens is called "the _generations_ of the
+heavens and the earth" (Gen. ii, 4). In a paper of the "Transactions
+of the Asiatic Society of Japan" (vol. xvi, part I), Dr. J. Edkins has
+an interesting comparison of "Persian elements in Japanese legends,"
+in which he shows analogies between Mithra and Amaterasu, the seven
+Japanese deities of wood, water, fire, wind, earth, sea, and mountain
+with the Mazdean Amesha-spentas, and analogies of the underworld in
+several other mythic cults.
+
+[14] See the valuable paper on "The Beginning of Japanese History,
+Civilization, and Art," by the Rev. I. Dooman, in Vol. XXV of
+"Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan;" especially his chapter
+iv, on "The Fundamental Religious Ideas of the Early Japanese."
+
+[15] See Satow's "The Revival of Pure Shintau, in Transactions of the
+Asiatic Society of Japan," vol. iii, Appendix, p. 71.
+
+[16] Lafcadio Hearn puts this whole matter very tersely, thus: "The
+ethics of Shinto were all comprised in the doctrine of unqualified
+obedience to customs originating, for the most part, in the family
+cult. Ethics were not different from religion; religion was not
+different from government, and the very word for government signified
+'matters of religion.' All government ceremonies were preceded by
+prayer and sacrifice; and from the highest rank of society to the
+lowest every person was subject to the law of tradition. To obey
+was piety; to disobey was impious, and the rule of obedience was
+enforced upon each individual by the will of the community to which he
+belonged."--"Japan, an Interpretation," p. 175.
+
+[17] This respect for the Sun-Goddess points to an aboriginal worship
+of the sun among the ancestors of the Japanese people.
+
+[18] Strictly speaking, the Shinto sanctuaries are shrines rather than
+temples, so that the Japanese would always speak of Shinto shrines as
+distinct from Buddhist temples.
+
+[19] A kind of evergreen, like the pine, and peculiar to Japan.
+
+[20] "The Shintau Temples of Isè." "The Transactions of the Asiatic
+Society of Japan," vol. ii, p. 108.
+
+[21] "The Shintau Temples of Isè." "Transactions of Asiatic Society of
+Japan," vol. ii, p. 104.
+
+[22] Satow's "The Shintau Temples of Isè," pp. 119, 120.
+
+[23] According to Aston, ancestor worship, in the sense of a
+deification and honoring of the departed spirits of one's own
+ancestors, was no part of the oldest Shinto cult, but rather a later
+importation from China. See his "Shinto, the Way of the Gods," pp.
+44-47. London, 1905.
+
+[24] "Japanese History of Civilization and Arts." "Transactions of the
+Asiatic Society of Japan," vol. xxv, p. 89.
+
+[25] "Japan: an Interpretation," pp. 52, 53. New York, 1904.
+
+[26] In vol. xix, pt. I, of the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of
+Japan," pp. 93, 94.
+
+[27] This cheery and jubilant aspect of Shintau worship ought not to
+be deemed an objectional element of true religion. Rather the opposite
+idea, that religion is a matter of soul-peril and seriousness so grave
+as to produce fear or dread of the deity, is a perversion of the truth.
+True love of God (or of the gods) must needs have wholesome reverence
+for what is adorable, but also ought to inspire a warmth of affection
+and a confidence that drives out superstitious fear and begets
+exquisite delight in the heart and soul and mind of the true worshiper.
+
+[28] See "Ancient Japanese Rituals," translated and annotated by E.
+Satow, in "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan," vol. vii,
+part II, and part IV; vol. ix, part II. Also by Karl Florenz, in vol.
+xxvii, part I. In vol. vii, part II, pp. 106-108, Satow gives a list
+of the Norito rituals contained in the Yengishiki, to the number of
+twenty-seven. Of these he translates only nine.
+
+[29] "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan," vol. vii, part II,
+p. 127.
+
+[30] "The priests who officiated at the chief festivals belonged
+exclusively to two families, the Nakatomi and the Imbibi, both of whom
+were descended from inferior deities, who accompanied the 'Sovran
+Grandchild' when he came down to earth."--Satow, in Westminster Review
+for July, 1878, p. 16.
+
+[31] The reader of the ritual here personates the Mikado.
+
+[32] Temples here used by metonymy for deities.
+
+[33] In vol. xxvii, part I, of "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of
+Japan." From this our extracts are taken. Florenz gives in great detail
+the various practices, and the ancient and modern forms of the ritual,
+and the customs at different shrines. He also discusses the question of
+the origin and age of the ceremony.
+
+[34] See the interesting article by Thomas R. H. McClatchie on "The
+Sword of Japan," in "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan,"
+vol. ii, pp. 50-56.
+
+[35] "Japan: an Interpretation," p. 208.
+
+[36] "Shinto, the Way of the Gods," p. 360.
+
+[37] It is admitted by all writers on Japan that the practical ethics
+of Confucianism has from the first largely nullified the more subtle
+and dreamy elements of Buddhism. The common sense of the Japanese
+people, in spite of all peculiarities, has made it necessary for
+Buddhism to adjust itself to the popular mind.
+
+[38] Satow, in "Transactions of Asiatic Society of Japan," vol. ii, p.
+121. Compare the statement of Mabuchi as given in Satow's paper on "The
+Revival of Pure Shin-tau," in Appendix to vol. iii of "Transactions of
+the Asiatic Society of Japan," p. 14.
+
+[39] "The Soul of the Far East," p. 166.
+
+[40] For interesting information on this mystic phase of Shinto see the
+articles of Percival Lowell on "Esoteric Shinto," in "Transactions of
+the Asiatic Society of Japan," vols. xxi and xxii.
+
+[41] "The gods of Japan," writes Gulick, "are innumerable in theory
+and multitudinous in practice. Not only are there gods of goodness,
+but also gods of lust and of evil, to whom robbers and harlots may
+pray for success and blessing." But in all this multitudinous pantheon
+there is no one Supreme Deity. "There is no word in the Japanese
+language corresponding to the English term God. The nearest approach to
+it are the Confucian terms Jo-tei, 'Supreme Emperor;' Ten, 'Heaven,'
+and Ten-tei, 'Heavenly Emperor;' but all of these terms are Chinese;
+they are therefore of late appearance in Japan, and represent rather
+conceptions of educated and Confucian classes than the ideas of the
+masses."--"Evolution of the Japanese," p. 311.
+
+[42] "The World's Parliament of Religions," vol. ii, p. 1282.
+We must not overlook the fact that the modern Shintoism has its
+sects, as well as Buddhism. There is the sect called "Ten-Ri-Kyo"
+("Heaven-Reason-Teaching"). Also the Kurosumi sect, putting noteworthy
+emphasis on morality.
+
+[43] Gulick's "Evolution of the Japanese," p. 294. Whatever may be
+the defects of Japanese character in general, it is common for nearly
+all travelers who have visited the country and studied the habits
+of the people at their homes, to speak of them as mild, courteous,
+cleanly, frugal, intelligent, quick to learn, and gifted with a genius
+for imitation. Their soldiers have proved themselves a match for the
+most renowned warriors, and are marvelously apt to make the most of
+opportunities.
+
+[44] In his "Evolution of the Japanese" (p. 75) Gulick quotes from the
+Japan Mail (of September 30, 1899) a number of special instructions
+to be given to the pupils in the Japanese schools touching their
+behavior toward foreigners. One of the orders reads thus: "Since all
+human beings are brothers and sisters, there is no reason for fearing
+foreigners. Treat them as equals and act uprightly in all your dealings
+with them." Such instruction should surely, in time, enlarge the
+world-conception of the Shintoist.
+
+[45] Vol. iv, 1906, pp. 19-41.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible including inconsistencies of hyphenation.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42747 ***